Elijah's Chariot (The Forgotten Children Book 1) (22 page)

Ryan
nodded gravely and looked down, then back at Sean. “No one?” 

Sean
shook his head. “How old are you?”

“I’ll
be nineteen in a few months. I went into the Marines the day after I finished
high school. I wasn’t quite eighteen yet, but the recruiter back in Greenville
was so excited to be getting any volunteer, he didn’t exactly do a lot of fact
checking. Had my birthday in Basic Training.” 

Sean
continued staring in disbelief at the young soldier. “We haven’t found any
kids’ bodies, just grown-ups…” He stepped away, hands hanging limply at his
sides, and exhaled slowly, looking around at the decorations in the lobby. 

“I
got these headaches real bad – for like the whole week after Jerry came down.
They put me in the infirmary because I kept passing out. I think I was out for
like three days the last time, they had me hooked up to all these tubes. When I
finally woke up, though, I felt fine. But, no one else in the other beds woke
up. They was all dead, every one of ‘em.”

Sean
nodded and looked around, still recovering slightly from the adrenaline rush of
a few moments before. He gradually became aware of a sharp, steady knocking
sound, but couldn’t tell where it was coming from. The more he concentrated on
the noise, the louder it became until he turned around toward the outer doors,
almost expecting to see someone outside knocking on the window. 

“What
is it?”

“Do
you hear that? Where’s it coming from?” Sean said as he began to circle around
the room. 

Ryan
paused and closed his eyes. Suddenly he opened them and looked down at his arm.
Raising his wrist to his ear, he said. “You mean this? You can hear that?”

Sean
stared blankly at the wrist watch. Ryan moved closer to hold his watch up to
Sean’s ear. Even before he got close, Sean could hear the ticking as clearly as
a snare drum beating right by his head. He quickly pulled away as the sound
became almost deafening. 

Ryan
looked in confusion at Sean. “You can hear it too? It’s loud, ain’t it!”

“I
don’t know,” Sean said as he took his hands away from his ears. 

“You
know, ever since I woke up – it was on a Sunday I think – I’ve had the most
amazing things happening to me. I can hear everything around me, like totally
clear, like it’s right inside my head. The lights buzzing, birds’ wings as they
fly by. And you know what else? I can smell everything! Like I can smell your
sweat from over here and something, I don’t know, something like, I mean, no
offense, but you really stink.”

Sean
stared back at him. He began to notice that he was able to make out individual
pores in the young soldier’s face with startling clarity, as long as he
focused. The stubble around his mouth danced rhythmically as he spoke, waving
back and forth like hills of grain in the wind. 

“And,
this is the coolest thing, I think – I can sit up on the top floor of the main
building and see for miles all around the city. I can read signs that are
blocks and blocks away, it’s the craziest thing. Well, not read exactly, I
don’t speak the Russkiy,” Ryan continued, smiling broadly in wonder. 

Sean
finally managed to tear his gaze away from the hypnotizing sight of Ryan’s face
as it moved. He nodded.

“Yeah,
weird stuff has been happening to us all.”

“Shhh!”
Ryan said suddenly. He closed his eyes and turned his head up and to the right,
holding his hand out in front of Sean. 

“Footsteps
– coming toward this building.”

Sean
also closed his eyes and listened intently. Gradually, the steady rhythm of
feet on pavement reached his ears. The footsteps were separate and distinct,
one after another. 

“It’s
Ivan – he’s one of the Black Scorpions gang. He’s got a gun.”

“I
saw him come in with you, him and that other kid with the limp. Sorry I scared
you – I didn’t want to jump out around the kid with the weapon – Ivan. He
looked like he might scare easily.”

Sean
stood frozen, listening as the footsteps drew closer. It sounded like he was
right outside the doors. He began to back away. 

“He’s
almost here!”

“No,
he ain’t, he’s still a ways down the street, you’re just not used to this. You
want me to go out there and talk with him – is he harassing you guys at all?”

“Listen,”
Sean said as he grabbed Ryan’s arm, “he and a bunch of other kids have been
holding us prisoner for the past few weeks, making us gather food and jewelry
for them.”

“Well,
I can get you out of here easy…”

“I
can’t leave. Viktor and I have to go back with him or they’ll kill one of the
little kids. Pyotr said he would this morning.”

Ryan
nodded grimly, then flashed Sean his lopsided smile, “Well, then. It sounds
like you kids are in need of an old-fashioned rescue, aren’t you?”

Sean
sagged wearily against the wall as Aleksandr pushed the now unlocked door open
and stepped inside. Viktor, a large trash sack clutched in hand, paused to
whisper a word of encouragement to Sean before entering the apartment. He was
immediately cut off by Ivan’s bellow from the stairs behind them.

“Keep
moving! You’ve got another building to get through before dinner!”

They’d
already cleared four buildings that day with Sean opening each one of the
apartment doors with his telekinetic power. Although he was definitely becoming
more adept at it with all the practice, after an entire day of constant
concentration and mental strain plus the added effort of hauling canned food
from apartments, even he was exhausted. That and the fact that he hadn’t eaten
anything that day except for a meager slice of old bread for breakfast had him
on the verge of collapse. 

As
Sean gathered his strength to enter the apartment, a loud crash of glass came
from inside. Sean winced and instinctively threw his hands over his ears.
Viktor, who stood in the hallway just ahead, turned around and looked at the
boy in sympathy. “Aleksandr just broke some plates in the kitchen – that’s
all.”

Sean
had
been
practicing reducing his newfound sensitivity to light and sound, but he was
still caught off guard sometimes. It seemed to function almost like a volume
knob inside his head, although the effort to turn it was much greater than a
simple flick of the wrist. He knew it would become easier with practice, but it
still seemed very inconvenient right now.

It
had been two days since Sean, Viktor and Ivan had searched the Embassy. As far
as Ivan and Pyotr knew, their trip had been unsuccessful. Sean had told Viktor
all about Private McCaney back at the hotel that night, leaving nothing out,
including his powerful new senses. Viktor was very excited at first with the
idea of the young marine coming to rescue them. But, as they began to concoct
escape plans late into the night, they kept reaching the same difficulty:
escaping without getting most of the other kids killed in the process. If just
the two of them slipped away, the others would be punished. But, any plan that
included liberating the entire bunch of forty children was always too risky and
implausible. Sean and Private McCaney hadn’t had more than a few minutes to
talk, before he’d had to go back and find Ivan and Viktor. McCaney had just
told Sean to watch for his signal. 

Svyeta,
Zhenya and a couple of the other girls stepped out of the elevator and made
their way past Sean into the apartment, quickly and expertly combing the place
for valuables and any other useful items. Sean watched little Zhenya’s
shoulder-length brown hair sway back and forth as she shuffled around the
apartment, trying to help while also staying out of the way of the older
children who rapidly moved from room to room. Once again, he was reminded of
his sister Elizabeth when she was younger, when they were both so happy and
carefree. That time seemed so long ago…

Some
days Elizabeth was more clearly in his thoughts than others. During those
times, he could plainly see her face, hear her voice and sense her closeness.
It was different than when he thought of his parents. Although it still almost
brought tears to his eyes when he thought of his mother and father, the memory
of them seemed so far away and somehow finalized. With Elizabeth, the memory
was much more vibrant and fresh, like she was still very much a part of his
life, but somehow removed. Maybe I’m just hoping, he thought to himself. Hoping
that she’s still alive. And if she was, he hoped that she wasn’t going through
anything like what he was experiencing.

“Hurry
it up, ladies. It’ll be dark soon,” Ivan said as he walked into the apartment.
“Aleksandr,” he called loudly, “you, Sean and Viktor go on ahead to the next
one and get the doors open.”

A
deep boom sounded in the distance. Svyeta stepped out from one of the bedrooms
with a blank look on her face. She stood motionless, her eyes on the ceiling as
everyone in the apartment quieted, waiting for a second sound.

It
came five seconds later. The dirty window above the stairwell rattled softly
with the explosive crack in the distance. Sean could distinguish the several
pieces of the noise that was bouncing off the concrete buildings throughout the
city. It was a distinctive explosion followed quickly by shattering rubble. He
couldn’t tell exactly what it was, but it sounded closer than the first
explosion.   

“It’s
nothing. Back to work,” Ivan ordered. Aleksandr exited the kitchen and handed a
heavy sack to Sean. The three boys made their way to the elevator.

A
few minutes later, they dropped the sacks of canned food to the ground behind
the large truck and leaned against the back step to catch their breaths.
Another boom sounded, echoing through the almost empty city.   

Sean
looked around the deserted little courtyard that was nestled between several
connecting apartment buildings. They had come from the tallest – the others
were only a few stories high and much older. A plot of grass surrounded a
feeble tree that was struggling to reach up to the sun in one corner. Several
car-wide passages led off the courtyard. The truck stood opposite the building
they’d just exited, pointing through an archway out onto a small street. 

Kiril
and one of the other captive boys about Sean’s age jumped out of the truck’s
cab, slamming the heavy doors. They barely paused to look at the three
exhausted boys, before emptying the sacks of the cans and tossing them one by
one into the covered bed of the personnel transport vehicle.   

Just
as they were loading the last of the food, Svyeta entered the courtyard, her
oversized boots slapping quickly on the cracked concrete. Her thin, pale face
was pointed at the ground as she walked, her sharp shoulders moving gracefully
under the light jacket she wore. The plastic bag in her hands held a few tin
cans of food. The other two girls quickly carried their canned goods over to
the truck. Zhenya trailed behind, clutching a large jar of peaches in her pudgy
hands. 

“One-seventy-nine’s
clear,” Svyeta called out to no one in particular. She set the cans and
Zhenya’s peach jar in the back of the truck. More footsteps echoed through the
small courtyard as three or four younger boys and girls walked in from the
street. Each of them held canned foods or packages of dried fruit and
crackers. 

Another
explosion burst in the afternoon air. This time, they all heard a faint whistle
after the blast, which was closely followed by the sound of shattering glass
and metal slamming against pavement. 

The
children jumped at the noise and Zhenya immediately burst into tears. Kiril
tossed the rest of the food into the truck and jumped out to the ground. 

“What
was that?” one of the girls asked, staring in wide-eyed fear at the gray sky
above the apartment buildings that surrounded them. The few scattered leaves on
the tree waved fitfully in the wind.

“Sounds
like cannons. Or a tank,” Kiril said as he walked around the side of the truck
toward the cab. 

“Missile
launcher?” asked the younger boy following behind him. 

“We
found one of those a few weeks ago – shot off a few missiles. Those explosions
sound much louder than a missile launcher.”

Sean,
Viktor and Aleksandr stepped further into the middle of the courtyard, ears
trained to the wind as they searched the sky above their heads for additional
signs of explosions.   

“Is
Pyotr shooting off cannons?” asked one of the younger boys who had just entered
the courtyard. 

“Don’t
know,” Kiril called back as he climbed up into the cab of the truck. 

Viktor
leaned over to Sean and said in English, “Can you tell which it is – cannons or
tanks?”

Sean
shook his head. “I can hear it pretty clearly – that last one was loud. I can
make my ears more or less sensitive if I think about it, but I kind of have to
know when the sound’s coming. I don’t know what a cannon or a tank going off
sounds like, so I don’t know which it is.”

The
thunder clap of another explosion rocked through the enclosed courtyard. This
one was much closer, coming from the direction of the street where the truck
was pointed. Sean held his hands tightly over his painfully ringing ears. He
had been straining to hear any additional noises – feet marching, orders being
shouted, gunfire. But, he’d over-amplified. 

 Zhenya
had screamed again at the blast, along with several of the other girls. Svyeta
stroked the girl’s hand rhythmically as she looked around, listening to the
echoes of the explosion carry through the deserted streets. 

Ivan
burst out of the stairwell several meters away, his hand clutching a
walkie-talkie to his ear as he ran. 

“I’m
not shooting off anything! I thought it was you!” he yelled into the
mouthpiece. 

He
sprinted to the back of the truck and crouched down next to the group of
frightened children. His fingers released the talk button on the black
instrument and loud static hissed from it. A couple seconds later, Pyotr’s
voice was faintly heard. 

“We’re
not doing anything either – it sounds like a tank. Who else is there with you
–damn!”

Heads
turned toward the sound of distant and rapid popping coming through one of the
archways on the other side of the courtyard. Sean could tell that the gunfire
was far away – but still too close. 

Viktor
shifted nervously from his right foot to his left and back. He wasn’t sure if
he should watch the street behind them or the archway just thirty meters in
front of them. Sean was crouched low on the ground beside him, his hands over
his ears as he strained to decipher what was going on. 

Svyeta
turned to Ivan. “Who is it? Who’s shooting?”

“It’s
the Yozh!” blurted Aleksandr. 

Ivan’s
left hand shot out and wrapped around Aleksandr’s throat. Although Ivan was a
few years older, both boys were roughly the same size. But, the humorless look
in Ivan’s eyes and the determination with which he squeezed the windpipe made
it clear who would win in a fight. With a look of pain and confusion on his
face, Aleksandr pried the fingers away and backed up, rubbing his throat. 

Ivan
continued staring at him, almost daring him to attack or say something else.
After a tense moment, he spat, “There is no Yozh!”

A
loud boom rattled a few of the windows of the shorter apartment buildings. It
was instantly followed by a faint, short whistle, then a splitting crack as
chunks of concrete and dust exploded into the courtyard. A meter-wide section
of the concrete ceiling that hung above the tall archway leading to the street
was gone. The truck’s windshield was almost shattered by flying debris, while
thick, gray dust swirled in a cloud around the rest of the vehicle and over the
ground. 

With
a little yelp, Zhenya broke away from Svyeta’s grip and began running
frantically away from the exploding concrete. She was heading toward the
smaller passage on the opposite side of the courtyard that led out to the
street. 

“Zhenya!”
Svyeta screamed, panic rising in her voice.

“Stop!”
yelled Ivan after her. He took a couple of steps forward as she continued to
run away, her little legs pumping toward escape.

“Zhenya,
stop!” Ivan yelled again, more forcefully. He deftly swung the sub-machinegun
that was slung over his shoulder to point at the retreating girl. “I said
stop!”

Just
as Svyeta began to turn to him, a shriek starting to build in the back of her
throat, the gun cracked, spitting out a burst of rounds. Sean saw the tiniest
cloud of red mist burst from Zhenya’s back and she immediately crumpled to the
ground, face down. 

The
echoes of the gunshot quickly died away and the courtyard was left in silence,
Svyeta’s dangerous scream dying in her throat. Ivan stared ahead at the small
body lying on the pavement, twenty meters in front of him, his hands still
clutching the firearm, holding its muzzle level with the ground. 

Sean
was faintly aware of the sound of a metal track rolling slowly over street
pavement, mashing the relatively soft asphalt. He, along with the rest of the
children, stared in silence at the small form, lying still in the middle of the
courtyard, brown hair scattered in disarray over the back of the head, her
little patterned skirt blowing slightly in the wind. It danced over her purple
leggings, licking the tops of her softly cushioned boots. 

Sean’s
eyes blinked once slowly, as he stared ahead, his heartbeat thudding softly in
his chest. Her hair was brown too, he thought to himself. The image of his
sister Elizabeth came rushing into his mind – he could see her going down the
yellow, plastic slide on the old play set in the backyard, her long brown hair
trailing dutifully behind her. He imagined her tiptoeing carefully through the
house, peeking her head around the corner each time she entered a different
room, searching it to see if anyone was there, her eyes wide in wonder and
sadness. In her hands, he could see that she was holding a small green lamp,
one of the old-fashioned kind that held a candle in the center and reflected
the light through the entire masterfully crafted piece of colored glass. Her
head turned slowly, as she stood in the front hallway, toward the large, white
front door. Before she could take two steps toward it, the door began to swing
open. Her deep blue eyes widened, the black, inky pupils dilating quickly as
her chest filled with a slow gulp of air. The green lamp skimmed the tips of
her hair on its way toward the floor, where it shattered at her feet in
hundreds of tiny pieces, sending mismatched shards in every direction.