Read Online Darkbound by Michaelbrent Collings - Free Book Online

decide whether to be angry with her.  Then he
smiled ruefully and shrugged.  "Everyone entitled to shoot when he
sees the dead coming, yes?" he said.  "Besides.  Gun is
away."  He looked around the train car.  It was rocking, click-clack-click-clack-click-clack . 
Lights still flashing outside the windows.  Still moving, still going
somewhere.
    But where? Jim
wondered.  And how long would it take to get there?
    "I think we
have time," said Olik.  "Time to think."
    "Why you say
that, man?" said Xavier.  He got up as well, sitting on one of the
plastic seats across from Jim.  His knife was gone again, disappeared to
whatever alternate universe location the gangbanger hid his weapons.  Jim
wondered what other armaments the guy might have on his person.  Olik,
too: just the two guns, or did he have more?  A few knives, perhaps, or a
grenade or two?  Maybe an ankle-holster with a portable nuke?
    "I say we have
time because we are still safe," said Olik.  He gestured around the
car.  "We are stuck here, but whatever is happening, it is to scare,
not to kill, yes?"
    Jim nodded.
    Karen held up her
hands.  "What about this?"
    "Not
killing," said Olik.  "You are still alive.  Still alive,
so still we can survive.  Still we can escape this, whatever it is. 
Where there is life, there is hope, yes?"
    Olik smiled. 
Karen smiled back, which was a surprise, Jim thought, considering that the
Georgian had just cracked her nose like a walnut less than a minute ago. 
But at the same time, Jim felt like smiling, too.  Because Olik was making
some sense.  They weren't dead, they weren't even hurt.  Not
really.  Just trapped and scared.
    So they could make
it through whatever was happening.
    They would make it.
    Adolfa patted Jim, and
he understood that she wasn't just trying to buoy him up, she was also saying
that she felt better, too.  That Olik's words had given her hope. 
Given them all hope.  Even Xavier was smiling.  It was a real smile,
too.  Not the smile of a predator contemplating which piece of its
still-living prey to bite, but the smile of someone who believes he will
survive to see another day.
    Jim felt a smile
cross his own face, as well.
    And then the
screaming started.

NINE
    ================
    ================
    Freddy the Perv was the one making the
noise.  Jim had completely – blessedly – forgotten the man was even on the
subway, hunched as he was in the back of the car like a dog that feared a
beating.  And from the looks Jim glimpsed on the others' faces, he could
tell they had done the same.
    But they weren't
going to forget him again.  Not if they lived to be a million years old.
    Freddy was
shouting, screaming, shrieking .  A sound almost as loud and
insistently horrifying as the one that had come out of the montage of corpses
on Karen's tablet.  Even worse, in a way, because the noise that had come
from the electronic device had been one of rage and hate.  And it hadn't
been one of them .  One of the six passengers in the car.
    This noise, though,
the sound that was coming out of Freddy's mouth in a sustained, high-pitched
whistle, was one of pure, unfiltered pain.  And it was definitely pain
that had come to scratch out a home, a dark den, among their number.
    "What? 
What's happening?" shouted Xavier.  Freddy didn't answer, and the
thug took a step toward him.  "You better shut your face, man, or
I'll shut it for –"
    Then Xavier stopped
moving.  Stopped like he'd been paralyzed, like he'd been trapped in some
sort of force field.  If it weren't for the subtle rock of his body on the
train, Jim could almost have believed he was looking at a wax statue of
incredibly lifelike craftsmanship.
    Jim looked back at
Freddy, and he saw why the man was screaming so loudly.  Saw also why
Xavier had stopped moving toward the trench-coated man.
    Freddy had his
hands up in front of his face.  Normal skin tones, though they looked
somewhat sickly in the flickering fluorescent light