[IP] The Fog
by MacRebisz
Iosif surveyed the silent perimeter, heart pumping, ears pricked for slightest whisper. His headache pressed down into his head, competing with the ill-fitted helmet liner and the face straps of his gas mask for the position of the most irritating sensation. I need water. Staring at the corpse feeding the carrion crows, he let his shoulders slump. Even if there was water in the house up ahead, there was no guarantee that it would be potable.
Taking his gaze from the corpse, he looked at the house instead. It stood, a derelict monument to mankind, at the edge of the forest. There may have been a dirt road that led here once, if so, it had long been overgrown. A distant trail to civilization, or perhaps away from it, marked itself in the form of a rotten telephone pole.
Crack. Iosif whipped around, mashing down the safety lever on his AK-74M, steeling himself for an attack. Panic flowed through his veins. Speeding up his breathing had caused the eye ports of his outdated gas mask to fog up. He was blind. He steadied himself, lowering the rifle to hip level. If it comes for me when I can't see, I just have to face towards it and pull the trigger. As his breathing slowed, the fog receded.
If Death was coming for him, it was coming another day. Iosif saw nothing. He stood and watched, hands trembling. No movement. Eons passed and he turned back to the house.
He glanced at the telephone line. Would there be a working phone in the house? Would it even matter if the phone worked, or if there was one at all? His radio had been silent for two days.
The company had marched into the woods with two hundred men. Less than a day later, the creature, the man-not-man, had torn through their ranks, separating the platoons from each other and forcing men to regroup into improvised teams. When the screaming started, he grabbed Alexei by the arm and they'd run like hell.
When dusk came about, they started seeking out the others, joining up only if there was more than one soldier in the approaching group. Alexei had wept when they shot the first solitary man. A lone soldier could not be trusted. Iosif had tried to console him. "Aloysha, calm. What if he was the man-not-man?" By nightfall, they had nine men in their group.
Now I am the lonely traveller. Before the break of dawn, the creature had come. They had all scattered, but time and time again, a short rustle in the bushes, or a distorted imitation of speech would be heard, and then Death would follow. Limbs torn, insides spilled, skulls collapsed.
Their new friend, Pavel, had lasted longer than Alexei, but his rifle ended up strapped to Iosif's pack regardless. Pavel had tripped, his rifle flying from his hands, and when Iosif heard the screams over the guttural growl that preceded pain, he wasted no time, sweeping the AS Val from the ground in one swift motion. The inserted magazine had six rounds left, but Pavel had taped a second twenty-count to it. Very wise of him.
The rotten porch held his weight, just barely. The door had long since fallen from it hinges, barricading the doorway. Iosif eased the flimsy blockade from his path, holding his breath, praying that he not make a sound. Everything in this place roared in comparison to the complete silence of the woods. There had been no birdsong, no chirping of insects, only the rustle of wind through the trees.
The flashlight mounted to the forearm of this rifle flickered into the darkness of the ramshackle cabin, a desperate plea against the black shadows. There was nothing for it - he stepped inside. The Ghe-shaped hallway seemed to trail off into infinity. Water. Food. Medicine. Phone. Which was more important? The phone would probably not work. He was not sick - yet. Neither was it likely that he would find anything in the medicine cabinet that could combat the gas settling down. Water seemed most important. Even if he couldn't take his mask off long enough to eat, he needed water and his canteen was long-since empty.
The time it took him to reach the kitchen was an agony, but anything would be better than to let the creature know where he was. As if it didn't already know. Iosif knew that there was little chance he'd escaped it. Even now, it stalks me. I feel like a lamb presented before a wolf.
The refrigerator looked older than he was. A smell poured from it, announcing that there would be no hunger sated here. The sink was more important. A twist of a knob, and a trickle came out. Not much, but enough. It would fill a canteen. Iosif held his light canteen under the tap and smiled in his mask when he heard the water hit the metal walls. Dropping an iodine tablet into the water, he screwed the lid shut and shook the canteen up and down.
"EE-OH-SEEF!"
He might as well have been made of ice. The cracked voice called out again.
"EEEEOOOOOZEEEEEF!"
Now, he could not leave. There would be no escape. Could he fight his way out? There was no element of surprise, no ambush possible. He would need to create a bottleneck to better rain hell onto the creature. The front door was useless, but the bedroom offered a retreat with an open view to the hallway. A shooting gallery.
There was no need for silence. Iosif thundered down to the bedroom, kicking open the door. Weak light streamed in through the window. He would need to block it out, leave only one entrance to the room. Funneling the creature through the hallway would be the only chance he had. The wooden clothes cabinet might do.
Glancing out the window, he saw it. In the distance, a figure stood, head cocked to one side, glare fixed onto the cabin. The man, who was not a man, lurched forwards. There were 180 meters, perhaps less, between the creature and the cabin. Iosif dragged the cabinet to the window, straining with the effort. Through the crack between the bedroom piece and the window, he saw he still had some time to get into position.
"Privet, Iosif." Alexei stood in the bedroom doorway.
"Alyosha! How did you -" Iosif's tongue tied itself. Alexei's right arm was missing, his legs twisted, and his stomach opened. Yet, a smile played across his face, each tooth shining bright in the dark cabin. The hunt had ended, and now the feeding began.
Submitted January 28, 2015 at 10:43PM by whatthefuckguys http://ift.tt/1LhNRho whatthefuckguys
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