05 – Pedway

“Subways are creepy enough,” Sofia said, peering into a darkened tunnel. “Underground walkways that lead on forever… gives me the shivers.”

“Don’t forget the monsters,” Erika chirped, swinging her flashlight back and forth.

She had been in the Chicago Pedway one time, walking the short route from the Red Line to the Macy’s State Street. It had been clean, brightly lit, wide enough to accommodate a dozen people side-by-side, and moderately empty. Not a lot of people used the Pedway—or maybe it had just been the time of day.

If not for the compass rose symbol of the Pedway on the door, Erika would have had a hard time believing this was part of the same network of tunnels.

This tunnel connected directly to the subway tracks, not the platform. The bare concrete was chipped and aged, and probably in need of inspection. There were lights in the narrow tunnel, but it seemed like only every tenth was actually lit, and even those were yellowed and flickering like they were ancient incandescents that never got updated to something more modern. A faint musk of mold lingered in the air, though not enough to be truly revolting.

At least it wasn’t that sweet-rot stench like at the maggot-infested building the other day.

“They can’t have gotten far,” Erika said, pressing forward. “Come on.”

“You sure you weren’t just imagining things?”

“Positive.” Erika aimed her flashlight at the ground ahead of them, sweeping it over trails in the dust. “Something has been here somewhat recently. At least we won’t lose track of them.”

“Great,” Sofia said, completely enthused.

Erika pressed forward, not waiting for her companion to quit dragging her feet.

It was a narrow tunnel that gradually curved, obscuring the far end. There were a handful of doors on either side of it, but the trail in the dusty floor never veered off to the sides.

“You really should be looking up, you know,” Sofia muttered.

Erika glanced up momentarily. Sofia’s flashlight swept the ceiling as much as Erika’s swept the floor. Overhead, nestled in a curved space, thick black cables, long bolted pipes, and rectangular ducts stretched in either direction. Some of the piping looked damaged in parts. Though nothing was happening now, it looked like something might have burst through the bolted segments of the pipes, spraying the concrete with something that stained it a rusty brown.

“Don’t see much interesting up there,” Erika said, continuing to follow the trail on the ground.

“Humans—most animals, actually—tend to have a lower-field visual preference,” Sofia continued. “It means you favor looking at things at or below your eye level. Predators can take advantage of that simply by hiding somewhere up above. Like a tiger in a tree.”

Sofia made some sense, though Erika wasn’t sure about the tiger bit. She had seen her fair share of tigers while scrolling down the internet. Most images of them in trees had them relaxing. While on the prowl, they tended to move through tall grass.

“I’ll leave that to you then,” Erika said, before stopping abruptly.

The trail veered off to one side, through a partially ajar door. It had a digital lock on it, the kind that wanted a card swiped through it, but it had been bashed open, breaking the lock clean off the face of the door and bending the handle.

“This way,” she said, nudging the door the rest of the way open with the end of her bat.

Erika wasn’t sure what she expected. A dried-out swimming pool with bright blue and white tiles wasn’t it. The lights were down, giving it that abandoned aura, but even still, it looked too clean to really have been part of the seemingly abandoned tunnel network.

The tunnel door did not open directly to the swimming pool. It was behind a glass wall. Looking around, Erika spotted some exercise equipment and treadmills.

“It’s a gym,” she sighed as soon as she realized. She knew that some parts of the Pedway connected to shops and stores, so a gym wasn’t altogether unheard of, especially if it had an upper section on the street level. “Thought we stepped into the backrooms there for a moment. I—”

Sofia grabbed hold of Erika’s arm, putting her finger in front of her mouth in the universal shush gesture. Once sure that Erika wasn’t going to continue running her mouth, she slowly pointed down the row of stair-steppers.

Erika hadn’t noticed because her flashlight drowned out the slim sheen of light that came through the crack in the pool changing room, but with Sofia holding her arm down, she not only saw it, but she saw the slight dimming of light as a shadow blocked some of the crack.

Nodding to show she saw it, Erika handed her flashlight off to Sofia and took up her bat in both hands. Carefully stalking through the gym floor, around a weight machine, and to the door, Erika then paused, her back up against the wall beside it. Sofia was shaking her head, but Erika nodded, pointing at the door.

Sofia huffed, silently, and with all the resignation in the world, aimed the flashlight directly at the door.

Which was not what Erika wanted at all. Just as she started to mime a push against the door, hoping Sofia would open it so Erika could keep her hands on her bat, the door swung open of its own accord.

A woman stepped through, ducking through the doorway. She wasn’t so tall that Erika would have described her as gargantuan, but she was still the tallest woman Erika had ever seen in person. It wasn’t just her height. She was built. Her arms, her breasts, her hips, her thighs. All of it was tight against the fabric of the odd men’s-style long-tailed tuxedo she wore.

The woman paused one step through the door, staring first at Sofia, then at Erika. “Oh… Uh… Hello,” she said, ducking her head again, this time in greeting. Her eyes trailed up the bat in Erika’s hands. “Are you… going to fight me?”

Sofia was, once again, vehemently shaking her head. Erika only raised an eyebrow.

She had expected maggots, monsters, or masked people. This woman didn’t seem to fit in any of those three categories, unless she was hiding her mask.

What was more, she carried a large sack over her shoulder. A suspiciously human-sized sack that wiggled slightly of its own accord.

“That depends,” Erika said eventually. “Are you with The Mummy?”

“I don’t think so?” The woman said, scratching her scalp with a white-gloved hand.

“Are you behind the ‘gas leaks’ that have been happening lately?”

“No, I… don’t think I am.”

“You don’t sound very sure of yourself,” Erika said, eying the bag moving on the woman’s back. From her body alone, Erika would have expected confidence, but the woman was more meek.

“Well, The Director gets up to a lot of things that I don’t know about. Pretty sure he isn’t doing any of what you were talking about though.” She paused, then quickly added. “But I haven’t done anything.”

“The Director?” Sofia said, incredulous. She took a full step backwards as if this woman were radioactive.

“Yes. The Director of The Castle. I am The Butler.” The woman narrowed her eyes, looking at Sofia. “But I don’t think I know you.”

Sofia’s eyes frantically darted about like she was looking for an escape. “I’m… just… uh…”

“I’m The Agent,” Erika said to bail Sofia out. “She’s just a regular person helping me track down… What’ve you got in the bag there?”

The Butler shifted, putting her full body between Erika and the sack. “A specimen for The Director. You can’t have it.”

“Is it a giant maggot? Or a person with a mouth like a lamprey eel?”

“You can’t have it,” The Butler said again, far more insistent this time.

Erika backed off, raising a hand in a peaceful gesture. The gears in the back of her mind turned, lightly clicking as she considered.

The Fixer had been working effectively alone for however long. He didn’t want to work with others if he could help it. Erika didn’t really understand why, but she wasn’t The Fixer. If some Director wanted a specimen, it sounded like someone doing experiments on these things. Someone who maybe had a bit more insight than Anna.

“You can keep it,” Erika said, even going so far as to lower her bat. Standing down got an immediate, agreeable reaction from The Butler.

At least until the bag started violently thrashing. A slam of her elbow into its side—accompanied by a crack of breaking bones and pained moans—got it to settle back down. Erika couldn’t help her wince.

“I need to get the specimen in containment before I accidentally kill it like the last one.”

Erika hesitated a moment at that admission, but steeling herself, she stepped forward. “Before you go, do you have a phone number?” she asked, making sure to not stand completely in the way—she sure as hell didn’t want to be on the receiving end of that arm. “I’m working with The Fixer, who has been hunting these guys down for years now. We might have information we could share with your Director.”

The Butler paused, staring down at Erika. “The Director isn’t keen on outsiders involving themselves…” She trailed off, frowning to herself. “Except there was that one time… He’d be upset if I don’t.” Closing her eyes, The Butler let out a small sigh. She hefted the bag from one shoulder to the other with startling ease for something that held a person. With her now freed hand, she reached into the inner pocket of her tuxedo and pulled out a slim silver phone.

“Here,” she said, holding it out toward Erika.

For a moment, Erika thought she wanted to quick share until The Butler tilted the screen a bit more. She had just opened a text app and wrote her number down. Erika quickly copied it into her contacts list before dialing the number. The Butler’s phone vibrated in her hand with Erika’s number popping up on the screen. “Great,” Erika said. “I’ll be in touch… tomorrow? Sound good?”

“If I’m busy,” The Butler said, replacing the phone in her pocket, “I won’t answer. If The Director declines to cooperate, I also won’t answer.”

“Fair enough.”

Taking that as the end of the conversation, The Butler started walking around Erika. She didn’t head toward the Pedway entrance, but rather a set of stairs behind a glass door off to one side of the gym. She paused right at the doors, holding them open, and looked back over her shoulder.

“Careful. This wasn’t the only one in the area.”

“Thanks for the warning!” Erika called after her as she ducked through the glass doorframe. The Butler didn’t look back again as she ascended the stairs, leaving Erika to turn to Sofia with a smile. “That went well.”

Sofia shuddered. “You’re insane. How do you just go up and talk to someone like that?”

“What’d you want to do? Get into a fight?” Erika shook her head. “No, thank you. After that noise of her punching that bag and her admitting that she accidentally killed one of them, presumably by punching a little too hard, I’m good with being friendly.”

“I don’t mean that, but maybe don’t share contact details with She-Hulk over there? We don’t even know that it was one of your monsters in that bag. She could just be out kidnapping random people.”

“Right. Random people from some abandoned gym,” Erika shook her head. “It sounds like she knows people, and those people are interested in the same thing I’m interested in. Common interests make conversation easy.”

Erika peered around the now vacant locker room. It might have been trashed long ago, but she could just as easily imagine The Butler tossing one of those monsters around the room. Several lockers were dented. One brick wall had heavy cracks running through it. The remnants of a wooden bench between the lockers were little more than splinters and broken planks. Black blood was scattered about the lockers, walls, and floor.

And The Butler got out of there with a mostly pristine suit.

Maybe she had a special power to keep her clothes clean.

“No sense sticking around here,” Erika said. “Let’s get back to the others.”

“She said more were lurking around.”

“Unless they’re around this spot, I don’t think it matters,” Erika said. If she had a trail to follow, it would be a different story, but with her one target now bagged and in the hands of The Castle, she had to hope that The Butler would answer her phone later. “Or are you saying you want to wander the Pedway tunnels for the rest of the night?”

“No… no. Let’s go back.”

Nodding her head, Erika rested the bat on her shoulder as they made their way back through the gym and to the Pedway tunnel. “Creepy place,” she muttered.

“Probably was active a few years ago. They shut down most of the Pedway during COVID. Not much reopened.”

“Maybe. But why does the tunnel end at the side of the tracks?”

“Could be that the tunnel existed before the subway? When they dug the tunnel, they just closed off that end but kept it accessible for maint—”

Sofia stopped talking abruptly enough that Erika whirled around, fearing something had happened to her.

The woman was fine apart from the growing look of horror spreading across her face as she stared at the ceiling. Before Erika could turn to look as well, she grabbed Erika’s wrist, yanked her away, and let go. Without a word over her shoulder, she started sprinting down the narrow tunnel.

Something wet slopped against the ground just behind Erika, right where she had been standing before Sofia pulled her out of danger. It took a force of willpower to keep from looking up or behind. Not wanting to risk something else above her new spot, Erika took off running after Sofia.

Sofia didn’t stop, but Erika did after a few dozen steps. She had her eyes and her flashlight trained on the ceiling, and there was nothing above her now.

Turning, she aimed her flashlight at what she had been sprinting from.

A dark, glossy shape, a bit smaller than a human, darted off to the side. It skittered up the wall to avoid the direct beam of the flashlight. The narrow corridor meant it couldn’t avoid her light forever. It clung to the ceiling, lurking half behind a rusted-out pipe. Erika could only see its face, if it could be called that. Dark black chitin, segmented in a way that reminded her of the maggots, swept back over an elongated head. The lower half of its face separated from the upper, revealing a seemingly endless spiral of razor-sharp teeth, all twitching and moving slightly. There were no eyes. No nose. Just that formless face and two short limbs clinging with skeleton-like fingers to the ceiling, dripping some vile tar to the ground beneath it.

“What the fu—”

The monster sprung forward, reverse legs propelling out of its ceiling hiding spot like some kind of grasshopper.

Erika swung her bat, dropping her flashlight to try to better grip its handle. The light spun against the ground, giving only brief flashes of its rapid approach.

She heard the wet crack of chitin breaking against her bat. She felt the impact run up her arms. The jerk jostled the bat just as she was about to grab it with both hands, resulting in her knocking it out of her own grip.

The bat pinged against the ground just as the flashlight’s spin came to a stop, ending with it illuminating the creature as it squirmed and squiggled on its back. Black blood splattered all across the wall, and a good portion of its smooth, round head was scattered in chunks across the floor.

Without hesitation, Erika reached into her coat and pulled out her pistol. She leveled it at the creature and squeezed the trigger over and over again until the magazine was empty. She didn’t hear the click of the hammer striking nothing—she didn’t hear much beyond a high-pitched ring in her ears—but she felt the lack of a kick from the gun.

Erika shoved the gun back into her holster and quickly bent, picking up her bat once more. All without taking her eyes off the monster. It wasn’t moving as much as it had been. Just little twitches in its arms and legs.

Erika snatched the flashlight off the ground. She took her eyes off the monster for a split second, just long enough to sweep the ceiling and walls of the tunnel and make sure another one wasn’t sneaking up on her. Even still, she expected the creature to vanish in that short instant.

It didn’t. Thankfully.

Erika let out a small, shuddering breath, keeping her eyes on the creature as its twitches slowly died out, leaving it still and hopefully deceased.

Sofia was gone. Somewhere further up the tunnel. Maybe she ducked into one of the open doors, maybe she just kept running around the gradual curve of the Pedway and out of sight. Erika could only hope that there wasn’t another of these things now chasing after her. Though a bit shaken and her right ear was still buzzing, Erika remained confident that she could handle these monsters. She was not confident that Sofia could say the same.

Erika didn’t like the idea of leaving its body around where someone could just stumble across it. She pulled out her phone, about to call Anna, only to be met with a No Service warning. Biting her lip, she looked down the tunnel, then at the corpse.

Hoping that Rick and Anna were fine out in the regular subway tunnels, Erika turned and hurried after Sofia. She couldn’t just leave her alone and defenseless.

This time, Erika made sure to glance at the ceiling every few steps. Sofia was right about that, at least. Of course, she didn’t only watch the ceiling. Any eave, any alcove, any doorway, even the occasional larger pipes, warranted extra caution before she ran past.

The tunnel didn’t continue forever. It terminated in a short, narrow stairwell. Having seen no sign of Sofia anywhere else, Erika hurriedly ascended the steps, which opened to a small alcove right outside a bank. There were more police cars outside, keeping the public from approaching, but Erika was more interested in Sofia.

She stood halfway between the cars and the Pedway entrance, speaking with a taller man. Erika would have expected a cop of some sort, but the man didn’t give off cop vibes.

He wore a pristine three-piece suit with a black tie and a gray vest, and his shoes were so polished that they might as well have been glowing for how well they reflected the lights on the cop cars. He didn’t dress quite so ostentatiously as The Butler in her tuxedo, but not far off. They could be related, for all Erika knew. Her eyes were drawn to the case he had slung over one shoulder. It was the kind of thing a violinist might carry.

Which, Erika felt confident enough in assuming based on the situation, was probably more like a concealed weapon.

Upon noticing Erika, he said a few more words to Sofia before standing fully upright. He brushed off some stray bit of lint from his suit before walking closer to her.

It was a bit hard to tell with the police lights making the lighting strange, but he looked pale. Almost as pale as The Stalker.

He stopped abruptly several paces from Erika, well out of range of a swing of her bat, simply studying her.

“Who are you supposed to be?” Erika said, glowering. Her eyes shifted, finding Sofia’s back, but the woman hadn’t turned around. “One of the Men in Black?”

His lips pressed together in an amused but subdued smile. “Not quite,” he said in a calm, resonant baritone. He drew in a slow, deep breath. “You’re awfully calm considering what your companion claims was down in those tunnels.”

“Yeah, well, probably just a hallucination from the gas leak, right?”

The man’s eyes flicked to the plastic mask still hanging from her shoulder before his flat gaze returned to her.

“So what?” Erika said, pivoting from one foot to the other. He didn’t move in the slightest. “We under arrest or something?”

“Some questions down at the station may be in order, wouldn’t you say?”

“Don’t know. I’ve had a long night. Might be more agreeable after a shower and a sleep.” Erika ground her teeth together. She… didn’t like cops. Or cop-like people. Heading down to the police station with this guy sounded like a recipe for disaster. At the very least, she needed to inform The Fixer that she had met two more people from that side of the coin. This guy and The Butler.

Because there was no way this guy wasn’t going to eventually introduce himself as The Whatever.

“Besides,” she continued, “we need to meet up with… uh… the other members of the Health Department?”

“Ah, yes. The ‘Health Department.’” The Whatever kept his arms at his sides, but she still heard those sarcasm quotes. “They are out of the subway along with a downed officer. He will survive, thanks to your efforts. I’m sure you will be pleased to hear that. But I really must insist on you answering a few questions.”

Sofia finally glanced back at Erika. She didn’t look any more enthused than Erika felt. If anything, she looked drained. Which Erika fully understood. They had just been chased through tunnels by a monster and now were probably about to go to jail for impersonating government officials or some shit.

She gave Erika a half-hearted shrug.

Erika pinched the bridge of her nose. For a moment, she considered fighting or running. The former seemed like a good way to get her caught in the middle of a manhunt, if not just shot right here. The latter… might be possible? Any pursuers would probably stop chasing her once they came across the corpse of that monster. The other end of the tunnel was also surrounded by cops, though.

The Butler presumably got away. At least some of those doors in the tunnels would have ways up to the surface that wouldn’t be guarded.

Her foot slowly slid backwards, audibly grinding against the asphalt.

The Whatever’s smile dipped. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t run,” he said, tone losing some of that warmth. “It might not go so well for your friends if we cannot interview all four of you.”

Erika’s eyes darted to Sofia. She found that worried look on the other woman’s face and immediately groaned.

“Fine. Whatever,” she said, holding out her wrists, letting the bat hang limp between her fingers. “Fucking cuff me already, Mulder.”

“I’m sure that’s not necessary if you’re cooperating,” he said, turning to motion with a hand.

One of the regular cops hoofed it forward, stopping at Sofia. He didn’t put cuffs on her, but did start leading her away to one of the waiting cop cars. Agent Mulder, however, turned and started walking in the opposite direction.

“Come along, please,” he said, pausing to see if Erika was going to follow orders.

“Splitting us up?”

“Can’t have you getting your stories straight,” he said simply before gesturing for her to follow. There was insistence in that gesture.

With a huff, Erika started following. “Cut the crap. You already know what’s going on,” she muttered. “What do you call yourself? The Spook? The G-Man? I’m guessing you’re from The Eclipse.”

As far as she had learned from The Fixer, The Eclipse was the faction that ran the city. If this guy was ordering around cops, he had to be part of them.

He didn’t give her a response. He stopped at a sleek black car, opening the rear door like some chauffeur.

“Why don’t I get a cop car?” Erika asked, glancing back at the car Sofia got into.

“She wasn’t on the verge of fleeing. You require more personal attention.”

Erika clicked her tongue, settling into the rear. “Fine. Whatever.” He hadn’t taken her bat away. If necessary, she could bash the car into pieces.

He closed the door—not locking it—and circled around to the driver seat. He settled into the glossy leather cushions like he was made for it. Only when the engine was on and the car was rolling away did he look up to the rearview mirror. He angled it slightly, allowing him to see her directly.

“They call me The Hanged Man,” he said with a polite smile. “I work as a… greeter for The Eclipse, ensuring newcomers to the city are welcomed properly. And that they know the rules.”

Although his tone was mildly threatening, that got Erika to perk up. She was suddenly a lot more interested in going with this guy if he was actually going to tell her things. The Fixer, owing to his isolation, wasn’t a very good source of information on the city of Chicago. He could yap about abstract supernatural creatures and maybe even name a few big shots in the city, but he didn’t really know about them. Even The Mummy, the entity he had been tracking his whole life, was a quasi-mystery to him.

“I take it I’ve broken some rules?”

“A handful.”

“Alright then,” Erika said, sitting back. “Lay it on me.”

“First and foremost, don’t involve humans.”

Erika’s eyebrow twitched. “If you’re talking about The Hunters, they were tracking down ghosts long before I showed up.”

“They are a known quantity we have been watching for some time, but they were strictly keeping to spirits until you showed up. Now, we have to go to the trouble of ensuring they aren’t going to be a problem. Quite a hassle.”

Erika leaned forward. “You better not hurt them,” she said, tapping her finger on the end of her bat loud enough to make it click.

“Please,” The Hanged Man said, unbothered by her threat. “We aren’t animals. But the more they investigate this side of the coin, the more likely they are to step on someone’s toes who won’t stop at a mere warning. Not all are as orderly as The Eclipse.”

Erika pressed her lips together, leaning back slowly. She figured that much. All this investigation into The Mummy wasn’t likely to end with someone telling them off.

She blinked as a thought occurred to her. “You might want to send some non-humans down into those Pedway tunnels then. I may or may not have left a corpse behind of something obviously inhuman.”

His eyes flicked up to the mirror again before returning to the road. “I’ll make a note of that. I hope you didn’t off anyone I liked.”

“Pretty sure it was some evolved form of those maggot monsters. Had the same teeth and segmented carapace…” Erika trailed off, scowling at The Hanged Man. “And if you’re friends with those maggots, we’re going to have a problem.”

“Hardly,” he said with a disgusted sneer. “There are other rules. Respect the territory of others—don’t unduly cause conflicts by knowingly trespassing.”

Erika winced at that one but didn’t say anything. If The Art hadn’t recognized her, she assumed The Hanged Man wouldn’t either. The Eclipse was after her bounty, but her cutting up IDs seemed to be working thus far.

“Only hunt what you can handle—and clean up your messes. Ties into the first rule.”

Erika winced at that one as well. She… had left some trouble in her wake. Mostly at the museum and now here.

“Favors are currency. Reputation is everything. I gather you understand that one well enough.”

“Yeah, sure,” she muttered. Did he know about her meetings with The Stalker? Just how much did he know?

“The Eclipse is the authority. Challenge us at your own peril.”

“Right,” Erika said, half rolling her eyes. If what The Fixer said was true, two other large factions in the city openly challenged The Eclipse. The Puppet and The Castle. But far be it from her to argue with the authoritarian regime while she was sitting in its car.

“This one is more of an informal rule,” The Hanged Man said as he pulled the car over to a stop.

Erika peered out the window, finding a park. That was fine. She hadn’t expected to be delivered to a police station after learning that The Hanged Man wanted to talk to her specifically. It did make her raise an eyebrow. What was it with parks? She felt like she had visited more parks in the last few weeks than the rest of her life combined.

Though this park looked a little familiar.

Erika’s eyes widened as she snapped her gaze out the other side of the car.

There, standing tall, was a familiar old church.

The side door opened, and a tired, scruffy-looking office worker leaned down. His tie, hanging loose around his neck, dangled back and forth in front of his untucked shirt.

Erika gripped her bat—

“Stop.”

The man spoke and Erika froze. Her fingers wouldn’t tighten. Her jaw wouldn’t move. She couldn’t turn her head one way or another.

“Yes,” The Hanged Man said from the periphery of her vision. “Don’t piss off The Church.”