Prip'Yat: The Beast of Chernobyl

Chapter Twenty-Three

Lucas jumped the last few feet off the ladder, landing with a grunt next to Yuri. Wide eyed and shaking, Yuri whispered to Lucas. “Are you okay?”

Lucas nodded and held a finger up in front of his face, indicating that Yuri should remain silent. From the shaft above them the relentless pounding continued, though the hatch still showed no signs of yielding under the onslaught. Lucas turned his flashlight on and scanned it around the tunnel, trying to get some idea of where they were.

The underground area was damp and cramped. The small chamber they were both squatting in was barely tall enough for them to stand and it stretched off in three directions through narrow tunnels. Antiquated pipes and wiring lined the walls of the tunnels, leaving little room for someone to traverse them. Though Lucas couldn’t get a sense of the smell of the place due to his mask, Yuri wrinkled his nose at the musty odors that permeated the underground tunnels.

The construction of the place was a collection of brick, concrete blocks, steel support beams and rotting wooden walkways that extended over deep caverns. Lucas and Yuri both knew little of the underground complex, though each had their own perspective on the area. Yuri had grown up hearing whispers of the underground as a place where “mole people” lived, blinded by the radiation and reduced to scrounging for rats and insects for food. Lucas recalled that the underground had been mentioned in one of his briefings, but couldn’t remember any specifics about it.

The tunnel system extended throughout the lower portions of Chernobyl, linking the various buildings to each other. Their primary purpose was for steam transportation, ventilation, piping and wiring, but they were also used as a more convenient way to travel around the plant during the winter, when the snowfall could be measured in feet. The unofficial nature of this use meant that they weren’t maintained as well as might otherwise be expected, so the years of neglect had been less kind to the tunnel system than it had to other areas of the power plant complex.

Lucas checked a compass embedded in the stock of his SVD and pointed down the tunnel that branched off to their right. Yuri followed Lucas down the tunnel as they half crouched and half ran, moving away from the entrance as quickly as possible. After several minutes of walking they could no longer hear the pounding from the creature and they stopped in a small alcove to rest. Lucas confirmed that the radiation level in the tunnel was not dangerous and Yuri plopped down on the floor, glad to be off of his feet.

Lucas sat down across from Yuri and retrieved the cylinder from his vest. He pulled it out of its bag along with the damaged remote control and began to examine them. Yuri watched as Lucas turned the cylinder over, trying to figure out how it worked. The cylinder was matte black in color with two distinct halves separated by a half-inch strip of silver metal. Two indentations sat at either end of the cylinder and appeared to have lights in them, though neither indent was glowing at the moment.

“This looks like one of the new stun grenades,” Lucas mumbled, “but the size is all wrong. This is at least five times as large.”

Yuri interrupted Lucas’s examination of the object. “Is that the thing that’ll kill the creature?”

Lucas nodded slowly in response. “I think so. I’m not completely sure, but I think it will. It looks like what Iosif described, but I’ll have to figure out how to detonate it.”

Lucas continued to turn the device in his hand as he spoke and inadvertently slipped one of his fingers onto an indent at the end of the cylinder. The two halves immediately popped apart, lengthening the device by a full six inches and revealing a small panel and keyboard in the center of the device. The screen bloomed to life and Yuri scooted around to view it alongside Lucas.

After a series of flashing lines passed by as the device performed a status check. Each line ended with a small green dot indicating that the device’s systems were functioning properly. The last line, however, was different. Instead of a green dot, a flashing red “x” was present after the words “Remote detonation control status.” Lucas looked at the broken remote control where he had placed it on the ground and closed his eyes in frustration.

“Damn. We can’t set this thing off remotely.”

“Who cares?” Yuri picked up the remote and looked it over before throwing it back on the floor. “It just removes radiation, right? It shouldn’t hurt us, just that creature.”

Lucas shook his head and turned the cylinder around for Yuri to get a clearer view of the status panel. “Look at these two lines.”

Yuri squinted at the small screen, reading the lines that Lucas was pointing to.

“Wait, high explosives?” Yuri backed away from Lucas as he nervously stared at the cylinder. “I thought this thing just removed radiation from an environment!”

“It looks like there were some upgrades to the original design. I guess whoever made this didn’t want to take any chances at killing one of these creatures. There’s enough explosive material in here to level a city block.” Lucas poked at the keyboard on the device, watching as the screen changed to show schematics of the device, along with simple instructions for arming and detonating it both remotely and locally.

Satisfied that he knew how to operate the device, Lucas closed it and returned it to the pocket on his vest. He looked at Yuri who was slowly nodding his head. Yuri looked up and met Lucas’s eyes through the face mask, then he spoke with the defeated tone of a man resigned to his fate.

“Okay. Let’s do it. Let’s kill this bastard.”

Lucas stood up and held out his hand to Yuri. The youth grabbed the proffered hand and stood, staring at Lucas as the soldier spoke to him. “You can still leave, you know. You’re a civilian and you aren’t supposed to be here. Just hide in the tunnels until the thing’s dead, then you can get back to your car before the recovery team comes to pick me up.”

“Even if I wanted to do that, what would I tell my family and friends? How am I supposed to explain to my aunt that her son died? I let him go out there alone and this thing killed him, but I’m not letting it end like that.” Yuri shook his head and gritted his teeth as anger rose in his voice. “No. Like it or not, I’m coming with you. This thing scares the hell out of me, but it killed my best friend. There’s no way I’m running away from it.”

Lucas sighed deeply and patted Yuri on the back. He briefly considered trying to force Yuri to do as he suggested, but he knew that would be an impossible battle. Despite the dangers, Yuri was dead set on avenging the death of his comrade, a feeling that Lucas knew too well.

“Come on, then. Let’s get going.”