almost inaudibly. The station acted like it was dead. Everyone hoped that the wild creatures on the surface didn’t lust after corpses.
But sometimes the curious animals discovered the deep entrance and smelled the fresh sweat, heard the regular beating of human hearts and felt the warm blood running through their veins.
And sometimes they even came down.
Homer had finally sunken into a half sleeplike state and the excited voice on the other side of the train platform only got through to his conscience with a struggle, distorted. But then the sound of the machine gun ripped him out of his slumber. The old man jumped up and searched the floor of the railcar for his weapon.
The ear numbing heavy machine gun salve was joined by shots out of assault rifles. The screams of the guards weren’t just nervous but scared. Whatever it was that they were shooting at with their calibers they seemed to not do any damage. From an organized defense against the moving target was not to speak, here people fired around wildly and only thought about saving their own skin.
Finally Homer had found his Kalashnikov but he didn’t dare to step onto the train platform. He resisted the temptation to start the motor and flee and it didn’t matter to him where. He remained on the railcar and put his head through the pillars to watch the place where the fighting was happening.
Suddenly the penetrating scream came from a close distance, where the guards yelled and cursed.
The heavy machine gun fire ebbed, somebody screamed terrible and then turned silent. Sudden like something had ripped his head off.
Again the assault rifles sounded off, but only scarce and only for a short time. Again screaming, it seemed further away… and suddenly the creature that had made the sound and which echo he had heard came from the close proximity of the railcar.
Homer counted to ten and started the motor with his shivering hands. In a moment his companions would return and or he would leave, he did this for them not for himself…
The railcar vibrated, started to smoke, the motor overheated and something jumped through the pillars unimaginably fast. Fast like lighting it disappeared out of his point of view, so that no picture of it could emerge in his head.
The old man held on to the rails, put his foot on the accelerator and took a deep breath. If they wouldn’t return in ten seconds he would leave them and…
Without realizing he had stepped onto the train platform and held the useless assault rifle in front of him. He just wanted to make sure that he couldn’t help his people.
He pressed himself against the pillar and threw a look at the middle floor…
He wanted to scream but his lungs were missing the air.
Sasha had always known that the world wasn’t just the two stations where she had lived up till now. But she had never known that the world was so beautiful. Even the boring, even dreary
Kolomenskaya had been a comfortable home and she had known every inch of it. The Avtosavodskaya, roomy and cold had arrogantly turned away from her father, exiled him and she couldn’t forget about it.
Her relationship to the Pavelezkaya on the other hand wasn’t unstressed and with every minute Sasha felt that she was falling in love with the station. The soft, wide reaching pillars, the big, inviting arches, the noble marble, the fine veins on the walls let it look like the soft skin of a human…
Had the Kolomenskaya dreary poor and the Avtosavodskaya been dark, this station was like a woman: In her unworried and playful nature the Pavelezkaya had even after centuries retained her former beauty.
The humans here couldn’t bee merciless or evil, thought Sasha. She and her father would have only had to get over two hostile station to get to this magical place… He would have just had to live one more day to escape from exile and get his freedom… She would have forced the bold one to take both of them with them…
In the distance a campfire flickered where moments before the guardsman had sat around. The ray of light of the search light climbed up to the high ceiling but Sasha didn’t get pulled to there. How many years had she believed that she had just to escape the Kolomenskaya and to meet other peoples to be happy! But now she only wanted one human to share her company, her awe that the earth was a whole third bigger and her hope that she could repair it. But who would need her, Sasha? No other human would need her, no matter what she and the old man had said.
And so the girl walked into the other direction, where there was a fallen train with smashed windows and an open door stood in the half of the right tunnel. She stepped into the wagon, from one to the next, inspected the first, the second and then the third. In the last one she discovered a miraculously unharmed couch and laid on it. She looked up and imagined that the train would start to drive to the next station at any second where bright and loud human voices were. But now she didn’t have enough strength to imagine that all these tons of steel scraps would move from its place.
With her bicycle it would have been a lot easier.
The game of hide and seek came to an end: the sound of a fight jumped from wagon to wagon until it reached Sasha.
Again?
She jumped up and ran onto the train platform, the only place where she could still do something.
The shredded corpses of the guards were lying next to the glass cabin with the static search light, over the smoldering fire in the middle of the hall. Other fighters had apparently given up earlier and had started running to find cover in the passage way, but death had caught up to them halfway.
Over one of the bodies a terrible and unnatural figure was covering down. Even though you could only see it badly from this distance, Homer recognized a smooth white skin, a powerful, twitching comb and the impatiently twitching legs with many strongly bent joints.
The battle was lost.
Where was Hunter? Homer leaned forwards again and froze…. maybe ten steps from him, leaning as far behind the pillar as Homer, as if it wanted to lure him or play with him. A terrible visage started down from its height of two meters. From its lower jaw it dripped red and the heavy jaw gnawed on a terrible chunk of flesh. Under the flat forehead there was nothing, but the fact that creature had no eyes didn’t seem to keep it from sensing other beings or from moving or attacking.
Homer turned around and pulled the trigger but the rifle remained silent. The chimera made a long ear numbing scream and jumped into the middle of the hall. Panicking Homer fumbled with the locking handle, even though he knew that there was no use in it…
But suddenly the creature lost all interest in him, and turned its attention to the train platform.
With a strong movement Homer followed the look of the blind creature and his heart skippeda beat.
There stood, scared and looking around, the girl.
“Run!” yelled Homer and his voice suffocated a painful croaking sound.
The white chimera jumped forward many meters and now stood directly in front of the young women. She pulled out a cooking knife, and made a threatening move to the side.
As an answerer the creature swooshed with its front paws at the girl and she fell to the ground.
The blade flew to the side.
Homer already stood next to the railcar but he didn’t think about fleeing. Rasping he waved his assault rifle and tried to get the white dancing silhouette into his sights.
Without success: The creature had reached the girl.
The guards that could have been a threat to this creature had been shredded after a few minutes and now there were only these two helpless beings left, backed into a corner.
It seemed to want to play with them for a while before it killed them.
It was hovering over Sasha so that the old man couldn’t see anything. Was it turning her insides out?
But then it winced and moved back, scratched at an expanding dark blotch on its back with its claws, turned around screaming, ready to eat its attacker.
Hunter stumbled to the creature.
In one hand an automatic assault rifle, the other hanging down limp. You could see that every move
