NationStates Jolt Archive

Arbiter Harkinson lowered his assault rifle as he pushed through the heavy double doors into the shadowed surroundings of a mansion reception; the set of staircases hugged either side of the vast room, snaking up the curved walls to mimic the cliché of classy culture. Of course, the vast room was hidden in shadow, the only source of light the sunlight streaming in through the open doors, smaller shadows blended into the darkness beyond the doorway as the sunlight was barred passage by the squad of Ordos Fedor (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v63/Chlevenkov/ARSBSOLDIERII.jpg) soldiers, clad in their armour, black and red colour scheme giving off an aura of religious crusaders.

Harkinson nodded and the squad clicked on their flashlights – no need to waste the VEPR system’s batteries with night-vision, they systematically moved about the eerie mansion, decadence and wealth wherever Harkinson looked. The curtains were ripped off and reluctantly the grand home of the inner party member Doctor James Growlington lit up, rays of muted sunlight piercing through the tall windows. Nothing was anywhere, there was no sign of Doctor Growlington or his huge entourage of servants – it was as if everyone in the house had simply disappeared.

The veteran soldier moved into the dining hall, the flashlight of his weapon a long, well dressed table, the opulent dining table with full assortment of silverware went hand in hand with the oddly well preserved food. High backed chair at the head of the table and a banquet before it – Growlington lived like a monarch, despite the Kriegos public’s hate for such wealthy figures, except for Comrade Leader Nikolai Fedorenkov; of course. Moving forward and noting the gold candlesticks with their wax melted to the bottom, he spied what seemed a tape recorder. Harkinson frowned. Very odd of someone to bring a tape recorder to a dinner table, but then again, unbeknownst to Harkinson, Doctor Growlington was among the more… Unusual, of Kriegorgrad’s intelligentsia, his study of psychology was infamous among the pseudo-nobility of the Collective Oligarchy. And another, less than famous piece of knowledge was his involvement in a very special project, a project quite intertwined with the problem in the South a two months prior.

Swallowing hard, the arbiter pushed on the button that represented “play”. A long silence ensued, interrupted by the omnipresence of the crackling static that came with such old fashioned mediums of recording sound. Harkinson considered turning it off but abruptly, an obviously intellectual but somewhat sinister voice reeking of nobility burst into the stale air of the dining hall. This was one of the only rooms with its curtains still up.

”My studies on the inherent sociological differences between the proles and bourgeois in the Collective Oligarchy have produced some interesting results, the middle class subjects have been showing a distinct aptitude and pride at working in the mansion – it’s rather fitting that my servants are also my subjects. However, the proletarians have been blathering away about some apparition in the maze of hedgerows towards the rear of my estate – foolish, mad, damned proles, there’s a reason I make them work in the garden rather than let them in the house…”

Silence took hold and choked the sound from the eerie dining hall, until it was set to flight by the same sinister voice – creator of the vile atmosphere and the banisher of.

”At first, the economic superiors of the proles seemed to have dismissed the idea of ‘ghosts’ about my estate as madness, just as any reasonable man would have done… However, I am now somewhat discomforted after Mr Barker – my cook – said that when he went to the pantry to fetch some flour he saw... He saw something rather unsettling.

He said he saw the girl.”

Harkinson swallowed hard, fear slowly inkling into his consciousness. Children weren’t scary, but apparitions and such other madness were… Especially this far north, if you went into the forests far west of Growlington’s manor, it is rumoured half-men, half-wolves stalked the shadowed trees…

”Now, I am starting to feel some more alarm. There have been… Unexplainable happenings about the house. Furniture is moved about rooms that only I have the key for, doors and windows are left open – my servants don’t do this… But my only guess would be the proles. My only hope is that it would be the proles…”

Arbiter Harkinson ever-so consciously readied his rifle, fully aware that any sounds that the weapon made would echo so loudly about the huge, dark, empty hall… Then the recorder barked into life again, retelling the story of the manor day-by-day…

”I’m positive there is something unnatural afoot here, last night I awoke abruptly to the sound of a doorknob being wrestled with, the door leading to the room adjacent to mine: the study. I leapt out of bed, only garbed in my night gown, flung open the door and swung my head to get a look at the intruder. All I saw was a trail of white dress disappearing into an open doorway, before I could do anything, the door was slammed shut. Two minutes or so later, a small troop of servants arrived, one carrying the gun while the others carried candles, torches and lamps. We opened the door and… We found nothing. There was an open window… But my study is four floors up – how the intruder escaped eludes me.”

By now, Harkinson was enthralled by the sinister voice tinged with somewhat disturbed intelligence that spoke of amorality.

”Something is happening to the servants, they seem somewhat… Off. Some of the proles have simply disappeared without a trace while others seem to show symptoms of schizophrenia, dementia and extreme paranoia. This on its own wouldn’t be as out of place as it seems – the proles come and go in this region… But the psychological problems on display in the working class subjects are being uncannily mirrored their bourgeois counterparts. I’m starting to get worried now… Mr. Barker seems rather menacing when he holds the knives he uses in cookery.”

The Arbiter’s mind was working, and suddenly, things seemed much clearer as Harkinson’s logical mind pieced together the evidence. No one there, a menacing character with access to knives…

”Things have gone wrong. Very wrong. I’ve seen her run past intersections, always too far for me to catch up and exclusively at night time, but I see her in her white dress and her bare feet. I know now that the proles weren’t deluded, it was me and my more professional staff who were the deluded ones; blinded by logic and deduction. I should’ve known… But she’s dead. They said she was dead. They said she was dead!”

The deductions made by Harkinson only moments before were shattered. It was apparent that something more sinister truly was at work here. Fear gripped Harkinson like a vice and slowly but surely began to crush out the rationality that held the soldier’s consciousness together and processed information reasonably. Growlington’s voice echoed throughout the hall once again, this time with an audible hint of insane fear.

”It’s clear now. I can’t believe I didn’t see it before… For all my education and knowledge, I couldn’t see it. The girl is on my side, it’s not her doing all the madness, it’s the servants, it must be them. That’s the only logical thing… I hear her now, the screams of the traitorous backstabbers echoing as she does her handiwork. The boom of my gun… The dogs don’t know that she is beyond such petty means of attack. She’s coming to save me… Yes, I am ready, I am-“

The recording cut off with a surprised, gurgling scream. Nothing but silence resounded in the chamber, a void, sound absent save for the slightly noise caused by the madly shivering Harkinson. The vice’s grip tightened and the soldier, a soldier who’d braved suicidal odds and emerged intact, turned and ran, his weapon audaciously thrown onto the meticulously laid-out meal, disrupting the perfect formation of cutlery and food.

As he mindlessly fled from whatever fear had possessed him in the dining hall, odd happenings began to take place, curtains that had been ripped down began to put themselves back up. Madness. That was all that could describe the flurry of movement, it was as if a poltergeist was in their midst, but the manor’s previous occupant knew that there was no ghost or apparition in their midst, no, he knew the true story.

Harkinson arrived panting at the reception and cast a look up at the double staircase, each following an arc up to the second floor. Shadows were all that registered to his eyes under the VEPR mask. Bringing his panicked, jerky gaze back down to eye level, he saw his squad, five Ordos Fedor troopers, fully equipped standing about the ray of yellow sunlight coming in through the open double doors.. A shout echoed throughout Harkinson’s consciousness, piercing the adrenaline glazed layer of fear and registering with the Arbiter.

“Sir, we have a one.”

And slowly but surely, a little girl with flowing, long brown locks gracefully entered ray of light, a darling smile on the child’s face as she gave off the glow of an angel in her whit dress. Smiling the sweet smile, she looked at Harkinson in the shadows with round hazel eyes that glittered in the sunlight. But regardless of the façade, Harkinson knew from that moment what she was: a monster. He stared into the eyes of innocent death.

Jonathon groaned as he shambled down the wet, grey street, cobbles flanked by grim sidewalks filled with members of the party. Halting in his stride, he turned with weary bones and cast a look into the cobbles, dull light glinting off the moist stones, a sick brown liquid moved between the raised stones: whether it was excrement from the shoddy sewerage pipes or perhaps mud tracked in by the infantry trucks that were returning from their ever-happening combat exercises, no one knew; and no one would go close enough to find out which was true. One you got ill in Kriegorgrad, you were gone unless you were a member of the Inner Party. Doctors and medicine were too expensive for the masses. Just for a moment, Jonathon caught a reflection of himself: pencil necked, spectacles balanced on a generous nose, balding head and wrinkles that didn’t belong on a thirty two year old.

Sighing and picking his head out from the cold, wet and peered up into the dull sky, the clouds but an iota away from being black. With the sky begging to mourn for the people walking, breathing and existing in the living tragedy that is known as the Collective Oligarchy of Kriegorgrad. Collecting himself, Jonathon strode onwards through the street, peering into the occasional dusty windowed shop or café serving what barely passed as food. Even the act of commerce was a mockery, you bought things not with money but with coupons. What a sorry state the once mighty Kriegorgrad was in. Is this the end result of glorious communism, of equal opportunity, of each according to their need and ability?

Of course, such political thoughts were beyond the ken of the mentally oppressed Jonathon, he walked with shackles not about his wrists and ankles, but about his mind. Then the sky finally gave into its sadness, sobbing for the oppressed intellect swirling about in the state of Kriegorgrad. The distant cry of gulls pierced the pitter-patter of rain impacting on the mix of flat concrete roof and pre-revolution tiles while the vessel of state control known as Jonathon approached his destination: a looming, ugly factory.

The long, rectangular structure, dotted with the occasional muck covered window stank of oil, smoke and smog. This wasn’t of concern to Jonathon; it was his allotted work area, he would do as his glorious leader Comrade Fedorenkov wanted. Pushing the double doors open and instantly being bombarded by a wave of pure smell, sweat, the oil and smoke all mingled horribly, but such a stench was blocked out by the middleclass man. Moving past the production line without even acknowledging the workers toiling away at the weapons the factory made, the sound of the door slamming shut brought under the din of the factory by the hiss of steam and the steady whine of machinery.

Just as he had half-climbed the stairs to his foreman’s office, the double doors were kicked open and three figures stormed in, the grey light outside seemed heavenly and it bathed the figures garbed in khaki in an angelic luminance. The leader stepped forward and barked. The pound of boots did pierce the factory’s din as the rest of the notably unarmed Proletarian Guardsmen poured into the building of manufacture. Adjusting his spectacles, Jonathon Ellis called out to the guardians of Kriegorgrad.

“Yes gentlemen?”

*****
Sergeant Barker lived up to his somewhat ironic name and snapped back a response to the example of contrast: pencil necked overseer next to the thick necked Barker, lithe frame next to Barker’s meat fuelled build of power, small face next to the red, square block of muscle that was Barker’s face.

“Just in from a bloody combat exercise an’ we already ‘ad a fuckin’ call waiting from the higher ups in our area – problem at an Upper Party member’s home. He ain’t callin’ in and them glorious warriors of our good Comrade Leader haven’t reported in. We’re off to sort it out. One problem though: we ain’t got guns.”

The weedy fellow nodded and skipped down the steps, eager to please the Guardsmen, already dry-washing his hands: the epitomical image of a sycophant.

”Of course, of course…but what about the local armouries?”

“They been cleaned out, that war a while back emptied them good.”

Frowning but still glad to help, Jonathon replied in a tone as weak as his appearance.

”Well this is the right place for you then, best weapons this side of Kriegorgrad, fresh off the line…help yourselves chaps.”

Barker just grunted and barked a command, the squad dispersed and helped themselves to rather dubious looking weapons, slinging extras over their shoulder; obviously for other soldiers, the men inspected their chosen instrument of badly constructed death and each gave a shout of approval. A few moments later and the entire squad was out of the door, and in the trucks idle outside. Such an incident was quite normal, soldiers storming in and asking for guns: just another day in Kriegorgrad.

Jonathon couldn’t help but notice clean condition of the tyres, and as the sky wept, he had one personal victory: he hadn’t leant in to inspect the brown water’s origin.

*****

The squad was quiet as the rain impacted against the tarp protecting them from the rain, though inefficiently. Holes in the canopy gave little points of entry for God’s tears to creep in through. Barker surveyed his squad inside the shadow of the truck rumbling along the country road. The small convoy of three trucks, each with roughly fifteen men per truck, arrived at the tall, foreboding gates of the manor, about half of mile of gravel road after the gate, and there was the sprawling opulent structure of Growlington’s manor.

It was one of those places that looked mighty and regal in sunny times and with people wandering the grounds, but somewhere that looked intimidating and unsettling during times of lesser fortune. No one asked the Proletarian Guardsmen of their opinion though: they were going into the place whether they wanted to or not. A few men disembarked pondered how to get the chain-bound padlock off of the gate, and a few more pondered why the padlock was on the gate in the first place: the Ordos Fedor had broken the lock off going in a day earlier.

A small stick of dynamite later and Barker’s truck was crunching up gravel as it ascended the path to Growlington’s dark manor, while the other two squads disembarked and fanned out to secure the place from intruders, whoever they may be.