Captured
More about Shovelās story. Here you can read how much fun she has after the way things ended in the last installment.Ā
The world was reduced to an explosion of pain. The side of his head throbbed with a burning sensation and his ear felt like someone dripped molten metal over it. Was he sitting or lying down? He couldnāt remember, although it felt like he was lying on a cold surface. He didn't even know if he had his eyes closed or if he was blinded or just in a dark room. The ringing in his ears was most disorienting too.
There was a certain sense of urgency beneath the pain, like he was forgetting something important. Evgenii tried to remember, but it was hard to focus. He slowly brought his hand to the side of his head and his fingers landed on a wet and sticky patch. Uh?
Someone shook him. Shovel? "Evgenii! Evgenii!"
No, it wasn't Shovel. Shovel had a long blonde braid, not this short and dark mess of hair. Gecko. Yeah, it was Gecko. She helped him sit up.
"Was I attacked by the bloodsuckers?" His own voice sounded strangely slurred to him.
"No," she shook her head with conviction but her eyes were clouded with worry. "I killed the bloodsucker."
"Good, good." Evgenii tried to nod, but that brought a new wave of pain. He noticed the blood on Gecko's hands. "Are you hurt too?"
"I... it's not mine," Gecko confessed while looking over her shoulder.
So if he hadn't been attacked by the mutants, what had exactly happened? He took a quick peek to where she was looking and saw a figure lying on the floor. Unmoving. In just a second Evgenii came to a terrible conclusion.
"Shovel!" He tried to rush upright and would have fallen down if Gecko hadn't steadied him.
"That's the little doc," Gecko informed him, her voice wavering. "Shovel isn't here."
"What do you mean she isn't here?ā
"When I came from dealing with the bloodsucker Shovel and the bandits were already gone," Gecko explained slowly. "I feared you were dead too."
Doctor Belyavin deserved better, but part of him was glad it wasn't Shovel lying dead. What a mess. Evgenii sighed and brought his hand to his still throbbing temple.
"No, don't do that," Gecko tried to stop him but she wasn't quick enough.
His hand connected with a sticky patch of hair. Evgenii brought his fingers to inspection and saw they were red. He panicked quietly, in a detached way. He didnāt feel capable of panicking loudly yet.
"Don't worry," Gecko said while opening a medpack and rifling through its contents, "it isn't as bad as it seems. Only a bullet graze. And your ear is almost whole!"
That wasn't as reassuring as Gecko imagined. "What happened with my ear?!"
"A bullet nicked part of the shell. Now stay still."
She poured a disinfectant over his wounds and patched him up. As cousin Pasha liked to say, it stung like a motherfucker. He still couldn't wrap his head around the facts. He'd almost been shot in the head! Evgenii didn't know if he'd been spared by a miracle or the bandits just had shitty aim. Either way he was really grateful to God, the Virgin Mary, his guardian angel or whoever it was that saved him from having his head split open.
"Good as new! Well, mostly," Gecko announced with forced cheerfulness.
He went to touch his maimed ear, to know the extent of the damage, and Gecko stilled him with a glare worthy of his motherās collection of glares and frowns.
"Sorry." He apologized out of habit.
An uncomfortable silence settled over them, neither wanting to be the first to bring the issue forward. In the end it was Gecko who broke the silence.
"I'm sorry about Shovel. She seemed like the decent sort."
"She isn't dead." Even Evgenii himself was surprised by the vehemence of his words. "If she was dead they'd leave her body here, right?"
"... there's a possibility, yes," Gecko said after thinking about it. "We could track her PDA."
Evgenii was giddy with relief. Having her agree with him reassured him, it felt less like he was deluding himself. "Wait, we?"
"It's not like the little doc needs my help anymore," she said while sparing a fleeting glance at Belyavin's corpse.
It would be nice if, for a change, Evgenii's next expedition didn't end with someone dead. At this rate he'd soon be known as the Gravedigger. Of course he offered to help her take care of Belyavinās body. It wasnāt something he liked doing, but it was the decent thing to do. They wrapped him in a sleeping bag, like a shroud of sorts, and once Gecko notified the death to the scientists a military team would be sent to retrieve the remains. Much better than trying to carry the corpse up the ladder and drag the bundled body to Yantar.
#
The journey back to consciousness was slow, like waking up from a nasty dream. Although Shovel knew better.
Her head hurt horribly and there was a strange metallic taste in her mouth. The pointy and jagged surface of a pebble dug on her cheek, yet she didn't dare to move. The murmur of two persons talking kept her still. Ex-bandits my ass, she thought utterly furious. Their voices became more defined and less jumbled the longer she was awake.
ā... wouldnāt be like this if you didnāt push Leech down the stairs.ā
āI saw the bloodsucker and panicked!ā
āHe was our fucking ticket to become rich! I canāt believe...ā
At this point she tuned them out, as the hammering in her head worsened with their prattle. Ugh, she felt even worse than that time she got drunk on Irinaās boyfriend homemade moonshine. Ā
The crunch of boots over leaves got closer to her and she closed her eyes again. What did they want of her? Shovel could hazard a guess of what two bandits could want of a girl they abducted, and it wasnāt a pretty picture. The mere thought of it nearly sent her spiralling into an anxiety attack. Perhaps if she fought against it hard enough they'd hit her back to unconsciousness. Shovel entertained no fantasy of being able to overpower both of them unarmed as she was.
A boot prodded her on the ribs. "Wakey wakey."
Terrified out of her wits and with her heart hammering like a war drum, she opened her eyes. The two bandits towered over her like vultures.
"Quick question girl," the one called Noodle said. "Can you hear or not the Monolith?"
Shovel sat up and gaped at him like a fish out of water, unable to formulate an answer. What? That was completely not what she expected.
"Well?" Noodle prodded her while Squint regarded her with barely contained disdain.
"I..." There was no good answer here, was there? Whatever she said would have Consequences. "Ye-es. Yes, I do."
Noodle eyed her dubiously. She didnāt blame him much for that, she wouldnāt believe herself either.
"Really? You were telling another tale before." Time to see if she could bullshit her way through this mess.
"I didn't want them to know. My friends." Shovel looked to the ground and played with the hem of her jacket. "At first I thought the whispers were just my imagination, but then it started calling my name and I was scared to tell anyone about it!"
At least she didn't have to fake her fear, she was terrified enough that it bled into her every word.
"Where do we have to go to find the Monolith?" Noodle asked her, still not convinced.
Uh, according to the rumours people went north in search of the Wish Granter. Was that the same as the Monolith? She hoped so. She only had rumours to build this charade on.
"To... the north?" Shovel made a show of tilting her head to the side, as if she was listening to something only she could hear.
Squint's stormy expression transformed into sickening glee, which oddly made him look no less terrifying than before.
"That's what Leech said!" She let out the breath she had been holding.
"Quite right. You'll guide us.ā Great, surely this wasn't bound to backfire spectacularly at some point. Noodle extended her hand to Shovel and helped her up with a rough pull. āAnd if you lie or disappoint me, Iāll let Squint have a field day with you.ā
As if she wasnāt sufficiently scared! But threats were to be expected, she supposed. However, first there was something she needed to know above everything else.
"What about my f-friends?"
"They might be dead, or some may have survived," Noodle shrugged, completely unconcerned.
Oh no. No. That answer was unacceptable! She refused to believe Evgenii was dead. He was her best friend in this messed up place, he wasn't allowed to die! Shovel wanted to howl and scratch both their eyes out, but she swallowed her fury and nodded curtly. The threats were fresh in her mind.
"C'mon, you'll walk behind me and tell me if we're on the right path. Squint, you on the rear." Noodle instructed, leaving no doubt of who was the leading voice in this group.
They divided her stuff between their backpacks and left nothing to her. Not even the rations or bandages. And of course she was left unarmed.
"Don't I need to carry part of the stuff?"
They laughed at her, assuring her they would take good care of her. Yeah, amazing. Creepy bastards. So Shovel marched between them, praying a Duty patrol would cross their path and kill them. Heck, she'd even settle for being attacked by mutants, it would create a nice distraction for her to run away.
#
Their stay at the ecologistsā camp had been painfully brief. Which Evgenii supposed was good, they had no time to waste if they wanted to catch up with Shovel's group.
The bunker had looked new and shiny from afar, but as they got close he started to notice the chipped paint and the scratches on the metal walls. However, most noticeable was how empty the place was. No guards, no stalkers around, no scientists in brightly coloured protective suits. Nothing. The enclosure around the bunker dwarfed the ugly prefab, accentuating the crushing feeling of emptiness. He'd been glad to leave, impatient to go on in his search and rescue mission. This place wasn't what he had imagined.
Ā "I have to tell Sakharov about Belyavin," Gecko said.
"Are you sure they won't need you around?"
"Not much to do here now," she looked to the deserted enclosure, "and they already have Markov doing the odd job."
Evgenii felt like heād been hit with a hammer on the chest. He hadnāt expected to hear that name again.
"M-Markov?"
"Yeah, you know him? Friendly guy on the surface but kind of distant." Sensing his interest, Gecko pointed him to the back of the enclosure. "Usually hangs there when he's around."
She left him there while she went to deliver the unpleasant news to Sakharov and Evgenii barely noticed her going, too busy thinking if finding Markov now was some kind of signal.
Ā They travelled in near silence, him following Gecko and she checking on her PDA Shovel's position every now and then. Why were they going north? That part of the Zone was rumoured to be even harsher than the rest. The kind of place veteran stalkers didnāt want to visit again. Getting some extra help could have been, well, helpful.
Ā āLet me get this straight, you want to follow the girl to wherever it is sheās going. And you want my help for that?ā Markov laughed in disbelief. āAre you mental?ā
Evgenii clenched his fists and took a deep breath, swallowing his anger and frustration. He knew this had been a bad idea, but since Gecko mentioned him, he felt the need to speak with Markov. And now he understood better than ever Shovelās gleeful talk of smashing a fist into the bastardās face.
āYou owe us big time,ā he reminded to the older stalker, āand I know she hates you for what you did, but Iām gonna need all the help I can get to rescue her. Even yours.ā
Markov looked coldly at him. āI owe nothing to you rookies.ā
That was the last straw. Evgenii was tired, and hurting, and worried for his friend. And this- this asshole, failed him yet again.
āYou abandoned us! Left us to die!ā he poked Markov in the chest with an accusing finger. āDonāt you feel even a tiny bit of remorse? Or is it something you do regularly?ā
āSo your girl-friend gets snatched by bandits, Monolithians or whatever it was, and you want to get her back, but you donāt even have a plan? And you want me to come along for the ride?ā Right now Markov couldnāt sound any more dismissive even if he tried, with a sneer on his ugly mug. āForget it kid. Sheās already dead or will be soon.ā
āIām not leaving my friend for dead because Iām not a coward! Unlike you!ā
Markovās face went a really unflattering shade of red. āGet the fuck outta my face. Now!ā
So that was it. The last remnant of what once had been their friendship was once again snapped and stomped on by Markov. Had they ever been friends in the first place?
āI canāt believe I once looked up to you. How stupid I was.ā
Evgenii stormed off towards the scientistās bunker and away from him, before he did something he might regret. Like drawing his pistol (or crying).
āKid!ā The stalkerās shout infused some hope in him, a brittle feeling that Markov was about to shatter. āMy final advice: Donāt do it. Thatās, by far, the dumbest thing you can ever do. The last one too, most probably.ā
Ā Evgenii clenched his fists. Markov was an asshole and a coward, he wouldn't take advice from him. He was going after Shovel either way, no doubt about it. And Gecko was. They were going to find Shovel and kick those two weirdoās asses. And then he would lead Shovel back to the ecologist camp so she could punch Markov in the face like she always said she wanted to do. Yup.
#
Shovel's day went from bad to worse. Under the unrelenting sun her headache had transformed into a spear of pain going through her skull, and her mouth went dry with a lingering metallic taste. All day long she'd been marching up and down, flanked by dumb and dumber. At least they seemed content with her vague advice to continue north through the main road. Thank God, because if they asked for details sheād have no answers.
They found no one on their way. No stalkers, or other bandits, or mutants. A shame, Shovel was desperately looking for the right moment to run away unnoticed. But it was difficult to do so when it was only they three on the road. To her infinite irritation, she was constantly flanked and watched. Every damn second. Even taking a bathroom break became an ordeal, since convincing them she needed some privacy and that she wasn't going to escape required a lot of haggling.
As if all that wasn't enough, her scalp itched terrible where she'd been hit. And after carefully scratching her head, Shovel confirmed her suspicions: there was a clump of dried blood sticking to her hair. Small pieces of the scab got stuck under her nails as it crumbled under her touch.
So all in all, Shovel could say this had been the worst day of her life. For now at least, she supposed things could always get worse.
They stopped for the night at a rundown building that once upon a long time she supposed it was a factory. Whatever it had been, it had a certain industrial quality to it, although now everything looked like a prison to her. Shovel set her bedroll as far away from them as she was allowed, nearly plastered to the mossy wall.
The two bandits generally ignored her, besides tossing her a can of food with a jolly cry of "A meal fit for a princess!". Shovel glared at the can until she caved in, hunger triumphing over anger. She fantasized about smothering both of them in their sleep while she ate.
"Squint you get second shift." As usual, Noodle imposed his will.
Squint of course took his word as law, and Shovel didn't have any choice. Once again, she was relieved of any duty. If they didn't trust her with a backpack, of course they didn't trust her to have a shift. Perhaps they weren't as dumb as she thought.
Shovel lay down on her bed roll, yet sleep eluded her. She didn't feel safe enough. And no, it wasn't because of the distant whirring of the anomalies on the next room. She was afraid of the bandits might do while she was sleeping. It was a long list of possibilities, each one worse than the other. Not to mention she still hoped to escape unnoticed during the night. So she lay unmoving with her eyes shut and listening to what they did.
Waiting was so, so, SO boring and nerve wracking, though. The hours trickled by and all she did was get more tense, hoping Squint would fall asleep on his watch -he seemed the type- and then... Then what? Accidentally step into an anomaly in the dark? Find a chimera out there and become its dinner? Argh, these situations were much easier in movies.
Much later, when the sun was starting to timidly rise, Shovel realized she could find what happened with Evgenii. Sort of. The PDA had a tracking function, right? Probably one to send a private message too. She just had to make sure no one noticed what she was doing. Her hand inched closer to her pocket, bit by bit, careful to not alert her captors.
"Up, up!" Squint shook Noodle awake. "It's first light, as you wanted."
God damn it! Sheād have to shelve this idea for later. Shovel grunted irritated and pretended to wake up groggy. Everything she did lately was a farce.
#
The truck graveyard was an impressive place, expanding on front of them like a sea of rust, but Evgenii was too frustrated to marvel at the military jeeps or the broken choppers.
"You said we were gonna catch them here!"
Gecko scowled at her PDA like it was the culprit of their constant failure to intercept Shovel. "I don't understand! Their path was clearly coming here, but at the last moment they went to Army Warehouses."
Evgenii threw his arms up on the air with a wordless cry.
"Same as in Rostock," Gecko sighed. "It looked as if they were going to the bar area, but at the last second they changed direction."
Fucking great, their leader was a master of throwing people off of their trail. Almost three days since the bandits kidnapped Shovel, and they were no closer to catching them. He was convinced they shouldn't have stopped in The 100 Rads, but Gecko thought someone might have seen Shovel's group or know something. It was worth a shot, but no such luck. And now they were on the wrong place again.
"C'mon, this way to Army Warehouses."
This string of failures was taking their toll on them. Evgenii was starting to lose hope, and Gecko... Despite taking the role of guide with ease, she looked defeated. If they didnāt catch up with Shovelās group soon, would Gecko quit? She had no real reason for helping him, just her guilt for doctor Ā Belyavinās death. Evgenii hoped he wouldnāt have to find out, he didnāt know how far away heād get on his own.
#
After days of travelling with them, Shovel could say without a doubt that she wished both of them an extremely painful death. These last three days had been a special kind of hell. They kept an eye on her all the time, like hawks circling above a poor rabbit, keeping her on a short leash and looking at her with hunger and suspicion. And her dreams of escaping while they slept soon crumbled to dust, as one always remained awake while the other slept.
On her part, Shovel barely slept in the last days, too worried about everything to close her eyes for more than a few hours. She grew despondent and easily irritated. At first she'd been careful to not antagonize much the bandits. Now she didn't give a damn about it. They put her in charge of finding the path, right? Well, now they had to deal with it.
"No fucking way! Find another way!" Noodle's aggravation brought her a small bout of satisfaction.
"This is the only one I know."
āCyka blyat!ā The bandit swore up a storm as he regarded the proposed path, crossing through heavily patrolled territory. Even Squint, much more gullible than his friend, looked sceptical.
Shovel regarded them stone faced, much calmer than she truly was. "The Monolith demands sacrifice. You didn't think it would be a cake walk, did you?"
Squint nodded at her words. "Leech always said that."
Shovel felt like screaming at his face "I know! You've been repeating this shit for days!", but settled for compressing her lips into a thin line. Truly it was divine providence neither of them had called her out on her constant bluffing.
Noodle pointed at her with his Viper, "If this goes wrong I'll make you wish you'd never set foot in the Zone!"
Yeah, Shovel was already regretting it. Nothing had gone right since she agreed to go on Markov's expedition. Well, she found a good friend in Evgenii but that was it. And she didn't know if he was dead or alive. There had been no opportunity to check her PDA, much less to send any message or track him. In fact, with each day that passed, Shovel grew more certain they were all dead āEvgenii, Gecko and Belyavinā all shot by the bandits or eaten by the bloodsuckers. And if Evgenii was alive, would he be searching for her or would he go back to Cordon and drink one last shot in her memory? After all, that was what most stalkers would do.
These thoughts only worsened her mood, but she had little else to do but think about stuff and try to pick the path that would lead the bandits through the most trouble. Shovel had a rough recollection of the Zone's map thanks to Evgenii's enthusiasm to learn everything possible about the Zone, and so far that knowledge had been very helpful. She tried to always take the path that went closest to any base in the area, or through places she'd heard that were controlled by Duty.
But her hopes remained wishful thinking. Shovel's memories of the map were hazy at best, and it was like walking blindly ahead and hoping she wasn't walking straight to a premature and gruesome death. Ā Not to mention Noodleās last minute corrections and arguments about the path she chose.
Now this area, the Army Warehouses was it? This was completely unknown to her. Eyeing the skirmishes between the military and some stalkers far away on the vast fields before her, Shovel decided she didn't like this place much.
"We'll go around the base and then what? Is the Monolith close?" Squint cheerfully asked her.
How could she know? But her survival depended on this cumbersome lie she struggled to maintain. "It's closer."
This seemed to mollify both of them. A bit. However Noodle still looked unhappy.
"I'm not getting any closer to the fucking base," he said. "We go around that abandoned village and be careful those hippies don't spot us."
Who were supposed to be the hippies, Freedom? Shovel didn't care if they all liked to sing Kumbaya around a campfire while smoking blunts, as long as they rid her of her captors they'd be freaking great, in her opinion.
The abandoned village lay far away from where the stlakers and soldiers were fighting, but it Ā gave off some unexplainable creepy vibes. Incredibly quiet and dead, the houses were sad reminders of life before the Chernobyl incident, abandoned to the elements and slowly crumbling down. There was also something else lurking in the air, something that became clear when they found the shrine. Shovel gasped in shock and then gagged from the stench, it was overpowering even from a distance.
Grotesque as it was, the collection of heads in spikes and the half rotten limbs around the fire was some sort of shrine. A very twisted one, sure. God, what kind of psycho lived here? She had to close her eyes and take a step back, she was this close to emptying her stomach right there. Most worryingly, both Noodle and Squint looked nauseated too. That was a bad sign.
"Who..." Noodle trailed off, too disgusted to speak properly. For once Shovel agreed with him.
"I don't want to stay here," she said from where she was, two steps behind them and looking at the ground.
Shovel didn't care if that sounded too pleading, she wanted to go. Now. And Squint made a strangled noise that could only be interpreted as agreement, or as a warning he was also about to puke. Leaving this travesty of a shrine behind was their priority.
They hadn't taken more than five or six steps when Shovel felt her hair stand on end. Someone was watching them. A pair of unnaturally bright and slanted eyes was looking at them from the nearest house doorway. And Shovel might still be a rookie and greener than grass, but she was one hundred percent sure it wasn't human. Squint saw it too, and reacted with a panicked bellow of "Bloodsucker!ā
The shadowed figure disappeared suddenly, and for a second it was like the air itself was looking at her with evil bright eyes. They all started running madly, Squint shoving Noodle aside in his haste to get away from this cursed village. It could have been Shovel's opportunity to run away from her captors, but in that moment she was only interested in running away from the dangerous mutant. It could be anywhere! Now she was beginning to understand the fear that infused the voice of older stalkers when talking about these monsters.
Their crazed sprint gained momentum when heavy wheezing was heard following them, and on her part Shovel ran like she'd never ran before, with the bandits close behind her. She probably beat some kind of record. Eventually she had to stop, gasping out of breath and feeling a burn in her lungs. The ever loathsome bandits caught up with her, dropping their heavy backpacks in exhaustion and panting like dogs.
"Okay, we got to the fucking forest, now what?" Noodle prodded once more.
A very interesting question, indeed. Now what? Everything around her was pines, sickly looking and looming way above her. It was a small improvement from moments ago, but for a forest it was slightly sinister. She learned a lot about sinister things she arrived to the Zone. The bloodsucker's village was one hill away now, which was undeniable good news. The downside was that Shovel was now even more lost than before. Crap.
Truth be told, she had never planned that far ahead, hoping to get rescued or escape way earlier. If she kept telling them to go north, eventually they'd reach the very radioactive Chernobyl plant, and they'll all miserably die of radiation along the way. Or, avoid it somehow and appear behind Belarusā border. That would be quite the story.
Unfortunately, Noodle wasn't known for his patience, and Squint was looking at her funny too. "Well?"
"Uh..."
She was saved from answering by a rustling between the trees, right behind them, which soon gave way to a pair of heavily armed guys. Didn't look like military, but their gear seemed top notch. Much better than what stalkers usually had. Shovel was surprised to see they wore urban camouflage, that wasn't much useful here. The newcomers looked at them like one might look at a mildly strange bug, but thankfully they hadn't taken their weapons out yet. Noodle and Squint looked back at the stalkers. It was the world's most quiet and tense stalemate. The more this went on, the more Shovel's anxiety grew. Why weren't these guys reacting at all?
"Who sent you."
If the situation was weird before, this guy's emotionless voice was only making it worse. Noodle looked back at them without blinking, while Squint honoured his name and looked at them with unmasked hostility. The only sound Shovel could hear was he own ragged breathing as she looked at the backpack almost touching her left foot.
"The Monolith sent us," Noodle said loudly, like daring them to react.
It was all lies. Running away from a bloodsucker brought them here. That and her bumbling attempts to lead them straight into a Duty patrol.
The oddly dressed stalkers looked blankly at him. "You... not chosen. Not worthy."
This terrifying reply was followed by all them reaching for their respective weapons. At the same moment, Shovel ducked down and grabbed the nearest bag. She started running as the first shot rang, and continued running blindly ahead as the fight went on.
The lowest branches of the trees sometimes smacked her face as Shovel ran, but it didn't matter. She counted another three shots, then one that went past her and instead chipped the trunk of a nearby tree. She had no idea where she was going, the important thing was to get away or she was toast. Searching the contents of the bag while running was complicated, but her hand brushed something hard that could be a pistol, and while it wasn't her beloved hunting rifle, it was comforting to not be unarmed.
She got her feet caught in a wayward root and fell down, crashing against the forest's ground. Someone was running towards her, closer and closer. Shovel barely had time to get the pistol out of the bag and sit up. One of the creepy monotone guys barrelled down through the trees, towards her. Fear got a hold of her, she didnāt have time to move or check if the gun was loaded. Ā
Shovel pulled the trigger.
The man stumbled. He swayed in place before falling down, and it would have been comical if it wasn't for the blood flowing down his throat and the odd angle of his jaw. Ā Shovel stared at him as he went down and never got up, and time seemed to stop.
He was dead.
She had killed him.
He was dead.
Dead.
The world spun around her, dizzying. She was already sitting but Shovel felt like she was going to collapse. Her vision went dark around the edges, a sign she was hyperventilating, so she put her head between her knees and focused on breathing normally.
Breathe in, breathe out.
(She was a murderer)
Breathe in, breathe out.
That man had a life, a family and friends that would never see him again or know what happened. Because of her. It had been so easy, so quick. Hunting usually took her more effort than this! She gurgled a hysterical giggle; she hadn't even aimed the gun!
What would her family do if they could see her now? Would her mother and sister think her a monster? Irina didn't even like her hunting poor little animals, as she said. Would his dad be ashamed of being the one who taught her to hold a weapon? Her broken giggles soon turned into shuddering sobs.
Breathe in, breathe out.
When she calmed enough to think clearly, she realized she was sitting oblivious to her surroundings in an unknown and possibly dangerous forest. Okay, deep breathe and get priorities straight: Ā check where she was, find out what happened to Evgenii and the others, and get out of here post haste. She could do it.
Shovel got up, slightly shaky on her feet. The forest around her was hauntingly quiet, like it was accusing her from disrupting its normal state. Avoiding looking at the body in front of her, she took out her PDA. The GPS indicated she was between Red Forest and Army Warehouses. Alright. She couldn't wait to never see these places again.
Finding how the tracking system worked took her a while, since she kept spacing out and staring at the screen without actually doing anything. And when she finally did it, she was nearly crying again. Both Evgenii and Gecko were on the move, not that far away from here. Were they looking for her? It was an unreal feeling, perhaps she was only imagining things.
Out of morbid curiosity, she looked who were her closest contacts: Noodle, Squint, and two names she didn't recognize, these last two marked as faction: Monolith. All dead presumably. However, that meant the Monolith really existed. Or at least some creepy guys believe enough in it to name themselves like that.
Shovel snapped out of her thoughts after an unknown screech rang through the forest. Whatever that had been, it was her wake up call to get moving before anything caught up with her. She picked up the backpack and started walking, and every step brought her an extra bit of confidence. It didn't take long before she reached the position where her PDA marked the other bodies, clustered together. Reality was worse than seeing three dots in a screen. Noodle had a gaping hole in his chest, and the other Monolith guy looked like a Gruyere cheese. Squint lay face down, a halo of congealed blood surrounding him and darkening the soil. She had wished for this, hadn't she? For someone to come and kill the bandits who abducted her. Horror threaded with relief coursed through her like an out of control car. She was (a murderer) a rookie, the stupid girl who didn't know up from down in this place, but she survived while everyone else was dead.
Her hunting rifle poked out of the bag on Squint's back, calling her like a beacon. Although Shovel felt guilty for wanting it back. She'd done enough damage with a simple Makarov, she didn't think she needed yet more weapons. But that rifle was part of her, part of what made her Yulia, not Shovel. It tethered her to her life before it all went wrong. Could she ever go back and bask in the glow of those carefree days? Or would the knowledge of what she'd done also torment her there, lurking in the back like a disease no one wanted to admit having?
In the end she threw out the accursed pistol and picked up the hunting rifle, noticing for the first time how heavy it was in her hands.
#
"And then old Sakharov finally realized it was better to have me guiding his guys in their crazy expeditions," Gecko finished her story with a touch of pride.
However, Evgenii had stopped in his tracks, not registering Gecko's words. The dots he monitored almost constantly from his PDA were doing something weird. Namely, two dots labelled as Monolith had appeared next to the other three.
"Evgenii?" Gecko got closer and put a hand on his shoulder.
He just shoved the PDA in her hands, confused and worried because one of them was chasing Shovel ās dot. Gecko scanned the screen for what felt like an eternity and started swearing like a drunk soldier.
"This is all so pizdets!"She looked at him grimly. "You must know there's a possibility we'll be late."
After that warning she started running through the vast fields of Army Warehouses, evading anomalies Evgenii did not see until he passed right next to them. He followed her, pocketing the PDA as he ran faster than ever in his life. Gecko's warning from before circled endlessly on his mind. There were many things he wanted to ask, but now wasn't the moment. Yet the only thing he had clear from Gecko's reaction was that those Monolith dots on the PDA were bad news.
The field became peppered with trees and brusquely turned into a fairly closed forest. Gecko slowed down, much to Evgenii's relief. He was all out of breath and felt some insistent pangs on his sides.
"Be ready," Gecko said in a whisper. Although she didn't mention what he should ready himself for.
A single shot rang close by, like a deathly omen hiding between the leaves. Then a branch snapped, closer this time. Following Gecko's example, Evgenii quickly took his pistol out, looking around to find out who or what was making the noise. A rustle of leaves, very close now, and he still couldn't see what was coming.
A figure emerged seemingly out of nowhere from between the trees, walking slowly and looking down at a PDA screen. The person looked up and Evgenii nearly dropped his pistol in surprise.
"SHOVEL!"
She looked at him, rooted on the spot. "This is all real, right? Not - not my imagination."
She looked like she was about to cry, and Evgenii ran to catch her in a bear hug. She half heartedly hugged back and Evgenii quickly let her go, afraid he'd crossed a line. Shovel looked dazedly at him and then at Gecko, still without uttering a word.
"You're a quite resilient rookie," Gecko told her with a smile. "Damn impressive!"
That was absolutely true, although Shovel flinched minutely at her words. āCan we leave this place? Please?ā
āWe can go anywhere you want,ā Gecko said, and Evgenii agreed with her.Ā
He expected Shovel to ask for a place to rest, or to go back to the rookie village. But in reality she asked for something different.
āI want to go home.ā
