Looking around as she slowly rose to her feet, she had sat down during her sneezing fit, better that than to topple over. She saw that she was standing in the ground floor of a triple decker subway tunnel. Whatever had been used to destroy the place had reached all the way to the ground. Once there it had tossed everything in its blast radius in opposite directions.
Caught in the blast had been two subway cars. Each were smashed and slammed into the walls of debris on opposite ends of the cavern. Both ends of the tunnels were sealed with debris, mounds of concrete, steel, and all the junk of what once had been modern life. The sight brought a smile to Tamar's lips, this was perfect.
Sure she was cornered with no escape path but she was tired, so very tired. Freedom was suppose to be freeing, not just changing one yoke for another. She wanted the running to be over, to not have the feeling of being watched hanging over her head all the time, and the only way that was going to happen was to kill those that were after her. Not that she wanted them dead, she didn't want to kill anyone, it was just a means to an end. She wanted her freedom and they couldn't stop chasing her, the General wouldn't let them, so they had to die, every last one of them.
This was as good a place to make a stand as any. If they tried to come down here they would be easy to pick off. Tamar knew the General wanted her back alive if at all possible so that gave her the advantage. The soldiers of squad five wouldn't be using live ordnance to begin with, and once they realized their mistake it would be too late.
But then there were the dogs. Shaking her head she walked towards one of the subway cars. Tamar had to admit the General had a sense of humor, a sick, disgusting, psychotic sense of humor, but she had one. To track her General Hayworth had created three genetically modified growth accelerated hounds. They weren't your ordinary dogs either, they were more like mountains of muscle with a head filled with razor sharp steak knives stuck on one end, and on the other a stump of a tail. On four short yet powerful legs they could follow her no matter where she went, they were designed to. All three of them had her scent hard wired into their all factory senses. They could pick up her scent even if it was over a week old, no matter how well she covered her tracks and practiced scent discipline they would track her down. That's what they were built for, to find and kill her and her alone.
So she had to come up with a way to take away their biggest advantage, their nose, and for that she had a plan. Reaching the subway car she began to search the parts of it she could see for damage. She checked the windows the doors, even the roof until she was satisfied there were no holes. Nodding her head she was gratified by her findings then turned to look for something else.
The space she was in was about fifty yards long by thirty yards wide. The hole in the ceiling began at about four feet across but by the time it reached the middle levels floor it had expanded to almost thirty feet in diameter and reached from wall to wall. All the debris had been pushed into giant piles the pulged both ends, leaving the walls and floors bare.
So for the next thirty minutes she set about searching every door within the spaces she could reach. As she opened one door her nose was assaulted by the smell of oil, grease and cleaning fluids. Perfect, it was just what she was hoping for. Inside she found nine five gallon buckets marked hazardous, handle with care. She popped the top off of one and nearly passed out when the concentrated scent was rammed up her nose. The chemical smell had her head spinning and stars dancing before her eyes until a few breaths of the damp musty air cleared it.
"Yep, this should do it." she exhaled and grabbed four of the buckets by their handles in each hand.
She ran lightly back to the bottom level, leaping off the second level rim carrying one hundred pounds of liquid with each arm. Landing her legs took most of the strain with ease and she sprinted to the spot straight under her entrance hole. Dropping the buckets she raced back over to the subway car. Pressing her nails into the crack of one of the doors, she pulled outward. A screech of tortured metal brought forth a gust of foul smelling air then another gust of wind back in through the crack she had created between the sliding doors. Worming her fingers through the crack she got a better grip and heaved with every ounce of muscle she possessed, five years of rust and dirt yielded to her strength. With enough room to slip through she planted one hand on one side the other on the other side and heaved. With a loud grinding and the crashing of metal both doors slammed into their housings and out of her way.
She needed the room to do what she needed to. The task was grizzly and some people might consider it sacrilegious but at that moment she did not care. It's not like anyone in this capsule of mass transit were going to complain.
Stepping into the car itself she found what she had hoped yet didn't want to find. Against the far end was a pile of bodies. The end of the subway cars violent tumble had slammed them all to the end that had impacted first. There was very little decay and the smell was better than she expected. The reason Tamar had chosen this car was because of the lack of holes or cracks. The one thing anybody needs to decay is a source of oxygen. Without it the microorganisms that bring about the decomposition process die and rot stops. That's what had happened here, after being inside this airtight car these bodies didn't look like they been here for anymore than a few weeks. Sure they were a bit dried out but other than that they were perfect for her plan. Walking to the jumbled pile she grabbed a pant leg and pulled, when the body didn't budge she tugged harder and the leg came free, along with the scrap of dried fabric that had once been the woman's pants.
Running to the door Tamar threw the leg towards the buckets, landing it near but a bit to the left of where she'd wanted it. Hissing at herself for her inaccuracy she padded over to it and with her foot pushed it until it was in the cone of light coming from her entrance hole. Satisfied it was where she wanted it she hurried back to the subway car. Once inside she began to shred the mass of bodies, she tore legs and arms off and with as much speed as she could she took them to the door and threw them at the first body part she'd taken out. A macabre pile began to form as heads, legs, torsos, and sometimes entire bodies arched through the air to land with sick squelching sounds in a growing grotesque pyramid.
Looking out the door some of the blood and offal on her arm slid off onto her forehead as she tried to swipe a few arrest strands of hair out of her eyes. The pile she'd created was about seven feet high so she figured it was enough. Dashing towards the pile she snatched up two of the buckets and slogged her way to the top. Once there she clawed the plastic caps off of them then kicked them over, pouring their contents into and onto the dried bodies. Tamar leaped from the top of the pile to the floor, grabbed to more buckets and with a grunt of effort leaped back to the top. Landing she sank knee deep into the already gooey muck she was creating. As fast as she could she tore the caps off of the two buckets and pushed them over with the other two.
Back on the floor she took the rest of the containers and began to splash their contents onto the bottom of the pile, she couldn't get back on top because of all the fumes the chemicals were creating. So as soon as the last of the buckets were empty she leaped up onto the second level floor curled onto the floor as far back in the corner as she could get, and waited.
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