For a moment, he considers taking the assault rifle with him but then reminds himself of the infamous unreliability of the weapon. Even in perfect condition, the Enfield has a tendency to jam and this one had been lying on the floor of a decaying vault for years.
Maybe this hapless fellow died because the rifle jammed at the worst possible moment — like rifles usually do.
Wishing in vain he could at least de-mount the 4x scope, he eventually leaves the Enfield alone and makes his way out of the dreadful hall.
He is almost at the exit when a giant mutant’s body appears in the headlamp’s light beam. In a blind panic, he fires the shotgun. His guts are still wrenched by fear when he realizes that it is the mutant he had killed before.
Phew… I’m getting nervous.
Back at the code-locked door in the small corridor with a few fuel drums and crates scattered on the floor, he is about to type the combination when a noise makes his blood freeze: it sounds like some heavy object is being smashed against the door from the other side. It’s almost as if a giant force is desperately trying to break through, either to escape something even more horrible than itself — or to get at him.
The noise repeats itself and with each smash, the door bulges for a moment, making dust and moldy paint whirl up from the metal.
With a throat painfully dry, the Stalker pants in fear.
A low drone comes from the direction he was coming from. Adding to his dread, he sees the fuel drums slowly go up in the damp air. He can dodge the first one when it smashes at him after a second, but his luck runs out when the second drum hits his shoulders, causing him to lose his balance and moan with pain as he falls against the door. The power inside smashes it at the same moment.
Fucking lab. Fucking mission. Fucking me for coming here!
He fires his shotgun at the drum levitating above him, as if the unseen attacker making the objects trash him would still be aiming. The shot pushes the drum a meter away, from where it smashes at him again. He feels blood on his forehead.
I must get behind that door. I must.
Kneeling, he types the code on the pad. Immediately, the door unlocks. More eager to escape the unnatural projectiles than scared of whatever is inside, he swiftly enters the room. To his relief, no monster is jumping at him inside the abandoned room that, Judging by the instrument panel fitted to the wall on the far end, must have been some sort of a control facility. Broken machines stand on the decayed floor in ankle-deep debris. They don’t resemble anything the Stalker has seen or heard before.
The documents I found in Agroprom mentioned oscilloscopes and spectrometers… perhaps this is one of those? A bloody guillotine or a bathtub with a dismembered corpse inside would appear more relaxing than these things… At least of those I knew what those were.
Separated from the rest of the room by a wire fence, huge containers stand in a corner. All bear the yellow hazmat sign. To the right of the door through which he has just entered, another code-locked door appears in his headlamp’s beam. This, however, is wide open and letting him peer inside a dark hall looking like a laboratory. It is even darker there, with only light beams falling in from above, although this would be impossible to be sunlight. A machine, similar to the broken one outside, is dimly visible.
Almost relieved over the quiet that promises no mutants close by, he is about to enter the laboratory when his sight reddens and a sudden dizziness creeps into his skull. Ignoring it, he steps inside.
The light beams come from three neon tubes atop of grey sections on the wall covered with green tiles. High up on the domed ceiling, a spherical object is hanging in the middle, looking like a space satellite from the Sixties. Thick cables connect it with six cylindrical cages standing on the floor, one of them fallen over either by its fittings decayed away or while someone—or rather, something—inside was trying to break free.
Something still appears to be in the other cages. The Stalker steps closer to the next one but regrets it immediately.
An oversized human embryo hangs inside, its extremities still undeveloped or not supposed to develop, the torso ending in a vestigial reptile tail. It has the greenish-yellow color of drowned corpses. It is not the size or the deformation, and least the color, that makes him shudder but the deformed face. He knows immediately that should he ever make it out of here alive and live to tell this story, he would have no words to describe the evil radiating from this face.
The other cages hold more mutated embryos, or rather: embryonic mutants, except the fallen one.
And I thought the gulags were bad enough.
Cautiously, he raises his shotgun and enters the chamber to the left of the entrance. It leads up into a smaller laboratory with cages built into the wall, and similar cylinders to those on the floor below, except that these are empty and lined up horizontally.
Two of the wall cages, however, still hold dead mutants — they are about the size of a cat but their mummified body resembles that of a rat.
I don’t know what kind of animal was made to turn into such abominations, but the word “guinea pig” wouldn’t come to my mind to describe them: these beasts were not even remotely cute.
He makes his way over to the stairs on the far end of the domed hall. They lead up to a position overlooking the whole hall, as if someone wanted to witness the development of the caged species from a safe position.
As soon as he steps on the first stair, he hears a howl from above that is sounding like a wounded beast. Instinctively, he runs back and takes cover behind the fallen cage, firing his shotgun towards the glittering, blurry apparition that floats down the stairs. The glitters look like shiny eyes as it approaches the Stalker. He frantically fires his shotgun.
The entity howls again. Beams of fire spout from the floor. Moved by his instinct of survival that tells him to run away, the Stalker glances at the entrance—the door which had been wide open when he entered the laboratory is now shut.
Damn!
Hoping that his armored suit will protect him from the worst, he tries to dodge the fire jets and pellets the floating apparition with shotgun shells.
Only four shells left. God help me!
Aiming the short rifle with his right and feeling in his ammo pocket for his last two shotgun shells, he fires the weapon into the entity as it floats right next to him. Suddenly, it disappears.
Another low, humming drone starts, as if emitted by the darkness itself—audible dread creeping from the fissures and cracks of the vaults. The floor shakes and the Stalker has to grasp the cage next to him to prevent himself from falling. It doesn’t help him as his vision starts to dim and he falls into a full mental black-out.
One of his recurring nightmares appears. He is standing outside of the Chernobyl Power Plant, the fence with the sign of irradiation danger softly bulging in the wind, which slowly grows into a roaring gale. He realizes it’s not the wind he hears but the noise of a thousand mutated critters, exactly like those he has seen in the cages, running away from the Power Plant—if it is not the Power Plant itself emitting them like a tsunami of corruption. He raises his carbine and starts shooting at them, more in despair than the hope of stopping them, and suddenly he hears someone calling a name, a god-like voice suppressing even the howling mutants and echoing on in his aching skull.