When the creature had reached the halfway point on the chimney, it stopped and lifted its head as though it was smelling the wind. As the beast turned its head toward Lucas it stopped, its glowing eyes shining brightly in his night vision scope. Lucas felt a chill run down his spine as the creature stared at him, its head cocked slightly to the side. He could swear that it was studying him, though he dismissed the thought. It can’t see me from that far away, he thought.
The beast snarled and gave one last look in Lucas’s direction before finishing its descent down the chimney, where it quickly disappeared into the structures around the power plant. Lucas continued to watch the area for a few moments, searching for any sight of the creature, but finally gave up when no more movement was present.
After slinging the SVD on his back again, Lucas made a hurried descent of his own down the side of the half arch, half climbing and half sliding until he reached the bottom. He immediately pulled his SVD back out and dropped low into a crouch, scanning the area around himself and Yuri.
“What happened? Did you see anything?” Yuri’s voice shook with cold and fright as he stood next to Lucas.
“We found the right place, but I think that thing found us, too.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
“It knows we’re here? Shit!” Yuri began to pace the ground next to Lucas, talking loudly to himself as he began to panic.
“Shut up and get over here now!” Lucas hissed at Yuri, startling him but causing him to obey the instructions. Yuri knelt down on the ground next to Lucas who still kept guard, scanning the area around them with his thermal and night vision scopes. Yuri whispered to Lucas, fighting to keep his voice calm as he spoke.
“Sorry. What do we do now?”
Lucas didn’t look away from his scope as he held the SVD in his right hand. He used his left hand to fish a small device out of his vest pouch and handed it to Yuri.
“Flip the switch on the end and then push the red button on this. If the transmitter inside Iosif’s suit is still intact, it’ll activate and start transmitting his location.”
“What?” Yuri was shocked at this revelation and nearly dropped the device in shock. “Why didn’t we do this before?”
Lucas grimaced as he spoke. “You’ll see. Just push it.”
Yuri turned the device over in his hands, examining its surface. It was slightly larger than a lighter and had three raised buttons on its surface along with a small power switch at one end. Yuri slid the switch to the on position, causing the three buttons to glow their respective colors: red, green and blue. Yuri flinched as he depressed the red button, half-expecting the device to shock him or jump out of his hand.
For a few seconds, nothing happened, and Yuri thought that the button had done nothing. Then, from the depths of the power plant, a sound echoed forth. It pulsed in a high-pitched tone, sounding like an alarm clock on steroids. Yuri looked at Lucas as he took back the small device.
“What is that?”
“Audible transponder. All the radiation around here makes it impossible to track Iosif’s suit through any other means, so what you just switched on is that last-ditch emergency audible transponder located in his gear. I didn’t want to activate it until I was certain we were close by since we’re not the only ones who can follow it.”
Lucas stood and moved forward quickly through the construction area, heading toward the western cooling lake to the south of the power plant. Though it was difficult to tell exactly where the sound was coming from, both Yuri and Lucas agreed that it was roughly in the direction of the power plant, the same place that Lucas had spotted the creature.
Knowing that they were treading on the territory of the beast, Yuri forgot his cold and chills and focused on following Lucas as closely as possible. As Lucas scanned ahead of them, Yuri kept his eye behind them, watching on the ground and up in buildings and other structures for any signs of the shadowy creature. Although Yuri only held a simple shotgun for protection, he put his full confidence in Lucas who had already chased the creature off once before.
The alarm grew louder as the pair drew closer toward the western cooling lake. The lakes were once used as reservoirs for cooling the power plant, but were drained shortly after the disaster. Constructed of concrete, they had quickly seen growth of plants and algae that were fed by the rainwater that fell into the lake. This plant material absorbed a large amount of radiation, which in turn caused the lakes to develop hotspots over the years. This, plus their close proximity to the nuclear power plant, made them a dangerous place to visit since one wrong slip could mean tumbling down into a pit of radiation.
On the southern side of the sarcophagus Lucas and Yuri could see the abandoned remains of reactor buildings one, two and three stretching eastward from the sarcophagus covering reactor number four. These reactors were kept online for years after the disaster, culminating in shutdowns in the 1990’s and a total decommission in 2000. Plans were made to spend the next two decades removing the radioactive waste from at a slow and calculated pace. After the Ukrainian government began to encounter financial difficulties, though, they sold the fuel to China at a reduced rate with the agreement that everything would be removed by 2016. This led to a complete abandonment of the site, and all personnel who still worked at the power plant were reassigned or quietly retired.
Standing at the edge of the cooling lake, Lucas looked around with his scopes. Satisfied that — for the moment — they were alone, he switched on his flashlight, illuminating the empty concrete lake in front of them, in search of the alarm that sounded like it was right next to them. Yuri clapped his hand over his mouth to stifle a yelp as the contents of the lake bed were revealed.
Bones, tattered clothing, backpacks and even a few guns were scattered in the pit, spread out over its length in a thin layer. Hidden in the dark and masked by the cold, both the sight and smell of the contents of the lake bed had been obscured from the pair during their approach. Even during the daylight, from any farther than a hundred feet away, the brush and grasses growing in the defunct lake camouflaged its contents from observers.
Yuri shook his head in disbelief. “How is this even possible? There must be dozens of bodies down there. How has no one discovered this?”
Lucas began to walk along the perimeter, searching for an easy way down as he spoke. “This part of the complex is pretty isolated. No one would normally come down here due to the radiation. The closest visitors get to the sarcophagus is the center north of what used to be the new sarcophagus construction yard. Plus, there’s no clear line of sight to the lake bed from the roads. Aside from stashing these remains inside a building, there’s no better place to do it.”
“Why go to all this trouble?” Yuri followed close behind Lucas, following him down the easiest slope into the lake bed. The sound of the transponder was close now, within a few dozen feet.
“Who knows. Maybe after it cleans the bodies of anything edible it deposits them here? I guess it could be marking its territory, or hell, this could even be its nest, though it seems too open for that.”
The mere suggestion that they could be walking in the beast’s very lair made Yuri’s heart race. He felt his chest constrict with panic and tried to force himself to calm down. Lucas had slowed again after taking back his Geiger counter from Yuri and was again scanning their path, stopping every few feet to check for radiation hotspots. He led them on a winding path through the lake bed, slowly picking his way toward a cluster of garments and gear near the edge of the lake opposite where they had entered.