held his back, sighed, sat back at the table and took another sip from the tea cup. On the opposite side of the table the colonel’s tea steamed solitary and right next to his beret – he had forgotten it in his haste. The head of the station made a grimace and began again, this time half loud, to argue with the absent colonel. It was still about the same topic – but this time he found new arguments, so that he didn’t think of in the heat of the moment.
At Sevastopolskaya many dark jokes circulated over just why the neighboring station was called Tschertanovskaya; you could read the word “Tschort” (devil) too clearly out of its name. The mills of the hydroelectric plants extended rather far into its direction and although it was supposed to be abandoned, nobody in their right mind thought about occupying or acquiring it. The teams of technicians that had built the outer generators and regularly maintained them under supervision were always careful to not closer more than a few hundred meters to Tschertanovskaya.
Almost everyone on an expedition to the generatorse who wasn’t a fanatic atheist secretly made a cross with his hands, and some even told their families goodbye.
The Tschertanovskaya was an evil station; everyone felt it from the station from even half a kilometer away. At first, in their naivety, the inhabitants of the Sevastopolskaya sent heavy armed scouting parties to extend their reach.
If they came back at all, the parties would be heavily injured and at least decimated by half. Then they sat stuttering, slobbering at the fire, so close that they clothes almost caught fire, but they never stopped trembling. They struggled to remember their experience – and one report from Tschertanovskaya is never like any other.
It is said, that beyond the main tunnel of the Tschertanovskaya, side tunnels plunged down into an enormous labyrinth of natural caves and allegedly were swarming with monsters. The people of the Sevastopolskaya called the place “the gate” – an arbitrary term, because nobody in the metro, who was still alive, had entered this part of the metro.
Although there was a story from when the line wasn’t developed – supposedly a big recon unit passed through the Tschertanovskaya and discovered “the gate”. Over a transmitter – a kind of cable telephone – the radio transmitter communicated that it fell down, almost vertical, at the end of a small corridor.
They didn’t get any further. In the coming minutes the leaders of the Sevastopolskaya heard shrill screams full of horror and pain. It was strange that the recon team didn’t shoot – maybe they knew that conventional weapons wouldn’t protect them. The last man of the group to be silenced was a mercenary without a conscience from the Kitai-Gorod station, who cut of the small finger of defeated enemies as a souvenir. He seemed to be some distance from the microphone that had slipped out of the hand of the radio operator, because you couldn’t hear his words clearly. But after listening closely, the head of the station, understood what the man was sobbing while he was fighting for his life: A simple prayer. One of these simple prayers that religious parents teach their small children. Then the connection broke off. After this incident all further tries to reach the Tschertanovskaya were stopped.
Yes, there have been even plans to abandon the Sevastopolskaya and return to Hanza. This cursed station seemed to be one of those borders that marked the end of human rule in the metro. The creatures that pushed against these borders brought the inhabitants of the Sevastopolskaya many problems, but they weren’t invulnerable and a good organized defense could fend off the attacks with light to no casualties – as long as they had enough ammunition. Some of these monsters could only be stopped with high-explosives and high voltage traps. But in most cases, the guards had deal with less terrible – but still dangerous – creatures.
“There is another one! Up there, in the third pipe!”
The upper searchlight had broken out of the frame and dangled twitching like a hanged man on the cable, scattering its hard light at the scenery of fortifications: Sometimes it illuminated cowering silhouettes of creeping mutants, other times it hid them in the darkness or blinded the guards with its glaring light. Treacherous shadows raced around, became smaller and bigger, appeared as distorted faces so that you couldn’t distinguish the humans from the mutants.
The post was in a good position, because in this place two tunnels ran into one. Right before the apocalypse the Metrostroi (metro workers) began their repairs, but they were never able to finish it.
The residents of the Sevastopolskaya had transformed the junction into a fortress: Two machine gun-nests, one and a half meters thick protection walls made out of sand bags, tank-stoppers out of tracks, high voltage traps and a carefully thought out alarm system. But when the mutants came in waves, like on this day, it seemed as if the fortress could fall any minute.
The machine-gunner mumbled in a monotone voice to himself. Bloody bubbles came out of his nostrils, and he looked surprised at the shiny red wet palms of his hands. The air around the Petscheng (it is a heavy machine gun) flickered in because of the heat, but now the damned thing was jammed. The gunner made a short grunting sound and leaned against the shoulder of his neighbor, a colossal fighter with a closed titan-helmet and turned silent. In the next second they heard a bloodcurdling scream and the creature attacked.
The man with the helmet pushed the blood-smeared machine gunner out of the way, stood up, raised his Kalashnikov and fired a short burst. The disgusting, sinewy, grey-skinned animal had already jumped; spread its claws and flight membranes, flying at them shrieking. The hail of bullets ended the scream and the dead animal continued to fly into the same direction. Then the 150-kilo body slammed into the sand bags and created a thick cloud of dust.
“That’s it.”
The seemingly never ending onslaught of creatures that came out of the sawed-off pipes on the tunnel ceiling, just a minute ago, stopped. The guards left their cover carefully.
“A stretcher! A doctor! Bring him to the station, fast!”
The colossal man that killed the last animal attached a bayonet to his assault rifle and approached the dead and injured creatures that were lying around on the battlefield leisurely. He pushed down the head of the first animal and ran the bayonet right through its eye, then repeated the process until he was sure that every creature was dead. Finally he leaned himself against the sand bags, looked to the tunnel, raised the visor of his helmet and took a sip out of his canteen.
The reinforcements from the station arrived after everything was already over. Even the commander of the outer guard posts came limping, breathing heavy, cursing at his illness and with his jacket open. “Were do I get three men now? Am I supposed to cut them out my body?”
“What are you talking about Denis Michailovitsch?” asked one of the guards.
“Istomin wants to send a recon team to Serpuchovskaya. He is afraid for the caravan. So where do I get three men now? Especially now…”
“Still nothing new?” asked the man with the canteen without turning around.
“Nothing”, reassured the old man. “But not a lot of time has passed. What would be more dangerous? If we weaken the south now, there might be no one left to greet the caravan when it arrives.”
The other one shook his head and went silent. He still didn’t move when the colonel asked if any of guards would join the three men team.
There were enough volunteers. Most of the guards had enough of sitting around and couldn’t imagine anything more dangerous than guarding the southern tunnels.
From the six volunteers, the colonel choose who he thought to be expendable. A reasonable thought: none of them would return.
It had been three days since they had sent the recon team on the railcar. The commander thought that the others were whispering behind his back and looking at him with distrust. Even the most intense conversations ceased when he entered, and the tense silence that followed seemed to be a silent request: Explain it to us, justify yourself.
But he only did his job – ensuring the security of the outer guard posts of the Sevastopolskaya. He was a tactician, a strategist. They didn’t have enough soldiers anyway. What right does he has to waste them on doubtful and senseless expeditions?
Three days ago he was absolutely convinced. But now, because every afraid, disapproving, doubting look was hallowing out his certainty, he was starting to doubt as well.
A recon team with light weapons didn’t even need a day on the way to Hanza and back – even accounting
