‘Where did you get it?’
‘From the neck of a lookout who was guarding the right tunnel. Hardly any blood came out, but he lay there all blue, and foaming at the mouth.’
‘Did they come from Park Pobedy?’ Artyom was guessing.
‘Damned if anyone knows,’ mumbled Arkadiy Semyonovich and at the same time he upset their glasses. ‘Only,’ he added, putting the needle back into the cupboard, ‘don’t tell anyone.’
‘But why haven’t you told anyone yourself? They’ll help you and people will settle down.’
‘Well, no one would settle down, everyone would run away, like rats! They’re already running now . . . Not to defend themselves from anyone here, there is no enemy. He isn’t visible, and that’s why it’s frightening. So, I show them this needle, and what? Do you think everything will settle? That’s ridiculous! Everyone will disappear, the bastards, and leave me here alone! And what kind of a station chief will I be without people? A captain without a ship!’ He had raised his voice, but he let out a squeak and was silent.
‘Arkasha, Arkasha, you don’t have to be like that, everything’s OK . . .’ The girl sat down, startled, beside him, and stroked his head. Artyom sadly understood through the alcoholic fog that she wasn’t the chief’s daughter.
‘All of them, the sons of bitches, will run! Like rats from a ship! I’ll be alone! But we won’t give in!’ He hadn’t calmed down.
Artyom stood up with difficulty and unsteadily walked toward the exit. The guard at the door quizzically snapped his fingers in his face, nodding at Arkadiy Semyonovich’s office.
‘Dead drunk,’ Artyom muttered. ‘It’s better not to touch him until tomorrow.’ And, rocking slightly, he plodded towards his tent.
He had to find the way. He tried a few times to get into someone else’s quarters, but crude male curses and piercing female squeals told him that he had gone into the wrong tent. The moonshine had turned out to be more potent than cheap home-brew, and he had started to feel its full strength only now. The arches and columns floated before his eyes and, to top it off, he was beginning to feel sick.
At a normal hour, perhaps, someone would have helped Artyom reach the guest tent, but now the station seemed completely empty. Even the posts at the exits from the tunnels were likely to have been abandoned.
Three or four dim lamps remained lit in the whole station, and, apart from those, the whole platform had been plunged into darkness. When Artyom stopped and looked around more attentively, it began to appear to him that the gloom had been filled by something and it was stirring quietly. Not believing his eyes, he plodded in the direction of one especially suspicious place with the curiosity and bravery of a drunk. Not far from the transfer to the Filevskaya line, at one of the arches, the movements of blobs of darkness were not gradual, as in other corners, but sharp and almost deliberate.
‘Hey! Who’s there?’ Having approached to a distance of about fifteen steps, he cried out.
No one answered, but it seemed to him that an elongated shadow was oozing out of a particularly dark spot. It almost merged with the gloom. However, Artyom was certain that someone was looking at him from the darkness. He was shaking but kept his balance and took another step.
The shadow abruptly decreased in size, as if it had shrunk, and slipped away. A sudden, sickening smell struck his nostrils and Artyom recoiled. What did it smell like? A picture of something he had seen in the tunnel on the approaches to the Fourth Reich arose in front of his eyes: bodies heaped on each other with hands tied behind their backs. The smell of decomposition?
At that very moment with a hellish speed, like an arrow flying from a crossbow, the shadow dashed towards him. A pallid face covered with strange spots, with deeply sunken eyes, appeared in front of his eyes for a second.
‘The dead!’ wheezed Artyom.
Then his head split into thousands of parts, the ceiling began to dance and turn over, and everything was fading away. Emerging and submerging into a feeble quiet, some kind of voices could be heard, some kind of visions flashed up then disappeared.
‘Mama won’t let me, she’ll be upset,’ the child said from not far away. ‘It was really impossible today, she cried all evening. No, I am not afraid, you are not frightful, and you sing beautifully. I just don’t want Mama to cry again. Don’t feel hurt! Well, for a short while maybe . . . Will we return before morning?’
‘. . . Time’s a-wasting. Time’s a-wasting,’ a low male voice repeated.
‘We don’t have all day. They’re close enough already. Get up. Don’t lie there. Get up! If you lose hope, if you flinch or give up, others will quickly take your place. I’m continuing the struggle. You should, too. Get up! You don’t understand . . .’
‘Who is it again? To the chief? As a guest? Well, of course, I’ll bring one! Go ahead, you help too . . . Shake a leg, at least. Severe . . . Don’t you care what he has there jingling in his pockets. Well, OK, I’m joking. That’s all. We’ve gone as far as we can. And I won’t, I won’t. I’m leaving . . .’
The tent’s flap was dramatically moved aside, and the beam of a flashlight struck him in the face.
‘Are you Artyom?’ He could barely make out the face, but the voice sounded young. Artyom jumped up from the cot, but his head suddenly began to spin, and he felt ill. A dull pain throbbed in the back of his head and each time he touched it, it felt like fire. His hair was matted there, most likely from dried blood. What had happened to him?
‘May I come in?’ the arrival asked and, not waiting for permission, stepped into the tent, closing the flap behind him. He shoved a tiny metallic object into Artyom’s hand. Having finally turned on his own flashlight, Artyom looked at it. It was a cartridge converted to a screw-on capsule, exactly the same as the one Hunter had presented to him. Not believing his own eyes, Artyom tried to open the top, but it slipped. His hands were sweating from the excitement. Finally a tiny piece of paper fell into the light. Was it really a missive from Hunter? ‘Unforeseen complications. The exit to D-6 has been blocked. Tretyak has been killed. Wait for me, don’t go anywhere. We need time to get organized. I will try to return as soon as possible. Melnik.’ Artyom re-read the note yet again, to analyse its contents. Tretyak has been killed? The exit to Metro-2 is blocked? But then this meant that all their plans and all their hopes had turned to dust and ashes! He looked at the envoy in a befuddled manner.
‘Melnik has ordered you to stay here and wait for him,’ the visitor confirmed.
‘Tretyak is dead. They killed him. With a poisoned needle, Melnik said. We don’t know who did it. Now he’ll be leading a mobilization effort. That’s it, I have to run. Will there be an answer?’ Artyom thought a little about what he could write to the stalker. What can I do? What is there to hope for now? Maybe drop everything and return to
VDNKh
to be with those near and dear in the last minutes? He shook his head. The envoy turned around in silence and exited. Artyom dropped to the cot and began to meditate. There was simply nowhere for him to go right now. He was neither able to go to the Ring nor return to Smolenskaya without a passport and without an escort. His only hope was that Arkadiy Semyonovich would be just as hospitable in the coming days as he had been the day before.
It was ‘day’ at Kievskaya. The lamp burnt twice as brightly, and alongside the office facilities, where the station chief’s apartment was located, another mercury lamp gave off the light of day. Wincing from the pain in his head, Artyom plodded to the chief’s office. A guard stopped him at the entrance with a gesture. Noise came from within. Several men were conversing in raised voices. ‘He’s busy,’ the guard explained. ‘Wait if you’d like.’
Several minutes later Anton flew from the room like a shot. The office boss ran out right on his heels. Although his hair was perfectly combed once more, he had bags beneath his eyes, and his face was noticeably swollen and covered with silver stubble.
‘But what can I do? What?’ the chief cried, chasing after Anton, and then, spitting, smacked himself with his hand on the forehead. ‘Are you up?’ Having noticed Artyom, he smiled wryly.
‘I have to stay here with you until Melnik returns,’ Artyom declared apologetically.
‘I know, I know. They reported it. Let’s go inside, they gave me an order concerning you.’ Arkadiy Semyonovich invited him into the room with a gesture.
‘So, I’ve been told to photograph you for a passport while you wait for Melnik. I still have the equipment here from when Kievskaya was a normal station . . . Then maybe he’ll acquire a blank passport and we’ll make the document for you.’
Sitting Artyom onto a stool, he pointed the lens of a small plastic camera at him. There was a blinding flash, and Artyom spent the next five minutes completely blinded, looking around helplessly.
‘Excuse me, I forgot to warn you . . . You’re starving. Come in, Katya will feed you, but I won’t have any time for you today. It’s getting worse for us here. Anton’s oldest son disappeared during the night. He’s giving the whole station a hard time now . . . And for what? And those here told me they found you this morning between the platforms? With a bloody head? What happened?’
‘I don’t remember . . . Most likely I fell down when I was drunk.’ Artyom hadn’t answered immediately.
‘Yes . . . It’s good that we had a sit-down yesterday,’ the chief grinned. ‘OK, Artyom, it’s time for me to get to work. Drop by a little later.’
Artyom slid down from the stool. The young Oleg’s face was in front of him. Anton’s oldest son . . . Was it really him? He recalled how the night before the boy had turned the handle of his music box, placed it on the iron of the pipe and then said that only small children are afraid that the dead would take them away if they walked into the tunnels and listened to the pipes. A chill swept over Artyom. Was it true? Did it happen because of him? Once more he glanced helplessly at Arkadiy Semyonovich, began to open his mouth, but he went outside without speaking.
Returning to his tent, Artyom took a seat on the floor and sat in silence for some time, looking into the void. Now it was beginning to seem to him that, having chosen him for this mission, someone unknown had damned him at the same time: almost everyone who had decided to share at least part of the way with him had died. Bourbon, Mikhail Porfirievich and his grandson, Daniel . . . Khan had disappeared without a trace, and even the fighters of the revolutionary brigade who had rescued Artyom may have been killed at the very next crossing. Now Tretyak. But the young Oleg? Had Artyom brought death to his companions?
Not understanding what was going on, he jumped up, threw his rucksack and machine gun onto his back, grabbed a flashlight and went out to the platform. He walked mechanically to the place where they had assaulted him during the night.
Approaching closer, he froze. The dead man looked at him through the dim haze of a drunken memory. He remembered it all. It was not a dream. He had to find Oleg or at least help Anton search for his son. It was his fault. He hadn’t looked after the lad. He had allowed Oleg to play his strange games with the pipes, and now he was here, safe and sound, but the boy had disappeared. And Artyom was convinced that he had not run away. Something bad and inexplicable had happened here during the night, and Artyom was doubly guilty, because he may have been able to prevent it, but he had been incapable.
He looked at the spot where the terrifying stranger had hidden in the shadows. A heap of garbage had been dumped there, but, sifting through it, Artyom only frightened a stray cat. Having searched the platform without result, he approached the tracks and jumped down to the rails. The guards at the entrance to the tunnel lazily looked him over and warned that he went into the crossings at his own risk and that no one there would take any responsibility for him.
This time Artyom didn’t go through the same tunnel as the day before, but took the second, the parallel one. As the lookout commander had said, this crossing was also blocked. The guard post was located at the blockage: an iron barrel served as a stove, and there were bags piled around. Alongside them there was a handcar, loaded with buckets of coal.
The lookouts sitting on the bags were whispering about something and, on his approach, jumped up from their seats, intently eying Artyom. But then one of them gave the OK and the others calmed down and settled in as before. Taking a closer look, Artyom recognized Anton as the commander, and hurriedly mumbling something awkward, turned and began to walk back. His face was on fire; he was unable to look into the eyes of the man whose son had disappeared because of him.
Artyom plodded on, lowering his head, repeating under his breath: ‘It wasn’t my fault . . . I wasn’t able . . . What could I have done?’ The splash of light from his flashlight skipped ahead of him. Suddenly he noticed a small object lying desolately in the shadow between two ties. Even from the distance it seemed familiar to him, and his heart beat faster. Bending over, Artyom picked the small box off the ground. He turned the handle and the box answered with that tinkling dreary melody. Oleg’s music box. Thrown or accidentally dropped by him here.
Artyom threw down his rucksack and began studying the tunnel walls twice as hard. Not far away was a door leading to office facilities, but Artyom discovered behind it only a ruined public loo. Twenty more minutes of tunnel inspection didn’t get him anywhere.
Returning to his rucksack, the young man sank to the ground and leaned back against the wall. Throwing back his head, stared at the ceiling, exhausted. After a second he once more was on his feet and the beam of the flashlight, fluttering, revealed a black gap, hardly noticeable in the darkened concrete of the ceilings. There was a loosely closed hatch just above the very place where Artyom had picked up Oleg’s music box. However, there was no way to reach the hatch. The ceiling was more than three metres high.
A solution presented itself to him in a flash. Grasping the box he had found and throwing his rucksack onto the rails, Artyom raced back to the lookouts. He was no longer afraid to look Anton in the eyes. Slowing his pace at the approach to the post so the lookouts wouldn’t panic, Artyom approached Anton and in a whisper told him about his discovery. Two minutes later they left the post, to the questioning looks of the rest, alternately operating the handles of the handcar.