S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Southern Comfort (34 page)

“Damn! After playing Call of Duty so many times it amazes me how inaccurate an AK-47 is in reality. Anyway, at last it’s time to get into the real stuff!”

Tarasov smiles.
Hello, Mac,
he thinks
. Nice to meet you
.

The notes he can decipher tell of missions, fights with mutants, expeditions with rookies, experienced Stalkers, and claims the owner has been everywhere in the Zone whilst under the protection of Uncle Yar, whom he had joined on his trip to the south in search of a new bonanza of artifacts. Tarasov smiles when a few familiar names appear – Sidorovich, the Barkeep, Loki from Freedom and General Voronin from Duty. On one of the first pages, he discovers a note mentioning his own base in the Old Zone. It is written in rudimentary Russian, mixed with words in a language he doesn’t understand but guesses to be Spanish.

“Day 3, 2014. S. warned me not to perform what Sidorovich asked me. He said that the Cordon base has new commander and it is not longer the…
un completo desastre (¡Maldita sea! ¿Por qué esta maldita PDA no viene con un diccionario incorporado?) and that no matter how much Sidorovich promises to pay I should not attempt to steal those documents. I better skip this task.”

Praising the young Stalker for his wise decision and cursing Sidorovich’s shady business deals at the same time, Tarasov keeps on browsing through the pages. The language and vocabulary of the notes improves from page to page. Some early notes have been written entirely in the Stalker’s native tongue, but in the end the notebook tells of a steep learning curve in using the Russian language. A note around the middle of the notebook tells of an ill-fated trip to the CNPP.

“I reached that damned crystal dick and it messed everything up & now that mechanic of Freedom is my only hope. Damn this wish granter shit!!! Damn the Zone! Now it turned my most secret wish against me. Fuck this - I can barely walk and this crap is weighing me down but I would be an idiot to leave it here for the fucking Monolith, or the next moron who comes up here to make a wish & gets screwed up like me.”

Later notes tell about the journey of the kid and Yar to the new Zone, posing as tourists in
Uzbekistan
, buying their way into the new Zone and finally to Bagram. To his disappointment, the language of the last notes returns to Spanish, giving him no clue as to why the kid left Bagram or where he went. He turns to the Captain.

“Captain Ivanov, where and when did you find this? I hope it was not on a corpse.”

“No, no. I heard someone coming and hid. Next morning I found it.”

“You’re ready to enter a bloodsucker’s lair armed only with a staff, but a Stalker scares you?”

“A – what?”

“A human.”

“I know bloodsuckers. But about men – one can never know.”

“You have a point about that,” Tarasov replies and turns to his companions who are lying on the ground, exhausted. “Hey, you two! Ready to go?”

“Must we? I’m dog tired,” Squirrel whines. “It’s getting dark now. Let’s make camp and continue tomorrow!”

“I guess it’s pitch dark in that lair anyway. Let’s move.”

Ilchenko and the Stalker grumble with discontent as they get up, but follow him to the cave entrance. The Captain, however, grabs Tarasov’s rucksack, halting him.

“We need fire first.”

He takes a small pouch from the pocket of his duster. Carefully, as if handling a great treasure, the Captain unfolds the dirty linen and removes a pair of broken eyeglasses. He plucks a few branches from the nearest brush and starts collecting sunshine in the glass.

“Hey grandpa, if you don’t mind – I have something better.” Squirrel kneels down and, using a lighter, gets a small fire going in a second.

“Nice… very nice!” The Captain says admiring the lighter.

“You can have it if you want to,” Squirrel generously says.

The Captain waves it off.

“I played with that when I was a little child. Now I have better fire.”

He takes a small, black object from his knapsack and fixes it into a nook at the point of his staff. Looking closer, Tarasov’s eyes open wide. It is a black stone, shaped into the form of a blade as if crafted by cavemen. The Captain holds the chopped stone into the fire. After a few seconds, it glows, illuminated from inside and emitting a small sphere of light.

“This is my torch,” he says, giving Tarasov a proud smile from his toothless mouth.

“I have never seen an artifact used like that before,” Squirrel says in awe.

“You like it, young man? Good! I like it too. Bloodsucker does not like it.”

The Captain wraps the Talib turban’s end over his mouth and steps inside the lair. Tarasov follows him. As soon as he is inside, an unbearable stench hits his nose: the stink of rotten meat, dry blood and animal feces.

“Gas masks on,
rebyata
!”

Bloodsucker lair, 18:27:30 AFT

Tarasov finds his night vision equipment has been rendered useless by the unnaturally bright glow emitted by the Captain’s artifact. He reluctantly switches on his head lamp and gives a sign to Squirrel and Ilchenko to do the same.

I hate such tunnels,
he thinks as they proceed in the narrow cave shaft
. No space for flanking or maneuvering, only backward and forward.

“Ilchenko, keep your shooter’s barrel out of my back,” Squirrel whispers.

“Maybe you should move quicker, you lame duck?”

The Captain turns to them and puts his finger on his lips. “Quiet! Bloodsuckers have bad eyes but sharp ears,” he whispers.

“We do know that, Captain. But we should hear them coming – they try to scare the shit out of their prey with a howl before they attack.”

The Captain frowns. “Then you haven’t met a bloodsucker here, Major.”

“Squirrel! Why didn’t you say anything about this? You’re supposed to be our guide, after all!”

“Sorry, man, but I supposed you already knew everything!”

Damn it,
Tarasov thinks,
of course, that’s what Degtyarev mentioned during the briefing.

“Shit! Sneaky bloodsuckers are the last thing we need. All right, one more reason for you two to stop teasing each other. Let’s move on!”

Walking with steps as quiet as possible on the rocky and sandy ground, they proceed. The Captain’s artifact lights up just a small part of the cave, as if they were walking in a sphere of dim, red glow.

“Stay in the light.”

Tarasov moves closer to the old man, wondering if staying close to the glowing artifact is a good idea. It gives more light than their headlamps would alone, giving them a better chance to avoid stumbling in the hazardous ground, but it could also make it easier for a bloodsucker – or anything else that might lurk in the dark caves – to detect them. However, his better judgment tells him to rely completely on the Captain who is leading them through a maze of tunnels with firm steps, never hesitating before taking turns into shafts to the left and right where no one but him would know which direction to take. Tarasov hopes that the old man’s sense of direction doesn’t fail him, since the only thing he can detect is that they seem to be gradually ascending.

After long minutes of sneaking and climbing, they reach a point where the tunnel widens. Tarasov grimaces under his gas mask when he sees a dead body on the ground, the torn Stalker suit bearing the marks of huge claws. Thousands of flies swarm around it.

“Squirrel, fall back into line!” Tarasov whispers angrily when the guide moves to inspect the pockets on the dead Stalker’s body armor. “This is no time for scavenging.”

“But…”

“Shh! Quiet!” The Captain says in a low voice. “I heard something!”

Now Tarasov can hear it too – it’s a muted roar coming from the depths of the tunnel lying ahead. Instinctively, he raises his weapon.

“If we hear it, we don’t need to fear it,” the Captain whispers. “It means that the bloodsucker has not detected us. Howl is good, but silence is deadly.”

“I hate bloodsuckers,” Squirrel whispers back. “Especially sneaky ones.”

The long, tedious march takes its toll on Tarasov’s energy. Walking is easy on the hard ground and the ascent is mostly non-exertive, but constantly keeping his eyes peeled and ears pricked becomes more and more exhausting as the time passes. As his mental energy depletes, a creepy sense of claustrophobia sets in.

Damn this spelunking… these narrow shafts sap on my energy with every step I take, no matter of the Emerald I carry.

He delights at the sight of the tunnel widening again into a long, oval-shaped space, and is already considering a short break when he sees the Captain freeze in his steps. Then he hears the noise of footsteps approaching them.

“Jesus Christ, here it comes!”

He doesn’t need Squirrel’s desperate scream to realize the danger. In the red glow of the Captain’s artifact, the shadow of a bloodsucker appears on the rocky wall only a few meters to their right. Tarasov raises his rifle to shoot but the Captain’s fragile figure is standing between him and the mutant.

“Bloodsucker! Hold it! Don’t approach!”

Tarasov is about to shout for the old man to get to the ground so that he has a clear shot, but realizes that it’s not him or his comrades the Captain is talking to – he is directing his words to the mutant.

“Hold your fire,” the major whispers to his companions. “Hold your fire!”

The Captain raises the staff holding the glowing artifact higher and steps forward.

“Move away,
kravasos
… move.”

With eyes wide open from dread and surprise, Tarasov watches the mutant’s shadow taking a step backwards, as if mesmerized by the artifact’s light. With a nod of his head, the Captain signals them to proceed.

Cautiously, they walk by the Captain who still keeps the artifact high and close to the bloodsucker’s snout where Tarasov can now see his eyes reflecting the light. When Ilchenko, the last man in their row, has reached the far end of the cavern, the Captain slowly takes a step back. Still facing the mutant he seems to hold under his command, he retreats towards them with slow, cautious steps.

“Now go away,” the Captain says in an almost fatherly tone of voice. “Go away until your sight returns.”

“I’ll be damned,” Tarasov exclaims. “Did you actually blind that beast?”

But before the Captain could answer, Ilchenko steps forward. “A blinded mutant is good but a dead mutant is better.”

Before Tarasov can bark to him a quick order to hold his fire, the machine gunner pulls the trigger on the PKM.

After the long silence the machine gun’s fire is deafening, made even more thunderous by the echo in the cave. Guided more by instinct than reason, Tarasov also opens fire, aiming his rifle from the hip at the center of the mutant’s shadow. Emitting a cry of pain, the Captain falls to the ground. Now Squirrel’s AK joins the fire. The shadow approaches them as their bullets hit the still invisible body. Blood splashes from ever more visible wounds and now the mutant emits a dreadful, long howl. Then it falls, swirling up clouds of dust as it hits the ground. A few seconds later, the natural color of its body appears as the mutant’s brain, which made it appear invisible by whatever mysterious ability it possessed, finally dies.

“No, no, no,” the Captain moans. “Why?”