by Turhan
“Yeah babe.”
“Well she just flew in from London and asked if I can join her and the director in Chicago, it might take a couple of weeks, is that okay?”
“Oh, of course babe, take all the time you need. I just found out I need to go to Hell to rescue my three daughters from their demonic mother, it should be a blast!”
“Uh, yeah, okay, luv you hon, miss me?”
“Always babe, have fun! Wait, Sin-dy said to give her a call.”
“K, luv you.”
“Back atcha babe.”
I didn’t know it at the time but that conversation with my girlfriend turned out to be pivotal in the proceeding days. After booking my flight to Khabarovsk, in Russia and then somehow to the meteorological station, ‘Dome Argus’ in Vostoc, I then have to navigate the coldest place on Earth to find the hottest place, Hell, and then gate crash the most infamous gates in history, what was I getting myself into.
Aboard my flight I settled down as we prepared for take-off and thought to myself that this would be a great time to check out the scroll that Kat had given me, it was going to be a long haul flight of twenty nine hours and she told me to study it carefully.
Having unraveled it and while trying to discern the map legend, I heard, “Aha!” I turned to see a 6 foot 4 ish and around 350lb man that squeezed into the seat next to me.
In a lightly inflected Russian accent my flight buddy said, “Sir, my name is Boris, I see you have important document. Maybe you need help finding destination on map? I pilot short stops within four hundred miles of Vostoc. You need tour guide?”
“Oh . . . yeah, I need to get to Dome A!? Because I have important equipment to deliver to um, to um the weather station.”
“I can help you sir! by the way your name is?”
“Oh sorry,” I said, as I reached out my hand. “My name is Kylar.”
Boris gripped my hand with the seeming clench of a Pit bull’s jaw and as I started to pry apart my fingers that had just been mangled together by his handshake, he told me exactly what I needed to hear.
“Okay Kylar, what I can do for you is fly you from Khabarovsk into Argus, but you have picked bad time of year. The ice is more thick now than it has been in ten years and I can only wait three days before we must return or we will both be, how you Americans say . . . Stiffs!” Boris guffawed at his own joke. “Now how about a little Zyr to warm your blood, it is long flight, you will be a very happy man. Madame! Two Zyr please and two for my new compatriot.”
After several hours of being administered Zyr shots and wonderfully animated but not so lucid chatting with my newly acquired Russian compatriot and stop-overs at Sheremetyevo and Tolmachevo airports we arrived at Khabarovsk Noby Airport. We both staggered, me moreso than Boris, through baggage claims and customs, at which point Boris’s cell phone started ringing to the tune of ‘Isle of the Dead’ composed by Sergei Rachmaninov. I know the piece very well, it is also my ringtone. Maybe this is a good omen?
Boris belted out, “Kira! I will be home in ten minutes, do you have the goulash ready? We have an American guest . . . No Kira, he is not here to spy on our ice core samples, he has to deliver important equipment to Argus. Ya lyublyu tyebya, (I love you) see you soon.” Upon hearing the ringtone and playing the ‘Isle of the Dead’ tune in my mind, the somber nature of my quest began to coax me out of my stupor. “Are you sure it’s okay for me to stay with you?” I asked. “I don’t want to upset Kira?”
“Kylar! Please, don’t be silly! Kira and I would be honored to have you as our guest.”
Boris picked up my bag and placed it into the back of his UAZ 469 then ushered me into the passenger seat.
There is a lot of traffic on the short trip to our destination which is apparently quite usual for this time of year. It’s winter and the residents of this town are busy getting ready for the ‘Feast of Saint Fevronia’ it’s a time to celebrate fidelity and the defeat of the dragon and there are only a couple of weeks before the feast.
After pulling into the drive, Boris tells me, “Go ahead, go inside, I have to feed the guinea pigs. Kira will take your jacket and give you some warm tea.”
As I approached the door to the cabin style home I was greeted by Kira. She has long black lustrous locks of hair that fall below her shoulders, a smile that could melt the heart of Attila the Hun, she is wearing a fuchsia colored form fitting dress that stops many inches above her knees, a plunging neckline that couldn’t be ignored by a saint and she isn’t wearing shoes.
Kira called out to me, “Come in and get warm by our fire,” She spoke with an American accent, what gives?
“Here I’ll take your jacket, what’s your name?”
“Kylar.”
“I’m Kira, welcome to our home,” She smiles again and that melts the ice from my face quicker than the fire. Before I could say anything to her, Boris had already come in from the cold and before he could take his coat off, Kira had jumped into his arms and they kissed as though they are madly in love, and they are.
“Give me a couple of minutes to wash up,” Boris said. So while we were waiting for him, Kira showed me around the cabin. The walls in the extra room were painted pink but there were no other signs around the house of another occupant and I didn’t want to seem overly inquisitive, after a while we heard Boris, “Kira, is everything ready? Kylar is starving!”
We made our way back into the dining area where my compatriot was already seated. “Sit Kylar.” Boris said, pushing a glass toward me. Kira had gone into the kitchen, then walked back in with a crock that is steaming with what looks like a vegetable stew. There’s a lot of sourdough rye bread and a jug of more vodka.
Boris Picked up his glass, which already had vodka in it and proclaimed, “Time to eat!” We took turns ladling the hot food into our bowls, it looked like a vegetable goulash.
“Is good right?” Boris asked. “I hope you like guinea pig.”
I started thinking maybe I should tell Boris I’m pescetarian, but then Kira looked at me with the most gorgeous eyes. I thought wait a minute, she has two different color eyes, green, and the other eye is hazel. I’d never seen that before and as she stared at me, waiting for me to respond to Boris, I couldn’t help but to stare back. “Yes Boris, yes they’re perfect, I mean, the meal, it’s perfect.”
I felt a little embarrassed, I was completely mesmerized by Kira’s eyes sparkling like jewels and I had to force myself to turn away and smile at Boris. “This is delicious, thank you both so much for your hospitality.”
After talking for a couple of hours or so, getting to know each other and finding out that Kira was a native of New Jersey, USA and that she was a graduate of Princeton University, she went on to ask, “So what is the “Equipment” that you told Boris,” she reached across the table and held Boris’s hand, “that you need to deliver to Argus?”
I squirmed a little in my chair, “Oh it’s just a digital ice analyzing prototype that was quicker for me to bring to them rather than send it by snail mail.”
Kira looked at me questioningly. “Well, when Boris flies you out there I want to come with you guys, is that okay?”
Boris bellowed, “Of course!” but then looked at me, his eyes glistening as though tearful. “Kira used to work at Argus but after she lost our baby . . . ”
I wondered if the extra room was painted pink because they were having, a girl?
Kira continued where Boris left off, “I lost my baby daughter while on assignment in the ice field at ‘Moon Rising’ when I slipped and caused Davina to hemorrhage.”
“I’m so sorry to hear that Kira.”
“I, we, were devastated, she was our first and I’m afraid to try again, I don’t want to lose another child.”
“Kira this is enough, let’s show Kylar his room, we have to fly tomorrow and we will all need our beauty sleep if we don’t want to scare the ‘Morning Spirits’ with our tired faces.”
My bag was already in my cozy room and as the door closed beh
ind me, my thoughts were dwelling on the many mysteries of the evening. Where is Moon Rising? And what was the field work that was so important that Kira had to work in such treacherous terrain while pregnant? Also what are the Morning Spirits and the Ice Core Samples that Boris had mentioned earlier in the day?
I lay in bed wondering what tomorrow would bring, all the while fighting the demons in my mind that are waiting for that moment, when I would once again become the conduit that connects my world with the unworldly domain of iniquity. As I drifted into the semi state of consciousness known euphemistically as sleep, Moon Rising, beckoned me toward her soul.
Chapter 3
Revelations
I was exhausted from everything that had transpired recently and despite knowing how to mitigate a visit from my demons while sleeping, I just didn’t care, it was almost as though I was challenging them, or it, or whomever it was that would periodically taunt and terrorize me while my guard was down. I lay down and it wasn’t too long before I drifted off and fell asleep.
***
Even though I was afraid of the dark, I knew I had to walk outside, it was the only way I could actually see the noise I thought was coming from the sky. It sounded as though there were several planes thundering directly over the cabin but my mind was acting crazy and telling me that maybe they were UFOs.
I was naked when I stepped out into the darkness ignoring the fact that I was a guest in a stranger’s home and didn’t want to startle anyone, but I was determined to see what was going on.
I took a step, and then another, trying to get to the end of the porch to see what was roaring in the sky above me, or was it ahead of me. With each step there was an impending sense of doom, but somehow I continued walking, a third step, then a fourth.
By this time my senses were in shreds, there was a demonic aura in the air and suddenly a wave of black fog about the size and shape of a human, descended over my face and arms and began to suffocate me. It had a wicked voice and was saying, “i, comedent eum cor tum” (I will eat your heart) I tried to scream out loud but my voice was muffled. I couldn’t shout for help or even try to say stop. I was completely immobilized.
Despite the fact I knew this wasn’t my world, it was the world where demons resided and this one wasn’t trying to love me, it was trying to harm me. Once again I tried to protest vocally but my voice was unable to sound out. It was as though my words were being swallowed by this monster. Then after shaking myself from side to side, I finally snapped out of yet another nightmare.
***
By this time my eyes were wide open and my heart was racing, but I was still so very tired that I eventually fell back to sleep again and this time I slept without incidence.
Stirring from my sleep, I awoke to the smell of fried fish, maybe a Russian breakfast, something like having fried bacon back home, which despite my being pescetarian, bacon did smell delicious to me. I got dressed and made my way to the kitchen.
“Good morning! Breakfast’ll be ready in few minutes, pour yourself some coffee.”
“Good morning Kira.”
”Kylar, I thought I heard a noise from your room last night, did you sleep well?”
I took a sip of coffee and thought about lying but decided to instead say, “Yeah, I had a nightmare, but I did sleep well after that.”
“Oh good, I’m glad you managed to get some rest!”
Kira smiled, plated my breakfast and placed it across from her’s and sat down. She started to look as though she had something on her mind. There was no third plate on the table so I enquired, “Oh, where’s Boris?”
“He’ll be back a little later. Today is the day that he visits our daughter’s grave, he feels more comfortable doing that by himself.”
By this time Kira was using her fork to push her food around on her plate. She looked up at me. “Why are you really here Kylar?” she asked, with carefully measured words.
I was caught by surprise, what could she be alluding to? Her eyes were searching mine and it felt like she was disarming me with her stare, she won. I had no other choice than to tell her the truth.
“You’re going to think I’m crazy but here goes nothing. I have to rescue my daughters that were conceived with me, by a demon, and they now live in Hell. There you go, I told you that you’d think I was crazy, do you want me to leave now?”
Kira’s silence was unnerving. Here I was the one to say wild things, yet her silence was deafening, she didn’t have to say a thing to me, I knew that she knew, that I was telling the truth. It could only mean one thing, she had experienced something awful and was still alive to talk about it.
As I tried to think about what more I could say, she started to cry. I pushed my seat away and made my way around the kitchen table to where she was sitting.
“I’ll be fine,” she said. “Thanks Kylar.”
Kira stood up, wiped her tears away and walked over to an ‘antique looking Secretary Desk’ She pushed her hair back and pulled at a silver chain around her neck that had a key and a small silver ring looped onto it.
Kira pushed the key into a lock at the top of the desk and turned it. She then raised a panel to what looked like a secret compartment, reached in, and handed me a photograph of herself. “Do you see my eyes? . . . no, I mean in the photograph.” Realizing my mistake I looked back at the photograph, it suddenly dawned on me that they were both green. “How come your eyes are two different colors now!?”
“Remember last night I told you I lost my baby, while pregnant?”
“Yes of course.”
“Well my team leader had received reports of sub glacial activity at Moon Rising,” In an instant I remembered the initials ‘M.R.’ on the scroll that Kat had given me in her bookstore. “After driving out, I set up my tent and then walked over to the coordinates for the reported movement.”
“That doesn’t sound like it was a good idea for a pregnant woman.”
“It turned out to be the worst decision I have ever made in my life. Before I knew what was going on, the ground beneath me started to crack open and I found myself standing on a precipice that I couldn’t see the bottom of,” Holding back her tears and clearly emotional Kira continued. “I slipped and fell hard onto the ice but somehow I was able to stay above ground and as I crawled away from the edge the ground closed as fast as it had opened. It was as though the chasm was trying to swallow me, but the damage was done, my unborn child had received a death sentence during my fall.”
“Oh my god Kira, I’m so sorry,” I reached out to her, then hugged her tight, her body was shaking after explaining what had happened and somehow I felt her pain, or was this fear that I felt coming from her, I don’t know how but I felt some kind of connection between us.
“There’s more,” she said. “At the last second I looked back towards the chasm and for an instant I saw an evil face staring back at me from the abyss, I was so afraid but I couldn’t help noticing that its eyes felt like they were laughing at me.”
Kira was walking around the kitchen, nervously playing with the key between her fingers, pushing back her hair and almost hyperventilating. “How did you manage to get home, sorry, I mean back to the weather station?”
“I couldn’t, I passed out. When I finally came to, a nurse told me that the rumbling was picked up at the weather station and that my co-workers drove out to where I had set up at Moon Rising and then took me to the hospital, the nurse then told me that I had lost Davina, my baby.”
“Kira, if you don’t want to talk about this anymore.”
“I have to, you need to know that your life is at risk if you fly out there today. There’s something incredibly evil going on and you’re better off turning right back, right now, and go home to the people that love you.”
“I can’t do that, and you know it, would you? Could you abandon your daughter?”
“Of course not, but I’m afraid for you.”
“Wait, what about your eyes, how did they change color, why did they cha
nge?”
“I don’t know how, but ever since my fall out there at Moon Rising I’ve been having nightmares of the evil face I saw and its eyes are always green and hazel. I think Davina’s eyes were going to be hazel and somehow my eyes changed so I can always have a part of her with me.”
I poured Kira some water, her hands were shaking but she sipped it and looked at me, afraid for me, yet knowing full well that there was no turning back now, even if it meant my life.
Outside, we heard Boris pull into the drive. Kira quickly put back her photograph into the secret compartment and wiped away her tears. “Please don’t tell Boris I just confided in you. If he finds out the real reason you’re here, he’ll refuse to fly us to Dome Argus, he’s already spooked by what happened to me.”
Boris can be heard approaching the door and after stamping his feet outside, he walked in. By this time Kira was busy putting his breakfast on the table, she turned quickly so that Boris couldn’t see her eyes which were a little puffy from crying.
“Hey handsome, sit down and eat while I get the rest of our things packed.”
“Thanks Kira, and good morning Kylar!”
“Morning Boss, by the way your wife cooks a mean breakfast.”
“Yes, and she’s beautiful too, I’m a lucky man, I’ll eat quickly so we can get out of here.”
“I’ll go throw my stuff together,” I said. “I’ll be right out.”
The flight out to Dome Argus in Vostoc was uneventful and after touching down we walked the short distance to the weather station. Kira stepped inside first and was greeted by a former female co-worker who wasn’t expecting our visit.
“Hey Kira’ what’s going on, what are you guys doing here?”
By this time I was beginning to feel nervous. How would I explain why I was at the station. Boris was bringing in our bags, so pulling on my arm to bring me further in, Kira introduced me to her friend.
“This is my friend Kylar, he has some digital equipment that he wanted to personally deliver to you guys to help decipher the ice core samples.”
