S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Northern Passage s-2

by Balazs Pataki

  On the ship wreck that was supposed to be the Skadovsk, a bonfire was alight even during daytime, making her guess if it is a beacon for times of danger when sudden darkness might fall. This was where Sultan’s people lurked, however, and she had no intention of running into them too soon.

  First I must get back to Doctor’s house, she kept telling to herself. Top will know how to free Mikhailo. Maybe he can even bring in warriors.

  Even if much smaller than the wilderness of her far away homeland, the Zone proved vast. When the sun finally set, sending its last rays into a narrow valley spanned over by a bridge high above, she checked the PDA and despaired over the meager progress she made in a day. The valley continued to the east, but her goal was to the south; going in that direction would have involved climbing up a steep hillside and going through a massive ruin beyond it. Proceeding to the east would have meant to pass by a huge anomaly that appeared like a curtain reaching up to the sky, blurring the view beyond and emanating from a long furrow in the earth as if a gigantic knife had cut the earth open. Though not a bit afraid of it, Nooria decided that navigating through either the valley or the ruins would be better done in daylight.

  Not far from a derelict barge, she found a makeshift rain shelter that appeared good enough to spend the night. It began to rain after night fell but then, from the north where the Power Plant was, a dark blue cloud grew which soon engulfed the whole sky. It emanated its own light after all others went dark, accompanied by thunder so fearsome that she moved close the nearest boulder and pressed her body against it, hoping that it would protect her from the rage of darkness that seemed to even tear the stars from the night. A sense of hitherto unknown loneliness overcame her, as if left alone in a black void that was about to crush her and Nooria, whose ascendants built statues adorned with benevolent artifacts to keep the very same power at bay that was now unleashed over the Zone, felt fearful and fragile. While the darkness raged, she missed her man more than ever, touching cold stone instead of the muscles of a warrior supposed to protect and fight for her. She screamed ancient words of anger at the darkness, feeling her knees tremble and willpower wane, until a sudden feeling of warmth emanating from her womb gave way to rage.

  Dark wind blew her long coat, tore the hood off her head and let her hair fly lose when she shouted “Darkness! I curse you, go away or feel my rage!” Then she felt the wind receding, the thunder diminishing and saw the stars begin to appear again among a layer of grey clouds.

  Now, by the morning, all that Nooria feels is slight nausea. What fully awakes her senses is not hunger but the noise of a stone becoming loose close to her hiding place. For the first time, she draws the Sig Sauer P229.

  Spending time with Tarasov was a good training. Ducking and staying in cover, she checks her surroundings in the direction where the voice came from. All the bigger is her surprise when a voice comes from behind her.

  “Ruki ver, Bandit!”

  “I don’t speak your language,” Nooria replies, careful not to take any threatening stance that her opponent might mistake as a sign of aggression.

  “I said, hands up!” comes the reply from the unseen Stalker. It is fluent English but with Russian accent. “Stay where you are, pindos. My gun is pointed at you.”

  Nooria feels something hard in her back. A hand pats down her pockets. The Stalker is obviously not doing it for the first time but still makes the mistake to quit searching her when he finds the pistol.

  “That’s a nice one!” the Stalker says. “Turn around.”

  Nooria does as told and sees a lean face with cunning eyes and a nose green and blue from recent beating.

  “I wasn’t armed,” he triumphantly says and shows her the middle and index finger on his right hand that he poked into Nooria’s back, like he would a rifle’s barrel.

  It only takes the fragment of a second for Nooria to draw her blade.

  “But I still am.”

  The Stalker looks down to his chest where the blade’s point is directly over his heart. It would go through the Kevlar plates sewn into his armored suit like a knife through butter.

  “Guess we can call this a Zone stand-off,” he says and smiles. “What about talking our way out?”

  “We can. I am no Bandit.”

  “You look like one. Wearing that long coat and all.”

  “I am no Bandit,” she repeats.

  “Okay, okay! Why don’t we both just take a step back?”

  Nooria warily recoils. The Stalker does the same and raises his arms. She realizes that his right leg is wounded, because the string on his boot is untied to make place inside for a bandage wrapped around his ankle.

  “Give back my pistol,” she says, flipping the blade in her hand and holding it ready to throw.

  “There’s really no need to kill each other,” the Stalker says slowly laying the weapon on a crate. “See? Your turn.”

  Nooria studies the Stalker’s face. Sensing no bad intention about him, she sheathes the blade and swiftly takes the pistol. “Why did you want to rob me?”

  “Thought you’re a lonely Bandit with something to eat in his rucksack,” the Stalker says. “I haven’t eaten for two days!”

  “I have some food,” she says reaching for her rucksack.

  “Really? That’s great, brother! Where are you from, anyway? England? America?”

  “America,” sighs Nooria to save her the explanation. She takes a can of processed meat from her rucksack, removes the lid by pulling on the metal flap attached to it and offers the open can to the Stalker. “What happened to you? You look hurt.”

  “Just a sprained ankle,” he says sitting down at the campfire. Then his eyes open wide as Nooria pulls the balaclava off and swishes her hair.

  “I should have called you sister,” the Stalker says staring at her. He doesn’t appear averted by her scar.

  “Eat,” she replies. “After food I will see to your ankle. What happened? You fell from a tree?”

  “A bit higher, actually. Anyway, I was trying to reach Noah’s Ark but didn’t make it far from the bridge in this condition. All I had on me was a few bandages and you don’t make it far in the Zone like that. So, I stayed put in a cave close to here and it probably saved my life because if that last emission had taken me in the open…”

  The Stalker moves his hand along his throat, mimicking a cut. He devours his portion with such an appetite that doesn’t leave any doubts about his food deprivation.

  “So… where are you heading, Stalker?” he asks munching on the last bit of meat.

  “I am no Stalker,” Nooria replies.

  “Then what are you?”

  “Lost.”

  “Uh-hum. And what are you up to, then?”

  “I must find and kill somebody.”

  “Sounds familiar…” The Stalker scratches his unshaven cheek. “Where do you want to go?”

  “I wanted to find way to Swamps but lost my way. It was very dark and I was scared.”

  “You mean the emission last night?”

  “Emission? Yes. I had to find shelter.”

  “I guess you made it to Noah’s place?”

  “No. This is my shelter.”

  “You’re lying. Nobody can survive an emission in the open… or did you take anabiotics?”

  “No, and I cannot lie,” Nooria says, sadly. “Sometimes I wish I could.”

  The Stalker looks her up and down.

  “You are either the biggest liar the Zone has ever seen, or you are—special.” He thinks for a moment. “Since a guy called Magpie already claimed that title for himself, you must be special. We’ll soon find out.”

  “I must go to Swamps.”

  “That’s quite a long trek from here.”

  “But I must. Swamps, nowhere else.”

  “That makes you the first Stalker who doesn’t want to get to the Wish Granter … Why the Swamps of all places in the Zone?”

  “I must get back to Doctor’s house.”

  �
�What?!” The Stalker looks utterly baffled. “You know where the Doc lives?”

  Nooria nods.

  The Stalker gives her an inquisitive look. “Very, very few people know about his whereabouts. How did you find him?”

  “I don’t trust you good enough to tell,” Nooria replies shunning the Stalker’s gaze.

  “Fair enough,” he says with a shrug. “How’s the old man doing?”

  “Good. Now let me see your ankle,” Nooria says.

  “Does he still keep that smelly pseudodog?” The Stalker removes his boot and reveals a badly swollen ankle. Nooria softly touches the bandage but it’s enough to make the Stalker grimace with pain. “Outch! Yes, right there…”

  “It doesn’t look so bad,” Nooria says removing the bandages and having a closer look at the injury. “Your… I don’t know how to say but you know, things which keep your muscles on bones…”

  “Suchozhilye?”

  “No—oh yes, it is called sinew. Or is it tendon? It appears to be okay.”

  “At least that’s comforting,” the Stalker says. “You might want to keep your nose away from my foot, though. You know, spare socks are a luxury in the Zone and—ai, blyad!” He screams with pain when Nooria gives a sudden, quick thrust to his foot and twists it. “Uzhasno bolit!”

  “It is good now,” Nooria says satisfied with her work. She takes the Doctor’s bandage from her rucksack and neatly applies it over the Stalker’s bruised ankle. “This bandage will make it heal quickly but you better stay put for a day or two.”

  “Staying put? Me? No way!”

  “If you have to move, try not to step on it too hard.”

  The Stalker sets his teeth but his tension apparently begins to wane. Cautiously, he stays.

  “It feels a bit better now. Let’s see if—”

  “Wait. You need to rest now.”

  “We can’t stay here,” the Stalker says. “We must get to Noah’s Ark. That’s the closest safe place.”

  “I go to Swamps,” Nooria says impatiently. “Can you tell me direction?”

  Suddenly, the Stalker puts his finger to his lips.

  “Shh!”

  Something shakes the reeds nearby.

  “You sense danger?”

  Instead of replying to Nooria’s concerned whisper, the Stalker signals her to duck.

  They hear a moan, halfway between a boar’s grunt and a dog’s growl.

  “Snorks!” the Stalker screams. “Use your knife if they get close! Give me your gun, now!”

  It sounds like a desperate plea, not a demand. Nooria quickly hands the Sig Sauer over to him. In a second, the Stalker has the safety worked off and starts shooting at the three humanoids emerging from the reed-covered riverbed.

  Even though they crawl on all fours, the hillside is steep enough to slow the mutants’ progress. The Stalker uses the moment gained to his advantage and scores a hit on the closest mutant, shooting it directly in the eye through the eyehole of the half-rotten gas mask covering its skull, but the remaining two are about to reach the distance they need to leap close to their human prey where they clawed hands and legs would give them the advantage over any weapon.

  One snork jumps, is hit by the bullets and is dead by the time it smashes against the crate behind which Nooria is ducking.

  Then the magazine is emptied. The last snork leaps over the crates and hurls himself over Nooria.

  With lightning-quick reflexes, she rolls to the side. The mutant lands in the mud but leaps again at its apparently weaker prey. Nooria jumps to her feet, tries to step aside to avoid the mutant hurling itself at her but human speed doesn’t match that of a snork’s at close quarters.

  In terror, the Stalker watches the growling Snork land on Nooria, bare the row of sharp teeth in its mouth and thrust them into her face.

  Then it doesn’t move anymore, save for its convulsing limbs that also cease after a minute.

  “Fuck,” Nooria says with disgust as she pushes the dead mutant off her and pulls the blade off its chest where she has thrust it with all force.

  “Fuuuck,” the Stalker slowly repeats and whistles. ”I’m really happy we could settle our differences without you using that knife!”

  “This beast jumped right into my blade,” she says, looking for something to wipe the mutant’s blood off her hands. “I was lucky.”

  “You bet,” the Stalker says giving her back the Sig Sauer. “You got any spare mags for that?”

  Nooria nods and holsters the weapon. The Stalker looks at the dead mutants and shakes his head.

  “Damn me… They must have heard me crying out when you treated my ankle. At least they keep Bloodsuckers out of range, because those beasts fear Snorks more than shotguns.”

  “So, where is way to Swamps?” Nooria asks, wiping her blood-splattered face with her sleeve.

  “To the south,” the Stalker replies jerking his thumb behind his back. He looks up into the sky and sniffs at the air, as if detecting a strange smell. “But… I suggest you to come with me to Noah’s. Believe me — another emission will hit soon.”

  “Who is Noah?”

  “Paranoid old Stalker obsessed with the idea of the ultimate emission coming, after which mutants will kill everyone who isn’t prepared. This is why he built his so-called ark in the first place.”

  “Is he crazy?”

  “Troubled and pissed off by rookies asking him about artifacts and shortcuts. He’s a good man, but his helpfulness was abused more than once. One can still deal with him if he knows how to approach Noah properly.”

  “Does he know a shortcut to Swamps?”

  “Maybe,” the Stalker sighs. “Now let me see if your treatment worked.” He takes a few steps and nods, satisfied with his condition. “I’ll be limping for a while but it is much easier to walk now. Damn, wish I still had my old exoskeleton…”

  Together, they begin walking along the riverbed. Nooria lets him walk in front of her, partly to keep an eye on him and partly because the Stalker, despite his limp, appears to know exactly where to step without walking into an anomaly or making nearby mutants aware of their presence. To her unease, he leads her toward the shipwreck she had avoided last night. It looks as foreboding in early daylight as it did at dusk. The Skadovsk had a bonfire burning on its deck to signal human presence; here it’s a crude wind wheel on the mast from where scraps of a camouflage net hangs proving that the derelict barge is actually a human hovel.

  A wooden door covers a hole in the rusty hull. Nooria reaches to open it but the Stalker pulls her away.

  “Wait,” he whispers. “Told you he’s a bit… eccentric.”

  Nooria frowns as she watches the Stalker open the door and step aside.

  “Noah?”

  The growl of a pseudodog comes from inside. The Stalker steps in and waves to Nooria to follow.

  “Mutant assholes! Piss off,” shouts a man aiming his shotgun at them. A huge pseudodog is growling at his side.

  “We are no mutants, Noah!” the Stalker shouts back. “Don’t shoot!”

  “Stalkers? Worse! I hate asshole Stalkers coming here, opening the door without knocking and pestering me for a Compass!”

  “I’m glad you don’t start shooting at everyone who approaches your place, Noah.”

  “I ran out of bullets! Did you bring me bullets? Can’t shoot mutants without bullets!”

  The pseudodog keeps growling but the Stalker boldly steps closer.

  “Lassie! Hey old girl, how’s it going? You don’t recognize me? Lassie, come to uncle Strelok!”

  “Strelok?” Nooria asks surprised. “Are you Strelok?”

  “I am. Why are you staring at me?” the Stalker says petting the ugly predator that is now sniffing his hands. “You want my autograph on your jacket or what?

  “Don’t be rude. I heard a lot about you.”

  “Don’t believe half of it. I do not kill pseudogiants with bare hands, neither eat artifacts for breakfast.”

  “I heard ot
her things. Like you being disturbed, unpredictable and not who you once were.”

  Noah lets out a snorting laugh. “Hah! Someone seems to know you well, Marked One!”

  Nooria studies their strange host. He is a middle-aged man with a short, unkempt beard and blue eyes clouded by insanity, wearing a long brown coat that could use some mending. Whoever Noah is, he doesn’t appear to value comfort much — a makeshift bed, an equally crude table and a few shelves fastened to the cabin’s rusty metal walls are the only furniture. Strangely though, there's also a large trunk in a corner with a woodcutter’s axe in it. The only light inside comes from a petroleum lamp.

  “Disturbed? Disturbed, you say? Now that hurts,” Strelok says wiping off pseudodog saliva from his hands with a grimace. “Who told you that?”

  “A man called Mikhailo Tarasov.”

  “You know him?”

  “I am his woman from the New Zone. My name is Nooria.”

  “Presvyataya Bogoroditsa! His—woman?” Strelok cries out loud. “Misha Tarasov’s woman? All the way from the New Zone? And I thought I’d seen everything and everything’s opposite as well! What the hell are you doing here without him… Nooria? Did I get your name right?”

  “Yes. We were betrayed. Soldiers took me to Kiev and Mikhailo is held prisoner at Cordon Base.”

  “And how did you end up here in Zaton?”

  Nooria turns her face away. “Bad people in Kiev helped me getting here.”

  “Bad people, really? There’s too many of them around here for me to guess who it was.”

  “A man called Sultan.”

  “Uh-oh. This sounds like trouble.” Strelok shares a dark glance with Noah.

  “Yes, I am in trouble. Can you bring me to my friends at Doc’s house? We must help Mikhailo!”

  “Oh shit, they bagged him after all! Shit!”

  “Will you help me?”

  “Sorry, but I can’t.”

  “But he saved your life in Pripyat!”

  Strelok heaves a long sigh. “That’s why I didn’t want to be part of this… Listen, I’m on the run from the military. Okay, that happens from time to time. Nothing I couldn’t make up by delivering some trinket that makes them forgive me. Freeing Tarasov from that outpost would be a different matter, though.”