Wolf let out a loud groan, his eyes closed again. A thin trail of blood traced its way to his lip. Then there was a thunderous rumble.
“What was that?” asked Harper, spinning around to look back the way they came.
At the entrance to the station, a hundred or more desperate pedestrians were pushing through, stampeding over the linoleum floor toward them. The screams outside grew louder, the thunder of feet a deafening crescendo.
“Run!” screamed Sara.
But it was too late. The tsunami of people running for the trains washed over them, knocking Sara and Wolf to the ground. Joe and Harper moved quickly around them, their arms outstretched, trying to protect their fallen friends from the onslaught. Harper could barely breathe, her chest felt so tight, and her eyes burned with tears. Someone’s elbow smashed into her forehead and she felt the wound on her hairline re-open.
More blood, this time her own, trickled down her face.
The tide of people slowed enough for Joe and Harper to bend down without risk of being trampled. Joe helped Sara to her feet, but Wolf was lying face down on the ground. He wasn’t moving.
Harper dropped like a stone next to him. Blood stained the ground beside his head.
She rolled Wolf over and saw his cheek smeared with red, his eyes open and glassy, his body motionless. Her subconscious crawled somewhere deep and dark, curling in on itself away from the horrors outside. She screamed and continued to scream until she felt a sharp slap. Sara grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her hard.
When she was finally able to gasp out the words, Sara’s voice was a hoarse whisper. “We have to go Harper. We have to leave him. He’s gone.”
Chapter Five
Harper stared at Sara. This has to be a nightmare. This can’t be real. “We can’t leave him, we have to take him to the hospital.” Her voice was barely a whisper.
Sara picked up Wolf’s arm and placed her fingers on his wrist, but even Harper knew that feeling for his pulse was a token gesture. His death was clear in his unseeing eyes. Sara let out a single, heartbroken sob.
“We have to get out of here. I’m sorry, Harper.”
Joe put his arm around his sister and his eyes shifted quickly back and forth, watching the people running past them.
“He’s not dead. I won’t leave him,” Harper replied. She lowered her head to his chest and looked along his body to his face. Wake up, Wolf, baby. This was what her therapist called denial, and deep down, she knew that.
Harper sat up and looked at the people running into the train station from outside. The voices were yelling unfamiliar, foreign words, but the panic and terror was plain.
“We have to get out of here. Something bad is happening in Bratislava,” said Joe. “I don’t want anything to happen to either of you.” As he spoke, a tall, burly man came charging into the station. He saw Wolf on the ground—took in the blood on his face and on the floor—and began to shout and point at them. He took a wide berth around them and disappeared through the doors leading to the platform.
“We can’t just leave him here,” said Harper.
“We’ll come back for him,” said Joe desperately. “But that thing—that sickness. It’s spreading. We have to go.”
Harper looked down at the blood on her clothes and hands. Tears were streaming down her face. “If it’s contagious, we’ve been exposed. There’s nothing we can do.” Sara’s face paled, her cheeks draining of color. Joe opened his mouth, but Harper’s words hung in the air like an executioner’s noose, silencing him.
After a few moments, Sara gritted her teeth and offered her hand to Harper. Harper reached for Sara—Wolf’s blood now on both of them—and got to her feet. “I can’t believe he’s gone,” said Harper, staring at Wolf on the ground. “He was fine this morning. What the hell…” Her voice drifted off as she stared hopelessly at Wolf’s body.
“Stay with me, Harper. We’ll get out of here alive,” said Joe, his voice cracking as he glanced down.
Harper’s feet were cemented to the ground. “How can he be dead? Is this a nightmare?” She couldn’t move, couldn’t tear her eyes away from Wolf.
A firm arm reached around her waist and began to guide her to the platform. Colorful kiosk signs passed in her periphery. “Let’s see if the train is leaving. It might be the quickest way out of here,” said Joe to Sara. “Everyone was running this way. There has to be a reason.”
“I think they just wanted to get away from what was happening out there,” replied Sara, her voice oddly hollow.
“If there’s a train, we get on. I don’t care where it’s going. We need to get out of here,” said Joe. He tightened his grip around Harper’s waist and urged her forward. From the platform up ahead came a sound that caused Harper’s heart to freeze. The screams grew louder, rising in a sickening crescendo. The three of them stopped in the middle of the deserted train station.
“No! No. This can’t be happening,” cried Sara. “What do we do now?”
Joe stopped, his face heavy with tension. “Let’s call the police,” he suggested after a beat. He pulled his phone out and input a number. He put the phone to his ear and then checked the screen. “The network must be busy. I can’t get the call to go through.”
“No one else has run into the station,” Harper said, looking around the huge building. “We are the only ones here.” The others looked at her without commenting, and Sara raked her fingers through her hair with a shaking hand.
Sara pulled out her phone from her backpack and swiped the screen, before holding it high above her head. “I can’t get a signal either. Harper, you try.”
Harper took her phone from her jeans’ pocket and held it in both hands. An image of her and her mother from her twenty-first birthday party wallpapered the screen. She touched the image with her finger, leaving a rust-colored fingerprint. If she were here, her mother would tell everyone what to do. She always knew what was best. Harper’s face twisted into a grimace as she stared at her mother’s face.
“The screaming has stopped,” she said in a low voice. “There’s no one here but us.” She tucked a strand of brown hair behind her ear. “I’ll try to phone my mom.” She unlocked the screen and brought up her mother’s name. She pressed the phone to her ear. There was no sound. The call wouldn’t go through.
“I’m going to try Wolf’s phone, just in case,” said Joe. He blanched white as he said the words, but he turned and walked back to Wolf’s body. Harper watched as he searched through Wolf’s pockets. “Sara,” he said quietly. “Come here and help me roll him over.” Sara squeezed Harper’s hand tightly and then hurried over to Joe. They lifted Wolf’s body carefully. Joe felt in Wolf’s back pockets.
“His phone isn’t here,” said Joe. “What are we going to do now?”
“I’m going to look out at the platform,” said Harper. She could hear the odd cadence of her voice and it was as though she were looking at someone else cross the linoleum floor. She saw herself walk purposefully toward the wide doorway that led to the platform, saw herself pause outside and survey the bodies lying slumped in the stationary train, and then stare at the darkening sky, swirling with the last tendrils of orange cloud as the sun dipped below the horizon.
She watched herself fall to the ground on her knees and let out a terrible wail.
Then, everything went dark.
The compress on her forehead was cool and wet. “Mom?” she mumbled. “Mom?” The world was still black. Had he put her inside again? “Mom!” she screamed louder. “Mom!”
Hands gripped her shoulders and then an arm slipped under her neck and lifted her into an embrace. “It’s okay, Harper. It’s okay. Sara’s here. We’ll find a way out of this.” Harper’s eyelids felt heavy, but she forced them open. The bright florescent light overhead seared itself on her retina and she put her hands up to shield herself. Slowly, she pushed herself up.
The world around her swam into focus. She saw the multicolored kiosks lining the train station’s walls.
Underneath her, the floor was hard, gray linoleum. Sara and Joe, their attractive, even features twisted with grief and fear, stared at her. She looked up, toward the center of the building, where the glass skylight revealed the night sky above.
Then she searched the linoleum floor for his fallen form.
He was still there.
Harper could feel the pain of his death deep inside her. It started in her stomach and wound its way up through her throat like razor wire.
“How long have I been out?” she finally asked them.
“Not long,” said Joe. “You passed out on the platform.”
“Are we the only ones left?”
“You mean, in the world?” asked Sara. Harper nodded.
“We haven’t been able to make a call, but Joe got online—”
“The network reception is patchy,” he interrupted.
“And he emailed our parents. He also saw on the New York Times website that there’s some kind of pandemic in Slovakia.”
“Holy shit,” said Harper. “What the hell are we going to do?”
“Well, the good news is that we are still alive,” said Joe. “We must have immunity. At least, I hope to heck we have immunity.”
“Immunity from what?” asked Harper. Her eyes darted back to Wolf’s body.
“They don’t know what it is. It seems to be spreading rapidly,” said Sara. “What’s the code to your phone?” Sara had Harper’s phone in her hand.
“0103.”
“I’ll see if there’s any more news. We’ll check our emails and try to call our parents again. We’ll get out of here. We’re going to be alright.” Sara said the last part in a loud, assertive voice, as if to say: are you listening universe?
Sara tapped the screen and brought up the web browser. She opened her email app and scanned it. “Mom replied to the email you sent, Joe. It says, ‘Please keep trying to call. Keep me updated with your location. We are doing everything in our power to get you out of there. They’ve closed the borders. No one is being allowed in right now. Stay safe. Stay away from everyone. I love you both. We’ll bring you home.’”
Sara wiped her eyes and opened one of the news sites. She scanned the headlines and clicked on a couple of stories. “There doesn’t appear to be any new information,” she said. “No one knows what’s going on. Here, Harper. Email your parents.” She passed the phone back to Harper.
“Should I email Wolf’s brother?” Harper asked quietly. She looked back at Wolf and felt the pain in her throat again. She swallowed; it felt as though her insides were made of sandpaper.
“Don’t worry about that now,” said Joe softly. He sat down next to Harper on the ground and took her hand in his. He brought it to his lips and kissed lightly. She felt his tears on the back of her fingers.
Harper took a deep breath to steady herself and then slipped her hand out of Joe’s. She opened her email inbox and saw her mother’s name written more than ten times. In between the frantic ‘call me’ and ‘Harper?’ subject lines, she saw a message from her father. She tapped his name first and opened the message, skimming it quickly. “I’ve got one from my dad,” she said to the others.
For a moment she was lost in a memory. It was winter. He had returned home, tyrannical, storming up and down shouting, breaking things. She’d climbed into the closet and closed the door, hoping just this once she would be safe, that the darkness would hide her.
But he’d found her.
He’d found her and dragged her outside into the cold rain and howling wind. He’d taken off his belt.
The whipping had been fast and agonizing and degrading. “Bad, stupid girl,” he shouted, practically spitting the words.
Her mother had found her outside, shivering and bleeding, and wrapped her in a blanket. They could hear him inside, still ranting. “Why does he do this?” she had whispered in her small voice.
“You need to listen. You need to be better,” her mother had replied. Harper had cried then, and the biting wind had battered them from the north.
“What does it say?” came Sara’s voice, anchoring her in the present. Harper shook her head, shaking away the memory. She looked up at her beautiful friend and took hold of Joe’s hand once more.
“He says that it’s vital we get to the Czech border as soon as possible. They’ve declared an international emergency and closed the borders around Slovakia, Austria and Hungary. He thinks if we can get to the Czech border near Kúty, we may have a chance to get through the quarantine-processing center they’ve set up there.”
She looked up at the others. “He said we need to get there soon. He doesn’t know how long they’ll keep the processing center open. This thing is spreading fast. If they can’t contain it, they’ll just keep closing borders. The whole of Eastern Europe could be shut off. It’s our only chance.”
Chapter Six
For a brief moment the three friends stood staring at one another, each processing the information from Harper’s dad. Harper glanced up at the large, white clock face that hung over the archway to the platform. The black minute hand ticked to the half hour.
“It’s seven thirty,” she said. It was strange to be making such an ordinary statement in such nightmarish circumstances. The others looked at her, waiting for her to continue. Harper glanced at Wolf and wiped her eyes, but the tears continued to roll down her cheeks unabated. “I think we should make our way to the border, like my dad suggested.”
“I agree,” said Sara. “We can take the car. It won’t take us long.”
“Send your parents an email. Tell them what we’re doing. Then we should get out of here,” said Joe to Harper. “I’ll look up the directions to Kúty.”
Harper typed an email to each of her parents and then watched as Joe examined the map on his phone, his intelligent eyes scanning the image and committing the details to memory. “Once we get on to the highway, it’s a straight line. We should be there pretty soon, actually. It’s only about forty miles.”
“What’s that, about sixty-five kilometers?” asked Harper. Joe nodded. “We need to take Wolf with us,” she said, glancing at Wolf’s body.
“If they’ve quarantined Slovakia, they won’t let us anywhere near the border with him,” said Sara. “I’m sorry, Harper.” Sara’s eyes were wide, glassy. “We have no choice but to leave him here.”
Harper stared at her hands. The blood on her fingers had dried a dark rust color and she absentmindedly rubbed at the stain. She knew Sara was right, but the thought of leaving Wolf here on the floor of the train station was unfathomable.
“I need a minute,” she said, not looking up.
She turned quickly and walked to Wolf’s body. She kneeled beside him, taking his cold hand in her own. Something inside her broke apart, and she let out a loud cry, before dropping her head to his chest. She counted to thirty, giving herself exactly thirty seconds to wallow in her absolute, all-consuming grief, and then stood and looked back at the others.
Sara’s expression was hopeless, and Joe pinched the bridge of his nose. His eyes were watering and he wiped them with the back of his sleeve.
“Come on, you two,” said Harper grimly.
The twins joined her, and Joe passed over her backpack wordlessly. The three of them held hands as they walked toward the car park.
Then, they heard an unexpected sound: footsteps, and someone shouting loudly in Slovak. Harper felt herself tense. In the doorway a woman appeared. She was dressed in a tailored black suit, and her face was stricken. She shouted something at them and then wailed loudly.
“English,” said Joe quickly. “Please.”
The woman’s eyes darted around the inside of the train station. “Have you seen my son?” she repeated, her accent heavy. Her eyes rested on Wolf’s body and when she looked up, her expression was wild with fear.
“What does he look like?” asked Sara, dropping Harper’s hand. She stepped closer to the woman, but the woman held out her hands: stop. Then she moved backwards, putti
ng more space between them.
“He is twelve. He was here at the train station. Now everyone is dead and I cannot find him. I need to find my child.” The woman continued to mutter more in Slovak and looked over her shoulder.
“Stay with us, we can help you look,” said Harper. She reached out a hand as though to bridge the ten feet between them. The woman looked at her, horrified.
“Stay away!” the woman cried, before turning to run.
“Wait!” cried Sara. But the woman was gone. A horrible silence swelled up around them, only to be broken by a piercing alarm somewhere close by, and a cacophony of barking dogs.
“Let’s get out of here,” said Joe in a low voice, the alarm continuing to wail.
“Are you ready?” asked Sara, looking at Harper and taking her hand once more. “We stick together. Don’t leave my side, okay?”
“I’m ready.”
Harper could feel her heart hammering in her chest as they crossed the threshold of the train station, and she tightened her grip on the twins’ hands.
Outside, a velvet black sky twinkling with stars lay above them. The car park was now lit by a series of dim street lamps that ringed the space and cast a strange orange glow over everything. Harper drew in her breath sharply as she took in the scene.
A few feet away from them were a group of young backpackers. Their bodies were sprawled on the sidewalk, their backpacks still attached to their backs. Harper scanned their faces. Each had a narrow stream of blood from their noses, which had dried a dark red.
She turned her head slowly, taking in the details of the car park. Cars were parked helter-skelter, bodies everywhere. Like the backpackers, some people had died right there on the concrete. Men and women in business attire never to return home from their day at work. Others had died in their cars, their heads lolling, or slumped over the steering wheel. Families at home waiting, worried sick—if they even survived, that is.
Death City: A Post-Apocalyptic Adventure (Dark Resistance Book 1) Page 4