Vasilisa the Brave - Chapter Eight - Trapped
Vasilisa didn't spend any more time in the old village than she had to. She explored a few old farm houses, walking up creaky old staircases and exploring abandoned bedrooms where every surface was covered in a thick pad of dust. Just opening doors was enough to fill the air with dusty snow and she was worried that no matter what she did, she was leaving traces of her passing.
Still, the area begged to be explored. It was quiet, still. A space locked away in time and left undisturbed by man or beast.
There were birds singing outside, but no skittering squirrels or field mice or stray cats. It was subtly wrong that this place hadn't been reclaimed by nature yet. There should have been trees growing into the old homes and grass as tall as her hips, but no, there was nothing of the sort.
She didn't find much of value, a few sheets from a cupboard in a bathroom that weren't moth-eaten and which seemed warm enough, and one home had a well in the backyard that had a bucket and pulley system. She drew water and filled a clear empty bottle with it.
There weren't any little things floating in the water that she could see. It smelled a little of sulphur, but tasted clean enough. Vasilisa did what she could to filter it with some clean cloth on the end of the bottle and refilled her cantines.
She drank her fill as well. Then, deciding that it was quiet enough, she took a big risk and pulled a few buckets into a nearby washroom. She closed the door, locked it shut, and undressed to wash herself with a cloth and a sliver of soap she'd discovered.
It wasn't a warm bath, but she came out of it feeling cleaner than she had in a while. She washed her boots with a bristled brush and soaked her dirty clothes in soapy water. She didn't have time to leave it out to dry, so she squeezed as much water out of the clothes as she could before folding them in tight into her backpack.
It was better than nothing, she supposed. She hadn't packed too many changes of clothes with her, which she regretted now as she was forced to wear wet, clinging pants.
Still, she felt clean for the first time in a couple of days. The queasiness in her stomach had faded away and she felt settled once more.
Vasilisa did one last thing before leaving the village. She found the tallest of the homes on the outskirts and slipped into it. There was a fire burning in the home's fireplace that left no smoke and which sounded... off, as if the noise of the crackling wood was being played backwards. She didn't approach that room, not with how unnaturally hot it felt.
She did climb to the topmost floor, then found the access to the attic. It meant being showered in dust so soon after being cleaned, but there was nothing for it. She scampered up the stairs and was able to make it to a small slit of a window looking out onto the countryside around the village.
There wasn't much to see, but she could make out the sun starting to dip on the horizon, and it gave her an idea of which way was north. There was more out of the east-facing window. The village stopped a couple of houses down, then there were several hills. A smaller village sat off in the distance, or maybe that wasn't quite the right thing to call it? A few larger, more modern homes with fences all around didn't count as a village.
Way, way off in the distance she could make out a large building atop a rising hill, but the trees around it made it so only the topmost floors were visible. There was some faint smoke that way, however.
The south had some industrial buildings in the distance, and all she could see of the north and west were rocky hills and forests.
She left the attic with a new destination in mind.
After grabbing all of her things, Vasilisa started east.
There was no road from the little village to the nicer homes in the distance, but there was a path cut into the grass and weeds, a path made by stomping feet and other passersby. She kept low, moving furtively like a field mouse while her eyes scanned the horizon for trouble.
If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
It was hard not to keep her eyes on the ground ahead of her to avoid tripping on loose rocks and twisted earth.
Finally, though, she made it to the walls around the nicer homes. They were tall, made of tin that had been painted relatively recently, and she could see from up close that her guess from early was right. These places were a lot more modern.
She hadn't seen homes this nice in anything but magazines snuck in from the west. A big two storey house, with wide windows framed by shutters.
Vasilisa snuck along the wall. It was comforting to have something solid next to her again, now she only had to look in every other direction for trouble. As she went around, she discovered that she'd made a mistake when she walked out in front of the row of homes. They had gates for cars at the front, with gated doors next to them. A tug at each revealed that they were all locked.
Cursing her luck, she went around the far side, then back around until she was almost back to where she'd begun. That's where she found a break in the wall where a large branch from a tree had crushed the tin wall, crumpling it enough that someone with a bit of flexibility and luck could pull themselves up and into the compound.
Vasilisa didn't like all the noise she made as she climbed the wall, the crack and clang of tin sounded like gunshots to her, but she made it into the backyard of one of the homes safely enough.
They had a garden.
They had a pool. It was missing half its water, and what was there was filled with pond scum and had become home to some frogs, but a pool was a pool.
There were two ATVs parked next to the house, both looking surprisingly new, and a luxury car was tucked into a garage built alongside the wall.
Vasilisa stared at it all with a growing pit in her stomach. Who lived here? Who had, before the Zone came, earned all these riches?
She moved towards the house. Unlike the wall all around the compound, the house itself wasn't as secured. The front door had been left open, and the light breeze wafting by was making it sway slightly. She touched the door before slipping into the house.
A dining room, with seating for six, a small kitchen, a living room with couches and a television larger than any she'd seen.
She had a vague memory of her father taking her to see a movie once. It had been a few years ago. She, along with some thirty or so others, was crammed into a small room lined with chairs to watch a movie on a screen no bigger than this one.
Since then, all the television she'd seen had been broadcast in the centre of Pripyat where important people spoke and had their images projected for the nation to see.
Vasilisa stood in the middle of the living room. She had never felt so out of place. Even having cleaned herself, even having this rich home be unoccupied and dusty, she felt like she was someone covered in filth standing in an operating room. It was subtly wrong.
So she turned to leave... but the kitchen beckoned.
Licking dry lips, Vasilisa dipped into the kitchen and eyed the space. There was no power, so she avoided the fridge and the stink likely within. There was a pantry next to the fridge though, with a glass in the door.
She could see a small pyramid of cans. Toshonka and canned pears. Her mouth watered.
She pulled the door open.
Something tugged along with the door, then clunked onto the floor.
She felt a spark of shock run up her spine as a grenade landed between her feet, the spoon of it catapulting past.
With a gasp, she spun on her heel and ran.
She made it through the living room and halfway through the dining room before the explosion went off behind her. Warmth pushed her forwards and she rammed into the door shoulder-first and spun out onto the grass outside.
Vasilisa coughed. It felt like someone had tried to tug her arm out of its socket, but she didn't think she was injured, though her ears rang and she was aware of glass on the ground around her.
And then boots.
Vasilisa looked up and into the barrel of a gun.
***