Freedom

Chapter 35

All right, so there was a swarm of something really scary below, the great unknown above, and a tremendously taxing, somewhat painful climb in between. But hey, it could have been worse – there might have been no convenient rebar. I possibly could have gotten up without it, but there's no way I could have done it as fast – so there's no doubt the twisted bars saved my life.

The source of the light I'd seen was immediately evident: electrical anomalies. I recognized them at once, and I was actually kind of relieved to encounter something I was familiar with. Crazy stories come out of the Zone, all kinds of them – but there are really very few things that are well-known to the rest of the world in more than general terms. Electrical anomalies are common, they've been around forever, and everybody knows them. I feel like it sells them short to call them commonplace, though. After all, science can't account for them, like most of the Zone – take that, militant atheists – and they're really quite beautiful to look at. If you could find a way to contain and transport one you'd make a killing, because everyone in the civilized world would want one as a decoration.

My relief didn't last. I remembered the Morton Stalker, and hoped he was all right. Enough time had passed that if he kept moving into the caverns, he could have put quite a bit of distance between himself and that swarm – but I didn't like it. What had he been doing down there? Why would anyone deliberately come to a place like this?

He'd suggested that I didn't have far to go, and from that I assumed he meant this hole. So he'd gotten in through here, which meant there was a way out. I felt bad for the guy, but not so bad that I was going back down. Though I'd been underground for less than 24 hours, I felt a powerful desire – no, compulsion – to get to the surface. There was something subtly claustrophobic about knowing just how much earth there was above me. I wanted out.

So I levered myself out of the hole, careful to avoid the anomalies, and got to my feet. The room was small and filthy, but there was a metal door right there in front of me, ajar. I eyed it warily for a few moments before opening it – I was unarmed, after all. But if the Morton Stalker had come through here, that meant it was either safe, or he'd dealt with whatever was down here. Presumably.

The corridor didn't have the benefit of the flickering glow of the anomalies, and I had only my own light to go by. I couldn't see far enough to determine which way was better, so I turned right and started walking. I wasn't sure what to think of the facility I was in – the walls were concrete and the doors were metal. I thought it was probably a basement. Decay was everywhere. There were telltale stains on the walls, and I found an ancient, dried out carcass of a blood drinker. Creepy.

I wasn't inclined to search the rooms; I just wanted to find the exit. A bunch of shell casings had fallen into a puddle of blood, which had dried, sticking them all in place. Something about that rubbed me the wrong way, and again, I found myself wondering what on earth I was doing in a place where you couldn't walk five steps without finding blood, casings, bodies, mortal peril, or all of it.

I didn't get to brood long, because next I happened on the body of a stalker. Once again, frustratingly, he'd been there for a while.

I knelt and began to examine him. The cause of death wasn't immediately evident, but I had a suspicion that electrical anomalies had done him in – I could hear them crackling in other rooms.

I searched him thoroughly. He had a 74u, but I didn't think it was usable. It wasn't all fused into one piece, like the weapons I'd found earlier, but it was covered in rust, and rattled disturbingly when I shook it. The magazine was about half full, but I had no use for the bullets.

I found some anti-radiation meds on his belt, and a couple of sealed calorie bars. They were old, but I was brave. I ate one, and put the other away. He had no pistol holster, but there was a Makarov wrapped in cloth in his pack. It appeared to be in working order, but it would need a cleaning before I'd trust it – though that hardly mattered, because there were no bullets for it to speak of. I went ahead and took it, though. At the very least I'd be able to pull it on somebody, and they wouldn't know it was empty.

There was also a big knife. It wasn't in the best shape, but a knife has to be pretty far gone before it can't do its job anymore, and this one had a few stabs left in it. He even had a whetstone.

The real find was the PDA. The battery was long dead, but I found more in the bag. One was corroded, but the other was usable. I had the PDA powered up in moments. The Stalker hadn't used it much, but there were handful of stashes marked on a map dated from over two months ago. The PDA wasn't able to sync my location to the map – but was it because I was underground, or because the satellites were still down?

There were no text or audio logs. A couple of frequencies had been saved, but I wasn't familiar with any of them. Still – with this PDA, when I got out of here, I'd be able to contact Velvet and the others, assuming they were still alive. Those weren't very cheery thoughts – but I was out of the caves, and things were looking up.

Something clattered nearby. Amazingly, I managed not to jump. I rose to my feet and turned my light in that direction. Nothing was moving. I hefted the knife, reversed my grip on it, and started cautiously forward. I hadn't gotten ten steps before there was another noise, this one coming from the opposite direction.

I hadn't been going out of my way to be noisy, but I knew I hadn't been completely silent. If there was something down here, I wasn't surprised it was onto me.

This had to be dealt with. I didn't know which way was out, and even if I had, there was no guarantee I could outrun whatever was in here. Yet, the Zone's predators don't announce their presence this way – they stalk in silence. Was I still under the radar? No, these sounds were downright clumsy. Were there people down here, maybe searching the place, and just oblivious to me? That seemed plausible – but no, they'd be talking to each other.

It came to me suddenly – infected. They wander around, they bump into things. They aren't good at being stealthy. I didn't hear any of that ragged breathing that usually gave them away, but maybe it was masked by the electrical anomalies. My thoughts on the infected should be well-known by now; I don't like them. I haven't liked them ever since I witnessed an outbreak firsthand, far outside the Zone. And I wasn't afraid of them. In fact, just the thought that they might be down here had gotten my hand opening and closing in anticipation. If there was one thing my time in the Zone had done, it had given me confidence in my ability to fight.

But I was way off. I never heard it coming; a wooden crate just smashed across my back, splintering into pieces and throwing me to the floor. It hurt, yeah, but I was less interested in the pain than in what was going on. I rolled over, searching desperately for an attacker, but there was nothing to see. I scrambled aside as a heavy metal bucket came sailing out of the darkness, narrowly missing me.

I jerked out the empty Makarov and aimed down the corridor, but an empty barrel flattened me from behind. I got to my hands and knees, groaning, in time to see the bucket simply lift from the ground and fling itself at me.

Okay, so I had a lot of confidence – but I had no idea what to do with this, so I ran for it.