Flights of Angels (Exit Unicorns Series) (57 page)

In Russia, however, there was no line between the here and there, between nightmare and waking. There was no way to tell when one had gone through the glass, for there was no glass, no partition between the creatures of the night and the realities of the day.

A close packed line of ravens sat on the ruins of some long dead peasant’s hut by the track they trod. The ravens were silent in the grey gloom of the day, huddled close for warmth, beady eyes intent upon the ragged line of humanity that filed toward and past them.

As they approached, the string of birds broke apart croaking into the twilight, an omen that shivered in a man’s spine. It was as though a voice, old and inhuman, had spoken aloud on the cold air and imbued it with the portents of tragedy on its way, drawn fast and light across the snow and tundra, but coming with merciless intent.

An involuntary shudder rippled through his body.

“What is it?” Vanya asked, trudging beside him.

“Nothing,” Jamie replied. “Goose just walked across my grave is all.”

Vanya raised his eyebrows at him in puzzlement. “I do not understand this, Yasha.”

They were nearing the camp gates and Jamie felt an odd relief. He would be glad to be in out of this day with its strange forebodings.

“It’s just a way of saying the day feels eerie and haunted. The weather and the light are giving me chills up my backbone.”

“Ah,” Vanya smiled. “This I understand. But it is to be expected, for there are many ghosts here, so many that we breathe them in each day. You can feel them in the forest, but where they speak loudest, where they are thickest is up there.” Vanya nodded his head toward the old bell tower that loomed over the camp, a huge, ugly Gothic structure that was the stuff of nightmares, even without its particular history. There, at the height of the purges, people had been led up the long hill in their underwear, for no camp uniform was to be wasted on a corpse, and shot at the top of the stairs to the tower’s cellar. The corpses would pile one upon the next, removed when the pile got too deep. No one in the camp ventured near the tower unless expressly ordered to, and even then, they travelled the pathway there with dread and slow feet.

“Shura is here because of a ghost.”

“What?” Jamie asked, startled out of his grim musings by Vanya’s words. Shura had never been forthcoming about how he had wound up in the camp. Jamie had suspected there was a story there worth hearing, and that it contained something dark that Shura was still haunted by. However, he had not thought a literal ghost was at the core of it. His face must have shown a hint of skepticism, for Vanya eyed him seriously and said, “You maybe don’t believe in ghosts? Once you hear Shura’s story you will believe in them. You ask him to tell the story tonight. Maybe for you he will.”

“Why would he tell it for me?”

Vanya laughed. “Sometimes I am thinking you are blind, Yasha. Many people would happily do whatever you might think to ask of them. It’s only that you never seem to ask.”

It was a night for ghostly tales
. The wind had risen to a wail through the trees and it shoved through the tower, making the ancient bell echo with a strange metallic whine. Beyond that lay the dark, looming presence of the forest, the trees soughing eerily. There would be a storm before morning. He could taste it. But inside the hut it was warm, the potbellied stove glowing with heat. Nikolai sat next to it and Violet knelt at his feet, massaging the old man’s hands. Nikolai’s hands were horribly crabbed, and it was apparent that all the fingers on both hands had been broken—and badly—at some point. The harsh winters without adequate protection had done their share as well. Violet gave his hands a thorough check each and every night unless she was dropping from exhaustion, and then Nikolai wouldn’t allow it.

They made a beautiful picture.Violet’s copper hair floated in a halo around her face, the fire’s glow burnishing it a bronzed gold. Nikolai leaned back against his bunk, eyes drowsing with the pure pleasure of having the stiffness rubbed from his hands, and from the compassionate touch of another human being.

When Jamie made his request of Shura, the small Georgian had looked at him long and hard before answering. In the end, he had acquiesced in a manner that told Jamie it was not a story to be shared lightly.

Shura now took his seat nearest the fire, as was his privilege as the evening’s storyteller. He took his feet from his boots and stretched them toward the heat. The stink of wet, scorched wool soon permeated the air. Normally voluble to the point that everyone in his vicinity wanted to suffocate him, tonight Shura seemed reluctant to begin. Jamie poured him a small glass of the peppered vodka he had been given in exchange for fixing an ancient transistor radio.

Shura took a long sip of the vodka and looked at the faces that surrounded him. He drew in a heavy breath and began.

“I was in the Merchant Marine and the ship I was on was called the
Krasny Bopoh
. I was junior to the ship’s doctor, a glorified sort of nurse.”

“
The Red Raven
?” Jamie said, thinking it was one of the odder names he had heard for a ship. It caused a ripple of unease, the ravens sweeping silent across the field coming into his mind’s eye. In Scandinavian folklore, ravens were thought to be the souls of the murdered, and in Germany the souls of the damned.

“Yes, it was a bad name for a ship, but the ship itself was ordinary enough. We sailed the commercial lanes all around the globe. I loved the life on board. I was kept busy enough, but rarely had to deal with a true emergency, though that changed near the end of my time aboard it. We mostly shipped coal to Japan, but plenty went to other countries. We picked up other cargoes to bring home, sometimes grain, electronic goods, sometimes other things that a man did not look at too closely. On this particular trip, we were coming back from a supply run to Cuba and we got caught in a terrible storm just north of the Faroe Islands. It was autumn and the seas were getting rough and cold anyway, but this storm was like nothing I had ever experienced before—snow and hail, and a wind that felt like Thor himself was howling down our necks. We put up near the northernmost Island and tried to weather it out. But we were driven onto some rocks and sustained enough damage that we needed assistance.

“The Captain decided he had to go ashore to find help, or at least try to contact someone to let them know we were having trouble. He took one man with him, Vanko. The rest of us were to stay behind and wait.

“When we awoke the next morning a heavy fog had set in. I’ve never seen another like it. It was an entity unto itself, so heavy and with such a presence—not a good one, something malevolent, spine prickling. I swear you could feel something hiding in that fog, waiting. The afternoon came and went and it became clear the Captain was not returning. We could not raise him on the radio either. We knew we had to send a scouting party ashore. I volunteered to go because staying on the ship in that fog was making me crazy.

“The entire island was blanketed with the fog and it muffled everything. I cannot explain how spooky it was scrambling over those rocks onto the land, wondering where the village was and why we couldn’t even get static on the radio from our Captain. It’s amazing that none of us drowned that day, as the fog made the land indistinguishable from the sea. Nothing felt solid, not even the rocks. The island was very hilly, and the cliffs suicidal. We were fortunate not to lose anyone, though later we thought it might have been a blessing to simply fall off a hill to certain death.

“It was late, near nightfall, when we came across the hut. There was just one wee light, but the fog was starting to clear off and it seemed as bright as a bonfire on a hilltop, we were that relieved to see it. It was a fisherman’s hut, but no one in our crew spoke the Faroese dialect so communication was limited.

“Vanko was there, sitting in a corner, staring off into space as though he saw something the rest of us could not. We gathered that the fisherman had found him lying amongst the rocks on the shore when he had been down to check if the storm was abating. As best we could determine, Vanko had been in this state since the fisherman found him, almost catatonic, but able to move if guided. Of the Captain, however, there was no sign.”

Shura paused and took a breath, and Jamie felt a shiver of prescience pass down his spine.

“We found the Captain on our way back to the ship. He was lying on the rocks where we had tied up the rowboat that brought us to shore. Understand, there is no way we could have missed him even in the fog, so we knew he could not have been there when we arrived. His body…well, it is best to say little, only that sailors usually have strong stomachs and there were many puking their guts out on that shore. I do not know what manner of beast does such things, but I do not care to find out either.

“There was nothing to do but head back to the ship. If Vanko knew what had happened to the Captain, he wasn’t saying, because he was no longer saying anything. We took him back to the ship, along with the Captain’s body in a canvas bag. We had to sail, and hope that the ship would make it to Russia in one piece. We would limp into port, but at least our engineer had managed to effect repairs enough that we were seaworthy. No one wanted to stay on that island. We would rather risk sinking.

“Vanko had always been a very happy sort who could drink most of us under the table. He was Ukrainian and had the prosaic good nature of his race. But after that night on the island, he was changed. It was as though he had brought something back with him, something dark and terrible. He was a big man, used to his meals being regular, but after that night he barely ate, he never slept and he wouldn’t speak about what was ailing him. We gave him medicine and he would fall asleep but wake up screaming and raving. It seemed to do him more harm than good, and after a bit he refused to take anything. He was terrified of falling asleep, said something was waiting for him in his dreams. Three days after we left the islands he was running a terrible fever and raving like a lunatic. I was the one who stayed with him in the infirmary. I could make no sense of anything he said, but I was frightened nevertheless. We had to put him in restraints because we were afraid he would harm himself.

“On the fourth day, somehow he got free. I was out on deck when it happened. He came running like a wildman, his wrists all bloody and raw. I don’t know how he managed to get the restraints off, but it had to have been very painful and difficult. I am sure he must have broken bones doing it.

“I saw his face as he went by but I could not stop him. He was terrified, terrified enough to take his own life. The waters there were very cold. A man might survive five minutes, maybe ten. Even then he would require immediate medical attention. Vanko had no intention of being rescued. He knew sure death lay in those waters and he went in knowing it would mean his life. I will carry that look of his all the way to my grave.

“Things got worse after that. Sailors talk. A ship is a small world, and soon we were hearing stories that had many things in common. The night watch said they often sensed something watching them, something evil they claimed, but when they turned around there was never anyone or anything there. They only knew there was something in the shadows that raised the hair on their necks and terrified them. They were certain it was whatever had killed Vanko, for no one believed that he had taken his own life willingly. Too many of us had witnessed his death.”

Sailors are a superstitious breed but do not frighten easily, which could only mean that something was very wrong aboard the
Krasny Bopoh
.

“We feared the sunset each night. For it was when the shadows swarmed and deepened, that they released whatever it was that laid low during the day.” Shura shuddered in remembrance. “Oh, how we dreaded the night. Two days later, another man threw himself over the side. Same as Vanko, raving, terrified and before we had a chance to tranquilize him, he was gone. We searched the waters but never found his body. The next one though, was different.

“Pavel was a quiet boy, not a terribly good sailor, but he did his work as he was told and didn’t question authority, which was what the Soviet state has always wanted from its sons. We never even knew anything was wrong. He had been on night duty and in the morning the man taking over his rounds found him laid out on the deck in a pool of blood. He had cut his own throat—the knife was still in his hand. He had never said a word about anything bothering him. But when they put his belongings together to send home to his mother, they found his journal. It was as if some force had come back with Vanko off that island and was driving us mad one by one, forcing us to kill ourselves.

“Things got worse on the ship after Pavel’s death. Everyone was certain he would be next. We were only a day out from Arkhangelsk and everyone seemed to feel if we could make it into port, we could rid ourselves of this curse.

“Once we were on land for a few days, it seemed that we had half imagined it. How could there really be a ghost aboard ship that was driving men insane? The truth was we had little choice about getting back onto the ship. It was go back to sea or starve. Still, there were a few men who didn’t show up when it was time to sail. I went back because I had a young wife and son to support, so what could I do?”

This was news. Shura had never mentioned a family. The surprise in the room must have been apparent for Shura smiled a little, though it was not an expression of happiness.

“It was another life.” He took a slug of the vodka, stretched his legs further toward the fire, and continued with his tale.

“We were five days out to sea when it happened. As if the thing,” his mouth curled as though he would spit on the memory, “had waited until we could no longer turn around and run back to port. One of the junior officers killed the cook and then took his own life, and we knew then it wasn’t over, that the thing would not be satisfied until we were all dead.

“We had to go back to port since a murder had taken place. It took five days to get back and we knew we were all going to be in trouble for bringing the ship in without completing our run. Mass panic took over, as though we were losing our collective minds. I tried to rationalize it, tried to tell myself that we’d all ingested something that was causing a terrible hallucination. Before the boat even turned back for Arkhangelsk, I felt it—on deck, in the hold, it didn’t matter. I could feel eyes watching me, waiting for something, an opportunity to strike. I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat. When I did manage to fall asleep, I had terrible dreams, and woke sweating and screaming. I wasn’t alone. Two-thirds of the ship was the same way. Later, those of us who survived asked ourselves if we had indeed experienced a mass hallucination, if there was a mold on the ship that could cause such a thing. As human beings we have to seek those answers to keep our sanity. When it was happening there was no explaining or rationalizing it. We were too terrified, too exhausted. And then one night, I saw it standing on the deck. It wasn’t anything solid, but I saw it nonetheless. And I knew it was looking straight at me.”

The fire had died back some, the stove no longer glowing red. The wind outside had risen to a terrible screech, and Jamie could feel gusts of cold air coming through the chinks in the hut. He put more wood in the fire, building it back up to a blaze. But the chill they all felt was more than just the weather. Violet was huddled up next to Nikolai, her small face pale, and Vanya, who had heard the tale before, looked as spooked as if he himself were witnessing the events firsthand.

“What did it look like?” Vanya asked, tone half eager, half horrified.

“Like a man, yet not a man—something awful that wasn’t one thing or another, but some abomination in between. There is no way to say how it was—like a terrible dark mist yet more substantial than that. Capable, I was certain, of choking the life from me should it get its miserable hands about my throat. It was more how it felt, as if it were wrapping something dreadful around you, insinuating things into your ears, for which there are no words in any language.”

Shura held up his broad hands. “It sounds unbelievable now, but that thing wanted me to kill myself, wanted me dead and it made it next to impossible to resist. I imagined it over and over, just throwing myself into those icy waters. I knew it would never leave me alone until it had taken the breath and blood from me. Death seemed the only release.

“One after another, it took us. It was a waiting game, and we started to envy the men who had already gone into those dark waters. Time had ceased to have meaning, and yet meant everything. Even an hour was an eternity, stretching itself out beyond the horizon. The day was a haven, the night a horrifying dream only dawn could relieve.”

He paused to wet his throat. The only sound was the soft crackle and hiss of the fire and the occasional rasp of Nikolai’s breathing. The rest of them were holding their collective breath, waiting for Shura to resume his chilling narrative.

“There is little more to tell, my friends, only that three more of us died before we made port. I was not one of them, why, I cannot say. But it was a fight, as though God and the Devil were warring over my soul that entire time. Mostly I felt like the Devil was winning. In the end, I walked off the ship which means God must have triumphed.”

“You are a believer?” Violet asked. It had been asked in innocence, but it was a loaded question. A belief in the State was one thing, belief in God quite another in the Soviet Union.

“Yes, I am a believer in all sorts of things, not all of them good, or things I wish to have knowledge of—but once you have seen and felt such things, you have no choice but to understand there is much in this world that is not easily explained. I begged God to deliver me during those days and nights, and He did. I would be an ungrateful fool to not believe in Him after that.”

“How did all this lead to you being sent here?” Jamie asked, moving the conversation quickly off dangerous shoals. He did not wish for Shura to compromise himself.

“I set fire to the ship,” Shura said, a distant look on his face. “I had help. Those of us who walked off that boat in Arkhangelsk knew it had to be destroyed. There was no other way to rid ourselves of whatever was on it. And the company would have kept using it, kept finding crews who did not know the story and sending them out to sea to certain death.

“We tugged it out into the mouth of the river where it flows into the White Sea and soaked it with gasoline—every inch of it, for no one wanted to take the chance of the ship being salvaged. Then we sat on the tug and drank ourselves senseless. I waited to get drunk until I knew nothing came off the ship. I knew whatever it was Vanko had brought aboard, went up in the flames or down into the water.”

“How can you be certain?” Vanya, always the devil’s advocate, asked.

Shura fixed him with his dark eyes, and there was a look in the depths of them such as Jamie had not seen before.

“Because I heard it scream and then when the flames got higher it stopped. Nine men had died on that ship, and still they kept crews on her. I was one of the few who knew what had happened and it wasn’t good knowledge to possess. They sentenced us all without trial for the burning and sinking of the ship. Here I am as a result, sentenced to twenty years for the destruction of state property, but I consider it a small price to pay to have rid myself and others of that thing on the ship. And now, Yasha Yakovich, you know my story.”

Normally, when the evening’s tale was done, people left chatting quietly amongst themselves, their breath gilded streams on the cold night air. But tonight everyone was silent, as if the spectral hand of Shura’s ghost had touched them all in the telling.

Jamie walked Violet to her hut as he did every night, waiting until she went inside to turn back to his own quarters. He spared a look for the guard tower, seeing the small, bright coal of the guard’s cigarette flare like a star in the wind and cold.

When he returned, the aura of something dark still permeated the hut, despite the sight of Shura in his red long johns, perched on a chair trying to chink the worst of the drafts with moss.

“Thank you for telling your story, Alexsandr Kobashivili,” Jamie said, using Shura’s formal name, to show him due respect for the sharing of his tale. “I will be lucky to sleep tonight.”

Shura shrugged, the dark Georgian eyes still with memory. “It is only one story of many and not so special, Yasha, for we all have souls—or ghosts as you would say. We are all haunted, in one way or another,
da
?”

“
Da
,” Jamie agreed, for he knew the truth of that particular statement all too well.

It was as he fell asleep that a memory came to him, of himself and Andrei telling stories one night as the level in first one vodka bottle and then another slowly fell. They had been telling folk tales from their respective homelands and Andrei had just related a particularly gruesome fairytale that involved a young maiden having her eyes taken out, and then later being cut into little pieces and buried in the forest. When he had commented upon the darkness of the tale, Andrei had merely shrugged.

“It’s a Russian story. They don’t end well. Russians don’t believe in happy endings.”

It was a Russian story he was caught in now, one of those dark fairytales where there was no hero to ride in on a white charger and rescue them all. No, he told himself, on the edge of sleep, if one wanted a hero in a Russian story, then one had to become the bloody hero oneself. Russians might not believe in happy endings, but occasionally Irishmen did.

Chapter Forty-three
March 1974
‘…For Blood and Wine Are Red’

Jamie entered the hut on a swirl of frosted snow
, the heat of the room hitting him in the face as though he had stepped too close to the fire. He breathed it in, allowing his lungs to take the sweet, shocking pain of it. The small kitchen and dining area was empty, but clean. She was here though, he could sense her as one senses a spider ensconced in her web, where no thread moved or breathed without her knowledge. He could smell too the oil she liked to drop into her bath that was scented with black gardenias.