Ch.1 The Grim
"Andrei! Are you still with me my friend?" Vladimir said peeking over his shoulder.
`Andrei gave a thumb up, "Yes I'm still here sir, and hey can I look at it again?".
Vladimir frowned underneath his gasmask "No you may not; we have to get this back to Kirovsky Zavod".
"Pleeeease just once I promise I won't ask again" he said pretending to do puppy dog eyes underneath his mask, then started chuckling.
"Ugh, fine" he grunted "just once then we get back to work". He pulled his rucksack off and set it on the ground. He slowly unzipped it and pulled out a giant rifle.
"What I wouldn't do to have one of those" he said mesmerized by the size of the rifle.
"Ok enough show and tell, let's get moving" Vladimir said as he zipped up the rucksack and threw it back over his shoulder.
They started their march again and continued on their way to Kirovsky Zavod, the station where they were hired to get the rifle. It was a large 50 caliber rifle that weighed a good 25 pounds and could fire a hefty fifty caliber round over the distance of a mile. It was quite a rare weapon in the metro so Andrei and Vladimir were both happy to get it, for a price that is.
They had no troubles with acquiring the rifle; they were able to sneak around a large group of Grims yesterday (Grims were what remained of dogs; they were hairless and had three legs. They were very dangerous and always traveled in large packs) but the return journey was what they were worried about. They were on their last filters and had just enough time in them for the return trip. They weaved in and out of crumbling alley ways and walked around radiation hot zones. When they finally reached the entrance to Kirovsky Zavod they ran into trouble.
"What do you see?" Andrei asked with his finger on the trigger of his AK.
"Looks like Kirovsky is taking another attack by those Grim we snuck around yesterday" Vladimir said peering through his binoculars. "I think we should give them a little help" he said winking at him and taking off his rucksack.
Andrei's heart skipped a beat when Vladimir handed him the rifle and a clip of ammo for it.
"Go ahead make an old vet proud" Vladimir said giving him a thumbs up.
Andrei set the rifle up on the small brick wall they were hiding behind and cocked the bolt which emitted a loud click. He looked down the scope and saw several grim attacking the steel door of the stations entrance and several others wandering around. He put the crosshairs on one of the beast's heads and squeezed the trigger. The round left the barrel at a tremendous speed which kicked up pounds of dust. The recoil almost ripped his arm off but the round flew straight and true and blew the grim's head clean off and sent the body flying into one of its brothers.
When they saw what happened to one of their comrades they all let loose a violent screeching and started toward him. Andrei put three more shots in the air taking another two of the beasts down but there was too many and soon they were right on top of them. Vladimir opened up with his AK putting a couple more of the beasts down, but one got through the hail of bullets and smashed through the wall jumping on top of him trying to tear out his throat.
"Get off me you son of a bitch!" he yelled struggling with the beast. He held the creature back long enough to grab his pistol and put a whole mag into the creatures head. Pushing the body off of him, he threw a thumbs up to Andrei.
Andrei threw one back and reached down and grabbed his AK and let off a long burst until his clip was empty hoping it would scare them off. After seeing what happened to their brethren the reapers were cautious of continuing the attack and they began to disperse to regroup and lick their wounds.
Andrei let off a sigh of relief and held his hand out to Vladimir who in return grabbed it and pulled himself up.
"That was a bit hairy" Vladimir said gasping for air.
Understatement of the year, Andrei thought to himself. "Yea you could say that again".
"Come on, we'd better get into the station before they come back" Vladimir said gathering his things "we're going to have a hard time explaining to our client why we used all the ammo for his rifle".
They both hopped over the destroyed brick wall and huffed over to the station door. Vladimir walked up and looked at Andrei
"Shall we knock?" he said giving his trademark thumbs up and proceeded to hit the door 5 times, 3 fast and 2 slow. Then a voice came from the intercom to the right.
"Who's there? Who could possibly get past those Grim?" the voice said puzzled.
"Sukhoi! Is that you, you drunk bastard?" Vladimir asked. "You damn well know my skills!"
"Vladimir! I should have known it was you! Only you have the skill to get past those Grims. Hey you'd better get inside quickly that client of yours is causing a lot of trouble in here".