Philip Hemplow: Sarcophagus

“Not a good driver, though,” sniffed Victoria, and tried to laugh. She hesitated. “I—I thought I saw someone else.”

“Someone else? Who?”

“I don’t know. I couldn’t see their face. Standing in the hotel. Very tall. Right before it happened.”

“A man in black robes?” guessed Osterberg.

“That’s right. How did you know?”

Osterberg sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “He has been seen before. At the start, some of the men reported seeing him while they were working inside the reactor. They began refusing to go inside Unit 4. When equipment began failing and accidents happened, it was one of the reasons I thought we had a saboteur. The black-robed man kept showing up. Three metres tall, so they say.”

“Have you seen him?”

“No. It is just one of the stories that circulates, Victoria. Then the other men hear it and—mass hysteria. You remember the stories about the Kaptar ? It is the same.”

“I’m not hysterical, Wolfgang!” snapped Victoria. “There was a big bastard in a black robe in that building, right when Serhiy drove at me… I think. Oh, God, I don’t know.”

Osterberg patted her reassuringly on the shoulder, and stood up. “You should sleep,” he advised her. “You have had a shock. You are tired. Would you like something to help you?”

Victoria shook her head. “No. I’ll be all right.” She pointed at an opaque, rubber cylinder built into the wall of the cramped little chamber. “Is that a shower? Is it hot?”

“Yes, hot water on tap. As long as the tanker is not empty. We are not quite the Excelsior, but we do allow ourselves that small indulgence. Come and find me when you wake up. I will take you to see the Carapace.”

He left her to settle in. According to the clock on her phone it was already past one a.m. The zip-up, rubber shower cubicle smelled somewhat foisty, and the water pressure was low, but it was steaming hot and pleasantly soothing. When, reluctantly, she stepped out of it, the tent seemed unpleasantly frigid, and she scuttled into bed as soon as she could, squirming into the sleeping bag she had brought with her.

It felt gritty. Residual sand, she realised, from her camping trip to Dorset with Malcolm the summer before. She had opted for a campsite so that they could have a holiday that might not make him feel inadequate for relying on her to pay for it. That was back when he was still unemployed: before she’d ceased to care about hurting his feelings, but significantly after he had ceased to care about hers.

She didn’t want to think about that, but she didn’t want to think about the SUV racing towards her, either. Or about its roof collapsing under a ton of rubble. And definitely not about the cowled figure she had seen standing in the hotel. That she thought she had seen. The trick of the light. The trick of the shadows.

Just like the Kaptar , that was what Wolfgang had said. She remembered the stories. The Kaptar —the `Snowman of Chernobyl’. A feral beast with glowing red eyes and jet black fur, that walked like a man and killed like a wolf. The myth was not unique to the Zone of Alienation. Most of the ex-Soviet nuclear testing sites had their own Kaptar , by one name or another. Almasty . Abnuaaya. Bekk-Bokk. Voita. Savage, black Neanderthals that prowled the irradiated wildernesses, and the imaginations of the credulous. Some said they were inventions of the security forces, intended to scare people away from radioactive sites. Maybe that’s what she had seen, the Kaptar. Or maybe it had been a member of the VV wearing some kind of obsolescent, Soviet NBC smock.

The latter idea was reassuring, and Victoria tried to keep it foremost in her mind as she lay in the dark, listening to the quiet chugging of the habitat’s compressor.

She woke from dark dreams of coalescence and accretion to the sound of rain battering against the plastic tent. It was tempting to just roll over and go back to sleep, but she was not, she reminded herself, on holiday. After she had washed and cleaned her teeth, the suit she had worn the day before went into her suitcase, and out came corduroy trousers, a fleece, and a cardigan as thick as a slice of bread. Steel-toed shoes, a leather jacket and her dosimeter—still reading normal—completed the ensemble.

The insulating qualities of the rubberised tent had led her to underestimate the ferocity of the rain. The sky was leaden, weeping fat droplets that burst like pustules on the concrete. Victoria tucked her hair inside her jacket to protect it, and ran towards the dining shelter.

Men in hard hats were busy shoring up the walls of the hotel, bracing the edges of the hole torn by the SUV, making it safe. Of the wrecked car itself there was no sign, and she was grateful for that.

The dining shelter was once again full of men, but this morning’s sermon was being given by Adam Swan. Oblivious to the fact that most of the workers couldn’t speak English—particularly not Swan’s brand of it—he was, as promised, laying it on the line to them.

“You all need to align yourselves to this action plan!” he cried as Victoria slipped into the tent. Osterberg was nowhere to be seen. “Because I’m empowering you to take ownership of your roles in this project. You have an idea how we can leverage our assets more efficiently? Great! Come see me; wanna hear it. I’m not afraid to take a look under the hood—but don’t lose focus! Your number one priority is to optimise progress on our deliverables. Now, that might mean changing our processes—working smarter, adding value, doing more with less—or maybe it means pulling double shifts, putting in extra hours. You get what I’m saying?”

The men looked unimpressed, fidgety, distracted. Victoria found herself envying the ones who didn’t understand English. “I’m changing meal times,” continued Swan, pointing to a piece of paper pinned to the wall over the day’s menu. “Breakfast is an hour earlier and dinner is an hour later. That way, you can work an extra two hours in the day without worrying about missing food. You see? That’s the kind of creative approach we need. Gotta think outside the box, come at the solution from every angle. Remember: the paradigm is not the objective! Now, get out there and do what you do best. Let’s make today the start of the fightback! Home by Christmas! Home by Christmas!”

He carried on chanting “home by Christmas” as the men filed silently out. Victoria squeezed past them to the front of the room and began picking through the remains of breakfast. Swan joined her. “Well, I think they got the message,” he murmured, looking pleased with himself. Victoria ignored the invitation to compliment his motivational abilities, and slopped cold coffee into a cup.

“Where’s Wolfgang?” she demanded.

“Dr Osterberg is sulking,” came the smug reply. “Said he was going to talk with those soldiers, get them to move their tank or something. He also said someone tried to run you down last night. That true?”

“Pretty much.”

“Yeah, well, it’s good you’re okay, I guess. Bad enough we have another accident on the books.”

Victoria stared at him. He hadn’t shaved, she suddenly noticed, and he had dark rings under his eyes. Had he slept in his clothes? He was wearing the same awful, contrast-collar shirt as the day before, and his suit was uncharacteristically crumpled. Maybe he hadn’t slept at all.

“It wasn’t an accident, Swan. He tried to kill me,” she pointed out. Swan curled his lip dismissively.

“Maybe. But he died in an accident, that’s the main thing. And it’s not as if it’s the first on this project. And it’s your friend Osterberg who’s responsible for safety, remember.”