Александр Конторович - Predator - Escape from Tarkov

“Who the fuck did those arseholes bring now? Another guest?”

I turn around.

“Who’s there?”

“Who the fuck are you?”

“My name’s Denis. I used to be a system administrator. What about you?”

“A sysadmin, were you?” asks my unseen interrogator. “Well, I never. You do get all sorts here.”

“Who are you?”

“Ivan Kolesnichenko’s my name.”

From his further explanations, it transpired that my cellmate, whose face I still couldn’t see, had been a policeman in the traffic safety division. On the day when everything kicked off in the city, he had been working at a patrol post on the outskirts. According to him, what happened had not been an accident.

“We were already well prepared for something of the sort. There’d been two special training courses. There were new buses in the bus park. A lot of them, in fact. More than the city will ever need. Everybody knew we were getting ready for something, but nobody knew what. A friend of mine was a local beat cop, said they’d been sent round all the residential buildings to throw together a plan for who should be evacuated and in what order.”

“So you knew all about it?”

“I wouldn’t say that… How can I explain? No, nobody knew anything, but a lot of us suspected something. You could feel the tension in your bones. This I can tell you: anybody working in the public sector and most of their families were evacuated on the first day. Moreover, from what I saw, it wasn’t just the high-ranking professionals they took. It seemed more like they were trying to clear the whole city.”

“What for?”

“Who the fuck knows? Nobody told us anything. I’m just glad I managed to get my family on one of the buses.”

Ivan sighed, then went on talking. From what he said, it turned out that the powers that be had planned to evacuate the whole city over five days. That was why, in his opinion, rumours had been spread that some sort of catastrophe had occurred in Tarkov.

“Are you saying there wasn’t one?”

“As far as I know, that’s all bullshit. Think about it – if the shit had really hit the fan, absolutely everybody would have freaked out and been running round like their butts were on fire. But in fact, the work went on at exactly the same rate as on the first day. No one batted an eyelid. That doesn’t follow.”

As Ivan explained it, all the work to evacuate the population could have been completed on time. That’s what everyone expected and was preparing for. He’d seen the plan of deployment for his own department with his own eyes. It certainly didn’t look like the plan had been thrown together at the last minute. It was a properly drafted and printed official document. However, somebody somewhere had screwed everything up. First there was a big explosion somewhere in the centre of town, then evacuation buses had been attacked in several place simultaneously. The unknown attackers had opened fire on the patrol cars escorting the buses, too. There had been casualties, although nobody had managed to work out exactly how many.

“Then there was some kind of flash – a blue flame across the sky, and all communications went to hell. Our mobile phones stopped working. Some of our radios burnt out, and from the ones that survived all we could hear was the groups closest to us. We did manage to find out that the troops approaching the city were met with mines and machine-gun fire. Then we all freaked out, too. The guys started to split up, some of them running off to their families, and the rest of us headed for the Transport Police headquarters. We were shot at on the way. Why and by whom, I do not know. I got hit in the leg. The lads dragged me into a basement and went to get help. Then these guys came along instead.”

“Who are they, then? What are they up to?”

“Who the hell knows? They’re all fucked in the head. They keep muttering the same things under their breath, but they won’t talk to us. Apparently, we’re of no interest to them.”

“Do they say anything about this work? What do we have to do?”

“We’re digging a tunnel. From what I’ve heard, they’re doing the same thing elsewhere as well. But don’t get your hopes up – the chances of you and me getting out of here are one in a million. They have no respect for human life whatsoever. They’re not too concerned about their own, let alone ours.”

“Is there anyone else in here?”

“Not in this cell, no. This is a holding cell where they bring the new ones. And the sinners like me.”

“What did you do to end up here?” I ask him.

“I can’t walk properly because of my leg. I stumbled while I was pulling a cart, and the guard smacked me in the shoulder with the butt of his gun. I lost it and punched him in the face. So now I’m sitting here and waiting for my punishment. I know what to expect, and I’m just looking forward to it all being over.”

“You said this was a holding cell. Are they going to take me somewhere else, then?”

“Down below, where else? That’s where we’re all headed, and that’s where they’ll bury us. They drag you off into a far corner and cover you with dirt. So, brace yourself.”

Well, that’s something to look forward to, isn’t it? Fuck me, that’s just what I need. Yet another Makar. There it was lugging round the “beam”, and here it’s dicking around with a shovel – yet more healthy exercise. Sorry, mate, that’s not what I signed up for.

“So how do they take us down below?”

“The way you’d expect – along comes a guard, pulls a bag over your head, and off you go.”

“And this guard, he’s on his own, is he?”

“No, they bring along a whole regiment. What have they got to be afraid of? You? Or me with my one leg? Don’t make me laugh!”

Well, I wasn’t trying to cheer him up. I’d already put some thoughts together during our conversation. Beyond that, I was confident I could find my way back upstairs. Still, I wasn’t planning to tell my new acquaintance all about quite yet. Just in case.

Trying to make as littles noise as possible, I undo my belt and carefully remove the plasters from my leg. Now I have in my hands a comparatively quiet gun with a full magazine. I can definitely hit someone standing in the doorway – it would be hard to miss. I mean, I have seen films where some rapper fires off a whole magazine at his enemy from two metres away and misses completely. But all the same I’m not a rapper, and their strange habit of aiming at their enemies with their pistols twisted to one side has always seemed pretty dumb to me. I won’t be trying any tricks like that, I’ll just be shooting the normal way. So there’s a pretty good chance I’ll manage to hit my opponent with at least one bullet. I pull back the bolt and check the breech to make sure there’s a bullet in there. Sure enough, there is. Right where it’s meant to be, so the gun’s ready to fire.

I don’t know if my cellmate understood what I was up to, but I certainly didn’t hear any complaints. He just shifted around a little in his corner, presumably trying to get more comfortable. I heard some sort of grinding noise. Could it be his teeth?

So, now we wait. That’s getting to be a habit with me. An hour passes, or there abouts. Without a watch I can’t say exactly how long.

Then somewhere at the very edge of perception I make out the shuffle of footsteps. Someone’s coming along the corridor. I don’t know if there’s anything else down here except our cell, but I really, really hope not. Whatever the truth of it, the footsteps stop outside our door and the bolt is drawn back.

“Come on then, new boy. Off we go!”

A torch beam hits me in the face. It’s blindingly bright and I’m forced to shade my eyes with the palm of my left hand. The guard chuckles and turns his torch for a second on to my cellmate, who turns out to be a skinny man with a shaggy black beard. He’s already standing up, leaning a hand on the wall to steady himself.