“Marcus.”
“Foreigner.” It wasn’t a question.
“American.” He was too tired to be precise and say Western American.
The big man shrugged. “What in heaven’s name are you doing here?”
“The girl,” Marcus said. “I’m trying to help her.”
The man scanned Marcus up and down, and Marcus knew how absurd he must look. The man grinned. “How can you help her?”
“I don’t know. I just know that I must try.”
“You’ll never catch them.”
Marcus nodded.
The man stared at him for a long moment before letting out a long sigh. “All right. Follow me. I can at least show you which way to go.” He didn’t wait for a response, but turned and began walking along the track. Marcus shuffled after him.
He couldn’t tell how long it was before the man spoke again, ten minutes, fifteen perhaps. “You smell that?” he asked.
“Yes,” Marcus said.
“Best prepare yourself. There are a lot of dead people in the station ahead.”
“What?”
“Don’t worry, they’re long dead.”
“Why?”
The man shrugged. “The tribe there, they…gave up. That’s all. Just thought you should be ready so you don’t panic.”
“I might panic anyway,” Marcus murmured.
“Maybe, but at least you know. Where you need to go, you’ll have to walk through them all. Here, see?”
The man stopped and in the lamplight Marcus could see lumpy forms laid out in rows across the ancient track bed.
“Maybe don’t look at them closely,” the man said. “Just step over them and keep moving.”
The man started forward again, and Marcus took a deep breath of the musty air and followed, trying to avoid tripping on the blanket covered forms using only his peripheral vision.
“Up here,” the man said, holding his lamp high so the light illuminated a set of wooden stairs rising to a pillar-lined platform. Many more bodies were scattered around each of the pillars. The man pointed and said, “Follow the hall that way and you’ll come to the exit. It’s a long climb up.” He turned and began walking down the train tunnel again.
Marcus watched the man’s broad back fading away in the darkness. “Thanks,” he said. There was no indication the man heard him.
Zoya was glad the sun set late in the summer. Seeing the sunlight streaming in through the broken metro entrance seemed like one of the most beautiful sights in her life. When she stepped out onto the sidewalk an odd feeling swept through her. She had walked this way to work for years, passing the old metro station without much thought, so it felt funny to rejoin her familiar path from a completely different route. She didn’t hesitate in choosing her direction, but turned immediately toward the morgue, knowing that the river was just beyond and if she took a left there she would come to The Pyramid. It also occurred to her that Tavik might assume she went into the morgue. If he stopped there, she might manage to lose him.
She found herself humming an old tune by The Beatles and forced herself to stop. It felt irreverent to hum on such a day. Music was a more or less constant part of her normal life, but today was anything but normal. She realized her mind must have dredged it up because she always listened to music while walking to work.
She looked back but didn’t see any sign of pursuit. Hopefully Tavik would have more trouble than she had climbing the interminable escalator steps. She turned to look for the morgue. It was once part of the nearby Hospital #23, but it had been forced to move when one of the wings collapsed, long before Zoya had gotten the job. Now it occupied the part of a building that used to be a dress shop. Her boss Pyotr preferred to call it the ‘clinic’. The larger room was used to prepare bodies for viewing by their grieving loved ones before cremation, though on some occasions a pathologist would come in to perform an autopsy if something suspicious was involved. There was also a small office, a toilet, and of course the viewing room with its thick carpet and rows of plastic chairs.
It struck her that her life as she had known it was completely over. It wasn’t just the loss of her family, though that was the worst, naturally. There was no going back to her job. There was no returning to any normal life after today. Even if she could somehow evade Tavik, the city authorities were bought and paid for by Tavik’s bosses. She latched onto the thought that she might be able to somehow make it to the countryside, to her friend Irina’s family dacha, and hide there until…until what?
She looked back again, wanting to slip by the clinic without Tavik spotting her. Still no sign of pursuit. She turned forward again and her heart nearly stopped — a silver sky cycle stood in the clinic parking lot. Pyotr had no business being at work on a Sunday, but that was clearly his cycle, standing in the spot where he always parked it. Would Tavik leave Pyotr alone if he came to the clinic and found Zoya wasn’t there? She didn’t think it likely. An exasperation that bordered on anger welled up in her chest. She’d had a chance to possibly escape Tavik for good, but she couldn’t pass by and leave Pyotr to his fate. She hurried forward, thinking that perhaps she could get him out of there quickly and he might even be able to help her escape on his sky cycle.
Tavik stretched his arms and let the warm sunlight wash over him as he walked through the door of the metro and onto the sidewalk. After the horrors of the past half hour spent crawling through the dark over countless moldering skeletons and up the unmoving escalator that never seemed to end, the sunlight and the clean air felt like passing through the gates of heaven. Even better, he could see Bunny’s huge form far ahead in the direction of the river. No! I know this place. It’s close to where Zoya works. That’s why she went this way!
Tavik grinned and set off after Bunny. Twice Bunny skittered behind cover, and Tavik assumed Zoya must have looked back to try to spot him. It was amazing how agile the big fuck could be. Bunny had slowed his pace, stalking Zoya rather than trying to catch up to her, so Tavik made up ground on him easily. By the time Bunny turned off the sidewalk into the parking lot of the morgue, Tavik was within hailing distance. He would have called out to Bunny if he thought the bastard would stop, but he decided it would be better to try to get the drop on him. Bunny broke everything he touched, and Tavik didn’t want him touching Zoya. If anyone’s going to break her it’s going to be me.
“What are you doing here?” Zoya practically screamed. She couldn’t believe her eyes. It wasn’t just Pyotr here, but her friend Irina as well. The grins they had flashed upon her entrance into the office withered at her reaction. Zoya pointed a finger at Irina. “Ira, I told you to get out of the city!”
“You said leave a message with Pyotr,” Ira said, face flushing red. “He said to meet him here. Said he had some work to do. And…and I was worried for you. I just wanted to help.”
“Where’s your family?”
“I had them drop me off here and go on ahead. Pyotr said he’d take me when he was done.”
“Damn it, Ira! Did I not sound serious enough to you when I called? You can’t be here!”
Ira waved her hands at Zoya. “Calm down! We’ll leave now. Or better yet, we can call the police.”
Zoya wanted to slap Ira. How could she be so stupid? She turned to Pyotr. “We’ve got to get out of here now! They’re right on my heels, don’t you understand?” Her voice became shrill. “They’ll kill us all!”
Pyotr got up from his chair, his face pale. “Look, my cycle won’t hold three. Here, let’s go out and I’ll tell it you have permission to take it. You two can go.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll…I’ll go out the back and hide somewhere.”