#you ever seen a grown man victimized by a piece of confetti

[faded-florals]

I will love you until my dying day

[deepseawritings]

New Shovel story guys! It is a direct continuation of the first one and there’s also a reference to this snippet.

A stroll in Agroprom

The ache in her hands persisted through the day. It felt like she had small shards of glass on her joints, and the skin over her fingers and knuckles was reddened and itchy. But the pain had quieted down considerably since Shovel discovered vodka apparently cured radiation poisoning.

She asked Evgenii if it wouldn't be more effective to douse her hands with the liquor, but his horrified stare spoke volumes about what he thought of her idea. To be honest, it was a waste of perfectly good vodka. And medicine was usually ingested, she reasoned. So Shovel singlehandedly drank a quarter of the bottle. Just enough to dull the pain in her hands. Evgenii also drank, their little misadventure in Garbage had left them both more affected by the radiation than they anticipated. Not to mention Shovel's newfound case of acute paranoia. Bandits that disguised themselves as other factions to kill you... it still made her shudder. Thankfully the vodka also helped with that, she felt much better now!

This was starting to remind her of her teenage years: squatting around a campfire eating shashlik –rat shashlik most probably, but it was better to not think about that– and drinking vodka and bragging about who shot farthest. Only she used to shoot old bottles and cans years ago; now she shot at mutated animals or worse to not get mauled to death. But what had Bes told them? Oh yes, such is life in the Zone!

Next day they were slightly hangover, but her hands felt fine again. Completely worth it. Besides, it wasn't like this was her first hangover ever. After a light breakfast around the ashes of Bes' campfire they crossed into Agroprom without further incidents. Shovel was happy to leave the radioactive mountains of trash behind them. It felt good to walk on solid ground again, without climbing shifting piles of debris or feeling the crunching of glass and metal detritus beneath her boots. The hangar seemed deserted when they passed by, but neither she or Evgenii went in to check if the bandits were still there. No, they just scurried along in their best attempt at stealth. And from there it was only a matter of following the dusty road.

The Agroprom institute was visible in the distance, a massive complex right by the side of the train tracks. Shovel remembered how her father's friend, Mr. Ponomarenko, used to ramble about a secret conspiracy around the old Agroprom Institute and the exclusion Zone. But that used to happen after he'd had a few beers and shots of vodka, so everyone rolled their eyes at his rants and ignored him.

The Agroprom buildings had been abandoned a long time ago, just like the railroads. However, what really caught her attention were the artifacts, strewn around like someone had prepared the most ridiculous Easter egg hunt.

"Fuck me, are you seeing this too or am I still drunk?" Evgenii had the funniest look in his face, like he was seconds away from pinching himself to make sure he wasn't dreaming.

"I see it too," she was almost as dazed as him. Surely an artifact detector would go crazy and implode if used here. "I thought artifacts were almost impossible to find without a detector?"

Evgenii smiled exceitedly like a child in Christmas. "C'mon, drinks at The 100 Rads are on the one who picks up less artifacts!"

Shovel stopped him by grabbing his arm. Not because she didn't have a clue of what was The 100 Rads, it was impossible to not have heard about it after spending two weeks in a stalker camp, but because she had just remembered a critical piece of information.

"Didn't- uh, aren't artifacts spawned because of anomalies?" Markov might have been a coward and a self-serving pig, but so far all he'd told them about the Zone turned out to be true.

"Yeah, sure, usually inside anomalies..." Evgenii's face shifted into a grimace when he realised what Shovel meant. "We use the bolts then."

Given the amount of artifacts lying around, Shovel had expected to find an anomaly minefield. However, in fact the anomalies were few and far between. She mulled over such oddity until she remembered the anomaly in her farm's field, which randomly disappeared one day. Shovel felt a bit stupid, but in her defence she'd grown so used to constantly seeing anomies around that it seemed like they were permanent. Usually it didn't make a difference if the springboard by the side of the rookie village disappeared one day, because most surely a vortex had popped into existence two steps down the same spot.

The only place that actually was a death trap was the old train tunnel. Evgenii had thrown a bolt in there and triggered at least half a dozen anomalies. He jumped in surprise and let out a shrill cry that he later would deny.

"Shit, don't get inside there!" He yelled to ensure she heard him. "Unless you want to become minced meat!"

Taking good note of that, Shovel shouted back her thanks and avoided the tunnel entrance. Even so, they picked up quite a bounty of artifacts from the clearing bracketing the train tracks. Shovel enjoyed the moment, it really wasn't that different from picking berries with her sister as they did as kids. 

It was weird that artifacts moved on their own, though. Normally it was a kind of restless jiggle, but one of them was moving erratically like it wanted to escape. Which was ridiculous, because artifacts weren't sentient, right? Intent on catching the damn thing, she tripped down when chasing the restless artifact. Evgenii made a valiant effort to hide his chuckling as a cough, but without much success. And then the peace was shattered by a not so distant shot, followed by indistinct yelling.

Evgenii looked at her like a deer caught in the headlights. Shovel was in a similarly panicked state, she just was less expressive than him.

"Should we go check it? Or hide?"

As if she had a good answer for that! "Your guess is as good as mine Evgenii."

The synchronized beeping of the PDAs startled them, and Shovel rushed to check the message.

12:06 – Anton Belyavin, Ecologist

Big pack of dogs with a pseudo-dog near the Agroprom Factory. Help needed!

It looked genuine enough. She doubted bandits could falsify that. Or so she hoped. And if you listened intently enough you could hear some faint barking among the distant ruckus. Shovel made up her mind.

"Okay, let's go. Have your weapon ready."

Following the train tracks to their end at the other side of the complex's courtyard, Shovel fought to keep calm. She kept telling herself it was just like going hunting, like the missions she did for Wolf back at the rookie camp. Except she knew it wasn't. Shovel had only faced down about three or four mutants at once before, not a huge pack of them. If they weren't fast or good enough someone might die. That of course if she hadn't misjudged the situation and it was a trap after all.

Once they crossed to the other side of the broken concrete fence the furious barking was almost deafening. A stalker in an orange protective suit had climbed to the lowest branch of a tree, cowering from a pseudo-dog, while a stalker in a more typical dirty green suit tried to keep a pack of rabid dogs at bay. Shovel went straight for the pseudo-dog, who had finally grabbed the climbing stalker by the leg of the suit and was trying to drag him down the tree. Her hunting rifle had never disappointed her and now it wasn't any different. When she had to reload it Evgenii took over, shooting at the pseudo-dog with his Fort-12. They were getting used to work as a team.

The pseudo-dog let its current prey go and ran towards them. Shovel shot at it again, hoping it would be enough to kill it. It wasn't. The limping and bloody pseudo-dog lunged at her. Shovel jumped to the side to avoid it, and once she was out of the way Evgenii finished off the mutant with a headshot. The rest of the dogs scattered soon after that, not as bloodthirsty after the other stalker kept shooting at them with the Obokan.

"Good timing, if it wasn't for your help the little doc would be dog food." The stalker slung the Obokan back, yanked down the bandana covering her face and offered Shovel her hand. "Name's Gecko."

"Yul- Shovel, I'm Shovel!" She squeaked, feeling her face grow hot as she accepted the handshake.

The stalker was a woman. Which wasn't that surprising, Shovel had seen before other lady stalkers, as she dubbed them. But Gecko was dark eyed, and delightfully tall and her short hair stuck out adorably like a hedgehog. Shovel was instantly moonstruck.

Seeing as Shovel went mute, Evgenii introduced himself. "Glad be could be of help! I'm Evgenii."

Gecko nodded at him and then addressed the other stalker, who finally jumped down from his branch. "How's the leg, little doc?"

"Fine, fine. The suit's wrecked though," the man held his leg raised, showing them all the shredded suit leg. Gecko coughed pointedly, but the man didn't notice it. "Where did we stash my instruments?It's vital that I gather samples while the specimen is still fresh."

With an exasperated sigh Gecko rumaged around her backpack and gave him what looked like a small toolbox. She cleared her throat again, but seeing as the man eagerly squatted next to the dead pseudo-dog's body, Gecko desisted in trying to capture his attention.

"You'll have to excuse doctor Belyavin, he tends to focus too much on his work."

"You're ecologists?" Evgenii perked up. According to the rumour mill at the rookie village, ecologists paid pretty well for any artifact you brought them.

"He works on old Sakharov's team. I just make sure he comes back alive and with not many limbs missing," Gecko gave a short, bitter laugh. "Not like doctor Vasilevich. Just barely outside the camp he stepped into a whirligig and bam! he rained on us like confetti."

Shovel grimaced. It was a horrible way to go, both for the victim and the witnesses. She would have offered her condolences, but she had no idea of what to say, so she kept her mouth shut.

"Ah, where are you going now?" Evgenii asked.

"Back to Sakharov, in Yantar. If the little doc decides he's done taking samples?"

"Just a moment!" Belyavin said while he fumbled with his toolbox. "I don't know why are you so eager to get to the swamp, it's a terrible place."

"Swamp?" Evgenii asked Gecko. He looked as confused as Shovel, who had no idea of where was Yantar.

Gecko made a dismissive gesture with her hand. "The Yantar camp is near a small swamp. And on our way out of Agroprom we'll have to skirt a swampy pond."

Shovel wasn't a fan of swamps, but that didn't sound so terrible.

"Yeah, and both snorks and zombified stalkers love the goddamn swamp," Belyavin ranted displeased. For someone who looked younger than Shovel, he surely was grumpy like an old man. "I can't wait to get out of this hellhole, research opportunities be damned. I won't be able to publish anything if I'm dead!"

Shovel and Evgenii looked at each other alarmed. He mouthed "Zombies" at her in horror, and Shovel wished she could believe it was a joke. Unfortunately, the scientist had sounded very serious in his complaint. Meanwhile Belyavin had kept complaining about what the dangers of the Zone, which where many according to him, despite Gecko's efforts to make him stop.

"Little doc stop it, blin! You'll scare the rookies!"

"Well, perhaps they should be scared! It might be good for them. Who in their right mind willingly comes underequipped to squat in a dangerous radioactive area?"

"We can accompany you to Yantar. For extra protection." Shovel's offer made everyone shut up and look at her in surprise, even Evgenii. She started to blush again under Gecko's scrutiny. "It's not that I don't think you capable, because you look formidable like an Amazon... uh, what I meant to say is maybe a couple of extra weapons could be helpful against the dangers of the Zone, even if we're rookies... and uh, we have artifacts?"

Thank God Evgenii took pity of her after her terrible and bumbling speech and came to her aid. "Yeah, we were looking to sell our artifacts. And if the ecologists are short on people I wouldn't mind lending a hand."

Gecko looked at Belyavin, who shrugged back in indifference.

"Fine by me," Gecko eventually said with an impish look in her eyes. "I've never before travelled with someone who thought I was formidable like an Amazon."

Shovel hid her face in her hands. Just for once she'd like to not put her foot in her mouth when speaking with a woman she liked.

As if to mirror her mortification, the sky darkened considerably, casting literal dark clouds over them. Crackling thunder built up in the distance. All very dramatic. Then all the PDAs beeped simultaneously, and even worse, a shrill alarm blared loud enough to reach even the old compound behind them.

"That can't be right," Belyavin went pale like a ghost and hurriedly checked his PDA. "The next emission was supposed to –"

"Well, you were wrong," Gecko cut him off. "Look at the skies, we must search for cover."

Shovel wasn't certain of what was happening, yet she was sure it was nothing good. Still, she disliked being in the dark. "What the heck is going on?"

"A blowout. C'mon, there's an entrance to the underground tunnels somewhere nearby," Gecko said.

At least Evgenii seemed as lost as Shovel was. It was a small comfort, but as her babushka used to say, when things went to shit it was better to find comfort wherever you could.

The sky turned blood red alarmingly fast, the light dim and unnatural, and Shovel was reminded of that weird storm years ago, before the first anomaly in her fields appeared out of nowhere. Gecko found the entrance to the tunnels, but Belyavin was feeling rebellious.

"I don't see why we can't go to that building instead of crawling underground like roaches," he pointed to the dilapidated complex behind them. A sound like thunder grew and grew while he talked, making it difficult to hear him.

"Underground is safer than a building full if holes!" Gecko had to scream to be heard at this point. "If you want to go, fine! But don't expect me to carry your dead or zombified arse back to Yantar!"

After such a convincing argument Belyavin stopped opposing her idea to find refuge underground. He climbed down the ladder between Shovel and Evgenii, who unlike Belyavin didn't think for a moment to argue against the most experienced person of their group.

The Agroprom Underground was unpleasantly cold and damp, and it smelled like something had died down here a long time ago, which was extremely probable. However, contrary to what Shovel imagined, it wasn't a tunnel nor some kind of sewers, it was more like an underground hall. A dim orange light, coming from an emergency light bulb, bathed the place.

Gecko was the last one to come down the ladder, just as the earth shook and a deafening noise was heard coming from outside. She ordered them to get away from the entrance and this time everyone complied at once. Shovel mesmerized by the red light filtering down the ladder's shaft. Had the Red Storm, as her father had called it, been a blowout too? Shovel was starting to realise that being on the other side of the fence didn't mean that her farm hadn't been part of the Zone almost since the beginning. Did that make them all technically farming stalkers?

"Well, hello there!"

Two guys emerged from a shadowed corner, sauntering towards Shovel's group. Their ensemble of long dark coat plus balaclava gave away their affiliation.

"Bandits,"Belyavin said through clenched teeth.

The grumpy scientist wasn't happy with their current situation, but neither was Shovel. And she couldn't imagine Evgenii was happy either. Gecko looked tense as a spring, ready to jump at the slightest indication the bandits were going to attack.

"I'm Noodle and this is Squint. Must say we weren't expecting anyone!" The tallest of the two opened his arms in a welcoming gesture.

Time seemed to go still, like everyone in their group. Shovel could see Gecko's fingers twitching, like she wanted nothing more than to grab her weapon. Yet no one dared move, waiting with baited breath for the other party to move first. Belyavin muttered something about "freaking bandits are worse than a plague" with the utmost contempt. Unfortunately his voice carried loud enough in the tense silence.

"Bandits? Who's a bandit? Not us, that for sure!" In a different situation, Noodle's affectation of innocent surprise could have been comical. But right now Shovel could only think it was forced and creepy. "Not anymore at least."

Yeah, sure. And Shovel was the long lost empress of Russia. Evgenii's chortle, masked as a cough, made her think she'd said that aloud. But no, it was just his reaction of disbelief to the bandit's assertion.

"They don't believe us." Well, wasn't this Squint a keen observer?

"Not everyone has felt the call brother," Noodle made a show of sighing exaggeratedly and shaking his head.

"What call?" Gecko asked them, still looking ready to grab her weapon any second now.

"The call of the Monolith, of course!" Squint said with a gleam in his eyes.

"Our comrade Leech heard the Monolith, it spoke to him. And he changed. He only wanted to go find the Monolith," Noodle explained them, like they were friends talking over a cup of tea. "Why assault and rob people when the Monolith could grant us wealth and anything we wanted? So we decided to go with Leech to Pripyat and find the Wish Granter."

Wasn't the Monolith just a myth? Shovel always thought Wolf's stories of the Wish Granter were tall tales, entertaining but faker than a four ruble coin. But if what these two said was true... the idea of a thing that made people obsess over it, that spoke to them and made them changed their minds overnight... was she the only one who thought it was creepy beyond belief? Her face must have betrayed some emotion, because Noodle suddenly focused on her.

"The girl knows what I'm talking about, right?" He pointed at her with a nod, and Shovel's entire group turned around to look at her.

"No! I don't hear voices!" Shovel quickly defended herself.

"Leech said it began as a faint whisper," Squint supplied unnecessarily.

There had been a couple of times when the wind seemed to whisper things, gibberish, but that was just the wind. It also happened at home, before the Red Storm, when everything was normal. Shovel was thinking of how to voice that, because she didn't like how the bandits were looking at her. Too expectant and hopeful. Thankfully Gecko intervened with a rather pressing question.

"And where is your friend now? This Leech?"

The so called ex-bandit grimaced and made a vague gesture that pointed someplace behind him, in the dark. "Dead. Fucking bloodsuckers got him."

Wait, what? Bloodsuckers? Shovel had heard a lot about bloodsuckers, especially around campfires while the veteran stalkers tried their damnest to scare the rookies. And Shovel was pretty sure she didn't want to meet those mutants ever. Even if the stories had been exaggerated.

"There are bloodsuckers here?!" Even Gecko was worried, which wasn't reassuring in the slightest.

"Yeah, further down," Noodle said. "But it's cool, the stairs will stop'em."

They all stopped to listen, searching any indication the mutants had figured out the stairs. And if on cue, there was a strange rasping sound far away in deep, dark recesses. Was her imagination playing tricks on her or did it truly sound like something was scratching metal? They all looked at each other in search of reassurance, differences like ex-bandit and stalker forgotten in their common fear of bloodsuckers. Gecko took a hesitant step forward, finally reaching for her weapon.

"I'll go have a look. Stay alert."

Gecko directed a fleeting glance to the ex-bandits. She clearly didn't trust them much. That was fine, Shovel didn't like them at all either. Evgenii solemnly nodded, unholstering his pistol as they watched Gecko disappear on the dark end of the corridor.

They say the waiting part is the worst. And Shovel never had much patience to begin with. Had they been waiting just seconds or minutes already? Time stretched strangely when you were on alert. In the end they all walked further into the room, stopping on the nexy archway. Stil no sign of Gecko, only darkness ahead.

There was a crackling sound coming from far behind her. She had learnt to identify the sound as the discharge of an electro. Turning around, she took a couple of steps towards the sound. Her flashlight revealed a small tunnel, alight with the fain blue glow of an electro. Then all hell broke loose.

The dreaded and unmistakeable sound of someone firing a rifle echoed in the underground tunnels. Shovel wiped her head around and saw Evgenii dart a couple of steps forward, gun held high.

"Are you ok? Gecko! What's going on?" He yelled into the dark.

There was no reply, just another crack and hiss from the electro. Was something (a bloodsucker) coming for them? They had no idea where that tunnel lead, and there must be a reason for the electro's discharges. As far as she knew, electros only cracked like that when something or someone stepped into them. So Shovel turned her back to the rest of the group and aimed her hunting rifle to the entrance of the suspicious tunnel.

"I fucking hate the Zone," Belyavin said aloud to no one in particular. “It’s all a death trap.”

"Leech used to say the Monolith demands sacrifice," was the laconic answer of Noodle.

"Oh yes? Lovely."

"Yeah," Noodle replied.

Shovel heard two quick shots behind her, too close. Terrifyingly close. Something hit the ground. Her thoughts tangled in an endless loop of "No, no! This isn't- can't be.." 

She wanted to turn around, see what happened. Yet at the same time she was too afraid of what she would see. The cold fingers of dread were squeezing her, keeping her rooted to her spot. Then something hard impacted painfully against the back of her head, and Shovel's last jumbled thought was "I hope 'm not bleeding. Taking blood out of my hair is going to be a nightmare" before her world went black.

Author’s note: now you have a better idea of how this spoilery little piece fits into Shovel’s misadventures.