Shadows of JiangXi

[Kriss92]

Alexander was exhausted... Running through the night had taken the last from him, and every time the radiation meter bleeped, there was something agressive around. Alex's night vision goggles had about 15% battery power left, and his arm was still hurting like nothing he had ever experienced before. But he had finally reached a city, the city of New HangZhou, at least that's what the sign said.

"I wonder how much ammo i have left after the trip" Alex stopped in a half-collapsed parking lot to count the AK-74 he had left "okay, one mag full, and 1, 2,3... 20 bullets in the other one, that's all i have left?' he said to himself in a worrying voice

He went deeper into the parking lot, hoping to find something useful, but all he found was two more screeching zombies, so Alex ran out.

There was a museum two blocks away from the parking lot, Alexander found it and went in. Some old maps of the Sol System and other un-usable stuff was in the first room, so Alex went further. He continued walking around until he noticed something he had read about. It was an 850 year old army car. The radiation meter started bleeping as Alex got closer to the car.

"That's the ГАЗ 46! Oh my, this thing is in a beautiful condition, just radiated a bit, i might even be able to use it... just have to find something for it to run on.. I guess i wont find the Unleaded 95 octane petrol they used in the old days, but I should be able to find something that can be used as an alternative fuel" Alexander thought while walking around the car.

"There must be something else that burns as good as petrol... Alcohol! Right! I saw a bar right outside the museum, let's see if some alcohol is still there" Alex thought and ran out from the museum

He went into the bar, the floor was making strange sounds as Alex walked towards the kitchen. After 20 minutes of seeking, he found a box of a very old and strong Russian vodka.

"This is a very good product nowdays, too bad i have to burn it.." he thought while dragging the box with his left arm.

The box had 20 l vodka in it, Alex put 18 of them in the fuel tank of the car, the rest two he put into the passenger compartment, sat down behind the wheel, and opened a bottle.

"This should take some of the pain away, also, nuclear reactor disaster victims were given vodka to drink too, so i suppose this should protect me from radiation too, a bit" Alex said to himself and drank a bit, almost spitting it all out instantly, but he managed to get it down, then Alexander opened the engine compartment "Everything is in place, i just have to cut some holes in the air filter and regulate some carburetor screws, hoping that the valves don't burn out when I try to start it" Alexander thought and drank some more of that 70% vodka, and started to feel very dizzy after.

He sat down at the driver's seat again, drank some more, and suddenly felt very sleepy, and calm, the pain was nearly gone, and he was warm.

"it's almost like i could... sleep, but first, i have to take the Battery out and put it under the seat, maybe it warms up a little from my body heat" After putting the battery under his seat, he pushed the ak-74 rifle closer to him, sat back in the seat, and thought "15 minutes, i need... just 15 minutes..." and, while pushing the rifle as close to his chest as possible, he fell asleep.

4 hours later he woke up, feeling much better, so he took the accumulator battery, opened it and saw that there was less than 50% electrolite left in it, so he put some vodka in it, closed the battery, put it in place, and went back to the driver's seat.

"Please, oh, please, start..." Alex thought and turned the ignition key. The starter was turning the engine, but it wasn't going to start. "Spark plugs! I should clean them!" Alexander thought, found the spark plug instrument, got them out, cleaned, and put them back in. "Okay, now you have to start... The spark plugs are clean, you have electricity there, please, don't fail me" he thought, and tried to start it again. Nothing, again, so he opened the engine compartment, put some vodka into the carburetor, checked the rubber seals everywhere, everything was fine, so Alex went back and tried to start it the 3rd time. "You were made for war, the vodka cannot damage your rubber seals because they were made 3 times larger than they should be, I don't know what else could've gone wrong, so please, start now."

He turned the ignition key, at first, nothing happen, but then, one by one, the spark plugs started to fire, and the engine came back to life! A horrible cloud of blue smoke came out of the exhaust, almost suffocating Alex, but he was fine, and he had found a car, which doubled Alexander Vorobiev's chances of survival!

"Have to warm up the engine a bit, it hasn't worked for a long time, good thing i checked the oils, and everything. I just have to figure out a way to shift gears with my left hand, damn the old manual gearboxes." Alex thought while sitting in the car, smiling...