‘It’s boring for us here, of course.’ He smiled knowingly at the youth. ‘Come with me into the office. Katerina will lay the table for us there. And we’ll drink for a while.’ He winked. Now the room with the carpets and skull looked completely different: lit by a table lamp with a green cloth lampshade, it had become a little more comfortable. The tension which had haunted Artyom on the platform, dissipated without a trace in the rays of this lamp. Arkadiy Semyonovich drew a small bottle from the cupboard and poured a brown liquid with a head-reeling aroma into an unusual round-bellied glass. Only a little came out, a finger’s worth, and Artyom thought that this bottle must have cost more than a whole box of the home-brew he had tried at Kitai Gorod.
‘A little cognac.’ Arkadiy Semyonovich responded to his curious look. ‘Armenian, of course, but it’s almost thirty years old. Bottoms up.’ The chief dreamily looked up at the ceiling. ‘Don’t be afraid, it’s not contaminated, I checked it myself with the dosimeter.’
The unfamiliar drink was very strong, but the pleasant flavour and sharp aroma made it palatable. Artyom didn’t swallow it all at once, but tried to savour it, following the example of his host. A fire was slowly breaking out inside him, it seemed, but it gradually cooled and turned into an acceptably comforting heat. The room had become even more agreeable, and Arkadiy Semyonovich even more likeable.
‘A surprising thing,’ screwing up his eyes in satisfaction, Artyom commented.
‘It’s good, right? About a year and a half ago the stalkers found completely untouched groceries at Krasnopresenskaya,’ the station chief explained, ‘in a cellar, as they often had done previously. The sign had fallen off and no one had noticed it. But one of us recalled that earlier, before it had crashed, sometimes he had looked in there, so he decided to check it. It had been there so many years it had became better. Because we knew each other, he gave me two bottles for a hundred bullets. They ask two hundred for one at Kitai Gorod.’
He took one more small swallow, then thoughtfully looked at the lamp’s light through the cognac.
‘They called him Vasya, this stalker,’ the chief informed him. ‘He was a good man. Not some kind of kid who runs after nothing, but a serious young man. He fetched all the good things. As soon as he returned from above, he came to me first. Well, he says, Semyonych, some new supplies.’ Arkadiy Semyonovich smiled weakly.
‘Did something happen to him?’ Artyom asked.
‘He loved Krasnopresenskaya very much He repeated all the time that it was a real El Dorado there,’ Arkadiy Semyonovich said sadly. ‘Nothing touched in one Stalinist high-rise… It’s understandable why it was there all safe and sound… The zoo was right across the road. Just who would poke their head in there, at Krasnopresenskaya? Such fear… He was desperate, Vasyatka, he was always taking risks. And he got into a mess at the end. They dragged him into the zoo, and his partner barely managed to bolt. So, let’s drink to him.’ The chief breathed heavily and poured one more for each of them.
Recalling the unusually high price of the cognac, Artyom was on the verge of protesting, but Arkadiy Semyonovich decisively placed the round-bellied glass into his hand, explaining that a refusal would insult the memory of the reckless stalker who had obtained this divine drink.
By that time, the girl had set the table and Artyom and Arkadiy Semyonovich moved on to ordinary, but decent, moonshine. The meat had been prepared delightfully.
‘It’s unpleasant for you at the station.’ After an hour and a half Artyom was frank. ‘It’s scary here, something is oppressive…’
‘We’re used to it.’ Arkadiy Semyonovich vaguely shook his head. ‘And people live here. It’s no worse than at some…’
‘No, don’t think that I don’t understand.’ Having decided that the Kievskaya chief had taken offence, Artyom hastened to calm him. ‘You, certainly, are doing all that is possible… But there is something going on here. Everyone talks about just one thing: that people are disappearing.’
‘They lie!’ Arkadiy Semyonovich cut him off. But then he added, ‘Not all are disappearing. Only the children.’
‘Are the dead taking them?’
‘Who knows who is taking them? I myself don’t believe in the dead. I have seen dead in my lifetime, make no mistake. They don’t take anyone anywhere. They themselves lie quietly. But there, beyond the blockage,’ Arkadiy Semyonovich waved a hand in the direction of Park Pobedy and nearly lost his balance, ‘is someone. That’s definite. And it is impossible for us to go there.’
‘Why?’ Artyom tried to focus on his glass, but it had been growing fuzzier the whole time and seemed to creep away somewhere.
‘Wait a little, I’ll show you…’
The station chief moved away from the table with a crash, got up with difficulty and, rocking, went to the cupboard. Digging around on one of the shelves, he carefully lifted into the light a long metal needle with a barb by the thick end.
‘What’s that?’ Artyom frowned.
‘That’s what I would like to know…’
‘Where did you get it?’
‘From the neck of a lookout who was guarding the right tunnel. Hardly any blood came out, but he lay there all blue, and foaming at the mouth.’
‘Did they come from Park Pobedy?’ Artyom was guessing.
‘Damned if anyone knows,’ mumbled Arkadiy Semyonovich and at the same time he upset their glasses. ‘Only,’ he added, putting the needle back into the cupboard, ‘don’t tell anyone.’
‘But why haven’t you told anyone yourself? They’ll help you and people will settle down.’
‘Well, no one would settle down, everyone would run away, like rats! They’re already running now… Not to defend themselves from anyone here, there is no enemy. He isn’t visible, and that’s why it’s frightening. So, I show them this needle, and what? Do you think everything will settle? That’s ridiculous! Everyone will disappear, the bastards, and leave me here alone! And what kind of a station chief will I be without people? A captain without a ship!’ He had raised his voice, but he let out a squeak and was silent.
‘Arkasha, Arkasha, you don’t have to be like that, everything’s OK…’ The girl sat down, startled, beside him, and stroked his head. Artyom sadly understood through the alcoholic fog that she wasn’t the chief’s daughter.
‘All of them, the sons of bitches, will run! Like rats from a ship! I’ll be alone! But we won’t give in!’ He hadn’t calmed down.
Artyom stood up with difficulty and unsteadily walked toward the exit. The guard at the door quizzically snapped his fingers in his face, nodding at Arkadiy Semyonovich’s office.
‘Dead drunk,’ Artyom muttered. ‘It’s better not to touch him until tomorrow.’ And, rocking slightly, he plodded towards his tent.
He had to find the way. He tried a few times to get into someone else’s quarters, but crude male curses and piercing female squeals told him that he had gone into the wrong tent. The moonshine had turned out to be more potent than cheap home-brew, and he had started to feel its full strength only now. The arches and columns floated before his eyes and, to top it off, he was beginning to feel sick.
At a normal hour, perhaps, someone would have helped Artyom reach the guest tent, but now the station seemed completely empty. Even the posts at the exits from the tunnels were likely to have been abandoned.
Three or four dim lamps remained lit in the whole station, and, apart from those, the whole platform had been plunged into darkness. When Artyom stopped and looked around more attentively, it began to appear to him that the gloom had been filled by something and it was stirring quietly. Not believing his eyes, he plodded in the direction of one especially suspicious place with the curiosity and bravery of a drunk. Not far from the transfer to the Filevskaya line, at one of the arches, the movements of blobs of darkness were not gradual, as in other corners, but sharp and almost deliberate.