False Future Read Online Free Page A

scared?” Rhys says.
    My pulse tells me yes. I’d rather be back in the tank. But I’m glad to have Rhys by my side. “I’m fine.”
    We make it to the front of the train, where we find even more bodies. Most of these are young people who were able to outrun the others. The door at the front of the train yawns wide open, nothing but darkness and silence beyond. I creep toward it and slowly pull the door shut.
    Rhys uses his Glock to smash open the operator’s booth in the front right corner of the car. The little booth is empty; I have no idea where the operator went, or why the train lost power. Maybe trains are down across the city. Through the windshield the darkness is unchanged.
    “Where are the lights?” Rhys says.
    The controls are half digital, half analog. I find a little box on the screen that says FRONT LIGHTS. I jab it with my finger, and the tunnel lights up bright yellow. As my eyes adjust, shapes come into view. They are monsters.
    But they are not the eyeless.

T he creatures are twitching, shifting back and forth. They don’t have bodies. They just have arms— human arms—eight black limbs connected together in a ball of muscle. Each arm ends with a hand, five fingers tipped in claws. They’re like massive spiders without the bodies. My throat closes, and Rhys makes a strangled sound, muttering “Oh my God” under his breath. On the tracks I see a body clad in a blue uniform—the train operator.
    I swallow. It feels like swallowing a rock. The black hands lift up and open toward us, like they’re seeing with their palms.
    My heart is pounding so hard I can feel it against the inside of my ribs. Rhys actually grabs my wrist and squeezes, like a reflex. I try to beat down my fear with anger— These FREAKS killed all those people. What are you going to do about it?
    The spiders are crammed together, their black arms slick with blood. Their claws click on the tracks, and a few hunker down low before jumping onto the front of the train. Thump thump thump. They’re coming back for us.
    “Go!” Rhys screams.
    I find a lever on the dashboard. The only lever. I jam it forward with glee, ready to crush the spiders under tons and tons of metal.
    But nothing happens.
    “Where’s the ON button?” Rhys says.
    A spider now plastered to the front of the car starts slamming one clawed hand into the windshield. Its hand is the size of a large frying pan. The glass splinters on the second swing. Rhys lines his Glock up and fires a bullet through the window into the twisted mass of muscle and tendons where the spider’s arms meet. It drops out of sight.
    In the meantime, the rest have jumped onto the car and are shaking it back and forth like monkeys.
    One of them grabs the door handle at the front.
    “No!” I snatch the handle as it dips down, heaving up with all my strength, but then it tears the handle out of my hands. The spider flings open the door, which rebounds viciously, and the creature recoils, then slams it open again. This time the door pops out of its hinges at the top.
    “Rhys!”
    Rhys fires a blind shot, then stabs at the spider with his sword. He slams the door again and pushes a little locking pin through it. Still, it’s halfway out of the frame, and two fingers curl around the top, jerking on the door.
    “Get us moving, Miranda.” Glass shatters at the other end of the car.
    I search the dash while another spider hops up on the windshield. There’s a key, which I turn so hard I’m surprised I don’t break it. The train comes to life with a loud hum and rattle. I jab the lever forward and we accelerate.
    “Faster!” Rhys calls out.
    “I’m trying!”
    Some spiders are trying to pry apart the double doors on the side of the car; there’s just enough space for them to fit between the train and the wall of the tunnel. As I watch, two spiders still hanging on to the front of the train get knocked off by a stoplight, limbs flailing, hands opening and closing. I almost shout YES