‘You got to time it right. If I make a racket, they’ll head my way. The door won’t hold out much longer. The moment I start to holler, I’m committed. You’ve got to get into the hall and take them down. Any delay, and I’m screwed.’
‘We’re set. The moment you ring the bell, we’ll head into the hall and fry those fuckers.’
‘Let’s do it before I change my mind.’
Donahue set the gramophone on the floor. She picked a random 78, threaded it onto the spindle and set it running. She dropped the needle arm. Pop and crackle.
She braced against the desk.
‘Hey,’ shouted Donahue. His voice rang loud and metallic in the confined office space. ‘Hey. Come on, you bastards. Food’s up. Come get me, motherfuckers.’
Benny Goodman. ‘King Porter Stomp’. Jazz filled the room. Fists pounded the door.
‘Listen,’ said Cloke.
Impacts against the plant room door diminished to silence. Faint music.
They gripped the battery rack and hauled it aside. They did it slow, tried to minimise stone-scrape and grit-pop as they dragged the heavy frame across concrete.
‘Let’s do this.’
Lupe gave Cloke two paint tins.
‘Sure it’ll burn?’
‘Oh yeah. This shit is old school. Flammable as hell. Don’t breathe the fumes. They’ll strip the lining from your lungs.’
‘Okay.’
‘You throw. I’ll back you up. And, hey. Make them count, all right?’
Cloke held out the tins. Lupe struck a match and lit the wicks. Red cotton smouldered and flared.
She tossed the match and snatched up the section of pipe.
‘On three.’ She pulled back the deadbolts. ‘One, two, three.’
She pulled open the door.
A rotted, infected guy standing directly in front of her. Suit and tie. A ridge of spines across his head like a Mohawk. He grunted and looked up, a grotesque parody of surprise.
‘Hi there.’
Lupe caved his forehead with a vicious swing of the pipe. He tottered like a drunk and fell.
They ran into the hall.
A dozen shambling, infected things turned their way.
‘Oh fuck.’
Cloke threw the first tin. It hit a garlanded Hare Krishna on the chest. Crimson paint splashed across satin robes and caught alight. Fabric shrivelled and burned with a blue flame, turning the man to a pillar of fire.
A woman in a pus-streaked waitress uniform. Her name tag said DOROTHY. She limped forwards, arms outstretched. Lupe caved her head with a side-swing of the pipe.
‘Over there.’
Four rotted creatures battered the IRT door, trying to get inside.
‘Burn them.’
Cloke hurled the second tin. It hit the wall above the door. Vapour ignited like a napalm flame-burst, and the four were engulfed in fire.
Lupe and Cloke shielded their faces. They recoiled from searing heat.
A guy ran at Lupe. He was enveloped in flame. She kicked him to the ground. He struggled to his feet. She kicked him again. He sank to his knees, pitched face forwards and lay motionless as he burned.
Lupe ducked back in the plant room and grabbed more tins. She hurled them. Crimson paint dashed against the pillars, ceiling and floor. The paint ignited like gasoline. Fire washed across the hall. Blazing creatures stumbled and flailed. Clothing and hair shrivelling in the flames.
A burning figure staggered towards Cloke, arms outstretched. It waded across the ticket hall, waist-deep in flame, then collapsed as cooked muscle ceased to respond to nerve transmissions.
Cloke and Lupe ran for the plant room, slammed the door and slapped deadbolts back in position.
Shuddering impacts.
They backed away. Black smoke curled from the crack at the foot of the door. They covered their mouths to mask the stench of burning flesh.
Donahue struggled to keep the office door closed. Shoulder to the desk, feet braced against the back wall.
Her radio lay on the floor, out of reach. She could see the LED wink brilliant emerald in the darkness. A faint voice, part-drowned by jazz:
‘Donnie, can you hear me? Donnie, do you copy, over?’
‘Hey,’ yelled Donahue, trying to be heard beyond the door. ‘Lupe. Anyone. Need some fucking help here.’
The door began to give way. Too dark to see damage, but she could hear oak splinter and split.
More impacts. Orange flame-light. Burning arms punching through the wood, pulling panels aside.
‘Help,’ yelled Donahue, loud as she could. ‘For Christ’s sake. Help.’
Sudden crash. A boot kicked out the wall vent.
Dazzling glare. A flashlight beam shafted through the office darkness.
Tombes leaned out of the narrow aperture.
‘Give me your hand.’
Donahue ran across the room and grasped Tombes’ hand. He hauled her up. She squirmed into the brick-lined conduit.
She twisted around. A last glance back.
The door smashed off its hinges. The desk thrown aside. The gramophone kicked and smashed.
Infected creatures blundered into the office. They burned and flailed, bounced off the walls and set the room alight. Flesh-stink and flame.
‘Come on,’ said Tombes, beckoning her down the narrow passage. ‘Let’s go.’
Hammering slowed to silence. Lupe pressed her ear to the door. She listened a full minute.
‘Anything?’ asked Cloke.
‘Nothing.’
‘Maybe they backed off.’
‘Feel the door.’
Cloke put his hand to the door.
‘Jeez. Baking hot.’
‘I’m going out there,’ said Lupe. ‘I’m going to take a look.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘I’ve got to know what’s going on.’
Cloke slowly pulled back deadbolts. He held the door handle, flinched as he gripped hot metal.
Lupe gripped the rusted pipe in both hands, ready to strike.
She gave the nod.
Cloke wrenched open the door.
They recoiled from acrid flesh-stink. Lupe waved her hands, tried to clear broiling smoke.
A corpse. A jumble of bone and smouldering rags lying on the tiled floor. The door was carbonised and blistered.
Lupe cupped a hand over her mouth. She pushed the brittle cadaver aside with her foot and edged into the ticket hall.
The hall was dark. The ceiling light was blackened with soot.
Lupe fumbled her way to the equipment pile and tipped out a couple of scorched nylon holdalls. She found a flashlight and switched it on. The beam shafted through smoke.
The hall looked like a battlefield. Bodies littered the floor. Spastic, contorted limbs. Grinning skulls. Seared flesh bubbled and smoked.
‘I’m going up top,’ said Lupe, gesturing to the street exit stairs. ‘We have to seal the entrance gate before any more of these bastards stumble down here.’
Cloke tossed her a respirator and gloves.
‘Don’t get careless. Close the gate quick as you can, then get back down here. Every second at the top of those steps is a second too long.’
Cloke returned to the plant room. He knelt beside Ekks. He checked pulse and respiration.
‘Still don’t like the sound of that chest rattle,’ he murmured.
He hung a clear bag of saline from a water pipe above Ekks and ran line to the cannula in his forearm.
‘Doctor, can you hear me?’
He leaned over Ekks and gently lifted an eyelid. He shone a penlight. Weak dilation.
‘Come on. Give me a sign. Move your fingers.’
No response.
‘We need you, Doctor. We have to know. The cure. How close did you get?’
No reply.