The girl sat alone in the dungeon cell. Only the cold drip of a distant leak and the whistling wind was the only sound to be made. A boy peered at her through the bars in his cell across from her.
When Yelena woke up she tumbled out of her hammock and onto the cold ground. She shook the sleep off of her and stood up. A thick fog covered the valley beneath her. It was cold, though Yelena was from Eastern Russia. At least, she thought she was. Her memories and dreams were plagued by a strange isolated village. After decades she was finally able to track it down. There was an overwhelming sense of dread and longing associated with it. A nostalgia for something she wasn't even sure she had experienced.
She flexed her right arm and rubbed her left shoulder. Only a small lump of bone and muscle remained on her left arm. It was amputated long ago, some of her earliest memories were of the Soviet research facility taking it. They wanted to study her, and some eager scientists would rather perform vivisection instead of having the decency to put her down like a dog first.
"Tsk" she sucked on her teeth in irritation. Butchers, shethought. Her left arm was now a metal prosthesis that she'd made while working in an automotive factory. Flinging her right arm out she pulled at her left arm hanging nearby on the tree. It was held in place by several leather straps across her torso.
Perhaps another "gift" from Stalin's butchers was an uncanny ability to pull small metal objects towards her or pull herself towards larger objects. With careful manipulation, she could fling metal objects away from her at high speeds, and so she kept a pouch of horseshoe nails as a means of weapons. It was easier than trying to explain a gun or knife to customs.
She went to work packing up her small camp, donned her long fleece-lined brown coat, and set off on the winding deer paths to the village. The walk was uneventful, except for an itch on the back of her neck like she was being watched. It was near sundown by the time she reached the entrance to the Village.
A vardo was parked just outside the gates, and possibly the biggest man Yelena had ever sat on the back. Around him sat crates filled with various objects stacked high. The doors to the wagon were flung open, displaying more goods. A lone lantern hung above him casting shadows that annunciated his smile.
Yelena stopped and cocked an eyebrow. He was beckoning to her. She walked closer to him but stopped about three meters from his crates.
"My my." The man said in a suspiciously soft voice. "Come closer, so I can have a look at you." Yelena didn't move. She leveled her gaze on him.
His smile slipped only a fraction. "Are you lost?" He clasped his hands together, seemingly in excited anticipation. She only blinked in response. "I see, a woman of few words."
"I'm passing through." She said after a slow exhale. Her reasons were her own, and she had no intention of sharing them with this man.
"Of course you are," the man purred. "A little out of the way, don't you think?"
Yelena shifted the pack on her back. "I'm just hiking cross country."
The man nodded, "Great to take in that clean mountain air. How is your back? That tumble out of your bed this morning must have hurt."
Yelena took several steps back, "Excuse me?"
"Oh yes my dear, I've been keeping an eye on you ever since you arrived, what three days ago?" His grin turned condescending. "That trick you do with metal is so fascinating." He waved his left arm.
The sense of dread that had been hanging over her for days like a cloud had turned into a storm. She planted her feet firmly to stop herself from running. This was a mistake. I shouldn't have come here. Not even through the front door! Her thoughts were a whirlwind of panic and her heart began to race.
Her right hand was turned away from him, and she started to undo her pouch strings. One by one the nails started to orbit her arm. "Perhaps you'd like a demonstration?"
He laced his fingers together in a show of patience. "Now, my young girl, there's no need for that." His grin took in a sinister air. "I know of another one with such a gift." Her "field" as she took to calling it, faltered and some of the nails fell to the ground. His eyes fell to the fallen nails, and Yelena readied the others. Pointed directly at the man and rigid in the air.
"I'm a purveyor of goods and information and you look like a woman who wants information." He gestured to the village. "I'll give you a free tidbit. A sample of what the Duke's Emporium has to offer"
"Are you the Duke?"
"Indeed I am." He raised a finger. "There is a strict curfew. For the safety of the residents. No door will open for you. The 'guardians' of the village don't take kindly to anyone not from around here." He smirked like he had thought of a great joke. Yelena felt she was the butt.
"So I'm fucked." She said flatly. "I can leave or take my chances."
"I don't recommend the latter."
"So what do you recommend?" She pulled on the nails in the ground and filed them back into her pouch.
The Duke cleared his throat and waved a hand over his goods. Yelena sighed as it dawned on her. She dropped her pack and rifled through her pockets. A golden chain sparkled in the fading sunlight. The Czechian woman wouldn't miss it. She threw it to him and he caught it in a meaty hand.
After he thoroughly inspected it and with a flick of his wrist it disappeared. "On the North side of the village, past the ancient ceremony site, is a factory. There is information there and a good place to start."
"If there's a curfew, won't the factory be closed?" She didn't trust him. The Duke just shrugged. Bastard.
His face twitched as though he'd read her mind. "An add-on. The fastest way is through the villages but is hurry." He started laughing and seemed to shrink into the vargo, the doors closing, and cutting him off with a click.
A howl cut her through the bone. Wolves didn't scare her, they'd avoid her rather than attack, but that wasn't a wolf howl. She turned around looking for the source, but the sun was behind the mountains now and everything was in shadow. "Fuck"
Yelena thought about what was in her pack, nothing she couldn't replace. She tossed it at the Vargo, a parting gift for the "warning", and took off at a dead run through the village. She didn't stop to take in the sites but continued. The sound of snarls nipped her heels like a sheepdog and she was ripe for slaughter.
By the time she reached the factory gate, her throat burned and her air was coming in gasps. She laced her fingers behind her head and stretched backward to allow her lungs to take in more oxygen. The sounds of pursuit were gone, but she could see figures milling around on the other side of the bridge she had just crossed, like a wall of glass prevented them from coming closer.
Floodlights illuminated the gate and the yard beyond. It looked abandoned, but there was smoke coming from the stacks, and lights coming through the frosted glass said otherwise.
The buzzer at the gate yielded nothing, and she didn't trust that the wolves would be held at bay much longer.
She started to pull at the fence, the galvanized steel wire squealing as it bent and twisted away from her hands. Soon there was a hole large enough for her to squeeze through. A loud grating froze her in her tracks. A large barn door had opened up on the other side of the yard and a figure stumbled into the light.
It swiveled its head towards her, and a bright red-orange light was strapped to the figure's head. It raised a pipe and began shambling down the path. Two more emerged from inside and followed the first.
Yelena dropped her pack and reached into her pouch for a handful of horseshoe nails. She threw them into the air and flung them at the creatures. They ripped through their torsos but didn't slow down. She ran to the left and along the fence, jumping over half-buried railroad ties and piles of scrap. She continued to fling nails at them until she ran out. They had been useless. She launched a piece of rebar at the light on the creature's head. It shattered the small grate and impaled it, causing it to fall finally. She tried to pull it again, but it was stuck. Frantically she searched for more things to throw. A railroad spike took down the second one.
Yelena spotted an old tank, half buried by time, and pulled on it. She jumped and flew towards it, her motocross boots hitting it first and sending a jarring shock through her legs. Pulling all around her, as hard as she could, she started flinging everything she could at the remaining creature. A saw blade took its head off.
With a heavy sigh, Yelena sank to her knees. Sweat had broken out on the crown of her head and she gasped for breath. The sound of a drill snapped her head up. Another monster stepped into the yard. She recoiled at the sight, its yellowed bulging eyes stared at her over a mask fixed to its face. Its skin seemed to be held together with crude staples. Its arms were replaced with massive drill bits.
Yelena shook her head and began her barrage of any scrap she could pull from the surrounding heaps. It didn't miss a step as it ran at her.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck" she chanted as she jumped off the tank and launched herself onto the of the barn by pulling on its metal roof. She tried to run, but the corrugated panels were rusted and collapsed under the force of her landing. The creature changed course into the barn and she was in a worse spot than before. She pulled a sheet of the roof to her and pushed it against the creature. It caught it with its drill. She struggled to keep it up against the monster. The pressure was causing her vision to go black around the edges.
Her field faltered for a fraction of a second. There was a pulling in her being from deeper into the barn. It made it harder to concentrate on the monster before her. Her left arm failed and hung limp at her side. Was something else coming?
She dropped to the ground and the sheet of metal went flying towards her. The creature walked over to her heaving form on the concrete floor. Her energy spent.
"Stop," a deep voice said behind her. The creature stopped, but Yelena didn't have the energy to roll over. Her head exploded in pain as something knocked her to oblivion.
-'/,-
Karl Heisenberg had to shout at the Soldat Zwei to get it to stop. It stepped back and stared blankly at him. He grumbled and fished his cigar out of his breast pocket. The acrid smoke scratched an itch on the back of his throat.
"Now, what do we have here?" He asked. "She seemed to be giving you trouble." He chuckled and looked up at the Soldat. It continued to stare through him. He laughed and turned his attention to the woman on the ground.
She had brown hair, with streaks of gray, held back with a loose braid. The left sleeve of her coat was torn off revealing an arm made of metal. She wore old fatigues tucked into rigid boots with metal plates under the heel
His attention turned to the injury on the back of her head. He hit her with a pipe while she was distracted by the Soldat. The flesh was starting to knit back together, and a familiar black slime was filling the gaps. "Interesting," he mused. Heisenberg looked at the Soldat "Fuck off somewhere," he said with a wave of his hand.
He then threw the woman over his shoulder and carried her like a sack down into the depths of his personal hell. "Let's see what this bitch is made of." He started to laugh and took another draw off his cigar.
