Orest Stelmach - The Boy Who Stole from the Dead

“Yeah.”

“And then what?”

Bobby took his eyes off Johnny and stared into space. “Then the gunshots started.”

NADIA WOKE UP groggy. She was staring at a chalkboard. A clanging sound reverberated inside her head. Her vision cleared as the fog gradually lifted.

It wasn’t a chalkboard. It was the sky. A charcoal sky at dusk. She was lying on her back, she realized.

Her nose detected a faint smell of petroleum. Not gasoline. Oil, she thought. The incessant banging in her head continued. She wondered where she was.

Nine words.

The rawboned man from Lviv.

A purple pill.

A bolt of euphoria ripped through her. She was alive. She was conscious. She pushed herself upright. Her arms. They functioned. She flexed her leg muscles. Her quads tightened. She cleared her throat. Said her name. She could speak. The man who’d given her the pill hadn’t lied. It was just like Xanax—

The Zone. She was back in the Zone.

As soon as she saw the irradiated forest to her left there was no doubt. Nadia knew where she was. She remembered her final exchange with the rawboned man from Lviv.

Where will I wake up?

In the front row.

The front row to what?

The theater.

What theater?

You know what theater.

She was here for a reason. Something hammered at her temple again.

Adam. The link between Valentin and Adam. The reason Adam killed Valentine. That’s why she was here. And Marko. Good God. How could she have forgotten? Marko was here somewhere. And what was that goddamn noise?

Nadia sprang to her feet. She stumbled. Tripped over something laying beside her. A crowbar. Why was she lying near a crowbar? Beside the crowbar was a flashlight. Nadia picked it up and took three steps.

Ten feet in front of her lay a pit. The pit was filled with vehicles. Old Soviet cars, buses, military jeeps. It was a cemetery for dead cars. She’d driven past it on a bicycle in the night during her visit to Chornobyl last year. The top layer of vehicles had been stripped clean. Rusty and discolored bodies were all that remained. In some places, however, a second vehicle lay hidden beneath the first one where the cars were small.

She heard the banging noise again. Now it didn’t sound as though it was in her head. It sounded as though it was coming from beyond.

More banging. Nadia caught a glimpse of something moving in the pit. The noise and the movement had taken place at the same time. The noise was coming from the pit.

“Marko,” Nadia said.

A muffled reply from beneath the pile of stripped vehicles. Nadia couldn’t make out the words but she recognized the voice. She picked up the crowbar and moved to the edge of the pit.

“Marko,” she said.

A trunk rattled. The muffled voice sounded again. It came from an old Soviet car lodged beneath a hollowed-out Datsun. Nadia took the crowbar and checked the pit for water. She remembered her lesson from Hayder, the scavenger she’d met last year. Strontium and cesium settled in moisture. Her boots were going to get contaminated. They were probably already hot. But her hands. Her flesh. She could not let her hands touch water. Otherwise she’d absorb more radiation in a second than was healthy in one year.

She shined the light into the pit, saw the ground was dry, and climbed through the hollowed-out Datsun. She yanked the trunk open with the crowbar.

Marko lay curled inside.

“You all right?” she said.

His voice sounded raspy. “Sure. Like a day at the spa. Get me out of here.”

Nadia pulled him out of the trunk. Marko groaned as he straightened.

“How long were you in there?” she said.

He checked his watch. “About two. No. Closer to three hours.”

Nadia crawled out of the pit. Marko barely squeezed through the Datsun. He looked unsteady as he hoisted himself onto the edges of the frame. A woman or a child could negotiate the graveyard easier than a grown man, she thought. She reached out with her hand. He took it. She yanked. He stepped out of the pit onto solid ground.

A muted rifle shot cracked the air.

They ducked.

Metal clanged against metal. A bullet ricocheted among the cars in the pit.

They looked around.

“Which direction?” Nadia said.

“Can’t tell. Sound suppressor.”

“You see anyone?”

“Not yet.”

They swiveled around, backs to each other.

Nadia spied a glint on the horizon. A man was taking aim with his rifle.

“There he is,” Nadia said. “Go.”

They ran.

A second gunshot rang out.

Nadia clenched her teeth as she ran, waited for the onset of pain. It didn’t come. She glanced at Marko. He was catching up quickly. The bullet had missed him, too.

They sprinted onto an asphalt road. Grass, weeds, and small shrubs sprouted from its cracks. The path took them out of the hunter’s line of sight. The forest shielded them. They continued running hard for twenty yards. Then they jogged side by side.

“Why did they go to all this trouble?” Marko said.

“Good question,” Nadia said.

“Why did they kidnap me and lock me in the trunk of a car in a vehicle graveyard. Why Chornobyl?”

“Why give me a pill and have me wake up here?”

“Why is a man with a rifle shooting at us?” Marko breathed heavily. “Almost feels like a game.”

The phrase struck a chord. Nadia remembered Obon’s description of the origins of the Zaroff Seven. “Yeah. The most dangerous game.”

“What do you mean?”

Nadia told him about the Zaroff Seven and the meaning of the name.

“And the Cossack in this story hunted a man?”

“Correct.”

“So you think these guys are hunting us?”

“Maybe.”

“Why? You mean for sport?”

“Who knows? They think Bobby killed Valentin’s son. It could be about revenge and sport. They knew I wanted answers about Valentin and his son, and their connection to Bobby. The man said if I took the pill I’d wake up and get the answers. It’s as though they are giving us the answers now.”

“How’s that?”

“I’m not sure. But if we stay alive, we might find out.”

They stopped at a curve in the road.

“Which way?” Marko said.

Nadia glanced at the irradiated trees on the right. Remembered her previous travels along the road, the layout of the village.

“This is the road to Pripyat.”

“Pripyat?”

“The city that was built to house the workers at the power plant. A couple of miles away from Chornobyl Village. It’s a ghost town. I was there. There’s a cultural center, a theater, a hotel. A Ferris wheel that was never used. It’s dark and totally desolate. It leads to the opposite end of the Zone of Exclusion, furthest away from the formal entrance. It’s perfect for us.”

“Escape and evasion,” Marko said. “Rule number one. Stay away from the hay barn.”

Nadia recalled the rules of survival. “Right. The hunter could have set us up any way he wanted. Why point us this way?”

“Because he wants us to make a run for the hay barn.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s got a buddy there waiting for us.”

“Then we better go the opposite way.”

Marko shot her a glance. “You want to run toward the hunter?”

“We’re going to loop around behind him.”

Forest surrounded the road on both sides. Nadia veered left into the woods. Marko followed. Darkness fell upon them. They slowed to a march.

“Twenty minutes for our pupils to adjust,” Marko said.