– Hey! Need help?
The answer was complete silence. I waited, but nothing happened.
“Your friend, whom I nailed, just doesn’t need any more help,” a woman’s voice finally came from somewhere above. – If you want to die next to him, get up. There was an air of confidence in her voice. She even broke her voice a little to sound more serious.
– I don’t know who you are talking about … My name is Artem. Are you okay? – I tried to sound as harmless as possible in intonation. “I can leave if you want, I don’t want trouble.” – I added and started to rise in order to really leave this place, but after a long pause, the woman upstairs answered again:
– My name is Ira … – she said, and then asked an unexpected question. – What were you doing before the epidemic?
– Signalman. Built cell towers.
“Infection, it would be better if you were a doctor,” she muttered quietly.
My anxiety intensified. All this was somehow strange, but I decided to keep the conversation going a little more and asked:
– Are you local?
– From "Oplot"
– What's this?
“And where did this one come from?” This is one of the survivors' camps, not far from here, in the industrial zone…
“If you’re hurt, I can go there and bring…”
– No, stop! she interrupted me, a little frightened. “Stay here…” the voice trailed off as the words progressed.
"So is there anything I can do to help?" I asked for the second time.
“Yes… I don’t know. Go up to the third floor, it's hard for me to speak. And put your hands up so I can see them.
I hesitated, but my conscience did not allow me to leave a person in trouble, so I began to slowly climb up. A couple of times I stopped and looked around, wondering if I was being smart. The times are now when life is worth little, and it needs to be protected more than ever. I got up and stood at the doorway, behind which Irina was supposed to be. I did not go in right away, but at first I quickly looked into the room and immediately removed my head. At a cursory glance, the room seemed empty except for an old stepladder to the left, and a stack of boxes of tiles in the middle of the room, behind which Irina hid, looking at the passage through the front sight of a rifle.
"Put your weapons away, I'm not armed!" – I leaned against the wall at the doorway and tried to take such a position that, in case of emergency, I could quickly escape.