Kat got back to me about her plane idea and said it won’t work, the distance it would have to fly is just too far for the fuel it can carry. If it could refuel on this end there would be no problem, but then we could just use one of our regular jets if we could refuel. Heading south just leads us to unfriendly countries, so, the only realistic solution is to head north again, something the authorities would never expect. That’s what we will do, head back into Russia. Even Papa Levi would not likely expect us to do something so stupid.

Now we need a train again, preferably a passenger train this time, and one should be coming along within about an hour. We got everyone ready and fortunately there were some railway lights along here, so we turned on the caution light which should slow the train enough that we can get on board easily. When the train came I was overjoyed to see that there were no less than 6 empty passenger cars on this train, all at the end, so we chose the last one and everyone got on board before the train began to speed up again.

Guess they got word that there was no reason to slow down. Now we can relax until we get to our destination, then we have another problem, getting off this train without being seen. I will worry about that when we arrive. For now I told everyone to try and get some sleep. Thankfully we were not discovered or disturbed in any way while on the train and we were now starting to slow down. Unfortunately we were now within the city, but it was dark so hopefully no one will see us jumping off.

I carried Cristy and Rock carried Yana, Valeria could jump by herself. We were soon all off the train and had gathered together in one spot. Yana had been here before, so she knew how far it was to the border, but we would have to move quickly to cross the border while it was still dark. So, we didn’t waste time, we began our hike through the city, but in smaller groups so we wouldn’t attract as much attention, hopefully. Yana told us this was not a good part of the city, so we should be watchful.

I communicated this with each of the ghosts, there was one with each group. We had 6 people in our group due to having both of our wounded that had to be carried. Rock carried Yana while I carried Cristy. We had Misty and Cindy with us too, plus we had Muffin, Storm and Snow. Everything was going well until a police car came along and stopped next to us. Two officers got out and began to talk, so Yana talked with them.

They could understand Russian okay and they wanted to know why the women were being carried, so Yana told them that if the men wanted them, then they had to carry the women for 2km. The police officers laughed at that one. While they talked, I shot a small lightning ball across the street and into an open window on the third floor of a building. There were several screams which got the attention of the police and they told us we could go, they had to check on that screaming.

Off we went while the police went into the building. We didn’t see them again, so I was much relieved by that. It took quite a while to get out of the city and away from the main border crossing. However, there was still a fence that was in our way. Sky just put up her hand, then pointed to herself, then to the fence. She then cut a square hole in the fence and we were soon on the other side. Then she put the piece of fence back in place, kind of welding it back where it was originally.

It wasn’t perfect, but it won’t be readily noticeable either, until someone walks right past that point, even then they won’t know when that spot was fixed. Now we need to walk as far as possible before daylight. Just as the first light was beginning to show we came to a nice large grove of trees where we could hide for the day. Now if only we had some food for breakfast, all that walking made everyone hungry, naturally, and we had finished the food that older couple had given us, after all, we couldn’t really carry much extra weight and that couple didn’t really have much food to share with us.

So, I sent all of our ghosts out to look for food. They can move faster and therefore cover more territory than the rest of the team. But, while they were away, Jennifer sensed danger and it was directed our way. So, she called the other ghosts to stop what they were doing and head back to the team immediately, we were likely under attack. Kitty is the fastest ghost we have and she was first to arrive, but what did she arrive to? Nothing. The team was gone! Except for three people, Yana, Cristy and myself, plus the cats.

We all lay on the ground, but were we alive or dead? Jennifer was next to arrive, since she was the next fastest ghost. The others arrived together, but by then Jennifer had managed to wake me up. I had been hit from behind with some kind of club and it knocked me out, which I thought was kind of strange. But Jennifer reminded me that although I was Sky’s twin, I was not an actual ghost like they are.

My head is reminding me of that too. I told them there were around 150 men, but not soldiers, and Yana confirmed that too. They also did not appear to be men from Papa Levi, since he was not with them. However, they were not far ahead of us, so if we could find a fast car or two we should be able to catch up with them. Jennifer smiled when I said that and she told Kitty to follow her…

To Be Continued. ©2025 Steve McLeod.