Wasteland in Red Square

by Josh Matthews

  ***

  Just as Slava and Yuri broke into their run, more than a dozen ravagers emerged from the three sleeping cars after having fed off the soldiers inside. The Hell Spawn sniffed the sky and, upon detecting fresh meat, scurried across the derailed cars, converging on the stock car.

  “We’ve got company,” said Haneef.

  “I have this.” Klimenko used the end ladder and climbed down, followed by one of the Russian soldiers. Once on the ground, he moved to a spot between the two sets of rolling stock and fifty feet from the tracks to catch the oncoming ravagers in a crossfire.

  ***

  Jason followed Sasha’s gaze to the Hell Gate, now less than two miles away. A pair of Golem had passed through the portal and took up position on either side of the rails as a third emerged from the shimmering surface and stood on the tracks. The three Hell Spawn inclined forward onto their knuckles, locked their elbows, and leaned into each other, presenting a massive wall of flesh to stop the approaching engine.

  “How are we going to break through that?” Jason asked.

  Sasha lifted her minigun. “With this.”

  Jason shook his head. “There has to be another way. That’s suicide.”

  “Jason, I’m immortal. I can’t die again.”

  “No!”

  Sasha cupped his cheek in her left hand. “It’s the only way. We both know it.”

  As much as Jason hated to admit it, Sasha was right. That did not negate the fact that he would lose his best friend for the second time. Knowing she would come back eased the pain, but he still felt that soul-sucking void in his chest. Taking Sasha’s hand from his cheek, he kissed the palm and hugged her. “Make it count.”

  “I will.” Sasha hugged back. “Now get back with the others. We only have a few minutes left.”

  Jason raced along the walkway back toward the cab. He paused for a moment for a final glimpse of Sasha. She crawled down the access ladder at the front of the train and braced herself beside the platform carrying the antimatter device. Jason continued to the cab. When he passed through the hatch, Jeanette and Father Belsario stood in the coal bin of the tender, and Iosif knelt by the coupling. Iosif waved anxiously.

  “Hurry up. I need to get us uncoupled from the engine while we still have time.”

  As Jason stepped forward, the ravager that had been hiding along the rear wall of the tender raced around the side and jumped into the cab.

  ***

  The battle around the crash site entered its final stage.

  Slava and Yuri were halfway across the opening when three ravagers jumped from the derailed cars and rushed them. Sook-kyoung and Vicky crouched down on either side of Haneef and fired into the Hell Spawn, slowing them enough for Slava and Yuri to reach the relative safety of the stock car. Once they were out of the line of fire, Haneef let loose with a jet of flame, washing it over the demons. The ravagers threw themselves onto the ground and flayed about for several seconds before being consumed. Upon seeing what had happened, the rest of the swarm split into two, each flowing off the derailed cars and closing in on the humans from the flanks. Haneef kept his eyes on the pack moving in on the left.

  Klimenko and the Russian soldier with him took aim on the ravagers charging from the right. Neither man noticed the pack from the prison car rushing up behind them. One jumped on the soldier’s back and sliced his throat open with a single swipe of its talon, killing him instantly. He was the lucky one. Four others swarmed Klimenko. One landed on Klimenko, shoving him forward into the dirt. It slashed at him, gouging the fuel canister. Compressed fuel burst through the rupture and ignited. The flames flowed back into the canister, turning the stored fuel into a fireball. The explosion ripped Klimenko and the ravager on his back to shreds. The other three demons were incinerated.

  Ian and his Russian companion reached the end of the dining car as the ravagers raced past. One noticed the two men crouched in the shadows and veered off to attack them. Ian grabbed the only weapon he could find, a broken section of wooded paneling five feet long, and raised it in front of him like a spear. The ravager impaled itself, the jagged end plunging through its chest and bursting out below the left shoulder blade. Instead of killing the Hell Spawn, the wound infuriated it, and it lashed out at Ian with its talons.

  Inside the dining car, Antoine’s arms were growing weak from using the table as a combination shield and battering ram. The Russian soldiers moved up beside him and took down four of the Hell Spawn. The fifth demon lunged, slamming into the top of the table and pushing Antoine backward. As the ravager swept past the four soldiers, it lashed out, first with its right hand and then left. One of the soldiers went down with a severed arm. The other three dived away to avoid the talons. With nothing left to stop it, the ravager shoved Antoine against the wall, knocking the wind out of him and causing him to release his grip on the table. It slapped the table aside, stepped up to Antoine, and raised its claw above his head to finish the kill.

  Seven of the ravagers from the prison car veered left and charged at the humans on top of the stock car. With the addition of the two packs from the derailed cars, nineteen ravagers were closing in on the survivors. Haneef switched from one side to the other, releasing a burst of flame at the nearest Hell Spawn before doing the same on the other side. Those that avoided the fire launched onto the car and climbed the walls, and were blasted off by automatic weapons. Some died instantly while others, only wounded, retreated, and approached again from a different angle. The two that made it to the roof were sliced down by Luther’s broadsword. However, the survivors knew the tide of battle was about to go against them. There were too many ravagers to keep away, and their ammunition would soon run out.

  ***

  Jason tried to raise his weapon to fire on the ravager, but events happened much too fast. It landed on Iosif as he proceeded to unlock the coupling device. Being off balance, Iosif tumbled forward. Both he and the demon dropped between the engine and tender onto the tracks beneath.

  Jason rushed forward and finished the uncoupling process. When the two separated, he didn’t expect the train to pull so far ahead so quickly, and tumbled toward the edge of the cab.

  “Jason!” Jeanette rushed forward to help him, but Father Belsario held her back.

  “I’m all right.” Jason caught himself at the last moment. By now, a six-foot gap had widened between the two vehicles. He had seconds to get to safety. Jumping to his feet, Jason backed up against the controls and ran across the cab. When he reached the edge, he kicked off and hurtled the gap. He had misjudged the speed of the tender, so he landed much harder than expected into the pile of coal. His body slumped down and came to rest on the floor of the bin. Jeanette knelt beside him, running her hand across his face and forehead.

  Father Belsario threw himself on top of them, shielding them with his body.

  ***

  Sasha waited until the engine had approached to within a thousand feet of the portal before squeezing the trigger. The minigun whirred to life and spit out rounds at the rate of three thousand per minute. The shells ripped into the three Golem, tearing away chunks of flesh and punching their way through internal organs. Each behemoth bellowed in pain and defiance, but held its ground. Yet even the most resilient Hell Spawn could not withstand the assault from the minigun. The barrage severed limbs and ravaged their bodies. In the few seconds it took the engine to close the gap to the portal, the minigun had churned the Golem into a mound of shredded tissue and flesh. When the engine struck the demonic barricade, the cow catcher plowed through the detritus as if it was a mound of snow.

  A second later, the train collided with the Hell Gate. Sasha experienced an excruciating pain as her body vaporized in the interdimensional rift. The agony lasted a few milliseconds. Her physical anguish in this realm was replaced by an inner peace as she drifted toward a bright light emanating from a black void.

  When the platform carrying the device connected with the portal’s surface, its outer casing disintegr
ated, releasing the enclosed antimatter. A blinding flash of light and a thunderous explosion emanated from the point of impact. Flames engulfed the Hell Gate, burning intensely as the conflagration consumed the portal. After a few seconds, the Hell Gate collapsed on itself, sending out a shock wave that radiated across the tundra.

  ***

  For those battling the ravagers around the derailed rolling stock, and who were about to be overwhelmed, the explosion signifying the closing of the Hell Gate came as a welcome relief. The ravagers went lifeless and dropped where they stood. An eerie silence descended over the tundra.

  Gaston spoke first. “What just happened? Why are the Hell Spawn dead?”

  “Jason closed the portal.” Haneef slid one strap of the flamethrower off his shoulder.

  “Are you nuts?” Gaston asked. “There could be more of those things out there.”

  Haneef shook his head. “Their existence is linked to the portal. Once it collapses, everything that came through it dies. We’re safe now.”

  Haneef climbed down from the stock car, followed by the others. The rest of his people and the one surviving Russian soldier gathered around. He took a quick survey of the situation. “I’m going to find Jason and the others. Luther and Slava are with me. The rest of you, comb the area for survivors.”

  ***

  The jolt when the tender rolled into the back of the stopped engine jarred Jason awake. As he lifted his head, Jeanette wrapped her arms around him and hugged him tight.

  “I’m so glad you’re all right,” she gushed. “I was worried about you.”

  “I’m fine,” he answered groggily. “I assume we were successful?”

  “We were,” said Jeanette.

  Jason attempted to stand. His head spun. Jeanette and Father Belsario each took an arm and lifted him to his feet. He wobbled and reached out to support himself on the rim of the coal bin. The dizziness passed after a few seconds. Jason crossed over into the engine cab, crawled down the ladder, and headed for the front of the train.

  “Where are you going?” Jeanette asked.

  “I want to see for myself.” Jason proceeded forward, steadying himself on the drivers. Jeanette and Father Belsario followed.

  No evidence remained that the portal ever existed except for the break in the tracks and the damage done to the steam engine. Everything from the cylinders and smoke stack forward had been vaporized by contact with the Hell Gate. Water from the boilers flowed out the front of the engine and poured onto the tracks, sizzling and generating clouds of steam. Jason did not see any signs of Sasha, although he did not expect to. At least in Paris there was a body that he could have grieved over if he had possessed the courage to view her remains. Now nothing existed to mark her second final resting place. Jason shut his eyes and silently wished Sasha Godspeed on her journey back to Purgatory.

  Jeanette slid up beside him, wrapped her left arm around his waist, and pulled him into her.

  Father Belsario placed his hand on Jason’s shoulder. “We shut down another Hell Gate.”

  “But at what price?” asked Jeanette.

  “This is the way it’s going to be until we close all of the gates,” Jason answered.

  Jason faced the devastation behind him. Off in the distance, he saw the derailed cars and the surviving rolling stock stopped behind the pile up, as well as the armored engine backing toward the accident scene.

  “I hope it was worth it,” said Jason.

  “It was,” answered Father Belsario. “That’s not for me to decide, though. Only God can do that.”

  Jason wondered if God knew or cared about what happened down here on Earth. He took Jeanette’s hand. “Let’s join the others.”

  Jason never looked back at the train.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  It took much longerto reorganize after the battle than anyone had anticipated.

  Lucifer and Lilith warmly greeted Jason after he and the others hiked back to the crash site, jumping on him and licking his face. For his part, Jason was surprised to discover that the losses to his own team were limited to Werner and Neal, although the latter hit him hard. That piece of good news was tempered by the fact that Svetlana had lost twenty-four people in battle, including Melnikov.

  Thankfully, the derailment had not caused any damage to the tracks, and none of the overturned cars blocked the rails, so Mikhail backed up the train and coupled the last six pieces of rolling stock. While half of Jason’s team sorted through the wreckage for anything salvageable, the other half worked with the Russians to scavenge material from the derailed cars to patch the hole gouged out of the command car’s roof and construct a makeshift cover over the rear door of the stock car. Both parties undertook the unenviable task of clearing the blood and bodies out of the surviving cars and of burying the dead. The prison car was too gore-laden to be salvageable so, with the help of the Purgatoriati, the Russians toppled it off the track and out of the way of rail traffic. Because all the sleeping cars had been destroyed, everyone would have to camp out as best they could in the surviving rolling stock, the Russians taking the troop car at the end of the train and Jason’s people sharing the command car with Svetlana. As two work crews readied the train for the completion of their journey, a third dug graves for those lost in battle, twenty-four for the Russians and one each for Neal, Werner, and Sasha. Jason noticed that the two slaughtered horses and the corpses of the four dead prisoners all shared one large, unmarked grave.

  Since the preparations for departure took until after midnight, Svetlana decided to wait until morning before continuing. Everyone rose at dawn. After a quiet, uncomfortable breakfast of canned food heated over an open fire, the survivors gathered by the grave markers to remember their fallen comrades. Following a moment of silence, Svetlana stepped forward and faced the others.

  “I’m not going to belabor this. We all knew what we were getting into by coming here. And I think most of us thought our chances of success were zero, but that we had to at least try for the sake of humanity. We were successful, and that’s something every one of you . . . every one of us, should be proud of.”

  “Was it worth it?” Ustagov asked, gesturing toward the grave markers. “Was closing the damn vrata worth all this?”

  “Yes,” Svetlana spoke the words without anger or recrimination. “I’ve buried hundreds of men and women, and dozens of friends, trying to shut down the vratas. For the first time, those deaths are not in vain. It may be difficult for us who are going through it now, but someday mankind will remember what we did here, and what Jason’s team is doing around the world.”

  Jason nodded in agreement. The Russians had given him something much greater than their support in ridding the motherland of the Hell Gates. They had given him hope for the future. When his team had left Mont St. Michel, Jason had feared that those he encountered along the way would be like Jacques and Bishop Fiorello, narcissistic and petty men who would take advantage of the situation to enhance their own selfish desires. Running across people like Zhirinovsky, Melnikov, and Svetlana, who willingly made sacrifices for the common good, encouraged Jason that there certainly were others out there like the Russians whom he could rely on and whom, with their help, would take back their world from the Hell Spawn. For the first time since departing on this quest, Jason felt they had a better than even chance of succeeding.

  Svetlana stepped away and headed toward the train. “Pay your last respects. We move out in twenty minutes.”

  The Russians spent a few moments saying goodbye to their friends and rushed off to prepare the train, all except Ustagov who stayed with Jason’s team.

  “What happens now?” Haneef asked.

  Jason glanced around the survivors, making eye contact with each of them as he spoke. “Svetlana has agreed to take us to China and get us as close to the next gate as possible. Once she does that, she’ll head back to Moscow.”

  “And then we’ll be on our own again?” Antoine asked.

  “Yes.”

>   Jeanette tried to brighten the mood. “Hopefully Uncle Reno has been able to contact groups in China who are willing to help us out like the Russians did.”

  “We have to be realistic about this,” said Jason. “Even if Reno did reach them, these groups have no idea where Svetlana will drop us off and when. If we meet up with anyone, it’s not going to be until we near the portal.”

  “What about the Purgatoriati?” Vicky asked.

  Jason winced at the thought, and hoped Jeanette had not seen him.

  “Gabriel, Jonah, and Sasha will meet up with us somewhere during the journey,” said Father Belsario.

  “Are you sure they’ll want to come back to this?” Gaston joked.

  “We have no choice,” Luther answered. “Part of our penance is to stay with you until all the Hell Gates are eliminated, no matter how many times we die and resurrect.”

  Sook-kyoung whistled in disbelief. “That sucks.”

  “Tell us about it,” said Matthew.

  Ustagov stepped up to Jason. “If you don’t mind, I want to join your team.”

  Ian laughed.

  “What’s so funny?” Ustagov snapped.

  “You are, mate. You’ve been pissing and moaning about being forced on this trip ever since we left Moscow. Now you want to join us?”

  Ustagov let the anger slip away. “Neal died saving me from a ravager. He asked that I take his place in helping you complete your mission.”

  Ian grew somber. “I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”

  Ustagov patted Ian on the shoulder, letting him know they were cool. “So, am I in?”

  “Of course you are.” Jason offered his hand. “Glad to have you.”

  The train whistle blew for three seconds.