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From WikiStory

Unfortunately, the best title I could come up with is "Terror in the Urals" :(

Mikhail Malakyevich was running. He knew he couldn’t stop, because the thing chasing him would never give up. He leapt into the old MiG fighter and started along the runway, wincing as he heard something scratching the fuselage. He didn’t turn round, knowing that he couldn’t bear seeing that thing again. As he left the runway, he heard a thud then a bestial snarl as he gained altitude. Mikhail sat in the cramped cockpit and watched the jagged mountains clear to reveal the Yenisey River, before thinking to himself: “I’m too old for this.” He was thirty-four.

1953, the height of Soviet Russia. Four KGB agents are dispatched to Siberia following reports of a strange creature prowling the mountains. Only one has returned.

“Where is he?” Korolev demanded. As head of the KGB, he hardly had time for facts and figures.

“He’s in room eighteen,” the doctor replied in a harassed tone, “but given his condition, I really don’t think you should…”

“Now you listen to me,” Korolev growled through his teeth, “Malakyevich is a member of the KGB, not some Cossack baby!”

The doctor was shivering.

“Right this way, sir,” he squeaked.

The doctor was a young man named Grigory Mokhov, freshly recruited from Moscow University’s steady flow of eager minds. Now Grigory wished he hadn’t been so eager. He looked at the steel door in front of him. Room eighteen. He crossed himself and turned the handle.

As Korolev entered the room, he wasn’t really sure what to expect. But he certainly didn’t expect padded walls. He stopped on the threshold, stunned for an instant. Then he spotted Malakyevich. The agent was sitting in the corner, his knees drawn up to his chin. The strait jacket was drawn so tight, his shoulders looked hunched and deformed. His pale face contrasted sharply against the huge black bags under his eyes. He was just sitting there, so still he was hardly breathing. The doctor seemed to understand what was going on:

“He’s been like this ever since he got here,” he said matter-of-factly. “We managed to get an MRI scan out of him, though.”

Korolev looked up. “What were the results?”

“Ah…” the doctor continued, “There weren’t any.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Korolev’s lip was trembling.

“It means,” he whispered, “that there is no cerebral activity. His brain is not working. But…” he leaned closer to Korolev, “he’s still alive!”

*     *     *

“The Commander will see you now,” the receptionist beamed.

Mikhail attempted a smile, but the resulting pain meant that instead he nodded politely. He put his hand on the tall mahogany door and pushed it open. It was surprisingly light; Mikhail smiled as he realised how much it reflected Korolev’s personality. The Commander put up a big front, but in reality he was something of a pushover. Mikhail cleared his face of all emotion as he entered.

Korolev’s office was, like its occupant, all over the place. It was a rectangular box, painted beige with a small window. To Mikhail’s left sat Korolev’s desk, with one chair either side of it. At the other end, arranged not against the wall but merely placed where there was room, were four or five filing cabinets. As Mikhail entered he realised that the name ‘filing’ cabinet was probably entirely honorary; they seemed only to be a way of hiding anything Korolev didn’t like. As Mikhail approached Korolev’s desk, he saw what some of the papers there were. They were laminated newspaper articles, all with equally provocative titles:

TERROR IN URALS AS MORE VILLAGERS ARE SLAUGHTERED

CLAWED TERROR STRIKES FEAR INTO URALS

RUSSIA’S EL CHUBACABRA

“What are these?” asked Mikhail, as he sat down.

“Some newspaper articles we intercepted before they went to print,” mumbled Korolev through a cigar, “It’s important no-one outside the mountains knows about this thing.”

Mikhail nodded; he knew all too well that terrified villagers trying to get to safety were assassinated by Soviet security squads.

“Listen, Malakyevich,” Korolev leaned in closer, “I know what that thing is capable of doing. I know what it did to you.”

“With respect, sir, I am better now.”

“I know that,” Korolev shivered a little. He didn’t know how anyone could recover from that sort of damage. “My point is…you know how this beast works. You know its tactics.”

Mikhail’s heart skipped a beat.

“That’s why you need to go back there and dispose of it”

“No.”

“I beg your pardon?” wheezed Korolev.

“I said no.” Mikhail was nearly shouting. “You’re right, sir. I do know how this beast works. It’s terrible. Once you get a look at it, you can’t stop thinking about it. It’s in my dreams; in my thoughts…it’s a living nightmare!”

“Malakyevich!” boomed Korolev, his face turning a deep crimson, “Think of all those people that will be killed if you don’t do your duty!”

“I could be killed!”

Korolev’s face was as hard as rock.

“That’s just your job.”

*     *     *

The old MiG-23 rattled as it started its descent through the clouds. It was the only sound for miles, a lone wasp in a white opaque sea. It spluttered as it passed by jagged, pyramidal mountains, and shook as it approached the runway. The wheels hit the tarmac and, for a moment, it seemed as though the whole plane was about to collapse. It skidded to a halt and the engine was finally put out of its misery as it was turned off.

Suddenly the cockpit was thrown open and a head appeared. It was wearing a traditional Russian shapka and heavy flight goggles. Any part of the face that wasn’t hidden by these cumbersome things was obscured by a thick woollen scarf. As the figure clambered out of the cockpit, it became apparent that it was wearing a long trench coat. The freezing wind whipped the figure’s ankles, causing it to draw its coat closer to its body. It raised a hand to its face and pulled down the scarf.

“I’m too old for this,” mumbled Mikhail Malakyevich.

*     *     *

Grigory Mokhov sat at his desk and poked at his cabbage soup with a spoon. He wasn’t in the mood for food. Not after what he’d seen. He leaned over and picked up Malakyevich’s medical notes. It was still hard to believe:

5:00am No cerebral activity.

5:30am Patient responds to touch. No cerebral activity.

6:00am No change.

6:30am Patient responds to speech. No cerebral activity.

7:00am No change.

7:30am No change.

8:00am Slight activity in medulla oblongata.

8:30am Patient can walk and ingest food.

9:00am Patient shows normal cerebral activity. Unconscious.

9:30am Patient shows signs of complete recovery.

Unbelievable. In four hours he went from brain-dead to fully active. Grigory didn’t understand it. It must have been some sort of radioactive enzyme. He had to tell someone. For all he knew, this man could be the future of the human race. He picked up the phone.

“Hello? Could you get me the British Medical Journal please?”

Grigory put down his soup. All of a sudden there was a crackling noise on the other end the phone. Grigory shrugged: it was probably a crossed wire.

“Hello, this is Doctor Grigory Mokhov from Moscow. I have a patient in here that could revolutionise modern science.”

In a few minutes Grigory had told them everything that had happened that day. The voice on the other end sounded dumbstruck.

“Thank you Dr. Mokhov,” it wheezed, “I think you’ve really given us something here.”

“Hold on,” Grigory had just realised something about that man’s voice, “Do I know you?”

He was met by the monotonous hum of a dialling tone.

Korolev put down the phone. It was a shame; that doctor seemed like such a nice man.

“Oh well,” he mumbled, “Everyone has to die at some point.”

He sighed. This was the cost of keeping Russia safe.

*     *     *

Mikhail brushed the snow off his arm. How many times had he fallen over now? Eight? Maybe nine. He shook his head. Why did he even care? He remembered hearing somewhere that if you were stuck in a blizzard in the Ural Mountains, you could go mad from all the snow. It looked like he was putting that theory to the test.

The sound of a tree branch creaking behind him brought him out of his daydream. He quietly slipped his pistol out of its holster and crept towards the nearest pine tree.

It was an amazing tree; Mikhail had never seen one so big. The lowest branch was about three metres off the ground. It was shaped like a perfect cone, about 20 metres high. If something was hiding in there, he’d never be able to see it. He stood there staring at it for a few minutes, immobilised by thought. On the one hand, he could just shoot blindly into the tree and hope for the best; but then if there was nothing there he would not only have wasted ammunition, but also told the creature exactly where he was. He would have to make a decision fast, or he would catch hypothermia. A branch creaked again. Mikhail had had enough of this game of cat and mouse; he would just fire one warning shot, and then see how it reacted. He raised the pistol and pulled the trigger.

There was the sound of something falling. Mikhail grinned. He’d caught it! Something small and black fell at the base of the tree. Mikhail’s happiness faded; this wasn’t right. He jogged up to the object and knelt down beside it. It was an eagle. He couldn’t believe it. After everything he’d gone through, all he had to show for it was one less bullet and a dead bird of prey.

He looked up in despair and began to pray. He hadn’t prayed since he was eleven. A tear fell from the corner of his eye. He was going to die out here. He might as well make it quick. He started to raise the gun to his head, but something made him stop. There was a shadow moving towards him through the snow. It was growling. Mikhail recognised that growl. It sounded like a cough being played in a loop. It was the creature.

All of a sudden it was visible. Words couldn’t really describe it. It was shaped like a man, with two arms, two legs and a head. Its legs were long and shaped like a dog’s. The arms were human-like. Both arms and legs ended in four ‘fingers,’ each with a short claw. The torso resembled that of an ape. The head, however, was the worst thing.

It was fundamentally human. Most of the facial features were recognisable, but they were hideously distorted. On the right side of the face, the lips continued along the cheek, creating a gaping hole whenever its mouth was open. The eyes were sunken and bloodshot, and the brow heavy. Its ears were missing, and its nose had receded to the bone. Mikhail raised his gun towards it and squeezed the trigger.

Nothing happened. He couldn’t move his hand. He had been standing there for so long; it had become frozen to his pistol. He tried to move the trigger with his other, gloved hand, but the gloves were so big they couldn’t deal with something so small as a pistol mechanism. He glanced upwards. The creature was stalking around him in a way reminiscent of lions in Africa stalking a zebra. Mikhail put the glove in his mouth and started to pull it off. The creature seemed to anticipate what he was doing and began walking towards him. Mikhail’s glove was off. The creature began to run. Mikhail raised the gun and pulled the trigger.

INTERCEPTED TELEGRAM Police have recently found a body in the Ural Mountains that appears to be a hybrid of man and beast. It is apparent that the reason for this mutation is nearby nuclear testing in the Kazakh area of the USSR. More details will follow.

POST MORTEM: MIKHAIL MALAKYEVICH Lt. Col. Mikhail Malakyevich was found in the Ural Mountains five days after leaving Moscow. His body showed traces of radiation. He was killed by hypothermia. Coroners report a death by misadventure.