Adult-FanFiction.org : Games

From the Zone with love	By : deepsearuin Category: +S through Z > S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Shadows of Chernobyl Views: 943 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own S.T.A.L.K.E.R., nor the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 9
- 10
- 11
I finally decided to write an OC. Meet Shovel, farmgirl accidentally turned stalker.
Becoming a stalker wasn't a conscious decision for Yulia, it was more like an accident.
She was little more than a babe when the Chernobyl accident occurred, and unlike her sister Iryna, she remembered nothing of those days. Allegedly, they had been visiting mom's parents in Ivankiv when it happened. Their parents went back to the farm the very next day, but Yulia and her sister spent a good three months with their grandparents until it was decreed that their home was safe.
The Zone had been a constant background presence in her life. Their farm lay a scant four kilometres away from the area deemed unsafe by the government, and the fence cordoning off the exclusion Zone was visible on the distance from any point of their property. An improvised military outpost sat much further down the road, but they appeared oblivious to the existence of their farm, or the neighbouring ones.
Yulia's life was mostly normal: going to school on the nearest village, helping in the farm the weekends, going on camping trips with her friends every summer, learning to use granddad's old hunting rifle and going hunting with her father whe she was old enough.
Once, when Yulia was a teenager, rumours started to fly about a bus full of tourists that went into the exclusion Zone and then disappeared. Some last year students at her high school even said it was all part of an experiment of the government. But Yulia didn't pay much attention to it all, for she was way more interested in figuring out her crush on her history teacher, Miss Sobolev.
The military outpost saw a most curious affluence of vehicles those days, but they stayed away from the village, since they were mostly interested in what lay behind the Zone's outer perimeter. Some night the wind carried sounds to Yulia's farm of gunshots coming from deep into the Zone, but surely there was nothing to worry about, otherwise the neighbouring farms would have been warned, right?
Eventually things calmed down and stayed that way for a long time, years, even if the missing tourists were never found.
#
Yulia decided she liked living in the countryside and working in a farm, so after finishing her mandatory education she still lived with her parents. She didn't dream of living in a city, unlike Iryna who had married young and moved to Kyiv. Lucky her, she didn't live through one of the most terrifying experiences of Yulia's whole life.
Yulia had been working on the fields when it happened. At first it just looked like a storm, a really big one, but then the sky turned red and the earth began shaking like an earthquake. Away in the distance, beyond the fence separating them from the Zone, a wave of something that looked like fire was coming towards the village.
Yulia hopped off the tractor and ran home scared. Her parents did the same. They all huddled together, watching the strange phenomenon through the kitchen's window. Her father prayed and her mother wrung her hands nervously and mumbled incoherently about another nuclear failure. A strong wind hit the house, making the doors and windows rattle in a frankly alarming way. Thunder and lightning covered the red skies, and Yulia heard the agonized bleating of their untended sheep, like a macabre chorus. Whatever this was, it was not a normal storm.
It was over as suddenly as it began. One second the thunder was still echoing, and the next one the world went dark for a few seconds before going back to normal. Like nothing out of the ordinary had just happened. It seemed safe enough to go out now, so she went towards the door. Her mother pleaded her to stay, and her father was still praying, but she was already outside.
Everything looked like it always did, except for the dead birds scattered all over. To her surprise, the sheep were completely unharmed and munching on wild herbs as if nothing happened.
Similar stories came from the neighbouring farms. Anyone living up to about five or six kilometres from the Zone had seen it, but the people living in the village hadn't noticed the red skies and lightning. Thankfully everything was back to normal now. The only exception was the Kolesnik's son, Oleg. He had been caught outside during the strange storm. He still lived, but the shock of such experience had left him mute and almost catatonic. Yulia had always considered Oleg a jerk, but she wouldn't say he deserved this.
#
Since the Red Storm hit the village, strange incidents started to happen. At first it was subtle, but as the months passed it became worse. Like the behaviour of Oleg, their neighbour's son.
The Red Storm had affected him severely, and now he only moved to follow people around like a robot. If there was nobody he could follow, he could stand still for hours, shuffling in place and waiting. Then he started to wander around the crop fields on his own. sometime even getting into the Marchenkos' property. Yulia had found him more than once standing on her crops, looking towards the Zone and silently moving his mouth like he was trying to say something. And invariably, when he noticed her presence, he would turn around and look at her with those dead eyes of his. Oleg might be alive, but when he looked at you it was obvious he was empty inside, despite the odd flickers of something that resembled awareness. It gave her the creeps.
And then came the reports of the anomalies. There was no other word for it, they were just anomalies. Like the one Yulia found one day in the middle of her crops.
She had been checking if the sugar beets were ready to begin the harvest when she noticed something strange a few metres ahead. And by strange, Yulia meant she even said "Blin! What the devil is this?" out loud to herself. If she had to describe it, she would say it was like a rainwater puddle, but without water. Instead it had little bubbling clouds of smoke, and it emitted a faint greenish glow. What in the lord's name was that? The plants around it looked wilted and sickly, and the ones under it had freaking melted. Melted! Surely this couldn't be good for the sugar beets. And the stench was disgusting, augh, like someone was macerating rotten leaves on chlorine.
Her family wasn't the only one affected. Another of those puddles had appeared on the Baniak's farm, in their chicken coop. It was as harmful to their chickens as it had been to Yulia's sugar beets. And since the smell of the melted sugar beets made her gag, she didn't want to imagine how melted and burnt poultry smelt like.
The biggest surprise came when those strange things, the anomalies, vanished after some days. The only trace of it was a blackened patch of dead vegetables on Yulia's crop field.
Once again, only the most remote farms had been affected, the same ones who suffered the effects of the Red Storm. The Baniaks left after a couple of weeks and never came back, but the Kolesniks endured, just like Yulia's family. The Marchenkos had been living in this farm for years, and neither Yulia nor her parents wanted to leave just because some weird thing appeared and disappeared on their fields. They decided to continue like nothing happened. Although they disposed of the melted plants and did not harvest either the sickly looking ones that had been close to the strange puddle.
#
The forest surrounding the farm fields had always acted as a buffer between them and the Zone, hiding the ugly fence from their view. However, lately the forest had become slightly sinister. A strange crackling sound came from within it, and some nights a faint glow accompanied the sound of crackling discharges. No one dared to say it clearly, but everyone talked about it in whispers: it was because of the Red Storm. No, not the first one, the other one that happened a few months ago. It brought back the strange acid puddles to the farm fields; why couldn't it be the reason of the unsettling noises in the forest?
Truth was hunters no longer went there. Except for Yulia. Although she wasn't there out of her own volition, not exactly. Something had been destroying her crops. She would bet it was a boar. Boars could be a pain in the ass, so she was after its trail. It wouldn't be the first time she hunted one, and if she was lucky her mum would prepare a delicious buzhenyna like the last time she hunted one.
So far, the boar's trail was clear and the forest was remarkably unremarkable. But as she went deeper into the wilderness things started to get weird. The usual forest sounds became dimmer and a strange static noise seemed to come from somewhere close, between the trees. But there were no electricity lines crossing the forest, so where was that sound coming from? The sound seemed to get closer and closer to her. Feeling her hair stand on end, Yulia turned around. A ball of electricity was floating there. A small branch levitated up to it and then came hurtling towards her. Yulia dodged it and ran like the devil was after her. Was this really happening? No, this couldn't be real, she must be still at home, sleeping and having a weird dream... A small rock smashed against a tree's trunk near her. Well, that seemed real enough. Better to run faster, just in case it wasn't a dream after all.
The forest got thicker and Yulia got her feet tangled in a snarled mess of vines covering something metallic. She jumped over it and kept going, trying to not look behind. Right now she didn't even care about the boar she was supposedly after, getting away from that thing was her only goal. Eventually, she reached a big clearing and finally dared to look behind. Nothing seemed to be following, even if the feeling of being watched hadn't vanished completely. However, this clearing felt safe enough. The sun shone brightly, birds chirped happily and a pair of boars lazed around in the sun. No wonder her crop fields were wrecked, there were two of them! And they were huge. She raised her rifle, readied herself, and a hail of bullets rained onto the boars. What the heck happened? That hadn't been her doing.
The boars got angry at this show of aggression and swarmed up a lone figure on the other side of the clearing. Yulia rushed to help the idiot before the boars got to him. However, the stranger was in no need of rescue, as she soon saw. The man fired again and soon both boars fell dead. His weapon of choice made her raise her eyebrows.
"Isn't that a bit, uh, extreme, for a hunting trip?" She said eyeing his submachine gun. He didn't look like a soldier, but that was no normal hunting weapon.
"I guess you could say this is an extreme hunting trip," the man laughed, but Yulia had no idea what was so funny. "You know, I could use a companion now that Sergei kicked the bucket."
"I just want my boar." Yulia wasn't remotely inclined to partner up with a weirdo she just met. He could be dangerous, for all she knew. For God's sake, he was carrying a freaking submachine gun and talking about a dead companion like one talked about the weather!
"Sure thing, sorry for stealing your kill."
Now that she looked closely, the boars were different than she expected: balding patches, an extra pair of tusks, and their hooves were deformed. Well, she hoped they would be edible all the same. She picked the most normal looking one and slung the carcass over her shoulders.
"See ya!" The stranger shouted at her back as Yulia started to retrace her steps.
Yeah, not even in your dreams buddy, she thought. No offense, but she didn't like the idea of armed strangers skulking around her forest. Although, being honest, maybe she wouldn't mind much if the stranger in question was a cute lady.
Yulia went back, eyeing carefully every dark corner of the forest. She hoped this time she wouldn't meet the floating ball of energy, she didn't feel ready to face such madness again. Luckily she met no strange, unexplainable things in her way, and by the time she was out of the forest she had almost convinced herself it had been a hallucination. Almost.
Back home Yulia presented her parents the clean carcass of the boar. They asked her about her trip to the forest, and she replied it had all been fine. She wasn't sure her strained smile and upbeat tone fooled them, but they asked no further questions. It was all worth it though, her mum prepared some fantastic kovbasa with the meat she brought.
#
During one of her frequent hunting trips, she decided to go back to the thick of the forest. She hadn't gone that deep into it since that time, but she hadn't stopped thinking about it. Maybe it was masochism or just plain curiosity, but she wanted to see if the floating ball of electricity was still there. Perhaps this time she would shoot at it if it started throwing things at her, just to see what would happen. However, the forest was deserted. She didn't even see squirrels or any other kind of critter around.
Following the same path, she eventually came back to the same clearing she arrived last time, where she met that strange guy some months ago. The place still looked as nice as she remembered. She closed her eyes for a moment, enjoying the reigning peace. It was lovely.
The sound of voices approaching made her open her eyes again. Further ahead was a cracked road, and walking along it were three armed men. Great, more weirdoes.
"Well met, fellow stalker." One of them greeted her.
"What did you call me?" She'd heard that term on the news recently, and she certainly didn't fit any of its possible meanings!
"Girl, it's you! Knew I'd see you again," the man in the middle said. Oh, he was that guy. Which where the odds of finding him again? "All who hear the call of the Zone have a certain air about them, you know?"
The what now?! No way, the Zone was cordoned off by a fence and... and the snarled mess of vines she jumped over where covering the broken pieces of the fence, weren't they? It would explain why whatever was underneath it made a metallic sound. Most probably it had been broken by the boars she had tracked, she realised. So Yulia stood there, gaping like a fish in the face of such revelations.
"Come with us, we're going to the camp."
"I'm just hunting," she protested feebly, still too stunned processing the fact that she'd been traipsing in the Zone without knowing where she was. Wasn't this place supposed to be dangerously irradiated? She felt no different here than at the farm.
"Aren't we all? Hunting for artifacts!" The youngest of the group smiled over excitedly at her. He thrust his hand out. "Evgenii Vasylyk."
She took his hand out of reflex, her parents hadn't raised to be rude."Yulia Marchenko."
"Those are Markov and Hedgehog," Evgenii pointed at the one who recognised her and the other guy, who still hadn't said a word.
In the end the followed them to their camp, because resisting the enthusiastic offers of Evgenii was as useless as trying to scold a puppy. The camp turned out to be a small abandoned village, full of stalkers. And at first glance they all seemed to be men. Although it was hard to tell when everyone wore variations of the same bulky green suits or oversized jackets. Dressed as she was in her usual hunting gear she fit right in, nobody glanced twice in her direction. Her new companions led her to a campfire in the middle of village, where other stalkers were listening a guy play the guitar.
"Welcome to the rookie camp," Markov sat down on the ground and the rest followed his example. Yulia as well. "All newcomers start here usually, safest place around for miles."
"It's nice." It reminded Yulia of when she went with a camping with her friends. Only with way more people.
"It's a shithole, but a half-decent one." Hedgehog spoke for the first time.
"Wow, aren't you a ray of sunshine?" Yulia's remark made them all laugh. Well, all except Hedgehog.
"Ignore most of what he says, he likes to complain," Markov said when he stopped laughing. "But he's damn good at surviving out there."
"Yeah, we're going artifact hunting in Dark Valley." Evgenii looked so enthused that it was almost contagious. "Wanna come with us?"
"Artifact hunting?" She honestly had no idea what he was talking about. All she knew about stalkers was that they went into the Zone illegally, and that the military didn't like them.
"Ah, artifacts," Markov said with a dreamy sigh. "What every stalker wants to find, best damn way to make quick money."
"We don't need another helpless rookie on the team." True to Markov's warning, Hedgehog was complaining yet again. "She looks like she just arrived, I bet she hasn't even seen any anomaly yet."
"Anomaly? Like a smoking puddle that glows and melts things?" Yulia was instantly reminded of her poor sugar beets. And then of something else. "Or a ball of electricity?"
"See? She knows. And she can pick up the rest on the go. Best way to learn is experience." Markov looked smugly at him and Yulia could tell Hedgehog was not amused in the least.
"Yes, and I have bolts!" Evgenii added, patting his pocket proudly. "I'll teach her how to use them."
Hedgehog didn't look amused or happy with the situation. "Whatever, don't expect me to babysit the rookies."
"So what do you say girl, wanna come artifact hunting? We'll split the cash evenly." The offer was certainly tempting, and judging by Markov's smirk he knew it.
Yulia thought about it. She could use some extra money. Her parents had to ask for a loan to buy a new tractor, and currently they had no money to pay for it. The farm's productivity plummeted after the first Red Storm. Apparently the anomalies had messed up the soil big time. A little adventure sounded good, especially if it ended in a profitable way.
"Yes, why not." She had told her parents she was going on a long hunting trip, this gave her a three day margin to come back before they started to get seriously worried.
"Great, I'll get you a PDA. Evgenii will give you some bolts."
While Markov went to procure a PDA for her, the young rookie gave her two handfuls of bolts and launched into an explanation of how to use them to spot anomalies. Yulia didn't like hearing some of those anomalies were nearly impossible to detect without throwing a bolt, but she supposed it couldn't be worse than a floating ball of energy throwing rocks at her.
#
Reaching Dark Valley hadn't taken much time. Once out of the rookie camp, Markov led them across the field in a more or less straight line, right to a tunnel entrance. There she saw firsthand the burnt fuzz. Yulia was unimpressed, it was no more dangerous than a stinging plant.
Dark Valley lay at the other side of the tunnel. A freaking long tunnel, in Yulia's opinion. The scenery on the other side wasn't radically different, just some more trees and denser vegetation. However, Evgenii acted like being here was kind of a big deal, almost bouncing in excitement.
"Never been so far from the camp before!" Hedgehog huffed in irritation at his exuberance, and Markov wore an indulgent smile plastered on his face.
"Me neither," she said. Completely true, even if it hadn't the same significance for her.
"Ok, now shut up and follow me. You too, Markov." They all fell silent and let Hedgehog take point.
A huge fenced complex sat by the side of the road. It was empty now, though according to Markov it was an occasional bandit hideout. That made Yulia nervous. She had no idea bandits were a real problem here, as far as she knew the weapons were to hunt or defend themselves from wild animals.
They found the first anomalies further down the road. There was a patch of cracked asphalt that constantly drew their attention, like something wavered in the corner of their eyes, yet there was nothing there that they could see. Markov threw a bolt and the distortion grew in intensity. Also, the bolt was catapulted up in the air like thrown by a spring resort. Yulia thought it was hilarious and threw another bolt. Soon she and Evgenii were throwing bolts and pebbles at it, trying to see who could make it jump higher. Meanwhile, Hedgehog was scanning the area with a weird device that she later learnt it was an artifact detector. Nothing to be found here, so Hedgehog barked at them to stop playing and follow him again. Spoilsport.
Later, while crossing a bridge, Hedgehog vetoed Markov's idea to go to the acid lake below them. Didn't that sound wonderful? No, it wasn't actually made of acid, as Markov explained. It was just radioactive and full of acid anomalies, which gave the waters a green glow.
So instead they went towards an abandoned factory, surrounded by anomalies at this side of the fence. This time she paid close attention to how Hedgehog used the device. It seemed to do nothing, until it started beeping and the small light bulb flashed green.
"There, on that whirligig," he told them.
"Ha, luck finally smiles on us," Markov happily clapped his hands once. "Alright, who wants to try?"
Predictably, Evgenii jumped at the chance. The eager rookie edged closer and closer to the whirligig, until he was nearly in it. "I see it, it's floating on the centre of the anomaly!"
"Grab it quick like lightning, and then run the hell out of it." Markov made it sounds easy, but how easy was it really to run out of the anomaly?
Evgenii grabbed something from midair, and then he ran. The anomaly seemed to be sucking him in, and Yulia bit her nails as she watched him fight its pull. After some tense seconds he finally wrenched free.
"Woohoo, I did it!" He held a strange rock up in the air, his fist clenched tight over it.
"A Gravi. Not bad for your first time, kid." Markov extended his hand, eyeing the rock. "I'll carry the extra weight, my backpack it's almost empty."
"No more in this one," Hedgehog said, waving the device around. "I think I saw another anomaly close to the gates."
"Yeah, let's keep going," Markov agreed, studying the rock Evgenii retrieved. It looked heavy.
The anomaly by the side of the gates was empty. Yulia and Evgenii threw bolts around the small patio, but there were no anomalies there.
"Okay, let's circle around the fence and search behind." Markov proposed and Hedgehog grunted in approval.
Almost in front of the gates Hedghog stopped dead on his tracks. He looked around, swivelling like a vane trapped on the wind. Something was not right, even the birds had quieted down. Yulia's felt the sudden and unexplainable urge to run, escape, do something now. A nightmarish beast leapt from behind an abandoned car, landing on top of Hedgehog. Oh God, oh God, this was bigger than a lion! It crushed the stalker's windpipe and tore his throat with a bite from one of its heads. Why did it have to heads?! She heard a terrified whimper, but she had no idea if it had been hers or from one of her companions.
The two headed monster lost all interest in the dead stalker and gazed at the three live ones. It decided she was the most interesting one and slowly started to approach her. Yulia became rooted to the spot in terror. Evgenii was on her left, fumbling to load his Fort-12, and that made her remember her own weapon. Getting the hunting rifle out of its back holster in a practiced move, she fired a slug to one of its two heads. The monster shook its head, annoyed, and she shot again. This time she managed to tear off part of one ear. Evgenii was also shooting at it, with mixed results. Their bullets seemingly were not doing much, except annoying it. She backed down and dragged Evgenii with her, hoping to arrive to the building behind them before the beast jumped at them and they ended like Hedgehog.
"Markov! Help!" Evgenii cried at the top of his lungs, but he was nowhere to be found. This did not bode well.
The entrance of the building was thankfully not big enough to let the two headed beast in. The metal doors were ajar instead of fully open, and they seemed to be either stuck or fixed to the ground. That didn't prevent the beast from trying to catch them with its claws, pushing one of its front paws through the entrance. Maybe if they went deeper into the building, until that thing could not see them, then it would leave.
They went into another dark room, bumping into some old furniture, until they reached a staircase going up. The sound of something moving around in the dark made them hesitate about going upstairs. However, the beast's growls were louder now, like it was trying to get its heads through the entrance.
"Up, let's go up." She decided. Even if the two headed beast managed to get in, she doubted it would fit in the stairwell.
However, before they got to the second floor, while they were in the middle of the stairs, something else started to crawl down. It cut a frighteningly human figure, even if it walked on all fours. The raspy grunts it emitted weren't like any sound a human should make. It jumped at Evgenii and he tumbled down the stairs, the new creature still tangled with him. Their sudden fall made Yulia stumble and hit the edge of the step with her knees. Her new kneeling position saved her from being knocked by another of these new creatures. She just heard the wheezing and the grunts, and then it jumped and sailed over her head. What a shame the fall didn't seem to hurt it at all.
Evgenii's scream was of pain made her hairs stand on end. Yulia scrambled to get up and reloaded her hunting rifle. The flashlight Evgenii had been carrying had fallen and rolled down, and now it lay forgotten on the floor. In the dim light and shadows, the creatures looked freakishly human and feral and wrong. Evgenii was trying to kick one off him, while clutching his bleeding arm. The other was crawling towards her. Yulia's hunting instincts kicked on and she didn't stop to think, she raised her hunting rifle and shot.
The slanted light ray from the flashlight was enough to see the creature jump in surprise and grunt in pain when she fired. And again. The creature limped in circles, like it was trying to decide whether to attack her or flee- That did give her time to reload again. In the end it decided to jump at her, but she was faster than the mutant and fired at it before it jumped. That made it turn around in a limping attempt to escape from her. A second shot, this time to its back, proved fatal.
The one trying to maul Evgenii stopped fighting when Yulia killed the other creature, then it skittered away, howling mournfully. Oh no! Now she felt guilty for killing its companion, even if they had been trying to kill her and Evgenii. But the creature had sounded so sad, almost human.
"Thank you," Evgenii was still clutching his right forearm, "I think it wanted to eat me."
"I did nothing to that one," she felt obliged to point.
"Maybe you scared it?"
She doubted it. In fact, she hoped it hadn't gone to plot revenge against them for killing its friend. As long as it stayed away from them it would be fine. The sound coming from the entrance had quieted some, but the two headed monster was still out there, occasionally clawing against the doors. And it was almost nightfall. This would be a long and harrowing night.
After bandaging his arm, Evgenii proposed to go to the second floor. This time nothing jumped at them, thank God. The second floor was mainly a big room that was almost empty. They sat against the wall, on a corner, watching the stairs and the door at the other end of the room. If anything tried to come here at least they wouldn't be caught unaware. The beast occasionally kept trying to get in, charging against the entrance and making the metal doors clank.
"Do you think Markov's also dead?" Oh great, now she had to break the bad news to him.
"Either that or he abandoned us to save his sorry hide." She was in no mood to mince her words.
"No, no. He must have gone for reinforcements." To be fair, not even Evgenii himself sounded like he believed that.
Unsurprisingly, his attempt at conversation died out after that. They decided to sleep one at a time while the other kept watch, but Yulia couldn't sleep. She dozed off a handful of times, yet every time she heard any noise she would snap her eyes open and peer nervously at the darkness. But so far the freakish creature hadn't come after them to exact revenge for the death of its friend. Evgenii also had problems falling asleep, claiming his whole body hurt from falling down the stairs.
"How did you end up in the Zone?" He asked her in the dead of the night.
"Would you believe it if I told you I got here because of a small mistake?"
His laugh was a smothered snort. "Almost everyone I know came here came running away from some mistake or another."
Not what she meant, but she didn't bother to correct him. It was better than having to explain she actually got lost and arrived to the Zone because she hadn't seen the fence was broken.
"What about you?" She asked instead.
"I heard you could make quick money here and I was broke, unemployed and about to be kicked out from my flat... so you can guess the rest."
"Yeah, I get it." After all, it had been the promise of money what convinced Yulia to go with them.
A long silence followed their exchange. Evgenii eventually fell asleep, and his snores were the only noise breaking the oppressive silence of the night. The two headed monster gave up trying to get in a long while ago, probably an hour or so. Maybe it grew bored and left. However Yulia didn't feel like checking it right now, aided only by the narrow beam of the flashlight. And the other creature was still somewhere on this building. She'd heard it grunting at the bottom of the stairs once. She prayed it was alone and there weren't more of those waiting for them to go downstairs.
When the sun rose she was itching to get out of this damned building. All she wanted was to go back to the camp and ask around about Markov's possible whereabouts, so she could find him and punch him in the face for being a dirty coward and leaving them to their luck. She woke up Evgenii, who readily agreed with her idea to get out of here ASAP.
Nothing ambushed them on their way out, although they had their weapons ready to shoot anything that moved. Cautiously poking her head out of the door, Yulia observed the surroundings. Claw marks and a dented door, but no other signs of the two headed beast's presence. A quick sweep of the front patio revealed it wasn't hiding behind any corner. The only other grisly reminder of yesterday's misadventure was Hedgehog's corpse, mauled and missing some limbs. Gruesome, but Yulia reminded herself she'd seen more blood and entrails when cleaning the pieces she hunted.
"He deserves a burial, don't you think?" Evgenii still talked in whispers like he'd done through the night.
"Yeah, he does." It wasn't his fault Markov turned out to be a treacherous swine. Burying him was the decent thing to do. "I've seen a shovel back there. You watch out for trouble while I dig, okay?"
"I can help you dig." No, he couldn't. She'd seen how he moved, stiff like a stick, his ribs and back probably still sore from the fall down the stairs. It would be a miracle if he could even raise a shovelful of dirt.
"You should make the cross or whatever you want to use to mark the grave." Yulia suggested.
She started to dig the grave. It was hard work and soon she was sweating. Her braid had come half undone and her dirty blonde hair clung to her forehead. When the ditch was done, they rolled Hedgehog's remains in. She started shovelling the earth back into the hole, and when she was almost done Evgenii scampered off to confection a rudimentary cross with some scraps he'd seen on the patio. Therefore, no one noticed the unnaturally big dog approaching. Yulia realised she wasn't alone when she heard a growl a few feet ahead of her. Thinking the humanoid thing from last night had followed them outside the building, she slowly turned around. But no, it was the biggest, ugliest and meanest dog she'd ever seen, barking at her and its spittle flying everywhere. Where the heck had she left her weapon?
The dog lunged against her, and Yulia dodged it and hit it with the only thing she had at hand, the shovel. This only served to enrage the dog. Where was Evgenii when she needed help? If he'd also abandoned her, God help him when she tracked him down. Yulia whacked the dog's head with the shovel again, putting as much strength into the hit as possible. The dog was momentarily disoriented but otherwise fine. Her next hit was so hard the shovel's wooden handle broke with a loud crack. The dog backed away a couple of steps, furious but wary of her. And then a burst from an AK killed it. She turned around, broken shovel held high in case it was Markov and she wanted to smack him in the face.
"Woah, put that down!" A tall and lanky stalker dressed in green camo laughed at her, hands up in mock surrender. The gasmask distorted the voice, but Yulia could swear it was a woman.
"Those were good hits, shame the shovel broke." The other one told her. Both of them wore gasmasks and their voices were somewhat distorted.
Right then Evgenii came running from the abandoned building, Fort-12 in one hand and a misshapen cross made with metal scraps in the other.
"Heard the shots, came as fast as I could," he panted.
"Calm down, we were just helping shovel girl here with the pseudo-dog." The lanky stalker explained to Evgenii, who lowered his pistol after one look at the dead pseudo-dog.
"Are you burying a friend?" The other stalker asked, voice laced with sympathy.
"A two headed thing killed him last night." Yulia gave an abridged version of the facts, and only because they had indeed saved her from the pseudo-dog.
"A chimera? Here?" Both of them looked around nervously, but the chimera was long gone. "Let's finish the burial before it decides to come back."
The two stalkers, who introduced each other as Lefty and Mouse, helped her pushing the earth back into the grave –with their hands, since there was only one shovel and it was broken– and stick the makeshift cross into the ground. And all the while, Lefty wouldn't stop talking.
"You know, I had never seen anyone before face off a pseudo-dog armed with just a shovel. That's pretty badass." Lefty stopped shoving dirt into the grave to take off the gasmask. "You should come to our base with us, we could make a toast to your dead friend and to Shovel's unique fighting style."
It was then, with the mask off, that Yulia had the confirmation to her earlier guess: Lefty was a woman. She looked younger than her, almost fresh out of college.
"You could join us, Freedom is always accepting new stalkers." Mouse's offer caught her off guard.
What the heck was Freedom? She made a note to ask Evgenii about it later, the rookie would probably know. Speaking of the devil, Evgenii was looking at her, waiting for her to answer to Mouse. That was surprising. He had more experience than her, half the time Yulia had no idea of what was going on, so why was he waiting for her to decide?
"I'm going back to the rookie camp," she decided, and then back home. She wasn't feeling very trusting after her experience yesterday. Yes, Mouse and Lefty seemed nice enough, even if Lefty kept calling her Shovel girl and variations of it, but Markov also seemed nice, and look what happened afterwards. Much to her relief, they took her refusal calmly.
"Be careful, there's been a lot of messages about military activity coming from the Cordon." With that final warning Mouse turned around and continued on his way.
"If you change your mind about that, or simply want someone to drink with, come find us!" Lefty said at the top of her lungs as she trailed after Mouse.
The Freedomers left and Yulia and Evgenii were left standing at Hedgehog's grave. She felt like maybe someone should say a few words, but neither of them knew him very well. So they kept a minute of silent contemplation and then left.
#
The way back to the rookie village wasn't overly long, but to Yulia it felt the longest she'd ever walked. She was tired and hadn't slept since about twenty-four hours ago. All she wanted was to get home, fall face first into her bed and nap for hours.
Arriving to the main camp was easier than expected, despite the ominous sound of a military chopper patrolling the area. And when they arrived they found the stalkers in the village agitated and worried. Evgenii asked her to wait for him while he went to visit the trader, so Yulia decided to find what was going on.
"Hey, what's everyone talking about?" She intercepted the first stalker she met, a scruffy guy with claw marks over his face.
"Haven't you heard? The military is cracking down hard on new arrivals. They have increased the patrols all over the border and seized a few farms near the border."
She went white and dread seized her. "That's my home you're talking about!"
"Really?" The stalker looked at her with a mix of pity and disbelief. "I heard they found anomalies in the crop fields and ordered the evacuation of everyone."
That was not good at all. What the heck was happening? Was everyone alright or had the military had to evacuate the people by force? Her family had no idea where she was, and Yulia couldn't go back because the damn military patrols would mistake her for a stalker and shoot on sight.
She was too preoccupied with this information and didn't notice Evgenii was back until he waved a wad of bills in front of her.
"I found a Stone Flower stashed away while I was making Hedgehog's cross," he explained, looking oddly apologetic. "The original deal was to split everything evenly, and after... well, you deserve half of it."
Eight hundred roubles. She was speechless. That was more than doubling what she had right now.
"You're a stand-up guy Evgenii." For added emphasis, she gave him a friendly punch in the arm.
"So what's gotten into everyone? They all look nervous." This simple question wiped out Yulia's smile.
"I may have to stay here for a bit longer," she admitted before telling him the latest news.
#
Staying in the Zone for a little longer turned out to be a whole month and counting.
At first she stayed in the rookie camp with Evgenii, bidding her time and waiting for the military to either go away or relax their iron grip of the border. But that wasn't happening.
She had been taking the odd job from Wolf to hunt some mutants. The pay wasn't that good but it was a way to keep her entertained and gain some cash. And she forged herself a reputation of being a good hunter amongst her fellow stalkers. More so, after Evgenii told the story of their adventure one night around the campfire everyone decided Lefty had had the right idea and started to call her Shovel. She thought it sounded silly, but nicknames were important, or so Evgenii told her.
Even though dealing with Sidorovich made her skin crawl, he had ways to send messages to the exterior. And it only cost her almost all her money and supplies, damn crook he was. But thanks to that now she knew her parents were fine, residing in Kyiv with her sister Iryna. Yulia had been declared missing, yet nobody was searching for her, much to her family's frustration. At least with her message they would know she was still alive.
The military patrols hadn't diminished at all, if anything they grew bolder. The rookie village was a safe haven, but it was clear the military wanted full control of the Cordon. Her hunting trips became more dangerous, and not because of the mutants. And the pay wasn't that good, counting she needed more bullets and supplies. Of course, the solution to her problems would be to find another artifact or two. In fact, it was Evgenii who proposed the idea, exactly one day after she sent her message through Sidorovich. They were seated around the campfire, listening how a newcomer played the harmonica, when Evgenii sprung the idea on her.
"What do you think about some artifact hunting?" He gave her ample time to think about it and it wasn't until she shrugged noncommittally that he pressed the issue. "C'mon Shovel, just one artifact would be worth the same than three of you hunting jobs!"
"You're exaggerating," she chuckled. "And I told you to drop this Shovel thing."
"Sure thing Shovel." She cuffed him lightly and told him he was worse than her sister. He just laughed.
"We could go to Garbage," he suggested happily, like the prospect of radioactive piles of trash was the best thing ever. "I've heard there's a lot of artifacts there."
"And from what I've heard, every rookie on this camp has done the same or is planning to do so," she sighed. Those were bad odds to find anything worthwhile. "We should go somewhere else."
"What do you have in mind?" He picked an empty pack of cigarettes from the ground and started tearing it into pieces he later threw it into the fire.
"Agroprom? Yantar?"
"Ugh, not Yantar. I don't feel ready to face zombies." Evgenii shuddered.
"I thought that was just some tall tale to scare the newbies?" The idea that there really could be zombies somewhere was chilling. Zombies weren't real, were they?
"I'm not risking it." Evgenii declared. Yes, she could agree with that.
"Agroprom then?"
"I guess," he said while flicking another piece of the cigarette pack into the fire. "We have to go through Garbage all the same, might as well explore the area a bit, yeah?"
"Fine," she sighed in exasperation. "If you're so invested in seeing mountains of trash, I suppose there's no harm in having a quick look."
His triumphant smile was slightly aggravating, but he looked happy like none of them had been since their encounter with the chimera. Speaking of which, it frustrated her to no end that nobody knew where Markov had vanished to. Part of her wished he was dead in a ditch somewhere, and part of her also wished him alive so she could one day punch his teeth out for being a backstabbing bastard. But for now she would plan this trip to Garbage and Agroprom, and perhaps when they came back she would have news about her family's situation or her family's farm. It was silly compared with everything else, but she was worried by their sheep, which were at the mercy of the military and their scientific team.
"Tomorrow morning then. We fill our packs with ammo and supplies and then we set off to Garbage. And Agroprom." The last part he added as an afterthought, but she didn't notice it.
Yes, a small trip in search of artifacts was just what she needed to get her head out of her problems. There was only one teensy problem.
"Uh, Evgenii? Don't we need one of those detector things to locate the artifacts?"
"Blyat!" His face of surprised realization was too funny and she broke laughing. This expedition was off to a fantastic start.
- 9
- 10
- 11
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

From the Zone with love