– Mutant? – I was surprised – are you talking about the infected or what?

“Do you know about mutants?” – I shook my head in response – Brother, you are lucky. Here at night this happens sometimes – mother do not worry! He smiled bitterly and continued. “We don't know how yet, but some of these. – he pointed somewhere through the wall, in the direction where I came from. “They mutate into some kind of half gorillas and half wolves… Fuck understand, maybe you’ll see it yourself somehow… although, God forbid. So they only come out at night. Fast and strong. They, consider that only with a machine gun can be killed. So after all, they, bastards, are also smart, they hunt more than cats. In general, if you want to live, try not to get out anywhere at night, otherwise if such a creature notices you, you will not have time to blink an eye when you find yourself in her belly.

– Piz ** ts … – I summed up his story, and asked him about the Outpost.

“Uuu, brother, don’t go to the Outpost unnecessarily, they don’t favor strangers. They can put a bullet in the forehead. – Pavel collapsed on a chair more comfortably, throwing his legs over his legs. – Yes, only if you need gasoline. True, the horse's price tag is bent, most likely.

– And who are they anyway? – The opportunity to purchase gasoline interested me.

– Yes, there used to be a coal mine there, the largest of the local ones. Guest workers and former convicts worked there like hell. The contingent there has always been bad, the work is a real nightmare, they pay a penny, and you go underground in a dubious environment of people whose souls are black and embittered, like coal itself – Pavel took out a cigarette and, striking a match on a shabby box, set fire to it, releasing it into ceiling thick plume of smoke. – When the troops entered the city, one of the units was based just on the territory of the mine. They brought equipment, weapons, and even twenty tanks of gasoline rolled in from somewhere. And then, as it got hot, everyone deserted almost to the last. Yes, this is understandable, damn it, who wants to serve when your relatives, not even an hour, are devoured by some ghoul? They seized state property, which means and they went to their native lands, who was on what, and the local gangsters and the criminals who worked there before, judging by the rumors, united and took the territory by storm. They killed the remnants of the warriors … Oh, and the massacre, they say, was …

– Understandably. What kind of relationship do you have with them? I continued to wonder.

– Yes, at first they butted too, and then it seemed that they agreed to change food for fuel. Here they calmed down. They don't touch us, we touch them. We change as needed and that's all, but mark my word, Artem, they will still come to us at night with knives and guns … – Listen, Pash, I have a family in Novosibirsk now, I'm going to go to them. I would like gasoline and food for the journey. Maybe you can tell me what?

Pavel scratched the back of his head. “I definitely can’t help you. It is necessary to talk with Trofimych. Only you don’t count on much: gasoline, food and cartridges are the main resources now, but there aren’t enough hands, so, you see, it will give you the opportunity to earn money. Talk to him first… Will you have tea? Pavel went to the bedside table in the corner and turned on the electric kettle. I was a little surprised by the presence of electricity, because the rest of the city had been de-energized for a long time.

– No thanks, Pash, somehow it’s not up to tea parties now. Where do you get electricity from? Are the generators working?

– Well, as you wish, but for the last week we have been doing nothing but chasing teas. He sat down again at the front table. – And we have electricity from the power plant. Ours recently took control of it. I can’t say more, I don’t know how everything works there.

– Well, thanks for the information, I said, and Pavel looked at the fighters with weapons sitting in the far corner of the checkpoint and, nodding to them, waved his hand in my direction.

– Kostyan, let's go to Trofimych and grab sugar from Romych there, tell me, I asked. – Kostyan, when he got up from his chair, surprised me with his size. A hefty fat kid under two meters tall, throwing a short on a belt behind his back, headed towards the door, nodding me to follow him.

The shelter area looked very clean. People were scurrying around with carts stuffed with bricks, some kind of boards and plywood. People settled here for a long time, and work was in full swing. Almost everyone had a weapon, mostly pistols and rifles, but there were also large-caliber automatic weapons.

I walked about 200 meters deep into the shelter between long rows of warehouses and found myself in front of a three-story office building, which, apparently, used to house the administration. Outside, the building was given a very neat look by the siding with which it was sheathed, but inside the repair has not been done since Soviet times. The orange paint on the walls was cracked, the plaster had chipped in many places, and the ceiling was a dirty gray. There was a strong smell of welding, and at the very entrance there was a small wooden booth, the windows in which were so covered with dust that they almost completely lost their transparency.

There were several closed doors on the first floor. I approached the stairs leading to the second floor. Beneath it was a large workbench, next to which was a guy in contact glasses. He was enthusiastically soldering something, listening to music from a small tape recorder.

– Hello, Romaha! – Greeted him accompanying me a big man. Then he turned to me, pointing to the stairs to the second floor. – Climb up and immediately to the right. There’s such a brown door there … – Having lost interest in me, the big man went to Roman, who was sitting under the stairs, and I, as I was told, went up to the second floor, and, finding a brown door there, knocked on it.

– Yes Yes! Come in! – a voice came from the other side of the door, and you, having easily opened it, entered the room. It was a rather spacious office with a very high ceiling and walls that were once pasted over with mosaic tiles, but now painted brown right on top of it. From the furniture in the office there was a wardrobe, a folding bed, several chairs and two desks littered with papers. Behind one of them sat a man who looked about forty-five years old. He was wearing a short-sleeved white shirt that was obviously not the freshest, and black pants with large pockets on the sides. A bald head shone, but the lack of hair on the top of his head was more than compensated for by a thick beard framing his face. He looked up, gave me a quick look, then gestured to a chair on the other side of the table and continued to quickly write something down on paper.

“Well…” he said, putting his pen aside and clapping his dry palms, he began rubbing them against each other, studying me with his eyes. Then, as if recollecting himself, he rose and held out his hand to me in greeting.

“Konstantin Pavlovich Trofimov, retired major, I’m in charge here,” he introduced himself in a loud commanding voice. – You can, like everyone else, call Trofimych.

“Artyom,” I answered shortly, answering the greeting, slightly rising from my chair

– No one has come from the city for a long time, – Trofimych got up and went to the closet, which stood against the opposite wall. – Yes, and rescue teams are less and less likely to find someone. There in the center, they say, it is already so zazombjacheno that the car can get stuck. Where are you from? He took two mugs and a box of green tea from the cupboard.

– I'm not from the city. I came from the outskirts. Looking for gas and food.