The Task Is To Survive

I lay on the hot asphalt, my cheek pressed against the wheel of a blazing minibus. The stench of burning rubber was strong, my right hand was swollen, and my palm was sore from numerous cuts. But the foul smell, the heat radiating from above, my bloody fists, and the shard of glass lodged in my right palm were bearable. Much worse was the occasional drip of molten plastic from somewhere above, directly onto my back, each time causing me to wince in pain. I thought with frustration that my brand-new jacket seemed to have completely burned through. Any more, and my thin white shirt would also burn through, and hot plastic would drip directly onto my living skin. It was becoming increasingly difficult to bear with each passing minute, but I couldn't move—death hung right over the road. "Is my back burning?" I asked the elderly man lying next to me on the asphalt. The pensioner, without turning his head, glanced sideways and answered with his lips alone: – There's no flame in sight. But your clothes are smoking slightly. So it wasn't burning, just smoldering. That was good. I immediately felt a surge of strength and, clenching my teeth, steeled myself for enduring it. I glanced at my neighbor, who was also having a hard time—the pensioner's left arm looked unnaturally twisted at the elbow, like a dislocation or even a fracture. The wound was clearly causing the old man pain, but he endured it and didn't lose his head from the pain. "We need to get away from the burning car. I'm afraid its gas tank might explode," my fellow sufferer whispered. "Crawl away, of course..." I grumbled, looking at the charred corpses lying everywhere on the asphalt. "Just move and you'll be just like the rest of them." "We'll have to take a risk, otherwise it's death," the old man whispered, barely perceptibly, turning his head to the side, millimeter by millimeter. "It seems their ship has started moving. Yes, that's right! It's heading off to the right. In a minute or two, it'll be hidden from us by the tall hotel building. This is our chance, lad." From where I was standing, the wheel and the burning hulk of the minibus blocked my view of the damned alien craft, but I trusted my fellow sufferer. Besides, I couldn't bear the plastic congealing on my clothes any longer. Another burning drop just landed on my back, making me clench my teeth until they crunched. I needed to change seats immediately, otherwise I simply wouldn't be able to withstand this torture. I turned my head and scanned the road. The minibus had been blown up in the town of Shchyolkovo, near Moscow, at the very beginning of a bridge over the Klyazma River. Where was there to run? All that was nearby were the mangled carcasses of cars and corpses lying on the asphalt. Trading one flimsy shelter for another, exactly the same, was simply not an option. The bridge's railings were thin, offering no shelter from a ruthless and highly accurate shooter. In fact, this stretch of road couldn't yet be called a bridge. There was no high cliff, no empty space beneath the roadway, much less water below. It was simply a fenced-off stretch of highway, which today had become a death trap for countless people. "Ready? Let's go!" the pensioner shouted, jumping up and running straight down the road toward the river. Still undecided about where to get away from the burning minibus, I also rose. I quickly looked around and decided to run behind that gray Volkswagen lying on its side. I had already taken the first step when suddenly the body of an old man who had run about ten meters away was torn to pieces. Burning fragments of body and spray of blood flew in all directions, and a severed foot landed on the road next to me. I fell hard onto the asphalt and rolled under the underbody of the minibus. My heart pounded. I almost died! Just half a second, and I would have jumped out from behind the burning minibus, right into the alien bullets. But why bullets? Maybe the enemy was firing some kind of beam or energy pulse. All I could see was that the unknown shooter didn't miss, and every shot meant someone's death. I feel sorry for the pensioner; he was a good man. He was the first to get his bearings in that morning's nightmare and tackled me, completely crazed with fear, thereby saving my life. With annoyance and shame, I belatedly realized that in all that time we'd been lying side by side on the hot asphalt, I hadn't bothered to ask the old man's name. A powerful heat radiated from above, the car's body hissing and crackling. I couldn't help but roast alive here! I couldn't help but imagine myself a goose being baked in an oven. It became difficult to breathe, and I had to unbutton my scorched jacket and loosen my shirt collar. My tie, which even in calmer times felt like a nasty noose, flew off into thin air. I was breathing heavily and rapidly. The heat was difficult to bear, but not impossible, but I was terribly thirsty. While I was lying next to the minibus, I felt no thirst at all, as I had far more serious reasons to worry: the scorching asphalt, the flames all around me, the burning bodies, and the plastic dripping down my back. Now that I'd escaped the threat of instant death, I began to feel the rough, dry sensation in my tongue and the nasty, metallic, bitter taste in my mouth that I couldn't shake. I also had a severe headache, and my temples felt like they were being squeezed by a metal hoop. All of this combined strongly resembled the symptoms of smoke inhalation. Perhaps my poor health was now my number one concern. Of course, there was still the threat of the gas tank exploding. But I reasoned, correctly, that everything that could explode had already exploded in the past few hours. Beneath the car, I calmed down a bit, pulled out a piece of shrapnel stuck in my palm, and, in a calmer environment, began to consider what kind of nightmare was unfolding around me.