Hell is Empty

Hell is Empty- Chapter 2

I must have dozed off for a while at least because after what seemed to be another bumpy half an hour the sky is already dark and a low voice speaking into the top of my head gently rouses me.

“Hey, Callie, we’ve stopped. Think we’re here.” George tells me as I sit up straight, checking his shoulder for dark patches and feeling relieved when I see none: at least I haven’t drooled on my kind stranger. On George’s other side, Mia is slowly coming round, clearly she has achieved a deeper slumber than me. She stretches out her arms as far as she can in the confined space, full of anxiously shuffling people, and rolls her head around.

A soldier flips down the metal panel at the back of the truck and tells us to get out. We do; no good ever comes from disobeying military orders, you end up imprisoned, or shot, or worse.

We all wait in small clumps about the truck; the night air is biting and smells sharp; winter is just about to start setting in, not that I have any idea of the exact date. Mia wraps herself around George and I cannot tell if she is protecting him from the cold or keeping herself warm. I zip up the parka further so it covers my mouth and put the hood up until I only have a thin strip to see out of.

On the surface the Safe Zone looks like a normal village: houses lined up neatly, picturesque scenery, little independent shops. But then you look closer and you see that many walls are peppered with bullet holes and the construction work down the road is building a bomb shelter complete with lead casing in the meter thick concrete walls and the whole thing is just a compound surrounded by a fence as though we were battery farm animals being prepared for the slaughter. I feel trapped. The panic rises. Mustn’t let it win.

A soldier barks orders at us; he wants us off his hands so he can get some rest, things like families with young children get priority, where to collect ration packs, where unaccompanied children should go.

“Stick with us.” George whispers and I nod as we fall into line, trying to ignore my shaking legs. When we reach the front, George explains that we are his two adopted sisters and if possible could we stay together? He makes sure they see his missing arm. After a while they fold. The woman, dressed up in an army uniform that looks as though she hasn’t taken it off for a week, hands Mia a set of keys and points us towards a house.

“You’ll all have to share one room, I’m afraid. If you need to stay together, that’s the best I can do.” Mia beams at her and it seems her smiles are somewhat contagious.  The corners of the soldier’s lips twitch upwards, before turning into a sheepish grin and sending us on our way.  George puts his arm around his sister’s shoulders and I follow behind, picking up a blanket and a ration pack on the way. I’m not really sure why I feel this need to tag along with the siblings, I’ve been getting along almost fine on my own for months. I think it’s because they are different somehow. Walking through the dark streets, I don’t feel like I need light to see. I have Mia and George in front, lighting the way for me. Mia’s laughter, genuine laughter of a kind I haven’t heard in far too long, filling the streets and bouncing off the cold walls and hanging in the cold air.

We reach the house and it just looks so painfully normal that it’s almost laughable. It’s just an ordinary, semi-detached house on a housing estate: red bricks, sash windows, muffled chatter from people already inside; there’s even a faded welcome mat. Mia bounces up to the door, painted a bright shade of red, smiling out onto the street, and opens it. She calls out and a woman greets us.

Apparently the owners of the house were evacuated along with the rest of the town when the fighting escalated in this place. The military fought back and won the place and thought it would make a good safe zone for civilians. A lot of people returned when the radio announced that their home was once again safe, they were now housing evacuees too, but not the family in this house. They hadn’t returned. Everyone knew what that meant. As such, the three bedrooms are going to be split between three families, or rather groups in our case, one to each.