Tales of the End of the Century

The vehicle was brought in by Vasily. It was a decommissioned military jeep with a canvas top and a diesel engine; the sound of it starting was like an old man coughing. Tie Niu walked around the vehicle, inspecting the chassis, tires, and fuel tank cap. Finally, he found a row of bullet holes on the driver's side door panel, which had been filled with putty and the paint job was sloppy, a shade lighter than the surrounding paint.

"They came from the north," Tie Niu said.

"North." Vasily tossed him the keys. "Drove from the border. We filled up four times and changed two tires along the way. Korsak was in the passenger seat, sleeping most of the time. When he woke up, he stared at the rearview mirror. Not at the road behind him, but at the mirror itself. He said there was a small patch of sky in the mirror, different from the real sky. The real sky changes, but the patch of sky in the mirror is always stuck at four in the afternoon."

Tie Niu inserted the key and turned it. The engine coughed a few times and started. A plume of black smoke billowed from the exhaust pipe, startling the sparrow in the jujube tree into flight.

The departure time was set for the early morning. Bai Ye lay on the kang (a heated brick bed), eyes closed, not asleep. He pulled his hand out from under the covers and held it up to his eyes. Moonlight streamed in through the window, making the outline of his fingers clear. He bent his thumb, then straightened it. He bent his index finger, then straightened it. There was no fixed order; each time it was different. After doing it once, he tucked his hand back under the covers. After a while, he pulled it out again and did it once more. He himself didn't know if he was confirming something or practicing.

There was movement in the yard. Tie Niu was loading things onto the truck. Magnetic tapes, microfilm, Sergei's notes, and loose documents from the backup repository were wrapped repeatedly in oiled paper and stuffed into a tin toolbox. The toolbox, brought by Vasily, bore the logo of Project Aurora; the paint had almost worn away, leaving only a blurry outline. Then came the reflection mirror. Square, wrapped in a plain blue trench coat, it was placed separately in a canvas bag on top of the toolbox. Tie Niu placed it down very gently, as if it were a fragile item. Actually, the mirror itself wasn't heavy; what was heavy was the person who had looked into it.

Bai Ye sat up and put on his shoes. He stopped halfway through tying the laces and switched the order of his left and right shoes. Usually, he would tie his left shoe first, but this time he would tie his right shoe first. After finishing, he stood up, took a couple of steps, and felt awkward. Yet, he also felt that the awkwardness itself was a kind of confirmation—at least he could still feel the awkwardness.

Everyone was already in the courtyard. Tie Niu was checking the instruments in the driver's seat. Lao Hu sat in the back, his travel bag resting on his lap, stuffed with steamed buns, pickled vegetables, an enamel mug, and a vacuum-packed bag of braised beef, which he had bought from the town's supply and marketing cooperative, saying he would improve his meals on the road. Lan Susu sat behind the passenger seat, clutching her canvas bag, which contained Sergei's notes and her own translations. Bai Ye got in and sat in the middle of the back seat. The man in gray and Vasily were the last to get in, one on each side. Their movements were perfectly synchronized—left hand on the door, right foot in first, body turned to the side, seated, right hand closing the door. Then, simultaneously, they placed their hands on their knees, palms down.

Tie Niu glanced at them in the rearview mirror but didn't say anything.

The car left the dirt road and turned onto the provincial highway. It was still dark, with bare farmland on both sides. The high beams only illuminated a few dozen meters ahead; beyond that, a hazy gray fog enveloped everything. Bai Ye leaned against the window, the glass cold. He pulled his hands out of his pockets and placed them on his knees. Left hand, right hand. Fingers curled and straightened one by one. He noticed that the man in gray and Vasily were also making the same movements, the rhythm not exactly the same, but the pattern very similar—both starting with the little finger and ending with the thumb. Like two people learning the same set of calisthenics in the same classroom, and then never being able to break the habit.

As dawn broke, the car pulled up beside an abandoned gas station. Half of the station's roof had collapsed, cracks ran through the concrete floor, and withered weeds grew from the cracks. The gas pumps were long since rusted into scrap metal, the numbers still stuck at some meaningless mark. Tie Niu turned off the engine and took a few steamed buns from the trunk, distributing them to everyone. Old Hu poured hot water into an enamel mug and handed it out to each person. Bai Ye took a sip, burning his tongue.

"How much further?" Tie Niu asked.

Vasily pointed northeast. "Drive along this provincial highway for about two hours, then turn onto a dirt road, and drive for another hour. That's it."

"Where have we arrived?"

"It's nothing." Vasily tore off a small piece of bread and stuffed it into his mouth. "It's just a hilltop. There's a building on the hilltop that used to be a communications relay station, an outer facility of Project Aurora, used to relay signals. After the project was disbanded, nobody took care of it, and the doors and windows were all sealed off. I broke it open once and lived in it for about six months."

Old Hu squatted under the rusty gas pump, holding his jug, the sunlight deepening the wrinkles on his face. "You stayed there alone for half a year? Didn't you get bored?"

"It's alright," Vasily said, chewing on his steamed bun. "I have something to keep me company."

No one asked what the thing was. The man in gray stuffed the last small piece of steamed bun into his mouth, patted the crumbs off his hands, walked back to the car, opened the back door, and turned to Tie Niu, saying, "Let's rest for another five minutes."

As the sun neared its zenith, Vasily instructed Iron Bull to turn the carriage onto a side road. The road was narrow, allowing only one vehicle to pass at a time, flanked by dense birch forests. The trees stood straight, their bark gleaming white, like rows of bones embedded in the earth. The wheels crunched over the gravel with a crackling sound. After about twenty minutes, the carriage suddenly fell silent. It wasn't that no one spoke; everyone had simultaneously shut their mouths. Bai Ye noticed the silence and looked around. Everyone was there, mouths tightly shut, expressions unchanged, but no one had stopped voluntarily.

Tie Niu slammed on the brakes, the inertia pulling everyone forward slightly. The silence was shattered.

"What just happened?" he asked.

No one answered. The man in gray lifted his hand from his knees and opened it. His fingers were trembling slightly, not from fear, but uncontrollably. He stared at his hand, as if to confirm that it was still there.

Vasily suddenly spoke, his voice low, but in the confined space of the carriage, every word felt like a prickling needle. "Don't you feel like something's missing?"

Lan Susu was the first to react. She placed her hands on her knees and turned to look out the window. The birch forest was still there, the knots on the tree trunks resembling eyes without eyelids. The wind rustled through the treetops. She listened for a moment, then turned back. "It's not that something is missing. Something's added." She rolled down the car window a crack, letting in a gust of cold wind. "Listen."

The sound of the wind. The rustling of the treetops. The vibration of the engine idling. And then, beneath these sounds, there was another sound. Very faint, very distant, like someone gently scraping lime with their fingernails behind a wall. It wasn't coming from outside, but from inside the carriage. Bai Ye looked down at his own hands; his nails were clean, untouched by anything. He then looked at the gray-clad man's hands, also resting on his knees, his nails neatly trimmed. Vasily held his hands up to his eyes, fingers spread, each nail clipped very short.

The sound is still there. Fingernails scratching the wall, rhythmically, one scratch after another. Like someone searching for a door.

Tie Niu pushed open the car door. A rush of cold air filled the car, and the scraping sound stopped. Not that it disappeared, but it receded into the distance. Tie Niu went around to the back of the car and opened the trunk. The toolbox was still there, wrapped in oil paper and taped shut. The canvas bag containing the rearview mirror was on top, tightly wrapped. He bent down and put his ear close to the canvas bag; there was no sound. He then leaned closer to the toolbox; still no sound. Then he saw something stuck in the tire treads next to the toolbox—a small clump of grayish-white powder, sticky and mixed with the dirt.

Tie Niu crouched down and picked up a bit with the tip of his dagger. It was paper ash. The burnt paper was very fine and still warm. He stood up and walked back along the tire tracks. About ten meters away, in the middle of the dirt road, there was a small patch of charred remains, the edges still smoldering. Several scraps of paper were blown by the wind onto the dry grass stalks by the roadside; one piece wasn't completely burned, and a trace of blue ink remained at the edge. It was handwritten Russian, only one syllable was recognizable. He took the scrap of paper back to the car and handed it through the open window. Lan Susu took it and examined it against the light.

"Sergei's handwriting."

"What did you write?" Bai Ye asked.

"Only half a word is left." She turned the shredded paper over; the back was blank. "'оборотень'," she hesitated for a moment, "probably corresponds to 'shapeshifter'."

Bai Ye lifted his hand from his knees and held it up to his eyes. His fingers weren't trembling, his nails were clean, and the scab on his palm had hardened. He looked down at the back of his hand; the skin was intact, and his finger bones were clearly defined. But suddenly, he wasn't sure whose hand it was.

After sheathing his dagger, Tie Niu placed his hand on the steering wheel, not immediately starting the engine. "Who felt that sound first in the carriage?" Bai Ye remembered—it was himself. Not his ears, but his fingertips. His fingernails hadn't even touched anything, yet he knew it was scraping against the wall. The man in gray said it was him, and Vasily nodded. Lan Susu said she had been looking at her notes and suddenly felt the words on the paper moving—not the words themselves, but her hand holding the paper trembling. Old Hu spoke last, his enamel mug resting on his lap, his hand on the rim, clearly feeling the bottom of the mug vibrate, but it wasn't the car's vibration—the car had already stopped.

Tie Niu zipped his jacket up to his chin, took out a pair of gleaming leather gloves from the side pocket of the seat back, put them on, and gripped the steering wheel again. "It has no shape, but it moves. It has no sound, but it lets you hear it." He shifted gears and continued driving along the dirt road through the birch forest.

No one spoke in the carriage anymore. Old Hu placed the enamel mug at his feet, the enamel clinking softly against the metal floor. It wasn't the mug's sound. A mug hitting metal should make a dull thud, but now everyone heard this sound, like a finger lightly tapping the floor twice. It wasn't coming from the mug; it came from deeper inside.

Bai Ye put his hand in his pocket and felt for the small round mirror. On the back of the metal plate, the outline of a bird pressed against his fingertips. Wings folded, head tilted. He traced the outline again, wings folded, head tilted, exactly the same as before. He pulled his hand out of his pocket, placed it on his knee, and didn't move again.

The car drove off the dirt road and climbed a gentle slope. The birch forest thinned out, and the view outside the window transformed into exposed rocks and low shrubs. Ahead, on a hilltop, a drab, square concrete house came into view, its windows all sealed shut, its exterior walls covered in withered vines. There were no road signs. No house number. The antenna tower on the roof was rusted and broken, lying across the ground.

"This is it," Vasily said. "Communications relay station number 7, backup station. You can also call it—the seventeenth barb."

After the car came to a stop, Tie Niu didn't turn off the engine. He stared at the windowless house outside the windshield, his hand on the keys. Bai Ye lifted his hand from his knees and pushed open the car door. The moment his foot touched the ground, his calf trembled—not from muscle fatigue, but a sinking tremor, like stepping on a drum. He looked down at the ground: gravel, dry grass, nothing unusual.

But then he suddenly remembered that he'd had that feeling before. At the antique market, with that leather suitcase, the moment his fingers touched the brass clasp. It wasn't an electric shock. It was as if someone had gently tapped the other side of the drum.