Pilgrimage, Part 1

Joshua Kerensky struggled forward through the muddy brush lining the Prytpyat, his blood searing in every vein like skeins of molten iron spiralling throughout his body. He couldn't afford to be seen, so he'd sprinted through dense forests until he arrived at the riverbank, which was swollen and enraged by the stormwater that had poured relentlessly for days. He could hear, even through the storm winds and thunder, the chop of helicopter blades combing the area. Joshua wore full camouflage, but he knew they would still detect him with infrared cameras. Necessity forced him to scrape mud from the clammy bank and slap a mould of it across his chest, face, and what parts of his back he could reach. He didn't bother with his arms and legs - they already moved with the resistance of frozen ice.

Kerensky took cover in the forest on the other side of the river. He leaned against a tree obviously warped by the Zone; it hunched and gnarled towards the river with outstretched branches, leaning, grasping, straining to meet the stormclouds. Rain sluiced down between branches and through the foliage, drawing lines in the mud shell Josh had covered himself with. He unclipped the rain hood of his pack, drew the red string holding it closed, and from it grasped a peach-hued rock somewhat larger than a canteloupe. It appeared to be carved from stone but Joshua knew with absolute certainly that it its source was not a quarry. He examined it carefully.

Joshua had always been drawn to the rift. Well, that's what he called it, but whomever he spoke to took it for granted that he meant the Zone itself. Like everyone else from across the Atlantic, he'd heard about it on the news, watching slack-jawed, the explosions and reports of strange, inexplainable disturbances. To them, it was a disaster of unparalleled proportions, easily surpassing that of the Chernobyl meltdown towards the close of the last century. But Joshua it grasped by the lungs and gradually squeezed the breath out of, until he woke up panting in the dark, beads of sweat dripping onto the sheets. It seemed that Armageddon had come, Ragnarok, like a god had reached down from the sky with furious vengeance and struck a hole in the fabric of reality. Josh was drawn to the Ukraine beyond his will and he could not explain why. He'd sold his belongings overseas and flown toEurope without a visa, without a weapon, without planning or even a concrete purpose. He desired only to travel to the centre of the Zone and encounter its source. Now, Joshua desperately strove to survive.

Kerensky had made more enemies than friends here. He couldn't understand these mercenaries, stalkers, and dealers. As far as he was concerned, there weren't enough roubles left in the world to make any sane person stay in the Zone. Josh had formally granted his own peace of mind flight when he packed his bags; for his, this journey had the tone of a pilgrimage, a holy path that he didn't himself quite understand. But when he washed the blood from his wounds in the river, he was baptized. When he hunted, his rage was purifying. As he neared the centre of the Zone, he traced his descent into hell along the path of corpses he encountered.

The Ukrainian army stalkers had been hunting him through the Zone for more than a day now. Almost certainly they wanted what he'd carried with him away from near the blast site. Just outside of Chernobyl itself, Josh had been searching for artefacts - he'd run out of cash and food was running short, so exploring the anomalies would have to take a backseat to maintenance of the flesh rather than the spirit. Several near-passes with death over the last few weeks had taken the glaze off his eyes and set them back on the grim meat-hooks of reality, which nevertheless was still one that focused on the rift. Every action here was one in which you risked your life, but before the end came, everyone had to eat.

It had been difficult to make his way to Chernobyl from the outskirts of the rift; patrols of military stalkers and packs of Zone creatures became common enough to make stealth an urgent requisite for survival. He avoided the soldiers at all costs; alone, he could never match their numbers, training, and equipment. Zombies and the freakish telepaths that commanded those emptied shells of flesh occupied many of the burnt-out hulks of buildings that dotted the landscapes. Joshua took care to always aim for their heads. He was certain that any shred of humanity those ghouls still possessed could only pray for a quick end to their wretched existence. Their listless, cloudy eyes made his trigger finger shrink away in disgust until the clip was empty. Every building was a wreck and no bed was secure, so Josh slung himself across the branches of trees at night. He didn't relish the prospect of being torn apart in his sleep by packs of rats, ordinary creatures that has been horribly transformed by the radiated winds that swept through the countryside. He traveled by night, tracing gullies and thick brush.

Two days' travel from his base of operations (a rusty shack not far from the edge of the Zone), he'd finally stood at a hill's crest overlooking the flat expanse upon which Chernobyl itself had been built, in the distance. Joshua's Geiger counter had been momentarily ticking, signalling the rising levels of radiation he was exposed to; when he returned, he would most likely have to receive medical treatment, or at least counter-radiation pills. Crouched behind a small gathering of bushes, he took the binoculars from his waist-pouch and surveyed the landscape.

From far off he could see the great dormant stacks of the Chernobyl reactor, cracked with age and crumbling in places, likely due to damage from the blasts at the centre of the Zone. Closer to his position but further to the west he spotted what appeared to be a large multi-storey building. Next to it was a great platform upon which was mounted an enormous antenna. More worrying was the human presence at the site; transport helicopters were airlifting in supplies and a small contingent of army stalkers in full body armour were guarding the entrance and conferring with one another. An armoured personnel carrier led tracks up to the front of the building. It seemed like the military was preparing for a long visit. Dropping in to say hello was not on the agenda; the military were hostile to anything that still breathed. Frankly, Kerensky couldn't blame them. You couldn't trust anyone within the zone, and people were often not what they first appeared.

Roads linked the Chernobyl with a town just to the south and east, Prytpyat, which lay out of view. Between Joshua and that position, however, was a small complex that peeked through the edge of a forest and was connected to the main thoroughfare through the area by only a dirt road. The windows had been blown out and rust stains crept down the sides of the building from fixtures on the roof he couldn't identify. Perhaps there would still be something of value left there. Josh waited until nightfall, and observed the military activity from the most camouflaged point he could. WHen only the moon dimly lit the landscape, Joshua crept down the edge of the hill towards the structure.

Slipping through the skirt of trees encircling the building, Kerensky reached its front. There wasn't a single window on the ground floor, and a decrepit sign that stood outside was marked with Cyrillic script, probably Russian or Ukrainian. Either way, Josh couldn't read it. He could barely speak enough Ukrainian to buy a loaf of bread, but the cracked hammer-and-sickle plaque above the double-doors indicated that at one point it had been a government building, at least. The front entrance was locked, and it took all of Joshua's strength to break it open, bending the door frame where the bolt held the two shut. His crowbar was bent, ruined.

A thick layer of grey dust laced everything inside - the front desk, the leaves of planted dwarf trees long ago withered and brown, the coffee maker in the corner that overflowed with a mossy green bacteria culture that was likewise desiccated. Who said you couldn't live off coffee alone? He chuckled grimly and his footsteps echoed against the tile, his flashlight painting the rooms visible for him. The elevator, powerless, wasn't going anywhere, but there was a stairwell leading to the upper floors and a basement. Above ground, the facility was ruined, electronics fused, desk scorched. Parched skeletons lay against their chairs and on the floor, people likely seared first by the heat of the blast, their hair and skin melting, and killed by severe radiation poisoning soon afterwards.

Joshua felt like a forensics officer, but he wasn't disgusted by it anymore. He'd seen enough corpses in the Zone that he'd become accustomed to them. He crouched curiously, examining the bones. He was fascinated with death; it was everywhere. Back home, he'd just never paid attention. Funerals were routine. Roadkill was inevitable. In every windowsill, insects lay belly-up with their legs curled inward toward themselves, but few commented. But since he had ventured into the Zone, Joshua had witnessed more than a few transfigurations into oblivion. He now clearly believed in each person's soul - a spiritual half that was burned, torn free, and snuffed out like candleflame as their bodies failed. He was horrified of the abyss.

Kerensky returned to the stairwell and passed several flights of stairs underground, none of which had entrances connecting to other floors. At the bottom Josh encountered a door which had a keypad that still operated, and there was no handle on the door. It must've had an alternative power source of some sort. Joshua blew gently on the keypad, brushing the loose dust off as best he could with his breath. Four keys left the faint imprints of six-year-old fingerprints. He tried each combination and the door opened, sliding quietly to the left.

The basement had been left completely untouched. Joshua traveled down a long hallway, passing the elevator, which opened up to a wide, high-ceilinged room that appeared to be a laboratory. A large stainless-steel fridge stood at the side of the wall next to a filing cabinet, and directly opposed to them on the other side of the room was a platform - more accurately, some sort of operating table. A stand next to it held various surgical tools. Both the fridge and cabinet had some sort of time-release lock, so Joshua carried on through the next door. Beyond it was a passage that turned sharply and led down a long halway, opening to another room.

Reinforced plexiglass lined the walls on each side, each pane with a circle of holes at head-level, and a small rectangular box through which items could be passed. Kerensky quickly realized that these were holding cells, each containing a bent figure, clothesless, without life. Joshua burst his rifle through the glass nearest to him, which it punctured and streaked with cracks like fine spider silk. It took several thrusts with the stock of his Kalashnikov to knock the sheet wobbling out of its place and onto the cell floor. Propping the sheet up, Josh examined the body.

Curled up in the fetal position, it had certainly been human at one point, but now the resemblance was only in shape. The entire body had solidified into some kind of mineral structure, almost the color of skin. Joshua toyed with the idea that these could be mannequins hewed of some sort of stone, but details were too fine. The facial expressions mimicked pure agony: the eyelids creased inwards, the lips were grotesquely drawn into a snarl of pain, and the eyebrows furrowed thick rolls across its forehead. Fingerprints remained intact, and every curve was proportionate, anatomically correct. If these were statues, their artists deserved exhibitions and studios, eager students and enough media attention to make them into hermits - but given the circumstances, he was certain these bodies were once human.

Using the heel of his boot, Josh broke off the head and placed it in his backpack. Were these caused by the anomolies? Or possibly the results of government or military experiments? How could flesh and blood be transformed into a substance almost as hard as the bone it covered?

Joshua heard a click, and in a split-instant he felt something cold and sharp poke his back.

"Halt!" a gritty voice shouted, in Ukrainian. "Slowly drop your weapon! Put your hands behind your head!" He had no choice but to comply; he put his rifle on the ground and raised his hands. "You have entered an unauthorized area! You will follow my commands and if you make any sudden movements, you will be killed." He was led out of the cell at bayonet point. At the hall's midpoint, Joshua heard the crackle of a voice coming through radio. The soldier paused, and Joshua instinctually feared him reporting their position; he knew very well that after he was interrogated, he might well become disposable. He struck.

Kerensky crouched, his leg sweeping behind him and around the soldier's ankle, pulling it towards himself as he winded his captor with a sharp jab of his elbow, knocking him to the ground. His assault rifle fell from his hand, skittering uselessly across the floor. Immediately Josh dove forward, drawing his knife. He plunged it deep into the soldier's neck and wrenched it across, muffling the cries of agony and terror with one hand as the life gurgled out of his victim. The body beneath him spasmed wildly and tried to break free, but it weakened and finally went limp. Joshua breathed prayers for the soldier's soul and for God's forgiveness, as the voice on comm because more tense in its inquiring tone.

He had no time. Josh rushed as silently he could back to the cell to retrieve his AK and backpack, shouldering the military stalker's gun and the clips he could find from the body. As he returned to the laboratory, he heard murmers. Creeping up, he put his back to one wall and spotted the legs of two stalkers beneath the table next to the door. He could hear nothing behind him, and gambled. He rolled across the floor of the lab, shells clinking across the tile as he sprayed a line of gunfire into the two soldiers. A stream of gore burst out onto the wall behind them and they cried out as they crumpled to the ground. Their guns fired with the reflexive squeezing of their triggers, and bullets ricocheted off the fridge and cabinet next to them. Their blood pooled out onto the floor, and Joshua took some documents from the clenched hand of one, who appeared to be an officer. His comm fizzled with static, and Josh cocked his head gently, memorizing the man's face.

How had he become so adept at killing? Joshua had been an office clerk before he'd come to Europe. He shook his head and gripped his rifle as anguish gave way to fear. In the Ukraine he'd quickly learned to react with fear - the sort that sharpened your reflexes, knowing that your life depends on every test, every instinct and intuition you posess. Without it, he would never have survived this long, and he had no intention of dying now. Joshua began climbing the long stairwell back up to ground level. When he reached the first door, he could hear the sounds of activity, perhaps in the building or outside; he couldn't tell. Instead, he passed the first floor and silently climbed the stairs up to the roof so he could obtain a vantage point.

When he reached the rooftop, Kerensky could hear motors rumbling and people shouting at the front of the building. A small wire-meshed window revealed another soldier on top of the building, but his range of vision was limited; Josh couldn't be certain if there were anymore. The stalker passed out of view. Joshua readied a pistol with a silencer, hoping to make a quiet exit and pass out of the compound unnoticed. He cracked the door, braced his weapon and fired several shots into the man's back, and he slumped to the ground. Luck smiled on his and the sentry was alone. Joshua didn't stop to take ammo. Checking behind the building, there didn't appear to be any troops, so he lowered himself off the roof and grasped the window frame on the second floor, leaping to the ground. He slipped quietly into the forest, and once he was far enough away, he sprinted until his legs burned and his lungs ached.

Joshua opened his eyes and shook off the sleep of recollection, finding himself under the tree by the riverbank. He stared into the lifeless eyes of his prize, that finely-hewn mystery. Rain trickled down every wrinkle, every crease in the horrifying grimace of pain in his hands. It was so unnatural, it stirred something in the pit of his stomach and he began to feel ill, about to vomit. No - no, this was radiation poisoning. He'd been too far into the Zone, had too much exposure. He popped a rad pill and swallowed dryly. How much would he receive for this disembodied head? It was unlike anything he'd ever seen before, something he was unable to explain. He imagined it would get him at least several weeks' rations, some ammunition. Maybe some clue as to what's causing this desperately warped land. If he could safely make it to the next town, he could probably fence the head to a scientist he was acquainted with there. If not...

Helicopter bladed broke his train of thought as a great Hind barreled towards his position; he could hear it in the distance. Slipping on his pack, he began to run deeper into the forest, dancing through the underbrush, around boulders, under logs, through ferns. The Hind was closing in on his position and behind him he spotted the swath of light caused by the helicopter's floodlamps. This time, he wasn't sure he'd even warrant an interrogation. He ran until his entire body was on fire and it felt as if he was breathing thick, plastic smoke.

Finally the spotlight trained on him; and over loudspeaker, and angry man screamed Ukrainian at him. Then they fired its gatling gun, splintering logs and tearing up the dirt at his feet. Joshua ducked behind trees and threw his arm back, firing wildly. He knew there was no way he could penetrate the Hind's armour, so all he could do was run until his legs gave out and he died alone in this godforsaken scar, this pit on the face of the earth. He tried making zig-zag patterns, diving into small gullies, and using the underbrush for cover. Josh could elude them momentarily in the darkness, but their infrared imaging systems could track the heat given off by his exertion.

He ran until he felt a slight tremor, and slowed, hiding behind a thick tree. The ground trembled, and suddenly he noticed the trees before him slowly bending. Leaves and dust lifted off the ground and filtered through the branches to a point above the forest's canopy, and Joshua backpedaled against the pull on his own body. Each step became a struggle as he inched away from the well of gravity, and then the Hind pounced on him, strafing his position. The floodlamp hit his eyes with a blinding flash and a volley of gunfire caught Josh in the forearm and shoulder, his body twirling limply to the ground. With his good arm, he grasped the trunk of the tree next to him and struggled helplessly towards cover.

The Hind reared as it came around for another pass, and bucked gently at first. The rotors began spinning slower and its rudder was drawn behind it, away from Joshua. The gunfire stopped as the turret swung away from him again and he could hear the tree trunks below cracking under pressure, stripped of their branches and needles, and crashing together loudly at the centre of the gravitational anomaly, creating a brown lump of dirt and organic mulch above the clearing it was creating. The Hind bore forward, trying to escape the gravity well, but failed. Several metres away from him, the ground itself came loose with a deafening tear as an entire tree was ripped from the earth, and the tree barreled upwards, striking the helicopter's rotors. In an instant the aircraft itself was drawn into the anomaly. Its steel groaned under the pressure, bending, buckling, and finally folding in on itself and around the growing, spinning sphere of matter. Joshua couldn't hear the screams of the crew over the ear-shattering, tortured moan of the alloyed metal that crushed them. The fuel tank exploded, causing a ring of debris to lash out around the clearing, only to be drawn back up and into the anomaly.

Joshua spent several minutes trying to crawl away, but he eventually reached safety and could bandage his wounds. Luck smiled on him; no major arteries or nerves were hit, but he'd require medical attention as soon as possible. Bleeding to death was a significant possibility if he couldn't stanch the flow of blood. Meanwhile, the swirling ball of metal, dirt, and wood continued to attract loose dirt and plant matter from the ground, sculpting a crater out of the forest floor. God's hand had clenched into a fist and crushed his enemies. Kerensky felt himself blessed, and prayed through the blood dripping from his nose.

Joshua reached the edge of the forest. In the distance he could see a small town; he couldn't be sure which one. He'd been running for so long without a compass or reference to a map that he was completely lost. All he knew for certain about his position was that he was still within the Zone; he hadn't seen or been stopped by military border patrols during his escape. But from town he could obtain treatment and find a way back to Prytpiat, eat his first hot meal in days, and stock up on munitions. He resolved to find some answers about these calcified bodies, and then plunge still deeper into the Zone, towards the rift itself.