“When the alarm signal is given, you are to go to the next station. There you are to man the station. The doors are to be opened. The civilian teams have to help with the evacuation of wounded and the hermetic closure of the metro stations.”
For judgment day he had gotten clear and easy instructions. Everywhere possible they were followed. Most of the trains broke down on the tracks and fell into a lethargic sleep and then there where the survivors that instead of a few weeks, what had been promised to them, now had to stay there forever. Most of the trains had been completely dismantled for inventory and spare parts.
In some places they used them as homes, but Homer, who viewed the trains as living beings, thought that that was like vandalizing a corpse, as if they had stuffed his favorite cat.
In uninhabitable places like the Nachimovski prospect time and vandals had left their mark on the train but it remained intact.
Homer couldn’t turn away. The rustling and hissing that approached from the station, faded into the background and once again he heard the ghostly howling alarm siren and then the deep signal of the train that spread the unheard message, once long, twice short: “Atom!”
Brakes squeaked and through the speakers came the confusing message: “Dear passengers, because of technical emergency the train can’t continue its ride…”
Nor the train driver whispering into his microphone neither his assistant Homer knew the full extent of overwhelming hopelessness of this formal sentence. The exhausting creaking sound of the hermetic gates… they separated the living from the dead, once and for all. Protocol demanded that the doors had to be closed six minutes after the alarm had been sound and they had to be closed forever, it didn’t matter how many people where still on the other side.
Those who resisted the closing of the gates were to be shot immediately.
Would a tiny police officer that normally chased homeless people and drunks out of the station be capable of shooting a man into his stomach because he resisted the ton heavy machine so that his wife with her broken heel would still be able to slip through? Would the feisty women with her uniform and her cap, who checked tickets and had only brought two things to perfection in her 30 years of service, be able to get in and cut off a gasping old man that was still trying to pass through the door?
The instructions saw six minutes for a human to become a machine. Or a monster.
The screaming of the women and the screams of the men, the unrestrained crying of the children, the sounds of the pistol and machine guns salves… Out of every speaker the request to remain calm sounded metallic and emotionless.
Somebody unaware read it because nobody that knew would be so controlled and indifferent in repeating the same sentence over and over again: “Please remain calm!” Crying, pleading… Again shots.
And exactly six minutes after the alarm, one minute before Armageddon – with the dull sound of a graveyards bell the doors closed. The sound of the bolts locking in place.
Silence.
Like in a grave.
To get around the wagon they had to move along the wall. The driver had braked too late, maybe he had been distracted by something on the track. They climbed upwards over an iron ladder and found
themselves in a roomy hall. It had no pillars but a half-round ceiling with egg shaped holes for the lamps.
The hall was big; it included the train station and both tracks with the trains. An unbelievable elegant, easy construction, simple and laconic.
Just don’t look down, not under your feet nor in front of you.
Don’t look what the station had become.
A grotesque meadow of corpses, where no one ever found peace, a terrible field of flesh, covered with gnawed off skeletons, rotting bodies and ripped off parts of corpses. Grotesque creatures had dragged down greedily everything they could find in their small kingdom, a lot more than they could eat, as reserves. These reserves decayed and dissolved, but they were still growing.
The mountains of rotting flesh moved, ignoring the laws of nature, as if they breathed and from everywhere a disgusting scraping sound could be heard. The shine of the flashlight caught one of the strange creatures: Long nodular arms and legs, slack, wrinkled, hanging, hairless grey skin and a bent back. The dim eyes starring half blind around the room and the big ears moved like they had a life of their own.
The creature made a hoarse scream and retreated slowly on all limbs back through the open train door. As sluggish as this one the other corpse eaters started to climb down from their mountains of bodies. Angered they bared their teeth and growled at the group.
On two feet they wouldn’t have been able to reach Homer to the chest and he knew that the cowardly creatures wouldn’t attack a strong, healthy human. But the irrational horror that he felt for these creatures came with his nightly nightmares: Weakened and abandoned he was laying there alone in an empty station and the monsters came closer and. closer. Like a drop of blood in the ocean attracted countless sharks these creatures could feel the approaching death of a stranger and rushed to look at them.
The fear of getting old, said Homer condescendingly to himself. In his time he had read books about psychology. If they would just help him now.
The corpse eaters on the other hand weren’t afraid of humans. To waste a single bullet for one of these harmless corpse eaters would have been considered a criminal waste at the Sevastopolskaya. The passing caravans tried to ignore them even though the creatures liked to provoke them.
At this station they had reproduced strongly and the more the group progressed, while bones broke under their boots with a disgusting breaking sound, the more corpse eaters abandoned unwillingly their meal and moved slowly back to their dwellings. Their nests were in inside the trains.
And for that Homer hated them even more.
The hermetic gates of the Nachimovski prospect were open. It was said that when you passed the station quickly you would only get a small dose of unhealthy radiation, but you couldn’t stay there for long. So it came that some of the trains were still well preserved: The windshields and windows weren’t broken, through the open doors you could see the dirty but intact seats and also the blue paint of the train was still there. In the middle of the hall was a true mountain of twisted bodies made up by unrecognizable creatures. When Hunter reached them he suddenly stopped.
Achmed and Homer looked at each other worried and tried to see where the danger came from.
But the reason for the delay was a different one. On the edge of the mountain of bodies two little corpse eaters gnawed on the skeleton of a dog– you could hear how they creaked and growled pleasurably. They weren’t able to hide in time. Maybe they hadn’t finished their meal or didn’t understand the signals of their older creatures or their greed had overpowered them.
Blinded by the shine of the light, but still cowering, they started their slow retreat to next wagon when they both suddenly tipped over with a dull sound and hit the ground like two filled sacks.
Homer looked at Hunter surprised while he put his heavy army pistol with the long suppressor back into his shoulder holster. The face of the brigadier was as impenetrable and dead as always.
“Seemed like they had were hungry.” whispered Achmed. A little bit disgusted, a little bit curious at the dark puddles where the pulpy remains of their dead skulls lay.
“I agree.” answered Hunter with an unclear voice and Homer winced.
Without turning around Hunter continued walking and Homer seemed to hear silent, greedy growling. It exhausted him, trying not to be tempted to put a bullet into the head of another creature!