Andriy Karamazov

The thunderstorm passed them half an hour ago but it was catching up again. The soaked canvas of the battered ZIL truck sagged over the heads. Lioha rolled his eyes and tried to guess if it could survive another downpour. Their driver pushed for the derelict Freight Train Depot before dark. One of the potholes in the old army road jarred Lioha back to reality. He wondered if the driver’s eyes were even open, then looked to the wounded and the sleeper. Neither stirred. The fourth passenger – a man in a rain cape against him – sat motionless as if glued to the steel bench. Lioha fixed his gaze on him. The rain cape mumbled something. 

“If I hear him droning one more time, it will haunt me…”- Lioha turned away and exhaled, his breath making a faint cloud in front of him. He felt his eyelids falling again and took an effort to pull them up. – “Not here, no. Another hour. I’ll make it”. 

ZIL rolled on a straight section of the road and the driver pressed the accelerator. A thick cloud of burned diesel followed the truck. The grey fumes, mixed with the wet Autumn aftertones and the anomalous fog, spread to every cell of Lioha’s body like a strong, exotic poison. He shuddered, blinked twice and felt everything around him so real and overwhelming. 

“De-pot… Sa-fe” – the low slur flowed from across the truck. – “Broth–” 

Lioha did not move to avoid drawing attention to himself, but shifted his gaze again to the rain cape passenger. Hooded head, covered face, glassy eyes. Thin purple fingers stuck out of the muddy sleeves. Some with missing nails. Left hand frozen as if holding an invisible photo.

“Drunk? Has he even moved his hands once since I joined?” – Lioha remembered scrambling in the back of the truck at the Flooded Village and the first thing he saw were the torn boots of the rain cape man, plastered with a thick layer of mud. Sometimes the thick scent of wet, fresh dirt still hung in the air. – “Is he staring at my throat?”

Lioha glanced to the right. A broken rusty schlagbaum. Several electrical anomalies made a dilapidated army outpost their home. A mutated dog gnawed on a corpse in a dark blue camo. His other two rotten comrades took an eternal guard duty near the rusty carcass of a Land Rover. Forest again. A clearing. Wooden crosses over the fresh earth mounds. An anomalous constellation of molten trees. Another pothole sent him forward and Lioha hit his left temple. His eyes burned from the toxic stench of the burned diesel. 

“Keep them open.”

Nobody tried to start the conversation in the truck since the beginning of his ride at the Flooded Village. The lack of talk made Lioha itch. No artifact tales, no Dead City legends, no heroic ventures or revealing of the sacred dreams after five rounds of vodka bottle. Then they picked up the wounded one to the north of the embankment. At first he moaned, then dozed off to sleep and just kept holding his shattered right shoulder, inching into a new position whenever the pain flared. The one in the patchy OZK suit joined them at the machinery scrap yard and fell asleep as soon as he crawled in the further left corner. He woke up only once during the entire ride and tried to light a Camel, but gave up after some time and slumped back into sleep. 

“This one, against me, sat there already when I jumped in at the village.” – Lioha took an effort to find his water flask, then pulled all his will together and raised it to his lips. A quick glance from under the hood. – “Did he even move once since then?” 

“De-pot… Sa-fe…” – Lioha barely heard the already familiar hollow monotone. – “Broth–”

This time the thunder crept closer. ZIL rolled past a rotten cage of Moskvitch at the side of the road. A lightning flash. A pair of absent eyes, set deep within the wreaths of burnt skin, stared at Lioha from across the truck. Lioha’s hand twitched, letting his water flask fall. 

“De-pot… Sa-fe… Broth–” – the last word died into a light rasp somewhere in the throat of the rain cape passenger. 

A defence ditch in front of the Freight Train Depot shook the truck and threw it up. The wounded groaned. The driver pulled over at the first checkpoint of the ‘Shield’ fighters. A loud howling of the sentry dogs cut through the truck’s engine roar and the buzzing checkpoint generators. Lioha jerked. Howling quickly turned into frantic barking. 

“Shut those beasts up!” – The checkpoint guard approached the truck. – “Everyone out!”.

From the side of the road Lioha saw the rain cape helping himself out of ZIL’s tailgate. The passenger took his time. Each motion – an effort. He froze at the edge of the hanger. The next moment he almost fell out of it. His legs could not hold him upright – one of the ‚Shield’ guards caught him when landing. The fighter recoiled, covering his nose with his hand. 

“De– Sa– Bro–” – the passenger lurched forward, balanced himself and staggered on. – “Ser-gey… Broth– … –er”. Jerking in spasmodic bursts the man surveyed the surroundings. – “Ser–”

“Artiomka?!” – one of the checkpoint guards lowered his Kalashnikov and crouched while peering into the face of the passenger – a shadow under the hood. – “Artiomka! Brother, is that you?!”

The rain cape froze, then staggered in the direction of the voice in stiff, disjointed movements, dragging one leg behind him. 

The next moment the ‚Shield’ fighter who tended to the dogs sprinted over with his Kalashnikov raised and snatched the hood from the man’s head. 

“The Dead! Zombie at the base! Contact!”

“Halt! Guys!” – with his hands up in the air Sergey rushed to the passenger, caught him and pressed onto himself. – “Artiomka!”

“Sergey, halt! Sergeant! Wait!”

“Open fire!”

A thunderclap of the incoming storm tore the evening sky. It started to pour. Cold rainwater ran behind Lioha’s collar and down his back. He still stood at the side of the road. The ‚Shield’ guards were loading two corpses into a wheelbarrow.