Damn!! The first story is fu*king scary! I am born in Bosnia, but have not yet heard of a thing called Stuhać.. But I am glad that I live in Denmark now and not near the mountains of Bosnia where the Stuhać dwell!
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Expect one tomorrow, I meant to get it sorted today but things, Bruce Willis in shape, took up my time but soon dont worry
Spacehusky: As good a reaction as I hoped!
likk9922: Heh... not quite but soon things shall become clear
Dr. Gonzo: Hehe
Well the boys form the NKVD will try to get things sorted, thats no guarantee you'll get to find out about it of course!
Sandino: Rotten indeed, you havent seen the start of it
4th Dimension: Not far off. I was tempted to set this story in the USA, so drastic cases of hush-ups would seem more extreme but quite frankly a Soviet X-Files seems more interesting even if the treatment of bystanders might not seem as harsh
Guangxi: Soon my friend, soon...
Razbojnik: Best response so far well from what I can tell the Stuhac wasn't terribly well known so its not surprising you didnt hear about. More of one of many pagan beasties than major folklore.
Phoenix Dace: Glad you are enjoying, hope you can stick around.
Okay update in a second.
likk9922: Heh... not quite but soon things shall become clear
Dr. Gonzo: Hehe
Well the boys form the NKVD will try to get things sorted, thats no guarantee you'll get to find out about it of course!Sandino: Rotten indeed, you havent seen the start of it
4th Dimension: Not far off. I was tempted to set this story in the USA, so drastic cases of hush-ups would seem more extreme but quite frankly a Soviet X-Files seems more interesting even if the treatment of bystanders might not seem as harsh
Guangxi: Soon my friend, soon...
Razbojnik: Best response so far
well from what I can tell the Stuhac wasn't terribly well known so its not surprising you didnt hear about. More of one of many pagan beasties than major folklore.Phoenix Dace: Glad you are enjoying, hope you can stick around.
Okay update in a second.
Department VI (NKVD) Headquarters, Leningrad
Russian SFSR, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
March 12th 1938
Vasily Katkov lent over his desk, a Belomorkanal cigarette clamped firmly between his teeth. He kept the end of the papirosa pointed firmly up as he ran it over the candle flame in case the tobacco fell out, as Belomorkanals were known to do; cheap, nasty little things. Vasily puffed on it several times, the embers glowing almost white before dying again with every inhalation. The high angle of the cigarette let the flame run up the paper. Vasily caught a breath of black smoke. His cracked ribs sent out spikes of pain as he coughed violently, finally sitting back in his hard, wooden chair. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes with a heavy hand. The rain continued to pour lazily outside the small, filthy window by his desk. The snows were finally leaving, washed away as grey sludge into the city’s canals and sewers. The streets below were bereft of life, as usual. Around Vasily, a dozen or so clerks and agents busied themselves on typewriters, or droned with one another over officious matters. Half the ancient, heavy oak desks were empty, of persons or objects, or both. The 6th Department was busy, and had quite a high turnover.
Anton Antonov was a perfect example. His desk was bare and nobody noticed or cared. Two years he’d been there. Vasily hadn’t talked to him for longer than five minutes. The most intimate he’d been with him was carrying his corpse. Vasily fingered a small piece of card with his free hand. It was the invitation to Antonov’s funeral. He wasn’t going to go and neither was anyone else from the Department. He probably had friends from the Academy who would go. Well, probably not, thought Vasily, he was an annoying little squirt. Most were glad he was gone, tired of his nitpicking and feeble attempts to join in conversations. Others didn’t even know he had been there. Vasily was sure family would be enough.
Replacements were slow in coming to the Department, few agents knew about it, let alone sort to be transferred there. The 6th Department meant career suicide; few volunteered to join the ranks of eccentrics and troublemakers unless a worse fate faced them. If there was one thing the Department was known for, was its autonomy. No other NKVD section, not even the Secretariat for Administration, responsible for 'internal inquiries', was allowed to touch the 6th Department unless the People’s Commissar for Internal Affairs gave written permission. And he never had. If one was facing possible purging, and it was for relatively minor crimes, punishable by exile or hard labour, one could apply for the 6th Department and expect acceptance. If you were accused of something more serious however, treason for instance, then such an escape was obviously not allowed. The NKVD had an old saying taken from their Tsarist predecessors, the Okhrana: Death is death. One of the first things you learnt in the 6th Department was that wasn’t terribly true.
“Have you read this”! Called Pavel Davidovich at no one in particular, yet loud enough for everyone to overhear. He entered the room with a limp, still not yet fully recovered from his broken leg. His drenched trenchcoat dripped loudly, louder than the rain outside, onto the swollen, darkened planked floor that creaked under his massive form. He was a bear of a man. He held today’s copy of Izvestia up for all to see, though most didn’t pay attention. He walked over to Vasily, still wearing his trickling coat.
“Have you heard this Vasily”? Pavel asked gently, as if he hadn’t made his previous announcement.
“No, heard what Pavel”? Didn’t matter if Vasily knew or not; Pavel would assuredly tell.
“Austria’s gone”!
“Beg your pardon Davidovich? Has it sunk”?
“Damnable Nazis just walked in and took it! Not even a fight. Now it’s the province of Ostmark, of the Greater German Reich”! Pavel clicked his heels and gave a crisp Hitler salute.
“Really”? Vasily didn’t react too much, he was tired and his coffee was stale “Ah well, they are Germans technically anyway, not to mention Fascists”
“Catholic Fascists Vasily, at least der Fuhrer has the decency to keep God out of the equation”
“Aye”
Vasily could never quite judge Pavel’s view on religion. Whether he was a terribly passive atheist or so god fearing he tried not to even make passing reference to him, all Vasily knew was he preferred to stay off the subject. Hence his approval of secularism, even Fascist secularism.
“Where’s Otto”? Asked Pavel, taking a seat on Antonov’s old desk opposite Vasily’s “Barely seen him since I got back”
“He’s in Moscow”, Vasily played with his pointed goatee, pulling at the individual dark hairs “got to investigate something about a parasite that killed a postman”
“How exciting”
“Died in public apparently, went crazy in a restaurant. Someone knocked him out, he didn’t wake up”
“How many people saw”?
“Quite a few, two dozen maybe. If it isn’t too serious they’ll probably tell them he went insane or got rabies or something”
“And if it is serious”?
“Well I think we both know the answer to that”
“They’ll have to go the way of Yagoda”, smiled Pavel. He looked over to the official portrait of the former NKVD Chairman, now being used as an ad-hoc dartboard since he had been replaced by Nikolai Yezhov a few months back.
“Otto called this morning”, continued Vasily “We might have to go down tomorrow and do some investigate work with him”
“You can’t be serious”! Pavel exasperated
“Well I am comrade”! Vasily mocked, grabbing the coffee pot from the windowsill and pouring a half into his cracked lime green mug. He knew it was lukewarm at best, just the right temperature to make you keep drinking in the vain hope it would somehow heat up towards the bottom, but Vasily needed to get rid of the crude burning sensation from the Belomorkanals.
“I was meant to go see the children tomorrow, it’s my first day off in weeks”. The normally jovial Pavel slouched slightly as he spoke, making Vasily uncomfortable. He kept his eyes down and after a moment's silence Pavel continued “I suppose that bitch Klara would keep them busy all day anyway, probably take them out ‘til late and say she forgot, just to spite me. You know what she did the other week”?
“No what”? Vasily lied
“On the day I was meant to see them, on the day stipulated by law I could see them, she had taken them the zoo! She had taken them the fucking zoo with her… that Komsomol fellow she met: also called Vasily”
Vasily forced a chuckle, trying to break the tension.
“Fucking trumped up scoutmaster. Couldn’t have been older than twenty-five, twenty-six. Bitch. I’d report them for breaking the divorce agreement but… y’know how it is”
Vasily knew how it was. Pavel was an adulterer and this other Vasily, being a Komsomol member, was no doubt a Party member- and quite frankly Pavel wasn’t.
The silence reared up again. Pavel hurriedly lit a cigarette, trying somehow to plaster over his little outburst. Vasily noticed one of his eyes water, though it may have just been the smoke. Vasily himself became very interested in removing imaginary grime from his wire frame spectacles with the cuff of his shirt. The silence lasted a little. The rain grew slightly louder, and a canal barge could be heard chugging off in the distance. Vasily tried to think of something to say but couldn’t get far from the topic.
“So… how is your oldest Pavel, how’s… Nicholas”?
“Oh he’s doing fine, just turned nine as you know”, Pavel’s unusually monotone voice gave away the difficulty he was having in moving on to casual conversation “He’s top of his group in the Little Octobrists, I saw him lead a procession of the other children from his school the other week actually, he got to carry the little red flag” Pavel gave a heartbreaking smile, and swallowed the lump in his throat.
Vasily checked his pocket watch. His shift finished in ten minutes. Close enough, he thought. He opened the bottom draw of his desk and pulled out a bottle of black market vodka. He was sure Mr. Smirnoff would be able to cheer up his friend more than he could.
Russian SFSR, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
March 12th 1938
Vasily Katkov lent over his desk, a Belomorkanal cigarette clamped firmly between his teeth. He kept the end of the papirosa pointed firmly up as he ran it over the candle flame in case the tobacco fell out, as Belomorkanals were known to do; cheap, nasty little things. Vasily puffed on it several times, the embers glowing almost white before dying again with every inhalation. The high angle of the cigarette let the flame run up the paper. Vasily caught a breath of black smoke. His cracked ribs sent out spikes of pain as he coughed violently, finally sitting back in his hard, wooden chair. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes with a heavy hand. The rain continued to pour lazily outside the small, filthy window by his desk. The snows were finally leaving, washed away as grey sludge into the city’s canals and sewers. The streets below were bereft of life, as usual. Around Vasily, a dozen or so clerks and agents busied themselves on typewriters, or droned with one another over officious matters. Half the ancient, heavy oak desks were empty, of persons or objects, or both. The 6th Department was busy, and had quite a high turnover.
Anton Antonov was a perfect example. His desk was bare and nobody noticed or cared. Two years he’d been there. Vasily hadn’t talked to him for longer than five minutes. The most intimate he’d been with him was carrying his corpse. Vasily fingered a small piece of card with his free hand. It was the invitation to Antonov’s funeral. He wasn’t going to go and neither was anyone else from the Department. He probably had friends from the Academy who would go. Well, probably not, thought Vasily, he was an annoying little squirt. Most were glad he was gone, tired of his nitpicking and feeble attempts to join in conversations. Others didn’t even know he had been there. Vasily was sure family would be enough.
Replacements were slow in coming to the Department, few agents knew about it, let alone sort to be transferred there. The 6th Department meant career suicide; few volunteered to join the ranks of eccentrics and troublemakers unless a worse fate faced them. If there was one thing the Department was known for, was its autonomy. No other NKVD section, not even the Secretariat for Administration, responsible for 'internal inquiries', was allowed to touch the 6th Department unless the People’s Commissar for Internal Affairs gave written permission. And he never had. If one was facing possible purging, and it was for relatively minor crimes, punishable by exile or hard labour, one could apply for the 6th Department and expect acceptance. If you were accused of something more serious however, treason for instance, then such an escape was obviously not allowed. The NKVD had an old saying taken from their Tsarist predecessors, the Okhrana: Death is death. One of the first things you learnt in the 6th Department was that wasn’t terribly true.
“Have you read this”! Called Pavel Davidovich at no one in particular, yet loud enough for everyone to overhear. He entered the room with a limp, still not yet fully recovered from his broken leg. His drenched trenchcoat dripped loudly, louder than the rain outside, onto the swollen, darkened planked floor that creaked under his massive form. He was a bear of a man. He held today’s copy of Izvestia up for all to see, though most didn’t pay attention. He walked over to Vasily, still wearing his trickling coat.
“Have you heard this Vasily”? Pavel asked gently, as if he hadn’t made his previous announcement.
“No, heard what Pavel”? Didn’t matter if Vasily knew or not; Pavel would assuredly tell.
“Austria’s gone”!
“Beg your pardon Davidovich? Has it sunk”?
“Damnable Nazis just walked in and took it! Not even a fight. Now it’s the province of Ostmark, of the Greater German Reich”! Pavel clicked his heels and gave a crisp Hitler salute.
“Really”? Vasily didn’t react too much, he was tired and his coffee was stale “Ah well, they are Germans technically anyway, not to mention Fascists”
“Catholic Fascists Vasily, at least der Fuhrer has the decency to keep God out of the equation”
“Aye”
Vasily could never quite judge Pavel’s view on religion. Whether he was a terribly passive atheist or so god fearing he tried not to even make passing reference to him, all Vasily knew was he preferred to stay off the subject. Hence his approval of secularism, even Fascist secularism.
“Where’s Otto”? Asked Pavel, taking a seat on Antonov’s old desk opposite Vasily’s “Barely seen him since I got back”
“He’s in Moscow”, Vasily played with his pointed goatee, pulling at the individual dark hairs “got to investigate something about a parasite that killed a postman”
“How exciting”
“Died in public apparently, went crazy in a restaurant. Someone knocked him out, he didn’t wake up”
“How many people saw”?
“Quite a few, two dozen maybe. If it isn’t too serious they’ll probably tell them he went insane or got rabies or something”
“And if it is serious”?
“Well I think we both know the answer to that”
“They’ll have to go the way of Yagoda”, smiled Pavel. He looked over to the official portrait of the former NKVD Chairman, now being used as an ad-hoc dartboard since he had been replaced by Nikolai Yezhov a few months back.
“Otto called this morning”, continued Vasily “We might have to go down tomorrow and do some investigate work with him”
“You can’t be serious”! Pavel exasperated
“Well I am comrade”! Vasily mocked, grabbing the coffee pot from the windowsill and pouring a half into his cracked lime green mug. He knew it was lukewarm at best, just the right temperature to make you keep drinking in the vain hope it would somehow heat up towards the bottom, but Vasily needed to get rid of the crude burning sensation from the Belomorkanals.
“I was meant to go see the children tomorrow, it’s my first day off in weeks”. The normally jovial Pavel slouched slightly as he spoke, making Vasily uncomfortable. He kept his eyes down and after a moment's silence Pavel continued “I suppose that bitch Klara would keep them busy all day anyway, probably take them out ‘til late and say she forgot, just to spite me. You know what she did the other week”?
“No what”? Vasily lied
“On the day I was meant to see them, on the day stipulated by law I could see them, she had taken them the zoo! She had taken them the fucking zoo with her… that Komsomol fellow she met: also called Vasily”
Vasily forced a chuckle, trying to break the tension.
“Fucking trumped up scoutmaster. Couldn’t have been older than twenty-five, twenty-six. Bitch. I’d report them for breaking the divorce agreement but… y’know how it is”
Vasily knew how it was. Pavel was an adulterer and this other Vasily, being a Komsomol member, was no doubt a Party member- and quite frankly Pavel wasn’t.
The silence reared up again. Pavel hurriedly lit a cigarette, trying somehow to plaster over his little outburst. Vasily noticed one of his eyes water, though it may have just been the smoke. Vasily himself became very interested in removing imaginary grime from his wire frame spectacles with the cuff of his shirt. The silence lasted a little. The rain grew slightly louder, and a canal barge could be heard chugging off in the distance. Vasily tried to think of something to say but couldn’t get far from the topic.
“So… how is your oldest Pavel, how’s… Nicholas”?
“Oh he’s doing fine, just turned nine as you know”, Pavel’s unusually monotone voice gave away the difficulty he was having in moving on to casual conversation “He’s top of his group in the Little Octobrists, I saw him lead a procession of the other children from his school the other week actually, he got to carry the little red flag” Pavel gave a heartbreaking smile, and swallowed the lump in his throat.
Vasily checked his pocket watch. His shift finished in ten minutes. Close enough, he thought. He opened the bottom draw of his desk and pulled out a bottle of black market vodka. He was sure Mr. Smirnoff would be able to cheer up his friend more than he could.
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I'm sure Hitler will leave well alone after Austria o
This Department 6 looks interesting, too important even to purge but most definately not a glamorous post.
Well let's see what comes of Otto's investigations...
o This Department 6 looks interesting, too important even to purge but most definately not a glamorous post.
Well let's see what comes of Otto's investigations...
Te-he
No, not the Te-he of doom! That means that my theories about a giant tapeworm won't definitively be proven false for many updates!
I think you made a little mistake:
Other than that it's fine.
I wonder if well see undead Heinreich I from Wolfenstien in one of the updates
How can Otto exapare if he's in Moscow. I think Pavel should stand there.
Other than that it's fine.
I wonder if well see undead Heinreich I from Wolfenstien in one of the updates
Two, maybe three more pages to savour before Jape abandons this and does something else. Which would be a pity because so far its been most impressive and, as always, an intriguing setup with so much potential in both plot and character.
Or will he surprise us all and actually stick with this one? The odds are probably quite long but you never know.
Or will he surprise us all and actually stick with this one? The odds are probably quite long but you never know.
Sandino: Ah the Fuhrer, a playful scamp
likk9922: I'll see what I can doo
4th Dimension: Expect Nazi wierdness but not nessecarily undead kings!
Dr. Gonzo: As you command Doctor
El Pip: I take offence to such accusations, I have never abanoned an AAR unless technological problems have arisen! Apart from that War of the Worlds one in Vicky, that one I just got bored of o . Anyway unlike most of my other AARs this one has been in the works for many a moon, I have no intention of weltching on this piece. Anyway I hope you enjoy and I can assure you, you shall eat your words!
Baneslave: Right now my fine fellow
likk9922: I'll see what I can do
o 4th Dimension: Expect Nazi wierdness but not nessecarily undead kings!
Dr. Gonzo: As you command Doctor
El Pip:
I take offence to such accusations, I have never abanoned an AAR unless technological problems have arisen! Apart from that War of the Worlds one in Vicky, that one I just got bored of o . Anyway unlike most of my other AARs this one has been in the works for many a moon, I have no intention of weltching on this piece. Anyway I hope you enjoy and I can assure you, you shall eat your words!Baneslave: Right now my fine fellow
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