CHAPTER 8
The platform before him was thickly covered in small shards of glass, pieces of plaster and scattered cartridge cases. Trains that had arrived at the station stood either side of the platform with their doors wide open. There were bullet holes were everywhere, and the windows and sides of the trains were riddled with them. From the way they were positioned, it was as though the trains had been subjected to a continuous rain of lead, as if from a hose.
David was about to rush over to the carriages to help any possible victims, but stopped himself at once. He did not have the strength to face up to what he would find inside. Cursing himself for being so mean-spirited, he turned back and made his way towards the exit.
The station floor was covered in a dark material, some sort of plastic, which deadened the sound of his footsteps, and he could now make out dark spots all over the floor. Here and there they formed tracks, as if something had been dragged along it. They stuck to his soles in a disgusting way. How had he managed to descend to the platform without noticing any of this?
He came out of the station, found himself in the middle of a broad pavement, and set off further towards Fulton Park, instinctively keeping to the shadows. This was not always possible, however. The street intersections, even the secondary ones, were well lit and visible from several hundred metres in all directions. When he came to a crossroad, he spent a long time looking around, then gathered all his courage to run quickly across, internally hunched into a ball, expecting a shot to be fired at him from somewhere deep in the nearby bushes or from a house window. Hmm, only now did he notice that there wasn’t any light coming from any of the houses...
The station was a long way behind him when a sudden thought made him stop. Where was he going exactly? Home to his apartment? And then what? Slip into a bath, order food, drink a beer or something stronger, and go to work in the morning as usual?
What had happened at the metro station weighed on him. In the city, he knew that if some petty thief were caught stealing a silver chain in a shop, then several police cars would appear in an instant, as if from the bowels of the earth. Yet here were two metro trains shot up by automatic weapons and there was no-one...
At that moment he realised this was no longer the same city he had moved to some years ago, but a concrete wilderness in which the laws of civilisation no longer applied. The law of the jungle prevailed here instead, and the only person you could rely on was yourself.
He hid in the shadows of the thick vegetation growing at the side of the pavement and began to think things over.
The apartments where he lived were on the outskirts of the huge city, part of a multi-storey block. Sooner or later, after the collapse of civilised life, the gas and electricity would be cut off. No water would flow from the taps, the toilet wouldn’t work. And what then? OK, maybe he could collect water on the balcony, which was luckily covered in dew every morning. That would provide him with enough to drink, but where would he get food? How could he defend himself against marauding gangs? He had no weapon worth the name, and even if he had had one, he wouldn’t have known how to use it.
No, he could not survive in his own home for more than a few days at most. What if civilisation were not restored within this time? Seeing that there was no sight or sound of the police, this chaos seemed here to stay.
David sat on the nearest boulder. He had to have another plan. There was no sense in returning home, passing through the very centre of the city and putting his life at risk.
He looked at his watch. It was just past two o’clock in the morning. The Sun would rise in four hours. He did not know if this would be a help or a hindrance.
While he was thinking, he heard some sort of noise. In an instant, all his senses were straining to the limit. He instinctively froze, trying to make out where the sound had come from. There it was again, from somewhere to the right. This time with something like a groan. And then again, more clearly.
Something showed white in the direction from which the sound had come. He suddenly realised that there was a man sitting on the ground staring at him just a few metres away. Initially scared, he understood a moment later that this person would not be a danger to him.
The man was dressed in a suit, as he was himself. His tie was slackened and his white shirt was dishevelled and dotted with blood. As far as he could make out in the darkness, the lines on his face suggested he was elderly, approaching pensionable age. He waved in a weak gesture for David to go over to him. David hesitated, wondering if it was worth getting involved and burdening himself with the problems of someone he did not know. In the jungle, it’s every man for himself.
“Could you hand me my spare spectacles?” the man asked suddenly. “They’re in that bag over there,” he said, pointing.
David could see something lying in the grass a few metres away. He crawled on all fours to the bag, picked it up and passed it to the man, who slowly put a hand in one of the pockets, extracted a spectacle case, opened it and put the spectacles on his nose.
“That’s better, thank you.”
David only nodded in reply. It was really time for him to move on. He turned away, but as he stood up, the man spoke to him again.
“Please don’t go! I live just over there. If you help me get home, I’ll pay you,” he said, nodding towards one of the houses not far away. Noticing the scepticism on David’s face, he added: “I have hunting guns. One of them could be yours.”
“What about ammunition?” asked David.
“You can have that too. Buckshot, one shot will knock a bear off its feet at short range. I’ll give you a whole packet, 25 rounds.”
That didn’t sound like a bad deal. David stretched out his hand to help the man get up.
“Let me lean on your shoulder. My arm is injured,” he said, partly opening his jacket to show the shirt underneath. There was a lot of blood around the man’s shoulder.
David squatted down to help him lean his body forward and put his head under the injured man’s arm. Then they both stood up. A grimace of pain crossed the man’s face.
“Where are we going?” asked David.
“That way.”
Once in the stairwell of the stranger’s building, David felt a little less stressed. It was at least two hundred years old and they certainly didn’t build them like that anymore: massive bricks, thick walls, high ceilings and relatively small windows.
The elevator wasn’t working, so they slowly climbed to the top floor, the fourth. The man rummaged in his pockets for some time before getting out a bundle of old-fashioned keys. After finding the right one, he raised it to the lock with trembling hands. David helped him, directing his hand. The key slipped into the lock and, after a few turns, the door opened. As soon as they were inside, the man kicked the door, loudly slamming it shut. Then he locked it from the inside and fetched a bar, a wide strip of thick metal, from somewhere in the corner.
“I see you’re well prepared,” commented David. The massive locking bar was the best thing he had seen in the past few hours.
The stranger inserted the bar into slots on either side of the door and leaned down to click special catches. After that, he smiled for the first time.
“Yes, one of my friends insisted I get it. It’s made of a special alloy, cost 400 dollars. I never thought I would be so grateful to him for it. The bathroom is down here, this way please.”
They turned to the right, went along a short corridor and into the bathroom. There was no light, but the light from the Northern Lights coming in from the street was quite enough to see the internal layout of the room.
The man opened one of the cupboards and took some medical supplies from it. Then he sat on the edge of the bath and laid them neatly on a towel next to him. Taking off his jacket and unbuttoning his shirt, he revealed the place where his arm had been wounded.
“Do you have any kind of light?”
David took his smartphone out of his pocket, but before he had managed to switch the torch light on, the
man stopped him.
“Draw the blinds. The window only overlooks the garden, but we mustn’t draw unnecessary attention. There’s a handle at the top there...”
David obediently went over to the window, found the handle and pulled a special blind down. At once the room was pitch-black. He switched on the torch and turned back towards the man.
Without wasting any time, he had already opened a packet of bandages moistened with a strong-smelling fluid. David directed the light onto his wound. In the torchlight, it was a cherry-ruby colour at the edges, with a black hole in the centre the size of a little finger.
“If you can’t stand the sight of blood, you’d better turn away,” said the man. He wiped the wound at the edges, removing the coagulated blood, set aside the dirty rag, picked up one of the syringes and gave himself an injection just above the wound. He then slackened the bandage and gave a suppressed groan when blood started oozing from the wound. After a few seconds, he raised his eyes to look at David.
“The bullet passed right through and doesn’t appear to have touched the bone. I’m going to inject glue into the wound and when I give the order, press tightly on it from all sides. Don’t slacken your grip until I tell you. If you feel giddy, make a sign. I have smelling salts here. Are you ready?”
David nodded. The man lifted a second syringe from the towel and, without further ado, plunged its needle into the wound and began forcing the contents of the syringe into it. After pulling the syringe out, he squeezed out a little glue onto either side of the wound and wiped it on with his free hand. Then he lifted the prepared bandage and wound it around his arm.
“Now press it tightly and keep it pressed. More strongly, don’t be afraid, I can’t feel my arm, it’s anaesthetised. Tighter. Press uniformly over the whole area. That’s fine. Now stay still.”
The sound of their heavy stressed breathing could be heard in the prevailing silence. A minute later, the man nodded in satisfaction.
“You can let go now, thank you,” he said.
He stood up with difficulty, went over to the washbasin, washed his bloodstained hands, splashed his face, wiped his neck with his wet hands and passed them over his grey hair. With each ablution, his movements became more confident and precise, as if magic water from the well of youth was flowing from the tap.
After drying himself, he opened one of the cupboards and got out a small light with a head strap. He put it on, switched it on and went up to David, holding out his hand.
“Dr. Silverman at your service,” he said, pressing David’s hand in a firm handshake. “I am very grateful to you for your help. I notice you have scratched knees and palms. May I take a look?”
Without waiting for a reply he bent his head, directing his light onto David’s hands. After twisting them gently to check the joints, he set about inspecting the damage. He took a pair of pincers from the nearby towel, caught something in them and pulled a small splinter out of David’s palm. After disinfecting the wound, he added some bio-glue and, with a practised movement, smeared it onto the palms in a thin layer where it set, forming a protective coating.
“The glue has bactericidal properties, so you need not fear it will become infected. Keep your palms open until you feel a tingling. And now, please take a seat over here.”
David obediently sat down while the doctor inspected his knees.
“You will need more appropriate clothing, something thicker,” he said while he performed his magic on David’s knees. When he had finished, he stood up.
After washing his hands again, he switched off his head torch and lifted the blinds. The room was once again illuminated by the green shimmer of the Northern Lights.
“If it were not for all this chaos, it would be a most wonderful evening for a walk, don’t you think?” he remarked disappointedly. “But unfortunately, things are what they are... Why don’t you take a shower and then put this dressing-gown on? I’ll bring you some clothes. I am excellently equipped for hunting. And in the meantime, I’ll prepare us something to eat. We have things to discuss.”