Suddenly, silence fell. Tree canopy stopped rustling, the birds stopped making sounds, even black flies and other flying insects disappeared into the dark. As if all of nature had frozen with an ominous expectation at the very moment when the round orange fusion-powered furnace descended behind the horizon. As if sunshine was the only element still giving life to the world. The only sustenance that had any effect to the creatures in this world. Everything else was hollow theater, it’s purpose long since lost. Bread had become stone and milk had turned into water, only the sun was of any solace. For now.
Now there was only some pink left in the sky. But it was certain that the next few minutes that too would fade and the natural light of the fall nights would be overpowered by candles in windows and the giant spotlights illuminating the cooling pool of the Substation. Just about the only other place beside the Institute where one could still see electric light.
The girl in black adjusted the strap running over her shoulder and pulled her hair out from under it. She then slowly lifted the camera case at the end of the leather strap. She had come to the Eastern gate of the town to look at the sunset, to even try and take photos of it. There was never enough images of the sunset and of the things happening around that time. There was always something new to notice, both on location when taking photos and afterwards when going over the photos with a magnifying glass.
Today however was special in this regard. Not every day could one see the waters flowing uphill across the town. Self-appointed creek, coming from the depths of the forest and flowing somewhere a man would never want to lay his foot. This was only a singular item of the many peculiar things, as she was now walking back towards the center of the town. Tonight, people did not spend their time under the radio tower by the Substation coolant pool, as they usually did, as they had done since childhood.
Today, the people had gathered on the streets, looking at this strange flow of water with a younger unfamiliar man. The girl in black kept her eyes on that young man. He was certainly no local, at the same time he was also not one of the Officials from the North the town seemed to be filled with these days. The only reason she did not raise her camera to snap a picture of him was knowing that the rolls of film needed to be saved for something far more important. However she also promised herself that should she meet the man again tonight, she would surely take a picture.
She walked across the empty street at the corner of the Institute, looking at the rusting phone booth and the ball of wires on top of it. She raised her camera, still in its case, but then lowered it again. She already had an image of that. Several images of the booth, the fall of wire as well as of the mostly dead part of town behind it.
She felt wind. Probably from the East, from the Unknowable Lands. The gust was so strong that it messed with her hair, and even moved her skirt and long-sleeved shirt. It was somewhat peculiar to feel the wind at all. Only this single gust on this abandoned street. As if something was trying to speak to her in a language unintelligible to her, wishing to talk of the faraway lands and places more mysterious much nearer to her. Wishing to speak but then resentfully stopping, as it found only deaf ears and closed minds.
She stopped. There was large hand-drawn sign on the display window of the store with the words ice cream. The village store had not had ice cream since… She could not even remember since when. Perhaps since she was a little girl and it had been one of her first visits to this town. Back then it had been such a happy and colorful place.
Slowly, she stepped onto the stairs and opened the door to the store filled with warm stale air. She did not look back, only hearing the door close. Under the dusty window, right by the large sign, there was a small table and two chairs, almost invisible in the low light of the night. On one of the chairs there sat a village hag who was staring into space before her and once in a while sipped coffee from a white mug.
At least she assumed it was coffee, going by the color. All stalls and the shelves behind them were empty, except for one where an old radio stood. Based on the layers dust on it, it had been years since it was last moved or even touched. However the chest freezer in the corned seemed to be in perfect working order as it started up with a metallic growl.
“...and I remembered what I told that fucking...” a tall woman emerged from the back room. She stopped at the stalls, noticing now that she and the village hag were not the only people in the store.
The girl in black looked over the lady with a strong build in front of her. She was wearing a blue cardigan and tan dirty overalls on top of that. On top of which a was a brown waistcoat. Some of her curled red hair were covered by a blue flat cap.
“Virve, what are you...” an old voice come from behind the girl.
It seemed that the village hag behind her had awoken from her thoughts and now also noticed the new person in the store.
“What would you like?” Virve asked, scratching her stomach in an unfeminine fashion. “We don’t have any… you came because of the sign didn’t you?”
“The sign says you have ice cream.” The girl said.
She revealed the camera from it’s leather cover and adjusted the aperture and exposure for the twilight.
“Yes, there is ice cream.”
She noticed the girl’s actions.
“Are you taking a photo of me?”
“Yes, I am.” The girl replied. “It is always interesting to photograph interesting people.”
“Well, snap your picture then.” She said in a displeased tone. “Dumpling Eduard spent the past two days drinking and then woke up on top of the trash heap behind the Substation with a splitting headache. And he saw that the Slicked Boys from the North spent the whole day to cart something from the Institute to the Substation.”
“What was it, Virve?” The village hag asked, now invested in the story.
“What was it, what was it,” Virve repeated, now finding a pack of cigarettes. “It was liquid nitrogen. The idiot grabbed two canisters when nobody was looking, burnt the skin off his palms but was still as giddy as a child on his first beer when he brought the ice cream in the morning.”
“What kind of ice cream is it anyway?” the girl in black asked.
“Chocolate-cinnamon. Eduard, that old fuck, probably due to the withdrawal, could not tell the difference between an ancient cocoa powder and cinnamon powder older than the Patriotic War and added both into the mix. He also took away all my milk. Started making waffle cones in the middle of the night! The town has only old people left here, most of whom cannot put together a full set of teeth between them. Who’s gonna eat all this?!”
“Well, Eduard is still young anyways.” The village hag said, limping to the display stalls with her coffee mug. “Can you fill it up and… add a single scoop of ice cream as well?” The hag gave an unreserved toothless smile.
“Hey girl, you want one as well, don’t you?” Virve asked.
“Yes.” She responded.
“Yeah… Dumpling Eduard is still young.” The village hag continued. “he’s only 70 this year. Just a little boy.”
“Seventy years old is just a boy?” Virve asked in surprise as she scooped the ice cream into a cone.
“This costs 10 kroons.” She handed the ice cream to the girl.
The girl in black revealed a crumpled note of unusual size from her pocket and set it on the display stall.
“What’s that?” Virve asked. “This neither a ruble nor a kroon.”
“Oh, I remember this!” The village hag in a purple coat said, inching herself closer. “This good money! A ten mark note payable issued by the State Finance Department. I haven’t seen one in 50 years! This is worth way more than just one ice cream!”
“Okay then.” Virve said in a hesitant tone and accepted the note. “I can understand people paying with pre-war bank notes and both gold and silver rubles, but a war time official note payable is something I’m seeing the first time.”
The girl in black tasted the brown ball on top of the cone and stepped out onto the street even darker than the interior of the store. The group who had been examining the flowing water until recently were now heading South on a side-street like a school of fish, while a fat bearded man everybody called the Mayor kept talking about some map.
“Good evening, Mariann.” A man said, leaning against a dark green car which seemed inordinately long and wide compared to a Russian willys vehicle in front of it.
“Good evening, Jaan.” The girl gave a smile and headed towards him. “Are you ready?”
“I’m ready.” The man said, scratching a graying beard on his face. “But I am still not clear what for. Where did you get the ice cream?”
“Virve’s selling it.” The girl said.
“Then she’ll be selling it for a long time.” The man said. “I guess with help from Boys from the North they finally managed to restart production of liquid nitrogen and dry ice in the Institute basement.”
“That explains a couple of things.” Mariann said, finishing off her ice cream.
“Where are we going then?” The man asked. He walked around the car and opened the driver side door.
“The circular road surrounding the town.” The girl said when sliding onto the soft leather seat. “I have quite a few things to show you.” There was a faint smile on the girl’s face.
The man started the car and after an uncomfortable multi-point turn on a potholed street, they headed towards the Western gate.
“Right from the Western gate, towards the Northern section of the road.” The girl said.
She took the camera case off her shoulder and set it on the seat next to her.
“Nice camera, haven’t seen one like that in a long time.” the man said.
“A Russian Zenit-E.”
“I thought all the young people had abandoned old film cameras for the digital stuff?”
“There’s nothing to do with digital cameras around here.” The girl said. “Electronics do not work in this place as they should. But this...” She contently patted the leather case.
“I have learned one very important think while taking photos of everything: electronics may be wrong, a human eye may be wrong. But silver halide never lies.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jaan asked.
This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
The girl did not respond to that, only gave a mysterious smile. “Maybe someday.”
She glance out of the window, looking at nature passing by. The flawless black tarmac under the car’ wheels letting them know that they had finally made it to the Northern section of the circular road. A section where no local dared to stay for any extended period of time. People spoke of monstrous animals, Officials from the North appearing out of thin air along with their cars, of deafening silence and even ghosts and the sky people.
“Stop the car.” She said. “This is the place.”
The car stopped on the side of the road, its lights illuminating the ebbs of mist on the road. She opened the door and raised half of her body out of the car. She took a deep breath of cool and fresh night air.
“Please turn off the engine and kill the lights.” She said.
She grabbed her camera and leaving the car door wide open, headed towards the mists.
Jaan followed her request and then swiftly followed her, after closing the side door. Despite his best efforts, he still saw her figure disappear between the mists. The last thing he had seen was her relieving the camera of its cover and adjusting the settings.
At the same time he could hear a low rumbling growing louder and closer, as if a car was approaching at high speed. The noise grew louder and louder until it became deafening, however the source nor the direction of the noise was still not revealed. It felt like the noise was coming from all directions around them at once. From the gray mists, the dark forest, and barely visible disused farmlands. But he was certain of one thing though, it was large displacement 8 cylinder overhead valve engine with a carbed intake and fairly aggressive cam profile.
“Mariann! Get off the road!” He shouted.
Before he could reach the girl walking between the flows of mist, the noise suddenly had a direction. He turned around and saw two pairs of bright yet somehow hollow beams of light. A moment later, before he could even react, the pair traveled right by him, on either side of him. He turned around to see a semi-transparent vehicle dodge Mariann with the tires squealing and then disappear into the opaque wall of mist. The next moment they could hear a loud crashing sound and the notes of metal being crushed, torn and bent.
Jaan started running towards the supposed accident site, having forgotten his own car nearby on the side of the road. Soon, the fog in front of him relented and he saw Mariann running in the same direction. A few dozen more seconds later, which felt like eternity, they both stood on the edge of a roadside ditch, trying to spot the wreckage of a vehicle or injured occupants either in the ditch or between the trees.
“Where did the car disappear to?” Jaan asked.
“Only that can disappear which existed in the first place.” Mariann said.
She continued walking and then fell to one knee on the side of the tarmac. She slid her free hand on the roadside, the along the grass on the ground.
“This where it happened.”
“What happened?” He looked at her retreating a few steps.
“This is where they went off the road, the marks dug by the wheels are still present in the side of the ditch. Probably there’s even more signs deeper in there.”
“What… what did we see right now?” Jaan asked.
“What do you think?” The girl in black asked with that same faint smile. “You were supposed to be educated in the matter of mysteries. Look.”
She directed his attention back to the side of the ditch. The ebbs and flows of the mist moving over the ditch seemed to get tangled into something like loose lines of a spiderweb. Soon, these flows of fog molded into an outline of a wreckage of the car which had run off the road a long time a go. Only the tail lights hanging by wires allowed them to discern that it had once been a GAZ-24. Whether there were any bodies or body parts in and around the wreckage or not, they could not tell.
But the fog also molded into outlines of a GAZ-51 wrecker truck, which pulled the Volga out and dragged it into the fog.
“A ghostly... wrecker?” Jaan asked.
“A ghostly wrecker.” The girl agreed. “There have been stranger things.”
“But what happened to those young people?” Jaan asked. “What were they trying to avoid?”
“Me.” The girl said. “You saw for your self what happened. They saw a ghost on the road. And to be fair, you too saw a ghost on the road.”
“A ghost? At the same place you stood?” the man asked. “As if they were trying to avoid you.”
“As if...” the girl said to herself, she put the camera back into a leather case. “We can go now. This was only one of the things I wanted to show you.”
“You have seen this before?”
“I have.” Mariann said. “But I have never managed to find the location in daylight. During the day, everything looks different. As if the whole world was different in the light. As if the light doesn’t really have an illuminating quality, but instead it blinds us and obscures the secrets.”
“You have an interesting way to see the world.”
“Maybe.” The girl said, she looked back at Jaan’s two-door sitting on the side of the road. “There has been a long time since I had anybody to share it with.”
They sat back into the car. Jaan started the engine and turned on the lights. A second later, something in the mists seemed to change. A loud engine noise started to emanate, noise that far exceeded the sound produced by the car they were in. He rolled down the window.
“Is this another ghostly car…?” he asked, trying to see more with his high-beams.
“I don’t know.” Mariann said. “But today was a special day. Virve had ice cream...”
The noise continued to increase until a four-door sedan emerged from the mists. Blacked out windows, impeccable paint. And body shape that perfectly conveyed the past fascination with aircraft and space technology. In the rear of the vehicle there were two fins with chrome tips which rose almost to the roof line and featured two flame-red tail lights on either side. There was a total of tree such vehicles emerging from the fog, followed by a lone semi-truck loaded with a naval 40 foot container in a dull rust color. This in turn was followed by three other black cars with tall fins.
“That is definitely not heading towards the Institute.” Jaan said in a discerning voice.
“Did you see what was written on the side of the container?” Mariann asked.
“No I didn’t. What was it?”
“Yadernoprom.” The girl said. “Nuclear industry complex. In addition to the old Agroprom, they also have a nuclear materials production complex.”
“Nuclear industry production complex?” The man asked in an interested tone. “I never thought it would actually exist.”
“You’re aware of the history of the town and the Institute, correct?”
“I know stories.” the man said.
The car started moving again and rolled into the fog.
“These stories are the history.” Mariann said. “The only part of history still available to us. Something they can never rake out of us. The Nameless Town is not a single settlement. Once a long time ago, it was respected across an empire. Back when the town was surrounded by five villages. According to their locations, they were named South village, West village, North-West village, North village and East village.”
“I’m aware of that.”
“Are you also aware that the South village has by now become the Cottage district? Nobody really knows what goes on in there, and it seems nobody really cares. That North-West village has become the Crazy Woods? That in the general area of the North village there is now something that is only referred to as Center Station? And instead of the East village, on maps there is only a remark NKRA Pluton?”
“How do you know all this?” Jaan asked.
“I have sources.” The girl said. “Old books and maps nobody really remembers and therefore nobody really believes.” She looked out of the window. “You can stop here.”
More ghosts?” Jaan asked.
“Nope,” the girl said with a smile. “something much more earthly.”
“Wait.” He said in a hesitant tone, looking how Mariann opened the door. “Are you sure about this? This is the Forest of Death, is it not?”
“Forest of Death, Irradiated Forest, it has many names.” The girl said. “There are also many stories told about it. But the name does not change what it is. Or what is has recently turned into. Come.” She kept her eyes on the man. “I promise, we won’t be entering the forest, we won’t even go to the nearest tree.”
“Okay.” Jaan relented.
He got out of the car and shut the door.
“After all, all the stories are just tall tales that drunk village men tell each other in the bar over and over again.”
“There really is not much difference between drunken tales and factual reality.” Mariann said. “Come, it’s a little ways from here.”
The girl in black walked across a perfectly flat black tarmac full of crushed granite towards the edge of the road and then effortlessly jumped on the other side of the ditch. She continued onward towards the black decaying branches and stumps, where gray lichen seemed to be the only living thing, covering almost everything.
Black nighttime forest was frightening in its silence. If one were to stand still, they could only hear their own breathing and the lone rhythm of their heart. Not a single incident sound. No insects, no birds. No animals of any kind, not even stray pets or wildlife. As if the craziest stories ever told of these woods were all true at this very moment. That a forest could look like a forest, but the ground was still full of irradiated waste, and remains of dead animals and birds marked the areas where radiation had once been acutely deadly.
In addition, the stories that somewhere in the center of the forest where refuse piles reached the canopy, the surrounding trees were all dead and only some unholy force of nature was keeping them upright. How a man could only knock against the trunks there and all the trees would fall like hair from a person with ARS. Of course, there were also stories that if a person would by some miracle not die before reaching the refuse fields then it was certain that he would before getting back.
“This way, just a little bit.” She said, now standing in front of the forest, maybe a few meters from the first trees.
Wind blowing straight from the forest rustled her loose hair, while blackened trees with leafless crowns were so still that one could swear they were painted into the sky. There was also no sound. Perfect silence was still all around them. However the Moon was out.
Jaan stopped beside the girl, looking at a long and narrow buffer strip.
“Did I not say it was worth seeing?” Mariann asked.
“It really is.” Jaan agreed.
It was not a regular buffer strip before them. It looked as if some exceedingly powerful forced has rushed through here, broken every tree at the forest floor level in a ten meter wide path and cleared it all away so that there was not even any uneven stumps visible. Along this wide corridor a warm wind blew. Jaan could now also feel it.
On the other end of that long path devoid of any trees or other plants, there stood a massive windowless concrete building made of different sections and now illuminated by moonlight. He could see two tall smoke stacks topped with red warning lights. There was also a third one, even taller topped with white warning markers.
“And that is…?” Jaan asked.
“That’s the Center Station.” Mariann said. “A place were no known road goes to. In North-West everything ends with Luiga and the bordering barrier of the Officials from the North. In North-East everything ends with the Train Yard. Between them lies this very same forest.”
“A world I can never learn to know.” Jaan sighed.
“I never said that. But it would seem somebody is doing all they can that you would never know it, never notice it.” She smiled for a moment. “What do you think you’ll see if you turn around? What is this buffer strip and the Central Station on the same line with?”
“No!” Jaan said in a baffled tone. “It can’t be!”
“Take a look.” The girl said.
He turned around and then out of the starlit night sky across the old airfield and overgrown pastures he could immediately pick out the spire of the western tower of the Balto-German Esoteric Institute.
“The Central Station has something to do with the Institute?” He asked.
“Everything has something to do with the Institute.” The girl said, looking at the sky, at the Moon. “The Nameless Town is nothing more than the Institute.”
“And the Moon is almost hanging above the Institute.” Jaan said.
“The Moon?” The girl asked. “How can it bee in the South if its...” She turned around and looked at the man.
Half his body was being bathed in an unbelievably bright yet pale ray of light, resembling moonlight.
“Look!” She pointed at the Center Station.
The third structure, which had been outlined by pale lights had started to glow. The top of it was especially bright glowing like a gas discharge lamp which at the same time did not blind them and also cast no light anywhere else.
“And the thing you’re seeing in the South is not the Moon.” Mariann said.
“What is it then?”
The man turned his eyes back towards the Moon and was startled to see that the “Moon” was now twice as big, while its surface forms and mares were all easy to see. But then something changed. Suddenly the big Moon started to turn more and more oval. Until an edge appeared with two rows of lights along side it.
“This is the sky people.” Mariann said. “Come quickly! We have to go into the forest!” She continued in a whisper.
“Wait, you promised that we wouldn’t...”
“This is a special case,” she continued to whisper, all the while trying to drag him towards the trees. “You do not want to stay on their path and wake in a week or two in the middle of the main street or at Luiga under the watchful care of your long-time friend and his silent assistant.”
At the same time that Jaan finally decided to trust the girl and escaped to the trees with her, a five meter wide circle of light shot out from the disc and moved around on the ground looking for something. Quickly, it found the car.
“Get down!” She whispered. “Stay down. Usually I don’t find myself in a confrontation, usually I go as soon as I see them coming.”
They observed how along with a circle of light, the car was also probed by two beams on blue laser light. These two beams started to trace the paths they had followed when they had emerged from the car and had been looking for the buffer strip.
“What do they want?” Jaan asked.
“Have no idea.” Mariann replied. “Maybe that their secrets would remain concealed.”
They watched the beam on light and the laser beams making rounds on the buffer strip and then headed towards their hiding place. For a few moments the laser beams stayed no more than half a meter from the first line of trees and then they disappeared. Both the circle and the blue beams. The Airship turned back into a suspiciously oval Moon in the sky and then silently departed, rushing to become a tiny speck of light in the sky.
“It’s gone.” She said as she got up.
She walked out of the tree cover and having jumped over the ditch, stopped on the empty road. “I think we can return.”
“You stop your research when an airship notices you?”
“Usually,” she smiled. “This time also, it is a sign. I think it is better to leave before the Northern Boys find us here.”
“Yeah, I guess the cars have already been dispatched.” He sighed.
The got back into the car and he started heading back along a lone highway.
“This is only the first part.” She said. “There is much I have to show you and tell you. Both about the world as well as about the town. We should continue tomorrow at sunup.”
“Why are you doing this anyway?” He asked. “Why do you want to show and tell me all of this?”
“Because you are trustworthy. Why did you agree to come with me tonight? Why are you agreeing to continue tomorrow morning? There must certainly be other reasons that just to get under my skirt.”
“Are you sure?” He asked with a slight smile.
“Silver halide does not lie.”
“Where can I take you?” He asked.
“You can drop me off in the town. I can find my own way there.”
“Very well then.” He said, already turning onto the street which took them right by the only hotel in town, the only bar and the town hall.
“Would you care for an evening drink?” Mariann asked.
“Gotta do some folklore research.” Jaan replied.
“I sincerely hope you are willing to share your findings tomorrow.” She replied.
He stopped the car on the left side of the street and opened his door. Mariann also opened hers and exited. She had barely managed to shut the long door when a familiar Russian willys rushed dangerously close past her, and parked diagonally in front of them. Out the driver side door emerged the man the called the Mayor in a severely agitated state, his hands and voice were shaking. He did not even pay attention to them, instead bee-lining straight towards the bar.
From the other door emerged a young man in a duster and a dark cowboy hat. He was far more steadier that the Mayor who had disappeared into the basement bar. This same man had earlier observed the water flowing along with the rest of the townsfolk.
She grabbed her camera and let the leather case fall from the lens. It was time to fulfill the promise.