Lost To The Zone

17 - Aleksandra

Aleksandra was almost certain that it was over when she felt the grip of one of the Bloodsuckers on her arm, strong enough for her to be unable to wriggle out of it again. It didn't mean that she was giving up, but she just assumed that she wasn't going to make it out of there alive, which only meant that she was fine taking some slightly riskier strategies than usual.

She took the knife from her belt quickly and turned around, stabbing the Bloodsucker with as much force as she could. She could hear it roaring behind her, screeching in pain. The others were quickly closing in on her. Aleksandra cursed under her breath and pulled the knife out of its chest again, turning back and running into the little hallway with about ten Bloodsuckers following her.

She needed to buy a little time... and if she could she needed to blow the entire thing up. But there was no way for her to do that, so she would just have to find a different way in the meantime...

Aleksandra didn't use a lot of grenades normally. She usually had two or three on her at any time, just in case. But most of the time, she didn't really need them. Right now was probably a great time to use one. She managed to get one free, just as one of the Bloodsuckers tried to grab her again. She ran up the stairs quickly while trying to pull the pin from the grenade. There was so much adrenaline pumping through her body that her hands were shaky, which didn't make it easier.

Somehow Aleksandra managed it and as she ran up the last few stairs she turned around and through the grenade down behind her. She didn't even check where it had landed, because she had no time for that. She had to leg it out of there, since she had no idea how stable this building was. Sure, it was built during Soviet times and those buildings usually were incredibly stable, but she could never be sure. And if there was one thing she didn't want, it was being stuck down here with all those Bloodsuckers. It seemed like the worst way to die.

Just as she was stumbling out of the basement door and back into the shop, she could hear the grenade exploding at the bottom of the stairs. She didn't have much time to think and she couldn't think with all the noise around her - the explosion, part of the stairs collapsing, the screeching of the bloodsuckers that had been hit. When she opened her eyes again, she saw Pavel and Nikita standing in front of her, looking worried. Both seemed to be injured pretty badly.

"What happened? Are you okay?" Nikita asked her. Aleksandra just shook her head and grabbed their arms.

"No time, let's get out of here!" she yelled and continued running out of the building. She was sure that a lot of the Bloodsuckers were going to file out of the basement pretty soon and they'd be out for blood. With all of them injured the way they were, it wasn't a great idea to try and fight them all.

"Where are we going?" Pavel asked, when she kept running once they had gotten out of the petrol station.

"As far away as possible!" Aleksandra replied, waving at them so they'd follow her. She had no time to explain to them that there were about a hundred Bloodsuckers all crammed in the basement back there and that they had all woken up at the same time and were probably going to come for them.

They had to get out of that place before they were killed in some horrific way. Aleksandra had seen some people that had been killed by Bloodsuckers and it was never a pretty affair. If she had to rank all the ways someone could die in the Zone from the most awful to the least awful getting eaten by a Bloodsucker was probably pretty high up on that list. Not quite the top, but close to it.

She didn't stop running until she was far, far away from the petrol station. It was only then that she slowed down to catch her breath. Her legs felt like they were going to give out from underneath her any minute and her lungs were burning. She coughed as she took in big breaths of air. Beside her both Nikita and Pavel came to a halt. They looked pale and out of breath.