Iosif froze.
A heartbeat later a squat shape emerged from the gloom at the far end of the room. It passed in front of a bank of illuminated meters and red-rimmed gauges, and Yuri saw a hunched man in a tattered robe with a hood over his head like a fat, short monk.
Iosif’s shoulder trembled and he snapped on the flashlight. The purple-white beam stabbed into the darkness and pinned the hooded shape. The monk-thing roared and turned away.
“Shoot! Shoot!” Iosif shouted. But Yuri was rooted in place.
The creature scuttled away but Iosif kept the flashlight on it. “Shoot,” he screamed.
Before Yuri could react, the scientist shouted in terror and frustration, and started firing his pistol. Iosif strode forward, beam centered on the hooded creature, unloading the Makarov. Yuri saw slow-motion bullet casings spin and glint in the harsh light. Puffs of red mist ejected from the creature’s head.
The next thing Yuri knew, Iosif was on the other side of the room standing over a dark mound with one boot on the top of the heap like a hunter with his kill. He kept the flashlight aimed at its head.
“I got him. I got him. I got him,” he kept repeating, as if to convince himself.
Yuri’s nostrils were filled with the tang of gunpowder, his ears rang. He saw Iosif’s fingers work the magazine release button. The empty clip clattered on the concrete and Iosif inserted a fresh one. He had done it automatically, without thinking.
Army trained, Yuri realized. Then he flushed with shame. I froze. I let him down.
Yuri stepped forward, stammering. He had to apologize. He must. Some guide he was, locking up like that. The scientist stirred at the movement, looked up and smiled weakly. “I got hi- ”
Yuri was about to congratulate him, console him, embrace him, when the gaunt scientist folded like he’d been punched in the gut. Bent over, he looked up and for an instant his eyes met Yuri’s: confusion. Then fear.
An instant later it was like a rope had jerked him away. Iosif was gone. Yuri gasped. The flashlight fell with a bang that was followed by a loud crash on the far side of the room.
The purple-white beam flickered and stayed on, spilling across the grimy floor to frame Iosif in a semi-circle spotlight. He was splayed upside down, crumpled against an iron support strut, his head was at a wrong angle, his eyes the silver of tiny, unblinking mirrors.
“Iosif?” Yuri said softly.
As he stepped into the light, there was a raspy gurgling behind him. Yuri spun on his heel to bring Sasha to bear on another squat, hooded man-thing.
What, two of them?
Yuri glimpsed a bloated, scabbed face in mid snarl. The man made an angry choking noise and thrust both his hands to one side. Sasha jumped from Yuri’s grip and was flung into the darkness. Yuri barely had time to blink before the hooded creature thrust his hands out again, this time in a shove.
Yuri flew backwards, air knocked from his lungs. It was like a mule had kicked him in the chest.
He slid and skidded to a stop on the floor to one side of the light beam, on his back, chest on fire. He could see rag-doll Iosif out of the corner of his eye. You’re not much help, he wanted to say, but he could hardly breathe.
Praporshchik Dygalo popped into his head, shouting like he had that hot afternoon when it had rained Kurd rockets. “Cover, you idiot. Find cover.”
Yuri began to kick his legs, use his elbows to scramble deeper into the gloom. He tucked himself behind an iron pipe. Above his own broken wheezing, he could hear the scuff and growl of the hooded man — thing. The little bastard was looking for him, trying to find a way around the bright light.
The darkness was bad enough but Yuri’s vision was blood rimmed and hazy. His ribs grated, shifted like broken sticks. He sat up and bite back a yelp of pain. He felt around, frantic to get his bearings, and his groping hand found something hard and metaclass="underline" it was Iosif’s Makarov.
He pulled it in and clutched it to his chest like dying man with a holy icon.
Which I might be, he realized. Dying, that is.
It’s loaded, he remembered. Iosif had loaded a new clip.
Yuri wanted to laugh, to cry, to rage at the irony of it all; here he was, down in the dark facing a monster, and his life depended on a hunk of Vanya’s surplus.
The shuffling was closer. Yuri racked the pistol’s slide.
OK, OK, OK, he thought. What next? Pop off some rounds and run? Hope to reach the door before the mutant gets me?
Could he even run? And what if he did make it to the hall with broken pieces in his chest? Could he make it to the stairwell? Up to the top level? What about the transmitter, the scarecrow men? What about Sasha? Could he make it out of the Zone and to the Cordon without her?
Laughter bubbled on his lips.
Where the hell did that come from? He had no idea but it was there, an absurd, ill-timed joy lifting him with strange and scrawny wings.
Yes, he could try to get up and out. He could run. But even if he made it, he could never enter the Zone again. This he knew in his bones. To flee would break him. But to stay?
He looked over to Iosif, skinny, deceptive, unaccommodating Iosif staring away in his clumsy, upside down death pose. So tell me, Honored Bioplasma Junior Researcher, what do I do now, eh?
No reply.
Yuri closed his eyes. Well then, WWSD? he asked, and even as he asked, he knew the answer.
A man should face his enemies. Look them in the eye. This Yuri knew in an instant as certain as if it were written in stone. If now is my time, he thought, I’ll at least meet Death like a man.
Yuri glanced over at the flashlight. It was perhaps two meters away, shining like a sliver of bright mercury. The hooded man grunted and hissed. Yuri could feel tension coiling in the air. Ready to strike like a viper.
I have to try, he said to himself. He looked into the vaulted darkness above him, up through the floors, to the sky he imagined in dappled silver, rose, and gold. I will try, he said.
At that, Yuri Bonyev rolled out from behind the pipes and scrambled across the concrete floor. He heard a surprised snort, a menacing growl. The air thickened and swirled but Yuri’s fingers closed around the plastic handle and he rose to his feet, Makarov in one hand, flashlight in the other, a prayer to Saint Strelok on his lips.
Gratitude and Acknowledgments
Any endeavor, even a short piece of fiction, rests on a deep bed of inspiration and support, without which it wouldn’t exist. The list is long: from Boris and Arkady Strugatsky to Andrei Tarkovsky, on to GSC Game World and Sergiy Grygorovych. They developed the concepts and expression, creating worlds within worlds where such melancholy, terror, adventure and revelation could thrive. Special thanks to my long-suffering friends and members of the Cape Cod Wargame Commission who endure my prose and remain gracious, to the online readers at the HSSJ and Stalker7 blogs who keep coming back. And to my wife, who even though she doesn’t understand, smiles and lets me write. Thank you all.