When he first opened his eyes, he felt normal for a short moment. The there was the swelling mass of pain; it tiptoed into the corners of his head and crept through every part with perfect accuracy that made him instantly grit his teeth. His hand instinctively shot up towards his forehead. His hands were freezing.
"Can you hear me?"
He couldnt open his eyes, there was only the shrieking, blinding colors of pain that paraded behind his eyelids. He pressed his freezing hands as hard as he could against his forhead, his palms covering his eyes. He rocked slowly back and forth in the cot.
"Hey, can you hear me?"
The voice sounded young and thin. It was a young man, maybe a teenager. The man in the cot moaned and nodded.
"Yes, please...I ne.."
"I know, something for your head. I know."
"Please,"
"Nothing I can do for you now, friend."
The man listened with his eyes clenched shut as the younger one moved around. It was very cold. Suddenly there came a faint shuddering, as softly everything started to shake. An enormous tumbling sound grew closer and closer, and the walls started to tremble. It sounded like a hellish steam train as it approached, and the sound was too much for the man to take. He shouted out desperatley.
"My head... Oh ... fucking God,"
"Just stay quiet," shouted the young voice. "Stay Quiet!"
The sound was apocalyptic. The groaning man tried to sit up, bellowing in a frenzy of pain as everything around them shook frantically. The sound climaxed with an unbearable, horrible wretching sound as it passed; it seemed to be above them and below them, and on both sides. It seemed to be everywhere.
Finally it started to pass. As the sound began to creep away, the groaning man could hear the younger boy trying to soothe him.
"Shh, shh," he said over and over.
"What..." the groaning man finally propped himself up. "What the fuck was that?" With his palms still blanketing his eyes, he heard someone else enter the room; a creaking door, sniffing and footsteps. Someone spoke in a raspy voice; he assumed the language was Russian. The new voice conferred in its language to the younger man. After several exchanges, the owner of the new voice knelt next to the groaning man, and put his on on his shoulder.
"Hey, bud-dee," a terribly thick accent diluted the words. "You ken open you-are eye?"
"I think so,"
He slowly removed his hands from his face, and his eyes opened. His head in flames, he squinted in the low light. They were in a room, like a basement. It was a terribly small, cramped space. One tiny window on near the ceiling let in a dull washy gray light. Stacks of boxes containing canned foods were in messy, available piles everywhere. The cellar smelled of wet dogs and aftershave; a pungent and ruthless stench that someone had attempted to diguise.
The man with the raspy voice was kneeling next to him. He had a mistrustful face, and immediately the groaning man became somewhat afraid. Patchy greyish-brown stubble outlined the mans gaunt cheekbones. A broad nose led up to swollen eyes. A black star had been tattooed on the mans left temple.
The groaning man squinted again and looked at the younger man, who was no more than twenty. Both of their clothes were ripped and shredded and layered. From the faar distance came another great low rumble. The man quickly glanced towards the window.
"It okay," said the older man. "It on diff-ent 'track."
"Where am I,"
"What you-are name, heh?" The old man nodded back to the boy. "'Det iz Sasha. I am Lee-pold."
"Lepold?"
"No, no," the man smiled and looked down sadly. He glanced at the boy. "How you say?"
"Leopold," said the boy, leaning forward. "I'm Sacha, he is Leopold."
"I'm Merlinder," said the man. He started to cough. "Water?" Leopold spoke suddenly to Sasha in Russian. After a moment an old, dented canteen was placed in front of Merlinder. He swallowed gulp after gulp until it was drained. "thank you."
"You-are name," said Leopold. "It hard to say, yes?"
"Just call me Stephen," said Merlinder. He extended his hand. "Stephen Merlinder."
"We found you," said Sasha. "Four days ago."
"Outside."
"Out by the tracks," His eyes widened. "We thought you were dead."
"I'm sorry," said Merlinder. "But i'm not entirely sure of whats happening."
"You hit head, hard," said Leopold. "We stitch it. You no member?" Merlinder shook his head and rubbed his eyes carefully.
"I can't remember anything. The last thing I remember is ..." his face showed confusion. "Running?" He cocked his head, slowly forming the pieces. "I was running...away from something. Something horrible." Pictures flashed through his aching head like surrealist paintings; several men crouching around a fire eating the meat off of dead rabbits; howling wind that spoke in low voices, condemning men and women to death; soldiers wearing long grey coats, their faces hidden underneath gasmasks and flags painted in different shades of red.
"I don't know what we were running from."
"The trains,"
"Quiet," said Leopold, looking sharply at the boy. Merlinder went on.
"I was with someone." he was visibly confused, the creases in his temples very defined. He saw another flash, this one of a man in a long coat, pale and gaunt and hair overgrown. "There was something chasing us, something we couldnt get away from. It was dark. Gray like today. There was a storm." He shook his head and looked up at them blankly, his palms out. "Tell me what happened."
Leopold shuffled his position and produced a crumpled box. He pulled from it a cigarette and lit it.
"if ..." he started. He clicked his teeth. "if you kent member, may-be i should not tell."
"Everyone is gone, now." said Sasha. Leopold placed his temple in the cradle of his own palm. "Everything is different. They mark us. Like slaves. Without the mark you cannot get onto the trains."
"What are the trains?"
"Everything, the trains are everything."
"I dont understand."
"You know bible?" said Leopold. "Scrip-tor? Rev-lation? Rapture?" He took a drag off of the cigarette. "Real."
"People just started to vanish," said Sasha. Suddenly Merlinder remembered a car accident. His sister had been driving. One minute she had been there, and the next she was gone. "After that," said Sasha. "Everything changed."
"If you no have mark," said Leopold. "They put us into a camps."
"Camps?"
"Like holo-cuz. Factory for murder."
"Who does," Merlinder's eyes darted back and forth between the two of them. In the far distance came yet another low rumbling.
"Them," said Leopold, pointing towards the window. "This mark," he pointed to the black star. "This iz marker. Fake. A good fake."
"If they find out, they will kill him."
Merlinder looked towards the boy. "You dont have a mark."
"Neither do you, thats why we brough you in here with us. We found you outside with no mark."
"I dont understand."
"We must go soon," said Leopold. He stood and crept throughout the cluttered mess like a tunnel rat, tossing Merlinder a coat. "We ken still show him outside." He looked ato Merlinder. "Ken you walk good?"
"I think so?"
They helped him to his feet. As they led him up a creaking staircase, he began to hear the muffled sounds of some huge project underway; hammers against steel and nailhead; the sharp whizzing burps of compressors and motors; vehicles trudging through mud and material.
"What are they building," it was nearly impossible for Merlinder to reach the top of the stairs.
"You see," said Leopold.
Through a thin wooden door they stepped into a direlict linoleum kitchen with walls stained a runny yellowish-brown. All of the windows were blown out. Merlinder could hear what sounded like a chanting march of people, somewhere, as he turned trying to locate the noise.
Immediately surrounding them were other derelict houses, each of them rotten and pitted out and presumably empty.
"We must show him," Leopold said. He was nearly shouting, and it surprised Merlinder how much louder the sound was out here.
Sasha removed a panel of from the wall underneath the counter, and the three of them slid through it one by one, and Merlinder found himself in a tiny square hallway. There was a shudder that briefly ran through the dilapidated houses; Merlinder prepared for the horrible noise, but it did not come. In fron
In front of him, Sasha carefully removed another panel, letting the days grey light into the tunnel. They helped him out into a ruined, broken room. Soiled piles of furniture covered the doors and windows. The drilling and building noises were each enormous, overlapping each other. Leopold motioned for them to crouch down, and he signalled to be quiet. He pointed towards the far wall, and Sasha crept over to it and grabbed out at some part that Merlinder could not yet locate. Sasha removed the placing and motioned for him to come forwards.
When Merlinder looked through the tiny eye-peice they had installed into the wall, he was horrified instantly. Tiny clumps of crumbling house sprouted up here and there like unwanted weeds; flat roads were bordered by flat dust fields where hundreds of men and women were either digging or helping to erect the framework of buildings. Giant, jet black statues of demonic-looking gargoyles sat mounted every 100 or so feet on either side of the roads.
In the distance, he could barely make out a massive crowd of people kneeling down at the foot of a sole black skyscraper. They were chanting, and kneeling in unison.
Not far above them, an impossibly enormous train seemed to hover through the air, as if it was weightless. It emitted the same horrible high pitched screams; fingers on a chalkboard; a dying dogs last gurgled breath amplified by ten thousand volumes. Merlinders eyes were wide.
"The trains are floating...."
Pillars of smoke fumed up everywhere in the distance, which seemed as flat as the surface of a desk. The enormous trains circled above them, like vultures.
"When God, left Earth," said Leopold. "We are ones ... who survive."
"Oh my god," whispered Merlinder. "How is this possible?"
From above them, the sound of the trains took control of everything, and the house started to shudder.
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