A Shephard- ZoC Main Story Vol 1 Chapter 2

												Part 2 - Insane in the Ukraine




This disheveled man in white fatigues slowly approaches you. You note this seems to be more of lethargy than deliberate carefulness on his part.

He asks you once more, almost spitting the words for food.

You have no idea what to do, as your pistol is seemingly miles away in your backpack. A backpack that is sorely missing some food. You decide you’ll try to bluff, reaching for your backpack. Maybe he’ll believe you’re reaching to give him food, and then you can use your Makarov?

This man is in no mood for games, though.

You see his white, scared fingers pull the trigger.

Nothing.

You are stunned. And from his lack of reaction, so is he. But you recover quicker. You slap the rifle out of his hand, sending him stumbling back. You go for the rifle, to deny him any ability to threaten you again. Grabbing it, you realize how foolish you were. If it didn’t work for him, why would it do you any good. Not sure if he has any other firearms in store, you run back out of the tunnel the way you came in. Sending a glance back, you see him. Still sitting against the wall. Just staring back at you. What an incredibly bizarre bandit, you think, as you continue to run. Back towards the rookie village.
Almost stumbling as you run into the village, you can hear the lanky guard call out to you “Slow down turbo, what's the-” but you don’t hear him finish as you run to the basement where you last saw Wolf.

Out of breath from the long run, you take a second to gulp down the excess saliva and try to calm your breathing.

Wolf looks at you, a bit surprised “when I sent you out, I didn’t expect you back so quick. I’m assuming you-”

“I didn’t make it there, not even close” you word out breathlessly as you sit down, taking the water Wolf offered you.

Continuing, “I made it to the bridge. Saw one of those anomaly things on it. I went under the bridge to avoid it.. There was a bandit, sitting by the burned out car. Tried to rob me of my food. Scuffled a bit, somehow got away. Thank god his rifle,” you indicate by looking at the dilapidated SVD now sitting in the corner “was a piece of shit. It failed to fire, so I had my chance to get away.”

“Slow down there. A bandit, under the bridge? You sure he was alone?”

“Yes,” you respond, words coming a bit easier now that you had time to breath, “he was real scraggly looking. His brown and white fatigues-”

Wolf grabs your shoulder, staring at you with incredible intensity. “Are you sure? That he was wearing equipment like that?”

“Positive. Anyways, I wasn’t able to make it to the car park but-”

“No, you did better than that. This is very serious, I’ve never heard of Monolith this far south.”

Before you could ask what a Monolith was, Wolf turns towards the door and pulls his radio out.

“Cheesy, Highlander, come in.” A pause, and then a series of pulses were heard. “Get your shit together and meet me at the east end. We’ve got a bit of a problem to clear out.”
A very serious series of affirmatives is what you hear. As Wolf could be heard exiting the top of the stairs, you hear him call down.

“We’ll take care of this, and then we’ll talk about the reward. In the meantime, go see Mr. Green. He’ll be more than happy to help you out with that rifle.”

And then he was gone. Once you’ve calmed down enough, you get back up, grabbing a spare can of food you found on the table. Not gonna make that mistake again. Walking back outside, you note a more heavily armed trio standing at the far end of the village, Wolf being one of them and that lanky fellow you ran past being the other. You don’t recognize the shorter one, but between the two you can guess they’re Highlander and Cheesy respectively.

You need to ask about this nickname situation, you mentally note. You find the only other stalker left in the village, sitting by the campfire.

“Are you Mr. Green?” you ask.

“Me? Hell no. You wouldn’t see that crazy old man get up for anything. He’s in the last building before the bunker, on the right with the burned out roof.”

You thank him, and continue on your way.

As you approach, you find it odd that his man is just sitting and staring into a wall. And talking to someone

“I’ll bring it back, don’t worry. You look after the boys while I’m out, I know how they like to get into trouble.”

You don’t see another person. Or a radio. This man is crazy. You guess his faded green surplus military fatigues is where he gets his name from.

As he turns around to greet you, you immediately realize in horror that you were wrong.

Covering his face, right underneath his skin, are bulging green veins. All over his cheeks, crisscrossing to create a spiderweb that almost completely envelops his face.

“Hello, new one. It is rude to stare, you know?” he greets.

Snapping out of it, you can’t tell this is a joke. You apologize.

“It’s okay, most people do that when they first meet me. I guess they never expected to see someone with as many wrinkles at my age, but the zone does that to you.”

Wrinkles is NOT how you would describe his pulsating, green face. You change the subject.

“Wolf said you would know something about this rifle? I found it after a small scuffle with a bandit.”

He stares at you, that same deadpan expression. As if he were a motion picture suffering from a delay, he then snaps his head downwards to look at the rifle.

“Ah Wolf, always sending the new kids to the bandits. I know he says it builds character, but we lose too many that way. Now, what have we here?”

He says, grabbing the rifle without your permission. His grip sizes and he mistakenly drops it. Again, he reacts with that momentary delay.

“Ah, I’m sorry. I don’t have quite the best control of my locomotion these days. Here, just hold it out for me.”

You comply, wondering when Wolf would return so you wouldn’t have to deal with this talking calamity.

Sliding his hand over the side the rifle, letting it rest upon the ejection port, he sighs “Ahh, this feels very familiar. I used to use one of these before, well before a lot of things. It's a Snayperskaya Vintovka Dragunova. A marksman’s rifle. Unlike traditional rifles in the west, this is meant more in an individual or squad support role. It’s ten round mag letting you put a lot of accurate shots down range before stopping, if you wind up in intensive combat."
"It seems to be missing its scope, and feels like it’s seen better days,” he finished.

You tell him that it’s poor condition is actually what saved you life. A delay. He laughs.

“Poor condition?” He says as he racks the bolt carrier a few times, with a complete bullet and cartridge being ejected each time, “this thing is still in functional order. It’s not running as smoothly, and a lot of the externals need fixing or replacement, but this thing could still kill in a pinch. You may have a rough time finding ammo for it this far south in the zone, though. The few stalkers that use this rifle are all up north, and so the traders that would sell them it are there too.”

“My advice?,” he continues, “is that this is worth using. It may take a while to fix up, but a weapon that can reach out and touch someone like this is a valuable asset in the wide expanse of the zone.”

The conversation was interrupted by a distant echo of a single shot.

“Anyways, stick around for a while. I could teach a kid like you a thing or two. What’s your name, anyhow?”

You give it willingly.

“No no no, you don’t use you’re actual name here, unless you’re in trusting company. We all have these odd nicknames, see? A lot of people here aren’t exactly on good terms with the law on the outside. And simply being here makes us all criminals, in a way. So you don’t tell people your name out of respect and anonymity.”

You stare blankly back at him. If your brother didn’t use his real name, this would make things a lot more difficult.

“Ah, that’s a good expression. Blank! That’s your name!”

That is not a good name. That’s not even a name. That’s the lack of a name on some forms.
You want to protest this, but Wolf finally comes back. Mr. Green greets him first

“Hey Wolf, I was just done running Blank here through the details of his rifle. Kid has promise, not everyday a stalker find a treasure like he has.”

Wolf responds, standing you up and encouraging you to follow him “yeah, he did us a solid finding that Monolith bastard in the tunnel. Anyways, I’ll take Blank here and give him something for it. I’ll catch up later, Mr. Green.”

Green simply waves, and turns back to that wall he was staring at. Walking out with Wolf, you see the lanky man back at his post, with the shorter man sitting at the fire, clutching a bandage around his neck.

“We found the man you were talking about. He didn’t put up much resistance, at first. Just sitting there, staring. Typical of most of those Monolith zealots. It wasn’t until we ripped off his mask that he became agitated.”

“ ‘Agitated?’ Agitated, you say?” You hear the shorter man pipe up, hand still on the bandage, “fucker was crazy, tried to rip out my jugular with his teeth!”

Wolf nods “after attacking Highlander here like that, we had to put him down. Someone so far lost in The Zone like that, you can’t reason with him anymore. Stalkers that lose their mind like that, can be more vicious than some of the wildlife you find here.”

Continuing to follow Wolf past the campfire, and into the basement, Wolf comments “So you’re Blank, huh? I can see how that fits. Why’d you pick it thought?”

“Mr. Green took a good look at my face, and decided it on his own self,” you respond.
Wolf, stops, and for what seems to be the first time in ages in your life, you hear a genuine, deep, and hearty laughter. He continues to do this for almost a minute, before taking off his mask to wipe tears out of his eyes.

“You’re funny, I’ll give you that.”

You continue with that now infamous expression that gained you your name

“Mr. Green didn’t look at your face. Mr. Green CAN’T look at anything. He’s been blind as long as I’ve known him”

What. How did ANY of what he did back there make sense then?

You start to wonder if this entire Zone is one big cosmic joke, a joke that you just don’t get. Or that you’re the butt of.


													[_________________]


The next week goes by quickly. With Wolf giving you tasks of clearing out mutants, and making some pocket change off of the animal parts. Sometimes he would even take you out to the railroad north, teaching you small bits about The Zone on the way. The M10 gas mask you received as a reward for finding the rouge monolith increasingly coming in handy. It even had a built in, rudimentary anomaly detector. It would emit an audio pulse once it detected a disturbance, and increase the frequency the closer you came to one of these oddities. It still took a while to figure out mentally where the location was, as it required a lot of walking around to use the beeps and mentally map out where you thought it was. But it was better than nothing, and you now felt better prepared to explore the zone.
As for the rifle, you tried your best to clean the internals. Borrowing cleaning kits from other stalkers, you managed to restore smooth functionality to the op rod, and had cleaned off the splintered debris as best you could. But you were still missing the scope, scope mount, the foregrip needed replacing, and the stock could use a serious refinishing. You took it with you, but have yet to actually use it as most mutants could be put down with your pistol, and you still only had the six rounds for the rifle.

Today you were once again sitting around the campfire. Cheesy, the lanky guard you’ve seen plenty of times now, was shooting the shit.

“And I swear, there was the entire crate of Vodka, untouched since the initial evacuation! We drank for days, and still have plenty left over!”

“Is that why I see you drink the same piss every time?” The shorter stalker, Highlander retorted.

“It’s not piss. If it gets you drunk, it makes you happy. Plus having a bottle for when you run out of anti-rad is always a good idea-”

Mr. Green suddenly grabs your shoulder. For someone who's blind as a bat, he can sure sneak up on you well enough.

“It’s time to go downstairs. Emission.” states Mr. Green factually.

You’re a bit confused, but stand up to follow as your fellow stalkers begin to do the same.

“Don’t ask, he always just seems to know” responds Highlander, as if you answer the question on your face. The concept of an Emission had been explained briefly to you before. A rare event where waves of destructive energy wash over the entire zone.

“They’ve been occurring with increasing frequency, the smaller ones. This far out, we don’t have to worry much. Still a good idea to get to cover,” continues Highlander.

Following Mr. Green, you feel the need to ask.

"What happens if you're caught outside?" as you descended the stairs.

Not looking back, he explained "There’s a small chance it will cook your brain."

"So, otherwise you'd be fine?" you retort, not understanding the seriousness of his words.

"No," he says as he turns around you look at you grimly, staring at you with those pale eyes, "people were not meant to survive an emission."

A chill runs down your spine, as you note the light coming from outside has shifted from a glowing green to a deathly red. Thunder begins, and you hear muffled groans from above the basement.
Trying to continue the small talk as the world seems to tear itself apart above, you ask the stalkers present if they know where you could get parts for this thing.

“Outside the cordon, but that would be tough. The military always perks up right after an emission, as it sends the mutants running towards the border.” Cheesy responds. How the hell did the tall bastard even fit down the stairs, you wonder?

“No, you’re best bet is a trader. Sidorovich is still out, but I doubt he would have more serious hardware like that right inside the zone,” responds Highlander.

“Go to the swamps,” he continues. “There use to be a couple of science nuts out there. Zone knows where they all disappeared to. But their armorer was said to have just about everything they needed for their firearms. If any of them are still there, you could find your parts there. If not, there’d be plenty of good salvage left in their base.”

The noise outside seems to be dying down, as you think about the proposal. You’ve been feeling confident with your outings following Wolf. And from what you’ve heard, all that’s really threatening out in the swamps is some of the boars and the occasional pool of radioactive water. You’re sure you’ll be fine.

“If you want to check it out, you should go pretty soon Blank. You wouldn’t have to worry for another month or so about an emission striking you out there, and all the wildlife will stay in their boroughs for a few days.” finishes Cheesy.

Mr Green just stares at you, somewhat grimly. You stand back up and head back outside to talk to Wolf about procuring some supplies.

														[_________________]

You’re hopelessly lost. What were you thinking, that you could show up and tear apart the swamp for a secret base that not even experienced stalker knew the location of? Your boots occasionally stucking themselves in the thick, clay mud, you curse at yourself once again. It had been a day to get here, and a few days more of walking in circles. The terribly outdated map on your PDA providing no answers as your location would sometimes bounce miles in either direction. The PDA being a parting gift, but with the express warning that it really shouldn’t be relied on. Better than nothing! You thought.

Well you thought wrong.

Not making the mistake of your first excursion, your Makarov was at the ready.

The now faminial dusk telling it it was time to call it another day, you find a leaning dilapidated log that would make a good shelter sleeping under, and start unpacking your things. As you lie there, you once again being your absentminded habit of toying with the bullet on the chain around your neck.
It was nice, sleeping out here. With little lights, the vastness of the stars above you was pleasant to stare at. You would set down the useless rifle across from you, lay out the green sheet in your pack, and stare out. You were somehow never disturbed in your sleep, despite you being a incredibly light sleeper. The one thing you had on your brother was that he could never quite sneak up on you. Something that he used to your ire as you would react first, and promptly get scolded by your parents for your aggression. You think about him now. Was this what he went through? You take the weightless bullet around your neck, and hold it as high up as the chain around your neck allows it to go. Letting go you watch as it calmly sinks down, towards your chest. You find yourself repeating this action a lot as you lie and think. Was there any hope of finding him? You’re perspective has shifted a little. Maybe these glorified scrapers had something more to them. Maybe your brother had something more to him. These thoughts joined you as you went to sleep.

A light mist greeted you as you awoke. A distant growling, the sounds of a boar. You had hunted a few with Wolf back in the Cordon, so you were a bit familiar. What you were not familiar with was the rapidly disappearing mist. You grab your rifle.

And the sky turns a green. Confusion. A blowout? They weren’t supposed to occur this rapidly, according to your limited knowledge. A groan from the sky brings you to a terrible realization. You are alone in this swamp. With no shelter in sight.

You start running.