GHOST IN THE TUNNEL

New York City, a city that never sleeps. It gets its name from the public transit system, because of the subways, which run day and night. Over a billion people ride the subway every year, in fact. Above ground the famous bright lights of Times Square, the illuminating adverts, courting your subconscious into buying products you don’t want or need. Hustlers on every corner, dope fiends looking for their next fix. The bustle of buses and taxis. Sanitation workers seem to be working an endless loop, as the piles of trash just keep coming. Underneath all this, there is a secret labyrinth of tunnels in total darkness, a network that would seem utterly impossible to navigate, not by the ordinary kind of folk, that is.

Everyone knows what a cesspool the subway system is. Dope fiends looking for their next fix, homeless looking for their next meal. Just the past week, there was a gruesome murder of an upper-class white woman, a routine stabbing. You see, crime was a routine during this time. Multiple incidents a week, just like this one. The difference was no one batted an eye when a dope fiend was killed for no rhyme or reason, those people were invisible. A homeless man in the streets is nothing more than a ghost, wandering in an urban purgatory till the end of his days. They were “expendable”. “That guy had his chance” said a voice on the radio. When a rich white woman gets killed, people start to take notice. People were on edge, people were outraged.

Dave was one of those people. A student born in Queens, he had been taking the “F” train to the city for the past year, the same amount of time he had been enrolled in the university. See, to Dave, Queens was his world. He rarely set foot out of it. Actually, he rarely set foot out of his own room. He’d rather be wasting away playing video games or watching trashy horror films from the eighties. Dave was like any other millennial, he had average grades, and little to no ambition. He hated school but what else was there for him? “What the hell are ya gonna do with your life?” his father would always ask. He pondered that question every day while on his commute. He enjoyed his commute actually, it was a sort of meditative part of his day. Getting breakfast from the local bodega before hopping on the train with a bacon-egg-and-cheese sandwich in one hand and his morning coffee with cream in the other. Ready to take on the world. He liked observing the passengers. He saw these homeless people every day, usually avoiding them like the plague. He recalls an incident where he got peed on by a disgruntled panhandler. Not his best day.

One evening coming home from the city, Dave was sitting on a bench on the subway platform. There were very few people around at this time as Dave had been out late drinking with his buddy. He was still slightly drunk but functional, functional enough to get back home he thought. Beside him, on the bench, was a little black book, a journal perhaps? He grabbed it and examined it. It was old, as seen by it’s yellowed pages. But the condition of the leather had kept its quality. As he looked through the little book, he didn’t find much. There were some crudely drawn markings and symbols, they looked like a combination of graffiti and hieroglyphics. Also written inside was a list of names with dollar amounts next to them. Some were crossed out, some were not. He had no clue who these people were. He then heard a voice. “Hey you” a man exclaimed. He was the only person on the platform at this time, he looked left and right, nobody there. “Hey kid, what’re you doin’ with my book? Give that back here”. Dave looked down and saw a man standing on the tracks, leaning against the platform, so that you could only see his head and hands. His nails were dirty and cracked, his hair looked like Einstein’s in a photo he used to stare at in his classroom. Dave didn’t say anything, he was confused at why this man was on the tracks, where was his train?

From behind the man’s shoulders, an albino rat climbed up his head and onto the platform. He climbed up the wooden bench and jumped onto Dave’s lap, snatching the book from his hands. “Atta boy, Mosely, give it here!” said the man grinning, showing his yellow teeth that matched the color of the book's pages. His eyes widened, “you’ll be getting seconds for supper” as he patted the rat, who was back on his shoulder. Dave was a bit drowsy, but he started getting back to himself. “Hey what are those people in your book?” The man looked back, he was walking down the tunnel already. “Oh curious are ya? Come with me if you want to find out” he answered in a mocking tone. Dave wasn’t amused, but he was curious. He had been waiting for the train for a good half hour already, everybody else had gone home, even the transit employees, Might as well see what this was all about.

They had been walking the tunnels for what felt like hours, but really it had been twenty minutes tops. It was near pitch black, the only lighting came from the road signals and construction lights, that were only in certain areas. They had gone deeper than that. Left turn, then right, then left again. The man was maneuvering like he could do this blindfolded, he could. He looked to be in his sixties but moved like a young man. So what’s your story, asked Dave. “Oh, you don’t wanna hear none of that, same as everybody else's I suppose, it don’t got a good ending, that I can tell ya” he answered. The man was humming and singing, it didn’t bother Dave as he had to rely on the man’s voice to follow him now. His eyes were failing him. He could hear the scurrying of rats in the trash and the wind blowing from between the cracks of the tunnel walls. There was the stench of piss and concrete in the air. He didn’t hear any trains passing. They had finally arrived at the man’s place.

The man climbed into a hole in the wall and motioned for Dave to come down. The man turned on a lamp, and Dave looked around. The turning of the light had caused the roaches to scatter. There were old mattresses stacked on each other, remnants of cardboard boxes everywhere. Empty cans of food which now holstered the roaches. Various kinds of knick-knacks collected over the years. There was a little beat up box, which the man grabbed and showed to Dave. He opened it and revealed what was a revolver, which looked to be well taken care of. “This right here is what I like to call the great equalizer, my friend” the man told him. A gun? Dave had only shot a gun in video games before. He was a dweeb who didn’t even know how to handle the thing. The man brought out another box, this one was more of a crate, and it was bigger than the gun case. You wanna know how I make a livin’ kid? I kill people. For money. It pays well. He opened the case, revealing stacks of cash wrapped in various colored rubber bands. “This right here is twenty thousand dollars. I think it’s time to retire. Here kid, take this gun and do something with your life” said the man, handing the gun to Dave. The weight of it surprised him.

Dave didn’t hesitate, he checked to see if the gun was loaded, it was. He shot the man down right then and there. He wanted the money, he had his whole life ahead of him anyway. In his head, he was doing the old man a favor. He shot the man again, he wanted to be sure. He could now feel the blood under his canvas sneakers. The money was covered in blood too. He didn’t care, he was now twenty dollars richer. He vomited. He was now shaking, it felt like the room was spinning. I gotta get the hell out of here he thought. He filled his backpack with the stacks of cash. Which way is home? He wandered and wandered. What Dave didn’t know is that he would be stuck in those tunnels until the end of his days.