Equinox - a chilling tale for autumn: chapter one

Equinox

Part four of a supernatural quartet by Pam Kelt

Chapter One

Arkady fanned his face with a copy of last month’s Izvestia. The storeroom air tasted of dust but at least it was cooler than his flat. The cramped bedsit on the wrong side of the river was the epitome of bad design: an icebox in winter and an oven in summer. He’d go back later, when the temperature had dropped.

A swig from a half-bottle of tepid vodka was not as welcome as he might have hoped, so he set the bottle down on the paper. It left a dark, halo around the front-page photograph of Comrade Stalin’s mighty head. No doubt he was enjoying the coolness of his spacious forest dacha.

Rumour had it that their illustrious and moustachioed leader was fading. Losing his grip. The political vultures were circling. Stalin was bad enough but a new leader was bound to be worse.

He turned the paper over. A glorious welcome for a famous scientist defecting from the West. Dismay as Soviet spies arrested in America.

The Cold War was turning chilly.

And what on earth were Russian troops doing in Korea? It made no sense.

Sweat reformed on Arkady’s brow and he dabbed at it, willing his body temperature to drop.

Good of old Yakov to let him into the institute after hours. Not all caretakers were so obliging. All Arkady had to do was avoid the security guard the institute shared with the building next door. The man did his first nightly round at eleven o’clock. Arkady checked his watch—just after eight. The guard would be long gone by now.

It was risky, though. The last person caught inside after hours, a spotty technician called Ivan, had been summoned to the Head of Security’s office. Five minutes after that, silent staff had watched him being marched off the premises by two grim-faced guards. Poor Ivan. He’d never been seen again.

No-one even dared ask what had happened to him. Prison, perhaps? A distant gulag?

Best not to dwell on it. Arkady drank some tepid water from the tap, grimacing at the brackish taste.

Omsk in late September was often hot, but this year’s autumn’s heat wave had nearly defeated the locals. The old folk fainted in the streets. Kids skipped school to lounge in the lazy shallows of the River Irtysh. Car tyres melted. There was no escape. Arkady’s own existence was bipolar. In the mornings, he struggled to wake up from his sluggish slumber. Then he dragged himself to work, the searing pavements scorching his feet through the cheap soles of his shoes. As the sun rose higher in the molten copper sky, the stifling office lulled him to sleep. Later, when the sun set, his brain kicked into life and although exhausted, he found it hard to sleep.

The first snowfall seemed years away.

Sighing, he slumped onto a chair, staring into the glum darkness and the volcanic sky. A blood red moon, suspended like some poisonous astral fruit just above the horizon, returned his gaze. Its baleful look had the despair of a long-term vodkaholic.

A ‘blood moon’, they called it. Some people said it meant the end of the world. Might not be a bad thing. Arkady sighed and reached for his textbook, frowning at the equations in the twilight. He loved Physics, but it was tough. Still, if he could just pass this last exam, he could apply for university, get a degree, find a proper job. Even put his name down for the Soviet space program.

The deadline loomed. Glancing at the office calendar, he saw that today was the twenty-third of September, 1951. The autumnal equinox, apparently. The exam was on Saturday, the twenty-second of December. Odd. The winter solstice.

It was too dark to see the pages, so he lowered the blind just to be careful and switched on the desk light. After reading for a while, he covered up the answers and tried to write out each formula, crossing them out several times before throwing down the book in frustration. He rubbed his eyes, too tired to think straight. If only he still had his job as lab assistant, then he would have been allowed a day a week to attend technical college. Now, he was reduced to night school, along with the no-hopers, trying to get by.

It was all his boss’s fault, he thought sourly. Olga Marinskaya. Hideous woman. As soon as he’d got the lab assistant job, she’d busied herself blocking his progress. Missing his name off meetings, giving him pointless and time-consuming tasks, requiring endless reports... One evening, he’d forgotten his keys and had to slip back into the lab – only to catch her perusing his results, making notes. She blustered some excuse, but it was clear she’d been stealing them for months, claiming them as her own.

Then, she’d set off that Bunsen burner fire upstairs last spring with the silly makeshift coffee-maker on a wobbly tripod.

The fire had incinerated the safety poster on the staff noticeboard. He laughed to himself. That’s Russian humour for you.

It was deliberate, of course. With the wily self-preservation of the very stupid, she’d blamed him. And got him well and truly demoted and out of her way. Shoved downstairs to work in stores, with no sign of a reprieve.

A week later, Comrade Marinskaya had joined the elite team of researchers on the fourth floor. Got her own office, too. And a secretary. It just wasn’t fair.

A distant vibration made him pause. He got up, tweaked the blind and looked out the small, grimy window into the deepening dusk. After a few moments, a jagged flash of blue ripped the sky in two. Then thunder boomed.

Rain on the way. At last.

Relieved, he went back to his equations, the textbook pages glowing in the yellow glare.

Another rumble, louder this time. Different, somehow. Alarmed, he switched off the desk lamp and once again peered out into the now dark courtyard outside. Startled, he saw a military-style truck pull up under a streetlight beyond the gate.

He checked his watch. Nine o’clock. Two hours before the security guard was due. Who could it be?

Despite his alarm, curiosity got the better of him and he edged closer to the window. Standing in the shadows, he felt a surge of alarm as he saw the swinging beam of a torch approaching the gate from the direction of the security guard’s little hut outside. A stocky uniformed figure opened it, the insignia on his peaked cap glinting as he waved the truck through.

The truck swept in and the guard followed it on foot to the side door. Its headlights faded and the engine went quiet. Pulse racing, Arkady watched as the passenger door opened and a man in a creased khaki uniform climb out, stretching his back. No insignia, this time.

The driver joined him, and seemed to stare right in his direction. Arkady drew back, holding his breath, pulse hammering in his temple.

He looked out again, and saw the two men approach the rear of the truck. They each donned facemasks and thick safety gauntlets. One tugged back a corner of the tarpaulin and strained inside. Together they lifted out a wooden crate, dark patches forming under their armpits with the effort. With the security guard leading the way, they began to lug the crate towards the rear door, boots crunching on the gravel. He thought he could make out the letters ‘KG-U’ stamped roughly on the side. He wondered what it meant.

Fresh sweat broke out on his brow. A late delivery. And they were heading to the stores. There was only one door in and out.

Nowhere to hide.

Fighting back panic, Arkady scanned the dark room. Under the desk? Feeling terrified and ridiculous, he felt his way around the desk and clambered underneath, folding his long legs into the confined space, heart pumping.

He heard the side door swing open with its familiar squeak and three sets of footsteps tramp past the stores and downstairs. Arkady nearly passed out with relief. Listening hard, he picked up the noise of a distant door opening and closing. A couple of minutes passed by. Thank goodness. The crate was being stashed somewhere else.

Boots clattered on the stairs, moving more quickly now. The side door opened again. Hot air wafted in. Seconds later, keys jangled. Vehicle doors slammed. An engine grunted into life, after some persuasion, and finally the truck headed off into the night, engine throbbing.

Would the security guard do his rounds now, instead of waiting? Arkady tried to breathe steadily. Please don’t, he thought, closing his eyes, willing the guard to leave. Straining his ears, he detected the sound of the gate, footsteps and then, blessed silence.

Arkady counted to a hundred before daring to move. Finally, he eased himself out, fumbling for the vodka to soothe his nerves. That was close. Too close.

He unscrewed the top, took a swig but his hands were shaking so much the bottle slipped from his grasp and toppled over on the desk. Clear liquid seeped into the newspaper and dripped onto the floorboards. He swore silently. He grabbed at it, rescuing what he could, but there was barely a sip left. Typical. Something made him pause. A faint noise. He listened hard. Was the security guard coming back? It went quiet again. He tiptoed to the window and pulled the blind aside to see out, but the guard, along with the men and their mysterious cargo, were nowhere to be seen in the heavy darkness.

Breathing more easily, he switched the desk lamp back on and mopped up the spill, leaving a suspiciously clean patch on the floor. After shoving the damp newspaper into the bottom of a bin in a soggy clump, he dropped into his chair with a sigh. A faint clattering reached his ears. It came from outside the room.

What now? Had the recent arrivals switched something on by mistake on their way out?

Frowning, he got up, putting his book in his pocket and carefully extinguishing the desk lamp once more. He looked along the corridor. Nothing to be seen, but the sound was louder. Metallic. Puzzled, he followed the noise, realising it was drifting upwards from the basement.

Not much down there. Just ‘Repairs’, an optimistic title for the graveyard of faulty equipment that rarely ever saw the light of day again. He didn’t even know the troglodytes who worked down there.

Thinking that the poor buggers were even lower down in the pecking order than he was, he walked towards the stairs, the metal safety strips on the stairs gleaming in the reflected light of an outside security lamp. In the dim, sulphurous glow, he trotted down and stood by the workshop door. Everything was silent, it seemed, and then the clattering started up again. He jumped, nervous, but suddenly he wanted to know what the hell was going on.

He opened the door and fumbled for the switch. A fluorescent bulb chink-chinked, its harsh ray highlighting rows of dusty wooden shelves crammed with a sad array of damaged and unwanted office equipment.

Something caught his eye. A grey electric typewriter with a dent in the side, seemingly next in line for attention. Arkady stared. It was a grimy, fairly innocuous machine, but for the fact that the keys were pounding up and down methodically, metal typebars jerking inside as if activated by an invisible typist. One of the feet was missing, which made it rattle even more, lurching every so often like an early afternoon drunk trying to stay on the pavement.

Horrified and confused in equal measure, he stared at the moving keys. Then, just as suddenly, they froze mid-air. The resulting lack of noise was almost deafening. His ears rang in the sudden silence. Then, abruptly, its keys started to busy themselves once more, as if the mysterious typist had been nudged into action, only to hammer away even more fiercely, getting faster and faster. After a moment, it stopped again. Swallowing nervously, his tongue dry in his mouth, Arkady stared at the machine in disbelief. It seemed to be possessed.

The heat was obviously getting to him. Or the vodka. He was getting through rather a lot these days.

Behind him, the doorknob rattled and turned and he let out a yell as the door creaked open. A small, grey man with a lined face and deep, sad eyes shuffled in. ‘What are you doing down here on your own? Or shouldn’t I ask?’

‘Yakov!’ Arkady’s voice sounded croaky.

‘Only me.’ The caretaker drew on the dregs of a hand-rolled cigarette held between nicotine-stained fingers, ash scattering on his crumpled shirt. He gazed around, eyes narrowed. ‘You all right, Arkady? Look as though you’ve seen a ghost.’

Arkady tried not to glance at the typewriter, which seemed still for the moment. ‘Bit jumpy. Probably just the weather.’ He shrugged.

A flash of blue light illuminated the corridor beyond the open door for a split second. ‘Storm brewing,’ agreed Yakov.

‘Or maybe it’s the moon.’

‘Right.’ Yakov perched on the desk cosily, dragging on the cigarette and picking off a strand of tobacco from his lip. ‘Wouldn’t worry, though. Probably just the end of the world.’

‘That’s what they say.’

Yakov nodded. ‘Thought I heard something earlier.’ His tone was overly casual.

‘Late delivery. But not to the storeroom, thank God.’

‘I see. Lucky for you, eh? Probably one of those special deliveries for the fourth-floor boffins. They sometimes store stuff down here. Maybe I should have said.’

‘Oh, that’s all right. Anyway, they’ve got to keep that champagne and caviar safe from us plebs,’ muttered Arkady, and then stopped. The typewriter buzzed once more, the keys rattling into life.

‘Well, well.’ Yakov narrowed his eyes. Stubbing out the cigarette, he walked over to the device as it pounded out its invisible message. ‘Odd.’ He pulled out the electric cable and it froze. They glanced at each other. Yakov reinserted the cable. The manic typing started again.

Arkady felt the urge to giggle at the surreal scene.

He saw Yakov’s eyes glitter. ‘Got some paper?’

‘Here.’ Arkady rummaged in a drawer and handed over a sheet.

Yakov fed it into the typewriter, pulling his fingers out of the way as the keys seemed to snap at them like ill-tempered lapdogs, hoping for chocolate treats.

Intrigued, Arkady edged nearer and stared at the symbols appearing on the page. ‘The alphabet. And now numbers. All in the right order. Very systematic.’

The typewriter keys kept going then finally slowed and ground to a halt. Yakov plucked out the sheet of paper and studied it more closely. ‘Look at that.’ He pointed to the last line, turning the page so Arkady could see.

‘H. He. Li. Be,’ read Arkady. ‘Why, that’s the-’

‘Periodic Table,’ interrupted Yakov. ‘From the top. Hydrogen, Helium, Lithium, Berylium,’ He ran his stained fingernail along the list.

Arkady gave him a sideways look.

Yakov laughed throatily. ‘How do I know this, being just a lowly janitor and all? You might not think it, dear boy, but I have four doctorates. One in chemistry.’ Yakov handed back the sheet. ‘One in physics. One in general nosiness. And can you guess my final stellar qualification?’

‘Being cryptic?’

‘Survival. Hence my latest incarnation. Caretaker Supérieur.’

Arkady had the grace to laugh. He glanced at his acquaintance thoughtfully.

Yakov shrugged. ‘The first two degrees were easy. Then, before the war, when I was not much older than you, I was landed with the Evil Prof from Hell. Had it in for me. Let slip to the authorities that I was of a “subversive disposition”.’

‘Bugger.’

Yakov beamed. ‘You’re all right, Arkady. Not like the rest round here.’

‘I know a little about toxic bosses.’

‘I heard. The not-so-fragrant Olga? Mind you, she seems to work hard.’

‘Really.’ Arkady failed to hide the disbelief in his voice.

‘Always first in, last out.’

Arkady said nothing.

Yakov’s shaggy eyebrows rose. ‘A snooper, eh?’

‘She stole my results, I can tell you that. And staged that little “accident”.’

‘And blamed you?’ He whistled through his teeth. ‘Sneaky. I hear she’s just been promoted to Head of Internal Security.’

Arkady felt sick.

‘So, what are you going to do about it?’

Arkady took a steadying breath. ‘Now you mention it, I’ve gone back to night school,’ he said, ‘but it’s hard.’

‘Good for you. Hey, I can give you a hand. I haven’t forgotten everything. Lungs might be turning into Swiss cheese, but the brain still works. You’ve got to fight back. That’s what I did. Learn new skills. Get on or get out.’ Yakov reached into his pocket and proceed to roll another cigarette one-handed. ‘You might think you have a rotten job, but it could be worse. At least you have one. And you never got sent to a gulag. Oh-oh.’

Before Arkady could speak, a trickling noise caused them to glance back to the workbench. The electric typewriter was now a mass of grey liquid that was forming a greasy pool and dripping on to the floor. Even the cable had dissolved.

‘Well, that is odd,’ said Yakov, his voice calm.

His stolid presence helped Arkady refuse to panic. Some quiet cynicism was asserting himself and he felt less scared. Perhaps Yakov, survivor of a tough life, was having a steadying influence. They both stared at the mess. ‘Freak electrical surge as a result of the storm?’ Arkady suggested.

‘Maybe.’ Ramming the fresh cigarette in the corner of his mouth, the caretaker scanned the sheet of typed letters once again.

‘I don’t suppose ...’ Arkady’s brow furrowed. ‘Well, this is going to sound stupid, but could the machine be repeating what someone last typed on it?’

Yakov fished out a dented Zippo lighter and clicked. The cigarette glowed brightly and he drew on it, blowing out a plume of smoke. ‘An intriguing idea. Imagine if our precious Kremlin had an agent in an American embassy, say? Or a secret lab in the desert, somewhere? And what if they had managed to find a way to convert a simple typewriter into a recording device? Wouldn’t he jump at the chance to know what the Yanks were cooking up in apparent secrecy? Very clever.’

‘But improbable.’

Yakov shrugged.

‘You really are a bit subversive.’ Arkady smiled.

‘Comes from being born in Leningrad. Where are you from?’

‘Local boy.’

‘Thought so. Can’t hide that Siberian twang. But you’re a tough breed. Don’t forget that.’

‘Thanks.’ Arkady tried not to think about how many of his family he’d lost in the war and afterwards. He was the only one left, apart from a distant cousin in Vladivostock. He nudged the grey gloop in the floor with his shoe. It formed long spikes like soft chewing gum. ‘Do I report this? Problem is, I don’t trust anyone these days. Apart from you, of course.’

‘Quite right.’ Yakov grinned.

‘They’ll just think we’re making it up—or that we’re paranoid.’

‘Or that we’re spies.’ The caretaker’s eyebrows twitched.

‘Either way ...’

Yakov nodded. ‘Best to say nothing.’ He extinguished the cigarette under his heel and threw the stub into a bin.

‘Go home. Have a vodka or three. Come back tomorrow as if nothing happened. I shall carefully dispose of the evidence.’ He examined the mess for a second then located a pair of safety gloves before scooping it up into a box, which he shoved into a bin marked ‘hazardous waste’. He threw the gloves inside, then glanced up at Arkady. ‘Who knows what we’re dealing with, eh?’

A fizzing sound erupted in the far corner. The ceiling light flickered, giving their faces a grotesque air, then it exploded, making them both duck. It went pitch black. Arkady felt the hairs prickling on the back of his neck.

‘Wait. I have a torch,’ said Yakov. A low beam of light probed a grey finger into the darkness. ‘Take this. I’ll clean up.’ Yakov gave the torch to Arkady before reaching under the sink for a dustpan and brush.

A low throbbing started up just as the caretaker binned the last fragments.

‘Now what?’ Arkady’s voice sounded strained.

‘Shine the light over there. Up a bit.’

Arkady raised the torch, the beam picking out a black office safe against the wall. The noise was coming from inside.

Without commenting, Yakov moved over and sat down beside it. ‘Hold the light steady,’ he said and cracked his knuckles, before twirling the wheels, his face pressed to the metal door. Seconds later, he pulled it open. He rose, a mischievous smile on his lips. ‘Like I said. Skills.’

Amused, Arkady bent to look inside. He could make out a large pewter-coloured case with a sturdy strap handle. It buzzed, making him jump. ‘What the hell is that? It’s as big as a sewing machine. Another typewriter?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Hang on. We need more light.’ Arkady found a desk lamp and switched it on before shoving the torch back into his pocket. ‘It’s not even plugged in.’ He reached out to touch the machine.

‘Hold on.’ Yakov located a fresh pair of safety gloves and lobbed them over. ‘Might have a battery. Just be careful. I don’t want to have to explain a corpse burnt to a crisp on my watch.’

‘Er, cheers.’ Excitement overcoming his initial fears, Arkady slipped on the gloves before lifting out the case and placing it with a thump onto a workbench. ‘Phew. This thing’s heavy.’

‘Open it.’

Arkady nodded and flipped open the lid and found himself staring at a keyboard set into a unit with different coloured buttons to one side. ‘What are those weird wheels on top?’

‘Rotors.’ Yakov coughed and sat down on a stool.

‘They’ve got Cyrillic letters on them. And numbers.’

‘So they do.’

Arkady detected an odd tone. ‘You know what it is.’

His friend shrugged.

‘Stop being so enigmatic.’

‘Hah!’ Yakov erupted into raucous laughter. ‘You have no idea, do you?’

‘Just tell me.’

The caretaker sighed. ‘It’s a bloody Enigma machine, you idiot. Well, a variation on one. You’ve heard of them, surely?’

Arkady stared. ‘From the war, you mean? Decoding messages and stuff? What’s it doing here? This isn’t a military museum.’

‘I’m guessing that’s what they must be working on upstairs. Then some idiot must have broken it and they had it sent down here for fixing and had it locked up out of the way.’ The machine throbbed even louder, causing it to edge sideways. Yakov straightened up and moved closer. ‘Ten rotors. Fancy. And look, a punch card goes in the side. Bet that’s how they set it up. Punch tape for the messages, too. Clever. All the mod cons.’

‘How come you know about Enigma machines?’

Yakov slumped then shook his head, giving in. ‘After I escaped from the gulag, I fled to Europe. War broke out and I ended up with the Polish resistance. Worked as an operator for a while, among other things. Then I got captured.’

‘You escaped, though?’

‘In a way. “Repatriated” by the Red Army, but I didn’t see eye to eye with them either, so then off to the mines it was.’ Yakov’s eyes clouded. ‘Worse than the gulags, they said, and they were right.’ He coughed. ‘Smoking’s the only thing that helps, ironically. Anyway, I managed to get out of there, too. Don’t ask.’ He sighed and turned back to the machine. ‘The Brits and Yanks would be drooling if they could see this baby.’

‘So, this is a new Enigma?’

‘Quite a fancy one, too. Those ten rotors are a bit of a giveaway. We only ever had three in my day.’

‘Why do we need a new code machine? We’re not at war. Not officially.’

‘Tell that to the Kremlin.’

As if galvanised by their interest, the keys juddered into action and began to punch blindly into the air like a toddler in a pram grappling for a toy. Then it slowed to a halt.

‘Battery must be going flat.’ Yakov found himself a pair of safety gloves and reached inside the case, locating a cable with a plug at the end. He also found some spare punch tape, which he deftly threaded. ‘Here goes nothing.’ He inserted the plug into a wall socket and jumped back.

The keys jerked, then small holes started to appear as the keys rhythmically hit the paper tape. After a moment, Yakov ripped out the plug and the typing stopped. Outside in the stairwell, the glass in the window frames rattled. ‘Wind’s picking up.’

Arkady suppressed a shiver. Glancing at Yakov and receiving a nod, he removed the tape and together they peered at the series of holes. ‘Look. The pattern repeats,’ he said, after a moment. ‘But what does it mean? I suppose it’s in code, but how do we decode it? There was only one machine in the safe.’

‘Ha.’ Yakov rolled his eyes and reached into pocket to pull out a dented hip flask. He took a slug and waggled it in Arkady’s direction. Arkady shook his head. ‘Up to you.’ He took another swig. ‘Only one way to find out. These machines are bloody clever. They work both ways, you see. In my day, we set up the machine as usual with the day’s rotor arrangements. Then, we’d type our message, get the encryption and someone would send it by telegraph in Morse. With me so far?’

‘Think so.’

‘The chap at the other end would get the message and type it back into his machine, its rotors set to the same configuration. And abracadabra. Gobbledy-gook is miraculously converted back into plain text.’

‘I see. So we just have to type it back in?’

‘I suspect this little beauty will even do that for us.’ Yakov put away his flask and wiped his hands on his trousers. ‘See that red button? We’ll rethread the tape into the reader, then press the button and it should retype the message in the decoded form using the printer there, see? If the rotors continue to work, that is. They look a bit mangled and it is in the repair shop, after all.’

A long rumble of thunder rolled outside, as if an invading army were hurling bombs at the city. The air grew even warmer and sweat beaded on their brows as they eyed the machine, wondering what they were going to find. ‘Right.’ Arkady took the fresh tape and wound it around the spools. ‘Fresh paper, too. Now plug her in, press that damned button and stand well back.’

 

***

 

Chapter Two will appear tomorrow.