The Task Is To Survive

Surviving the Morning Commute Terror

I completely overslept for the attack. I'd developed the habit of dozing off in the slow-moving morning traffic jams of the minibus since my student days. At first, I'd do it on the way to college, and in the last two years, even on the way to work. And so today, as soon as I'd grabbed a window seat and handed the driver the fare, I leaned back and dozed off. I was terribly sleepy – the effects of a sleepless night at Aslan's birthday party, filled with alcohol and cigarettes, pent-up emotions, and wasted energy were taking their toll. I fell asleep in the early morning, after the last of the girls had left. And just after eight, Aslan woke me up, needing to go to work. Having barely managed to open my eyes from fatigue, I splashed some water on my swollen face and trudged to the bus station, where I boarded a minibus heading to Moscow and intended to sleep for an hour and a half while the small minibus crawled towards Moscow through the traditional morning traffic jams of the Shchyolkovskoye Highway.

I was awakened by the alarmed scream of a fellow passenger in the minibus, immediately joined by several other frightened voices. Half asleep, I didn't immediately understand the cause of the commotion, but then I looked ahead and saw everything through the windshield with my own eyes. Cars, slowly crawling across the bridge in traffic, were exploding one after another! They flew up, engulfed in flames, tumbled, and fell onto other cars. Now a dark gray jeep exploded, flying high into the air and falling off the bridge into the river. Now a passenger car was torn to pieces. The explosions were getting closer and closer with each passing second. Panic broke out in the minibus, women screamed in terror. Then a Gazelle truck exploded with a roar, flying off the road somewhere, right in front of our car. I stared ahead at the approaching death, unable to move from terror. For a moment, it seemed to me that the bridge ahead had collapsed right under the large bus. But then it was our minibus's turn. A violent impact struck the front of the Ford, a wave of hot flames swept through the cabin, and the dying passengers screamed hysterically.

I was sitting at the very back of the car, and that was the only thing that saved me. With difficulty tearing my gaze away from the woman burning alive, trying to open the jammed door, I noticed that the side window next to me had cracked. This was my chance at salvation! I slammed my fist into the glass with all my might, breaking my knuckles until they bled. Another blow! Another! Another! Add my elbow! It became difficult to breathe in the burning car; there was a catastrophic lack of oxygen. I greedily gasped for the last of the air, thinking that another half minute and I would die—either burn or suffocate. I slammed my fists and elbow into the damned glass a few more times with all my might, but it only cracked, not crumbled. In desperation, I jumped up on my seat and kicked the cracks several times with my boot. It worked! The glass broke, shards rained out. Here was the path to salvation!

But before I could rejoice at my luck, some guy suddenly pushed me aside and jumped out of the hole first. I fell onto a screaming, bloodied woman in the seat next to me. For some reason, she grabbed my arms tightly, preventing me from breaking away and escaping.

"Get off me!" I screamed, but the woman seemed to have gone crazy and clung to me like a tick.

It was stiflingly hot and unbearably stuffy, the flames quickly spreading throughout the cabin. I realized with horror that because of this madwoman, I was about to burn alive on the bus. Desperation gave me strength; I managed to tear my left hand from the madwoman's clutches and hit the woman hard several times. The unfortunate woman gasped in pain and let go of me. Her gaze became more focused.

"i***t! Get out the window!" I shouted at the woman and set the example myself by jumping through the broken bus window.

I didn't manage to jump out properly. My foot caught on something, or maybe that crazy woman tried to grab me again. The snag sent me careening headfirst onto the pavement, barely managing to get my arms out and slightly cushion my fall. The impact with the ground sent me spinning for a few moments, but when I tried to stand up, someone's strong hand grabbed my shoulder and pulled me to the ground. It was the pensioner.

"Don't get up, you'll die!" he hissed at me, and for some reason I immediately believed him.

It was pure hell all around. Dozens of cars were burning, people were screaming, and more explosions continued. Right before my eyes, a bloodied young girl crawled out of an upside-down car, straightened up, and... turned into a blazing torch!

“Don’t move, boy, if you want to live,” the pensioner whispered.

I was too shocked to argue. I simply tried to believe my savior first, and then I saw the source of the threat myself. A strange, large, dark object, resembling an elongated isosceles triangle with a downward-facing acute angle, was floating directly above the road, about thirty meters above the ground. I couldn't determine the size of this flying machine, but it was large and clearly metallic. It was also a source of death—several small turrets mounted on the sides of this flying contraption were rotating, periodically illuminated by gunfire. With each shot, I heard a strange sound, like the hiss of water evaporating from the surface of a hot frying pan: "psssssshhhh." Following the wise old man's advice, I pressed myself to the ground and froze, pretending to be dead.

***

The shots rang out less and less frequently, but the strange flying craft continued to circle above the road, searching for new victims. Several times, I even saw its shadow on the ground. A little belatedly, the fear set in that this terrifying human hunter might notice my body had disappeared and guess that its prey had hidden somewhere. On the other hand, it was too late to worry about what had already happened. And most importantly, there was no molten plastic dripping onto my back. And the car was no longer on fire; the heat emanating from it was gradually fading. A multitude of questions raced through my head. How could I explain what was happening? What should I do next? How long would this craft hang over the road? And what if the terrifying hunter never flew away?