METRO 2033 (74 page)

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.

 

 

 

After catching his breath for a minute, he listened, trying to detect the heartrending howl of the dark ones. The Botanical Gardens were not far from here, and Artyom couldn’t understand why these beasts had not reached their station along the surface before now. Everything was quiet, but somewhere in the distance wild dogs howled sadly. Artyom didn’t want to run into them. If they had managed to survive on the surface all these years, something must have distinguished them from the dogs the metro residents kept.

Moving a little further away from the entrance to the station, he discovered something strange: a shallow, crudely dug trench encircled the pavilion. A stagnant dark liquid filled it as if it were a tiny moat. Jumping the trench, Artyom approached one of the kiosks and looked inside. It was completely empty. On the floor was broken glass. Everything else had been taken. He investigated several other kiosks, until he stumbled onto one which promised to be more interesting than the others. Outwardly, it resembled a tiny fortress: it was a cube welded from thick sheets of iron with a tiny window made of plate glass. A sign over the window read ‘Currency Exchange’. The door was secured with an unusual lock. It wasn’t opened with a key, but with the correct digital combination. Approaching the little window, Artyom tried to open it, but he couldn’t. He noticed some faded handwriting on the windowsill. Forgetting the danger, Artyom turned on his flashlight. It looked as if whoever had written it had been left handed but he was able to read the uneven letters. It said, ‘Bury me the human way. Code 767.’ And as soon as he understood what it might mean, an angry chirr was heard overhead. Artyom recognized the sound right away. The flying monsters above Kalinskiy had cried exactly like that. He hastily put out the flashlight, but was too late: he heard the call again, directly above him.

Artyom desperately looked around, searching for somewhere to hide. He decided to try the numbers written on the windowsill. Pressing the buttons with the digits in the necessary sequence, he pulled the handle toward him. He’d been right. A dull click was heard inside the lock, and the door gave with difficulty, creaking on its rusty hinges. Artyom wriggled inside, locked himself in and again turned on his light. In a corner, resting with its back to the wall, sat the shrivelled mummy of a woman. It was squeezing a thick felt-tip pen in one hand, and in the other a plastic bottle. The walls were covered with neat female handwriting from top to bottom. An empty tin of pills, bright chocolate wrappers and soda cans lay on the floor, and in a corner stood a half-opened safe. Artyom wasn’t afraid of the corpse. He felt only pity for the unknown girl. For some reason he was sure that it was a girl. The cry of the flying beast was heard once more, and then a powerful blow on the roof shook the kiosk. Artyom fell to the floor, waiting.

The attack was not repeated, and the squeals of the creature began to grow more distant, so he decided to stand up. When it came down to it, he was able to hide as long as he liked in his shelter: the girl’s corpse had not been disturbed all this time, though certainly enough hunters had feasted on those around it. Of course, he might have been able to kill the monster, but he would have had to go outside. And if he missed or the beast turned out to be armoured, a second chance wouldn’t present itself. It was more reasonable to wait for Ulman. If he was still alive.

Artyom began to read the handwriting on the walls to pass the time. ‘I write because I am bored and so I don’t go insane. I’ve been sitting in this stall for three days already and I am afraid to go outside. I have seen ten people who were not able to run into the metro, they suffocated and are lying right in the middle of the street even now. It’s good that I managed to read in the paper how to glue adhesive tape to the seams. I will wait until the wind carries the cloud away. They wrote that there won’t be any more danger after a day. 9 July. I tried reaching the metro. Some kind of iron wall starts beyond the escalator. I wasn’t able to lift it and no matter how much I beat on it, no one opened it. I started feeling really bad after ten minutes, so I came back here. There are many dead around. Everything is horrible, they are all swollen up and they smell. I broke the glass in a grocery stall and took the chocolate and mineral water. Now I won’t starve to death. I have felt terribly weak. I have a safe full of dollars and roubles and nothing to do with them. That’s strange. It turns out they are only bits of paper. 10 July. They have continued bombing. An awful roar was heard all day to the right, from Prospect Mir. I thought no one was left, but yesterday a tank passed at a high speed. I wanted to run out and attract their attention, but I couldn’t. I really miss Mom and Leva. I’ve been throwing up all day. Later I fell asleep. 11 July. A horribly burnt man has passed by. I don’t know where he has been hiding all this time. He was forever crying and wheezing. It was really awful. He went toward the metro, then I heard a loud bang. Most likely he was knocking on that wall, too. Then everything went quiet. Tomorrow I’ll go take a look and see whether they opened it for him or nor.’

A new blow shook the booth - the monster wasn’t giving up on its catch. Artyom staggered and nearly fell on the dead body, barely able to hold himself up by grabbing onto the counter. Bending down, he waited another minute, then continued reading.

‘12 July. I’m not able to leave. I’m shivering, I don’t understand whether I am sleeping or not. I was talking to Leva for an hour today and he said he will marry me soon. Then Mom arrived and her eyes were flowing. Then I was left alone again. I’m so lonely. When it all ends, when will they rescue us? Some dogs are here and are eating the corpses. Finally, thank you. I have been throwing up. 13 July. There’s still some canned food, chocolate and mineral water, but I don’t want it any more. It’ll be another year before life returns to normal. The Great Patriotic War went on for 5 years. Nothing can be longer. Everything will be OK. They will find me. 14 July. I don’t want it any more. I don’t want it any more. Bury me the human way, I don’t want to be in this damned iron box . . . It’s cramped. Thanks for the Phenazepam. Good night.’

Alongside was some more handwriting, but ever more incoherent and ragged, and drawings: imps, young girls in large hats or bows, human faces. ‘Obviously she was hoping that the nightmare that she survived would soon be over,’ Artyom thought. ‘A year or two, and everything would come full circle, everything would be as it was before. Life would go on and everyone would forget about what had happened. How many years have passed since then? Mankind has only further distanced itself from returning to the surface during this time. Did she dream that only those who managed to get down into the metro would survive?’