Elijah's Chariot (The Forgotten Children Book 1) (8 page)

Just
as it was getting dark, Sean and his father were jolted by a loud boom from
across the street. They both jumped up quickly and raced to the balcony window
to stare at the flames coming out of one of the kiosks near the metro station.
Three or four boys Sean’s age were quickly running down the sidewalk toward the
field while others in the marketplace snatched at some of the CD’s and videos
that had fallen to the ground. 

There
weren’t many other people near the metro station, but the few remaining
Russians quickly disappeared down the street or onto paths that skirted the
market area. The flames quickly engulfed the entire kiosk and burned steadily.
The boys that had apparently caused the explosion and those that had stolen the
loot were now out of sight. After staring at the fire for a few more minutes,
Sean and Kevin turned back to the TV and their magazines. 

Kevin
called Cindy later that evening, but only talked to her for a few minutes
because the lines kept failing. After he hung up he sat down on the bed next to
Sean, who was drawing over the faces in one of the Russian magazines, giving
everyone black eyes and moustaches. 

“Well,
they’re doing okay, things are pretty much the same for them too. But, it looks
like Mrs. Donaldson next door might have died. Your mom went over there early
this morning and rang several times, but didn’t get any answer. Her car was
still in the driveway, but she never goes anywhere anyway, especially at a time
like this. She didn’t want to try to break in there to have to find her like
that. She tried calling 9-1-1, but couldn’t ever get through.”

He
patted Sean on the back absently, drew in a deep breath, then continued. “Your
mom didn’t sleep very well most of the night – not surprising. She had
Elizabeth sleep in bed with her. She said that CNN early this morning was
reporting additional deaths today – even more than yesterday. I told her to be
careful, not to go anywhere. I didn’t say anything about the looting here – no
need to worry her even more.”

Sean
was tracing lines around a woman’s face that was wearing a tight-fitting, gray
business suit. Kevin watched as he put the finishing touches on a large bandage
around the woman’s head to match the cast on her leg and the scars on her neck
and cheek. He smiled.

“Sean,”
Kevin began slowly. “We should probably talk about something – just in case…
just in case you might need to, to be able to get somewhere on your own.”

“But,
you’d be with me. We could figure out the metro stops together.”

“Well,
in case we were separated, or I had to stay somewhere while you went for help
or something.”

“We’ll
just stay together – I’m not going anywhere without you.”

“Look,
Sean, I know this may not be the easiest thing…”

The
phone rang, the odd pulsing tone cutting through the hotel room air. Kevin
stood quickly and picked up the receiver. 

“Hello,
hi, this is Kevin.”

“Kevin!
Kevin, Kevin, Kevin! Finally! Look, pal, I have been calling every single room
in that whole damn building, you know the front desk or the switchboard people
or whoever the hell they usually have down there must be out to an all-day
lunch, because I have not been able to get a hold of you at all, you’re the…”

“Alan
Connors? Is this Alan? Where are you?”
       “I’m, uh, well, right at this moment, I’m at one of our dear
government’s safe houses over near the Embassy. Things were getting pretty
sticky over there last night, so, we, well, a few of us, thought it might be a
good idea to make ourselves scarce.”

“Who’s
with you? What’s going on at the Embassy?”

“The
Embassy’s compromised, my friend. They overran it last night. They flushed us
out completely. I got separated from Garrett and most of the others. It’s just
me, John Rohrstadt, his assistant Kimberley Borland and, uh, Ralph Thompson,
one of the state department guys at the Embassy. And I have absolutely no idea
where anyone else is.”

Kevin
didn’t respond for a few seconds. He turned around and faced Sean, closed his
mouth, then turned back toward the wall. “What, what do you mean about the
Embassy? Who got in?”

“About
a hundred and fifty angry Russians with some sticks and chains. A couple of
them even had machine guns and a few old pistols. They ended up finally getting
through the back entrance. We didn’t think they knew about it or would try that
way – we had all our guys up at the front gate, they kept a crowd there
throwing chairs and rocks and everything, but they were just distracting us.
They drove a truck through to get into the compound at the back and once they
reached the front building, a bunch of us just went out the front, trying to
cut through the crowd. We made it – the others were grabbed by people in the
crowd. I didn’t see what happened, I was just running… anyway, Thompson here
knew about this safe house and even had the keys, so we’re holed up in here for
the time being.”

Kevin
remained silent. He simply stood with his hand in his pocket, head turned
downward. 

“Listen,
Kevin, you’re going to need to get over here. Are you getting the riots outside
– the crowds?”

“There’s
been a little looting, nothing too major,” Kevin said quietly.

“Yeah,
well, the entire area around the Embassy is like a battle zone or something.
There were people out late last night and most of the day breaking into the
stores and stealing food and TVs and anything they could grab. I saw a few
police cars, but there were no uniforms in sight, everything is completely out
of control. The apartment we’re in is just about a thirty minute walk from the
Embassy. You and your son need to get over here early tomorrow morning.”

“Why?
We haven’t been having as many problems over here, I mean we’ve just been
waiting it out in the room for the past couple days doing…”

“Kevin,
if things aren’t bad in your area yet, they will be soon. The entire city’s
going crazy. We heard that some of the crime families are taking advantage of
the confusion and are settling old debts – there are gunshots down the street
every few minutes. We are in a completely secure apartment, we’ve got plenty of
food, even some weapons. I mean, just for the sake of sticking together, we’d
all be safer here. We’ve got everything we’re going to need – we can just hide
here and ride this thing out. You are not safe in that hotel.”

Kevin
looked around the small room and over at Sean. He stepped toward the balcony
window, trying to peer out into the darkness, but nothing was visible past the
railing, besides a few neon lights in the market across the street. 

“Okay,
but how are we going to get there? We’ve hardly seen any cars all day. I don’t
even know if the metro is still running.”

“I
wouldn’t try to get in a taxi even if you could still find one. I’m not sure
about the metro – I haven’t seen any of the buses going, so I’d imagine that
they’re out too. Probably the best idea is for you to grab a car and just try
to make it here on your own. But, wait until the morning – early in the
morning. Don’t try and get over here in the night, that’s when things have been
the worst.”

Kevin
nodded grimly. “Alright. Alright, I think we might be able to… to find
something. Where are you at?”

Svyeta
pulled her sister Zhenya close, tugging her collar up higher on her neck
against the cool morning wind. The road in front of them was empty, the same as
all the other streets they’d walked during the last half hour since they left
their apartment… since they left
him
at the apartment. 

She
shuddered again – a painful physical echo of the shaking her body had started
when she’d found Zhenya crouched in her parents’ room by the bed only an hour
ago. Her six-year-old sister was crying as she repeatedly shook her father’s
unmoving form. Svyeta had only stood in the doorway, staring at the two of
them, instantly realizing that what she had feared was going to happen, what
she knew was going to happened, had. She had no idea why she was shaking, where
it came from, but she fought instantly to control it, wrapping her arms tightly
around her sister as if Zhenya was the one shaking and she could make it stop
just by squeezing harder. 

Her
shaking lessened once she sprang into action. They had to get out, they had to
find their mother and tell her, she would know what to do. As she got herself
and her sister dressed she pushed the shaking and the rising sense of panic
that was causing it to the back of her mind, instead focusing on the immediacy
of getting outside and to the hospital. 

The
streets were too empty. It was still early in the morning, but there should
have been more people out – would have been more people out ordinarily. The
most disturbing thing to Svyeta was all the signs of recent activity: some
smashed shop and car windows, garbage in the streets, odd pieces of broken
furniture. The presence of these only emphasized the absence of people as the
former couldn’t exist without the latter, yet here they were. 

As
they were approaching the hospital a car sped past them and skidded to a stop
in front of the building. Svyeta and Zhenya kept walking and watching as a
frantic younger man jumped out of the car, ran to the passenger side and
carefully lifted the limp body of a young woman. He ran into the building and
the girls heard him shouting, calling out.

When
they reached the doors they found him arguing with a stone-faced woman dressed
in a dingy white coat. The lobby was filled with people, many of whom looked
like they’d been there all night and some of whom looked like they wouldn’t
ever leave on their own.

The
young man sobbed as he begged the nurse desperately. He was trying to hold the
young woman’s body, but she was slipping to the floor and he slowly sagged down
with her like they were both melding into one form. The nurse only shook her
head and asked him to please move her to the side of the room out of the way. 

“Marina
Valeriovna?” Svyeta’s question was really two. But one of them she didn’t want
to ask – she was afraid to know the answer. Is my mother here? Is she alive?

The
woman nodded and gestured for them to follow. They walked out of the lobby
beyond some swinging double doors and began weaving through dimly lit hallways.
There were bodies everywhere – pushed against the walls, a few on gurneys, some
curled up in chairs mimicking sleep. Some of the rooms were open and Svyeta saw
one with a body in the bed and six more just lying on the floor. A family had
checked their grandmother into the hospital only to end up dying there with
her. 

Every
corner they turned there were more bodies. No one alive was with them, tending
to them, recording their information – who they were, where they were from, why
they died. The building appeared to be overflowing with the dead.

The
silence was only disturbed by their steps as they turned another corner into
what appeared to be an exact duplicate of all the other hallways they’d come
through. Finally the woman stopped at the open door to one of the rooms. 

“Marina,
your girls are here.”

Svyeta’s
mother was sitting on a chair by the bed where a woman her age lay with a tube
hooked to her arm. Marina’s head was resting on her arm on the bed, her eyes
closed. 

Svyeta
noticed that she was holding her breath, gripping Zhenya’s hand tightly as she
stared at her mother. She couldn’t see her chest moving at all, couldn’t tell
if she was breathing. Wake up, wake up, she said silently to mother. Wake up
now. 

Zhenya
walked over and placed her hand gently on her mother’s shoulder, staring
intently into her face. 

“Mama,
Mama.”

Marina’s
eyes fluttered open briefly then closed again as she inhaled deeply. Svyeta
felt the air rush into her own lungs as if her mother’s intake had pushed it
there. She walked quickly to her mother and knelt by the chair. 

The
nurse left the room. Marina rolled her head on her arm and tried opening her
eyes again, wincing against the dim light.

“Zhenya?
Svyeta? What are you doing here?”

“We
found Dad this morning. He was… gone.”

Marina
lifted her head and leaned back in the chair, her bloodshot, weary eyes filling
with tears. She nodded and looked down, her lips held tight. 

“You
didn’t come home last night. We didn’t know if you were… we didn’t know what to
do. What’s happening, Mom? Why is everyone dying?”

The
girls hugged their mother, all three squeezing each other tightly. None of them
spoke for several minutes. Marina gently stroked their backs and smiled sadly.
Svyeta stood up and Zhenya crawled into her mother’s lap. 

“We’re
not sure what’s happening. Everyone comes in with these headaches. But no one’s
sick, as far as we can tell. There are no fevers, no coughing. Nothing except
for the headaches.”

She
winced again as she said this, holding her hand to her temple. 

“Have
you girls had any headaches?”

Both
nodded. Seeing this, Marina nodded too as she slowly ran her fingers through
Zhenya’s brown hair. 

“This
is Lyuba,” she said turning to the woman in the bed. “She’s one of the only
patients still alive. She came in on Monday with a severe headache – more than
a migraine she said. We actually went to school together. I haven’t seen her
in… fifteen years. We were friends, just lost touch after school. So strange –
this is how we meet again.”

Marina
turned back to her daughters, still smiling sadly. Svyeta touched her mother’s
shoulder, feeling the exhaustion in her body. She had dark circles under her
eyes and her face was thinner than when Svyeta had seen her just a day or so
ago. She thought she could almost feel her mother’s strength slipping away.
This woman who was always so strong, always taking care of everyone else,
giving everything and never leaving anything for herself, was fading. 

And
if – no, once – she faded away entirely, what would they do? Who would they
have then? Who would take care of them? Svyeta’s lips tightened firmly in
resolution as she watched her mother slowly running her fingers through her
little sister’s hair. 

She
would take care of them – both of them. As she had been doing for so long
already.