And then a new cry was heard, not the threatening roar of the beasts hunting him, but a long, piercing squawk, which made his blood curdle. It reached him from above and Artyom understood that a new participant had joined the game. Obviously, the noise of the shots had attracted the attention of a flying monster similar to the one that had spun its nest on the cathedral’s dome.
A huge shadow swept over his head like a shot. Turning back for a moment, Artyom saw that the beasts had scattered, and only one of them, apparently the one he had wounded, was left in the middle of the street. Continuing to scream, it clumsily lurched towards the building, also hoping to conceal itself there. But it had no chance of being saved: describing another circle several dozen metres high, the monster folded its enormous leathery wings and fell upon the victim. It dived down so swiftly that Artyom wasn’t even able to see what happened next. Having gripped the beast screeching its final agony, the gigantic hulk lifted its quarry aloft without any visible effort and leisurely carried it to the roof of one of the high-rises.
His pursuers didn’t immediately break cover, concerned that the monster may return, and Artyom had no time to lose. Pressing himself to the walls of the houses, he ran forward, where, according to his calculations, Sadovoye Koltso should be located. He was able to cover about half a kilometre before he was out of breath and he looked back to check whether the beasts hunting him had gathered their wits. The avenue was empty. But going several more dozen metres and looking into one of the alleys leading away from New Arbat, Artyom, to his horror, noticed familiar still shadows in it. Now he was beginning to understand why these creatures were in no hurry to come out into the open and preferred to track their victims from the narrow side streets. While hunting for him, they feared attracting the attention of the larger monsters and becoming their prey.
Now Artyom had to turn around to look every minute: he remembered that the beasts were able to move extremely quickly, and at the same time practically silently, and he feared that they could catch him unawares. The end of the avenue was already visible when they again raced from the alleys and began to surround him. Taught by experience, Artyom at once shot into the air, hoping that that would attract the winged monster as before and frighten off the beasts. They actually froze for a while, standing up on their hind legs and craning their necks. But the sky remained empty – the monster, apparently, still had not been able to deal with its first victim. Artyom understood sooner than his pursuers and rushed to the right, skirted one of the houses and dived into the nearest entrance. Though Melnik also had warned him against it, saying that the houses were inhabited, running into such a powerful and mobile enemy as the beasts chasing him in the open would have been insane. They would have torn Artyom to pieces before he was able to pull back the bolt of his machine gun.
It was dark in the entrance, and he had to turn on his flashlight. In the round spot of light rose shabby walls covered with obscenities scrawled several decades before, a foul staircase, and the broken doors of ruined and burnt out apartments. Bold rats scampering around like they owned the place, adding to the picture of desolation.
He had chosen the entry wisely, the staircase windows looked out onto the avenue, and, climbing to the next floor, he was able to ascertain that the beasts had not decided to follow him. They were stealing up to the front doors but, instead of going into one, surrounded it, squatting on their haunches and again turning into stone statues. Artyom didn’t believe that they would back off and allow their prey to elude them. Sooner or later they would try to reach him from outside, if, of course, nothing was hiding in the entrance which Artyom himself would be forced to flee.
He climbed a storey higher, illuminated the doors and discovered that one of them was closed. He put his shoulder to it and was convinced that it was locked. Without thinking twice, he put the muzzle of the machine gun up to the keyhole, fired and flung the door open with a kick. When it came down to it, it was all the same to him in which of the apartments he put up a defence, but he was unable to miss his chance to look at an untouched dwelling of the people of a bygone era.
First he slammed shut the door and blocked it with a cabinet standing in the hallway. This barricade would not sustain a serious attack, but at least they couldn’t get past it unnoticed. After that, Artyom approached the window and carefully looked outside. It was practically an ideal firing position – from the height of the fourth floor he was able to see perfectly the approaches to the entrance. There were about ten beasts sitting in a semi-circle around it. Now the advantage was his and he wasted no time in using it. Switching on the laser gunsight, he put the red dot on the head of the largest of the beasts and, taking a breath, pulled the trigger. A short burst sounded and the creature soundlessly fell onto its side. The others dashed off in different directions at lightning speed, and a moment later the street was empty. But there was no doubt they didn’t intend to go far. Artyom decided to wait it out and be certain that the death of their colleague really had frightened off the remaining beasts.
In the meantime, he had a little time in which to study the apartment.
Though the glass here, as in the whole house, had been broken long ago, the furniture and all the fittings had been preserved surprisingly well. Small pads had been spread around the floor resembling the rat poison they used at VDNKh. Perhaps that was why Artyom had not noticed one rat in the rooms. The longer he walked around the apartment, the more he was convinced that the residents had not abandoned it in a hurry, but had preserved it, hoping sometime to return. No food had been left in the kitchen to attract rodents or insects, and much of the furniture was carefully wrapped in cellophane.
Moving from room to room, Artyom tried to imagine what the everyday life of the people who had lived here had been. How many of them lived here? What time did they get up, arrive home from work, have dinner? Who sat at the head of the table? He knew about many of the jobs, rituals and things only through books, and now, seeing a real dwelling, was convinced that much of what he had imagined earlier was totally wrong.
Artyom carefully lifted the semi-transparent polyethylene film and examined the book shelves. Several colourful children’s books stood among the detective stories he knew from the bookstalls in the metro. He grasped one of them at the spine and gently pulled it out. While he paged through the decorative depictions of happy animals, a sheet of cardboard fell from the book. Bending over, Artyom lifted it off the floor: it turned out to be a fading photograph of a smiling woman with a small child in her arms.
He was petrified.
His heart went into palpitations. Having just been dispersing the blood through his body in measured beats, it suddenly had sped up, beating inappropriately. Artyom terribly wanted to remove his tight gas mask to get a jolt of fresh air, if it had not been poisonous. Carefully, as if concerned that the picture turn to dust from his touch, he took it from the shelf and lifted it to his eyes.
The woman in the picture was about thirty years old, and the little one in her arms not more than two, and it was difficult to determine if it was a boy or girl from the funny cap on its head. The child was looking straight at the camera, and its expression was surprisingly grown up and serious. Artyom turned over the photograph and the glass of his gas mask became clouded. On the other side was written in a blue ballpoint pen: ‘Little Artyom is 2 years and 5 months old.’