Creepers by David Morrell Read Free Book Online

blackness, then nothing.
    The rumble of an approaching express train grew, and a vortex of dank air forced from the tunnel pressed against Louise like the moist hands of a stranger. Twin lights broke through the darkness as the train roared into the station on the far track and hurtled past her. The sounds of its wheels clattering over the rails grew in an unending crescendo as the noise pierced her brain like a scalpel.
    Lisa was gone!
    During the infinitesimal moments she'd looked away, something terrible had happened to her daughter. It was her fault! Hers alone!
    It was then, as the last car of the express vanished into the darkness of the tunnel, that Louise began to scream.
    Corelli popped off the cap of a bottle of Miller's, poured it into a chilled pilsner glass, and retreated to the small spare bedroom he used as an office and study. The beer went down smooth, constricting his throat, then releasing it with satisfaction. There was nothing like a cold one on a hot night.
    He kicked off his shoes and sat down in the reclining chair to catch his breath. It had been a long, hard day. Willie Hoyte had forced that poor sucker Thornbeck to ride out to Coney Island twice before letting him off the hook. The most Hoyte could hope from West Side News was a mention in the "West Side Personalities" column. Corelli chuckled at the irony of it.
    He finished the brew with one last long pull, belched grandly, then moved to his desk. There was work to do tonight He was onto something. It had started with the Penny Comstock report that morning. The thought of her disappearance had niggled him all day. Dolchik's explanation that she'd run from an imagined bogeyman was lamebrained; it smacked of "investigation canceled due to laziness." Or worse, a cover-up on the captain's part. Still, the fact remained that this Comstock woman had vanished. A call to Lost Property out at TA headquarters in Brooklyn was a dead end--Penny Comstock hadn't called about her lost purse, nor had she come down to claim it.
    Corelli switched on the light over his desk, flipped on the radio to an easy-listening music station, and opened his briefcase. It hadn't taken much to find the file he'd wanted. He'd just waited until Dolchik left for the day, then opened the captain's office door with a credit card. Illegal? Yes. Immoral? Never with Dolchik. The file had been there, as Corelli expected it would, stuck in the least accessible file cabinet in a bottom drawer near the back. But it was there.
    He turned the reddish-brown folder over a couple of times, almost afraid to open it Corelli had a gut feeling about this. His instincts told him he wasn't going to like what he found; his sense of justice told him that was just too goddamned bad. He was a transit cop. His job was to make the subways safe for the paying passengers, Dolchik or no Dolchik.
    He arranged the file right-side-up in front of him. If it hadn't been for Willie Hoyte, Corelli would probably be reading a book now or maybe watching an old movie on television. But Hoyte inadvertently had tipped him off earlier. It wasn't so much what he'd said as what he hadn't said. Not how he'd reacted, but how he hadn't reacted. Corelli took a moment and remembered Willie's face when asked about people getting lost in the subway. Hoyte had lied when he said he hadn't heard anything. There was recognition in his eyes. And fear. Fear most of all. Willie Hoyte at least suspected something was happening in the hell called the New York subway. And just as soon as Corelli finished reading Dolchik's secret file, he'd know something too.
    He readjusted the light to stall for a few seconds' time, took in a deep breath, then opened the pilfered file marked "MISSING PERSONS."

    September 4
    Tuesday

    Chapter 3
    Corelli stood tensed at the edge of the subway platform. He leaned forward and squinted slightly. He'd seen movement in the tunnel, an almost imperceptible change in the gradation of darkness like shadows passing