Krot. A Stalker's Story

Chapter 8. The Way to the Riverbed

The group gathered at the base gates ahead of the scheduled time.

Krot arrived early — a habit. Stood a little apart, watching the others arrive. Kolesnikov — already familiar, good-natured, map folded in quarters. The second scientist — Krot didn't remember his name, sturdy, bespectacled, with the look of a man used to arguing, rucksack clearly heavier than it should be. He'd lighten that rucksack the moment he found a chance. Not now, later. A man with an overloaded pack in a critical moment was an extra risk for the whole group.

Two soldiers in plainclothes stood a little apart — competently, with good sector coverage, not deliberately arranged, just habitual. Krot nodded to them. They nodded back. That was enough — people who understood.

And the girl.

A young assistant, about twenty-five. Jacket with an expedition patch, a neat rucksack, nothing extra. Krot took note — not of her gear, but of how she held herself: not scared, not putting on courage either. Just waiting, watching everything with the attentive calm of someone well-prepared in theory and not yet tested in practice. First time in the Zone — that much was obvious. Not a bad thing. Just a fact.

And the mercenary.

Krot had seen him back at the bar, but hadn't looked closely — no reason to. Now — he looked. Expensive gear, almost new. Good weapon, well-kept, but carried slightly wrong — not critically, just held differently than most people in the Zone held theirs. The way people carry it when a weapon is a tool of the trade, not part of the space they work in. A subtle difference, but there.

A calm gaze, almost indifferent. Assessing.

Not a walker, but experienced. A mercenary. And a good one, by the look of it.

Leshy showed up last — five minutes before the appointed hour. Stood at the gate, ran his eyes over the group.

Krot watched the way Leshy looked at people. Not studying them — assessing: fast, brief, no display. Took in the whole group in one sweep of the eyes — quick, quiet, so quiet that half of them probably never noticed they'd been sized up. An interesting way to look — not at faces, at details. How they stood, how they held their gear, whether they had a feel for space or not. The unfamiliar mercenary got a particular look, longer, more attentive. The assistant — an instant assessment, neutral. The soldiers — calm, the way you look at something that requires no concern.

Then Leshy waved a hand.

— Let's move.

That was it.

No instructions at the gate, no safety speeches. Just — sized everyone up, weighed their field experience by the way they carried themselves, didn't waste words at the base. Words are for the field, where every one of them has to mean something.

* * *

The Zone took them in without a word.

Krot walked in his usual spot — middle of the group, a little left of the axis. From there he could see everyone: those ahead, those behind, everything happening on the flanks. The detector worked quietly — background even, nothing alarming. He didn't rely on it alone. A detector registers what's already there. Feet and skin — what's only just arriving.

The soldiers moved competently — silent, good rhythm, no wasted motion. The scientists held their pace — the second one was already starting to puff under his rucksack, but didn't fall behind. The assistant walked steady, writing something in her notebook as she went, somehow managing not to stumble.

The mercenary moved as rearguard — on his own, unbidden, a little off the group's axis.

Now that's interesting.

Not a bad thing in itself. Rearguard off to the side is flank cover. But in someone else's group, on a first outing, a call like that gets made either by the very experienced, who've already assessed the situation and decided, or by people used to working their own way regardless of context. An important difference.

Krot didn't yet know which kind this was. He kept watching Leshy.

Leshy walked ahead and never looked back — but Krot understood very quickly that this didn't mean "not watching." Leshy knew where each of them was without turning his head. It showed in how he adjusted his pace: slowing exactly when one of the scientists started to fall behind. Speeding up when the group bunched together and the gap closed to a dangerous distance.

Without a word.

Just — holding the group, the way you hold a space: not physically, with attention.

Krot thought of his father. Sergei Alekseyevich used to say: "A real physicist feels the field without measuring it."

Maybe a real stalker does too.

* * *

The feeling of unease came about twenty minutes in.

Krot felt it as a light chill down his back. Like someone standing behind you, and you don't know it yet.

He looked around twice. Nothing — no sound, no movement. The detector stayed silent.

Then he noticed Leshy had adjusted the route — angled right, toward open ground. No explanation, no stopping, just — a little to the right. The group followed automatically.

Krot understood. Threw a brief glance at Leshy.

He gave a barely visible shake of the head.

Later.

So — he saw it. Felt it too. Good.

Krot kept walking, but tried not to focus his eyes directly, tried to catch details around him with peripheral vision instead. In the open ground it felt a little calmer, but the feeling never fully left. Whatever it was — it kept its distance, didn't attack. Just moved alongside.

Interesting. And unpleasant.

* * *

They found the jelly an hour in — or rather, found the place where it had been.

Leshy stopped the group with a gesture — sharp, no warning. Krot reacted at once: stopped, assessed. The soldiers too — good. The scientists slowed a beat late — normal, for scientists.

Ahead, between two boulders, was an empty hollow. The jelly had stood here a long time — a gray, gelatinous mass, slowly pulsing, Krot had gone around it before. Now — emptiness. A dry bottom, dark earth, a perfectly round mark.

And something lay at the bottom.

Leshy walked to the edge, crouched. Krot stood just behind his shoulder, a little to the side — close enough to see, far enough not to get in the way.

A blot.

He'd seen descriptions, but this was his first time seeing one in the flesh. Black, truly black, the kind the eye slid off. Pulsing slowly, almost imperceptibly. A rare artifact — the scientists still didn't really understand what to do with it, no practical use established.

Leshy reached toward it. Went still for a second. Then took out a container and put it away.

Krot watched.

Why? What did he feel in it?

— That's a blot, — he said. — What do you need it for? Even the scientists don't really...

— Later, — Leshy said.

Krot fell silent. Fine. Later, then.

He watched as Leshy took out a pouch of metal pellets — small, heavy — and marked the spot. Three pellets in a triangle at the edge of the hollow.

Trust your eyes, but check them too. Smart.

Krot double-checked places like this himself — where an anomaly used to be and wasn't anymore — just with different markers. Practical. The Zone doesn't like being trusted blindly.

The assistant was already at Leshy's shoulder with her tablet, peppering him with questions — why the pellets, why the blot, all for the reports. Leshy answered "let's move" twice, flat, no inflection. Even.

Krot snorted quietly to himself, off to the side.

First time out. She'll remember this.

* * *

He smelled the boars before he heard them.

The scent came first — sharp, musky, with that chemical zone-note that develops in creatures that have lived long enough in the field. Krot knew that smell. A bad sign — zone boars in open ground don't hide. They either pass by, or they come at you.

Leshy raised a fist before the smell became obvious to anyone else.

Caught it before I did. Good.

The group stopped. The soldiers raised their weapons without being told — Krot noted it, not for the first time today — good men. He stepped a little to the side himself, clearing the field of fire. The mercenary vanished behind a tree — silently. Krot didn't hear him move. At all.

Now that's professional.

Three boars came out of the sparse forest to the right. Seasoned, bone plates on their necks yellowed with age. They spotted the group three seconds before breaking into the open — and didn't stop. Sped up.

Krot held his weapon but didn't fire — waited. Not out of fear. Because Leshy was ahead, and he was curious to see how he worked.

Leshy didn't retreat.

Krot knew — boars bluff, you can't back off, the group scatters. But knowing and doing were different things. Leshy just stood there. Calm, unhurried, the way people stand when they're not making a decision — because the decision's already been made.

He fired twice — into the joint of the plates at the foreleg. The first boar stumbled, veered off, didn't go down, but broke off the attack.

Vint took the second. One shot, precisely under the ear. The boar dropped at once.

Good shot. Very good.

The third slowed — saw the two down, spun with a grunting roar, and retreated back into the sparse forest. The cracking of deadfall faded fast.

Silence returned.

Krot exhaled slowly. Looked around — everyone on their feet. The assistant stood pale, tablet clutched to her chest with both arms, but holding steady. Good.

* * *

He looked at Leshy.

Leshy had already turned toward the forest — toward where the boars had come from. Stood quietly, watching. Krot looked that way too. Nothing. Forest. Silence.

But the boars had been running from something.

The adrenaline faded, and the same feeling came back — a presence, something or someone — stirring again at the edge of perception.

Leshy felt the same thing. Krot was sure of it.

Someone's leading us. Or following. No intent to attack — not yet. Just watching. Studying.

That wasn't good.

— Let's move, — Leshy said. — The riverbed's close.

Krot nodded. Took his place in the group.

The space around them stayed quiet — quiet enough to seem calm. And quiet enough that anyone who knew how to listen understood: this wasn't silence. This was a pause.

Chapter 9. The Rest Stop

After the boars, the Zone seemed to exhale.

The anomalous background dropped to normal, the detector ticked quietly with no warnings, the trail ran even. The unpleasant feeling hadn't gone anywhere — it sat somewhere between his shoulder blades, quiet and constant, like a splinter — but nothing else happened. The group walked in silence, at pace.

Krot stayed on guard; only Leshy and Vint seemed to notice how much.

But an hour passed calmly. Then another half hour.

He drew level with Leshy on an open stretch — the man walked ahead, detector in hand, eyes moving over the surroundings. Quiet. Even. Krot nodded at the readings.

— Clean?

— So far, — Leshy said.

— Hour to the riverbed, maybe a bit more. — Krot was quiet a moment. — If the weather doesn't have its say.

* * *

The sky darkened fast — not gradually, the way an ordinary cloud does, but all at once, as if someone had clapped a lid over the horizon. Wind rose from nowhere — damp, gusting, smelling of ozone and wet earth. The grass laid over in waves. The trees rustled.

Leshy stopped the group.

Krot stopped at once — no command needed. He simply felt, by the way Leshy went still, that this wasn't a pause to check the detector. A stop with a purpose.

Leshy looked at the sky. At the forest. At the detector. Then thought — briefly, silently, with no visible hesitation.

Krot was thinking the same thing Leshy clearly was: alone, you could keep going. In the rain, anomalies show up brighter, more noticeable. For an experienced walker, rain isn't an obstacle — more of an advantage. But seven people were a different matter. One person lost from sight in a downpour, among the carousels — and then you go looking.

— Krot, — Leshy said.

— Already thinking. — Krot squinted at the horizon, remembering. — There's an old village around here somewhere. Abandoned, a long time back. I was there a couple of years ago with another group. There's a house on the edge — cellar's dry, sturdy. We could wait it out.

— Far?

— Twenty minutes northwest. — A pause. — Maybe twenty-five.

Leshy unfolded the map. Krot leaned over it, tapped a finger — found it fast, remembered the place well. The village was marked as a dotted outline, uninhabited. A detour off the route, but a small one.

The first drops hit the map.

— Let's go, — Leshy said, folding it.

* * *

The twenty-five minutes stretched.

The rain started before they arrived. Not a downpour — not yet — but heavy, cold, with a wind that struck their faces and scrambled the direction of sound. The forest darkened. The grass turned slick.

Krot walked, thinking that he'd already been to this house. Knew the cellar held, that the beams were sound, that the water never got in. That was a pleasant thing to know — a rarity in the Zone, knowing exactly what waited ahead. But something still wouldn't let him rest easy.

The feeling of being watched from behind hadn't gone anywhere.

He tried to catch it — twice slowed on purpose, let the group pass ahead, dropped to the back for a few minutes. Watched the forest. Listened. The rain roared, the wind bent the branches, the detector stayed silent.

Nothing.

But — it was there. He was as sure of that as he was of the reliability of his own rucksack. Not fear, not hallucination. A presence. Intelligent. It wasn't trying to attack, wasn't coming closer. Just moving alongside — at its own distance, its own pace.

That was what worried him most. A random mutant doesn't behave like that. A random mutant either attacks or leaves. This one was watching.

Leshy, by all appearances, was thinking the same thing.

When the group entered the sparse forest by the village, Krot drew level with him — quietly, not for the others:

— Noticed it long?

Leshy glanced at him sideways.

— Since the start of the route.

— Me too. — A pause. — Detector's clean.

— I know.

Neither said anything more. That was enough — both had seen the same thing, both were holding it in mind. Not panic, not theories, just a fact that needed to stay open.

* * *

The village emerged from the rain suddenly.

First — the silhouette of a leaning fence, then the dark hollows of windows, then the houses themselves. Krot recognized it at once — the same one from two years back. The same crooked cabin at the center, the same house with the caved-in roof by the well. And the same house on the edge — squat, thick-logged, with a roof that held.

He walked ahead, found the door, pulled it — it creaked, opened. Nodded to the others.

— Here.

The cellar was exactly as he remembered it — dry, low, smelling of old wood and earth. Krot went down first, looked around. Everything in place, nothing extra. The ceiling beams holding. One exit. Fine.

The group settled in — some on the floor, some on a crate. The soldiers took up position against the wall without a word, professionally. Kolesnikov unfolded his map, the second scientist pulled out a notebook — and then, by the look of it, remembered his flask. The assistant shook the water off her jacket, looked around. Asked Leshy:

— How long?

— Until it passes.

— And if it's three hours?

— Then three hours.

She went quiet. Krot took note — Leshy hadn't spoken roughly or gently, just made clear the conversation wasn't going anywhere. The right tone.

He sat down between the scientists himself — his usual spot. Kolesnikov was already reaching for him with questions about the route, the second scientist was getting out his flask. This was their working mode: a pause meant it was fine to think out loud.

Krot took out his thermos.

— Leshy, — he called. — Tea, if I pour it from the thermos?

Leshy stood on the stairs — three steps up, looking out the doorway at the village.

— Pour it, — Leshy said, without turning.

Krot poured. Set it on the step beside him.

The rain drummed on the roof — steady, heavy. The village stayed silent outside.

The feeling of being watched was still there.

Krot felt it even here, in the cellar. Not as sharp as out on the route — the walls and earth gave some kind of shielding, or maybe it was just distance. But — it was there. Something outside was waiting. Patiently, the way only something with nowhere to hurry to can wait.

He poured himself tea. Sat down.

The second scientist passed the flask around.

Krot took it.

* * *

The scientists' conversation ran long — surprisingly substantial for people who'd just gotten soaked through and were sitting in a dirt cellar. Kolesnikov asked a question about anomalous fields and spatial pockets, the second scientist disagreed with the basic premise, and after that it carried itself.

Krot talked — explaining, answering questions, arguing where there was something to argue. This was his niche skill: talking to scientists so they'd listen, and to walkers so they'd understand. A bridge between two languages describing the same thing from different sides.

Out of the corner of his eye, he watched the others.

The soldiers lay against the wall. Eyes closed. Breathing even. They knew how to use a pause — that was right, that was professional.

The assistant sat against the opposite wall. Watching Leshy — quietly, not aggressively, just with the kind of interest a person has looking at something not quite understood. Leshy seemed to notice and looked away without a word. Krot smirked to himself.

Young. But he did the right thing.

Vint sat a little apart. Back to the wall, facing the cellar — so he could see everyone and the stairs at once. Krot knew that position. He sat that way himself sometimes, in unfamiliar company.