A heavy church bell rang in the distance, signifying noon as a mass of feet thudded against the pavement. Vasily Borgunov sat down on a park bench and relaxed, kicking back and stretching his feet. He munched on a sandwich watching as red and white trolleys sped by, surfing the power lines. It was a cheerfully sunny day, and rather warm in Leningrad. He had survived half a day at work, an accomplishment to say the least as he worked 8 hours a day at an art gallery and while it was fun, it also was unbearable, especially when a pack of visitors eyed him with hungry eyes and demanded explanation for things which to him seemed like trifles. But a job was a job, and brought him a good deal of money, and he was at lunch now in any case and for the next hour he didn’t have to worry about such things.
Finishing off his sandwich and having a drink of water, he still had some time, just about half and hour, maybe less, he thought as he glanced at his watch, might as well go on a bit of a walk.
He strutted down the streets, surrounded by imposing stone monoliths which tour guides always seemed to heap unearned praises down upon, as historical architecture or even art but to him seemed just really old heaps of grey, beige sometimes even red brick which merely happened to have spaces for humans inside. Masses of color in the shape of cars whirred down the streets and young men and women strolled beside each other chatting. However, amid all of the activity, a single scrap of disposable matted paper had caught his eye. “Enter for a chance to win a free polar cruise!” the paper advertised, slanting sideways being haphazardly glued onto the side of a dirty newspaper kiosk.
“Do you know anything about the polar cruise advertisement” Vasily inquired to the man manning the kiosk.
“Oh, that thing! Yeah, you have to mail them a special ballot which they enter into a raffle, a lucky 128 people who win then get sent a ticket for the cruise which goes up near the North Pole.” the kiosk worker explained, “Do you want to submit an entry?” he asked.
“Sure why not.” said Vasily who had been eyeing up a vacation opportunity somewhere unusual as summer was drawing nearer. The kiosk worker rummaged around, nearly causing the leaning tower of various trinkets and paper to fall over, but eventually pulled out a slip of paper. A small entry fee was paid and Vasily filled out the ballot, slid it into an envelope and stashed it away to mail in later.
Weeks had gone by since Vasily mailed in the ballot and finally, just as he began to lose all hope along the dry humid monotony of endless summer days, to his great joy a reply came, along with his ticket, signifying him as a winner of the raffle.
The ship, the Wings of Icarus, was a 100 meter vessel that had clearly seen some years, with a dull battleship grey paint emblazoning the length of the curved hull, with the superstructure, a boxy shape of clearly older design sitting like a shining white castle upon an iron hill. The funnel, set towards the back of the ship and on a slight intentional slant, it’s top rimmed with a thick coat of black paint still showed little brown streaks of rust, as did everything else on the ship. Despite its aging deteriorating exterior, the living quarters were clean and machinery seemed well repaired and in good condition, with clean decks of still laminated wood which had been preserved by the cold of polar waters. More importantly eight bright orange/white lifeboats hung firmly secured from the elements in little alcoves on the promenade deck from thick steel davits, four on each side and each capable of carrying around 20 people.
Ths was the sight that had met the eyes of Vasily as he stepped off of the train and onto the cold cobblestone which framed in a thin layer of permafrost formed the heavy set foundations of Murmansk, a city which defiantly braved the ever present threat of the northern ice flows year round which like a blockade of enemy warships, it’s icebergs like huge turrets, threatening to close the port off and choke it to death, especially so in the creeping days of November and bleakness of December but as now in the middle of summer, the ice had retreated and vanished off of the visible horizon, allowing shipping to pass through uninterrupted.
Boarding the Wings of Icarus, Vasily was directed to his cabin by a uniformed crewmember. He packed substantially, especially for the arctic with plenty of sweaters and thick coats. His cabin, 80, was located near the top of the ship, was a small room seven feet by five, rather small but big enough to be cozy instead of cramped, fitting inside of it a bed, a bedside stand, a simple wooden chair with some padding and a desk with a small lamp built into the wall. The entire scene was illuminated by light streaming in from a porthole with musty green curtains. Far from the definition of luxury, that’s for sure but for something that he got for free, it might as well have been the Amber Room.
The cruise was set to last two weeks, and as the ship touched off from the pier, Vasily silently waved goodbye and readied himself to rest, mind and body.
The first couple days were excellent, although he had quite the time trying to adjust himself to the dim, distant roar of the engines which while barely noticeable at low power still invaded his mind, like the buzzing of a fly around your ear, especially so at night. A young couple who had the room next to his were, really, really, passionate about each other, a problem that compounded the hum of the engine in keeping him up in the dark hours of the late evening.
However when he suffered through the evening, he loved waking up to the warm, concentrated beam of light streaming in through the porthole above the bed, and beyond it the exotic views of the seemingly endless paper-white expanse of ice flows and occasional islands of permafrost inhabited only by the rare lumbering polar bears, who step by step shifted their weight from one foot to the next and seemingly otherworldly walruses who lazily perched themselves atop the ice. These views made it all worth it.
The ship boasted a modest library on board as one of it’s amenities. It was a room approximately twice the size of a standard highschool classroom, the walls, richly sheathed in panels of darkly stained hardwood provided extra insulation against the cold, complimented by a dark green carpet which had absorbed into it the peculiar smell of a hundred different flavors of tobacco over the years and the matching hardwood bookshelves, filled with aging yellowed classics created a small maze, making the room seem much bigger than it was. It was in this room that Vasily sought sanctuary from the noisiness of his neighbors and the engine below decks in the waning hours of the day. It had quickly become a habit of his that after dinner he would retreat behind a small table at the back of the library, his back against the wall, reading late into the night under the light of a table lamp.
It was on one such enjoyable evening, a week into the cruise when Vasily, half asleep, half entranced in the world of Jules Verne’s Around The World in 80 Days was suddenly jolted back to reality by a sudden movement. The ship seemed to have lurched to the side, he thought to himself, “Have we hit something? An iceberg? Are we sinking?” Thoughts raced through his startled mind accompanied by images of the four funneled hulk of the Titanic disappearing into the dark Atlantic waters. He held his breath and listened carefully…
But no, he didn’t hear anything that would indicate catastrophe, there was no painful screeching as steel was torn apart nor was the thunderous flood of water rushing into the lower decks able to be heard as well. There was only the usual hum of the engine and the gentle lapping of small waves against the side of the hull. Everything was silent, and he began to question if he felt anything at all, maybe it was just a hypnic jerk…
But no, there it was again, a crash from below, but this was different, the first felt like something had hit the underside of the ship, this felt like a door had slammed open. Reaching into his pocket, and pulling out a small flashlight, he descended below decks.
Step after step he went down the hallway, he found them surprisingly empty, only a handful of other people who had been awake or had been shaken awake were looking around in confusion, half expecting a uniformed crew member to run down the halls ordering them to put on lifejackets. However, all they found was an equally confused Vasily, who quickly got two other people to accompany him down the hallway from which the sound had originated. The beam of his flashlight landed on a door, swung wide open, peering inside, they found the items inside, a suitcase, clothing, a water bottle strewn all across the floor, the bed was a mess, there was obviously a struggle or at least a commotion, but no signs of violence, no blood, no body, the occupant or occupants were simply gone.
The crew was notified and word traveled up to the captain, two Soviet military men which had been assigned to the ship, minor naval officers Vasily guessed by their uniforms had soon arrived at the scene, one of them had an AK-74 rifle slung over his shoulder while the other one carried a camera in a small canvas bag. The one with the rifle parked himself in the doorway, blocking it almost completely with his broad shoulders, and in a “friendly” way suggested that all passengers should clear out of the scene while the one with the camera took photos and examined the room.
Throughout the following day, the crew, assisted in part by volunteers from passengers turned everything in the ship upside down looking for the missing person who was identified on the passenger register as Katherina Molotovna, an elderly lady who taught ecology at university, judging by the books found in her cabin. Still, the search was fruitless, unless she jumped overboard to commit suicide there was no other explanation. What made things even stranger was that while the people in the adjacent cabins were woken up by the two loud bangs, they didn’t hear any signs of someone attacking her or sounds of a fight.
There was quite the storm of discussions, followed by a deafening silence of apprehension, but even that was quickly replaced by fear when another passenger went missing, a middle aged man, entered his cabin one evening and never left, the room was locked from the inside and no one left or entered for two days. When on the third day a booted kick from one of the navy men busted the lock, the door swung open… revealing nothing.
A wave of horror and fear rippled through the ranks of passenger and crew alike. The ship immediately turned back to port and meanwhile was reorganized into a strict regime, curfews were installed and crew members patrolled the corridors, and little by little things seemed to quiet down, literally.
Vasily was laying in his bed, with his eyes closed, simply lost in his own thoughts. The darkness heightened his sense of hearing a good deal and as he lay there he noticed a peculiarity, the almost total, the couple next door was completely silent, not a bed creak, not even a whisper. For that matter even the usual hum of the engine seemed dimmer and almost completely drowned out by the gentle sloshing of waves against the side of the ship. Slightly offset by this, he drifted off to sleep.
The next morning he had an omelet for breakfast, but it didn’t sit right in his stomach, he ran down to the restroom and threw up. He was sick, hius stomach was hurting, as if he was stabbed, but all seemed fine, he didn’t see any wound on himself, yet he threw up once again. The day dragged on lazily normal after that, but he didn’t have the heart to eat anything else from the kitchen, being content with some apples and crackers washed down with carbonated water. Looking out from his porthole, all he saw has the usual ice and dark blue water, which like a veil covered the endless freezing abyssal void beneath them. But what caught his eye was a certain iceberg, it seemed to resemble the face of a giant bearded old man who looked down at the water in utter disappointment.
It was just as silent this night as it was before, even the footsteps of the crew who now patrolled the hallways weren’t there, and the previously annoying rumble of the engine now had become a reassuring constant that he was still on a boat was dying down even more.
The morning, oh the morning, he was hungry, but not hungry enough to eat that food from the kitchen. For the time being he satiated both his hunger and thirst with a small bottle of water and a bag of salted cashews and jerky he had brought along with him as a snack.
He cautiously left the safe, cramped yet reassuring borders of his cabin like a prairie dog peeking out of its burrow constantly watching for predators. But there can’t be any predators here, there can’t be! Constantly chanted the logical side of Vasily’s brain desperately trying to regain control over the racing heartbeat which would have put to shame any machine-gun that ever was and his shaking uncertain muscles. His quad nervously spasmed once every minute or so, adding to his general unease and discomfort.
“You’re on a cruise ship sailing smoothly, not just any cruise ship, but a Soviet one, a Soviet ship in Soviet waters, god forbid there be a real threat he would already have long been evacuated, the entire passenger body and crew questioned and interrogated on a Navy ship heading home. A serious federal investigation would have been launched, or at the very least it would have been given enough attention for the accompanying paperwork to be neatly filled out and left to collect dust on an unnamed minister’s desk. None of that has happened yet, so you’re fine. Relax!” His logical side continued to bombard his body and emotions. But he could not. It was serious enough for the Navy officers onboard to reach for their heavy leather holsters in which sat their polished Makarovs or let their fingers creep confidently to the fire selector switch of the Kalashnikov at the slightest bump or suspicious sound especially after sundown. And the people, they were gone, like into thin air or if they never existed in the first place.
And there seemed to be considerably less people onboard in general, not just those who were missing. Catching the fleeting glimpse of a human form hurriedly, much like himself, turning a corner and vanishing behind it was rare, much less so to meet someone face to face. He began to calm down just slightly at the sight of a lone sentinel, a steward strutting proudly and confidently, even somewhat condescendingly down the hallway of Vasily’s cabin towards him carrying a bundle of towels.
Vasily raised his hand in a friendly wave and approached the young man.
“Excuse me, but by any chance have you seen or heard from the young couple who are in the cabin next to mine?” he asked
“And which cabin is yours sir?” the steward asked
“Cabin 80, right over there, their cabin is 81.” Vasily clarified. The steward frowned, and thought for a moment.
“A young couple?” he asked again
“Yes, a young man with messy blonde hair and a short brunette woman, both around their early twenties.” Vasily clarified to the steward, recalling the couple’s appearance when he brushed past them several times in the hallways and promenade deck.
“I don’t believe Cabin 81 is occupied sir, I have never seen anyone leave or enter, although you may want to consult…” the steward’s words fell on deaf ears. Vasily was absolutely shocked, in a trance-like state he nodded and thanked the steward for his time and stumbled down the hallway.
He ducked his head as he was climbing through the thick metal bulkhead that separated the general superstructure and living quarters from the stairway to the promenade deck. He scampered up the cramped industrial stairs and found himself on the weathered, wind swept deck above, only somewhat protected from the sub zero arctic winds by the masses of the lifeboats on either side.
He stumbled over towards the bow, almost slipping as the ship crested wave after wave as the half frozen sea suddenly became alive and angry in the mid morning hours. He neared the bridge, he wanted to speak to an officer, to the first mate or hell, even with the Captain, to prove that he wasn’t going insane, that he didn’t just imagine two people over two weeks, he had spoken to them, said hello to them and waved, and hallucinations don’t tend to wave back, they did. After all, he was a fully grown man, with half his life already behind him, he had no previous history with schizophrenia or anything of the sort and neither did anyone in his family, and that wasn’t the type of disease that manifests out of nowhere randomly, in the middle of a person’s life like that.
“Halt!” As he neared the bridge, he heard the firm voice of one of the Navy officers. Vasily slowly turned around, the officer was wearing a long overcoat and cold weather fur cap, all lightly covered in snow from the light snowfall in the morning. In his gloved hands he held the AK, his pointer finger on the fire selector.
“Where do you think you’re going?”the officer asked
“I need to speak to an officer on the bridge.” Vasily replied, trying to sound calm
“The bridge is off limits to passengers, you’re under arrest!” the officer said coldly, raising the AK, “Hands up!”
“No you don’t understand sir, this is serious and urgent, the people in the cabin next to me, they’re mis…” Vasily was interrupted by a heavy punch to the face sending him falling to the deck below. In a normal situation his survival instincts would have kept him on the ground, not moving, afraid of being shot or having additional charges added. But this wasn’t a normal situation, he hadn’t done anything wrong, he hadn’t broken any laws. His primal animal instincts were awoken in full, with the only viable choices open to him being either fight or flight, he chose the latter. He leapt to his feet and dove behind towards the bridge, diving behind a bulkhead door just before a row of gunfire pierced the air.
He burst through another door and found himself in the wheelhouse, completely empty, not a soul, no captain, no officers, no presence of habitation outside of the various documents and pencils scattered everywhere, even on the floor. Heavy booted footfalls were heard racing toward the bridge. Vasily dove back into the hallway and then took a left turn into a random room, not daring to stop and read the label. He turned and locked the door beside him, turning around he found himself in an empty cabin, not larger than his own in size but furnished much better. Two overcoats hung from coathangers and two steel bunk beds occupied half the room, opposite a desk with a diplomat case, locked tight with a lock the size of Vasily’s fist. On it was printed in bold lettering Ministry of Defense. He was in the Navy officers’ cabin.
A pair of heavy booted footsteps thundered down the hallway where Vasily had been just moments ago and went into the bridge. Frantically and automatically Vasily looked around and to his horror, he saw, laying there on the ground was an AK-74, it’s bakelite furniture reflecting the warm glow of the yellow lamp above. Why horror? Because there was only one rifle on the ship, he had previously never seen another rifle onboard, and if they had a second rifle then why didn’t the jumpy Navy men ever carry it with them on their patrols, only one ever carried a rifle, the other only had his Makarov to rely on. There was an officer with the only rifle looking for him out there, and here was another rifle, sitting there placidly. He focused his stare on the weapon, as if it was another person who could read the fear and confusion in Vasily’s eyes. He nervously shifted foot to foot, and he heard what he dreaded most, a loud crack.
Looking below, he saw that he had stepped on a pair of glasses, discarded on the floor by the previous owner in a hurry, breaking the lense with his foot. The tenant of the room heard the crack too, as evidenced by the booted footsteps running out of the wheelhouse and towards where Vasily hid. Vasily grabbed the rifle.
He was not familiar with it’s inner workings or how to perform maintenance on it, but from propaganda and movies he knew enough about this rifle to check the magazine, full, flip the fire selector, automatic, and racked the bolt, readying himself to fight.
The doorknob jiggled and with a heave swung open as the Naval officer kicked it down. Before Vasily could do anything, the Navy officer shot first.
Vsily didn’t feel anything, the officer had pulled his trigger and he saw the blinding muzzle flash just a meter in front of him, but there was no pain, no bullet holes and no blood. Had the Naval officer missed at point blank range? He didn’t think about that, he was alive and it was his turn to fire, and so he did. He held down the trigger as the rifle threw itself into his shoulder with each shot, brass flying centimeters away from his eye. His ears were ringing loudly as the gunshots reverberated and echoed back twice as loud in the cramped metal room, leaving him to watch like in a silent movie, red circles appearing on the officer’s overcoat, one shot landed in the stomach, another tore a huge hole through the officer’s arm, another hit the neck, splitting it in two, and the last one landed right in the eye.
The room was showered in gore and blood, but to Vasily’s horror at what he did, the officer didn’t fall, didn’t even drop his rifle, just staggered a bit in surprise, looking down from one eye at his torn up body somewhat inquisitively. Vasily rushed past and jumped down a staircase, he wasn’t thinking straight, he was covered in blood, carrying a rifle he barely knew how to use. He ran through the corridors, running past the library where he saw a group of women chatting and laughing between each other. He yelled to get their attention but received no reaction like he wasn’t even there. The stewards that passed him in the hallways didn’t see him either. He ran further, trying to get back up to the promenade deck and get to the lifeboats. But several meters in front of him the smelly dark green carpet of the hallway began to shift and churn, like the surface of boiling water, and a humanoid shape crawled out from the floor, materializing as the Naval officer that he had just shot, holding his rifle, and again he shot first.
Vasily was running and couldn’t stop himself, the barrel of the officer’s Kalashnikov directly in his face, nothing. The officer swung, trying to punch Vasily, but vasily ducked and put another ten bullets into the officer, painting an abstract art piece on the wall with the man’s brains. One of his bullet’s had, however, hit the officer’s rifle and as Vasily ran past the beheaded, twice dead, standing corpse he saw that the rifle was bleeding.
On the promenade deck he shut the heavy steel bulkhead behind him and hurried up, readying a lifeboat to be launched, all he knew was that he had to get off of the ship. The davits were activated and as Vasily was about to jump into the lifeboat, he turned around to the see the entire promenade deck boiling, with many, many figures rising up from the floor, he recognized the young couple, ladies from the library, Katherina Molotovna, the steward he had spoken to, the captain in his pristine white uniform, the Navy officers, and many more. They all stood silently looking, waiting, watching him. He backed up, raised his rifle with one hand and reached for the lifeboat release lever with the other, as soon as he did so, they all morphed along the floor closer to him. In a desperate, confused, terrified rage he emptied the rest of his magazine into the crowd, inflicting a number of lethal wounds, yet all remained standing, coming closer, closer, closer, Vasily took one last step back, tripped over the railing and was swallowed up by the arctic waters below.
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A sea monster broke the surface of the water around Novaya Zemlya. It was a steel monster, 110 meters in length, bound in sleek black plates with a red star emblazoned just under it’s “eyes”. It’s claws were 533 mm torpedoes and the fangs that would be shown in a life or death struggle, now hidden, were Granat nuclear missiles.
Captain Krupakov looked out from the conning tower of his Akula submarine at his prey. A cruise ship, seemingly perfectly normal, with the words Wings of Icarus emblazoned below the stern.
“This is the third such instance of complete assimilation of the ship and all onboard by the entity. Correct?” His first mate questioned filling out the correct legal document which he would have to give to the suits at the Kremlin to prove that his efforts weren’t in vain and that they were paying him his salary for a reason.
“Correct.” he confirmed and the first mate returned to furiously scribbling. The threat of the Cold War and the constantly scheming Americans provided an excellent diversion to why there were always submarines on the prowl in places where no reasonable commander would ever attack, and although that was his primary duty, to act as a living target for the Americans to try to shoot at in the event of war.
His secondary duty was to liquidate instances of Vodenoy infestations. It was a colony organism which floated along the bottom of the ocean, changing it’s appearance perfectly to match it’s surroundings. It was impervious to torpedoes and deepwater nuclear detonations. It never rose to the surface and wouldn’t have pose a threat if it wasn’t for it’s spores, large eggs the size of a small car which floated just below the surface and when a ship passed overhead, it would latch on to the bottom of the ship, and begin digesting metal and wood, replacing it with it’s own flesh, indistinguishable from the real thing. Slowly, the organism would replace the ship and all the people aboard, how and what happens aboard at that time, no one knows, no one survived to tell the time, all that was known was that what came out the other end was no longer human.
The submarine dived to periscope depth and Captain Krupakov gave the order, “kill it” and the correct buttons were pushed. A column of flame burst from the waves as one of the Granat missiles was launched, heading straight for the thing pretending to be a ship.
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