A common tavern that connects all fantasy worlds

However, because of its low cost and poor management, you can often see some strange people in the subway late at night.

Not to mention gangsters and hooligans, violent incidents often occur on the subway, and cases of theft, even robbery, and wounding emerge in endlessly; because the subway runs 24 hours, some homeless people can often be seen in the carriages and subway stations Some people even eat, drink and sleep in the carriage, which makes the whole subway line filled with a lingering stench.

Such a place, of course, can provide Lyon with a lot of material for the "dark side of the city".

People in the subway don’t have the confident expressions of people walking in the sunshine on the streets of Manhattan. They often have nothing to eat, their skin is dirty, and some even suffer from skin diseases due to the dirty environment. decent skin.

Especially at night, after those honest people who go to work during the day have gone home, the carnival at the bottom of the subway really starts.

What kind of tired overtime workers, beggars lying in the aisle, gangsters with guns in their waists and gangster-patterned hoods on their heads, high-suckers and drug sellers, you can see all kinds of life in a subway car. state.

Facing Susan's request, Leon was the first to think of this.

But today is different. He was just about to walk down the steps at the entrance of the subway before midnight when he saw a few gang members wearing sweaters and holding knives and guns blocking a girl in the middle of the stairs, as if trying to steal her things. Or just plan to rob some color.

Leon's first thought was not to call the police, but to take out his camera and snap a few photos in succession.

The picture in front of me is simply the epitome of the city of New York, and it also meets Susan's requirements for the emotional impact of the picture.

However, his act of taking pictures quickly attracted the attention of the other party. The black man who looked like the leader immediately walked over with a gun and yelled at him: "What are you doing? Are you a fucking spy or something? A hero?"

"No, let go of that girl."

Leon could only weakly say that he was not a bad boy since he was a child, he was even a peaceful vegetarian, and he had no experience in dealing with such harsh conditions at all.

However, he has sharp eyes, and he has already seen a surveillance camera behind him. At this moment, he can only point to it and say: "...all subway entrances have cameras, and the signal is connected to the police station. You don't want this Make a fuss. Is it worth it?"

The black man also looked up, and sure enough, he saw the surveillance camera that was facing this side all the time.

He narrowed his eyes... What happened just now must have been recorded, maybe the nearby patrolmen are rushing here now, as this guy said.

"Damn it. Yo! We're out of the way!"

The black man turned to his men and told them to let go of the poor girl.

"I remember you." He put down another harsh sentence, bumped Leon with his shoulder threateningly, walked up the stairs at the entrance of the subway, and disappeared into the darkness with his brother after a while.

Only then did Leon have the opportunity to go up and help the girl, and the familiar beautiful face in front of him shocked him.

"Sakaki... Erika?"

he said.

Isn't this the protagonist of the huge advertisement on the glass curtain wall in the mall before?

The girl opposite gave a wry smile, and raised her big eyes to look at him: "No wonder you've been taking pictures... Are you also an insider?"

"No, Ms. Sakaki, why are you taking the subway at this hour?"

Lyon couldn't understand it very much. The models selected by VOGUE should have left this class that needs to take the subway long ago, right?

There was a strange expression on Sakaki's face: "...if you are also a photographer, you should understand the things in the modeling industry. We are all slaves, sometimes slaves of fashion bosses, sometimes slaves of magazine and TV station owners If you really want to make money, let's talk about it when it becomes popular.

"I live on 112th Street, of course I have to take the subway home.  …Thank you for today's business."

Saying that, this woman, who was so beautiful that Leon had never seen in his life, trembled her eyelashes slightly, leaned over and kissed his face.

"You are a good person."

After that, she turned her head and walked towards the subway station, it seemed that she didn't intend to just change to a taxi and go home.

Leon stood there for a while, then suddenly decided to follow her down to the subway.

It's not because of anything else. He loves his girlfriend very much and has no intention of betraying her. He just thinks that this woman can find a better story and take photos that Susan can recognize.

At night when the hustle and bustle of New York City finally calmed down, a cool breeze came up from the subway entrance along the entrance stairs.

Chapter 5 Meat Hammer

When Lyon rushed to the platform in a hurry, the subway train was just about to leave.

He jumped into the car amidst the beeping alarm of the car door, and he didn't have time to notice whether the model Sakaki Erika was in this car... Some lights of the subway train in disrepair have been broken, and the surrounding is very dark .

Unlike most of the trains, this train still retains the most original seat design. The silver-white icy metal reflects the light, and their surface has been polished as smooth as a mirror after long-term use, and there is no plastic seat cover.

As a result, the tone of the entire carriage became cold, and even the emotions of the passengers inside were affected. Everyone looked unhappy and exhausted.

It is also true that people who are still taking the subway late at night, whether they have just finished overtime or are rushing to work the night shift, will of course feel tired.

The model, who is likely to be of mixed race, is not in this section.

Her appearance is too outstanding, she is the type that anyone can spot from the crowd at a glance, she is naturally suitable for this job, and she will not be ignored.

Leon looked at the passengers before and after, only seeing a group of ordinary and numb people.

Although these people are also good material, but at the moment his heart is completely on the female model... Yes, that is the impact that Susan wants, a beautiful face, wearing fashionable clothes, it seems that it should not appear in the This kind of woman on the old subway can form a contrast with the surrounding environment itself and catch the audience's attention.

Further, it would be even better if he captured the reactions of the men around her to her.

With the camera in his hand, he looked around, and then walked towards the front of the car, where the driver was.

Like other trains, subway trains also have double locomotives; in this way, when arriving at the key point and about to travel in the opposite direction, there is no need to go around in a circle.

For safety reasons, the driver's position is of course at the front in the direction of travel of the train.

Although the current technology has advanced to the point where even unmanned driving can smoothly enter, exit, and open the door, any system must have a record, and the most fundamental and reliable record is a person.Drivers no longer need to drive manually all the way, but they still need to take over the train at certain times, observe the running status of the train, monitor the stability of the system, and deal with unplanned emergencies, etc.

As Leon walked through one car after another, he thought to himself that he really had never photographed a subway driver, or called the train conductor.

They never open the door and walk into the passenger compartment, but just silently face the deep and endless tunnel in front of them, and they have to tense their nerves all the time to see if any obstacles that will affect the train's operation suddenly appear.

Obviously a few steps back is the most crowded place in the whole city, but they are always alone during hours of work.This kind of dramatic loneliness is really interesting and worth exploring.

No, speaking of it, the "subway" itself is very symbolic, right?

It is a symbol of urban development and a reference for population and modernization; but at the same time it is also a symbol of the rhythm of life in the metropolis. It follows a timetable that is strict to the minute, and the parking position is accurate to the centimeter. The suffocating work and life; it is cold, unresponsive, the embodiment of the modern order whose rules you must abide by, or you will not reach your destination.

Like a canning line, the subway adapts passengers to this routine, this rhythm, and packs them into metal cans.No matter how different a guy is, he will become one of the crowd.

While thinking this way, Leon walked through the empty carriage and numb passengers, and came to the front of the car.

As expected, Erika Sakaki was in the last carriage, sitting facing this side, holding her bag, and staring out the window blankly.

This is not the first time she has been robbed, but it happened before when she was not yet famous... The cover girl of VOGUE was the first chance she got after so many years. will change.

Everyone said that to her, congratulations Erika, you are finally going to succeed, you are going to move out of this "shithole", and you are going to live a life of swimming pool sports car party jewelry.

But today's events quickly brought her back to reality... The world hasn't changed at all, and her changes are not enough.

At the moment, she was actually not looking at anything in the cold seat of the subway, she just sat there with her eyes out of focus.

Even if she is interested in watching it, it's probably useless... The outside of the subway is completely dark, and the only color is the occasional tunnel lights passing by at high speed.

The photographer Leon saw her through the closed doors of this section, and was overjoyed. He wanted to reach out and open the door to enter the compartment, but found that the connecting doors of this section with other compartments had been locked.

Who locked the door?Why lock the door?

A lot of questions popped up in his head, but before he could get any answers to any of them, he saw through the glass windshield on the tin door that there was a man in a suit near the front of the carriage. The man stood up silently.

This man looks to be in his 40s, with a short cropped head, a swollen face, and a fierce facial features, but his expression is unusually calm; There are no creases when moving.

A man with broad shoulders and a thick neck looks like a difficult character to mess with.He was holding a square leather bag without any decorations and looking very rigid, and he was reaching in to take it out.

There is a strange passenger on the subway, which is not a big deal at all, and it is none of other people's business if the passenger takes something out of his bag, but Leon outside the door is strangely attracted by this scene.

The man's movements seem to have a wonderful rhythm, like an artist who is meticulously completing his own sculpture.

But what he got out of the bag wasn't that pretty...it was an unusually large meat hammer.

This thing is also called a loose meat hammer, which is used to break up the beef to make the meat softer, easier to chew, and easier to taste.However, Leon, who is a vegetarian, has never used this thing at all, and of course he doesn't know that this meat hammer is much bigger and heavier than ordinary household tools.

The hammer head covered with nail-shaped protrusions is about the size of an adult man's palm, plus the solid long trapezoidal metal block behind the hammer head, it may weigh six to seven kilograms.

Like a common hammer used to process beef, this thing is also attached to a handle that is easy to grasp, and it is held in the hand of the burly man.

The man didn't notice the extra shadow outside the carriage door, but approached from behind Sakaki Erika silently, and raised the steel hammer in his hand.

"No, no! Damn, run, run!"

Leon raised his hand and wanted to smash the door of the carriage, but he soon realized that his actions were useless... The door was locked tightly, even the carriage where Sakaki Erika was sitting was facing the door on this side Also closed.

The subway train swayed from side to side on the track, the wheels colliding with the rails made a rumbling sound, and the sound of his knocking on the door would not be noticed by the people in the other car.

"Oh my god, call the police, hey, there's someone here..."

Leon also wanted to turn around and ask other passengers for help, but he could only stare blankly at the empty carriage.

It's almost the end here... The few passengers got off the bus early, and only he stayed here for the so-called "good photo".

When he turned his head again, he only saw the calm and silent man slamming the hammer down behind the woman.

Leon couldn't hear any sound from such a distance, but a crisp "bang" echoed in his heart inexplicably.

Right in front of his eyes, the woman's head was smashed down by the heavy meat hammer, the hard skull did not cause any hindrance, the cranial cavity was squeezed by a huge force, and even the big and divine eyes were covered with plasma The pressure from the pressure pushed out the eye sockets, and the pretty face of the female model instantly turned into a horror show.

The woman fell to the ground without humming, the central nervous system still retaining the basic functions made her body twitch.

The man in the suit looked at her, his expression unchanged, he raised the meat hammer that still had pieces of flesh hanging in the flickering cold lights of the carriage, and hit her deformed head again.

"God, no! No!"

Leon was about to be frightened mad by the man's cruelty and cruelty. Blood was splashed all over the floor in the last carriage, and the bright red on the silver-gray metal was lingering in his mind.

He didn't even have the courage to take out the handheld phone to call the police. He screamed wildly and fled to the rear compartment.

The train stopped at the last stop, 112th Street, and the next stop should be the dispatch center.

For some reason, there was no one in the subway station, not even the tattered bedding of homeless people that could be seen everywhere.

Leon rushed out of the subway entrance and stood on the street. Then he regained his soul and started to take out his cell phone from his pocket tremblingly, and dialed 911.

Half an hour later, he was sitting in front of an NYPD officer.

Until now, he was still in shock, and the cruel picture kept echoing in his mind.

The one who was called to work overtime was a black female police officer. She pushed the door in angrily and listened to Lyon's report on the case in the empty office.

Leon, the caller, was so frightened that when he talked about what he saw, he was still at a loss for words.However, since most of the callers were like this, the female police officer didn't say anything, but tried to find out the part that could be understood with normal logic from his narrative, and recorded it.

When talking about taking pictures of black gang robbery victims at the previous subway entrance, the black female police officer's eyes suddenly became playful, she stared at Leon and said, "It's so strange... It was obvious that robbery crimes were photographed before. The photos of the scene, but in the face of more serious crimes, did you forget to leave a video record?"

"I... I was frightened and didn't know what to do." Leon could only stammered his answer.

The female police officer shrugged noncommittally, and handed him a business card: "No one but you witnessed the violent crime you mentioned, and there was no abnormality found on that train. But we are still investigating and collecting evidence, and there is no evidence." Come to a conclusion; if you think of anything else, by all means call me again."

Chapter 6 Curiosity

Until his girlfriend came to pick him up and go home, Leon still looked lost, silently nibbling the skin on the side of his finger.

No trace left in the train?How could it be possible, just at the first moment, the blood and brains from the female model's cranial cavity had already splashed across half of the car.

Thinking about it now, he still couldn't help the nausea and fear in his heart.

Few people in modern society have actually seen this kind of primitive and bloody violence happening before their eyes, so that when they witnessed it, the blood in the whole body seemed to stop flowing, their hands and feet were cold, and their brains went blank.Not to mention taking pictures, being able to stand still is considered to be his mental quality...

However, the female police officer swore that "no human tissue or blood was found in the carriage, the door can be opened normally, and the conductor said that he did not hear any movement" still ringing in his ears, which made him doubt what he saw.

It's not easy to clean up that kind of murder scene, right?I called the police almost as soon as I got off the bus on 112th Street. How could the murderer escape with the corpse in such a short period of time and wash away the blood in the car?

Could it be that he has encountered too many unsatisfactory things in life, which has caused his mental state to go wrong?

Leon began to doubt himself, and seriously began to find reasons.

[112. No. 112]

That's right, Susan's order to "go deeper" must have given me enormous psychological pressure, so that I began to fantasize about crime scenes with stronger impact.

As a vegetarian myself, I have always felt uncomfortable with the way people treat animals in restaurants and slaughterhouses.So subconsciously, I associated "handling meat" with "darkness and cruelty", so that I unconsciously imagined a perverted killer who used the method of dealing with beef to deal with human beings.

Otherwise, think about it... who would deliberately use a meat hammer to kill people.

Even if he wanted to kill him, he wouldn't do it in the subway, would he?Wouldn't it be better to lure the victim to his home, or tie him to his home, in his own basement?It also saves you the hassle of dealing with the scene.

While thinking this way, he fell asleep in his girlfriend's car.

Too many things had happened today, and he was already too tired.

Even when he returned to the downstairs of the apartment and was woken up by his girlfriend, he was still in a trance. After going upstairs, he lay on the bed without taking off his shoes and lost consciousness.

The next morning, he was awakened by his girlfriend's screams.

It must be his girlfriend who changed his clothes for him who had fallen asleep. He is now wearing pajamas, lying on a comfortable bed, bathed in the morning sun, squinting his eyes, and his chest is warm. He feels better.

Everything about last night was like a forgettable dream that had begun to fade in his mind.

It's just that his girlfriend Maya didn't lie in his arms as usual, but stood at the door, reading today's newspaper, covering her mouth with a look of surprise.