On a sparrow's wings

Chapter 4 - Missing

  The night came in two hours but to Anastasia it felt like two days. She tried to strike up a conversation with Michael a couple of time but he always shut her down with his rumbling voice and raspy sighes. He laid there on the bench, his hat over his face, he didn’t try to sleep he only wanted to escape from Anastasia’s conversations and she knew it. He barely moved, only the occasional movement of his hand to adjust his hat. But even that was slow, almost exhausted but not quite. Every so often he would move his legs in a different position but once they did they always returned to stone.

  And there wasn’t anything else she could use to entertain herself. She scratched paint of the lockers, pulled off a couple more tiles, threw pebbles at the other end of the room. But nothing kept her attention for long. When she felt the warmth of the sun go out and saw the room getting engulfed in darkness she felt relief. She didn’t have to stay in here any longer. She poked Michael and went on to climb through the window.

  There were still guards outside but not as much as before. But most of the ones that were left were sitting around campfires and drinking. She could hear their laughter and their bad jokes. The air was filled with them and smell of sweat, vomit and alcohol. The ones that weren’t were standing at what seemed to be the main entrances to the school. And I wasn’t heading that way, at least not yet.

  She went over to the corner and watched the guard stand in front of the door to the locker room. She stood there and waited, hearing him complain about guarding the prisoners. When an hour passed another guard appeared and they talked.

“Come on man! You can leave for half an hour and no one will notice.”

“You know the rules Matt, the boss will have my tongue if I leave.”

“You can ask Andrew to cover for you. He doesn’t want to be there anyways.”

“What the hell. Let’s go.”

The two men walked off and Anastasia saw her opportunity.

  She quickly snuck next to the door and pulled the handle. The door slowly slid open and Michael walked past her, bumping her in the process. She quickly caught up to him.

“Where are you going?”, she whispered to him as they stealthy made their way through the camp.

“The exit.”, Michael continued walking.

“What about Ethan? You promised to help me find him.”

Michael sighed, “I have to go find my stuff anyways.”

  They made their way through the school. A lot of the halls were empty and silent, apart from the noises that echoed through the hall. Anastasia didn’t know why they were celebrating but she was happy that they did. It made going through the school a lot easier and a lot less dangerous. The school was erie with the silence, it made Anastasia a bit uneasy. A fight broke out a some point and the shattering of glass was heard but it quickly stopped and the faint sounds of cheers and laughters returned. They came across a room that was locked. All the other rooms they had gone by were wide open and mostly empty or they had some kind of work bench or something of the sort in them. They couldn’t use anything that was on those benches sadly. But this room was locked so there had to be something useful inside.

  Anastasia wondered how to open the door when Michael’s foot went right in front of her face and kicked the door open.

“Jesus! What are you doing?”, she shuttered back.

He grumbled and entered the room. Anastasia followed him in. The room wasn’t big so she was able to survey it fairly quickly. She saw a few backpacks and recognized one of them as hers, but Ethan’s wasn’t there. She went over to it and opened it to see if her stuff were still in it. She found everything like she left had left them. This guys aren’t very tidy. They left everything from the prisoners in this room and left to drink it seemed.

  Michael put on one of the backpacks and rummaged through the others. He found a family picture. He looked at it for a while, slid his thumb across it and threw it. It shattered against the wall and the picture left the frame and slowly fell on the ground.

“Hey! That’s important to someone, you can’t just break it!”

“Was. We were the only prisoners.”

“He could still be alive. You said they also enslave people.”

“If he was a slave his stuff would be with him and not here.”

“So Ethan’s a slave. Where do they send the slaves?”

“Don’t know.”

  Michael got up and headed out, Anastasia followed him. They headed through the halls once again.

“Well how can we find out?”

“Ask a guard.”

“I can’t do that.”

   They crept against the wall to a corridor. Anastasia saw a guard walking down the hall and I had an idea.

“Grab him.”

“What?”

“So I can question him.”

“And why would I help you?”

“Because it’s what good people do.”

Michael crossed his arms and leaned against the wall.

“Fine. I can pay you.”

Michael stood and right as the guard walked past them he grabbed him into a choke hold. He squeezed him hard. Anastasia pulled his hand a bit looser because the man couldn’t talk. He coughed for ten seconds before Anastasia asked questions.

  “Hey! A boy was brought in, tall, broad shoulders, looks like me. Where is he?”

“f**k off.”

Michael squeezed a bit harder.

“Okay, okay”

Michael loosened his grip.

“The boss made the kid a runner. He is headed for Chicago. That’s all I know. I swear.”

Michael quickly twisted his neck and a pop was heard. Michael let go of the man and he fell on the floor liveless. The last bit of air left his body and with it Anastasia’s shock settled in to her. Michael crouched over his corpse and looted him. Like he was some backpack he dropped.

  “What the… why did you kill him?”, she held her head as she stared at Michael, her as open as they could have been. Michael stood holding the man’s smg and looking it over. He nodded and put the gun strap around his neck and walked. Anastasia stepped in front of him and placed her hand on his chest. That’s when she realised how tall he was, he was even taller than Ethan. I had to tilt her head to look at his face.

“Why did you kill him?”, Anastasia demanded. She must have looked years younger, with her big eyes and confused stare.

“That’s the world we live in, girl. Deal with it.”, he grabbed her hand and moved it away roughly and he continued stomping down the hall. He called her girl again like she was some helpless little puppy and he was the big bad wolf. And before he was at the end of the hall he slowly tilted his head backwards, “This is done. You can f**k off.”, and he continued through the hall.

Why did it have to be him? Of all people why him? Anastasia thought as I reluctantly followed after him, while keeping her distance.

  They came to a double door with two guards standing on the other side of it. Michael looked through the window of the door. He pulled out his knife and kicked in the door. One of the men fell to the ground. Michael’s knife entered the standing man’s throat and quickly exited it, a fountain of blood spurted out as the man’s hands came to it and he gargled. It found its way through the air and into the other man’s forehead, ignoring his helmet. Anastasia was shocked once again. No one had managed to shock her that many times in such a short time. But she was a bit impressed of how fast he moved. Michael once again looted the corpses, taking their magazines and guns. The three smgs were shaking around his neck and hitting each other, making noises. He headed towards the Des Plaines river that split the town in half.

  Anastasia pondered whether to follow. On the one hand he was an awful mean man who didn’t even want to help her. That had no remorse and would kill her too if he had something to gain from it. But on the other hand treading the wasteland on your own was almost suicidal and she doubted that any of the bandits would volunteer to help her. And she did like having someone to talk to even if it was a sore old man who rarely responded. So she decided to follow after him.