{"id":373,"date":"2009-07-03T06:16:51","date_gmt":"2009-07-03T11:16:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.greatsociety.org\/?p=373"},"modified":"2018-10-30T22:40:13","modified_gmt":"2018-10-31T02:40:13","slug":"judgment-day-part-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/?p=373","title":{"rendered":"Judgment Day: Part 4"},"content":{"rendered":"

Miss a chapter? You can navigate easier right here<\/a>.
\n<\/p>\n

After that, he was aware only of darkness.\u00a0 No sense, no feeling.\u00a0 Just a strange, drifting motion in his head and stomach.\u00a0 Was this death?\u00a0 Thoughts lanced across his mind with more clarity than he had ever known.\u00a0 But not a life in review, just mundane ramblings.\u00a0 Guesses and ideas about what was happening, the sensation of the girl next to him and how she felt against his body.\u00a0 Random thoughts, each one feeling like crystal shattering inside him; a perfect element to their noise.\u00a0 The thoughts came slow, too, as if they were growing, rising, then falling again in some alien gravity.<\/p>\n

Was he unconscious?\u00a0 He tried to open his eyes but couldn\u2019t.\u00a0 It was the eye-watering smell of burnt plastic that brought him out of it.\u00a0\u00a0 Cautiously, he looked up.\u00a0 The tinted glass in the driver\u2019s door had melted, the area around the windows and the rear door blackened.\u00a0 He climbed shakily to his feet and looked through the broken window into the dark car.\u00a0 There was a light up ahead, what appeared to be flames from the lead car, and no sign of the crazy woman or the other calm people.\u00a0 No sign of any movement, just the shadowy mounds of the dead.\u00a0 An image his overworked mind accepted without a flinch, though he knew horror would come to him in his future dreams.\u00a0 If he had a future.\u00a0 The Style Section girl was awake, too.\u00a0 She clutched his hand and he helped her stand up.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat a perfect end for a pathetic life,\u201d he muttered.\u00a0 The door was warped and he had to throw his shoulder against it to get it open, then he led the girl out of the cab and moved carefully down the aisle.\u00a0 She leaned against him, wide-eyed and silent.\u00a0 Outside, on the catwalk, the bodies of all his fellow commuters were scattered and burnt, some leaning against the train, others sprawled on the narrow walkway.\u00a0 Inside the car, a few people lay broken over the seats.\u00a0 The darkness was oppressive, most of the emergency lights having blown out in the fireball. It was enough, though.\u00a0 He didn\u2019t want to see the full picture, he wanted this to be some sort of dream, a fevered illusion.\u00a0 The smell was sickening, and that was enough for his imagination.\u00a0 He turned back and faced the narrow emergency exit that would drop them down to the tracks.\u00a0 Maybe that would be the better way to go, backtrack to the Forest Glen station and head away from fire and a trainload of corpses.<\/p>\n

\u201cOkay,\u201d he said to the girl, his voice barely moving above a scratched whisper.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019re going to head back.\u201d\u00a0 He started to lead the way but she stopped him.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re closer to the Wheaton station.\u201d She whispered, \u201cI don\u2019t want to walk a mile or more through these tunnels.\u201d<\/p>\n

Daryl grabbed her shoulders, \u201cLook, it\u2019s the tunnel or forward into fire and a few hundred corpses.\u201d<\/p>\n

She didn\u2019t reply.\u00a0 Staring ahead, she drew a breath and closed her eyes,\u00a0 coming to grips that the impossible was happening to them, the regular world had just left them behind over the course of a few minutes.\u00a0 Then she spoke, her voice breaking, \u201cWe\u2019ve got to get out of the tunnel\u2026\u201d she sucked back a sob and grabbed his wrist with both her hands.\u00a0 \u201cMy God, what happened?\u201d<\/p>\n

Daryl closed his eyes and nodded.\u00a0 She was right.\u00a0 They were only a couple minutes from the Wheaton station, and the walk back through a mile or more of darkness to Forest Glen didn\u2019t settle well.\u00a0 But, the bodies.\u00a0 The thought of facing them, in darkness or in light, was almost too much to process.\u00a0 There was more, too.\u00a0 The bizarre people who had attacked them just before the fireball.\u00a0 What had happened with them?\u00a0 What caused such inhuman behavior and focus?\u00a0 He squeezed her hand and, with his other hand, tilted her head towards his so that their noses touched.\u00a0 \u201cWhat\u2019s your name?\u201d he asked softly.<\/p>\n

\u201cMolly\u2026\u201d barely a whisper, a terrified breath.<\/p>\n

\u201cOkay, Molly.\u00a0 I\u2019m Daryl.\u00a0 We\u2019re okay. We got through the worst of it, right?\u201d<\/p>\n

She shook her head.\u00a0 No.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to go out the back here, then get up onto the walkway.\u00a0 We\u2019ll head to Wheaton, like you say.\u00a0 Okay?\u00a0 There\u2019ll be help there.\u201d<\/p>\n

She nodded, looking over her shoulder towards the walkway, but there was nothing to see.\u00a0 She blinked, two tears rolling down her soot-covered cheeks.<\/p>\n

Daryl jumped down onto the concrete track bed.\u00a0 He put out his arms and helped Molly down, then he lifted her up onto the raised service platform and climbed up beside her.\u00a0 They both stood for a moment, staring down towards the fire at the front of the car and the piles of shadows filling the platform between them and the yellow-orange glow.\u00a0 He wondered about the air, which must have been pumped into these tunnels.\u00a0 If that system was down, too, they probably didn\u2019t have much time.\u00a0 Where were the emergency crews?\u00a0 Flashlights, shouts, help from above?<\/p>\n

He kept his eyes ahead, but it was slow moving through the dead, his fellow commuters.\u00a0 He tried to pick his way between the bodies, gingerly tiptoeing and, occasionally, walking with his body pressed hard against the side of the train or the wall.\u00a0\u00a0 The air was stale with the stench of burnt flesh and plastic, leaving a foul taste in the back of his throat.\u00a0 He watched for signs along the wall indicating an emergency exit for workmen.\u00a0 Something to get them out of this hell as quickly as possible.<\/p>\n

They hadn\u2019t even made it past the length of the car before Daryl felt as if he were about to throw up.\u00a0 The tunnel was filling with smoke and he was having trouble focusing on the faint firelight ahead.\u00a0 Molly\u2019s sweaty hand was clutching his so hard it started to feel like it was pressing against a central nerve,\u00a0 jumping through his body like a current.\u00a0 Her panicked breaths had turned to choking sobs.<\/p>\n

The lead car was burning, though the fire seemed to be contained.\u00a0 There wasn\u2019t much to burn, anyway.\u00a0 The carpet and the pools of plastic and vinyl beneath the seats gave off weak, low flames.\u00a0 The front end of the car was crumpled, a broken mass of smoldering metal.\u00a0 Along the side of the wall, where the train had been rocked off the tracks, electrical sparks sputtered from the wires that ran in shielded conduits along the walls.\u00a0 There would have been no walking away from this but, six cars away, they\u2019d been spared.\u00a0 Then Molly\u2019s hand pressed against his back and he turned.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy are we stopping?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n

He shook his head, blinking.\u00a0 Had they stopped?\u00a0 Jesus, how long had he been standing in place staring into the smoke?\u00a0 \u201cWe need to get out of this tunnel,\u201d he muttered.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, no kidding.\u201d Her voice was sharp and low.\u00a0 He looked down at her for, but her eyes were fixed on the fire ahead.<\/p>\n

They started walking again, coming up along the wrecked lead car, and were able to make out several figures standing against the low flames.\u00a0 Daryl stopped again and Molly bumped into him.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat?\u201d she asked, peering around him.\u00a0 \u201cPeople?\u00a0 How\u2019d they live through it?\u201d<\/p>\n

He shook his head.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI guess we see if they need help,\u201d he muttered, his words slurring a bit.\u00a0 There was no defining the trepidation he felt as he approached the shattered doors of the lead car.\u00a0 Something was very wrong, the world had been turned upside down, and as he peered through the melted, blackened windows, he realized it was impossible that anyone could have lived through the fire.\u00a0 Six cars and an emergency platform full of the dead yet, here, standing against the low flames, four people stood motionless, staring down at a cluster of five others.\u00a0 The group of five were all on the floor, looking up at the other survivors with undisguised terror.\u00a0 The four standing looked like severe burn victims \u2013 skin charred and blackened, the remnants of their clothing mingling with melted flesh.\u00a0 They showed no sign of pain, not even discomfort.\u00a0 Their stares were calm, fixed on the group of survivors who must have worked their way up the platform as well, just steps ahead of them in the blackness and inching towards the light of the lead car.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 But these burnt people\u2026it was impossible.\u00a0 No one could survive those wounds, no one could stand like that with such unwavering calm.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s wrong with them?\u201d Molly whispered.<\/p>\n

When she spoke, the closest of the burnt people turned and looked directly at Daryl.\u00a0 He couldn\u2019t tell if it had been a man or a woman, even when it smiled with white teeth and stepped closer to the window.\u00a0 Daryl\u2019s eyes widened and he stepped back into Molly, who seemed paralyzed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere it is,\u201d the burnt person said, a woman\u2019s voice.\u00a0 \u201cSame as earlier.\u201d<\/p>\n

Daryl swallowed, his gaze still transfixed by the ruined face.\u00a0 \u201cDo you\u2026do you need help?\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the other burnt people laughed, \u201cHe does not know!\u201d<\/p>\n

The one who had spoken first, her smile unwavering, said, \u201cWe don\u2019t need help\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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