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  THE LIGHT AT THE END

  John Skipp & Craig Spector

  Digital Edition published by Crossroad Press

  © 2011 John Skipp & Craig Spector

  LICENSE NOTES

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to the vendor of your choice and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  JOHN SKIPP

  JOHN SKIPP is a New York Times bestselling writer, editor, social critic, splatterpunk poster child, literary zombie champion, and all-around horror legend. His books include The Light at the End, The Cleanup, The Scream, Deadlines, The Bridge, Animals, Fright Night, Book of the Dead, and Still Dead (with Craig Spector); The Emerald Burrito of Oz (with Marc Levinthal); Jake’s Wake, The Day Before, and Spore (with Cody Goodfellow); Opposite Sex (as Gina McQueen); Conscience, Stupography, and The Long Last Call (solo); and, as solo editor, Mondo Zombie, Zombies: Encounters with the Hungry Dead, and Werewolves and Shapeshifters: Encounters With the Beast Within.

  He is also sometimes guest fiction editor of The Magazine of Bizarro Fiction, and has a long-standing passion for music and film. He lives with family and friends, both human and otherwise, on a hill overlooking the glistening spires of downtown Los Angeles.

  His novel CONSCIENCE has just been released in digital, and there is an excerpt at the end of this novel. Check it out HERE.

  Find him on the web at: http://www.johnskipp.com

  CRAIG SPECTOR

  CRAIG SPECTOR is an award-winning and bestselling author, editor, screenwriter, and musician, with eleven books published, millions of copies sold, and reprints in nine languages. His fiction has been published by Tor/St. Martins Press, Bragelonne, Bantam Books, Harper Collins, Pocket Books, Arbor House, and others; his film and television work includes A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 5: THE DREAM CHILD and projects for TNC Pictures, Anonymous Content, ABC, NBC, Fox Television, Hearst Entertainment, Davis Entertainment Television, New Line Cinema, Beacon Pictures, and Wonderful World of Disney. His feature film adaptation of ANIMALS was a 2010 release from TNC Pictures and Anonymous Content (distributed by Maverick Entertainment)and stars Marc Blucas, Nicky Aycox, Eva Amurri, and Naveen Andrews. Spector’s graphic novel THE NYE INCIDENTS (co-created with Whitley Streiber) was a June 2008 release from Devils Due Publishing and has been optioned by Dark Castle/Warner Bros/Silver Pictures.

  Spector is a graduate of the Berklee College of Music in Boston MA and an alumni of the Atlanta College of Art in Atlanta GA, and was the founder and Chief Creative Officer of the late Stealth Press -- 1999-2002 -- an Internet-enabled publishing company that specialized in quality hardcover reprints of titles by such authors as Peter Straub, Ray Bradbury, Clive Barker, Peter Atkins, William Nolan, Dennis Etchison, John Shirley, and Chelsea Quinn Yarbro and others.

  Spector’s novel UNDERGROUND won Le Prix Masterton for Best Foreign Novel of Horror for 2008 (fr. edition). He is currently at work on a new novel and screenplay, TURNAROUND, as well as a solo music e-CD, SPECTOR: RAW, and various other film, television, art and alt culture projects.

  Spector divides his time between Virginia Beach, VA and Los Angeles, CA, but is at present doing a "Kerouac with wi-fi" tour of the states, looking for more trouble to cause. You can reach him on facebook, reverbnation.com, myspace, twitter, and even in the real world.

  His solo novel A Question of Will is available now in digital. There is an excerpt at the end of this novel. Check it out HERE.

  Find him on the web at : http://www.craigspector.com

  OTHER BOOKS BY THE AUTHORS

  John Skipp:

  Conscience – Free excerpt at the end of this novel

  Craig Spector:

  A Question of Will – Free excerpt at the end of this novel

  John Skipp & Craig Spector

  Animals

  Deadlines

  The Scream

  The Cleanup

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  DEDICATION

  "To The Creator, who gives us the Light by which we more clearly see the Darkness..."

  New York City – 1986

  Prologue

  On the Dark Train, Passing Through

  When all the lights went out, Peggy Lewin was alone in the third car. She had been trying to immerse herself in Love’s Deadly Stranger, trying to drive away thoughts of that bastard Luis and their miserable “night on the town,” vainly fighting back tears. Now the paperback sat limp and forgotten in her hand, and all she could think about was how frightened she had suddenly become.

  “Oh, Christ,” she moaned softly into the darkness. Slowly, she set down the book and reached into her purse, groping for a moment. Her finger closed around the Mace and remained there while her eyes cast blindly from corner to corner and a voice in her head whined it’s too late to be taking the subway alone, that cheap bastard, wouldn’t even pay for a cab, goddamn it!

  Peggy squeezed the Mace for reassurance, tried to control herself. Light from the tunnel strobed in through the windows, playing across billboards for El Pico coffee and Preparation H. A nervous giggle escaped her. It was buried under the roar of the train.

  Should I get up? she wondered. Find some people, some light? She stood, shaky, in the center of the aisle, and looked in either direction. Darkness. A sigh escaped her, and she moved to the security of the metal holding post on her right: a pretty girl, slightly overweight and modestly trendy, willing slave of Manhattan’s you-gotta-look-good prerogative, wishing suddenly that she’d played down her curves. Who knew what kinds of creeps rode at this time of night?

  The dark train pushed forward, racing toward the southern tip of Manhattan Island. It struck her that they would be rolling into 42nd Street any minute now, and that even though Times Square wasn’t the greatest place in the world at 3:30 in the morning, it had to be better than this. There’d be a cop or something, anyway. There’d be light.

  There’d be hope.

  “Hurry up,” she almost prayed. “Oh, hurry up and let me out of here.”

  As if in answer, light flooded the car from either side. Gratefully, she moved toward the center doors, watching the pillars whip past, the regular hodgepodge of derelicts assembled, the long TIMES SQUARE 42 ST. sign, more pillars, an officer, more pillars, more pillars, more . . .

  . . . and she realized that the train wasn’t going to stop, and she pounded against the glass with her fists, a mute sob welling in her throat as the station whizzed by. . .

  . . . and in the last moment of concentrated light, before darkness engulfed her once again and completely, she saw the man standing in the space between cars, staring in through the door.

  Staring in at her.

  And she saw the door slowly open.

  ~*~

  “It ain’t stoppin’, Jerry! Check it out!”

  “Yeah, I see it, man,” he answered, but Jerry wasn’t watching that at all. His eyes were on the big black cop, smiling coldly, while his mind worked. “Yeah, officer. Why doncha go find out what’s wrong with ol’ Pinhead, the conductor? Lights go out, train don’t stop . . . looks like a job for the police, ya know it?”

  The cop frowned, nervous and torn. On the one hand, something was definitely wrong. On the other hand, skinhea
ded punks like these guys formed their own category of bad news. Sure, one of ’em couldn’t even sit up right now, might start pukin’ any minute; and the one with his nose against the glass looked too stupid to worry about.

  But he’ll be right there if this Jerry creep starts anything, he noted, unconsciously fondling the butt of his gun. And Jerry-creep probably will.

  There were two other people in the car: two little middle-class hippie throwbacks, probably never been so glad to see a cop in their lives. They were huddled together in the corner by the door, eyes full of mute appeal. Jerry had been giving ’em grief before the lights went out; their upraised voices had drawn Officer Vance in from the last car, where he’d wearily been trying to rouse a crashed-out derelict.

  If I leave now, Vance knew for a fact, these boys are dead meat. Not that it makes that much difference to me. But, dammit, then I will have to book Jerry and his bozo friends, chase ’em halfway to Hell and back on this friggin’ blacked-out train. Oh, Jesus. Thoughts of switchblades in the darkness made him very, very nervous.

  He had pretty well decided to stay when Peggy Lewin’s scream ripped into their ears from five cars ahead. The two hippies jumped a foot a piece and came down hugging each other like pansies in a high wind. Something in Vance’s chest tightened up and froze; that was not a natural scream. He quickly glanced at Jerry’s face and saw that the fucker was smiling.

  “Sic ’em, baby!” Jerry yelled. “Woof woof woof! It’s Police Dog!” His dimwit buddyboy guffawed, steaming up the window. Vance felt like knocking their heads together.

  Then Peggy Lewin screamed again. This time it was worse. Much worse. It wailed out and out, as though her soul had been soaked in gasoline and lit, sent howling out of her mouth to shrivel and die in midair. Even Jerry shut up for a second.

  Even Jerry had never heard such terror.

  “Damn,” Vance hissed. He had no choice. Peggy Lewin had made up his mind for him. Choking down fear, he drew his revolver and started running toward the front of the train. When Jerry refused to get out of the way, Vance knocked him on his ass and kept going, just as the tunnel swallowed them again.

  “I HOPE IT GETS YOU, TOO, YOU BLACK BASTARD!” Jerry bellowed in the fresh darkness. Vance bit back a response, by now scared half out of his mind. The screaming had stopped, but somehow that was not reassuring.

  I hope it gets you, too. The voice rang in his ears. Like the scream. Like the roar of the train. You black bastard! It hurt to be hated so automatically, so completely, on the basis of so very little: uniforms, pigments in skin. The fact that he did the exact same thing did nothing to dampen his rage.

  I’d love to blow you away, white boy, Vance thought bitterly as he came to the door. Blow you right the hell off this world. But the girl, if that was what it was, might still be alive. He was compelled to check it out.

  The door slid open, and he stepped into the space between cars. The wind blasted into him, and the metal platform pitched and buckled beneath his feet. Carefully, he reached over and opened the door to the next car, moved from blackness to blackness to blackness, pausing nervously on the other side.

  The car was empty. Silent, but for the ever-present thunder. No, more than silent and empty. Dead. Suddenly, Vance was overwhelmed by the feeling that he was riding in a dead thing, already beginning to rot, kept in motion by a power not its own.

  Vance knocked on the conductor’s door. No answer. He rattled the lock. “Sid?” he called. “You in there?” No answer. Something damp and chilling uncoiled in his gut.

  What the hell is wrong with this train? he wondered, and then forced himself to keep moving.

  A man named Donald Baldwin was slumped in the driver’s seat, one hand dutifully on the throttle, staring straight ahead. The lights from his instruments were the only working lights on the train; they cast bright reds and yellows on all the shiny spots and streaks in his clothing.

  The door to the engineer’s booth was locked from the inside. Any driver with half a brain kept it locked on night runs, because you were a sitting duck in there, and only lunatics rode at night anyway. If you were crazy enough to be there in the first place, you could at least minimize your risks.

  Tonight, Don Baldwin had been grateful for his half a brain. Right after leaving 51st Street, something started to rattle at the door. Not just the train shaking around; something was trying to get in. Don didn’t know why he thought something instead of someone, but he did, and it scared the bejesus out of him.

  He had tried to raise Sid, his conductor, who sat in a similar cab toward the middle of the train. No answer. He couldn’t even be sure if the intercom was working. Goddamn train is falling apart, he silently groused. Whole goddamn transit system. He got a sudden vivid flash of Sid and Vance, just hanging out, the exact kind of lazy-ass, spear-chucking bastards that were dragging the subways to ruin. And me with a nutcase at the door, he moaned. God damn it.

  Don lit a cigarette, his twenty-third of the night. He always smoked a lot on night runs; it killed time, and what else could you do? Even with his side window open, it filled up with smoke pretty fast in there.

  He never saw the mist drift in, under the door.

  He never even knew what hit him.

  By the time Officer Vance reached the car where Peggy Lewin lived and died, the back of the train was already filling up with rats. They were gray, squat, bloated little bastards with red, gleaming eyes, and they came up through the floor like maggots out of pork. As though they’d been there the whole time. Just waiting.

  The derelict that Vance failed to rouse was still sleeping, decked out on the cool curved plastic of the seats, thick in his own smells. The rats had found him.

  Just as Vance had been found by the dark shape in the doorway. The shape that motioned toward the dead thing at its feet, and impaled him with its luminous eyes.

  “Cigarette?” Jerry was kneeling in front of the two wimps, grinning unpleasantly. They shook their heads, blubbering. He smacked the taller one across the face, eliciting a yelp. “I didn’t ask if you wanted one! I ast if you got one!”

  The taller wimp, William Deere by name, shook his head more emphatically and whimpered a little. First time he’d ever wished for cigarettes, too. Big night for firsts. Fortunately, his friend Robert had one; the little longhair pulled a Tareyton out with shaky fingers and handed it to Jerry.

  “What the hell is this? "Jerry took it, inspected it in the light from the tunnel. “Tareyton. These any good?”

  “I like ’em,” Robert said, risking a chummy grin. His NO NUKES T-shirt was plastered to his back and armpits. He was remembering a movie he saw on TV once, with Tony Musante and Martin Sheen playing badass teen psychos who terrorized sixteen people on a subway car. It was called The Incident, and it had made him swear that he’d never be intimidated like that. He’d never simper and squirm and let some tough guy take him apart piece by piece.

  He had fooled himself about that for a long time. No more. If Jerry wanted to take Robert apart, Jerry could go right ahead. Robert wasn’t going to do shit. Robert was going to risk a chummy grin.

  “Great,” Jerry said, grinning back. “You got anything else I might like, baby boy?” Robert’s smile dried up, and he reached into his pockets.

  “You, too, doll,” said Jerry’s stupid friend, coming over to join in the fun. William Deere nodded now, exercising his neck far more than his spine. He echoed his friend’s gesture, coming up with eighty dollars in crisp twenties.

  “Hot damn! Moses, you done good by us.” Jerry punched William in the shoulder affectionately. “Yer buddy didn’t do so hot, though. Wassa mattah, little Jesus? Nobody givin’ at church?” He grabbed Robert by the collar and started to hoist him out of his seat.

  Then the door at the front of the car slammed open, and Vance reappeared, still holding the gun. There was something stiff about his movement as he came toward them. And his eyes gleamed red, like a rat’s.

  They hit 34th Street just as the fi
rst shot went off, striking Jerry’s asshole friend in the forehead and spinning him backward. Light flooded the train, illuminating the brains and blood that spattered the back wall. Jerry jumped back, freaking. William and Robert squealed like pigs.

  Jerry’s remaining friend, the drunk and sickly one, looked up in time to see a nightmare appear in the door behind Vance. He groaned, assumed he was delirious, and lost it all over the floor. Vance pumped two bullets into him, rolling him off into his own vomit, face first and forever still.

  “Jesus!” Jerry screamed. He pulled a very nasty blade from his back pocket and flicked it open, brought it to rest against William Deere’s throat. The gangly hippie came up with ease, back pressed against Jerry’s pounding chest. “One more step, man, this boy gets his throat sl. . .”

  Vance’s next shot smashed William Deere’s nose on its way out the other side. The body jerked once and then sagged in Jerry’s arms. He pushed it away with a tiny animal sound and ran screaming toward the cop.

  To his credit, Jerry was every bit as tough as he liked to act. He took one in the belly and one in the right lung, crawled ten feet on his knees and buried the blade in Vance’s thigh before drowning in his own blood. Vance watched, blank-faced, not even seeming to feel the pain.

  “Take it out, please,” said a voice from behind Vance. A voice of unspeakable calm and remorselessness. A chill, serpentine hiss. A whisper of graveyard breeze.

  Vance dropped the gun, gripped the handle of Jerry’s switch with both hands, and pulled it wetly out of his leg. He straightened. The knife hung poised in front of his stomach.