The sun fell beyond the rolling peaks, bringing an early evening to rural Ukraine. The dark ridgeline above the narrow mountain pass was tinged in fading yellows and flickering golds. Dusk carried a witching wind along the Carpathian slopes from the heights of medieval legend to the bottomless bedrock of superstition’s realm.

Deep wagon ruts from gypsy caravans snaked through ancient dirt down there in the canyons, forming unprotected trails where even gods tread lightly in the despair of this evening. The flat lands surrounding the mountains were a place of sobering imagination. It was a forbidden dimension where less than human creatures waited in the shadows.

As the rocky formations brought an earthly darkness to hell’s valley, a blood orange moon rose above the treetops on the plains to the east and set the foothills on fire with a glowing light that shook the depths of our gravest nightmares. The inferno spread quickly over the lowlands, intensifying gloom into disparity and making it difficult to determine who, or what, may be following unsuspecting travelers.

An old flatbed truck rolled along the rough road trying to find a path of less resistance. The steering wheel was in freefall. The tires sagged to the left and rose to the right, then sagged to the right and rose to the left through a minefield of distemper. At times, the wheels cut sharply around nothing at all as if avoiding imaginary bodies left from dead days past.

The man driving glanced in the rearview mirror. He swore he saw dead-eyed goblins sitting among the swaying tree branches. The sight scared him more that he imagined it would, reminding him of tales his old babushka used to whisper in the quiet of firelight.

“You look like you’ve just seen a ghost, or something worse,” nodded his passenger.

He briefly thought about punching a hole in the man’s chest. He had already regretted asking him along in the first place. Several times. The last thing he needed right then was another idiotic observation from this imbecile.

The driver concentrated on the road. His eyes didn’t waver from the incline as the old truck began its climb into the black heart of oblivion. The road crunched and popped under the weight of the three-ton Zis-5 vehicle. He prayed the bald tires would hold together long enough to reach their destination.

“Shut up,” he finally answered.

“Are you scared of vampires and werewolves? You don’t still believe that old woman’s tales do you? It was just talk. Crazy talk.”

Who would make up such stories, the driver thought? There is evil in this world, my brother. Real evil that can’t be explained. It haunts us in the uncertainty of human night, in the faltering confusion of our minds, in the sudden eclipse of our souls.

“I never mock such things and neither should you,” he assured his passenger.

The driver took a deep breath. Air eased from his lungs like cold fog drifting across the flat surface of a night-stained lake. He wiped his face with a damp shirtsleeve.

“You are scared, Yuri. I never thought I’d see the day.”

“If you don’t shut up, you won’t see tomorrow.”

“You sound like you’re thinking about putting a bullet in me,” the passenger said with a tentative smile.

“I’m thinking about putting you out right here. You can walk on if you like or run back home for all I care.”

Light turned to twilight quicker than the driver had hoped. It wasn’t the presence of total black that bothered him. After all, what he can’t see can’t hurt him. His real fear lay in the movements and whispers intensifying every shadow and they were swiftly closing around the truck at that moment.

Yuri pulled in his arm and cranked up the window. As the truck rocked back and forth over unseen potholes, he tightened his grip on the steering wheel. He didn’t need to lose control right now and nosedive into a ravine.

“For God’s sake, it’s another two hundred kilometers to Kraków. What am I supposed to do?”

“You can walk back through the valley down there. It’s the shortest way home.” Yuri flipped a thumb over his shoulder before continuing. “Since you’re such an atheist all of a sudden, I’m sure you’ll find someone, or some - thing, to pick you up.”

“You superstitious…” He shook his head and looked out the window. “Come on Yuri. You’re talking to family. I was just being funny.”

“Brother or not, Valeri, if you don’t shut up and give me some peace, I swear I’ll put you out. I see nothing to joke about until we deliver this crate.”

Yuri downshifted as the old road wound farther into the foothills. The gears ground metal on metal. The cab bucked under him. He stared into the rearview mirror again to ensure everything was as it should be. I hate these mountains, he thought.

“This ain’t like you, Yuri. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

Valeri looked at the side of Yuri’s face. Even though his silhouette was half-formed in the faint light, he saw something he’d never seen before. Fear soaked the brow of his unshakable brother. Yuri was keeping something from him.

“What’s in the crate?” asked his brother.

The rear left axle suddenly bounced into a rut and hit bottom. The steering wheel jerked hard to the left. Yuri’s first instinct was to swipe at the brakes but he had to keep the slow momentum going up the pass. He corrected course and tapped the gas again.

“Yuri?”

A scraping beneath the truck bed grew louder and echoed in the wind. The noise stopped as a tire climbed out of a long pothole. Yuri readjusted himself in the bench seat.

“What!?”

 “What is in the crate?”

“Something heavy.”

“I know that. It took five of us to lift it inside. But what is it?”

“The man said manufacturing ingredients.”

“Yuri, what sort of ingredients needs to be stored in a lead container?”

Surviving Prague Excerpt 1

The Hollow Man    |     The Hollow Man Series, International Espionage​

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