Elijah's Chariot (The Forgotten Children Book 1) (14 page)

Sean
pulled the little boy close to his chest, but he squirmed and fidgeted. He kept
trying to push the blanket away from his face, but Sean kept it securely over
the both of them. Laughing voices were talking loudly just outside the doors.
They sounded young. Sean couldn’t tell how many there were. 

Another
smash of glass cut through the air immediately followed by a dull thud against
the wall. Hysterical laughter followed amid several exuberant exclamations in
Russian. The toddler jumped at the sound and immediately began to cry. His
mouth opened wide and a tearful scream poured out. 

The
voices outside quieted abruptly. Sean tried quietly shushing the little boy,
stroked his head and rocked him back and forth. He felt the little lungs fill
up with air and then the boy let out another loud scream. Sean heard the door
handle turn and then the bottom of the door sweep across the carpet. 

A
young male voice said something in surprise. Sean heard feet entering the room
– he still couldn’t tell how many there were. Despite his efforts, the toddler
kept screaming, hot tears pouring down his red cheeks. Sean put his hand over
the little boy’s mouth and squeezed gently, still rocking him back and forth. 

The
chairs in front of them toppled over and the blanket was yanked away. A thin
boy, about twelve or thirteen, was standing over them, staring in surprise with
a large sledge hammer in his hands. There were three other boys, two roughly
the same age and one a little older standing a few feet behind him. They were
all dressed warmly, some of the black leather jackets hanging loosely around
their shoulders. One of them also had a large hammer and the other two carried
thick lead pipes. 

The
boy standing above him said something harshly. The toddler was still struggling
to get up, so Sean let him go and then sat up. The four of them ignored the
toddler as he waddled back to the table and tried to climb up onto the woman’s
lap. The boy didn’t lower his heavy hammer and repeated the phrase, more
insistently. 

Sean
shrugged his shoulders, pushed the blanket off and stood up. The oldest of the
four boys, about fourteen or fifteen, stepped forward and slammed his hand into
Sean’s chest, knocking him against the wall. He held him pinned there and
screamed something into his face, gesturing at the table behind them. 

“I
don’t understand! I don’t speak Russian!” Sean yelled back at him. The boy had
black hair and dark brown eyes, was several inches taller and smelled strongly
of onions and garlic. Short, dark hairs dotted his upper lip, which was twisted
into a threatening snarl. 

Sean
let the boy hold him against the wall. The other boys were stepping nervously
from foot to foot, looking at each other and their ill-tempered leader. He
could hear the ridicule and scorn in the boy’s voice as he spoke quietly into
his face, occasionally turning to his cronies behind him. Sean thought of his
fight with Kyle and Paul only a week or so before. Kyle had had that same look
in his eye as he held Sean against the tree. It didn’t look like hate or evil
or anything like that. Both this Russian kid and Kyle just had a mean,
mischievous look in their eye, a readiness to get into trouble, to give other
people a hard time. More than the feeling of the hand against his chest and the
taunts and jeers, Sean hated the presumption and attitude that went along with
this behavior – the desire to hurt and intimidate others, to assert your will
above theirs, just because you can. 

Sean
watched the boy carefully as he continued to mutter cruelly at him, looking
into the boy’s eyes and leaving his face expressionless. He waited until the
boy turned briefly to the pale kid beside him to laugh at some joke. Then, he
grabbed the dark-haired boy’s hips and brought his knee up into his groin,
pulling the kid toward him as he did so. 

The
Russian boy gasped and doubled over, tripping over the blanket as he hastily
backed away. Sean immediately turned to the pale boy next to him. The boy
dropped his heavy hammer and raised his arms in front of his face. Sean fumbled
quickly for the handgun in his coat as the other boys stood dumbly, watching
their friend moaning on the floor.

He
gripped the weapon with both hands, keeping the short barrel pointed straight
at their feet. Sean was shaking so hard that he was afraid that he was going to
accidentally pull the trigger and didn’t want to shoot at anyone if he didn’t
have to. He motioned with the handgun and began backing away from the now
frightened boys.      The toddler had made his way back to the table and was
trying to climb back up to his dead mother’s lap. He paid no attention to Sean
or the others as the American boy ran quickly through the double doors to the
hall. 

The
black BMW sat right in front of the doors, pointing away from the lobby. Behind
him, Sean heard a shout and then the rapid shuffling of coats and running feet.
Right before he turned to run toward the lobby, he briefly considered the
possibility that they’d left the keys in the ignition – not likely, he thought.
Besides, he was betting he could make it out of the building before the four of
them could get the car turned around through all the couches and other
debris.  

Angry,
pubescent Russian voices echoed through the empty hotel as Sean sprinted over
the soft carpet toward the daylight ahead. He heard car doors slamming and the
engine roaring to life as he reached the lobby. The tires spun, quickly tearing
the carpet, as the oldest of the boys slammed on the pedal in reverse. Sean
didn’t even turn to look back as his feet bounded lightly over the scraps of
destroyed furniture and shattered lamps. 

He
ran straight for where the front doors used to be, carefully stepping over the
large, jagged shards of glass that littered the area in front of the check-in
desk. He dared a brief glance over his shoulder as he reached the carport. The
car was quickly turning around in the lobby, the dark-haired boy at the wheel,
pointing the hood straight at him. 

Sean
fumbled in his pocket for the car keys as he darted to the left, sprinting past
the row of empty cars parked in front of the hotel. Just as he reached his
black sedan full of supplies, the BMW shot out of the hotel about thirty feet
behind him. 

The
car’s tires hit the pavement with a screech as the boy tried to turn the
vehicle to the left. But, the car quickly reached the other side of the carport
and plowed into a waist-high concrete wall. 

Sean
paused halfway into his car to watch the BMW bounce off the concrete wall and
the four boys inside being thrown toward the right side of the vehicle. He
jumped into the driver’s seat and started the engine, quickly buckling his seat
belt before pulling out of the parking spot. He sped past the BMW, seeing the
four boys groping around inside, dazed from their collision.

 Sean’s
foot slammed onto the brakes and he jerked the wheel to the left unsteadily as
he barely made the turn down the ramp that led to the street. After seeing no
signs of pursuit in his rear-view mirror, Sean pressed on the gas pedal and
drove away from the hotel. 

The
grime-coated window fogged up as Viktor held his face against the glass,
peering down into the sunlit street below. Their apartment was in a long, gray
five-story building, one of the thousands built during the Khrushchev regime.
City ordinances required that any building with six or more floors have an
elevator. Hence, all the tenements in this older section of the city only had
five floors – Soviet efficiency. 

Viktor
could make out the monolithic shapes of more recently built, fourteen-story
buildings in the distance. The day was clear and the bright sun shone on the
dull colors of the buildings’ exteriors – yellows, muted reds and browns – all
tones from late sixties and early seventies construction. The combination of
colors and varying building heights made the apartments look like a super-sized
Lego village. The out-of-place splashes of cheap paint had been a poor attempt
to distract the people from the oppression of the times – Brezhnev’s policy of
cultural stagnation and isolationism. 

He
rubbed his sleeve against the pane to wipe away the moisture from his breath.
The stool beneath him creaked as he adjusted his weight. Viktor had been there
for the past hour, staring down at the street, trying to find out what was
going on. So far, he hadn’t seen a soul. There was nothing but static on the
television in the kitchen and the radio wasn’t picking up anything either. As
far as he could tell the rest of the world had just disappeared.

After
his sister hadn’t responded to the knocks at her door the morning before,
Viktor had quietly entered, only to confirm what he already knew deep inside.
Her room was even a little smaller than his, but minus all the clutter. The bed
was crammed into the corner beside a chest of drawers. Dog-eared rock star
posters covered the walls and piles of clothes covered most of the floor and
chair at the end of the bed. She had laid still there, covers pulled up close
to her chin. Viktor hadn’t touched her – just looked into her face to see that
she was gone. 

Tatyana
had been planning to do something with the bodies of his mother and grandmother
that morning. She’d said that they were starting to stink, that they need to be
buried or at least taken somewhere else, but Viktor didn’t want them to leave.
He knew they were already gone, but just having them lying peacefully in their
beds made him feel like they were still all at home, as long as he didn’t walk
into the room. He’d left Tatyana’s body undisturbed, closing the door quietly
behind him. 

Viktor
leaned back against the table. He wasn’t sure that he’d really expected to see
anyone walking around outside, but he’d hoped that he would. His mind had been
trying to avoid thinking about much of anything going on outside his small,
confined world of the apartment for the past few days since his mother had
died. He’d cried himself to sleep most nights, despite his attempts to dredge
up all his memories of his mother’s abuse – all the slaps and taunting, the way
she would sneer at him sometimes as she stared. Viktor knew the thoughts
flickering through her eyes – why didn’t she have a normal son, what had she
done to deserve this? But, with each painful memory he harvested, one more
tender and kind had popped up, robbing him of the solace from grief that he had
hoped resentment would bring. 

His
aching fingers twitched reflexively as he stared at the window, imagining his
mother’s presence behind him. His ears could almost hear the chink of dishes as
she worked at the sink, the slap and scrape of her slippers as her quiet mass
moved through the  apartment. Suddenly, her smell came flooding back to him,
momentarily overwhelming his senses. It was the scent of her skin lotion and a
trace of perfume, the odor of the laundry detergent she used on her clothes –
the smell of domesticity and comfort. 

The
image of a birthday card came into his mind – one that she had given him the
day he’d turned six. It was miniscule and the colors were faded. She had
probably found it in one of the boxes piled in her room, an unused card from
years before. There was a round snowman on the front and a couple of enormous
snowflakes. The note inside had been short, the handwriting blockish and
uneven. He still remembered it: “Viktor, happy sixth birthday. I’m glad you’re
my boy – Mama.” The card was tucked away in one of his books. He’d saved it,
but hadn’t looked at it or even thought about it in years. 

Suddenly,
he saw a form dart out of the building across the street and disappear below
his line of vision. Viktor lurched forward, reaching for the window sill with
his left hand. His right arm also shot out feebly, his elbow emitting a dull
crack as the unused joint flared painfully into action. The stool underneath
him tilted forward on two of its four legs. Just as he reached the window, one
of the wooden legs snapped underneath his weight. For the split second that he
hung in mid-air, he saw a young girl, maybe ten years old, in an oversized coat
and boots, run to his side of the street and start around the building. 

His
tailbone crunched into the floor first, followed by his shoulder blades, then
the back of his skull. Viktor lay silent for a moment looking at the dull white
ceiling above him as he tried to slow his breathing, with both his legs twisted
beneath him. His mind began to race, quickly focusing on each part of his body
separately, beginning at his toes and then running up his legs and into his
back, checking for painful spots, trying to quickly assess any injuries. 

It
wasn’t the worst fall he’d ever had – nothing seemed to be broken, just bruised
a little. He lifted his left arm to roll onto his right side, his right arm
tucking beneath him, the palm flat on the floor. He slowly pushed himself into
a sitting position and looked around dazedly as the blood pounding in his head
slowed. His legs were still tucked carefully beneath him and he looked down at
his right hand, planted firmly on the floor with the arm extended, delicately
supporting his weight. 

Viktor
blinked his eyes in confusion. But there it was – his right arm: fully
extended, no longer tucked in a useless ball at his side. The elbow was
beginning to ache terribly and his arm was starting to shake under the strain.
Ignoring his trembling limb, he pulled his left hand up to his face, almost to
confirm that it wasn’t the one supporting his body. The fingers were still
locked in their usual cramped position, the middle finger slightly extended.
Still holding the hand in front of his face, he concentrated on wiggling the
aching fingers, willing the locked joints to move. Usually when he did this, he
was only able to get a limited degree of movement from the fingers, but it was
often enough to ease some of the pain. Wiggling them now made it feel as if
metal pins were being slowly pushed into the knuckles. He grimaced and
continued flexing the fingers, working them gradually until all of them were
almost fully extended. Then, he curled them into a weak fist and opened it
again. 

Viktor
leaned forward to take the strain off his right arm and sat on the floor,
opening and closing both his hands in front of his face, watching the fingers
curl in upon themselves then shoot out straight like ten perfect arrows.