The Devouring Read online

  “Really…? That’s horrible,” Casey said gently.

  Mila looked at her. “Yeah, sure, but we haven’t got time for a history lesson right now. If we can’t get out of here, Hitler’s gonna be responsible for one more dead Rom. Let’s get to work.”

  Before they could get another piece of furniture, Casey’s head spun and her knees buckled. She gripped the far corner of the desk to keep from falling over. It took a moment for Jack and Mila to notice.

  “What happened? Are you OK?” Jack asked.

  “I just got really dizzy,” Casey said.

  “Take it easy. We’ll get out of here soon,” Jack assured her.

  Casey limped over to the nearest wall to move away from the desk.

  He and Mila started for the second desk that fortunately was smaller than the first. They dragged it over, lined it up next to the first, and braced themselves.

  “On three,” Mila said.

  They counted together: “One … two … three!”

  With a groan, they heaved the second desk up and onto the worn surface of the first. The stacked desks reached about five feet into the air.

  Mila headed to the far wall and grabbed a worm-eaten wooden chair. “All right, this should be easy,” he said, placing the chair on top of the stack. Confidently, he climbed onto the first desk, then the second, then onto the chair. He went into a crouch. “Maybe I can jump on this, then help you two—”

  With a loud snap, the chair seat split in two. Mila fell flat on his backside, then tumbled onto the dusty concrete floor. He choked back an “ouch” and rose silently to his feet.

  “Well done,” Jack said, clapping his hands sarcastically.

  “Shut up,” Mila snapped.

  “Hey, it’s your fault we’re down here,” Jack retorted.

  “My fault? I was trying to help you! You ran into the tunnel.”

  “That’s because your friends attacked us!” Jack shouted.

  Mila shouted back, “He is not my friend! Just because he is a Gypsy doesn’t mean he’s my friend! I only followed you into the tunnel to get away from the police.”

  “Why would you run from the police?” Jack asked.

  “’Cause they would have arrested me!”

  “Why? What did you do?” asked Jack.

  “Why do you think I did anything? You don’t have to be guilty of a crime to be arrested when you’re a Gypsy!” said Mila angrily.

  Suddenly, the bunker began to violently shake, breaking the escalating argument. Frightened, they scrambled for something stationary to hold on to, then realized that the tremors must have been caused by an approaching train. It soon passed.

  “Looks like the trains are still running,” said Jack.

  “Yeah,” said Mila. “That means our problems are not over once we climb out.”

  “What do we do?” Casey asked.

  The three teens stopped to rack their brains for a solution.

  “I got it!” Jack said. “We’ll have to time it just right to beat the trains.”

  “You’re right,” Casey agreed. “We’ve been in here what, maybe fifteen minutes? We’ll have to climb out the second after the train passes. Then it’s anybody’s guess if we’ll have enough time to escape from the tunnel before the next train!”

  “It’s worth a try. When the next train comes, I’ll start counting to see how much time we have,” Jack said.

  “Good idea,” Mila said. “Why don’t we get busy and look for something to raise us up to the opening, so we can climb out?”

  The teens got to searching. A few moments later, Casey stumbled upon some old radio wire and took it to Mila. “Will this work?” she asked, holding out the coil of thin metal.

  Mila grabbed the rusty wire. It was only about four feet long: not strong enough to hold either one of them. As he handed it back to her, he noticed she was flushed and sweating. “Are you OK?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure. It’s really hot in here,” she said as she mopped her forehead, which was beaded with sweat.

  “I got something!” Jack yelled from across the bunker.

  Mila and Casey walked over to see that Jack had found a tall bookshelf that they could easily place over the desks and climb up like a ladder. “That should work great!” Mila said.

  “Hey, are you OK?” Jack asked Casey, noticing her pale face and weakened state. Something was clearly wrong.

  “It’s nothing. I’ll be fine,” she reassured him.

  Wrapping an arm around Casey’s back, Jack helped her over to a pile of collapsed concrete and supported her as she sat down against it. “Your eyes look really bloodshot, too,” he said with concern.

  “It’s all the dust in here. My contacts are killing me.”

  “Ouch, that’s no fun. Just wait here and rest those eyes while I move the bookshelf,” Jack said confidently, as if he could do it alone.

  Together, he and Mila shoved the heavy piece of furniture toward the desk, then heaved it up on top. Another train passed in what seemed like another quarter hour or so. The boys agreed to position themselves at the stack of furniture just after the next train went by, hoping that would give them time to climb out and run for the exit. Once they were reasonably certain their makeshift ladder and escape plan could work, they turned their attention back to Casey’s condition. “You think she’s OK?” Mila asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Jack answered. “If this really is Hitler’s bunker, there could be poison down here or something.”

  Just then, another train rumbled through the tunnel. Jack began to count the seconds. “One, one thousand. Two, one thousand—” as he reached sixty, he’d yell out how many minutes had passed, then start again from one.

  Mila hopped off the desk and walked over to where Casey was sitting quietly with her eyes closed. “Hey, we’ll be out of here soon,” he said, softly wiping the sweat from her face.

  She turned to face him and opened her eyes. “I’ll be fine,” she said unconvincingly, her voice weak. Mila saw that the whites of her beautiful blue eyes were now covered with a blood-red web. “I have to take my contacts out as soon as we’re out of here…if we get out,” she said, looking at him uncertainly. “Mila…right?”

  “Yeah, and you’re Casey,” he stated.

  “So, you really learned how to speak English from comic books like Whistleblower?” Casey asked.

  “Well … not exactly. I learned English from movies and music mostly. I learned American slang from Whistleblower, like ‘cool, man’ and ‘badass,’” he answered, awkwardly leaning against a pile of broken concrete next to her.

  “You’re right. Lisa Carver is a badass,” Casey chuckled.

  Mila smiled with embarrassment. “I should go check on your boyfriend.”

  “He’s not my boyfriend,” Casey said brusquely.

  Mila raised an eyebrow in doubt.

  “What?” she asked. “He’s not!”

  “OK,” Mila said as he turned away.

  Clearly annoyed, Casey went on. “Why do you think he’s my boyfriend?”

  Mila stopped and turned back. “I saw you kiss him when you left the painting earlier.”

  “So? That doesn’t mean anything!” said Casey.

  “Well, in my world a kiss means everything!” said Mila calmly.

  Casey paused to consider his statement. “It’s complicated … you know, like your painting,” she said, clearly annoyed and wanting to change the subject.

  “Five!” Jack shouted. “One, one thousand, two, one thousand,”

  Mila chuckled. He realized the mention of the kiss ticked Casey off.

  “Oh, real nice,” she complained. “My ankle is killing me, my eyes hurt, I’m probably riddled with tetanus, and now you’re laughing at me.”

  “Sorry,” Mila replied, trying not to laugh again at Cas
ey’s rant.

  “What was with that painting, anyway?” she asked.

  “If you really want to know, we were just trying to wreck the damn thing. We figured once it was ruined, they would have to take it down.”

  “But, why? It’s just a print of an old painting,” she replied, confused and frustrated. “What am I missing?”

  Mila paused. It was too much to get into, but he knew if he didn’t say something, she would think the Rom were a bunch of thieving vandals. He couldn’t stand the thought of her feeling that way about him, especially after what Simon did. “You see, the painting is just like the Holocaust: they’re trying to eliminate us from the face of the earth,” he explained. “The painting shows the empress of Austria holding a scroll. The scroll is a proclamation that ordered her soldiers to rape Gypsy women. The plan was to eliminate our race by diluting our Romani bloodline. And what’s worse, the story is true. It’s a historical fact.”

  “That’s disgusting! Who would paint something like that?” Casey asked.

  “I dunno. Some Austrian asshole,” Mila joked.

  “Are you messing with me?” Casey asked. “I’ve aced AP history every year in school, and I never heard of anything like that.”

  “I swear it’s all true,” Mila assured her. “The painting tells the story. It was long ago, but we have not forgotten. As a matter of fact, my superstitious Aunt Nasta claims the scepter the empress holds embodies the story’s deepest evil and that it is possibly even cursed. It’s the symbol of her power to give such an order.”

  “Is that why you freaked out when I snapped the picture?” Casey asked.

  Mila took a moment to think back. Why did I freak out? He struggled with his own thoughts. “I don’t know. Maybe,” he said.

  “Why don’t people talk about this?” Casey asked. “Why is it left out of the history books?”

  “We Rom are always left out. If no one talks about the Nazis trying to exterminate us, why would they care about some Austrian doing the same thing hundreds of years ago?”

  “Yeah ... I mean, I took a Holocaust studies class, and my teacher never said anything about gyp-I mean, the Romani people.”

  “We don’t call it the Holocaust. We call it Porajmos, which means ‘the devouring,’” Mila said.

  “I didn’t realize …” Casey whispered.

  They paused a moment, just listening to Jack count.

  “Fifty-nine, one thousand. Sixty, one thousand. Ten!”

  “Well if it means anything, I think this was all my fault,” Casey confessed. “It was my idea to ditch the class today and go off on our own. We weren’t even supposed be in Berlin for that matter,” she said regretfully.

  “Why is that?”

  “Our trip got all screwed up from a flight problem. We were kinda forced to be here for the whole day. We leave for Austria tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Mmm, I see,” Mila said. Could this have something to do with what I saw in the dream? he wondered.

  “I didn’t believe her,” he whispered to himself.

  “What was that? Casey asked.

  “Oh nothing—was something stupid my superstitious aunt told me.”

  “Get into position!” Jack called before resuming his count. He dashed across the space to help Mila get Casey over to the makeshift ladder. She was now squinting even more.

  “Hey! Up here!”

  All three of them looked up. A shadowy face stared down at them from the hole in the ceiling.

  “Who’s there …?” Jack asked, losing his count.

  “Deborah!” Casey exclaimed.

  “If you can reach me, I can pull you up,” the woman said, extending a well-muscled arm in their direction.

  “Deborah?” Jack said to Casey.

  “The empty seat, remember? Oh my God! I knew Uncle John would never trust me on my own. Thank God for that!”

  “Never mind that! Hurry!” Mila insisted.

  “He’s right. We’ve got less than five minutes!” Jack added.

  Working on pure adrenaline, Casey climbed up the bookshelf, her legs a little wobbly. “I’m the shortest. If I can make it, so can you guys.”

  She stood on the top shelf and reached up. Deborah’s hand was inches away.

  Casey stretched her arm as far as her muscles would allow, barely grazing Deborah’s fingertips.

  “I can’t reach!” Casey panicked.

  “Hurry, we are running out of time!” Jack pleaded, not helping the cause.

  Without a second thought, Deborah reached for her satchel that was drooped over her shoulder. “Grab hold of this!” Deborah demanded, fashioning the strap into a tiny noose, and lowering it into the bunker.

  Casey rose onto her tiptoes. She was so close. At last, she bent at the knees, leaped up, and grabbed Deborah’s strap with both hands. Deborah pulled Casey up with no trouble.

  Jack climbed on top of the desk next, then clambered up the bookshelf. He, too, needed to jump a bit but managed to grab hold of Deborah’s makeshift noose.

  As the tallest, Mila didn’t need to jump. The woman’s strength amazed him: Deborah pulled him up with one arm, letting out just a slight sigh as she did. Once free from the bunker, Mila stood stunned a minute as he got a better look at Deborah. She stood a good two or three inches taller than him, making her over six feet tall. The flashlight she carried cast menacing shadows over her already stern face. She wore her hair in a close-cut bob, almost military-looking, which clashed with her more feminine pearl earrings. If he had to guess her age, he’d say forty years, forty very harsh years.

  Free from the bunker, the three teens collapsed on the loose gravel that lined the subway tracks. But their rest was short-lived. In a moment, they spotted lights advancing down the tunnel.

  “Not again,” Mila groaned.

  “Come on, the station’s close,” Deborah said. “We can make it.”

  She picked up Casey and broke into a sprint. The other three followed, and the light of the nearest platform soon came into view. It was only about a hundred feet away, but the train was closing in on them fast. “Keep moving!” Deborah shouted, “and get ready to jump!”

  They reached the platform and vaulted over the ledge to safety. Mere seconds later, the train flew through the tunnel and a gust of wind blew through the station. They all lay sprawled on the tile for a moment, then clambered to their feet as the train pulled to a stop.

  “Everyone all right?” Deborah asked.

  “I guess,” Jack muttered.

  Mila nodded.

  “I’m fine,” Casey replied.

  “No, you’re not,” Deborah argued. She pointed to Casey’s bleeding arm. “That needs to be looked at.” The blood had soaked right through Mila’s makeshift bandage.

  Casey shot her a sardonic look but didn’t argue. The subway doors hissed open behind her.

  Jack turned to Deborah. “How’d you find us?” he asked.

  “She can track my phone,” Casey replied with annoyance.

  “She can what? How? But we lost your phone!” Jack exclaimed.

  “It must have been close by,” Deborah said.

  “No way! We searched everywhere. Unless…” Jack trailed off and looked around the platform. “Where’s Mila?”

  The three of them looked around. Mila had vanished. Then, as if with the same thought, they all turned to the subway train just as its doors slid shut. There was Mila, inside the nearest car. They watched him pull the phone from his pocket as the train began to move, gathered speed, and sped away.

  VI

  The Chaperone?

  Bundestag Station was nearly empty, except for a few derelicts who were rushing in to seek refuge from an unexpected thunderstorm that had suddenly appeared over Berlin. The winds reverberated through the building, echoing all the way down to the subway platform. Debora
h rushed a dreary Casey over to the vacant steel benches that lined platform 3.

  “I can’t believe he stole your phone!” Jack said while pacing behind them, still shocked by the apparent betrayal Mila had committed just moments ago.

  Deborah immediately took a knee beside Casey and began to fumble through her satchel.

  “That phone has to be at least $600. I guess Mr. G was right about the Gypsies,” Jack continued.

  The chaperone pulled out what looked like a first-aid kit and a small pen.

  “Whoa!” Jack gasped at the flick! of a sharp blade as it emerged from the butt end of the pen. He was awestruck as he watched Deborah use the gadget to cut the makeshift bandage that Mila had applied earlier in the bunker. She then cleaned the wound with antibiotic ointment.

  “I think it had something to do with the picture I took of the painting,” Casey said in a weak voice.

  “Picture of the painting?” Jack asked, flabbergasted over the chaperone’s precise work, not to mention her pen-knife that seemed to come straight out of a spy novel.

  “The picture … the picture!” Casey said, desperately out of breath but trying to shake Jack out of his mini-trance. “The one I took on my phone, of the painting. I noticed it freaked Mila out when I snapped those pictures.” It was obvious that Casey was rapidly growing weaker.

  “You mean the painting in the ad for the museum?” Jack asked. “Why would he freak out about that?”

  “Are you lightheaded?” Deborah interrupted as she pulled out some Steri-Strips and OD green gauze. Her voice bore just the hint of an accent, but Jack couldn’t place it.

  “I’m fine, it’s just … my eyes are burning …”

  Deborah retracted the blade, flipped the pen around, then shined a beam of light into Casey’s eyes.

  “Damn. That’s like a Swiss army pen,” Jack joked. “I bet it’s got a toothpick and a magnifying glass, too.”

  “Remove your contacts. Right now. Do it!” Deborah said, revealing a slight panic that the teens had yet to witness from the stern chaperone.