But maybe he knew something about the events at the station that turned everything on its head again? Something that nobody knew, whether Homer nor the man that had left his diary at the Nachimovski Prospect…
After he was finished with the bodies the brigadier ripped the flask from its holder and sucked the rest of the contents. What had been in it? Alcohol? Was this a potion or an ingredient, or did he try to dispel the sour aftertaste in his mouth? Did he enjoy the moment, or hope to kill something with the alcohol?
The old smoking railcar was something like a time machine for Sasha, like in those fables her father had told her.
It didn’t just transport her from the Kolomenskaya to the Avtosavodskaya, but transported her from the present into the past. Even though she didn’t know if she could call her life in this prison made of stone, these worm tunnels, the past and. And she didn’t know if she could call where she was now the “present”.
She remembered the whole journey there: Her father had been bound and was sitting next to her, a sack over his eyes and a gag in his mouth. She had just been a small girl and had cried all the way. One of the soldiers of the execution squad had made animals with his fingers; their shadows had danced over a small yellow stage which was on the ceiling. The shadows had tried to outrun the railcar.
When they had reached the other side they had told her father his sentence: the tribunal of the revolution had pardoned him. The death sentence had been replaced by lifelong exile. They had pushed them onto the rails, with a knife, an assault rifle with a spare clip and an old gasmask, and sat Sasha next to him. The soldier that had showed her the horse and the dog waved his hand as they left. Had he been one of those that Hunter had shot?
When she put on the black gasmask of one of the dead, her feelings became stronger that she was breathing the air of a dead man. Every small part of her journey somebody paid with his life. The bold one would have probably shot them no matter what, but now Sasha thought herself to be his accomplice by just being there.
Her father didn’t want to return back home not because he had been tired of fighting. He had once said that his humiliation and deprivation no longer weighed on another strangers life, so he preferred to suffer himself then to cause anybody else harm again. Sasha hadn’t known that the scale of life had been weighed down by all the things on his conscience, and he had tried to bring it back into balance.
The bold one could have acted sooner, could have scared the people on the railcar just by his presence so that they could have laid down their weapons without firing a shot. None of the dead had been an equal enemy.
Why did he do all this?
The station of her childhood approached sooner then she thought. Not even ten minutes passed until the lights started to flicker. The tunnel to the Avtosavodskaya wasn’t guarded; it seemed that the inhabitants relied on the hermetic gates. Around fifty meters before the train platform, the bold one slowed down the motor, commanded the old man to take over the steering wheel and stood next to the machine gun.
The railcar rolled almost silently and very slowly into the station. Or was it time itself that was bending for Sasha, because she recalled the days of her youth…
It was on that day that her father had ordered the adjutant to hide until everything was over. The man had lead them deep into the work offices in the belly of the station, but even there you could still hear the screams of hundredths of throats shouting at the same time and her companion had immediately rushed back to his commander. Sasha had followed him, out into the main hall of the station…
While they ran over the train platform Sasha saw the roomy family tents and the train wagon offices, children played catch, old men put their heads together, cranky women were cleaning guns…. And she saw her father behind a small troop of grim, maybe even scary looking men, how they tried to keep the never ending and angry group of people at bay. She ran to him and pressed herself against his back.
Surprised he shook her away, turned around and accidentally hit his surprised adjutant’s face. But something had happened. The formation that had already readied their rifles for the fire order was given an all- clear. There was only one shot, into the air, as her father explained that he was ready to hand over the station to the revolutionaries peacefully and negotiate.
Her father had always firmly believed that man always received signs.
You had to recognize them and interpret them correctly.
But time hadn’t just slowed down so that Sasha could relieve the last days of her childhood. She saw the armed man that had risen to stop the railcar. She saw how the bold one appeared behind the heavy machine gun with in a fluent motion and how he pointed the heavy barrel at the surprised guards.
The order to stop the railcar was like the crack of a whip . She knew in just a few seconds so many people would die that the feeling that she was breathing the air of a stranger would last to the end of her days.
She could still prevent a bloodbath, she could still rescue these people, she could prevent herself and another human being from doing something terrible…
The guardsmen were already clicking off the safety on their assault rifles, but they took too long, the bold one was a few seconds ahead of them…
She did the only thing that came to her mind.
She jumped up and hugged the iron hard back, crossed her hands in front his not moving chest that didn’t seem to breathe. The bold one winced as if somebody had hit him, but he hesitated. The soldiers on the other side that were ready to shoot froze as well.
The old man realized immediately.
The railcar spat out bitter black clouds and rushed on and the Avtosavodskaya remained behind them.
In the past.
During the drive to the Pavelezkaya nobody said a word. Hunter had had freed himself out of the surprising hug of the girl. He had bent her arms away from him like a ring of iron that had been too tight.
They rushed past a single guard post with full speed.
The salvos that the guards shot flew went right over their heads into the ceiling. The brigadier was just quick enough to pull out his pistol and fire three silent bullets as an answer. He apparently managed to kill one of the guards; the others ducked behind the flat tunnel segments and got away with their lives.
I don’t believe this, thought Homer as he looked at the girl that was cowering on the ground. He had hoped that the entry of the female protagonist would have created some kind of love story but the whole thing was developing way too fast. He didn’t even have time to realize what it meant, far less write it down.
Only when they had reached the Pavelezkaya did they decrease in speed.
The old man already knew the station: It seemed to be from a horror novel. While the tombs of the newer station in Moscow’s outer regions rested on normal pillars, the Pavelezkaya rested on an array of tall and round arches that were bigger than any humans. And just like in a horror novel there was a curse on the Pavelezkaya: at exactly eight o clock at night, before deals could be finished, the station was emptied. From all the busy and sly inhabitants only a few daredevils remained on the platform. All others disappeared with children, furniture, bags full of wares, not even benches and stretchers remained.
They crawled into their bunker, the tunnel to the Ring line which stretched for almost a kilometer, and shivered there for the entire night because where the Pavelezkaya station was; terrible creatures awoke on the surface. It was said that the entire region was under their unchallenged rule and even when those creatures slept, others didn’t dare to go near them. The inhabitants of the Pavelezkaya were at their mercy because the hermetic doors that protected other stations and the escalators were entirely missing, so that the entrance to the surface was always open.
In Homer’s opinion there was no worse place to camp overnight, but Hunter seemed to think differently: he brought the railcar to a stop at the end of the station, took off his gasmask and pointed at the train platform. “We’ll remain here until morning. Search for a place to sleep.”
Then he left. The girl looked after him then rolled together on the hard ground of the railcar. Even though Homer tried to make himself as comfortable as possible, it was in vain. Once again his thoughts drifted to the epidemic and how he would carry it through all the healthy stations. The girl was silent as well, but awake.
