Closer to evening, I approach a huge pile of garbage, in the middle of which sticks out a large and wide pipe, piercing the mountain of garbage through and through. Here is the Dump. As far as I remember, this passage was one of the transitions from the Cordon, and there should be a bandit checkpoint.
I approach, trying to stay to the right of the pipe so that no random glance notices me, and listen to what's happening on the other side. The cawing of some displeased crows, the distant barking of hungry dogs, and barely audible conversations around a campfire. I cautiously peek inside, but it's problematic to see anything from the other side except a couple of rusty barrels and grass.
Well, well, things are not going well. I need to get to the other side, but I don't want to conflict with the bandits. It's one thing to shoot a few of them on the Cordon, near the stalker base, it's another thing to shoot up a checkpoint. I could pay for passage, but they might demand not only money but also equipment, especially since my rifle is very good. And I would still be exposed to them, and I don't need extra attention from those scoundrels. I need to think.
I move a few meters away from the garbage pile and look around for a possible way north. Going east is a stupid idea, I'll come to another game transition with the same post on the other side. West is also not a particularly good direction. To my left stretches a large forest, with densely planted and tall trees forming a dense curtain. I could not only get lost but also stumble upon some creature, and I was more prepared for a battle with people.
There's only one way out. I have to try to go over the top. Inject myself with an antirad so as not to get burned right there, distract the bandits' attention, and slip through while they're looking the other way.
I look for a heavier stone and find a large piece of red brick, just what I need. Of course, they might have questions if a brick suddenly falls into the pipe, but I don't see any other way to distract them. And it's evening now, they're unlikely to take any measures immediately, and later they might forget about the lone stalker who infiltrated the Dump.
I approach the pipe and take off my backpack, taking out a couple of syringes with anti-radiation medication. I'll inject one now, and the second one later, just in case. I roll up the sleeve of my suit and inject the drug into my vein, hiding the used syringe in my pocket so as not to leave any traces, and carefully climb onto the pipe.
Once on it, I listen again to the sounds coming from the pipe and throw the piece of brick with all my might. It makes a long metallic hum and breaks into several parts. The conversations on the other side stop.
"Bashka," someone says as soon as the metallic echo disappears. "Take Rusty and check the other side."
"Why me?" the second bandit protests.
"And who owes me a drink, huh?"
"All right, all right," he backs down. "Let's go, Rusty. And what's with these stalkers, they just can't sit still..."
But I didn't listen to the bandits' further conversations and began to carefully climb up, trying to move to the left. I'll go around them along the edge. Once at the very top, I crouch down and carefully walk northwest, using the garbage for cover. As soon as I move a sufficient distance away, I carefully descend and immediately hide behind a bush. I peek out a bit and see the bandits sent to scout returning, and one of them shrugs, as if to say they found nothing. After standing like that for a few seconds, the leader spits on the ground, and everyone returns to the campfire.
I wait another ten minutes for them to calm down completely, and move from one bush to another in small bursts, hiding behind their foliage. I do this until the bandit camp is hidden behind a low hill. Now I can look around. I approach the remains of concrete pipes and take out my binoculars.
In front of me, to the east, I see several anomalous fields and a graveyard of equipment, the very one where the bandits held prisoners in the game, whom I could barely make out. Still, with my ability to see through anomalies, it's quite difficult. To my left is a huge hangar with a partially collapsed roof. I could get closer and examine everything more carefully, but I saw several moving shadows in the windows on the second floor. And the search for a place to sleep hasn't been canceled.
I decide to go along the very edge of the anomalous fields and slip between the graveyard of equipment and the bandit post on the central road of the Dump. I get up and carefully walk straight towards the barbed wire fence. Reaching it, I look around again and head south. I reach a cluster of gravitational anomalies and go around it on the right side, trying to stick to the trees and bushes.
When I'm about halfway along the fence, shouts and sounds of blows are heard from the graveyard. I get closer, hiding behind one of the wrecked cars, and see one of the bandits beating a stalker with curses.
"Take that, you bastard!" he yells, kicking the stalker in the stomach with the toe of his boot. "You thought you could escape, rat? I'll show you..."
"Hey, don't overdo it," another one approaches them. "If you kill him, who will work for him?"
"I don't give a damn," the first one spits, turning to his interlocutor for a moment, and then returns to beating. "It'll be a lesson for the stalkers, and we'll easily find a new slave."
"Well, as you wish. If anything, you'll answer to Yoga yourself."
Shrugging, the second one steps back a few steps, glancing at the captured stalkers, who are kneeling with their hands behind their heads. Even from my position, I can see their jaws working. One of them, unable to watch his comrade's execution, looks away, but the third one, a bandit standing behind the stalkers, quickly approaches him, grabs him by the hair, and forcibly turns his head back.
"Watch, so you don't get any ideas," he hisses in his ear.
I need to leave right now to remain unnoticed. The longer I sit here, the less time I have to find a place to sleep and the more chances I have of being caught. But on the other hand, all the bandits guarding this concentration camp have gathered for the demonstration. And they don't see me, all I need to do is deal with them carefully. But I came here for reconnaissance, I can't expose myself and reveal my presence.
But I can't leave the stalkers here either. If I want to preserve my humanity, at least what's left of it after the System's intervention, I can't turn away from the evil being done and pretend that nothing is happening. If I leave now, that stalker will simply be beaten to death. Ah, to hell with it!
I carefully place my rifle on the ground, draw my knife and pistol, and move forward. Crouching, I move between the cars, ending up behind one of the scoundrels, who is currently watching the beating. I forcefully plunge the blade under his left shoulder blade, piercing his lung. The bandit collapses to his side with a gasp of pain, taking my blade with him, and the others turn their attention to me.
I raise my right hand with the pistol and open fire before they can do anything. The bandit beating the stalker falls to the ground first with a shot to the skull, then he is joined by the one who tried to dissuade him, and after them - two guards. And then the stalker, who was being held by the hair, enters the fray. He strikes his captor in the knee with a powerful blow, forcing him to fall to his leg. Then, rising to his knees, he smashes him in the face with all his might, knocking him to the ground. The bandit tried to reach for his pistol, but the stalker snatched it faster and simply shot him. He's good.
I turn to the other stalkers, who are looking at me with eyes full of tears and disbelief. I put the pistol back in its holster, pull the knife out of the bandit, wipe the blade on his clothes, and put it in its sheath, then reach for my backpack. I pull out one of the medical kits given to me by Shilov.
"Thank you," says the stalker who dealt with the guard, with a slight shortness of breath. "Thank you very much, if it weren't for you..."
"It's nothing," I reply with a slight smile and throw him a medkit. "Can you handle it here yourselves?"
"Yes, yes, of course," he says quickly, smiling, and passes the medkit to another stalker. "My name is Pale, by the way."
After standing there for a moment, I return for my rifle. When I get back to them, I see that the beaten one is already being helped, and other vagrants are already thoroughly searching the bandits' corpses. Noticing me, they clearly got embarrassed and stopped looting.
"I hope you don't mind?" Pale asks cautiously. "You've helped us a lot, and we're taking your loot... Not for free, of course! I figured, and the guys agree, we can give you a marker to our stash. We kept all sorts of things there that we managed to get before these freaks captured us."
"I don't mind, you need their equipment more now," I reply, taking out my PDA and looking at the stalker.
A young guy, tall, with a very pale skin tone, it's clear why he got that nickname. The time spent in captivity has taken its toll on him. Sunken cheeks, hollow eyes, and in general, it gave
the impression that if you just blew, he and the other prisoners would be blown away.
Carefully taking the turned-on communicator, he searches for the right place in the map section for a short time and leaves a mark on the cache. Then he hands the device back. I nod gratefully and am about to leave when an unexpected thought strikes me.
"Listen," I say to Pale. "Do you know any hiding places around here? Far from prying eyes."
"Sorry," he spreads his hands sadly with an apologetic smile on his lips. "We're all newcomers here for the most part, only a couple of months in the Dump. Tolya might know, but he's in a deplorable state right now..."
"I, kkh," says the wounded stalker, apparently hearing us. "Can help... Come, kkh, closer..."
I approach the beaten stalker, who is now sitting on the grass, leaning his back against the deflated tire of a rusty ZIL. I sit down on one knee in front of him and peer into his face, which is almost unrecognizable. Red bruises, cuts on the skin, blood scabs all over his face, general swelling. One can only guess what these stalkers had to endure.
"Thank you," the wounded man says barely audibly and bursts into a strong cough, spitting out bloody phlegm. "I don't know if I'll survive or not, but... If it weren't for you, I would have definitely died like a d-dog... I heard what you need. There is such a place that will suit you. The old-timers used to say that a stalker lived in these parts. One of the first, at the very dawn of stalker life. And he had a stash here, underground."
"Underground?" I repeat thoughtfully. "In the sewers?"
"Yes," the stalker nods, again bursting into a cough. "Some believed it, some considered it a tall tale, and then, when a couple of people who went in search of this stash disappeared without a trace, interest faded. I hope I helped you."
"You certainly did," I reply, standing up from my knee, and before leaving, I take out another first-aid kit and hand it to the stalkers. "If it gets really bad, at least you'll leave without pain."
"Thank you..."
After saying goodbye to the stalkers, I head west, towards the road. I pass through clusters of heat and find myself on asphalt. The idea of the sewers sounds reasonable. Even if I don't find any old stalker's stash, it's still better than sleeping under the open sky. Although the mention of missing stalkers makes me a little nervous. Well, that's fine, I'll manage.
I walk along the road north in search of a sewer manhole through which I could get underground. The sun has almost set beyond the horizon, time is approaching night, and with every second, visibility is getting worse. I found the manhole I was looking for a little north of a cluster of concrete slabs, from where the hangar with closed gates was clearly visible.
It's almost dark, so first, I take a flashlight out of my backpack, turn it on, and put it between my teeth. To move the metal manhole cover, I'll need both hands, so I really hope I don't fall and break my teeth. It's unlikely I'll be able to get veneers in the Zone.
Having prepared, I throw my rifle over my shoulder and draw my blade from its sheath. It's strong enough to pry open the lid. I insert it into the gap and try to lift the metal. The knife bends, but it does its job. I insert a piece of rebar found on a nearby garbage pile into the slightly opened gap and fully open the sewer.
I take the flashlight in my hands and illuminate the opening. Moss-covered bricks, a rusty ladder made of thin staples, and a distance of several meters to the bottom. Before climbing down, I decide to drag this manhole cover away from here. I'm afraid that if the bandits cover the opening with the lid, I won't be able to move it. It's too heavy, damn it.
I carefully climb down. At some point, one of the steps I stepped on creaked pitifully, but it held my weight. Once at the bottom, I take the flashlight in my hands and illuminate the stone vaults of the sewer. Dampness, rust, moss, and even some mushrooms, which, however, I wouldn't risk eating. Remnants of some garbage everywhere, brown streaks on the walls and floor. And the smell here isn't great either.
Now I had to decide which way to go, left or right. It's a shame there are no signs, and that stalker couldn't share anything more with me than a general hint. Ah, a sleepless night clearly awaits me. I turn right.
And the first thing I found in this sewer was the skeleton of one of those stalkers who decided to try their luck. He lay on his back, arms spread as much as possible in the narrow tunnel. His clothes had long since rotted and were torn in many places, and his bones were yellowed by time and humidity. Not far from him lay a rummaged backpack with empty tin cans and a couple of empty plastic bottles with traces of small and very sharp teeth. On his skull, on the right, in the temple area, was a bullet hole, and in his right hand, he clutched a rusty Makarov.
I carefully pick it up and check the magazine, there are no bullets. It looks like he ran into a pack of rats. He couldn't fight them off, fell, they started eating him, and he decided to shoot himself to avoid suffering. Unlucky bastard.
I take my pistol out of its holster and continue moving. I don't think there's any real danger, but caution certainly won't hurt. As far as I remember from school, rodents are primarily nocturnal, which means they've come out to hunt now. There's almost nothing for them to catch in the sewer itself, so the rats will crawl to the exit of the catacombs for food.
A little later, along the road, I found several more corpses of unlucky stalkers, the same yellow and gnawed skeletons as the first lucky one I met. Apparently, they were unlucky enough to disturb the rat nests, and the frightened Chernobyl rodents rushed into battle.
After a few more minutes of walking through the tunnel, a rat's squeak was heard somewhere ahead. I activate stealth, begin to move almost silently, and cautiously proceed until the flashlight beam catches a huge rat in a pipe coming out of the wall. A gray hide, black, slightly squinting eyes, and a body of enormous length, about half a meter. The rodent looked intently straight at me.
The animal is in no hurry to attack or call for help from other rats, which means there's a chance to pass by without any problems. I slowly move the flashlight away from the rodent, putting it in my pants pocket so that it shines on the brick ceiling. And I raise my hands in a surrendering gesture, showing that I am not dangerous, and slowly move sideways. The rat follows me with its gaze until it turns and disappears into the pipe.
I exhale and continue moving until I emerge into a wide room with a high ceiling. Ahead, the tunnel branches, and to my left is a small staircase to a concrete platform with a small fence, leading to a nook. I climb it and walk towards the opening in the far wall, finding myself in front of a locked metal door with scratched scribbles.
I've only seen something similar in Lord of the Rings movies. Could this seasoned stalker have been a Tolkien fan? Oh, and below, it's already scratched in Russian: "Property of Eärendil, away, Morgoth's creatures!". Yeah, he's an interesting character, clearly messing around.
Well, all that's left is to open the door and I can breathe a sigh of relief.