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The workday may be over, but the horror’s just beginning deep in the bowels of Hell—I mean, public transit.

Last week, I brought you underground to combat commuter boredom with a few modern horror scenarios. This week marks the conclusion as we delve into the classics for more ways to kill time while possibly killing evil doers and hopefully saving yourself.

Jason Takes Manhattan (or whatever metropolis you may inhabit)
Anyone who’s seen the terrible/awesome eighth installment of Friday the 13th knows that Mr. Voorhees has no qualms about jumping a turnstile. Problem is, how can you possibly thwart him once the doors are closed? It’s easy enough to use innocent bystanders as human shields in this scenario, providing your conscience can handle it. During rush hour, a machete can hack its way through quite a few grumpy suits, many of whom may prefer a fast death to another day at the office. Really, you’d be doing the a favor.

Eventually, however, you’ll probably be forced to confront Crystal Lake’s number one hockey fan. Depending on which installment you consider to be genuine canon, the method of putting old JV out for a while may include a little electricity. One possible escape from certain death would be to lure Jason onto the third rail, but this is an ambitious plan that requires you to stay alive long enough to disembark the train and hope for the right chance to push. Too ambitious? Would you rather focus on saving your skin and leaving the dirty work to the pretty virgin you have befriended?

Sorry, but that’s just as good as suicide. Nobody survives Jason; you die or kill him temporarily until the next series’ entry or your contract expires. Still, if you truly doubt your potential for ending a 90 minute massacre yourself, you could focus on escape.

My plan would be to run through the cars until an MTA policeman, seeing an easy ticket to fill his quota, takes action. By the time Jason catches up, I should be able to rile the law enforcer enough to merit a backup call. If nothing else, a few of NY’s Finest will buy me time to cross the platform and hop on the express.

Urban Vampire Slayage)
Subways—at least the ones that remain underground—seem like the perfect place for a blood-sucking night prowler to get his hunt on, what with the artificial lighting and a constant flow of diverse meals-in-heels. I doubt the more experienced vampires would feast during such high profile times as rush hour, but every group has its showoff.

Your mission is to identify the carnivorous commuter and plan the much-harder-than-it-sounds disposal of said fiend. Remember the totally kickass subway fight between Spike and the 1970s slayer during Buffy’s fifth season? You probably won’t have that (unless you’re imbued with super strength, at which point you should have a better job than one that requires you to ride a death trap on tracks five days a week). Part of the game here is angles and tools. First, locate a weapon. A stray cane could work as a stake, or perhaps your odds are better of grabbing a schoolgirl’s pencil box and hoping she recently used her sharpener. From there, it’s all about locating the heart and finding the space to put enough force behind your stabbing. I’m sure physics has something to do with it.

Did I forget an important step? One that Sunnydale’s own heroine never mastered in seven years? The actual identification process is, of course, its own challenge. How do you spot a vampire at the start or end of your day, when your eyes are barely open enough to see the living things in front of you? Do you look for the palest person in your car, or is that just plain racist? Decide what makes a vampire and cautiously go from there.

I suppose you could transfer this game to other filmic villains as well. Any unibrowed figures hiding from the full moon, their necks absent of silver jewelry? Body snatching pod people lacking any sense of human emotion in their eyes? Henry-esque sociopaths trying to blend in or a separated conjoined twin clutching his basket/briefcase/backpack a little too closely, as if it may be housing a raging claymation Belial? New York City boasts an average of 5 million people riding the subway on any given weekday; the odds are pretty high that at least one of them is either a monstrous killer or misunderstood murderer you’ve seen the likes of before. For those smaller cities, well, that’s where most of the weirdos come from anyway, right?

and of course, when all else fails, the Classic Zombie Contingency Commute
When a guy squeezes into the seat next to you smelling like the undead, you’re rarely pleased, but if you’re a zombie fan tired of reading the same ad for 20 minutes, you can at least be inspired. Forget, for a moment, the fact that the poor man hasn’t showered since George Romero made a good movie and pretend instead that his rotting odor is the result of a crashed satellite, voodoo inspired resurrection or nuclear waste spillage. How much time do you have before his eyes open wide in search of a high protein snack?
 
As Max Brooks has pointed out, straphangers are pretty much the equivalent of canned sardines if stuck underground during an uprising—except, of course, these canned sardines taste really really good. Emergency exits don’t provide much in the way of realistic refuge, but no zombie fan worth his or her weight in edible brains would give up so quickly; if nothing else, suicide must be improvised to minimize pain. That in itself is no easy task.

For those with stronger fighting spirit, however, the Zombie Survival Game is never more challenging than when played on the Metro. Can you swing that briefcase with enough force to successfully bash in every stench’s head before they corner you? Should you spend time trying to free up a pole for pointed attacks, or is it better to just use it for leverage in getting a nice running kick at the right angle? Your chances are fairly slim, but daily brainstorming may very well prepare you to at least last long enough to make it to the next stop for a transfer.

Well, the New York Transit Authority voted this week to raise fare prices while cutting bus and train service, so a machete-wielding maniac now seems like a much smaller problem. Still, I love hearing your horror-inspired ways to pass the time so sound off below with your own methods (tested and untested welcome). Bonus points for carpool-inspired games (us deadly dolls care about the environment, you know) and a gold star to anybody that finds a fail safe way to live through a Romero-esque subway invasion. I’m all out of ideas.