Carefully, Quinn turned around and started crawling back to him.
'I'm not leaving you, man. We've lost enough people today.'
The shots were sporadic now.
'I'm coming, Steve! Just hold on!'
He made it back to the doorway and put his ear against the cold steel.
The gunshots had stopped, both Steve's and the zombie's. All he could hear was a high-pitched squealing.
Slowly, he opened the door. The rusty hinges creaked.
Quinn gasped, horrified at what lay before him.
The squealing didn't belong to the rats. It was coming from Steve. The tunnel was flooded with wriggling, rotting vermin. The brown, furry creatures were almost six feet deep in places. If he weren't seeing it, he would have never believed there were this many rats in the world, let alone New York. They crawled overtop one another to reach the ledge. The human zombies waded through them, toward the doorway that Jim and the others had disappeared into.
Steve's arm jutted from the sea of rats, like a buoy in the middle of the ocean. The rest of him was buried beneath the squirming mass.
Incredibly, his fingers were still twitching, his fist clenching and unclenching.
'Steve!'
Quinn crouched on the edge of the service ledge, and reached for Steve's hand.
'Get off him, you little fuckers!'
The rats chattered angrily, and Quinn was sure he could hear words-formed by creatures that lacked the necessary equipment for speech. Attracted by his outburst, the human zombies turned, and raised their weapons.
Quinn grabbed Steve's hand. Steve's fingers curled around his. Quinn pulled. His friend didn't budge. He jerked harder, and suddenly, the arm came free. Quinn stumbled backward, knocking his head against the concrete wall. Steve's arm came with him, their hands still clenched together.
The rest of Steve stayed with the rats.
Gibbering, Quinn tossed the severed arm aside and turned to run. A rifle cracked. The first shot caught him in the leg, but he felt no pain. The second round punched the breath from him, and brought a muted burning sensation. Teetering, he fell backward, landing on top of the writhing masses. Hundreds of razor sharp teeth and claws ripped at his flesh. It felt like thousands of tiny needles piercing his skin.
Quinn opened his mouth to scream and a small rat scrabbled inside it, stretching his cheeks as it forced its body farther into the orifice.
Its nails slashed at his tongue. Blood welled in his mouth. He was unable to spit it out because the rat blocked his airway. He tried to move his arms and legs, but the creatures' combined weight kept them pinned. His lungs pounded, desperate for air. The last thing he saw was a large rat's misshapen, decaying head, darting for his eyes. Then there was a bright flash of pain, and then he saw no more.
Quinn sank to the bottom of the pile.
Forrest awoke in the dark, soaked to the bone. When he opened his eyes, the darkness did not dissipate. He grimaced, tasting blood, and spat. Gingerly, he explored his mouth with his tongue, and found a gaping hole where a tooth had been.
He was half-submerged in a pool of warm, stinking liquid. He shuddered to think what it was. Slowly, he rose to his feet, sloshing out of the foulness, and checked the rest of his body for injuries. No broken bones, but he was bleeding from at least a dozen different cuts and abrasions.
He stood there in the darkness, shivering and dripping with slime, and tried to get his bearings. He'd been crawling along the tunnel, feeling his way, when suddenly, the floor had disappeared beneath him. He remembered falling, so surprised that he hadn't even had time to shout a warning to Quinn-and then he remembered no more.
'Must have blacked out,' he said aloud, and immediately wished he hadn't. His voice echoed off unseen walls, sounding strange and alien to him. When the noise faded, the silence was deafening.
He knelt, feeling around beneath the pool's surface for his weapons, but came up empty. He checked his belt and was relieved to find that he still had an unused glow stick and his knife. He grasped the hilt and pulled it from the sheath. The feel of the blade in his hands was comforting.
Forrest stood still as stone, snapped the glow stick, and waited for his eyes to adjust. The liquid came halfway up to his knees, clinging to him. He wondered again what it was. Finally, he dipped a finger into the pool and brought it to his lips, tasting it. Water- brackish and foul, but only water.
At least it isn't shit, he thought. Even so-I'm in a world of shit anyway.
He cocked his head, listening for anything that would indicate his location and whether or not he was alone. Water dripped, but other than that, the silence was as solid as the blackness around him. There were no shouts or footsteps or even gunfire, nothing that meant the others-or the zombies-were nearby.
When he could see, he edged forward. He was in an old, unused tunnel, left over from an earlier era. The walls were circular, and lined with crumbling, red bricks. Lichen and mold clung to the cracks, and a thin stream of brown water trickled along the floor.
He debated whether to call out for Quinn, or to remain silent. If there were zombies nearby, he didn't want to alert them to his presence. But what if Quinn had tumbled down after him, and was hurt or unconscious?
He couldn't just leave him here.
'Quinn?'
The darkness didn't respond.
