S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Southern Comfort (41 page)

“
Stoi!
Lower your weapons!”

Signaling his peaceful intentions, Tarasov halts his steps. He shoulders his rifle and waves to the heavily armed Stalker guarding a road block. Beyond the low wall of sand bags, a fire blazes in what was once a tank’s engine compartment. The flames cast a flickering light onto the massive, strike-marked mud walls nearby. Raindrops sizzle as they meet the flames. Another Stalker is watching them from the hatch of the wreck, his long-barreled shotgun ready to fire.

“We seek no trouble,” the major says.

“What’s your business here?”

“Whatever it is, it’s not about standing here in the rain with two would-be Rambos pointing their shooters at us,” Squirrel impatiently says. ”Come on, Dima, I’ve tamed this soldier boy. We’re passing through and seek shelter for the night.”

“Squirrel! I didn’t recognize you. Get into the compound, brothers!”

Passing the wrecked, trackless tank, they arrive at the gate of a building surrounded by a high wall. More Stalkers guard the entrance.

“Come in! Don’t stand there,” one of them says, gesturing to him. A sign on the gate says
’NO WEAPONS BEYOND THIS POINT’
in English, apparently ignored by everyone.

There is a campfire inside, lit up in a fuel drum riddled with bullet-holes, that casts a dim light into the compound. Another wrecked vehicle that Tarasov recognizes as a US-made personnel carrier sits close by. A few Stalkers are sitting under what had been a veranda once upon a time, trying to find cover from the rain pouring through the holes like bullets from a machine gun. From the wilderness outside, jackals’ howls pierce the drumming sound of rain and Tarasov thinks that nothing in the world would tempt him to swap position with the guards walking along the walls. He notices that apart from the Stalkers hiding under the veranda, who look like rookies, most men wear better armor and heavier weapons than those in Bagram.

“Get me out of this hellhole,” a rookie Stalker groans. “I swear to God, I am done with artifacts and stashes and loot. I only want to get out of here!”

“Hey bro,” another one says, reaching out to Squirrel. “I’ll give you my shotgun and two medikits if you guide me back to Bagram!”

“Pull yourself together, man,” the guide snarls back, shaking the Stalker’s hand off.

“I can’t… not since I saw them taking Danylo away. I told him not to wear that damned dushman armor but he said it’s still better than a leather jacket… since then they must have ripped him to pieces!”

“What are you talking about?” Tarasov asks.

“The Tribe… they are close. I heard the bell and ran. I want to get out of here… If only someone could help me!”

“You heard the –
what?
”

“The bell of the Tribe! Those cannibals must have been out on a man hunt!”

Inside the building a few petroleum lights fight the shadows. Someone has improvised a table from a simple wooden board laid on two fuel drums. The Stalker standing at it, nursing a half-empty bottle of vodka, looks familiar.

“Skinner?” Tarasov asks, stepping closer. “Is that you?”

“Yep,” the renegade Dutier reluctantly replies.

“I’m glad you made it through here. How are you doing?”

“Spare me the bullshit, Major. A buddy of mine, Vaska, was supposed to return yesterday from a raid. Still no trace of him. ‘Nuff said… if you need company, talk to the Shrink. I’m not into gum-beating right now.”

Tarasov shrugs and turns towards the stout Stalker manning the bar. Seeing the major approaching, the barkeeper stops wiping the shot glasses and looks at him with smart, curious eyes.

“At last one who doesn’t smell like he’s shit his pants,” he says by way of greeting to the major. “Welcome to the Asylum, soldier. I’m Borys the Shrink.”

“Why do they call you a shrink?”

“Because I can heal your brains with vodka or your rifle with ammo. Seeing that you still have your wits, it’s obviously ammo that you need.”

“Ammo is not exactly my problem.”

“So you want to talk? Vodka, then. Here you go.”

The local vodka tastes purer and cooler than in Bagram, and Tarasov licks his lips as the spirit flows down his throat, creating pleasant warmth inside his body.

“That’s good stuff you have here. What is this place?”

“It used to be a fortress and then a prison, until some Western do-gooders turned it into an asylum. That was back before the nukes went off. Now it’s a fitting place for those who were crazy enough to go farther out and lucky enough to make it back.”

“Gone farther? I heard there’s a place called Shahr-i-Gholghola to the west...”

“That’s correct. About two or three days’ march from here.”

“Have you been there?”

“No.” The Shrink leans over the bar and lowers his voice. “That’s where Skinner’s buddy went… People say it was freaky enough before the Bush war began, after the Taliban blasted those big Buddhas away, but recently…” The barkeeper cuts his sentence short. “This is no kindergarten here like Bagram. Frankly, sometimes I’m glad we have the Tribe between us and that place.”

“The Tribe? That’s why everyone’s so scared around here?”

“They aren’t scared, they just haven’t had enough to drink… anyhow, to answer your question: the Tribe is a bad enough neighbor but things got really weird recently. A few days ago, a Stalker appeared. He was gone for many days and we all presumed him dead, saying toasts to his memory and all, and then he came back. He was not happy to see us again, though… he opened fire on us. His own friends had to shoot him.”

Tarasov is too absorbed in the vodka’s calming effect to say anything compassionate. “Such is life in the…
New
Zone. Give me and my guide another shot.”

“Cheers! Wouldn’t be much of an event if killing him had been easy, but he kept standing up again and again like a freaking zombie. I had to apply the strongest remedy I know.”

“And that would be?”

“Emptying a full magazine of nine millimeter bullets into his brain.”

“I see… anyway, have you seen a Stalker called Crow around? He uses an SVD and wears a camouflage coat. Black balaclava, cold eyes, slightly necromantic... I mean, he likes putting half-smoked cigarettes into the mouths of people he has just killed and stuff like that. Well trained, probably ex-military. Know anyone like that?”

“Let me think… Maybe you mean that Loner who was waiting for some soldier boy in a Berill armor suit who was fond of vodka, had a cynical, bossy attitude, and kept trying to squeeze others for information? Sounds like you and must be you,” the barkeeper says with a smirk. “He arrived in a hurry from Bagram two days ago, then went to raid a patrol of mercs – or at least that’s what he said. He was waiting for you afterwards but disappeared again. There’s a pen drive he left here for you… Here it is.”

Tarasov plugs the device into his PDA and a new message appears on the screen.

Hey, Condor. I wanted to make sure this didn’t get to your PDA before you reached Ghorband. It wouldn’t have been nice if the wrong person had found it after killing you. Proceed two klicks to the west, where you’ll find a memorial and the wreck of an APC. Check the engine compartment – there’s a stash. The Shrink is cool but don’t forget to delete this message anyway. I have to hurry back to the Shamali Plains - I have a feeling the place will turn hot soon. C.

“Do you know where to find Crow?”

“No. He’s a strange character, coming and going without telling anyone where he goes and what he is up to. I even heard rumors that he was with the Monolith once.”

“What? He told me he had never been to the Zone!”

The Shrink fills his own vodka glass. “A Stalker with something to hide about his past? Never heard of such a thing,” he says with an ironic smile and gulps down the drink. “But they don’t call me Shrink for nothing. See, he hates Bone’s guts but is too level-headed to be a Freedomer. He is too good a shot to be an ordinary Stalker, but can’t be Spetsnaz or SBU because if he were you wouldn’t be looking so dumbfounded now. So, tell me: what can he be, if he doesn‘t fit into any of the clans here or back in the old Zone?”

“I don’t want to believe what you are hinting at,” Tarasov replies, narrowing his eyes.

“You talk like a Stalker I once treated. He didn’t want to believe that his primordial hate of bloodsuckers was just a reflection of his feelings towards his ex-wife who had bled him dry when they divorced. But after the second bottle of vodka… bingo! Vodka is the ultimate truth serum, did you know?”

Tarasov turns to Squirrel. “Would you believe that? Former Monolithians walking around in the New Zone?”

The guide shakes his head. “Nope, man. But frankly – I would sooner prefer the Monolith than the Tribe.”

Tarasov shrugs. “Anyway… at least Crow, or whatever his real name might be, seems to be on our side. But now, tell me – do you know of a way around the Tribe’s territory?”

“No way, man. I agreed to guide you here, not beyond. Sorry.”

“And you, Shrink?”

“The only safe way to avoid the Tribe is to go back to Bagram and forget about the western approaches.”

“Then I do have a serious problem,” Tarasov sighs.

“I’m listening…”

“Never mind, Shrink. Is there a place where we can spend the night?”

“Suit yourself and help yourself. We have enough empty cells… but the rubber room will cost you extra. That’s the only one with its roof intact!”

Wilderness, 2 October 2014, 11:40:52 AFT

“I don’t mind missing the view, seeing as this fog keeps us hidden from any enemies… but I wouldn’t mind a little break either, man.”

Tarasov agrees with Squirrel. The road is shrouded in a fog so dense that a pack of jackals could be just a few meters away and they would never see them. The ghosts of occasional bushes and stunted trees emerge from the surrounding gloom wherever they had grown close to the road, but apart from that there’s nothing to see.

“Should be coming into a built-up area soon, according to the PDA,” the Stalker reports.

Tarasov nods, not relying on his eyes so much as his ears to detect problems. But the world is almost silent thanks to the deadening effects of the fog bank.

Soon the gray walls of a lonely building appear along the road. It might have been a traffic check-point long ago.

“This place is as good as any,” the guide says, sitting down under a bullet-riddled metal sign that says
‘DANGER! MINES! KEEP TO MARKED ROAD’
. “I wish we could make a campfire.”

“Later. Let’s move during daylight as much as we can.”

“We better find them soon, man… I have a serious case of itching in my index finger and it can only be relieved by pulling the trigger. Do you have a plan for how we do this?”

“It depends, Squirrel. We have to recon that stronghold first.”

“I only ask because I have a plan already.”

“Please, do share it then.”

“We move in, kill everyone, loot the place and get out of there. That’s step one. Then we sell all the loot in Bagram and become dirty filthy rich. That’s step two. Then I fuck all the whores in
Kiev
and die a happy man from physical exhaustion. That would be step three. What do you think, man?”