Freedom

Chapter 8

It was evening before we were back on track. The sun sank lower in the sky, and our position hardly seemed to have changed. True, we were all tired after fleeing from the thin stalker – but he'd never appeared, and everyone was still in one piece. I had to count that as a win, provided he wasn't still back there somewhere, patiently tracking us. Don't ask me why my imagination was going to such lengths with that guy – there just something about him. Maybe the same thing that made carrion eaters flock to him.

The darkness made the road deadlier. We couldn't see dangerous anomalies until we were right on top of them, and everyone knows that the worst mutants are most active at night. The situation was far from ideal. We got there, but we were in trouble.

In front of us was a black ocean. We could see shapes standing up against the night sky, buildings and machinery. An industrial graveyard. Stone walls lay cracked and broken, giving way to dilapidated warehouses and train depots. This was the infamous Rail Yard, bane of all stalkers approaching Rostov from the north and west. Even outsiders like us knew about it.

I felt like we should have been able to see some kind of light from the Bar, but there was a lot of ground ahead of us. The structures were taller than expected. They would block much of the moonlight once we were in there. It would be as dark as the grave.

I went down on one knee and took out my PDA, telling the Americans to watch my back. I was still uneasy, even hours later. I called up my map. It was no use trying to circle around to the north; the road was too long and too dangerous – filled with hotspots of radiation, mutants, and uncharted anomalies. Cutting around south was out of the question, too – there was a well-known vein of irradiated material running perpendicular to the wall of the yard. Going around it would take hours, and going through it just wasn't done. Even so, anything had to be better than walking right into a deathtrap in the dead of night.

The Americans were played out. It had been a long, full day. Even I was tired. If we punched straight through, the road was short. It wasn't like nobody ever pulled this off – it's just that nobody liked it. I rose to my feet and put away my PDA.

"We're going straight through." I turned to the Americans. "I'm the only one with a light on. Stay close, and no noise."

We crept to the wall and ducked through a collapsed section, into the narrow gap between two corrugated walls. I switched on my AK's light and angled it at the ground. We only needed to be able to see one step ahead. If we could avoid anomalies and stay quiet, we'd get through this.

I was uncomfortable with even the crunching of our boots on gravel. I put up a hand to halt the Americans when we reached the end of the makeshift alleyway. Covering my light with my hand, I leaned out and looked in either direction. There wasn't much to see. Something clattered, but it was far off. It didn't come as a surprise to any of us that there were things moving around in this yard that we couldn't see.

After pointing to the side of a building across an open space, I switched off my light and moved out. The Americans did a good job keeping up. We followed the bricks to the corner, where I leaned out yet again. Ahead, I saw light flickering in a window. A fire? An anomaly? A distraction?

I touched Dixon's shoulder and signaled him. He raised his Beowulf and moved to the other side of the gravel pit, taking aim. I moved up, then sent Slayer ahead while I covered Dixon. If there was a sniper out there, we weren't going to make it any easier for him. No one shot at us.

We took a chance and entered a warehouse through a tear in the metal siding, making our way through stacks of moldy wooden crates filled with something that smelled vile. There was something alive in that warehouse, but we hurried through quickly enough that it never got a chance to make a move – though we could hear it in the shadows the whole time we were inside.

Once out, we were held up again behind a low stone wall. The road ahead was too open; there was no cover except for the stripped wooden remains of wire spools stacked on our left. Moving out with lights on would be a sharpshooter's buffet, and going in the dark was even less attractive. There were holes and gaps in the concrete everywhere; we'd be lucky to trip and make noise, but more likely someone would twist an ankle, and the odds of us reaching the Bar alive would plummet.

"This is it," I whispered. "From here we have to hurry." I took a device of my own design from a pocket on my armor.

"Is that a flare?"

"Are those firecrackers?"

I ignored both questions and slapped the flare against my thigh, sparking it to life. Squinting at the green glare, I rose and flung it as hard as I could to our right. It hissed away and landed on the pavement, the firecrackers beginning to pop rapidly. I put my hands back on my AK and took off, hearing the Americans just behind me. Maybe all these precautions were unnecessary.

We covered the distance, and I cut to the left to follow a brick wall to a raised concrete platform. I dropped down to the gravel below, making my way between a pair of rusting hulks that had once been box cars. A boiling green anomaly glowed beneath the one on our left, but it wasn't a threat. Some of my night vision was coming back, and I knew we had to have covered at least half the distance.

There was sudden glare on the metal of one of the train cars ahead, and I hissed at the Americans to stop, covering my own light. I thought fast, then dropped and rolled beneath the nearest train car. The Americans scrambled down after me.

Boots crunched on gravel. We held our breaths as more lights appeared. Three – no, four stalkers. They weren't saying anything. Their lights were on, but pointed down. I couldn't read their intentions from their movement alone. Maybe they were just passing through. I gave them the benefit of the doubt as they moved off. Dixon's sidearm was in his hand, and he eased it back into the holster on his chest. He looked at me questioningly, and I gave a small shake of my head. We had to wait until they were well and truly gone.

My firecrackers had burned out, and there was nothing to hear but a distracting rustling.

"Hold still," I bit out.

"I'm not moving."

"Me neither."

I was out from under the train car in about zero seconds, and Dixon was right there with me. Slayer screamed much more loudly than I liked, but in hindsight, I don't blame him. Dixon and I immediately dropped down and grabbed him by the arms, dragging him out. In the dark, his body was just a writhing mess of black shapes and red eyes. Dixon dove right in, trying to pull the twisted rats off him, but that wasn't going to work; they had him totally blanketed, and they were hungry, bringing to mind visions of underwater camera shots from Discovery channel specials dealing with Piranha.

I jerked down my mask and drove the heel of my boot into Dixon's sternum, not just kicking him free of Slayer, but throwing him back a ways. He gasped and tumbled to the ground. I took the flask from my belt and twisted off the lid. I didn't know which was louder – Slayer or the rats, now that they were in the open. One thing was sure: every stalker and mutant in the train yard was hearing this.

I drained about a quarter of the flask's contents, flicked open my lighter and breathed a spectacular fireball over the thrashing American at my feet.

The rats gave up a piercing scream, and flaming bodies fled from Slayer like sailors jumping ship. They streamed away, many still alight, disappearing beneath the train cars en masse.

Slayer was definitely showing some burned flesh, but it was thanks to me he had flesh left to burn. I barked at Dixon to get him up, pivoting with my AK at the ready. Slayer had accidentally discharged his Benelli during the confusion, and my ears were still ringing from the blast. I didn't know if the stalkers from a minute ago were hurrying back to capitalize on easy prey, or hurrying away to mind their own business.

Dixon had Slayer on his feet, and we fell back in what I will describe as relative disarray. I spat residual paraffin and pulled up my mask, keeping my finger on the trigger. I'd hit all my lights; stealth was out of the question now. If there was something between us and the Bar, we'd just have to shoot our way through.