Dmitry Glukhovsky - Metro 2034

And if the City didn’t exist, there was absolutely no point in being afraid.

The side tunnel was exactly where Leonid had promised it would be, blocked by a badly damaged grille, in which Sasha easily found a gap wide enough to get through. And several hundred steps further on it really did end in the steel wall of a hermetic door – ancient and impregnable. Sasha diligently measured out forty of her own steps from it and spotted a white mark on the wall, which was damp, as if it was sweating. She found the cover immediately. Bending back the rubber, she felt for the bell button and checked the watch that the musician had given her. She was in time! She was in time! She waited for a few more agonisingly long minutes and closed her eyes…

Three short rings.

Three long rings.

Three short rings.

Artyom lowered his sizzling-hot gun-barrel and tried to wipe away the sweat and tears with the back of his hand, but the hand couldn’t reach his face: the gas mask got in the way. Maybe he should just take the damn thing off? What difference did it really make, anyway?

The sick people must be roaring loud enough to drown out the bursts of sub-machine-gun fire. Otherwise, why would more and more of them keep pouring out of the carriage to face the hail of lead? Couldn’t they hear the thunderous rumbling, didn’t they understand they were being shot at pointblank range? What were they hoping for? Or maybe they couldn’t give a damn any more either?

The platform was piled high with swollen bodies for several metres around the exit that had been broken open. Some of the bodies were still twitching, and a groan came from somewhere under the burial mound. The purulent flow from the open abscess of the doorway finally stopped: the people left in the carriage huddled up tightly together in terror, hiding from the bullets.

Artyom glanced round at the other gunners. Was he the only one with shaking hands and trembling knees? None of them said a word. At first even the commander was silent. The only sounds were the wheezing of the overcrowded train trying to suppress a bloody cough and the curse spat out by the last man still dying under the heap of dead.

‘Monsters… Bastards… I’m still alive… It’s so heavy…’

The commander finally spotted the man, squatted down beside him and emptied the remains of his cartridge clip into the poor wretch, squeezing the trigger until his empty gun started clicking. He got up, looked at his pistol and for some reason wiped it on his trousers.

‘Keep calm!’ he shouted hoarsely. ‘Any further attempts to leave the infirmary without permission will be punished in the same way.’

‘What shall we do with the bodies?’ the men asked him.

‘Put them back in the train. Ivanenko, Aksyonov, see to it!’

Order had been restored. Artyom could go back to his post and try to get some sleep. There were still a couple of hours left until reveille: if he could just get at least an hour of shuteye, so that he wouldn’t collapse on duty tomorrow.

It didn’t work out like that.

Ivanenko stepped back and started shaking his head, refusing to take hold of the putrescent, disintegrating bodies. Forgetting that he had no cartridges left, the commander hissed in fury and held out the hand with the pistol towards him. The firing pin clattered uselessly. Ivanenko squealed and ran for it.

And then one of the soldiers who was coughing flung up his automatic and stabbed the commander in the back with a crooked, awkward thrust of his bayonet. But the commander didn’t fall, he stayed on his feet and slowly looked round over his shoulder at the man who had struck him.

‘What are you doing, you bastard?’ he asked in quiet amazement.

‘You’ll do for all of us the same way soon… There’s not a healthy man left in the whole station. We shoot them today, and tomorrow you’ll drive the rest of us into these carriages,’ the man yelled at the commander, trying to tug his bayonet out of him, but not firing for some reason.

No one interfered. Not even Artyom, who took a step towards the two of them, but then froze, waiting. At last the bayonet came out. The commander reached for his wound, as if he was trying to scratch himself, then went down on his knees, braced his hands against the slippery floor and started shaking his head about. Was he trying to come to his senses? Or did he want to fall asleep?

No one could bring himself to finish the commander off. Even the mutineer who had stabbed him with the bayonet recoiled in fright, then tore off his gas mask and shouted loud enough for the whole station to hear.

‘Brothers! No more torturing them! Let them out! They’re going to die anyway! And so are we! Are we human beings or not?’

‘Don’t you dare,’ the commander wheezed inaudibly, still on his knees.

The gunners started murmuring, conferring with each other. The bars were torn off carriage doors, first in one place and then in another. Then someone shot the instigator in the face and he tumbled over backwards to join the other dead. But it was already too late: with a triumphant roar the crowd of infected people gushed out of the train into the hall, running clumsily on their thick legs. They tore the automatics out of the daunted sentries’ hands and wandered off in various directions. The guards faltered too; some were still firing at the sick people, but others mingled with them and wandered out of the station into all the tunnels: some went north, towards Serpukhov and others went south, towards Nagatino.

Artyom stood there, gazing stupidly at the commander, who refused to die. First he crept forward on all fours, then he stood up, slipping repeatedly, and set off to go somewhere.

‘And now for your surprise… You didn’t think I’d be prepared for this,’ he muttered.

The commander’s wandering gaze settled on Artyom. He froze for a moment and suddenly spoke in his ordinary voice that brooked no insubordination.

‘Popov! Take me to the radio room! I have to order the northern guard post to close the door…’

Artyom lent the commander his shoulder, and they wandered slowly past the empty train, past the fighting men, past the jumbled heaps of lumber, to the radio room, where the phone was. The commander’s wound was apparently not fatal, but he had lost a lot of blood and his strength deserted him before they got there: he went limp and slumped into oblivion.

Artyom shoved the desk against the door, grabbed the microphone of the internal switchboard and called the northern guard post. The phone clicked a few times and wheezed as if it was breathing laboriously and then it was silent, with a terrible silence.

If it was too late to close off that direction, Artyom had to warn Dobrynin at least. He dashed over to the phone, pressed one of the two buttons on the panel and waited a few seconds… The phone was still working. At first the only sound in the receiver was a whispered echo, then he heard a rapid clicking, and finally the ringing tone.

One… Two… Three… Four… Five… Six…

Oh God, let them answer. If they’re all still alive, if they haven’t been infected yet, let them answer, let them give him a chance. Let them answer before the sick people can reach the borders of the station… Artyom would have pawned his very soul now, just for someone to answer at the other end of the line!

And then the impossible happened. The sound broke off midway through the seventh beep, he heard grunting and squabbling in the distance and a cracked, agitated voice gasped through the rustling.

‘Dobrynin Station here!’

The cage was shrouded in gloom. But even in that meagre light Homer could see that the prisoner’s silhouette was too puny and too lifeless to belong to the brigadier. As if it was a stuffed dummy sitting behind the bars – limp and drooping. It looked like the guard… Dead. But where was Hunter?