He could feel his daughters just behind him. They were watching him with blank, curious expressions. It struck him as strange their clothes were unaffected by the dirt and grit that was everywhere. Why are you here? He wondered.
Come home………..
Esterhaus leaned forward and gave a long, thankful sigh. He pulled the pin of the grenade and held its cool, metallic skin to his forehead.
Brilliant light. Blackness.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The stairs ended in two side by side fire doors that opened on the main floor. A polished linoleum floor reflected street lights outside like a mirror. Bags, boxes and luggage were piled together in scattered mounds without any clear rhyme or reason. He slowly crossed the floor while his eyes and neck went on a 360 degree swivel. Shops closed, desks vacant, signs blackened. Did everyone just leave a minute ago or years earlier?. His father had once said to him that if you sat still in a field for awhile things would come alive around you. Without the threat of movement the life stream of the world would pick up right where you had disturbed it. It sounded like a plan.
He slowly knelt down in a corner shadow to listen for the resonance of ragged footsteps, the guttural animal sounds or anything that was a betrayal of movement. Somewhere, a fan continued its monotonous hum, exit signs that were usually silent suddenly had an electric buzz all their own. He slammed the axe into the wall twice. All he heard was the sound and echo of being alone in a room unused to such vacancy. For good measure he gave it another minute or so before moving back to the stairs. The silence was creating a slow panic inside him. It was like an alarm that kept growing louder by the second. He poked his head through the fire doors.
“We’re clear.”
The shuffling of feet started up the stairs a few seconds later with Bradley in the lead. His shirt was stained with sweat after breaking down the brick walls. Brett gave him an encouraging nod as he passed by with an axe at the ready. Youngtree slipped past with his eyes on high alert. Each shadow was probed for anything that might come close to movement. A few seconds behind came a tighter packed crowd. They furtively looked about or cast their eyes on the floor. Dark circles were beginning to form under their eyes. Rivets of worry lines had snaked their way across once perfect, passive masks.
They had once been successful, upwardly mobile, carefree, outgoing, quiet, boisterous, young, old, middle aged, busy, idle, disinterested, self interested and a dictionary of other descriptions. Brett had seen this huddled mass before. It was a haunting aftermath to conflict or natural disaster. The ones left behind. They had been caught under the wheels of circumstance and left with nothing. They were tattered, weak and vulnerable.
Refugees……
His thoughts formed a natural link to a few years earlier when the very word had created a furor of suspicion and debate. For a second, Brett wondered how many would make the connection. How many would understand the shoes they were walking in. Judge not lest ye be judged?
I must be getting tired, Brett sighed. My mind is wandering all over the place. Concentrate.
“Anything?” Pinder asked as his eyes surveyed the shadows.
“Nothing.” Brett reported in a whisper. In a heartbeat second he leaned forward and said, “Do you hear that?”
“No,” Pinder said after a pause in silence. “I don’t hear anything.”
“Exactly,” Brett’s eyes were intense. “The grenades from the tunnel have stopped going off.”
“How close behind do you think they are?” Pinder couldn’t help but turn and look down the now empty stairs. Moshood had pulled up the rear just a few seconds earlier with the child back where he seemed to belong, riding piggy back.
“It might be best to keep moving, sir.” Brett kept his voice calm. He couldn’t help but chance a glance behind. There were no hunched shadows, howls of hunger and hands that clutched the air and urged them closer….yet.
“Its’ gone.” Pinder finally turned and spoke abruptly. His voice echoed off the pillars of off white that were reflected in the starlight through Union Stations’ glass ceiling.
“Sir?” Symons queried as he stepped closer. He’d been through Union once or twice. It started to dawn on him that something was odd, out of place.
“There was a huge flag right there.” Pinder pointed to an end of the great hall. “It’s gone.”
“Well, sir.” Symons summed up. “I guess when everyone was leaving they weren’t planning on coming back.”
Pinder eyed him for a moment and nodded his head. A quick three sixty found what they were looking for etched in stone on an archway. TO ALL TRAINS. Pinder and Symons began to exit the great hall with a huddled mass following behind. They left the archways and gargoyles to ponder the silence and the stars.
The footsteps sounded out of place as they passed the Metropolitan Lounge and turned left past the AMTRAK ticketing booths. It was an odd feeling of intrusion, almost trespassing in alien land. Flashlight beams still cut through the darkness here and there but they became less necessary with Union Station’s massive windows that allowed the street light’s to penetrate the darkness. Across the street, The Charles Schwab sign burned on. A strangely defiant moment while the world was in full retreat.
“Somebody thinks we’re comin’ back, Mr. Symons.” Pinder observed.
“More power to ‘em, sir.” Symons replied as his eyes scanned the shadows.
In the food concourse, there was disappointment. It had been picked clean. Nuts on Clark had a few morsels that were given to children quickly. Cinnabonn, Cajun Grill and others were devoid of anything close to food. The odd soft drink dispenser worked. The water dispensary in the machines were used to clean faces, clothes and of course, refreshment.
They walked toward the train platform and stepped over perfectly aligned holes on the floor. They were mute witness to the former location of the turnstiles that processed Chicago’s commuters every day. To Pinder, the echoes of the marble walls and pillars created a sound akin to being followed. He kept turning behind, a phantom deflection of sound would create a mystery for his ears.
“Did the Captain hear something?” Symons decided to address it.
“I’m not sure,” Pinder wrestled with the demarcation line between what he heard and what he thought he heard.
“Sir,” Symons explained carefully. “If they are coming we need to get a move on.”
“…And if all I’m hearing is nothing?”
“Then it still wouldn’t hurt to get a move on, sir.” Brett advised.
“Of course, Sergeant.” Pinder stole one last glance and kept his eyes forward. He calmed himself by glancing at the hodgepodge architecture that was truly American. It was an almost surgical blending of new and old. He never saw anything like this anywhere else in the world. Modern art and the classical architectural marvels finding common ground in this brave new world. A Roman-like empire getting up to speed with the world around it. Pax Americanus? Perhaps that’s what the builders were trying to articulate.
Pinder shifted for a second in his thinking. Empires, the word was a banner in front of his mind. What was happening elsewhere? Was the Kremlin under siege? Pinder saw in his minds’ eye the seat of socialism falling to this new invader in Stalingrad style, room by room. How about Tiananmen Square? Were its’ pristine cobblestones spattered with blood? How were the English doing? This time the invader had no concern for the channel. They were already among them. The castles in Scotland, Bavaria, Austria and elsewhere, were they all surrounded and being assailed again as they had been through the hard rain of time? St. Peter’s Square. How do you hold back the darkness when all you have to defend yourself is the power of prayer? Indeed, how many divisions does the Pope have? It truly mattered now.
Les Barricades! The people of Paris would cry. But, would they do any good? Pinder moved through the passageways and wondered if bravery and elan meant anything if there was no one left alive to record it. A feeling came over him like nightfall. Is this the turning po
int? He was back in history class in grade ten musing how the Romans might have felt when they saw the Visigoths on the horizon. In Finem.
The platform finally came into view and it produced a sigh of exasperation. Heads craned to the right and left but made no more sound than a whispered murmur of trepidation. Joel Anderson appeared in the midst of them with his bus drivers’ uniform. He spoke slowly and pointed with his hands. Pinder carefully maneuvered himself behind the big man to hear but not intrude. In a second, Pinder could tell Symons was close behind.
“It’s okay,” Joel explained calmly. His arm was pointing above the tallest heads. “They’ll just be over there.”
“Over there?” Pinder finally found a place to become part of the conversation.
“The trains,” Anderson turned to face Pinder. “The Polk Street yards are just up there.”
“I could go with you Mr. Anderson.” Symons volunteered. Pinder glanced at Brett amid the light of candles, flashlights and phones.
“It makes sense, sir.” Symons made his case. “We can’t have these people all walking over there.”
“Feel like some company, sir?” The voice was Moshood.
“I’d appreciate it.” Symons nodded with a grim face of thanks.
“Okay,” Pinder nodded. “Mr. Bradley, keep an eye on the way we came.”
“Yes sir,” He hefted an axe and was gone.
“Maybe I should tag along, too.” Bestoni had made his way over to stand beside Symons.
“Why?” Pinder fired off the question.
“I got the phone, Google maps is still working.” Pinder held up the device as his rite of passage. “Besides, I know this town. You won’t get lost.”
“We could use an extra set of eyes, sir.” Symons shrugged. Hey, more power to anyone who wanted to lend a hand.
“Then you best get going.” Pinder nodded and motioned for Moshood to turn around.
“I just gotta go see my daughter for a sec, okay.” Bestoni’s request for a quick goodbye was met with sympathetic nods. He turned around and meandered her way. The half bald head slightly bowed over in thought. It was a parents repeating dilemma. How do I say this to make it right?
“I’ll be back in a minute, buddy.” Moshood assured the boy and got a hug in return.
Pinder watched the big man and pondered their situation. We are the hunted, the prey. In a flash of a few weeks we’ve gone back to our most helpless tribal times. We are being stalked by something larger than us, an animal with a clear advantage. We can only stay wary, stay hidden and hope for salvation. Men like Moshood always evened the odds a bit. They were a warming fire of light in gathering despair. Pinder felt a glimmer of hope. It wasn’t much, but it was a start.
The Captain followed Brett’s casual sideways stare at Bestoni and his daughter. She was preppy with the look of a lady who knew how to study. No doubt daddy was proud of that and bragged to his friends about her grades. A bob of black hair and large glasses stood out from her round face that was clearly from her father. Her hands were outstretched, entwined in his. If I let go of you I’ll never see you again, he almost heard her say. Bestoni nodded with a few words and a fatherly smile. Her shoulders felt the weight of the situation and gave in to a long hug. He pulled away for a second and touched her face. Keep your chin up. I’m gonna be right back, he almost knew he heard him say. Pinder looked away as Bestoni began to return to them. Act natural, pretend you never saw it. It’s just how men deal with such things. We pretend we never saw it in the first place.
“Let’s go.” Symons brushed away a fleck of emotion in his voice as he shouldered his half empty M16A3 and made his way to the end of the platform. A flashlight beam broke the darkness of the tunnel and revealed a bit of their journey at a time. They descended the stairs at the end of the platform and began to dissolve into the tunnel’s black maw.
“So,” Symons made conversation to keep Anderson from getting to antsy. “What kinda train we looking for?”
“One of our regulars would do.” Anderson answered with attitude. “I don’t want any of the new ones.”
“No?”
“Too much high tech shit.” Anderson vetted his opinion of the modern age.
“Okay,” Brett calmly replied as his flashlight played around. “One train with no high tech shit, coming up.”
It struck Brett how everything in the darkness seemed to be moving just out of his eyesight. He wondered for a minute how smart his would be watchers might be. Clever enough to avoid the light of his flashlight and find the darkest shadows as they stalked? For a second, he held up his hand for the small group to stop. His ears tried to achieve what the eyes were barely capable of. No sound, the darkness seemed to wait for their next move. Brett resumed walking and nodded to the others to follow. The end of the tunnel loomed forward into their sight. Lights twinkled in the dark like a lure from an angler fish. Come out, now. Just come this way……..
CHAPTER NINETEEN
For Brett and Moshood the trek to the Polk Street yards was a walk around the corner. Nick Bestoni’s smaller, less muscled legs felt the weight of the journey. He listened absently to the gravel crunching underneath his streets shoes. It felt strange to hear it. His Chicago always had something going on and it always made noise. There were a few shadows in the dark up ahead but they all seemed to be moving south, away from their location. Perhaps they were still following the scent of the last trains that had left hours ago. They gave a wide berth around a man in a huge white T-shirt and jeans who had been cut off at the legs and still groped forward in the dark. As they passed his eyes widened enough to pick up the luminescence of the moon. They glowed in reflective light as he held out a hand and clawed at the air in their direction.
Bestoni turned to his left. The river was an invisible black stain in the dark. They passed a hydro electric complex that filled the silence briefly with the mutterings of an almost silent hum. A single figure clung to the chain fence surrounding the machinery. It seemed transfixed, hypnotized.
Bestoni’s eyes paused and lingered over the Sears tower. It still glittered in the night like an obelisk of some forgotten culture. A thousand years from now, at least folks will know we were here, the poet inside of him reflected, what would they think it was for? Why would we build something so audacious and grandiose? While he pondered these thoughts his eyes moved on. In the condominium buildings across the river, a few lights still punctured the white walls and modern architecture. Survivors? Maybe. But there was no time to search for them anymore. Time as a resource had run out. The clocks no longer worked and the ones that did were just marking eternity.
“This one,” The voice was Joel Andersons’.
Symons and Moshood exchanged glances of gathering courage and went to investigate the metal machine’s interior. Moshood paused for a second and looked Bestoni’s way.
“Hey, you okay?” He asked. “We’ll be back in a minute.”
“Yeah, I’m good.” He waved them on. “Go ahead.”
He thought he discerned a halo on the horizon. His hope of hopes was that the lights still burned on in defiance at Soldier Field. The Bears had always been an autumn obsession. For the last few years, he followed the struggles of an inexperienced and under manned offensive line and at best random leadership. His sports fan heart almost broke however, when the stalwart defense started to crumble as well.
His eulogist reverie remembered countless days and nights scribbling notes in cafes. With pen and sometimes pencil he seemed adept at capturing the ethos of the streets, his streets. A tell tale glance from an intellectual woman reading Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel. A conversation filled with careful smiles and the exchanging of phone numbers. From such small things, his daughter was born a few years later at St. Jo’s on the Lakeshore.
Nick was suddenly aware that Brett was standing beside him. There was an almost quixotic look in his eyes. Silence was between them. Nothing had to be said.
“Hey,” Anderson broke the
chain of the moment. “You guys ready?”
“Yeah, “ Bestoni managed one more inspection of his home. A casual sweep of his eyes, trying to scoop up as many memories as he could in the short time left. “I was……uh……just saying goodbye.”
Brett’s eyes were focused on a spot between the Chicago River and Union Station. He didn’t know how far below the earth it was. But, it lingered on him while memories of a good friend passed by.
“Yeah.” Brett whispered before turning toward the train. “Me too.”
*
In clear skies, it had felt like rain.
Rain, the force made of a thousand individual drops. None could ever be exactly the same, but they were singular in their task. Rain, pounding landscapes until it finally surrendered and was brought down. It was a natural law that the unrelenting force of individual droplets became the cleanser of time, the eraser of the ages.
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