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Extinction Event By Doctor What
Chapter 26 "If Hero means sincere man, why may not every one of us be a Hero?" - Thomas Carlyle - Heroes and Hero-Worship ** Tuesday Aug 19, 2008 – Snowdon subway station – Montreal, Canada About 10:30 pm local time
Philippe switched off his lighter and turned towards Ghislaine. "So far so good, huh?" Even in the darkness, Ghislaine could see him grinning. "Only halfway there, though", she pointed out. "At least we haven’t met any more of those dinosaurs." "So far. Where the hell do we go now?" Philippe flicked on his lighter and glanced around. "If I remember the layout correctly, the transfer tunnel should be up the stairs that way." Philippe helped Ghislaine up from the subway tunnel to the platform itself, then scrabbled up after her. He glanced at his lighter, the light from the flickering flame casting dancing shadows on his frowning face. "What’s wrong?", asked Ghislaine. "Almost out of gas. Not sure how much longer it will last." As they walked towards the stairs, they glanced over to their side. Another subway train was there—dark and empty and its doors wide open. A trail of dropped purses, books, baseball caps and other detritus of civilization lay from the open doors to the stairs and escalators. Philippe’s foot hit something on the ground and he watched it bounce away for him into the darkness. He took a few steps and picked it up. "Heh—always wanted an iPod." "What songs are on it?", asked Ghislaine, a slight smile on her lips obvious even in the dying flickering flame of the lighter. Philippe looked through the display for a few seconds. "Nothing but Celine Dion and Barry Manilow," "God—there’s some really sick people in this city." They walked up the stairs onto the next platform.
"Ok—the Cote-Vertu line should be…that way!" As they began to walk towards the tunnel, Ghislaine glanced down, frowned—then smiled as she picked something up. Philippe looked at what was in her hand. It was a cellphone. "Can you even get a signal from down here?" asked Philippe. "For that matter—are the cellphones even working?" Ghislaine shook her head. "Nope—but I don’t care about that." "So why are you smiling?" Ghislaine grinned. "Because of this…", she said as she turned on the cellphone. The cellphone blazed forth with an incandescent blue light, illuminating a circle five feet across that drove away the darkness around them. "Let there be light." she said, grinning. "And it was good." replied Philippe, smiling. They went into the tunnel.
And they walked through the shattered concrete debris of the Côte-Sainte-Catherine station... And they passed through the glass and chrome remnants of the Plamondon station... And they stumbled through the cracked tiles of the Namur station... And they jumped over the broken light fixtures of the De la Savane station... And they rested under the stained-glass windows of the Du College station... And then they continued onwards...
Cote-Vertu subway station Just before midnight
"End of line." "Indeed." "Any ideas where to go from here?" "Not really, no. Just keep going north until we hit the bridge." "I wonder what’s it like out there?" "We’ll find out in a sec."
They ran up the escalators in the cathedral –like station and pushed open the glass doors.
Obrien Avenue ran straight northwards, the empty darkened street strewn with wind-swept trash – and dead plants. On the right hand side of the street lay homes, dark and empty. On the left hand side of the street—bisecting homes, vehicles, trees and utility poles—was a large swamp-like area that stretched for at least a dozen streets northwards and westwards. The swamp started a mere block or so from the entrance of subway station. "How far to the bridge?" asked Ghislaine. "About three or four kilometres, I think." "That’s… what? ... ten … maybe fifteen minutes running?" "Something like that." Philippe replied. He blushed a bit. "I’m…a bit out of shape actually. Haven’t done this much walking in months. Not sure if I can run the whole way up." "Then we’ll walk instead." They started walking down the center of the empty street, keeping one eye focused on the swamp next to them and one eye in front of them.
After about five or six blocks, Ghislaine suddenly came to a stop. "What? What is it?" asked Philippe. "Look over there." said Ghislaine, pointing to something to the right. Philippe followed her finger. The sign on the store Ghislaine was pointing to proclaimed the place to be "St.-Laurent Cycles". "Why walk when we can cycle?" asked Ghislaine, grinning. "Why indeed?" The two of them walked to the front of the store. Philippe tried the front door. It came as no surprise to him that it was locked. "How do you feel about breaking and entering, Philippe?" Philippe scrunched up his face, deep in thought. He debated the merits of walking for at least another half an hour on legs that felt like rubber versus riding a bike for a grand total of ten minutes instead. He pondered the morality of theft and its effect on a life where – except for a few very minor alcohol and drug related offences – he never ever broke the law. He considered how insane his life had become just in the last few hours—and how all he really, really, really wanted to do right now is find a nice quiet safe room somewhere and just lie down and sleep for about a whole day or so. And if Ghislaine happened to be in the same room as well…well, then that would be a most pleasant bonus… He thought about how close the two of them were to finally getting out of this fucking city once and for all and all that was preventing him from accomplishing said goal was a sheet of glass. Philippe thought about all these things and more for a full twenty seconds.
Then he found a brick and chucked it through the window.
They walked through the empty store, staring at all the bikes around them. "Any ideas which one to get, Philippe?" "Yeah—the one with two wheels. How about those?" "Look good to—" They froze. Just outside the store they heard deep growling. Very loud and deep growling. Slowly—very slowly—they turned like marionettes and faced the front door. Just outside the store, peeking into the store windows and staring at them, was…. "Oh fuck…." whispered Ghislaine. "That’s…that’s…that’s…a…a…" "…a fucking tyrannosaurus…" It was fifteen or twenty feet long and a brown colour, covered with patches of green and light red. Part of Philippe’s mind—the part that consisted of that of an eight year old dinosaur freak that had spent an entire summer buying packs of chewing gum with all his allowance in order to collect an entire book of stickers of ‘Incredible World of Dinosaurs!’ – was mildly surprised at the bright colours and was frantically digging through what he remembered from that book. All he could remember was that he was really upset to find out that no T-Rex skeleton had ever been found in Quebec and that the only ones that even came close to looking like a T-Rex that had ever been found in all of Canada was a bunch of relatives of T-Rex that were found in Alberta and some brilliant guy had decided to name Albertosaurus or something equally dumb. He clearly remembered wishing how cool it would be to meet a Quebec version of a T-Rex someday. Philippe would have dearly wanted to smack his eight year old self right about now. "What do we do?" whispered Philippe. "Slowly walk towards the back of the store." "What?!?" "Do it!" They did. They were in the rear of the store a moment later, hidden slightly by a rack of bikes in the back. The tyrannosaurus was still there, growling and slowly pacing back and forth in front of the store. "It doesn’t look like it’s going to give up." said Philippe. "I know." "I say we just wait." The tyrannosaurus howled and slammed its head into the front display window. A spiderweb of cracks suddenly appeared on the window. The tyrannosaurus howled again in frustration and started pacing back and forth again. "I don’t think it wants to wait, Philippe." Philippe nodded his head. "Then we make a run for it." "WHAT?!" Philippe nodded his head towards the back of the store. Ghislaine followed his gaze. The emergency exit. "You cannot be serious…" "You have a better idea? Another couple of hits with the head and that thing will have knocked down the front of the store. I say we grab a couple of bikes, sneak out the back while it’s waiting in front and ride like fucking maniacs on the street next door. By the time it figures out we’re not here, we’re halfway to the bridge." "And what if it chases us? Weren’t those things supposed to run like…fifty miles an hour or something insane like that?" The tyrannosaurus howled again and slammed its head into the front window again. This time it shattered, sending a cloud of glass shards into the store and knocking over several of the bikes in the process. It howled again in protest and tried to squeeze into the store—to no avail. Philippe was aware of both himself and Ghislaine screaming involuntarily and having their screams combine into one loud cacophony of sound with the tyrannosaurus’ howling. The tyrannosaurus pulled back out and began pacing again. Ghislaine nodded her head. "Right—give me the red bike, okay?" "OK." Ten seconds later they were out the back, strapping on some helmets and carrying their bikes. Twenty seconds later, they were cutting across several backyards and alleyways towards a parallel street. Thirty seconds later, they were bicycling as fast as they could and ignoring the shooting pains that every muscle and tendon in their legs were giving them.
They had gone about six or seven blocks when they heard a loud roar from behind them. Terrified to look but even more terrified not to look, they glanced behind them over their left shoulders. The tyrannosaurus had found out what had happened. And was now chasing them down Obrien Avenue, paralleling them as Ghislaine and Philippe zig-zagged through the maze of side streets. Ghislaine and Philippe screamed and put on a burst of speed, ignoring the pain from their legs. The tyrannosaurus began to slowly catch up to them.
The houses zoomed by in a blur of motion as Ghislaine and Philippe pedaled as fast as they could, pushing themselves to the limits of their endurance. And then they forced themselves beyond that…. The tyrannosaurus began to close the distance between them, appearing and disappearing behind the houses as it did so. Philippe giggled nervously—incoherently—ridiculously… A small part of his brain—the parts not terrified out of his mind or trying to shut out the pain from his legs or worried about what had happened to all of his friends – was laughing at the strobe like images of the tyrannosaurus. Worse… stop… motion… photography…EVER… Shutting out the insane thought—Philippe put on an extra burst of speed. "Train tracks!" screamed Ghislaine. Philippe looked up—and gasped as he saw that all the side streets came to an end at the train tracks on Henri-Bourassa Boulevard up ahead. "This way!" screamed Ghislaine, as she turned to her right, barely slowing down. Philippe followed a second later, trying desperately not to get his bike to skid as he did so. "Highway!" yelled Ghislaine, pointing ahead. They zoomed like two miniature racecars up the service ramp and a moment later were bicycling up the highway. Philippe glanced behind him. The tyrannosaurus—still running—turned sharply to its right after them, skidding for a few seconds and almost ending up tripping on the train tracks before righting itself and running again. It cut across several front lawns and Philippe saw a tricycle literally go flying, cart wheeling and spinning through the air as it did so, and disappearing somewhere further down a side street. A moment later, the tyrannosaurus was now on the highway behind them—and quickly beginning to make up for lost time as it now began to chase them again.
The two bikes zoomed up over the crest of a hill at blindingly fast speeds, the riders pedaling as if a demon from Hell itself was after them. In a manner of speaking—they were right. They were literally airborne for one brief second --and hit the ground a second afterwards and then began to go downhill, still accelerating rapidly, gravity and terror working their effects on them. Before them—a mere kilometer ahead of them and shrouded in a haze of bright spotlights –was the bridge. Ghislaine and Philippe were vaguely aware of numerous figures silhouetted in the lights on the bridge. They were more focused on the large figure less than half a kilometre behind them, roaring like it was furious that its midnight snack might get away from them—and wanting to make sure that wasn’t going to happen. It too put on a burst of speed.
Philippe looked up, red haze clouding part of his vision and the haze of bright lights from the bridge destroying the rest of it. "Six... blocks… to… go...", wheezed Philippe, his face drenched in sweat. He couldn’t feel his legs anymore. He couldn’t feel his arms. He couldn’t feel….anything… And then—the asphalt came up to meet him and Philippe found himself skidding on his hands and knees, feeling the skin on them cut and burn and shred off. He was vaguely aware of the bike flipping end over end and bouncing off a guardrail. The pain was agonizing—and then mercifully cut short as his face came down onto the asphalt. He felt his helmet protect him—and saw flashes of light as his vision blurred for a few seconds. When he was able to clear his head enough to look up—he saw Ghislaine riding away from him. And then…. She turned around. No….. She came up beside him, leaping off the bike, and grabbed him around the shoulders and yanked him up. "Why…?" croaked Philippe, his legs like rubber. "You’re not going to die here! Not here! Not now!" she screamed "I can’t…move…" "YES YOU CAN! NOW—MOVE!" she roared, half pushing him, half carrying him down the highway. They had stumbled down only half a block or so when they heard the roaring behind them. Very close behind them. The two of them turned around—and saw the tyrannosaurus a few hundred meters behind them, coming at them rapidly. "I’m… sorry…" whispered Philippe, tears in his eyes. "Don’t be…" whispered Ghislaine back. "GET DOWN!!" bellowed a voice behind them. "They turned around to their front. The lights from the bridge and his fall was still messing up his vision but Philippe saw three…no, five….seven…ten... more? ... figures coming at him, their bodies mere silhouettes in all the lights. They were each carrying…something…long and metallic….glinting in the lights… "GET DOWN!!" screamed the voice again, as the figures raised the metal objects upwards. For the second time in a minute, Philippe’s face hit the asphalt as Ghislaine pushed him down.
There was the sound of unending thunder in front of him. There was the sound of unending roaring behind him. There was the sound of the unending shaking of the earth beneath him. And then there was silence.
Philippe looked up—to see the figures still there—still silhouetted in the lights. He turned behind him—and saw the tyrannosaurus face down on the highway. One of its legs was—barely-- twitching. Rivers of blood were trickling away from its body, draining away to the sides. "ARE YOU INJURED?" screamed the voice in front of them. "DO YOU REQUIRE MEDICAL ASSISTANCE? FOOD? SHELTER? COME WITH US." continued the voice. Ghislaine and Philippe stood up, shaking slightly and nodded their heads.
Smiling at one another and holding hands – they walked into the light…. ~~
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