S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Southern Comfort

by John Mason

  “Kravchuk,” Tarasov shouts to the squad’s marksman, “sniper to the east! Try to locate him!”

  “I-I did this on purpose,” the Stalker cries, “I wanted them to reveal their position!”

  “Bloody good job,” Tarasov replies.

  The single bullet is followed by several more. A scream comes from the trenches. He hears Zlenko shouting. “Keep your damned heads down! Snipers!”

  They know what they are doing. Not giving us a moment of respite until the next wave comes.

  Kravchuk’s Dragunov fires in response.

  “Did you see them?”

  “I think so!”

  “Don’t waste your damned ammunition on shadows!” Tarasov wishes Crow was here, although looking up at the massive mountain, he can’t really blame his sniper. “Go back to your position and keep your eyes on the ridge. We only have a handful of Stalkers there!”

  Tarasov doesn’t waste his time with climbing down the ladder. He jumps down, throws himself into the trench and keeping his head low, hurries to the forward position. “Casualties?”

  “A Stalker bought it,” Lobov replies, ducking behind the sand bags as another bullet impacts close to them. “He was dead by the time I got to him.”

  “His name was Sashka the Hand,” Skinner grumbles. “At least he won’t be stealing medikits from fellow Stalkers anymore.”

  A clap of thunder rolls over the plains, echoing from the mountains. A second later an explosion rocks their perimeter.

  “Mortars!”

  “Hit the ground,” Skinner shouts. “Take cover, Stalkers!”

  Amidst more incoming mortar rounds the dushmans’ battle cry bellows. Another flare flashes above them, casting its dire red light over the hill.

  “Holy shit… I need a bigger gun,” Ilchenko yells and points to the slope where hundreds of enemy fighters are advancing towards them. He opens fire without waiting for orders. The grenade launcher belches out a salvo but abruptly falls silent. After a moment, it sounds up again but firing in a different direction. Tarasov’s face grows pale.

  “They’ve got into our rear! Skinner!”

  “Here!”

  “Hold your position until you can, then fall back into the trenches around the bunker! Zlenko, Bondarchuk, on me!”

  With the two soldiers in tow, he runs back to the bunker. Thanks to Vasilyev’s quick reactions, the line of attackers falters, giving the handful of defenders a little momentum. Zlenko and the rifleman join the Stalkers in holding their thin line beyond the scattered cover of sand bags. Above his head, Kravchuk is firing his Dragunov.

  “Last ammunition belt!” Squirrel shouts.

  “Prepare the VOG-30s, Stalker!” Vasilyev bellows back.

  The voices coming from the grenade launcher are desperate, just like Zlenko’s.

  “Kamensky is down!”

  Tarasov cocks his rifle. “Vasilyev! Give them hell! Burn the ridge!”

  Fiery explosions pierce into the enemy’s line, throwing up rocks, sand and body parts in balls of fire. But before the grenades can stop them, the launcher stops firing. The first dushman appears over the wall of sandbags, aiming his rifle at Zlenko while he is reloading his rifle. A burst from Tarasov’s rifle hits the dushman, but as soon as he falls three others appear.

  “Get this, cocksuckers! Svoboda, vperyod!”

  Squirrel shouts a battle cry from above and the grenade launcher resumes firing. Tarasov quickly climbs up to the bunker. Vasilyev’s body lies in a pool of blood. Kravchuk is still kneeling behind the sand bags, firing his Dragunov relentlessly.

  Heavy rain begins to fall. The flashes of lightning fork so close together that the thunder merges into a ceaseless din that almost drowns out the frantic rifle fire that now spews from all directions.

  Oblivious to the danger, Tarasov looks over to the perimeter to assess their remaining defenses. It looks bad. The Stalkers are already retreating towards the bunker, with Ilchenko in the rear covering their route. Beyond them, Zlenko is desperately trying to hold the line with the few remaining Stalkers.

  “No more grenades!”

  “Grab your rifle and help the sergeant, Squirrel!”

  “Incoming!” Kravchuk screams.

  A huge explosion rocks the bunker, throwing Tarasov and the Stalker to the ground.

  “RPGs! The bastards come up now with RPGs!”

  “Let’s get off the bunker! Kravchuk, on me!”

  Skinner and his Stalkers are already there when Tarasov reaches the sand bags overlooking the ridge. The wind has grown into a storm. Dust whipped up by the wind quickly mixes with the driving rain and covers the men with filth.

  “The cocksuckers know what they are doing, Major,” Skinner says, rivulets of rain running down his face as he glances in Tarasov’s direction. “They pushed us back and now come against us from the rear! But you know… there was a moment when I almost thought we could actually make it.” Skinner holds his rifle over the sand bags and fires a long burst. The dushmans’ blood curdling cries are so close and their bodies so tightly packed together that he doesn’t need to aim. “Duty calls, bastards!”

  Tarasov looks around, squinting into the storm. Ilchenko is still there, firing his PKM with a scream that distorts his whole face. Kravchuk has dropped his sniper rifle in favor of an AK taken from a fallen Stalker. Squirrel drags a fallen comrade into cover; a man Tarasov recognizes as the other Stalker they met in the forest.

  He realizes it’s just a question of minutes before they are overrun and annihilated. Hearing their triumphant cries, he knows that the enemy is aware of this too.

  “Zlenko!” Tarasov screams with all the air left in his lungs. “On me!”

  The sergeant scrambles up to him. “Major?”

  “Now is the time,” Tarasov says, panting. “You know what comes next if we stay in the trench. Give me that flare gun and wait for my command. Let’s die a good soldier’s death!”

  A wide smile appears on the sergeant’s blood-smeared face. What Tarasov sees in those shining eyes is the one thing he would have least expected: happiness.

  “Strength! Courage! Honor!” Zlenko bellows. Then he raises his hand and shouts. “Men! Fix bayonets!”

  At this moment, Tarasov wishes he was a believer, not so he could pray for deliverance but so he could give his thanks. All ways to die are bad, save for that which a man chooses of his own will. Hearing the steely click as his combat knife attaches to the AKM’s barrel, he feels that his wish has been granted. He fires the flare gun.

  “Are you ready?” he shouts.

  “Ready,” the scattered defenders reply one by one.

  Tarasov hears the attackers drawing closer through the pouring rain and darkness, appearing in the flashes of lightning like ghosts.

  “Hold!” he shouts. “Keep steady… steady!”

  In the moment when the flare bursts out into a bright cupola of blinding red light, he thrusts his fist towards the enemy. “Charge!”

  “Forward!” Zlenko shouts. “Vperyod! Rota k boyu!”

  Soldiers and Stalkers jump out of their cover and charge down the hill. No one can keep up with Tarasov, his limbs quickened by the Emerald artifact. He doesn’t need his bayonet. Wielding his AKM like a club, he smashes skulls and shatters bones adding the weight of his down-hill charge into every punch. He sees the orange tracers from Ilchenko’s machine gun form a deadly arc in front of him, the gunner’s mouth opened wide by his terrible battle cry. Skinner runs down the enemy, then falls, still firing his rifle as he hits the ground and rolls over to jump up again. The tiny group seems to break up with every man fighting for himself.

  “Keep the line,” Tarasov roars over the battle noise. “Keep the line!”

  He sees a Stalker firing his AKSU with one hand and a handgun from the other. A Stalker falls, either dead or wounded, and another grabs his shotgun. A soldier screams in agony. Another throws his body between his wounded comrade and the attacker, his rifle spitting a full burst as he scream
s like a desperate animal. He recognizes Lobov.

  “They are on the run! Press on, press on!” Tarasov hears a Stalker shouting.

  Where is Zlenko?

  Tarasov at last sees him appearing way down the hillside and dashes after him, hitting an enemy and kicking the dushman’s head as he falls to his knees, jumping over him, tearing the pistol from his hand and shooting another enemy in the chest just as the dushman was about to smash the sergeant’s head in with his rifle. Other enemies immediately close in.

  But otherwise the dushmans are routing as the storm closes in, firing as they cover their retreat.

  The thunder in the sky sounds as if it is right over the battle, the sand swirling above the shaking earth, turning into mud under their heavy boots.

  Someone hits his left arm. As he turns towards to his attacker, he sees no one.

  Shit, I’m hit! He empties his pistol magazine blindly into the darkness. The sergeant is gone. The full fury of the storm is now only seconds away.

  “Men!” Tarasov cries desperately. “Fall back! Fall back into position!”

  They run uphill, jumping and trampling over dead and dying enemies. Tarasov hears someone repeating his order, fall back, fall back! It’s not Zlenko’s voice.

  “Ilchenko,” he shouts, “cover our rear! Give us covering fire!”

  But the machine gun’s rattle is nowhere to be heard.

  Panting heavily, he jumps over the sandbags and looks back to see the last man getting back to the hilltop. He grabs a wounded Stalker’s shoulder and drags him into the bunker, not so much entering it as falling inside. The door slams. A Stalker makes sure it is closed tight.

  His men are lying on the ground and over each other’s limbs, totally exhausted. He sees Bondarchuk and Kravchuk. But where is Zlenko? Where is Ilchenko?

  “Where are the sergeant and the machine gunner?”

  “I didn’t see them coming back,” the medic replies. His voice is trembling.

  Tarasov closes his eyes in pain. “Corporal Lobov, you’re in charge while I’m gone,” he whispers.

  “What? You can’t…”

  The storm almost knocks Tarasov to the ground as he opens the bunker door. He can barely see, his Geiger counter doesn’t just click anymore; it bursts into a high-pitched tikitikitik. Photons dance in the radiating dust storm that is painted in an eerie green by his night vision goggles, mingling with the stars he is already seeing due to the pain behind his eyes.

  A flash of lightning illuminates a bulky figure on the ground. Bending against the wind, Tarasov kneels down and realizes there are actually two bodies, one of them still crawling up to the hilltop. He grasps both men and, with an effort requiring a level of energy that would be impossible without the Emerald’s power, drags them to the bunker. He tears the door open and pushes the bodies inside. His knees are trembling, forcing him to lean against the wall.

  “Antirads!” he snarls. “Pump them full of antirads!”

  “I only have one and that’s for myself,” he hears a voice say. It’s a Stalker in a Freedom suit. The major aims his pistol at him and pulls the trigger.

  Clack. The magazine was empty, but half a dozen hands now open the armored suits on the two soldiers and push syringes into their skin.

  “It’s all right, Major,” Skinner says, taking the pistol from Tarasov’s hand. “It’s all right now.”

  Tarasov is too weak to resist. Every molecule of adrenalin has been spent. He sinks to the ground.

  We did it, flashes into his mind before everything fades to black.

  Bagram, 23 September 2014, 18:23:32 AFT

  “Ashot! Where are you when I need you?”

  This sounds familiar. But from where?

  “Leave me be, I’m feelin’ so high right now!”

  I hear words but don’t understand them.

  “Are you having sex with a gun barrel again?”

  That sounds like the Zone.

  “I wish I could, me dear, but there’re no tubes of heavy artillery around!”

  “Then try a blowgun! That’s the only thing willing to give you a blowjob!”

  A blowjob… must have been ages. There is no blowjob in Hell. Would that put me in Heaven? There’s someone close. Maybe it’s an angel. Fuck, I need a blowjob.

  “YAR AND ASHOT - CUT IT! I REMIND BOTH OF YOU THAT UNSOLICITED USE OF THE INTERCOM WILL BE PUNISHED!”

  Damn. I am alive. And in Bagram of all places.

  Tarasov tries to sit up but as soon as he moves his head seems about to explode with pain.

  “Oh, our local celebrity has woken up!”

  He turns his head towards the figure standing next to his bed in the makeshift first-aid room.

  “Crow? What the…”

  “Rest, Condor,” the sniper replies with a reassuring grin. “With all the radiation you collected up there you should qualify for a new call sign. Perhaps Liquidator? Like those chaps who cleaned up Chernobyl?”

  “What about my men?”

  “Those still in one piece think you’re some kind of a demigod. Maybe I should tell them how I picked you up with a jackal at your throat.”

  Tarasov tries to laugh but breaks out in a horrible cough.

  “Just rest now. To be honest, I’m bloody happy to see you alive. First I was thinking you’d become a zombie, but when you started murmuring blowjob and Zone I thought you would actually make it.”

  “How come you are here?”

  “I was late to join your show,” Crow sighs. “God knows that I wanted to give you a helping hand. Anyway, I better tell your men that you regained consciousness. They pretty much admire you now. But don’t count on any blowjobs.”

  Tarasov grins. Now he feels he has bandages all over his face. “Hey, Sergeant,” he hears Crow’s voice calling, “Sleeping Beauty is awake!”

  After a minute, the sergeant storms into the room. He is in bad shape with anti-radiation cream smeared all over his face and a bandage covering his forehead, but this doesn’t prevent him from cracking an ear-to-ear smile.

  “Major Tarasov!” he cries out. “I am happy to…”

  “What about Ilchenko?” Tarasov interrupts him.

  “He’s fine and should be here in a minute.”

  “And the rest?”

  “Two dead, three heavily wounded, the rest… well, they can walk. The Stalkers lost six men altogether.”

  “Squirrel?”

  “The lucky bastard made it through without a scratch.”

  “At least one of us was lucky… How did we get back here?”

  “Bone’s truck came when the storm was over. But… well, Major, I think I better let you rest now.”

  Tarasov doesn’t mind the sergeant leaving with his wounds torturing him. “It’s good that you’re such a thin little kid… I would have needed a crane to lift two Ilchenkos.”

  Zlenko laughs.

  “Major, I – “

  “Thanks, Viktor,” Tarasov whispers. Closing his sore eyes, he doesn’t see Crow pulling his silenced Glock from its holster.

  Seconds later, a loud bang pierces into Tarasov’s aching head. Then he feels more pain all over his body.

  Encrypted digital VOP transmission. New Zone, 23 September 2014, 18:50:33 AFT

  #Did you get the shipment?#

  #Positive. Good job. But he is still alive.#

  #Forget him. Jerk off on those damned exos or do whatever you want. What the fuck do you expect me to do anyway? Shoot him myself? #

  #Positive. You are running out of options. He is becoming troublesome.#

  #Actually, you bastards have a point…[sharp, unidentified noise] Hey, wait… #

  #Come again?#

  #[sharp, unidentified noise continues]#

  #Someone has sounded the alarm. Breaking contact.#

  #I have difficulties in hearing you. Repeat…#

  #[unidentified human voice]We have a man down! Man down in the base!#

  #I have no copy on you. Check your transmission.#


  #[another unidentified human voice] Everyone, to the infirmary! Now!#

  #[static noise]#

  #[static noise]#

  Bagram Blues

  25 September 2014, 16:45:27 AFT

  “It was a flesh wound, but try not to exert your left arm too much… As your doctor, I forbid you from firing any pump-action shotgun for at least two weeks. Otherwise, you’re in surprisingly good condition.”

  The Stalker doctor, nicknamed Bonesetter, motions for him to stand up. Tarasov does so, stretching his arms and back.

  “Two days in bed with a flesh wound and a little radiation…” he says getting to his feet. “Am I feeling my age, Bonesetter?”

  “That’s the best thing one can feel because it means one is still alive. You’ve had a close shave. Now, take care and stay healthy...”

  The doctor shuffles to the next bed where another wounded Stalker lies and the major freshens himself up from the bucket of water standing in the corner of the infirmary, enjoying the sensation of splashing cold water to his sweaty face. He can barely wait to get out of the metal container.

  The sun hurts Tarasov’s eyes as he steps out of the infirmary. A paratrooper guards the entrance. Seeing Tarasov appear, he stands to attention and salutes. It is one of the wounded they left behind to recover, which he obviously did well enough despite the bandage on his arm.

  “As you were, Stepashin,” Tarasov says after a brief glance at the soldier’s name tag. “What’s all this security about?”

  The paratrooper gives him a baffled look. “Sir, you were probably unconscious. A Stalker tried to kill you. One of Bone’s guards interrupted him. The Stalker shot him and disappeared in the fray.”

  “A Stalker?”

  “Yes, sir. That bastard who was sitting at your bed. Probably he was waiting for the right moment.”

  That’s odd. Why would Crow want to kill me?

  “Where are the others? I’ll need to talk to the sergeant.”

  “Three are still in the infirmary. Sergeant Zlenko was here earlier. He and the others have set up camp in that shack, just behind you.”