Bad Animals

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"Bad Animals"

Out here on the frontline

Our territory is nighttime

- Heart

Everyone in their outdoor cell had gone quiet, sitting there fatalistically waiting to die, by the time the door was unlocked and a Russian guard ordered them all out. When none of them moved immediately, he cocked his gun, the sound echoing on the stone walls, and shouted the command again.

That got them up and on their feet. Sluggishly, though, their bodies and minds equally frozen.

They followed the guard down the cement stairs and into the enclosed courtyard, snow falling all around them.

"This is it, American," Antonov said. "I hope you're ready."

Hopper was ready to die. He deserved it. The way he saw it, death had been following him, stalking him, since Vietnam, and its poisonous finger had touched too many other people while Jim Hopper somehow evaded the end that was due him. Time to pay the piper now. Well, Hopper would pay him gladly, if it meant the safety of the people he loved from the dark shadow that hovered over him.

They stopped in front of the metal door, and Antonov crossed himself, kissing the pendant around his neck. Hopper hoped it did him some good.

Staring at the door, Hopper could feel his muscles tense. Ready as he was to die, he intended to go down fighting, whatever there was to fight.

Then the guard crossed in front of them, to a metal gate being opened by another guard, and he turned to stare at them, asking in Russian what they were all waiting for. Hopper and Antonov exchanged surprised looks, but followed as they were ordered.

The guard was lighting a cigarette as Hopper passed him, and he was tempted to stop and ask for one. He was going to die, what would it hurt? Then he stepped into the room and stopped short, certain that somehow he must be dreaming. In front of him was a table absolutely groaning with food. So much food. Elaborate food. Meat. The smell of it was so intoxicating it was practically nauseating.

"Am I dreaming, American? Or is this real?" Antonov started to laugh. He and the others hastily took their places at the table, reaching greedily for whatever was at hand, while Hopper stood and stared at the food, wondering what horrors they were being fattened up for.

After all this time, the sound of people digging in to food, the chewing and the gnawing, put Hopper right off. He'd survived this long on maggots and gruel, he'd keep going a little longer. No sense weighing himself down, making himself sluggish, with a meal his body wasn't going to be able to digest. Instead of the food, he reached instead for the bottle of vodka from the center of the table, taking a large swig and feeling the burn of it all the way down to his toes.

The temptation to get blind drunk was overwhelming, but he knew better. Enough to sharpen, not enough to dull. He poured some into one of the little silver cups and carefully capped the bottle so he couldn't overdo it.

He heard the Russian word for American down the table, and saw Antonov talking with one of the other prisoners.

"Isn't that right, Cursed One?" Antonov called to him in English. "You have lost your spirit to live."

Hopper drained the vodka out of one of the cup. "Yeah. Yeah, something like that." He dropped the cup, deliberately overplaying the alcohol's effects on him, and reached down to pick it up, falling to the floor, concealing the bottle in his coat as he did so. The others laughed, which was fine with him. Let him play the buffoon one last time.

One of the prisoners, the one next to Antonov, was talking. Hopper suspected from the few Russian words he could pick out that it was the story of what was about to happen to them. A monster. Not of this world. He retook his seat and grabbed another bottle of vodka from the table.

He took another drink, slowly, savoring it, allowing himself only so much. Behind him, all the men were making an agreement, putting their fists together in the middle of the table. Fools. Hopper grinned. "Let me guess. This ... vir, it's about nine feet tall? Thin, white skin? No face? No eyes?"

Antonov translated, and the prisoner next to him turned to stare at Hopper, nodding slowly. "How do you know this?" he asked in Russian.

"Because I've seen one." Goddamned Upside Down. All the way over here in Russia, it was still the big bad wolf. "And I've fought one. And all of your theories about it, they're all wrong. You know why they feed captive predators live prey? Because if they don't, the predator gets bored and it stops eating." Antonov was translating as he spoke, and the other prisoners had stopped eating. It was very quiet in the room. "It needs the thrill of the hunt. We're not here to train this monster with swords and axes; we're here to entertain it. And this food ..." He reached for a walnut off the tray in front of him. "This food isn't to make us strong. It's to, uh, make us plump." Picking up a small metal axe, he brought it down suddenly on the walnut, smashing it. "So we're full of all the nutrients and protein that a growing monster might need. So eat up, boys. Enjoy. This is your last meal." He chewed the walnut slowly, enjoying the taste.

Everyone else seemed to have lost their appetite.


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