The Cartographer

The Cartographer

A Story by Johnnie Zombie
"

Bart lives in the subway tunnels beneath the city. He is a Cartographer, charting the empty arteries of abandoned civil projects. This is the story of what he found.

"
"Hold it still," Bart said for the umpteenth time. The pale yellow ring of light kept drooping, making Bart draw errant lines on his legal pad. The constant erasing and the glare of the faded lines were making Bart twitchy. 
 "Sorry. Nervous." said Kareem. Bart looked past the flare of the flashlight and up at Kareem's face. His thin face was all smiles and white teeth. Bart fixed him with a glare, but that didn't seem to deter the torch bearer's anxious excitement. 
"Nervous about what, exactly?" Bart asked, not really caring. He returned to the dusty plaque that read: Junction 7-B, CAUTION ACTIVE CURRENT. Bart copied the words down in his notepad, tagged it to a rendition of the tunnels they were now in.
"The tunnel dragons."
"What?" Bart looked up at Kareem, squinting at the illumination. 
"The tunnel dragons," Kareem repeated, tapping a pipe against a wall. The metal rung softly each time it kissed the roughly  stone. "They come up at the beginning of every winter to fatten up on subway rats. You know how huge they can get. The rats, I mean." 
Bart rolled his eyes and continued down the tunnel. The people who lived in the subway system were full of urban legends and myths. Since coming down here three months ago, Bart had heard a host of stories about mutants, giant alligators, and even molemen living in the abandoned tunnels and train depots. It was all bullshit but Kareem was notorious for having half of his brain residing in a fantasy world. To Kareem, the pipe in his hand wasn't just a piece of dusty debris; it was a finely crafted sword. To Kareem, the sub-humans (what the tunnel dwellers wryly refer to themselves as) and their society wasn't just a collection of squatters, deviants and runaways. No, this society was a feudal caste system, of which Kareem was a warrior. Bart, however, was a cartographer. In the tunnels, the cartographer was king. 
"I'm gonna slay me a tunnel dragon," Kareem continued, not needing Bart's attention or reply. "Wear their skins as a stylish jacket. Maybe with a matching belt and shoes." 
"What exactly are these tunnel dragons? Baby alligators flushed down the toilet?" 
"No, you dink. Giant alligators live in the sewers. Anacondas are what live in the tunnels." 
"Christ. Anacondas?"
"Obviously. In the wild, anacondas live in caves. Displaced animals always seek places that closely resemble their natural habitat." 
"And where did these giant snakes come from?"
"From idiots who think having an anaconda is cool. When they get too big, they let them loose somewhere dark, where it can't bother anyone." 
"Have you ever seen one? Up close?"
Kareem stopped walking. Bart, alerted by the absence of a second pair of footsteps, turned around. Kareem looked at Bart gravely, tossing his pipe onto his scrawny shoulders.  "If I had, I wouldn't be here today."
Bart noticed that Kareem's sports jacket- once green but now almost gray from several coats of dust and graphite powder- had a thread hanging from the sleeve. Bart stared at it. After a moment, Kareem noticed the scrutiny and shifted uncomfortably. "What? What are you looking at?" 
"You have a loose thread. It's bothering the hell outta me." 
"Oh, well, I'll take it to the tailor straightaway, a*****e." Kareem stalked past Bart, slashing his flashlight across the rocky flesh of the tunnel. Bart gritted his teeth and his fingers twitched. He pulled at his own sleeves and was sated for the moment. 
"Don't go off too far, Kareem. This is all unexplored territory." 
"It's not unexplored, kid. It's just that the scouts that have gone this way haven't returned yet." 
Bart sneered at the title of "kid." Bart was 24, at least seven years older than Kareem. Next time he went out on a map-making expedition, Bart would make sure to request a different partner. Preferably one who wasn't a Dungeons & Dragons fetishist. And, of course, he would ask the Scavengers for more legal pads, the ones with white paper. The white paper caught the light much better than the yellow. 
        There was a sound.
"The hell was that?" Kareem twirled on the balls of his feet, the flashlight strobing, momentarily blinding Bart. 
        "Goddammit Kareem. You got me in the eyes." 
"Shut up, I can hear it. It sounds like it's-" Bart never heard what Kareem was about to compare the sound to. His words were truncated by a sudden scream. Bart opened his eyes and tried to see past the yellow and red orbs floating in his vision. He saw a hard silhouette of Kareem-and something much bigger.
         When his vision cleared, Bart could see Kareem. He was on his knees, screaming, holding something at his shoulders. Bart tried to make sense of what he was seeing, but it could only come to him in pieces; a massive flat skull, shining yellow scales, huge pink eyes with pupils like knife wounds, fangs as long as the arm of a small child. 
        It was a snake, a tunnel dragon. 
Kareem, still shouting in panic and pain, hurled his pipe at Bart. The makeshift weapon clattered on unused tracks and exposed tubing. Bart stared at the pipe for a few moments, unsure of what he was supposed to do with it. Kareem's pleas for help were suddenly a hard slap that brought Bart into motion. 
        The cartographer grabbed at the pipe and lunged forward, shouting, changing castes, becoming a warrior. The pipe flew to its zenith, then came crashing down like a god's bolt. The pipe cracked on the giant snake's skull, obliterating a section of golden scales into glittering dust. 
        The tunnel dragon ripped its fangs out of Kareem's shoulder, hissing in agony. It closed its dripping, bloody maw and fixed Bart with a stare. The pink eyes searched blindly. Its long forked tongue stabbed at the air, tasting for fear and bravado. The tunnel dragon seemed to find Bart's particular scent, savored it, and registered it in its small reptilian memory. 
        The tunnel dragon shot past Bart, its heavy, cold weight brushing past Bart's suddenly small frame. The snake slithered toward ground familiar to Bart, effectively cutting him off from his route home. 
Bart, with rubber legs and arms shoved the pipe and legal pad in his back pocket. He ran to Kareem, hoisted him up to his unsteady feet. Bart dragged Kareem further down the alien tunnel, realizing that the flashlight was held fast in Kareem's reflexive grip. The light bounced around far too much to be effective at spotting obstacles in their path. Bart had to take it slow but he felt the shadow of the dragon pushing at him. 
       Bart didn't spare a look back. 
They walked for what seemed like hours. Kareem was quiet, only occasionally breaking his silence by mewing pathetically. The tunnel dragon was nowhere to be seen, but Bart could feel it, just knew that it was stalking them through its familiar shadows. 
Bart stopped, the graphite powder and dust choking his lungs. Kareem sagged to the ground. Bart knelt next to the frail warrior and took the flashlight from him. Bart flashed around for a sign, found one: Track 87-A, MAINTENANCE STATION.
Maintenance stations usually contained emergency tools for repairing trains stuck on the tracks, Bart remembered being told. There would be some useful supplies in there, if he could get the door open. Bart pulled the pipe from his back pocket and started jabbing at the lock. The metal vibrated painfully with each strike, but Bart ignored the discomfort. 
"Why are you here, man?" Bart paused, turned to Kareem.
"What?"
"You don't belong here with the rest of us, man. This was never your scene." 
Bart ignored him, resumed his attempts at breaking into the maintenance station. "I bet you were a big deal topside. Yeah, with a nice job and a nice flat. Maybe even a girlfriend. Or boyfriend, or dog. So why are you down here, man? Why are you squattin' and fighting giant snakes in the subway tunnels?" 
"Well-" bang. "why are-'" bang. "you here?"
"Because no one wanted me topside. 'Cuz we shared the same space, but not the same world, ya know? I was meant to live as a warrior, to die for a cause. Topside…there aren't any causes." Kareem coughed. "Your turn." 
Bart stopped his banging, looked at Kareem. He usually dark skin was pale and his body languid. The kid was suffering from the tunnel dragon's toxin, probably. Bart set the pipe down and sat next to Kareem. 
"I like things to be perfect," Bart revealed. "Up there, it seems like everyone strives for perfection. Perfect job, perfect body, perfect decorum in high society." Bart kicked at small stones, making them skip over tracks. "I wasn't good enough for anyone. I went to a top school, but there were other schools even better than that one. I was a straight A student but I wasn't Valedictorian." 
"So you ran away?" Kareem asked unnecessarily. 
"Yeah. I figure I can be perfect in a place where everyone else is so completely and thoroughly fucked up." 
"A*****e," Kareem laughed. His laugh turned into a cough. His cough turned into a retch. The sound came again. It was the sound of seashells scratching at stones. It was undercut by a long hiss, an eager promise of a feast to come. 
The tunnels rumbled and Bart had the terrible idea that the tunnel dragons traveled in slithers. 
"You should leave, Bart." Kareem whispered. 
"I can't leave you here-" Bart said incredulously. 
"I'm going to slay a dragon, Bart. I'm going to save you and fight for the safety of the sub-humans. Don't even think about taking that away from me." 
"Kareem, you're going to make me feel like s**t tomorrow morning." 
Kareem smiled and weakly pushed Bart away. 
Bart stood. He searched the darkness for the tunnel dragon but saw nothing. He looked at the flashlight and pipe in his hands. He placed it on Kareem's chest. "Use these to get that thing in the goddamn eyes." 
        Kareem nodded and sat up against the wall, as ready for death as Bart could imagine a seventeen year old kid could be. 
        Bart stood and ran.
The tunnel; long, dark, stretching like a vein. Bart was a white blood cell running away from a virus, the body be damned. There was life outside this organism. There was a purpose, a cause, Bart now knew. It wasn't in himself, it was in others. 
        The tunnel dragon was behind him, filling the tunnel, perversely organic. The snake stretched and snapped, hissed and tasted the air. Bart didn't look back to see the monster in the subway. He looked forward, ahead of him, and almost cried when he saw naked bulbs lining the curved ceiling. 
        It was a subway station, an active one.
After three months of living in the Under, Bart reflexively wanted to turn back, but there were dragons in his wake. 
Bart left the slaying of dragons to warriors.  

© 2013 Johnnie Zombie


Author's Note

Johnnie Zombie
Image was taken from wackyowl.com's article on Moscow's abandoned tunnels.

http://www.wackyowl.com/abadonaded-moscow-tunnels/

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Added on February 5, 2013
Last Updated on February 5, 2013

Author

Johnnie Zombie
Johnnie Zombie

Boston, MA



About
My ultimate goal is to become a professional multimedia writer, with a focus on horror and science fiction. Most of the work I'll publish on this website is going to be graphic and adult, so read .. more..