1999: Things Man was Meant to Know

Part III: Into the Underworld


   Kent frowned as he slowly made his way down the stairs. His earlier suspicion of the strangely dimmed light in the staircase had been apt. Perhaps one or two of the light bulbs within the subway station could be so faded, but not all of them, and especially not the halogens of the platform itself. The resulting gloom cast everything into shadow, providing ample places for predators to hide. The maintenance crews were fairly lax in their duties, but not this lax.

   Furthermore, the platform was deserted. His sense of time had been slightly confused by the meeting with the unicorn, but unless it was much later than he believed, there should have been at least some people waiting for a train. Even beyond that odd absence, the terribly  artificial silence -- not merely the absence of sound, but rather a stillness that muffled all noise, even his own footsteps -- would have alerted Kent that something was very wrong here.

   Without consciously realizing it, he shifted his legs into a braced, ready stance and began to quietly build up energy reserves within his body, preparing for the battle he was suddenly sure was coming.

   And then he heard it.

   Even normally, something about the sound of metal scraping on metal can raise the neck hairs of a normal person, even though it doesn't sound like a human scream except to those with too much imagination. Like all sensation, it has its own unique features, and a person can become used to it.

   Most don't, though, and Kent hadn't. And this particular metallic scream did sound like humans screaming -- many of them, and in horrible torment.

   The great beast swam into view, its two smaller eyes glowing beneath the two great dark ones. Faint lightning storms crackled above its great head and the screams of the damned never stopped as it drew nigh to Kent.

   With a sharp increase in volume, the train began to slow down, braking to its halt as its lead car slid past his position. It stopped completely with the second car just beside him, and he slowly turned and looked at the first.

   *Something* was moving inside the car, and with a short squawk like that of a suddenly shot bird, the door nearest the front of the train opened.

   The Dark Man stepped out.

   Dark was the only word that Kent could apply to the figure with any degree of certainty; other details seemed constantly in flux. In one moment, he seemed to be a regal Egyptian youth, an Indian with pale hair, some unidentifiable Asian type, an almost cadaverous white man, and a sexless figure with grey skin. Even the "man" part of the appellation seemed questionable, since for a moment Kent thought he saw a woman with dusky skin. The only constant was that the figure was clearly akin to the darkness within the station. Perhaps more than akin; he belonged to it, and it to him.

   And then he turned, and smiled with his mouth. "Mister Masefield," he said, every sibillant sounding like a hiss.

   Kent didn't reply.

   "It is a pleasure to meet you. Actually, it's somewhat surprising that we haven't met before this, since your career has been of no small interest. You've caused some associates a great deal of havoc."

   "Thank you."

   The Dark Man shrugged. "Hardly a compliment. Most of them aren't really capable fo dealing with your sort. It takes a ... unique perspective to appreciate such inspired dedication to futility."

   "Futility?" Kent asked, noting that something was still moving inside the car, and that the doors hadn't closed.

   "Of course, futility. Surely you've realized that by now. You're far too intelligent not to realize that nothing you can do will make any difference in the long term."

   It was so similar to what he'd thought earlier that it rocked him momentarily, letting the Dark Man press on. "After all, in twenty-two years you've certianly seen enough to realize how intent your species is on it's self-destruction. How many times have you and your associates barely averted the schemes of those who would have caused such an end? Your own sense of logic will tell you that those schemes will never stop coming. And you are not immortal," he concluded, pointedly.

   "Someone else will do the job when I'm gone," Kent said after a long pause.

   "Who?" The Dark Man's voice was sharp, but smoothed as he continued. "Even if you were to find someone able to do the job, it would have to be someone whose ability you trust less than your own. Otherwise, if you trusted them as much as yourself, or more, you would have recruited them already."

   "Perhaps they haven't been born yet. Or I just haven't met them. It's a strange world."

   "Even so, it doesn't matter. All that you or anyone else can do is slow down the inevitable." He laughed then. "You really do buy into the heroic myth, don't you? No matter what, you think that you can find a solution to every problem that comes your way."

   And then something shambled out of the still-open door of the car, passing behind the Dark Man. It remained horizontal long enough to gasp out a single word, and then collapsed to the floor of the platform.

   The word was "Help". The speaker wore the uniform of a subway conductor.

   The Dark Man looked over his shoulder without any real expression. "For example, you cannot solve this --"

   Kent had begun to move as soon as he heard the word escape from the conductor's throat. He crossed to where the man lay, dropped to his knees and began a primary survey. No open injuries, no obstruction in the airway, no breathing. At once he pinched the man's nose shut and breathed twice into his mouth, carefully watching the expansion of the chest. Then he checked for a pulse.

   No pulse.

   Ripping open the man's jacket, he quickly located the sternum and began chest compressions. Fifteen presses in ten seconds. Then two more breaths, then another set of compressions. A total of four repetitions, then check the pulse.

   Still no pulse.

   "He is dead, Mister Masefield."

   Two breaths. Over the compressions, "He's not dead yet." Two more breaths. "Not for four minutes without circulation." Breaths.

   "Come now, Mister Masefield. You know very well that even with your efforts, death is nearly certain after ten --"

   Compressions. "I know that once you start CPR, you don't stop until someone more qualified arrives." Breaths.

   The Dark Man's voice came from a point near his ear. "But no one is going to come. There's no one here to call for an ambulance. And no one will enter this station to do so."

   "Then I'll just have to keep it up!" Kent snarled, and started another cycle.






   How long had he been doing this?

   Kent had lost track of chronological time somewhen before, focussing his consciousness entirely on the cycle -- four sets of two breaths and fifteen compresssions each, then check the pulse.

   Some small part of his mind insisted on recalling that not only had he never personally witnessed an arrested heart start beating without electrical stimulation, but neither had anyone he'd ever met. It was the sort of thing that hppened only in improbable movies and television programs.

   "You're breathing into a corpse, Mister Masefield. Can't you smell? His bowels have voided. You know what that means."

   He ignored that part of his mind and the faint smell, just as he ignored the Dark Man's occasional taunts. He supposed that he should be grateful that taunting was all that his adversary chose to do. Should he attack, Kent had no defense prepared -- something that hadn't been the case since he was about five years old.

   Two breaths. How long could he keep this up? Yogic exercises had decreased the amount of oxygen he needed to survive, but breathing for 1.8 grown men wasn't that much different from breathing for two. The effort was beginning to give him a headache.

   Two breaths. Fifteen compressions. At least they weren't difficult, although the growing pain between his eyebrows made him vaguely afraid that he might put too much force into them, doing damage.

   That particular fear was drowned out by the fear that any damage he did to the body didn't matter anymore.

   Breath. His skull felt like it was about to split open.

   "No one will blame you for giving up, Mister Masefield. You did all that you could. You're only human."

   Breath.

   Live!

   Check pulse.

   Recheck pulse.

   It was faint. So faint that Kent couldn't be sure that he wasn't imagining it for a few moments. And then the realization of the miracle flooded through him, and despite the sudden lessening of the pain in his head, he almost collapsed in a faint as relief filled his mind.

   And then he remembered the Dark Man.

   He whirled around to glare furiously at the suddenly silent figure. "Only human?" he snapped. "And being a human is something to be humble about, then?"

   "It doesn't matter," the Dark Man replied in an unchanged tone. "You have saved his life only so that he can die later. He could die in this very instant. So could you." The threat was unmistakable.

   Kent Masefield slowly drew himself up from his crouch into a standing position. "So? Everything dies. It is good that everything dies. If we didn't die, I suspect that we'd become something like you."

   And for the first time, an actual expression showed on the Dark Man's face. Sheer hatred and contempt. "Like us, Mister Masefield?" he hissed. "You imagine that you could become like us? We have been since the first of your kind crept trembling from the forests of the night, and we will be when the last slips, still trembling, into a final sleep. You are nothing compared to the least of what we have known. We could snuff out the life of the man behind you in an instant, and you would be able to do --"

   "But you can't make it that he never lived, and you can't make it that he didn't live a few moments longer because of what I did," Kent snapped an interruption. "*And* you've had plenty of chances to `snuff' me while I was working. Clearly, you didn't want that.

   "You know what I think? I think you wanted me to give in to despair. To give up just as I was about to succeed. Well, I didn't, and I won't. We're an occasionally stubborn bunch, we mortals."

   "You are insane to believe that anything you could do would have an impact on us."

   And then Kent laughed, a mirthless, empty laugh that echoed through the stillness of the subway station. "Of course I'm insane. That's what happens when someone confronts one of you in your sort of stories." He drew in a cleansing breath. "But that's the question, isn't it? *Is* this one of your sort of stories? The sort of thing written by someone whose worst trauma was being forced out of the home where he'd grown up? Or is it one of my sort, where the hero always seems to be on the verge of defeat, right before triumphing over the villain?"

   He thought: if creation ends this moment, I die content.

   "Let's find out, shall we?" he snarled as he took a single step towards the Dark Man, fists clenched to thrust forward.

   The Dark Man did nothing but stare at him for a very long instant. "Another place, Mister Masefield," he said at last. "And assuredly, another time." There was no popping noise as he vanished, nor any blur of pseudomotion or faint trace of brimstone. He was just there, and then not there.

   Again, relief almost sent Kent to his knees, but he retained enough presence of mind to check the conductor's pulse and breathing again. While still faint, his heart beat continued, and the movement of the man's chest told him that he was breathing independently. After a few seconds of anxious observation, Kent hurried over to the nearest payphone and dialled 911.

   The paramedics arrived a few minutes later. Kent quietly downplayed his role in the rescue when they asked for an account, and very carefully did not mention the Dark Man at all. He could not control what the conductor would say, but expected it not to be credited.

   Slowly, he climbed up out of the subway station, into the light of newly dawning morning.

   The night had passed without him really realizing it.

   For a few moments, he just stood there at the entrance, gazing at the rising sun and thinking disjointed thoughts.

   His head had hurt, hurt in the very place where a unicorn --
   -- or could it be that his telepathy had interacted with --
   -- might he have just wanted it enough that it became --

   At last, Kent shook his head. No matter what, one thing was certain. He would face the Dark Man again, and the next time wouldn't be nearly as easy as this time had been. He ought to prepare for the inevitable outcome of this night's work.

   And yet ...

   He could always do that later. Today he had promised to breakfast -- a few hours from now, he abruptly realized -- with a woman who'd helped to raise him; one of four people whom he could call a parent, and the only one still with him. That took precedence over thoughts of war.

   So he walked away from the subway entrance, and as he did it occurred to him that Patricia DelaFontaine might like to meet Melissa Stone. Perhaps he should invite her to join them, this morning.

   Why not?

                              THE END


   For Steven King, Brian Lumley and other authors who've realized that sometimes a blasphemous, fettid horror from gulphs of space beyond human ken ... is just a monster whose butt needs kicking.

   This story, incorporating characters held under copyright by Time-Warner, Marvel Enterprises, and others, is copyright 2000 by Chris Davies.

   Nobody Sue Me Okay?


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