Prip'Yat: The Beast of Chernobyl

Chapter Four

Trained as a sniper, Lucas trailed behind Iosif by several yards, scanning the rooftops and thick vegetation for any signs of movement. His thick mask made breathing more difficult, and both men wheezed as they struggled to take in enough oxygen through the thick filters. Iosif kept his assault rifle pressed firmly against his shoulder as he walked down the side of the road, using the infrared scope to look for any signs of movement in the area. Behind him, Lucas used a thermal scope on his SVD to check for heat signatures. For the moment, the city was quiet and devoid of movement, but the men stayed alert as they moved.

Though he was only twenty-seven years old, Lucas felt like he was sixty. Years of back-to-back missions — both inside Russia and into foreign territories — had quickly eaten away at his youthful demeanor. An orphan with no siblings or relatives to care for him, Lucas grew up in an underfunded and overcrowded Children’s Home in Moscow. Once he reached the age of eighteen, he joined the military and quickly rose through the ranks. Lucas had an unwavering commitment to his new way of life and though his rebellious nature had been repressed by his training, it was still there, lurking underneath the surface. He followed all orders he was given without question, though he did often ponder the operations he was tasked with carrying out, wondering how much of the truth he was being told.

Lucas thought back to one of the briefings they had undergone in preparation for the mission as he walked. Do not rely solely on your equipment or on your eyes. You must split your attention between the two. The disturbance you are investigating does not always show up on thermal or infrared, and we have had reports of it vanishing from plain sight. Based on the ludicrous mission briefing, Lucas was certain that they would turn up empty handed, and that the true purpose of the mission was to satisfy some bored bureaucrat sitting behind a mahogany desk.

Assholes, sending us out on a wild good chase like this. Lucas snorted in derision, prompting a quick look back from his superior. Lucas nodded curtly in response to the look he received and pushed the negative thoughts of the mission from his mind. A few days spent in a place where they were certain to not get shot at sounded almost like a vacation, despite the mask and the weight of their equipment.

According to their maps and GPS, Iosif and Lucas were passing through a wooded area near the stadium in Prip’Yat, at the northeastern end of the town. The road branched off into a few different directions, but the two soldiers moved through the trees and brush, preferring the cover of the vegetation to the openness of the road.

On their left was a vast area of sand and dirt, completely devoid of trees, bushes and all but the hardiest of grasses. This area had been a dumping ground for radioactive sand from the waters around the city, and concrete barriers were set up to prevent the contaminated sand and soil from washing into the nearby river. Lucas glanced down at his radiation meter, which had spiked briefly but was back down at a reasonable level. As the two didn’t venture onto the sand itself, they would be safe from the majority of the radiation in the area.

After a few minutes of hurried walking, Lucas glanced to the west and saw the silhouette of chairs that marked the nearby stadium. He tapped the button for the secure communications link between himself and Iosif and spoke softly.

“We’re passing the stadium. Any signs of movement?”

Ahead of him, in the dark, Iosif stopped and knelt down in a patch of dirt as he responded. “A few animals, nothing more. Definitely no ‘monster’ or whatever the hell we’re looking for. Let’s stop for a moment.”

Lucas confirmed the decision and stood still, not wanting to touch any more of the grass around them than he had to.

After half a minute had passed, Lucas flexed his arms, ready to get moving gain. “Where to now?”

Iosif scanned the area ahead of them with his rifle and pointed forward along the bank of the lake that was near the radioactive sand. “Let’s move up to the hospital. That’s one of the scan locations marked on our checklist.”

Iosif stood and moved forward again, with Lucas behind him. As the moon continued to rise in the sky, a few clouds began to drift toward them, gradually starting to block out the ambient light and forcing the pair to rely more heavily on their thermal and infrared sights in the darkness. As the shadows of the clouds moved along the ground from the west to the east, off in the distance, too far away for them to notice, a shadow moved perpendicular to those from the clouds as it wound its way through the city.