Free Age of Shiva (The Pantheon Series) by James Lovegrove

what was going on. The police had cordoned off an area a block wide around the rail terminal, and Epic News’s on-the-spot correspondent, Melody Berkowitz, stood just outside a barricade of sawhorses and yellow tape, reiterating again and again the few facts she knew and speculating wildly about the rest. She was TV journalism at its rhinoplastied finest.
    “What I can confirm,” Berkowitz said, gripping the microphone, “is that at least twenty-two commuters are dead so far. Those are the known casualties, but I should stress that it’s only a provisional figure and could easily rise. Their assailant – and we believe it’s just the one man – has been leaping out from hiding to carry out vicious onslaughts on victims chosen apparently at random. It’s suspected he’s using the below-ground tracks, of which there are around a hundred arranged across two levels, to conceal himself and move about unseen. To be honest, information is hard to come by at this present moment, but we are hearing rumours that – and I still can’t believe I’m saying this – that cannibalism may well be involved. It’s almost too horrible to think about. I have with me NYPD spokesperson Armand Dominguez. Mr Dominguez, is there anything you can tell Epic News viewers about what’s going on inside Grand Central?”
    The camera operator pulled back for a two shot, revealing a portly, luxuriantly-coiffed Latino.
    “Well, Melody,” said Dominguez, “the situation is still fluid right now. What I can say is that the station has been evacuated of all rail users and Metropolitan Transportation Authority personnel, we have managed to extract the casualties, and we’ve got several dozen uniformed officers in there right now combing the premises, hunting the suspect, who seems to have gone to ground since the initial wave of attacks. We’re confident we can have this wrapped up within the hour.”
    “But the site covers nearly fifty acres. That’s a lot of ground to cover, a lot of places to lurk.”
    “We’re confident we have the manpower for the job.”
    “And the stories we’re hearing about cannibalism in the attacks – do you have any comment to make on that?”
    “Not at this time,” said Dominguez.
    Berkowitz’s scalpel-sharpened nostrils flared. “EMTs I’ve personally spoken to claim that the bodies of the deceased show signs of being partially eaten. Tooth marks.”
    “Again, I can’t comment on that at this time. It’s a fluid situation and these are the kinds of statements that can’t be clarified or verified right now.”
    “Do you think this could maybe be the handiwork of a deranged mole person – a subway dweller who has, as it were, gone off the rails?”
    “I am not in a position to confirm or deny that as a possibility. Someone is committing a spree killing, that much I am at liberty to say, and we will stop him.”
    The transmission cut back to the studio, where the anchorman began conducting a phone interview with an eyewitness, Lamorne Wilson, who ran a bakery concession on Graybar Passage, adjacent to the station’s main concourse.
    “Yeah, I saw something all right,” said Wilson. “Only I ain’t one hundred per cent sure what I saw, you with me? I was, like, opening up the shop, same as I do five-thirty AM every morning, and suddenly there was this screaming, this woman running across the concourse, running for her life. She was this Filipina, I seen her before. Overnight cleaner would be my guess. She usually came in round ’bout then to catch the train home. And this – this thing was chasing her. Jesus, man, its skin was black, but not like my skin’s black, not African-American black, black like coal, black like oil, shiny, and its eyes glowed like flames, all red and huge. It was mean-looking, and it went kinda on all fours but it flowed as it moved, sort of like it was flying. I’m not crazy. I saw what I saw. I’m on the air, and I know millions of people are listening, and I’m