… where real chaos reigns: Bassoon and Pyotr Petrovich maintain their composure, Lyonya and Petrov say goodbye to the past forever, and Valya tries her hand at hosting a children's TV show
Outside, chaos reigned. An outside observer might have thought that the darkest eschatological prophecies foretelling the apocalypse were coming true. The entire area around the institute was filling with dense rows of dead people. They pressed against the doors, pulled at the window bars, climbed on each other's backs and heads, and scrambled up the walls. The building began to be covered with dark human figures, like giant ants. It seemed that this time, the zombies had decided to gather all their strength to finally get to the people inside.
Someone managed to grab onto the cornice under the second-floor window. With one blow, the double-glazed windows shattered. Tearing their skin on the shards, the others climbed onto the first dead body, as if it were a ladder to the window. The flimsy office door leading to the corridor was no significant obstacle for them.
"Time has been lost. The equipment — Tesla's life-saving lightning rod — is on the fourth floor. But it still needs to be connected and put into operating mode. This is a disaster!" thought Pyotr Petrovich, pressed against the wall by a door that had been half torn off its hinges.
At that moment, the zombies had already blocked Tolik's way upstairs and pushed him into the corner of the landing. Covering himself with one hand, he managed to grab a narrow piece of heavy wood from the windowsill with the other, obviously a fragment of an ancient office cabinet, with a bolt sticking out of it, and now he was furiously beating the attackers over the head with it. Under the blows, losing the remnants of their human appearance along with their eyes and teeth, the dead, however, had no intention of stopping. Their bloodied faces with black eye sockets, falling pieces of skin, and exposed white skull bones were getting closer and closer to the trapped man.
Feeling that the crowd was about to crush him, Pyotr Petrovich threw his whole body against the door, then with difficulty propped it up with one foot, carving out ten centimeters of extra space for himself. He twisted like a worm in this small space and, managing to raise his weapon slightly, fired a silent volley right through the wooden surface. The stream of X-rays rushing through the boards immediately mowed down a row of corpses, which fell like bowling pins onto the floor in front of Tolik.
"To the roof! The wires... Pull them quickly!" he heard the scientist's voice and, jumping over the immobilized corpses, rushed headlong up the stairs.
"Now let's see how long it takes for the capacitors to recharge," thought Pyotr Petrovich and stepped out the door to meet the next wave of zombies.
* * *
With a bang of its square snout, the Kamaz truck easily pulled the old barrier at the institute parking lot out of the ground, crushed it, and, without slowing down, began to push its way through the crowd of dead people. From under the wheels, there was the crunch of breaking bones and the nasty wet sound of bursting skulls. The truck turned around several times and backed up, flattening human bodies to clear the way. Following it, a fuel tanker slowly rolled onto the asphalt area in front of the building, its long tank glistening with rounded sides. Both vehicles came to a halt, cutting off the main entrance from the main cluster of approaching zombies.
"It's not very safe here," Bassoon shouted, turning on the pump and climbing from the cab to the tanker. "Do you think your friends are still alive?"
"Yes!" Leonid replied confidently and just as loudly from the Kamaz.
"Well, then let's try to save them..."
"It's not clear yet who will be saving whom," muttered Valya, sitting next to Leonid, but he didn't seem to notice her skepticism.
Meanwhile, the Rosgvardia soldier had already unwound the hose with a makeshift nozzle attached to its end, opened the ball valve, and clicked his lighter. A bright stream of orange flame burst forth and poured onto the heads of the living dead. Black smoke billowed into the cold air, carrying the smell of gasoline and burning flesh to the sky.
Lyonya, without aiming, fired several shots at the dead surrounding the Kamaz. Blue flashes of electrostatic bullets tore small gaps in their ranks.
"Look!" Valya pointed to a broken window on the second floor, where zombies were already crawling in. "They'll get to them that way!"
Leonid nodded and was the first to jump out of the cab.
"Go on, start it up! I'll cover you!"
The girl stood on the wheel and grabbed the edge with her hands, easily climbing over the side and disappearing into the back of the truck.
"Istfak!" Bassoon barked, continuing to spray fire at the zombies approaching from the forest. "Decided to sit it out? Hurry, join the guys with your spray cans! I'll hold the outer perimeter."
Petrov climbed out of the fuel truck with a couple of cardboard boxes filled with assorted cans of automotive paint, air fresheners, and hairspray. With his legs bent as if someone were about to shoot him, he ran up to Leyna and asked the stupidest question:
"What we'll do now?"
"Don't you see?!"
"You're our commander," Petrov grimaced.
"Then listen to me, smart guy," Leonid grabbed the historian firmly by the chest, his voice suddenly becoming unusually firm. "Your job is not to die. Together, our chances are better. Right now, you burn those who are closest. I'll take care of the rest if I can reload my gun in time. We cover Val'ka while she starts the generator, and then we go into the building. Clear?
"Clear."
"Here, we go... Don't let it disappear."
Lyonya let go of Petrov and began rummaging through the pockets of his jacket. He didn't have many spare bullets, which meant he had to return to the institute to get at least the box left in the basement. Especially since this interesting weapon had a number of definite advantages. The electric charge "turned off" the reanimated corpse equally effectively regardless of where it was hit. Given Leonid's very poor shooting skills, this was a decisive factor. In addition, as a pleasant bonus, the impulse covered two to four corpses standing nearby, thus turning the revolver into a kind of shotgun.
While Petrov poured the burning contents of his spray cans onto the dead with both hands, spreading the scent of orange and lavender, Leonid loaded seven more rounds into the cylinder and glanced at the institute building. There, on the fourth floor, the light was still flickering, but there was no movement inside. Some of the zombies, completely unresponsive to the sudden appearance of people, continued to storm the brick building. Only this gave hope that the people inside were still alive.
"Valya! Are you ready yet? We have to rescue Tolyan!" Leonid urged the girl.
"Yeah, alrdy! Now!"
Lyonya narrowed his eyes and slowly aimed his pistol at the dead crawling on the walls. He didn't want to waste precious ammunition, but it would be much worse if the zombies took over all the floors and basements of the institute. Along with his only friend and strange scientist, all hope of salvation would be lost. Lyonya fired once. Then twice more. Black, motionless figures fell from the wall, piling up on top of those who were still moving. A chaotic pile of dead bodies formed below, from which bloody hands and contorted faces stretched upward. But Lyonya paid no attention to this gruesome, phantasmagorical scene. Now he was trying to see at least a slight hint of human movement in the windows. And even this brief lapse in vigilance immediately backfired: a long-haired rocker sank his teeth into the student's arm. Only the thick synthetic sleeve saved the guy from serious injury. "I wonder when he was scarier: before or after he died?" Lyonya managed to think before he forcefully jabbed the attacker in the eye with the barrel of his gun and pulled the trigger. Blood spattered everywhere, along with a fragment of the back of the skull with long, unwashed hair. The zombie instantly loosened his grip and fell into the snow.
"Petrov, fuck you! I thought you were covering me!" Leonid boiled over, but suddenly saw that Petrov was standing completely still, his arms hanging limply at his sides, staring straight ahead.
Lyonya almost immediately understood what had caused such confusion. Three steps away from Petrov, a figure appeared that was all too familiar to both students. Something inside Lyonya twitched and snapped, because he recognized her. It was Kristina... Her light hair, cut short and slightly curled at the ends. Her large blue eyes, lined with mascara. The mole on her cheek. Even her deathly pallor and lips frozen in an unnatural smile, more like a grimace, did not spoil her appearance. It was definitely she. His Kristina... Or was she no longer his? Lyonya looked again at Petrov, who was frozen in place.
"Ah, maybe hell with it?" A sinister thought suddenly occurred to Leonid. "How does it go? Until death do you part..."
* * *
Tolik struggled to drag the tripod and the spark gap attached to it up the stairs. Consisting of massive coils, it was already a heavy load, and together with the tripod, it seemed completely unliftable. Clinging to and clattering against the metal railing, the guy dragged it onto the roof and installed it in the center of a flat, bitumen-covered platform. "That's it! All that was left was to connect the power supply. Where is Petrovich?"
The scientist did not keep him waiting long. All disheveled and rumpled, he appeared with a huge babina in his hands, holding his new invention under his arm, which seemed to have already become useless.
"Nine pulses with a twenty-five-second interval until the batteries are completely discharged," he said, handing the emitter to Tolik. "Hold this... And we'll need to attach a strap for convenience."
The power cable, frozen stiff in the cold, unwound reluctantly, constantly bending into loops like an aggressive snake. Watching the scientist's manipulations, the student finally felt how monstrously cold it was outside. An unusual wind, descending vertically from the gray clouds along with thick snowflakes, hit the building and trees, swirling the snow. It was as if it wanted to bend everything around it down, level it with the ground, covering it with a white shroud. In such moments, people often lose their composure. Even the extremely pragmatic Tolik began to see faces, hands, and whole figures in this snowy whirlwind, disembodied souls rushing through the air in search of those still alive who would soon have to join their dance.
But Pyotr Petrovich, who was busy connecting the equipment, did not notice the storm at all. Standing firmly next to his device, indifferent to the gusts of wind and the snow blowing in his face, he now seemed to personify humanity itself: insignificant in the face of the forces of nature, but incredibly strong in its haughty self-confidence.
Tolik shook his head to dispel the annoying illusions, no doubt inspired by those damn school literature lessons, and suddenly noticed a fiery glow flickering somewhere below. "Could it be Len'ka?" The guy hurried to the edge of the roof to see what was happening below. But before he could grab the rusty railing and look down, something jumped on him. The creature, now only vaguely resembling a human, knocked Tolik onto his back and dug its clawed fingers into him. However, the student immediately realized that these were just bones exposed on the torn pads of his fingers. This zombie had managed to climb the wall to the roof, which meant that others would not be long in coming. Mostly reflexively rather than consciously, Tolik pressed the button on the emitter's handle. The device emitted a very quiet and short sound, barely audible against the wind, but the dead body instantly weakened. Tolik disgustedly threw off the immobilized corpse and got to his feet.
"Nine and a half pulses, Pyotr Petrovich!" he clarified loudly, involuntarily examining the zombie. Once upon a time, this had been a tall man, probably of athletic build. At least as far as could be judged from what remained of him. The ravaged body was not only naked, but completely devoid of skin and hair. It seemed that he had resisted for quite a long time before dying, because the muscles on his arms and legs had been thoroughly gnawed away, making his bloodied limbs with protruding bones seem even thinner and longer. However, perhaps it was not "he" at all, but "she." With the remains practically skeletonized, with exposed ribs and entrails eaten down to the spine, it was difficult for Tolik to determine for sure. "At least if it was a man, someone had a feast on his eggs and sausage," the guy thought, grimacing in disgust, and finally looked away from the body.
* * *
Petrov continued to watch as the dead Christina slowly approached him. Stuck in some kind of stupor, he couldn't do anything, or even believe his eyes. Leonid's shrill cry, "Come on! Burn her! Burn her!" remained somewhere far away, mixed with the other sounds. Everything around him—the brick building and the forest against the gray sky, the black figures emerging from the swirling snow, the trucks lit up by burning gasoline—spun around and merged into a continuous whirl of blurred spots. Only she remained — Christina. And now she stood before him, as if alive. But she was dead.
A loud voice right above his ear brought the historian out of his stupor.
"What are you waiting for? When she will suck you again? That's unlikely now..." Leonid hissed maliciously, appearing beside him, and without waiting for an answer, raised his revolver. After a second's hesitation, which seemed too long to him, Lyonya fired. Then, once again displaying unacceptable extravagance, he pulled the trigger several more times until he emptied the cylinder and turned the lovely familiar face into an unrecognizable, disfigured bloody mess.
"What did you do?" Petrov managed to say, shocked. "You shot a person..."
"I shot a zombie," Leonid replied calmly, loading the last of the bullets into his revolver. "The dead come back to life, but they're still dead." You know, she thought you were a real man. You participate in all kinds of protests and stuff...
He wanted to add something else to hurt his former rival even more, but at that moment, the generator's motor roared behind them. A dark figure rose from the back of the truck, wearing a welding mask, heavy mittens, and carrying a compact inverter hanging from a strap slung over her shoulder. In this attire, illuminated by the flames raging behind the trucks, the fragile Valentina looked truly infernal. After checking how easily the wire behind her unraveled, she confidently jumped into the snow.
"Here comes Tetya Valya," Lyonya commented with a smirk when the girl caught up with the guys, and then shouted loudly to Bassoon, "Let's go inside!"
"Got it!" replied the Rosgvardia soldier, splashing a little more gasoline on the dead coming out of the forest, and then catching up with the guys.
"Well, Tetya Valya, ladies first?" Leonid repeated.
"Call me that again and that electrode will end up your ass, dear Leonid Ilyich..."
"Why 'Tetya Valya'?" Petrov, still reeling from the shock, didn't understand.
"You're completely out of touch with cultural codes, IstFak..." Bassoon shook his head. "She used to be the host of the children' show 'Sweet dreams, kids'. Look it up. Educate yourself. It's appropriate for your age."
"What does that have to do with your age?!" the historian retorted indignantly, but Valya interrupted the argument, gently pushing the boys aside, and took a couple of steps to the side.
"Okay, kids... Close your eyes. Bye-bye!"
The girl raised the electrode she was holding in her right hand and, tapping it lightly against the piece of metal clamped in her left, ignited an electric arc between them. The space around them filled with crackling and lit up with flashes of blinding white light. The zombies within a five-meter radius also fell to the ground.
"It works!" Bassoon rejoiced. "Well done, guys! Not for nothing grabbing we generator."
Scattering sparks and carefully pulling the wire behind her, Valya moved toward the institute building. Everyone else followed this giant Bengal fire, squinting and watching as, left and right, the dead once again became dead after running into an invisible electric barrier. But while those crowding the snow-covered parking lot did not appear to be a threat now, those storming the walls continued to climb with unprecedented agility, repeatedly trying to smash the windows to get inside. Through the snow blinding his eyes, Leonid managed to make out some human movement against the backdrop of the gloomy sky and several dead people on two opposite sides who had already reached the technical floor. The guy made a couple of unsuccessful attempts to shoot at the zombie climbers, but quickly realized the futility of this endeavor. One after another, the dead climbed over the parapet and ended up on the roof. "Has the fortress fallen?" Leonid thought, but in the next moment, a flash lit up the institute, hundreds of times brighter than the welding machine in Valya's hands. So much so that everyone rushed to cover their eyes with their hands. With a wild roar, the sky above their heads was split several times by wide zigzags of lightning. The rich smell of thunder struck their noses. Like a powerful but short burst of rain, there was a noise from the fall of thousands of human bodies. And then everything fell silent. Even the piercing cold wind died down. Only large snowflakes continued to fall gently from the clearing dark sky.
Valentina slowly removed her protective mask and, breathing a sigh of relief, said quietly:
"Good night, kids..."