“Damn. There’s nothing on the map up there.” Iosif punched a button on his GPS to turn it off before jamming it angrily back into his vest pocket. Sweat poured down on his face inside his mask, obscuring his vision and making him blink several times to clear the moisture away. Lucas remained silent, waiting for Iosif to give the word on what to do.
“Listen up, Lucas. Whatever’s out there may be capable of generating a radioactive signature strong enough to show up at distance on our meters. Advance slowly, spread out another ten meters and continue moving forward.”
Lucas nodded in response, pushed himself to his knees and began to advance, crouching in the tall grasses as he and Iosif made their way toward the trees and the radiation signature ahead.
Chapter Thirteen
Darting between buildings, Yuri and Dimitri ran back through the city the way they had come in, down the road and moving east through the apartment buildings. Whatever the red-eyed shape was, they didn’t see it pursuing them. Once they were a few hundred yards from the greenhouse they broke into a run, throwing caution and stealth to the wind.
Moments later the pair reached the main square of the city, passing by the Palace of Culture and the arch. Dimitri thought briefly about trying to hide in one of the buildings in the square again, but decided that they were better off in the open. At least out here, he thought, there’s less chance of us being surprised by that thing.
“Where now?” Yuri panted at Dimitri as they ran. Their car was far to the west, beyond the area where they had spotted the creature. To the southeast lay the Chernobyl power plant, though it was farther away than either of the cousins wanted to travel. There wasn’t anything there anyway, except for vast amounts of radiation and rusted construction equipment. South of the city along the main road were checkpoints set up by the military to guard against unauthorized intrusions into the city.
The first checkpoint was substantially farther away than Chernobyl, a few kilometers from their current position. While the checkpoint would take a long time to reach, it would be manned by a few military guards who could help the cousins. This would mean admitting that they were trespassing in the city and potentially be thrown in jail or fined, but anything was preferable to spending more time in the city with the thing that was after them.
Before Dimitri could answer, a shot rang out behind them, far away at the edge of the city. Both of the boys froze in their tracks, their lungs aching as they held their breath to listen for any more gunfire. They didn’t have to wait long, as several more shots followed the first. The gunfire echoed through the pavement and buildings of Prip’Yat, making it difficult to tell exactly where it was coming from. Panicked, Dimitri grabbed Yuri’s arm, pulling him toward a nearby building.
“Shit! It’s the military!”
Yuri hurried alongside Dimitri, craning his head back and forth to try and narrow down the location of the shots. “Do you think they’re after us?”
Dimitri shook his head, uncertain about all of the events of the night. “How would I know? We need to hide, though. If they find us, we’re screwed!”
“What if… what if they’re after that thing we saw?” Yuri was hesitant to bring up the topic of the red-eyed apparition they had seen in the city, but it seemed just as likely that the gunfire was directed toward the thing as it was at them. Several more shots rang out, this time much closer to the boys’ position. Ducking low as they ran, Dimitri and Yuri ran inside the large hospital building that was closest to them, scrambling to find a place to hide.
Before turning a corner to travel down a flight of stairs, Yuri glanced back out the front door of the hospital, straining to see any sign of the source of the shots. In the distance, beyond the far apartment buildings, the pair of red eyes was visible along with the dark shape. It moved swiftly forward, and with each shot Yuri heard, a small flash of light was visible near to the shape.
Yuri ran down the stairs, informing his cousin of what he had seen.
“Shit.” Dimitri muttered. “They must be after that thing. It’s coming this way?”
“I don’t know. I think so, though.” Yuri had only looked out the front door for a few seconds, and he had no way of knowing for sure whether or not the thing had spotted them entering the building or not. Caution demanded that they assume that it was chasing after them, though, so they hurried through the corridors of the hospital, searching for a room that was secure enough to hide in.
Most of the doors in the hospital were still on their hinges, though about half of them had their locks broken or their handles smashed. A moment of frantic searching passed without results, then Yuri pushed open a pair of thick steel doors leading into a large open room. Rows of seats were arranged in a high half circle around the center of the room where a damaged surgical table sat. Broken lights dangled from above the table, their shadows lending an eerie ambience to the room in the glow of Yuri and Dimitri’s flashlights.
“Quick, up the stairs! We’ll hide back there!” Dimitri pointed up the side of the theater-style seating to a small room that overlooked both the seats and the surgical area. Hurrying up the stairs, Dimitri and Yuri scrambled to get into the room as quickly as possible. A few chairs lay toppled on the floor, remnants of the control room for the surgical theater where technicians could monitor operations without being in the way of either the doctors or the students in the seats below. Dimitri slid down on the floor next to Yuri, pulling the door to the technician’s booth closed behind him.
As their breathing slowed, Yuri and Dimitri’s ears grew used to the silence in the room. Gunfire continued to echo far in the distance, sounding like the faint popping of firecrackers through the thick walls of the hospital. Yuri whispered to Dimitri, fearful for what might happen next.
“It sounds like they’re still outside. Maybe they won’t find us down here.”
“I’m more worried about what might be chasing us, and about my arm. We’d be lucky if the soldiers found us.” Dimitri lifted the dressing on his arm, wincing at the pain. His wound was inflamed around the edges, signifying that an infection had started to set in. While it was still treatable, he needed to get to a doctor soon before it got any worse.
Yuri tried to look at Dimitri’s arm but was pushed back as Dimitri covered it back up, not wanting to cause undue worry in his younger cousin. “It’s fine, don’t worry about it. I just need to see a doctor soon.”
Commotion from the hallway outside the door made the pair grow silent again as they waited to see what would happen next. Minutes ticked by without any sound aside from a scratching that seemed to travel back and forth down the hallway. The scratching was occasionally accompanied by the sound of footsteps. The gunshots had ceased briefly before the noises began, and Yuri began to wonder if the sounds in the hallway could be the soldiers they had heard firing outside.
“Yuri, do you have the Kalash?” Dimitri’s question came as a surprise to Yuri, who assumed that Dimitri had held on to the weapon.
“No, you had it, remember?”
Dimitri was quiet, and Yuri tried to remember the last time he had seen his cousin with the rifle. Realization dawned on Yuri as he recalled their brief rest at the greenhouse, where Dimitri had taken off the rifle to be more comfortable as they sat down.
Before Yuri could pose a question to Dimitri, his cousin was already pushing himself up. He crept out the door and moved silently down the stairs, ignoring Yuri’s wild hand and facial gestures begging him to stop. With his arm infected and in pain, Dimitri knew he had to take a risk to try and get both Yuri and himself out of the city as quickly as possible. If there were soldiers in the building, then it was very possible that he could reason with them. Without the rifle he would be vulnerable to whatever had been chasing them, but despite the lack of protection, Dimitri had made up his mind about what he had to do.