Adam Stone felt the intensifying vibrations of the subway train window against his slumped head. The sixteen year old school boy, dressed shamefully in a bland grey school uniform - courtesy of the private school he’d been forced into - was crumpled motionlessly in the corner of the largely uninhabited carriage.

A creased, brown paper bag was lifted by the cool air that circled Adam’s feet and momentarily piqued his interest. The possessed bag hovered erratically above the carriage’s steel floor. It lifted and somersaulted towards a window pulled fractionally ajar. As the train rushed past a boarding station, the bag was sucked through the window and twisted floatingly passed a ragged man, sitting up in a pile of newspapers. Adam’s eyes followed the path of the discarded rubbish indolently, landing suddenly on a startling sight.

The boy’s face flattened against the window, his eyes searching for a second glimpse of what they were sure they had just witnessed. The train sped on past the station and the iridescent white light faded back down the tunnel’s corner.

---

It was the flickering red light that woke the homeless man. Not the roar of the 10 PM train or the brown paper bag that settled on the ground before him. The bum’s sunken, sallow eyes followed the source of the red light which appeared to be the head of a man staggering past him. He watched in curiosity as the man hobbled on, apparently spectacularly inebriated or violently injured. The flickering red light, which flashed in time every half-second, appeared to be escaping from a matted hole in the man’s head. The hair was darkened and waxed together around it. Most strange of all, was the fact that the stranger seemed to move in time with the light’s flashing, like a series of timed spasms. This most unusual characteristic was made all the more surprising by the man’s fashionably suited attire.

The bum pushed the newspapers off his legs, climbing to his feet unsteadily.

“Aah… Sir!” He called apprehensively to the man who was slowly progressing onwards, a good five metres from the homeless man’s bed of paper, “Sir!” He repeated, his raspy voice, worn by bottles of gin, unaccustomed to this formal tongue.

Slowly, the suited man turned on the tiled floor. The brown paper bag was stolen away by the end carriage of the 10 PM. The suited man stood before the bum whose eyes were now suddenly wide with fear. He dropped backwards onto the ground, shuffling frantically away from the creature that stood before him. The red light continued to flicker.

Put simply, the suited man was a bloodied mess, His entire lower jaw was missing, replaced by a crimson mess; the skin from his upper lip back to his ears was shredded and rotting. The man’s torso was painted thickly with blood. His glazed, yellow eyes stared blankly into the distance, filled with want. The suit jacket hung scruffily over a white shirt, half caked with dark, dried blood. More dried blood, still, ran from the man’s hairline down the sides of what remained of his face, apparently from the source of the flickering red light. The man’s skin, his hands and facial features, seemed to glow a slight blue in the subway’s bright, artificial light. The flesh was dotted with skinless holes where decomposing meat was showing. The creature stumbled forward in time with the flickering red light, his shoulders throwing his arms around violently, his neck twisting and swaying unnaturally.

The rotting man reached the bum who shook in fear through thick, sweat-drenched clothes. As the red light flashed, the man reached into the jacket pocket of his suit and produced a small, sharp ended, electronic gadget. As the homeless man was reduced to hysterical tears, the creature lifted his arm above his head. The red light flickered once more, and the gadget was thrust into the homeless man’s brain.