The guy dead-eyed him. "Suit yourself," he said, switching off a tripod lamp and then hoisting a pack onto his back, starting after the others.
Vasiliy watched them go, lights playing far down the tunnel, darkening along a gradual turn. He heard the screeching of subway car wheels, near enough to concern him. He went on, crossing to the newer track, waiting for his eyes to acclimate themselves to the darkness again.
He switched on his monocular, everything going subterranean green. The echoing of his footfalls changed as the tunnel broadened to a trash-strewn exchange near a convergence of tracks. Rivet-studded steel beams stood at regular intervals, like pillars in an industrial ballroom. An abandoned maintenance shack stood to Vasiliy's right, defaced by vandalism. The shack's crumbling brick walls featuring some artless graffiti tags around a depiction of the twin towers in flames. One was labeled "Saddam," the other "Gamera."
On an old support, an ancient track sign had once warned workers:
WARNING
LOOK OUT FOR TRAINS
It had since been defaced, the T and the N in TRAINS blotted out, and electric tape stuck atop the I to turn it into a T, so that it now read:
WARNING
LOOK OUT FOR RAT S
Indeed, this godforsaken place should have been rat central. He decided to go to black light. He pulled the small wand from his Puma bag and switched it on, the bulb burning cool blue in the dark. Rodent urine fluoresces under black light, due to its bacterial content. He ran it over the ground near the supports, a moonlike landscape of dry trash and filth. He noticed some duller, older, piddling stains but nothing fresh. Not until he waved it near a rusted oil barrel lying on its side. The barrel and the floor beneath it lit up bigger and brighter than any rat piss he had ever seen. A huge splash. Factored out from what he normally found, this trace would indicate a six-foot rat.
It was the recent bodily waste of some larger animal, possibly a man.
The drip-dripping of the water over the old track echoed down the breezy tunnels. He sensed rustling, some distant movement, or else maybe this place was getting to him. He put away the black light and scanned the area with his monocular. Behind one of the steel supports, he again saw a pair of shining eyes reflecting back at him-then turning away and vanishing.
He couldn't tell how near. Given his one-eyed view scope and the geometrical pattern of the identical beams, his depth perception was shot.
He did not call out a hello this time. He did not say anything but gripped his rebar a bit more tightly. The homeless, when you encountered them, were rarely combative-but this felt like something different. Put it down to an exterminator's sixth sense. The way he could sniff out rat infestations. Vasiliy suddenly felt outnumbered.
He pulled out his bright bullhorn spot lamp and scanned the chamber. Before retreating, he reached back into his bag, broke open the cardboard spout on a box of tracking powder, and shook out a fair amount of rodenticide over the area. Tracking powder worked more slowly than pure edible bait, but also more surely. It had the added advantage of showing the intruders' tracks, making follow-up nest baiting easier.
Vasiliy hastily emptied three cartons, then turned with his lamp and made his way back through the tunnels. He came across active tracks with the boxed-over third rail, and then the sump pump, and followed the long hose. At one point he felt the tunnel wind change, and turned to see the curve brightening behind him. He quickly stepped back into a wall recess, bracing himself, the roar deafening. The train squealed past and Vasiliy glimpsed commuters in the windows before shielding his eyes from the smoky swirl of grit and dust.
It passed, and he followed the tracks until he reached a lighted platform. He surfaced with bag and rod, pulling himself up off the track onto the mostly empty platform, next to a sign that read, IF YOU SEE SOMETHING, SAY SOMETHING. Nobody did. He walked up the mezzanine stairs and moved through the turnstiles, resurfacing on the street into the warming sun. He moved to a nearby fence and found himself back above the World Trade Center construction site. He lit a cheroot with his blue flame butane Zippo and sucked in the poison, chasing the fear he'd felt under the streets. He walked back across the street to the World Trade Center site, coming upon two handmade fliers stapled to the fence. They were scanned color photographs of two sandhogs, one with his helmet still on and dirt on his face. The blue heading over both photographs read: missing.
FINAL INTERLUDE
THE RUINS
IN THE INTERVENING DAYS AFTER THE FALL OF TREBLINKA, most of the escapees were tracked down and executed. Yet Setrakian managed to survive in the woods, remaining within range of the stench of the death camp. He gobbled up roots and whatever small prey he could catch with his broken hands, while from the bodies of other corpses he scavenged an imperfect wardrobe and raggedy, mismatched shoes.
He avoided the search patrols and the barking dogs by the day-while at night, he searched.
He had heard of the Roman ruins through camp hearsay from native Poles. It took him almost a week of roaming, until late one afternoon, in the dying light of dusk, he found himself at the mossy steps at the top of the ancient rubble.
Most of what remained was underground, with only a few overgrown stones visible from the outside. A large pillar still stood at the top of a mound of stones. He could make out a few letters, but they had faded so long ago that it was impossible to discern any meaning.
It was also impossible to stand there at the dark mouth of these catacombs and not shudder.
Abraham was certain: down there was the lair of Sardu. He knew. Fear overcame him, and he felt the burning hole growing in his chest. But purpose was stronger in his heart. Because he knew that it was his calling to find that thing, that hungry thing, and kill it. Make it cease. The camp rebellion had scuttled his killing plan-after weeks and months of procuring raw white oak for shaping-but not his need for vengeance. Of everything that was wrong in the world, this was the thing he could do right. That could give his existence meaning. And now he was about to do it.
Using a broken rock, he had fashioned a crude new stake, chosen from the hardest branch he could find, not pure white oak, but it would have to do. He did this with mangled fingers, further ruined his aching hands for all time. His footsteps echoed in the stone chamber that formed the catacomb. Its ceiling was quite low-surprising, given the Thing's unnatural height-and roots had upset the stones that precariously held the structure together. The first chamber led to a second, and, amazingly, a third. Each one smaller than the other.
Setrakian had nothing with which to light his way, but the crumbling structure allowed for faint columns of late-day light to seep through the darkness. He moved cautiously through the chambers, pulse racing, stricken at the threshold of murder. His crude wooden stake seemed wholly inadequate as a weapon to fight with in the dark, with the hungry Thing. Especially with broken hands. What was he doing? How would he kill this monster?