It sometimes happened that Hanza affiliated neighboring stations, but mostly those were left to their own fate – a tolerated grey area, in which the leaders of Hanza didn’t want to get involved in. Of course those “Radial Stations” where filled with Hanza’s spies, and to be exact – the stations had been bought a long time ago by the businessmen of Hanza. But they remained, formally, independent. So was it was with the Serpuchovskaya.
In one of the tunnels between this station and the Tulskaya a train had broken down on that day a long time ago. Istomin had marked the place with a Catholic Cross, because the wagon that stood in the midst of the tunnel and was inhabited by members of a Christian sect. They had transformed this lifeless part of the tunnel into an oasis in a black desert.
Istomin had nothing against the sect. Their missionaries lingered in the neighboring stations, trying to save fallen souls, but these shepherds never came to the Sevastopolskaya nor did they hinder passing travelers with their missionary talk. The clean and empty tunnel between Tulskaya and Serpuchovskaya were preferred by the caravans.
Once again Istomin looked along the line. The Tulskaya? Their residents lived from what the bypassing convoys of the Sevastopolskaya and the smart merchants from Serpuchovskaya left behind.
They repaired every possible technical piece of scrap metal and others searched for day jobs. For days they sat there and waited for one of the foremen offering slave labor. They were poor as well, but at least they didn’t have the greasy crook look in their eyes like the people from the Serpuchovskaya. And in this station there was order, outside dangers welded people together.
The next station was the Nagatinskaya. On Istomins plan it was marked with a short line, meaning that is was uninhabited. But that was only half the truth. Nobody remained there very long. Only shady figures resided there, living like animals. Absolute darkness reigned there and small groups hid from strangers. Only scarcely the dim shine of a campfire lit through the pillars and illuminated the dark figures that held a secret meeting. Only unknowing and brave individuals stayed overnight because not all of the inhabitants of this station were humans. In the whispering darkness of the Nagatinskaya you could sometimes see the grotesque silhouettes of creatures scouring in the dark. And sometimes the shrill scream of a homeless person filled the remaining residents with fear until the victim got dragged into a cave and eaten.
Nobody dared to go further than Nagatinskay, so the area between this station the strongholds from the Sevastopolskaya was an empty wasteland. It wasn’t entirely empty though – and the scouts from Sevastopolskaya tried not to meet the creatures lurking there.
But now something new has emerged out of the tunnels. Something unknown. Something that swallowed everybody that tried to pass through this supposedly explored route. How should Istomin know if his station, even if every able resident picked up a weapon, would form an army big enough to deal with this unseen danger? He stood up burdened, walked to the map and marked the area between the Serpuchovskaya and the Nachimovskaya prospect with a pen. Right next to it he placed a big question mark. He wanted to place it next to the word “prospect” but somehow it landed next to the Sevastopolskaya.
At first glance you could believe that the Sevastopolskaya was uninhabited. No trace of army tents in the train station that served them as homes at most stations. But instead they had barricades of sandbags, which looked like big ant hills in the weak lights of the lamps. Those barricades were never manned and the quadratic pillars were covered with a thick layer of dust. Everything was built so that a stranger that passed through would think this station was abandoned.
But as soon as the unwanted guest just thought about staying here, he risked staying here forever.
Then machine-gun teams and the snipers, which stayed at the neighboring Kavochskaya, manned their posts in seconds and instead of the dim lamps, powerful quicksilver search lights on the ceiling were activated, burning the eyes of all invaders, humans or monster. Neither were used to the strong light.
The train station was the last carefully planned line of defense of the Sevastopolskaya. Their homes were located in the belly of this deceptive station – under the station. Under the enormous granite plate, invisible from foreign eyes, there was another floor not much smaller than the station above, but divided into smaller cells. There were the lit, dry and warm apartments, the steady humming air filters and water purifier, hydroponic greenhouses… it seemed that the residents of this station felt only safe and comfortable when they retreated further into the ground.
Homer knew that the crucial battle didn’t await him in the tunnel, but at his home. While he walked through the narrow hallway, past the half open doors of the former service rooms which were now where the residents of the Sevastopolskaya lived, his steps slowed down more and more. He thought of his tactics and revisited his answers as time ran out.
“What am I supposed to do? Orders are orders. You know how the situation yourself. They didn’t even ask me.Don’t blow it out of proportion – that is ridiculous! No I didn’t volunteer. Refuse? Out of the question. That would be desertion, understand?”
He mumbled on and on, sometimes outraged and determined, sometimes gentle and pleading.
On the doorstep of his apartment he went over everything again. It seemed a scene wouldn’t be avoidable, but he wouldn’t back down. He made a dark look and opened the door ready for a fight.
From the nine and a half square meters apartment – very luxurious, he had waited for one for four years while living in a dirty tent– was occupied by a two-story military bunk bed, a small neat dining table and three big stacks of newspapers that reached to the ceiling. Would he have been an old bachelor that mountain would have already buried him. But fifteen years ago he had met Yelena, who tolerated the dusty old papers in their small apartment, kept them in order and away from the stove; otherwise this mountain would have transformed itself into to a papery Pompeii long ago.
She also tolerated so many other things. The endless alarming parts from newspapers with titles like “The arms race goes on”, “Americans test anti-rocket system”, “Our rocket shield grows”, “Farewell to peace” and “The time for patience is over” that covered all of the walls like wallpaper; him staying all night hovering over a stack of notebooks, a gnawed on pen in his hand – using electrical light instead of candles, no option with all the newspaper around; his jesting nickname, that he carried with pride, but that evoked a joking smile by everyone else that said it.
She tolerated so much, but not everything. Not his juvenile eagerness and curiosity, that brought him into the middle of a storm every time there – and that with almost 60 years of experience! Nor the ease with what he accepts all the orders from above, without thinking about the last expedition that had almost cost his life.
If he had died… he didn’t want to think about it.
When Homer left for guard’s duty once a week, she never remained in the house. She fled with her troubled thoughts to the neighbors or went to work, even if she didn’t had to – it didn’t matter where, everywhere was fine if it distracted her from thinking that her husband had already died, laying on the ground, dead and cold. She thought that his typical male composure regarding death was stupid, egoistic, yes, even criminal.
Fate had wanted it that she had already returned from work to change her clothes. She had put her arms through the sleeves of her patched jacket when he entered. Her dark, slightly grayed hair – she hadn’t even turned 50 – was tousled and you could see fear in her brown eyes. “Kolya… did something happen? I thought you had guard duty till late in the night?
His courage to start his argumentation dissolved immediately. Of course this time others were responsible, he could have said that they forced him, with clean consciences. But now he hesitated.
Maybe he should calm her down first and mention it later – casually – during dinner?
“I am asking just one thing from you: Don’t lie to me.” she warned him as she stared at his desperate, wandering eyes.
“Lena,” he started. “I have to tell you something…”
“Did somebody…“ she asked the most important, most feared question right away. Did somebody die, but she didn’t spoke it out loud, like if she feared that her words would make it happen.
“No! No…” Homer shook his head and added: “The freed me from guard duty. They are sending me to the Serpuchovskaya. Don’t think it will be dangerous.”
“But…” Yelena didn’t know what to say. “But that is… did they already return, the…”
“It is all nonsense.” he interrupted her hastily. “There is nothing”. The conversation turned into an unexpected direction. Instead dealing with curses that he is trying to play a hero and wait for a good moment of reconciliation, he now had to face a far harder test.
Yelena turned away, stepped to the table, put the salt from the table somewhere else and smoothed a
