Simon J. Harrak

Prologue

He was standing at ground zero. He knew it was the most significant moment of his life. He also knew that he was dreaming.

It was autumn in the forest, and brown leaves were falling everywhere like snow. Tall, near naked trees stretched out into the distance in every direction and gave him vertigo. The sky was bright blue, the air was crisp. He recognised where he was, as well as the man approaching. It was Kraas, twenty years younger, gazing down at him with concern, his eyebrows creased and his lips pressed tightly together.

Kraas took off his jacket and wrapped it around him. Warmness spread through him like a shot of morphine and collected in his chest. Kraas then picked him up and began carrying him out of the forest. With his head resting on Kraas’ shoulder he looked on as the leaves continued to rain down…

He woke up groggy to high-pitched ringing in his ears and vibrations in the distance. Gazing up at the hazy ceiling, he wondered about the dream he had just had. It was as vivid as he had ever experienced. What made that come up so suddenly? he thought. It was pleasant, but he still felt somehow unnerved by it.

Maybe it was all that drinking the previous night. He stretched his stiff neck back and licked his dry lips, reminded why he usually refused shots at the end of a night out. Next time he would have to refuse a bit harder, he figured. He thought about going to the dojo. Some training would help him sweat the alcohol out. He then strained his eyes and gazed over at the bedside table, quickly realising that the whole time it was his phone doing the vibrating. Before he could reach out, it stopped. The screen showed seven missed calls from a number in Tartu. His head jerked back in alarm. He snatched the phone off the table and called the number.

“Frederich,” an old, husky voice on the other end said. “Thank God. It’s Johannes.”
“Johannes? What’s wrong?” he asked.
“You need to come home. It’s Kraas. He had a stroke.”
“What!?” he shrieked, sitting up suddenly. “No! Is he ok?”
“He…” Johannes said, trailing off. “Frederich, I don’t know. I went next door to pick him up for hunting, and he was on the floor. We are at Tartu Hospital. The doctors are with him now.”

He became immobilised.

“Frederich, are you there?”
“Uhh,” he groaned, supporting himself on the bed with his free hand, his head spinning in circles. “Yes, I’m here. I’m… I’m on my way. I’m on my way, Johannes. Tell him to hold on. Please.”
“Hurry, Frederich,” said Johannes wearily before closing the connection.

He stood up, struggling to hold his feet. His heart was pounding. Water, he needed water, and a train ticket. No, he would take a taxi. The trip from Tallinn to Tartu was long enough. In three minutes he was dressed. Hold on, Kraas, he thought as he rushed out of the door. Please. Hold on.

One

Three months later

 

 

It was the worst flooding Berlin had seen in decades, a deluge of 36 relentless hours. Meanwhile, Frederich sat sheltered inside Novalis Cafe in Charlottenburg, cradling an espresso and staring out at the street. He was pondering how easy it would be to kill a man in those conditions.

Charlottenburg had somehow remained mostly unaffected, but according to the news, a large part of the city already lay underwater. Underground train stations had become raging rivers. Transportation had been crippled, and people had become stranded. It was the perfect setting, Frederich figured. Especially at nighttime. The rain would shield the act, and the flood would hide the body long enough to escape. The water would wash away any trace evidence. Looking into space, he squinted his eyes while chewing the edge of his thumb, immersed in his hypothetical plan. He grew breathless, picturing himself creeping up on his target in the rain with a clip-point knife in hand, the only sign of his presence being the sharp sting of a deep gash across the victim’s throat.

Frederich, come back. His conscious voice shook him out of it. He blinked hard and gazed around to re-align himself with his surroundings. A little girl sitting at another table was giving him a strange, expressionless stare as her mother spoke to another woman. He stared back, causing the girl to grasp desperately onto her mother and bury her face in her mother’s arm. Frederich turned away and looked out of the window again. Reality then came sharply into focus and the feeling he could not escape reemerged. The dull ache in his chest reminded him that Kraas was gone.

The dissociative episodes were coming more often, he noticed. He knew the disturbing thoughts were a symptom of something deeper. He just could not grasp what that was. It began on the day Kraas died, after he had that strange dream, and had only grown stronger since he ended up in Berlin six weeks earlier. During quiet moments he sensed it as a suffocating mood which hovered over him like a shadow and left him no space to escape what felt like a cold void sucking him in. The longer he spent alone, the more murderous and brutal his thoughts became, and the more difficult it was to let them go.

He had few answers for this rising tide. At first, speaking to someone about it had crossed his mind. He decided against it. The urge to kill was not something he was willing to make public. So he was stuck with it. On especially bad days he would find himself wanting to end it all. That was the simplest and cleanest solution. The prospect of death in those moments gave him an eerie peace. He would spend hours curiously admiring the depth and stillness of the void, feeling himself being dragged in further, before a voice in his head intervened and ordered him out of the house. A few hours each day in Novalis Café among strangers’ chatter on a backdrop of easy listening music kept him sane, although it failed to completely free him from the darkness. The morbid episodes kept coming, and the shadow remained his constant companion.

Novalis was usually the last place a misfit like Frederich would frequent. It was quaint and beautifully decorated. Its pastel coloured walls, warm lighting, and elegant decor drew in people who were looking for more than a quick feed or caffeine fix. Stylishly dressed women spent hours gossiping and giggling over lattes beside families lunching in their Sunday best. Within this vibrant, wholesome setting was Frederich, dressed in all black, withdrawn and distracted.

A place like Novalis reminded him of what life had to offer. He could observe people who were able to stay away from the edge, and who did other things than amuse themselves with thoughts of death and murder. His state of mind was not healthy, he acknowledged, but he had no way to fight it. His daily routine of brooding and coffee in a family-friendly environment was all he could think of, and it had been somewhat effective. Still, he was unsure how long he could keep it up.

He caught the waiter’s eye and nodded, indicating he was ready for his glass of orange juice. The waiter nodded back, accustomed to Frederich’s regimen. Three hours later it was closing time, and Frederich felt a deep sense of despair. It was time to go home and face another sleepless night in the black, followed by another morning with only memories of Kraas to comfort him.

He stood up and looked around. He was the last patron there. The earlier liveliness was gone, and Novalis felt still and unfamiliar. He put on his black leather jacket and made for the exit.

It was now dark outside, and the rain was coming down harder than ever, taking only seconds to soak him through. He pushed his mop of hair out of his face and walked faster. As he neared Savignyplatz, it became apparent that the worst of the rain had reached Charlottenburg. The street leading to his apartment, which had been clear in the early afternoon, was now completely flooded. He sighed and began trudging his way through the water, which immediately seeped into his boots and weighed down his feet. He laboured forward, struggling to see ahead. The rain came down harder again and gave him vertigo, forcing him to a standstill. He lifted his head in frustration as water crashed down on his face. Now he almost wished he had left Novalis earlier.

Standing in a deafening sea of white noise, he heard what sounded like a woman’s scream coming from a distance. He turned toward the source of the sound, but nothing stood out. He waited a few seconds then shook his head in dismissal and continued forward. Then he stopped again. His body was telling him something. He noticed his heart was beating quicker and that his senses had grown stronger. The noise and impact of the rain on his head amplified. He shielded his eyes with his hand and scanned the surroundings. Cars with submerged wheels lined the side of the street, but there was no movement. He checked the entranceways of the apartment buildings. It was hard to know from his position if anybody was there. Then he turned back to one of the cars, a Mercedes SLK convertible. He moved a few steps closer until he saw it; the car’s windows were foggy. Somebody was inside. He plodded forwards without hesitation, his feet crashing against the water. He tried the front door. It was unlocked. When he pulled it open, he flinched. A brawny man was in the driver’s seat, bent over the passenger side and gripping a young woman in a chokehold.

The man spun around and looked at Frederich in surprise, his gaze fierce and unsettling and his chest heaving up and down. He had a crew cut and a long, bushy beard. The woman’s deep brown eyes were wide open in terror.

“Help me!” she yelled.

If Frederich were following his training, he would have been tactful. He would await the man’s next move while maintaining space between them. Assess the situation and study his enemy before acting. He might even open up a dialogue if the man did not escalate first. But something primal in him had already been triggered. A wave of rage surged through and possessed him. His peripheral awareness sharpened, and all he could now see was the man; all he could feel was an unexpected, overwhelming need to destroy him, to reach into his body and snatch the life out of him.

He reached into the car and yanked the man by his jacket collar, dragging him out onto the flooded street. The man was quick to react. He jumped at Frederich’s feet and knocked him off balance. Frederich now found himself in the water with his opponent’s superior weight on top of him. Two hands pressed down on his face and submerged it. He tried pushing his torso up, then twisted left and right with his hips, but his opponent relented. He grasped the man’s arms. They were immovable. Shit, he’s a brawler. It was all happening too fast. There was no space or time to think. The void was now his only comfort, seeping into him like water as he ran out of oxygen. He let go and followed it, further than he had ever gone. The panic dissolved, and calmness reigned. His mouth opened, and water began entering his throat.

The woman’s voice sounded in the distance, muffled by the water.

“Stop it! Let him go!”

Her scream jolted him and reminded him that two lives were in danger. He turned his focus outward again. It was time to act, and decisively. He lifted both of his knees and rammed them into the man’s backside, forcing him to fall forward. He wrapped his left arm around the man’s shoulder and with a powerful heave and twist of his body, dislodged himself and reversed their positions. He now had the high ground, and the man was the one submerged. He knew his advantage would not last long unless he immobilised his opponent. He took the man by his collar and pulled his face out of the water. He then lifted his head and came down with full force, smashing his forehead into the soft part of the man’s face. He sucked in a large gulp of air then repeated the motion, again with full power, then pushed the man back underwater and choked him with both hands as tightly as he could muster. A gush of blood oozed out over the surface. The man struggled but with only a fraction of his previous strength. After some time he stopped moving. Frederich continued to press down until he was sure the man was dead.

 

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