Mutation

November, 1965: Moscow has lost radio contact with a secret research facility in Siberia, and the last broadcast from the facility was "It...is awake.

Fifty years later.

I am sitting in a helicopter flying low over the frozen wastelands, assault rifle in my hands, feeling nervous. My comrades are talking quietly; Korzhev and Tatarov are playing dice. Lukashenko, we all call him just Luka, is handing round a flask of vodka. I glance up to see if Sergeant Misalov is watching before I accept it.

It goes down warm and helps to soothe my nerves as I sit by the open doorway watching the endless pine forests pass by.

We land and the five of us drag our gear out of the chopper before it lifts away and is gone again. We are here, in the middle of nowhere, and it's as cold as hell.

A short trek across the frozen landscape takes us to the old base. We've studied plans and satellite imaging already before leaving Kansk, but still, we don't know what to expect when we get inside.

The buildings, all heavily reinforced concrete, are still intact despite fifty years abandonment. Misalov orders us to stop at the perimeter fence and I scan the site, first with binoculars, then with infra red sensors and geiger counter.

Nothing.

There are a few signs of the life that was here, back in 65. Military vehicles, decayed by time and the elements, stand where they were left all that time ago.

Luka stands next to me. "What do you think, Dobry?"

I pack up the equipment and pick up my rifle again. "Nothing here," I say with a faked smile as I slap him on the shoulder. "We'll be back in Kansk before suppertime."

They told us that they don't know what happened here, but I reckon they do. Rumours and conspiracy theories abound of course, some say it was an alien from a crashed UFO, some say it was a yeti, most of us think it was some secret Soviet experiment that went badly wrong. Whatever it was, I just hope it's not still here.

Misalov orders us to move in and we do just that, Korzhev leading the way as usual, like the mad bastard he is.

The first thing that hits us as we step inside the first building is the smell, like the inside of a grave. And it soon becomes apparent, once we get our lights on, that's exactly what it is.

There are bodies everywhere, all badly decayed, some piled up by the door as though they were trying to escape. Some are broken; limbs torn off, torsos ripped in half. I gag and try not to spew my breakfast over the floor.

We move through the facility silently, through room after room, each one a silent frozen grave.

"Did you hear that?" Tatarov whispers.

"Hear what?" says Luka.

"The only thing I hear is your fat mouth," Korzhev replies, giving Tatarov a shove with the butt of his rifle. "That and your incessant farting, but I can't always tell the difference."

"Fuck you," Tatarov mutters.

I don't say anything. I heard it too but it was just wolves out in the forest.

We come to a door marked "Tunguska Research" and we glance at each other. "Tunguska?" I say aloud, exchanging a glance with Misalov. "That was like, over a hundred years ago." Everyone in Russia knows about Tunguska, the meteor strike that flattened the forest a couple of hundred miles west of where we are. Sarge shrugs and opens the door.

The room is large and there are fewer bodies in here so the smell isn't so bad. It's kitted out like an old fashioned medical facility. There are hospital beds, some still occupied by the corpses of the men that died in them. The extreme cold dry air has almost mummified them.

I go over to one of the beds to inspect a body. The skin is stretched tight over the skeleton, the face in a permanent grin. Odd looking fellow, his teeth are almost pointed, with pronounced canines.

"Hey Dobry, look at this," Luka calls to me from the far end of the room. The wall is stacked high with cages, thirty or more of them and in each one, the remains of a dead animal. Dogs maybe, or wolves. "Looks like they were experimenting on the local wildlife," I say to him. The poor things must have just starved to death after whatever happened to the people who fed them. I glance back at the corpse on the bed and get an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach.

Miskalov is pulling out the contents of every filing cabinet he can find, putting the files into packs to take back for further study. I head over to join him but we're all alerted by a yell from Korzhev. "What the fuck!"

He's standing by what looks like an autopsy table and on it is another corpse, but like nothing I've ever seen in my life before. Even though it's mummified like the others, it's huge. Well over seven feet tall, and must have been an enormous beast when it was alive. For beast it is, not human, despite the humanoid shape. It has the skull of a wolf and the body is still covered in thick fur.

"Let's get out of here," Tatarov says with a trembling voice.

For once, Sarge agrees with him and we head out back the way we came.

The noise comes again as he's about to radio for the chopper. Howling, like wolves, close. Very close. Shapes come bounding towards us out of the snow, fangs bared. I raise my rifle and fire.

On a desk in an office at Kansk Airbase, five files are closed.

Sergeant Boris Miskalov. 

Private Piotr Korzhev. 

Private Dmitri Lukashenko. 

Private Ivan tatarov. 

Private Aleksandr Dobrykin.

Missing, presumed dead.