Nuclear war. part 1-4

The year is 2023. A conflict has erupted between various nuclear powers. A nuclear war broke out on Earth, killing approximately 80 percent of the world's population. Millions of species of living things disappeared. Some islands, such as Great Britain, went underwater. Many cities were wiped out. Civilization collapsed in just a week...

***



2025. Alexei was looking for sustenance again. Like yesterday, the day before yesterday, a week ago.... Wandering through the destroyed city, he remembered his life before the disaster. His family, who had left for another city, bombed in a few hours, his job, and so on. Alexei went into one of the abandoned buildings and found a dead body there. It was a very thin (which is not surprising in the current realities) man. There was a terrible wound on his leg, which had begun to fester. There was a backpack lying next to the body. He had died about a day or two ago, as he had not yet started to rot and stink.

-What luck! Maybe he has something edible in his backpack? - Alexei shouted loudly to himself with joy, but suddenly he became wary. Someone is coming!

"Again I forgot that you can't shout." Alexei began to look for shelter. Finally he found a pile of rubble, behind which he could hide. And just in time, because the footsteps are heard very close. Perhaps it's that group of cannibals who like to eat still alive people. You should be especially wary of them!

Two men entered the room. They were armed with pieces of rebar. Having noticed the corpse, the uninvited guests took him and his backpack and left.

-Uh, I'm sorry," Alexei said in a whisper and climbed out of hiding. But immediately he fell down and lost consciousness from a blow on the head with some heavy object.

He woke up in a room unknown to him. It was dark, damp, and smelled of rotting meat. A little light came through the gaps between the boards. "So I'm in some kind of basement," Alexei thought. Suddenly he heard footsteps. Then the hatch opened and a man with a knife began to descend the stairs. He approached Alexei, examined him from head to toe, and then spoke:

-Who are you?" the stranger asked.

-A...Alexei, - Alexei answered stammering.

-And I'm Seryoga call me, - said his name kidnapper, -you're so sorry for what happened, I'm wary of uninvited guests. You never know...

-I understand, -Alexei answered, -now is such a time, everyone is afraid of each other.

-You're right, -said Sergei, -my brother died. We were hunters, he went to Moscow for work two days before the missile attack on the city.

-I'm sorry for the loss.

-It's not going to come back... We'd better think about what to do next. We can't stay here forever. We gotta get out of town.

- Where would we go? We don't know what goes on outside the city. Maybe it's just a scorched, poisoned land.

- We'll find out. Sooner or later the city's food supply will run out, and we'll have to leave anyway.

Alexei thought. "The man is right, but can he be trusted? Maybe he's one of THEM, too. Won't he kill me on the way? Does he know what to do?" - these thoughts were spinning in his head.

-You're right. We should go. Only collect as many supplies as possible and leave at night by roundabout ways, - Alexey finally answered.

- That's right, - said Sergei, - in two days we'll leave.

The next day everything was packed. The supplies were enough for about a week, so they hoped to find a store or warehouse on the way, not yet looted by marauders. Though, were there any left? But still, hope was not lost in the hearts of these people, and they were determined to achieve their goal - to find a safe, quiet place, where you can not be afraid of cannibals and marauders....

"Is that what I was thinking when I followed that man? I should have stayed in town. I don't want to die in this basement in the middle of a poisoned, lifeless desert."

***



On the appointed morning, the travelers came to a highway with cars, trucks, military equipment and other forms of transportation scattered here and there. There were no looters to be seen or heard nearby, so they should try to get out of the town before they went hunting. Since it was dangerous to go along the main road, Alexei and Sergei went through the yards. When they reached some park, they noticed a man. He was about to run away, but suddenly Sergei pulled out a gun and shot the stranger. After swaying a bit, the unknown man fell dead.

"So he has a gun! We have to be on guard. Suddenly he'll want me too..." Alexei thought, but a comrade called out to him.

-"Help me cut up the body," Sergei asked.

-Are you going to eat it? - Alexei asked in horror.

-What are you going to do when you run out of supplies?

-Well, not a human to eat! You and I are not cannibals, like these bastards! - Alexei pointed in the direction of the neighborhood where the cannibal gang lived.

-You know what I mean. You'll ask for a piece when you're hungry!

-Okay, no time to argue. Let's get a move on.

A few hours later, they were on the outskirts of town…

***



It's unlikely that this dead man will be buried...it's unlikely that anyone will even find him....

***



Upon reaching the outskirts, the travelers found a convoy of cars, many remains of people, cats and dogs, as well as barricades and banners that read:

QUARANTINE ZONE! NO PASSAGE ALLOWED!

- What the hell is this? - Alexei asked.

- I don't know myself," Sergei answered him.

-It seems that the refugees were not allowed to leave or go, and they died here.

Alexei did not yet know that no one Sergei existed, and his perception of the world was badly distorted...

***



- How long has the body been here?

- Maybe a few hours or a day.

- Has there been an I.D.?

-Yeah. -It's Alexei *****.

***



Alexei and Sergei went outside the city. All around them was a black, scorched desert, just as Alexei had envisioned. But they decided to go straight on to achieve their goal and had no intention of returning to a city populated by mad cannibals and marauders again.

They had traveled about thirty kilometers when it began to get dark. A dilapidated building could be seen in the distance. It seemed to be a gas station. They decided to spend the night in it. Having collected burnable garbage and built a fire, Alexey and Sergey began to tell each other stories from their lives before the disaster. Sergei told about his brother, his and his incidents on the hunt. Alexei told about his life, how he worked as a teacher, funny incidents related to his students, probably already dead.

It was already light when they went to bed.

***

They woke up one hour apart at about noon. After eating some canned food, the travelers started walking again, not knowing where they were going. On the way they often met abandoned cars and other equipment, and also bones of people, a lot of bones...they were bones of both adults and children. The war had spared no one.....

Suddenly Alexei fell down and, having twisted his leg, screamed loudly. Sergei immediately jumped on him. He had a knife in his hands. But Alexei managed to push him away with his healthy leg and tried to get up. It didn't work. The second attempt was also unsuccessful. Sergei tried to attack again, but Alexei was able to stand up and hit him in the jaw with his fist. Sergei fell down and lost consciousness. Alexei then stuck a knife, which had fallen out of his pocket, either in his throat or in his side. Alexei then tried to get up again, and succeeded. Taking Sergei's things with him, he waddled on.

It was evening. It began to get dark. But Alexei kept walking, thinking about Sergei's strange behavior. "Why did he attack me? What was the reason?" - Rattled around in his head. He was so busy thinking that he didn't notice the open well hatch and fell down there…

***



Alexei woke up a few... hours later? Days? He looked around. It was a small bunker, or some other structure with a door. It appeared to be unlocked. There was a tunnel behind it. Alexei tried to walk, but his injured leg refused to move. But he crawled, hoping that the tunnel would lead somewhere. Eventually Alexei emerged into a small room similar to the one he had fallen into. The only difference was the presence of a ladder. And at the top was a hatch to the outside. Alexei tried to climb up, and he almost succeeded, but when he was about a meter away from the hatch, he suddenly stumbled and fell down...

***



Victor was working in the garden as usual when he saw a man with several backpacks walking towards the forest. Thinking that it was just a tourist or a mushroom picker, he continued working. But the thoughts about the strange traveler did not leave him all day.

A few days later, the police knocked on Victor's door. They asked him if he had seen a man who looked very much like the strange man. Victor told them everything he had seen and asked to go with them to look for him. The first thing they did was to ask the people who lived near the forest. They said that the stranger had followed a path straight into the thicket of the forest. Perhaps he had gotten lost. But who was this man? Victor asked the police officers, and they said that it was an escapee from an insane asylum. Victor remembered hearing about something like that on the radio a few days ago and didn't pay much attention to it.

Finally they reached an abandoned structure standing in the thicket of the forest. Entering it, the policemen found the basement door open. The two policemen went down. In the cellar lay a corpse with a broken head. Apparently, he had gone down there, then wanted to come up, but fell down and broke his head.

- How long had the body been lying there?

- Maybe a few hours or a day...

- Was there an I.D.?

-Yes. -This is Alexei *****.

That was the escaped lunatic. He's been hiding here for days. But where are the backpacks that Alexei was carrying? They were not in the basement, not in the house, not anywhere along the road. Going down into the basement again and scrutinizing it thoroughly, the police found a door. Beyond it was a tunnel leading to another abandoned structure resembling a barn. This structure was located ten meters behind the house. After examining this room as well, the police found a hatch leading down several meters. It was dark, but they could see someone's feet. As they climbed down, they realized it was another person. A knife had been stuck in his right side.....

All the bodies were sent to the morgue where they were thoroughly examined. A passport was found in the stranger's inner pocket and handed over to the police. The police tried to find the man's relatives, place of residence and so on. But the computer said the man did not exist. The passport had the same face as the dead man's, so it was not stolen.

The dead men were buried, and the case of the unknown man was sent to a long box, but from time to time attempts were still made to understand this mystery....

However, those policemen who found the corpses never mentioned one interesting detail to anyone. In the second room, the phrases "MY BROTHER IS DEAD" and "ALEXEY, WHERE ARE YOU?" were written in red paint all over the walls.

In his passport, this unknown man's name was listed as Sergei...

The public has not learned and will never learn about this incident...