It was a completely normal house – one of those old fashioned buildings that had once been a family home. There wouldn't have been anything to tell it apart from all the other houses lining the street, if not for the fact that all those other houses had been reduced to piles of rubble and ashes. This was probably the only building in the whole ruined city that still had intact windows, was lacking cracks in the walls and wasn't missing a single tile on the roof.
In other words: Something was incredibly wrong here!
It was still a few hours till noon. Captain had led his squad to a former residence section of the town for exploring. Pilot had used the opportunity to scribble on broken walls again, but even he had trouble finding surfaces big enough for his doodles. Pieces of electronic were even harder to find and so Engie had been quite disappointed with this trip so far. At least Snippy had managed to shoot two rats that had a modest amount of limbs and weren't glowing so they would have some fresh meat for dinner later. The sniper wasn't sure what exactly they were supposed to be looking for in this place but he silently hoped it wasn't a new base.
Captain of course didn't seem to notice anything out of the ordinary. He had climbed one of the piles of rubble and was sipping his tea while admiring the view. Mr. Snippy standing next to him was eying the completely intact house suspiciously. Following an idea, he took the Geiger counter out of his backpack. As soon as it was switched on, the lights on the yellow box started blinking red, the needle jumping from 'safe' to 'hot stuff' in an instant.
Snippy sighed: "If you're standing that close, I can't get a clear reading Captain."
"…"
"Captain?" Snippy looked up from his Geiger counter and noticed that his commander was actually no longer standing next to him. Instead Captain was following something small and white that was hopping directly through the door of the ominous house. Before Snippy could shout a warning, Captain doing an elegant dance step entered the building too.
"Gromov!"
The engineer turned around and looked in Snippy's direction.
"Wait here with Pilot, while I get Captain back out of there! Something is wrong with that building!" the sniper added before he followed their commander.
He wondered for the millionth time, why he was actually doing this…
The entrance door of the suspicious house was wooden and at the first glance looked solid. Someone had left it wide-open. That made a disturbing impression of an invitation, as if a host was awaiting him. Snippy shook that uneasy feeling immediately. The chance of finding other survivors was low but the chance of finding survivors who didn't bother to close the door to their hideout, even though hazardous creatures roamed all over the city, was definitely zero. Actually, the marksman would be less surprised to stumble upon some of those hazardous creatures in there, than to run into another living human being.
He glimpsed through the open door cautiously, ready to use his gun if necessary. However, the room seemed safe. Captain stood in the middle of it, apparently admiring a sculpture or something. There was no sign of the skipping, white "thing" from before. Nevertheless, Snippy thought that the sooner he got Captain out of there the better. Keeping that in mind, he took a step and crossed the threshold.
As he walked into the house, all of his previous worries suddenly vanished. The room looked far too cozy for the lair of mutated beasts. It was extraordinarily tidy in there, not like in any of the other abandoned places they had visited within the last few years of their travels.
"Intriguing, isn't it mein sniper?"
Captain's loud voice interrupted his train of thoughts.
"What is intriguing?" Mr. Snippy inquired, not sure what Captain was referring to.
"Cats," his commander answered leaving him confused once more.
"Excuse me?"
Captain shook his head as if he was disappointed.
"Zere are so many magical cats in here," he explained, "but no rabbits! And zee Captain wants to know, where that fluffy bunny went! Eet has to be somewhere here!"
"Are you trying to tell me, that you were only following a white rabbit? Not some mutated thing, but The White Rabbit?" Snippy gave a snort of laughter before adding: "Let me guess, it was wearing a waistcoat, right?"
"Don't be silly, mein minion. Eet's too cold for wearing only a waistcoat. Eet had a warm, woolen scarf and gloves. Now, help my find eets hiding place!"
Asking no more questions, Snippy put his gun down and started examining the room. The furniture was old-fashioned, similar to what people in the 20th century used to have in their homes. Or rather, what old ladies in the 20th century used to have. Everything was heavily ornamented. The chairs had heart-shaped chair backs, the coffee table's feet resembled animal paws, the cushions on the sofa were all floral patterned. And on top of that, a horribly out-of-style, striped wallpaper covered the walls. Snippy would have felt disgruntled if not for that homely atmosphere in there.
Captain was actually right about cats – they might be not that magical but they indeed were everywhere. Well, not real cats of course, but cats' images, figures, even sculptures. Some of them were really tiny, and some of them were big – like the one that had caught Captain's eye at the very start. It was probably a copy of some well-known, ancient Egyptian statue. Snippy couldn't tell for sure, but the cat was made of metal, wore a necklace and earrings and it reminded him of something he had seen long time ago during a history lesson. Not like he had been such an excellent student to remember the meaning of whatever that sculpture represented. Aside from the Egyptian one, the sniper managed to recognize the Japanese fortune cat and the Russian cat of Kazan. Still, he didn't know much about the other figures. The collection was pretty spectacular anyway.
He picked up a black and white cat made of porcelain from the cupboard and inspected it. It seemed to be fragile but Snippy didn't notice any cracks or scratches, not even a trace of dust on its glossy surface. It made no sense. He wanted to put the figure back on its place, when someone pulled him away from the cupboard. The porcelain kitty slipped out of the marksman's hand, hit the floor and broke into small pieces.
"Where is Captain?" Pilot asked angrily, fully ignoring the damage he caused. "What did you do to Captain, you shoe?"
"I didn't do anything to him!" Snippy replied trying to shake off the madman alongside his groundless accusation. "Captain is..." He paused, noticing that their leader was no longer looking for the rabbit in the closet. "Where is he?"
The aviator made a hissing sound of irritation and let go of the sniper's arm.
"I knew, I shouldn't have left Captain with you!" he added hatefully as he moved toward the door that led to the next room.
Unfortunately, the door was locked and that fact made Pilot even more annoyed. He struggled with it for a moment and Snippy was sure that he was going to break down that poor door any minute now.
The whole scene could have been funny because there was a second entrance on the left and Captain most likely just went through that one since the door wasn't even closed. However, the sniper knew better than to make fun of the violent psychopath. It would be no surprise, if Pilot blamed it all on him as he always did. Captain disappeared somewhere – it was Snippy's fault! Pilot lost one of his stupid toys – Snippy's fault of course! If a giant robot-mouse from Mars invaded the Dead City, it would be definitely Snippy's fault, too!
"What's going on?"
The marksman turned to see the engineer standing at the front door. The man seemed unsure whether he should walk in.
Snippy swallowed his rising frustration.
"This room is clean," he assured calmly, not knowing where the unusual confidence came from.
No monsters in here didn't mean the same thing as no monsters in the rest of the house, but somehow he didn't care.
Engie entered the room and curiously looked around.
Snippy's eyes lazily followed the orange-goggled man, who began to study that Egyptian-like statue. He knew all too well, how much Gromov hated exploring. The guy was hardly interested in any of the places they had found before, so seeing him like this surprised the marksman.
The longer he watched, the less tense the engineer seemed to be. Perhaps, the other got that unexplainable sense of security too? Did it affect Pilot as well? Snippy couldn't tell 'cause legitimate fear was something uncommon for the green-goggled psycho.
"Try the other door, Pilot," he suggested, hoping that being helpful would spare him some troubles for once.
Instead of any sort of acknowledgment, all that the sniper got in return was: "Stop telling me what to do!"
Yet, after yelling at him, the aviator actually decided to check said door. He opened it without an effort and went to the next room.
Snippy only sighed and followed.
The sight that greeted him as he walked in, took his breath away.
The place happened to be a big dining-room with a decorative tapestry hanging on the walls and elegant wooden panels on the ceiling. That alone wasn't extremely extraordinary (maybe apart from the fact that the room remained perfectly intact – exactly like the first one). What really astonished the marksman was the large dining table covered with a white tablecloth and set for at least twelve guests. Artistically arranged, delicious-looking food awaited on the plates as if served just a moment ago. There was a roasted duck with an orange sauce, sirloin steaks with garlic butter, several salads, prawn cocktails, dumplings and many more dishes that Snippy had never seen before in his entire life.
"Whoa..."
He couldn't believe his own eyes. Looking at all this food made him wonder, how long it had been since he ate a decent meal for the last time. Thinking about it only made him hungrier than he already was.
But that dinner was just too good to be true. Maybe it was some kind of hallucination caused by the high radiation level in this strange building? Or maybe he had finally gone mad and hadn't even noticed it 'til now?
Captain acted like he didn't see the food at all. He was too busy searching for the rabbit, currently checking under the table. Pilot looked excited but Snippy didn't know the exact reason for that – the fancy dinner or the presence of Pilot's beloved commander?
"What is it?" Engie asked from somewhere behind the sniper's back.
That was when Snippy realized he stood in one place ever since entering the room. Quickly, he moved from the doorway to let the engineer in.
"Do you see, what I see?" he mumbled, not sure how to put it differently.
The answer never came. The other man just froze not able to say a single word. This reaction told the marksman everything he wanted to know. The food was real.
Good, he thought feeling relieved, it means I'm still sane.
Unfortunately, the following realization wasn't that comforting. Nothing good could ever come from finding a suspiciously-looking table full of food in an abandoned house. That was awfully cliché and at the same time terrifying. What kind of twisted mind did it take to set a trap like this one? Such a waste of good food! No one would ever fall for it! But how the hell did the crazy trapper know, that the four of them were coming? Preparing all those dishes surely needed hours and hours and only Captain had possibly known their destination today.
Wait a minute! Is this all his doing?
Captain wasn't the type of leader who cared about his subordinates much. Actually, he didn't care at all. He was too focused on his own awesomeness to have the time for the problems and needs of his minions. Snippy couldn't really blame him for that. After all, Captain was too far-gone for understanding and respecting other peoples' feelings. He lived in his own little world of endless joy and war. There was no place for hunger, tiredness or dissatisfaction in Captain's army, so why should he prepare a dinner for his soldiers? It wouldn't even have occurred to him. But if not Captain, then who?
On the other hand, only their commander could be lucky enough to obtain all those rare ingredients necessary. But then again, cooking seemed so out of character for Captain…
Snippy didn't know what to think anymore, his head was spinning already. He approached the table and looked under it.
"Uhmm, Captain..."
He didn't finish 'cause of the pair of purple lenses staring at him from beneath the surface, glowing dangerously. The sniper instinctively backed off.
"Zee plot bunny is not here!" the Captain announced clearly displeased and then got out from under the table. He straightened up and eyed Snippy questioningly, "You wanted to ask me something, minion? Your Captain is listening."
The marksman inhaled deeply, feeling quite lucky for not being accused of letting that imaginary rabbit run away.
"Where did all that food come from, Captain?"
The tall man looked at the table as if noticing the dishes for the first time.
"Isn't that obvious, mein silly sniper? From zee kitchen, of course! That is where the food fairies live."
"Fairies made the dinner for us?" Pilot broke into the conversation, as usual overly excited.
Here we go again, Snippy thought to himself losing all his hopes of solving this mystery.
Soon Captain was telling Pilot another crazy story about the fairy princess that needed a million teeth for casting a spell that made the winter go away. And apparently the food fairies, the toothbrush-hiding-fairies and the tooth-fairies were all working together to achieve this noble goal.
Charles decided to rather examine the dishes more closely instead of listening to this nonsense. He could swear that the dumplings on the platter were still steaming as if served just a minute ago. Puzzled, he checked his Geiger counter. Surprisingly enough the device didn't detect any serious danger. Engie moved closer and glanced at the result as well.
"Looks like this food is fine," he commented with a hint of disbelief in his voice.
"I wouldn't be so sure," Snippy warned him but to be honest, he was lacking a strong argument to prove that. "It's just... It's just impossible. That would be too easy."
He had very bad feelings about this. Unfortunately, the others seemed not to share his point of view. He knew that from the funny look that Gromov was giving him just now.
"Just when will you learn?" the man mocked. "With Seven's luck nothing is impossible. For him everything is easy. And it was Seven, who brought us here, remember?"
It was true, however Snippy didn't fully trust in the Captain's luck and he had never actually seen their commander eating anything. Besides, there was one more thing that bothered him. Why had they all acted so carelessly before and gone into this room without the slightest hesitation? That false sense of security had left him by now and well-known dark thoughts took its place at once. If someone or something wanted them to feel safe, they probably weren't safe – that much was obvious!
"Can we eat now?" Pilot suddenly asked his all-knowing leader and Snippy started praying for Captain not to allow it.
"No, mein minion," was the answer but just before the sniper managed to relax, the man in command added, "First you have to thank the fairies for those delicious gifts and then you can eat, if you want. Zee Captain isn't hungry."
After hearing that, Pilot uttered a few ridiculous sentences about how grateful he was and without more ado he began detaching his gas mask. To make matters worse, Engie was about to do the same thing.
"Are you really going to eat this? Can't you see that it is some kind of trick?" the marksman attempted to talk them out of this terrible idea, fearing possibly tragic consequences. "Come on, guys! It should be impossible for this place to be completely intact! I'm telling you, something is off with this house and I don't want to know what or why! Let's just get back to the base already. If you are hungry, we have fresh rats so we can make a rat-soup and we could even open a can of mixed fruits for dessert."
The engineer almost laughed at him.
"And here we have only Duck à l'orange, right? Who would want that, if he can have cooked rat instead?"
"Just think for a second, Gromov!" Snippy snapped at him. "Didn't you sense anything odd when we first got in here? We stopped being alert to danger and we went further. And what did we find? The food – like a goddamn last meal before the execution!"
Engie snorted his disapproval. "You know how paranoid you sound?"
With that he sat down at the table. However, he hesitated – probably waiting for Pilot to try one of the dishes first.
The aviator intended to take a seat next to him but before he did, Snippy grabbed him by the shoulder.
"Pilot, wait! You can't eat it!"
"Hands off, you shoe!" the man shouted and pushed him away, "Of course, I can! Captain said, I can. So, I CAN!"
Charles felt utterly helpless. He couldn't think of any way to stop those idiots from getting themselves into deep troubles.
"Captain, tell them that they can't!" he pleaded desperately but their leader pretended no to hear that – keeping himself occupied with admiring the tapestry.
As always, it was all in Snippy's hands and he knew he had to do something at once. Without thinking too much, he grasped the backrest of Pilot's chair and attempted to drag him away from the dining table. The child-man instantly protested and clutched his fingers at the table edge, clinging to it firmly. The sniper pulled harder and the chair almost overturned, causing the aviator to let go. It didn't cause him to let go of the tablecloth, though. As he fell over he took it with him. The huge silky piece of cloth slid from beneath the tableware without any effort.
Snippy couldn't believe this – not even a single one of the glasses turned over or fell from the table.
He turned to the engineer, holding his arm out: "See? I told you? This can't be right!"
"Great! Are we back to the middleages now, Charles? Do you actually believe in witchcraft, too? Have you never ever heard about inertia? If you had gone to more parties, then you would have seen that trick with the tablecloth before – oh sorry I forgot, nobody ever invited you."
This was too much! One moment Snippy was standing there listening to Gromov's insult and the next thing he knew, he had flipped the whole god damn table.
Plates clattered to the floor and everything turned into one big mess.
Engie who was still holding a fork in his hand, seemed ready to stab the sniper with it right now.
"Well done, Charles" the man muttered, his voice filled with spite.
For a moment, the marksman felt almost ashamed because it wasn't exactly what he had meant to do, but then he realized that this little fit of rage spared him unwanted struggles. Of course, that was before Pilot got out from under the tablecloth and back on his feet seeing what was left of their feast.
"You ruined the dinner!" he roared at the sniper.
Everything was telling Charles, that this time he would not be able to get away with this. Pilot looked seriously pissed off as he jumped at him, so Snippy prepared for receiving a beating. When the strong hand grabbed him, he had no doubts about what was coming next. Surprisingly enough, the green-goggled maniac didn't hit him at once. Instead he called out to his precious leader: "Did you see it, Captain? The insolent shoe destroyed all the magic food the kitchen fairies made!" he cried, "What shall I do with this criminal?"
"Zee dining time ees over already?" the tall man turned to his minions acting like nothing ever happened, "That ees good! Your Captain doesn't like waiting for others. We shall continue chasing rabbits! Onwards!" and with that he left the room, without so much as looking back.
Pilot just let go of Snippy's collar and followed him at once, not questioning the order given by his infallible master.
Snippy let out the breath he was holding all along.
That could have ended far worse, he thought, for once pleased with the unexpected turn of events.
"Come on, Gromov," he told the last member of their group and moved slowly toward the opened door.
The next room actually was the former kitchen. The place felt slightly colder than the previous one but none of the men paid any attention to it, since they were used to icy winds blowing right through the cracks in the walls of their own headquarters.
Captain hurried over to the huge fridge and declared he wanted it for the base.
Engie fell a bit back and tried to ignore the argument that immediately followed this announcement.
Snippy tried to point out, that that thing was too heavy to lift, their base already had a fridge, they had no electricity and everything was frozen anyway since they lived in a god damn nuclear winter. Captain wasn't really listening to that because according to him this fridge was definitely the home of the food fairies. That statement resulted in Pilot yelling at Snippy for his repeated insubordination.
Meanwhile, the engineer pulled an apple out of his coat pocket. He had been able to salvage only this little fruit from the dining room dissaster. It was probably a wise idea to hide it from Snippy and the other two morons.
A few snowflakes started to fall, which indicated, there were holes in the roof after all. Gromov considered that reassuring. The house wasn't in tip top shape as Snippy had claimed. So if the sniper had been wrong about the house, that meant he was surely wrong about the food being dangerous too. While some part of Gromov's brain tried to explain to him, that this was in no way a logical deduction, his belly was telling him he was starving. And to be honest, the fear of catching a food poisoning had never before stopped Engie from eating whatever was on his plate.
The others were still occupied with the fridge. Snippy was just repeating for the fifth time that he absolutely wouldn't carry that useless thing back to the base, Pilot was trying to lift the fridge alone, in an attempt to show Captain that he was a far better minion than the useless sniper and Seven himself was still explaining, why it was a splendid idea to be best friends with the food fairies.
Gromov, reassured that none of them was paying any attention to him, polished the shining red fruit somewhat on the sleeve of his jacket, removed his gas mask and bit into the apple.