Chương 17: Victim

It was starting to get dark, running through passages until reaching a kind of alley was a group of three people who seemed to have their clothes powdered and somewhat burned who tried to rest in that place.

- Who did it? - exclaimed Victoria.

- I don't know, but we must get to the mayor's office! - commented Lorenz who was upset.

Then the mayoress looked at Alexander who had escaped with them aggressively.

- You! They were your people!? - asked Victoria.

The young man who could hardly stand up answered - No... I don't know who did this.

The woman didn't believe him and almost lunged at him, but was stopped by her assistant.

- How do we not know if it wasn't your comrades who wanted to kill us all so as not to leave loose ends?!

- Calm down, Victoria! ... Can't you see he's still wounded! - exclaimed Lorenz.

- No ... I work alone. - argued Alexander.

While Victoria was trying to calm down, a sound of footsteps was heard approaching them from not far away.

The echo made the noise resound, which made everyone even more alert and worried.

- Who's there? - Lorenz exclaimed.

The echo only got louder indicating that it was getting closer.

After a few seconds, they could hear a child's voice.

- Damn it! Why the fuck are they still alive?!

The presence of a boy of about 12 years old appeared to be coming towards them. However, the appearance of that child was unpleasant: dirty clothes, the smell of cigarettes and alcohol, and that vocabulary was not appropriate for his age.

The child began to smile paranoidly.

- Fuck it! I'll kill them right here!

No one present could believe what they saw in that little boy.

A day had already passed and the team of men sent to the Rivas station to look for help had taken one fifth of the food rations, while the rest had to administer the surplus.

Certainly, the survivors of that train crash were slowly becoming delirious. The sick and wounded treated showed a ratio of three recovered persons for every eight wounded; this made the rest who exhausted their food think that they should not worry about those who did not 'serve'.

Slowly, everyone was becoming more and more greedy with each other.

On the other hand, inside one of the train cars where there were no people, were two elegantly dressed men, although they were somewhat dirty from past events. This pair seemed unconcerned about everything that was going on and were just chatting.

- How many dead are there? - asked the man with dark hair, a black suit and sharp eyes who seemed to be of higher rank than the other.

- About forty ... but we expect them to reach sixty within a day. - commented the other male wearing a white suit indifferently.

- Is that what the doctors said?

- Yes.

- On the other hand, do you think the team they sent will make it to Rivas?

- No ... they will surely die trying ... if we have time, we will take their bodies too. - commented the man dressed in white happily.

- Okay, but... What about Marcus? He seems to have noticed us.

- Do you want us to eliminate him? - spoke the man in white clothes and black shirt who just kept smiling.

The man in black clothes who looked to be about 30 years old just smiled at the comment.

- Anyway, inform the others to make sure that no one else intervenes ... Ah! But tell Renato to look for Vil ... we can't leave without knowing what happened to him.

- He supposedly disappeared with the search party early yesterday morning ... none of the party has been found ... don't you think leaving him to Renato would be inconvenient? He's just recovering..." objected the white guy.

- So you'll go? - asked the guy in the black suit with a sly smile.

- ... I'll go tell Renato. - he answered with a smile.

Being able to walk, Liam was visited by Daniel, Glen and Aren who had informed him of the events so far.

- So it was true that this guy named Marcus was able to deal with all 124 passengers on the train, huh? - commented Liam somewhat surprised.

- Just as you hear ... on the other hand, as we are left of the men, we have been ordered to go foraging in the area ... as there are no wild animals, we won't have to worry about safety. - Glen spoke.

- Yes, on the other hand, it seems that the guy you were sharing the room with has already left, hasn't he? - commented Daniel.

- Yeah ... a guy who ... I don't want to remember him ... but he recovered faster and I guess he'll be minding his own business. - explained Liam.

Bringing with him the rest of that boy's luggage, Aren put it near the piece of furniture he used as a bed.

- I thank you...

- I liked that guy. - said Glen.

- Sure... they're both a couple of..." muttered Liam.

- What did you say! - Glen exclaimed childishly.

- Now now... don't be like that..." said Daniel.

Aren sighed and got up, as some of the remaining men were shouting for that group of young men to go and do the work they had been asked to do and about the search for that scouting party that had gone missing, although no one seemed to care about that anymore.

Liam wanted to go, but no one would allow it.

- You'd better get some rest... if you're better for tomorrow, we'll take you with us. - Aren commented.

That day was a fruitless search; however, the young and old women, few with babies, and elderly could not wait for them to find something and decided to sneak some food rations when the men were gone.

Meanwhile, in that alley where that disturbing boy had appeared, he pulled out a semi-automatic pistol with which he would end the lives of Victoria, Lorenz and Alexander.

However, before he could shoot, amidst the taunts and nasty taunts of that boy, Lorenz was the only one who could notice that Alexander was not with them; he had disappeared.

"He ran away!" he wondered.

Within seconds, that boy noticed it too.

- Where the fuck did that son of a bitch go?!

Lorenz stared straight ahead as if he had noticed something unbelievable.

- ¿?

The boy was a bit surprised as he felt a strange sensation in his body.

Slowly, he felt as if he was falling to the ground, but it wasn't his body, as he was still standing. Yes, he realized at last, his head was rolling on the ground seeing his decapitated body and, behind him, a gray-haired young man with a bloody spear.

- What the... shit...? - was the last thing that infant said seconds before dying.

Falling to the ground, exhausted Alexander seemed to lose consciousness again. Immediately Lorenz carried him and warned Victoria to go to a hospital.

The mayor nodded and they raced off. Alexander's action gave Victoria pause for thought.

A day passed and the problems worsened. The assembled crowd of men complained that there was less food than budgeted; this reached the ears of Marcus who did not seem surprised.

- I guess we reached the critical part ... we can only wait for help to come ... more than a third of us have died ... there is no more food ... and others are getting sick from the cold at night ... ... ... Besides, those guys ... what are they up to ... it looks like I will have to go personally ... I just have to have faith that they made it to Rivas. - commented Marcus sitting in a kind of trunk in that personal cabin alone.

In a moment, he heard a knock on the door of the room where he was.

- Come in.

They knocked again.

- It is open. Come in.

No one entered the room; this made Marcus puzzled, for no one was coming in.

They knocked again.

- So they didn't find anything, huh? - Liam asked indifferently.

- Well, what do you expect, this whole area is rocky ... there are no plants. - replied Glen somewhat frustrated.

- Then wait until tomorrow, I'll go with you and maybe we'll find something. - commented Liam somewhat haughtily.

- If we find something ... well, we will ... like that fog, right, Aren? - spoke Daniel.

- Fog?

- It's not supposed to be foggy at night ... but in the distance you could see the whole place hidden in it all the way to the top of the canyon," Aren explained. - Aren explained.

This left Liam unsure, as he did not understand what it could be.

- That fog ... I noticed it also when the missing team kept inspecting the place. - added the long-haired young man.

- Do you think there is something dangerous inside the fog? - Glen asked.

- I'm not sure ... but it's easy to get lost in a place like that. - replied Aren.

- We'd better let Marcus know tomorrow ... he might have an opinion on this. - commented Daniel.

Putting the conversation aside, the young men prepared to eat what little dinner they had. The batteries of the cell phones were getting discharged leaving the whole train in darkness; they all had to get used to it.

It was already morning and the group of young people set out to see Marcus to ask him about what they had seen yesterday.

When they got to the carriage where he was, they could notice a group of people who were the ones managing the place together with Marcus talking.

- Has something happened? - asked Daniel.

- ... Yes ... well, we don't really know ... it seems that Marcus is not in his cabin or maybe he has fallen asleep. - replied one of the men.

Everyone was questioning, as strangely no one seemed to have gone into Marcus' cabin to check.

- Can we go see him? - asked Daniel.

- Well...if you can go in...since the door seems to be locked from the inside. - replied another of the men.

That being the case the group went to check it out and, just as they said, the door was locked or, rather, it seemed stuck. Even if they knocked, no one answered.

- What do we do now? - Glen asked.

- We can go in through the windows, but ... it's dangerous ... it's very high and there's broken glass everywhere. - replied Liam who had gone with them.

- What if we all hit it at the same time with force? - said Aren.

Everyone was a bit shocked by such a simple idea coming from a guy like that.

- Except for Liam. - he added.

The young man was a little frustrated by the comment, but he understood that he should not exert himself in that way, otherwise he could become a burden in the future.

The three young men positioned themselves in front of the door in position to push it with all their might.

- Good! On the count of one ... two ... three! - Glen indicated.

The three men pushed the door open just a little, but enough for the average person to enter.

As they looked at the bottom of the door they noticed that there was some sort of furniture locking the door. They were somewhat heavy, but the strength of that group was stronger.

It was then that when they all carefully entered the cabin, they saw the silhouette of Marcus sitting on top of a trunk near the window.

- Hey, what's the matter with you! Why aren't you answering?! - Glen exclaimed.

- Hey... Marcus... we need to talk about something..." commented Daniel.

Only Aren and Liam remained silent.

- Don't come closer... - ordered Aren.

Daniel and Glen didn't understand why he said that.

Glen turned to see the figure of Marcus who looked like a normal person sitting a bit far away.

- What's up guys? We just came to ask you about yesterday's fog, no time to waste.

- Enough, Dani... back off. - said Glen.

Daniel was surprised by the seriousness in Glen's words and face and did as he said, and, like the rest, he saw Marcus and realized.

Marcus was dead.

Daniel stepped back again.

- W-What does that mean...? Why?

No one moved from their place for a few seconds, only Aren approached the corpse.

Without touching it, he began to inspect it; another few seconds passed until he noticed a wound on its back. It really was a stab wound. Then he noticed a piece of paper under his foot.

He tried to pick it up, as the shape of the piece seemed to have something written on it.

Pulling it out, he read it.

I guess this is as far as I go. It seems I won't know how this will end, but whoever reads this, I warn you about certain 'passengers'; there are six of them, but one of them disappeared with the search party. Don't trust anyone and, above all, don't go looking for them at night.

Beware of the fog.

After they had all read it, the group was left in great concern. What was in the fog? Who were these 'passengers' mentioned in the text? And who exactly had murdered Marcus?

Afterwards, carefully exiting the cabin, the group went to report Marcus' death; however, those who had accompanied the deceased earlier were nowhere to be found.

- What do we do now? - asked Glen.

Before anyone could answer the question, they heard unhinged screams from both men and women.

- No one will come to save us!

- I want to live!

- There is no more food!

Yes, the supplies had run out in the last two days and, supposedly, the team of men they had sent should have arrived at Rivas station by now; but no one had yet come to rescue them.

The group of young men left the place and went to the end of the train where there was no one. However, they found a group of people kneeling all together who seemed somewhat hurried in what they were doing.

Watching them for a few seconds as the young men approached them, they noticed that they were the group of men managing the place along with Marcus. There were the doctors and technicians included.

As they made a loud noise in their footsteps, the group of men became aware of the presence of those four young men who. All the men reacted surprisingly and aggressively at the sight of them.

Aren and the rest observed that they had food crumbs on their faces and food scraps on the floor. Yes, they still had food rations. However, the worst thing was not that they were hiding food, but that under the train next to them, there were several silhouettes of people lying on the ground.

When they got a good look at that area, they knew that they were the bodies of three or four naked women.

- What are you doing here? - shouted some of the men aggressively.

The young men understood immediately when they saw how the men's faces transformed as if they were beasts.

Those men, who numbered about ten, tried to stand up and attack the four young men. However, Aren, Glen, Daniel and Liam immediately ran away from the place and headed towards a fog in the distance.