Chapter Eighteen - Shortcut

Koschei took a few moments to prepare within the abandoned shop, and Alice found herself spying on the man as he went through some motions that seemed completely practised to him. First he checked his gear, tugging on his pack, fixing his belt, then tapping his boots on the ground a few times to dislodge some dirt. There was a very ratty carpet at the back of the shop, and he rubbed his boots down on it.

"We don't want to leave tracks," he said. "This might be the safe zone, but it's not actually safe. Some Stalkers will hunt others down out here."

"Why would they do that?" Crystal asked. She looked down at her feet, which were noticeably muddy. Alice's own were clean, a quick motion of some shadows over her lower pantlegs and boots wiped away any mud, and besides, her magical girl outfit wasn't prone to getting dirtied.

She didn't know how Crystal always managed to get covered in dirt and dust and sometimes twigs.

Koschei glanced at them, and his brow earned a small frown as he noticed that they were cleaner than he was. But the man ignored it with a shrug as he continued to ready himself. "We're going to move north and west. This part of the city is the old shopping district. There's lot of small stores, and some apartments. We'll be staying the night in one of those."

"Are they safer?" Alice asked.

"Some of them only have one entrance to keep an eye on," he replied. "And they have beds."

She supposed that, given the choice, the average explorer would take a bed to sleep on when they could get one. "We won't be spending the night, will we?" Crystal asked.

"Some of it," he replied. "The problem with this part of the zone is that there's a lot of dangerous traffic. Having a light tells everyone where you are. It's unwise. So we'll avoid moving in the dark and will leave at sun-up."

Koschei grabbed his gun and pulled back the charging handle halfway while tilting it to the side to see within the chamber. Then he turned the gun the other way and flicked his safety. "Let's get moving."

They left out of the back of the store. There was no door, and the elements were welcome to come in. Koschei moved to the left and right of the exit before even stepping though, moving so that he could see down both sides of the alleyway just outside. Once he confirmed that it was clear--something Alice could have told him, she didn't sense anyone nearby--he moved through and scooted over to the far side of the alley.

Alice and Crystal followed. The man clearly knew what he was doing, moving with a casual sort of professionalism. "How long have you been doing this for?" Alice asked.

"Five years," he said.

"That's not so long," she replied.

"Five years makes me one of the longest-lived veterans around," he said.

"That's kinda sad," Crystal said. "Unless it's because only working for a season or two is enough to retire?"

Koschei glanced back, then shook his head. "No. There's a grave. We'll be passing it tomorrow. You'll see where all the retirees are."

"I thought that Pavlo said that Stalkers make it rich?" Alice asked.

Koschei grunted a laugh. "Maybe. If you find the right prize out here, then maybe. "Most of us just don't make it out alive. But it's fine. There are always more who want to give it a try. The Zone, it has miracles, you know? There are things in there that you will never see anywhere else. Some are monsters, some are devils, but there is more too. It is hard for a man not to want to see what is here, especially when there is nothing left in the rest of the world for them."

Crystal shook her head. "Boys," she said.

On exiting the alley, they took a left away from the walls and deeper into the city. A few blocks later, and Alice couldn't see the walls of Pripyat behind them anymore. It was strange how easy it was to lose sight of even something that big.

Koschei had them running across a street in a spot where a bus was stalled lengthwise across the road. It provided some good cover to get to the other side, then he opened the door of a small locksmith's shop and they darted through it to the other side.

Alice had been paying some attention to the shops and stores they crossed. They were obviously all abandoned, but more notably, they were all looted. Anything valuable was gone. The rest was tossed around and left to rust.

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They came upon an anomaly the moment they were out of the back of the shop.

Both Alice and Crystal paused, because once through the back door, then were... back in the front of the locksmiths. "Just keep following me," Koschei said.

So they did, exiting out of the back and back into the front, again. Alice frowned and looked over her shoulder. There was the bus outside, and nothing seemed different.

"Another time," Koschei said.

So they followed him out of the back, and this time found themselves stepping out into another street. Alice glanced back again. They had just stepped out of a hardware store, not a locksmiths.

"It's a shortcut," Koschei said without explaining anything. "The apartments are right there."

He was pointing to some rather tame apartment buildings right across the street. They were simple three-storey buildings, and from what Alice could sense, there were something like five blocks of them around this area, each block was two large buildings, each shaped like an L with a small park in their centre and parking space around them.

The windows were almost all busted, and the front doors of the nearest apartment complex were straight up missing. It looked like the buildings had been shot at too. One window on the third floor had a dozen marks where bullets had struck the walls around one window.

Alice could sense people nearby as well. Not too close, but a few buildings down. Two people, but from what she could tell, they were relaxing. A third person was way further off, and she could sense both fear and desperation wafting off of them.

"This way," Koschei said.

By the time they slipped into the building, the sun was almost completely gone. The sky was well past the orange of dusk. Fortunately, the moon was high above, and it gave them some amount of visibility as they slipped in.

The place smelled like mildew and rot, and the reason why was obvious. Mold was settling in on the corners of the tiled floors, and whomever had looted the place previously had pulled out a lot of furniture and clothes and left it spread out across the floor in rotting heaps.

As Koschei led them deeper in, they crossed an open room. It had a long counter to one side, and a few tables with seating around them. "This is the old dormitory," Koschei said. "For some company or another. The apartments above are normal apartments."

There was a sink built into the counter, and it was overflowing with water. The tap kept pouring more and more out, though it was only at a slow trickle. Still, that had been enough to fill the sink, and now the water was flowing along the counter to the edge, and dripping onto the floor where it had pooled.

"No wonder this place is mouldy," Alice muttered. The linoleum had bubbled up in the centre of the room, probably from water damage.

"The water here is good," Koschei said. "It's a well."

She didn't comment on it. She supposed that any moderately clean water would be good around here.

Climbing up a floor, they came to a landing above that was completely blocked by turned bedframes. She could just make out a warning painted on a piece of plywood across the entryway. "Go Home."

Koschei ignored it, grabbed onto one of the frames, then easily pulled it aside, revealing a small entrance. "In," he said.

They slipped in. The corridor was lined with small apartments. Just a room, a washroom, and a small sleeping space. Each had a window looking out, though they were small.

"Pick a room," Kochei said. "None of them are good. We'll be staying here until first light." Then he eyed the two. "Can I trust you to take a watch?"

"Sure," Crystal said. "I don't mind not sleeping."

"Likewise," Alice said.

He nodded. "I'm going to get a few hours of sleep. We're leaving at five, before the sun's up."

"Got it," Crystal said. "Get some good sleep!"

Alice nodded to the man. In hindsight, with how this place was laid out, the anomalies, the shortcuts, the confusing landscape, she was... happy that Crystal had wanted a local guide.

***