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They all carried plenty of extra batteries for the flashlights Ben had requested from the aerial drop, and candles to be used if they had to spend more time than anticipated in the darkness of the tunnels.
They had gone only a few hundred feet in the oppressive darkness when the nearly overpowering stench of rotting human flesh hit them like a hammer blow. Even the drugged and sleeping children stirred in the arms of those carrying them, wrinkling their noses against the sickening smell.
Judy halted die column and called for Ben to join her up front. “They’ve come back,” she whispered. “They haven’t been diis close in months.”
“We probably pushed them diis way,” Ben told her. “Pass the word, no candles or open flames of any sort. There might be methene down here.”
“You can bet the uglies know we’re here,” she responded.
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“Put someone else in the rear. I’ll stay up here with you.”
Judy assigned two other men to bring up the drag, and she and Ben took the point, working their way slowly eastward through the huge drainage pipe. Stinking dark water slopped at their boots and often the powerful beams from their flashlights would catch huge, beady-eyed rats glaring at them, their hairless obscene tails trailing behind them in the filth.
Light suddenly flooded the chamber ahead of them and Judy said, “Open manhole cover. Pass the word-absolutely no noise as we pass under it.”
“Does that mean we’ve passed one block?” Ben asked.
“Yes. At least three more to go.”
The column began passing noiselessly under the open manhole cover, with two people counting each head as it passed. When the last person went by, they passed the word:, everybody accounted for.
Around a bend in the tunnel, and darkness once more swallowed them. Silence, except for the scratching of tiny clawed feet as the big rats reluctantly gave ground before them. But some of them gave no ground, squatting on the ledges and glaring balefully as the humans passed by.
“I hate rats,” Judy whispered.
“Join the club,” Ben returned the whisper.
Two blocks later, and Ben and Judy each threw up a hand to signal a halt. The beams of their flashlights had flicked over, then quickly arced back and settled on a scene out of a horror writer’s nightmare: several thousand rats were blocking the tunnel. The mound of moving, hairy, filthy rodents was several feet tall and several feet wide. From under the disgusting ever-moving mound, Ben and Judy could see the gnawed-on hands, feet and arms of once-human beings. White glistening bone now, with only a few scraps of meat still remaining.
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“Sweet Jesus Christ!” Judy gasped.
“Back up,” Ben said. “Back to the last manhole. We can’t go any further in this tunnel.”
Judy pointed a shaky finger at the moving mound. “But that…”
“What’s left of the uglies’ dinner,” Ben replied, trying to keep the disgust and horror out of his voice. “This is where they put the leftovers, I guess. Come on, back up. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
Slowly the column backed up, with many wondering what was going on, for the majority of the men and women who made up the small band of survivors had been spared the sight of the rats feeding on dead human flesh.
“We’re going to be a couple of blocks short, Ben,” Judy said.
“Do we have a choice?”
“No.”
“No point in discussing it then.”
The smell had caused several people to lose their lunch. The sounds of gagging and retching filled the tunnel for several moments.
“Watch your step,” Ben advised drily.
Ben did not lose his lunch. He had seen worse over the years. But at the moment he would be hard-pressed to recall it.
“Who … ?” Judy gasped on the way back to the last manhole cover.
“I don’t know. Maybe punks the creeps waylaid over the past few weeks. The bodies haven’t been there long. Maybe there are more survivors in die ruins than you think. We’ll never know, Judy, so put it out of your mind.”
“I hate those damn uglies!”
“You’re at the end of a long list, dear. Move!”
Two of the younger survivors went up the ladder and out the manhole cover. They were gone for a couple of
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minutes before one called down, “It’s all clear. Come on and be quick about it. The men carrying the kids up first. Untie the ropes and pass them up, then follow. Head for the ruins to the east. It’s what’s left of a church, I think.”
The words had no sooner left his mouth when the unmistakable sounds of mortars came to those in the tunnels.
“It’s started,” Ben said. “That’s why there are no punks around here. They’ve all massed around the park for the final assault. They’ll probably soften up the park for an hour, concentrating first on the areas they know are rigged with booby traps. Then they’ll hit the park. It won’t take them long to discover we’re gone.” Ben reached out in the dim light and brushed several large roaches off Judy’s back.
“What was that?” she asked.
“Very large, ugly roaches, Judy.”
She shuddered in revulsion as Ben picked another roach out of her hair.
“There are roaches on the island of Madagascar that grow to four inches in length and stand up on their hind legs and hiss and spit,” he said.
“Now, I really could have done without that knowledge!”
Ben chuckled.
“But so far they’re found only on that island.”
“Unless you’re just trying to make me feel better, thank God for small favors.”
“Kids are clear and in the ruins across the street, Judy!” Greg called.
“The elderly next,” she returned the call. “Then we go as we’re lined up.”
“A squad of men out, Judy,” Ben gently corrected. “Throw up a defensive line. Then the elderly.”
“You’re right, Ben. I’m not thinking.” She corrected her orders.
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“dear!” The word was called after a few moments, as the defensive line got into place street-level.
“I’ll go last,” Ben said.
Ben waited until the last man had climbed up the ladder, then, took a final look at his surroundings. Several dozen rats had left the huge mound of rotting cadavers and they squatted along the sides of the tunnels, glaring hate at him, their eyes glowing wickedlyl in the gloom.
Topside, he breathed in and out deeply, several times, clearing his lungs if not his nostrils of the dreadful stench of the tunnels. Then he moved over to the ruins of the old church and squatted there behind cover, listening to the punks’ bombardment of the park. He lifted his handy-talkie.
“We’re clear of the park,” he radioed. “To the east side as planned. Four blocks east Start dropping them in, people, and good shooting.”
Across the Hudson River, Rebel gunners manning 105s and 155s began lobbing in a variety of rounds with deadly accuracy and effectiveness. The 155s were using anti-personnel rounds, each shell rilled with from 36 to 60 high-explosive anti-personnel grenades. Some of the 105s were using a mixed bag of rounds, from HE to anti-personnel. Whatever they used, the rounds were foiling dead on with devastating results, and it stopped the punks’ advance into the park cold.
Ben climbed up on top of a building that had, miraculously, remained virtually intact during the Rebels’ assault several years before. Using binoculars, he peered over the several blocks of ruins and rubble and began calling in rounds. Ben smiled, thinking, You might call me an RO, for rear observer.
Judy climbed up to join him. “You thought of where you might take us?” Ben asked.
“No. Wherever we go on this rock, we’re still going to
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be within mortar range of those bastards.” She jerked her head toward the park.
“Yes, but when my people are through today, there will be considerably fewer of the species known as punk, you can be assured of that.”
“That will help us right now. But the question is-can we survive until your people take this damn rock?”
“Oh, we’ll survive, Judy. Put any doubts about that out of your mind. Even if we have to go down into the old subway system to do it.”
“More of that remains than you might think, Ben. I’d say at least a hundred or so miles. Your people wrecked about half of it”
“And only God knows how many miles of other long forgotten tunnels are under the city.”
“Hundreds of miles of them, Ben. But what uglies are left live down diere. And the rats.”
Ben grimaced. “Well, we’ll go into the drainage tunnels only as a last resort. But the subways … that might be our salvation.”
She shuddered. “I don’t like the underground.”
“Neither do I. But the prospect of getting captured by punks appeals to me even less.”
“You do have a point.”
“Is anyone in your group familiar widi what remains of the subway tunnels?”
“Oh, yes. Several of the men.”
Ben looked at her for a moment, neither of them speaking. Finally, Judy nodded in agreement. “We don’t have much choice in the matter, do we?”
“Not a whole lot.”
“I’ll get Mike, see what he says about it. I honestly don’t know where the nearest entrance is. I do my best to avoid those places.”
Ben stood alone on the roof for a time, watching the
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Rebel gunners blast the punks on the west side of the park. He sensed Mike coming up to stand quietly beside him and turned.
“Judy says you’re thinking about moving us into the tunnels, general.”
“You have a better plan?”
“Not really, sir. We’ve got emergency rations to last us for a time but water is going to be a problem.”
“You know where there is some seepage?”
“Yes, sir. But I sure as hell wouldn’t want to drink that stuff.”
“We can boil it and then purify it with tablets. Believe me when I say my people have drunk water that at first glance would gag a maggot.”
Mike smiled. “All right, sir.”
“How far are we from a subway entrance?”
“About two blocks.”
“Then I guess we’d better do it, Mike. It’ll be uncomfortable, but we’ll be alive. And my people are gearing up to once more assault this rock. A few more days, and we’ll be home free.” hope, Ben silently added.p>
“Then I’ll get the people ready to move, sir.”
“Send a patrol to check out the subway entrance first, Mike. Use the walkie-talkies from the drop. The punks don’t have the equipment to intercept any transmission from them.”
“Yes, sir. Sir?”
Ben cut his eyes.
“Is it true that there is no crime down in the SUSA?”
“It’s true, Mike. We have zero tolerance for crime and criminals.”
“What a wonderful place that must be to live and raise a family.”
Ben smiled. “You’d be surprised. I figure about half of your group could make it down there.”
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“This bunch? Are you kidding?”
“Not at all. It takes a very special person to live down there, Mike. When your people are out of this box and free to make choices, you’ll see.”
“Well, count me in as one who will make it, general.”
“Oh, you will, Mike. I have no doubts about that.”
“I’ll send that patrol out now.”
“We don’t have much daylight left,” Ben reminded the man.
“Where we’re going, general,” Mike replied grimly, “that won’t make a bit of difference.”
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Ben waited topside and stood guard with a small team of survivors while the others disappeared into the darkness of the old subway system. Ben waved the others down until he was alone at street level.
“All right, Ike,” he muttered. “We can last about a week if we’re both careful and lucky. So get it in gear, boy.”
Ben stood up and took one last look at the outside world, then walked down the rubble-littered steps, being careful not to disturb the war-torn look of them.
“This way, general,” a man called. “To your right.”
Ben joined the man and together they walked past the turnstiles and out to the platforms, where over the years millions of people had waited for transportation to and from home and work-back when the world made a little sense.
Ben hopped down to the tracks and began following the bobbing beam of the survivor’s flashlight as the man walked deeper into the tunnel.
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“I don’t like it either, general,” the man called over his shoulder, as if reading Ben’s mind. “Nobody in their right mind likes the tunnels.”
As he walked, Ben sniffed the air. There was not the slightest whiff of creepie. He said as much.
“They’re spotty throughout the city,” the man replied. Ahead of them, Ben could see the darting beams of flashlights. “As you know far better than me, there used to be thousands of uglies in the city. After you people got through with them a few years back-before any of us got here-there were only about a thousand or so left… at least that’s how we figure it. But they had done a lot of work down here in the tunnels. You’ll see. Some of us, before we banded together, used to hide out down here.”
They caught up widi the main group just as a man stuck his head out of a large vent of some sort, about six feet off the tracks and about three feet up from a concrete walkway. “All clear, folks,” he said. “Hand the kids up.” The iron grate to the vent lay off to one side, propped up on the ledge.
One by one, the kids began disappearing into the side of the tunnel. Once during a rest break, Ben stepped up onto the ledge and looked inside. He stood for a moment, astonished. There was a walkway about six feet in diameter that opened up into an enormous cavern. The room was as large as a gymnasium.
The man who was helping the kids and the elderly into the cavern smiled at the expression on Ben’s face. “There are places like this all over Manhattan, general. This big rock is honeycombed with natural caves and tunnels. I don’t know when this air vent was put up, but I’ll wager this cavern has been long forgotten.”
“Probably,” Ben said, climbing in and relieving the man helping the odiers inside. He looked behind him and was startled to find that he could not see the cave.
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The others around him laughed. “It’s like one of those trick rooms you used to find in carnivals along the midway, general,” one said. “You can only see the entrance when standing in one narrow spot. Anywhere else you stand, it’s blocked.”
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Ben muttered, angling around several times and still unable to see the second entrance to the huge cavern.
Once everybody was out of the subway tunnel and in the cavern, Ben prowled around the enormous room, finding half a dozen smaller caves around the base of the large one.
“Be careful about going in any of those, general,” Greg warned from across the cavern. “They’re endless, and we have lost one person in them.” He grimaced. “He never came out.”
“I will certainly keep that in mind,” Ben said, peering into the darkness of the smaller cave.
Ben did not stick his head out of the cave for nearly 36 hours. He could neither transmit nor receive by radio, so he did not know what was going on up top. Finally, just after noon on the second day in the tunnels, he could take no more of it.
“I’m going topside,” he told Judy. “I’ve got to find out what’s going on.”
She nor any of the others made any move to stop him, but Ben could tell none of them thought much of the idea.
Ben picked up his CAR and backpack. He looked at the group. “Don’t send anyone out looking for me. If I don’t return, write me off. But stay safe.”
Ben left the cave without another word. He walked the tracks until he came to the old station. There he squatted
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down for a few moments, listening. He could hear nothing and could smell no telltale odor of creeps.
Ben walked through the silent and littered old station and climbed the steps to ground level, emerging into a very overcast day, the low clouds threatening rain. There, he squatted down again and listened, breathing deeply of the air. Truth was, Ben despised caves. He had always suspected that he might be a bit claustrophobic.
The late afternoon air smelled of smoke; the park had really taken a hammering from Rebel artillery.
Ben slipped into the ruins of an old building and climbed the rickety steps to what remained of the second floor. There he knelt down under the open sky and called in.
“This is Eagle. Come in.”
“Go Eagle,” came Corrie’s familiar and welcome voice.
“Everything OK here. Give me a report from your end.”
“Plans to assault your position delayed due to build-up of punks on mainland. Don’t know where they came from. Believe they may have been in hiding, waiting to spring the trap on us. Can you hold?”
“For a few more days.”
“Are you in a position to receive a drop?”
“Negative. What about the park?”
“We creamed it. Aerial recon shows hundreds of punks dead and wounded. Can you give me a position?”
“East side of the park. About five or six blocks from the waterfront.”
“Can you and your group make it to Roosevelt Island?”
“Negative. Too many kids and elderly. Too risky.”
“Understood, Eagle.”
“I’m going to do some recon. I’ll get back to you in a few hours.”
“That’s ten-four, Eagle.”
“Eagle out.”
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Ben spent the next twenty or so minutes scanning everything he could see through binoculars. He picked up the thin tentacles of cook fires north, east and south, but none very close to his position, and that puzzled him. He thought about that for a moment, then shook his head, unable to figure it out. He carefully climbed back down the steps to ground level, and staying in the n|ins of the old building, he secured everything on his per$on that might clink or rattle and stepped into the alley.
He walked east until the alley ended on what was left of a street. Ben slipped through the ruins of long-deserted buildings until he reached the end of the block. There, he looked hard for anything that might be left of a street marker. Nothing.
“Shit!” he muttered, thinking it would be really nice to know his exact location.
The Rebels had really done a number on Manhattan several years back. Their artillery had leveled some blocks down to street level, but surprisingly, other blocks had survived, with some buildings virtually unscathed.
Ben entered one of the buildings that had survived-at least several stories of it had-and began an inspection of the place. There was no odor of creeps to be sniffed out, and he could detect no other sign of human inhabitation.
“Interesting,” he muttered. “Odd, but interesting.”
He spent a good 45 minutes carefully going over the four stories of the building. The top two floors on the west side of the structure had great gaping holes blown in them, so inspecting that part of the building didn’t take long.
Looking around on the second floor, Ben was amused to find the front section of the Sunday edition of a New York newspaper. He sat down and read all the news that was fit to print from a decade past. Even though the news was over ten years old, the writing still did nothing to enhance his opinion of the newspaper.
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Ben laid the paper aside just as he heard footsteps on the floor below, then voices.
“I tell you I seen somebody movin’ around, man.”
“I think you’re full of shit, Ned. I think you’re seein’ things that ain’t there.”
Ben had not brought his lead pipe and now looked around for something to use as a club. He did not want to open fire unless it was absolutely necessary, for that would bring the punks running from all directions. He spotted a broken length of two-by-four amid all the crap on the floor and scooped it up, pressing back against the wall and waiting.
“I hope it’s one of them cunts from the park,” the first voice said in a whisper, as he stood on the second floor landing. “There was some fine lookin’ pussy in that bunch.”
“Now that I agree with you about.”
“And this one ain’t armed, neither.”
“How do you know that, smart-ass?”
” ‘Cause they’d be shootin’ at us by now if they was.”
“Good point, Ned.”
Ned stuck his head into the room and Ben whacked him in the face, sending the man sprawling back onto the landing and tumbling down the old steps.
“Shit!” the second man yelled, just as Ben stepped out of the room and swung the two-by-four from right to left. The heavy board caught the punk on the side of the head and he dropped like a concrete block, one side of his head indented.
Ben did not need their weapons, but he took them anyway, along with their full magazine pouches. He left the men for the rats and exited the building out the back. A block away he cached the weapons in a building and kept on walking.
He stopped and was looking over the devastation of the
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city when his eyes caught movement in the ruins of a building. A blown-out window on the second floor. He quickly slipped behind the cover of a jagged fence that had once been a brick wall and slipped along behind it until reaching the back of the building. Ben chanced a quick look and sure enough, his eyes had not fooled him. There was the figure of a person looking out, but looking out toward the front of the building, not toward the rear.
The figure disappeared and Ben ran across the alley, through the ruins of another building, then out the back. He began a slow and careful circling until he had reached the rear of the building where the person-or persons, he cautioned-was lying in wait.
They had the high ground, and with that advantage, they could take Ben down with one well-placed shot. He had to take them out. Providing, of course, “they” were hostile. And at this point, he didn’t know that for sure.
Ben slipped carefully through the destruction, every few seconds lifting his eyes to scan the rear of the suspect building. He had not seen any further movement. The rain had turned to a light drizzle, not much more than a mist.
There were half a dozen rusted-out and burned hulks of cars in a parking area in the rear of the building, and about 50 or so feet of relatively clear area between Ben and the cars. Ben caught his breath, then ran to the protection of the old vehicles. There, he scanned the rear of the building from top to bottom, then ran to the rear wall. He could hear the faint murmur of voices coming from inside, one of the voices definitely female. The voices seemed to be in argument. After a moment they faded into silence.
He heard the careful whisper of feet, then a female head popped out of the window about a foot from him. Ben
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stuck the muzzle of the CAR against her face and said, “Just take it easy, lady, and talk to me.”
“I’ll talk to you, you bastard!” a man’s voice came from behind Ben. “I’ll blow holes in you.”
“Then she’s surely dead,” Ben replied, as calmly as possible, considering the circumstances. “My finger’s on the trigger. No matter how many times you get lead in me, reflex will still pull this trigger. Think about that.”
“Don’t do anything stupid, Jeff!” the woman with Ben’s CAR stuck in her ear said. “Easy, now. This guy doesn’t look like a gang member to me.”
“I’m not,” Ben said. “But who the hell are you people? Talk to me, dammit!”
“OK, OK!” the woman said. “Back off, Jeff. Back off, I say!”
“Backing off,” the voice behind Ben said.
“Come around front so I can see you,” Ben told him.
Ben guessed the woman to be around thirty, and when the man stepped into view, Ben could see he was about the same age. Both man and woman were reasonably clean, considering how they had to live. Their clothing had certainly seen better days and they both wore black scarves around their necks. Gang colors? Ben questioned. He thought not. But he’d give them a test.
“Damn punks!” Ben snarled at them.
“No, sir,” Jeff said. “We’re not gang members. Well…” he hesitated. “There is a group of us, but we’re not part of any of the thugs who have taken over the ruins.”
Ben did some fast visual checking. Jeff was carrying a bolt action rifle; at first glance it appeared to be in the .270 range. The muzzle of the rifle the woman carried, sticking out of what used to be a window, appeared to be no larger than a .22.
Ben took a chance and lowered his CAR, stepping back a couple of feet. “My name is Ben Raines, commanding
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general of the SUSA Rebels. You people want to talk to me?”
“Holy Mother of God!” the woman whispered. “Ben Raines.’”
Jeff stared at Ben for a moment. Then nodded his head. “It’s him, Sue. It’s really him! I’ve seen his picture.”
The sky opened up and the rain began falling; a cold rain for this time of year. Ben looked up, the fat drops splashing on his face. The raindrops felt good. He cut his eyes to Jeff. “I’ve got some rŁal coffee in my pack.” He smiled. “How about we step inside and have a cup?”
“Honest-to-God real coffee?” Jeff questioned.
Ben smiled. “Honest-to-God real coffee.”
“General, you’re a saint!” the woman said.
Ben laughed. “I know some chaplains who would give you an argument about that.”