Dmitry Glukhovsky - Metro 2034 English fan translation (v1.0) (docx) (8 page)

In some places they used them as homes, but Homer that viewed them as living beings thought that that was like vandalizing a corpse, as if they had stuffed his favorite cat.

In uninhabitable places like the
Nachimov
ski
prospect
time and vandals had left their mark on the train but it had remained intact.

Homer couldn’t turn away. The rustling and hissing that approached from the station, faded into the background and once again he heard the ghostly howling alarm siren and
then the deep signal of the train that spread the unheard message, once long, twice short: “Atom!”

Brakes squeaked and through the speakers came the confusing message: “Dear passengers, because of technical emergency the train can’t continue its ride…”

Nor the train driver whispering into his microphone neither his assistant Homer knew the full extent of overwhelming hopelessness of this formal sentence. The exhausting creaking sound of the hermetic gates … They separated the living from the dead, once and for all. Protocol demanded that the doors had to be closed six minutes after the alarm had been sound and they had to be closed forever, it didn’t matter how many people where still on the other side.

Those who resisted the closing of the gates were to be shot immediately.

Would a tiny militia soldier that normally chased homeless people and drunks out of the station be capable of shooting a man into his stomach because he resisted the ton heavy machine so that his wife with her broken heel would still be able to slip through? Would the feisty women with her uniform and her cap, who checked tickets and had only brought two things to perfection in her 30 years of service, to
get in your way and to get people in line, stop the for air gasping old man that was still trying to pass through the door?

The instructions saw six minutes for a human to become a machine. Or a monster.

The screaming of the women and the screams of the men, the unrestrained crying of the children, the sounds of the pistol and machine guns salves … Out of every speaker the request to remain calm sounded metallic and emotionless.

Somebody unaware read it because nobody that knew would be so controlled and indifferent in repeating the same sentence over and over again: “Please remain calm!” Crying, pleading … Again shots.

And exactly six minutes after the alarm, one minute before Armageddon – with the dump sound of a graveyards bell the doors closed. The sound of the bolts locking in place.

Silence.

Like in a grave.

To get around the wagon they had to move along the wall. The driver had braked to late, maybe he had been distracted by something on the track. They climbed upwards over an iron ladder and found themselves in a roomy hall. It had no pillars but a half-round ceiling with egg shaped holes for the lamps. The hall was big; it included the train station and both tracks with the trains. An unbelievable elegant, easy construction, simple and laconic.

Just don’t look down, not under your feet or in front of you.

Don’t look what the station had become.

A grotesque meadow of corpses, where no one ever found peace, a terrible field of flesh, covered with gnawed off skeletons, rotting bodies and ripped off parts of corpses. Grotesque creatures had dragged down greedily everything they could find in their small kingdom, a lot more than they could eat, as reserves. These reserves decayed and dissolved, but they were still growing.

The mountains of rotting flesh moved, ignoring the laws of nature, as if they breathed and from everywhere a disgusting scraping sound could be heard. The shine of the flashlight caught one of the strange creatures: Long nodular arms and legs, slack, wrinkled, hanging, hairless grey skin
and a bent back. The dim eyes starring half blind around the room and the big ears moved like they had a life of their own.

The creature made a hoarse scream and retreated slowly on all limbs back through the open train door. As sluggish as this one the other corpse eaters started to climb down from their mountains of bodies. Angered they bared their teeth and growled at the group.

On two feet they wouldn’t have been able to reach Homer to the chest and he knew that the cowardly creatures wouldn’t attack a strong, healthy human. But the irrational horror that he felt for these creatures came from his nightly nightmares: Weakened and abandoned he was laying there alone in an empty station and the monsters came closer and closer. Like a drop of blood in the ocean attracted countless sharks these creatures could feel the approaching death of a stranger and rushed to look at him.

The fear of getting old, said Homer condescending to himself. In his time he had read books about psychology. If they would just help him now.

The corpse eaters on the other hand weren’t afraid of humans. To waste a single bullet for one of these harmless corpse eaters would have been considered a criminal waste at
the
Sev
astopolskaya
. The passing caravans tried to ignore them even though the creatures liked to provoke them.

At this station they had reproduced strongly and the more the group progressed, while bones broke under their boots with a disgusting breaking sound, the more corpse eaters abandoned unwillingly their meal and moved slowly back to their dwellings. Their nests were in inside the trains.

And for that Homer hated them even more.

The hermetic gates of the
Nachimov
ski prospect
were open. It was said that when you passed the station quickly you would only get a small dose of unhealthy radiation, but you couldn’t stay there for long. So it came that some of the trains were still well preserved: The windshields and windows weren’t broken, through the open doors you could see the dirty but intact seats and also the blue paint of the train was still there. In the middle of the hall was a true mountain of twisted bodies made up by unrecognizable creatures. When Hunter reached them he suddenly stopped.

Achmed and Homer looked at each other worried and tried to see where the danger came from.

But the reason for the delay was a different one. On the edge of the mountain of bodies two little corpse eaters gnawed on the skeleton of a dog– you could hear how they
creaked and growled pleasurable. They weren’t able to hide in time. Maybe they hadn’t finished their meal or didn’t understand the signals of their older creatures or their greed had overpowered them.

Blinded by the shine of the light, but still cowering, they started their slow retreat to next wagon when they both suddenly tipped over with a dump sound and hit the ground like two with bowels filled sacks.

Homer looked at Hunter surprised while he put his heavy army pistol with the long suppressor back into his shoulder holster. The face of the brigadier was as impenetrable and dead as always.

“Seemed like they had a lot of hunger.” Whispered Achmed. A little bit disgusted, a little bit curios at the dark puddles where the pulpy remains of their dead were skulls liying..

“Me too.” Answered Hunter with an unclear voice and Homer winched.

Without turning around Hunter continued walking and Homer seemed to hear silent, greedy growling. It exhausted him, trying not to be tempted to put a bullet into the head of another creature! He talked to himself reassuring until he was the same again. He had to proof himself that he was a grown
man that could control his nightmares and didn’t have to act crazy. Hunter didn’t seem to suppress his desire.

But what did he actually desire?

The silent demise of the two corpse eaters brought movement to the rest of the pack: The smell of fresh death chased away the boldest and slowest from the train tracks.

Slowly, croaking and whining they retreated to the two trains, squeezed themselves against the windows or gathered at the two doors and waited. But they didn’t move.

The creatures didn’t seem to feel anger and you couldn’t recognize any intentions to avenge their killed brethrens or to fend off this attack. As soon as the group would leave the station they would eat the two killed corpse eaters without any hesitation.

Aggression is a trait of hunters, thought Homer. Who survives on dead bodies doesn’t need it because it doesn’t have to kill. Everything living must die some day and becomes food. They just have to wait.

In the shine of the lamp they could see their monstrous grimaces looking through the dirty-greenish windows, the tilted built bodies, their hands with long claws; it was like they viewed into a satanic aquarium. In absolute silence hundreds pairs of eyes watched every move of the small
group, the heads of the creatures turned fully synchronized with the passing humans movement. The small miss births in their formaldehyde glasses must have probably looked at the visitors of Petersburg’s art chamber the same way, if their eyes wouldn’t have been sewed shut as a precaution.

Even though the hour of atonement for his godless view of the world came closer and closer for Homer, he couldn’t overcome himself to believe in god or the devil. If there was a purgatory than he was looking straight at it.

Sisyphus was damned to fight against gravity, Tantalus sentenced to endure torture through eternal thirst. For Homer in his wrinkled train driver uniform there was a dead station waiting for him, with this monstrous ghost train, filled with its inhabitants, that reminded him of medieval gargoyles and the laughter and mocking of all gods that where seeking revenge. And when the train left the station the tunnel would transform itself, just like in the old metro-legends into a moebius band, a dragon eating it’s on tail.

Hunter’s had lost all interest in the station and its inhabitants. He left the rest of the hall behind him with quick
steps. Achmed and Homer had problems keeping up with the hasting brigadier.

The old man had the wish to turn around, to scream and to shoot, to do anything that would scare this bold spawn away just like his heavy thoughts. But instead he followed with his head lowered and tried not to step on any rotting body parts. Achmed did as he did. While they fled the
Nachimov
ski
prospect
nobody thought about looking back.

The ball of light from Hunters lamp flew from one spot to the next as if it followed an invisible acrobatic through a fatal circus but even the brigadier did no longer pay attention to what the light illuminated.

In the light of the lamp you were able to see fresh bones and a definitely human head that had been gnawed on for a second and then they disappeared into darkness.

Right next to it, like a pointless shell laid a steel helmet and a Kevlar vest.

You could still see the with white color printed word on it: SEVASTOPOLSKAYA.

Ties (Chapter 4)

“Dad … dad! It’s me, Sasha!” She loosened the straps of her father’s helmet from his swollen chin. Then she reached for the rubber of the gasmask, pulled it from his sweaty hair and threw it away like a wrinkly, deadly-grey scalp.

His chest raised and lowered itself heavily, his fingers scrapped over the concrete and his watery eyes looked at her without blinking. He didn’t answer.

Sasha laid a bag under his head and stormed to the gate. She pushed her thin shoulder against the enormous gate, took a deep breath and crunched her teeth. The ton heavy mountain of iron retreated reluctantly, turned around and fell groaning into its lock. Sasha looked it again and sank to the ground. One minute, all he needed was just one minute for him to catch his breath … Soon he would return to her.

Every expedition cost her father more strength. It was almost hopeless in the face of their weak harvest. Every expedition shortened his life not by days, but by weeks, yes even months. But it was their need that forced him to do so.

When they no longer had anything to sell, there was only one thing to do, eat Sasha’s pet rat, the only thing in this hostile station and then shoot themselves. If he would have let her she would have taken his place and would have gone to the surface. How often had she asked him for his gasmask so that she could go up on her own but he remained relentless.

He probably knew that this with holes filled piece of rubber and its full filters wasn’t any better than a talisman but he would have never admitted that. He lied that he knew how to clean the filters, even after hours of expeditions he acted like he felt fine and when he didn’t want her to see that he was throwing up blood he sent her away to be alone.

It wasn’t in Sasha’s power to change something. They had driven her father and Sasha into this abandoned part of the metro, they had left them alive, not out of mercy, but out of sadistic curiosity. They must have thought that they wouldn’t even survive a week, but the will and stamina of her father had provided them with what they needed and that they had survived for years. They hated them, despised them, but brought them food regularly. Of course not for free.