Chapter 4: Subway Encounter (2)

This had to be fake.

Of course it was.  I saw it all the time.  Just because I don’t have a smartphone doesn’t mean I’m uncultured.  There are plenty of prank videos online.  People dress up as killer clowns or hide in plain sight as trash cans or shrubbery.  They wait for some innocent passerby and ‘boo!’; everyone laughs and the day is saved.

You see, the dawn of the new millennium brought about the internet age where technology had bred a whole generation of people that would do anything for clicks.  Spend thousands on realistic costumes just for someone to ‘smash that like and subscribe button’.

Except this didn’t feel like a prank.

A prank was supposed to leave me feeling bewildered, everything happening in quick sequence without leaving him any time to think.

The homeless man’s actions had been slow.  Deliberate.  Almost like it wanted me to see.

I flew through the subway station, thoughts befuddled by the rapid biological response of glucose being pumped to my legs –pulling from my digestive system, muscles and even my brain.  Hell of a time to remember my biology class.  But through all that, the sound of talons scrabbling on granite flooring was the foremost on my mind; strong and chilling, intense and certain.

Even in my dead sprint, my eyes tracked the rest of the station.

No one here.  Just me.  Running.

Rapidly approaching the turnstile, I jumped it easily –years of practice from being a scrawny orphan in a bad part of the neighborhood.  Normally, this was enough to discourage any pursuers from giving further chase.  This was the part to slow down and take the stairs easily.

I ran even faster.

Fueled by blind fear, I took the stairs two at the time.  I just had to get out of the station.  Outside, in the cold, would be people.  Pedestrians, restaurant owners closing shops, a couple making out in the dark.  Anyone who might be able to help me when I screamed for help.

The moment I left the subway station, strong chilling gusts buffeted me, almost blowing me off my feet.

“Help!”  I screamed out, barely getting enough air in my lungs for a second cry.

Cold.

  “Someone! Help!”

Useless words echoed in the empty street, bouncing off the dirty buildings and their closed storefronts.

Without wanting to, I slowed to a jog, eventually coming to a complete stop. My lungs were broken, they had to be.  I looked around in disbelief.  One of the streetlamps near me buzzed incessantly, the only source of noise in this otherwise silent street.

New York, the city that never sleeps.  I grew up here.  There were people walking the streets around the clock. Not tonight though.  And no matter how much I convinced myself, the lack of human presence was just as real as the flickering streetlamp.  I kept looking around, trying in vain to find someone.

Nothing.

The emptiness was disconcerting.

My head ran through all the possible impossibilities and came up empty of coherent thought from the sheer hopeless of this situation.

The clicking sound continued and I turned around.

Immediately, I wished I hadn’t.

At first, I thought the thing was wearing a coat –like that yellow big bird from Sesame Avenue, the kid’s show.  Just black.  But no, the thing was in its birthday suit as evidenced by the twisted thing dangling between its legs.

It moved on all fours like a primate, using long feathered arms that were too bulky to be wings.  It leapt up the stairs, taking four and five at a time, crashed into the wall and scrambled for purchase on the stone, using its claws to hold on.  The creature’s head was a bird skull mask thing, which continued to tilt, reminding me of a barn owl in search of prey.

Searching for me.

It was terrifying.

“Oh god.”  I gasped.

Its head snapped straight towards me.

The thing heard me.

Slowly, its beak spread open.

It didn’t scream so much as it made the air vibrate.

I wanted to run, but my legs were all wrong. They had turned to jelly.  The muscles had stopped once already and the sudden exertion had left them tired, a fact that my brain kept reminding me of.  More than that, the scream had done something.  I briefly remembered reading somewhere that tigers can roar at infrasonic frequencies to rattle prey.

Stopping in the middle of the street was the worst thing I could’ve done.

“Help!”  I kept trying.

The creature’s slowly climbed down the wall, giving me another sickening view.  It was primal and wrong all at the same time.  Like looking at something ancient that took the wrong route up the evolution skill tree. 

An embarrassing cousin that evolution left off its family tree because it didn’t fit well in the grand scheme of its design.  Embarrassing as in sociopathic serial killer embarrassing not spike the punch kind of embarrassing.

I just stood there, frozen.  My brain coming up with random useless facts and my mouth itching to say jokes, but nothing was being helpful.

Helpless.  Trapped.

Afraid.

“Someone… help.”  My breathing was coming quicker now, but quieter too.  All wispy.  Coming out wrong.

It dropped low to the ground, slithering towards me on all fours.  The skull sniffing the ground.

The air felt like lead, suffocating me from the inside out with every new breath.

“Please.”

I tried to struggle, spazz out, do something but my body refused to listen.  A small bit of laughter escaped my mouth and the creature slinked towards me.  Whimpers began to slip through, driving the creature into a narrowed focus.

All I wanted was to see what my parents left me.

That earliest longing for a warm touch, a mother’s hug and a father’s praise.  It leaves a hole in you, a gaping wound so raw that you’d do anything to fill it.  Anything.

The whole thing had been weird from the start.  Some nonsense about secret society and wealth.  Honestly, I could have done without all that.  All Emyrith had to do was flash that letter and he would have had me, hook, line and sinker.

Now I’d never–

She came hurtling out of the darkness in a ball of pink, neon green and bright orange.

The girl streaked out of god-knows-where and freaking shoulder tackled the monster in a shoulder block that would have made NFL coaches give a standing ovation.  She had to have been fast, because she was five and change, tops.  But she slammed into the homeless bird so hard that he actually lost balance and went crashing into a trash can, landing in a heap of junk.

“Come on,”  She grabbed my hand, breaking me out of that stupor and started pulling me with startling strength.  “Move, Hallow.”

My legs began working again and I sprinted down the streets, my blood a roaring torrent in my ears.  My heart was about to explode but the girl kept pulling.  She wasn’t just keeping pace with me but dragging all hundred-sixty-pounds-and-change of me with her.

Just when I was about to collapse, she slowed down.  I yanked my hand out of hers, stopping immediately.  My vision spun and drool flowed freely.  A part of me wanted to throw up, a purely biomechanical reaction to everything that had happened so far.  Confusion is just as a strong nauseating factor as car sickness.

“We should be ok now.”

I glanced up.

My savior wore this oversized track jacket that was the mixture of bright colors I saw before.  Pink, neon green and bright orange; the color of sugar, spice and everything nice.  She was built like one of them too.  Slim like a runner, petite like a cheerleader and baby-blue eyes that pierced through the orange glow of the street lamps.  The whole set. 

But it was really the hair that drew my eye.  Jet-black near the roots, brunette in the middle and cheerleader-blonde at the tips with pink-and-blue highlights.  I’d seen plenty of people with strange hair colors before.  But it was the way her hair reflected light, appearing nearly seaweed-green or ocean-cyan as she moved her head.

And just as much as I was studying her, she was studying me.

She sniffed, wrinkling her cute button nose for just a second.  “You ok?”

“I–”  I panted, trying to catch my breath.  In the end, I resorted to holding up a finger.

Giving me a cocky smile, she waited.

“I’m ok.”  I gulped down another fistful of air, “You?”

She raised an eyebrow.  “I'm not the one gasping for breath.” Her eyes locked onto the space behind me, over my shoulder. "That thing... what was that?"

“You... are asking the wrong person.”

The girl frowned, “You don't know.”  She said and looked at me like I was slow.  “You're supposed to know.”

“A lot of that going around lately.”  I managed to heave out.

Too much breathing. Not enough oxygen. Had to breathe more.

Her eyes softened and I knew that I was safe. She stood up straight, which wasn't much in the way of height. But what she lacked for in height, she made up for it with self-confidence. One of those girls who didn't really care what anyone else thought, just going about minding her own business.

“Are you hurt?”

“You already asked me that.  I’m… I’m fine.” My breathing was slowly coming back under control.

“Good.” Almost as an afterthought she added, "You're lucky I was there."

“I could have taken him.”  I joked.

I looked over my shoulder to double-check that the creature wasn't there.  It wasn’t. Just pavement and parked cars being drowned by snow.

She smiled, the nicest thing I've seen since laying my eyes on my father's letter.

"Funny." She said, "So you didn't need me?"

“Uh…”  I looked down at myself.  My clothes were fine, albeit my hoodie being drenched in sweat.  I still had my pink ‘Girl Power!’ backpack.  Hell, unless you were counting my pride, I wasn’t hurt at all.

“You did.”  I admitted and I tried to meet her eyes with my own, to let her know that I was being sincere.  “I owe you one. What the hell was that? The fuck? Should we call the cops?" The questions began to spill out.

She beamed at me.  “Good.”  She turned around, jogging down the street, “Be seeing you, Hallow.”

“Wait, what?!”

She was already more than halfway down the street.

I thought about chasing after her but realized that I was standing in front of fancy glass doors; one of those commercial office buildings with a lobby and everything.  I recognized the address; this was where Emyrith’s note told me to come.  

An elderly doorman came out with an umbrella.

“Sir, would you by chance be Jain Hallow?  Here for an appointment with Emyrith Lin?”

“Y-yeah.  That’s me.”  I stammered, not because I was startled but because I was cold.  The snow was falling in full force and even if it wasn’t a friday night, tomorrow would have been a snow day. for students  Soon, there’d be garbage trucks with their industrial-sized shovels, cleaning the sidewalks.  But New Yorkers have a sense about these things –we were in for the annual New York blizzard.  By tomorrow, the roads would be blocked in regardless of what the City did.

“Right this way then.”

“Thank you.”

As the doorman ushered me into one of those fancy gold-painted elevators, I wondered one thing.

…How’d she know my name?