"Steve is right. He'll just slow us down. Help him to his feet and give him a gun."
Quinn gaped in disbelief. "You cold hearted-"
"You heard the man," Steve grunted.
"Oh fuck," Quinn moaned. "Fuck, fuck, fuck! This isn't right, man! What about the airplane? Who's gonna fly it?"
"Use your head, Quinn. There's no way you guys will make it to the airport now!"
"This isn't right."
Steve grabbed his hand and squeezed it tight as another bullet ricocheted off the rail.
"Listen to me. We don't have time to argue. I'll never see my son alive again. But maybe, if there is an afterlife-and God, I fucking hope there is-just maybe, I'll see him there. I want to find out. The only thing that matters right now is that little boy up on that ledge, and his daddy. You want to do something for me? Get them out of here. Now!"
Slowly, Quinn nodded. "Okay, man."
The rats drew closer, their stench thick and cloying.
"Kick some ass, Canuck," Forrest said.
"You know it." Steve wobbled, shifting his weight onto his uninjured leg.
Quinn hesitated, eyeing the rats. "I still-"
"Don't. Just go..."
Forrest handed Steve an extra magazine and then shoved Quinn forward.
They were halfway to the ladder when Smokey's corpse sat up and grinned at them.
"Hey guys," it slurred. "Who's up for a game of cards?"
The zombies opened fire again. Bullets slammed into the ledge where Jim, Don, and Frankie were standing. The three of them ducked inside the tunnel.
Quinn frantically reloaded. "We're cut off."
"This way!" Forrest lunged for the other ladder. He climbed to the top, and then helped Quinn clamber up behind him.
The others stared across the tunnel in dismay.
"Where you going, Forrest?" Smokey's corpse called.
"You guys go ahead," Forrest shouted to the others. "We'll catch up, if we can!"
Jim flashed him a thumbs up and shut the door.
"Hurry up!" Steve shouted.
Forrest and Quinn spared Steve one last glance, and then they disappeared into the second service tunnel.
Steve cracked his neck from side to side, and planted his legs as firmly as he could, wincing from the pain. His leg felt cold, and the blood had run down into his shoe, soaking his sock and pants leg.
Smokey stumbled to his feet and pointed at the rats. "Say hello to my little friends, Steve."
"Never figured you for a Pacino fan," Steve grunted.
The zombie ran toward him, blood still dripping from the hole in his chest. Steve opened fire. The bullet shattered the zombie's sternum. The pilot readjusted his aim and the second one drilled into the creature's forehead. Smokey tottered forward over the tracks and lay still.
"Come on," Steve shouted, turning back to the rats. "Let's see what you've got!"
His machine gun roared. Brass jackets rained down, and the air became thick with smoke. The weapon grew hot in his hands.
As the rats bore down on him, Steve realized that he had never felt more alive.
He smiled, hoping that his son would be waiting on the other side.
Pigpen turned the flashlight back on, and they gathered around him.
"What about the others?" Frankie asked.
"Cut off," Jim said. "Forrest said they'd try to catch up."
"How? They got a map?"
Jim shrugged.
Don wiped the mud and gore from his face. "What now? They've blocked our way to the airport. And even if we could, going there would be useless without our pilots."
God meowed, twining himself between Danny's feet. The boy reached down and petted him.
"The bomb shelter," Pigpen said.
"Ramsey's?" Jim asked. "But we're cut off from that too."
Pigpen shook his head. "I told you-there's lots of them down here. I know of one nearby. Last time I was there, it was still stocked. Ain't been used in years. Government built it and then forgot about it when the Russians became our friends."
"Surely there are people in it now," Don said.
"No, I don't think so. Only folks that knew about it were me and God, and my buddies Fran and Seiber. Fran got killed at a soup kitchen in the East Village. A zombie shoved his head into a vat of boiling stew. And Seiber was shot by five-oh, down on Madison Avenue during the riots.
They caught him looting a jewelry store."
"How far is it?" Jim asked.
"Eight stories down and a little to the south."
"And you know the way?" Frankie whispered, not at all convinced.
"Yeah." Pigpen started forward, then stopped and turned back to them.
"And if I don't, God will deliver us instead."
The cat sprang out from between Danny's feet and ran ahead, green eyes glinting in the darkness.
Quinn stopped when he heard the gunshots. Steve yelled something unintelligible, muted by the concrete between them.
"Forrest? Maybe we ought to go back. We can't just leave him. Abandoning Bates was bad enough."
There was no reply. The big man had been swallowed up by the darkness.
"Forrest?"
More gunfire echoed.
"Forrest, quit fucking around!"
Quinn crawled on his hands and knees. The tunnel was tall enough for him to stand up in, but it was pitch-black, and the feeble light of his glow stick only made the darkness worse.
He crept forward, cautiously feeling his way. Then the floor disappeared beneath his hands, replaced by a hole. The chasm ran from wall to wall, completely blocking his progress. The edges of the crevice were jagged, and the masonry crumbled beneath his fingertips. Cold air brushed his face.
"Forrest?"
His voice echoed back to him from below.
"Oh shit."
The big man had obviously fallen down the hole.
Quinn called again, but there was no answer. He had no way of knowing if Forrest could even hear him. How far down was it? Maybe he was unconscious. Or dead.
Behind him, more distant now, Steve continued shooting.
Carefully, Quinn turned around and started crawling back to him.
"I'm not leaving you, man. We've lost enough people today."
The shots were sporadic now.
"I'm coming, Steve! Just hold on!"
He made it back to the doorway and put his ear against the cold steel.
The gunshots had stopped, both Steve's and the zombie's. All he could hear was a high-pitched squealing.
Slowly, he opened the door. The rusty hinges creaked.
Quinn gasped, horrified at what lay before him.
The squealing didn't belong to the rats. It was coming from Steve. The tunnel was flooded with wriggling, rotting vermin. The brown, furry creatures were almost six feet deep in places. If he weren't seeing it, he would have never believed there were this many rats in the world, let alone New York. They crawled overtop one another to reach the ledge. The human zombies waded through them, toward the doorway that Jim and the others had disappeared into.