Trial by Fire

by Trial by Fire (retail) (epub)

  Frost could hear footsteps growing closer, their slow and measured tread in stark contrast to the frantic beat of her pulse as she waited to see what would happen; whether he would pass right by her without incident, or whether she would see the eager snout of the assault rifle peek over the edge of the booth, followed by the flash of gunfire.

  The USP was a cold, heavy weight in her hand; an awkward weapon to use, but one that even she couldn’t miss with at this range. Was it better to strike first? Open fire through the thin wooden walls of the booth and take out her adversary before he could strike? She imagined the boom of the gunshots, his scream of pain as the rounds tore through his body. Then she imagined his comrade opening fire on her scant refuge, the same walls that barely hid her from view disintegrating under a hail of automatic gunfire.

  She’d be dead within seconds.

  ‘Don’t move a fucking muscle, Delta,’ Drake’s voice whispered through her radio earpiece, hard and tense. ‘He’s right on top of you.’

  The floor of the booth was coated with layers of rotting leaves from last year’s fall, chunks of detached roofing material and other bits and pieces of windblown trash that had found their way in over the years. The result was a damp, cold, uneven surface that pressed uncomfortably into her flesh and slowly soaked into her clothes, yet she made not the slightest movement, hardly even daring to breathe.

  That was when she heard a noise just outside the booth. A muffled metallic rasp, the rustle of clothing, and then something even she hadn’t expected: the trickle of flowing liquid. As soon as she caught the acrid scent of urine, she realised what was really happening.

  The man wasn’t hunting for her. He was taking a piss.

  ‘Hope you brought your raincoat, Delta,’ Keegan remarked drily.

  She could feel herself starting to shiver as the cold penetrated deeper, and the effort of holding herself taut and motionless started to take its toll. She clenched her fists, straining her muscles to try to stop the movement, all the while praying that the man outside the booth would finish what he was doing and leave.

  Please, she silently prayed. Please don’t see me.

  Then, finally, she heard the rustle of clothing, his zipper being done up, and the click of a flint lighter.

  ‘Hey! Davay, poydem,’ she heard another voice say from further away. One of the man’s comrades calling out to him: probably telling him to move it, judging by the tone.

  ‘Da, da,’ he mumbled in response.

  Frost heard the faint crackle of burning tobacco as he took a deep drag, then something hot and glowing flew over the edge of the booth, bounced off the wall opposite and landed inches from her face. Curling wisps of smoke began to drift in her direction, and she closed her eyes and held her breath, trying not to inhale the fumes lest they triggered a cough. She didn’t dare try to extinguish the cigarette in case the rustling of leaves gave away her position.

  ‘He’s moving, Delta,’ Drake whispered in her ear. ‘Heading back toward the lead vehicle. Stand by.’

  She didn’t need to be told. She could hear for herself the merciful sound of footsteps trudging slowly away from the booth, each one carrying her adversary further away, each one lifting her just a little further out of the shit she was in. And just as she knew she could hold her breath no longer, there came the loud thump of doors swinging closed, then the rumble of engines coming back to life. Both 4x4s accelerated away from the abandoned amusement park, tires skidding on the muddy ground, the harsh beams of their headlights soon lost amidst the trees and ruined buildings.

  Quickly smothering the still-burning cigarette with a handful of wet leaves and taking a deep gulp of air, Frost rose from her impromptu refuge, still hardly daring to believe she’d escaped discovery. She almost expected to find one of the armed men still there waiting, his deadly assault rifle trained on her, but to her relief no such thing happened.

  She found she was, for the time being, alone. The creaking groan of rusted metal directed her attention upward, she glanced up at the Ferris wheel, where one of the empty gondolas was swaying.

  Reaching up for the transmitter at her throat, she keyed her radio. ‘Delta to all units. I’m in the clear. What’s your position and sitrep?’

  ‘Delta, we’re Oscar Mike,’ Drake replied, breathing a little harder as he moved fast over rough ground. ‘It’s too dangerous to be out in the open. Rendezvous in the school due west of your position. Do you have eyes-on?’

  Checking her compass, Frost looked over in the direction suggested, and sure enough she could just make out the silhouette of some kind of structure above the scattered treetops. She couldn’t be sure of its original function, but it was definitely different in size and design from the high-rise apartment complexes that had characterised most of Pripyat so far. By her estimation, it was a good two or three hundred yards away.

  ‘I see it,’ Frost replied, angered that the team had seen fit to pull out without waiting for her. ‘Delta’s enroute.’

  ‘Good. Move your arse; it won’t take long for that patrol to circle around again.’

  ‘Copy that,’ she said through gritted teeth, double-timing it toward the distant school building.

  Chapter 8

  The girl’s ‘place’ as she called it looked remarkably like the storeroom of a defunct retail outlet. Empty clothing racks stood everywhere, along with some discarded cardboard boxes and various other packing items. In one corner, a rudimentary camp bed had been set up, with a sleeping bag and a few other items strewn around. The place was lit by a single battery-powered lamp that offered just enough illumination to see by.

  All told, it was neither a comfortable nor inviting spot, but it was dry and relatively warm, which made it infinitely better than outside.

  ‘Like I said, it ain’t much,’ the girl said, flopping down on the camp bed.

  ‘You live here?’ Keira asked, not sure where to sit or what to do. It wasn’t as if there was a couch she could help herself to.

  The girl shrugged. ‘Here, there, wherever. It don’t pay to stick around too long.’

  Keira didn’t reply. Her eyes had fallen on the small stack of tin cans laid out beside the bed. Beans, soup, tinned meat, even fruit. Enough to last someone at least a week. Her stomach practically growled at the prospect of food, and she had to fight hard not to lick her lips.

  The girl guessed Keira’s thoughts. ‘How long’s it been?’

  ‘A while.’

  ‘No shit.’ She chewed on it for a moment or two before making a decision. ‘Fine, sit down. You stay one night, you get one can. Just one.’

  Keira felt like she’d just won the lottery. ‘Any one?’

  ‘Not the soup,’ the girl corrected her. ‘That’s mine. But anything else.’

  Kneeling down, Keira perused the tins, feeling like a kid on Christmas day trying to decide which present to open first. After great deliberation she selected a tin of luncheon meat, reasoning it was likely to be the most filling and yield as many calories as possible.

  The girl watched Keira in silence from the camp bed as she sat on the floor in front of her, wolfing down the block of reformed meat as only a starving person could. She seemed to be trying to figure Keira out.

  ‘Got a name, little fish?’

  Keira paused to look up at her. ‘Keira.’

  ‘Stevie.’

  Keira frowned. ‘What kind of name is that?’

  ‘What, you got a problem with that or somethin’?’ Stevie demanded, rising from the camp bed with her fists clenched. ‘You come in here, eat my food and make fun of me?’

  ‘No, no. I just… never met a girl with that name.’

  She laughed and slapped Keira across the shoulder. ‘Hey, chill. I’m just fucking with you, fish. Don’t need to be afraid of me.’

  Not sure what to make of her eccentric host, Keira turned her attention back to the food, wary of provoking another outburst.

  ‘How’d you find this place?’ she asked, changing the su
bject.

  ‘Rich uncle left it to me,’ Stevie replied sarcastically, before shrugging and offering a more believable explanation. ‘It ain’t hard. You look for foreclosure signs, wait ’til everyone clears out and then move the fuck in.’ Fishing her oversized jacket, she pulled out a carefully wrapped leather bundle that Keira recognised as a small tool set. ‘This is my trump card right here. Fuckin’ bank robbers would kill for this shit. Ain’t many locks I can’t pick with this stuff.’

  ‘You teach yourself?’

  ‘Nah, ran with some other guys for a while. They taught me a few things. Didn’t work out in the end, though.’

  It sounded like a sore topic, so Keira thought it best not to press her further.

  The meal passed without further incident, and after venturing off into the darkened building in search of materials, Stevie was able to set Keira up with a place to sleep in the opposite corner of the storeroom. It was little more than some folded cardboard boxes, with a couple of old coats left behind by the store owners serving as blankets, but Keira was more warm and comfortable than she could remember being for a long time. She even had a full stomach.

  And yet for all her new-found comfort, sleep eluded her. She stared up at the ceiling, her mind turning over the chance encounter in the alleyway. She could tell her roommate was likewise awake.

  ‘Why’d you call me fish?’ she finally asked.

  She heard movement as Stevie rolled over on the camp bed to look at her. ‘Fresh fish. You ain’t been in this world too long, don’t know your way around yet.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘You’re still soft, trusting,’ she said, and there was a hint of wistfulness in her voice. ‘You’ll lose that pretty soon.’

  ‘You didn’t,’ Keira pointed out.

  Silence greeted her statement for some time, before Stevie finally responded. ‘Get some sleep. Nothin’ gonna happen to you tonight. Enjoy it.’

  * * *

  Threading her way through the tangled woodland that had encroached on the abandoned fairground, Frost approached the building Drake had designated as the rendezvous point. To her surprise, the place looked immediately familiar. The building’s general design and layout was so similar to her former high school that she felt like she’d just stepped 15 years back in time.

  The yawning entrance lay ahead, a pair of sturdy double doors still hanging ajar on their hinges. Crouching down near the main gates, she spoke into her radio. ‘Delta to all units, I’m approaching the rendezvous point. What’s your position?’

  Her hail was met with the buzz of static.

  ‘Negative copy. Say again your last.’

  For a moment she thought she heard a voice amongst the distortion, but she couldn’t swear to it. She knew that radiation could play havoc with comms gear, but anything strong enough to nullify a radio signal could only spell bad news for anyone in the area.

  ‘Is anyone reading me? If you can’t speak, acknowledge with a key tone.’

  No response, save the pop and buzz of her earpiece.

  ‘Fuck.’ Reaching for the radiation counter at her wrist, she pulled back the cover far enough to check the reading: 15 Rads.

  ‘Well, that’s not good.’

  They weren’t even at the target area yet, and she was already well on her way to receiving a dangerous dose. She needed to reunite with the others, find Flashback and get the fuck out of here before she ended up glowing in the dark.

  ‘Okay, Drake. We’ll do it the hard way, as usual.’

  With no other option, she gripped the USP, rose up from behind her cover and advanced on the main entrance, trying to suppress a shudder of foreboding as she passed through the doors and darkness swallowed her.

  Fortunately her eyes were adapting to the lack of light again after being practically blinded by the car headlights earlier, allowing her to see well enough to navigate down what was clearly a central access corridor. Doubtless this had once been a busy thoroughfare, filled with students rushing to make their next class and teachers berating their tardiness. Now it was dark, cold and lifeless as a tomb.

  Much like the other buildings in the area, the place was completely dilapidated after 20 years of abandonment, with paint peeling from the mildewed walls and the cold breeze whistling through cracked windows. The floor was scattered with broken glass, yellowed sheets of paper and chunks of broken concrete. Rusting cables and steel pipes had either fallen or been ripped down from the ceiling, and now hung across the corridor like the vines of some nightmarish jungle. Cyrillic writing had been crudely scrawled across one wall with red paint, though Frost had no idea what the slogan meant.

  Hopefully it wasn’t a warning to stay out or die.

  The air tasted stale and musty, and she detected the unmistakable odour of decay, as if the entire building were a dead body slowly decomposing around her. Broken glass crunched beneath her feet as she moved.

  Passing the entrance to a classroom on her left, she risked a glance inside. The rusting frames of school desks and chairs still sat in rows facing the front of the room, their wooden tops warped and deformed by age and creeping dampness. The floor was strewn with broken instruments, upturned chairs and even the remains of textbooks, as if their owners had simply dropped them and fled just before her arrival. Most unsettling of all was the child’s doll that had been placed upright at the far end, its sightless glass eyes surveying the darkened room as if awaiting a class that would never arrive.

  ‘Well, that’s nightmare fuel,’ she said quietly.

  Frost had no idea who had placed it there or why, and she had even less desire to find out. She moved on quickly, eager to leave the eerie place behind.

  The main corridor terminated in a T-junction up ahead, with hallways leading off left and right, deeper into the building. There was no telling which path Drake and the rest of the team had taken. Frost’s tracking skills were mediocre at best, and it was impossible to examine the floor without firing up her flashlight, which would immediately announce her presence. Her close call at the amusement park was still fresh in her mind, and she had no wish to invite more trouble.

  Edging out from the main corridor, she looked left to see what lay beyond. The darkened hallway faded off into some unknowable distance, leaving her with the unsettling impression that it carried on forever. A nearby stairwell appeared to lead to the building’s upper levels. It seemed logical that Drake and the team might have made for higher ground to cover her approach. Even if they hadn’t, she had a good chance of getting better radio reception and re-establishing contact from up there.

  Before moving, however, she turned her gaze down the opposite corridor, and instantly froze, startled by what she saw.

  A figure was standing in the shadows of a nearby doorway, shafts of weak moonlight from a grimy window faintly illuminating its general outline. It was big, definitely a man, and clad in a heavy woollen greatcoat that reminded her of old black and white pictures of Soviet troops during the war. Its face was obscured by a gas mask or respirator, the moonlight reflecting off the glass eye ports and the big filter assembly covering the mouth.

  Her mind conjured images from the aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster, of the hastily assembled groups of Liquidators sent in to clear up radioactive debris with nothing but pans and shovels, able to operate for mere minutes at a time before absorbing lethal doses.

  For all the world, it looked as if one of those condemned men was standing just a few feet away from her, watching her through the glass ports of his ancient mask. But it couldn’t be. It just couldn’t. Anyone who had remained here since those days would have long since perished.

  She raised her weapon and flicked the safety off. Her target didn’t react, didn’t move a muscle. He just stood there watching her in eerie silence.

  ‘Come forward with your hands up,’ Frost commanded, staring down the weapon’s sights at her target’s centre mass.

  Still the mysterious figure remained motionless. The a
bsolute stillness was as unnatural as it was disturbing. A silence seemed to have fallen on that abandoned corridor in the midst of that decaying building, so that the only sound she could hear was the rapid gasp of her own breathing echoing off the peeling walls.

  ‘Don’t fuck with me, asshole. Move or I fire.’

  Still there was no response.

  Frost hesitated, beginning to wonder if there was another explanation for his unnatural lack of movement. Squinting through the gloom, the young woman cautiously crept forward, keeping him covered every step of the way just in case her hunch was wrong.

  When she was only a couple of feet from the still motionless figure, she reached out with the USP’s suppressor and pressed it against her target’s forehead. Without the slightest resistance, he fell backward into the room beyond, hitting the floor with a muffled, hollow thump.

  ‘You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,’ she sighed, her tension evaporating as she stared down at the plastic mannequin lying on the floor at her feet. Some asshole had seen fit to dress it up in a discarded gas mask and tatty old overcoat. It seemed absurd now that she could have mistaken it for anything else, but moonlight, shadow and frayed nerves had worked to transform it in her mind into a monstrous figure bent on killing her.

  The room beyond this fallen scarecrow was littered with dozens, perhaps hundreds of identical gas masks, discarded decades earlier. Likely this school building had been requisitioned as a marshalling area or assembly point for the Liquidators during the clean-up operation.

  Her radio crackled back into life. ‘Delta, come in. Where the hell are you?’

  Frost never could have imagined feeling grateful to hear Drake’s voice, but she truly was. Turning away from the mannequin, she pressed, Transmit.

  ‘Delta’s in the school building, ground floor. You haven’t been answering your comms,’ she responded, trying not to sound as angry as she felt.

  ‘I could say the same of you, Delta. We had to break through to you on the emergency band. Check your settings.’