John Schettler - Armageddon

Curiosity is a powerful urge, and one that has led many men to their doom in ages past. For Mironov, it was a lure he could not ignore, and his mind was always haunted by the strange man he had encountered at the Ilanskiy railway inn, and the odd words he had whispered to him. Was the man working for the Tsar’s dread secret police, the Okhrana, he wondered? Was he sent to find and follow me after my release from prison, so that they could find yet another reason to arrest me?

The more he thought about it, the more he began to feel something was very strange about that brief encounter at the inn. The day itself was one he could never forget. A terrible light had flashed in the early morning, there came a loud roar in the distance, an awful tearing sound as if the sky itself had been ripped open and something came burning through, a wild, scintillating light in the heavens, brighter than the sun. A violent wind was blowing outside, sending a hail of debris flying as the dining room windows shattered.

Mironov jumped at the sound, covering his head and face. There were frightened shouts outside, and they heard the sound of thunder or distant artillery firing. Rushing out they looked to see what appeared to be a second sunrise that morning. The entire horizon to the northeast was aglow with red fire, as if the taiga was burning in a massive forest fire. Everyone stared in awe, pointing at the spectacle…and then the stranger came.

Mironov had not seen him in the village before, and assumed he was a recent arrival, a traveler seeking lodging at the inn. The man seemed confused when he had first met him, disoriented, as if he did not know where he was, but Mironov thought it might only be the shock and amazement of the spectacle glowing on the horizon that had the whole town in an uproar. They went back to the dining hall, intent on finishing breakfast in spite of the strange event, and that brief encounter with the stranger had been more than enough to plant that first seed of curiosity.

He seemed oddly dressed, and Mironov remembered the threatening insignia that decorated his jacket and the pistol in the man’s side holster. That was enough to add a kernel of suspicion to his curiosity about this man, for the Okhrana were everywhere, and might appear in any guise one could imagine.

“Military?” He had asked, and the man told him he had come from Vladivostok en route to the Caspian. He called himself Fedorov, and claimed he was a soldier traveling to a new post. In time they returned to the hotel dining room and, when the stranger followed them back, Mironov’s curiosity and suspicion prompted him to engage the man. He remembered being very blunt with him.

“Tell me you are not a security man working for the Okhrana and I will be happy to share my breakfast table with you,” he said. “Then again if you are Okhrana, I must tell you I have done nothing inappropriate. I was given a full release, and I mean only to travel to Irkutsk to visit friends. You need have no further worries about me.” He looked at the stranger, waiting. “Well? Which is it?”

“Have no fear,” the man said. “I have no business with you…”

Yet that had not been enough to quell the suspicion. When the stranger excused himself Mironov watched as he took the back stairway to the upper floor, presumably to his quarters there. He got up and went to the front desk to inquire about the man, but with the village still unsettled by the strange event underway, the innkeeper was gone. So Mironov took a peek at the register, and his suspicion ticked up yet another notch when he could see no recent entry, or any guest listed by the name Fedorov.

Now there was an edge of fear on his suspicion, so he went back through the dining hall to rejoin his comrades, only to find they had gone back outside to look at the fire in the sky. So Mironov decided to see what more he could learn about the stranger, though he knew he was taking a chance at being apprehended again. He crept slowly up the narrow back stairway after the man, his heart pounding and an inner voice berating him for being so foolish. The Okhrana will find you easily enough, he chided himself. Now here you are skulking about and courting their attention! Yet his curiosity seemed all too compelling. He had to know who this man really was.

Sure enough, his worst fears were realized when he reached the top of those stairs. He felt the hard grip of a steely hand on his shoulder, turning to see another soldier had immediately fallen upon him.

“I’ve done nothing. Let me go!” He protested, but he was soon shoved down the hall and into a room where, sure enough, he saw the man who had called himself Fedorov with yet another soldier, a stocky, rock-like man that looked very threatening.

“So you are with the Okhrana after all,” Mironov said sullenly as soon as he saw Fedorov there. “I knew there was something odd about you. What have I done? You have no right to detain me!”

The man gave him a wide eyed look, as if he had suddenly come to some inner conclusion about him, but then he began asking those odd questions.

“Listen to me, Mironov,” he began. “What is the date?”

“The date?”

“What is the month and year?”

It was just as he feared. The questions… They always started that way. Who are you? Where have you come from? Where are you going? What business do you have there? But this was an odd one-the date? Mironov spoke, somewhat indignant.

“So you mean to interrogate me, is that it?”

“No, no, please. Simply tell me the date.”

It was some kind of test, he thought, to see if his story would hold together. So he humored the man with an answer. “The 30th of June. I arrived late last night. You think I’m a dim witted fool, eh? I knew you were Okhrana the moment I set eyes on you. I have done nothing! I have said nothing, nothing at all!” His eyes were fiery as he spoke, indignant, combative.

The man looked at him as though he had seen a ghost.

“My god,” he said in a low voice. “My god, what has happened? Mironov…You came up the back stairs just now?”

“I saw you go that way, and yes, I followed you to see what I could find out about you. It seems I have learned too much, eh? But that is no reason to arrest me again. A man has the right to see to his own safety, particularly after what just happened out there.” He turned thinking to point to the awful red glow in the sky outside, and then he, suddenly noticed the darkness, the silence, the quiet night beyond the window lit by a silvery gibbous moon. Now it was Mironov’s turn to stare dumfounded at the window.

“What’s happening here? Where’s the day gone?” He was suddenly as confused as the stranger had seemed when he first encountered him. How could it be night? Was it that explosion? Had the red fire on the horizon blackened the sky with smoke? But no! The moon… The moon was up, and all was quiet and still, hushed in the midnight darkness. Then the strangers questioned him yet again, asking his name, and they knew exactly who he was.

Now he was certain they were Okhrana, and he resigned himself to the realization that he would most likely be arrested here again, and taken back to prison. Yet he was suddenly surprised when the man named Fedorov seemed ready to release him.

“You mean I am free to go?”

“Yes, just follow me.” Fedorov reassured him.

Mironov looked at the other soldiers, frowning, then followed Fedorov out the door to the upper landing of the back stairway.

“This way, Mironov. Quickly!” The stranger seemed very insistent, an urgency about his movements. There came a rumble of thunder again, and now Mironov concluded that he had been correct, the darkness must be from the smoke of that fire. Perhaps the moon was still up, and only revealed when the smoke obscured the sun, he thought. He went to Fedorov’s side, looking him in the eye as though he were staring into the face of fate itself.