The Eighth Circle of the Subway
Шрифт:
...Eddy jumped to the neighbour path automatically, and a heavy press fell onto the place where he had stood a moment before. Skipping the next line, Eddy jumped to the far one, then to the next... In ten minutes he got safely to the other side of the platform. A minute later all of their company was there.
The train was already awaiting them. Everyone jumped in without casualties, only the last one lost the heel of his boot. Pure luck. He could have lost his foot, too.
The train had scarcely dashed forward when the light in the carriage went out. That didn’t mean anything good. Exactly! Sprouts of tentacles studded with suckers crawled lazily out of the walls. The octopus-carriage! Tough luck... Already the fourth circle. Eddy snatched the knife out of his sleeve and started to cut off the tentacles reaching for him. The rest were busy doing the same. The slaughter took place in silence and in almost absolute darkness; there was heard only the heavy breathing of the people and sometimes – the whistling of a knife having missed its target and cutting the air.
One tentacle nevertheless reached Eddy’s arm and stuck immediately, tearing his clothes and skin. He struck with his knife without looking, but this muck didn’t even think of falling off! With great difficulty Eddy managed to tear off the squirming stump, but his arm was bleeding heavily. He bandaged it somehow with a torn away sleeve and caught his breath. It would be good to have a rest, but it was still early – only at the seventh circle there was a safe spot, “the neutral”. This time Eddy was intending to get to the end. Just as these four. Actually, already three. The fourth one was lying on the floor, winded all over with greedily pulsating tentacles. It seemed that he was still alive, but even if one cut off all this – he would bleed to death. And still, a thin guy in eyeglasses – why was this student still alive?! – bent over the dying man and was trying to cut off the horrible cocoon. It didn’t make any sense, but Eddy involuntary felt respect for Eyeglasses.
The platform. Jump, roll over. “The clothes-peg” clicks angrily behind, but it’s late. Where to now? To the other side of the platform, to the fifth circle – or to the sixth one right away, via “haemorrhoids Emma”?.. And Eddy jumped into the tunnel.
He immediately began sliding down the absolutely smooth sloping gutter. It was dark there and Eddy put on his infraglasses. He scudded along the pipe that constantly curved at various angles, with an ever increasing speed. Thanks to his glasses, Eddy noticed in time a long blade springing out from the floor in front of him and threw his body to the wall, rushing an inch away from it. A turn, another one... Steel hooks hang from above. Eddy pressed himself into the floor, trying to become as flat as he could. Further, further...
And suddenly a light loomed ahead. It was either the station or... Or! These were the lights of the train! The damned “haemorrhoids” was carrying him straight under the wheels. Eddy barely had time to pull out the vacuum sucker and stick it to the wall. The train rumbled right up to him, and he was hanging, clenching to the saving sucker and praying to all the gods he could remember. In the middle of the prayer something crashed into Eddy’s back, the sucker didn’t hold and he fell under the wheels...
Eddy came to his senses almost immediately. The back of his head and the grazed side were aching, but on the whole he got away easily. Apparently, he fell into the tunnel a second after the train had rushed by. This is what a sincere prayer for your soul means! Even if the text is only approximately right.
A dark spot stirred near him and immediately took the shape of a man. Eddy rather guessed than saw that it was the dark-haired guy. Damn him! Yet another tough guy...
The platform’s edge appeared to be quite nearby. This time Eddy climbed at it with difficulty – the effect of the fall. His companion climbed after him. Having looked around, Eddy noticed with surprise that skinny Eyeglasses was still with them. But the fourth guy was gone.
“And where’s that one?” blurted out Eddy. Eyeglasses showed him two crossed arms without saying a word.
Eddy turned away and went along the platform, from time to time dodging automatically the fly-breakers flying over him every now and then. His head worked badly. Eddy walked as if on an autopilot, but these were trifles. There was something more serious at the sixth circle – Eddy had been here once before.
Here it is! Straight towards him there was rushing a machine resembling an asphalt compactor, but unlike the latter it had quite a decent speed. Eddy stopped, waiting. When the machine was already near, he tumbled abruptly aside. The compactor missed him, but braked immediately and turned for a new attack. Damn it, where’s the train?! And as if mocking him, the train flew out from the tunnel and stopped several yards away from Eddy. The saving doors could close every second, and the raging compactor was already rushing to cut his way. Eddy dashed headlong to the door. A crack ran over the platform, the floor began to sink, going away from under his feet, but Eddy, pushing himself off the crashing platform with the last effort, managed to roll into the carriage, miraculously escaping the needles at the entrance. In comparison with the sixth circle’s platform, this deadly carriage seemed sweet home to Eddy...
Just like ten years ago, when their district had gone mad. Everything around was crashing, the ground was going away from under their feet, the barracks were burning, and from behind a dirty mass of a bulldozer with a lifted bucket was approaching inexorably. Well, now it’s ok, now it’s the Death-Ride after all, but then... Then they just hadn’t evacuated in time. Nevertheless, Eddy escaped. Then – and now...
The dark-haired guy and Eyeglasses were already here.
“Thank you. You have distracted it”, said Eyeglasses politely.
Eddy swore in response. Like hell he had... It’s just that the damned compactor chased him and not these two jerks, while it would have done better if it had.
The train dashed from its place and scudded into the darkness. There were two more circles ahead.
They jumped out to the platform almost simultaneously and fell immediately, lying flat on the floor. A dim twelve-foot blade went over their heads with a whistle and disappeared as if it had never existed. Trains didn’t go any further. The seventh and eighth circles were to be passed by foot. A carriage, though hiding danger in it, gave at least some protection – here one was deprived even of this.
Not awaiting the rest, Eddy jumped on and started running to the other side of the platform. He reached the pedestrian tunnel named “the gut” in slang, stunned from the absence of traps and scared of it more than of anything else. The dark-haired guy and Eyeglasses, looking at him dumbly, started walking along the platform, and at once three compactors rode out towards them. Eddy pressed himself against the tunnel wall, watching the events.
Eyeglasses was running in zigzags, avoiding “the black holes” in a surprisingly cunning way, and the compactor was rushing after him, getting nearer and nearer little by little. The dark-haired guy was running on a straight line, but it wasn’t the panic run of a persecuted beast – it was the famous “life line” that every Death-Rider had heard of. And all would be well, were it not for the two compactors that were at once rushing to cut his way.
Eyeglasses jumped aside in the last moment, the compactor missed, crashing a pair of fly-breakers that swooped too low; then the machine turned away, but it was too late. By that time Eyeglasses was already standing by Eddy.
“Well done!” said Eddy approvingly. Eyeglasses smiled abashed, and because of this smile Eddy felt somehow better. “We will still be running a lot!” he thought, without paying attention that for some reason he was thinking in plural.
The dark-haired guy was doomed, but he continued running stubbornly in a straight line without turning. The two compactors reached him simultaneously, but then the dark-haired guy did the impossible: he flew up into the air, jumping about six feet high, made a somersault and rolled over the platform without deviating from his “life line”. The very moment he was in the air the two compactors ran one into the other. The flash of the blow blinded Eddy for a moment. When he was able to see again, on the platform there was burning down a heap of deformed metal, smoking and emitting soot. The dark-haired guy was standing beside them, and one could hear his heart beating convulsively. Eddy shook his hand without a word – he couldn’t think of anything better to do.