Judgment by Tom Reinhart Read Free Book Online Page A

their faces a mixture of “did I dream that” and “what do we do now”. Joe was at the end of the maintenance alcove, looking both directions into the darkness of the subway tunnel. “I don’t hear anything,” he called back, “A few people maybe, far up the tunnel. They sound hurt.”
     
                  Steve’s fear was still paralyzing him. “What if those things are still out there?”
     
                  Joe answered with what now seemed his usual charm. “Well, we won’t know if we sit here and fucking starve to death, will we? I need to find a bathroom and something to eat,” he barked. I nudged Jennifer awake. In another time this would have been a great moment to savor, but not now. Now I watched her face change from the peaceful forgetfulness of sleep, to the fearful remembering of our situation.
     
                  “I don’t want to stay here any longer either,” Margie added. “I want to see what’s happening. Maybe it’s over.”
     
                  I joined Joe at the end of the alcove, and glanced out into the tunnel, both directions offering nothing but eerie dark silence.
     
    “Maybe.”
     
                  Joe stepped off the raised platform, his dirty dress shoes landing with a clap on the tunnel floor. The rest of us followed, slowly, carrying what weapons we had. I helped Jennifer ease off the platform, her bare feet cut and bruised, her high heels somewhere back in the lobby of our office. “I don’t think we should go back where we came from. Let’s go forward to the next station.”
     
                  In the dim light coming from the alcove I could see Joe look at me and consider my words. He seemed to seriously weigh our options before answering. “Yeah, might as well. But hang on a second.” He turned and walked over to the opposite side of the tunnel. I saw him face close into the wall with his back to us, then I heard his zipper open, and the inevitable stream of urine puddling at his feet. “Anyone else? Might as well do it right now. Watch the third rail.”
     
                  No one moved for a few seconds, until a moment of self-evaluation made us realize Joe was right. I guessed none of us had gone all night. I watched Margie move twenty yards back in the direction we had come, into the dark where no one could see her squat. Jennifer gave me a sheepish look, and joined her. Steve was the only one that didn’t move. “I went earlier,” he announced, looking nervously up and down the tunnel. I wondered for a moment where in the little storage room he had urinated.
     
                  Once we had all taken care of our bodily needs, we began moving further into the tunnel, away from the station where we had been attacked. Nobody wanted to go back that way, and every now and then behind us we could hear the sounds of people calling out for help in the darkness; people in agony, people dying. The unknown ahead was somehow more comforting than the horror of what we were leaving behind.
     
                  The tunnel was a stark contrast to what it was the day before. There was no one running through, no screaming, and no cell phone lights frantically moving back and forth. The smell of death hung thickly in the air though, body parts still strewn around on the tunnel floor. For a brief second I thought I saw an arm moving, but wrote it off to rats having breakfast. I also realized we hadn’t heard a subway train come through all night, not since the one that took out the angels, and almost us.
     
                  We walked through near darkness, the only light a few dim fluorescent fixtures remotely scattered every fifty yards on the tunnel wall. Many weren’t working; while others were so dirty and filled with dead bugs they offered little light. There was just enough light here and there to guide us forward, hugging the walls to avoid any chance