Where the path leads through a wider water surface, he can see a searchlight in the night.
The Pump Station. I wonder who is occupying it now, with Clear Sky’s troops obliterated.
He has almost reached the next patch of solid ground when two bright dots appear in the darkness. Immediately, he raises his fist to signal a halt.
“Stop!” Finn Sawyer shouts behind him.
That’s great. Yes, make sure even blind dogs know we’re here, if they can’t see the headlamps and smell us in the rain.
Ignoring the rainwater flowing down his forehead and making his eyes itch, he kneels and aims the TOZ shotgun to where the two dots appeared. It could be a boar. Any other mutant. Or his tired eyes playing a trick on him.
“Nothing. Move on.”
They reach a flat area that stands out from the murky swamp like a little island. Fragments of concrete protrude from the earth here and there. He stops behind one, where he would be covered at least from one side, and waits for the others. To Tarasov’s reassurance, his companions follow him closely.
Good. After all none of us is a rookie.
He leads on, wiping off water from the PDA display. The faint light from the screen casts an eerie light upon his face.
Now, from the island with the concrete circles, to the east. Deeper into the Swamp. Damn! I hope my memory doesn’t fail.
The growl from behind them is louder than the storm.
“What?”
He hears the Top shout and fire his rifle. Sawyer, guided by the instinct of a real hunter, steps aside to give him a free line of sight. The two dots glowing in the darkness are now not just a reflection. Neither are the other four or six approaching them.
Hartman’s rifle fires ones more, then Pete’s.
“Watch out for Nooria!” Tarasov yells.
“Don’t panic, mate! Uncle Finn is here!”
Sawyer’s yell is followed by a thundering shot from his heavy bolt-action rifle.
Tarasov himself doesn’t dare fire his TOZ. It is loaded with buckshot and if fired, the pellets could hit any of his companions.
Sawyer fires once more while the two other rifles are being reloaded. Realizing that they are covered at their back, Tarasov turns forward, just in time to for his headlamp to fall on the biggest boar he ever saw charging at him.
His first shot is fired by instinct and misses. The second one is aimed. The mutant growls louder. It shakes its head, as if trying to shake the pain off. Tarasov takes two steps back and frantically reloads the two barrels, but not fast enough to raise the gun once more and effectively fire it.
Nooria’s blade flashes. Growling, the boar turns to charge through its new enemy that has cut a long wound into its hide. Tarasov fires both shells into the black hulk of the mutant that now appears in his headlamp’s light at point-blank range. The boar raises its head once more when another shot thunders.
About twenty meters behind them, the Top stands like a statue, still aiming his rifle at the dead boar.
“Ace, mate! Shot that bloody hogzilla right in the head!”
“I was aiming at you, actually,” comes the Top’s reply. “Say mate once more and I’ll fire my second shell. It fucking nerves me.”
“Sorry, mate!”
Pete quickly steps between the Top and Sawyer. Tarasov sees a grin on his face.
“Nooria, you all right?” he shouts.
“Yes.”
“Next time, don’t do that! I could have shot you!”
“You didn’t.”
“All right, fall back into line, everyone!”
“Wait! What about the fangs? It was my first Zone boar! And one bloody difficult to kill!”
“Everyone includes you, mate!” Tarasov shouts back angrily.
Damn. They seem to be on the edge. Except Nooria and that indestructible Australian.
Tarasov wipes the water from his face. “Step up! Let’s go!”
Hours pass. The process becomes a toil and their boots heavy from mud. As Tarasov’s body tires, the straps of the rucksack seem to cut deeper into his shoulders. His mind weakens also, having half of his attention on the anomaly detector, the other half on the Geiger counter, and whatever strength is left in his mind above that put into his eyes and sense of perception.
The PDA map shows him only brown patches of isolated land among darker areas of swamp water where they could sink at the first wrong step. There is no marker for the place he is looking for. The known landmarks are too far to give him any idea about the way to take. He decides to continue eastwards.
Heavy rain continues to pound relentlessly. By now there’s barely a difference between solid soil and yielding swamp beneath their steps.
Tarasov stops for a moment to recollect himself. He is about to reach for his canteen when, seemingly out of nowhere a pseudodog appears in the weakening light of his headlamp. He gasps and raises his rifle but his index finger remains motionless on the trigger.
“Don’t shoot!”
Maybe it is the shape of the mutant’s head, or one of its pointed ears bending downwards that makes it appear familiar. Maybe just the fact that it doesn’t attack them. But it’s the dog-like bark that makes this one differ most from similar beasts. Tarasov repeats the order. “Don’t shoot at this one!”
The pseudodog barks once more and darts off to the west, in the opposite direction Tarasov was about to take. After a moment, it barks at them and disappears to the west again.
This cannot be. No. But then…
He waves to the others and turns westwards where the pseudodog went. Loud barks help him keep on the mutant’s track. The ground gradually becomes more solid and the reed sparser as they walk.
Then they reach an open area. The eyes of their unlikely guide light up once more in the darkness before it runs off toward a light that gleams in the distance like a firefly.
A big smile comes over Tarasov’s tired face.
The Zone. This is only possible by the Zone’s will. We are saved.
Soon, the dark silhouette of a wrecked helicopter appears in the light of flashing thunder. Not far behind it there is a wooden cabin, its dark features wreathed in fog. The light they have seen comes from a window.
As they approach the cabin, the thatched roof and white window frames make it appear similar to the decaying homes in the abandoned villages found all over the Exclusion Zone. This appears intact though.
“Who the hell lives here?” Pete asks, sniffling and wiping his nose from where rainwater is dripping. “A mutated Tom Bombadil?”
Tarasov walks up to the door and knocks. Seeing the polite gesture that appears to be completely out of place here, his companions share puzzled looks.
The door opens and light falls outside. It makes Tarasov twinkle, yet he immediately recognizes the old man standing in front of him. He is unarmed, either because he expects nothing and nobody hostile or has nothing and nobody to fear.
The old man strokes the white stubble on his cheek as he looks his unexpected visitors up and down. Then a smile appears on his wrinkled face. The pseudodog who guided them to the house sits at his feet, panting and dropping saliva from its formidable snout.
“Glad to have found you at last,” Tarasov says for a greeting with a beaming smile on his muddy and rain-soaked face. “Long time no see, Doctor!”
39
Staring out of the window in a locked room, Strelok can’t tell what looks gloomier—the heavy rain outside or his reflection on the glass.
He realized soon enough that Maksimenko knows a thing or two about psychological torture; at least to him, being kept in a locked room where a small TV set was the only means of comfort already equaled to torture. Maksimenko didn’t even provide him with a bottle of vodka. Deprived of freedom and alcohol, all he can do now is zap between mind-numbing late-night TV shows and wait for the captain.