Elijah's Chariot (The Forgotten Children Book 1) (11 page)

The
large key rattled in the lock as it sought to take hold. It always stuck right
when it was almost all the way in, almost to the point where it could be turned
to open the thickly padded door. The key sawed back and forth viciously a
couple of times before it fell into place and turned the lock.

Tatyana
stepped into the dark apartment, set down the bag of groceries and shook her
bleach-blonde hair out of the black lamb’s wool shopka. She plucked the canned
nuts from one of the bags, slid her feet into the worn slippers on the floor
and shuffled quickly to the end of the hall. A faint light was coming from the
cracks between the door and its frame – the only light in the apartment. She
swung open her mother’s bedroom door and walked in.

Viktor
sat on a stool at the edge of his mother’s bed, his chin resting on his chest
which rose and fell with small, steady breaths. A thick book lay in his lap. 

Tatyana
walked over to the edge of the bed and stood right in front of Viktor, staring
down at the top of his head. She paused, canned nuts in hand, and glanced from
him to her mother, lying silently in the bed. The old blankets were pulled up
over her face. A faint smile tugged at the corner of Tatyana’s mouth. Even
through the blanket, she could see her mother’s determined little grimace, the
strong jut of chin clamping tightly over a mouthful of wayward teeth. 

She
knelt down in front of Viktor and smoothed the hair out of his eyes. He raised
his head up quickly and looked around, unsure of where he was. Tatyana put her
hand on his shoulder to steady him as he got his bearings. Viktor finally
relaxed and leaned back against the wall, staring at his mother’s form as he
blinked away sleep. 

“I
couldn’t find the teriyaki flavor, but they did have some smoked hickory left,”
she said as she held the canned nuts in front of him. 

He
looked at the can and nodded, then pulled it toward himself with his left arm
and cradled it against his chest before turning his head again to his mother.
Tatyana followed his gaze and then looked into his face. 

“Viktor,
you know I’m going to have to take them out tomorrow. It’s already been more
than a day,” she said softly, still looking into his face. “They’ll start to
stink.”

“Ehy
don’t ‘tink!” Viktor said forcefully, not taking his gaze from his mother. 

Tatyana
stood up and walked toward the door. 

“Aunt
‘ydia? ‘id you find her?” he asked insistently.

Tatyana
stopped and paused for a moment before turning to answer him. “There wasn’t any
answer when I rang the doorbell. She wasn’t there.” 

He
turned back to his mother, pulling the book and canned nuts closer to himself.
Tatyana watched him for another couple of seconds from the doorway before
walking out into the hall. 

“He’s
heavy,” Zhenya said, her voice quivering.
“Why
is he so heavy?”

“He’s
always been heavy,” Svyeta replied. She gathered the tablecloth edge in her
cramped fingers again and leaned back with all her weight. Her father’s body
slid another couple of feet down the hallway toward an open apartment door. 

After
the girls had returned home late that afternoon they noticed the smell. It was
faint, but given the odor they’d caught from some of the hallways in their
apartment building, it was only a matter of time before it got worse. They’d
knocked on all the doors on their floor, but no one had answered. Luckily they
had a key to the Frolovs’ apartment, a couple doors down. The families had exchanged
keys a few years ago in case anyone ever got locked out. Svyeta had found the
older couple’s bodies in their bed. It seemed as good a spot as any for her
father’s final resting place.

Immediately
the image came again to her mind, unbidden, unwanted. A lone form lying on a
hospital bed in an otherwise empty room, the sheet pulled up over the face. It
would be a lonely and forlorn picture no matter who lay there. That it was her
last memory of her mother transformed the image into something else entirely –
a concept with a weight and finality so deep that she had no sense of it. It
stretched long and darkly into all directions. It was larger than her. It began
before her and seemed like it would far outlast her. Not even the idea of her
own eventual death felt as vast and empty.

Their
mother’s headaches had worsened throughout the morning until finally the nurse
had freed up a bed in a nearby room and they’d led their mother there to rest.
She’d slept, awaking briefly only a couple of times before falling silent later
that afternoon. Zhenya had cried, but Svyeta couldn’t. Not even on the long
walk home. 

“You
have to push. Keep pushing!” Svyeta said.

“My
hands hurt – he’s so heavy!” Zhenya whined.

Svyeta
looked down at her sister. She hadn’t realized she’d spoken aloud. Poor Zhenya.
Svyeta couldn’t imagine what this was like for her, for a six-year-old to lose
both her parents on the same day. She shook off her previous thoughts, pushing
the image of her mother’s body to the back of her mind where she knew it would
lurk waiting until later to parade out again. 

“It’s
okay, only a few more meters, we can do it. On three! One, two, three!”

It
took another fifteen minutes of tugging on the tablecloth holding her father’s
body to get it into the Frolovs’ bedroom. They left him on the floor, next to
the couple’s bed and covered him with a blanket. It was the best they could do.
They were exhausted.

The
girls dragged themselves back to their apartment, locked the door then plopped
down at the kitchen table for a quick dinner. 

“I
want another slice,” Zhenya mumbled, her mouth still full of bread.

“We
need to save it. It’s the last loaf.”

Svyeta
chewed the last of her slice slowly, then finished and swept the food away into
the cupboard. She glanced through the remaining items.

“We
have some noodles and some cans of soup, but probably only enough for three or
four days. We’ll have to go out to get more, but I want to wait as long as we
can. It could be… it’s safer if we stay here for a while.”

Zhenya
nodded sadly, her eyelids starting to droop.

“Svyeta,
are we going to die too? Like Mama and Papa?”

Svyeta
stared at her sister as she sat quietly waiting for the answer. She seemed so
small perched delicately on her chair. Too small for all of this.

“Are
you afraid?”

Zhenya
shook her head. “I don’t think so. You said Mama and Papa are in Heaven, didn’t
you?”

Svyeta
nodded.

“Just
like Grandma?”

“Yes.
They’re all together.”

Zhenya
folded her arms and blinked slowly.

“That
doesn’t sound so bad. I’m not afraid.”

Svyeta
nodded slowly, still watching her sister as the image of her mother in the
hospital room filled her vision again.    

Sean
dropped his suitcase onto the bed and stood silently, taking a look around the
room. It was just as they’d left it – everything. The wadded up sheets and
garbage in the trash can, towels on the floor in the bathroom. He hadn’t really
been expecting to come back to their hotel room and find that the cleaning
staff had taken care of everything as they normally did at a hotel, but all the
same, it was a little weird. Nothing had changed, everything was exactly the
same. 

Sean
plopped down onto the bed and stretched out, staring at the ceiling. No one had
said much on the trip back. After their initial fear of mafia thugs following
them had faded, they had just settled into the drive, passing through empty
intersection after empty intersection, flying along the mostly deserted
avenues. Along the Garden Ring road, they had seen something large burning in
the distance – buildings or factories possibly. Passing through the endless
streets, Rohrstadt had thought he’d seen a group of people standing outside of
a school, throwing things at the windows. He wasn’t sure how many there’d been
or what else they’d been doing. No one suggested that they stop and go back for
a closer look. 

John
Rohrstadt and Ralph Thompson walked into the room and set their bags down by
the door. John moved around the room with an exaggerated swagger. “Nice place
you’ve got here. Huge building, isn’t it! Looks like a big shiny magnet that’s
been bent out of shape. It’s a lot better than the hotel we’d been staying in
near the Embassy,” he said jovially. 

“Yeah,
it’s, it’s not bad, not too bad of a place…” Kevin replied, his voice trailing
off. 

A
thick silence descended onto the room. The heating still didn’t seem to be
working, but at least it was warmer inside now than it was outside. The three
men stood there for a few moments, glancing absently around the room. Sean lay
quietly on the bed, his eyes starting to droop. 

“Well,
I don’t know if anyone else is hungry, but I think I’ll go downstairs and see
if there’s anything in the kitchen. Anyone want anything?” John asked, pointing
his fingers at the group like he was taking a survey. No one said anything,
just a couple shakes of the head.     

“Okay,
I’ll see what I can bring up. Eat it later or something.”

“I’ll
go with you,” Thompson said as John walked out the door. The Embassy man
adjusted the strap on his M-16 and followed him out into the hallway. 

An
hour later, John sat at the edge of Sean’s bed in front of the television.
Thompson relaxed in a chair in the corner by the balcony door. Sean was curled
up on his pillows, watching the TV and listening to his father’s repeated
attempts to get through on the phone. 

Kevin
placed the receiver back down and picked it up again and re-dialed. 

“No
luck?” John asked as he popped a chip into his mouth.

“I’m
finally getting the line to ring on the other end for more than a couple times,
but it keeps cutting off,” Kevin said. He pressed the heel of his hand to his
temple and held it there for a few moments, closing his eyes against the
headache. 

The
weary looking newscaster on the television was new. The guy that had replaced
the original guy was gone. This one was a lot younger – he looked like a
college student in his father’s old suit. The charcoal gray lapels were a
little larger than was recently fashionable and the white shirt hung loosely
around his neck. The paper that he was reading from was shaking in his hands
and he was only able to look into the camera lens briefly every few seconds
before glancing down at the page to find his place again. 

He’d
been repeating the same message for the last few minutes. The BBC was going off
the air. They weren’t sure for how long, weren’t sure when they’d be back
broadcasting. The young man said that the deaths worldwide were too many to
calculate – they weren’t even able to reach the experts any more who had
previously been hazarding guesses.

“Hello?
Hello – Elizabeth? Is that you? Are you okay? Let me talk to your mother!”
Kevin shouted suddenly into the phone. He held his left hand clamped against
his other ear, squinting as he strained to hear. 

“What?
What – where is she? What time is it there? Isn’t it morning? She’s still
asleep?” Kevin laughed loudly. “Oh, Elizabeth, that’s okay, that’s okay. Could
you go wake her up for me, I need to talk to her quickly.”

John
turned the television down and all three of them watched Kevin as he listened
to Elizabeth. His smile started to fade.

“Well,
try again. Are you in our room? Yes, just shake her gently on the shoulder,
okay? Hello? She won’t? Okay, maybe I’ll try – just put the phone up to her ear
so she can hear,” Kevin said urgently. 

“Hello?
Hi, Cindy? Hi, honey, good morning… can you hear me? Hello? Elizabeth!
Elizabeth – hi, try shaking her again.”

Kevin
hunched over, putting his elbows on his knees then quickly straightened up
again. His lips started tightening and he tried to swallow. “She won’t? Not
even when you yell?”

John
looked down at the floor and gripped his hands together tightly. Sean remained
lying on the bed, his arms folded together, hugging his chest. 

“No,
Elizabeth, that’s okay, that’s okay…” Kevin said the last couple of words in a
whisper. He put his hand over his mouth and squeezed tightly as his shoulders
began to shake.

He
swallowed once and then said, “Honey, I… I’m going to need you to do something
for me. Could you put your hand on her neck, below her chin? Is it warm? Okay,
feel down around her throat, to the side of her esophagus – yes, where the food
goes down. Okay, press your fingers there lightly to the side of that – what do
you feel …? Okay, that’s okay.”

Kevin
sat silently at the edge of the bed, hand over his mouth again, staring at the
floor for what seemed like several minutes. “Yes, honey, I’m still here. I’m
okay. Listen… how did you sleep last night? Yeah? That must have been cozy, yes
I like our bed too. I like it too.”

Rohrstadt
motioned to Thompson, then both of them left the room. Kevin talked with her
for another ten minutes before the connection failed. He tried to call her back
for another half hour or so before finally setting the phone back down. Kevin
then shuffled slowly over to Sean’s bed and put his arms around his son’s
shoulders.