by Dan Abnett
The military chopper came in to land. Cutter, Connor and Abby felt the rock and sway as the big bird descended and settled in. The heavy rotors were thumping the air, part whip crack, part thunderbolt.
With a final and quite violent bump, they were down. Koshkin got up and wrenched open the hold’s side hatch, which rolled back with a clatter on metal runners. The sound of the rotors poured in, but immediately began to diminish.
Stale, yellowish daylight poured into the hold.
“Get up!” Koshkin ordered.
Medyevin was already up. Cutter, Connor and Abby got to their feet. Above the exhaust fumes, Cutter could smell wet ground and conifers.
They moved to the hatch and clambered out. The huge twin rotors of the heavy helicopter were still chopping overhead.
They climbed down into a twilight that could only be dawn. The sky was yellow from a pale sun that was not quite risen. Morning mist hung in the air, and it was cold and damp. Everything seemed a little undernourished and starved for light.
They’d come down on a makeshift landing strip near some woods. Off the strip, through the mist, they could see accommodation tents and several military vehicles. On the other side, two large military freight planes were parked off the landing area and beside them sat a vespine helicopter gunship. All three aircraft were lashed down.
Outside the immediate camp, they could see deeper forest shrouded in a soft, yellow mist. Ground crew and military personnel were approaching the cargo chopper.
“Where is this?” Connor looked around, puzzled. “We’re miles from anywhere, aren’t we? Is this Scotland?”
Koshkin glanced over his shoulder at Connor and grinned.
“Welcome to Sibir,” he said.
“Where?”
“Siberia,” Cutter said.
TEN
They were left waiting at the side of the airstrip for ten minutes. The morning air was cold, and before long all three of the ARC personnel were shivering. There was a mist that, in places, made it difficult to see.
Ground crew moved in to handle the helicopter. Soldiers in brown camo-pattern uniforms and blue berets loitered nearby, smoking cigarettes and ostensibly watching the ‘visitors’. Assault rifles were slung casually over their shoulders on straps.
They seemed particularly intrigued by Abby.
Medyevin and Koshkin had gone over to talk to an officer. As Cutter watched, they began to gesture, and voices were raised. The conversation appeared to become quite complicated.
The older man with the wire-framed glasses emerged from the helicopter and presented them with three woollen greatcoats. The coats were brown, and very large, and had clearly seen long years of service.
“Please to use,” he said.
Cutter took the coats and passed one to Abby and one to Connor. He hung the third over his shoulder, but both Abby and Connor pulled theirs on against the chill.
“Siberia?” Connor muttered. “Siberia.”
“No matter how much you keep saying that word, it isn’t going to get any less real,” Cutter said.
“I know, but Siberia? Come on.”
Cutter glanced at Abby.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked.
She looked him in the eye.
“Just wondering,” she said.
“Wondering what?”
“They want our help,” Abby said. “I think you must be right about what they want our help for. We could look on the positive side, and see this as an opportunity.”
“We could indeed,” Cutter agreed.
“Opportunity for what?” Connor asked.
“To learn,” Abby explained. “To find out what other people know. To see what they’ve discovered and how they deal with the whole thing. And we don’t have Lester here to wrap us in red tape, either.”
Connor nodded.
“I just wonder...” Abby went on.
“What?”
“If we cooperate and we help them, what will they do with us when they don’t need our help any more?”
Medyevin walked over to join them.
“What happens now?” Cutter asked.
“They’re arranging transport, to take you to the advance camp.”
“Where’s that?”
“About one hour and half away. This is just the dispersal site.”
“There’s a problem, isn’t there?” Cutter questioned.
“What do you mean?”
“Koshkin was giving that officer what for. He wasn’t happy about something.”
Medyevin nodded.
“The advance camp should have sent transport here to meet us. It was arranged, but it’s late.”
After another five minutes, two open-topped 4×4s painted olive green drove up the landing strip with their headlamps on against the mist. The drivers, two regular soldiers, got out and left the engines running.
Koshkin got behind the wheel of the first 4×4 and indicated that Cutter should ride beside him. Medyevin climbed into the back, and a soldier with an AK-74 got in next to him.
The older man with the wire-framed glasses took the driving seat of the other 4×4, with Abby next to him and Connor in the back alongside a second young soldier.
Without ceremony, Koshkin put the vehicle in gear and pulled away. The other 4×4 roared after him.
They bounced through the dispersal site camp, past Russian troopers eating breakfast and looking bored, and joined a track at the edge of the forest. It was rutted and treacherous, and, despite the headlamps, visibility was poor under the trees. Nevertheless, Koshkin drove aggressively. It seemed to Cutter as if he was trying to prove something, some macho credential, by driving too fast.
Cutter found it amusing.
The 4×4s blasted along the trail, hissing up spray from the mud, and occasionally squirming and foundering through deeper slicks and badly trenched bends. The forest that enclosed them was magnificent and a little melancholy. The heavy mist, like yellow smoke, diminished all sense of distance, and flattened out the sound of their engines as it was cast back to them. The trees were vigilant black shapes, straight and silent, old and stoic.
He saw the odd bird dart overhead or between trees at the edge of the track. Sometimes, little pockets of clarity flew by, small breaks in the fog that revealed clearings and woodland spaces like mysterious grottos: archways of trees, emerald and black, floors of wet earth and robust undergrowth, and shafts of wan light sloping down from the broken roof of foliage. To Cutter’s eyes they looked like primeval places, like the forests that had stood before man’s arrival.
He wondered what they would find out here. He wondered what the Russians were so afraid of that they had travelled thousands of miles to kidnap a British scientist.
“How long has your problem been going on?” he asked.
Koshkin concentrated on the track ahead, shifting down hard.
“You’ll be briefed,” he said.
“Why not save a little time? How long?”
Koshkin kept his eyes on the road and remained silent for a moment.
“Two years,” he admitted. His hands turned the wheel in sharp, jerky movements to match the turns of the trail. Cutter held on to the edge of his seat.
“Perhaps longer than two,” Medyevin said, leaning forward from the back. It seemed that Koshkin’s admission had given him clearance to speak. “Reports go back for some time, but they’re not confirmed.”
“The forests have always been full of stories,” Koshkin said dismissively, “and most of them are the product of farmers who spend too much time drinking.”
“But some of the stories are true?” Cutter pressed.
“They are now,” Medyevin agreed.
“Two years is a long time for one area,” Cutter said.
“The area is large,” Medyevin explained.
“Even so. Is it a pattern of anomalies, or have you observed one that has a greater transitionary dynamic than usual?”
“What is he talking about?” Koshkin
asked Medyevin over his shoulder.
Medyevin looked at Cutter.
“I’m sorry, Professor. Greater transitionary what?”
“I mean the anomalies staying open and active for longer than usual. Most aperture activity I’ve observed lasts a few hours maximum. I’ve known a couple that have remained transitional for days. But months or years — that would be new to me.”
Medyevin shook his head.
“Again, you lose me. Please explain ‘anomaly’.”
“Well, I don’t know what you call them. The doorways. The holes in time.”
“Holes in time,” Medyevin echoed, as if the notion was utterly new to him. “You think time has holes in it?”
Cutter was about to respond when Koshkin hit the brakes hard and the 4×4 slid to a halt, its back wheels turning out slightly in the mire. The other 4×4 also came to a violent halt to avoid crashing into them. Cutter was thrown forward in his seat by the sudden jolt.
He braced himself and looked up.
They’d come around a tight bend to find a man walking down the middle of the trackway. Koshkin had only just managed to avoid running him down. He was a soldier, dressed in camos, an overcoat and a green helmet worn over a pile undercap. He had his back to them and seemed completely oblivious to their presence.
Koshkin’s 4×4 had stalled. As he attempted to restart it, he swore in Russian and yelled at the soldier.
The soldier in the middle of the road didn’t reply.
He didn’t even look around.
Cutter knew instinctively that something was wrong with him. Koshkin yelled again, and then got down out of the 4×4 and strode towards the lone soldier. Cutter dismounted, too. The trooper in the back seat called out and began to raise his AK to stop Cutter, but Medyevin shut him up with a look and a gesture.
He was a few steps behind Koshkin when the man reached the soldier. Koshkin continued to shout angrily in Russian.
“I think he’s in shock,” Cutter said.
Koshkin looked back, noticing him for the first time.
“What?”
“Look, he doesn’t even know we’re here,” Cutter said.
The soldier was quite young, and his face was pale and pinched. His uniform was spattered with mud, and he looked like he’d spent quite some time crawling across the ground. His eyes were glazed with an empty stare. There was no sign of his weapon.
“He’s only wearing one boot,” Cutter pointed out.
Koshkin planted himself in front of the soldier and spoke directly into his face. The soldier gently tried to look past the big Spetsnaz officer, as if Koshkin were a tree that was blocking the view.
“What’s he looking at?” Koshkin asked.
Medyevin joined them.
“I know him,” he said. “It’s Sukhenkiy, from the advance camp.”
“Sukhenkiy?” Koshkin said to the dazed soldier. He added a question or an order in Russian.
“Wait a minute,” Cutter said. “That’s not just mud on his clothes.”
“What?” Medyevin asked.
“He’s soaked in blood.” Cutter touched part of the man’s coat and his hand came away sticky and red.
“He’s staring at something,” Medyevin said.
“He’s looking for something,” Cutter corrected. “He’s watching for something.” He turned to his fellow scientist. “Ask him what he’s looking for.”
Before Medyevin could oblige, Koshkin slapped the soldier across the face. The force of the blow knocked the soldier onto his back.
“There’s no need for any of that!” Cutter snapped at Koshkin as he and Medyevin helped the soldier back onto his feet.
“Is there not?” Koshkin asked belligerently. He gestured at the soldier. The slap seemed to have shaken Sukhenkiy out of his reverie. He was blinking at them, as if he’d suddenly woken up from a deep sleep and couldn’t recall where he was. He started to speak, quietly but urgently, almost gabbling to Medyevin and gesturing at the woods ahead of them.
“What’s he saying?” Cutter demanded.
“He keeps repeating a name,” Koshkin said.
“What name?” Cutter prompted.
Koshkin sighed.
“Baba Yaga,” he replied.
ELEVEN
Once he started, Sukhenkiy wouldn’t stop talking. Even though he was speaking Russian, Cutter could read the soldier’s manic tone.
“He was sent out from the advance camp to meet us,” Medyevin reported. “Him and two others in a truck. They were supposed to pick us up from the landing base.”
“What happened?” Cutter asked.
“Baba Yaga!” Sukhenkiy announced. He began to walk away along the muddy track. The misty forest seemed to loom ominously on either side of him.
“Baba Yaga, that’s folklore, isn’t it?” Cutter noted. “A witch in the woods?”
Medyevin nodded.
“So, what does he mean?”
“It’s just what the men have started to call it, these last few months. No one’s seen it properly, but we think it’s the thing doing the bulk of the killing.”
“Killing what?”
“The other animals. And men.”
“Men?”
“We’ve lost quite a few,” Medyevin said. “Several months ago, we lost three men on a forest patrol. A fourth survived. He was deranged with fear. The shock made him so ill, we were forced to ship him out of the zone to a mental hospital in Surgut. He saw what killed the others. He glimpsed it, anyway. He saw its legs, giant legs, and he kept calling it Baba Yaga.”
“After the witch?”
“I think, more properly, after the witch’s house, Professor Cutter,” Medyevin explained. “In the old hearth stories, Baba Yaga lived in a house that walked around on a pair of giant legs, the legs of a bird, as you would call, a chicken.”
Cutter watched Trooper Sukhenkiy shambling away from them along the forest track.
“What period, Doctor?” he asked.
“What are you asking me, Professor?”
“The monsters that are causing you your problems here, the creatures, what geological period do you estimate they are from?”
“I would say,” Medyevin replied carefully, “they are Late Cretaceous.”
Cutter looked at him. Medyevin managed a thin smile.
“Yes, Professor, I believe we have both made an educated guess about what Baba Yaga might be.” He wiped some moisture from his eyes.
It had begun to rain. A fine, unpleasantly penetrating drizzle pattered down through the tree cover. Cutter glanced back at the vehicles. Both of the soldiers had dismounted, and were waiting by the track with their assault rifles ready. Abby and Connor were sitting anxiously in the second 4×4 with the older man.
Koshkin said something to Medyevin.
“He says we should get Sukhenkiy into the vehicle with us and press on for the advance camp,” Medyevin explained.
“Well, we can’t leave him out here,” Cutter agreed. They followed Koshkin down the trail towards the young trooper.
“What creatures have you actually seen?” Cutter asked Medyevin as they walked. “You must be basing your geological time estimate on something.”
“Actually, we’ve seen quite a variety of erratics,” Medyevin said. “That’s what we have labelled the anachronistic organisms. Some small forms, including mammalians, as well as birds, but predominately Ceratopsians and duck-bills.”
“You just referred to those in the plural,” Cutter said.
Medyevin looked at him.
“I don’t think you’ve begun to grasp the scale of this, Professor,” he said.
Koshkin called out. He’d spotted the truck that the advance camp had sent to meet them. It was lying on its side about twenty yards from the trail in a large patch of churned up undergrowth. A canvas-topped army carrier, it looked like it had been in a collision with a train. It was mangled, and the cab had been ripped open by huge shearing forces of some unknown origin.
There wa
s no sign of the two men who’d been travelling with Sukhenkiy, but there was a lot of blood. Cutter could smell it through the deep musky odour of the forest.
“I think we should keep moving,” he suggested.
Medyevin agreed.
Sukhenkiy was still gabbling.
“He says it flipped the truck off the road into the treeline,” Medyevin translated. “He was thrown out of the back, and managed to scramble into hiding, otherwise Baba Yaga would have got him too.”
“No kidding.” Cutter peered at the wreckage. He could see what looked like bite marks. They were colossal.
Sukhenkiy stopped talking.
The forest seemed very quiet without the chatter of his voice. The soldier stared out through the trees and the mist, and Cutter realised that a sudden, distinctly unnatural silence had descended. Bird calls, and other forest sounds — like the knocks and scurries of insects and rodents — had all fallen off. Cutter had barely been aware of them in the background before, but he was keenly aware of their absence. It was basic bushcraft — skills that Stephen had taught him.
There was something out there.
He peered around, and stared in the direction Sukhenkiy was looking, but he couldn’t see anything except the ghost shapes his imagination was conjuring in the drifting mist. He was tired, and his nerves were already worn through. The vicing tension of the moment made him see monsters in the woodland shadows, giant things with giant mouths lurking behind the black Siberian trees on giant chicken legs.
The forest seemed to close in. He could feel something, something huge and close; something watching them.
Why couldn’t he see it?
Why couldn’t he hear it or smell it?
Koshkin could feel it too. He pulled out his pistol, the one he had used to threaten Abby and Connor.
Fat lot of use that’s going to be, Cutter thought grimly.
“What happened to the birdsong?” Koshkin asked.
Medyevin shushed him. Sukhenkiy began to cry.
Cutter was painfully conscious of the man’s wracking sobs. Then he heard something else. He heard a thump. He felt a thump. He felt it travel through the ground, as though — close by — something very large and very heavy had just taken a step.