“You can start by offering a few days of extra leave and a little cash to your grunts or anyone who leads him to you… but that will not likely help you much. For God’s sake, your file says you’re a resourceful officer, Maksimenko. Could the Service be wrong about you? Find him.”
Maksimenko stares at the match, now halfway burnt, its small flame licking the skin on the colonel’s palm and fingers. Not as much as an eyelid stirs on Kruchelnikov’s face.
“I—I think I know of a way to do that,” he whispers.
Colonel Kruchelnikov’s thin lips jerk into the triumphant grin of a wolf closing in on its prey. He pats Maksimenko’s arm.
“That’s my boy.”
His hand holding the match moves an inch closer. Before it extinguishes between his burnt fingers, the last flicker of the match lights up the captain’s Cohiba.
A bitter taste runs down Captain Maksimenko’s palate as he draws on the cigar.
3
In a decrepit house smelling of trash and decay, a lonely candle burns. Only the hands of the man scrawling into a tattered notice block are visible in its light. The barely legible scribble tells of despair, the shaking fingers of drug deprivation.
I need more pain.
Darkness outside as if the world were gone. I’m alone while Nelly sleeps. I can’t.
Darkness keeping me imprisoned, dragging on day by day trapped in myself with my body as my shackles. Life has taken my sight and soul, let me live in hell.
Nelly is sleeping. She’s leaving me, cheating on me with her dreams. She has to, can’t blame her for it. She’s happier in her dreams. But I—I can’t sleep, can’t dream. Keep my eyes open — filth and dirt is all I see. Close my eyes—nightmares is all I get. Nelly is dancing, singing, flying in her dreams. She is dreaming of being an angel now. I don’t mind her cheating on me with angels. I love her. She may be gang-banged by an army of angels or God itself if that pleases her, I don’t care. I am not jealous anymore. I love her and envy her for her freedom.
That’s all I got out of my life; a mother dead, a father a monster, I’ll get over them and myself too, don’t give a fuck about anyone including me—especially me. Time goes so slow when all I have to do is sit around and wait to die. I’m like an animal trapped, trying to move away, one leg in the trap, cutting into my flesh with only the pain reminding me that I am still alive. I need that pain.
Nelly needs to fly and reach the skies. She only made one mistake: hooking up with me. But now she is free in her dreams of rainbows in a sky washed pure by rain.
Rain, rain, rain. It goes into the sewers and into the ocean. As a little kid I always dreamt of swimming in the ocean. I don’t want to swim the ocean anymore, not fighting tides anymore. I just want to die. Or have at least a taste of it—for a starter.
Where is Sancho? When is that motherfucking son of a bitch of a latrino hauling his chili-shitting ass here? Fuck fuck fuck! It’s almost midnight and he was supposed to be here hours ago! Damn border nigger. DAMN PIG. PIG!
Okay, okay—soon. Soon he will be here. He must come or—I don’t know.
Father always told me, life is a hard game to play but he didn’t tell me that I was gonna lose it anyway. I need the pain. I need to know I’m still alive, my willpower a lose circuit in my brain. How long I have tried to kill it away?
If only I could start it over. If only my fucking eye was a restart button for my life, I’d poke it till I go blind and feel my way out of myself. But I need to know I still live. I need the sting, the sweetest kiss I’ve ever knew. Nelly knows it. She understands, and that’s the only thing we ever fought over. But she is sleeping now. Guess I’ll have to scratch messages on the window which no one will ever read with raindrops flowing on the glass, could be God’s tears but to me they are Gods own vomit pouring on this abandoned street and me watching it. Long time we gave up on each other, God and me.
I can’t bear this any longer.
WHEN IS MY FUCKING FIX COMING?! Screw you, Sancho! SANCHO!
Come. Please, come soon my friend. Por favor.
4
Not long ago, a battle raged among the ruins of the City of Screams. Probably no one would come to this place for a long time, save for mutants and crows to feast on the decomposing bodies which still litter the rocky hill. The half-mutant Stalker, however, came here for a reason different than food.
The main entrance, dug out with months of heavy labor, had been blown shut. It was at night when he crawled out through the tight passage on the northern side of the hill. On his return, he would have never found it again if it hadn’t been for his sense of smell. The stench of moldy walls and damp tunnels was overpowering, carried in the fresh, pure wind blowing from the mountains to the west.
Nothing was to be found beneath the ruins. It was looted before, and what wasn’t looted was useless junk. But loot was not on his mind when he squeezed his body through the tight entrance. He himself couldn’t tell what had made him to enter that place once more. For hours or even days he had scouted the bunker system, descending all the way to the deepest levels through air shafts that not even the bravest human would have dared to enter. But where his human half would have made him run from the perils and claustrophobia, his new instincts stepped in. He rejoiced at the sensation of not being blind in the gloom like a human would; his sight got gradually used to the dim that his oversensitive eyes had turned the darkness. His reason of being there only became clear to him when he stumbled on a humanoid figure, resembling himself except for the size. The wounded mutant first moved to attack him but then reconsidered. Maybe it was because of the truly non-human feature of mutants of not killing another one of their own species without good reason, or from the shotgun-inflicted wounds making it incapable of delivering a deadly attack. He had no reason not to use one of his medikits to patch the mutant up and lead it back to the light; neither had he any reason to doubt that humans, if approached in a cautious and peaceful manner, would offer him help.
Being close to the humanoid, he become conscious of one more mutant feature. When he approached it and was about to take a pull from his field flask, he sensed the mutant’s thirst. After sharing his water with it, he sensed a feeling that could go for gratitude. He realized that if he dumbed down his thoughts to the essential, the slow-witted mutant could understand him and vice versa, he could perceive its thoughts as well. He attributed this rudimentary telepathy to his companion being humanoid, and was sure that the more sophisticated a mutant is, maybe the closer to humans, the more sophisticated such mental communication could be. The human in him rejoiced of the thought of sharing this discovery with other humans—it offered more insight into mutant nature than the scientists could only dream about.
However, when they were closing in on the roadblock before the Stalker base at Ghorband and a dozen automatic rifles and shotguns opened fire on them, all his hopes were shattered. His protégé had taken the worst of the brunt and seeing it die the night after in a cave where they took shelter was hard on him.