Tom Smith - Child 44

— How long or sharp does it need to be?

— I’ve done most of it. I need anything harder than my fingertip.

Raisa stood up, walking to the body of the man who had tried to rape and murder her. With no sense of justice or satisfaction, only a feeling of disgust, she positioned the dead man’s jaw so that it faced upwards. She raised her shoe directly above his jaw, hesitating, looking around. Everyone was watching. She closed her eyes, bringing her heel down against his front teeth.

Leo crawled over, feeling the inside of the man’s mouth and pulling out a tooth still affixed to a stump of bloody gum, an incisor, not ideal but sharp enough and hard enough to continue the scraping already done. He returned to the hole, lying on his front. Holding the tooth, he squeezed his arm through, finding the remaining nail and continuing to pick away at the wood, pulling off the splinters as they came loose.

The nail was completely exposed. Holding the tooth in the palm of his hand, in case further excavation was necessary, Leo gripped the head of the nail but his fingertips were raw and he was unable to get a fix on it. He pulled his arm out, wiping the sweat and blood off his fingers, wrapping them in a shredded strip of shirt before trying again. Struggling to remain patient, he tugged at the nail, incrementally pulling it free from the plank. That was it: it was done. The third nail had been removed. He checked the wood, feeling for other nails, but there were no more, at least that he could find. He sat up, pulling his arm out of the hole.

Raisa sunk both her hands through the hole, gripping the plank. Leo added his hands. This was the test. They both pulled. The top side of the plank lifted up while the bottom of the plank remained secured. Leo moved over, grabbing the end and lifting it as high as he could. Looking down, he could see the train tracks below the carriage. The plan had worked. Where the plank had lain there was now a gap of about thirty centimetres in width and over a metre in length, barely enough for a person to lower through, but enough all the same.

It would’ve been possible with the help of the other prisoners to snap the plank. But worried that the sound would alert the guards they decided against this. Leo turned to his audience.

— I need people to hold this plank up while we drop through the gap, down onto the tracks.

Several volunteers stood up immediately, coming forward and taking hold of the plank. Leo assessed the space. After they’d squeezed through, they’d fall straight down, directly underneath the train. The distance from the underside of the carriage down to the tracks was perhaps a little over a metre, maybe a metre and a half. The train was travelling slowly but still fast enough for the fall to be dangerous. However, they couldn’t wait. They had to go now, whilst the train was moving, during the night. When the train stopped at daybreak, they’d be seen by the guards.

Raisa took hold of Leo’s hands.

— I’ll go first.

Leo shook his head. He’d seen the blueprints to these prisoner transports. They faced one more obstacle: a final trap for prisoners about to attempt exactly this kind of escape.

— On the underneath of this train, at the very end, the last carriage, there are a series of hooks which hang down. If we fell onto the tracks right now and waited, as the last carriage passed overhead the hooks would snag us, dragging us with the train.

— Can’t we avoid them? Roll out of the way?

— There are hundreds of them, hanging on wires. There’s no way we’d slip through. We’d get tangled up in them.

— What are supposed to do? We can’t wait till the train stops.

Leo examined the two dead bodies. Raisa stood beside him, evidently unsure of his intentions. He explained:

— When you drop down to the tracks, I’ll throw one of these bodies after you. Hopefully it will land somewhere near you. Wherever it lands, you’ll have to crawl to it. Then, once you reach it, lie under it. Position it exactly on top of you. As the last carriage passes overhead the body will get hooked and snagged. But you’ll be free.

He dragged the bodies close to the loose plank, adding.

— Do you want me to go first? If it doesn’t work then you should stay here. Any other death would be better than being dragged along by this train.

Raisa shook her head.

— It’s a good plan. It will work. I’ll go first.

As she was ready to climb down, Leo reiterated his instructions:

— The train isn’t moving fast. The fall will be painful but not too dangerous, make sure you roll with the impact. I’ll throw down one of the bodies. You won’t have much time—

— I understand.

— You must collect the body. When you get it, put yourself underneath it. Make sure no part of you is exposed. If even one hook gets into you, you could be dragged along.

— Leo, I understand.

Raisa kissed him. She was shaking.

She squeezed through the gap between the planks. Her feet were dangling above the tracks. She let go of the plank and fell, disappearing from view. Leo grabbed the first body and lowered it through the gap, squeezing it through. The body dropped onto the tracks, out of sight.

Raisa had landed awkwardly, bruising her side and tumbling. Disorientated, dazed, she lay still for a moment. Too long, she was wasting time. Leo’s carriage was already far away. She could see the body which Leo had thrown down and began to crawl towards it, in the same direction as the train. She glanced behind her. There were only three carriages until the end of the train. But she couldn’t see any hooks. Perhaps Leo had been wrong. There were now only two carriages left. Raisa still hadn’t reached the body. She stumbled. There was now only one carriage separating her from the end of the train. With only metres before the final carriage passed over her, she saw the hooks — hundreds of them, all attached to fine wires, at different heights. They covered the entire width of the carriage, impossible to avoid.

Raisa got up, crawling again, as fast as she could, reaching the body. It was laying face down, head nearest her. She didn’t have time to turn it around so she turned herself around, lifting up the body and crawling under this man, positioning her head under his head. Face to face with her attacker, staring into his dead eyes, she made herself as small as possible.

Suddenly the dead body was wrenched off her. She saw wires all around her, like fishing lines, each one barbed with many jagged hooks. The body lifted up, as though alive, a puppet, tangled up, no longer even touching the tracks. Raisa remained flat on the tracks, perfectly still. She could see the stars above her. Slowly she stood up. No hook had caught her. She watched the train move away. She’d done it. But there was no sign of Leo.

As he was larger than Raisa, Leo had figured that he needed the bigger of the two dead men, he’d need more body mass to protect him from the hooks. However, this dead man was so large he didn’t fit through the gap in the planks. They’d stripped him in an effort to reduce his width but he was too broad. There was no way to get him through the hole. By this point Raisa had been on the tracks for several minutes.

Desperate, Leo lowered his head though the gap. He could see a body caught at the end of the train. Was it Raisa or the dead man? It was impossible to tell from this distance. He had to hope it was the dead man. Adjusting his plan, he supposed that if he positioned himself correctly he could escape underneath this tangled body. That body would have caught all the hooks in that section. He’d be free to pass underneath it. He said goodbye to the other prisoners, thanked them, and dropped onto the tracks.