Necromancer: Undead Lives Matter

CHAPTER 1

Russian Federation, Vladivostok — May 5, 2021

No. Still wrong.

Who the hell needs details about internships and information about a diploma they haven't even received yet? And this template is a mess.

I need something better. Something comprehensive.

“Search for resume sample.”

There.

This one looks decent. A little cluttered, maybe, but workable. Highlight. Ctrl+C. Close the old document.

Could come in handy.

Save. My Documents. Resume 1.

New document.

Ctrl+V.

Photo in the upper-right corner.

And… we're off.

One. Full name: Anatoly Maksimovich Dushny.

Two. Date of birth: November 5, 1997.

Nationality: People's Republic of China—

“Damn it.”

Backspace.

Russian Federation.

Much better.

Resume objective: Seeking a sales consultant position at Katani clothing store.

Marital status: Single. No children.

Education: Tula State Medical University—

No.

They won't know what that is.

Backspace.

Pacific State Medical University, September 1, 2015–present.

Specialty: General Medicine.

That should explain enough.

Work experience: Vladivostok State Healthcare Institution, “Ambulance Station.” July 2019 to April 2021.

And that's where things get interesting.

I got fired recently. Apparently, ambulance paramedic salaries suddenly became worth fighting over, which was a hell of a surprise to everyone.

Now I'm sitting here, burning through the last scraps of what used to be a comfortable life while hunting for whatever job will take me.

Time to improve myself. Time to move forward. Yeah. Sure.

Languages: Russian—fluent. English—with a dictionary. Fluent in the language of the choking bug—

I stopped.

“Perfect.”

I laughed under my breath.

No.

Backspace.

My surname, of course, had to make things more complicated.

It had never bothered me before. Then the word dushevny—“stuffy,” roughly speaking—started making the rounds on the Russian internet, and suddenly everyone remembered my last name.

Dushny.

What can you do?

Still better than Ivanov or Petrov.

And besides, I'm anything but stuffy.

Student. Doctor. Generally great guy.

I paused over the next section.

Certificates and additional courses...

Irrelevant.

Well, not entirely. I had certificates. Plenty of them. But would a clothing and shoe salesman care about specialized medical training?

Probably not.

As the old meme went: My certificates are very specific. I'm afraid you wouldn't understand.

“Sick bastard...”

I stared at the screen.

Then another thought occurred to me.

“Why the hell don't I just go to Pal Petrovich?”

At least I could apply for a nursing position. Maybe he'd put in a good word for me.

I'd already done my internship there. I was going to see him eventually anyway.

Still, formalities were formalities.

I'd make two resumes. One for Katani. The other for Pal Petrovich—with every internship, every certificate, every damn qualification I'd accumulated over the years. He knew me well enough. But paperwork was paperwork.

Personal qualities: Communication skills. Organization. Strong work ethic. Initiative. Desire for professional development. Attentiveness. Responsibility. Fast learner.

Source: www.resume-iskatel.ru/primery-resume/obrazets1.

I stared at the last line.

“Ugh.”

Backspace.

Delete the source. Nobody needed to know I'd stolen the damn thing from the internet.

The room door creaked open.

“Hello, Dushny!”

I turned.

Kirich.

Kirill Kirillovich Kirillov. Former classmate.

Two years ago, fate had separated us during our studies.

Apparently, fate hadn't been nearly as ambitious when it came to our dorm room.

“Hei, Kirich,” I turned back toward him. “How'd your grades go?”

Kirich's face twisted.

“Manana Bidzhonovna gave me hell,” he complained. “Failed me. Damn it!”

“You should've played less Dota.”

“Very funny.”

“When's the retake?”

Kirich suddenly grinned. Not the grin of a man who had failed an exam. The grin of a man who had already found a way around it.

“Don't worry,” he said. “I've got a method.”

That got my attention.

“I practically have a pass already.”

Oh? Now I wanted to hear this.

“I'll buy Passishvili wine. Georgian.” Kirich nodded solemnly, as if presenting a military strategy. “Fifteen hundred a bottle. They say it's the best value for the money.”

Ah. No.

Not my method.

If I had fifteen hundred rubles lying around for wine, I wouldn't be sitting here desperately searching for a job. Looks like I'll have to study physical therapy instead.

Technically, I didn't care much about it. It wasn't going to affect pathan anyway. But apparently our wonderful education system wanted me to know exactly how to bend and move people who had somehow survived strokes or major surgery.

“What are you doing?”

Kirich had crossed the room. He leaned over our ancient, half-dead laptop and squinted at the screen.

“Looking for a job?” he asked.

Captain Obvious had arrived.

“Imagine that.”

Kirich had been working as a waiter at the restaurant on the third floor of the Smorodinki shopping center for some time now. The pay was decent. The schedule, however, was brutal. It was going to chew through his study time sooner or later.

“Then come work with us,” he said.

I glanced at him.

“What?”

“Come on. Two-week internship. Easy work.” He shrugged. “Only problem is, you're on your feet the entire shift.”

I looked at my half-finished resume. Then at Kirich.

Something about the offer felt wrong. Not dangerous, not yet. Just... wrong and I couldn't explain why.

“Your studies are going to suffer. Exams, you know. All that stuff…”

I shook my head. “Not an option.”

“Okay, okay. I did my part and offered,” Kirill said with a shrug.

Then his expression brightened.

“Hey, check out what I bought!”

He rummaged through his bag and pulled out a red T-shirt. An eagle was printed across the front, along with some stylized Gothic lettering.

Before I could say anything, Kirich yanked off his old shirt, revealing the beginnings of a respectable beer belly.

He pulled the new one over his head, walked to the closet, and turned toward the mirror.

“Well?” he asked, flexing his arms. “Pretty cool, right?”

The shirt itself wasn't bad. The inscription was another matter.

Under the eagle, in bronze-colored letters, were three very familiar initials:

NSDAP.

“Kirich…”

I grabbed the shirt.

“You should—”

I didn't bother finishing. I pulled it off him and shoved it back into the bag.

Kirich stared at me, completely baffled.

“What?” he said. “What's wrong with it? It's a nice shirt!”

“You seriously don't know what NSDAP means?”

He frowned.

“Something Roman? SPQR or something?”

“Like in Rome 2: Total War,” he added, apparently pleased with the explanation.

I stared at him.

“What do you think about fascists?”

“Not really a fan,” he admitted.

“Then take that shirt off and go punch the salesman.”

Kirich blinked. I grinned.

“NSDAP was the Nazi Party. Hitler, Goebbels, Himmler, and all the rest of that lovely crowd.”

“Ahhh.”

Recognition finally dawned on his face.

“Wait. The fascists used an eagle too?”

“Imagine that.”

“What a bastard!” Kirich exploded. “I paid five hundred rubles for this!”

He snatched the shirt off.

“That's it. I'm going back to the market.”

Kirich was actually a great guy. Friendly, easygoing, and a pretty damn good neighbor. His only real problem was a catastrophic shortage of general knowledge.

Stalin, for example, was apparently nothing more than “some Georgian guy who ran the Gulag and was General Secretary.”

Well…

At least he knew who the Nazis were now.

“Wait,” I called after him.

Kirich had already reached the door.

“You know Viktor Alexandrov?”

“Sure.”

“Have you seen him lately?”

Kirich shook his head.

“Haven't seen him for a while. Why?”

“He's not answering his phone.”

“So?”

“We're working on a project together.” I sighed. “Oncology. If we pass it, we're basically set.”

Kirich gave me a disapproving look.

“You really know how to pick your subjects.”

He had apparently decided to share some career advice.

“I'm going into phthisiology myself. And I'm telling everyone—phthisiology is where it's at!”

He wasn't entirely wrong.

Training as a tuberculosis specialist wasn't especially difficult, but there were plenty of graduates competing for those positions. Which meant that after graduation, you could end up being sent somewhere in the middle of nowhere just to find work.

Pathology was different. Not exactly everyone's dream career, so competition was lower. Of course, you still had to work your ass off.

I pulled out my phone and called Vitka again.

Nothing.

Four days. I hadn't heard a word from him in four days.

Maybe he'd disappeared. Or gone on a bender.

We were volunteering at the morgue together, and they'd recently brought in a corpse recovered from a swamp. Maybe the experience had finally broken him and he'd decided to drown himself in vodka. Except I'd never known Vitka as much of a drinker.

Still…

I'd ask the department head where he was. Find out if anyone knew what had happened to him.

But first, priorities.

I needed to finish my resume.

Maybe if I polished it enough, G****e or Microsoft would hire me on the spot.

CEO position, naturally.