Chapter 7 Escape from death. First night ( A )

But where to lead a group of girls in the middle of the night? Unless to his home in a rented apartment. It's about a kilometer away from there. But first, it was necessary to make sure that the flying death did not lie in wait at the exit from the shopping center. I turned off the flashlight and went into the utility room to the blinded window. He pushed one strip aside with his hand, slightly opening the slot for inspecting the street, and ...

almost cried out in horror! Literally ten meters from the window, a space hunter was moving silently along the building of the shopping center! I froze, afraid to move. A dark hull floated before my eyes with numerous short thin antennas and incomprehensible blotches, with matte black hemispheres protruding from the side with now motionless turrets...

Death moved in complete silence. And from this piercing silence it became even more frightening. The ship sailed past the window and out of sight. Very carefully, I let go of my hand, closed the blinds, and collapsed exhausted to the floor. I just nearly died! Slightly catching his breath and coming to his senses, he looked around the room and noticed that nearby on the pedestal was a power bank left to be charged - an external battery for phones and tablets. Apparently, one of the sellers left it to charge here in the back room, but left it in the turmoil of yesterday. I don't know when the electricity went out, but maybe there was some kind of charge in the battery. Yes, the light on the power bank was on. And very conveniently, a charging cord suitable for my phone was inserted into it.

As soon as I connected my phone to charging, a sharp call rang. I couldn't help screaming. Yes, nerves, nerves... Zhenya Oparev called. Wow, my neighbor survived all the chaos!

- Vitka, hello! Where are you? I just got from Moscow to our hut. Miraculously passed. Everywhere death and fires. Opened the door to the apartment, you are not. I thought already, the arctic fox has come to you. I saw a missed call from you, but there was no way to answer. But now a message has come that you are online again.

I told a friend that I was in the mall building and waiting for the alien ship to get away. And that three minutes ago, literally from ten steps, he examined him.

- It's a plague! We, too, could not stick out of the office all day, this creature circled around and killed everyone it noticed. Only at night I was able to get out through the underground garage. Well, how do you manage to jump out, blow here to the apartment. Everything is fine here. There is light. Oh, there is even hot water! We live!

"Okay, I'll be there soon," I promised, and hung up.

Looked again at the phone. Quarter past one in the morning, one percent phone charge. For some reason, it amused me that the weather forecast gadget continued to work, as if nothing had happened. In Shchyolkovo now +14 degrees, cloudless, it was expected + 26 in the afternoon, cloudy, no precipitation. Where did the phone get this data from? Nevertheless, the satellites were shot down, they wrote about it in the news. Although ... what's the difference now?

He sat on the floor for a while, collecting his thoughts and strength. I really wanted to sleep, I was attacked by a terrible yawn. Gathering his will into a fist, he resolutely got up and went to the girls waiting for me. All of them had already changed into clothes suitable for the campaign, which was very pleasing. Not all girls could find clothes in small sizes, so many schoolgirls had their sleeves and legs rolled up. But this is nonsense, at my place the girls will be able to hem clothes and fit them to themselves.

It's time to get organized. I asked the wards to line up in height. For some reason, this simplest command took three whole minutes to complete. For the first time I counted my companions. Lined up in front of me were twenty-three girls in camouflage suits in various shades of green, yellow, and brown. Another one, Liza Svyatova, also already dressed in a green camping suit by her friends, was lying on a stretcher.

"It's dangerous to stay in the mall building," I announced to the crowd. "Soon, marauders will come here looking for all sorts of prey.

- People like us? one of the girls quipped at the wrong time.

I abruptly turned around and walked over to a short, grinning piglet. She seemed scared of me and stopped smiling. However, I responded to her comment.

"We are forced to behave this way, but we do not harm others. However, people are different. When there is no power and order, there is always chaos, violence and blood. Some people simply go berserk with impunity, and among these there are outright scoundrels. What can we hide, these sadistic rapists will consider your group of helpless girls as a rare prey with which they will want to have fun with their heart's content. So now we will try to leave the mall. We need to get back to the river, ford it and get to a safe place as quickly as possible.

– Does such a safe place exist for us, except for our boarding school? asked Liza, sitting down on the stretcher.

I thoughtfully scratched the bridge of my nose and tried to answer the question in detail.

- There are various social centers, military units, police stations and other places where people are obliged to protect you on duty. It's just that it's still impossible to understand which of the above works and where it is located. So now I will take you to my apartment. There are two separate rooms. One is mine, another guy lives in the other, but he is quite peaceful. There we will all wait out the night, sleep and rest, and then, with a fresh mind, we will decide what to do next. Are there any objections?

Nobody had any objections. I chose the four tallest and strongest girls and instructed each of them to carry a tent. Another tent undertook to carry himself. He ordered four more schoolgirls to carry a stretcher with an injured friend, but freed them from the obligation to carry other burdens and personal belongings. The two smallest girls - Galya Gromova and Lena Starostina, who turned out to be even shorter - were instructed to walk ahead and behind the general group and monitor the night sky.

There was no need to look for a triangular spaceship. As soon as we got to the stairs and carefully looked out into the hall, we immediately saw a triangle hovering over the avenue through the glazing of the shopping center. I warned the wards and showed everyone what our deadly enemy looks like. And although some girls answered that they had already seen this flying triangle through the shaded windows of the bus, for the majority the sight of an alien ship turned out to be a curiosity. And while death was hanging right next to the exit from the shopping center, it was not possible to get out of the building. I had to wait.

In order not to waste time, the girls started making a rigid fixing bandage for Liza Svyatova's broken leg. The process was led by a plump nurse named Mila Stezhkova. It was she who got the doctor's suitcase, and the girl was proud of this appointment. At the request of Mila, I sawed off the bent parts of two hockey sticks with a tourist folding saw, getting two straight sticks. Then I was asked to move away so as not to embarrass the wounded. And only fifteen minutes later they were allowed to return, saying that everything was ready.

Lisa was lying on a stretcher in a camouflage suit, her right leg looked twice as thick as her left because of the many bandages, and the ends of too long hockey sticks protruded from her trousers.

- In a good way, you need a full-fledged gypsum. But for the first time it will do, "Mila said with undisguised pride in her work.

- Fine. But what about the second girl whose arm is broken? I asked.

- Sveta didn't have a fracture, just a severe bruise. The shoulder is all blue, but my friend can move her arm and fingers. In ten days it will pass without a trace at all, Mila assured me.

Okay, one less problem. I returned to the observation post from which I was viewing the alien ship. The black triangle still hovered above the road. I wonder how long he is going to hang here? In the afternoon, he often hung for a long time just near this point. What if he is going to behave the same way at night? Maybe then it would be better to go out through the fire exit on the back of the building, move further away and then wade the river there? The option was extremely dangerous - if the hunter moves from his point, he will spot our group in an open area and shoot everyone to the last. But staying here in the building was also dangerous. Therefore, I thought intensely and tried to decide on my next steps. But then something happened that I did not expect.

From the direction of the thirty-story high-rise hotel, several bright flashes simultaneously flashed. There were four or five of them on different floors, I could not make out more precisely. Luminous streaks stretched out in the dark sky, and in a second, the fires of explosions bloomed on the armor of the flying hunter! The roar of many hits merged into one big explosion, from which all the glasses in the hall of the shopping center flew out at once. I staggered back around the corner to avoid being caught in a rain of sharp fragments. When the sound of crumbling glass passed, I ventured to look back and managed to notice a spaceship rapidly gaining altitude, leaving from under fire. Another belated shot followed from the side of the hotel, but already inaccurate - a grenade exploded somewhere on the upper floors of our shopping center.

I was shocked by what I saw and at the same time incredibly happy. Our soldiers fired! They are alive and resisting invasion! Moreover, they hit the flying hunter and damaged it! I got up and walked cautiously towards the stairs. The triangular hunter has already disappeared into the starry sky. The road was no longer blocked, and the moment to break out of the building was just perfect.

- Girls, let's go! Faster! Run down the stairs to the exit!

A minute later, our group left the dangerous supermarket and, looking around and not noticing the danger, ran back to the wrecked bus and the river ford. While the girls were transporting a stretcher with an injured friend across the river, I ran to the long-seen traffic police car. I was interested in weapons - in the conditions of chaos, I wanted to have such an argument in possible skirmishes with any aggressive strangers. The corpse of the inspector lay in the same place near the car, but for some reason the pistol holster turned out to be empty - either the pistol flew off somewhere to the side, or someone more agile ahead of me.

I was about to leave, but I noticed another body inside the car itself. Burnt and torn to shreds, but you could still see the police uniform with the epaulettes of a senior sergeant on it. I moved closer and looked inside. Expectations were not deceived - a holster with a pistol hung on the side of the headless inspector, mutilated by the explosion. Overcoming my nausea, I climbed inside the warped machine. The inside stank of burnt rubber and rotten blood. Glancing warily at the headless body and as if fearing that the dead policeman would suddenly come to life, I pulled out a weapon from the holster and put it in my pocket. Then he ran back to the others.

The girls had already crossed the river and were waiting for me on the opposite bank. I crossed the ford, it was very shallow, just above the knees in the deepest place.

- We don't stop! Climb up the slope and then run to those tall houses on the right!