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If there is any God in this world, in this subway, I beg you to help me. I implore you, so that something, anything, would come and help us get through this. Beg that my cries of help will be heard, because right now, I’m this close to getting caught as well. They… got everyone else. I am hiding under the chairs, a few carts away from the main one, hoping that I can somehow help the rest or at the very least, manage to slip away. It’s not selfish if I don’t help them out, right?? If I run… I can just find a new group… No… I can’t lie to myself. If I leave now, I wouldn’t be able to live with the guilt.
I need to calm myself down. I need to continue. Maybe someone can give me some insight I can’t see. Please…
After Gertrude left, the old woman I found watching over me as I woke up, I fell right back to sleep. I dreamed I was in a park, going out for an evening stroll with Marie. The light breeze was gently blowing past us, as autumn’s leaves were falling down, covering the walkway like a blanket. The sun, going beyond the horizon, shimmered in the small waves of the lake we found ourselves stopping at, giving the atmosphere around us an air of tranquility. I’ve never felt so at peace, watching the light bouncing from the lake into Marie’s emerald eyes. She turned and smiled at me, giving me that cheeky grin I always enjoyed staring at. Holding my hand, she told me that everything will be alright, and I believed her with all my heart.
The last orange rays of the sun were suddenly replaced by the cold light of the subway when I woke up again. I almost began to cry, not knowing if I woken up from a dream or just now entering a nightmare. It’s been a few days since I’ve entered this place and I haven’t eaten anything. Up until then, all the adrenaline pumping inside my body kept me somewhat functional. However, having somewhat of a peaceful moment, the pain of hunger kicked in like never before. Making sure that my phone was still with me, slowly, I walked to the carts where everyone else was in. Right as I entered, 15 pairs of eyes, both young and old, stared at me.
“Look who finally decided to join us for dinner.” I heard a familiar gravely voice yelling at me from the other side of the cart. “Almost went back there to check if you’re still with us.”
“Oh be quiet you,” the old woman said “can’t you see he is barely awake as is. Leave the poor kid be.”
“It’s… alright.” I barely managed to mutter, my eyes still adjusting to the light. “Did you say dinner?”
“Why yes he did mister!” a new voice jovially rang out, a slight southern tinge to her accent. “Sit down, sit down. Poor thing, you must be starving, no?”
“Yea… I am actually.”
“Well you’re in luck! Today we managed to catch some of the good stuff, here take this!” This woman, Helen, proceeded to stab a small slab of meat with a pocket knife, taking it from a pipe that was running at our feet across the cart, putting it on a piece of plastic.
“Mmm, this is quite nice actually,” speaking through bites. “Tastes like chicken. What is it?”
“Rat!”
I almost puked the second I heard that. Most of the people present chuckled a bit. Apparently though, two guys got slightly offended when they saw the disgust on my face.
“You got to eat fresh rat and you act like that?” one of the guys said.
“Yea! You should be grateful!” the other agreed.
Looking in their direction, a pair of twins were giving me a nasty look. They couldn’t gave been older than 15.
“Michael, Gabriel,” an older man, who still looked a bit younger than Matt, began scolding the two, “it’s not polite to talk to a stranger like that. You two better apologize to him.”
“That’s right dears,” said a woman sitting next to him, her voice a bit gentler, but still as firm as the man’s, “he is clearly new around here. We’ve taught you better than that.”
Michael and Gabriel held their head down and apologized. I told them it’s fine and that they shouldn’t worry too much about it.
Reluctantly, I went on and finished the rat meat, given the fact that it was either that or starving.
“Oh, don’t be such a baby,” said Helen with a big grin on her face, “you’ll get used to it. Hell, I dare even say I’m proud of managing to make it taste as good as it does.”
“I am so glad you’re here with us Helen. Can’t find a finer cook in these parts.” encouraged the twin’s mom.
“Indeed, best rat meat cook on this side of the subway!” the dad joked.
“Better than that cockroach stew you attempted last week, John!”
“Haha, not missing a beat, eh Emily?”
“Of course dear. If I wasn’t around, who would make fun of your cooking attempts?”
“Yes, yes, I knoow I’m a very good cook. Just like how you are one “amazing” masseuse. My back still hurts.”
After that, they laughed and hugged each other, much to the dismay of the twins. Seeing them like that made me wish I was next to Marie…
Once everyone had their dinner, we remained in this “living room” of sorts and everyone began to chat with each other. Matt and John were talking about the old days from before the subway and who’s the next to go hunt for supplies, Gertrude, Helen and Emiliy were talking about what they should do for “breakfast” and Michael and Gabriel were playing with an old set of cards. Seeing everyone so relaxed was odd, given the circumstances, but at the same time, I couldn’t help but feeling a bit better too, finally being able to not feel on edge ever since I got here. Looking around, I noticed that a good portion of chairs were missing, giving the cart a feeling of being bigger than it actually was. It was nice having some sort of breathing room, as much as a subway would allow. Further looking around, I saw a wall socket a few feet away. I quickly padded myself and, thankfully, I had my charger on me. Plugging it in, I was so relieved when I saw it working. My phone won’t be dying any time soon.
Afterwards, looking at the ceiling pipes, i noticed some plastic boxes on them, glued to the ceiling. John noticed me staring at them a bit confused.
“Oh, you looking at the make-shift fridges?”
“Make-shift fridges?”
“Yea, quite proud of them actually. Made them years ago, ‘fore my blowtorch ran out of gas. Just cut some of the chairs and bars, welded them on the cold pipes and boom. We can store meat and water.”
“Ok but if you can store meat and water, why did you have Matt go to the Drip?”
“We were running very low,” replied Matt “and I would’ve gotten more if it wasn’t for the Blackout.”
“You mean when the lights went all dark on us?”
“Yep. You wouldn’t want to be caught in there. If you thought the Conductor was bad, the Janitor is way worse.”
“By Janitor, do you mean that thing I saw when I came to get your foot unstuck?”
“We call it that because it cleans everything from the carts he is in, leaving absolutely nothing behind once it is in there, ticket or no ticket. Thank God he doesn’t move much.”
“Matt told us everything,” interfered John, “You were brave for going back for him. We’re very thankful you saved him.”
“I still think it was very stupid. You could’ve gotten killed too.”
“By that he means “thank you”.”
“Don’t you put words in my mouth, you old bastard!”
“I know we don’t have mirrors, here but you should look in one before commenting on anyone being old. Even Gertrude looks younger than you.”
“Now, now, enough with the banter,” interrupted Gertrude. “Have you too decided who’s gonna be the watch this time? I’m feeling very tired”
“Why not have the kid do it? He had his beauty sleep up until now.”
“Yeaaah,” said Matt thoughtfully, “it would be a good chance for him to learn the ropes.”
“What do you mean by the watch?” I replied slightly confused.
“Every time we go to sleep, one of us stays awake to look around for the Conductor. If it comes, the watch wakes everyone up so that we can present our tickets.”
“That’s it? Nothing else?”
“I suppose you also have to keep watch for the Janitor and other humans, but honestly, it’s very rare for either of those to happen. I’ve only seen the Janitor twice in all of my time here, and even rarer for someone else to get here.”
“Oh, well, in that case, sure. I’ll stand watch.”
“Thanks kid, I needed the sleep. Haven’t had much since you got here.”
“You should’ve seen him,” said Helen, overhearing us. “He was soo worried about you, pacing around the cart all pent up.”
“And you should also shut up, Helen. Don’t just butt in like that!”
“But that’s my job! I’d be so bored if I didn’t!”
“And you!” Matt pointing at me, “we still need to talk about that stunt you pulled!”
She then laughed for a little bit while I was completely lost. Matt tried his hardest to appear angry at Helen, but at most he looked slightly annoyed. It was nice seeing him like that.
After everyone went to sleep, I remained awake to watch over. I had plenty of time to think about everything that has happened so far, still not believing any of this was real. I slapped myself again, just to be sure, and it still hurt. With that failed attempt, I tried to keep my mind occupied with the outside world, thinking of what I’ll do once I mange to get out… If I manage to get out… I’d have mom’s cooking, and then I’d go out drinking with the boys, followed by visiting Marie’s place and watching movies until morning. Then we’d go hang in the park again, and then I’d finally p-
“Hey, you there kid?” A voice brought me back to reality, or at least what was my current reality.
“Matt? Yea, I’m here, what’s up?”
“Your shift is up.”
“Really? It hasn’t been that long has it?”
I took out my phone and sure enough, it’s been a few hours since everyone else has gone to sleep.
“I suppose you’re taking over?”
“Nah, now it’s Helen’s turn. Right now, we’re gonna go scavenging.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“By that, I mean supplies. We need to go back to The Drip to get more water. We’ll also check around for the traps to see if we got more meat. We also need to look around for tickets. We already have enough to last all of us for at least a month, but it never hurts to get more. I also need to teach you how to handle yourself better. I don’t need you to become a dead weight on us, alright kid?”
“Yeah, ok, let’s go.”
And with that we took a few spare tickets and started going towards the Drip. We didn’t manage to get two carts away before hearing Helen screaming.
We rushed back to our carts as fast as we could and right as we were about to enter, we looked through the window to see what was going on. In the cart, there were five men standing up, all of them having guns, pointing them towards the rest, who were kneeling down. The man in front of everyone began to yell.
“All right everyone. We’re either going to do this the easy way, or the hard way. Hand over all your tickets and supplies and no one’s gonna get hurt. If you don’t do that, you’ll soon find out that you won’t be needing them anyway. And also, if anyone tries to play the hero, you’ll know what pain truly feels like!”
“You can’t just be taking our food and tickets!” yelled back Helen. “We’ll die out there!”
The man went in front of Helen, putting his gun right to her forehead.
“Look at me.” he growled at Helen, “Look. At. Me. Does it look like I give a shit about any of y’all? One more word out of line and that wall over there will soon have a new coat of red painting!”
“Hey boss,” interrupted one of the other men. “You sure you want to kill this one? She looks sooo pretty. I am sure she’d be fun to mess around with.” beginning to chuckle to himself while looking at Helen.
“You might have a point there Brad,” said the leader, lowering the gun from Helen’s forehead, “however, you’re missing one important detail.”
“What’s tha-“
The guy didn’t have time to finish his sentence. As soon as he opened his mouth, the leader shoved the gun in the man’s mouth and pulled the trigger, blowing his head in front of everyone.
“I said “one more word out of line”. Now,” looking back at the people who were kneeling “ I can also be very understanding. Do what I say, and we’ll get along juuust fine.”
Everyone was too mortified to say anything. I was too mortified to do anything.
Matt, however, was fuming. Without thinking, he went right inside the cart, rushing the remaining four men. I stayed back, unable to move, as I watched Matt get shot right in his legs.
“And what did I say about playing heroes?” said the leader. “Don’t get me wrong, we could’ve killed him right now, but we’d much rather have him stay alive for now. It’s quite fortunate that he stumbled back here. With this idiot dead, I need more people who’d be listening to me. And, more importantly, it shows me that there are more of you out there. Mike, Rich, go check out at least the next 15 carts in either direction and come back” After hearing that, I started crawling away, hoping I wouldn’t get noticed. I had some leeway since the men were on the other side of the cart. Completely terrified, I find myself now hiding a few carts away.
Wait, I heard him enter. I’m holding my breath, typing this last part, hoping I won’t get noticed. Please don’t notice me. Please don’t notice me.
Please don’t notice…
He hasn’t, not even on the way back. Thank God, I heard the door to next cart open, leaving me again in the silence of the cart. Hopefully, I can find a way to save the rest.
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