Desolation, in the dark. Her apocalyptic garden.
The cool air was heavy with the scent of rust and cement, and stagnant water; and the ground was uneven beneath Lyssa’s boots: dirt and gravel, and the old train tracks that hadn’t ever been used. She raced over them with sure footing. No flashlight, no lamp burning in her hand. Her eyes were good in the dark.
Lyssa tried to stay calm — to think—but when Jimmy cried out again, his young voice echoing against the cavernous walls, power poured into her muscles, and her entire body prickled with heat. Sight faded into a golden haze. Her teeth sharpened. Lyssa slapped her gloved hand over her mouth, breathing hard through her nose.
No, she told herself, running faster. Not now.
Lyssa rounded a curve in the tunnel, passing tents and lean-tos: small makeshift rooms with no roofs, and walls made from standing sheets of cardboard and plywood; surrounded with folding chairs and other boxes; piles of nameless, unidentifiable stuff that had probably served some purpose, once upon a time. Clothes, toys, magazines, broken Styrofoam, metal scrap: rotting in the dark, filthy, smelling vaguely like shit and piss. Or maybe that was the fact that there was shit and piss everywhere, at the edges of the tunnel. Years of it.
She hated the place.
Ahead of her, light glinted: cookfires burning in old stainless-steel pots and deep pits dug in the ground. Lyssa smelled onions, hot dogs, and whiskey; and the air sizzled, smoke rising around the face of a familiar man: Albert, who crouched over the food with a pair of chopsticks held in his trembling grip.
His watery gaze was focused on the boy. On the man holding the boy.
Jimmy. Twelve years old, so skinny he was practically swimming in loose jeans and a zip-up sweatshirt. His hair was brown and floppy, his cheeks ruddy. His brown-eyed gaze, usually so cocky, was lost behind an expression of real fear. He was trying to free himself from the old man standing rigid in front of him.
It was Mack. Which was good and bad.
Bad, because he was nuts. Good, because he was only human.
He held the boy’s skinny arm with his right hand — the other raised high, gripping an empty can of SPAM.
“You little fuck!” he roared, shaking Jimmy so hard, the boy lost his footing. “Where’s your fucking dog, you worthless piece of shit?”
Stay calm, Lyssa told herself, jaw clamped tight. Calm.
But she wasn’t feeling calm when she grabbed Mack’s left wrist with her strong right hand. She held on so tight her claws almost punctured her glove. Her sweater sleeve slid down. Reptilian scales glimmered into view. Just a hint of them, covering her arm.
It was dark. No one was close enough to notice that her skin wasn’t human.
But it made Lyssa panic, all the same — and she forgot her strength.
She yanked down too hard on Mack’s arm. The old man screamed, and dropped the can of SPAM. He also let go of Jimmy, who scrambled backward, eyes huge.
Mack fell to his knees, groaning. Lyssa released him, ashamed and afraid. Her skin burned, and she lowered her head, long braids and oversized knit hat falling around her face. If her eyes were glowing. .
Lyssa shut them. “Mack. What the hell?”
She heard him shifting on the gravel, hissing through his teeth. “Bitch. You broke me.”
She wanted to be sick but made her voice strong, hard. “No. You’ll bruise, but that’s all. Jimmy, you okay?”
“Fine,” he said, somewhere in front of her.
Lyssa took a deep breath, then another. “What happened?”
Mack’s voice quavered with a sob. “His fucking dog stole my lunch. Left the can out for just two fucking seconds.”
She finally opened her eyes and looked at the old man. In the three years she had lived in this tunnel, she had never seen him without his gray knit cap, punched with holes and bits of debris. His beard was the same dull color, and so was his skin: ashen, the shadows so deep under his sunken eyes that it was hard to know where one began and the other ended. A skinny, sinewy, cadaverous man — burdened with profound mood swings.
Seconds ago he had been enraged. Now he just looked miserable, and hungry, and very old. Too old to be living down here, too old to be touched so roughly. Too old to be dealing with someone like her. Even if he was an asshole.
“Jimmy,” she said heavily, without looking away from Mack.
The boy climbed to his feet, but remained half-crouched, wary. “I’m sorry. Really sorry.”
He didn’t sound sorry. Lyssa gave him a warning glance. “Mack, I’ve got some food you can have.”
“Keep it. You got mean hands.” The old man shot Jimmy a hateful look. “I’ll kill that fucking dog if I see it again. You hear me?”
“Go to hell,” said Jimmy, with all the squeak and snarl of a puppy.
Lyssa rolled her eyes, marched over to him, and grabbed his arm. She didn’t have to say anything. The boy looked at her and grimaced.
Albert, who had finally risen from his cookfire, shuffled forward to help Mack stand. Albert was middle-aged, black, with a bad knee that got stiff on rainy days. According to him, it rained every day.
“That kinda talk’s no good,” said Albert gently, also giving Jimmy a warning look. “Come on, Mack Daddy. I got some dinner you can have.”
“Fuck you,” Mack said, and this time there was definitely a sob in his voice. “Not hungry. Just surprised I still got my arm.”
You’re lucky I didn’t rip it off your body, thought Lyssa, uneasy. At full strength, she could have. She had done it before, to other men.
Fewer than ten people resided in the tunnel, but it was midday up top, so only a handful of the usual residents were around. Most had jobs — part-time at McDonald’s, or working as janitors at Grand Central. Some temped at local businesses that needed muscle for a day. Two panhandled. A veteran who had come back from Iraq only a year before had just landed a job at a construction site — but like Lyssa, had issues with living around people. Nevertheless, she didn’t expect him to stay in the tunnel for much longer.
The rest, like Albert and Mack, were alcoholics or too mentally disturbed to function up top. Lyssa didn’t care about their problems, so long as they stayed harmless. This was a good tunnel, filled with folk who were desperate but hopeful. Old Mack losing his cool with a kid was a bad sign. Almost as bad as the police sniffing around, which hadn’t happened yet.
Lyssa figured it was only a matter of time. Most tunnels were watched by authorities — locked, or rigged with cameras and alarms. No one wanted terrorists slinking underground and setting bombs.
“You shouldn’t be here,” she said to Jimmy, walking him down the tunnel to her nest. “Forget the fact it’s a school day. It’s not safe. Your mom got you out of here for a better life. Not more of this.”
The boy didn’t answer her. His silence was tense, heavy.
“Jimmy,” she said, worried. “Why are you here?”
He ducked his head, almost like a flinch, and pulled a flashlight from his backpack. He switched it on. It hurt Lyssa’s vision, but she didn’t tell him to turn it off. He swung the beam around, and somewhere on their right, she heard a muffled sniffing sound, followed by toenails clicking on stone.
A dog slunk close. A mutt, one of the ugliest animals Lyssa had ever seen. Part Chihuahua, maybe, but there could have been dachshund in it, or some kind of Jack Russell. Lyssa had seen rats that were bigger.
The dog whimpered. The boy scooped him up. Lyssa said, “Mack was serious. He’ll kill him.”