The Trouble With Subways

THE TROUBLE WITH SUBWAYS
By Philip Williams

         Officer John O’Donnell hated the subway beat.  Christ, how he hated it.  All night long trapped here underground walking from one end of the subway station to the next, getting on a train to another station then doing the same.  Over and over and over all damned night long. 
         Christ, how he hated it.  But, it could be worse.  He could be assigned the Italian neighborhood.  God damned Whops.  A Mick like him wouldn’t stand a chance there.  Or Vice, that would be worse.  God damned junkies and whores.  Of course there are junkies and whores down here too, but he didn’t have to deal with them as extensively as Vice.  Just these damned working class freaks.
         Freaks that need the subway to get to and from work each day, who complain about crime then look the other way rather than prevent a mugging.  Who refuse to make eye contact and scream about ‘personal space’ then bang a stranger in the mens room.  These are the real freaks of the information age, not the crazies or the drunks or the queers or punks but the everyday asshole and here is John O’Donnell, trapped down here with them day after day.
         Christ, how he hated it.
         John stopped pacing in front of the color coded train lines poster, pulled off his cap and ran stubby fingers through quickly graying hair and watched the crowd.  A fat woman in tight jeans oozed her way through the turnstile, stopped for a candy bar from the canteen then took her place at the platform.  He watched her as she watched the crowd, examining it, searching it maybe for someone familiar.  Her eyes lit up when they fell on a middle aged man in a suit.  He leaned against a support beam with a folded newspaper in one hand and a weather beaten briefcase in the other.  He was about John’s age but lacked the heavy tire around his middle that John possessed.  The fat woman did a coy little girl twist of her ankle and winked at the man frantically.  She made kissing lips at him then darted her tongue in and out of her mouth like a frog searching for flies.  The businessman saw her but pretended he didn’t.  The scarlet rising up his neck into his cheeks gave him away, that and the look of terror in his eyes. 
         The fat woman sucked in her cheeks and flung her blond hair over her shoulder in mock rage then turned her attention back to the crowd.  Maybe there was someone here she could pick up who didn’t see her weight as a liability. 
         John chuckled to himself.  Looks like another night with a Richard Gere video and the vibrator. 
         The green line train arrived bringing with it a fresh batch of people to the platform.  Most of the people hustled up the stairs to the street but one lingered.  These are the ones John keeps an eye on.  These are generally the hustlers, the pickpockets, the scum he was here to protect the rest from. 
         He was a young man, maybe twenty-five and his skin was so pale he almost glowed.  Large dark circles surrounded his eyes like collars.  His dark hair reflected blue in the fluorescent lights.  The boy looked directly at John and smiled.
         And the boy’s smile stirred something in him.  Something he had never felt before, something he had never even considered.  John felt lust for this boy. 
         The boy was not particularly attractive.  He was skinny and frail and one could trace the blue veins through his nearly translucent skin, but there was something about him.  A power, an hunger in him that made John want to be a feast for the boy, even though he had never had any attraction for any man before.
         As he was caught in his eyes John wanted to do anything to please him.  He wanted to drop to his knees and bury his face in the kids crotch, to choke on the sweaty, piss soaked stench there, to drown in the foul pubic hair and take everything in.  He wanted the boy to slam inside him, tear him up, beat his way through John’s guts until it killed him if that is what made the boy happy.
         The boy turned away and the spell was broken.  John no longer wanted the kid.  He was just another  freak here in the underworld.  A hot ball of nausea rose up from his belly.  He steadied himself over a garbage can as he tried to bring it up.  It wouldn’t come, it dropped back in his stomach like a hard bit of coal.  Sweat danced over his temples.
         What the hell was that?  He wondered.  Damned faggots.  Mind tricks.
         But that was impossible, wasn’t it?  A person couldn’t ‘beam’ thoughts into someone’s head like that.  It had to have been the tuna he had for dinner.  Yeah, that was it, bad tuna.  Or the cream in his coffee had gone sour.  That was it.  Food poisoning mixed with the freaky looks of the little pale skinned fag.  He was just an everyday freak like most of them down here. 
         He looked over at the boy again, but the kid had disappeared.  Probably off to find his next fix or to decapitate a cat or something.  Freaky bastard.
         Then he heard the scream.
         The crowd’s mad eyes darted every which way.  Where had it come from?  It was hard to tell.  The tile walls reflected every noise.  It came again, more frantic this time, more desperate.  He couldn’t tell if it was a woman’s voice or a man’s but he could tell the general direction now. 
         John ran towards it.  His belly pushing through the crowds to the ladies restroom.  He kicked open the door and shoved his pistoled fist in the archway and felt his tuna and sour cream coffee try to free itself from him again.
         There was blood everywhere.  The floor, walls and even ceiling seemed painted in the gore. 
         And it covered the woman on the floor.
         The now dead woman on the floor.  Her sweater had been torn open and her left breast drooped from her chest like soft bread dough.  The nipple kissing the bloody tile.  Her chest had been torn open as evenly as her sweater and the woman’s ribs pointed at the ceiling like skeletal fingers.
         The boy, whom John had only moments ago wanted to be violated by sat on the floor beside her, the woman’s heart was in his hands.  He bit into it and smiled.
         “Don’t you move!”  John screamed, the gun shaking in his fist.
         The boy didn’t look as he did before.  His face seemed longer somehow.  When he tipped his head up to catch the warm blood running from the muscle clenched in his fist John realized what was different.  The boy’s mouth and jaw had pulled away from his face giving it the appearance of a dog’s muzzle.  There was a great deal more hair on the boy too.  His face and arms seemed coated with a soft down of brown fur. 
         The crowd had moved in behind the officer.  There were screams and Oh My God’s.  The boy took another healthy bite of the heart and John noticed the boy’s fingers had lengthened.  They were twice as long as any normal persons fingers and they were getting longer, and sharper.  The boy stood, he had to be more than six feet tall now and he seemed to be growing taller.  He took a step towards the crowd and specifically the cop at the front of it.
         John aimed the gun and fired.
         This is what he really hated about the subway beat.  All the God damned werewolves.