Prip'Yat: The Beast of Chernobyl Read online

  Chapter Seven

  Yuri Volkov | Dimitri Alexeiev

  Walking along the main road, Dimitri and Yuri were quiet, soaking in the ambience of the city as they took in the sights. After leaving the Palace of Culture, they kept their lights off as they walked south, admiring the apartments and wide open spaces that surrounded them. Wandering aimlessly along, the cousins had no real plans of where to go next, so they continued to go from building to building, slowly winding their way around and through the area.

  The interior of the apartment buildings were both surprising and intimidating to the cousins. Filled with trash and remnants of personal effects, nearly every room had been picked over by looters and vandals a dozen or more times. Thick layers of dust and dirt coated the floors, blown in by the wind through the broken windows. Footprints were scattered across the floor as well, and if you looked closely enough, you could discern how long ago they were made by how much they had been filled in by dirt and debris.

  Dimitri and Yuri moved quickly through the apartments, not wanting to linger for too long in the dust they were stirring up for fear that it could be contaminated with radiation. They stuck to the ground and second stories of the buildings, being mindful of the condition of the floors which were sagging and rotting from years of water damage. The wood and laminate were broken clean through in more than a few spots, signs that someone had become an inadvertent victim of a poorly timed misstep.

  As the pair walked through a hallway of one of the westernmost apartments, Yuri tugged on Dimitri’s shirt and motioned for him to stop. The darkness of the apartments had forced the boys to turn on their flashlights. They kept their hands pressed against the front of the lights, though, allowing only the smallest sliver of a beam to shine through the cracks in their fingers. In the luminescence of his flashlight, Yuri had caught sight of something shining on the floor and stopped, getting Dimitri to stop as well.

  “What the hell?” Dimitri murmured as he knelt down next to Yuri, who was already squatting in front of the object on the floor.

  “It looks like… piss?” Yuri looked up at his older cousin, then back down at the floor. He moved his hand to the side of his flashlight and kept the beam tight on the floor, fully illuminating the object. Under the light, the object shimmered as Yuri passed the flashlight back and forth over its surface. Unlike urine, the object on the floor was not flat, but looked more like a pile of gel, nearly crystal clear with the faintest hint of grey and yellow in it. Dimitri leaned in closer and sniffed deeply, then grimaced and backed up.

  “It smells like petroleum. Maybe it’s a leak from something, or a tourist dropped it.”

  Yuri shook his head slowly. “No, it couldn’t be.”

  Dimitri looked up from the pile of goop on the floor, staring at Yuri questioningly. Yuri swallowed hard as he looked at the floor, shining his light back and forth. “No footprints. We’re the only ones who’ve been in here in a long time. This looks fresh.”

  Dimitri felt a chill run up his spine as Yuri spoke. He stood up suddenly, shaking his arms and head as he tried to ignore the fear that was threatening to take hold. “Whatever it is, let’s just leave it alone and get out of here.”

  Yuri nodded slowly and stood up to follow Dimitri, who was already halfway down the hall, heading for the doorway. Yuri backed slowly down the hall, keeping his light trained on the object, half expecting it to start moving when he wasn’t watching. Yuri finally switched his light off at the main door to the apartments and shuffled out the door, following Dimitri. The pair walked swiftly away from the apartments, heading back up the main road toward the square and the Palace of Culture.

  After only a few paces, Dimitri felt another chill and he slowed down to allow Yuri to catch up, whispering to him as they strolled along.

  “Something doesn’t feel right here. It’s like we’re being watched.”

  Yuri felt his stomach turn at Dimitri’s words, distraught at hearing his cousin confirm the very thing he had feared ever since they first saw the object on the floor. As the two quickened their pace, a crackle sounded in the distance, along with a rustling in the trees. Both boys broke into a run without thinking about it, heading into the main square and dashing into the nearest building they could find. In a full blown panic, neither Yuri nor Dimitri had the presence of mind to pay attention to where they were going as they charged headlong down a flight of stairs into a darkened corridor.

  Chapter Eight

  Iosif Seleznev | Lucas Pokrov

  Running alone through thick vegetation while simultaneously trying to pay attention to one’s surroundings in a dark environment was difficult enough. Doing so while in pursuit of a fleeting movement in the distance that could very well have just been the shadow from a cloud added an extra layer of complexity to the situation. Lucas stayed focused as he ran, regulating his breathing through the face mask and stopping every few seconds to scan the area ahead with his scope. Behind him, Iosif brought up the rear, performing the same series of actions as he ran to catch up.

  With the hospital left unexplored, the soldiers still considered it a potential danger zone, and both of them periodically checked behind them as they ran forward, quickly closing the half kilometer distance to their target location. Lucas’s breathing was loud in his ear, a symptom of the full face mask that covered the front half of his head, including his ears. As a single piece of polymer-matrix composite, the mask didn’t restrict the user’s view at all, which was a far cry from the older protective gear that soldiers used to wear.

  Although the face filter was bulky and made it difficult to breathe, the mask did offer one additional advantage. Due to its construction, it was able to withstand severe blows, including rounds up into a 9mm caliber. Larger rounds would penetrate the mask, but their penetration power was vastly reduced, meaning that even if you were shot in the face, you had a much higher chance of surviving than if you weren’t wearing it.

  Slight negative pressure generated by a small pump on the mask ensured that it always had an airtight seal over the wearer’s face, which was reinforced by the pair of heavy-duty rubber straps that encircled Iosif’s and Lucas’s heads. In addition to providing impact protection and keeping the wearer safe from radiation, the masks also filtered out chemical and biological contaminants. Though the pair didn’t expect to need their masks for those particular use cases, they both had enough experience dealing with the unknown to appreciate the protection even if it wasn’t absolutely essential.

  Passing through a thicket of trees, Lucas slowed as he neared the spot where he had caught the movement. He scanned the ground and the surrounding buildings, road, and vegetation with his rifle scope, but nothing was visible. Iosif had finally caught up next to him and crouched nearby, breathing heavily as he spoke.

  “What did you see?”

  Lucas continued to scan the area as he replied, switching between his thermal and infrared scopes. “Not sure. It was big, though, and moving fast. It disappeared here, between the buildings.”

  “Did it show up on the scopes?”

  “Negative. I had finished a scan when I saw it whip past and I took off after it.”

  Iosif held his radiation meter aloft, waving it around them to scan the air and the ground. “Radiation levels seem normal here. Got anything on the thermal?”

  Lucas’s thermal scanner on his scope was sensitive enough that it could pick up trace amounts of heat left in the footprints of animals for a few moments after they had passed. He had checked the ground several times since stopping, though, and had found no evidence of any residual heat.

  “Nothing.”

  Iosif sighed and looked around, getting his bearings. “This is the first sign of anything we’ve had tonight, so let’s stay on top of it. It was heading north, right?”

  Lucas nodded. “Affirmative. Rapidly, too.”

  “Okay, let’s head to the next checkpoint since it’s north of here. We’ll hit the hospital on our way out.”

  I
osif ran past Lucas, breaking from cover on the east side of the main road and moving to the west side. Lucas continued striding up on the east side of the road, keeping close to the buildings as he moved. He trailed behind Iosif’s position by several yards as before, maintaining a close eye on the rooftops of the buildings as they moved past, alert for any signs of movement.

  The road was empty and devoid of heat signatures or movement, though Lucas couldn’t deny feeling nervous as they worked their way north into the city. In past missions, when they had been alone in the darkness, they had always known who their enemy was and that he was out there somewhere, hiding in the dark. Pursuing an unknown enemy in a territory that was completely devoid of life was a new experience, one that Lucas didn’t appreciate.

  Chapter Nine

  Yuri Volkov | Dimitri Alexeiev

  Once Dimitri and Yuri finally stopped running, Yuri had to brace himself against the wall to keep from toppling over. His heart was beating hard in his chest, feeling like it was about to burst from pumping so much blood, making him light-headed and dizzy. Dimitri held onto Yuri with one arm, pushing his other arm against his side as he arched his back and looked at the ceiling, panting with exhaustion.

  “You know,” Dimitri finally wheezed, “We’re just a couple of babies. That was nothing but animal shit and the wind!” Yuri glanced up at Dimitri, seeing the hesitation in his cousin’s eyes as he spoke. Dimitri didn’t believe what he said and neither did Yuri, but Yuri felt obligated to agree with his cousin, if only to try and bring calm to the situation.

  He nodded slowly as he regained control of his breathing. “Yeah, that’s all it was.” Yuri’s voice was shaking, but he put on a brave smile, trying to make the best of the situation. “At least we didn’t meet the bear that left it, right?”

  Dimitri’s grin was genuine as he laughed at Yuri, punching him lightly in the shoulder.

  “Come on, let’s stop being such children.” He shined his flashlight around the room they were in, trying to figure out what building they had run into. “Might as well explore this place, whatever it is.”

  Yuri flicked on his light as well and moved it slowly over the interior walls and columns, squinting through the dust and reflections from the light. “It’s big. Maybe a market?”

  Dimitri shook his head. “We came down two flights of stairs, remember? I don’t think a market would have that many steps.”

  Yuri waved a hand in front of his face, shooing away the dust motes that swirled as he walked through the cavernous room. The walls were a pale pink in color, though the paint was cracked and fading. Thick pillars were covered in elaborate and colorful paintings, remnants of the decorations that once adorned the walls. Small wheelchairs and beds were overturned in the basement, lending a sad tone to the room. As Yuri’s flashlight beam passed over these items, he suddenly realized where they were. This must be the children’s clinic, he thought.

  As the only children’s hospital in the area, any child with an injury would have been sent here instead of to the main hospital, staying for as little as a few hours or as long as a few months. When the disaster occurred, though, all of the children in the clinic had to be immediately evacuated despite their various ailments and conditions. While there was no proof, Dimitri and Yuri had often spoken of the children who might have died during the evacuation, either too wounded to survive the trip out of the city or simply forgotten. The thought of being in a building that may have contained those exact children was enough to spook the both of them more than the strange puddle in the apartment building, though they each tried their best not to show their apprehension.

  Yuri looked back at the footprints his boots left in the dust, doing his best to breathe shallowly, not wanting to inhale any more radiation than he already was. “Come on, cousin. Let’s get out of here. We should find someplace a little less ominous to explore.”

  Dimitri grunted in response, crouching over a broken picture frame on the floor. A small child in a dress who was carrying a flower in her hands was faded and torn under the broken glass. Dimitri found himself lost in the photograph, wondering who the little girl was and what her life was like before the disaster.

  “Those poor souls.” Dimitri mumbled, momentarily forgetting his adventurer spirit. Yuri pressed a hand on Dimitri’s shoulder, making him jump in surprise.

  “Yes, sorry. You’re right. Let’s go. This place is far too disturbing to stay in for long.”

  “What about the noise we heard?” Yuri motioned upwards, referring to the cracks and rustles they had heard earlier.

  “Just the wind, remember?” Dimitri smiled, trying his best to appear brave to his cousin.

  Yuri began to nod in agreement when a noise from the upstairs level of the clinic stopped both cousins in their tracks. The noise was quiet at first, like the light scraping of two pieces of wood against each other. It came in spurts, stopping for several seconds, starting up and then stopping again.

  “That is not the wind.” Yuri leaned in to Dimitri’s ear and hissed at him as quietly as he could manage.

  Although Yuri was quiet when he spoke, the sounds from upstairs changed the very second the words left his mouth. The slow scraping became louder and more frenzied, and was accompanied by more sounds of crackling, like a combination between leaves crunching and the arc of electricity. The sound continued to circle above the boys as they stood frozen in fear, Yuri still holding onto Dimitri’s coat.

  Dimitri looked at Yuri in panic as the sound began to change. Instead of staying in one location as it had, it began to move outward, sounding as though its source could be moving closer to the stairwell that led to the basement. The pair waved their flashlights about the room wildly, striving to be quiet at the same time as they searched for an exit from the building.

  Yuri pointed out into the hall and motioned for Dimitri to follow him. The room they were in had no other way out, and Yuri didn’t want to get trapped in the room if the source of the sounds upstairs decided to join them in the basement. Although the boys stepped lightly through the room, they could hear the noise from upstairs growingly increasingly agitated. When they reached the door, though, all hell broke loose.

  Dimitri’s shoulder brushed the door to the room they were in as they exited, causing its hinges to give off a loud squeal. Instantly the noise from upstairs changed from a soft scratching to a harried scrabbling combined with the sounds of thumping. Yuri shoved Dimitri forward, nearly knocking him down. “Get moving now!” Yuri hissed again at Dimitri, glancing behind him at the stairs they had descended a short time ago.

  Dimitri held his light in front of him as he ran, trying to find another stairwell or other avenue of escape. The noise from upstairs began to recede behind them as they ran away from the stairs, then it grew stronger and louder. Panicked, the cousins turned a blind corner in the hallway, realizing that whatever was making the sound was now down in the basement and likely hot in pursuit of them.

  At the end of the hall, Yuri spotted an object that made his heart leap. A janitorial closet was positioned in the hallway, with its door wide open. Just inside the closet the beams of their flashlights reflected off a piece of glass high on the far wall of the closet.

  “Window!” Yuri half shouted at Dimitri as they ran, struggling to stay ahead of the thing behind them. Dimitri was first in the closet, followed close by Yuri who slammed the door to the closet shut, wincing as it bounced back open, the handle and lock having broken off long ago.

  “Hurry up!” Yuri shone his light out of the janitorial closet and back down the long hall. A dark shape charged along, running past the branch that the boys had taken. Behind him, Dimitri had finally gotten the window open and shouldered boxes in front of it, building a makeshift staircase to get up to the window.

  “Okay, let’s go!” Dimitri shouted down at Yuri from the top of the boxes, his body already halfway out the window.

  Yuri grabbed Dimitri’s outstretched hand and began to descend the stairway of box
es. He couldn’t resist one last look behind him as he climbed, and directed his light back down the hallway. The dark shape reappeared at the end of the hall, half hidden by the partially closed janitorial close door. It was a large, black shape, as wide as it was tall, with no definable form. Although the thing was just as dark as the basement they were in, Yuri could sense its shape, feeling adrenaline coarse through his veins as fear gripped his heart.

  Spurred on by the sight, Yuri squirmed through the window, digging his fingers into the dirt and grass that were just outside. Dimitri grabbed Yuri’s arm and hauled him up. The boys stumbled as they began to run, trying to get as far away from the clinic as possible.

  Chapter Ten

  Iosif Seleznev | Lucas Pokrov

  When Lucas’s boot first made a squishing sound, he didn’t think much of it. Only after he had trouble moving his foot did he look down to see what was keeping it in place. In the darkness, he had trouble making it out, so he pulled out a small flashlight from his vest pocket and turned on the red filter, shining a pale red light down on the ground.