Chapter 2

I can’t say that my walk to the construction site made for a nice, leisurely stroll. When I was about half way there, frenetic gunfire started up not far away, and I heard the whistle of a bullet close by. I had absolutely no idea I could run that fast. In the end, I had to hide behind an empty garage and wait until the unknown opponents finally finished resolving their issues. It took them nearly an hour. Then there was a burst of automatic fire (from something bigger than an assault rifles, as far as I could tell), and everything fell quiet. Before that, most of the firing had been from shotguns and pistols, I think.

I waited another hour before finally emerging from my hideout. It was quiet and there was no firing. Who exactly had beaten whom was of no interest to me. The main thing is that there’s no more whistling bullets and I can move on. I stick my head out from behind the garage and look around. Nothing. I make a dash for the cover of the nearest building. After another half-hour’s walk, I notice a crane towering over the rooftops. I’ve made it! There’s the construction site, and now it’ll all be simple. I’ll find a crowbar, and maybe a few other useful things, then I’m off. I may even have a roof to sleep under tonight.

I skirt round the building.

“Hold up there!”

Who’s this, then?

A pair of guys in leather jackets. One’s holding a hunting rifle, and the others not armed as far as I can see.

“What do you guys want?”

“Come here!”

I approach, trying to keep my distance. No good, the guy with the rifle jerks the barrel insistently, as if to say, “Don’t fuck about.” They tear off my bag and turn it inside out. The bottle of water falls to the ground and is kicked suspiciously by the one who’s searching me.

“Is that it? Show us your pockets!”

But there’s nothing of value there either – this pair aren’t interested in a few spanners.

“Are you taking the fucking piss? Show us your cash!”

“But, I don’t have any.”

Crack! The butt of the rifle slams under my ribs with full force.

Ah… That hurts!

“What the hell? What have I done?”

“Where do you live, arsehole?”

“Larch Alley, 5. Flat 15”

The two men exchange glances.

“Where’s that?”

“Miles away. What’s a shithead like this going to have, anyway? You, get up!”

They kick me forcefully and make me pick my bag up off the tarmac, then direct me with a poke between the shoulders.

We haven’t gone far before my nostrils catch the smell of smoke. We turn a corner, and in front of us appears a long fence topped with barbed wire. We walk along the fence, turn again, and come to some gates. They’re closed. There’s a fire burning next to them, round which sit several men. They’re all armed, mostly with hunting rifles.

“Greetings, Mityay! Who have you got there?”

“Just some freak. Put him with all the others.”

There’s a mid-size building of corrugated iron to the left of the gates. After removing my bag and taking the padlock off the shack door, they shove me inside. I take a few steps and drop weakly to the floor. Christ, what in the hell’s going on?

“Were you captured, too?”

I turn towards the voice. A middle-aged man in glasses with a cracked lens is sitting on the floor. A respectable citizen, by the look of him.

“Yes. They took everything and hit me with a rifle. What’s going on here?”

“This, my friend, is the former depot of the Tarkov Municipal Housing Authority. And those men, if you can call them that, sitting outside are simple bandits. Or, at least, that’s what they’re becoming.”

“But they’ve got guns.”

“Not all of them, at least for now, but they’re getting armed quickly. They rob apartments, and take anything of value. That’s where they find rifles.”

“What do they need me for?”

From my new acquaintance’s explanation, I understand the following. He and his unwilling roommates have been there for three days already. When the troubles started, Pavel (that’s his name) was expecting an organized evacuation, as he was convinced that it was the duty of the powers that be to do everything they could to ensure the safety of the city’s residents. An error, as all the bureaucrats had fled at the first opportunity, leaving the city to the mercy of fate. After that, he was not sure what had happened as, on his way to buy bread, he had been captured by Mityay’s henchmen and incarcerated in this shed. Since then, twice a day, the prisoners were sent off to clear out buildings – those in the neighbourhood for now. Pavel had suffered a misfortune that morning. The beam they used to break down doors had fallen on his foot. He had returned to the shed with great difficulty, and was now incapacitated.

“So, what happens next? Do they feed us, at least?”

“Yesterday they gave us a little tinned fish. There’s water over there.” He indicated the direction with his head. “There’s a tap in the toilet. I imagine they’ve captured you to replace me. I’m of no further use to them if I can’t walk! I hope that they’ll release me…”

Well, it’s alright for some! He’ll get to go free, but what about me? Will I have to slave away for some… Pavel, seeing my frustration, shook his head. In his view, our situation wasn’t so bad, after all. Sooner or later, the bandits would have looted all the flats they needed, and then what would be the use of their captives, who had to be fed after all?

“You too will be released soon enough, I have no doubt. After a week or so… And the authorities will have to come back here sooner or later. They can’t just abandon the city. Then those men outside will have to justify their actions, and having prisoners will only cause them greater difficulties.”

Can’t say I share his optimism, but there is at least a grain of logic in what he says. Anyway, what was he saying about water?

Having taken a good drink and splashed my face, I took a look around the improvised barracks. I found nothing of any use in the room we were in, and the doors to other rooms were not just locked but boarded over. After wandering around my jail for a while, I drop down onto a mattress left next to the wall. Time for a snooze, perhaps?

I was kicked awake. What the fuck? When did this become the in thing?

“What do you want?”

“What the hell are you doing in my place?”

A skinny, long-haired guy is giving me the evil eye.

“What’s so special about this mattress? There’s plenty more around.”

“Yeah, but this one’s mine.”

All the other inhabitants of the barracks are looking on with interest, it turns out. Granted, there’s not much else for entertainment. I’d take a swing at the guy, but I doubt that beam fell on Pavel’s foot by accident. He said, or at least hinted, as much. So, for now no fighting.

“This lump of crap’s all yours.”

I stand up and turn to go. The long-haired guy aims a swinging kick at me. He aims at me, but I manage to twist out of the way, so his foot goes full force into the wall of the shed. The iron gives a booming echo, and almost immediately a commanding voice is raised outside the door.

“Hey, what the fuck’s going on in there? Keep it down or I’ll be in to sort you out properly!”

It would appear the owner of the voice is a man of his word. Even the long-haired shit-stirrer pipes down instantly, muttering under his breath as he crawls away.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” says Pavel reproachfully. “We shouldn’t fight amongst ourselves.”

“But I didn’t touch him. That was all his own work.”

“That’s Grisha, our foreman. You should try to get along with him.”

“Naturally. Otherwise I get a beam on my foot?”

This offended Pavel, and he turned his back on me. But it looked very much like I was right.

It was remarkable that I got any sleep at all, and what I did get was fairly shaky. I woke up with a start a couple of times, and I’m pretty sure that at least once it was with good reason – somebody drew away from me in the darkness, without making a sound. Half asleep, I decided not to shout or make a fuss. What would be the use? No point in drawing attention to myself. I wait for a while, but nothing else happens.

* * *

“Well, my bare-arsed troops,” shouts the red-haired gorilla who’s got us lined up on parade, “congratulations on our new recruit!”

He nods in my direction.

“So, from now on you’re going to work your little fucking hearts out. And no slacking, or you’ll be getting your dinner for lunch – tomorrow’s lunch! Any questions? No? Then best feet forward!”

We were assigned a section of a new residential building. Our guards led us to it and formed up the whole group out front for instruction, which was short and brutally simple.

The men carrying the beam go first, all the way to the top floor. Then, from top to bottom, they break open the front doors of all the flats using their improvised battering ram. They keep going from floor to floor without stopping. Behind them come the search groups, with two men for each flat. A guard with a pistol goes into each flat first, and keeps an eye on the search group while they work. The guard is also the last to leave. Another guard, this time with a rifle, stands on the top landing of the staircase, keeping watch over the whole process.

You’re allowed to eat anything that’s on the tables or in open tins or jars. You mustn’t open any food packages. Instead you take them out to the landing and sort them by type. Then they’re removed by the porters, a separate section of our crew. As for clothes, coats, trousers, and shoes are stacked separately. Formal wear and all women’s clothes, we leave behind – no one wants them. The same goes for all types of electronics. Any valuables we find, we tell the guard immediately. We are forbidden from touching any weapon whatsoever, including kitchen knives, otherwise we’ll be shot on the spot. And that goes for the offender and whoever’s with them, too. There’s a prize for finding money, valuables, or weapons – two tins of any food your heart desires. You can eat your prize right there and then, but you’re not allowed to share it with anyone, or it’ll be taken away from you.

There’s a whole separate set of rules for medicines. We collect all of them. As for alcohol, special care and attention should be paid. That’s about it.

“Any questions? Anyone hard of hearing? No? Then let’s get on with it!”

Our long-haired foreman stepped forward.

“So, you and you,” he pointed with a dirty finger, “on the beam. And you two.”

That included me.

The guys with the beam have the least enviable job. I understood that from conversations overheard in the morning. They don’t have to run up and down like the porters, and they don’t risk incurring the wrath of the guards like the guys who gut the flats (that’s what they’re called, by the way – “gutters”). But that’s where all the advantages end. Leave aside the fact that carrying the “beam” (a metal girder weighing about seventy kilos with handles welded onto it) is its own special kind of entertainment, once all the doors are broken down you have to help the porters. And there’s no chance of getting hold of anything from the flats being searched. For that you’ll be shot on the spot.

It’s the gutters that have the most “desirable” (but also the riskiest) job. As a rule, the role goes to the guys the foreman gets on with. And I’m on not one of them, hence the beam.

I step up to the girder.

“Wait!” That’s the guard.

Not to me, to the foreman.

“Yes, sir?”

“What have you got that streak of piss on the beam for?”

“We had an injury yesterday.”

“Couldn’t you find someone a bit bigger? He’s all skin and bone, like a kid with rickets.”

“No worry, he’s strong enough.”

The guard didn’t like that.

“Are you fucking deaf, you little shit? What did I just say to you? Change him, now! I had quite enough yesterday with that four-eyed idiot and his broken foot! Maybe you want to carry the fucking girder yourself? No? Then do as you’re fucking told!”

So, I became a porter. The work wasn’t so bad. Pick up more and carry it faster, that’s all there is to it. And whatever you do, don’t drop or break anything, especially not a bottle of booze, or you’ll be right in the shit. They even give us a bonus – if the bounty you carry down in an hour piles up to the height of the senior guard’s hip, then they give you two tins of food – of their choosing. That’s for all of us, eight guys in total. It’s not a lot, but it’s better than nothing. The guys on the beam don’t even get that much.

And off we go. You run upstairs so that you can take more time coming down, and thus not drop anything. You don’t stop for breath – there’ a break once an hour. Up, down, and up again we run.

Running past one of the flats that’s being gutted, I glance inside and see on the wall a photo of a girl in a summer dress. The photo’s big, and taken by a professional photographer. The girl’s life-size, seems almost real. Jesus, was it all so long ago? I used to go out with beautiful girls like that, walk hand in hand. Ninelle… Suddenly, I can smell her perfume.

“Get on with it!”

Alright, alright, I’m running. Back upstairs again. I want a drink, but we’re forbidden from entering the apartments.

“Time out!”

The beam slams to the tarmac. One of the guards has taken the trouble to arrange water for us. Off to one side, a gutter is slurping down the contents of a tin of food. The treasure he found – a gold watch – is now decorating the wrist of the senior guard.

We had earned nothing so far. If the senior guard hadn’t given orders for us to be issued two packs of porridge oats, we’d have gone on grinding our teeth with hunger. Lucky us.

“Enough fun and games!”

Back to the staircase. The lifts in the houses don’t work. It seems like the power’s been turned off. There’s no light in the flats, either. Where necessary, the guards use torches to light the way.

“School’s out!”