Metro 2033

by Dmitry Glukhovsky

  Too much already had happened, and it was impossible to get out of this rut just like that. If he had gone so far, then he had to go even further - such was the inexorable logic of the path chosen. Now it was already too late to hold any doubts. He must go forward, even if this meant bearing the responsibility not only for his own life, but also for the lives of others. All the sacrifices had not been in vain. He had to accept them, he was obligated to take his path to the end. That was his fate. Just how had he lacked this clarity earlier? He had doubted his own election, distracted by stupidity and hesitating all this time, but the answer always was right there. Ulman had been right: there’s no need to complicate life.

  Artyom was walking now, briskly beating out the pace. And he hadn’t heard any noise from the pipes; nothing dangerous had been encountered at all in the tunnels all the way to VDNKh. However, Artyom had come across people who were going to Prospect Mir: he was moving against the flow of those unfortunates, who were exhausted, had cast off everything and were running from the danger. They viewed him as a madman: he alone was walking into the lair of terror itself at the same time the others were trying to abandon the cursed place.

  There were no patrols at Rizhskaya or at Alekseevskaya. Immersing himself in his thoughts, Artyom didn’t notice when he had approached VDNKh, though not less than an hour and a half had passed. Climbing into the station and looking around, he unwillingly shuddered - how much it reminded him of that VDNKh he saw in his nightmares.

  Half the lighting was not working, there was the odour of burning gunpowder in the air, and somewhere in the distance were heard the moans and the anguished crying of women. Artyom held the machine gun at the ready and moved ahead, carefully skirting the arches and examining the shadows closely. It was as if the dark ones had been able, at least once, to penetrate the fences and reach the station itself. Some of the tents had been cleared away, and in several places there were dried traces of blood on the floor. People were still living here and there, and a flashlight sometimes even shone through the canvas. Distant gunfire could be heard from the northern tunnel. The exit to it was covered with bags of dirt piled as high as a man. Three men were pressed against this breastwork, observing the tunnel through gun slots and keeping the approaches in their sights.

  ‘Artyom? Artyom! Where did you come from?’ a familiar voice hailed him. Turning around, he noticed Kirill - one of the men he had left VDNKh with at the very beginning of his journey. Kirill’s arm was in a sling, and the hair on his head seemed even more unkempt than usual.

  ‘Well, I’ve come back,’ Artyom answered vaguely. ‘How are you holding out here? Where’s Uncle Sasha, where’s Zhenka?

  ‘Zhenka? He was caught . . . They killed him, a week ago,’ Kirill said gloomily.

  Artyom’s heart fell.

  ‘And my stepfather?’

  ‘Sukhoi is alive and well, he’s in charge. He’s in the infirmary right now.’ Kirill waved a hand in the direction of the staircase leading to a new exit from the station.

  ‘Thanks!’

  Artyom raced away.

  ‘And just where have you been?’ Kirill cried after him.

  The ‘infirmary’ was sinister. There weren’t many real wounded here, only five men. Other patients occupied the majority of the space. Diapered like infants and confined in sleeping bags, they were laid out in a row. All of them had their eyes wide open and they mumbled incoherently through their half-open mouths. It wasn’t a nurse watching over them, but a rifleman holding a phial with chloroform in his hands. From time to time one of those in diapers began to fidget along the floor, howling and transferring his agitation to the rest, and then the guard would place a rag soaked with chloroform to the man’s face. The man didn’t fall asleep, nor did he close his eyes, but he went quiet for some time and calmed down.

  Artyom didn’t see Sukhoi right away: he was sitting in the office, discussing something with the station doctor. Leaving, he ran into Artyom and was stupefied.

  ‘You’re alive . . . Artyomka! Alive . . . Thank God . . . Artyom!’ he had begun to mutter, touching Artyom on the shoulder, as if wishing to convince himself that Artyom was indeed standing in front of him. Artyom embraced him. And he, like a child, was afraid in the depths of his soul that he would return to the station and his stepfather would begin to scold him: he would say, where did you disappear to, how irresponsible, how long were you going to behave like a little boy . . . But instead, Sukhoi just held him close and didn’t let go for a long time. When the fatherly embrace finally ended, Artyom saw that Sukhoi’s eyes were filled with tears and he blushed. Briefly, he told his stepfather where he had disappeared to and what he had managed to do during that time, and he explained why he had returned. Sukhoi only shook his head and criticized Hunter. Then he came to his senses, saying that he would not speak ill of the dead. Though, he didn’t know what had happened to Hunter.

  ‘Do you see what’s going on here?’ Sukhoi’s voice again hardened. ‘Every night they pour in and there aren’t enough bullets. A handcar arrived from Prospect Mir with supplies, but it’s peanuts.’

  ‘They want to blow up the tunnel at Prospect Mir to cut off both VDNKh and the other stations completely,’ Artyom reported.

  ‘Yes . . . They are afraid of the ground water. They aren’t venturing close to VDNKh. But this won’t help for long. The dark ones will find other entrances.’

  ‘When will you be leaving here? There’s only a little time left. Less than a day. You have to get everything ready.’

  His stepfather took a long look at him, as if checking him over.

  ‘No, Artyom, I only have one way out of here, and it’s not to Prospect Mir. We have thirty wounded men here. What are we to do with them? Throw them away? And who will maintain the defences while I am saving my hide? How can I go up to a man and say to him: “Well, you are staying here so that you can hold them off and die, but I’m going”? No . . .’ He took a breath. ‘Let them blow it up. We’ll hold out as long as we can. I have to die like a man.’

  ‘Then I’ll stay with you,’ Artyom said. ‘They have the missiles and they will manage without me. What’s my purpose anyway? At least I’ll help you . . .’

  ‘No, no. You must go,’ Sukhoi interrupted him. ‘We have a fully operational pressurized gate and the escalator is working again. You can make your way to the exit quickly. You must go with the others. They don’t even know what they’re dealing with!’

  Artyom suspected that his stepfather was sending him away from the station just to save his life. He tried to object, but Sukhoi didn’t want to hear anything.

  ‘Only you alone in your group know how the dark ones are able to drive people mad.’ He pointed at the diapered wounded.

  ‘What’s wrong with them?’

  ‘They were in the tunnels, they couldn’t hold out. We managed to drag these out, and that’s good. But the dark ones tore so many apart while they were alive! Incredible strength. The main thing is, when they approach and begin to howl, there are few who can stand it. You understand that. Our volunteers handcuffed themselves together so they wouldn’t run away. But those who managed to get loose are lying here. There are only a few wounded because if the dark ones reach you, it’s hard to get away.’

  ‘Zhenka? . . . did they get him?’ Artyom asked, swallowing. Sukhoi nodded. Artyom decided not to get the details.

  ‘Let’s go while there’s a lull.’ Taking advantage of his silence, Sukhoi added, ‘We’ll have a chat and drink some tea. We still have some left. Are you hungry?’ His stepfather embraced him and moved into the command room.

  Artyom looked around in amazement: he could not believe that in the weeks since he had left that VDNKh had managed to change so much. The once comfortable, homelike station had now been cast into anguish and despair. He wanted to flee from here as soon as possible. A machine gun clattered behind them. Artyom gripped his weapon.

  ‘That’s a warning,’ Sukhoi said. ‘The most terrible time will start in a few
hours. I feel it already. The dark ones come in waves, and we have killed only one recently. Never fear, if something serious begins, our guys will use the siren - they sound a general alarm.’

  Artyom pondered. His dream of walking into the tunnel . . . Now it was impossible, and a real meeting with a dark one would hardly end just as harmlessly. There was no point in mentioning it when Sukhoi would never allow him to go into the tunnel alone. He had to reject such a mad idea. He had more important things to do.

  ‘I knew that you and I would see each other again, that you would come,’ Sukhoi said, pouring the tea once they were in the command room. ‘A man arrived here a week ago looking for you.’

  ‘What man?’ Artyom was put on his guard.

  ‘He said you and he are acquainted. Tall, skinny, with a small beard. He had a strange name, similar to Hunter’s.’

  ‘Khan?’ Artyom was surprised.

  ‘That’s it. He told me that you would come back here again, and was so certain that I was put at ease at once. And he also gave me something for you.’ Sukhoi reached for the wallet in which he kept notes and objects known only to him and pulled out a sheet of paper folded a couple of times. Unfolding the paper, Artyom lifted it to his eyes. It was a short note. The words written in a sloppy fleeting hand baffled him. ‘He who is brave and patient enough to peer into the darkness his whole life will be first to see a flicker of light in it.’

  ‘And didn’t he give you anything else?’ Artyom asked with a puzzled look.

  ‘No,’ replied Sukhoi. ‘I thought it was a coded message.’

  But the man had come here especially for this. Artyom shrugged his shoulders. Half of everything Khan had said and done seemed complete nonsense to him but, on the other hand, the other half had compelled him to look at the world otherwise. How was he to know to which part this note pertained?

  They drank tea and chatted for quite a while. Artyom was unable to throw off the feeling that he was seeing his stepfather for the last time, and it was as if he was trying to talk long enough with him to last him for the rest of his life. Then the time to leave arrived.

  Sukhoi tugged the handle and, with a grinding sound, the heavy cover lifted a metre. Stagnant rainwater poured down from outside. Standing in slime up to his ankles, Artyom smiled at Sukhoi, though the tears were welling up in his eyes. He was on the point of saying goodbye when, at the last moment, he remembered the most important thing. Withdrawing the children’s book from his rucksack, he opened it to the page with the photograph inside and handed it to his stepfather. His heart began to beat anxiously.

  ‘What is it?’ Sukhoi was surprised.

  ‘Do you recognize her?’ Artyom asked hopefully. ‘Look closer. Isn’t this my mother? You would have seen her when she gave me away to you.’

  ‘Artyom,’ Sukhoi smiled sadly, ‘I hardly saw her face. It was very dark there and I was looking at a rat. I don’t remember her at all. I remember how you then grabbed my hand and didn’t cry at all, and then she was gone. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Thank you. Bye.’ Artyom was on the verge of saying, ‘Daddy,’ but a lump got caught in his throat. ‘Maybe we’ll meet again . . .’ He tightened his gas mask, bent over, slipped beneath the curtain and ran up along the rickety steps of the escalator, carefully pressing the crumpled photograph to his breast.

  The escalator seemed simply endless. One had to climb it slowly and very carefully. The steps creaked and chattered beneath his feet, and in one place they unexpectedly moved downwards, and Artyom barely managed to yank away his foot. Moss-covered remnants of huge branches and small saplings were scattered everywhere, carried here by the explosion, perhaps. The walls were overgrown with bindweed and moss and, through holes in the plastic covering of the side barriers, the rusty parts of the mechanism could be seen. He didn’t once glance back. Everything was black up above. That was a bad sign. Suddenly he thought, what if the station pavilion crumbled and he couldn’t overcome the obstacle? If it were just a moonless night, it wouldn’t be too bad: but it wouldn’t be easy guiding the fire of the missile battery in poor visibility. The closer to the end of the escalator, the brighter the glares on the walls and the thin beams penetrating the slits became. The exit to the exterior pavilion was blocked, not by stones but by fallen trees. After several minutes of searching, Artyom discovered a narrow trapdoor through which he could just about squeeze. A huge gap, almost the length of the whole ceiling, yawned in the roof of the vestibule through which the pale lunar light fell. The floor was covered with broken branches and even with whole trees. Artyom noted several strange objects next to one of the walls: large, dark-grey leather spheres, as tall as a man, rolling in the brush. They looked repulsive and Artyom was afraid to go any closer to them. Switching off his flashlight, he exited onto the street. The upper station vestibule stood among an accumulation of the expanded frames of once graceful merchants’ pavilions and kiosks. Ahead he could see an enormous building. It was strangely bent and one of the wings was half demolished. Artyom looked around: Ulman and his comrade were not around. They must have been delayed along the way. He had a little time left to study the surroundings.