Metro

Metro                                       

 

 

     The subway, as usual, stunk. There was a rank stink of urine to it that permeated the air, cloying and inescapable. Avery barely even noticed it anymore. The morning commute to work had become so routine that he had learned to tune it out, like most other things.

     A large pair of oversized headphones encased his ears, drowning out all other sound, blaring the raw and rapid tones of black metal into his cranium. It was just another method to avoid any contact from the other passengers, much like smartphone suspended in front of his face so that he didn't have to meet their eyes.

     That face was speckled by the affliction of youth, acne spreading far and wide across his oily pallid features. A dark shock of midnight-black hair fell as a curtain over his eyes and he occasionally brushed it aside his brow with skeletal fingers. The music thundered on, as did the train.

     It was early, for which he was thankful. The carriage was almost deserted, which was unheard of during the later parts of the day. The confined space would be jammed wall to wall, every seat occupied, by businessmen, tardy school kids, and other denizens of the metro.

     Avery shared the carriage with only four others. A sleeping bum, wrapped in a mixed quilt of rags, plastic bags, and soiled newspapers was up the front near the door. It was likely that most of the smell seeping through the train could be attributed to the figure, almost unrecognizably human with long, grimy matted hair and hands encased in thick filthy fingerless gloves. As much the detritus of humanity as the plethora of gum stuck on the undersides of the long bench-like seats.

     Gripping the gleaming steel pole in front of her, a tiny wizened Chinese lady sat further along, clutching her paper shopping bags protectively, squinting to and fro around the other passengers. So old and desiccated did her face and gnarled hands seem that she could have been fashioned by aged wood, a realistic mannequin or marionette. The lines and deep grooves of her squinting visage like the long splintery wrinkles of aged wood.

      Then there came a man, in a long black double-breasted overcoat and a matching wide-brimmed hat slanted over his hidden face. In fact, all his clothing was black, plain and so darkly midnight hued as though it drunk in the very light around him emanating from the buzzing overhead halogens. Sleeping too, presumably. He'd been aboard when Avery had entered.

     So too had the last passenger, down the very end of the carriage sitting up against the rear wall. A balding man in grease-stained overalls and large, wire rimmed glasses that looked so smudged he couldn't possibly see through them. There was a blue metal lunch-pail resting next to him on the seat, scarred and worn. A construction worker or engineer no doubt. He was peering through the grubby lenses at a folded-over newspaper, soiling its inked folds with thick dirty fingers as he read.

     Avery ignored them all, reclusive in his own world of deafening music and scrolling aimlessly through his smartphone. His stop was two stations ahead, so he kept an eye on the doors to monitor his progress. If he missed his stop and was late to work at the sandwich shop again, Mr. Contreras, his manager, would have his hide - if not his job.

     It was in this way of careful observation that he saw it. He was swiping his thumb across the touchscreen before his face, aimlessly searching through the plethora of slightly amusing imagery of his favorite meme website. The picture of a man getting hit in the face unexpectedly by an exploding watermelon brought a tiny light to his eyes, if only briefly. A slight tremor ran through the rumbling floor of the carriage, and he looked up, expecting another stop to come screeching by as the brakes were applied.

      Through the glare of the far window, otherwise lost to the pervasive darkness of the tunnel two glaring red eyes stared at him. Avery jolted in fright, heartbeat spiking.

     He blinked, and they were gone. Looking around the carriage, the other passengers remained as they were, obviously oblivious to what he'd seen. Avery gave himself a mental shake. Seeing things. That was all. There was nothing outside the thundering subway car. There couldn't be, plain and simple.

     With jolting shudder, the windows lit suddenly as they rolled into another stop. With a deafening squeal the train came to a drawn-out halt, doors hissing open to admit and expel passengers.

     The man in overalls down the far end got up, looking around from his folded newspaper as if jolted from a reverie. He took a step in the direction of the doors, beaten lunch-pail in hand.

     There was a high pitch whine of metal. The entire rear section of the subway car tore outwards in a volcanic roar, shards of metal and shattering windows exploding out into the dark void of the tunnel. The man was sucked backwards and out, disappearing in a blink into the inky shadow beyond. He didn't even have time to cry out.

     Avery leapt up in terror, his nerves afire with panic, a yell already half formed in his throat as he tore the headphones from his ears.

     The old Asian lady scrambled up as well, groceries knocked to the ground and flying. The bum laying on the bench at the far end from the gaping hole in the rear of the car jerked upright, whining incoherently. The man in black stayed exactly where he was, hat still covering his face, immobile. Avery staggered back away from the yawning fissure as the brakes shrieked below, the very carriage rocking with the force of whatever had destroyed the back end. He was moving towards the exit along with the Chinese woman, frantic. He never made it.

     From the darkness beyond the rent chasm something leapt into the flickering light from the failing halogen lights overhead. It landed heavily with a boom, glaring around at the occupants with gleaming, murderously red eyes set in a skeletal face, more akin to that of a bovine animal than anything human. Twin rams’ horns, thick and black, extended from the sides of its head, and with every blowing exhalation it seemed as if smoke, not steam, erupted from its fleshless nostrils. The body was inexplicably man but twisted and marred by scar tissue over bulging pectorals and a rippling fatless abdomen, paired by huge corded arms ending in overlarge hands with filthy yellow nails.

     Its legs were furred, coated in bristling hide like the forelegs of an auburn stallion, ending too in cloven hooves that shone obsidian in the failing light.

     The monster raised its head and gave a deafening roar, so loud Avery could feel it reverberating in his chest. As its maw opened he glimpsed a double-row of needle-like serrated teeth, ruddy coated and gleaming.

     “You do not belong here, demon.” growled a harsh voice.

     Avery turned, trying to keep the terror in sight. The man in black was up on his feet. Lank hair rolled down to his shoulders and he was unshaven, the wide hat once covering his face now adorned his head.

     And terribly, horrifically, the thing spoke in reply.

     “This is of no concern to you, human.” it snarled. The voice was maddening, as though a hundred whispering words of different tones were layered over a terrifying deeper one. As though there were not one speaker, but many.

     “The accord is clear.” snapped the man. “Without cause or contract you cannot be here. Now be gone, before I make you gone.”

     There was another sound, a repetitive barking like a hacking cough as the beast’s shoulders undulated. Avery realized sickeningly that it was laughing.

     “Shut your mouth, worm. I am granted here indeed. These souls are promised to us in payment, and we will have our recompense.”

     The man's face didn't change perceptibly, but there was a hardness to his eyes that hadn't been there before. He was tensed, a poised blade, on the very verge of violent motion. Those eyes flicked over Avery where he stood, stricken, for the briefest of heartbeats.

     “I won't tell you again, hellfilth. Leave. While you still have the required appendages to do so.”

      The demon-thing snarled, sparks now blossoming in the thick roiling smoke venting from its nose.

     “So be it.” The man muttered simply.

     Avery was frozen solid, rooted to the spot by fear and confusion, not knowing which way to turn or run. He could only look on.

     With another thundering, primal roar the creature burst forth, cannoning down the wrecked subway car towards the humans at blinding speed. But not fast enough.

     The black-coated man plunged his hands deep into the folds of his coat, across the inside of each breast. His hands flashed out again. In the left was a solid-looking thick dark wooden crucifix which he held aloft before him as though it were a shield. The other gripped the compact bulk of a stubby-barreled submachine gun. He levelled it and jerked down on the trigger in the same motion. With a stuttering bark that seemed impossibly loud in the confined space of the subway car the muzzle of the gun flashed in rapid staccato. Holes exploded from the monsters’ onrushing body as bullets smacked into it, gouting thick viscous black blood that hissed and smoked where it landed. For all the damage the weapon seemed to be doing, the thing didn't stop. It was almost atop the firing human before it, massive hands extended, prepared to rend and smash.

     The man, unfazed, muttered a word. Quietly, and between the heartbeat jolts of the gun. Almost a whisper, yet at the same time it pulsed through the air as if he'd screamed it, reverberating inside Avery’s skull, aching through the bones of his jaw with its intensity and power.

     From the little wooden crucifix, a blindingly bright bar of hot white light lanced forth, spearing directly through the demons chest. It jetted out the other side of the creature, piercing through the darkness encasing the torn rear of the carriage and banishing it with its illumination. With a strangled cry the beast toppled forth, tumbling to a heap as it's slayer merely turned calmly aside to let it fall, lifeless corpse carried forth by momentum.

     Quite suddenly, in deafening contrast there was utter silence. After the barrage on his eardrums Avery thought for a moment that he truly had gone deaf.

     Then the man looked up from the smoldering body, gun and cross still in hand. And spoke.

“The covenant is broken, the rule undone. They will not stand for this slight.” he said to the stricken passengers.
     He fixed Avery with a piercing stare, hard eyes flashing in the blink of the dying carriage lights.

     “More will be coming.”

     “Run.”