Everybody knew that there was nothing on the other side but burned wasteland. And on the edge of this wasteland there was a guard station where two castaways sat out their death sentence.
Her father would have never allowed her to stay here on her own and now it was completely pointless.
Also Sasha knew: It didn’t matter how far she ran, it didn’t matter how desperately she tried to escape, she would never be able to free herself from this cursed dungeon. Not anymore.
“Papa… Forgive me” she sobbed. There was nothing there anymore with which she could have earned his forgiveness.
She pulled the silver ring from his finger and dropped into the pocket of her overall. Then she took the cage with the rat that was still uneasy and walked slowly to the north. Her boots left bloody prints on the granite.
She had already stepped onto the rails and entered the tunnel when suddenly; in the empty station, something astonishing happened. A long flame from the fire reached at the body of her father.
But it didn’t reach him and retreated unwillingly back into the deep darkness, as if it respected his right for his last rest.{In this moment Sasha’s part of the book is ahead of this chapter, this happens after Homer and Hunter leave again – Chapter 7}
“They are coming back! They are coming back!” it sounded out of the loudspeaker.
Istomin put down the receiver from his ear and looked at him unbelievingly.
“Who’s they?” Denis Michailovitsch jumped up from his chair and spilled his tea. A dark stain spread on his pants. He cursed the tea and repeated his question.
“Who’s they?” asked Istomin again mechanically.
“The brigadier and Homer, Achmed is dead.” sounded the receiver through the static.
Vladimir Ivanovitsch wiped the sweat of his forehead with a handkerchief and scratched himself under the black rubber of his pirate-like eye patch. Whenever a fighter died it was his responsibility to inform their families.
Without letting himself be connected again he put his head out of the door and yelled for the adjutant: “Both of them to me, immediately! And I want the table ready!”
He went into his office, straightened the pictures on the wall for some reason, stopped at the map of the metro, whispered something to himself and then turned to Denis Michailovitsch. He had his arms crossed in front of his chest with a broad smile plastered on his face.
“Wolodya, you act like a girl before her rendezvous.” the colonel said grinning.
“And you aren’t nervous at all?” answered the leader of the station. He pointed with his head at the colonels wet trousers.
“Me? I am ready. The two strike teams are ready. Just another day and we can go.”
Dennis moved his finger over the blue beret, stood up and put it on his head. He looked more official that way.
They heard hasty steps from the hallway; the adjutant looked at them, holding a dim glass bottle of some sort of alcohol through the crack in the door.
Istomin made a gesture with his hands: Later, Later!
Then they finally could hear the familiar voice, the door sprang open and a broad figure entered. Behind the brigadiers back was the old storyteller that Hunter had carried around for some reason.
“I welcome you!” Istomin sat into his seat, stood up and sat back down.
“Now, what is it?” asked the colonel. The brigadier looked from one man to the other and turned to Istomin.
“The Tulskaya has been captured by a wandering group of bandits. They have killed everyone.”
Dennis Michailovitsch raised his bushy eyebrows. “Our men too?
“As far as I can tell. We only got to the stations door. There it came to a fight and then they closed the hermetic door.”
“The hermetic door?” Istomin held on to the edge of the table and stood up.
“What are we supposed to do now?”
“Storm the station.” both the brigadier and the colonel answered, completely synchronized.
“No. We can’t storm the station.”
It was Homer’s voice that sounded out of the background.
She just had to wait for the right hour. If she hadn’t confused the days the railcar would soon emerge from the wet mist of the night. Every other minute she remained in this place, this abyss, there were the tunnel emerged from the earth like an open vein would one day cost her life. But there was nothing to do but to wait. On the other side of this never ending bridge she would find a closed hermetic door that you could only open from the other side. It only did once a week, on market day.
Today Sasha had nothing to offer, but this time she had to buy more than ever before. She didn’t care what the people on the railcar would want in return for her to pass into the world of the living – the grave coldness and the lifeless lack of emotion of her father had passed to her.
How often had she dreamt to one day get to into another station, to be surrounded by other people, establish friendships and to meet someone special…
She had asked her father about his youth, not just to go back to her bright lit childhood, but because instead of her mother she saw herself and instead of her father she saw the blurry picture of a beautiful young man in her own naive imagination of love. She doubted that she would be able to get along with other people if one day she would be able to go back to the metro. About what would these people would talk about?
But now, mere hours before the arrival of the ferry, yes maybe even minutes, the other men and women didn’t matter to her. Even the thought of her existence being worthy of a human being felt like she was betraying her father. Without hesitating one second she would have agreed to spend the rest of her days in this station, if that would have been able to save him.
When the candle stump in the glass started to fight its last fight she put the fire on a new wick.
On one of his expeditions her father had found a whole chest full of wax candles and she always carried one of them in her overall’s pocket. Sasha enjoyed imagining that their bodies were exactly like the candles and that a part of her father had passed to her when he faded.
Would the people on the railcar would recognize her signal through the mist?
Until now she had only looked outside from time to time to remain outside for the least time possible. Her father had prohibited her from doing soand his swollen head was warning enough for her.
On the slope Sasha always felt uneasy, like a trapped mole, looking around restlessly, only daring to venture to the beginning of the bridge to watch the black river. But now she had too much time. Leaning forward and trembling in the wet and cold wind Sasha made a few steps forward. Through the dawn and boney trees she saw the fallen skyscrapers; in the oily, thick waters of the rivers something massive swam around and in the distance she heard an inhuman scream. Suddenly a familiar sound emerged, the familiar squeaking sound of the railcar.
Sasha jumped up, holding the glass with the candle up high and from the bridge a small ray of light answered.
The old railcar approached, struggling against the thick fog. The weak shine of the spotlight cut through the night and Sasha made one step back. It wasn’t the same railcar as normal. It moved slowly, like every rotation of the wheels cost the people pushing the levers a lot of strength.
Finally it stopped ten feet in front of Sasha. A fat giant in a primitive radiation suit jumped off the railcar and landed on the gravel. The diabolically dancing fire of her candle was being reflected by the glass of his gasmask so that Sasha couldn’t see his eyes. With one hand he held an army Kalashnikov with a wooden stock.
“I want to get away from here.” explained Sasha and raised her head.
“A-way.” echoed the scarecrow and stretched the sound surprised and sarcastic at the same time.
“And what do you offer in return?”
“I have nothing anymore.” She withstood his look and looked directly into the glasses of the gasmask.
“There is always something to take. Especially with women.” The ferryman groaned, than he went silent. “You would leave your father alone here?”
“I have nothing anymore.” she repeated and looked to the ground.
