Bar, tunnel, ten minutes later.
Displeased with Squirrel's high-handedness, stalkers left the tunnel one by one, deciding to continue their fun elsewhere, as they all had plenty of vodka. The bartender himself nervously paced the frozen ground, drawing puzzled glances from the guards. What had these stalkers done that the Executioner came for them? Would everything be alright? Maybe they shouldn't have left the bar? And if someone got killed there, would that...
Then, through the music, three loud claps are heard, and Squirrel understands – it's over. Such is the fate of those who get involved with this novice. First Spielberg, who unexpectedly disappeared from the Radar, now these three.
"Maybe I should attack him as soon as he comes out? There are four of us here, we can handle it..." a wild thought crosses the bartender's mind, which he immediately dismisses. "No way, he'll ask first what the hell happened in his bar."
Suddenly, the Executioner appears on the stairs, moving so quietly that if Squirrel hadn't been looking at the passage the whole time, the stalker could have easily crept up behind him. It seemed as if the blood in the bartender's veins had cooled by several degrees. The stalker walked relaxed, with a slight smile on his lips, and blood dripped from the blade of the axe hanging from his backpack.
"Executioner," Squirrel begins, gathering his courage, while the guards have already grabbed their weapons, ready to start shooting. "What happened between you and those stalkers?"
"They broke into my house, which I inherited from my dear teacher," the Executioner begins, tilting his head slightly, showing no concern that several barrels are aimed at him. "They completely trashed it and stole valuable items... Specifically, a full protective container of mid-level artifacts. I couldn't, even if I wanted to, act otherwise. You understand what rumors would spread about me if I let them go alive?"
Squirrel understood. He knew better than anyone that an enemy left alive behind him was a direct danger. Even if he did nothing, even if he left the
Zone and went into hiding, it was certain death... Because no one would consider you, thinking you were just another weakling who could always be safely tricked or framed. He himself had paid the price for this once, and the old wound on his leg ached with greater force.
"I'll incur losses," he only says, acknowledging the Executioner's right to his revenge. "A bar where as many as three stalkers were killed with the complicity of its owner..."
"You're mistaken, Squirrel," the stalker standing before him shakes his head and crosses his arms. "I didn't kill any stalkers in your bar. I just dealt with the bandits who dared to steal from real stalkers, and I did it before they could, for example, go through the pockets of locals in search of another dose of vodka."
"You want me to treat it like that?" asks the owner of the establishment, frowning displeasedly.
"I want everyone to treat it like that," the Executioner calmly says, immediately reaching into his pockets and pulling out several rolled-up stacks of money. Three of them go to the guards, the rest to Squirrel.
"But you have to leave," the bartender replies, lowering his eyes and agreeing to a deal with his conscience.
"I wasn't here," he hears from the stalker who caused the commotion in his bar.
Squirrel turns to follow the stalker, but sees only his back quickly disappearing into the night darkness. After waiting a moment, he sighs with relief and tries to drive away unpleasant thoughts about how he had driven himself, then frowns for a moment and looks at the guards with a serious gaze.
"Guys," he begins, clearing his throat. "This has to stay between us. The Executioner took down the bandits who managed to get into the bar, and that's it."
A discordant chorus of agreeing voices is heard, and the bartender nods with satisfaction. Everything is not so bad... He thought so until he saw what his bar had turned into. A bloody mess. The damned Executioner wasn't satisfied with just killing three people, he also cut off their hands! Everything, absolutely everything was covered in blood – several tables, the wooden floor, the walls, and a few drops even reached the ceiling.
A heavy, metallic, and sweet-salty smell of fresh blood hung in the air. And the beaten and exhausted bodies lay in the middle of the bar, and a long bloody trail stretched behind them, which had already begun to soak into the wooden floor. Bruises on their faces, knocked-out teeth, and severed hands that were nowhere to be seen. Otherwise, nothing else, except for a single table, on which several new chips were found, was touched.
Squirrel turns his clouded head towards the bar counter and sees a stack of PDAs there, which apparently belonged to the trio. Trying not to look at them, he carefully steps over a small stream of blood that has flowed into an uneven pit on the floor, and picks up one of them, immediately turning it on. Whatever you say, all stalkers suffer from curiosity, otherwise their legs wouldn't be here, and so... The bartender plunged into reading poorly written notes that made him mentally clutch at the remaining strands of hair on his head.
"Idiots," he only exhales, holding in his hands compromising material on the entire activity of this stalker gang. "The real..."
Ante-room, quiet night.
I sigh tiredly, leaning my back against a huge, gnarled oak tree, whose crown sways in the gusts of the refreshing night breeze. I take out a bag with bloody stumps from the backpack I've been carrying for a long time and throw it away. Let everyone think I'm a mysterious maniac, who is more trouble than he's worth to mess with, even though I felt sick from everything I had to do.
Yes, revenge is sweet, but... not this kind of revenge. Just killing them would have been enough for me, but I thought it would be a good idea to make a brutal spectacle so that everyone would think twice before playing dirty tricks on me. I feel a nauseating lump rising in my throat, and I smell the metallic scent of blood again in my nose, but I suppress my feelings and do some light breathing exercises. Inhale, exhale.
"Hey, System, you said my feelings were dulled and all that?"
You have adapted to the Zone sufficiently and no longer need the System's help, dear user.
"That explains a lot," I whisper, and ask the System another question: "And how long?"
Since Agroprom, dear user.
Well, I'll be... I believed in the System so much that I didn't pay attention to what I was feeling for a long time... However, whatever happens, happens for the best. And now I'm too tired to think about anything other than the long-awaited rest.
"Pe-e-ople, anyone... Please..." a drawn-out and pitiful voice, almost inaudible, rings out. Does someone need help?
I detach myself from the tree and head towards the source of the sound. I go around trees, bushes, snags lying on the ground, and shine my flashlight on the path until I catch sight of a man stretched out on an overgrown clearing in the darkness. A regular leather jacket, torn jeans and boots, an empty holster on his right thigh. And a face tear-stained with hopelessness, illuminated with hope.
"Stalker, help..." the very young guy whispers weakly, losing consciousness.
I throw my backpack on the ground, take out an army first-aid kit, and begin to provide first aid. First, I examine him from head to toe, looking for damaged areas, of which there were quite a few – the guy was mauled by mutants, and he was unlucky enough to severely damage his right arm. Possibly even a fracture. A trauma, so to speak, incompatible with life in the Zone, but I'll try my best to make sure the guy survives.
I open his mouth and place several strong painkillers on his tongue, forcing him to swallow them. I rip his clothes with a knife to access the wounds and clean them as thoroughly as I can. Unfortunately for the guy, he has too many ragged wounds, and a simple bandage won't be enough... I take out something I haven't had a chance to use yet – a medical stapler. As Sidorovich said: "a rare item for the southern territories, but quite popular among veterans." I apply it to the edges of the wound, press them together, and start stitching them up. As soon as they were closed, I wiped away the blood again and began bandaging the guy.
As soon as the wounds were dealt with, I gave the unconscious sufferer a little water to drink, and hoisted him onto my shoulders, sighing at the realization that I had to carry him a good couple of kilometers to the stalker base...
Abandoned military town, morning.
Val winced painfully from the unpleasant sensations all over his body and tried to roll onto his side, but his body ached with unbearable pain, and only then did he open his eyes wide. Cold sweat broke out on his forehead, his breathing hitched, and the stalker plunged into unpleasant memories… Night, he was returning from a farm, dogs attacked, he dropped his flashlight, ran away in the dark… But how did he end up here and… He looks at his body and sees the remnants of torn clothes, and beneath them, fresh bandages, gleaming white.
"Ah, you're awake," an old acquaintance, Rangefinder, approached the bed. "Anything I can get you?"
"How did I, *khk*, end up here?" he rasped, feeling cats scratching in his throat.
"Oh, it was a sensation," Rangefinder said in an unusually pleased tone, loudly sitting down on the neighboring bunk, which creaked piteously under the stalker's weight. "Night, blessed silence… and only Boar snoring. And then the sentry screamed like crazy, saying they brought in a wounded stalker, many jumped out of their bunks. Like, how did they bring him? Who? In such darkness?"
"And then?"
"I ran out, practically naked, onto the street, pulling on clothes as I went, and saw you, hanging on a stalker," the vagabond shrugged. "He's the one who brought you, patched you up, and look, even put on new bandages and treated everything."
Val tried to get up from his place and tried to lean on his right arm, when he cried out painfully, falling back onto the bed, and moaned loudly. He looked at his right arm with effort and saw that it was bandaged much tighter than the rest of his body. Then Val turned a bewildered gaze to his friend.
"Those dogs really roughed you up, friend," Rangefinder nodded sympathetically. "Executioner said you most likely have a bone crack. You fell when you were running in the dark, or hit something…"
"That's how it was," Val said, frowning at the images flashing in his head. "Wait, hold on, you said Executioner? Who is that?"
"That's your savior, that's his name, right?" his interlocutor chuckled.
"Where is he now?" the stalker slowly tried to get up, but Dal, who had gotten up from the neighboring bunk, gently pressed on his shoulders, forcing him to lie back down. "Hey, what are you doing…"
"I'm fine, but what are you doing?" his friend replied with slight indignation. "Executioner said you're prescribed bed rest for the next few weeks. And he's already left, by the way. To the Cord."
"To the Cord?"
"Yeah, you should have seen what he was wearing, just a fairy tale, not gear," the stalker said, smacking his wet lips. "A stalker suit, not some lousy jacket or coat, a whole Kalashnikov on his shoulder. And you know what he had in his holster? A revolver!"
"According to you, he's an experienced vagabond," Val grumbled, slightly displeased.
"Of course! He only came here because some scumbags wanted to rob him… He settled with them, by the way. Smashed them right in Belka's bar, imagine that?"
Val could only marvel at what a strange stalker had saved him that night.
Cord, closer to noon.
I reached the village when the Sun began to set at its zenith. My body ached mercilessly and I was incredibly sleepy; those few miserable hours of rest in the abandoned town had hardly affected my condition. But I feel that if they hadn't happened
at all, I would be much worse off. And the box… It's good that Krokhobor didn't manage to get rid of my artifacts anywhere.
But from this moment on, another headache began. I didn't see the slightest way to get information out of this bastard by any other means, and, in general, I think I did the right thing. The scumbag also cheated my predecessor out of money for an artifact, and these ghouls, and how many others has he swindled and ruined for his own gain? Sid, though a miserly miser, pays for everything with hard cash. So, I'll have to go to the old man with my tail between my legs for my sin and hope that Krokhobor wasn't involved in his trading schemes. And his documentation along with his personal laptop will help me with this. Although I doubt that Sid will be moved by the excellent collection of pornography assembled by the dealer from Predbannik.
Alas, I gained almost nothing from Krokhobor. He had no artifacts at all, except for mine, and to carry any other goods on my back – forget it. So, I only managed to take the documents, the laptop, and my own container. And all the money I could find in his cash register, I had to give away in the same bar.
When I managed to climb to the top of the gentle hill where the village stood, I just grimaced. My house was turned upside down, and I couldn't sleep there for a while. I hope Volkov isn't too offended with me and will let me sleep at his place. Ha-a, I need to at least lock the house, because yesterday I ran away like that, leaving everything behind.
My surprise was great when I met a sleepy stalker in a leather jacket with his hood pulled over his head on my own porch. He hugged himself, pressed against the brickwork, and snored sweetly. I approach him and gently nudge him awake. The stalker is initially dazed, probably from sleepiness, then he focuses his gaze on me and jumps up, almost knocking me over – I managed to step back in time.
"Are you, uh, Executioner?" he asks shyly, looking away, and puts his hand on the back of his head. "Hello…"
"Hello, yes. My name is Executioner. And you?" I reply, dropping my backpack on the ground. "And what are you doing here?"
"Everyone calls me Petrukha here, I'm a newbie," Petrukha grins widely, showing off his yellowish, slightly crooked teeth. A sloping forehead, deep-set brown eyes, a large nose, thin lips, and a week's stubble. He looked about the same as in the first part. "Volkov hired us yesterday to clean your house thoroughly. We cleaned as best we could. Threw out the old mattresses, Volkov gave us new ones from his stash. And, about the smell, don't worry – Sid shared good chemicals."
"So that's how it is," I whistle with noticeable relief. At least one piece of good news. I immediately reach into my pocket for the remaining cash from Krokhobor's vault and shove it into Petrukha's hands. "Take it. Volkov probably didn't pay you, did he?"
"Oh, thank you very much!" Petrukha exclaims joyfully, pressing his hand with the money to his chest. "I'll definitely share with the others."
"Good," I clap him on the shoulder. "And don't call me 'you', we're stalker brothers. And now, if you'll excuse me… I'm very sleepy."
"Ah, yes," the stalker nimbly jumps off the porch to the side, clearing the way. "Have a pleasant, uh, sleep!"
"That's good."
I push the open door, go inside, and take a deep breath of air filled with the aromas of household chemicals that haven't yet dissipated. I look at the floor and see that it's washed almost to a shine, and the kitchen, visible from the hallway, was also completely tidied up. I take off my shoes and walk further to see the same picture in the other rooms. Oh, Volkov, we'll consider that you've redeemed yourself a little.
I lock the front door, though those scumbags did one thing right – they picked the lock without damaging it, and, somehow undressing, I fall asleep, falling asleep almost immediately.
Executioner's House, evening.
After waking up a few hours later, I still felt broken, but it was much better than before. I go through a small routine, wash my face, brush my teeth, and simply tidy up my body. Shaving off the small beard that had grown, I comb my stray strands of hair and start preparing dinner. Although what kind of cooking is this, damn it? I just decided to eat warmed-up canned food with crackers. Alas, I have no other food supplies left.
As soon as the meal was over, I turn my gaze to the long-suffering box of stalker discord. Eh, I wish I could sort through the artifacts myself, but it seems that if I don't get rid of it soon, something else bad will happen. But that can wait until tomorrow, I'm too tired to carry it anywhere else, so I take out a huge folder of documents and a laptop from my backpack, and with this set, I go to Sid.
"Greetings to honest trade," I greet the merchant as I enter the trading cubicle.
"And to you," Sid chuckles, noticing what I was holding. "How was the trip? Did you catch the bastards?"
"Caught and punished," I sigh. "Do you know for how much Krokhobor bought my box?"
"I'm afraid to even imagine," Sid laughs. "Fifty thousand? No, too cheap…"
"Fifteen."
"What?" the merchant almost choked on the tea he decided to drink. "Fifteen? Even the box costs more! I knew that devil was greedy, but this much?"
"Speaking of Krokhobor," I say, as soon as the degree of indignation subsides, and hand Sid the documents and the laptop. "Here."
Sid quickly snatches the documents from my hands, immediately starting to flip through them. On some pages he whistles, on others he curses quietly. After a couple of minutes, the merchant finally tears himself away from looking at the papers and puts them aside along with the laptop, and then looks at me with a sly glint in his eyes:
"Did he have a lot of money stashed away?" the merchant asks.
"Nah," I shake my head. He really didn't have much money. "And what little there was, I had to give away in Predbannik so people would clear a spot for the execution."
"I heard about it," Sid nods, clasping his hands on the tabletop. "There are rumors that a certain Executioner from the Cord, an experienced stalker, arrived in Predbannik to deal with a gang of bandits. And after he defeated them in a fair fight, he carried a wounded stalker back to the camp on his back, crippled by those very criminals, no doubt. The news is spreading like wildfire in the stalker network – it hasn't happened like this in a long time, except for the fact that stalkers kicked Yog out of the Dump.
"And what about Krokhobor?"
"No one knows yet," Sid grins. "They say Krokhobor has locked himself in his basement again and seems to be drinking. When the stalkers decide to break down the door, no one will even remember you. But I want to warn you not to make any more mistakes in the future. Krokhobor is practically the only merchant you can kill without regard for other people."
"Why so?"
"Well, no one needed him except the riff-raff hanging around Predbannik," the merchant shrugs, taking a sip from his mug. "The assortment is small, the prices are exorbitant, you can't make a living with that – only survive, and even then you'll die sooner. By the way, want to hear an old tale?"
"Go on," I nod affirmatively.
"There used to be a nasty old man sitting there, back in my stalker days. They called him Toad. So greedy that Krokhobor still has a long way to go to catch up. He ruined so many stalkers, sending them to places that are scary to even talk about," Sid pauses here. "Although I shouldn't be talking about this, of course… Heh-heh. So, before our gang decided to settle here and start our trade, for many kilometers around – he was the only one who had both money and canned food. But he wasn't destined to hang around for long, the old man left beautifully – he shot the stalker who wounded him, but in the end, he himself died from a gunshot wound. Oh, how he screamed throughout the village, how he called for people, no one helped him then."
"And after him, Krokhobor occupied that basement?"
"No-o, not even close. That devil took his place about a year ago," the merchant shakes his head. "Then Vovan took over. He was a cool guy, kind and cheerful. But he didn't stay long either – a competitor finished him off. Sold him a backpack with a booby trap, yes, yes. Vovan opened the bag, and all his insides were scattered around the basement. And then it got even more fun – so many people were killed in that basement that I wouldn't be surprised if Krokhobor isn't even in the top twenty. That's how it is. I wouldn't be surprised if a new trader appears there soon."
"Some kind of unlucky place…"
"Not without reason, heh," he chuckles. "But before the stalkers expanded to the North, and I occupied this basement – that farm was the financial center of the Zone. Before, in that town, military personnel were stationed – they came to replace the firefighters, and therefore the merchant enjoyed increased respect. Of course, the only person capable of bribing the commandant and buying a batch of weapons with a couple of crates of ammunition on top. But… People flocked North, and the more capable dealers followed them."
"And you occupied almost the most strategically important place in this whole scheme," I chuckle with a slight smile.
"That's right, Executioner, that's how it is…" Sid freezes for a couple of seconds, tapping his finger on the stack of documents I brought, and looks at the wall clock, past which the merchant should have closed five minutes ago. "Let's talk business. You brought me information that's not too relevant to me, but there are a couple of ideas on how to use it… In general, come see me the day after tomorrow, okay? Your order will arrive then, and we'll agree on the reward."