The Deavys by Alan Dean Foster

“I bet you’d cackle like a laminated lamia throughout all eternity.”
    Her sister took a halfhearted swing at her. “When eternity gets here, we’ll see about that. She who cackles last, cackles best!”
    â€œGet yourselves ready.” Simwan did his best to appear stern and in charge. “When we get off the train, we want to look like we know just what we’re doing and exactly where we’re going. That’s how Dad said we need to act to avoid attracting the attention of the sleazy types who hang out in big train stations.” Woe unto any type, sleazed or otherwise, he thought, who might have the misfortune to draw the attention of the Deavy coubet. But he didn’t say that, of course. He needed to keep his outrageous sisters in line. Especially now that it was apparent they were being tracked. The Crub must have left minions at every Hudson River crossing to watch out for them since there was no way to predict just how they’d come into Manhattan.
    The girls behaved reasonable and proper as the train pulled into the station. Not because their disposition had grown any less rowdy or their nature had become suddenly subdued, but simply because the effort of holding back the Hudson and dealing with the underwater assault had sapped at least a little of their otherwise irrepressible energy. Striving to look ten years older than his sixteen, he led his sisters off the train and onto the platform. Lights, signs, and the single direction being taken by the passengers exiting the cars in front of them eliminated the need for him to ask questions. All the Deavy progeny had to do to find the exit was go with the flow. The fact that his sisters had hooked them up to a different train going to a different station mattered not a whit. All that mattered was that they had arrived safely in Manhattan.
    The young couple in the front seat of the car who had slept through everything awakened as the train pulled into Grand Central. While the woman stretched and yawned, her paramour rose to remove their luggage from the overhead storage rack—and promptly slipped and fell. Picking himself up off the floor of the car, he paused to stare at the hand he had used to try and break his fall. It was covered with slime and fragments of unrecognizable plant matter. A hasty inspection showed that more of the same unidentifiable goo inexplicably coated the walls and floor of the car. Muttering about the lack of maintenance on the commuter line, the traveling pair hefted their luggage and exited the car while actively discussing the letter of complaint they intended to write to the train company’s management.
    At least they did better than the salesman who had slept the entire journey in the rear of the same car, who upon rising promptly stepped on an almost-dead carp and nearly threw his back out. Propelled by a combination of fear and bewilderment, he too hurried to be on his way. Unlike the younger couple who had preceded him, however, he had no intention of complaining to the company, lest someone inquire about the nature and origin of the hangover he had been sleeping off. It was to this he attributed his arrival at Grand Central when he had been certain, absolutely certain, that he had originally embarked for Penn Station.
    Neither his puzzlement nor that of the young couple who preceded him were anything compared to that of the train’s engineer, who swore on his twenty-two years in the industry that he had been assigned four cars and not five. Nor could anyone explain how a commuter car from Pennsylvania and New Jersey headed for Penn Station had ended up riding tail-end on a midday commuter line out of Long Island traveling in the opposite direction. By the time confusion reigned supreme, the only individuals who could have answered those many questions had long since departed not only the train but the station.
    â€œWow!” Setting aside any hope of acting cool, Simwan tilted his