New York City was known for a thousand things. Tasha's biggest problem was the thousand-oneth thing no one talked about.

She lay down on a frozen bench near Riverside Park. It felt like lying on a field of icicles. She hadn't switched out of her jacket ever since the Headless Hurricane and she couldn't afford a new one. It had been sufficient for autumn.

Now, it was winter.

Her well-worn coat carried so many holes that the cold seeped like venom through it that slowly infested her body. She shifted to the left and right, struggling to find the right position at which the damaged parts were the ones touching the ice so that the intact ones prevented the wind.

As long as she didn't move, the cold was nothing to worry about. Once she woke up the next morning, she was going to have to worry about finances. How should she manage them?

Pickpocketing was an option, but most places had tightened their security specifically due to people like her. Asking people for quarters was another option, but she worried she didn't look enough like the pitiable victim everyone was willing to donate for. Prostitution was below her dignity, although she did have to wonder how long it took until she'd have to try that one out, too.

In the meantime, she could try to see if any shelter became available. The New York City Department of Homeless Services claimed their system had reached full capacity. After that storm that hit the entire northeast coast, which was so sudden that some thought it had supernatural causes, it was no surprise that she faced a lot of competition.

She used to live a humble life in Yonkers before everything went to hell. The boutique she used to work at got its windows shattered by rocks thrown around by the storm while her tenement became the victim of flooding. With her debts being the way they were, there was no hope for her to buy an affordable home in a place with living costs as extreme as Yonkers.

New York City was only marginally cheaper. With many people suffering similar fates, the city had no chance to absorb the refugees. Living costs skyrocketed and homeless shelters overflowed.

For those unlucky ones who got left behind, the streets and the subways remained.

Tascha couldn't sleep. Her bad leg woke her up and when she moved, the cold from standing up and exposing her jacket to the wind put her in a brief moment of shock. Tasha needed a walk. That made her warm and eased the pain her knee suffered. At least walking through the park was free. Not like they banned it like they banned benches in the subways.

In the brief time Tasha had lived here, she learned to navigate the dark underbelly of the world's biggest center of trade and commerce. She still had a stiff leg and an aching back from the pain sustained during the storm, but it didn't hinder her ability to walk around.

Riverside Park lay adjacent to a graffiti-rich railroad tunnel known as the Freedom Tunnel. It received its name from the homeless population who used to live here to seek freedom from law enforcement and greater society. Rumor has it that the sewers, subways, and tunnels of New York City house thousands of people of such people. These so-called "mole people" were said to have their own societies in the cities underground. While Tasha wasn't the person to believe in silly urban legends, the notion of a secret society in the shadows of this vibrant metropolis fascinated her.

Unfortunately, their story didn't end well for the Freedom People denizens. Their shantytowns got bulldozed, the mole people evicted, and the tunnel is to this day guarded by the Amtrak Police.

It was said that one should stay away from New York's subways after 10 PM. 11 PM was the latest. Police security was tight around the time.

As a person of Black and Latinx heritage, Tasha had learned a few rules on how to deal with her friends on the force. Basic rules like "Use your Miranda Rights", "Don't run away or resist a pat-down", or "Don't discuss your legal status with anyone other than your lawyer".

Entering the Freedom Tunnel was technically illegal, but there was less wind here, and she got what she could take. Entering it was trivially easy. She only had to walk under the West Side Highway bridge until she saw the overpass, climb the hill, slip through a gap in the fence covered by the second tree, and follow the tracks until she saw the hole to the tunnel. Easy-peasy.

Despite police guarding this place and trespassing being illegal, urban explorers and graffiti artists regularly entered here to share their artwork. Tasha saw self-portraits of one of the graffiti-artists, a gigantic hand from the Sistine Chapel, and a portrait of the Unibomber.

It was somewhat warmer here than on the outside at least. She thought about lying down and taking a nap, but, even if she stood on the left to the tracks and avoided being caught by a train, she didn't want to give the police opportunities to catch her.

This whole tunnel expanded for several miles. Crawling here made her feel like delving into a post-nuclear world with close to no light touching the bottom. Without the few beams of moonlight breaking through the ceiling, Tasha wasn't sure if she could even have seen the hand before her eyes. If one added the silence, it felt almost ghost-like. If a train came, she'd hear its roaring and rumbling from miles away. Not that she expected many trains to drive at this time of the day.

There was an abandoned train station about a fourth of the way. One had to be a good climber to reach it, but Tasha never found climbing difficult. If she passed the gate, she at least found the sleeping place she needed for the night.

Assuming, of course, she had the tunnel for herself.

There were urban explorers, photographers, and graffiti artists who regularly visited the tunnel for fun and profit. The train station in question had two people standing on it, both male, from the sounds of their voices.

Tasha ducked below the gate to listen to what they were talking about. She needed to know who they were and if they planned to leave any time soon. Maybe she could even ask them for money if they were of a generous kind, or for a job, if they were those types of people, but she didn't like her luck very much.

"Any luck today?" a small man asked. He was a thirty-something bald-shaved guy with gang tattoos on his forehead and he wore a leather jacket that looked like it would fall off at any moment.

While he was small and wide, the man next to him looked just the opposite. He was tall, athletic, and couldn't have looked more intimidating if he tried. He had his hair cut to its root like an ex-military and his sleeves were barely wide enough to accommodate his biceps.

"No luck," the big man said. "The cattle improved club security."

"Cattle"? Who were these people? Was that a code name? There were only two people who spoke in code: Criminals and spies. Given their tattoos and their general demeanor, it wasn't hard to guess what category these guys fell into.

The small man laughed. "You need to ask more nicely. Find a sweet, young blonde, show her your man things, and she'll show you the way in."

Tasha made a big mistake coming here. She considered turning away and running, but the men still spoke.

"Even If we get food, who buys it?" the taller man asked. "Toni Luccio took over. He isn't very hungry."

"There's always hungry mouths, trust me. Especially now when the food just keeps coming to us."

"Food"? Were they talking about drugs?

Tasha turned around. She tried a quick walk, almost stumbled over the tracks, and waved her hands to catch herself.

"Hey! You hear that?" the small man asked.

"What?"

"I think there's food."

Tasha froze.

"What'cha think?" the small man asked. "Should we sell her?"

"Breasts aren't very big. We wouldn't get much money."

"Yeah, but the face is nice."

They weren't drug dealers, they were human traffickers!

"Hey!" the small man said. "Don't move. If you stay here, we'll sell you to someone who wants you alive. There's plenty of people who are only after the blood rather than the flesh."

Tasha ran. She ran back to where she came from.

The small man looked like someone she could outrun. The big man? She wasn't so sure. In a tunnel so long and dark, she had no idea where to find hiding places or how long she had to run to get out! In the daylight, these cowards at least wouldn't attack.

Unfortunately, Tasha had forgotten about her bad leg.

They caught up. One of the men pushed her over mid-run.

Tasha flopped over, face pressing against the tracks. Hands took hold of her jacket and pulled it off, sleeves turned inside out. She was naked before the cold.

"She's a bum of some kind," one of the men said and Tasha forgot which of them had which voice.

"Means less money." That must have been the taller of the two men. He was the guy with the short sentences.

"At least that means she's got no cellphone," the smaller guy said.

Someone, probably the smaller one, pushed her by the hair. There was a tearing sensation and the tugging immediately stopped, sending her face back to the tracks.

They cut off her hair. Why?

"Think one of these magicians can do something with it?" the small guy asked.

"Zombify her after death."

Magicians? Zombies? Was that code language again?

Blood spattered over Tasha's rag of a shirt. A body toppled over next to her and, as Tasha turned to look, she realized the tall man lay next to her with a big, gaping hole in his forehead.

The smaller man watched the tunnel before him with terror as if he has seen a ghost.

Which, given the figure standing before him, was an appropriate reaction.

It was a tall and thin figure, clad entirely in white with a robe and a cloak that looked like a bedsheet in the dark. This person held rocks in one hand. Did they have a slingshot with which they killed the big man?

The small man seemed to know because he muttered the figure's name. "W-white Cloak?"

This figure looked at him. With their fingers, they took a pebble from their palm.

In a motion so fast that Tasha missed it, the pebble was gone.

When she turned around, the other thug had a hole in his head, too, and fell to his death.

The figure then took the jacket out of the small thug's hand, tossed it back to Tasha, and dragged the corpses away.

"Thank you," Tasha whispered.

This person was a murderer. No doubt about it.

The next morning, the police would find the blood on the tracks from the dragged corpses and investigate the missing bodies. Or not. It wasn't like Tasha was going to go to the police with this.

She wasn't going to find sleep this night. But perhaps she would the next.