Chapter Nineteen #5
Everett grabs me by the elbow and ushers me toward a metal railing.
Being the taller of the two of us, he’s taking the brunt of their dive-bombing attempts, huffing and grunting and yelping in turn as they peck ineffectually at his raised arm covering his head.
Then, we’re descending down stairs, the cool, damp smell of wet concrete filling my nostrils.
“The subway?” I pant. “Oh my god, Everett! Not here!” The shrill squawks of birds meeting the business end of the subway station’s spiked railings echo behind us, followed by the telltale thumps of their fallen bodies. They’ve stopped following us down, at least.
“It’s the closest refuge—we wouldn’t have made it across the street.” He heaves for breath, one hand pressed against his side.
“But there’s no sunlight down here,” I whisper, spinning slowly on the spot, my Tasers raised high and sparkling. While the overhead lights are on, darkness surrounds us on all sides. The platform appears to be empty, however.
“The sign said this station’s closed. It wasn’t in use when the world ended, so we should be fine.” Everett, still breathing heavily, straightens to standing. “I think.”
I shoot him a glare. “Jinx much?”
“Sorry!” he says, sheepish. Almost on cue, the fluorescent lighting crackles as it flickers on and off, buzzing ominously. “We’ll just wait down here until the pigeons disperse.”
Neither of us speaks the question that surely raises, though. How long will that take? We don’t have endless hours to spend in the city, and it’s already getting late. If the birds stake us out, we could be trapped here all night.
The thought chills my blood. New York at night? We wouldn’t make it past four p.m.
Something skitters near my foot, and I jump back. “What was that?”
Everett’s eyes widen, and he yanks me to his side. “Oh, fuck. Ow!” He swats behind him at Chicken, where she’s hissing nonstop from his back, her claws swiping at the back of his head.
I can’t blame her.
Dozens of tiny glinting eyes twinkle in the dark subway tunnels beyond. Like constellations in the sky, only these are lower, at our feet, ground level and bright, glowing red. Not dozens. Hundreds. Thousands, maybe. All trained on us.
“RATS!” Everett yells. “Out, out, out!” We break into a run, pumping our arms for the stairs outside, only to be cut off by a dark swarm of squirming bodies flooding the platform from all sides. We stop in our tracks.
“Oh, god!” Everett turns and boosts me up into his arms without warning, and I nearly send us both toppling over.
“What are you doing?!”
“They can eat me first, maybe they’ll get full and leave you be, and you can make a run for it, and—”
“Everett, the guard booth! Quick!”
Thankfully, he doesn’t argue. He turns and runs, stumbling with me in his arms, kicking scabby subway rats away from us like furry, squirming sweet potatoes full of plague.
The door is locked, but the help window has a deep counter ledge, and Everett slings me onto it, then hikes a leg up and joins me.
We stand and cling to the booth with both arms as rats swarm the base, then begin to climb.
Their feet scrabble ineffectually at the slick subway tiles, but clumps are forming.
Mountains of squealing rats begin to build as they lunge for us, their eyes red as blood, mouths open, teeth bared.
“Maisie, I am so sorry! I did not mean to get us killed by zombie rats!”
“What are you talking about?” My words are edged in hysteria as the mounds of biting mouths grow taller. “I’m the one who dragged you into New York City during a zombie apocalypse! It’s my fault we’re going to die.”
“Today’s been amazing, Maisie.” Everett peels one hand off the booth to cover mine. “I don’t regret one minute of it.”
My throat tightens. “Even the part where we get eaten by rats?”
“That part is regrettable, now that you mention it. But I don’t regret coming here. And I don’t regret meeting you, even though it took the end of the world to bring us together.”
“Everett.” I breathe out his name, a single tear falling down my cheek. “I wish we had more time.”
“I do, too,” Everett says, his voice thick. “That’s the real reason why we’re here. I just couldn’t tell you goodbye, Maisie.”
A big, one-eared, fighting bastard of a rat scrambles up the heap of twisting rat bodies formed below us. He’s hungry, and it shows. Everett jabs his Fun & Stun at King Rat, lighting him up, but the rat just hisses and scrambles faster toward us.
Everett shrieks, jabbing indiscriminately now at the pile of rats, just as I’m doing. They’re almost counter-high when a distant thrum reverberates through the station.
“What’s that?” I kick King Rat with my boot, and he rolls down rat mountain. Three more take his place, vying for first bite. “What’s that sound, Everett?!”
“It sounds like a—like a—”
The horn blares, screamingly loud through the subway tunnels, and a collective hiss rises in the rats’ throats. They scramble away, the mountains dissolving into skittering feet as headlights appear in the tunnel.
“—train!” Everett yells, then laughs as the subway train roars toward us. We wave our hands wildly.
The brakes wheeze as the train comes grinding to a halt in front of us. A man’s friendly voice sounds through the intercom.
“All aboard the Survivor Express!”