Ack! Sorry about the multiple postings. The site isn't being very nice at the moment, and keeps screwing with my text and spacing only AFTER I've put the chapter up - and I'm too anal not to try and fix it. If it doesn't work properly this time, I'm just going to leave it. If you notice any glaring mistakes, just know it's not me. ;)
Title: The Genesis Strain
Author: furygrrl
Archive: Just ask first
Rating: R - for language, violence, and gore
Disclaimer: Not mine
Author's Note and shout outs have been left to the end - except this one:
I've never been to NYC. All the information used in chapters set in the city, including this one, has been gleaned from places like Mapquest, the NY Port Authority site, and the La Guardia homepage. I hope anyone familiar with the Big Apple will overlook any errors or discrepancies I might make. :)
"Hi, you've reached the voicemail of Jean Grey. I can't take your call at the moment, so please leave a message!"
Static...
"Jean? Jean! It's Kitty - oh God, I hope you get this message - I - I hope you're o-okay because - because I really need your help!"
Shallow panting...
"I was sleeping in one of the airport lounges and then there was all this s-screaming and - and people were running around - covered in blood and - God, Jean! They were killing each other! They were - they were - I didn't know what to do! I r-ran - I phased through a w-wall and just ran! I thought maybe I could get some help - the police or - or something, but outside...outside was worse! There was blood and more people and - and a man! A man with half his face ripped away! He grabbed me and tried to b-bite me, but I got away - I phased right through him and I - I don't know how many others. I'm in a - in a restaurant across from the airport, but most of the front windows are smashed in, so I don't know how much longer I can stay here..."
Sobbing...
"Jean...please! Please come and get me! I don't know if I can -"
Shattering glass...
Shrieks...
"Oh no...oh God - STAY AWAY FROM ME! STAY AWAY FR-"
Screams...
Screams...
Screams...
Silence.
"To save this message, press '7', to delete it, press '9'. If you would like to..."
Chapter Seven: Escape From New York – Part One
New York City, New York
June 27th 9:32 a.m.
After long minutes spent traversing streets not only crawling with homicidal cannibals and their panicked prey, but choked with all manner of wreckage – overturned buses, smoking cars, and tangled lines of abandoned taxis – some still carrying gory tokens of their former fares – Evan and Jean managed to find temporary refuge.
Parked in an empty mechanic's bay at 'Benny & Sons' Auto Garage' on the corner of Tudor City Place and East 42nd St., they took a few minutes to collect themselves before embarking on the next leg of their journey. One that all but promised to be fraught with a level of danger neither had experienced up until that point.
"Are we really doing this?" Evan finally asked in a frightened whisper.
Jean took a deep, shaking breath, and nodded. "You heard that last radio report. The Queenboro Bridge is completely impassable, and the Williamsburg Bridge is too far away."
They were peering out the Explorer's windshield, only instead of watching for movement on out on the road ahead of them, both stared apprehensively at a gaping black mouth a block away – their ticket out of Manhattan, and quite possibly, the gateway that would lead them to their deaths.
The Queens' Midtown Tunnel.
"I'm afraid we don't have any other choice," Jean added softly.
"I still don't like it," Evan said, shifting nervously in his seat. "Looks like a tight fit, even on foot...too many cars blocking the way. No lights, either...and what's with all that smoke?"
"Probably something burning inside," Jean replied absently as she started rooting through the glove compartment. "Don't worry, I can keep the smoke away from us until we get past it."
"Call me crazy, but suffocating's the least of my worries right now," the younger boy muttered before turning to her with pleading eyes. "Can't you just...you know – levitate us or whatever? Those freaks won't be able to get us if we're twenty feet over their heads, right?"
Jean sighed and briefly met his gaze. "I really wish I could, Evan, but it would be too much for me. I can barely keep us shielded properly now, let alone carry both of us over such a long distance. After all that's happened, I'm just...too drained."
He nodded his understanding slowly, though he slumped just a little bit more. "So the tunnel it is," he agreed darkly, rotating one of his shoulders and wincing as if it pained him. He started rubbing it gently and continued. "What's the plan once we're in Queens? It's gotta be at least a hundred blocks to the airport."
"I know," the redhead replied, opening a map she'd discovered and scanning it quickly.
The streets of New York and its surrounding boroughs stared back at her, all squiggles of coloured ink and tiny letters, each seeming, in Jean's frustrated mind, to take delight in showing her just how daunting a task she'd set herself. She located La Guardia at once, then the tunnel's position, and traced a fingernail, rimed in dried blood, between the two points.
"Jackson turns into Northern Boulevard...then the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway connects with Grand Central Parkway...which runs right in front of La Guardia." She worried her lower lip for a second, considering the potential route before finally exhaling heavily and refolding the creased paper.
"Well?" Evan asked anxiously, still waiting for a full reply.
"I don't think we'll have any trouble finding a car on the other side of the river, so hopefully we won't be out in the open for long," Jean started, crawling over her seat and into the SUV's trunk space.
Evan didn't take his eyes off the world just beyond the half-open garage door, but he could hear her slightly muffled voice regardless.
"Once we're mobile again, we'll try taking the direct way – straight through Queens."
"What if the streets there as bad as the ones here?" he asked her apprehensively. "What if they're worse?"
Jean popped up from behind the rear seat and climbed into the front again, now clutching a black nylon bag that she opened as soon as she was sitting. "We can only pray that they're not," she said quietly, pulling a set of jumper cables from the bag and dropping them to the floor. "No point in worrying about it anyway, it's out of our hands. We'll just have to make do the best we can," she went on grimly, extracting a flashlight next and checking to see if it was functional. It was.
Evan didn't say anything to that, knowing she was right no matter how much he wished otherwise, and simply watched her sort through the contents of the Explorer's emergency kit his dad had put together a few months previous.
A can of tire sealant joined the jumpers, as did an AAA guidebook and a pair of coarse cotton gloves, leaving the flashlight, a package of spare batteries, a small first aid kit, three flares, and two plastic ponchos.
Jean added the map and dropped in her blood-smeared cell phone, checking first to see that it was still on, before zipping the bag closed again. "Okay." She inhaled deeply and turned to her teammate. "I think it's time to go."
Evan swallowed and unbuckled his seatbelt with trembling hands. "I still can't believe we're doing this," he maintained fearfully, flinching at the sound of Jean unlocking her door, and then again when he felt her grasp his forearm unexpectedly.
"Hey." Jean's voice was soft but firm.
He glanced over at her.
"We're going to be fine. We'll find Kitty and be on our way home before you know it. Just...try to hold on to that, okay?"
Staring into those fatigue-shadowed green eyes that shone with determination, at that weak smile of reassurance, at her pale face, freckled with pinpricks of dried blood and set in lines of certainty, Evan almost believed her.
And for the moment, it was enough.
He nodded and offered her a faint smile in return, and together, they exited the car.
Although it was still a few hours shy of midday, the interior of the garage was already uncomfortably warm and stale with the lingering fumes of motor oil. Jean's nose wrinkled of its own accord as she moved to the front of the car, but consciously she paid the chemically scented room no heed; there were too many other things to claim her undivided attention.
Primarily, the deceptive stillness just beyond the large retractable door ahead of her.
Cautiously, she moved up to the partially exposed opening and crouched against the wall next to it, motioning for Evan to do the same on his side. When he complied, she turned her gaze to the street and began searching for signs of danger.
Do you see anything? She asked Evan telepathically a minute later.
No, he thought back to her. You?
"Nothing," she replied in a hushed whisper, rising to her feet and slinging the nylon bag over her shoulder. "But that doesn't mean a whole lot. The tunnel's a good distance away, and anything could be hiding in that traffic mess we're going to have to pass through."
"Don't remind me," Evan muttered, reaching for the hand she extended.
Together, they crouched once more, taking one last, precautionary look at the path and its surroundings, steeling themselves for the run of their lives. And then, without warning, Jean ducked under the door and pulled for him to follow.
I'll keep us shielded as long as I can, she told him silently as he stumbled after her. Just do what you did before – keep moving, keep quiet, and don't let go of my hand!
Evan nodded in unspoken assent despite the fact that she couldn't see him do so, and raced along in her wake, adrenaline surging through him so forcefully that he was gasping and light-headed before they even cleared the sidewalk.
The sky was now the typical jewel-toned blue of an early summer morning, contrasting sharply with the wisps of cotton clouds that dotted its broad expanse. Against that seemingly endless cobalt tapestry, the golden blaze of the sun hung suspended, like a brightly glittering holiday ornament, near blinding in its efforts to heat the breeze rolling off the East River which, for once, carried no odor of rotting fish or spoiling garbage.
Bare feet slapping urgently against cracked and tarred pavement, Jean refused to consider the beauty of the day. It was abhorrent to her, incomprehensible, that anything – even the heavens - could retain a sense of normalcy after the denizens of hell had been unleashed. She doubted even hail and lightening would be a suitable enough backdrop for such horror, but would have traded sunshine for the fiercest storm in a heartbeat.
The uncaring sky – in all its profane perfection - simply made that which was already impossible to bear all the more hideous.
The eerie parking lot of backed up vehicles loomed just ahead.
Hurriedly, she swept her musings aside and refocused on those unmoving lines.
She could see that some cars were unmarred, their doors flung wide, motors left idling, as if the driver intended to return at any moment. Some had run into their neighbours and bore the telltale injuries of the meeting – punched-in windshields, the hiss of a disturbed engine, crumpled fenders and tailgates. Others, however, told not of abandonment, but of a forcible relinquishing.
In those increasingly frequent cases, bold sweeps of blackening blood had been liberally splashed across both road and interiors, the gruesome artwork accentuated, more often than not, with hunks of what could only be human flesh.
Identifying those crimson globs, marbled with cream-coloured veins of fatty tissue and the bolder starkness of cartilage was difficult at first – most seemed to have been blanketed under some kind of slickly writhing darkness.
When Jean couldn't stop herself from taking a closer look at one of them, she nearly gagged, finally coming to realize what those undulating masses of oily movement were.
Flies, thousands and thousands of flies, lured by the warm stench of death, were now feasting on the macabre buffet that had been spread for the scavengers.
Don't look, Evan...don't look...don't look... was Jean's telepathic mantra as they passed those bug-covered body parts; one, a suspiciously oval-shaped object that was so encrusted with the gorging green-backed insects that if fairly pulsated with new life.
But the pair's hurried movement unintentionally stirred up the humming congregation, revealing the true nature of that particular secret meal, and good intentions fled in the face of morbid curiosity. Both teens darted a quick glance back, their misgivings instantly confirmed and then drowned under roiling waves of revulsion.
It was a head, topped with a fan of short black hair. Blood had dripped and dried in rusty streaks from a soundlessly screaming mouth and a nose denuded of flesh. Cheeks had been ripped open, exposing molars and the red pit-like cavities of the inner mouth. The ragged stump just under the chin that had once been a neck still sported a length of rubbery arterial vein and a segmented stretch of remaining vertebrae.
Beyond those ghastly markers, nothing – age, gender, ethnicity – was distinguishable.
"Jesus..." Evan choked brokenly, his hand spasming around Jean's convulsively as they rushed onward.
"It's okay," she said, swallowing the acrid bile that threatened, struggling to keep calm and distant. She pulled at him, urging him to greater speed. "We're almost there, we're almost there..."
And they were.
The tunnel's entrance, devoid of light and belching a steady stream of noxious-smelling smoke, was only a few paces away, the slanting shadow it cast already offering slight respite from the day's heat.
"Other side's clearer," Jean noted as they approached, seeing that the charred remains of an ambulance, a delivery truck, and no less than three taxis, had merged to form a veritable wall of twisted steel blocking the lane they were in.
Shrinking the teke shield slightly so that their legs were free to navigate that metal jungle of crushed autos, the redhead headed towards the furthest of the four lanes, her heart thumping madly as the seconds of exposure without incident seemed to stretch beyond what could be credited as possible.
Please God, just a little bit longer...just a little bit –
A hoarse, coughing cry behind her, followed by Evan's startled shriek of terror, signaled the end of their good fortune.
"JEAN!"
Without warning, the hand she held was suddenly wrenched from her grip, and she whirled, intending to deal with whatever danger had surfaced, but Evan, now thrashing erratically, knocked her off balance before she could.
The tight dimensions of the surrounding cars, coupled with the flowing nightgown tangling around her legs, sent her reeling into a violently awkward sprawl. She fell, felt something hard connect with back of her skull, felt a rapid succession of painful flashes – along her scalp, her hands, her shoulder, in head and neck – the latter making her vision dim for the briefest of seconds.
Awareness was regained with desperate urgency, and Jean blinked, her breath hissing out from between her clenched teeth when a variety of places began stinging and aching all at once. She ignored the hurt, and dazedly looked to her teammate.
He was on the ground a car length away, his arms flailing and legs kicking as a pair of broken hands, locked around his ankles, dragged him towards a figure slithering out from beneath a battered red Volvo.
Jean got the merest glimpse of a shredded face, an open mouth gurgling with bloody saliva, white eyes that gleamed with equal parts hunger, intensity, malevolence, before a series of wickedly sharp bone spikes erupted from Evan's fists.
There was a mournful groan of disappointment, a shuddering as grasping hands slackened, and then the creature stilled completely, its gruesome face now bristling with a forest of lethal quills.
Evan sat stunned, gulping huge mouthfuls of air, until he kicked the thing's dead hands away with a horrified whimper. Crab-like, he scuttled backwards and bumped into Jean, another shout of fright bursting from him when their bodies connected.
"It's okay – it's me," Jean said quickly when he turned with another spike forming under his wrist. "It's...just me," she repeated wearily, lifting a hand to swipe at a trickle of sweat sliding from her brow when the light of fear dissipated from his gaze.
But her fingertips encountered something thicker than perspiration.
Frowning, only dimly aware of Evan's sharp intake of breath, Jean lowered and examined her hand.
It was bright with blood.
"You're bleeding," Evan confirmed belatedly.
Jean nodded dumbly, still staring at streak of red glistening against her skin, feeling the thin rivulet of moisture continue to slide past her ear and down her neck. "I fell," she murmured as the younger boy squeezed into the cramped space next to her.
Evan stared at her critically for a moment, taking in the scrapes on her shin and palms, the shallow scratches on the nearest of her upper arms, then the long, weeping gash that started at her temple and disappeared into her hairline. It wasn't deep or bleeding profusely, but it worried him nonetheless - he'd seen similar on the skateboarding circuit, and knew that the seriousness of a head wound couldn't be judged by sight alone.
He leaned towards her, trying to get a better idea of the damage, when a piercing wail drifted from somewhere nearby. "Shit," he swore, looking around nervously before turning back to the redhead. "Can you walk?"
Jean nodded again, her eyelids fluttering heavily. "Yes," she whispered.
Evan rose into a squatting position, letting her brace herself against him as she did the same, and continued to scan the impromptu junkyard fearfully.
Another howl floated to his ears – closer now – before morphing into a discordant chorus when the cry of a second, then a third, creature joined in.
Evan's heart started stuttering wildly when a not-too-distant pick-up truck creaked under the weight of something clambering atop it. He darted a glance at the struggling telepath, still gamely climbing to an upright position, and reached for her with anxiety-bred impatience.
"Just lean on me," he muttered, tone clipped with fear, as he flung her arm about his neck and wrapped one of his around her waist.
Jean sagged into him as he hauled her up, wincing at the dull throbbing that invaded her being with the movement, and staggered when the world lurched dangerously.
Spurred by the barking screams and stomps of approaching footsteps, Evan wasn't inclined to give her a chance to wait out the dizziness. Half leading, half-dragging her, he managed to bring them the last few steps to the very edge of the tunnel, releasing her only when the jumble of mashed machinery made it impossible to go any further.
"C'mon Jean, we gotta climb over to get inside," he coaxed urgently, alien sounds now coming from either side in addition to the ones behind.
"You go first," she insisted softly, trembling fingertips touching her forehead. "I just need a second...don't worry, I'll be right behind you."
"Are you sure?" he asked dubiously, torn between wanting to protect his obviously injured friend, and the desperate need to escape the hunting killers that would be upon them any moment. But her nod dissolved the indecision, and without hesitation, he began scaling the wreckage.
Jean watched him maneuver his way across the buckled hood of a squashed sedan, as he leapt - as nimbly as stocking feet would allow – atop a station wagon that had flipped onto its side, and then, as he crawled on hands and knees down the wagon's crushed length.
A howl of excitement broke the tense silence of their getaway, and Jean knew that she didn't have any more time to delay. The pounding of feet, the delighted crooning of discovery, the chill wave that suddenly swept through her system - all told her that she'd been spotted.
And that something was coming for her.
She started climbing as quickly as she could, pulling herself up and over the squashed sedan, tripping and falling in her uncoordinated haste against the station wagon before managing to scramble on top of it, each precious second lost filling her with panic.
It's going to get me...it's going to get me! Shrilled inside her head, her pulse pounding with painful intensity alongside that silent scream as she waited – waited for the first brutal touch of hands or teeth tearing into her exposed rear.
Neither had come by the time she'd crawled to the end of the wagon, but the booming echo of feet on the sedan behind her told her in was only a matter of seconds before that fear became reality.
"Hurry, Jean!"
She could see Evan standing on the tunnel floor below her, his spiked arms motioning for her to jump the 7 or so feet down next to him, her joints locking, freezing her in place when her vision began swimming with light-headedness.
The wagon suddenly trembled with new weight.
Jean willed herself to move and pushed herself off the car and into the darkness, narrowly avoiding the eager hand that swiped for her hair. She landed hard, but on her feet, and stumbled over to her teammate who was already busy shooting down the maniacs that were determined to have them.
But the minute one fell, two more rushed in to fill the void, and Jean could hear – could see – even more trying to push past their brethren from without. Their shadowy silhouettes showed no sign of dwindling, while Evan by comparison, was already beginning to weaken.
The bone spikes being produced were smaller than previous ones, and the time between launches started to stretch.
Determinedly, Jean closed her eyes and fought through the ache in her head, tears forming under her lashes when her teke didn't respond. She gritted her teeth and kept on trying, swaying with the effort.
We can't die now...not here...not after everything that's happened...please...not like this...
Like a blessing, warmth flickered faintly through the haze, and she latched onto it before it could fade, establishing the connection and then urging the power to swell and strengthen, her sluggish brain burning as it tried to resist her frantic pull.
Adrenaline helped to dull the agony and she opened her eyes, focusing immediately on the tunnel's cavernous ceiling. With deftness borne of desperation, she probed the smooth cement, blindly seeking a crack, a bit of crumbling mortar, any kind of flaw that she could use to their advantage.
Just as she found one, Evan faltered and crumpled to his knees, exhausted.
"I...I can't...I'm sorry...I'm sorry," he sobbed, flinching visibly when the crowd of attackers surged over the barrier that was their fallen companions, and the first of many jumped lightly to the small pocket of space he and Jean occupied.
The redhead didn't have an opportunity to waylay his dread. She was concentrating – on pushing back the wave of death rolling over the vehicular graveyard, on keeping the monsters at bay when the area around them was cleared, and then on the spider-webbing of miniscule fissures she'd located above the tunnel's entrance.
Jean forced the tendrils of her mind into those small pockets of damage, digging deep, pushing hard, trembling with exertion when her first attempts yielded nothing more than a powdery rain of dust. She kept working, disregarding the bite of sweat invading the cut at her temple, the distracting itch of the blood slowly slipping down her face, the discomfort of muscles contracting with the strain of her labours.
Survival, retaining a hold on her powers; they were the only thoughts that gripped her.
There! She thought triumphantly, feeling something give way under her probe.
A section of concrete fell from above and struck the top of a car with shattering force.
Encouraged, she scrabbled for more, and was rewarded when another chunk of rock, followed by another, and then another, fell amongst the screaming horde like the beginnings of a cement shower – a shower that became a veritable avalanche within seconds.
The tunnel shuddered.
Evan, still on his knees, watched with an expression of awe as Jean's heavy-handed assault battered and struck down members of the slavering group on the other side of her tenuously held shield. He could hear her shallow gasps, and when he looked up, could see her face gleaming with sweat, the tendons in her arms singing tautly against her skin, her narrowed eyes, feverish with purpose.
The tunnel groaned.
Something pinged off Evan's head, and he turned his gaze ceiling-ward, instant anxiety clutching at his insides when he saw the widening cracks in the rock above them. "Jean! The tunnel's collapsing!"
His announcement drew no response from the concentrating telepath. He tugged at her arm. "Jean! Stop!"
"No," she insisted breathlessly, shaking off his grip. "Gotta bury those bastards."
Dirt and support beams were crashing down at the tunnel's entrance, stealing what remained of the daylight and filling the air with clouds of gritty dust.
"You're gonna bury us!" Evan shouted wildly, his words dissolving into coughs.
He'd just thrown an arm over his head to protect it from the hail of sediment, sure that Jean had finally snapped and was going to kill them both, when suddenly, the noise, the shaking – everything – stopped.
Almost disbelieving, Evan wiped the dirt from his face and blinked, squinting into the new dimness, shocked by the sight that greeted him.
The front of the tunnel was now completely caved in, and the threat from without had been effectively sealed off.
They were safe – for the moment.
A flood of relief surged through the younger boy at realizing this, and he turned to the telepath, admiration shining in his eyes. "You did it, girl! You flattened those freaks!"
Jean was slumped against a car frame, tangled locks of hair hanging in her face, nearly bent double as her body heaved for breath. At Evan's voice, she lifted her head and nodded once. "I guess I did," she panted weakly as she pushed herself into a standing position.
Even in the dark, Evan could see how unsteady she was, and he frowned. "That was some serious shit you just pulled. Don't you think you should rest for a minute?" He murmured worriedly, holding out a hand in case she needed his support.
"I'm fine," Jean replied softly, ignoring his hand and slipping past him.
There was a rustling sound, then the rattle of a zipper. A loud click echoed a second later, and a pale yellow beam burst forth from the flashlight Jean was now holding, its illumination brightening the area around them and the path ahead for about ten feet.
It showed pretty much what she'd expected.
Empty cars, some crushed, some not, scattered tires, twisted fenders, the glitter of broken side mirrors, taillights, smashed window shards, and very little room to maneuver.
A swirl of something dark rolled serpent-like through the beam of light, drawing her attention.
Smoke, she remembered absently, peering ahead to see if she could determine its source.
Nothing but the darkness stared back.
She suppressed a shiver and instead trained the flashlight on the results of her telekinetic handiwork one last time.
No point in worrying about where it's coming from anyway, she told herself grimly, satisfied that the blockage would stand firm against anything the mob outside threw at it.
Because smoke or no smoke, there's no going back now...
"No going back," she repeated aloud, the whispered words sounding ominously final to her ears.
"Did you say something?" Evan asked, shifting from foot to foot nervously.
Jean shook her head, wincing when she did so. "No," she murmured, using her sleeve to dab at the bloody cut by her brow and then motioning for him to fall in behind her. "We should probably get going, though. We've got a long way to go, and Kitty's still out there somewhere, waiting for us."
The teens started to move, gingerly stepping around the obstacles that littered the path, their moods subdued and their hearts heavy at being reminded of their missing friend, both sick with uneasiness at the unspoken fear each privately considered.
Kitty's out there, waiting...unless she's already dead...
A/N - Yay! An update! Sorry about the delay - I work as a nanny, so with all the craziness of a new school year, it was difficult to find time to write. Now that the kids are finally settling into their usual routine, hopefully 'me time' will be easier to come by!
Yrch - ::claps delightedly:: Did you really squeal?! I'm so happy to hear that! Scogue stuff is positively alien to me, so it's a huge relief to know I didn't completely screw it up. As for the pairings - I'm a fan of surprises myself. I won't announce them, and if people choose not to read because of that, oh well. I'd be a hypocrite if I said I didn't do the same thing. ;) And yes, still no reason for concern, despite this recent chapter. There will be no Jevan or LoRo in this fic. There will be several triangles, though, and pairings I've never written before. I hope you will approve when they emerge. ::evil grin::
Foenixfyre - Hey grrl! Thanks so much for swinging by to review! Incoherent or not, it was appreciated. Heh heh...glad to know my untutored 'horror abilities' are actually working. ;)
Purity Black - Right on! DotD 2004 ROCKS! Yes, it's kinda lame, and there's the unavoidable cheeze factor, but I can't help loving it. Just like RE2, it was filmed right here in Toronto, and of course, the updated zombies kick ass! I just got my own umm...perfectly LEGAL copy, and have been watching it religiously for the past two weeks. (I know, I need help).
As for the BH hooking up with the X-teens - your wish will be granted after the next chapter. ;)
And to anyone else who might be reading - I hope you continue to enjoy! :)
