"What exactly are we looking for Professor?" Lt. Dimitry Prokre said as they neared a factory. The walls were rusted with scratch marks around the sides. The factory was had been deserted for many years and it showed. The roof had caved in under the pressure of the extreme radiation is had gone under, giving way to the underbrush that now grew inside it. The sky blue and a small breeze ruffled the trees nearby. The factory was what was left of a World War II tank factory which had been covered in radiation since Chernobyl. Dried blood trails riddled the areas with some that had seemed to have been "licked up".
"Something to take back," Professor Alex Fartherkov replied as he knelt down to the stains of blood. He paid most attention to stain of licked blood. He ran his hand over it to prove to himself that it was old and dried, but he was wrong. As he rubbed his hand over it his hair stood up on his end as he felt the warmth that fresh blood had. Fartherkov had been a physician in Russia for many years and had treated many "S.T.A.L.K.E.R.'s" of wounds and injuries that they had suffered in the past. Being this widely known for his experience with such people and their stories, he had been called in by the Russian Government to be sent in with their Krelinko Forces Unit. Dimitry Prokre put his weapon into his left hand and knelt beside Alex.
"Something wrong Professor?" Dimitry said as he looked threw his plastic helmet which protected him and his men from any radiation still floating in the air. These suits were military issue for those soldiers who were sent on assignments into the Zone. Those suits that returned either had severe injuries, or where covered in blood. The suits had two large canisters on it with a valve to regulate the flow of oxygen to the helmet.
"This blood, its…"
"Its what?" Prokre asked slightly disturbed by Fartherkov's reaction, that he ran his hand across the blood too and discovered the same truth, "my God."
"Its still fresh, but it looks dried. How can this be? Its not possible," Alex stuttered out as he felt as if he had been foolish to even think he could do this. He was a man who had been in a hospital too long and wanted freedom. Even as a boy he would go into the nearby forest and pretend to be an adventurer looking for buried treasure, or a hunter on his search for a squirrel. Those dreams and playtimes had eluded him at the age of 18 and made him realize that they were never going to happen. He had waited 25 long years to relive his childhood adventures, and when the government asked him along on this expedition, he jumped at it. He saw now he should not have.
"It is human blood right Professor?" Dimitry asked wanting reassurance that it was just another dead Stalker being out here too long. Stalkers were always being killed when they engaged too far. The safe distance was ten miles into the Zone, but many went further to cool their own curiosity, many of those never returned; parts of their body recovered, or none at all.
"I… I don't know. I am not sure, I can't get a sample of this to be sure. It's like its flowing blood and you can feel it, but it cannot be scooped.
"We have to keep moving Professor." Prokre stood up and turned around to his seven other men in his unit each wearing the same suit as he. "We move forward, safeties off. If it moves, you shoot it!"
"Except each other Dimitry," Private Mickal Kalashnikov said as switched his safety off. He was the grandson of the famous Mikhail Timofeevich Kalashnikov, designer of the AK-47. He had only known his Grandfather for three years, the accident at Chernobyl had severely decreased his time with him.
"Except each other of course," Sergey Molotof pointed out being the most experienced soldier there. Sergey had been with the Russian Krelinko Forces Unit for 10 years and enjoyed every moment of it. His brother was also a soldier in Russian Army and threw special requests by Sergey, had been assigned on this mission as well. Sergey felt his brother needed some action to show him what he may face one day. He had no problem with following orders, but knew that when things needed to be done, he would get them done.
"We should get moving now Professor," Dimitry said as he turned around to where he had last seen the Professor, but to his amazement he was gone. "Professor?" A loud scream came from inside the old factory, a mans scream, a mans cry for help that could not be given. Dimitry and his team rushed inside the hole in the siding, one caused by the extreme explosions in the area. They entered to see a fresh trail of blood which was not like the kind they had encountered before. It was human blood and they all knew it. In the center of the building with Fartherkov's body a few feet away from a large grouping of military suits. Fartherkov's body was like the pile of suits and bodies: decapitated.
As Sergey's brother Alexander Molotof arrived to see the body, he ran off to the side behind a large crate and exerted his lunch of a garlic burrito. A small pile formed at his feet behind the crate. He replaced his helmet and picked his weapon back up before feeling a sharp pain into the side of his neck, within a fraction of a second, his body could not be controlled by his mind.
"Hey Alexander! Why are you taking so long? You didn't have that much for lunch!" Mickal Kalashnikov said as he neared the crate his friend had ran behind. AS he appeared at the end, Jason Molotof's body came into view. "Oh shit! ALEXANDER's DOWN!"
Sergey turned around and ran to where his friend and dead younger brother now lay.
"No… not you Alexander. Why, I thought you would learn from here, not die. What the hell is going on here," Sergey said as loaded the chamber of his AK-74u with the bolt. "Come on! Where are you!? Where is the thing that did this to my brother! COME ON OUT YOU BASTARD!"
A noise came from Sergey's right and without warning, Sergey spun around and unloaded his clip on its location. The banana clip was empty and the box now covered in holes, but Sergey wanted whatever had killed his brother to suffer as he was now. He turned a small switch on his rifle to its secondary position and pulled the trigger, a grenade flew from the gun, blowing the box apart with blood splattering along the surrounding walls. Sergey had killed something, he didn't care what. Sergey pulled the banana clip out of his AK and slammed another into position; he did the same with the grenade barrel and switched his gun back over to primary fire.
As he neared the smoking carcass he could see what looked like dried blood dripping from the sides of the wall. It had been the same blood as outside. He looked down to see a creature unlike any other; fangs covered its arms and feet. It appeared as if every time it moved near something, it would kill it by merely lifting its arms. Sergey brought his rifle back up to riddle the creature full of ammo when its eyes suddenly open and its right arm flung threw the arm, slicing off Sergey's head. The creature arose, with the members of the team now surrounding it, their rifles ready to shoot if it moved.
The creatures eyes starred at each one of them, knowing of its danger to them, and their danger to it. This creature could not have formed by natural mutation of radioactive elements, there was no hope of that. It had needed something else to get this far in evolution. The creature had intelligence to know when it was defeated and began to back away towards a hole in the wall.
"Remember your orders people, we are to bring a sample back alive," Prokre dictated to his men. He knew and understood how close everyone in the team was and knew that he too did not want to kill it and leave. He knew how they were feeling and did not want to say anything more.
"Fuck orders," Mickal said. "DIE!" With that he applied pressure to the trigger with his fellow soldiers. The creature was pumped full of lead and fell. Its chest still moved, covered with the dry looking blood. It was dying and this time it wasn't getting up. Mickal walked forward and put the grenade barrel of his AK into the creature's mouth. "Chernobyl was the reason my grandfather died, Russia lost a great man and look at what has become of it."
"Mickal, you have your grenade barrel on! You'll die!" Prokre said from a distance as his men stood in awe. Your not going give up your life for revenge are you? Your grandfather was a great man and after meeting him in St. Petersburg I know he would not want you to waste your life over him. Not one of them wanted to be there and all knew what Mickal wanted to do.
Mickal pulled the gun away from the creature and backed away from it. "Your right, I will not waste my life for my grandfather." Mickal looked down at his gun and switched his gun to secondary fire.
"BUT I'll WASTE THAT THINGS!" Mickal spun and around and pulled the trigger…