“All right,” she told herself. “Enough with the lily-ass sentimentality. Time to move.”
If Manifold had a presence in Pripyat, she doubted it would be here on the outskirts of town, but somewhere deep in the heart of the dead city, perhaps near the harbor and Pripyat River. That would afford them ingress and egress without traveling surface roads. Her first target, she decided, would be the hospital. The hospital had featured cutting-edge technology for its day, and perhaps a medical facility, even an old one, might hold some appeal for Manifold. It seemed as logical a place as any to begin.
She moved with haste, slipping down pathways choked with weeds and detritus. She kept her eyes open for danger, but the city was as still as it was silent. Could Deep Blue have been mistaken? Of course, he had said it was a thin possibility, nothing more than a single mention.
She crossed Lenin Avenue and made her way up Friendship of the Nations Street, smiling that the Soviets would choose such a name at the height of the Cold War. Of course, the old Soviet Union was dead, but relations between the Americans and Russians were not much better.
A foul smell—the coppery scent of blood mixed with the stench of released bowels—made her wrinkle her nose in disgust. She knew what that meant. The smell of death was not something one ever forgot. Like a hound on the scent, she moved to where the odor was strongest, pushed aside a low-hanging branch, and grimaced at the sight that greeted her. A young man lay on his back, his limbs akimbo like a grotesque marionette. She nudged his leg and found it stiff. The blood seeping from his torn throat, however, was fresh. He had not been dead for long. She gazed down at his round face, pale skin, blonde hair and blue eyes that gave him a cherubic appearance in death. Not at all cherub-like were the red tracks that had been clawed across his fair face, the ragged red hole that had been his throat, his broken, twisted arms and his ruined torso covered in…bite marks? Kneeling down beside the body, she ripped open the young man’s shredded t-shirt, and leaned in for a closer look. They were bite marks, all right, and although she was no medical examiner, she was sure they were human.
“What the hell happened to you, and who did it?” This was strange, but she wasn’t about to waste time wondering. If her investigation didn’t turn up anything else, Deep Blue could make sure the local police received an untraceable anonymous tip. Her first instinct was to cover the young man’s face, but if this turned out to be a simple murder investigation for the local police, she’d already disturbed the crime scene enough. She stood and checked to make sure she’d left no muddy footprints before moving on.
When she reached the hospital, she found that, like virtually every other medical facility she’d ever seen, it was a plain, utilitarian building that looked more like a storage facility than a place where human hurts were tended.
She crouched in the brush at the edge of a large parking lot that had not yet been reclaimed by the forest. Some brave weeds had sprung up through the cracks, but the deserted lot offered no easy way to cross without being spotted. It was a good defense against intruders, but there was no way to tell if the open space had been created by design. The growth of the weeds looked natural enough. But there was only one way to find out. Queen burst from her hiding space, sprinted across the pavement and reached the hospital just seconds later.
No alarms sounded.
No traps.
No guards.
She crept along the outside wall to the double front doors. The doors were locked, but the glass was missing from both. She slipped inside, stepping carefully to avoid the shards of glass littering the floor.
The inside was worse off than the outside. She didn’t know what she had expected from a place that had been abandoned for a quarter of a century, but not this. The floor was as debris-strewn as the ground outside. Dirt, leaves and bits of paper carpeted the floor, and the walls were stained by years of poor protection from the elements. She decided to begin on the top floor and work her way down. Floor by floor, she found the upper levels to be much the same. The place was a mere skeleton of what it had once been.
She was finishing her inspection of the second floor when she sensed she was no longer alone.
Chapter 4
She heard it before she saw it. A low, guttural growl rose to a snarl that reverberated through the empty hall. Maybe a wild dog wandered in here and now it thinks I’ve got it cornered? Even as the thought struck her, she somehow knew that was not the case. Perhaps this dead city had her on edge, but there was something sinister, even otherworldly, about the sound.