Read Online The Empty Ones by Robert Brockway - Free Book Online Page A

could have come through there, we would’ve found a different drinking spot. Because, growing up in New York, every one of us had heard the stories: Some hobo pissed on the rail and got himself electrocuted. Some stoned girl passed out down there and they had to identify her by the teeth they picked out of the wheels. A secretary slipped and fell right as the train was coming in. It split her in half, and then stopped right on top of her. They couldn’t move it or her guts would spill out. They brought her family in to say good-bye first.
    Who knows if that shit is true? But you hear it enough as a kid that it gets inside you.
    Staring into the darkness there, I couldn’t help but think a train was idling just out of sight, sitting with its lights off, waiting for me to jump down so it could cut my damn legs off.
    â€œWhat are you boys scared of, ruffling your Sunday best? Let’s fucking go, already,” Meryll said.
    She was straddling the tracks and looking up at us with disapproval.
    â€œMaybe we’ll just keep kicking these guys’ asses,” I suggested, helpfully.
    Meryll scoffed.
    â€œCarey, I think we should go,” Randall said. He hopped down onto the tracks and instantly looked like he was gonna be sick.
    â€œWhat, really?”
    â€œLook behind you,” he said, already backing away toward the westbound tunnel.
    I knew it was standing-room-only at this station. I expected to see a few score of pissed-off punks waiting to give me a firm kick in the ass. I turned my head, though every inch hurt, and behind me I saw … nothing. A blank wall of disinterest. It felt like looking at fifty solid feet of DMV pamphlets. I couldn’t have paid attention if I tried. There were dozens upon dozens of faces staring at me, and I couldn’t make out a single one. They must have been pushing up past the normals this whole time, just behind us.
    Meryll was not kidding.
    The Unnoticeables were different here. Back home they accepted a good beating with grace and tended to scatter. Here, they went and got reinforcements.
    I flung myself down onto the tracks headfirst. I hit my back on one of the rails, and the irrational fear grabbed me instantly.
    You’re paralyzed. Just gotta wait here for a train here to pop you like a goddamned sausage.
    But no. Gun beats knife. Rock beats scissors. Adrenaline beats pain. I got up. I stumbled a little when I first put weight on my bad hip, but it held, and I started running. Straight into the darkness of the westbound tunnel—which I now saw, too late, was moving.
    â€œTar men!” I yelled.
    Randall pulled up short just this side of where the lights went out. But Meryll was already in there. I hobbled up beside Randall, and noticed he wasn’t staring at the wriggling dark. He was staring back over my shoulder.
    The Unnoticeables had made it through the crowd, and were just standing there in a line, toes at the edge of the train platform. Dozens of them, still and silent. Shoulder to shoulder. A shifting mass of blank faces. I couldn’t even tell you if they were watching us.
    They were waiting. They knew it. There was nowhere left for us to go.
    â€œA trap, then?” Randall spat. “Pretentious bullshit. What is this Sherlock Holmes crap? Who sets fucking traps ?”
    â€œI don’t think it is,” I said.
    I stared at the shadows that Meryll had vanished into. She hadn’t shouted, hadn’t sworn or screamed. I couldn’t tell if that was a good sign, or a very bad one.
    â€œWhat do you mean?” Randall said. “If this isn’t a trap, then, what, there’s just so many of these things down here that you can wander into any random train station and trip over a small army of the bastards?”
    â€œYeah, pretty much.”
    â€œOh. Shit. I liked it better when it was a trap.”
    â€œMe too.”
    â€œYou uh … you think Marie’s dead?”
    â€œMeryll,”