S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Southern Comfort (32 page)

“With a past like that, one day you’ll make it to general,” Tarasov says.

“Major, I love you. You are a badass, but I love you! Please, Major, don’t tell the others that I didn’t finish university. You know, we’re all supposed to be badasses but being a badass with a university degree makes me a special badass. Am I not right?”

Tarasov softly pushes Ilchenko’s arm away as the soldier attempts to embrace him. “That’s your only concern after you’ve killed a man?”

“Come on, it was in
St. Petersburg
! Someone would have killed him anyway. Some guys on the street called me a
hohol
when they heard me talking. Me, who is of their blood! Damn it, didn’t we all fight the Nazis together? And then the dushmans? It’s all screwed up in the
Big
Land
. All…”

Finally wasted, Ilchenko stretches out on the ground and starts snoring immediately. The Stalkers are quiet.

“Why does someone drink too much vodka if he can’t handle it?” Snorkbait eventually says. “Let’s go to sleep. Mishka, it’s your turn to keep the first watch.”

“That was a very touching story, but we still don’t know where to find women,” Mishka Beekeeper says, stretching his back. “Oh God – artifacts, guns, freedom, adventures... What good is there in all of this if there’s no pussy around?”

Snorkbait, the only one who has kept his mind more or less sober, gives Tarasov a questioning look. “One doesn’t just need to mention the Tribe to poop a party, I see.”

“He’s proved to be a capable and reliable soldier to me,” the major replies with a shrug. “I don’t care about what he did before.”

“That’s the kind of soldiers you have in your army? And I thought the Stalkers were a rough enough bunch.”

Tarasov looks at the snoring machine gunner. “My job is to command them, not to judge them,” he tells the Stalker. “And besides… if you are in battle, you need men like Ilchenko at your side.”

“You have a point. As a matter of fact, sometimes I’m glad we have no women around.”

“Agreed, Snorkbait.” Tarasov takes Ilchenko’s sleeping bag from the soldier’s rucksack and opens it. Before covering the snoring soldier, he looks him down for a minute. “It’s probably better for the women too.”

“Do you think it was true, or was he just bragging?”

“I don’t care. But to be honest, I guess you’re not from the Ukraine or Russia and have no idea of what some women, like Ilchenko’s girl, are willing to do to get away… to London, for example.”

“What an irony,” Snorkbait says with a smirk. “Because you have no idea of what men like me are willing to do to get out of there, mate.”

Deserter

Beyond Hellgate Camp, 27 September 2014, 13:12:48 AFT

“Shit, we’ve been here already!”

The better part of the day has already passed when Squirrel smashes his PDA to the ground. “I’m sorry, man. There seems to be no way up to that cursed plateau!”

“I can’t believe this shit. You’re supposed to be a guide, Stalker.”

Ilchenko looks tired and angry. Tarasov can’t blame him for his frustration: since they left the camp at dawn, they’ve spent all day wandering through the rugged crevasses with walls that tower several dozen meters above them. With their heavy gear, the walls themselves are too steep to climb, forcing them to seek an easier way.

“And you’re supposed to be airborne, man,” Squirrel retorts. “Why do you need me? Go, fly up there!”

Tarasov scans the area with his binoculars. No matter how many approaches they’ve tried, all have ended at an impassable section or another dead end. All he can see now is a labyrinth of sand-colored rocks and steep hills, no matter how far he looks.

“One week on
havchik
… maybe you’re right, Squirrel. All I need is to fart and it’ll propel me right up to the plateau.”

“Gas masks on…”

“Cut the crap,
patsanni,
” Tarasov says. “I think I saw something. Squirrel, have a look at that.” The major hands his binoculars to the guide and points to the mouth of a cave. “Maybe there’s an underground passage leading up in there. I don’t know… do you think we should check it out?”

“It’s your call, man,” Squirrel replies, increasing the magnification for a better look.. “It could be a mutant lair.”

“At least we’d get the chance to shoot something rather than just walk around completely lost. Let’s go.”

As they approach the cave, Squirrel points to a path leading up to its mouth. It is surprisingly well-trodden.

“Keep your weapons ready,” he whispers. “Might be a dushman hideout.”

“What the hell would dushmans do here?” Ilchenko snorts.

The guide sends a scowl towards Ilchenko. “Looking for artifacts, like everyone else… why, what did you think? Pilgrimage?”

“Squirrel, step back. I’ll take point,” Tarasov says, covering the last few meters to the cave entrance with utmost caution, ready to shoot. Before entering the cave that overlooks the plains below, he switches on the flashlight he has fastened to the Vintorez with duct tape. Keeping his index finger on the trigger, he enters the cave. Then he juts his head out, signaling his companions to move up.

“Ilchenko, be prepared to mow down everything that moves. Squirrel, watch our back. We’re moving in.”

Signs of human habitation appear in the light circle of the torchlight – a mattress and a fireplace.

“Steady,
rebyata
. Steady.”

A shadow moves in the darkness. The major points his rifle toward the corner where he sensed movement, but what appears in the torchlight gives him a bigger scare than any mutant.

“Hold your fire!” Tarasov shouts.

It is an emaciated man with a wildly grown, dirty beard covering the lower part of his weathered face. His skin bears deep scars and wrinkles, giving him the look of a burnt out, shell of a man, thin and old like a mummy. A dusty Talib turban covers his head, but the most unnerving thing is the ragged coat he is wearing. Tarasov has to force himself to believe his own eyes: it is the coat of a Soviet officer from many years ago. One of the shoulder patches has been torn off but the other, dirty and faded, still shows a captain’s rank. He recoils into his cave and covers his eyes from the torchlight’s blinding light. His toothless mouth utters senseless blabber. “
Wiy
… nashi?…
”

“Lower your weapons,” Tarasov tells his companions, and reaches out towards the ghost-like figure. “We mean no harm. Who are you?”

 
“
Nash
… our column.”

“If we stumbled upon a Soviet guy from that war, I’ll piss myself,” Ilchenko murmurs.

“
Sovietskiy? Da! Da!”
The figure steps forward and grabs Ilchenko’s arm. “
Nashi, ti nashoi sinok!
”

Before the soldier can do anything, the old man kisses the hand holding the machine gun. Then he touches the Ukrainian army patch on Ilchenko’s arm, his eyes open wide in bewilderment.

“Yes, we’re Ukrainians, Papa,” Ilchenko says. “We always were, actually.”

Squirrel takes a bottle from his rucksack and offers it to the old man. “
Vipyi
, Papa
. You look like you could use a little vodka.”

“Me too,” Tarasov says.

“Count me in,” adds Ilchenko.

Holy Mother of God,
Tarasov thinks, looking at the old man as if he were a creature from another planet. Then he realizes that he actually is – a living time capsule that has turned every abstract memory of the past into reality, even if it is a hardly conceivable one.

“All right… come, sit down. Are you hungry?” He asks, pointing to his mouth and making a chewing gesture. To his surprise, the man shakes his head. “Let’s get out of this cave. Come, Ilchenko, help him walk. Squirrel, get that bottle back from him. He’s confused enough. Look around, maybe you find something useful that helps us know who he is... or was.”

“I’ll be damned,” Ilchenko says offering his hand to the old man. “Come, Papa, grab my hand. Otherwise I’ll think you’re a ghost.”

The old man might be worn out, but he is not helpless. He takes a heavy wooden staff and, laughing, pats Ilchenko on the back as he walks with them into the light outside.

“Ours… you are ours… you have arrived,” he says. His words sound like those from someone who hasn’t talked for a very long time.

Ilchenko watches Tarasov pensively. He seems to be at a loss over what to do and say. Tarasov doesn’t feel much smarter than his soldier.

“I am Major Tarasov from the Ukrainian Armed Forces. This is Private Ilchenko. And the other guy is… well, call him Squirrel. He is our guide.”

“Ukrainian? How?”

Ilchenko is about to launch into a long explanation when the major signals for him to hold his tongue and turns to the old man.

“Who are you?”

“Who… I am. Now I am. Again. I am this.” The man reaches into his duster and gives Tarasov a barely readable ID card, issued by the Soviet Army. The major holds it in his hands as if it were an artifact that he had never believed existed.

“Captain Igor Vasilyevich Ivanov? 276th logistics division?”

“The column.”

“What column, Captain?”

“My column. Ours.”

“This gibberish makes no sense,” Ilchenko says.

Tarasov tries to tackle the situation by sticking to their basic needs. “We must get through to the factory on the plateau. We can’t get through. Do you know a way to the factory?”

“My column is lost.”

“We are the new column. And we must get through. Captain Ivanov, you must lead us through.”

“I hoped… that the war ended. Did it end?”

“Not exactly,” Tarasov says with a sigh. “We are here to settle unfinished business with the dushmans. Getting to the factory is part of that. Do you know a way or not?”

“I do… I know. Old
kravasos
is hiding there. Me, I’m hiding here. I don’t like leaving my hiding place. What news?”

“Captain… please give me a moment.”

Tarasov flags Ilchenko to follow him a few steps away.

“Things have taken a turn for the surreal, Private. What’s your view on this?”

“Sir, with all due respect, it’s 2014 now. Do you really believe that one man could have survived here for almost thirty years, all alone? Look at him – he’s more a walking
 
skeleton than human being!”

“His ID card seems genuine. Look.” Tarasov gives the weathered card to Ilchenko. “Plus he claims to know a way to that damned factory. This means we need him, and need to play along. Let’s assume that what he says is true and he was left behind somehow by the Soviet army. What do we tell him? That his country, the mighty
USSR
, was humiliated and ran like a whipped dog?”

“I don’t know, sir… I don’t know.”

“And then that his country doesn’t exist anymore? And all that has happened ever since? The CIS, the putsch, Yeltsin, Putin, all that shit? Damn
,
maybe this guy never heard about
Chernobyl
either! As far as he’s concerned, his commander in chief is still Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev!”