“...no, I am not Igor Volke, but his assit… his assistant, -tant. But his assistant will forward the call to me if mr. Volke has no time or interest...”
A slender man in white underwear was standing before a tall mirror in a spartan hotel room and moving his mouth, observing the movement of his lips and muscles, his facial expression. He smiled to his reflection, then rubbed his itchy beard, unshaven for a week. Then his forehead. He winked at his reflection. Big green eyes, long nose.
“Hello…, no it passed very well. Arriving here was an adventure of its own. Very had to find the place. No, I am not Igor Volke, and no, I am not here as his representative. Me and Igor, we have an understanding. Me and his assistant have an understanding that if Igor has no time or interest, then I come… No, I have never not gone. I have heard the most inebriated drunkards and fools and even gotten drunk with them.”
The man smiled to his reflection once more and then stepped away from the mirror. “I just do not give up.” He said to himself.
He stepped away from the mirror and looked at the bed with the shirt and suit set ready. He walk across the wooden floor covered with animal furs and stood before a writing desk half under the lone window of the room. The leather satchel was already sitting on it, along with a stainless steel American-made pistol of WW1 era design, a couple of magazines and a small box with equipment to clean, adjust and repair the weapon. Beside those were a note pad, a mechanical pencil and a Stetson hat. There was but one thing he had left behind in his office hundreds of miles away, a razor. And the darkness outside the window also claimed that it was too late try and find a villager who still had blood instead of vodka in his veins and a steady hand alongside it.
He had just about finished dressing, hidden the gun and the magazines under his suit jacket and ready to go and explore the town when he heard a knock on the door. Behind the door there was a Village Hag of indeterminate age, whose looks he would likely forget as soon as she departed.
“I mean, investigator-sir, mister Volke, would you come at one. There is something going on outside which should not be of any surprise to a scientific man of your caliber!”
“I am sorry ma'am, but I am not...”
“Come now!” the old woman started to putter along the hallway while talking to herself, she then stopped at the corner. “Are you coming already?”
The man sighed, grabbed is notepad and Stetson, then his coat and having locked the door to his room, followed the old lady to the foyer of the hotel. His gaze focused on the taxidermied hunting animals used for decorations. He then shook himself loose from it and followed the old lady out. To the left, following a cracked paved sidewalk, away from the three story hotel built out of massive logs, walking by one of the only two notable stone buildings in this town. According to the sign on the wall along with a large photo of times passed, this one was supposedly the town hall. At least that’s what he managed to discern. It was dark. There were poles for street lighting, but there were no lights. The only source of light were the lit windows along the buildings on the street, giving off a warm glow of incandescent electric light.
The woman dragged her until the nearest intersection, where he could see an old phone booth. This was also the only phone booth he had seen in the town thus far. The kind one could see everywhere in big Russian cities during the Soviet era. However this booth did not seem to be connected to anything. There were old posts for phone lines, but there was no wire going to the booth. The only thing notable was a ball of wire perched on top of the booth. This could have only been the creation of chance, as he could discern no practical use for it.
“Come-come now!” The Village Hag had reach far ahead of him. “What are you looking at the Institute for!? We must hasten!”
The man started to walk again, seeing now how almost all the people of the village were standing in two rows surrounding something, as if looking at the ground. Children were running back and forth along the line, as if looking for something. They were running despite their parents forbidding them and the old folks grumbling and trying to stop them, but their movements being too slow and stiff to achieve anything. There was more light here though, probably because the villages were passing around lit torches.
“What are you looking at?” the man asked the people, himself now as well eyeing the broken pavement.
He noticed it then. Water flowing diagonally across the street as a shallow river maybe 2 and a half meters wide. Water flowing as if it had some sort of intelligence, avoiding the potholes, climbing low walls and sneaking in between fence slats.
“Ah, comrade Volke, very good of you to join us!”
Toomas was joined by an older man of above average height, wide gray beard and a massive beer belly. A dirty shirt barely managed to reach around it with but few buttons which could be fastened. He reached out his hand.
“We called you out for a wholly different matter, but this one here...” he extended his arms, “...is also pretty interesting, is it not?”
“Yes, hello.”
He shook the bearded man’s hand. And then noticed that he still may have had this night’s pea soup in his beard, as well as this night’s alcohol on his breath. As well as his nose and face red from the drink.
“I mean, I must say, I am not Igor Volke.”
“Oh?” the big man asked, getting annoyed, the villagers as well started talking among themselves. “But who the hell are you then? We sent for Igor Volke!”
“I am the one who comes if Volke has no time or cannot understand what’s going on.”
“Oh!” despite the large man’s face changing in understanding, he also still looked in this torch light as if he was still processing things. “So you are like Volke’s boss, an expert Volke consults when something truly strange is going on?”
“I can say that I have seen my share of weird in this world.” The young man smiled.
“Very good!” The man said with a glad note. “Well good, then there’s no problem! I was afraid that Volke would think our concerns a joke and would send us some lowly shitbag. But how should we call you then?”
“Toomas would be nice...” the young man said.
“Mr. Toomas?” the man asked. “Very good! What do you think of this here?” He pointed at the ground, spreading his arms as far apart as he could. “Have you ever seen something like this in your work?”
“Not like this.” Toomas said, taking off his Stetson.
“Yeah.” the big man said, dragging the syllables. “It started a few hours ago. It flows relatively straight, between buildings and plots of land. Even under the town water tower, avoiding its metal support structure. Bypassing potholes. Up the low walls and along the corners of higher walls. The most important aspect is that it flows uphill.”
“Uphill?” Toomas asked.
“Yes. It is flowing along an East-West axis, towards East. The towns slopes in the Westernly direction.” The big man scratched his bald head. “What do you think, huh? Where do you think it might flow?”
“I think we should look at the map to figure that out.” Toomas said. “Much better question is where it is flowing from.”
“From where?” the fat man asked thoughtfully. “But that’s a wonderful question! Come with me!”
He addressed somebody from the crowd.
“Hey, Maali, go and bring those... town and district maps! Bring them behind the town house to the Chaika. And please switch on the street lights above that location!”
“Why do you have it turned off anyway?” Toomas asked.
“Our town has been taken over by some Officials from the North!” He said with a rumbling displeased voice. “Did they not tell you? They have surrounded the area and set up their mobile base and barracks on the experimental fields of Agroprom. They are also engaging in some scientific experiments with the radio tower and this eats up all the electricity. They come and regularly measure the temperature in the cooling pool while complaining that people use too much power. And nobody tells me anything!”
“But diesel generators?” Toomas questioned.
““Energy is energy!” is what they say, but damned if anybody knows what they mean by it. In any case there is no hope that they would allow any kind of diesel generators here. Even when an incandescent bulb breaks, they want the remains returned. I have no idea who the hell allowed them here and for how much longer are they planning to stay.”
They walked back along the street, to an inner courtyard next to a building ravaged by fires and storms.
“You’re looking at the old Alexeyev place, huh?” the big man asked. Toomas was starting to think he may have been the mayor of the town.
“That building had a bomb dropped on it in the Great Patriotic War and later it collapsed altogether. Stone house and nobody has had neither time, tools nor materials to get it rebuilt. People used to live here quite recently, only 15 years ago. And then one night under some light snow, the roof fell in.”
In the courtyard, there stood a dusty GAZ-13 Chaika factory limo of indeterminate color. Above it, the lone streetlight was on, on the hood of the car, the maps had been rolled and folded open. The Village Hag who had been sent to bring him, was already standing there.
“That river flows along this trail here.”
The fat man took the belt off his pants and laid it on the map of the town.
“See? Directly in the East-West axis. Avoiding the buildings. A total mystery.”
“There’s a circular road around the town?” Toomas asked. “And this here is the Western tower of the Institute?”
“Yes, but what’s that got to do with anything?” The mayor asked in a loud voice.
“Just that it is interesting that the tower of some random building is at the center of circular road which surrounds the town, that’s it.”
Toomas looked at the map and the belt on it. “How do you know the water is coming from outside of town?”
“The village kids, they ran up and down the moving water until the edge of the circle road in either direction.” The large man said.
“And outside the circle road? What lies beyond the circle road? On either side? Do you have a map about the surrounding areas as well?”
“Of course we do.”
The large man rolled up the map and lifted it onto the roof of the car, revealing the maps below it.
“The military maps have all been destroyed and the Northern boys have collected everything else, so the only ones that remain are what I have drawn myself.” The large man explained with some pride in his voice.
“To the east lie the Unknown Lands. We call it that because there’s several forgotten cemeteries out there. It looks like a rich pasture but it is full of open graves, destroyed gravestones and rusty iron crosses. How far it extends, we do not know, but several kids have died due to being impaled on iron crosses. The few that did not die of injuries, died of blood poisoning. And the only doctor our town has is a blind dead drunk psychiatrist in his haunted castle. To the North from here are the Irradiated Woods, nobody goes there, as there is still something radioactive hidden in there. To the West are the Deathly Fields where everything that grows is so poisonous, it’s deadly. Beyond that lies the Forbidden Forest. It is Forbidden because deeper in the woods it becomes a minefield and then an old abandoned nuclear missile base.”
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
“And this?” Toomas pointed to the marked area near the Forbidden Forest. “What’s this?”
“That’s… nothing really… a children’s tale I once marked on the map in error.”
“I would like to hear that tale.” Toomas said. “No matter how unbelievable or irrelevant, it may well be important.”
“So you really are that… espert in your field after all. And bigger than Volke.”
The nameless mayor kept looking at Toomas, fidgeting with the corner of the map, it seemed that when nervous he had trouble properly pronouncing the x- sound.
“Very well then. The young people always go where they are told not to go to. Our town is nothing special in this regard. That’s also how the Forbidden Forest has gotten its name. At first it was forbidden because once long ago there was a leak of rocket fuel in the nearby base when they were in the process of pumping the fuels from above ground tanks into underground ones. All contaminated earth was simply thrown under the forest. Later it was discovered that the military had mined the surrounding perimeter.”
“Come summertime, the young adults had a habit of escaping their parents’ bans, commands and everything else by going into the forest. They had a bonfire spot near the border of the base, where they would drink and party, at least until the sentries came to scare people off with assault rifle fire. These youngsters, some of them adults by now, told me back then that this narrow patch of Forbidden Forest between the fields and the base contains some of the most strange locations. Later I have heard their kids and the kids now tell similar fairy tales.”
“Strangest locations?” Toomas asked.
“Well, they claim there are...” The mayor raised his hand, as if to count out on his fingers. “...at least one abandoned church, a half-sunken shed, bomb craters, a collapsed cave mouth, and the most famous of them, which you already noted, the Forest Lake.”
“Forest Lake, so a body of water?”
“Well, more like a pond, rather than a body of water. According to the stories maybe 20 meters wide, not much more. Forest Lake is a name the children gave it, so it would sound mysterious… Wait! You’re not thinking…!”
“Put the belt on it.” Toomas said.
“You son of a bitch! Exactly on the line! But how would the water be coming from the Forest Lake?”
“I don’t know. But we should look into that before the night is over.” Toomas replied.
“You don’t mean...” the mayor was baffled for a moment. “Go into the Forbidden Forest…? You want to go into the Forbidden Forest on a moonlit night? Are you insane? Nobody who values their life dares to go into the forest, even during the day, let alone at night!”
“We have to go there.” Toomas insisted. “If we want to make sense of things. By morning it is already too late.”
“Really? Into the Foridden Forest? At night?” The mayor repeated, looking at the map. “Then we need a couple of brave men to go with us. And we have to ask Sille if she can show us on the map or draw where the minefields are. When she was younger she went to the forest with the boys. Some of the young people still go, we might ask them as well. Sille however went too far one time and stepped on a mine. She lost both of her legs. It’s a miracle she is still alive.”
“Oh, that dangerous?” Toomas asked.
“The word ‘dangerous’ cannot adequately describe what goes on in there.” The mayor said. “But I believe we can avoid going that far. Especially if somebody more intelligent comes along.”
“Why can’t we just follow the water?” Toomas asked. “Is there something impassable in between?”
“The Death Field is. Esperts from the North in official clothing visit it periodically to salt it. When growing potatoes did not work out, then poisonous weeds started to grow there, even their smell, with long enough exposure… very bad. Walking from the side of the road to the middle of the field is enough to make a health man cough blood. Walking those few kilometers to the forest through the tall grass with torches in the middle of the night would be death, plain and simple. And then we would have to walk a similar distance in the forest, to get there. And nobody has any idea what lies in between. Forest creatures, patients escaped from Luiga, something ever worse? I don’t even want to know. It would be much easier to start up the Willy’s and travel here, the dacha district near the base. There’s a well-traveled footpath, taking one straight to all the notable places in the forest. Starting with the Forest Lake.”
The man rolled up his maps and set them aside on the top of the car, where the old lady then grabbed them and then departed towards the stone building.
“You go and find those couple of braver men.” Toomas said. “I think it is better if I walk the path the water has taken myself, with my own boots and eyes. From here up until the circle road in the west. If it is suitable for you, let us meet on the road.”
“So you are not coming to the bar?” the mayor asked. “I recommend you to come a long and take a beer or a few to sure up your bravery. It will be of use, I assure you. Your presence might also convince more the village men to come along.”
“How many do we need?” Toomas asked. “Is there really something to be afraid of?”
“We need more than we have. If you really knew, you would not ask. But as you wish, I will meet you where the road and the flowing water meet.”
*
There was a thick fog on the circle road. Fog so thick that he could not even see the sides of the road when walking in the center of it. Same with seeing along the road, he could see no more than 5, maybe ten meters ahead. The only place where the flows of fog slightly retreated was around this strange river. No, he could only hope that this was the sole path the water had taken, that he had not made any mistakes. And, of course that the mayor and his party did not accidentally run him over.
According to the maps the mayor had laid out, the water was flowing exactly perpendicular to the town, at it’s widest point. Maybe just slightly to the side, so that the path would be straightest and with the least amount of corners. Or was it the Institute, this water (which was completely unlike water) tried to avoid? He had used a stick of chalk to draw a map of the town onto the intersection. It was crude, but it was enough to make some conclusions.
Soon Toomas heard a characteristic rumbling of an engine he had not heard for many years. A moment later, three pairs of light emerged from the fog, attached to the nose of a yellow UAZ once used by the Soviet militsiya. There were no police beacons on the roof any more but there were still faded blue lines on the sides of the vehicle.
“Whoa! Finally found you!” the mayor exclaimed, having rolled down his window. “This nightly fog is… I don’t have words strong enough to curse it. I think you can fit beside me.”
Toomas walked around the vehicle and got into the front passenger seat.
“I managed to find a few brave men.” The mayor waved towards the rear seat as best he could in the small cabin of the vehicle. “Village drunkard and a village fighter.”
“So they’re both drunkards and fighters?” Toomas asked. “Hi, guys.”
“Oh! As if you have already met!” the mayor exclaimed.
“I hope you can use a gun. It may not be of much use, but makes one feel safer.”
“I can, and I already have one.” Toomas said, revealing the butt of the gun from under his suit jacket.
“Very good! How was your walk? Did you find anything?”
“One might say so. On this road, that trail of water is the only place where the fog lets up. Have no idea, why. It almost looks like the flow of water is dragging along the flow of the fog and making it disappear somewhere at the water tower. During my entire my walk there, the fog was all around me, with no more visibility than maybe 5 meters. Except for the trail of water. Also, according to the map, the water is not traveling exactly straight. For some strange reason, it is avoiding the Institute, it bends around it and travels between it and the old hospital building. Even more, it tries to… the Substation, is it? On the other side of the town?”
The mayor nodded.
“Yes, it is avoiding the Substation and the cooling pond. Especially the building by the tower. This makes me think that maybe that liquid is somehow magnetic. Because there is no way it is water.”
“What is it then if not water?” One of the guys from the back seat asked.
“On one hand, there is something oily about it. On the other, it is too thick to be regular water. It is way thicker than bog water, which it should be.”
“Maybe it is about the field it flows through?” The other guy said. “Maybe that ground makes it thick. Who knows, what these rocket fuels are made of and what comes of them when they degrade in the nature for a few decades.”
“It is actually pretty clear what they are made of and what should happen when the get into nature.” Toomas replied. “But what’s happening here, is very different.”
“Different how?” The same guy asked. It seemed he was the fighter, because the other guy had fallen asleep.
“And we’re here!” The mayor said.
He parked the car on the side of the road. The lights illuminated a wide paved road into the distance. As the engine was turned off, so were the lights.
The people existed the car. Toomas remained at the nose of the car, trying his best to attempt to discern things in the dark, ahead of his eyes getting used to the darkness. It took him about the same time to get used to the darkness and easily see the road, the forest and the realm of shadows in the distance, as it did for the mayor and the others to find the flashlights and torches.
“Does this road here reach the missile base?” Toomas asked.
“It reaches several bases.” The mayor replied, extending a powerful flashlight towards him.
“I will take the torch myself. Living fire scares forest creatures better than the electric flashlight, even one as powerful as this is. But yes, to several bases. In addition to the missile base, there is also one subterranean base, but nobody knows what it’s used for. The Russian military left, at least the general opinion is that they did, but something is still going on in there. People who have gone to explore it have failed to return. For a time it was a pretty good source of used cars and parts. Up until the day those who usually brought out the cars did not return. Now, nobody wants to go there. This path to the forest is the final limit.”
“The Moon is out.” One of the men said, looking over his shoulder towards the base.
As he said it, the clouds uncovered the Moon, which seemed to hang directly above the forest and the Underground Base.
“This is not good.” He continued. “We should not have come today.”
He then blew into the lit torch, hoping to ignite the alcohol in his breath but it did not work.
“What’s so bad about a moonlit night?” Toomas asked. “In most mythologies it is a good thing.”
“Not here. All bad things come to pass when the Moon is out. This is especially true about the Blue Moon.”
“It is very good that now is not Blue Moon.” The drunkard said. “I would be dead already.”
“Stop complaining!” the fighter replied. “In my youth I was in this forest in all kinds of weather. And I am still alive.”
“And that’s why I brought them along.” The mayor explained. “The only ones of everybody present who dared to admit in front of their old fathers, that they have had experience with visiting the Forbidden Forest. If you are ready, let’s go.”
The group started along the narrow hard-packed path into the forest. As soon as they reached the line of trees, the path became wide enough for two cars to drive on it side by side. There were no tree trunks or even young plants on the path, which gave an impression that this really was an old vehicle path and somewhere underneath this grass and dirt there was a hard paved road which no tree could push their roots into.
“Is it possible that a roadway once went to the Forest Lake?” Toomas asked.
“It is possible. However not to the Forest Lake but to the churches and the chapels. And if their existence should prove true then it is possible that there are old farmhouses, a cemetery and a lot more. What’s more suspect is that all of this is forgotten and overgrown with a forest. Makes me think that they have been here abandoned for at least a century.”
“Interesting...” Toomas said to himself. “When’s the last time you saw snow here?”
“Snow? Honestly, I cannot even remember.” The mayor said. “I think during my lifetime there has never been snow here. The most we have seen is frozen over grass in the morning which tends to melt quite quickly.”
“That’s unusual.”
“Not here. But you can ask the old folks in the town, later.”
The narrow beam of the powerful flashlight lit up the forest floor as brightly as the midday Sun. Behind that, the darkness was illuminated by the orange glow of the torches. They did not reach far, but the light they provided allowed one to discern some of the features in the dark. A few dozen steps forward and the flashlight started to blink off.
“This is not possible! I just charged it up! It should last for another three hours!” the mayor said in a bewildered tone.
“Wait.” Toomas took a few steps back, and the flashlight lit up again. “I think there’s some mysterious field here.”
He looked up to see the Moon above the treetops.
“Just switch it off. We can continue in torch light.” The mayor sighed. “As I mentioned, unusual is fairly usual around here.”
Toomas shut off the flashlight and then looked about him. He was alone in the forest. He could no longer see neither torches nor people around him. As if both had been shadows created by the bright beam of the flashlight. An unusual intersection of light beams. He rushed to switch the flashlight back on and as the beam ignited so did he sense the people and the torches around him.
“OK, what the fuck just happened!?” The mayor asked. “You shut off the light and disappeared!”
“Let’s go back!” the town drunk demanded. “Right now!”
“I will not let myself be dissuaded by some electromagnetic anomaly.” Toomas said. “We will proceed. Even if I should lose sight of you in some natural or unnatural fashion, let us meet up by the Forest Lake.”
“Suits me.” The fighter said.
“As you wish.” The mayor also agreed.
The group started to proceed and as soon as Toomas took another step, the flashlight in his hand turned off, leaving him alone in the forest. He stopped. There was not a soul around him, as if his trek from the car had happened only in his mind. Not a single leaf moved, not a single track on the ground did his hand find. Like there had never been people with him. He raised his gaze around the pine trunks surrounding him and reaching towards the sky. The moon was still hanging above them. He sighed and continued onward. The trail in the damp forest continued towards the bushes ahead. The sounds of nature ahead of him seemed to indicate that this body of water in the forest was right before him.
He did not continue along the path which circled around the pond. It was easier and more direct to go through the bushes and shrubbery in front of him. He stepped off the track and towards the sounds of water ahead. But there were other noises, as if somebody or something else was in the bushes with him. Perhaps a large forest creature of some sort. He crouched down and sneaked closer under the bushes. It was no animal. It was people. The strangest people he had ever laid his eyes on.
Naked men and women who shined in moonlight as if their bodies were covered in quicksilver were working on the side of the lake. Curves on bodies of young women and the muscles on the men, all movement and dynamics were exemplified by the moonlight. The people were collecting water made of similar silvery light of the Moon and carried it to the side, towards a ditch of some kind, where they poured the water out. The water level inside the pond had decreased by quite a margin already. This decrease was also revealing something in the middle of the lake, something that was not illuminated by the Moon and was thus very hard to see.
He spent several minutes watching the whole process, until a nighttime cloud started to float in front of the Moon again. But then, he noticed that it was not moonlight that made their bodies silvery and illuminated, it was something else, something inherent to them. The cloud covered the Moon in its entirety and the flashlight on the ground ignited, cutting a bright beam into the darkness, straight through the grass and the bushes as if they weren’t there at all. The people in the lake were startled by this light and faded into silvery smoke, which was indistinguishable from the darkness but few seconds later.
A moment later he heard the yells of the mayor and the others around the lake. They were calling out to him, and now that the flashlight was working again, they rushed towards him along with their torches.
“What happened?” the mayor asked, being the first to reach him. “A cloud covered the moon and the light ignited. I think there’s a connection between the two.”
“You did not see it?” Toomas asked. “What was transpiring on the lake?”
“I did not see anything. I did not even make it to the lake, I was looking for you around it. Exactly what did you see?”
““Maidens bathing in the moonlight.”” Toomas said. “A folk story by Kreutzwald. This would be the most precise explanation to what I saw. I saw…,” he looked at the mayor for a few moments. “...people, made of moonlight, carrying water out of the lake. That’s why this flow of water is leaving the lake, human spirits made of air and moonlight are removing it.”
“Removing it to where?”
“The moonlight and the electric light are somehow connected to the lake, that I understand. Where are the others?”
“Here!” a voice sounded out. Signified by a glow of the torch not far.
“And the other? Where’s the drunkard?” the mayor asked.
At that very moment on the other side of the lake an incredibly bright candle lit up between the trees, illuminating everything around it like a ball lightning or a small sun. Only the trees cut shadows into the brightness. A few moments passed while they stood entranced by the light. And then hellish screams started to emanate, sounds of somebody being burned alive. They could also see a pair of hands swinging wildly in and out of that firestorm of a candle.
They started immediately towards the light, bus despite being already nearby, they were too late. By the time they arrived, the flames were gone and there was only a carbonized smoking mass on the ground emitting the smell of burnt flesh. The mass was vaguely of human shape. Not far on the ground was his torch, still lit.
Tomorrow.” The mayor said with a heavy startle in his voice. “We’re gonna need... everybody.”