chapter eleven:
Here we go!
Remember review? please?
one more chapter and my back log no longer exists so chapters will come far slower. also this chapter has my first OC,,, Original Critter. let me know what you think of it?
betaed by scarlet bunny
The small squad exited the Market gate. We climbed up the escalator, the same I had just came down. At the top the squad spread out a little, instinctively keep loose with well drill arcs of fire.
"Clear." Girgori said the the group moved carefully over the frosted over rubble.
"Which we we going Kuzma?" Anton asked.
"I've been itching clear to clear Dry out for years, but its best we go avoid it." nods went around. I walked up to the door with the rest of the guys.
At the door my head pounded and I had to pause to rub my forehead.
"Great another damn vision." I muttered now semi used to them."
I looked around. From behind me a two people were walking up to the bridge me and Echo had passed over on are way to Market.
"So that the dead city? Welcome home, Artyom." him again? Why was I seeing visions of this guy?
"Why am I not surprised." I muttered.
"You say something." I started I looked around. Unlike before the world was still going on, it was not on 'pause' as it was before. The Rangers were all staring at me.
"Umm, no, no I did not." The two of them walked to the bridge, for a second it flashed as it was in there time, a pair of cars with a jump between them.
The first one lept the jump and extended a arm to the second, I still did not know who was who, yet. "Jump I'll catch you."
He didn't and the second one fell into the water and quickly, worked his way out as the first one spoke. "That's what I call rotten luck." with the creek of tortured metal the blue car fell into the crevice.
"You'll have to go around. Artyom, don't step in the puddles. You'll get irradiated and shit. You see that gated building?" I turned to face the same way Artyom did. Your target is a vent in the backyard, that lead to Dry Station. I'll wait for you in the building. There's a ranger hideout on the Upper floor. Make it quick,,,And don't eat yellow snow." he laughed. Then a roar echoed.
"DEMON!" everyone,Anton, Pasha Kuzma Grigori, the guy who failed to catch Artyom yelled.
The Ranger turned back into the station upper building. I though kept my eye on Artyom he darted across to the building across from the station.
I followed.
"Christopher! What are you doing!" Anton yelled after me as I ducked into a building following a vision. Not my sanest move I will admit.
The first thing I saw was a Stalker, he had no gas mask oddly enough. He was kneeling against a wall, his forehead pushed tightly against the wall. Nearby a shot gun was laying on the floor. I walked up, oddly he had only a single bullet wound, in the back of the skull.
He had been executed. With out ceremonial I expertly went though his pockets and pulled out every bullet I found.
Ten shot gun shells, four slugs, and 10 MG bullets. Grabbing the shot gun I slug my Bastard over my shoulder with a sigh and wielded the shot gun, I needed another golf bag.
Pocketing the bullets and loading the shot gun I looked around. While I had been busy looting, Artyom had dealt with some Howlers. I followed him closely up the stairs until we got to the third floor.
A screech met me and I knelt and faced the sound. Barreling around a corner was, something.
It was a biped with sparse black hair, long teeth with a jaw opened wide, a slit nose and large forehead. Most interesting, in its long fingered hands it held a bone like a weapon.
It screamed as it came around the corner like a praying mantis in a wood chipper. I didn't even think about it and fired both barrels into it.
It fell back and rolled around screaming. It came back up hissing and charged forward again. I locked another pair of shells into the gun and fired again. The thing, jumped side ways, onto the wall and lunched it self at me.
I took a stance and jabbed with the shot gun, the blunt gun stabbing it in the chest. Its spit landing, and freezeing on my gas mask as it roared in pain and rage.
I fired my other barrel into and drew my revolver and fired into. Round, after round impacted the mass of meat, bone and hair, that rolled and screamed on the floor trying to kill me. Emptying six shots into I speed loaded six new rounds into place and took aim.
It had stopped moving. I walked up to it and drew a baynet and stabbed it in the head. It gave a last shuddered moan and died.
"What the fuck are you?" I said and pried open its jaw. It looked like a hell chimp on crack. With the knife I cut the fangs out so some one could tell me what had teeth like it. Pocketing them I looked around. I had lost Artyom.
I turned into a office and there he was, it was like he was waiting for me. Then again maybe he was, the vision was odd like that. He kept moving though a former office then he ducked down a elevator shaft. Surprised I followed him. In his time it had been a ranger stock pile.
In mine. It was sniper nest. A man was looking down the sights of a rifle at something. I reloaded my shot gun the click making him jump a foot in the air.
"Don't do that!" He said turning blue around the gas masks as he tried to breath heavily though a filter that would let him. As he took stock of the situation Artyom ducked down the elevator shaft climbing under the elevator.
"This looks bad doesn't it?" he said at last.
"Yup." I said.
"Wait I can explain!" he said "I'm Demon hunting."
"Demon hunting?"
"Ya." he nodded and pointed out the window. "When one of the flying pile of bullets goes by I nail it in the wing." he picked up his rifle, it was actually a cross bow and showed it to me. "When the arrow goes though it pops open," he showed me one of the heavy arrows and tapped button on it flipping four prongs out, "And since the arrows tied down, it falls to the ground, or rips its wing out."
"Good for you." I said lowering my shot gun. "Well I best go now, I slipped down here to say the least."
"Wait,umm, take this." he reached down and handed me a Bastard clip of filled with military grade bullets.
"I don't quite have all the permits to hunt around Market, and the Demons know it, so they flock here, so I appreciate if you didn't tell any one you saw me." I nodded and ducked down under the elevator. "Happy hunting." I said and he nodded.
"I intend to." I ducked down and landed on the ground. The ghostly phffit of Artyom gun finished up a pair of howlers. I followed him back up the stairs, past the dead demon chimp, then past the elevator.
We slid down a scree slope of rubble and ice. Looking around a howler watched me warily. I had no way of knowing if it was Artyom's time, or mine.
The howler jumped away so it was a moot point.
Following Artyom he cut though a building I looked around and,,, A HOWLER LEPT AT ME!
I put a shot gun shell into it but it kept going, and smacked into Artyom. As he dueled with it I loaded a new shell into the left barrel. It was tricky keeping the two reality apart.
Once he dealt with the Howler and shoved it off him he walked into the building.
Inside was another executed stalker, a single bullet going though the base of his skull. His skin was blue and I turned it over and looked at the bullet hole. It was lightly oozing blood on the so he could not have been dead all that long.
Going though is pockets turned up some speed loaders for a revolver, 32 loose 5.45 bullets, and a Chinese assault rifle clip. The rifle was no were in sight. I stood up, then noticed his eyes, glaring sightlessly ahead.
I knelt back down and breathed on them like Echo did, the heat of my breath making them easy to move and I closed them. Standing back up I moved though the building.
Ducking around a truck Artyom's was just ahead,,, laughter echoed from some were around me, and a voice spoke as if from many from within a cave, "He can stop death."
I tightly clenched my new shot gun, and carefully looked around, Artyom did the same. Around a corner a rusting playground emerged.
Morbid, cold, the window forlornly blew a swing in and out to the tune of creaking, rusted metal. I shivered and jumped down a ledge.
My vision flashed.
When it came back, it was a different world.
The sky was blue, grass was green and children, happy children, not the weathered and hard post war small adults that had taken there place.
I stopped, I looked around, this was a the world, clean, safe, calm, the world from before the bombs.
I put my hand to my mask and, nervously, undid it.
Holding my mask, I took a deep breath of the air. It was a warm day, the smell of fresh cut grass, baking in the distance, hit me. A second in to the breath, radioactive and toxic air from the real world blasted my system. Coughing I took another breath as I put the mask on, again the smell of a after image of the world flew up my nose, only to last a second and be replaced by the real world.
I looked around,Artyom was gone. For a second I stood in a echo of the old world, then I disappeared.
"What the hell?" I asked dismissively what was that? I turned around and started.
Squatting on a old rusty white van, was some kind of mutant.