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

by John Mason

  “Thanks… I’m not hungry.”

  Zef shares a loaf of bread with the sergeant.

  I should have accepted, Tarasov thinks. What is this strange feeling in my stomach?

  To distract his attention from the weird feeling in his guts, he turns again to the South African Stalker.

  “So brother, what’s your story? You’ve come very far.”

  “My last stop was England, actually. Been to many places. Wherever there was money to earn.”

  “You have been a mercenary?”

  “I tried to make a living from what I do best.”

  “What’s that, giving first aid?”

  “No. Using a shotgun.” The black Stalker scowls. “Shot a man in Cape Town. They made me leave my home country.”

  “Nothing gives amnesty more openhandedly than the Zone.”

  “I did not need amnesty, boss. I was with a police SWAT team. One evening we moved into a township to round up a gang of robbers. I had to shoot one. He was one of my people.”

  Tarasov wants to reply, ‘One can’t meet anything here but fucked up lives’, but grasps his weapon instead as a short rifle burst comes from not so far away. Borys jumps up, keeping his rifle ready to shoot.

  12 October 2014, 11:50:20 AFT

  “What’s going on there?”

  Tarasov recognizes the sound of a Stalker’s Kalashnikov, followed by the replying thumps of an automatic shotgun. “It’s probably your men mopping up the place,” he tells Borys.

  “I better check that out, Major.”

  “And you better finish your lunch,” Tarasov tells his men, “we still have some work to do… and I have a feeling that the shit was only up to our ankles until now. Once we get into the ruins, it’ll be up to our waist.”

  “Are you sure we have to do this, boss?”

  “Now’s the time to opt out if you’re going to, Zef. If you change your mind later, I’ll shoot you.”

  “Okay, boss… chill out, man. I don’t want to change my mind. I’ll follow you.”

  “Komandir, we could rest a little more,” Zlenko nervously suggests. “You’re wound up like a spring.”

  “I’m fucking fine. How many times do I need to tell you, Sergeant Zlenko? Mind your own business.”

  Zlenko looks hurt and Tarasov is surprised at his own harshness. A headache has crept into his skull and his throat remains parched no matter how much water he drinks, but he has to put such things to the back of his mind when Borys arrives, swearing and looking very concerned. His rifle’s safety catch is off and he poises it ready to fire.

  “Two damned Stalkers shot each other over a stash of worthless garbage. Never seen such a thing before. Not among my assistants!”

  Time to resolve all this, comes to Tarasov’s mind, without him knowing exactly what he has to resolve. Words, conversations, messages, everything he has learned since he arrived in the New Zone is swarming in his head, coalescing to construct a vague but dreadful conclusion.

  “All right then… Shrink, take your men away from the ruins immediately. Form them into two groups and prepare ambush positions to the north-east and south of the hill. Just in case… can you manage that?”

  “Sure. And I agree…” Borys cuts his words short.

  “Spill the beans, Shrink.”

  “I’m not easily scared, Major, but this place… there’s something about it that gives me the creeps. The sooner we leave here, the better.”

  “What I am concerned about is why the mercs left in such a hurry. Zlenko, if you have finished your lunch, round up Ilchenko and that ex-Dutier.”

  “On my way, komandir.”

  Walking up to the hilltop the fate of his two squads weighs on Tarasov’s heart like a heavy stone.

  Twenty-two paratroopers, all dead… how I wish they were here now. All my fault.

  Tarasov has to stop and sit down, his mind full of rage against himself. He covers his face with his hands, regardless of the pain caused by his fingers pressing his skull. He wipes the sweat from his face. The movement makes the Colonel and his self-torturing spring to mind, especially when he had been talking about his son.

  What determination, what willpower does one need to go through all this and still stay at least remotely sane, able to command others even while losing the strength to command oneself?

  “The squad is assembled. We are ready to move in… Major, you are bleeding.”

  He looks up to Zlenko. “My arm is fine.”

  “It’s not your arm… your chest.”

  He looks down at the place where his camouflage shirt juts out from under the exoskeleton’s armored breastplate. Blood has seeped through the fabric, obviously from a wound that no hemostats and collagen can heal.

  “Ilchenko, did you find the entrance?” he says.

  “We did. It’s hard to miss.”

  The die is cast, then. I have my orders… it’s all I have now.

  He gets to his feet and looks into the eyes of his men. “I don’t know what’s lying in wait for us, but I am Major Mikhailo Tarasov of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and I will lead you through whatever stands in our way. Sergeant Zlenko, Private Ilchenko, you have the honor to complete Operation Haystack. Let’s prove that the sacrifice of our comrades was not in vain. Skinner and Zef, you are capable fighters but this is not a Stalker raid for loot and artifacts. If you are getting cold feet, tell me now.”

  He is unable to see Zef’s face under the heavy tactical helmet’s visor, but a bow of the Stalker’s head signals his readiness. Skinner’s features turn into a cruel and cynical grin, full of self-confidence as he readies his shotgun.

  “All right, Stalkers… let’s go stalking. Ilchenko, take point. Lead us to the entrance. Zef, cover our rear. Let’s go.”

  “God be with us,” Skinner mutters behind the major’s back as they march towards the rectangular gate hewn into the rocks and enter the darkness inside.

  Into the Catacombs

  Bunker level, 12 October 2014, 12:40:41 AFT

  Zlenko’s Geiger counter is reading normal values while the five men cautiously proceed further into the steeply descending tunnel, weakly lit by the emergency lights fastened to the wall.

  “Put that thing away for now,” Tarasov tells him. “You’ll hear when it goes beyond normal. Keep your eyes peeled.”

  The tunnel leads downwards and is reinforced with concrete beams, making Tarasov wonder how much work it took and, even more, what secrets lie hidden in the depths would justify these efforts.

  They have been moving in for more than ten minutes now, descending all the way. The lack of opposition does not relax him. On the contrary, the eerie desolation in the dark tunnel puts his nerves on edge. He is almost relieved when the shaft at last leads into a room with crude concrete walls, looking like a storage room with fuel drums and shelves that still support tool boxes and maintenance gear, though their contents are dispersed on the ground in pools of gore. Blood is still flowing from the corpse of a commando, the remains lying there having been torn to pieces.

  “No bullet killed him,” Skinner says.

  “How can you be so sure?” Tarasov steps closer, instinctively recoiling from the corpse as it seems to shift in the circle of light from his headlamp.

  “Bullets usually don’t tear out whole pieces from a body,” the Stalker replies, “and this guy has everything missing that he once had between his chest and dick.”

  “More,” Zlenko adds, swallowing thickly.

  Tarasov scans the room with his headlight. “There’s nothing of interest here. Let’s move on.”

  “At least now we know what made the mercs run.”

  “Really, Ilchenko?” Tarasov asks. “If you have any clues, please tell me.”

  “Hunger.”

  “Keep your stupid jokes to yourself,” Zlenko snorts.

  “Hunger,” Ilchenko repeats. “Hunger. Hu-u-unger.” His voice fades into a whisper.

  “Private, take the lead,” Tarasov snaps.

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nbsp; When Ilchenko steps by him, Tarasov exchanges a glance with Zlenko. He can’t see the sergeant’s face under the visor, but his gestures tell of increasing fear.

  The tunnel bends and narrows. Moving in front of him, Ilchenko enters the pool of an emergency light and is then engulfed by darkness until he reaches the next one. Tarasov carefully moves through a section where the concrete beams are fractured, barely holding the ceiling up. His own light follows the nervous movements of his head, lighting up the wires and pipes on the wall, the concrete beams above, the hard-trodden ground under his feet. Up ahead, Ilchenko stops. The Geiger counter ticks slowly, its sound almost silenced by Tarasov’s own breath and heartbeat.

  “You hear that?”

  All other senses fade away while Tarasov concentrates solely on his hearing, holding his breath. He is about to tell Ilchenko that he hears nothing when a faint noise comes from the deep darkness into which the tunnel leads, seizing his tongue. Nothing falls into view from the next lamp’s light a few meters in front of the private, or the next after that. The third melts into darkness behind them. The other lights ahead are nothing but glowing points in the black tunnel – but, from the darkness beyond them, comes a sound that resembles a human voice screaming in fear, or something else roaring after finishing its hunt.

  “How many times did you survive in the Zone?”

  Tarasov looks up. The voice in his intercom sounds familiar, but he is not sure who is talking to him. He shakes his head, as if to rid himself of the voices as well as his worsening headache.

  “Keep the channel clear… this is no time for chit-chat.” The message to his men was supposed to sound reassuring, but it emerges only as a whisper. “Move on, Ilchenko.”

  “This asshole didn’t make it.”

  “What?”

  “I mean that body there. I almost stepped on it.” Ilchenko turns it over with his foot. “Looks like someone dragged him up here but then left him behind… must have been in a hurry.”

  The light from Tarasov’s headlamp falls on an orange colored set of overalls with oxygen tanks on the back and a helmet covering the face with thick, darkened plexiglass. He kneels down next to the body and examines the protective suit.

  “Judging by his suit, this was one of the scientists we were supposed to save,” Zlenko says.

  The belt containers are empty, but the scientist’s dead hand clutches something that he had refused to let go.

  “No, Sergeant… we were supposed to save this.” Opening the rigid fingers, Tarasov takes a memory stick and carefully puts it away in his pocket.

  “Let’s move on, Stalkers… there’s no loot on the body. Not even a dirty magazine.” He grins at his own joke and pats Ilchenko’s back with his rifle. “Move your ass, soldier.”

  “I don’t like this tunnel,” Zef says. “It’s way too creepy down here.”

  “It’s just dark,” Skinner tells him. “Watch our backs and we’ll be fine.”

  “But I see a spot where it is darker than anywhere else.”

  They all turn their heads in the direction the Stalker is pointing in. The light circles of their headlamps meet on the wall, showing nothing but a stretch of concrete and rocky earth no different to everywhere else around them.

  Zef shrugs. “I must be hallucinating.”

  “Your strength will not be enough here.”

  “Who the hell said that?” Tarasov looks around at his startled comrades.

  “Nobody spoke, sir,” Zlenko quietly affirms.

  Fifty meters on, the tunnel leads to a metal door. It is open and a corpse lies at the entrance. The torso is still covered with the usual mercenary body armor, but the rest of his body is missing.

  “Looks like he wanted to drag himself out,” Skinner remarks, stepping over the corpse. “Even when mortally wounded.”

  Tarasov enters and looks around the room. “Looks like a guard room,” he says, pointing with his rifle to the mattresses on the ground. The walls here are solid concrete with round holes housing the ventilators, one of which is still rotating. He checks his instruments. “Radiation normal… no anomalies detected. Should be safe to take off the gas masks.”

  The smell of earth, rot and damp floods his nostrils as soon as he removes his protective mask.

  “Nothing here but debris,” Skinner groans with dissatisfaction.

  Ilchenko opens the next door and cautiously peeks out. “Damn! This is just where the bunker begins… and I was hoping this would be over with soon.”

  “Already missing the fresh air, Private?”

  “No, Major… it’s just damn tight in here with that monkey breathing on my neck.” Ilchenko casts a glance of disdain towards Zef. “I hope he will not steal a Kalashnikov mag and eat it, thinking it’s a banana.”

  Tarasov sees the black Stalker’s eyes flinching. “Let’s move on,” he quickly says, “Viktor, come over here for a second.”

  “Komandir?”

  Tarasov waits until Ilchenko and the two Stalkers leave the room.

  “What’s wrong with Ilchenko, Sergeant?”

  “I don’t know… but I don’t like his behavior any better than you.”

  They follow the Stalkers into the dark tunnel. After a few steps Tarasov sees Ilchenko signaling them to stop. He does not need to ask him for the reason. Beyond the next door, something heavy is stirring. Tarasov can even hear a slow, beastly rattle.

  “Action time,” Skinner grins and steps forward without waiting for orders. Before Tarasov can stop him, the Stalker opens the metal door by a couple of inches. In the next instant, a mass of malevolent force slams the door wide open and knocks Skinner off his feet. The rattling sound grows into a blood curdling howl and Skinner screams in fear and defiance as the mutant launches its attack.

  “Mutant!” Ilchenko screams, firing his machine gun. Tracers and bullets pierce the darkness while Tarasov throws himself to the ground to give Zlenko a free line of fire.

  “Shotguns! Blast it! Blast that beast!”

  Now he recognizes the mutant: it’s a bear, crawling over Skinner’s body as it views the rest of its prey. Its thick hide absorbs every bullet, and the long claws are already reaching for Ilchenko when the bear rears up in pain, trying to stand erect on its hind legs. The narrow tunnel obstructs the creature, allowing it to rise only to the extent that Zef can fire a half dozen heavy bullets into its belly. Unnaturally strong muscles propel the dying mutant forward as Zlenko and Tarasov fire their rifles into its head. Eventually, its howling ceases. Panting, the men gasp for breath. Skinner’s trembling voice breaks the sudden silence.

  “Thank God for confined spaces,” he says, standing up and cleaning matter from the massive, serrated combat knife he’d planted in the dead mutant’s hide. The Stalker’s face is bloody and his armor is in tatters, the upper layers torn into rags by the bear’s claws.

  My God, he knifed that beast even while it trampled him down!

  “Sorry for letting you remove your gas mask, Stalker.”

  “What?”

  “That beast must have stunk like hell so close in…” The men smile. “Awesome job, Skinner. Fit for a Dutier. And now let’s see what’s in the next room.”

  “Now you deserve Bone calling you assface,” Zef jokes to Skinner, who is still wiping the blood from his face as the other man steps past him. “You had that bear’s ass all over you, man. That sucks.”

  Entering the next room, Tarasov has a sense of déjà vu. The concrete walls with the pipes running below the low ceiling, the rusty machines, and the metal debris remind him strongly of the underground laboratories back in the old Zone. So do the dim emergency lights, one of them crackling as if its fitting was broken and lighting up a body in the corner for a second. It is wearing the long, dark green coat worn by scientists conducting research in the Zone. Skinner is already moving to check the body for loot, but Zlenko stops him.

  “Chain of command, Stalker.”

  “You’re nothing but a lap dog, boyevoychik!”
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  The Stalker looks unhappy but makes way for Tarasov, who examines the body. The dead man is still clutching at a heavy-duty laptop. Patting down the pockets of the coat, he also finds a small notebook, its pages filled with charts, calculations and hand-written notes.

  “Maybe we should check that out,” Zlenko says.

  “Later… when we can allow ourselves a little break.”

  “There might be a map with hidden stashes on that shit,” Skinner tells Tarasov with a greedy look in his eye. “Let’s check it now!”

  “Later, I said. Move on, Stalkers.”

  “Boss,” Zef says from behind. “Can’t we fix these generators? This darkness…”

  “At least you blend in, negro,” Ilchenko says followed by a creepy laugh.

  “Private, watch your tongue!”

  “There’s nothing in my job description about bearing the smell of monkeys, Major.”

  “Ilch! What the hell is wrong with you?” Zlenko yells.

  “It’s OK, Sarge,” the black Stalker calmly says. “I can put on my gas mask if this cheekyprawn is scared of my face.”

  “I do need a fucking gas mask to protect me from your smell!”

  “Ilchenko – hold your tongue. Last warning. That’s an order!” Tarasov snaps.

  “Order, order… fuck this whole shit.”

  Tarasov sees Zlenko raising his shotgun. “Private Ilchenko,” he says in a low voice, almost soft but barely able to contain his anger. “If you continue disrupting discipline I’ll take that machine gun from you and let you take point with a pistol. Pray that a mutant saves you from court-martial!”

  At last the machine gunner remains silent. Tarasov signals him to take point and follows him, closely watching his movements. Through a door at the end of the corridor, they enter a narrow staircase spiraling downwards. After two flights Tarasov cautiously opens another steel door. The dim light from his headlamp barely illuminates the large room, from where several corridors branch off.

  “Maybe we should break into teams of two, scout those corridors and meet back here?”