The Zone is a disease, really. In all senses of the word; a disease on the earth, a blight on man, a rot in one’s very soul. You get used to it changing you; even if it isn’t mutating your cells physically, it alters your very existence. But hey, you gotta make a living.
When you’re crouched next to the wheel-well of a rusted out ZAZ with the sweat rolling down between your shoulder blades trying desperately to convince yourself this it is absolutely not hairy, but completely normal rust on the nearby door, you realize some things. One is that life sucks, but it could be worse. The black, lumpy, pool of half-coagulated blood oozing from the ruined head of a formerly telepathically controlled mutant tells you it could be much worse. Two, that the best things in life cost a lot of money, like a military grade anomaly detector. Similar to the one a certain
Since there were no lights or what I suppose qualifies as „danger“ music in China coming out of the detector, it was either off again, or I was safe. Of course, in the Zone, safe is definitely a state of mind, and not anything definable. The sharp cordite reek of my still smoking Kalashnikov reminded me that where there was a telepathically controlled mutant, there was a telepathic mutant Controller.
Tapping a full magazine against the butt stock, I peered over the dented hood of the car and prayed that Slava wasn’t lying to me about the effectiveness of my black market psionic blocker. Scanning the scenery, I thumbed the magazine release, dropped the nearly empty mag on the ground and snapped in the full one with a reassuring snick of metal on metal. I smacked the charging handle forward and let out a slow breath as I heard the round enter the chamber. A soft wind blew across my back and rustled the leaves on the ground. Eyes still ahead, I groped on the ground for my discarded clip. Then the wind stopped, and it got quiet and still. A soft ringing began in the tiny bones of my ears, imperceptibly building. The only sounds were the harsh rasping of my breath, and my heart beating like falling pianos. A prickling sensation started at my tailbone and shot to my brain, and all my small hairs stood to attention. My head swiveled back and forth as I tried to look everywhere at once, and while it had been cool only seconds ago, sweat shone on my brow. The air seemed to grow dense, and felt charged with static electricity. The ringing increased volume, edging up towards discomfort. My hand scrabbled desperately for my mag, and then even the sounds of my breath and heart and frantically searching hand faded into stillness. The cold hard steel of the banana clip grazed my fingers and I closed my hand around it with the desperation of a drowning man, and something fingered and bony with dry cracked flesh closed around my hand.
A yell that could be more properly called a scream leapt from my throat, and I followed it by leaping back away from the junked car as far as I could. The iron grip on my hand snapped me to the ground and instead of getting away, I pulled it halfway out from under the car. What was left of its flesh was mottled brown and grey, with broad festering red patches, the remnants of a radiation burn. Empty eye sockets looked at me without sight, and the mouth was clenched in a death rictus. Flakes of grey skin fell from the scaly hand as I twisted my arm and tried to wrench my hand free. All of this was etched into my brain in the handful of seconds it took me to raise my AK and set its muzzle under the zombie’s chin. Its sightless face glowered with a mixture of hate and hunger until a plume of gunpowder flame and a burst of 7.62mm bullets erased it for good. Everything that was above the jaw was now a spattered mess against the door of the car, and as I kicked the body away from me, black blood like the pool around the other mutant spurted fitfully from the stump of its neck. Freeing my hand at last, I shakily looked at my precious clip in amazement. The smart thing would have been to forget about one measly magazine as soon as things went weird. Well, weird for the Zone that is. Of course, I’ve never been known for my brains, because the smart thing would be not to come into the Zone in the first place.
I looked at the two still forms of the zombies, their tattered clothing doing nothing that clothing should, more a part of them rather than something they wore. It appeared fused to their skin in more than a few places, a gruesome accompaniment to their burned and melted features. As the adrenaline roared its way out of my system, the part of my brain that notices noticed that things were still very motionless. Worse, that damned ringing bounced back and forth in my skull, caroming off my eardrums like the after effect of a concussion grenade gone off too close.
Back on alert, my body tense from scalp to toenails, I raised my rifle to my shoulder and looked for better cover. Still the cursed Chinese box stayed silent, so I decided to chance sticking around. I was cocky from having handled two mutants in one go, and I wanted something to show for all this trouble. Like I said, I’m not known for being the smart one.
I got a good chance to take in my surroundings. The dirt and gravel of the driveway I was crouched on crunched beneath my boots as I swiveled looking for threats. Beyond the wrecked ZAZ a dilapidated, half-collapsed house leaned into itself, sagging disconsolately. Absolutely still trees were spaced around a weed infested, overgrown, motionless front lawn. My nerves screamed at me that this was not right, and that the center of what was not right was in that house. The empty road I had taken to this place stretched away to the horizons, bending its way into the hills. Peering into the shadows of the doorway of the house, the door long gone and the frame cracked, I took a step forward and made up my mind.
Keeping my AK trained on the doorway, I reached into the rucksack on the back of my load bearing vest and pulled out a fragmentation grenade. After checking under the car for any more surprises, I crept up behind it, pulled the pin on the grenade, flicked off the spoon, and tossed it into the doorway. I dropped down behind the shelter of the wheel-well of the car and waited, grimacing as the ringing crashed past the pain threshold. Two eternal seconds went by, then the whump of the grenade muffled by the crumbling walls was followed by the patter of falling dust and debris. A breeze rushed past, as if angry at being held still. The trees resumed their familiar rustling, and the grass bent in wind. Letting out my breath in an explosive sigh, my ears aching as they got used to the sudden lack of excessive volume; that odd pain of pressure released after too long of a wait. I came around the car, went up to the doorway and checked my angles. Damp mildew scents wafted to my nose, released from the broken walls and wood by my grenade. Satisfied that the entrance was clear, I stepped inside.
The smoke and dust were still settling, and dim sunlight cast hazy diagonal shafts of illumination. Then I saw it, half buried by some newly fallen rubble dislodged by my explosion; a young Controller, unconscious, but mostly intact lay beneath the debris of what used to be a wall. Then I joined it when something heavy and hard hit me from behind, knocking me into darkness.
When light returned, it brought along its ugly friend, a throbbing headache. A far too familiar voice chuckled deeply.
„I always knew you were the lucky one, Sanchez,' The floor rushed away, trailing bits of straw and plaster with it as I was hauled up to a sitting position. „But then, I was always the smart one, yes!“
Wriggling my hands enlightened me to the fact that they were bound behind my back, just in front of the wrists, not terribly secure. It also enlightened me to the fact that moving anything made the throbbing lump on the back of my head feel like it was kicking my brain with hobnailed boots.
„What, no witty repartee? No bravo response!“
„Hello, Dieter,' I mumbled, wincing at the
„Ah, the refreshing sound of forced cynicism,' Dieter smiled. „I really ought to thank you, you have saved me much work, and made me more that a little money!“ He gestured at the Controller, sealed inside a plastic biohazard capsule, flanked by what looked to be two scientists in full anti-contamination gear,
„You’re welcome. How about giving my property back and a share of the bounty, in gratitude!“ All of this talking was really becoming quite a drag.
„Hmmm, while I ought to, among a great many other things, I really don’t think I will.
„Sure, how about a million? That sounds good. I always wanted to retire young!“
The scientists wheeled out the Controller in its pod, and the sound of turbines and rotor blades spinning up made their muffled way into the room. Dieter turned to follow them, and called out over his shoulder, „You can’t wager what you don’t have, Sanchez!“
„How about I just come find you and shoot you instead!“
Dieter paused and motioned to someone out of sight in the gloom. A muffled exchange, then he turned on his heel, adjusted the straps of his pack, and said, „Then again, you are very lucky!“ He turned again, and was gone. Shortly, there was the increased pitch and whirling thump of a helicopter taking off. The sound of a diesel engine turning over came coughing out of the dark, and with it came a soldier.
His face was expressionless, but the bayonet in his hand said plenty.