#
“James! We gotta get out of here!”
“No shit! What do you think I’ve been trying to tell you?”
“No, you don’t get it. The beetles, they’re—”
He didn’t have time to finish. It shouldn’t have been possible—not with the weather stripping—but the first of the beetles squeezed under the door that separated the two subway cars.
James grabbed Andrew and hauled him backwards. He ignored his friend’s painful protests as he dragged him to the door at the rear of the car.
“They’re coming!” Andrew screamed. “They’re coming!”
“Shut up!” James yelled as he heaved the door open and pulled Andrew through. When they finally made it to the next car, James let Andrew fall to the floor.
This car, just like the world around them was empty.
James walked back over to the door and looked into the car they had just exited. Upon first glance, James thought that it wasn’t there anymore. It was only when he looked closer that he realized it was being engulfed in darkness.
Armies of beetles assembled, preparing to attack.
As he looked through the window, a face emerged from the darkness. It looked at him with sad, vengeful eyes.
The old lady mouthed something to him, but he couldn’t hear it. He thought she said You lied to me. Black bits of beetle shells were lodged between her teeth.
She opened the door, forcing James to step back.
“What’s going on?” Andrew asked.
The door opened and the old lady walked through. At least they thought it was the old lady. She seemed even more grotesque than before, if that was possible. There was no warmness in her eyes. She seemed darker, in every possible way.
“Boys…” she said.
“You crazy old bitch,” James said.
“You were very mean to me.”
“Get away from us!”
“James!” Andrew cut in. “Stop making things worse!”
James started towards her. “Did you hear me, you old bag? I said, leave us alone!”
When he finally reached her, she just stared at him, showing no sign of fear or intimidation . . . just pure callousness.
Without warning, she grabbed him by the collar and pulled him in close to her.
“YOU LIED TO ME!” she screamed. Her rancid breath invaded his nostrils.
James raised his hand and batted her in the face. She still didn’t release her grip. When his hand struck her, he felt something ooze beneath his palm. He lifted it and saw a puddle of yellow puss stream across his flesh. Upon looking at her face, he saw an area where his strike had bust a cluster of her pimples.
She finally let go of him, and he squealed away in disgust, backtracking toward Andrew.
Before he had a moment to think, he looked down at his palm and saw thin threads of white smoke rising from it. It was followed by a burning sensation. He screamed and rubbed his hand against his shirt, trying to wipe off the putrid puss.
The old lady just glared at him. “You lied to me . . .”
“We’re sorry!” Andrew cried from his place on the floor. “We shouldn’t have lied. We were wrong!” An idea struck, and he struggled to pull the backpack off his shoulders. He dug his hand inside and pulled out her book. “Here!” he yelled, sliding it towards her. “We shouldn’t have taken this either. Just leave us alone. Please!”
The old lady reached out for her most prized possession as if lost in a trance. The moment it was in her hands, she cradled it against her chest like a long lost baby. Her face twisted in pleasure, and she rocked it back and forth, crooning. It was a grotesque sound no instrument could mimic. Andrew half expected to hear the words my precious! come out next.
At that exact moment, gravity shifted. Andrew was too stunned to know what this implied. James on the other hand, wasn’t. He watched a light appear as the train exited the tunnel and pulled into another empty station. A sensation of pure relief washed over him, and for that second, he almost forgot about the throbbing pain in his palm where the puss had seared his skin.
The moment the doors opened, he shot forward, seized Andrew around the waist, and pulled him off the train.
#
James spun around the instant he was on the platform. He wanted to make sure the crazy bitch wasn’t coming after them. To his relief, she wasn’t. However, this slight victory was short-lived: she wasn’t on the train either. The spot in the car she had occupied no more than a second ago was now completely empty. No sign of her or even the black sheet of bugs. It was as if she hadn’t even existed.
James looked down the length of the train, watching to see if she got off.
She didn’t.
“Where is she?” Andrew shouted. “Where’d she go?”
“Shut up!” James snapped, returning his attention to the train.
Finally the doors hissed shut and the train began to pull away. This didn’t ease James’s feeling of apprehensiveness. Something wasn’t right. This was too easy. He quickly scanned the platform, looking for any sign of the old lady.
Just a few tiled columns, trashcans, and benches.
“You think she’s gone?” he asked.
James looked around and chuckled nervously. “Yeah. I think she’s gone.”
His chuckling turned into full on laughter as he pranced around the subway platform.
“James, I would really hate to interrupt you in your moment of joy, but I need to get to a hospital!”
James suddenly snapped back to reality. He ran over to Andrew and slung Andrew’s arm over his shoulder.
They had finally made it to the stairs when both of them stopped cold in their tracks. Scurrying down the steps was a little black beetle.
They both looked at each other and laughed, still secretly haunted by their encounter. James lifted his foot and slammed it on the beetle. The instant the white slime spewed out from under his shoe, a cry echoed in the subway along with the pervading smell of fish.
“You’re kidding me, right?” James said.
On the landing of the staircase, they saw the familiar shadow of the old lady’s contorted body. She drifted slowly down the stairs, snarling and gurgling with each step.
As they watched, the peculiar sound of bells radiated in their ears. Singing to them a chilling symphony. Before they could question what this meant, James broke the silence.
“C’mon!”
“We gave you back your book!” Andrew screamed. “What do you want? Leave us alone!”
James pulled Andrew away from the stairs and back toward the platform. They knew they wouldn’t be able to outrun her. Somehow she was able to be in two places at once.
An idea came to James. It wasn’t a very good one, but it was an act of desperation. He decided that if they put themselves into a dangerous situation, maybe the old lady wouldn’t follow them. It was a terrible, half-formed idea, but it was the best one he had at the moment.
Without pausing, he pulled Andrew to the platform and hopped down onto the tracks.
“What the hell are you doing?” Andrew cried.
James didn’t answer him. Instead he just yanked his friend down, thrashing, almost touching the third rail.
“Close call,” Andrew said.
“Shut up and move!”
James once again helped his friend onto his feet. As they walked down into the darkness of the subway tunnel, they heard the singing bells, even louder than before. It gnawed at their memory and gave them a foreboding sense of what was about to come.
“Do you hear that?” he asked Andrew.
“Jesus, you hear it too?”
He did. What was more was that he smelled the stench of rotting fish. They both knew what it implied, and it made them move faster, pausing only now and then to kick aside a rat that threatened to block their path.
#
Andrew clutched his broken ankle, sucking in air through his teeth.
“Quiet!” James hissed.
He had his back pressed up against the wall, looking down the tunnel towards the entrance. So far there had been no sight of the old lady, but he knew that didn’t mean she wasn’t there. The reek of fish was stronger than ever—she had to be close.
“I’m trying to be quiet,” Andrew said,” but it hurts!”
“I don’t care!” James snapped. “Do you want her to hear us?”
Blessedly, Andrew fell silent, but a moment later he started gagging from the smell.
“Quiet!” James said. “I think I hear someth—”
That was as far as he got before a horn blared, shattering the silence. The giant white light from the subway train barreling down the tunnel illuminated the darkness, splashing its brilliance onto the dirty tiled walls. It lit up their surroundings, along with the ghoulish figure creeping towards them.
“It’s her!” James shouted over the roar of the approaching train.
“What are we gonna do?” Andrew shouted back.
It was a good question. One that neither of them had the answer to. They were spared the task of having to come up with one when James realized the train was heading right for them.
“Oh shit! It’s gonna hit us!”
He grabbed Andrew by the scruff of his collar and hauled him to his feet. Cursing, he pressed his friend against the wall. The train passed by so close that the airstream the cars generated nearly knocked them down. The light from the inside of the cars spilled out, turning the steel beast into a giant strobe light. This wouldn’t have been a problem had their eyes not adjusted to the darkness. Fearing the worst, Andrew immediately squeezed his closed. James wasn’t so lucky. He hesitated a second too late and cried out, momentarily blinded by the glaring light.
Neither of them saw the old lady attack. The instant the train passed, she leaped. She grabbed James by the shoulders and pulled him onto the tracks. Like a wrestler, she maneuvered herself so that she was on top, straddling him. James tried to squirm and break free, but the old lady’s thighs were like a vice, and she used them to squeeze her victim and hold him in place.
She reached for her purse and unzipped it, holding the opening towards James’s face.
“Help!” James screamed. “Help!”
Andrew struggled to limp over to him, but through the pain and the thick darkness he could not keep his footing.
James looked into her purse and saw something black, even blacker than the darkness itself. It slowly crept towards him, and he didn’t have to wait long before discovering what it was. The bugs. The creepy old lady’s minions trickled out of her purse and pranced all over him. He squealed as the bugs found their way into his mouth. His screams muffled as the bugs drifted down his throat. He felt them invading every inch of his body. He felt them gnawing at him, eating him from the inside out. The last thing he felt was the feeling of a million tiny legs creep around the back of his eyes and starting to push.
When Andrew made it to James it was already too late. He saw a dark figure straddling his friend and simply advanced towards it without a plan.
Just as the old lady had leaped at them, he leaped at her. He wrapped his arm around her neck, putting her in a headlock, and squeezed with all his might. She gasped and choked, and somehow spun around so that they were face to face.
“I just wanted to make some friends,” she muttered. “But you two had to go and ruin everything.”
The putrid stench of her breath nearly knocked Andrew out. It stung his eyes like onions and made them water. It was just the distraction the old lady needed. With a movement quicker than lightning, she wrenched her head out of his grasp and coiled her deformed fingers around his throat. She should not have possessed enough strength to do any serious damage, yet when she squeezed, Andrew felt the bones in his neck shift, as if he had been placed inside a trash compactor. The pain was unbearable. Panicking, he struggled to suck in air. To his dismay, he discovered that he could only pull in the slightest bit, as if his throat had turned into a straw.
“Just someone to keep me company,” the old lady continued. “And now I can’t even have that!”
Impossibly, she tightened her grip further. Andrew tried to cry out, to beg for his life, anything, but without any oxygen, he found he could do no such thing. He even tried beating her hands in a feeble attempt to get her to release him, but no matter what he did, she would not relinquish her grip.
To make matters worse, he felt something small and furry rubbing against his ankle. At first it didn’t do anything. Then it started to bite!
One by one, black flowers began to bloom in front of his eyes, spreading their pedals and engulfing his world. He felt himself slipping away. Slipping. . . . Slipping. . . . He knew if he lost consciousness in the presence of this crazy old bitch he’d never regain it. For that reason he did the only thing he could think of. With every bit of strength he could muster, he twisted his body, reached down to his ankle, and wrapped his hands around the rat before it could escape. The creature thrashed and squirmed, using its sharp claws to cleave bloody furrows into Andrew’s skin, but Andrew held on tight. He twisted back around, and with one last burst of energy, thrust the snarling vermin into the old lady’s face.
The yell she released was shrill enough to shatter glass. She instantly released her hold on Andrew’s neck, grabbing instead at the rat and frantically fighting to pry it off.
Andrew gasped, desperately gulping in air that scorched his lungs.
Suddenly the world around the two of them brightened and a horn blared.
Another train.
He shot a glance at the old lady. She wasn’t paying attention. She screamed in agony as she continued her attempts to pull the rat off. He only had one shot at this, and he knew he had to make it count.
The train approached. The blaring horn grew louder, the light on the front of the car brighter. He forced himself not to act too quickly. He could almost feel the hot air whooshing around him.
Not yet, he coached himself. Not yet.
Just when he thought it was too late, he seized the old lady by the arm and pulled her forward, so that she fell onto the tracks the same moment he rolled away.
He didn’t hear the thump, like he expected, but he saw the showering display of sparks from the third rail that filled the darkness. Like fireworks, they celebrated his victory. They also provided enough light to illuminate the tunnel . . . along with the thousands of bugs crawling off his friend’s body and scattering into the nooks of the subway.
Paying careful attention not to aggravate his ankle, Andrew limped over to the motionless body.
“James?”
His friend didn’t move.
“James?” More frantic now.
He reached out and turned him over. The second he did, he jerked backwards, spinning away. It was too late. He already saw too much. He felt the vomit begin to rise and didn’t fight to hold it back this time. He let it pour out onto the tracks, while the image of his friend’s bloody and hollow eye sockets burned itself into his memory.
#
It took him a full five minutes to regain his composure. During that time, he looked around the sparking tunnel, searching for signs of the old lady’s body. There were none. That didn’t matter. For all he cared, the train could have chopped her up into a million pieces. What mattered was James. He couldn’t leave him down here in this dark, dreary place, forgotten. He had to find a police officer and get him to pull out the body. Andrew would have done it himself, but with the condition his leg was in that was impossible. He could barely even stand, but he forced himself to anyway. He limped past by James, silently promising him that he would find help, and that he would be back.
When he finally reached the subway platform, he pushed himself onto the ledge and rolled to safety.
It was a struggle to navigate through the twists and turns of the station. He screamed for help, but only his echo spoke back to him. He staggered onwards, leaning on the walls for support.
He
found the staircase that would lead to salvation. He limped up the steps, each one a mile-long hike. The exposed bones in his ankle clicked as he walked. He could see the morning light peaking through above. Jesus! he thought. Morning already? He could almost taste the sunlight on his lips, and it was the sweetest thing he could ever imagine.
He finally got to the top and stumbled out into the city. He closed his eyes and fell to the ground, tears beginning to well beneath his eyelids. When he opened them, he called out to the city.
“Help! Help me!”
No one answered. He was greeted by absolute silence. Not even a car horn, or an angry pedestrian yelling at him to shut the hell up.
He looked around and saw nobody. Cars were abandoned with their doors opened. Grocery bags lay scattered in on the sidewalks. Hot Dog carts were left without owners. Andrew was completely alone.
“Is anyone there?” he called out. “Please! What’s going on? Help me!”
And then he received his response.
“Ding,” a familiar voice said. “Dong.”
He knew the owner of that voice, and the smell of rotting fish to go along with it, but he refused to believe it.
“Ding. Dong.”
Those bells! he thought. What about the damn bells?
“Ding. Dong.”
Richard Gordon’s voice filled his memory: The bells, they will follow me from this world . . .
“. . . and into the next,” the old lady finished.
AUTHORS’ NOTES
When I first pitched the idea of a collaboration piece to Vinny, we were riding a train into New York City to meet one of my favorite authors. He looked at me and said, “That would be cool, but we need to find something worth writing about.”
When we were running through the subway stations from a smelly lady who was obsessed with the author we visited, I told him, “I think we found it.”
Yes, the story is true. Naturally, we took a few creative liberties with the details.
This was my first collaboration piece. I have written a few short stories, which have been published in anthologies and magazines. I liked doing that, because it was all about me. I wrote what I wanted to write. I created intricate stories, and I was my biggest fan (I don’t care what they say... every author is his or her own biggest fan).