Nocturne english version

Written by
Mikhail Matvienko

Night scene

Night, like a heavy burden, lies on the ground
Fear rings at the bottoms of the hearts with a crystal chord.
Spring grins with a terrible face of death,
Life is our punishment – be it cursed!




1.
"Praying time! Praying time!", came a cry of a policeman, whose voice was muffled with a chemical mask that resembled a gas mask put on the face.
I was lying in bed, although my brothers were up and were dressing hastily. Then the policeman approached me and hit me from the top with a butt of a shotgun in the stomach, I doubled up with pain lying on the bed. Somewhere far off in the room, my father was standing and silently watching what was going on. I could not move, and I was immediately hit again with the butt right into the temple. My head leaned back, I felt a trickle of blood oozing out from the dissected skin.
"What are you beating the kid for?", my mother cried and rushed to the policeman grabbing the shotgun with hands.
The policeman pushed my mother away with such force that she flew away from him a few meters and fell to the floor. Having pulled myself a little, I hastily got out of bed and came to the wall where my work clothes were hung, which resembled an overall, only my shirt was attached to the zipper pants, so that it may be removed in hot weather.
"Put it on faster!", the policeman yelled at me.
I was trying to do my best, my being beaten or not depends upon it. Having dressed quickly, my whole family went outside and went to the Church for prayer. And the policemen in our absence began to search our apartment. I was wiping off the blood flowing down my face with the sleeve of my shirt, I caught the frightened eyes of my two brothers.
Every day off started something like this. We worked six days a week, ten hours a day, all of us, the whole family. Children had to work starting from 12 years – so I worked for a year. My older brothers worked for five years.
Our working class area was not far off from the church, it took about twenty minutes on foot. All along the way was blurred, as in a fog, shrouded in pain and darkness of sufferings. Two-storied slums with broken windows, out of which the smoke was pouring, clothes lines hanging in the yard of houses, and everywhere people exhausted by work were wandering, some ware to the ground, being weak. Each person in our district wore dirty working sweatshirts, saturated all over with soot and grime, the government rarely issued new sweatshirts, and for that reason, it was really hard for miners, they were dirty from head to toe. In truth, water was also a large deficit here - therefore, people took a shower very rarely. The sky itself was not visible, I knew the sky must be blue, I guess, I saw it in a picture, but everything we've seen since childhood was a gray chemical haze, darkening the whole sky. Somewhere in the distance, near the very horizon factories were humming, black smoke plumes were billowing from huge pipes. there was an eternal twilight in our area. At night, it grew so dark that almost nothing was visible, it was cold like hell at night. If during the day it was very warm, if not to say hot, it was especially unbearable in the north area, where there was a smelter, which acted as a huge furnace, then it was sometimes so cold at night that in the morning the water in puddles froze and covered with ice crust.
 Soon we reached the church. The church was named after American singer Katy Perry, the relics of the singer Katie Perry were buried in this church. The singer Katy Perry was killed because she was engaged in prostitution, and she was engaged in prostitution since she was a child. Her real name was Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson, this fallen woman became initially famous for the fact that she was engaged in prostitution with the homeless in public, and then she decided to become a singer and adopted the pseudonym as Katy Perry, but she did not stop engaging in prostitution. We all believed that the church was named after this fallen woman to embarrass the churchgoers. Oh, yes! This is the building that was majestic, not so poor as our working class areas. In my childhood, I almost never saw high buildings except for the church and the building of the plant where I worked. Though, the church was not new, but repair works were being performed there constantly. The walls of the church were painted in poisonous yellow, and the domes were green. I would not say that I enjoyed this architectural structure, but at that time I did not see anything more majestic and grandiose, and therefore admired and went to church with some pleasure. At the entrance of the Church, two police officers stood with dogs wearing muzzles.
The huge dogs did not let up and barked at people coming inside. As soon as we approached the entrance, a policeman wearing a standard uniform – a black overall and a respirator – yelled at us,
"Quickly show your numbers and move on".
Each of our family extended their hand with a metal bracelet attached to it. The policeman immediately ran with a compact scanner, which he held in his hand, over the bracelet of each of us. The scanner gave an approving beep.
"Move on!", said the policeman.
It was a standard procedure, the authorities were keeping an eye, like that, on the fact that all the people go to church, the numbers of each person were recorded in a special database, so if someone did not come to the service, the authorities immediately found out about it and applied serious measures against the wrong-doer. Hardly had we gone into the Church and stepped inside the temple, as I heard screams and moans behind me.
"Ah, you old bitch!", yelled one of the policemen at an elderly man who covered his face with his hands.
And then the old man was hit with a baton, then again and again. The old man fell to the ground, and the policeman started kicking him.
"Get your fill of it, get your fill of it!, shouted the policeman kicking a helpless old man, "next time, bitch, you'll be on time for the service".
"Hey", said the second cop, turning to his friend who was kicking the old man, "Enough, stop it, you'll kill him".
"And why the heck do we need him? In any case, he's not able to work fine! And besides, he came to church for a service not according to his shift. His shift was at ten o'clock. And he came at eleven. Apparently, he overslept, old fool! It serves him right".
The old man was beaten because he, for some reason, came to the service of another shift. Each group of people had their own shift here, in which they had to go to church to attend sermons. We had to be present at eleven o'clock in the morning, the other – at twelve, well, and so forth. Being late was forbidden, for each delay penalty points were charged. Our family had already two penalty points. One day I got sick at work and could not fulfill the daily production rate of cardboard boxes. We were charged with two penalty points and the enhanced policeman security who was monitoring us regularly was assigned for us not even to think to break the rules, and these policemen are those who were waking me up this morning. In general, two penalty points for a family it is not terrible, it's just like being controlled intensely and followed each your step, and like this for three months, it's worse if someone of the family will also earn penalty points. If the sum of penalty points for a family will be seven, then it will be an inferno: food supplies will be cut down for all and each family member will be forced to work themselves to death for twelve hours a day, seven days a week. This is equivalent to death, no one bore more than three months at this work rate – all died. The family, who scored seven penalty points, has only one way of being saved – enduring to the end of the year because at the end of the year all penalty points are charged off. But it is not that simple when you're short of food, immediately you feel weak and dizzy, and at this moment it is very easy to make even the smallest mistake: either to be late for work, or because of weakness not to comply with the daily production rate at the plant, and there's lots of stuff, the penalty points are given in here for the slightest obedience – be it missing out at work or bumping accidentally into a policeman who patrols the perimeter, and your number is up, No one keeps an eye on the distribution of points, everything is at the discretion of the police, namely the head of the police station: he receives a complaint, and he immediately charges penalty points. Piece of cake. Therefore, the police power in the working class areas is absolute.
The policeman continued to kick the old man, the old man was lying trying to protect his head with his hands.
"That's enough, calm down", said the policeman with a scanner, watching humbly the elderly man being beaten up right in front of his eyes, "hey, pops, come on, get up and go to church", he said to the old man.
The old man tried to get up but couldn't and fell to the ground, then he tried to get up one more time resting his hands on the ground, his mouth was bleeding and his face expressed intolerable sufferings, but a second attempt to get up failed as well. And it was really bad.
"What have you done? It seems that you've broken his ribs! How will he be working now? –the policeman with a scanner addressed to his friend, "Now, there's only one way - kill the bastard, and call the paramedics to take the corpse.
The second policeman approached the old man and lifted his heavy shoe over his head. In the old man's eyes, I saw an indescribable dread due to an inexorably imminent horrible death, but at the same time, there was some sort of appeasement in his eyes from the fact that this earthly life full of pain and agony is finally about to be over. The shoe lifted over the old man fell powerfully on his head. A thump was heard. Then again and again. The blood trickled down from the skull of the old man forming a small dark red puddle which was rapidly expanding. The policeman kept on hitting blows with his foot to the head until the old man's skull was completely deformed and no one had any doubt that he was dead.
I looked around and saw a weird bewilderment on the people's faces, and on the children's faces it was sort of interest, it seemed they were not so much scared as interested and even having fun. The faces of the people who looked at this scene scared me more than the old man's death. As a matter of fact, not the old man's death was terrible, yet the fact that the beating and death of the old man made people be entertained.
"Go away! Why is it you've crowded to see! Sit down in your seats!", yelled at the people the police officer who committed murder.
We began to move deeper into the church. Definite seats were specified for each family. A greater part of the church was occupied by old and rather rundown wooden benches, our seats were in the center of the hall, we began to work our way forward. The walls of the church were painted with scenes from the Bible. There were angels with flaming swords painted on the walls, and the biblical prophets, and a lot of things. But God himself was not drawn anywhere, and that's why I was always tormented by the question: "How does a mighty God that we all serve look like?". In the farthest part, there was an elevated point on which the pulpit with the altar was located. The back wall of the church, in front of which there was the altar, was decorated with a wooden cross fixed to it, which contained a figure of a crucified man with a crown of thorns on his head. As I've already managed to find out it was Josh, the son of God who died for our sins. The Emperor's portrait was hung next to Josh.
We made our way to our places and sat down waiting for the priest who had to appear soon before us to give another sermon. Two of my brothers sat humbly in their seats looking somewhere forward, and yet nowhere, my father and mother also sat humbly and waited for the beginning of the sermon. And I was looking around. The church was being filled slowly with people; working families came here, the clothing of each can immediately indicate their profession. Miners came to this place, wearing dirty padded jackets, foundry workers wearing dirty overalls being unwashed for a long time, and workers from mechanical plants, whose faces and clothes were stained in heavy oil. There were not so many children, for children were not welcome in this place, and it was hard to educate them, many children just died early, because they started toiling at an early age and did not always cope with workloads. Two children in a family were rare, and three ones were once-in-a-blue-moon. Since our family had three children, all frowned on us, and we were disliked by everybody, my mother was often called a witch and accused of conspiring with the Devil. I don't know why we had such an attitude from the other residents; guess, they were just jealous that no kids died in our family and maybe, they just needed an object for hatred, I don't know, it's hard for me to judge.
And when the church hall was filled, and the policemen closed the entrance gate, and they themselves went inside, the priest, dressed in a black loose overall took the podium, his long beard of the same pitch black color as his clothes were up to the belly. And suddenly a dead silence was disturbed by a bark of a dog which one policeman of our police guard held on a leash. But then the dog got hit with a baton in the ribs and fell silent.
The priest looked around all of us and began his speech with a dry voice, which combined contempt and a sense of self-superiority at the same time,
"God loves you! You're children of God, and you must follow his laws, laws written for people. Remember, faith in God is not the whole thing, the main thing is servicing our Emperor – God's anointed on earth. All power is from God, and by serving the Emperor, you serve God! All those who serve humbly in this life, will enter Paradise after death and receive the Kingdom of heaven! Of course, unless succumbed to the Devil's temptation! And in here, there are those among us whom the Devil is tempting!"
And the next moment the priest looked at me.
"Number thirteen B, come here".
And that is my name, thirteen B, this is my number, and B is a marking of an area where I live. My mother's name is 16 B, father's name is 34 B, two brothers names are 14 and 16 B. As soon as the priest urged me to come, I felt a soul-chilling fear, and kept on sitting still and looking at him.
"Why are you still sitting? God is calling for you, come! Or you appreciate the Devil more than God?"
Hearing the word Devil, all the churchgoers immediately cast their evil, hateful looks in my direction, it seemed their souls had so much hate that, if they're told to, and they would have torn me to pieces. And then I heard my mother whispering:
"Sonny, go otherwise it's gonna be worse".
I stood up hesitating and started making my way to the priest's pulpit. When I was passing by the seated people, I saw the hate-filled eyes. Suddenly someone of sitting workers pushed me, I almost fell, but went on, someone spat at me, someone wished me death. There and everywhere I heard the words addressed to me, "Kick the bucket, child of the Devil" "Burn in hell". I was scared at that time, really scared, I had no idea why everyone hated me so much but was making my way forward. And as soon as I walked up to the priest's pulpit, he looked at me and asked with a voice full of hatred,
" Do you believe in God?"
" I do", I answered.
" You lie, bastard, spawn of the Devil! – roared the priest and then slap me in the face so hard that I fell to the floor, and on account of fear and resentment tears flowed from my eyes.
"You have two penalty points, you worked bad, which means you're possessed by the Devil!", yelled the priest at me.
"No, forgive me!", I prayed tearfully, "I could not perform the work rate because I felt bad, forgive me, please".
But the priest didn't care about my supplications. He stretched his arms up and cried out to the crowd of people sitting in the church,
"What are we going to do with that Devil's kid?"
"Punish! Punish! Punish him!", came blood-thirsty shouts from the audience.
"Police!", the priest called the policeman guarding the church exit.
The policeman holding the dog on a short leash approached me. I froze in fear.
"Twenty strokes!" gave a yell the priest.
The crowd shouted cheerfully. A policeman lifted a baton over me and hit me on the back with full force.
"One," cried the crowd of workers.
I cried out in pain. And right now a second blow squarely on the back of my head came upon me lying on the floor.
"Two," cried the crowd.
I raised my hands to my head, trying to cover myself. The third blow came upon the kidneys. The fourth one was again on the back. All blurred before my eyes, I tried not to lose control and close the head with hands. Next, I almost felt nothing, I only remember screams as in a fog, kind of muffled through the thick walls of pain,
"Ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen".
After that, I lost consciousness. I woke up being pushed by someone's leg on the side, I opened my eyes and looked up. The priest and two policemen stood over me.
"Alive, mutt", the priest said through his teeth, "Come on, get up and get out of here!"
After that, he kicked me in the stomach so hard that I felt a wave of nausea. I gathered all my strength to get up, but my ribs ached, and I felt giddy, and it seemed legs and arms did not work for me. I strained my muscles but it did not work out at all. And then as quick as lightning I remembered what happened to those who did not get up. Fear gave me strength, and pulling myself up again, somehow resting my hands on the marble floor, I rose to my feet and hobbled away. I was staggering from side to side with a mist before my eyes. Looking around me, I saw that the church was empty, there was no one but my family. They were all sitting in their seats, frozen with horror, being afraid to move.
"Take this spawn of your home", roared the priest.
My father hastily approached me and helped me to walk to the exit putting my hand on his shoulder and assisting me. The police dog barked behind me, but immediately the policeman' voice interrupted the bark by ordering it to be silent.
"Hurry up", yelled the priest, "The next churchgoer shift is coming soon".
My dad and I put on pace. My two brothers rushed over to us. I managed to go home with great difficulty, I was almost able to walk, my back ached, and my legs were out of order. But one way or another we got there. Exhausted, I entered our room and lay down on my bed. Having pulled off my working shirt, I saw that it was all soaked in blood on the inner side.
"See what you've done", - said my father, "Because of you, we got penalty points and now our entire family is at stake".
"Yes, all you've ever bought us are problems", said reproachfully my older brother.
I had no answer, I gritted my teeth in pain and turned my face to the wall. It seemed that blood still kept flowing from the split skin on my back.
"Your wound needs to be debrided", said my mother. "Don't fall asleep yet".

The bowl was quite old and battered from all edges, I do not remember how many years it was of service for me... long enough. Bowls for food meant a lot, losing a bowl was not allowed, because the new one will be given only after a certain time, and if there is no bowl, then a food portion will be poured into hands. Everything was strict, very strict, and all this strictness was very much like the worst bullying, as I felt it at that time, though I did not understand yet who I was, and where I was, but something inside me gave impetus to tell yourself that this was not correct. Having taken the bowl, I got out of bed and hobbled to the exit from our room. Two of my brothers were already outside.
"You OK? Able to go?", my mother asked me.
"Guess so", I replied more or less in a calm voice.
My father approached me and threw my left hand over his shoulders and helped me to move, supporting me and moving with me to the exit in small steps. When we left our room, I saw all the neighbors dashing to the food vehicle. All cast disgruntled looks at me. Several workers, passing by me, contemptuously spat at my feet. My father and I got out the entrance of the barrack and stood in line at the vehicle. The policemen with dogs stood at the doors of the vehicle luggage container kept order. Two of my brothers came to the vehicle, and the viscous broth was being poured into their bowls. When they got the food, they ran back to our room. And it was ten people who stood in front of my father and me, so we had to wait a little longer, but I was starving, and the smell of wheat broth was tempting my empty stomach. Behind my father and me, my mother was standing in line and was humbly holding a bowl waiting for her turn. The worker who stood before us held the hand of his ten-year-old son who kept on fidgeting and shouting. And the next moment they turned around and the worker, whose name was 45 B said addressing to me and my father,
You're Devil possessed, your whole family doesn't believe in God, you filthy people!", when he said that he burst out laughing.
"Heathens!", cried his son.
Other workers standing in line turned around after hearing his words and looked at us contemptuously. Somebody of the children standing in front picked up a stone off the ground and threw it at me, hitting me in the stomach.
"Pray to God, heathen!", he yelled, and then all the people in line began laughing wildly at me.
"A family of sinners!", said one of the workers looking at us.
"Yeah, all they would do is sin, and they don't wanna work, idlers!", somebody else said.
At this moment I got scared pretty much, I felt weak and helpless and I desperately wanted to run from this terrible place, from these evil people - to run away somewhere far away to another country, another world.
Soon it was our turn. We came to the rear trunk of the vehicle, where a man stood who was pouring food for all into bowls. First, the food was poured into my father's bowl, then I stretched out my own, the employee of the vehicle, sitting in the cargo compartment lowered the ladle into the food pot and poured me some broth. But as soon as the broth was poured into my bowl, someone standing on the side pushed me hard, and without remaining standing, I fell to the ground, spilling my portion of food.
"Ah, ah, ah, ha-ha", it was heard how the workers and children standing in line burst out laughing.
"It's God who's punishing you for being a sinner!", shouted someone from the line, and the next moment all laughed approvingly.
Suddenly someone yelled at my mother behind me,
"Sinner! You raised the sinful child. Your whole family are sinners!", and immediately cheers were heard in the crowd.
And the policemen stood silently on the sides of the cargo compartment of the vehicle and watched everything, and it seemed they didn't care about what was going on. I rose up, took from the bowl the floor and handed it again to the worker who was pouring food.
"Get out of here!", he shouted. "You spilled your portion, pick up off the ground if you want to!
But the broth all spread out and mixed up with dirt and so it wasn't possible to collect it back into the bowl.
"Pass by faster, don't keep the line!", the policeman yelled at me.
I got out of the line and was waiting until the father and mother received their portion. Of course, I knew they'd share the broth with me. After they received the food, we all went back to the room together, there were two of my brothers in there who had already eaten up their portion of food and were going to go outside for a walk.
"We're going outside", said my elder brother.
"Ok!", said the father.
I sat on the bed. My father and mother have poured some portion of the broth into my bowl and I started eating, there were no spoons, so broth was drunk straight from the edges of the bowl. After I finished eating and quashed a feeling of hunger a bit – being tired and exhausted, suppressed with sadness and despair, I lay down on the bed and fell asleep.
Here's what it meant to get two penalty points, I don't think it's worth explaining why seven penalty points were tantamount to a death sentence. I will only say that many of those who got a lot of points were beaten on the streets by their own neighbors of the apartment block. Humiliating and oppressing penalized sinners were the only entertainment of workers on weekends. No one had pangs of conscience after that because the priest allowed arranging the massacre of those who were Devil possessed, and people even liked it. Serving God was a universal task, only by serving God and humbly working for the Ruler could you be saved. All who serve God and are righteous persons God will save, since God loves us. And those who depart from God's rules – God will severely punish.

2.
Working days went by quietly and steadily. In the morning, people went to work, thirty minutes during the working day was given for lunch, lunch took place in common messes, thenwent back to work and after the working day people were brought into the mess and fed again. After that, everyone was allowed to go home. Coming to the job was strictly controlled by registration of the electronic code on the bracelet. So,it was impossible not to come to the job.
I was working with my two brothers at the cardboard factory, we were making boxes. Let me tell you the job is not the hardest, the children worked here,as a rule, it was later after reaching eighteen years, the children were transferred to heavy industries –workshops and factories. Andwe spent our childhood here. You sit the whole day at the conveyor on which cardboard layers are directed, then you take these layers off the conveyor and make a box.During each hour, the inspector passes and takes away the formedboxes, which you put near yourself, and registers a production rate in the report.
Children of different ages are sitting around you and working, no one’stalking to nobody, everyone is in their thought. The Emperor’s icons and portraits always hang on the gray walls of our workshop. In the morning you spend time waiting for lunch. As soon as I formed the box and laid it beside me, I looked up at the icons and prayed to God for theforgiveness of my sins –the priest told me to do so. Then when the following cardboard parts of a box drove up to me on a conveyor belt, I went back to work. Usually, my feet became completely numb and I had unbearable pain by lunchtime, so a trip to the messwas perceived as a great relief.Then after lunch, everyone went back to their work machines. Every second the Ruler watched usfrom the wall, or rather his huge portrait. The priest said that the Ruler is the Governor of God, and he alsowatches over all of usby means of divine power. Although on Sundays the priest insisted that the Ruler loves all of us and thinks about the welfare of each person, I had a sneaking feeling that his look was not good, even though I was praying to the Holy ruler, as the priest ordered, and begged him to forgive my sinful soul, I don’t know why but I was always scared of his eyes, they were empty and something like disgust was read in them. Thoughbeing a kid at that time, I didn’t even know this word, but even then, I felt instinctively something bad about the ruler, even though I was fighting back these thoughts, because I considered them as being sinful. After all, the ruler on earth does the will of God, and therefore he, also like God, loves us all, and all the doubtful thoughts were called sinful by the priest so,in order to save my soul and go to heaven, I was chasing away all doubts, and was praying to God to forgive me for my dare to doubt. When the working day came to an end, and we had to go to the mess to eat, all the machines were turned off, and the priest’s vergers (senior priests)came to the hall.
And this meant that it was time for evening prayer. We all left our working machinesand knelt down. The senior priests said a prayer and allof us needed to repeat it in unison. In truth, the senior priests were dressed similarly to a priest – the same black overall, but what was different about them is the fact that the senior priests’ beardswere shorter than the priest’s. The prayer was held under the untiring control of the policemen, all of us had to kneel down and keep our backs straight. All those who stooped during the praying time, or allowed any outside movements, were immediately hiton the back with a baton. We usually thank God for the food when praying and for the fact that He gives us an opportunity to serve and atone our sins.After the prayer was over, we were led into the mess, where were fed, and then we were free to go home. That’s the whole working day. After this working day, when I came home,I was warn-out to the bone, of course I wanted to walk, to wander around the area, but as a rule such a luxury came our way only ona day-off, and on weekdays when you come home, the strength is hardly enough to get to bed. The next day is the same routine. That’s the whole story of the workers in the working area.
Sometimes you go back from work, look at the sky, clouded with gray haze and think,“What’s there beyond our working class area?What’s people’s life beyond the horizon”, and I must admit that I didn’t even know how big our neighborhood was; it goes without saying, I knew nothing about the fact how large or small the world is.So, I thought that these barracks interweaving with plants, stretch ongoing far off over the horizon and encircle the Earth, and somewhere far away the Ruler sits who knows all and sees all–that’s what we were taught– and watches everything.And even higher, somewhere in heaven sits God, who loves all of us and establishes his rulers on the earth, who help us atone sins by work, and I also thought that God speaks to us through priests who called themselves the voice of God. That’show I thought of the world, and I was afraid to doubt it because it was sinful. For doubt in God and his justice and universal love, you can go to hell and be doomed to eternal damnation. I didn’t know what year it is and didn’t think about the time and dates, then dates did not exist for me, and all my time-based delimitation was fit into the concept of a working day and seven days a week.What happened in the past, I had no idea, I thought it was always like that–there were working class areas where people worked, and God kept order. I may have lived my whole life like this, but about a month after my being beaten up in the Church, my life made changes.
On a Sunday morning, the policemen rushedinto our room,there was a man in a white lab coat adorned with a red cross with them. Lab coats like these were worn by the medical workers, to which we were taken to the hospital when someone fell sick. But this one was different from our medical workers, because the cross was way larger and was embroidered not on the sleeve, andwent along the entire coat, and besides his face was not familiar to me. The policeman walked up to my bed and grabbed my hands and dragged me to him while I was still sleepy. I gave a cry unwittingly.The policeman took me to a man who looked like a medical worker, who began to stare at me. At first, he examined my hands, thenhe ordered me to open my mouth and looked at my teeth. Then the same thing was done to my two brothers. Parents already wokeup and looked at the events in fear.
“We’ll take these two”, the medical worker told the policemen, pointing at me and my older brother, “I believe they are quite healthy and suit us”.Then my brother and Iwere ordered to get dressed. When the father asked where we were taken to, he immediately received a blow of the shotgun butt in the stomach. I realized that this was serious business, but there was no fear because I knew that God was watching everything and He wants only the best for us. When my brother and I were dressed, the policemen brought us into the yard, where we were already being waited by a black police car, the windows of which were closed with metal bars.Two policementook the front seats, and we were put on the back together with the medical worker. I've never been in a police car before, so if it wasn’t rough treatment, I could take what was going on as an adventure or something exciting. But I had a funny feeling that there is something bad going on.The policeman sitting in front pressed the gas pedal and the car moved ahead. We went along the working class areas. I looked out the car window at the barracks in which people lived, and at factory chimneys, towering in the background. After we passed the cardboard factory where I worked, I was very curious, because I never went beyond this place before in my life. We drove a few blocks of monotonous slums, thenrode into a paved road, and the carstarted to pick up speed.
In the back seat,I was looking through the windshield and then the slums ended along the road on which we drove and the road began to climb the hill, along which there were iron partitions – looking through the side window I saw that came to the bridge. The railway, being divided into several branches and going somewherefar away passed under the bridge. Under the very bridge along one of the branches,some train containers stood, where people were loading up some boxes. Andthere were trees on the sides of the railway. Probably, it was not even trees but a whole forest, I’ve never seen so many trees in my life before, and these trees stretched far, far beyond the horizon. At that moment, I was a little shocked by the beauty of what I saw. Moving through the bridge, we were driving along the forest for a while, and then arrivedto the areawhere buildings werelocated, but these were not the slums.
These buildings were five-storied and were more well-maintained and clean, and I did not see the workers here, policemen and people in gray suits were leaving the buildings. Having approached one of these buildings, the police car stopped.The policemen went out, then the medical worker opened the door and also left the car. One of the policemen went to the building and after a while returned, after that he opened the door for us with my brother and ordered to get out of the car and follow him. He led us into the building, there was a checkpoint at the building entrance through which we passed and found ourselves in a long corridor illuminated by quartz lamps.We were led to the farthest corner. There was an office in the far corner, next to which the benches were placed, the kids, like us, were sitting on the bench, and fearwas written on their faces. We sat down on a bench to be waiting. There were about twenty children in here, and no one knew what was going on. And then, the door of the office opened, and the policemen brought in there two children who were sitting closest to the door. After a few minutes, the children came out and they were led to the exitunder the supervision of a police officer. I noticed the metal collars around their neck. Soon it was the turn of my brother and me. We were led into a fairly spacious office, where there were several employees dressed in white robes. One of them run a scanner first through my bracelet, and then through my brother’s bracelet, then he sat down next to the computer and began to type something.
“Stretch out your hand”, suddenly said the employee.
I stretched out my hand. The employee examined my bracelet, then tookthe scanner of larger sizes from the tableand run it through my bracelet.After that, the bracelet came unhooked. He took off my bracelet and took it to another office, then the bracelet was removed from my brother the same way. The health worker returned to our room holding plastic hoops, like collars, which were made of avery cheap material, kind of disposable and short-lived. The only thing that gave the collars a technological look is the shimmering red numbers on its edges, showing our identification number. The collars were unhooked, but soon one medical worker hooked them around our necks.
“Call next ones”,the medical officer told thepoliceman.
The policeman took us out of the office and led us down the corridor to the exit, while his partner brought two other children into the office. Allwhat was happening got me very scared, but I was afraid to ask what was going on because I knew that for any question I would get a bloweither with a baton or a shotgun butt. We were taken to the courtyard of the building. In the yard there were children, standing in a column of files, they had the same collars around their necks as those that were wornby my brother and me.
“Fall in!”, the policemantold us.
And my brother and I stood in a column shoulder to shoulder. Thenchildren were getting out of the building and stood behind us. When all twenty persons were in thefile, thepoliceman stood in front of the file and ordered to follow himin rank and file. Another policemanclosed the rear and kept a close eye to ensure that no one escape. But,no one had any thought of escape or the slightest disobedience, everyone was paralyzed by the fear that effect on people better than any iron shackles.
We were led along gray buildings, then we took to the road and went along it. And now ahead I saw a huge concrete fence with a height of perhaps two meters, at the top of the fence, there was barbed wire wriggling in circles. And this fence went around the whole block in which we were, and then went over the horizon along the houses and buildings, it seemed like all our area was covered by this fence. We were going toto the iron doors, near which there was a checkpoint in the form of an iron booth covered with plastic glass, a guard was inside that booth. Two watchtowers were on the sides of the iron gateand the policemen with rifles in their hands were standing upon them. When we came to the gate, the policeman at the guard post pressed the button, and the gate with a creaking and rumbling started opening.I thought there would be another working-class area beyond the gate, but there was no any,I saw before my eyes a dead moor with thinly planted trees, the road on which we were walking went off somewhere into the distance beyond the horizon where the forest could be seen and nothing more. Outside the gate there was a huge black car, like a truck, the back of the car had the shape of a container for shipping cargoes, the doors of the container-bodyhave been opened. The policemenwere waiting for us near the car, but their clothing was a bit different from the one that I used to see. Their black overallwas decorated on the sides with two blue stripes and the fabric of the overall was made not of rag material, but of closer synthetic material, which gleamed a little in the light. Their faces were also coveredwithrespirators in the form of masks which fully covered their faces.
“Take cargo!”,said the policeman heading the column.
“Put ‘em in the compartment!”, said the policeman on duty near the car.
“Come on in, come on in!”, the policemen accompanying us cried out.
Andthey started to lead us into the cargo compartment. All obediently accepted the unknown destiny.The cargo compartment of the vehiclewas designed for twenty persons, on the sides, there were plastic benches to sit. When we all were brought inside, the door of the container slammed shut and it became diminside, the light came only through the ventilation slots, which were located on the sides of the container, if you leaned against them face, then through these slotsit was possible to see something.
The vehicle moved forward and we drove down the road. The first hour of driving, I did not take my eyes off the ventilation slots to observe the surroundings, but all I saw was the wasteland, where only groves of trees wereoccasionally located. Somewhere in the distance through the trees one could see the destroyed factories and five-storiedhouses that had already been abandoneda long time ago, some of them were just demolitionswithout walls or roofs, and some were already half in the ground.
But as we drove away from the working settlement where I lived, architectural constructions appeared less and less, and the next moment the wood began to grow thick. About three hours later, we were driving through the countryside, which was a clean forest, consisting mainly of coniferous trees, though occasionally you came across a grove of birches and poplars. Andat that moment, among all this monotonous landscape, I saw a picture that surprised me– one place along which we were passing by was just completely burnt, black soil was instead of grass, and only here and there the burnt leafless trees laid. And in the middle of this scorched wasteland, there was a rusty tank, the entire front part of which was badly warped, and the tank turretwas torn off and laid next to it. I was then very impressed by this spectacle, I had never seen such large machines of unknown form. I didn’t know what happened here, but the cold frost of death went through my skin.
The farther we were moving away, the lighter the sky became, I had never seen such a blue sky before – I was simply amazed. And the sun began to shine much brighter, even though I looked through the ventilation slot, but you could say I saw the sunfor the first time. What I saw before was more like a blur, shining through the gray sky. I was very surprised by this fact, strange new feelings filled my heart, and for the first time it seemed to me that the world that we saw was not the world, or it’s better to say the world is not what it was shown to us and there is something more than just working class areas and factories. Andat this moment I got scared for the first time, really scared, my mind was captured with immense darkness.For the first time in life, I saw, that the things we knew were not quite thetruth, and the truth was concealed from us, regarding the fact that there is the sun,there are forests, that there is something differentbeyond the area where we worked. We were told about nothing, except we must work at factories and pray to God. A slow shiver fear crept down my body, kind of hissing snakes penetrating into the soul. I began to be tormented by the question that if we were not told the truth about the world, then how I can now believe these people, and what is the worst, is “where are they taking us to?”. I looked at the kids sitting around me, but it seemed that none of them asked this kind of question, all gotused to obeymeekly. I shoved the elbow of my brother, who seemed to be asleep,
“Look, sixteenth”, I say. “Where are we going to?”
“I don’t know”, replied humbly my brother, “I don’t even wannathink about it, you better sit quietly until you didn’t get into trouble”.
I felt silent. And then,being distracted from anxious thoughts, I found myself being tormented by thirst and hungerbecause we had been eating nothing since the very morning. The sun slowly came over the horizon, it was getting dark, my anxiety grew. At dusk, when the sun set over the horizon, the vehicle stopped. The back door of the van was opened by two police officers, the policemen were staring at us, gripping firmly shotguns in the hands.
Hey, who needs to pee, do it faster! Go to the side of the road, but you gotta be observed. If you try to run we’ll shoot you!
I felt like my bladder was bursting actually. Getting out of the van, I went to the side of the road and was taking a piss, inhaling fresh and so unusual air.It is amazing, yet the air was completely different, without a mixture of paint and gasoline. I felt the watchful eye of a policeman holding a shotgun and watching over all of us.Near the vehicle cabin, I heard a metallic rumble. It was the second policeman who got the water container out of the vehicle cab and poured water in an aluminum pan.
“Hey you, drink!”,he addressed the kids.
All ran to the pot of water and began to drink water one by one. I ran one of the first, and therefore I got filled up with water to the full before the others. And having quenched my thirst I moved away a bit from the common crowd, taking a few steps towards the curb and started looking at a grassy field with the withered grass along the highway on which we hadtravelled, and at a small grove of rare trees, which were immediately behind the field. And then suddenly, despite the fact that it was already quite dark, and the grove of trees, was at a relatively far distance from the road, I saw a few human figures going out of the forest grove, it was about seven persons, and they headed in our direction. Andthey were walking kind of strangely, slightly limping and swaying from side to side.I stared at them in stunned consternation. I couldn’t figure out where people came from in that deep forest. And a group of people kept on steadily approaching us. The closer they came, the more clearly I saw their stained and rotting clothing and shaggy hair, I was alarmedvery much, and more especially, it was strange that they were walking in silence, walkingsimilarly as one man. Andbeing at the distance about two hundred meters from us, they began to run. And when they were running, their uncoordinated movements became even more obvious: when they were running, it was as if they were rocking from side to side, but at the same time they were running pretty fast. I quickly ran over to the vehicle and pulled the overall of one of the police officers, who was already bringing the water canister into the vehicle cab.
The policemanroughly pushed me away with his hand. It was so intense that I fell on the pavement. He did not even pay attention to me and looked at me being terrified and laying on the pavement after putting the container into the vehicle cab and slamming the door.
“What do youwant?!”,he asked irritably looking at me.
I said nothing, but only pointed in the direction of the people running to us.
The policeman turned his head and immediately I saw the horror in his eyes.
“Staggering...”,at first he whispered barely audibly, then he screamed louder, turning to his partner,“Stageriiiing!”
His partner stood in front of the vehicle cab, then turned his head and, seeing the people running, instantly reacted, picking up a shotgun that hung behind his back, he aimed at the crowd of people running up to us and fired off two shots. Butno matter how strange it may be the shots had no effect, it seemed that the running didn’t even react to the shot in their direction.
“Quickly get in the car!”, shouted at us the other policeman, then picked up the shotgun in two hands, and using it like a stick, began to push aside the shocked, stunned kids to the back side of the van.
“Hurry up!”, he screamed.
I immediately got up and ran to the vehicle body, being inside, I took my seat and began to look through the ventilation slot.Shotgun shots were heard, but people ran closer and closer to us. When the last kidgot into the vehicle and the door was closed behind us, the running wereabout the highway. I could already see them clearly. Andthis scene was not pleasant, rather even terrible. And that’s when the police manforcing us into the van body, ran into the cabin and closed the door behind him, and it seemed like he even pressed the gas pedal, one of these people still had time to run to the van and with a running start to smash right against the part with slots through which I was looking.Andone can say that for a second we were face to face. I involuntarily screamed and pulled back my head from vision slots. Thevehiclestartedmoving.
And it seemed that we were on the road a few minutes, but I could not get it together. That face... it seemed not alive– there was blue swelling under the eyes were, the skin was yellowish, decaying and detached in some places from the skull, and the eyes were empty, but at the same time they were sinister, and I felt that he looked right at me and as if he’d come through into my soul with his look. On the one hand, he was kind of dead, but on the other hand, he was understanding, and I thought he was looking at me, he was running to me, and when our eyes met through the vent, I felt that he wanted to eat me up. He just looked at me so coolly, so indifferently, but at the same time, as at something belonging to him. I felt weird. It was not like I was made speechless, but it was like I lost my thinking ability, all was blurred before my eyes, then it started to grow muddy, and I myself do not remember this happening, but I passed out.
I woke up only in the morning, it turned out, I slept right under my seat. I looked around and tried to collect my thoughts, trying to remember what had happened the day before. “What was it? A dream, a delusion?”,– I was wondering. I remembered the terrible people who ran out of the woods but immediately found myself thinking that it was a dream. “Yes, of course,it’s definitely a dream, what else could it be?”, I comforted myself. I got up and looked around. In the van, one of the kids was sleeping, somebody was sitting in their seats and looking through ventilation slots. I also turned my head to lean against the vision slot, but then a wild, screaming cold horror crept into my heart and was ready to tear it to pieces – my vision slot had a big dent after the head bump. Andthe next moment I remembered in painstaking detail this disfigured face I saw the day before, this staggering half-dead man, who attacked me. And here’s when I felt ill at ease. I didn’t know what to think, I didn’t know what to expect – the van just kept on moving to an unknown destination, carrying all of us away into a frightening uncertainty.

3.


The day was cold, gloomy and so cloudy. Around noon, the policemen made a stop, all the children were taken out for a walk, given some water, and each was given a loaf of bread.  I was standing by the van, just in front of the dent that the creature unknown to me had made with its head, and was looking at the policemen who were standing near the van cab and were talking. Icaughtsomefragmentsoftheirtalk:
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, you’re driving at night, so save the pills, we don’t have enough”.
“Look, I feel creepy;I have not slept a wink all night today!”
“Pills for what? Amphetamine will give the dead power!”
“Look, I’m not talking about that, they did not come to this place, or rather they had not been seen here for a long time – for ten years already.Weweredrivingcalmlyallthetime.
“Yeah, guess there was a warning that a new wave rushed, devastated the village, whichexisted around the Wall. Yes, their fault, they let their guard down completely, the fence was almost unguarded, many posts were removed, and then at night came a wave – more the staggering ones than residents, and the center did not have so much ammo. In general, it’s gross. All the management was evacuated by helicopter as soon as the signal was received, but no one of the vulgar herd survived.
“Yes, it’s unsafe to live at the Wall, like hell dangerous, sometimes it’s completely quiet, and sometimes any filthy things make their way, and that’s it, like locusts devouring everything in its path. But I do not remember theircomingtotheseregions, it is strange, really strange …”
“For sure, I guessthose staggering ones were just the last of the pack if they got so far, it seems like they were in tatters – a day or two and will die of hunger ... Just let it go! Before they came up to the city of the Immortals, there were real problems in there. And now they have nothing to eat on the way, so they all die along the way, and these ones, I believe, are the lucky ones” and then the policeman laughed out loud and took two last cigarette puffs and threw the butt onto the asphalt.
The second policeman gave him a critical look, indicating that he did not share the cheerful mood of his partner. Then we were brought back into the van and the vehicle hit the road again. While we were driving the asphalted road became much worse and more disgusting with quality, and again and again, the van jumped on the roughness of the asphalt. The landscape stretching along the road was dull and monotonous – it was mainly forest, burned out in places, there were destroyed settlementsoccasionally, destroyed factories, houses, yet they were located far off from the road, so I could not really take a close look at all the ruins, a couple of times almost along the road, we saw abandoned villages, wooden houses of very decent quality, though with broken glasses, and run-down roofs. Near one of the houses, there was a car without wheels, which was clearly not the military one, because its windows were not barred, and it was quite small in size. Rust started to cover its metal doors, therefore, I have concluded that the settlement, by which we were traveling.Hasbeenabandonedbypeoplefairlyrecently. Just the other houses, by which we passed, even the concrete high-rise buildings, were sunken in the ground, some of them did not even havea roof or one of the walls, and these houses were pretty fit for livingafter small repair works.
So dull and boring this trip was, the sky was dragged with clouds, and the van where we were, was in the dusk. Everybody was silent, with downcast eyes, if at the beginning I saw something like enthusiasm or interest in the eyes of some children, but now, the eyes of all who were with me in the same boat faded, and expressed nothing but hopelessness. In the evening there was another stop, we were once again given some foodand water, I wanted to dare and ask about where we were being takenafter all, but then my imagination blackened my decisive impulse, showing me a picture of how immediately the shotgun butt smashes into the bridge of my nose and I fall on the asphalt, and blood is gushing forth from my nose.
I raised my head up and saw the leaden cloud slowly creeping across the sky. Then, drizzling rain started drippingimmediately, increasing the gloom of so oppressive, dark atmosphere of the evening. I took a deep breath and stretched my hands to the sky, allowing small drops of rain to drip onto my palms. For some reason, at this moment I really liked the rain,the slightly cool drops falling on my clothes and on my face, as if they were making me calm. Anyway, I must say that I love rain and chilly weather, and I just can’t bearhot weather.
Suddenly from the most distant trees, something black jumped upward. Looking closer, we saw that it was a fleet of crows. The crows cawed frightenedlyand flew away from the trees, which they had chosen as a bed.
“What scared them?” one policemanaskedthe other, “we’re not alone here! Hurry up!”
“Get in the vehicle!”the other policeman shouted.
Everyone quickly got into the van and the vehicle drove off.
It was already dark the vehicle raced down the road, I put my face tight to narrow ventilation slots butcouldn’t see anything. Anxiety in my heart was replaced by tiredness and I involuntarily dozed off. I don’t remember what I dreamed about, it seems like it was nothing at all, but I remember that I was awakened by a strong jolt, the vehicle braked sharply, obviously having crashed in something, and all the children sitting in the van, was thrown to the front wall. I could not understand what was going on; I bumped into someone’s head withthe back of my head and felt unbearable pain.  Then the vehicle slowly backed up –waiting for the next push,I was reflexively trying to grab hold of something, but I was not the one who was trying to do that. Many of the children sitting in the rear seats could not stand firm and fell down, and we all floundered in the dark of the van, trying to grab hold of something. I felt for a seat, I had no idea whose it was and climbed on top of it.
The vehicle was driving back, then stopped, and dashed forward sharply, after a few seconds we hit something again, but this time holding the seat with my hands, I was able not to fall. And then suddenly I heard the shots. Apparently, the policemen were shooting at something from a van window. And then I heard a strong knock– someone was hitting the walls of the van where we all were, the strikes began to be heard from all over. Then shots were heard again. The strikes against the van walls did not stop and had such force that the van swayed slightly. I cautiously leaned against the vision slot, through the dim lighting of the vancoming basically just from the headlights, I could see the shadows of people who surrounded our van and violently pounded it with their hands. Andsuddenly in front of my face through theslot which I looked through, someone’s fingerspassed into the van. I cried being terrified and pulled my head back.
I didn’t see the hand because it was unable to get through into the van through the narrow slot, but bruised fingers with black nails I could see clearly. And then the van jerked back again, and then forward, trying to break free from the viscous quagmireof these creatures that surrounded us. Again shots were fired, then there was a push again, and then the vehicle still managed to go forwardbouncing like over bumps. Then the van started to gain speed. I took a deep breath. “What was that?”I kept asking myself,“What’s going on here?”“What kind of creatures was that in the pack of which we bumped into?”“Were they humans?”“Why were they crowding along the road in the middle of the night?”“Why did they attack us yesterday, anyway?”, “What the hell’s going on here?” Night silently was covering the van in which we were, only the noise of the vehicle motor washeard, but it was silent on the whole, someone of the children occasionally tried to talk, but not getting a response from the person he was talking to immediately fell silent.
In the morning the vehicle stopped, I felt like not sleeping at all. All of us were brought outside for the next feeding. And then I saw the vehicle: the side metal walls of the van were dented, the cab windows were all cracked and covered with blood in some places. One of the policemen opened the van hood and started to fix something.
“Hey, you”, his partner addressed me, “Whatare you looking at? You had your food, drink, go back to the van – we’re about to go soon”.
But I stood transfixed, examining the van bumper, which was all dented and smeared with blood.
“What happened?” I dared to ask.
“Hey, get him outtahere,” the policemansaid fixing the vehicle to his partner.
His partner grabbed me by the collar and dragged me into the van.
“Well, sit and shut up!” he commanded.
I sat in the van and was afraid to stick out. The sky was so gloomy, gray, with dark clouds floating high above. The morning dew smell came to me from a forest glade, located near the road, it was relaxing a bit, but the questions tormented me even more, I did not understand why we had been taken away so long in an incomprehensible direction so far from home, and who were these creatures that attacked us. I was wondering“Who that was? Fugitive workers? Not likely.Why were they strolling along the highway late at night, why didn't they see the vehicle coming? And why they didn’t run away but jumped on the van?” All that was going on seemed like a bad dream to me, and the awakening was about to come, but the dream kept on going. I started to miss my family. Will I see them?
Ah, if I had known then, at that very moment, that I would never have a chance of meeting my mother and father again, I would not have been able to live up to the next morning, let alone the inhuman trials that fell to my lot.  Sometimes ignorance is the best option, and the truth may damage a lot if you’re not ready for it, and now was exactly the case. Ignorance gave hope, that faint light that burned in my heart in the midst of all the gloom, chaos and fear that surrounded me.
“Ok, that’s it, get everyone in the van” a policeman commanded to his partner.
Children immediately were shoved into the van and the door was closed behind. The vehicle drove off.  I don’t remember how long we were driving, I remember only my dozing off, at first we were driving safely, but being half asleep I heard a strange noise, like gunshots, then screams, but I had no strength to even open my eyes, the tiredness got me overwhelmed, especially because I could not understand what I was dreaming about it was the flight of my imagination or it was reality. And then a strong push against the van brought me to my senses. Something pushed the vehicle so much that I was thrown aside. Then I heard the shots again– but not the police shotguns, but the machine gun rattling. I turned my head left and saw my brother lying next to me, the bullet broke through the van wall hit him in the temple, and having fallen from the seat, he lay down dead next to me, blood was bleeding from the bullet hole in his head. I raised my head and looked around, and I saw that not only my brother was killed, but many of the children were dead, some were wounded. The survivors were numb with horror. Some of them had to see the death face for the first time. Looking at the van walls, I saw the light coming from the bullet holes. I had no doubt – we were shot. And shots were fired from the machine gun. Suddenly one more time came a rattling gunfire sound. The van lost control and started to wiggle from side to side. A few seconds later, having made a large roll to the side and slowed down the speed, the van stopped. I looked around, the entire floor of the van was covered with blood, and almost all the kids near me were dead. I somehow held back a scream trying to escape from my chest. I rose to my feet and clung to the vision slot. And then I saw this picture: our van was standing obliquely to the road. Beside it there were two grey, shabby SUVs with disproportionately large wheels, one vehicle was located in front of the van cab, that’s why I couldn’t see it clearly – the second one stood directly opposite the side wall, through which I was looking. From this vehicle, three persons came out, and that’d be best to say that they jumped out, and one stayed behind the wheel. They were dressed in black leather jackets and dark jeans, two of them were holding hunting rifles, and one was armed with a machine gun. And another two persons who were in the other vehicle came out to the line of my sight, one of them, having put a rifle to the back of the police officer, pushed him forward. Then, when he was brought to the man armed with a machine gun, the policeman was ordered to get down on his knees.  The man armed with a machine gun may have been the most important among them, and he came to the policeman, to the head of which the rifle barrel was placed and started talking to him:
“Where are going from?”
The policeman was silent, with eyes downcast, but after he received the blow of the rifle butt in the back, from the man standing behind immediately started to talk:
“Square B12, industrial area”.
“Where are you taking the weapons?” the policeman with a gun asked again.
“We don’t carry weapons,” the policeman said and then a strong kick butt in the back knocked him down to the ground.
The man with the machine gun approached him and pressed his neck to the asphalt. The policeman began to croak.
“The vehicle with weapons left the square a day earlier than ours did” a police officer moaned.
“What d’ya have in here?” the man with a gun asked, visibly beginning to worry.
“We have genetic material! We’re bringing the kids for genetic research!”
The man with a gun looked at the van, cold ran through my body, I turned around, the entire floor of the van was poured with blood, most of the children were killed, however, some gasping with fear, sat in their seats with eyes wide open, someone who came to their senses were trying to remove the blood splatter. I leaned against the ventilation hole again.
“Demon, look what’s in the van”, the man with a gun said to one of his companions.
A fairly tall man with a short haircut headed towards the van where we were in. When he yanked the door, the door creaked but did not open.
“Closed”, Demon responded.
“Gimme the key!” a man with a gun yelled at the policeman.
“It’s in my pocket.” the policeman replied, still lying on the ground.
“Get it now!”
The policeman squatted and took out the key from his pocket, fastened to the belt on the chain, then unfastened it from the safety hook, and handed it to the man with a machine gun. He took up the key, turned it this way and that way in his hands and then nodded to Demon, who stood at the door of the van. Demon headed quickly to the policeman, and I thought he wanted to take the key, but no, Demon went behind the policeman’s back, took off from his shoulder the shotgun with a rapid movement and pointed the barrel at the head of the policeman and pulled the trigger. There was a shot.  The policeman fell to the ground lifeless, half of his skull was torn off by a shot. Demon smiled contentedly.
“Ok,”the man with a gun said, scornfully looking at the blood drops, which fell on his jacket, “Open the van! If there is anyone left alive in there, we’ll take ‘em and sell to slave traders. Grab the key, Demon!” he said and then threw the key up towards Demon.

“Jackal, there’s a lot of dead bodies, in brief, it’s gross,”Demon’s voice came, “Look for yourself – only a few alive”.
There was the clatter of boots and someone’s voices:
“Why did you shoot?”
“It was you who was not driving straight; you could not aim at the wheels”
“Idiot, you said that there were weapons in there, who said that there was living material in there?”
I was lying with my face buried in someone’s body and closed my eyes. I became alert, very much alert that we were called genetic material, and they also said that they wanted to sell the survivors into slavery. I realized that I was done, neither the cops taking us anywhere, nor these robbers had good intentions for us. And then I was attacked by a terrible overwhelming feeling that I got into a hostile world, where there is an eternal darkness, and out of this darkness thousands of predatory eyes look at me, and sharp fangs ready to tear me up glitter everywhere. At that moment I felt that my life was hanging in the balance.
“What are we gonna do, Jackal?”
“And, what do you think? The bodies need be uploaded, we gotta carry them to the grove far away from the road.  It is advisable they were not be visible from the road. Let’s get to work.”
Again the sound of footsteps, then the rustle of clothes. Then in the distance, talking and swearing. I was lying still, I realized that the robbers were taking out the bodies of the killed children and unloading them from the van. Someone of the survived children was sobbing, someone was breathing heavily, I didn’t hear anything, I had no courage to raise my head and watch, and I was lying still. And then someone’s hands grabbed me by the trouser leg and pulled to the exit.
“Grab his hands”, a voice sounded.
When I was dragged up to the doors, another man grabbed my hands and these two were taking me somewhere. According to the uneven ground, I realized that we got off the highway and we were walking on the ground.
“Come on, rock and throw for a count one, two, three!” a voice was heard.
“One”, I was nodded, “two” – again. At the word “three”, after the swaying, two people holding my hands and legs suddenly released me and I flew aside falling on something soft. Opening my eyes, I saw that I landed on a pile of corpses of the rest of the children, a little apart from me there were the corpses of the two policemen. I did not dare to move, I was lying still and was looking at the highway, a pile of the corpses was located not far from the highway, so I could easily observe everything that was happening. One by one,men in black clothes pulled the bodies out of the vehicle and put them in a pile, four more persons were thrown next to me.
“Jackal, five alive and one wounded,” Demon saidto the man with a gun.
“Bring ‘em!” Jackalroared.
Demon went to the truck and dragged a kid, writhing from the pain by the neck of the jacket. Jackal lifted his working shirt, all covered with blood, and then inspected carefully the wound and said:
“Injury to the stomach. He’s gone. Shoot ‘im, Demon!”
Jackal stepped aside;Demon sharply took off the shotgun from the shoulder againand shot the child in the head almost point blank. The child’s head was torn into two parts.  And then I could not hold back the rolling attack of vomiting, I felt a strong cramp in my stomach, but since my stomach was empty, the cramps stopped, leaving room for dizziness. The murdered child was carried to the pile and threw near its base.
Then the robbers began again to talk, I could hear only snatches of their conversation:
“Get behind the wheel of the van!”
“Ok!”
“Should we set the bodies on fire so the staggering ones don’t get it?”
“Are you crazy? We only have five cans of gas left! And we still have the van to get to the city! The staggering ones are not our problem.”
“Do get in!”
All the robbers got in the SUVs, and one of them got in the cabin of the captured van. After a few seconds all the three vehicles drove off, leaving on the road only three huge pools of blood, and dead bodies, hastily stacked one against another in the forest grove near the highway. So it was like that I was keeping company with the dead being alive in the forest grove, which seemed to stretch into an endless distance. It was getting dark, and now the ominous word “Staggering ones” indeed did give me an inhuman horror.


to be continued ...