Shadow Walker

Train Hopping

Anger. It simmered beneath the complete and utter vocal silence of the protest march. It was in every breath, every fisted hand, every narrowed gaze. It was in the thousands of percussive feet tramping the brick and bitumen of the Terrace as they made their way towards Parliament Square. It was in the blanket white faces raised to the night sky.

All around, protestors wore material tied around their mouths—scarves, tea-towels, strips of fabric from old articles of clothing. Some had even found surgical face masks that reflected the moonlight and made them look even more like an army of the dead keening to a full moon. Dec covered his mouth with his sleeve in a futile attempt to blend in and stave off his chances of contracting the Desert Sickness.

To his left, a barefooted man dragged a chain adorned with padlocks. Each padlock bore the letters of the phrase, 'Free the South' in bold, black marker. A shirtless man stooped under the weight of a crucifix, soldered with the words, "No more night". Blood dripped in his wake from the place on his shoulder where the wood had chaffed through his skin. To his right, a boy no older than Mel held a homemade placard to his chest with a childish sketch of three skulls with bony hands covering the eyes, ears and mouth in succession.

As the march reached the base of the bridge and broadened into an intersecting highway, Dec slipped behind the central arch of the railway station entrance and braced himself against the cool stone. All around, trucks and cars came to a standstill while some tried to inch their way into a U-turn to go back in the direction they'd come. Further down the Terrace, towards the Western side of the city, the grounds of Parliament Square filled with silent protestors, above which, the Southern flag flopped listlessly in the breeze—red for the desert, yellow for the wheat and the sands of the coast and orange for the sun—arranged in concentric, overlapping circles.

Dec shivered as the railway clock above his head chimed the early morning hour—one, two, three—sending vibrations down his spine and over the eerie, muted crowd. A long, dark shape flickered in the corner of his eye and his head snapped towards it in the expectation of raven hair and Rain's silent approach. But it was just the elongated shadow of a protestor caught in the headlights of a truck.

Two minutes passed in which Dec re-lived the sickening crack of the firearm and imagined Rain, spread eagle on the pavement, almond eyes flat and unseeing, blood making runnels down the long disused gutter. She'd told him to wait at the train station. But how would he know if she was even coming? Hell, what if she was dead? Did the human body make some kind of tell-tale noise when it was torn through by a bullet?

As the image of Rain, spread eagle on the footpath, threatened its way into his head again, he pushed himself off the cool, stone wall and waded against the surge of the crowd towards a spiral staircase next to the unattended ticket booth. Sparing a glance back to make sure he wasn't being followed, he took the stairs two at a time, footsteps whorling upwards, eyes scanning for a place to hide the trackpad.

The stairs opened onto a platform at the edge of the overpass, boxed in by a steel safety rail on one side and a double brick retaining wall on the other, shielding him from the banked up traffic. He was alone, for now, and a quick scan of the area determined it was clear of surveillance cameras. But he needed to be quick. Crouching against the brick wall, his fingers found a crack between the grout.

He pulled the trackpad out of his sleeve.

"I told you to wait for me at the train station." The voice came from behind and he spun to meet it.

Rain stood at the top of the stairs, eyes darting between the trackpad and the cracked wall. She seemed unharmed, though her breathing tripped and stumbled like a blown tyre on a dirt road.