STALKER Southern Comfort by Balazs Pataki
Into the Catacombs
Bunker level, 12 October 2014, 12:40:41 AFT
Zlenko’s Geiger counter is reading normal values while the five men cautiously proceed further into the steeply descending tunnel, weakly lit by the emergency lights fastened to the wall.
“Put that thing away for now,” Tarasov tells him. “You’ll hear when it goes beyond normal. Keep your eyes peeled.”
The tunnel leads downwards and is reinforced with concrete beams, making Tarasov wonder how much work it took and, even more, what secrets lie hidden in the depths would justify these efforts.
They have been moving in for more than ten minutes now, descending all the way. The lack of opposition does not relax him. On the contrary, the eerie desolation in the dark tunnel puts his nerves on edge. He is almost relieved when the shaft at last leads into a room with crude concrete walls, looking like a storage room with fuel drums and shelves that still support tool boxes and maintenance gear, though their contents are dispersed on the ground in pools of gore. Blood is still flowing from the corpse of a commando, the remains lying there having been torn to pieces.
“No bullet killed him,” Skinner says.
“How can you be so sure?” Tarasov steps closer, instinctively recoiling from the corpse as it seems to shift in the circle of light from his headlamp.
“Bullets usually don’t tear out whole pieces from a body,” the Stalker replies, “and this guy has everything missing that he once had between his chest and dick.”
“More,” Zlenko adds, swallowing thickly.
Tarasov scans the room with his headlight. “There’s nothing of interest here. Let’s move on.”
“At least now we know what made the mercs run.”
“Really, Ilchenko?” Tarasov asks. “If you have any clues, please tell me.”
“Hunger.”
“Keep your stupid jokes to yourself,” Zlenko snorts.
“Hunger,” Ilchenko repeats. “Hunger. Hu-u-unger.” His voice fades into a whisper.
“Private, take the lead,” Tarasov snaps.
When Ilchenko steps by him, Tarasov exchanges a glance with Zlenko. He can’t see the sergeant’s face under the visor, but his gestures tell of increasing fear.
The tunnel bends and narrows. Moving in front of him, Ilchenko enters the pool of an emergency light and is then engulfed by darkness until he reaches the next one. Tarasov carefully moves through a section where the concrete beams are fractured, barely holding the ceiling up. His own light follows the nervous movements of his head, lighting up the wires and pipes on the wall, the concrete beams above, the hard-trodden ground under his feet. Up ahead, Ilchenko stops. The Geiger counter ticks slowly, its sound almost silenced by Tarasov’s own breath and heartbeat.
“You hear that?”
All other senses fade away while Tarasov concentrates solely on his hearing, holding his breath. He is about to tell Ilchenko that he hears nothing when a faint noise comes from the deep darkness into which the tunnel leads, seizing his tongue. Nothing falls into view from the next lamp’s light a few meters in front of the private, or the next after that. The third melts into darkness behind them. The other lights ahead are nothing but glowing points in the black tunnel – but, from the darkness beyond them, comes a sound that resembles a human voice screaming in fear, or something else roaring after finishing its hunt.
“How many times did you survive in the Zone?”
Tarasov looks up. The voice in his intercom sounds familiar, but he is not sure who is talking to him. He shakes his head, as if to rid himself of the voices as well as his worsening headache.
“Keep the channel clear… this is no time for chit-chat.” The message to his men was supposed to sound reassuring, but it emerges only as a whisper. “Move on, Ilchenko.”
“This asshole didn’t make it.”
“What?”
“I mean that body there. I almost stepped on it.” Ilchenko turns it over with his foot. “Looks like someone dragged him up here but then left him behind… must have been in a hurry.”
The light from Tarasov’s headlamp falls on an orange colored set of overalls with oxygen tanks on the back and a helmet covering the face with thick, darkened plexiglass. He kneels down next to the body and examines the protective suit.
“Judging by his suit, this was one of the scientists we were supposed to save,” Zlenko says.
The belt containers are empty, but the scientist’s dead hand clutches something that he had refused to let go.
“No, Sergeant… we were supposed to save this.” Opening the rigid fingers, Tarasov takes a memory stick and carefully puts it away in his pocket.
“Let’s move on, Stalkers… there’s no loot on the body. Not even a dirty magazine.” He grins at his own joke and pats Ilchenko’s back with his rifle. “Move your ass, soldier.”
“I don’t like this tunnel,” Zef says. “It’s way too creepy down here.”
“It’s just dark,” Skinner tells him. “Watch our backs and we’ll be fine.”
“But I see a spot where it is darker than anywhere else.”
They all turn their heads in the direction the Stalker is pointing in. The light circles of their headlamps meet on the wall, showing nothing but a stretch of concrete and rocky earth no different to everywhere else around them.
Zef shrugs. “I must be hallucinating.”
“Your strength will not be enough here.”
“Who the hell said that?” Tarasov looks around at his startled comrades.
“Nobody spoke, sir,” Zlenko quietly affirms.
Fifty meters on, the tunnel leads to a metal door. It is open and a corpse lies at the entrance. The torso is still covered with the usual mercenary body armor, but the rest of his body is missing.
“Looks like he wanted to drag himself out,” Skinner remarks, stepping over the corpse. “Even when mortally wounded.”
Tarasov enters and looks around the room. “Looks like a guard room,” he says, pointing with his rifle to the mattresses on the ground. The walls here are solid concrete with round holes housing the ventilators, one of which is still rotating. He checks his instruments. “Radiation normal… no anomalies detected. Should be safe to take off the gas masks.”
The smell of earth, rot and damp floods his nostrils as soon as he removes his protective mask.
“Nothing here but debris,” Skinner groans with dissatisfaction.
Ilchenko opens the next door and cautiously peeks out. “Damn! This is just where the bunker begins… and I was hoping this would be over with soon.”
“Already missing the fresh air, Private?”
“No, Major… it’s just damn tight in here with that monkey breathing on my neck.” Ilchenko casts a glance of disdain towards Zef. “I hope he will not steal a Kalashnikov mag and eat it, thinking it’s a banana.”
Tarasov sees the black Stalker’s eyes flinching. “Let’s move on,” he quickly says, “Viktor, come over here for a second.”
“Komandir?”
Tarasov waits until Ilchenko and the two Stalkers leave the room.
“What’s wrong with Ilchenko, Sergeant?”
“I don’t know… but I don’t like his behavior any better than you.”
They follow the Stalkers into the dark tunnel. After a few steps Tarasov sees Ilchenko signaling them to stop. He does not need to ask him for the reason. Beyond the next door, something heavy is stirring. Tarasov can even hear a slow, beastly rattle.
“Action time,” Skinner grins and steps forward without waiting for orders. Before Tarasov can stop him, the Stalker opens the metal door by a couple of inches. In the next instant, a mass of malevolent force slams the door wide open and knocks Skinner off his feet. The rattling sound grows into a blood curdling howl and Skinner screams in fear and defiance as the mutant launches its attack.
“Mutant!” Ilchenko screams, firing his machine gun. Tracers and bullets pierce the darkness while Tarasov throws himself to the ground to
“Shotguns! Blast it! Blast that beast!”
Now he recognizes the mutant: it’s a bear, crawling over Skinner’s body as it views the rest of its prey. Its thick hide absorbs every bullet, and the long claws are already reaching for Ilchenko when the bear rears up in pain, trying to stand erect on its hind legs. The narrow tunnel obstructs the creature, allowing it to rise only to the extent that Zef can fire a half dozen heavy bullets into its belly. Unnaturally strong muscles propel the dying mutant forward as Zlenko and Tarasov fire their rifles into its head. Eventually, its howling ceases. Panting, the men gasp for breath. Skinner’s trembling voice breaks the sudden silence.
“Thank God for confined spaces,” he says, standing up and cleaning matter from the massive, serrated combat knife he’d planted in the dead mutant’s hide. The Stalker’s face is bloody and his armor is in tatters, the upper layers torn into rags by the bear’s claws.
My God, he knifed that beast even while it trampled him down!
“Sorry for letting you remove your gas mask, Stalker.”
“What?”
“That beast must have stunk like hell so close in…” The men smile. “Awesome job, Skinner. Fit for a Dutier. And now let’s see what’s in the next room.”
“Now you deserve Bone calling you assface,” Zef jokes to Skinner, who is still wiping the blood from his face as the other man steps past him. “You had that bear’s ass all over you, man. That sucks.”
Entering the next room, Tarasov has a sense of déjà vu. The concrete walls with the pipes running below the low ceiling, the rusty machines, and the metal debris remind him strongly of the underground laboratories back in the old Zone. So do the dim emergency lights, one of them crackling as if its fitting was broken and lighting up a body in the corner for a second. It is wearing the long, dark green coat worn by scientists conducting research in the Zone. Skinner is already moving to check the body for loot, but Zlenko stops him.
“Chain of command, Stalker.”
“You’re nothing but a lap dog, boyevoychik!”
The Stalker looks unhappy but makes way for Tarasov, who examines the body. The dead man is still clutching at a heavy-duty laptop. Patting down the pockets of the coat, he also finds a small notebook, its pages filled with charts, calculations and hand-written notes.
“Maybe we should check that out,” Zlenko says.
“Later… when we can allow ourselves a little break.”
“There might be a map with hidden stashes on that shit,” Skinner tells Tarasov with a greedy look in his eye. “Let’s check it now!”
“Later, I said. Move on, Stalkers.”
“Boss,” Zef says from behind. “Can’t we fix these generators? This darkness…”
“At least you blend in, negro,” Ilchenko says followed by a creepy laugh.
“Private, watch your tongue!”
“There’s nothing in my job description about bearing the smell of monkeys, Major.”
“Ilch! What the hell is wrong with you?” Zlenko yells.
“It’s OK, Sarge,” the black Stalker calmly says. “I can put on my gas mask if this cheekyprawn is scared of my face.”
“I do need a fucking gas mask to protect me from your smell!”
“Ilchenko – hold your tongue. Last warning. That’s an order!” Tarasov snaps.
“Order, order… fuck this whole shit.”
Tarasov sees Zlenko raising his shotgun. “Private Ilchenko,” he says in a low voice, almost soft but barely able to contain his anger. “If you continue disrupting discipline I’ll take that machine gun from you and let you take point with a pistol. Pray that a mutant saves you from court-martial!”
At last the machine gunner remains silent. Tarasov signals him to take point and follows him, closely watching his movements. Through a door at the end of the corridor, they enter a narrow staircase spiraling downwards. After two flights Tarasov cautiously opens another steel door. The dim light from his headlamp barely illuminates the large room, from where several corridors branch off.
“Maybe we should break into teams of two, scout those corridors and meet back here?”
“I don’t think so, Viktor… there might be more mutants around. We only stand a chance if we stay together. Let the Stalkers check their ammo while I see what’s left in this room.”
“Yes, komandir.”
The sergeant’s obedient words relax his nerves.
At least he’s retaining his sense of duty.
Tarasov watches Ilchenko and Skinner as they count their remaining shells and magazines.
If we start falling apart or have people going off for the loot, this mission is finished.
Empty soda and water bottles lay strewn around the ground among the debris of destroyed crates. A field table stands in the corner, turned onto its side. Tarasov almost stumbles over a wrecked chair when he steps closer to see if there’s something behind it and is greeted by the sight of a headless corpse. He frowns and moves to where another body lies in the corner, still gripping a pistol in its hand.
That guy must have fought to his last bullet.
“Strange way to die.” Tarasov stirs when he hears Ilchenko’s voice behind him. “No blood on that one… he was smashed against the wall with such force that his neck broke... I mean, normally a neck isn’t fully twisted to the side like that.”
“How much ammo do you still have, Ilchenko?”
“Enough.”
“What kind of reply is that, Private?”
“I said, enough. Enough to kill the world.”
He’s losing it.
Tarasov doesn’t see the murderous light glimmering in the soldier’s eye, but Ilchenko’s hoarse voice is enough to make him more than concerned.
“Major… you better have a look at this.”
“What is it, Viktor?”
“Zef found a map… it must have been torn from the wall.”
Tarasov studies the sketchy blueprint. It is torn and heavy boots have trampled over it, but the layout of the bunker is still visible.
“Excellent… this long part is the entrance shaft… yes, then we crossed the guard’s room and now we are in the former mess room… look, that tunnel leads to a chamber labeled excavators’ storage room, whoever they are… the one in the middle leads to the laboratories.”
“I love laboratories,” Skinner cries out with inquisitive eyes. “That must be where they keep all the artifacts for testing and stuff like that!”
“And from there?” Zef asks, ignoring the other Stalker’s excitement.
“It says excavation area but the map ends there. There’s only an arrow, directed downwards.”
“To the labs, then?”
“No… first we check out the storage room. Maybe they have ammo there or first aid supplies… unless they used them all up when hell broke loose.”
A growl comes from the darkness as if in response to the major’s last words. But this time it is followed by a howl, with a third mutant joining the jarring chorus.
“Weapons at ready! Watch that tunnel to the left!”
For a moment, the major hopes that the light of their headlamps would blind the three jackals that leap out from the darkness, but the beasts don’t hesitate to attack Zef, who stands closest to them. One jackal sinks his fangs into his arm, not leaving him a chance to shoot and, to Tarasov’s horror, Ilchenko suffers the same fate. Perception or agility offer the soldier a better chance. He lets his machine gun fall with the two jackals still clinging to it with their teeth, and uses the moment gained to pull out his pistol. Tarasov, Skinner and Zlenko are firing like mad into the bundles of flesh, muscles and fangs while Zef, gathering all his enormous strength together, smashes the third mutant against the wall and pins it there while Skinner pumps three shells from his shotgun into its flesh. Even then, the mutant keeps growling as it falls to the ground and starts crawling towards them, oozing blood and gore. Ilchenko finally grabs his machine gun an
“What the hell does it take to kill that fucking bastard?”
The mutant growls no more as the last casing falls to the ground from Ilchenko’s weapon.
“What the fok!” Zef’s eyes are wide enough to expose a ring of white around his corneas as he studies his arms. The mutant’s fangs have bent his exoskeleton’s reinforced metal frame like soft wire. “Those beasts just tore my shotty out of my hands and tried to bite them off…”
“Jackals are not nice. You need a bandage?” Tarasov inquires.
The black Stalker shakes his head. A strange look appears in his eyes.
“They were after my… baby! But she is only mine!”
Tarasov scowls, but before he could ask Zef about what he meant, Skinner butts in.
“Had you worn anything other than an exo, you’d now have nothing to beat your dick with,” the ex-Dutier sardonically retorts, reloading his shotgun. “It’s your lucky day, brother.”
“Let’s move on, everyone… and keep your eyes peeled.”
“There’d better be some loot in the storage room. I don’t want to leave empty-handed, you know?”
“You should be happy if you get out of here alive, and for that, luck is all you need hoping for.”
“Major, are you soldiers not interested in loot at all? If the army pays so well, I’ll sign up myself.”
“We don’t need money, Skinner. We grunts live on vodka and stale bread… at least that’s what some generals seem to think.”
The corridor is narrow and the sickly smell of decaying bodies lingers in the damp air. The smell drives saliva into Tarasov’s mouth. He swallows it. Skinner behind him spits.
“It stinks here!”
“Stop.” Ilchenko signals a halt. “Can you hear that?”
A faint noise grows from the darkness, like someone rubbing their hard-skinned palms together. Beyond the light circle of Ilchenko’s lamp, the darkness seems to move on the ground. Tiny, dim green spots evolve and move towards them.
“Back! Fall back!” Tarasov screams. He sees two amber-colored lights appear high above him. “Holy shit! A snake!”
This time the major is not alone. The bullets riddle the mutant’s erect body as it is about to strike. Obliterated by shotgun shells and rifle rounds, it collapses with a long, vanishing hiss. Tarasov gasps for breath.
Damn this place… and this is only the first level.
Beyond the steel door of the storage room they locate the origin of the smell. A pile of bodies lie on the ground, some of them missing limbs. Half digested chunks of flesh coat the concrete. Tarasov quickly puts on his gas mask, but the sickening smell is still in his nose. He quickly looks around the small room with uneven shelves on the wall.
“At least this was not for nothing,” he grumbles. Fighting back his nausea, he picks up four heavy bundles from a crushed crate.
“What’s in there?” Skinner asks curiously as they walk back into the large room, weapons ready to fire.
“Explosives.”
“Uh-oh. We’re getting angry?”
“Not yet.”
Back in the lobby’s relative security, Tarasov orders a short rest. “Check weapons. Have something to eat. In ten minutes, we move into the laboratories. Ilchenko, you keep an eye on those corridors. Sergeant… come over here for a minute.” He sits down on the ground and pulls out the notebook from his pocket. “Let’s see what we have here.”
His headlamp illuminates neat, old-fashioned handwriting. A name is written on the cover’s inner page but the ink is smeared, leaving only Sakharov legible.
“Hello, hello, Professor,” the major mumbles, thumbing the pages. He reads the writing from the first legible page aloud so that Zlenko also knows what they are about to discover.
“According to researchers, the two statues were built by an ancient tribe called the Lokottaravadan. Ancient Sogdian manuscripts, discovered by Sir Aurel Stein’s expedition and obtained by us from the British Library, tell that the female priests of this tribe possessed almost magical healing powers. However, this is dismissed by most historians as merely the stuff of legend. Anthropologists also agree that the Lokottaravadan are long extinct but Stein insisted that a few of them might still be found, scattered among the local Hazara tribes. We also learned from the manuscripts that the famous statues at Bamyan, called Samal and Shamama, did not only serve spirituality. The Lokottaravadan sculpted them to watch over a site where, according to their faith, a demon or object of destructive power was buried. In later centuries, long after this mysterious people were annihilated, the same site became known as the City of Screams, after Genghis Khan massacred every inhabitant of the city standing there in 1222.”
“Don’t tell me this was all about some stupid anthropologists getting a hard-on from superstition and legends… what is the meaning of all this?”
Tarasov struggles to find the right words. “Well… What concerns us now is that there’s something very bad and evil down below… that is what the scientists were after… I should have guessed. Anyhow, it goes on: From samples taken from the debris of the statues, we could establish a striking similarity between the molecular structure of local stone fragments and certain artifacts, found and known in the Exclusion Zone for their health-restoring effects, like the Soul or Mica variety. However, the local samples don’t emit any radiation, except at very low values which might be due to the nuclear fallout after the recent events. Another intriguing feature is that occasionally the fragments start to glow but without emitting heat of their own. Understanding the nature of these fragments would be a major scientific breakthrough.”
Tarasov looks at the Stalkers. Zef and Skinner are sharing a can of energy drink, while Ilchenko keeps his eyes fixed on the dark corridor and murmurs to himself as if in a delirium. Zlenko is pale and sweating. All look tired and winded.
“We’ll get back to this later… now let’s have a look at that laptop.”
To his dismay, the drive is encrypted. He puts it into his rucksack and takes the pen drive recovered from the first body they encountered, hoping to have better luck with that one. Tarasov is relieved when after plugging it in his PDA, a directory appears with files arranged in chronological order.
29 July, 2014
Kiev is not satisfied with our process. We offered extra payment to motivate the excavators. I hope they will dig faster. This place is a damn warren. To make things worse, someone before us destroyed the access to the lower levels. We have to make our way down by digging and explosives… I can ignore the Academy but my buyers are getting impatient too. They reduce my money each day until I find that artifact, or whatever it is.
15 August
We had a setback today. An excavator started a fight. He screamed something about ruling the world and killed two others before the guards shot him. Again I had to double the excavators’ money. They are becoming anxious.
28 August
Now it’s really about time to enter the lowest level… I already lost tens of thousands of dollars due to the delay. Anyway, even if this goes wrong, they paid me enough for the Gauss gun blueprints before. I don’t have to worry about my old age… I only wish this mission would be over either way, because this place is becoming eerier with every meter we dig deeper.
10 September
Shame on me. Couldn’t bear the pressure. I wanted to bide time and told the buyers everything… two days later they were here. They shot the guards and took over command. Sakharov is so much lost in his research that he didn’t even notice that our output now goes to Beijing instead of Kiev. But what I’m concerned about is that they made a pact with the dushmans… that wasn’t part of the deal. That’s a fucking betrayal. What the hell could I do? I’m powerless. How I wish it could be possible to get away from this cursed place and enjoy my earnings… I would give everything I got for this if I could just get away from here!
11 October
&
Zlenko sighs. “Permission to…”
“Cut the crap, son… we’re way beyond that, you and I. Speak your mind, for God’s sake.”
“Does it still make any sense to go deeper? There are no scientists to save here anymore.”
“That’s no excuse for us to leave this place… we need to search the laboratories and secure any research results we find. Those are our orders. As a matter of fact, the scientists are less important to Kiev than what they found out.”
Zlenko doesn’t look happy.
“Are you still with me, Viktor?”
“I am, komandir. But I’m worried about the Stalkers… I overheard Skinner talking to the black guy about leaving us and going to look for artifacts. We better watch our backs.”
“Agreed.”
“I’m even more worried about Ilchenko… he’s on the edge. He was always a cocky sonofabitch but… not like this.”
“Keep a close eye on him and don’t let him get into a fight with Zef. With all the mutants around, the last thing I need is them shooting each other.” Tarasov stands up and claps his hands. “All right, Stalkers… let’s go down into the labs. Ilchenko, you’re a good point man. Keep it up! Come on guys, look alive!”
“Can I take point for a change?” Skinner asks, taking his shotgun from his shoulder. “I don’t want that machine gun guy grabbing all the artifacts.”
“Suit yourself, Stalker. Ilchenko, stay with me.”
Laboratory, 12 October 2014, 14:29:02 AFT
The corridor leading to the laboratories is short, with doors opening into small rooms. Looking inside as they move by, their headlights fall on destroyed field furniture and scattered documents. Tarasov takes a few sheets from the ground. Unsure if the long rows of numbers hold any valuable information, he lets them fall back to the ground.
A metal staircase winding down lies at the end of the corridor. A faint, bluish light glimmers beneath. If Tarasov had to choose between the darkness of the bunker level or the disconcerting light below, he would rather stay in darkness.
“Steady, Skinner… move quietly!”
The Stalker is halfway down the stairway when he suddenly stops. “Vaska,” he shouts, “is that you?”
Tarasov cannot figure the reason for the Stalker’s agitation, but leaps down the stairs to stop him from rushing forward into the large room where the stairs emerge. Wherever he looks, he sees devastated furniture and smashed cabinets, with broken computers and their blown out screens scattered around the floor. It is emergency lamps that spill the cold blue light over the devastated room, lending the room all the ambience of an operating theatre in Hell.
He hears the others descending the metal staircase, but the clunk of boots on metal cannot nullify the faint but discernible voice of a man crying in agony.
“Vaska!” Skinner shouts, his voice echoing in the room. “Where are you? Is that you over there?”
“Stalker! Stay here!”
Ignoring Tarasov’s words, Skinner runs to the other end of the room, where a steel door swings open. Skinner cries out in despair and horror.
“Oh no! Vaska! What did they do to you?”
Cursing, Tarasov moves to pull him back. He has almost reached Skinner when he becomes aware of something that freezes the blood in his veins. As if the sound of a woman’s desperate cry wouldn’t be enough, his eyes widen in horror at what he sees.
“Nooria!” he utters upon the sight of her lying on the floor with blood covering her belly and limbs.
“Fuck!”
Skinner’s voice and the gunshot following it bring Tarasov back to his senses. He grabs the Stalker’s shoulder and drags him away from the door.
“Don’t come closer,” he shouts to the others. “Back up the stairs, move!”
“Let me fucking go,” Skinner shouts, trying to wrestle himself free from Tarasov’s grasp. “It’s Vaska from the Asylum! I must help my friend!”
“It’s just a fucking mutant trying to scare you away!”
The Stalker’s heavy body suddenly becomes lighter as Zef
joins Tarasov in his efforts.
“Hold him,” Tarasov shouts when they reach the staircase, taking a grenade from his ammunition belt. Nooria’s defiled corpse becomes clearer with each step he takes toward the door but, overcoming his horror, he leaps forward and tosses the grenade into the next room. A painful howl follows the explosion. Then all falls quiet. The apparitions disappear.
“I saw Vaska…” Skinner bemoans as Zef eases his choke-hold. “He was my best buddy… I believed him dead but I saw him… first he was in a fucking cage, and then bound to an operating table with fucking pipes and catheters screwed into his head…”
“It was just your imagination,” Tarasov explains, but his own voice is trembling too. “The mutant wanted you to run away in fear. It’s over. Vaska is fine!”
“How can you be sure of that? We must find him! Maybe he is still alive somewhere in here…”
“There’s no one here except fucking mutants, you asshole,” Ilchenko shouts and aims his machine gun at the Stalker. “Stop this moaning, you’re making me nervous. Very nervous!”
“You haven’t seen what I saw.” The Stalker stands up and looks at Ilchenko, his eyes molten with rage. “You haven’t seen those cages. I saw them, just a moment ago. They are for real. I’m through with you! I’m going to save my friend!”
“Skinner, if you want to live, stay here!”
“I’m a free Stalker, not a soldier you can order around. To Hell with you and your mission!”
Tarasov pushes Zlenko’s rifle down as the sergeant aims it at the departing Stalker.
“Skinner! We’re all together in this! Come back!” he calls.
“Fuck you,” the Stalker shouts back as he disappears into the darkness beyond the steel door.
His three remaining men look at Tarasov.
“He’s a dead man,” Zef murmurs.
“What was I supposed to do? Shoot him?”
Nobody replies.
“I couldn’t bear his moaning about artifacts anyway,” Ilchenko finally says. “I could have done you a favor, Major – if you still have the guts for things like that.”
“The soldier has a point. We could have killed him and taken his ammo.”
“I don’t need you to agree with me, monkey-man.”
“I’m with Ilchenko on this one too, Major. It was a mistake to let him go like that.”
Zlenko’s comments come as a surprise to Tarasov. This is the first time the sergeant has openly chastised him. Nor has he seen fear appear on the huge Stalker’s face before, though it is present now.
“What’s wrong with you men? Again: was I supposed to shoot him or what?”
“Yes,” Ilchenko eagerly replies.
Tarasov notes the agreement on the other’s faces. He places his finger on the rifle’s trigger. “Forget about that Stalker. Ilchenko, Zlenko, we search the lab for intel. Zef, keep an eye on that steel door.”
“If you say so, boss,” the Stalker replies, reluctantly.
Keeping one eye on his soldiers and the other on the debris on the floor, Tarasov looks for anything that might hold a clue to the scientists’ fate. He bends down to check on a damaged computer. In this moment Ilchenko fires his machine gun. A computer screen falls to the hard floor, smashing into pieces. The machine gunner shouts out triumphantly. “Yeah! Bullseye!”
“What are you doing, Private?”
“I was taking a screenshot!”
Tarasov wants to angrily reprimand his man, but then decides to leave him be for a moment. With his curiosity prevailing, and not sensing any immediate danger, the major continues reading Sakharov’s notebook.
Compared to Professor Herman’s research output from the Zone, our own measurements indicated a strange connection between how the C-Consciousness affected the Zone and the developments in Afghanistan after the so-called accidents. It is a proven fact that massive nuclear contamination alone is not creating Zone-like environment. Now that we have learned that the artifact hidden under Gholghola acts in a similar way to the C-Consciousness, we might get closer to the explanation. To better understand their similarity, we need to better know their differences.
While the C-Consciousness was an intelligent entity of its own kind and manipulated those who got in contact with it, the local phenomenon doesn’t seem to follow a reasonable pattern. Instead, it appears to influence all creatures by multiplying their level of aggression. Our observations of mutated carnivorous species have proved that this influence develops motoric capabilities in a way to facilitate the success of aggression. In other words, it first turns aggression into the basic instinct, overruling all other behavioral patterns; then develops physical features that give the affected species more chance to succeed with their aggression. It is the strangest form of mutation we have ever observed. We don’t know yet how humans as a highly intelligent species are affected. Probably individuals with a particular tendency of aggression and violence are more prone to be affected. However, appropriate psychological research needs to be conducted to clarify this. We were promised that in a few days the first test subjects will be delivered.
The excavators are still clearing the passages leading into the lower level. We cannot wait until they break through into the oldest catacombs. Currently we are set up in a room that we built between the former Taliban bunker complex and something that might once have been an underground fortification. The excavators are clearing it now. To facilitate our research, we constructed the test subjects’ cages in such a way that they can be lowered below. All we have to do is to expose them to the psychotic influence for a certain period of time and take psi-measurements afterwards. I have no problem with using mutants for my experiments but do have reservations about using human beings, even if they are criminals taken captive by our guards. But for science, sacrifices have to be made.
Pages with long rows of numbers and scientific equations follow. The words on the last page were written by the same hand, but the writing is barely readable, as if put to paper by a gravely unsteady hand.
Our expedition has been betrayed! There was a traitor among us, selling us out to a hostile power. I am an old and weak man – what can I do now? The only way to prevent our research results falling into the wrong hands is by unleashing the research subjects on those who hijacked our expedition… God have mercy on our souls!
The writing ends abruptly at the bottom of the page.
He has barely put away the notebook when a muffled scream comes from the direction Skinner had disappeared in, followed by a quick succession of shotgun blasts. The sound that follows the shots is not something that Tarasov would have expected to hear, though: a bellowing laugh full of malice. Tarasov glances at Zef and the Stalker aims his weapon and takes a step back from the door. He is breathing heavily.
“Maybe he found his buddy after all,” Ilchenko says with a grin.
Zlenko appears. “There’s another room to the right… should we check it?”
Tarasov nods and follows the sergeant. He keeps his weapon at the ready when opening the door, but the small room behind only holds two bunk beds, a table and bookshelves. A half-empty bottle of vodka and an open can of luncheon meat still remain on the table.
“Someone had his breakfast interrupted,” Tarasov tells Zlenko.
Stepping back to the computer room, he has to convince himself that what he sees is for real. It is not Ilchenko’s sinister smile or the machine gun pointing at Zef’s head that seems so surreal, but the sight of the Stalker sitting on the floor and weeping, bashing his head with his fists.
“What the –”
“I… I saw it all again…” Zef sobs. “When we entered the room – it all came back to me. It’s in my fokken head again!”
“Ilchenko, point that barrel elsewhere or I swear I’ll shoot you… what the hell happened to you, Stalker?”
Zef reaches into his exoskeleton’s ammunition compartment. What he pulls out makes everyone’s eyes round with surprise: it is a tiny, blonde-headed doll.
“I can’t bear this anymore. I tried to forget about her. And when that damned Stalker opened the door it suddenly all came back to me… I saw her lying there!”
“Hey Zef, relax,” Zlenko tries to comfort him. “What’s wrong?”
But the absurd scene is too much for Tarasov’s temper.
“Pull yourself together!” he shouts and shakes the Stalker as if he was a malfunctioning machine. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“I… I felt that desire again. Oh God, I swear I tried to resist it, I tried so hard, but she was so sweet when I gagged her, it was only supposed to be a kidnapping, oh God the whole fokken thing went shit, and her body was soft like butter, her neck just melted away in my hands, I swear I tried to resist, Jesus how long I’ve tried to forget her but now she came back into my head, oh God…”
They listen to the Stalker’s sobbing words in silence. Zef wipes his nose with the back of his gloved hand.
“That’s why I went to the Zone, to find that fokken Wish Granter, I wanted to ask it to make her go away, but then during those nights in the Zone when you hide in a hole in the earth and wish you’d be one with the dirt, she kept coming back to me… I tried to die by fighting all kak the Zone throw up against me but didn’t. Then I came to this fokken land and for what? She came now back to me and fok all weapons and all bullshit, now I look at her again… she’s fokken all I have and I’ll never get rid of her, oh God, now I don’t even want to… her long, blonde hair…”
“Enough of that shit, monkey-man.” Ilchenko grasps the doll and tears it from the Stalker’s hands before throwing it to the ground and stamping on it. “Killing little white girls, eh? You fucking animal, now I’ll blast your head off!”
Ilchenko aims his weapon at the Stalker but Zef jumps up and throws his massive body against the soldier. Before Tarasov and the sergeant can intervene, the two men roll wrestling on the floor, the Stalker’s immense strength against Ilchenko’s willpower boosted by inhuman aggression.
The major realizes that Zlenko, the only man left with his sanity seemingly intact, would be no match for the Stalker’s strength, so barks an order for him to apprehend Ilchenko while he grasps Zef’s neck, putting the Stalker in a choke-hold. Even with his hand to hand combat training, Tarasov knows that, under normal conditions, he would stand no chance against the big South African, but the steel bones of his exoskeleton and the Emerald artifact multiply his strength, making him more than a match for Zef.
“I’ll fucking kill you!” Ilchenko swears, held tight by the sergeant. Zef tries to grapple Tarasov’s arm off his throat, but his resolve is weak and his exoskeleton’s power inferior to Tarasov’s.
“That’s enough. Enough!”
Feeling Zef’s strength wane, the major slowly loosens the grip around his neck. Ilchenko has also run out of steam, and is now on his hands and knees, coughing heavily.
Tarasov takes the doll from the dirty floor and gives it to the Stalker, though now Zef is nothing more to him than a carrier for the Stalker’s Striker shotgun: an ugly but lethal tool needed to help him survive. He reaches into his backpack.
“Take a shot of vodka. Calm down. Once we’re back on the surface you can kill each other, I don’t care. But while we’re down here, you keep killing mutants. Is that clear?”
Tarasov knows his hoarse voice fails to hold the power to impress the two men.
The big man was right… I’m about to fail. I can’t control my men anymore. Maybe I should have just let them kill each other.
He glances at Zlenko, afraid of him drawing the same conclusio
“Let’s move on.”
The fighters pick up their weapons, avoiding each other’s eyes. Zlenko watches carefully over them. Tarasov removes the magazine from his rifle and replaces it with armor-piercing bullets.
I hope it will not come down to me shooting my own men.
The sound of the magazine sliding into place sounds like a warning.
“Ilchenko, take point. I’ll follow you. Zef, fall in line. Sergeant Zlenko, you watch our six.”
They enter the room where the djinn’s corpse lays, riddled and burnt by the grenade’s countless metal fragments.
“Good riddance,” Tarasov says, stepping over it. Another tunnel opens to their left. From the emergency lights glows a warm orange light that is a relief after the eerie blue haze of the computer room.
Driscoll, the Brothers, the Colonel… damn, how I hated them in the beginning. How I wish they were here with me now. But if they could make it through here, we can make it too.
The tunnel descends for a few meters and leads to yet another steel door, this one standing wide open. Ilchenko quickly looks around before entering the room beyond, and then moves on with the precision of a machine between a row of cages and desks loaded with computers, stopping at a corpse that lies on the ground.
One lamp is turning around on the ceiling with a whining noise that reminds Tarasov of a knife scratching a plate. The noise makes him shudder.
“Another Chinese bit the dust here.”
“And a scientist too,” Tarasov says, checking the body but finding nothing. He looks around, hoping to see something that provides him with a clue.
What were these cages for?
There is an opening in the wall at the other end of the corridor, covered by a gritty plastic curtain.
“Maybe this room was a zoo where they kept monkeys like that son of a…” Turning back to look at the major, Ilchenko finds himself facing the barrel of the major’s rifle. “Okay, okay… just guessing.”
The walls of the long, narrow room are dark and shiny. Tarasov sees the reflection of himself and his men moving along the row of cages, all fastened to the ceiling with heavy chains. One place is empty, the chains leading through two holes in a mechanical trapdoor. They must have lowered that one into the abyss beneath, Tarasov thinks. Then the light of his headlamp falls on another body, poised on his knees and still clinging to the lever of a device fastened to the wall.
“Major… Mikhailo, you are bleeding.”
He looks down at his armor where blood has soaked through all the protective layers. Zlenko’s words making him aware of the pain. Tarasov feels an unsettling sensation, as if the stone sewn into his flesh by Nooria had become animated, but it is not his body rejecting it; the stone seems to move of its own accord. Two seams of cord fixing the neat cut have already burst. He closes the armor.
“Looks like an old wound,” the sergeant says.
“Not the first if its kind,” he replies without any intention of telling more. “And now… let’s see what this switch does.”
He moves the lever upwards. The device clicks to his reassurance. Suddenly a bright light beams up.
“What the hell? Where are we?”
Tarasov is dumbstruck as he sees a huge cavern just an arm’s length from him. The walls reflecting their images are windows through which he now looks down into an abyss. He wants to reply to Zlenko but only manages to utter a surprised gasp as he sees a human form taking shape at the other end of the room. Its mouth arches into a cruel sneer. In the next second the same terrifying laugh booms that they had heard in the level above.
“Screw you, motherfok!”
Zef steps forward, his shotgun spitting lead into the apparition while Ilchenko’s machine gun joins in. The bullets’ impact shakes the humanoid, but it keeps moving closer with each step. It strikes Zlenko in the head, sending him to the floor with a scream, then grabs Ilchenko’s machine gun and, ignoring the pain from the hot barrel, tears it from the soldier’s hands and turns the weapon towards Tarasov. He tries to dodge it but a long, brawny arm arrests him and slings him against the glass wall. Horror overwhelms him as he slams into the glass between himself and the dark abyss outside. Fortunately, the glass does not break, leaving Tarasov merely winded. Zef watches the major slowly slump to the ground, his eyes glowing with rage as he turns towards the mutant.
“You are one ugly motherfok. Come to me, get some!”
Lying on the ground and wheezing from pain, Tarasov watches the Stalker wrestling with the mutant. Zef’s face is distorted from pain and his brutal effort to match the monster’s power as they grapple face to face, the dreadful arms in the Stalker’s hold, a desperate human aided by an obsolete exoskeleton fighting something that was once human, but is now two hundred pounds of muscle obeying the sole instinct to kill.
Tarasov’s rifle has been kicked away, so he reaches for his Glock and switches to automatic mode, dragging himself closer until he is able to fire the full magazine of lethal Hydra-Shock bullets into the mutant’s skull.
Wounded, it gradually falls to its knees with Zef towering over it, still holding its arms, then the Stalker raises his foot and kicks the mutant in the head, breaking its neck.
“Fuck!” Tarasov grunts, panting heavily and spitting out sour saliva.
“That’s my thank-you for giving me back my baby, boss –”
Zef’s mouth gapes open but only a hoarse rattle leaves his lips as the tip of a knife appears in his mouth. He coughs, then blood starts streaming from his throat. Ilchenko’s grinning face emerges behind him.
“The Moor has done his duty… the Moor can go. It’s an urban legend that Shakespeare wrote, but now it’s a perfect time to quote it!”
In trepidation, Tarasov watches Ilchenko pulling his bayonet from the Stalker’s head. Ilchenko licks the blood from the blade.
“I hate racists. All the blood in the world tastes the same. Like… salty oil and metal.”
Tarasov is helpless with his handgun empty and Ilchenko now aiming his weapon at him. “What have you done?” the major moans.
“I have finished the mission. No more yes, sir to idiots like you. I am smarter than you, better educated than you, and aiming a fully loaded machine gun at you. I am free now. In other words, I am the king of this fucking universe!”
“You are pathetic.”
“If so, why are you the one on his knees? An officer, a fucking major, falls to a private!” Ilchenko leans so close that he can feel the spit the private ejects with every word he scowls. “This is the moment of truth, komandir.”
A shadow falls on Ilchenko from behind.
“Indeed it is, Private… could you take a step back?”
“Last wish granted,” Ilchenko laughs as he retreats, “and what’s in that for you?”
“Not much… only that I’ll have less of your educated brains on my face when Zlenko fires his shotgun.”
Surprise is the last expression on Ilchenko’s face before his head is blown to pieces and his massive body collapses. Smoke still trickles from the barrel of Zlenko’s Benelli as he quickly reloads it.
“I couldn’t make it earlier,” the sergeant says, pointing to his badly wounded face. “The punch was one thing… but that beast threw me against something sharp.”
“Thanks, Viktor… I won’t forget this.”
“I never liked him,” Zlenko replies with an indifferent shrug.
The light is stabbing into the major’s eyes as he stretches out on the metal floor. He carefully touches the wound on his chest. When he removes his hand from under the armor, it is covered with blood.
Which drop will be the last one?
The sergeant sits at his side, his eyes like two black holes. Slowly,
“Now there’s only you and I left, son.”
Tarasov is glad that his visor hides his eyes from the sergeant. He realizes how fond he has become of him and now, in this moment, how he would gladly give his own life if that would help Zlenko survive. He takes some bandages and a medikit from his pack and tends to the sergeant’s wound.
“Do you think I’m a coward, Mikhailo?”
“On the contrary… I will turn every damned stone upside down to get you a promotion to lieutenant.”
“Being a lieutenant… that’s much better than being a sergeant, yes.”
Tarasov realizes how shallow his words sound. “You are right… I should have just said that no, I do not think you are a coward.”
“So you won’t take it for cowardice if I say: let’s turn back. I am actually begging you to turn back. It will only get worse if we cross this bridge!”
Tarasov seeks the words to explain all the pieces of the puzzle that just keep falling into place within his own perception, things he feels rather than knows.
“Have you seen Ilchenko’s madness?” He asks, having finished bandaging the sergeant’s wound. “How Skinner ran to help an already dead friend? How Zef’s wits fell apart?”
“I do.”
“Did you have a close look at the sand and rocks in this land, the ruins, the wrecks of tanks once driven by our father’s generation? Have you seen the killing machines that people turned into, people who once had more freedom and earned more money than we could ever dream about?”
“I did.”
“Then listen… all this shit comes from that damned thing.” Tarasov beats the floor with his fist. “Or so I read the clues… but it clearly radiates evil – look how it had turned us against each other. It creeps into our mind at our weakest point… We have to destroy it if we can. Kiev wanted to have it. Our enemies tried to snatch it from our scientists. Who knows what powers are still queuing up to take it? At least we should try to end this madness. This is our mission now, son!”
Tarasov is almost begging. Zlenko gives his hands a thousand-yard stare. He is opening and closing his fist, as if checking that his hands still obey his will.
“All the things we saw… it’s beyond human influence, Mikhailo. I don’t think we can change anything here, or anywhere in this screwed up world for that matter. Frankly, I think we should leave and let this cursed place keep its secrets.” He stretches his back, like a man preparing for heavy work. “But if you go, I’ll follow you.”
Tarasov removes his helmet and rubs his hand over his sweaty hair and grimy face. “Why?”
“Because I’m supposed to follow my orders.”
Tarasov had been hoping for a reply that would have proved to him that the almost fatherly feelings he developed for the young sergeant had not been in vain. He wipes the dust off of his helmet, then slowly puts it back on his head and fixes the neck strap under his chin.
“Well then… if you still follow your orders, take Ilchenko’s machine gun and ammunition.” He staggers to his feet and reloads his pistol. “Then, if you are ready… let’s go below.”
Zlenko stares at the darkness beyond the door. “I don’t like the look of this.”
“Neither do I,” Tarasov replies, entering the door.