But there was no more time to think. The first figure in a bag had already risen to its feet and in small, but frequent short steps—as much as the bag allowed—was moving towards Logan. The others moved, too… even those pinned by the burning car—they could not stand up, but squirmed on asphalt, and then began to creep, like huge black caterpillars.
Tony darted to the corpse of a ten year-old girl. Stakes on which the adults were impaled were too bulky, but this one was just the right size… Clutching the girl’s stiffened corpse, Logan dragged it upwards, hoping to free the stake, but instead the stake was pulled out of its base, remaining in the body. Either it was stuck inside there or was held by spasmodically clasped muscles of the corpse… Tony threw the dead girl on the floor, then, having grasped the brown-stained bottom end of the stake, turned her upside down and put his shod foot on her chin. The black figures were approaching and he did not think any more about fastidiousness or, still less, about pity, but feverishly pulled on the stuck stake. It, at last, came unstuck with a disgusting sucking sound and, rasping metal against a bone, moved a little. But the first of figures in bags was already near the storefront window. Logan, dragging behind himself the girl’s corpse which was gradually slipping from the stake, ran a few steps deeper into the shop. A couple of jerks more, and Tony managed to liberate the dirty metal stick completely—just in time to swing it and drive the sharp end into the breast of an oncoming figure.
The stake went in with notable resistance, but nevertheless easier, than Logan had expected, and pierced the figure through. Probably that thing inside a bag was already fairly rotten. But pulling the weapon out appeared to be more difficult. Tony hardly had time to do it in order to jam the stake into the throat of another figure which had already approached him sideways. It tumbled down backwards, but the first one, though pierced already, still stood. Logan smashed its head in, swinging the stake straight from the shoulder like a bat, and then jabbed in a stomach the third “bag” which had stolen up to him from the right. A loathsome crunch sounded—apparently the spike went into the backbone—and the figure jackknifed and then slipped from the stake down to the floor. A heavy sickening stench spread from the pierced bags. Ahead, new figures were already approaching, and Tony, having again snatched the stake as a cudgel, began to thrash them on their heads—as it turned out to be faster than piercing them. He heard a wet crash as skulls broke, but some of them fell only after the second or third blow. Tony turned on the place like a madman, dispensing blows to the left and to the right. Soon his arms and shoulders, unused to such work, were aching with a leaden pain. He understood that could not last long; however, the majority of figures in bags already lay motionlessly on the floor of the shop and in the street in front of it. Some more blows—and Tony could take a breath. It seemed the first wave had been beaten off. However, those that could not stand up had already crept up close to the shop, but to finish them off, perhaps, would be easier…
Something seized Logan’s right ankle.
Tony looked sharply downwards, automatically bringing up the stake for a blow. His ankle was clenched by fingers of the girl whom he had removed from the stake. She had crept up to him sideways, leaving a bloody-mucous trace from lumps of her spilled bowels. The dead face, on which the motionless grimace of the last agony remained, was raised upwards. Logan jammed the stake directly in this face, striking the right eye (the metal punched an eye socket and scratched against the skull from within). Then he pulled out the stake and struck again—this time splitting the wrist of the hand clenching his ankle. Cold fingers weakened their grasp; to be on the safe side, Tony stamped them twice with the heel of his only remaining shoe and jumped aside, hastily looking around.
Other “mannequins” remained motionless—apparently, the stakes really did not allow them to revive. But the things that lay on the floor in bags began to move again.
Tony understood that any injury inflicted on them gave him only a temporary respite. It is impossible to kill what is already dead. So, the only remedy was to flee. Perhaps, somewhere within the shop, there was an exit to the next street. Or at least office premises with windows overlooking the street. He ran into the shop’s gloom, expecting every moment that in this total darkness he would run across something… or somebody. He slammed into an empty clothing rack which fell with a clang to the floor—but nothing more obstructed his path, except a little debris on the floor. At last, the stake he was holding before him struck a wall. Tony quickly moved along the wall, feeling with his left hand for a door—but instead of a door handle he came across a little switch. He flipped the switch in full confidence that it was useless; however a electric crackle sounded, and over Logan’s head a light switched on. No, not the full illumination of a retail store, but only a single dim ceiling bulb, flickering unsteadily and accreted with a thick fur coat of dust and dirt. But this light still was enough to make out a door farther in a wall… and the dead man blocking the way to it.
It stood directly ahead of Tony, at arm’s length. Its appearance was awful. The face was almost gone: cankered by sores, it had turned into one bloody mess, noseless and lipless. Separate shreds of skin and hair hung down from the head—and here and there bones showed through meat. The clothes dangled in a dirty tatter, the bared teeth grinned spitefully, and gnawed fingers clenched some blood-stained weapon… Without thinking an instant, Tony swung his steel stake into this dreadful face.
It scattered in pieces with a tinkle of glass. Logan stood dumbfounded looking at a bare wall in front of him and at splinters of the broken mirror on the floor.
Only now he understood why he could not be warmed in any way.
Two workers in bright yellow jackets and orange helmets stood on a platform covered with a longstanding layer of dirt and garbage.
“F-faugh, what a mess,” the younger of them said, moving the beam of his flashlight away from what lay ahead of them. “I don’t know when I’ll be able to eat meat again.”
“Yeah, the rats did a real job on him,” the older worker imperturbably confirmed. “If he had no ID on him, he’ll be hard to identify. Well, it’s not our problem any more. Let the cops sort it out. I never understood people who go there of their own will.”
“I think they’re just nut jobs,” declared the younger man and, at the same time, could not help casting one more look there, where his colleague continued to shine his flashlight. “What do you think he died from?”
“Took a wrong train.”
“What do you mean?”
“Never mind, just kidding. Heart, probably… or something like that. It doesn’t look like a crime. But like I’ve already said—let the police do their job.”
“What I can’t understand, is how he got here at all. I heard the lower level of the 42nd Street station was closed before I was born.”
“Yeah, in 1981.”
“There you go. Even the stairways here are almost entirely gone and the entrances are sealed. Unless through the tunnel… but who’d let him in it?”