The group all stood in front of a dark and dreary tunnel. Their adventure had been relatively tame after the confrontation with the military and Vasili was more than glad about that. Sinova had more than proved a competent guide and had moved them around two groups of bandits and a pack of mutant dogs. Vasili looked down into the dark expanse, the musky smell floating from out the tunnel was killing him and he decided to raise his scarf around his lower face, Nikolai did the same with his ski mask, praying that it may offer them some small protection against the smell. Once everyone was confident that they were prepared to go into the hole, an old concrete tunnel located far away, on the very edges of the Garbage, the building that once held it long gone, Sinova told them all to get going and thus they slowly advanced down into the dark.
All that Vasili had heard about the place is it used to be a bunker, but the building collapsed even before the Chernobyl incident and was removed long ago. They had covered up the entrance but it was blown off during the second event. This just left an ominous concrete stair well in the ground for them to walk down. Off the bat he could see almost no one has been here, signs of life were nearly zero and signs of any activity previous to them coming here were equally low. Each of the lights on the ceiling had long gone out and their only source of light once they left the stairwell were the flash lights mounted under the barrel of Sinova's and Nova's weapons. The twin beams of light had trouble piercing the heavy darkness, it almost seemed unnatural how dark it was.
They were now in some sort of main room. The room was a medium sized concrete cube, almost nothing unique about it besides some crates and barrels stacked in a corner. In front of them was a massive door, going above their heads and being able to fit all of them in it at the same time comfortably. The door frame was rusted steel and the door was dangling down, leaving just enough room for them to duck through., slightly slanted and looking like it would collapse at any moment. To the left and right were smaller versions, for one person to go into. One of them had several crates blocking it, the other had long collapsed, rubble spilling into the main room from it. A single skeletal hand was poking out from under the debris.
"S-so I heard this p-place is filled with g-ghosts..." muttered Nikolai, obviously unnerved by the bunker. Vasili looked over and tried to say,
"G-ghosts are not really Nikolai, don't worry." But he did not feel like he believed the words. Every day of his life he had thought ghosts were the brain child of an over active imagination, but in this place? If any place had a ghost, it would be here.
"Cut the crap you two, we are going to get the stuff and go, kapeesh?" Said Sinova, Brewer was the last to speak.
"Motka Bozi" he muttered in a language Vasili in a language he did not know. Sinova waved at him to keep quiet and then walked to the large door.
"Cover me." He cut before getting to a knee and pushing himself under with a duck of the head. Afterwards, Brewer, Vasili, Nikolai and finally Nova went until they found themselves in a large storage room.
"This is where he said it would be." Said Sinova. The room was very large, probably half of a soccer field. In front of them, the ground stayed even and flat but to their sides it sloped up and the area on top of the slopes were covered in shelves, crates, barrels and other things. Many of the crates were broken open, looted long ago. The roof was high enough up that they could not see it in the dark, even when pointing up with the lights. When Nikolai coughed, his voice echoed across the room several times before stopping.
Sinova led them down the straight path, occasionally he would hoist the rifle over his shoulder and check his PDA for the location of the stash. The light from the device did not seem to add any illumination to the path and Vasili was constantly awaiting for him to bring his rifle to bear again whenever he did the action. Vasili noticed the path had been cleared, crates were pushed to the side and oddly enough, the dust that covered the rest of the building did not cover the paths they were pushed. He brought it up and Sinova paused the group to check.
"You are right newbie." He muttered, getting on a knee and wiping a finger on the path. No dust came up.
"Some one was here, recently." Muttered Nova, swinging his SPAS 12 around the elevated areas, trying to look for something to shoot at. Vasili raised his pistol as well, his fear of ghosts melted away to his fear of getting shot to death.
"This could not be coincidence. Almost no one knows of this place, any scavengers would be here weeks after each other." Said Brewer, his voice faster than usual.
"Shit fuck the stash this has to be a set up, I am not risking it let's-" Sinova almost finished the sentence when they heard a crashing noise, looking behind them they saw the door slam down and dust to go flying. Two crates toppled from either side of the slope and smashed together at the bottom, blocking the path.
"SHIT!" Screamed Nikolai, he began shooting at where the crates were previously, hoping to kill whatever pushed them.
"STOP SCREAMING AND FIND A WAY OUT." Yelled at Sinova at them, sprinting down the path towards a door at the very end. Once the team made it, huffing from lack of breath, the door slammed shut like the others. Brewer cursed in the foreign language again, but Vasili tried his best to look around.
The slopes stopped before the wall, making a path to their left and right. The door on the left was on one hinge, on the other side was some sort of anomaly. The other door was shut and looked like it was locked. Sinova motioned them towards that door and they ran over, Brewer began trying to kick it to no avail.
"Nikolai, open that damn door!" He shouted, before motioning for the rest to cover him. Nikolai nodded and ran to a control panel next to the door, popping it open with a smack of his pistol and tampering with the series of wires inside of it. The rest of the team spread out along the path, Vasili was the farthest out, leaning against the wall and aiming towards the path, he tried his best to aim but fear and a lack of experience made his gun shake erratically. Somewhere on the elevated area, he heard something screeching.
"WATCH OUT." Screamed Brewer, Vasili had a moment to look up and see the very large crate teetering off the edge of the concrete, he briefly screamed before Sinova grabbed both of his arms and pulled him back, throwing both of them backwards and narrowly away from the collapsing crate.
"Any day now Nikolai!" Shouted Sinova, getting up and brushing himself off before running to the fallen crate and hugging it for cover.
"I AM DOING A JOB HERE I AM BUSY." Screamed back Nikolai in a panic, still working with the panel. Suddenly, a new voice filled the room. It had an American accent and Vasili placed it to up on the raised area.
"Fuck it just shoot the bastards, we will find the PDA later." Sinova looked up and muttered a curse. He unbuttoned one of his pockets and stuffed a hand in, before pulling out a hand grenade. Dropping his rifle, he took hold of the pin and pegged it up there. It made a pinging noise and they heard some one scream a curse in English before the grenade made a loud BOOM, a man went flying off the ledge, smacking into the wall and falling down with an UMF. He had a blue jump suit on, with a gas mask and a dark grey tactical vest.
"Merc's?" Gasped Nova, backing away from the body. They heard a flurry of footsteps above them when suddenly the door slid open. Nikolai cheered and ran in, followed by the rest of the group. Sinova was the last in, diving in right before a bullet smacked into where he just was. Nikolai looked at the panel on this side and popped it open as well, cutting two wires, he watched the door slam shut just as two more mercenaries hopped from the ledge.
"Now to find a way the hell out of here." Muttered Vasili.
