This is the 1600-ish word long version of a (very) short story I wrote for a contest in a Stalker-type video game. I had to cut it down to 1000 words for the contest, but while the trimming made it very clean and Hemingway-esque, I wanted to keep the longer version for the increased dread and atmosphere that more words provided. This is unofficial Stalker/Stalcraft fan fiction.
A rookie stalker saves his last bullet for mercy—but the Zone has no mercy left to give. In the dark beneath a ruined farmhouse, a dying chimera teaches him what fear really costs.
One Last Bullet – A Stalker Story
The farmhouse was eaten by the Zone decades ago.
Its roof sagged like wet paper, and grey, twisted trees grew through the rotten living room floor. Wind pushed through broken boards and bullet holes in the shaky wooden walls, carrying the sour stench of rot, gun oil, and something very, very old.
Five of us poor stalkers waited among the shadows and spent brass casings, our weapons trembling in our hands.
Inside, beyond the hall to the inner bedrooms, a chimera moved, releasing a low, menacing growl that dragged through the wet darkness.
We’d been tracking the beast for two days and cornered it here in this dilapidated village that was so dead that even the crows had given up on it.
“Rounds?” Zakhar muttered from near the rotten skeleton of an old couch.
“Low,” someone said. It sounded like Timur, but I couldn’t tell for sure with that warbling whirlpool out front making my head hurt.
“Then make them count.”
The air was thick. I could almost chew it. My hairs stood on end, and I could feel the chimera’s many eyes upon me.
My old rifle was dry after the firefight back in the street outside. Raising my pistol, I ejected my mag and checked the chamber.
One in the chamber, one in the mag.
Shit.
Wiping the grime from the rusted PM’s slide, I considered the mag once more, then pocketed it.
One last bullet. Not for the chimera, but for … insurance.
Just in case.
With only one in the chamber, I raised my sidearm, shaking, aiming at the hallway, as Zakhur and Timur cautiously approached from either side…
The beast’s roar echoed through the rafters as it crashed through a wall covered in peeling, yellowed wallpaper. I nearly pissed myself and fell backwards as the chimera exploded through rotten boards and plaster, engulfing Timur in a chaotic mess of claws, fangs, fur, and white dust.
Gunfire erupted like firecrackers. Several low booms and some high-pitched cracks popped around a piercing scream and a growling, feral sound that turned my joints to jelly and made my trigger finger numb.
“Kill it! Kill it!” Zakhur screamed.
The monster bounded away from Timur—a collapsed pile of flesh and cloth—through the house, plunging through a long-broken window, then across the dead, brown yard into the darkness of a ramshackle barn.
Luka fired the last rounds in his rifle after it, too little too late, and the sound of his bolt locking back over the empty feed ramp was crystal-clear in the sudden silence.
“I’m out,” Luka croaked with his deep voice.
“Fuck,” Zakhur said. “Me too. Denis? What about you, rookie?”
I stared through the smoke-filled ruined house at what little I could see of the dark opening into the barn nearby…
“Denis!” Yulian repeated.
Shaking my head, I stared at the meager old pistol in my hand. My left hand went to the magazine with one round that I’d stashed in my vest.
I won’t use that one, I thought. It’s … it’s just in case.
“Just … just one in the chamber,” I mumbled.
“Shit,” Zakhur said. “Yulian?”
Yulian was crouching over the plaster-dusted mess that used to be Timur, examining the dead stalker’s battered rifle. “Timur out.” He paused to check his old AK, then rocked the mag back in. “I’ve got five or six rounds. We’re fucked, Zakhur. We should head back and—”
“That chimera is almost dead!” our leader replied.
“Only a handful of shots left between us,” Luka said cautiously. “Better we go back to the bar and come back.”
“We don’t stand a chance!” Yulian added.
Zakhur shook his head fiercely, holstering his sidearm and pulling a crowbar from the side of his pack.
“No. We use whatever we have and finish this,” he said. “Bastard is almost dead.”
Everyone traded tired, frightened glances through the smoke and stinking wind. Their gazes passed over me quickly. They were the veterans. They didn’t give a shit what a rookie like me thought.
Luka nodded, slinging his rifle. He pulled out an old hunting knife and his flashlight.
“Let’s go,” Zakhur said.
We did.
Softly padding through the splintered wood, roots, rust, and the crunchy ground outside, we approached the yawning black maw of the dilapidated barn.
Inside, the chimera hid in the dark, waiting to pounce…
Zahkur stalked in first, crowbar ready. Luka followed, turning on his light and holding his blade before him. Yulian crept up the center with his AK-47 shouldered, aiming. I approached behind them, feeling like a useless fool with my PM with one round.
I spotted a rotten wood cellar door next to the house just as the beast let out a low growl that made my stomach quake…
The chimera burst into action, along with my comrades, just inside the old barn, with a terrible snarling sound. Yulian fired all of his remaining rifle rounds, and they all shouted and screamed like animals.
But I didn’t wait to see, and I didn’t charge into my death.
Bolting away to the cellar down, adrenaline flew through my spine as cold as my fear and my shame. I threw the door open, crept down inside as one of my comrades screamed behind me as if being torn apart, then carefully closed the door over me before climbing quietly—heart hammering—down into the unknown darkness.
The noises from outside were terrible, like they were all being killed in horrific ways; their screams all icy spikes in my heart.
Feeling my way through the dark cellar—roots and dirt and the crackling noise of an electrical anomaly in a far corner that made just enough flickering light to see by—I sat near a broken work table, braced myself, and aimed my pistol at the cellar door…
After a few minutes of my quiet breathing and faint crackling coming from the far corner, there were no more sounds from outside.
None at all.
Was it gone?
Did the chimera kill them and eat them and leave?
I just about jumped out of my skin as the cellar door suddenly crashed inward, splinters of wood flying and dust choking the shallow stairwell to outside.
I aimed my pistol. My wrist trembled. My front site danced…
“You’ve got one last bullet, idiot,” I muttered. “Make it count.”
And one more tucked away, I thought.
Then I tried not to think about that.
The chimera dropped in like a bulky, quill-covered shadow with faintly glowing eyes. It descended the stairs with thumping steps, heavy and dense, but also limping and wounded.
In the blue light of the electrical anomaly, its blood-caked jaws leered at me through the darkness. I could see its ribs sticking out through one side. It was bleeding heavily, leaving a thick, dark trail on the steps.
The monster didn’t charge. It stalked down toward me slowly, then turned, almost smiling with that gore-covered mouth showing many broken teeth.
I took careful aim at its face, between the two largest eyes, held my breath, and squeezed the trigger…
The pop was shockingly loud. The beast grunted, shook its mighty head, then smiled at me again.
Shit.
Fear coursed through me like an icy river.
I gasped. Could barely breathe.
Then the monster languidly leapt toward me. I screamed a small sound as it knocked me flat with one huge paw, and shrieked as it dragged me out into the open with its claws hooked into my old body armor.
It held me there, one mighty paw pressing down on my chest, claws sinking through my Kevlar and pricking my skin.
The beast lowered its head, nostrils flaring, and took a deep breath of my scent. Thick, coppery odors of blood and sour intestinal juices in my face made me retch, and I struggled to breathe, gasping, almost mindless with panic.
Like a giant cat, the thing sat up, looked at me with its thick, blood-caked head tilted, then it casually swiped through my right shoulder with a few claws, tearing open my skin.
I screamed.
I couldn’t help it.
Then it clawed my upper thigh, causing unbelievable, searing pain that tore at something inside my leg.
I screamed again.
With what little mind I had left, I fished out the magazine with one last bullet from my vest, loaded it into my PM, and racked the slide.
I aimed the round at the bloody jaws in my face, shifting my aim up to one big, impassive eye.
“Come on,” I hissed. “I’ll take you with me!”
Then the monster stepped back, taking its heavy paw off of me. Blood oozed from its side as it paced around me. Its long tail lashed. Its low, rumbling growl vibrated my bones.
It watched me, I dare say … curious.
Following the creature’s eye with my pistol, I aimed, but my gun trembled.
“Come on! Come on!” I cried, trying to stop thinking about what the thing would do to me if I missed, or if I didn’t kill it…
If the monster survived, I’d be done for.
And worse.
In a sudden moment of clarity, I withdrew my pistol, aimed up under my chin, closed my eyes, and pulled the trigger.
Click.
Misfire…
All hope fled from me and I deflated, dropping the gun and opening my eyes again, bleary with tears. As I looked at the chimera once more, I couldn’t help but … laugh.
My laughter sounded like someone else’s. It echoed through the cellar, rising over the growing, vibrating growl of the chimera before departing on the wind out into the Zone…
The monster almost smiled back at me, then turned and sauntered to me again. It knocked me down with one powerful, effortless stroke, then pressed down on my right forearm, snapping my bones with a loud crunch that was quickly eclipsed by my mad screaming.
And then, the monster lowered its head, and began to feed.
