He ducked as the creature’s leg snapped towards him. The hind foot collided with the Perspex and left a deep gouge in front of his face, but the material didn’t shatter.
The soldier’s voice sounded and Callum felt something cold thrust into his hands. He looked down to see a machine gun. The soldier was repeating the same instruction again and again in Russian.
“He says to shoot!” Darya said.
“What about the window?”
“Through the window,” she shouted. “Just shoot!”
The creature was clinging to the side of the cabin with its foreclaws tucked around the handle. As Callum raised the rifle barrel and took aim, it reached upwards and tried to slide back the window.
Callum pressed his finger down and unleashed a burst of automatic fire. The rounds peppered the little pane, blowing the centre out and propelling the creature from the side of the machine. Trails of warm blood lashed against his face and streaked what remained of the acrylic screen.
It was Callum’s turn to yell out in triumph. But all celebrations were quickly off as another two thuds sounded on the roof.
The soldier shouted something to Darya.
“He says to take the controls.”
Before Callum could protest, the machine jerked to a halt. The hulking soldier turned and shot him a glance. His dark eyes were narrowed, his lips crushed together in a determined half-grin-half-grimace. He cracked his knuckles, seized the rifle from Callum and shoved past.
On reflex Callum slipped into the driving seat. His feet fell naturally onto the pedals and his hands clasped on to the two control sticks mounted at the end of either armrest. The seat was warm and the controls clammy. “But… what does what?” he shouted over his shoulder.
There was no reply as the soldier’s boots disappeared through the shattered window.
4
Callum slammed his foot onto the pedal. To his relief the machine bucked and trundled forward as before, the engine roaring, the tracks squealing below. He had no idea where he was going and he didn’t dare mess with any of the other controls, so he simply held the control sticks steady and ploughed blindly ahead.
The mist flowed past in a torrent, thick and unrelenting as the minutes ticked by. The growling of the machine’s engine filled his ears. His leg wound pulsated with the frantic beating of his heart, and Darya’s fingers dug into his already-aching shoulders.
Gunshots rang out suddenly from above. Then, before either of them could react, the machine slammed to a halt. Callum was thrown forward over the controls, while Darya was hurled from her perch behind the seat. The smell of burning metal filled the cabin, and the machine’s engine shuddered and gave out.
Callum looked up, dazed. Piercing through the shattered screen was a corner of grey concrete. “I think we’ve found the compound.”
There was no reply.
He looked around to see Darya draped over the floor of the cabin. She looked like a ragdoll. Her arms were twisted beneath her and blood dripped from a gash on her head. Callum ignored the ringing inside his own skull and dragged her up into a sitting position. The wound above her eye was only small, but it was bleeding profusely, and he bunched his sleeve up and stemmed the flow.
“Darya? Can you hear me?”
She said nothing. When he drew his hand away to check her pulse, her body slumped back down against him. She was alive, but she was out cold. He tore a strip of fabric from his undershirt and fastened it around her head. As he fumbled to secure the knot, a loud thunk rang out beside him, and a boot came smashing through the windscreen. It was followed by a forearm, which forced its way through the cleft and levered the screen open.
Callum expected to see the soldier who had been driving the machine. But it was a different man who clambered up into the cabin. He was taller, and his face looked as if it had been chiselled out of solid granite. A large, hook-shaped scar ran the length of his cheek and the dense surrounding stubble looked more like iron filings than hair.
His white uniform drenched in blood, the soldier wasted no time scooping Darya up into his arms and backing out of the windscreen.
Without a word, Callum followed on.
5
The bunker was a reinforced concrete shell set around a ribcage of steel girders. Soldiers were stationed at intervals along the rifle slits on either wall. Their steaming rifles were shouldered and a vomit of spent cartridges lay scattered around their knees. Some were still firing, prompting more explosions off in the distance.
The scar-faced soldier passed into a second chamber. It was danker, and the lack of rifle slits on either wall heightened the gloom. In the middle of the floor, a wounded man was being tended to by one of his comrades. Barely out of his teens by the look of him, the young man’s injuries looked horrific. There were clear puncture marks across his shoulder and chest, and a deep gouge ran just below his ribcage.
The soldier stopped and lay Darya gently down next to the dying soldier. The older-looking medic set to work examining her, as Scar-face addressed him in a commanding tone.
“What is it?” Callum asked. “She’ll be okay, right?”
The two soldiers stopped their conversation and stared at him. The medic then spoke to Scar-face, who nodded, grunted and spat on the floor.
Callum went to speak again, when another voice cut him off: “Doctor Lebedev will be okay, my friend. She is unconscious, but she is not badly injured.”
Lungkaju was kneeling down in the corner of the room. His arm was wrapped around Ava Lee as she rocked back and forth, the same look of silent hysteria on her face that she’d had back in the emergency shelter.
“Lungkaju! Ava!” Callum flew across the room and threw his arms around them both. Lungkaju responded with his free arm, while Ava continued her rocking. “I didn’t think you’d make it… not before the mist…”
“We did not,” Lungkaju replied. “We were only half-way down the ridge when it came.”
“He carried me,” Ava piped up suddenly. Her voice was manic, her eyes fixed on middle distance. “He carried me,” she repeated. “Carried me…” She went silent once again and continued rocking.
“She is in shock,” Lungkaju said.
Callum knelt beside her and placed a hand on hers. She was in a bad way. Her face was smeared with grime. Her once neat, brown hair was now matted, dark with sweat, and her eyes were swollen with exhaustion and fear. Every one of the survivors was in the same boat. But he identified most with Ava. Like him, her life was one of middle-class comfort: hot showers at the end of a day in the field, financial security and intellectual gratification. Her greatest challenges were deciding between Claret and Beaujolais of an evening, deciding which journal to publish her latest paper in. Now here they were at war.
He squeezed her hand and spoke softly. “Ava?”
No reply.
“Ava, they display just like birds.”
For a while she carried on rocking, knees drawn up tightly to her chest, lips trembling. Then her eyes stumbled around to meet his. “They… they do?”
He nodded. “It’s beautiful. They mimic each other’s colouring.”
The faintest of smiles flickered across her lips. “You saw it?”
“First-hand.”
There was a sudden commotion at the other end of the bunker, and Starshyna Koikov marched over and threw open the door. A soldier, his body steaming, his face flushed red with exertion, fell through it into his arms. Koikov steadied him, and the two men engaged in an intense exchange.
“What’s going on?” Callum asked Lungkaju.
“That is Sergeant Marchenko. He says that the rescue helicopter will be here in half an hour.”
Callum let out a huge sigh of relief. “Thank Christ for that!”
“Thank the sergeant,” Lungkaju replied with a grin. “Without him we would not make contact.”
Callum reached out and stroked Darya’s cheek. Her skin felt freezing, so he removed his scarf and tucked it around her neck. “Did you hear that?” he whispered. “They’re coming for us. We’re going home.”
She made no response.
Through in Chamber 1, Starshyna Koikov brought his conversation with Marchenko to an end. He slapped the exhausted-looking sergeant on the back, almost sending him over. Then he turned and bellowed out an order. His words immediately upset what little routine had been established. All three chambers buzzed with renewed energy as the troopers began raking their equipment together.
Callum looked to Lungkaju. His hood drawn tightly around his chin, he appeared composed, still maintaining his vigil over Ava. She had now stopped rocking and her head rested on his shoulder. “We must get ready to leave,” Lungkaju said. “I will take care of Doctor Lee. You must take care of Doctor Lebedev. Can you do this?”
“Of course,” Callum replied. In fact, it was the only thing he was still certain of. Until they were dead or rescued, he would not be leaving Darya’s side. “Where’s the helicopter landing?”
“There is high ground to the west.”
“How far to the west?”
“A kilometre, no more.”
“A kilometre? But what about the creatures?”
“There is no choice, my friend. It is the safest place for the helicopter to land. We must trust Starshyna Koikov.”
Callum said nothing, just watched as Lungkaju removed his vodka canteen from his jacket and took a swig. His gaze traced the line of the brown, gently curving leather rectangle that he had first encountered in the Kamov on the journey from the mainland. The memory of the liquid’s burn at the back of his throat rushed back to him. He held his hand out. “May I?”
Lungkaju did not offer it up. Instead he slowly turned it upside down.
Nothing came out. Not a single droplet. Lungkaju looked slowly from the empty, upturned canteen to Callum. With a mournful look in his eyes he said, “I am sorry, my friend. There has been nothing for days. It is only…” He searched for the right word.
“Habit,” Callum said.
“Yes, but there is another word also.”
“Comfort?”
Lungkaju seemed to think about it. Then he closed his eyes and nodded.
Inside his pocket, Callum’s hand tightened around the quartz pebble. He went to speak, when a sudden hail of gunfire erupted through in Chamber 3, and both men rushed to the doorway.
One of the creatures had snaked its head through the east-facing rifle slit and seized onto a soldier’s arm. The man’s rifle had fallen to the floor and he was flailing his free arm against the creature’s face, screaming in pain.
“We’ve got to help him!” Callum shouted. He went to rush forward, but Lungkaju grabbed his shoulder.
“No, my friend. We will only be in the way.”
As he spoke, two other soldiers rushed to his aid. Seizing the creature around the neck, one of them stabbed his knife into the side of its skull, while the other pounded the bridge of its snout with his rifle butt.
Then another creature speared its head into the chamber and clamped its jaws around the knife-wielder’s throat. In one quick motion, it ripped its head back, tearing away the entire front half of his neck. Eyes wide with shock, the soldier slumped to his knees, jets of blood drenching his killer’s face.
The first creature still had a hold, and the second now tossed the lump of throat flesh aside and lunged for the captive soldier’s other arm. Working together, the two pulled backwards, attempting to drag him outside.
Koikov barged past Callum into the room, an inhuman rage twisting his features. Running straight past the carnage, he rammed a flamethrower out through the rifle slit. Seconds later the bunker’s interior was thrown into blinding relief as a flash of light poured in from outside accompanied by a tremendous wave of heat. Both creatures released their hold on the soldier and wrenched their heads back through the gap, braying in agony.
The soldier collapsed back into the room, and Koikov paced by him, unleashing a second tongue of bright orange flame out through the rifle slit. With a roar of his own, he strode up and down the length of the bunker, blasting a stream of liquid fire out into the mist, incinerating whatever was unlucky enough to be within a twenty-foot arc.
At last, he released the trigger and bellowed out an order. Then he dragged the injured soldier through into Chamber 2. The soldiers grabbed whatever they could carry and retreated after him, heaving the door behind them.
“Look!” Lungkaju shouted, pointing back through the remaining sliver of doorway. One creature after another had begun clawing its way in through the undefended rifle slits into the abandoned chamber, some with scorched feathers, others unharmed. With an indignant grunt, Koikov joined in with the others, and together they slammed the door shut and bolted it.
* * *
Corporal Voronkov was having a field day. So far he’d chalked up twenty-seven of the little bastards. One for every year of his life. He’d even allowed Zyryonov to make a couple of kills, which had shut him up for a few precious minutes.
His radio crackled. “Voronkov!”
“Yes, Starshyna?”
“How’s it looking down here?”
The truth was Voronkov hadn’t checked the state of the bunker for some time. He’d been far too busy picking off the creatures that had picked up his scent and massed at the base of the moraine. They were sly, he’d give them that much. They hadn’t just herded towards him. Instead they’d dispersed, each individual creature flitting its way from cover to cover towards him. But he was now confident that he had the remaining handful pinned down behind various outcrops, leaving him free to take pot shots.
“Voronkov, answer me!”
Voronkov threw a glance over at the bunker. His stomach turned. “Shit! They’re all over your position!”
“Tell me something I don’t know, you useless prick! We’ve abandoned Chambers 1 and 3 already. We’re holed up in 2 for now, but we’re about to break out and move to your position. What I need to know is whether they’re on the roof?”
Voronkov surveyed the scene. Ground level at either end of the bunker was squirming with red forms. Through the LVV they looked like some kind of bacterial infection laying waste to a shred of tissue. Dozens more were flocking in from the east, rivulets of red carving up the basin.
“They’re concentrated at either end, Starshyna. No more than a couple currently visible on the roof. Take them out?”
“When I give you the word,” Koikov replied. “Then I want you to take out those on the roof only. And Voronkov, you wait for my order, you hear me? These things are smart. I don’t want to risk alerting them until the last minute. Are we clear?”
“Just give me the word.”
6
The last of the soldiers made their way from Chamber 1 to Chamber 2 and secured the door behind them. Chamber 3 was already teeming with creatures. The sound of them screeching and clawing at the other side of the door was impossible to ignore. And now Chamber 1 was filling up as well. So far the doors were holding, but for how long?
Kneeling beside Darya, Callum looked around at the other survivors. Aside from Ava and Lungkaju, he counted only nine remaining soldiers, soon to be seven by the looks of the two men laid out beside him on the blood-stained floor. His mind flicked back to the Albanov and the hundred or so people he must have seen on the first day alone. It was hard to believe that this was all that was left. It was even harder to believe that he was left.
As Koikov’s voice rang out, all other conversation died away; his only accompaniment now was the screeching and scratching of the creatures to either side, and the moans of the two dying soldiers.
“We will go through the roof hatch,” Lungkaju translated. “There is a hovercraft behind the bunker to take us to the
extraction point. Corporal Voronkov and Private Zyryonov are on the high ground. They will clear the roof for us and give us cover.”
Koikov cast his gaze around.
“The starshyna wants to know if there are any questions,” Lungkaju said.
Nobody spoke as the scraping of talons on concrete continued its disembodied assault to either side. Screeches and clicks wafted in through the ventilation ports, which Callum now noticed in the upper corners of the chamber. His eyes narrowed at the sight of a couple of lengths of wire poking in through the grills and dribbling down onto the floor.
Lungkaju: “Starshyna Koikov says that if we stay here, the creatures will very soon break through these doors. They are old and no longer strong enough.”
Callum dragged a finger along the top of one of the hinges. A film of beige dust coated his fingertip.
“We must go quickly now,” Lungkaju said. “The helicopter will be here soon. Ten minutes.”
There was a sudden groan and all eyes moved to the centre of the room. The younger man, whom the medic had been treating when Callum first arrived in the bunker, was still somehow clinging to life. But the soldier whose arms had been savaged in Chamber 3 was now staring blankly upwards, his lips parted, his face still and grey. A lake of blood had seeped through his bandages and pooled around him on the floor. The medic reached out and pushed his eyelids closed.
For a moment the survivors were still and silent, the same horror bold on each of their faces. There could have been no more graphic an example of what was at stake for all of them the second that hatch opened.
Sergeant Marchenko knelt down beside the man, settled a hand onto his chest and bent his head in prayer. Only then did Callum recognise Marchenko. Антон was tattoed on the back of his knuckles in black Cyrillic font. It was Gavriil. Gavriil Marchenko, father of Anton and Natalya. The gentle features and intelligent gaze that had become so familiar to Callum during his visits to the comms centre were now so masked by blood, dirt and fatigue that he looked like a different person. He spoke a few soft words before climbing back to his feet.
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