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“Use your light and check for anything that looks like what he wrote down. It’ll probably be silver or black.”

Stepping gingerly through the blood and gore, Lucas and Yuri conducted a hasty examination of the hallway where Iosif had been killed. Moments passed in silence as they checked the full length of the hall, with Lucas going so far as to look in the hole the beast had created when it broke through to slaughter his partner.

“Nothing. Damn!” Lucas kicked the wall in anger, sending a thud reverberating through the wall.

Yuri looked over at him. “I’m not seeing much of anything, actually.”

While the floor, walls and ceiling of the hallway had been coated with blood and a small amount of flesh, the majority of what constituted an average body was nowhere to be found. Clothing, limbs and even Iosif’s equipment — including his gun — weren’t anywhere in the hallway. Lucas stopped his mumbled ranting and pondered the fact before turning to face Yuri.

“Okay, so he’s not here. Did that thing eat him?”

Yuri shook his head. “How would I know? His body’s not here, and neither was Dimitri’s. Either that thing’s eating them or carrying them off somewhere.”

Lucas nodded slowly and turned to head out the front door of the hospital. “Come on, I have an idea.”

As the pair exited the hospital entrance, a brisk wind caused Yuri to shiver involuntarily. He pulled his jacket tighter around his body, clutching the shotgun tight against his chest. The dark silence of the city felt more ominous than ever before, thanks to the revelation of the creature that was now actively hunting them. Yuri kept close to Lucas’s side, hanging back only a few feet to keep from bumping into him or his rifle. Lucas had his SVD at the ready, occasionally stopping and kneeling down in the grass to look at the area with the SVD’s thermal and night vision scopes.

As they walked, Lucas held his Geiger counter in his left hand, waving it about as he let it guide them around the city. A half hour passed in silence, aside from the frantic ticking of the radiation meter. Finally, as they paused again for Lucas to do thermal and infrared scans, Yuri crouched next to him and whispered.

“Where are we going?”

Lucas didn’t stop his scans as he replied to Yuri, his hushed tone nearly drowned out by the background static of his mask’s speaker. “The way I figure it, this thing is so overloaded with radiation that it’s got to be releasing it from time to time. Maybe not everywhere it goes, but enough that it leaves certain clues to where it’s been. We’re following the biggest hotspots of radiation around the city, trying to trail this thing back to where it spends the most time. Hopefully that, wherever it is, is the thing’s home. If we can find its home, maybe we can find what’s left of Iosif.”

“What about the radiation? Won’t it harm us?”

“No, the masks will keep us — oh. Right.” Lucas glanced at Yuri quickly, looking him up and down. He turned the Geiger counter on Yuri, giving him a quick scan. “You look pretty clean. Just don’t rub your hands in the hotspots and stick your fingers in your mouth and you should be okay. The hotspots I’m seeing so far are very condensed, so as long as you keep your distance you’ll be fine.”

Yuri gulped nervously, rubbing his hands on his jacket in a vain attempt to remove the radiation he was now certain was coating them. Lucas stood again and continued walking forward, and Yuri hurried to catch up. They continued to weave their way through the city’s depths, stopping to check for radiation, backtracking along false trails and checking any buildings in their path. The utter stillness of the city was unnerving to Yuri, particularly since he and Dimitri had spent much of their time fleeing from their pursuer. The moon was past its apex now, slowly making its way down through the sky. Yuri was glad that daylight would soon be on its way, though it was only just past one in the morning. With several hours of darkness left, Lucas and Yuri had to remain vigilant against the shadow lurking in the city.

After an hour of wandering through buildings and fields, Lucas and Yuri came to an open area in between the city of Prip’Yat and the Chernobyl power plant. Located just over a mile from Prip’Yat, the power plant was clearly illuminated against the night sky by the moon. Lucas walked past the main road out of the city, sweeping the Geiger counter back and forth. He stopped after a moment and motioned for Yuri to come close to him.

“Tell me something. If this thing loves radiation and leaves trails of it behind as it walks, what would be the best place to get all the radiation it wants at the same time as it hides its trail?”

Yuri looked to where Lucas was staring, beyond the field and construction equipment in the distance to the sarcophagus and chimney in the distance. Built in the months after the disaster, the sarcophagus was designed to keep the radiation from the disaster contained. Together with the red and white chimney, the sarcophagus was another iconic image of Chernobyl, recognizable to anyone with even a passing familiarity of the disaster.

Although the construction of the sarcophagus had helped to slow the leakage of radiation, the area surrounding the power plant still contained lethal doses, enough to fatally irradiate a man if he made even a single misstep. The radiation levels at the power plant were much greater than the radiation left behind by the beast, providing the perfect cover for a creature that thrived in such an environment.

“Can’t you call in backup?”

Lucas shook his head as he checked his rifle and gear again, preparing for the long walk to the station. “No. They wouldn’t send anyone even if I contacted them. This is a black op. Only the most senior officials in Ukraine even know we’re here. To send in any more troops or to call in reinforcements from Ukraine would generate questions that nobody wants to answer.”

Yuri started to speak but couldn’t find the words to express what he felt. Traveling to the power station would mean almost certain death, but if they wanted to find the beast that had killed their comrades, it was the only choice left open to them.

Chapter Twenty

Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant
Reactor Number Four

Water drips from the ceiling of the mighty sarcophagus, cascading down into the dirt and concrete below. Perpetual puddles form small rivers inside the remains of reactor number four, winding their way through the rebar and reinforced steel structure that was torn apart by the destruction in 1986. Inside the sarcophagus the air is still thick and stale. Though circulation was once assisted by blowers, they have been neglected over the years, left to fall apart due to the lack of funding and manpower required to repair them.

The scent of rotting meat is strong inside the chamber. Strips of flesh, piles of bones and scattered remains of clothing, weapons and other gear are strewn in piles, adding to the bleak and gruesome atmosphere. Skulls that were gnawed clean months ago sit next to ones still covered in skin and muscle. Decapitated bodies lay in various positions, all in different states of decay and dismemberment. No light shines through, even in full daylight, thanks to the thick concrete walls of the sarcophagus. Time and nature have had their way, though, forming small holes and crevices through which spores, seeds, water and other things have infiltrated the structure.

Through this toxic maze of concrete, flesh, bone and radiation, a shadow walks. Darker than the blackness inside the sarcophagus, it moves slowly around corners and through passageways, winding its way along a familiar path from the exterior of the chamber into the very center. The beast’s bulky body is enormous, taller than a grizzly bear and as wide as an elephant. The beast makes little sound as it moves, only a slight rustle as it passes around obstacles in its path. The sheer size of the creature contrasts starkly with its movement as it behaves more like a liquid than a living being. Its body seems to shrink as it passes through narrow spaces in walkways and under fallen walls, treading a slow and steady path to the heart of the remains of the nuclear reactor itself.