... in which Bassoon futilely attempts to restore law and order, but only manages to quit smoking.
Something cold trickled down his face. Blood? Bassoon barely opened his eyes. No, just tiny snowflakes melting on his skin. The Rosgvardia officer tried to stand up and immediately involuntarily groaned in pain. His left arm had been shot through in two places, but the bone seemed intact. Luckily, when he fell, he landed on his arm with his full weight, crushing the blood vessels; otherwise, who knows what kind of blood loss there might have been.
Bassoon stood up. He was still near the wrecked traffic police car. The guys inside it were much less fortunate. Each of them had been shot directly in the face at least five times. Trying not to look at the dead cops, he reached through the broken window and pulled out a first-aid kit from under the rear window. Leaning against and almost half-sitting on the hood, the Rosgvardia officer rolled up his bloodstained sleeve and began slowly bandaging his arm, although his numb fingers didn't obey him well. Only when he finished did he look around. The small space between the hospital grounds and the surrounding houses was littered with human bodies. Already partially covered with snow, they resembled bizarre mounds scattered across some fantastical swamp. Here and there, one could notice detached body parts lying separately. Perhaps, seeing such a scene suddenly, someone might think that it was created by a wild beast—or even several wild beasts. But Bassoon clearly remembered how people who were supposed to be rescued suddenly turned and started tearing apart their own relatives; how his colleagues, called upon to maintain public order, opened fire on the crowd.
"What was that? Mass hysteria?" The Rosgvardia officer picked up his automatic rifle from the ground and glanced once more at the traffic police officers, riddled with bullets. "Yeah, no armor would save you from this," he thought, and suddenly remembered Vityunya, always hurrying home. He had been hit in the chest; maybe he was still alive? Carefully stepping over the bodies and peering at their strange poses, Bassoon reached the place where his partner had fallen. He lay on his back, his head thrown onto some man, apparently shot by the same burst. His unblinking blue eyes, now looking dull gray, stared somewhere into the sky. Bullets that hit Vityunya had become stuck in his bulletproof vest, but then they literally broke him in half, running over him with a car wheel. Bassoon couldn't resist and bent down to close the young man's eyelids, but Vityunya unexpectedly twitched and grabbed the Rosgvardia officer by the sleeve.
"Alive or something?" Bassoon was stunned and tried to lift his comrade, but the latter showed no intention of standing up. Instead, Vityunya clung to Bassoon with cold fingers and dragged him down. His expressionless face twisted into a frightening grimace, his jaw unnaturally far down, stretching his menacingly bared mouth. It seemed to defy all human anatomy: Vityunya's neck, slightly extended, leaned forward, and his teeth-chattering head tried to bite Bassoon, but the latter, keeping his balance, broke free and stepped back.
Like a snake, twisting and curling its broken spine, Vityunya crawled toward him on his hands. "Damn! What's happening to all of them?" Keeping his eyes fixed on his comrade-turned-monster, the Rosgvardia officer took the automatic rifle off his shoulder and racked the bolt. He took a few more steps backward, nearly tripping over some corpse, but suddenly felt it grab his leg. Stunned for a moment, Bassoon almost automatically struck the attacker with the butt of his rifle, delivering an additional kick. "Looks like I'll have to shoot after all," thought the Rosgvardia officer, staring at his colleague's deathly face and vainly trying to find any signs of humanity in it. Finally, he aimed the weapon at the approaching mouth and fired a short burst. Vityunya's head instantly turned into a bloody mess. He staggered, but suddenly, faster than a cockroach frightened by bright light, scurried with his limbs.
The snow-covered area around came to life. People who had lain motionless a second ago began convulsing and, staggering, rose to their feet. Realizing that the odds were not in his favor, Bassoon retreated behind the destroyed bus. The saving apartment buildings were very close—just a couple of courtyards away, and beyond them was the avenue. "But who knows how fast these creatures can run," the special forces operative frantically thought, seeing that the crowd was closing in, cutting off his escape routes.
"Yeah, you've done your job, Bassoon..." he sadly thought, already preparing to mindlessly empty a magazine into the approaching corpses, but then noticed the wet asphalt beneath his feet, shimmering with rainbow colors. At first, he didn't believe it right away, even ran his hand over it and sniffed the liquid. Indeed—it was gasoline. Bassoon turned around. The side of the bus, which was supposed to transport hostages, was completely riddled with bullets. Several shots had also hit the fuel tank, piercing it through and turning it into a sieve. The Rosgvardia officer smirked: "They only explode in Hollywood movies." Now he had about three hundred liters of spilled gasoline underfoot, meaning there was a chance. With difficulty helping himself with his wounded hand, Bassoon climbed onto the roof of the bus.
"It's a pity there's no flare or tracer rounds," he mentally lamented, searching his pockets and glancing at the approaching figures, tightly pressed together and swaying like waves of a dead sea of humans.
Finally, the special forces operative found a lifesaving lighter hidden inside a half-empty pack of cigarettes. He pulled off his glove, sighed with relief, carefully lit the fabric fingers soaked in gasoline, and, looking once more at the advancing crowd, threw it down. An orange flame erupted around the bus. Human figures, seemingly ignoring it, quickly caught fire. Before they could fully ignite, they began falling to the ground. The front rows collapsed, hindering those behind them from moving forward. Synthetic clothing quickly caught fire, turning their owners into moving torches. Within minutes, the entire area around turned into a blazing hell.
Standing on top of his improvised fortress, Bassoon calmly watched what was happening. The acrid smoke from burning gasoline and roasting human bodies unpleasantly irritated his nose and eyes, but the Rosgvardia officer didn't even try to shield himself from it. Right now, he felt unusually calm, experiencing an amazing sense of relief he had never felt before. Bassoon pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, which had so unexpectedly saved his life, looked at it thoughtfully, then crumpled the cardboard box with his fingers and tossed it into the fire. "It's high time to quit smoking."