Prip'Yat: The Beast of Chernobyl Page 5

  Off in the distance, toward one edge of the city, red glowing eyes shone at them again as a dark shape stumbled along, alternating between moving slow and low to the ground and running along at a greater height. The shape wasn’t moving toward the cousins, but it was circling the edge of the city, cutting off their chances at escaping directly to their vehicle.

  Yuri felt panic rise in his throat and he turned to run, pulling Dimitri along with him. “Come on! Move!” He hissed at his older cousin, dislodging Dimitri from his stare and causing him to break into a run as well.

  Chapter Twelve

  Iosif Seleznev | Lucas Pokrov

  The interior of the building was quiet like the rest of the city, though the silence was more unnerving than it should have been. Every bootstep, every breath, and every aberrant noise from the soldiers’ equipment was more potential for their positions to be given away. Broken glass and rubble from the interior of the building blocked their paths, forcing them to go even slower than they had when they first entered the building.

  The main floor of the building behind the desk was a labyrinth of rooms. Filled with everything from chairs to examination tables, it was disorienting in the darkness, even to the seasoned soldiers. After entering the building, Lucas switched from his SVD to a sawed-off shotgun that he kept strapped to his back. The weapon was light and versatile, capable of holding a total of six shells with a length of less than two feet. Although it lacked both night vision and thermal imaging devices, it was equipped with an under-barrel tactical light that shone in both white and red in varying degrees of brightness.

  After several minutes of searching the upper floors, Lucas whispered into his microphone. “I’m going to check if there’s a basement level.”

  A single click came back over the radio, indicating that Iosif had received Lucas’s message and approved of the decision. Lucas backtracked through the facility, seeing Iosif’s dim light several rooms away as he passed into the main entryway again. To one side sat a door with a stairway symbol on it that Lucas carefully pushed open, keeping his shotgun level in front of him the entire time. The stairwell was in good condition, though it had a significant amount of debris piled in it from the upper floor. From what Lucas could see, the upper floor had caved in some time ago, making it impossible to proceed upstairs.

  Without hesitation Lucas moved down the stairs, switching from corner to corner with precision, exactly as he had trained for countless hours. He didn’t like moving into unknown territory alone, but unless he and Iosif wanted to be in the city for the full three days allotted to them, they would need to start speeding up their investigation.

  At the bottom of the stairwell, Lucas stopped and switched off his light, allowing his eyes to acclimate to the darkness below. After a good thirty seconds of staring into the dark, Lucas switched on the flashlight on his shotgun, illuminating the stairwell with a thin beam of blood red light. The red light would help preserve Lucas’s night vision and give him some measure of stealth that a normal flashlight beam would be unable to provide. After taking a deep breath, Lucas pushed through the door of the stairwell, stepping into the basement hallway beyond.

  The layout of the lower level of the building was more spacious than the main floor had been. Fewer rooms with more square footage made it easier to navigate, especially since the rooms were all laid out around one central hall that led directly from the stairwell to the back of the building. Lucas swept from room to room in a precision manner, working to clear them as fast as possible. When he had reached the halfway point in the hallway, his radio sparked to life and Iosif’s voice came through.

  “I finished my sweep upstairs. There’s nothing here. I’m heading down to your position.”

  Lucas tapped the microphone button once in acknowledgement of Iosif’s message and slowed down his sweep, waiting for his partner to arrive. When they were together, Lucas stuck to the right side of the hall while Iosif covered the left, the two of them working in tandem to go through the rooms on opposite sides of the hallway.

  Each of the rooms so far was devoid of movement and life, though they were far from empty. More furniture and equipment filled the large chambers, speaking volumes about the people and activities that had once taken place here. The building appeared to be a type of medical or research facility, with abundant surgical chambers and research laboratory facilities. Most of the glassware and equipment had long ago been torn apart by vandals, but enough bits and pieces remained to paint a stark picture of what the building must have been like before the disaster.

  Lucas and Iosif approached the end of the corridor where it branched off to the right, each of them scanning the area with their weapons and tactical lights. Out of nowhere a noise from around the corner of the hall caught their attention. They both dropped to their knees and pressed their bodies against the walls, checking into nearby rooms and down the hallway for the source of the disturbance.

  Around a corner in the hall, the noise came again, louder this time and it was accompanied by the distinct sound of movement. Lucas and Iosif both stood and glanced at each other. Iosif jerked his head forward to prompt Lucas to take the point position. The noise grew louder as Lucas glanced around the corner, catching sight of a black shape that vanished in the darkness of the hall. He jerked his body around the corner, bringing his weapon to bear in the direction that the shape had disappeared as Iosif brought up the rear. After a few more seconds of activity, the noise abruptly vanished, causing the soldiers to move even slower down the corridor.

  Several minutes passed as the pair checked every room in the short side hallway, coming up empty at the end of it. Iosif glanced into one of the rooms near where the movement had vanished, spying a hole that led up through the ceiling onto the main floor. He slowly circled the hole, keeping his rifle trained on it while Lucas watched.

  “You think whatever it was went through there?” Lucas whispered to Iosif, unsure of what to do next.

  Iosif looked at the hole for several more seconds then turned and headed back through the door. “Who knows? It got away, though, whatever it was. It left more evidence that it was here, though.”

  Lucas turned to follow Iosif when a glint on the floor caught his eye. Another pile of the strange substance lay quivering on the floor, moving back and forth ever so slightly in time with the vibration from Iosif’s footsteps. Lucas gulped nervously and followed Iosif back out into the hall, up the stairs and out to the front of the building.

  “It can’t have gotten far. Sweep left, I’ll go right.” Iosif gave the order tersely to Lucas, his voice coming through Lucas’s earpiece strained and nervous. The pressure of the tight quarters and strange environment of the city and its abandoned buildings was starting to get to Iosif, who longed for an enemy he could fight openly instead of chasing around in the darkness. Lucas swerved to the left of the building, following it around to the back. They both paused at the back of the building, searching the area with their scopes for any signs of life.

  “There! On the thermal, I see something!” A hundred yards down the road a distinct heat impression on the pavement was fading rapidly, turning from a pale yellow to a light blue before Lucas’s eyes. He looked over the scope to verify the position, then began to head forward with Iosif providing cover from the rear. Moments later, the pair reached the location of the heat source, which had already vanished. There was no other evidence that anything had been at the location, but with more real proof of another entity in the area with them, Iosif and Lucas both grew instantly more alert and on guard.

  “How big was the signature?” Iosif’s voice was a mere whisper over the radio, not wanting to give away their position to anyone who might be listening nearby.

  Lucas swiped his finger in an oval shape on the ground, outlining a rough estimate for how big the heat signature had shown up on the scope. It was about twice the length of Lucas’s hand and located right in the middle of the road leading north through the city. No other heat signatures we
re nearby, but Iosif was still concerned for their safety. He signaled Lucas to move to the opposite side of the roadway again and then took up position on the western edge, moving forward through the bushes with lightning precision.

  Speed was a necessity at this point, with the soldiers growing closer to finding the source of the noises, sounds, foreign objects and the heat signature they had found. Safety was never compromised, despite the rapidity of their movement, and the pair soon found themselves lying in a field, sweeping the area ahead with the scopes in hopes of spotting any movement.

  Virtually buried in grass that extended almost over his entire body, Lucas was incredibly thankful for the masks that he and Iosif wore, and he tried not to think about the radioactive particles that he was picking up just by lying down in the grass for a few minutes. A stand of trees and thick brush was ahead, and Lucas’s radiation meter was beginning to go wild, signaling that pockets of intense radiation were near.

  Iosif confirmed this on his radiation detector, then he brought up a map on his GPS unit, checking the area they were in for any known radiation hotspots. After looking at the map for several seconds he frowned and spoke over the radio.

  “Lucas, give me an estimated range to the hotspot ahead of us.”

  Lucas held his radiation meter above his head, sweeping it from left to right in front of him. “I’d guess maybe twenty-five to thirty meters.”

  “Damn. There’s nothing on the map up there.” Iosif punched a button on his GPS to turn it off before jamming it angrily back into his vest pocket. Sweat poured down on his face inside his mask, obscuring his vision and making him blink several times to clear the moisture away. Lucas remained silent, waiting for Iosif to give the word on what to do.

  “Listen up, Lucas. Whatever’s out there may be capable of generating a radioactive signature strong enough to show up at distance on our meters. Advance slowly, spread out another ten meters and continue moving forward.”

  Lucas nodded in response, pushed himself to his knees and began to advance, crouching in the tall grasses as he and Iosif made their way toward the trees and the radiation signature ahead.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Yuri Volkov | Dimitri Alexeiev

  Darting between buildings, Yuri and Dimitri ran back through the city the way they had come in, down the road and moving east through the apartment buildings. Whatever the red-eyed shape was, they didn’t see it pursuing them. Once they were a few hundred yards from the greenhouse they broke into a run, throwing caution and stealth to the wind.

  Moments later the pair reached the main square of the city, passing by the Palace of Culture and the arch. Dimitri thought briefly about trying to hide in one of the buildings in the square again, but decided that they were better off in the open. At least out here, he thought, there’s less chance of us being surprised by that thing.

  “Where now?” Yuri panted at Dimitri as they ran. Their car was far to the west, beyond the area where they had spotted the creature. To the southeast lay the Chernobyl power plant, though it was farther away than either of the cousins wanted to travel. There wasn’t anything there anyway, except for vast amounts of radiation and rusted construction equipment. South of the city along the main road were checkpoints set up by the military to guard against unauthorized intrusions into the city.

  The first checkpoint was substantially farther away than Chernobyl, a few kilometers from their current position. While the checkpoint would take a long time to reach, it would be manned by a few military guards who could help the cousins. This would mean admitting that they were trespassing in the city and potentially be thrown in jail or fined, but anything was preferable to spending more time in the city with the thing that was after them.

  Before Dimitri could answer, a shot rang out behind them, far away at the edge of the city. Both of the boys froze in their tracks, their lungs aching as they held their breath to listen for any more gunfire. They didn’t have to wait long, as several more shots followed the first. The gunfire echoed through the pavement and buildings of Prip’Yat, making it difficult to tell exactly where it was coming from. Panicked, Dimitri grabbed Yuri’s arm, pulling him toward a nearby building.

  “Shit! It’s the military!”

  Yuri hurried alongside Dimitri, craning his head back and forth to try and narrow down the location of the shots. “Do you think they’re after us?”

  Dimitri shook his head, uncertain about all of the events of the night. “How would I know? We need to hide, though. If they find us, we’re screwed!”

  “What if… what if they’re after that thing we saw?” Yuri was hesitant to bring up the topic of the red-eyed apparition they had seen in the city, but it seemed just as likely that the gunfire was directed toward the thing as it was at them. Several more shots rang out, this time much closer to the boys’ position. Ducking low as they ran, Dimitri and Yuri ran inside the large hospital building that was closest to them, scrambling to find a place to hide.

  Before turning a corner to travel down a flight of stairs, Yuri glanced back out the front door of the hospital, straining to see any sign of the source of the shots. In the distance, beyond the far apartment buildings, the pair of red eyes was visible along with the dark shape. It moved swiftly forward, and with each shot Yuri heard, a small flash of light was visible near to the shape.

  Yuri ran down the stairs, informing his cousin of what he had seen.

  “Shit.” Dimitri muttered. “They must be after that thing. It’s coming this way?”

  “I don’t know. I think so, though.” Yuri had only looked out the front door for a few seconds, and he had no way of knowing for sure whether or not the thing had spotted them entering the building or not. Caution demanded that they assume that it was chasing after them, though, so they hurried through the corridors of the hospital, searching for a room that was secure enough to hide in.

  Most of the doors in the hospital were still on their hinges, though about half of them had their locks broken or their handles smashed. A moment of frantic searching passed without results, then Yuri pushed open a pair of thick steel doors leading into a large open room. Rows of seats were arranged in a high half circle around the center of the room where a damaged surgical table sat. Broken lights dangled from above the table, their shadows lending an eerie ambience to the room in the glow of Yuri and Dimitri’s flashlights.

  “Quick, up the stairs! We’ll hide back there!” Dimitri pointed up the side of the theater-style seating to a small room that overlooked both the seats and the surgical area. Hurrying up the stairs, Dimitri and Yuri scrambled to get into the room as quickly as possible. A few chairs lay toppled on the floor, remnants of the control room for the surgical theater where technicians could monitor operations without being in the way of either the doctors or the students in the seats below. Dimitri slid down on the floor next to Yuri, pulling the door to the technician’s booth closed behind him.

  As their breathing slowed, Yuri and Dimitri’s ears grew used to the silence in the room. Gunfire continued to echo far in the distance, sounding like the faint popping of firecrackers through the thick walls of the hospital. Yuri whispered to Dimitri, fearful for what might happen next.

  “It sounds like they’re still outside. Maybe they won’t find us down here.”

  “I’m more worried about what might be chasing us, and about my arm. We’d be lucky if the soldiers found us.” Dimitri lifted the dressing on his arm, wincing at the pain. His wound was inflamed around the edges, signifying that an infection had started to set in. While it was still treatable, he needed to get to a doctor soon before it got any worse.

  Yuri tried to look at Dimitri’s arm but was pushed back as Dimitri covered it back up, not wanting to cause undue worry in his younger cousin. “It’s fine, don’t worry about it. I just need to see a doctor soon.”

  Commotion from the hallway outside the door made the pair grow silent again as they waited to see what would happen next. Minutes ticked by without any s
ound aside from a scratching that seemed to travel back and forth down the hallway. The scratching was occasionally accompanied by the sound of footsteps. The gunshots had ceased briefly before the noises began, and Yuri began to wonder if the sounds in the hallway could be the soldiers they had heard firing outside.

  “Yuri, do you have the Kalash?” Dimitri’s question came as a surprise to Yuri, who assumed that Dimitri had held on to the weapon.

  “No, you had it, remember?”

  Dimitri was quiet, and Yuri tried to remember the last time he had seen his cousin with the rifle. Realization dawned on Yuri as he recalled their brief rest at the greenhouse, where Dimitri had taken off the rifle to be more comfortable as they sat down.

  Before Yuri could pose a question to Dimitri, his cousin was already pushing himself up. He crept out the door and moved silently down the stairs, ignoring Yuri’s wild hand and facial gestures begging him to stop. With his arm infected and in pain, Dimitri knew he had to take a risk to try and get both Yuri and himself out of the city as quickly as possible. If there were soldiers in the building, then it was very possible that he could reason with them. Without the rifle he would be vulnerable to whatever had been chasing them, but despite the lack of protection, Dimitri had made up his mind about what he had to do.