Primeval (Werewolf Apocalypse Book 2) (25 page)

Michael chuckled. “I doubt it would take very long. Well, that only leaves one option.”

“I don’t like where this is going.”

“You’ll have to swim over here.”

“How about you swim to this side and I wait patiently?”

“Don’t be such a pussy,” Michael said. “This tunnel leads farther away, toward Brooklyn, if I have the signs right. Your side leads back into Manhattan, where all the werewolves are.”

“You
did
see the big fucking monster swimming in that water, right? What the hell is it, a shark? Some other mutant?”

“Oh, I think it’s just an alligator.”

“
Just
an alligator?” John stammered. “That sucker’s got to be at least ten or eleven feet long.”

“More like thirteen or fourteen. Hey, you wanted your ‘alligators in the sewer’ story. There you go.”

“I didn’t want it quite so big. Or so close up and personal.”

Michael leaned against a wall, folding his arms in front of himself. Despite the grime that covered him from his swim through the nasty water, he looked calm and in control. John, meanwhile, was sweating like the only hooker at a Shriner’s convention, and his hands were actually starting to shake.

“I don’t see its shadow,” Michael said, peering over the edge of the pool. “It’s probably at the bottom, resting.”

“‘Probably’ isn’t going to cut it this time.”

“How about this – you’ll probably die down here without me. Come on, John. I made it and I was all discombobulated. If you dive and swim, you’ll cover the distance in no time.”

“How fast are alligators?” John asked. “I seem to remember something on PBS about them being really fast.”

“It’s a huge creature stuck in a small space without much room to maneuver. I don’t think you’ll have any problems if you’re quick about it.”

“I haven’t been swimming since I was a kid.”

“Just like a bicycle.”

“Bicycles sink in water.”

John thought it over for a moment, looking at the room. Barely beneath the water, all the way around the partially submerged room, there was a half-inch border of brick. Above that was a mosaic, which had lost so many tiles the subject was unfathomable. The brickwork looked a little slippery – algae covered parts of it – but it seemed sturdy.

“I could walk around on this little ledge,” he said, pointing out the protrusion. “Then I wouldn’t have to get in the water.”

Michael leaned over and tested a piece of the brick. It didn’t budge, but it was slick with a coating of what could be sewage. He shook off his fingers and turned back toward John.

“It’s slippery.”

“I really, really don’t want to go in that water.”

“Then what other choice do we have?”

John stepped from the tunnel, placing his left sneaker on the little ledge. His foot nearly slid out from under him, but he leaned back against the wall, feeling the mosaic tiles beneath his back. Widening his hands and spreading his legs apart so his feet stuck out pigeon-toed to the sides, he moved onto the shelf.

A quick glance told him he had to move about ten feet before reaching the first corner, then he had a fifteen-foot stretch along the far wall, then another ten feet after the second corner. In normal times, he could have covered the distance in a matter of seconds. Now, he was ever so slowly inching his way along the first wall. He moved his left leg out, then closed the gap with his right, always keeping the toes pointed outwards to maintain the greatest contact with the inch-wide shelf. He teetered a few times before arriving at the first corner, but he managed to keep his balance.

The corner was fairly tough. He had to raise his left foot while slouching into the bend with his shoulders. When he lowered his foot, it slid, and he would have toppled into the pool if his fingers hadn’t found a hold where a piece of brickwork had crumbled, creating a chink in the wall. He clung to the spot for a while, breathing heavily. Eventually, he moved his other foot, rounding the corner, and he started creeping along the shelf again.

Stretch out one leg, close the gap. Over and over again, six inches at a time.

“I hate to bother you, John,” Michael shouted. “But our friend looks like he’s rising up for a better look at you.”

“Oh no.”

John glanced down into the water, and a dark shadow was becoming clearer by the second as the animal rose from where it had been resting on the bottom. The reporter moved faster, covering another two feet before he could look down again. The shape was growing distinct as it ascended, becoming more and more alligator shaped.

By the time John had reached the second corner, the creature was floating on top of the water, a thirteen-foot log with teeth and a white scar across its snout. It was facing the opposite direction, and it paddled its tiny legs, turning to face the tasty treat precariously balanced above it.

John cried out, tried to get his second toehold around the bend, but he slipped on a patch of green algae, and his foot shot out from under him.

The alligator opened its jaws as it continued its awkward turn in the water. When it snapped its mouth closed, the sound was like a bear trap slamming shut, loud, terrifying, and deadly.

John held on to a crevice in the wall, his fingers digging deeper into the crumbling mortar for a decent grip as his right leg swung out over the water. Pieces of the brickwork yielded to his efforts, and he maintained his position, even though he was still a good nine feet from the tunnel entrance where Michael waited.

“Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit,” John said, repeating it like a mantra as the huge alligator faced him.

Its long body was perpendicular to the tunnel entrance, its tail smacking the surface of the water in agitation. Its thorny back was ridged, and its bulbous saurian eyes stared at John, who was hanging desperately onto the widening fissure in the wall.

Until a brick came loose in his hand, sending him backwards, his arms windmilling as he tried to regain his balance.

The alligator opened its jaws wide and waited for the human to drop conveniently into its teeth-lined mouth. It made a hissing sound, as if it were an enormous angry cat.

Michael reached for the reptile’s tail, which fanned back and forth lazily.

And John lost his balance completely, his leg headed directly for the alligator’s open maw.

The primordial beast swam forward a bit, the better to grab hold of John’s moving leg.

John pushed himself away from the wall, and he overshot the creature’s mouth, stepping on the top of its bumpy snout. His weight snapped the alligator’s mouth closed, and he pushed himself forward, keeping one hand on the wall for balance. He ran across the gator’s back as it thrashed to extricate this human passenger. John’s hand hit the wall, and he righted himself, taking another couple of steps across the reptile’s back. He felt as if he were walking a wide, lumpy tightrope. He reached the tail, which was now swishing in agitation. There was only about a foot to go until he joined Michael on the ledge of the tunnel, and he looked up to see the man holding out his hands and shouting at him.

“Grab my hand, John! Grab it!”

The alligator started sinking into the water, driven down by John’s weight. It paddled with its little feet, swiveling its neck to get at the escaping meal.

With a lurch, John leapt from the sinking back of the alligator, reaching out. Michael leaned forward and caught his outstretched hand. John landed, chest against the tunnel’s edge, his legs still in the murky water.

And the alligator was turned and swimming toward him.

“Haul me up!” John shouted.

Michael pulled, and John used his elbows to drag himself out of the water. Michael kept pulling, drawing the reporter several feet farther into the dark tunnel. Then he released him, and they both fell to the floor, breathing hard.

“You should’ve just swum across,” Michael said, raising himself to his feet and leaning forward, hands on his knees.

“Did you see that?” John asked, giggling, pumped full of adrenaline. “Did you see me run across that damned gator’s back? Like I was in a freaking circus.”

“Uh…”

“That was amazing. I can’t believe I did that.”

Deep in the room, from the darkness behind them, something roared. Something huge.

Behind them, from the pool, came the sound of sloshing water. Then the click of long toenails on a hard brick surface.

“Uh, John. You better stand up, man.”

“Why?” he asked, turning a bit.

The alligator heaved itself up from the water onto the floor, not ten feet from where John was resting. It strained to lift its bulk onto the concrete, and it scrabbled with its black-clawed feet to move its entire body onto the dusty pathway of the tunnel.

“Aw shit,” John said, jumping to his feet and stepping backward. “He isn’t gonna give up, is he?”

“Doesn’t look like it,” Michael said, backing into the tunnel.

“How fast did you say these things could go on land?” John asked, now shoulder to shoulder with Michael.

“I didn’t,” he answered, taking a few more steps. “You’re the one who watches PBS. I don’t even have a TV.”

As the gator finally pulled its entire thirteen-foot-long body onto the floor of the corridor, it glared at them with its slitted yellow eyes. It opened its mouth and hissed, exposing its ragged teeth.

Then it took a step toward the two men.

Fumbling against each other, they spun on their heels and took off running down the tunnel.

Ahead of them, they heard the sound of breaking glass, then more roaring as though some Japanese kaiju monster was royally pissed off.

Behind them, the alligator started loping forward, moving swiftly for such a bulky animal. It continued to hiss at them as it chased them down the corridor.

“This way,” Michael shouted, pointing, and the two men whipped around the corner.

The alligator seemed to actually be gaining on them, comfortable in its environment. As it turned the corner behind them, the animal hit the wall with its muscular tail, sending bricks and mortar flying across the hallway.

“Head for that ladder!” Michael shouted.

John saw the metal rungs pounded into the wall up ahead. The rungs led to a portal on the floor above them.

“Hell yeah,” John shouted, right behind the thinner, faster Michael.

The alligator snapped its jaws open and shut, trying to catch one of the fleeing men.

Michael grabbed one of the iron rungs, and it pulled out of the wall into his hands as though it had been planted in butter. He fell back into John, who pushed him forward again.

The thirteen-foot reptile was only eight feet away and heading toward them like a locomotive.

John wondered,
How is something that damn big so damn fast?

Michael grabbed the next rung daintily. Crumbs of mortar dripped from where it had been banged into the concrete, concrete that was now old and fragile. Michael pulled himself up, showering John with mortar dust.

“Be careful,” he said. “These rungs could pop out at any time.”

The alligator was two feet behind them, snapping angrily at the escaping prey.

John reached and started pulling himself up as Michael disappeared into the level above him. The reptile reached the bottom of the rungs and latched onto the cuff of John’s pants. It began pulling backwards.

John grabbed tighter to the rung he was holding, only eight steps to the hole where he would have been safe. He called out for Michael, and the other man popped his head back down, reaching for the reporter.

The rung John was clutching started to slide out of the concrete and mortar. The alligator, sensing imminent success, tugged harder at John’s pant leg.

“Here,” Michael shouted, reaching down for the man.

John grabbed hold of Michael’s hand, and the homeless man started to pull.

The alligator, divining his dinner’s escape, pulled as well, and John’s pant leg started to rip.

“Pull harder!”

Michael strained, placing his legs on either side of the portal. He heard the fabric of Michael’s pants tear over the alligator’s frustrated huffing. With a final rip, John was free and the reptile fell backward with a swatch of torn fabric in its mouth. Michael went flying in the opposite direction, without the alligator on the other side of the reporter tug of war, and John was yanked painfully against the rungs. His head hit the pieces of iron, splitting the skin on his forehead, then he was two-thirds of the way through the manhole and his ribs smacked against the side of the exit. He cried out, but it didn’t stop him from crawling on his elbows until he was entirely out of the tunnel below.

Looking down through the hole, he screamed, “Fuck you!” at the huge animal, which was walking back and forth in a thwarted mania. It hissed up at the two men.

“Same to you,” Michael said.

And the huge thing in the tunnels that they had heard earlier roared again, a sound of triumph and bravado. It sounded closer this time, as if only a few turns in the tunnel away.

Then, the sound of gunfire erupted through the warren of passageways.