A few seconds later, he came in again: "Please repeat" - he pleaded the radio. "We need an extraction ASAP, I beg you." Just as he let go of the button, I heard it. A short, abrupt sound which was cut off along with the man's transmission. A sound I had never heard before that morning, yet the one I could already recognize as the sign of trouble.
A howl of the beast. With how abruptly the transmission ended it was hard to tell how far away from the radio it was. Maybe fifty meters, maybe a couple hundred.
Too close for comfort either way.
I looked at Natasha: her eyes were wide with terror. I didn't have to ask her whether she'd also heard it- I could tell just by looking at her. She also recognized the sound she'd heard on the roof earlier.
She raised her hand to her mouth. Her breathing got heavy.
"Military base, please" - the man pleaded again. The despair in his voice was almost tangible. "Please, come in" - he begged again, his voice almost breaking into tears. "Screw it, we’re coming back. Military base, we’re going back. Pick us up at-"
"Oh my god!" - someone screamed in the background, and the transmission was cut off again.
The tone of the exclamation was not just mere surprise. Whoever it was, they didn't seem to expect an answer to their plea. It was a shout of awe, of shock. It was a desperate cry of a mind that couldn't grasp the sight that opened before it.
In other words, the same emotions the postman showed before he was brutally killed at our doorstep.
No more transmissions followed. Natasha and I were sitting in complete silence, listening to the static. We were afraid to say a word, to even let out a loud breath - what if at that moment someone tried to reach out to us and we'd miss what they said?
Aside from that, we were afraid of one more thing. What if there was no one left to send a transmission? As horrible as it was, we were more concerned about the implications of the man's disappearance, rather than his fate. I had been confident in my decision not to go with him - but now when I had received the confirmation that I had been right all along, I felt horrible. It was a hollow victory. A victory with no worth to it.
Regardless, we kept on listening. Walking away, saying a word - those things would mean that we admitted that he was dead and that we couldn't walk outside. Without sharing a glance, we kept doing the same thing - clinging to blind hope that the man was going to turn out alright and that it was just a misunderstanding.
The radio kept teasing us with static. It was the only sound in my apartment on the edge of the world. The sound of abandonment. The sound of radio silence.
"Hello?" - the familiar voice suddenly spoke to us through the radio, startling us. I breathed out loudly when the tension created by the radio silence finally dissipated, and Natasha let out a short, sobbing laugh. But it seemed that we were premature in our cheering.
"Anyone there?" - the man asked his radio. He didn't ask for the military base - this time, he was trying to reach out to anyone listening. While he didn't sound very confident before, now his voice was noticeably shaky, trembling. He was quietly whispering into the mic, and it was clear: he wanted to make sure he wasn't heard by anything that could be lurking nearby.
"If you can hear me - please send help. Please, I beg you" - he whispered again. "We tried walking to the base, and… Well, we didn't make it" - his voice almost broke into tears when he uttered that sentence. "I thought we'd make it there safely, but…I was acting rationally. We needed to get out. They’ve all agreed to it. We were all volunteers. I didn't know what… what was out there."
Natasha raised her hand to her mouth again.
"We have been attacked by- something. I've never seen such an animal before. I thought the people were talking about a bear, but it's…it's…it's much worse than that. We didn't know how to react, and we ran. If it was a bear…we need a strike squad to deal with it. We can't deal with it on our own."
My suspicions were true: the strange creature was indeed something unknown, something alien to our town. The man wasn’t giving us any details on what it was, but he didn’t need to. It was perfectly clear that he’d never seen anything like it before, and thus had no words to describe it. The best description he could provide for it was to say nothing.
"I hid inside one of the buildings. It's on that street…Oh, I can't remember the name now. I don't know where the rest of the people are. We all split when it attacked the crowd. Maybe they escaped or hid, just like me. I don't know. I've only heard their screams, but I don't know how many it caught."
The man started sobbing: the emotions overwhelmed him. He spent around thirty seconds crying into his walkie, as if he wanted someone to bear witness to his misery, to have some sympathy for him, before finally letting go of the button.
I glanced at Natasha. Both of us were thinking the same thing: we were trapped in that town, after all. Our building was a cage, but the thing about cages, they could also keep things out.
"I can't go back," - the man came back from radio silence, still sobbing. "I can't come back and tell those people that I'd gotten their close ones killed. If anyone's listening," - he suddenly got serious, overcoming his grievance. "If anyone else has been stuck inside or didn't evacuate in time, do not go outside no matter what. Don't follow our mistake."
I felt pity for him. To think that less than an hour ago me and that man were locking gazes and arguing about the best course of action. If only I'd been confident enough to stop him! I now knew that back there, I hadn't been confident to decide the fate of those people. Had I convinced them to stay, I'd be ridden with guilt whether I'd made the right decision - and I knew I hadn't been ready for that burden. I'd decided to let things run their course, to let those people call their own shots - and now I was witnessing the aftermath of that.
Even though that man didn't even know that I was listening to him, I was sharing his guilt.
I looked at Natasha: "Should we talk to him?" - I asked her.
She shook her head: "Don't. If we talk to him, we might attract that creature."
She sounded shaken when she said that. I looked at her just to check if she was alright. It was clear that the chain of events that had been unraveling in front of us had stressed her out, but it almost seemed like she was overreacting. She was taking the drama happening somewhere on the streets way too personally. Was she perhaps concerned that Nikita had faced the same fate?
It was a poor time to discuss it - there were more pressing issues at a hand. But nevertheless, I still tried it: "Natasha, are you alright? You don't have to listen to it if you don't want to."
She crossed her hands on her chest and shook her head - so quick as if she was having a seizure: "Let's not talk right now. I need to know how it ends," - she pointed at the radio with her chin to let me know what she was talking about. I nodded and turned back to the machine.
"Military base, come in" - the radio buzzed again. The man was even quieter than before. "Please, someone, come in. Please."
"Screw it" - I said both to Natasha and to no one particular. The man's life was already at risk. The least I could do was give him some closure, keep him some company. So that he knew that he wasn't there alone and that people could hear him.
But before I pressed the button, the radio came back to life once more: "Please, send someone to Gornaya Street. I've hidden inside one of the-" - his words were interrupted by a strange clicking sound in the background. An animalistic, curious sound which, judging by its volume, couldn't originate more than a dozen meters away from the man.
A sound which, no doubt belonged to some animal - but once again, I couldn't recognize what kind of animal it was. It was not anything I could've heard on a Discovery Channel, nor was it a mighty roar of the creature that had slain the postman and attacked their group.
It was something new. Something that had been stalking inside the building where the man had hidden and had been attracted by him talking.
"Oh, God" - was all the man managed to say - a shocked, exasp
erated, and tired exclamation - before ending the transmission. Just before the transmission ended, the creature screeched once more, louder than before - no doubt a declaration of its attack. With everything that'd been going on, I had no reason to believe that it was not hostile.
There were no further transmissions from him. His last words and their tone made me think that he didn't even try to run. Whatever he'd seen outside had left him too shocked to try to escape.
We'd spent a few more minutes waiting - just to make sure. But the radio just kept on spewing white noise.
"I don't think we'll hear from him again" - I quietly said, feeling the need to break the silence. I felt that if I'd spent a few more seconds listening to nothing but white noise, I'd puke my guts out.
Natasha quietly nodded, then shifted around uncomfortably. I could see that she wanted to say something.
"Do you think that animal attacked them because… it heard me speaking through the radio?" - she quietly asked.
"Oh God, of course not" - I quickly assured her. It finally dawned on me what had been gnawing at her, and I couldn't even imagine how tough it must've been for her - thinking that the death of those people was her fault.
I also wanted to calm her down because I myself could relate to that feeling of guilt. I could relate to what it was like – feeling like you could’ve prevented it from happening.
"Those people were doomed the moment they set their feet outside," - I said, feeling my own feeling of guilt grow stronger as the words were leaving my mouth. I disregarded that. I could take it. I had to calm down Natasha first. "I'm sure that creature had already been following them for some time. There was a dozen of them, after all. They'd be hard to miss."
"Yeah… I guess you're right" - she hugged herself and nodded, turning around to leave. I noticed her hand rise up to her eye for a moment as if to wipe off a tear. "I'm going back home" - she told me without turning around. "I'd like to spend some time alone."
"Of course," - I nodded, though I was feeling a bit disappointed that she was leaving. I didn't want to be alone again. "If you want to talk - my door is always open."
"Thanks" - she said and headed for the exit.
I could see that she was still distraught, and as she was putting on her shoes, still looking away from me, I felt that I had to say something to calm her down or cheer her up.
"Listen, if you're worried about Nikita then I'm sure he's alright" - I told her.
"Thanks" - she nodded quietly. "It helps that you think that" - she added, though nothing in her behavior showed that she really thought that.
"And I'm sure he'd come back for you if he had such a chance" - I added for some reason. Immediately I felt a rush of embarrassment for what I'd said: if she'd been having such thoughts it would be a bad idea to remind her about them.
But to my surprise, she turned around and sent me a sad smile: "It's nice of you to think that. Thanks, Yura. I'm sure you'd do that if you were him."
"Ha-ha, no, I'm too much of a wuss for something like that" - I laughed off her suggestion before realizing how I made it sound. "I didn't mean to say that I'd abandon you" - I quickly tried to explain, but Natasha just raised her hand in a stopping gesture and smiled again: "It's alright. I understand what you mean. I know you wouldn't."
"Alright. Then… See ya around?" - I asked her.
"Yes. See ya" - she told me and opened the door.
The sound of people going up and down the stairwell and talking to each other had already become background noise - something new, but something we'd already grown accustomed to. And yet despite that the moment those sounds entered my apartment and reached our ears we realized that something was wrong. We could hear that, once again, the voices of our neighbors had grown restless. Something had agitated them.
We walked outside together, without sharing a word - she was already wearing her sneakers, while I stepped onto the cold concrete floor in nothing but my socks. Not the most comfortable sensation, not to mention that they'd instantly gotten dirty, but it didn't matter at that moment. I needed to know what was going on.
Everyone had gathered near the windows between the floors - the ones leading to the town outside. They were eagerly discussing something, and some of the people were pointing at something outside. It was hard to tell what exactly they were talking about, but just from the sheer number of people, it was clear that they've spotted something noteworthy.
We came closer and although no one wanted to surrender their spot and let us closer to the window I've managed to catch a glimpse of what they'd been looking at.
My blood ran cold.
The asphalt in front of our building had a huge pool of blood on it - no further than thirty meters away from our walls. Still bright red, and possibly still warm to the touch - had anyone dared to come out and check. It was surrounded by splatters of blood, indicating that whoever that blood belonged to had suffered a heavy blow. We were all thinking the same thing: we knew of only one creature that could deal such damage.
There was no body - the pool had bloody drag marks on one side of it, indicating that the stranger had been pulled away after the creature had killed them. From what I could gather, no one had seen or heard anything - they only noticed the blood after the deed had already been done. Yet not a single person had any doubts about where that blood had come from. Considering how close it was to our building and how abandoned the town was, there was only one possible explanation.
That blood was telling a story so clear it could as well be written across the pavement.
That pool of blood was the only thing that remained of the expedition that had tried to brave the outside and reach the military base. The last survivor from it had been slain just mere meters away from their home after they had realized their mistake and tried to come back.
CHAPTER 6 - Voices
Once Natasha went home I looked at the clock. Just a little bit past twelve. The day had just begun and yet so many things had happened.
I had no more places to go to. I had no more things to do. The food supplies were checked, and the bathtub was full of water. Perhaps Natasha would come over in the evening, but until then I had to kill some time.
I walked over to the guest room and sat in front of the radio, sliding the microphone closer. The best thing to do was to keep doing what I'd always known to do best - to surf the radio.
Before I started, I checked "The Cricket." Still nothing. Just the background noise. The background radiation, the leftovers from the primordial times when the Universe first expanded, as well as the radio noise produced by our sun and distant stars. While the sentient part of the Universe - humans - remained silent, the rest of it kept on endlessly whispering.
It felt mind-blowing the first time I learned what the white noise is - to listen to the celestial bodies and the echoes of the Universe's birth itself while sitting in my small old apartment. It was like eavesdropping on God himself while he was busy in his heavenly workshop. But after some time, the novelty of it wore off. I certainly wasn't so bored as to keep listening to the white noise now.
I sighed and started searching the radio waves. The movements of my hand were precise as never before - I was turning the dial so slowly it seemed like it wasn't moving at all. Like a skilled, patient hunter, I was combing through my domain, looking for a prey, careful not to scare it away… or, in my case, not to walk past it.
I became so focused on my task I didn’t even notice the passage of time. The search for a radio transmission completely engrossed me, so I didn't even know what time it was when I finally heard the whispers of radio chatter.
"...Moving in at 1700. Yeah, I don't know about that. I didn't know that he knew all of our hiding places. Yeah, probably."
The voice belonged to a young man - my peer. He was talking to someone I couldn't hear - someone not on the other end of the line, but rather on the other side of the room, with his radio on. His voice was quiet and barely heard through the radio static.
I carefully turned the dial to hone in on the signal, feeling sudden anxiety. Other survivors! Other people nearby, talking on the radio! I had to make sure to zoom in on the frequency perfectly. If only I had one of those digital radios! It would easily take care of that for me, tuning in on the frequency automatically to provide the best signal.
After a bit of playing around with the dial, I managed to clear up the signal to the best of my ability, yet the voice didn't get any louder. It seemed that just as I suspected: the unknown speaker was talking to someone else in the room, while his radio was on.
"Hello?" - I said into the microphone to attract their attention.
There was a moment of silence on the other end, and then the sounds of commotion. "Military base Novokureevo speaking" - the man said quickly.
The sudden seriousness in his voice made me hesitate a bit before introducing myself, but then I realized: he was probably thinking that I was from another military base.
"Hi" - I repeated, thinking over my words. I didn't want to scare him away: he probably was not supposed to talk to the civilians. "I'm from the nearby town, Novoyarsk. You've heard about it, right?" - I tried to remember the map of the nearby villages and locations: Novokureevo sounded familiar.
"We're not supposed to talk" - the young man said, and I heard hints of panic in his voice.
"I understand, trust me" - I quickly said before he switched his radio off. "It's just that we've been locked down here and couldn't evacuate in time. Someone welded our doors shut."
There was a pause - a far much longer one than I was comfortable with. I thought that he had already walked away from the radio when I finally heard his voice: "What do you mean, 'somebody welded your doors shut'?"
"It’s exactly what it sounds like - all the doors in our apartment complex are welded shut, and we have no clue why or who had done that" - I explained breathing out in relief that he didn't end the transmission. His curiosity got the best of him.
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