Episode VII
Guide, Chasme and Farsight stood around the izlom. Both of its scrawny legs had been horribly mutilated by the powerful AWM rounds Guide had shot through them. It reeked of carrion, uncleanliness, and moss. The former soldier pondered, studying it:
"I wonder where did he work." The mutant had worn the tattered remnants of a labcoat.
"Impossible to know. He had neither badges nor identification tags," Guide replied. "It's useless to stick around this poor sod anymore."
"We were lucky this time..." Farsight was saying, half to himself. He was still pale. The sharp pain in his back and his bleeding nose were no help. "Three of these things... How come it hurts so bad and I don't have a scratch?"
"Chernobyl dogs use their 'phantoms' to incapacitate you. The pain is real, but the wounds are not. Once you have passed out, the mutant will come out of hiding and dispatch you itself." Farsight shuddered at the old stalker's explanation.
"Hey, look at me." Chasme shook the youth lightly. "If you hadn't killed the sucker with your first shot, we'd all be dead now."
Farsight managed to smile hesitatingly, doubt and fright still gripping him. Guide handed him his rifle. "Here you go," he said. "It's an excellent weapon. Make the best out of it."
They set off through the pines that grew on that part of the road to the Dark Valley, precaution against another trap slowing them. Farsight's eyes darted everywhere around him, his mind nearly jumping in panic at the idea of more mutants waiting for them in ambush. Thunder rumbled again; thick clouds coming from the south were quickly covering the sky. Guide frowned as he studied it.
"Gonna rain, you think?" Chasme asked.
"In about an hour or two. Nothing bad, really."
The young sniper was mumbling as he walked on. It clearly appeared to both Guide and Chasme that he regretted having accepted the deal with them, but he was in waist-deep now. The former soldier looked inquisitively at Guide, the question about what to do with him poised in his eyes, but the old stalker shook his head and shrugged.
It took them a good half an hour to put the last of the trees behind them. The path led to a natural gorge of sorts, formed by two cliffs that fell abruptly from several meters high, which later opened into the desolate hills of the Dark Valley. Lightning streaked across the sky, thunderbolt following it almost instantly, and it began to rain. Quickly it turned into a downpour. Gusts of wind buffeted them, sending drops of chilling rainwater over them like millions of jagged needles.
"Alright, now what?" Chasme almost spat. Farsight realized it was his turn; in despair he wished for earth to split open and swallow him... for a second. Then, grim determination washed over him: since they were there and not going back anywhere safe until they got what they wanted, he may as well get on with the task at hand. He exhaled strongly.
"The bandit stronghold is over there," he almost shouted through the storm, gesturing north-west towards a place behind the cliff. "Last time I was here, there were two ways in." He then went on to briefly detail how the compound could be entered via a sewage duct in an irradiated and anomaly-infested swamp, or through the main gate. "It was very well guarded then, but with the whole mutant mess..." he managed to conceal a shiver.
"Where are they, by the way?" the former soldier wondered.
"Weathering the storm, probably..." Guide had to force his voice over the noise of the downpour. "Rains are very bad for hunters; they ruin scent and blur vision."
"Which means we got only fleshes to watch out for."
"And bloodsuckers. Rain makes them even harder to follow."
Farsight suddenly recalled the moving blur he had seen. "Why didn't it attack us...?" he pondered loudly to himself.
"What?"
"Oh... remember that I said that it wasn't just izloms and pseudodogs we were up against? I thought I saw a cloaked bloodsucker running away from under the treeline back there. Why didn't it come against us?"
"They are smarter than you think. Three heavily armed stalkers, expecting to be attacked... I really ignore whether they think or not, but they are cunning enough to smell readiness."
"The ones which attacked the Duty post weren't that clever... remember how they ran the guns in the traincar?" Chasme pointed out.
"True." The veteran stalker frowned. "Strange. Only now do I realize it makes no sense at all for 'suckers to do that."
Chasme's radio crackled, then a garbled voice spoke something. "Shit!" he stammered; he ran back under the cover of the trees, his companions in his wake. He pulled it out and listened: nothing but static at first, but then, another crackle, and the distinctive tone of military traffic.
"There are soldiers around here," he said.
"How far? Can't see any." Farsight had put his eye to the scope of his rifle.
"This thing's got a very long range. Surely they're out somewhere in the valley..."
This time, it was Guide's radio that crackled, then a voice spoke through the static: "Guide, this is Dagger from Duty outpost. Do you copy? Over."
"Loud and clear, Dagger," the old stalker replied. "I'm listening."
"Seriy told us what happened at the hangar... sorry to hear that. He was one hell of a stalker."
"Thank you. But I suppose you did not call just to extend your condolences."
A brief laugh came from the other side of the speaker. "Straight to the point, I like that. Bullet and his squad are hiding under the bridge; they've been pretty badly mauled and I don't know of other friendlies in the whole valley, so whatever you guys can do will be great."
"Understood... We will try our best, but do not expect anything. If this place has become as dangerous as you have led me to believe, probably there is nothing we will be able to do for them. Worse still," he said after a pause, "Chasme has picked up military transmissions in the valley."
The radio fell silent for a few instants, then Dagger spoke again. "Got it. Whatever you can do will be fine. Thanks."
"Don't just thank us yet," Chasme cut in. "We've got to reach them first." He stowed his radio and looked around him for Farsight. "Where's the boy?"
"Up here, in the tree," he said in as low a voice as he could through his radio; he had climbed up one of the pines and was thoroughly scanning the valley with his binoculars. Guide looked up at him with a smirk.
"Athletic too, eh? That will come in handy."
"I don't know whether to feel proud or afraid." This remark elicited a laugh from the old stalker.
"What do you make from up there?" Chasme asked.
"Little. A few stray fleshes and crows... oh, no, wait." Near the run-down gas station, half a dozen bloodsuckers feasted on the remains of a boar. Several izloms –and their pseudodog pets– drowsed around and in the ceiling of the guardhouse nearby; the bloodsuckers hardly paid them any attention. His wariness increased, if possible. He relayed what he saw to his partners through his own radio; Chasme unconsciously scratched his armored head in confusion:
"Sooo... the 'suckers and the izloms are cool neighbors now. Doesn't make any sense."
Guide agreed. "I never heard of this either," he admitted, and frowned. "Something else is at work here."
Farsight landed behind them with a soft thud. "I don't want to know. Let's just do what we came here to do and get the hell outta here."
They set off under the downpour, Guide on point, Chasme and Farsight slightly behind him. The thunderstorm had seemingly vacated the desolate lands around them. The old stalker, who was intimately familiar with the weather patterns of the Zone, gauged the wind and studied the uniformly dark gray sky, hoping his guess at the reasons the mutants had for seeking refuge from the storm was inaccurate. Unluckily, it turned out to be so, but not in the way he expected: the wind that buffeted them was quickly turning into a raging gale. Soon it became difficult to march on.
"It's a goddamn hurricane!" Chasme had to shout through the wind. "We gotta find shelter fast!"
"Head on for the swamp!" Farsight yelled back, trying to see something through the stinging rain and the gale. Even now, it was easy to distinguish, as a pool of murky black water crammed with overgrown bushes. And even now they could clearly distinguish the telltale crackling and sparkling that hinted at the presence of electrical anomalies.
"No way!" The soldier shook his head. "I'd rather have a bullet through my head than getting fried in there!"
"If we manage to avoid triggering them, the water will not harm us" Guide cut in, with great effort. "These anomalies only discharge electricity at whatever it is that disrupts them..."
Farsight hurried on ahead, the gut feeling that the weather was about to get even worse urging him to settle the matter. His two companions followed in tow, struggling against the howling wind. The bulk of the unfinished apartment building loomed ahead of them now. Lightning streaked in blue-purple lines behind the building for a brief instant, and the deafening blast of a thunderbolt followed immediately. The ground under his feet quivered; his mind quickly did the math and figured that the lightning bolt had hit somewhere uncomfortably nearby.
"Here!" he urged them, as they neared the swamp. "Into the drainpipe!" He reached into his memory, trying to remember if the anomalies had moved since he had last been there. Apparently they had not... but an added precaution was by all means a good thing. He picked up a long stick lying on the ground and walked into the marsh, using it to feel the air and the ground before him for anomalies, pure instinct guiding him. The wind howled like a beast all around them. Hail started pelting them. Soon it was a cascade of ice pellets falling. The electrical anomalies around them exploded into lightning with a giant thunder; the discharge did not hurt them, but the thunderbolt it produced felt uncomfortably close.
"What the hell is going on here?!" Chasme managed to shout. "Never seen a storm like this one in my life!"
Farsight jumped inside the drainpipe first; at first, it struck him as odd to find it obstructed some four or five meters ahead. Then the obstruction squealed and started turning around:
"FLESH!" he shouted. The obscenely mutated pig squealed again, looked at the youth with panicked eyes, and painstakingly tried to retreat down the tunnel.
"MOVE!" Chasme shoved him aside brandishing Strelok's shotgun, but stopped dead in his tracks: "It's wounded!"
Farsight again moved in first, being smaller and fleeter than the armor-encumbered stalker, his own sidearm in his hand. He turned on his headlamp; the beast squealed and growled threateningly, but it did not move any further down the tunnel. Then he noticed the blood seeping from one of its legs. Apparently it was very difficult for it to move.
The youth would never remember making a conscious decision. He stowed his sidearm and slowly approached the creature, both of his hands wide open before him. The flesh growled again in fear, but its porcine eyes changed and regarded him with cautious curiosity. With slow, measured motions, he reached for the stick he had used to poke the ground for anomalies, broke it, and produced a packaged bandage from his backpack. Guide and Chasme held up their breaths in astonishment, the armored stalker still covering him with his shotgun, but Farsight ignored him. He closed in even more, but the flesh did not repel him, its gaze now subdued. The youth teared open the bandage and applied it over and around the cruel gash in its leg, using the stick piece to keep the limb stiff. The mutated pig groaned in protest at the pain, but made no threatening movement, evidently understanding the human wanted to help it.
Guide put down his weapon, amazed. "Now this is a thing I have never seen in the Zone." He grinned. "Now you also have a gift with animals!"
"With muties, no less" Chasme echoed him. The flesh was squealing lowly now, still wary of the two humans behind its benefactor, but not afraid anymore. It painstakingly crawled a bit down the tunnel, and stayed still.
Farsight smiled in satisfaction and turned back to his companions. "My little sister has three dogs. She's done that herself more than a few times."
The storm raged outside, the hail having ceased by now. Chasme sat against the wall and took out his helmet; the mutant a few meters down the tunnel squealed in surprise at the noise, but did little else. Guide crouched next to Farsight.
"What do we do now?" the boy asked. The old stalker shrugged.
"Wait out the storm. Or use your charming skills to force this flesh down the tunnel."
"I don't think this thing wants to move another step." Ironically enough, even as he spoke, the flesh shook and stood uneasily on its legs and started crawling away, still in pain, but a bit more alleviated now. Both stalkers looked at each other with amusement.
"Well, it seems you were wrong. Come on." Guide gestured Chasme to move on and crawled down the tunnel, Farsight slightly behind the mutant, which was now oblivious to his benefactor's presence.
They traversed the unfinished sewers, their underground journey ending on an exit near an unfinished building. The rain had not ceased falling in the least, turning the muddy depression they were in into a tiny lagoon. Chasme climbed out the first, his heavy armor making him more capable of surviving a snipe shot or surprise attack, and peeked out from behind the edge of the ditch. Utter desolation greeted his eyes. The erstwhile residents of this compound had dug out a series of trenches and foxholes on a large courtyard, around which several buildings and hangars in differing states of completion were set; now, bones –human and "animal"– littered the landscape, along with rusting remains of weapons.
"What do you see?" Guide asked.
"Nothing nice. Seems like the bandits got what they had coming."
Farsight turned around to check on the flesh, which was placidly lying on the mud, its animal eyes curiously following the movements of those strange two-legged creatures. The mutant seemed to notice his helper's glance, because it uttered a low chirp and sank deeper in the mud, as if trying to seem completely harmless.
"I don't see anything around here, but I don't like it. The main gate's been torn from its hinges, so if the pack of 'suckers catches a whiff of anything edible they'll be on us almost immediately."
"The rains should play for us regarding that matter, as long as we can keep it quiet." Guide slowly climbed out of the ditch and made a quick scan of the place: "There are lights still turned on inside the main hangar. We should start our search there."
"You're the expert..." Chasme pulled out his shotgun and handed his G36 over to Farsight. "That rifle you're carrying won't do us much good inside a building. You got our backs."
"Good idea." Farsight slung the AWM to his back and set on after his partners. He turned his head to have a look at the strangely friendly flesh a last time, but it had vanished. For a brief second he wondered where would it have gone, and concluded it surely had turned around and returned to the sewers.
They raced as silently as they could along the hangar's wall, stopping short of the entrance. Chasme raised a closed fist, signaling their partners to wait, and started a countdown with his fingers for their benefit. When it reached zero, he closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and peeked around the entrance. He was treated to the remains of another, more recent massacre: over twenty mutant corpses of all species and breeds littered the garage, as well as a few human bodies. Again, the bullet he had braced for did not come, nor did any bestial growling reach his ears. The closed breathing system spared him the fetid stench of decay, but he gestured his partners to beware of the smell. He entered the garage and immediately raced for cover behind a truck, Guide and Farsight in tow, weapons at the ready; still, no shots, no growls.
Farsight peeked around the bulk of the truck. "Clear here."
"Heard anything?" Chasme asked.
"Not a thing."
"Alright... let's make a sweep of the lower level first. I don't want any surprises chasing us from behind later."
A distinct echo of metal clattering on the floor startled them. Guide willed himself to absolute stillness, his body reacting instantly out of habit, subduing his breath, slowing his heartbeat, even his eyes not moving, his mind focusing to its limits into doing everything it could to sharpen his hearing. Then he caught an almost inaudible sound: something heavy scraping on the floor. Farsight started to say something but the veteran stalker furiously gestured him to shut up. Chasme readied himself to move forward but Guide bade him to stay where he was; his armor would not help when moving silently.
Cautiously, with catlike steps and motions, Guide looked around the corner. A monstrously large boar was dragging a corpse dressed in military fatigues away from him. More mutant bodies were strewn there; the walls were littered with bullet holes and shotgun blasts. He shot a quick glance through the windows; the rain was falling as heavily as ever. He readied his assault rifle, waiting for a thunderbolt to camouflage his shot...
Unexpectedly, the corpse shook violently and tried to break free from the boar's grasp. The mutant uttered a surprised squeal and tried to strike at the squirming man with its claws and hooves. A knife flashed in the man's hand and stabbed for the neck. The boar saw the light gleaming on metal and fiercely shook its mighty head, making the blow go wild.
A heavy hoof smashed on the helpless man as Guide squeezed the trigger. The bullet took the mutant in the neck, piercing it from side to side; the boar shrieked in pain, hammering the floor and the helpless man in its clutches with its massive bulk. Another shot. The side of the boar's head disappeared in a fountain of blood.
"Chasme!" Guide whispered to his companion as he surged forward. "You cover us!" he ordered to Farsight, who took a defensive position around the corner, his rifle trained on the windows and the passageway ahead of them. Between the two stalkers they managed to pull the massive corpse of the boar from over the unconscious man. The hoof had struck him squarely on his head. The helmet he was wearing had mitigated the blow, but was now cracked and useless. Chasme went quickly over him: the fatigues were obviously military in origin, as was the identity tag still hanging from his neck.
"Master sergeant M. I. Bondarenko" he read, half to himself. "Alpha SBU... wow."
"What is so special about them?" Guide asked as he overheard him.
"They're an elite counter-terrorism unit. Tough sons of bitches... some of them cross-trained with the Spetznaz from the Red Army. What are they doing here?"
"Maybe they are after the slicer trying to crack their communications."
"Probably. He must have found something juicy if these guys came this far after his hide." He considered taking out the soldier's helmet, but if the blow had broken something –which was quite likely– it would be for the worse. "What do you think?"
Guide examined the soldier with expertise born from dozens of similar episodes. It was a knowledge he wished he did not have. "The helmet mitigated the impact of the blow... something strong enough to crack one of these would have turned his head into so much pulp. My guess is he only has a concussion."
"I didn't mean that... what do we do with him? We can't just lug him around."
"We take him with us. I have never left a person behind before" –his memory achingly recalled how he had insisted to Fang to bring Strelok with them on that fatidic blowout– "and I am not about to start now." He visually inspected the soldier's neck and vertebrae... there was nothing that hinted at something broken there. "Help me move him. Carefully."
Together, they dragged him back to their first hideout behind the truck at the garage, Farsight covering their retreat. Even if no one –or nothing– was coming and the storm was still raging, lightning and all, the youth was taking no chances. Guide slapped the man in the face:
"Wake up. Wake up!" The soldier blinked twice, stared at him with dreamy eyes, and coughed. More blood stained the floor with each cough.
"Something's broken inside."
"Not a thing we can fix." Guide quickly ran over the possibilities on his mind, their quest for the hacker suddenly forgotten. "One of us will have to stay here. Being left at the mercy of a mutant is a fate I would not wish upon anyone."
"I will," Chasme volunteered. It made sense: his heavy armor made him no easy prey.
"Alright. Radio us if anything happens. Farsight, come on."
"Shouldn't we take the stairs?" the young stalker proposed. "I'll fare much better. Seems like it's a long hallway up there." Guide thought about it for a moment, then decided it was as good a place to start as any. He nodded and silently hurried up the stairs, Farsight again wielding the long sniper rifle behind him.
With movements seemingly drawn from an evil dance, they leapfrogged their way through the corridor, which led into a crudely finished stairwell. The battle had not raged as strongly here; while the lower level was riddled with bullet holes, shotgun marks and grenade blasts, a few blood stains marked the walls, and the run-down tiled floor was marked by hundreds of animal footprints.
The stairwell spiraled down; another corridor to the right led there as well. Somewhere down that passageway a fire crackled. Guide chose the corridor. He heard Farsight switch back his sniper rifle for the assault weapon. A single doorway on each side of the corridor led to what probably were intended to become offices if the building had been completed. Again, a few bullet holes and blood stains on the walls and the floor. The sounds of the storm outside were their only company. Fires had burned on drums and crudely assembled pits on each room, as the telltale ashes and carbonized sticks indicated. The youngster stepped over the remains of one such fire: it was still a bit warm.
At the end of the corridor, another doorway. Again Guide froze in place, Farsight instantly reacting. He closed his eyes again and concentrated utterly on his hearing, feeling intently for sounds other than those of the rain falling. Nothing.
Uneasiness crept into the young stalker. He repressed a shiver as he felt the hairs on the back of his head stand one by one.
Guide walked on ahead through the doorway. The large room he was treated to was as empty as the corridor they had just traversed. He was standing over a walkway that overshadowed what seemed to be an entrance hall; a series of large poor quality wooden gates leading to the street outside were barred shut from the inside. Two stairs descended in angles from the upper floor to the hall.
He motioned Farsight to cover him. Slowly, he walked on over the walkway, heading for the passageway ahead. A muted sound of wood hitting cement reached him, as if a door, buffeted by the wind, had bounced against a wall. It seemed to come from the room to his left. Unlike every other room they had come across so far, this one had a door, and it was closed. In the penumbra, Guide noticed light seeping from under the door.
Quickly, he traced back his steps and motioned his companion to close in. Farsight took position by the door frame, his weapon ready. Guide started a countdown with his fingers: three... two... one...
The countdown reached zero. Farsight kicked the door open, weapon at the ready, and stepped inside, only to pull back almost immediately: the crude cement floor and the brick walls were red with blood almost everywhere. Over and around two desks and a series of lockers lay horribly mangled human corpses, some of them partially eaten, their clothes and armor viciously rent. The old stalker felt ice in his marrow. He had endured both Fang's and Strelok's deaths as he had endured almost every other friend's, taking them with stoic resignation as pieces of his soul were seared away, jaded by the uncountable atrocities and calamities he had seen the Zone throw at them. But never had he witnessed something like that.
Perhaps what kept him from bolting out of the place in panic was seeing Farsight bent in nausea and struggling not to vomit. "Come on. Come here." He led the boy to a window outside the office and helped him take out his mask. Farsight gulped air, his face ashen, his hands trembling in shock. Even in a Zone prone to spawning terrible things, this was too much to bear.
"Oh my God... oh my God... what... what the hell...?" he babbled.
Guide picked up his radio. "Chasme, this is Guide, come in."
"Roger", the radio echoed back. "What have you found?"
"You are better off not knowing. The building is clear. I am sending Farsight back with you."
"Copy that."
He walked his young companion back to the stairwell, past the corridor, and returned to the office, closing his mind to the atrocity his eyes and nose screamed at him. Methodically he checked the lockers for useful items –finding most of them empty, save for a few boxes of ammunition and first aid kits–; then, he turned to the slightly ajar door in front of him, which was buffeted by the wind that howled in through a window to his right. He slowly opened it with the barrel of his Groza. A single man with a hooded coat had been crudely tied to a chair with what seemed to be the tendons of several men and viciously mutilated on his legs; his blood had soaked red the ancient, Soviet-era carpet.
He breathed in deeply, struggling for control, and surveyed the room. A blood-soaked assault rifle of Western make lay on the carpet. The desk was a mess of ancient paperwork, grease and cases of spent ammunition. A dirty haversack lay over it. He opened it. He fastidiously noticed it did not contain anything resembling a computer; amidst assorted ammunition, rotting bread and the fragments of what he thought had once been a Cobblestone artifact, the only technological device was what seemed to be an expensive-looking cellular phone.
Chasme's radio crackled again. "Guess who got themselves into a fix?"
"Let me guess," Guide replied, his voice strained by the effort it took to keep his rising panic under control. "The goons."
