Александр Конторович - Predator - Escape from Tarkov

Anyway, the shooter did miss. Perhaps by no more than an inch. Then I fired my shotgun. With buckshot. And as I already knew from back in that flat, it had some scatter on it. An inch or two either way won’t make the blindest bit of difference.

“Fucker!” shouts the injured guy. “I’m going to cut you to shreds!”

Seems unlikely. I’ve no intention of giving our friend a knife any time soon. A bandage or a rag of some sort, that I might consider. Although he was trying very hard to kill me.

“Take that, you fucker!”

He jerks suddenly, and I see a glinting strip of metal flash in my direction.

Shit! I jump back entirely on reflex, and the sharp pain in my leg makes me cry out. My finger already squeezes the trigger from force of habit. You shouldn’t have done that, friend. I didn’t want to hurt you.

I fired at close range, didn’t I? Point-blank, you could say. I really have no desire to look at the consequences. Still, the guy was being a pain in the arse.

The knife sliced the leg of trousers bad enough that I’ll have to throw them out. Then the sharp blade swept across my leg, leaving a significant and very visible slice just above my knee. There’s blood coming, of course, and plenty of it. I could die from that, mind. Whether I want to or not, now I have to go back into my flat – to get my first-aid kit. Otherwise I’ll just bleed out. I’m not some movie hero who can fight for hours while generously pouring my blood onto the tarmac.

I need to reload the gun – I’ve had enough of these surprises!

The breach clicks again. This time I’ve been a little more cunning. After chambering a round in the barrel, I slot another into the magazine – now I’ve got five shots rather than four. That’ll be a surprise for somebody, and not a pleasant one. The guys inside will have heard the shots, and they know what their friend was armed with. It’s therefore not hard to see where this showdown’s going. They’ll be waiting for me right by the entrance. But they’ll be disappointed…

Hobbling on my wounded leg (it hurts!), I circle the building. There’s one more entrance here – through the garage. I don’t have a car, but all residents were given a garage key. Me included, and I haven’t lost it yet. Not one of the many people who has searched me recently has shown the slightest interest. Maybe because it doesn’t look much like a key. It’s just a little metal tab with indentations and projections. It was hanging on my belt loop, and looked so simple and insignificant that nobody gave it a moment’s thought.

Crouching on the stairs, I hastily bind my wound with a piece ripped off my shirt. I make an unholy mess of it, but it’s still better than nothing.

I move down the access ramp. There’s a small door to the left of the entry gates. That’s where the key fits. The lock was well-oiled at some point, and the key turns almost soundlessly. It hardly matters anyway. The door’s in the basement so no one’s going to hear anything.

It’s dark in the garage, but in the beam of light that falls through the doorway I can see that there almost no cars left. That Ford has been standing there for a year already – the owner’s in prison. There’s Lena’s Mazda. She’s in Spain right now. She was working as a customs broker, so she always had money for holidays. Shit, it’s painful to realize that all your neighbours managed to escape successfully, while you’re left like a fool in the burning ruins.

The lift’s not working, which comes as no surprise. Before I start up the staircase, I take off my boots, tie the laces together and hang them over my shoulder. Fuck knows what’s going to happen next, but I really don’t want to be running round barefoot. In socks, my footsteps seems to be quieter than my breathing.

In the hallway, light comes through the window and I see there’s no one here. The niche where I hid out is empty. Excellent.

On to the first landing. Also empty.

The second landing. Woh! There’s blood on the floor here. And a hand print on the wall. The two smart-arses downstairs had fairly clean hands, definitely not covered in blood. And it didn’t look like either of them was bleeding on the floor, either.

Which means? Means there’s a third one alive. He got hit, stumbled downstairs, then he heard the shots and worked out who had the winning hand. So he drew back. He doesn’t want me to see him. He’s hoping to see me first, and I can guess why.

Stop! What’s this on the left? A door, slightly ajar. An interesting family used to live there – not poor and very, very pleased with themselves. So much so that they bought two flats on adjoining floors and joined them together with a staircase inside. Why? Who the fuck knows, to show off, I guess. At one point I helped to sort out their electrics, so I spent some time in their mini-mansion. They paid well, too.

I turn left.

The doors really aren’t locked, just pulled to. I slip quickly into the flat, holding my gun ready before me. You never know, what with so many smart-arses around. Once inside, I notice a nasty smell in the flat. A stench, I think it’s fair to say. Still, I’ll choose a nasty smell over the chance of putting my head straight into someone’s sights. I carefully close the latch – now no one can follow me inside. I doubt that anyone’s going to be hiding in a place with a stench like this, but just in case I keep my gun at the ready.

Through one room and into the next. There’s no one there. Now up the staircase. I find the owner’s body at the top, lying right next to the steps. The scorched holes in his back give a lyrical explanation of the nasty smell. He was killed a while back, and now he stinks. They shot him with something serious, too. Out of the corner of my eye I see the open door of the bathroom, and somebody’s hand hanging over the edge of the Jacuzzi. So, there’s the mistress of the house.

The flat shows signs of being searched hurriedly. So that’s why they had to deal with the owner that way – they wanted to find out where everything was hidden. Right now that’s not so important, however. The owner has a pretty good uninterruptible power supply, which should keep the alarm and CCTV system working. I installed it myself, so I should know. There’s the monitor on the wall, but it’s not working. The system’s switched off.

Interesting. What about the UPS, then? Well, good equipment’s still good equipment, whatever else may have changed. The monitor flashes on, showing icons for the different systems working. The doors are closed, so the alarm is silent. I now turn it off.

Say what you will, but my ingrained habit of closing doors behind me served me well here, too. Otherwise the alarm system would have made a dreadful row and announced my presence. The siren stays silent.

Now for the cameras, of which there are several. We don’t need the garage for now, and the first floor is also of no interest – that’s where I’ve just come from. On to the second floor. Nobody there? But wait, who’s body is that, and why’s it here? Did someone drop him right there?

There really is a body lying motionless on the landing. Dead, clearly. You couldn’t lie long in such an awkward position. But there’s also one more, and I’m not quite so sure he’s left the land of the living. Would a corpse really be holding its gun ready and occasionally peaking out from behind its dead comrade? So, what happened is this guy heard the shooting outside, quickly had a little think, then dragged his dead colleague down from upstairs and used him to make a sort of shield. You have to hand it to the dude – getting a bullet through a corpse is possible, I’m sure, but what use would it be? By the time his opponent has worked out why his shots aren’t getting him anywhere and changed his aim, he’ll have been killed three times over. It’s not my place to cast judgement on the moral qualities of these thugs, but even so I think it’s fair to say we’re not dealing with graduates of the finest universities. I don’t know if I could use my comrade’s body in a similar manner, but it doesn’t look like the guy lying there gave it a moment’s thought. Cold hard calculation is all I can see evidence of.