Yuri squeezed his eyes tight to stave off the pain. It was pulsing now, coming in waves. He took a deep breath, opened his eyes and moved on. Yes, he was definitely due a bonus for this.
Another hundred meters of careful slinking and the trees stopped altogether at a clearing. It was maybe three hundred meters across — Yuri couldn’t quite tell. The sky had gone low and dark, and the air was shrouded by a soaking drizzle that was neither fog nor rain.
“Even the weather can’t make up its mind in this fucking place,” Yuri said.
Peering through the mist, he saw far out in the middle what looked like the mound with its three rocks. The Greek Fate-Weavers… Yuri glanced skyward with a wry shake of his head. Between them and Saint Strelok, only old, forgotten gods and dubious, new saints wanted anything to do with the Zone. The ‘whys’ here were too slippery for everyday angels.
He saw other shapes in the gloom too, dozens of short pillars or ragged poles stuck at random in the ground. It was hard to tell, even harder to think with the throbbing in his head. Were they fence posts? Scarecrows?
“Who would put scarecrows out here? And why so many?” Yuri asked out loud.
“We need to move,” a voice spoke.
Yuri jumped. Iosif was beside him, Artur right behind. Yuri hadn’t heard them approach.
“I thought I told you to stay back,” Yuri said.
“We need to move,” Iosif repeated. “Now, before the rain.” The skinny scientist brought his Makarov up and pulled the slide part way back to make sure he’d chambered a round. Yuri saw he still had his ear buds in.
Despite the pain in his head, Yuri was impressed. Ice in his veins, this one.
Artur looked ready to shit his pants. Bug-eyed and sheened with sweat, the scientist had apparently forgotten about Olga. His gaze flicked in every direction like he saw phantoms. His lower lip was trembling.
Before Yuri could stop him, Iosif took off into the field.
“Damn it,” Yuri hissed. “Wait- -” But the scientist was already a swift shadow melting into the mist. Angry, Yuri jumped to his feet, grabbed Artur by the arm and dragged him after. “Risk is the price of scientific advancement, no?”
Five steps and the sky opened: hard, fat drops like pebbles pelting them. They were drenched in seconds. Lightning shivered through the clouds, thunder rolled after it.
Yuri barely registered the rain. The headache had become almost too much to bear. It was definitely coming in regular waves, every one another nail in his head. White noise roared in his ears. He stumbled onward, gripping Artur’s arm so tight the scientist winced.
“Almost — there,” Yuri told him. “One last push.”
The scientist muttered intelligibly then pulled up short with a sharp cry. Yuri turned and gasped: Suchek looked back at him, horrible bite marks on his face and neck, blood streaming down his jacket. “Where’s my kerchief?” the scientist asked. “My father gave it to me when I graduated from post-grad.”
“Wha--?” Yuri shook his head and suddenly Artur was back, rooted in place and babbling about ‘Urozhay mertvetsov’ — a harvest of dead men.
“The Reaper is coming, sickle in fist,” he moaned. “We must flee or be gathered with them.”
Another pulse of pain hit and Yuri’s vision tunneled, edged in red and flashing stars. He heard dogs barking, angels singing backwards. Suchek was back, mopping his ruined face with a bloody rag. He smiled at Yuri, waving it with obvious relief. “Found it!” Yuri’s knees went weak, a sticky, copper taste in his mouth.
His vision cleared in time to see a man lurch through the curtain of rain behind Artur. Emaciated with empty eyes, cracked lips and grimy stubble, Yuri recognized him. “Raven? Is that you?”
Another guide, Raven had gone missing nine days previous. No trace. ‘Swallowed by the Zone,’ they said. Raven didn’t answer, or even seem to see Yuri. Instead he lunged at Artur, and sunk a combat knife in the scientist’s shoulder.
Yuri yelled. Artur screamed and flailed, knocking Raven back. The Stalker toppled onto the ground without a sound.
“Wait, wait,” Yuri shouted. “I know him.” But Artur yanked out his pistol and was fumbling with the slide.
Yuri grabbed for the scientist’s hand as a chorus of moans rose above the cascading rain. The ragged shapes all around the clearing began moving and Yuri realized the ‘fence posts’ were men, tattered and emaciated, staggering in the storm, drawn by Artur’s wailing.
Hopping in pain and blubbering, the scientist whirled around with the Mararov, pointing it every which way. The hilt of the knife wobbled beside his head. “Alina, Alina!” he cried. “Why did you leave with him?”
Artur began shooting into the field, the Makarov’s tinny pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop muffled by the storm.
Rounds whizzed by Yuri’s head. He flinched, instinctively brought Sasha to bear. Several of the ragged men jerked and fell.
Pop-pop-pop — click
Another immense wall of pain smashed into Yuri and suddenly Suchek was in front of him dancing like a dervish, beckoning for the groaning men to join him. The groaning men in the fog were ghosts, then skeletons, then Yuri’s old platoon mates but not like in that picture taken the first day they deployed but as they’d been the last time he’d seen them: that terrible afternoon when the Kurds caught them in the open with rockets and there were just pieces left and these pieces were raw meat red and shocking white, coming to slap Yuri on the back like old times and drink a toast to that whore house off Ameen Street in Damascus.
Yuri’s ears were buzzing so loud his jaw hurt and Suchek’s giggling like a maniac didn’t help. The fat scientist was crying now because the other men on the dance floor were tearing at his clothes for a souvenir. Yuri recoiled, his brain all hornets and fire, to see Suchek become Artur and suddenly Artur was Saint Strelok offering his body and blood so the dead men might live. Yuri had to turn away because the mob was so desperate and grateful.
Someone knocked into Yuri and spun him around and Yuri saw his old babushka waving to him from a kurgan marked by three rocks. Somehow she was tall and skinny — not like she’d been in life — but supper was ready and he had to come now or stay forever hungry.
The pain was immense and his vision contracted to knotholes but Yuri focused on his babushka. She loved him, had always loved him. So he shook off the grabbing hands, the jackstraw men with their teeth and hollow eyes, and ran to her.
“Come, come. Quickly now!” Iosif said, and pulled him through the dark yawning door that lead under the earth. Yuri fell forward, overwhelmed by the smell of soil and mold and rust. There was a screech of metal, a clang, then silence and everything went black.
4. how such things were back then
Iosif rummaged through the musty cardboard boxes lining the plywood shelves. “Special Project 57,” he said distractedly. “I was a Junior Researcher.”
Yuri swigged from his canteen and nodded like he knew what the hell that meant. He spat tepid water and motioned for Iosif to continue, trying for the ‘strong, silent’ attitude — not merely to appear tough but really because thinking made his head hurt. His ears were still ringing, he had a rancid metal taste of blood and bile stuck in the back of this throat, and the headache wasn’t leaving fast enough. His thoughts were sluggish, muddy as dishwater swirling around a clogged basin.
I did not charge enough money, was the main one that kept surfacing.
They were inside the bunker at some sort of supply closet in a hall near the entrance. Yuri had propped himself up in the doorway and was watching the scientist paw through stacks of mold-furred boxes and dusty crates. Part of Yuri was surprised; the scientist had acted like a mute on the way in. Shy. Now it was all snap and business.