"Sleeping-in?" Mocked a familiar sounding voice.
Too tired to rise, Vadik pulled the hood of his dirtied black sweatshirt up over his head, rolled onto his side and fell back asleep on the cardboard sheeting.
...
THUMP!"
A heavy steel-toed boot dug into Vadik's ribcage, forcing him awake. Vadik lifted his face to meet the glare of an old, bearded man - the watch captain.
Breaking from eye contact, the old man looked down at the clipboard in his hands. "You're scheduled to watch the south gate with Jenkins and Mendoza. Is there going to be an issue?"
Wiping the cold from his eye, Vadik shook his head from side to side. "Nope" he mumbled under his breath.
"Well, you're late. So clearly. There is problem." The old man helped himself down from the concrete platform and onto the tracks, then quickly turned back around to face Vadik. "When your shift is up, speak with Dmitry at the front office to get your pay."
"Yeah. Thanks." Vadik mouthed as he watched the old man stumble his way across the station's tracks.
Vadik stepped closer to the edge of the platform, stood upright, and paused. Noise from the commerce area of the station made it difficult to focus.
The adjacent platform was blocked [by the ten-piece train] that now sat disabled on the south-bound rails. He could see people through the windows of the cars. Their figures dimly lit by the potted bioluminescent mushrooms inside the cars.
Shaking himself from a stare, Vadik shouldered his backpack and made his way south down the platform. Yellow and green bioluminescent mushrooms were growing in make-shift pots of irradiated dirt, providing ample light.
Plywood shanteys, tattered tents, individual belongings and their owners were strewn across the platform.
At the end of the platform was a lookout. A rusted steel chair sat behind several sandbags that had been piled onto one another. But no sentry.
Vadik jumped down to the tracks and made his way into the southern tunnel. Large cheval de frise lined horizontally inward from the tunnel walls on either side of the tracks, forcing him to walk between the rails.
The watch was only 20 yards from the station's platforms, but the lack of light here made for a slow walk. The south tunnel was dark, he could feel its weight on his shoulders.
His eyes had just adjusted to the dark as he reached the door to the forward watch.
Vadik stood up, shouldered his backpack, and took a deep breath before jumping down from the platform.
Bay Ridge Avenue"Bay Ridge Ave," -or simply "the bay," as the others referred to it, was the end of the line for humanity down this particular route. Stations further to the south had been abandoned long ago, belonging now to whatever foul spawn of the radiation above had found its way inside.
On the South-bound tracks sat a ten-piece subway car, providing shelter for the station's inhabitants.
Once an important link in the Subway's overall existence, Bay ridge had become a station rarely visited. If not for the 10-piece subway car that now sat disabled on the South-bound tracks, the station would be uninhabitable.
Several years ago, a salvage crew scored an impressive haul of equipment from a station to the south. Gas masks, filters, ammunition, dynamite, crank-powered flashlights, dehydrated fruits and foods, canned goods; just about anything a survivalist would dream about had once been found behind closed doors at the 86th street station. But those days had long passed, and traders who once rushed to Bay Ridge for supplies -to turn at a higher price up North, no longer seemed to care- once the surplus had diminished.
With the lack of traders visiting the station, supplies that had once been a commodity had become a rarity. The inhabitants returnd to a life of cultivating, harvesting, forging machetes, managing supplies and manning guard posts - everybody was required work.
To the north of their station was Lexington. A well preserved station with aged tile flooring and a large mosaic piece painted across the span of several walls. The station here had a line traveling East to Hamilton, and two lines traveling north, one being an express route (running up to 36 st. station) and the other leading to 53rd, 45th, and so on up to the famed station of Atlantic Avenue. Still docked here at Lexington, an F train remained on its tracks - now serving as a place to bunk. One car was reserved for traders and passer-bys, bringing in extra supplies for the station which charged these visitors a small fee for a place to sleep. A cozy place to bunk nonetheless.
With the East-bound line leading above ground to Hamilton, radiation and mutant freaks freely entered at will, creating a major security issue for the inhabitants there until they were able to partially close off the line using the dynamite salvaged from 86th street. The inhabitants attempted to cave in the line nearly a hundred yards short of where it actually began to run above ground. Sadly, their efforts were not entirely effective, and an opening the size of an F-car's doors remained between the new ceiling and the rubbish that had caved in. The initial blast's shock wave must have caused problems up the express line, because mutants began to appear from the long route, causing even more security issues for the station.
Apparently there had been a breach in the tunnel somewhere between there and 36 street station, and the inhabitants at Lexington found themselves fending off a pack of Nosalis. If not for the forge having been so nearby the express tunnel, the populace there surely would have been ravaged. In some 24 hours, the inhabitants at Lexington evacuated to Bay Ridge so engineers could blow the line. Roughly 60 yards up the express, engineers collapsed the tunnel using a majority of the remaining dynamite. Some 45 minutes later, engineer crews attempted to use the few remaining sticks of dynamite to close off the remainder of the line leading to Hamilton.
Vadik was only of nine years when they closed off the tunnels up at Lexington. Both blasts that day had been felt by the resulting shock waves that ripped through the subway tunnels' thick, musty air. Although the second blast was not as powerful as the first, Vadik felt an eery cold rattle his spine.
Several of the engineers were buried alive under the tunnel's destruction. The earlier failed attempts to close off the line to Hamilton had weakened the tunnel's structure, and it was unknown that a second blast from a small amount of dynamite was going to bring the entire line in on itself.
Consequently, in housing the evacuees of Lexington, relations strengthened between the two stations. And, as soon as the inhabitants settled back into their places at Lexington, trade opened up.
With the express route having been blown some 60 yards up the line, Lexington had been gifted with an excellent area with which to cultivate mushrooms and carrots. Due to the foul resonating nature of the dynamite used there, "fresh" soil had to be imported from Bay Ridge to be used in the cultivation efforts.
Life for the citizens at Bay Ridge and Lexington became a dull but necessary routine of exporting soil, breeding pigs and chickens, as well as boiling whatever water they could salvage. Vadik would have none of it.
Very recently, a trader came down from some station up North with Psilocybe Stuntzii spores, which have, to the surprise of all at the Lexington, grown without problem in the gardens here. New teas were brewed and traded containing good amounts psilocybin, allowing the metro dwellers to unwind from their constant fears –although sometimes this only added to them! It was this particular mushroom that had been problematic for the other stations to grow, and in the found success of cultivation here at their station, new traders were arriving from deep corners of the metro, down lines long forgotten by those who lived here.
In the wake of new commerce at Lexington, several families moved in to Bay Ridge from the neighboring station up North, which became slightly overpopulated due to the amount of traffic coming down to trade for shrooms and seemed as though more and more new faces would arrive from the North- only to disappear again forever.
To the South, no such humans ever approached. In fact, the only visitors that came from the south were met with copious amounts of hot lead and jagged steel.
If not for the cheval de frise leading out from their station into the black of the southern tunnel, the station would have easily been overrun from the south by a pack of Nosalis long ago. Deployed in close proximity to one-another, the cheval de frise made the the only maneuverable approach into the station by rail.
Constructed from anything solid the denizens of the metro had found, sharpened, and strapped together into large frames, the cheval de frise were placed in close proximity to each other on either sides of the subway's rails.
Beyond these barricades lay hundreds of makeshift caltrops, formed from scrap bits of iron that had been laying around the tunnels or salvaged from the surface. Scattered about in no definite pattern, the caltrops effectively deterred smaller creatures that crawled the metro's floor, and effectively slowed the advance of larger beasts as they punctured through appendages used in supporting weight.
Two short palisades, made of thick wood salvaged from the radiated surface above, sat on each side of the metro's rails. Sandbags (or more accurately, bags of dirt) were piled up behind these short-standing walls, at which three sentries were stationed at all times.
The southern tunnel to the station was rarely- if ever, traveled. Posing imminent danger, fortifications leading out from the platform- into the black unknown of the Southern tunnel, were built with a set of larger palisades behind the shorter, some 8 feet behind the shorter, and 10 feet out from where the ramps leading up to the station's platforms ended. Thin embrasures were cut into the lower portions of these tall palisades to provide view for an extra hand of weapons to stick out from, should an occasion ever arise.
A gate, held up by three massive hinges, sat between the two larger palisades, and was enforced by a deadbolt, made from a slightly bent piece of iron railing, which had been shoddily discarded in the tunnel by whoever was repairing the metro's lines long before the bombs fell.
Raised platforms, standing 15 feet above the ground, were built at the tops of the larger palisades in order to create two bastions on either side of the tracks. Strips of corroded chain-link fencing, held out by cantilever arms, protruded downward at a 20-degree angle from the tops of these larger palisades.
Upon these bastions sat two carbon arc spotlights (one on either side, wired into the emergency lighting of the metro) as well an old Browning 50 calibre MG, all of which had been salvaged from the burned-out basement of a small house demolished by the atomic blast. It took three full days and several trips for everything to be brought back to the station.
Most of those stalkers who had been a part of the surface-raid party were presumably dead by now, as it was not uncommon for parties to never return.
Accompanying the old 50 cal., were two carbon arc spotlights. One on either side of the station's rails, atop of the bastions. Vadik was always surprised at the resourcefulness of humans, and was alive on the day that these tunnel dwellers were able to smuggle two carbon arc searchlights back to the station underground from a radiated surface filled with horrors beyond belief.
Clearing the obstacles to the North rarely presented a challenge. Seemingly less intelligent, those smaller critters and rats fat from mutation were often found dead, their stomachs sliced wide open by the caltrops, needing to be removed before the stink of numerous days decay drifted into the station. Larger kills were usually rare on this end, the occasional lurker, a Nosalis or two.
Obstacles of the Southern entrance happened to be a different story. Vadik would often find himself removing large decapitated bodies of any Nosalis that had become better acquainted with the business end of the old 50 cal.
On occasion, when clearing the Southern entrance's cheval de fries, Vadik would find himself in horrifying up-close-and-personal interactions with a dying Nosalis. Removing these twisted, broken bodies from the .50's field of fire would consume much time, as they vulnerably thrashed about in attempt to writhe free of such painful captivation.
Armed with only a 1918 trench knife gifted by his long-dead father, Vadik was swift to evade the desperate, yet limited reach of terrifying mouths that snapped and spat vile saliva as their owners attempted in vain for one last meal. Ending the pain had become a second nature to him: one forceful stab of the blade up into the beast's jaw, followed by a quick pull of the knife's hilt from side to side, was enough to create a sweeping motion inside the skull, lethally scrambling its contents, rupturing vital blood lines and severing neuronal connections.
The respiration of a Nosalis in its final moments, would often catch whiff in his nose and cause Vadik to uncontrollably empty the meager contents of his stomach. Laughter would roar out from the carbon arc spotlights atop the bastions, the sentries standing watch knew the sound.
Being the last station to hold human life in that particular line of the Metro posed a constant threat from the unknown, especially from the Southern entrance. Thus, sentry duty was daily required of every man aged 14 and up, who often stood guard twice every 24 hours. Women were trained in handling the weapons (loading, reloading, unloading, cleaning, assembling, etc.), but were never given practice to shoot – ammunition was limited.
Although it seemed nonsense to Vadik, that a family would relocate to a station plagued by danger, he was reluctant to find friendship in the twin brothers who were only one year older than he.
The twins were always getting into trouble. Only two days after their arrival, Losif, the older of the two by one minute, got into a heated argument with another man while on watch at the north gate. Standing 5 foot 9, with more muscle than a Nosalis, Losif was more than a match for the other man who was knocked unconscious by a sharp right hook.
Following the boom of commerce, the station experienced a violent onslaught from the South. Approximately 13 Nosalis charged the Southern line, drawing down a rain of fire upon themselves. Small arms fire opened up from out side the gates – someone out front of the gate firing a bastard. Thick chatter from the old 50 cal thundered into the tunnels, waking everyone in the station as it opened up in controlled bursts, spitting hot, and carelessly dealing empty casings onto the hard wooden floor of the raised bastion.
The cheval de frise did an excellent job of funneling the enemy down the rails, making easy targets for the 50 cal gunner.
Needless to say, the station's defenders made short work of their foe. The only casualty was from one of the men out front of the larger palisades, who twisted his ankle by tripping over the metro's rails.
While he could not complain about the safety provided by that old Browning, Vadik could not help but gripe about the mess it created. Blood was everywhere, painted fresh upon the cheval de frise and splattered up the tunnel's walls.
Blood, it was everywhere, his work clothing would be soaked with it from carrying and removing lifeless mutants from the obstacles, something he absolutely despised.
One of the Nosalis had attempted to jump the cheval de frise and consequently had become deeply impaled through the torso and shoulder by two of the jagged pikes. Weighing something like 200 pounds, Vadik struggled to dislodge the corpse.
Frustrated and fatigued, Vadik stepped back from his work and bumped into something large. Turning to face, Vadik was startled to find Folka and Losif standing behind him.
In a gesture of friendship, the twins helped finish his work. And in doing so, Vadik was easily swayed to accompany them on a short adventure into the tunnel when they asked.
Getting away from the station was a welcomed idea– something forbidden for the residents here at the station. And although he saw a venture into the southern tunnel as extremely idiotic, he was reluctant to join in the company of friends.
Losif carried a duplet complete with a wooden stock, while Foka held an Ashot. Neither of which, Vadik had ever seen the two in possession of until they approached him. He was astounded to learn that the two brothers had swiped the weapons off the guards who had fallen asleep, drunk at their posts. Although he was worried about venturing into the mysterious southern tunnel without a ballistic weapon, Vadik did not ask either of the brothers why the thought never occurred to grab an extra weapon for him.
The three friends spoke softly and walked quietly as they made their way out beyond the station's cheval de frise.
Ambling out beyond the scattered caltrops, it dawned on Vadik that he had never been this far to the South – but neither had the twins.
Light from the carbon arc searchlights began to fade as they delved ever deeper into the black; darkness taking over.
The tunnel began a slight bend to the southeast, light from the carbon arc lights faded entirely from existence. Pausing for a few minutes allowed their eyes to adjust to the thick black. Losif motioned to Foka by waving his forearm out front of him, who responded promptly with a thumbs-up by pulling his left hand from his right hand on the Ashot's pistol grip. Vadik could just make out the outlines of their movement against the absence of light, almost a dark purple in the black.
Moving forward, deeper into the tunnel, Vadik's eyes became more adept to the black. He could now make out the walls of the tunnel through which he walked. Fat cables ran along the inside of the walls, often dangling downward from the ceiling, or split and pulled out/away from the wall where small portions of the tunnel seemed to cave in and pile up.
Walking five feet ahead of both Foka and Vadik, Losif would motion the party to a halt every twenty yards or so, allowing a chance to audibly scout the tunnel ahead.
Expecting death with each step in the tunnel, the three crept ever deeper into the black. A distant chattering like teeth radiated out from the direction of adventure. The party stopped all movement to prepare a stand. Vadik clutched his 1918 trench knife tight in his right hand, and crouched low. Foka shouldered the stock of his Ashot, dropping to a knee for balance as he aimed toward the noise. Losif broke open the duplet, quickly running his thumb over both barrels to double-check for loaded slugs. Perhaps something he should have done immediately after he swiped it, thought Vadik.
"Clack." The sound of Losif closing the duplet sent out a low-volume echo.
Silence.
A deep, barely audible squeak of mutated lungs called out from a rat somewhere behind them.
Scanning the darkness ahead, Vadik could see a collection of bones being illuminated by a cluster of radiated Russula mushrooms some ten yards in front of them.
Still in a state of defense, the twin held fast to their over-heightened alertness. Vadik decided to do the same, and remained crouching some three yards to the left of Losif.
After what seemed like ten minutes, Foka stood up from where he was kneeling and turned to signal his brother with his left hand, his right still clutching the pistol grip of his modified Ashot -complete with a short-extension barreled and wooden stock.
Vadik thought he saw Losif nod back to his brother, but such an action in the dark was difficult to be certain of.
The three continued on, at a much reduced pace in comparison to that of earlier.
After a few more bends in the tunnel, a slightly enlarged tunnel head came into view. The two tracks that ran from their station, split into a combined total of three, as the left most track split here to create a separate line of tracks running parallel to the original two. A railway handcar, sat lonely on the additional track to the left. A small, dim green light sat three feet up from the ground, indicating a turn-switch for the rails.
Off to the right, clinging to the tunnel's side was an opening in the wall. An emergency exit from the tunnels to the surface, as indicated by the sign above, which emitted a dim red light.
Before Vadik could finish observation of the area, Foka and Losif crept over toward the wall that housed the emergency exit's stairwell.
Not wanting to be left alone out in the open of the tunnel, Vadik followed.
Chewed bones and torn clothing. Something he had not observed during his initial entrance into the enlarged tunnel. Skeletal remains of deceased humans huddled up against the tunnel's wall, surrounded by a noticeable number of larger skeletal remains - Nosalis. A last stand, a struggle of will. Those who died here did so in a horrifying battle.
Losif and Foka began searching through the human remains for anything of value - weapons, ammunition, tools, filters, etc.. Finding two suitcases amid the possession of the deceased, the twins began loading their pillaged goods.
Vadik, curious by what lay ahead in the exit to the surface, carefully made his way over the stairwell entrance. Black stains doused on both sides of the doorframe were illuminated in the red glow of the exit sign above.
Blood.
Stuffing his hand into the front pocket of a dead man's dusty jacket, Losif looked up to meet the eye of Vadik, nodding a careful glance when Vadik motioned his intent to enter the stairwell.
Clutching his 1918 trench knife, Vadik was careful to step over the large steel door that had been bent and broken off its hinges, now laying useless upon the floor.
The first flight of stairs was on his left, upon which lay two skeletal human remains, a bleak look into the fate that could soon be true for him as well.
Step-by-step, the air he breathed began to thin into something unwelcome to his lungs. Sitting atop the third flight of stairs was a a skeleton with a gas mask still strapped to its skull. Planning ahead for radiation, Vadik decided to grab the gas mask and two spare filters which were stuffed into the front pocket of the deceased's tattered trench coat.
The concrete corridor leading up to the surface took another flight of stairs before leveling off to a small concrete hallway with a room on the right and a steel ladder directly ahead. The steel ladder lead some 20 feet up to a hatch that was cracked open, moonlight finding its way through to illuminate the concrete, causing Vadik's eyesight to readjust.
Greedy to see the outside world, Vadik pulled the gas mask to his face, yanked the straps tight, and stepped past a clutter of skeletal human remains toward the ladder. Flying up the ladder to the opened hatch, Vadik braced his feet tight on the top step of the ladder, providing him strength to push up on the hatch.
The hatch refused to move.
He had not come this far to be defeated so easily by a mechanical failure. Frantically pushing on the hatch, Vadik quickly drew tired as he huffed air through the filters to supply his lungs.
Resting atop the ladder, just beneath the jammed hatch, Vadik peered through the small opening to the surface. Moonlight shone warm on his face as he stared into the half-moon suspended high in the black of night. A black silhouette of the city's charred remains was barely distinguishable through the bright moonlight, a reticent sight.
Recalling his two friends below in the tunnels, Vadik pulled himself from a pacified state of awe, autonomously descending the ladder with haste.
Turning from the last step of the ladder toward the stairs, Vadik came face to face with a hulking black figure, nearly two feet taller than him, standing in the doorway to the room that he had overlooked in his ambition to stand on the surface.
Looking up and into the face of his new contact, Vadik nearly forgot to breathe. A flap of skin below the eyes raised intermittently to reveal a large set of incisors beneath a fleshly snout. The mutant's head appeared small in size, situated in front of enormous trapezius muscles of the shoulders that seemed to have been fused together into the back of its skull. Extending more forward than out from its forced slouch of a posture, were two thick elongated arms, with obscenely large brachioradialis muscles in the forearms, complete with immensely mutated fists.
"Leeeave…" exhaled the creature in a deep bass tone, so near to his face that the moisture in its breath fogged the outside of his gas mask.
It almost sounded human.
Vadik reacted explosively, easily catching the headfirst-leaning beast square in its face. With the knobbed, brass knuckle guard of his 1918 trench knife, Vadik's upper-cut smashed into the creature's mouth, making a horrible shattering sound as it's sharp teeth became broken and useless.
Stumbling a step back from the blow it had just received, the beast wound-up, and came fast, all in one motion, with a massive punch to Vadik's torso that slammed his back up against the concrete wall behind, causing him to drop his knife somewhere among the cluttered remains of broken human life and dreams.
Unable to breathe from the large hit he had just received, Vadik crumpled over, onto his hands and knees, becoming better acquainted with dead bones and cold concrete.
Regaining control over his body as his lungs opened back up, Vadik picked-up a dusty, black, aks-74u, out of the lap of a skeleton over which he had fallen.
Pushing himself off his hands and onto his knees, Vadik swung his torso 90 degrees left, to face his foe.
The beast was not where he expected, in fact, it wasn't anywhere to be seen.
Wobbly in the knees, Vadik cautiously rose to his feet, watching, waiting, for his opponent. The aks-74u, poised at his hip with its metal shoulder stock folded up by its previous owner, aiming into the pitch black of the unexplored room.
A deep, low growl emanates from the lightless room.
Moments pass.
Adrenaline pumps.
Out from the black, extends a mutated arm to the concrete floor, flexing callous black muscle as it braces to support the owner's weight. Stepping from the shadows and into the light provided from above, the beast reached out to grasp Vadik by the face.
The aks-74u spit fire.
Recoil of the aks-74u being shot from the hip caused the ensuing rounds to follow an upward draw. Near inches apart, four bullets ripped into the monster's chest, a fifth tearing straight through where the neck and trapezius muscles had been mutated together by years of radiation. Blood misted out from the chest wounds. The exit wound in the shoulder spattered blood on the concrete doorframe behind.
The creature shuddered and stumbled back two steps, reaching for the puncture wounds in attempt to alleviate the sting of lead.
Vadik's chest heaved; fogging the gas mask. Sweat poured from where the seals pressed tight against his face.
Not giving in to a second look, Vadik flew down the stairs, turning left twice as each set ended to fly down another case. Ripping the gas mask back off, overtop of his head by the filter.
As he turned a final left to descend the remaining flight of stairs, Vadik accidentally stepped down on the femur of one of the skeletons. His right foot slipped out from under him as he shifted to support his weight.
Somersaulting forward down the stairs, Vadik fell face first at the very bottom, his chin smacking into the concrete, stretching his neck out involuntarily as his body swung forward from the momentum, making it very difficult to breathe.
His heart pounded, his head was pounding.
Breathing again, only to cough as he inhaled the dust that had become unsettled from his topple onto the floor.
Lifting his face from its temporary rest to survey the area, Vadik frantically scanned the dark for his friends. Looking through the door-less emergency exit into the tunnel, he could see an empty spot where the railway cart had been sitting earlier when he followed Foka and Losif into the widened portion of the tunnel.
Holding his breath to listen for their voices, Vadik could hear only a loud silence, deafened from the AKS firing earlier in the stairwell.
Vadik was struck, inside, somewhere in his chest, a heavy feeling of isolation. He was no longer in the company of humans.
Allowing his head fall back to the cold, dusted concrete, Vadik closed his eyes.
Silence
"Don't dream while you're awake." The words of an arms trader who happened by their station when he was younger jumped to the front of his mind.
Pulling himself from confusion, Vadik's attention was quickly consumed by the realization that he could not support weight with his left foot.
Crawling, yet dragging his brokenness, Vadik pulled himself up to sit against the concrete wall, directly across from the stairwell's opening into the tunnels, the stairs on his right.
Gently running his hand down the left leg to investigate a burning sensation, Vadik sunk ever deeper into a state of increasing remoteness. His hand felt where the fabric in his pants had become torn, a thick wet of blood soaked into the fabric where a shattered bone protruded through skin and fabric alike.
Trying to pull the blood-soaked fabric from the wound nearly caused Vadik to pass out, forcing his hands to drop helplessly from their work, his body crumpling forward into an uncomfortable sit.
His breathing rate grew much irregular amid the silence; cries of pain and distress were held back; he knew they would help him nothing.
Alone.
The red light emanating from the emergency exit sign on the outside of the stairwell was enough for him to spot the silhouette of his AKS-74u, lying near him by the bent metal door that had been broken off its hinges.
Leaning far left and forward, Vadik stretched out his arm just enough to get his fingers around the weapon's cold barrel.
Dragging the weapon atop concrete made for a beautiful sound, a soft monotone echo inside his concrete coffin.
Sitting, Vadik rested his back against the concrete wall behind him. Pulling the weapon's magazine from its snug hold in the AKS, Vadik held it up in the faint glow of red light.
Five reflections of red glimmered off the cartridges that resided in the magazine. Six rounds remaining, counting one in the chamber.
Darkness.
Pain.
Silence.