hoodooencoding

Geisterbahn Incident (The Conclusion)

  Since I've been stuck in this hospital ward for the past three weeks, I haven't bothered to tell anyone what happened until now. After all, who would believe me; I'm niemand.

  

  Doctors told me this morning I’ll be able to go home soon, maybe in a week.  Along with two broken ribs, second and third degree burns on my arms and a huge hematoma on my left leg, the headaches I’ve had since the accident are the real reason I won’t be going back to work anytime soon. I do know I won’t be going back to clean U-Bahn stations anymore. I’m having dizzy spells and that kind of work requires too much standing and bending over.  Strangely, people have started to treat me differently because other than the dog, I was the only survivor pulled out of the wreckage.

  Another strange thing I’ve noticed is that all the television, radio and newspaper reports about what happened in the subway station have been not only wrong, they’ve been lies.

  First, the official BVG subway administration explanation came out. They said the cause of the explosion was  “faulty maintenance or tampering” in one of the tunnel’s big electric generators. Then, a BVG spokesperson announced on tv last night that the subway will be shut down for an “indeterminate amount of time until necessary repairs and improvements” can be completed.  I’ll be damned if I know what they think they’re going to improve.

  Today, The Berliner Allgemeine newspaper said that an initial Berlin police investigation revealed links to “terrorist organizations probably responsible” for setting off explosions in the station, although none of the groups they suspect have claimed any responsibility for the so-called “terrorist bombing”.

  I feel so sorry for the poor Berliner Kriminalpolizei: they can’t even afford enough typewriters and now, the German Federal Service for Protection of the Constitution (BfV) has officially taken over the case, which means all the foreign intelligence agencies and Interpol are falling all over themselves to come up with an explanation.

  Since Berlin is a worldwide wrestling headquarter for spooks and spies, disgruntled ex-Stasi informants and foreign diplomats, the internet is getting crammed with all kinds of theories because all the foreigners are getting into the act.

  The Chinese government has offered to provide their full cooperation; China’s MSS announced they suspect narcoterrorists are to blame. 

  

  Russia’s FSB thinks Uzbekistan’s IMU sent suicide bombers. The British MI6 claim it was either The Fake IRA or the Real IRA. The French DGSE believe a bomb was set off by radical environmentalists and the Italian AISE are 99% sure anarcho-communists were involved. Israel's MOSSAD suspects The Orange Volunteers. The Polish AW and Swiss DAP agree that it had to have been right-wing radicals. But Canada’s CSIS and Spain’s CNI insists left-wing radicals are responsible.

  Even countries who haven’t been asked are trying to get piece of the action; since it means overtime pay for them, they’re happy to oblige. Turkey’s MiT have a hunch that the Communist Party of the Philippines was involved. Pakistan’s ISI, Albania’s SHISH, The Saudi GIP and the Vatican’s DISIP all maintain that the National Democratic Front of Bodoland are to blame. 

  

  Meanwhile, the Jamaican Defence Force Intelligence Unit are hot on the trail of scientologists.

  With so many theories, who can you believe?

  Damn foreigners. I know they won’t catch anybody because I know what really happened. I was there and I saw it all.

  But do you know what? It doesn’t really matter to me if anyone believes me or not. As far as I’m concerned, you can take care of your own trash from now on: I’m finished with the whole damn business.

  

  I quit and this is my Kündingung.

 

"Geisterbahn Incident" (part 4)

  The explosion that followed them knocked the subway station off its foundation and hurled cinderblocks down around me that shattered at my feet and exploded in my face. 

 

  Scrambling back to the wall, I scurried a few meters over broken brick to a high-backed bench. An escalator was nearby, I knew, but I didn't know if I could see it in the swelling smoke. Believing I might bump into it, I kept moving forward. Finding a corner near the end of the wall, I twisted my body left and found the first step, then the second.  A heavy haze of ash whirled over my head, circling up the frozen escalator steps into the main station hall. As I started my climb a pair of high top shoes, empty of laces, stopped me cold: two steps above me, a young woman in her late teens stood cloaked in an over-large, raggedy man’s overcoat.

  Her gaunt face, spotted with mud, was framed by the uneven stubble on her scalp. Her slight chest heaved under the coat as she caught her breath. Staring me down, she held a small bundle wrapped in blood-flecked newspaper. 

  

  Before I could speak to her, I noticed a tiny arm hanging underneath the paper.

  Her defeated eyes glared through mine to a place beyond where I cowered at her feet. She seemed transfixed by an approaching threat like a deer caught in the headlamps of a truck.

  Slowly she turned, facing the escalator’s burnt rubber railing, tightly clutching her dead baby. Gazing at me once more, she stepped forward and calmly disappeared into the wall.

  No longer able to control my bladder, warm water trickled down my thighs, soothing my aching leg. I shivered and crawled up the burning hot metal steps, away from the leaping flames.

  The dog barked over a wail of distant sirens. As I reached the top step, giant grey plumes of smoke gathered to greet gaping holes in the rooftop. The main hall of the subway station looked as if it had been turned completely inside out, its kiosks reduced to piles of smoldering rubble. Scorched advertisement posters on its walls continued smoking as ruptured water pipes, bubbling like miniature fountains, formed muddy pools where the Blumen Rasch and Mini-Bistro once stood.

  The floor was carpeted with thousands of charred flowers and dead bodies. Mountain of bodies were piled high at the heavy wooden doors; all the exits had sealed themselves under the weight of the panicked mob.

  My stomach boiled over and I retched until I could manage only dry heaves. Staggering along, I reached for a ticket stamping post and steadied myself against it.  At the top of the post, an out-of-date, handwritten sign read defekt.

  My mind wandered aimlessly while I wondered if the Ka De We department store across the street was still there. The dog barked furiously over and over again.  Looking for an exit, I saw a fat, mangy Spitz growling angrily at a woodpile where a kiosk used to be.  It hadn’t noticed me, probably distracted by its master’s sudden absence, probably the poor soul lying crushed underneath the pile of rubble.

  Suddenly the rubble rumbled.

  A large wooden board careened off to one side, rattling and bouncing loudly down the heap, clapping onto the floor.  The dog pounced on the board, sniffed it once, barked and growled. It began a mournful whine and then a howl so sharp, it hurt my ears.

  Too tired to move, I sat down next to the post and leaned back against it. Wanting sleep, I dozed as gunshots crackled and split the air; jolting me awake, the sound chased the dog away.

  Inspecting me, a hulking figure rounded the dusky mound holding a rifle with bayonet drawn. Silhouetted by lurching flames, the soldier crouched and crept, ready to strike in the flickering light, his intent clear and deadly. For him, the war was far from over. He was imprisoned in time, still defending a long ago surrendered place and now, he was determined to terminate me.

  Gasping for breath, I watched him raise his bayonet high, charging to run me through.

  As he neared, I could see he wasn’t a soldier at all. He was but a boy, no more than twelve or thirteen years old. His scrawny frame was sheathed in tatters; his blond hair was matted underneath a helmet two sizes too big for his head. Standing over me, his alabaster face was twisted in blind hatred; his mouth was open wide in soundless rage.  His eyes, no longer in their sockets, pierced me before his bayonet blade reached me: where his eyes should have been, there were only bottomless black holes, two open caves, as dark and infinite as night.

  I surrendered all.

  Raising my arms to protect my head, he brought the rifle down hard to strike me and a bomb went off in my mind. I heard a loud pop and the numbing dimness was redemption and relief.

                          ###

 

Geisterbahn Incident (Part 3)

   Writhing snake-like in mid-air, the subway train banged against the tunnel walls, tossing helpless pieces of human flesh inside itself, flailing repeatedly against the ceiling and metal rails below.  Through flickering window light, I could see an orgy of arms, legs and torsos sailing weightless into unforgiving metal doors, basting the train’s insides in a juicy paste of blood, beer and hair.

   I heard myself scream.

   In panic, I leapt to my feet and began to run towards the stairway. Unaware of the dangling electric cables that had twisted free and were now spitting sparks, I ran towards the stairs, stepping on one.

   Instantly, the living brightness of 220 volts punched me; it kicked me hard in my stomach and before I could feel my body flying backwards, the back of my head struck unmoving, cold stone and everything dissolved into darkness.

                             ###

   I woke up to the sound of a barking dog.

   But where was it and where was I?  

   Wiping away a film of silt from my face, I brushed away the dust stinging my eyes, coughing, hurting my head.  As thick smoke noosed around my neck, I felt a sharp pain piercing my right armpit; perhaps a broken rib?

   Craning in darkness toward flickering lights, I could see small fires burning in the cavernous tunnel and through heavy haze, I suddenly remembered where I was.

   The dog barked again in the distance. Trying to locate my legs to stand, a jolt of liquid pain scalded the back of my left knee.  Instead of moaning, I could only cough, my head pounding in unbearable anguish.  Wanting to holler, my throat, raw from dust, rebelled.  Warm tears silently crawled over my cheeks, dripping down cold onto my neck and I thought, “So this is how I die. Scheisse!”

   Slowly tilting towards the tiled surface at my back, I realized I had been sitting next to an announcement cubicle in the middle of the station.  I remembered there was an escalator nearby. I decided even if I couldn’t walk, I could drag myself along the platform to reach it. Pushing away from the cracked, brittle tiles, I reached for the wall which would lead me to the escalator.

   I found it quickly. Pausing to catch my breath, I heard a muffled whimper to my right, coming from inside the train. Survivors!!  Perhaps someone had actually managed to make it through...what?...just what was that?  What had happened??  I shut my eyes, remembering how the train had swung itself angrily in the air, up against ceiling beams, crashing over and over again deep in the tunnel’s bowels and I shook my head in disbelief: there was no way it could have happened.

   Its cars crouched, lying sideways in silvery shards, resting between what was left of the tracks like a silent, slain dragon.  Twisted sheets of metal bearing razor sharp edges rested at odd angles against bent metal railings.  Smoke poured through

shattered windows.  The train’s outer shell was covered in clumps of glass, mortar and slick, dark oil. Blood. Closing my eyes, I shook my head again and the back of my skull protested from the pain brazed to my brain.

   The shuffling sound of feet crunching gravel rang out as I peered into a dark door of the train and heard what was definitely a human moan.  Crawling forward about a meter from the track, I heard another crackling sound, followed by the echo of a dull thud.

   Frozen at the edge of the platform and squinting in the darkness, I saw them.

   What I had mistaken for wisps of smoke only seconds before had become translucent, human shapes, shuffling past me along the tunnel floor. The dreary procession was a death march of doomed souls, chained together, half-dressed in rags, carrying shovels and picks. Soldiers unmercifully shoved prisoners along an invisible beaten path.  The sound of clinking iron links made my skin itch and I saw one frail figure fall to the ground, struck repeatedly by a large brute: the cracking sound I heard earlier was bone breaking against wood, each blow delivered by the handle of an axe.  The prisoner on the ground had defecated on himself.  The soldier, gesturing wildly above him, forced the helpless man lying on the ground to pick up his own faeces and smear it into his own face.  The soldier in uniform made him eat it.

    Turning away in revulsion, I gagged and stumbled back towards the wall, cutting my hands and knees on glass splinters.  When I looked again, they were gone.

 

First look: "Geisterbahn Incident"

From time to time, my friends have asked me to publish some of my short stories. Since they are somewhat long, I’ll be publishing them in parts.

I wrote this first story, “Geisterbahn Incident”, here in Berlin in 2003. It’s a work of speculative fiction, a dark, ghostly tale based on a horrifying  era of the city’s history.

I’d like to rework this narrative into a screenplay and film it :-) If I’m successful, you dear reader will be able to follow significant parts of my creative process right here.

I feel that this is important because so few writers allow audiences to follow their entire creative process. Although, I won’t be able to document all of my process (for example, you can’t actually follow me through a train station when I’m doing research, like I did for this story), I can do this much.

So without further ado, I hope you enjoy this first excerpt of “Geisterbahn Incident”. Please feel free to give me your feedback. As always, thanks for reading.

                                                 +++                              

                   GEISTERBAHN INCIDENT (Part One)

                           By Kevin.M. Booker

To be brutally honest, I think most of you are just plain stupid.

I’ve never been able to deal with ignorant people; Lord knows, I have truly tried.  But since most of you don’t see me anyway - or care what I think - it doesn’t matter. I’m just a janitor, a clean up man, nobody. Niemand.

Nonetheless, would you believe most of you are too dumb to flush a toilet behind you when you finish??  Or that some of you would look at a toilet bowl in a restroom, see it stuffed with mountains of wet toilet paper and feces and use it anyway.  Unglaublich!

    Ich meine, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know when you flush it, the paper and muddy water flows from the toilet to the floor and everyone who comes in marches through the pee-pee-water, wading in water and stomping on half-used rolls of toilet paper, spreading cesspool stink around for all to enjoy.

    I’m that guy who cleans up the Scheisse you leave behind, the one you never see.

    I clean up after you and in all the places you tear up: your schools and churches, your stores and shopping centers, construction sites, bars and restaurants, hospitals and offices, airports and bus stations.  

    I used to specialize in public toilets, male and female, so I can tell you a little trade secret: the women really are worse than the men. Sad but truly true: even though most men are filthy, stupid, raunchy cretins, women can still amaze me with the sheer variety of mess they leave behind in public.  I’ve seen whole toilet walls smeared with lipstick and freshly used menstrual napkins, as if somebody was trying to write Latin graffiti for me to translate. I honestly don’t know why anyone would do something like this. 

    However, I do have a theory.

    I believe women are so fed up, frustrated and pissed off with men they’ve got to get the anger out, take it out on something, anything, once in awhile. Why not a wall in a public toilet? Since it always means overtime pay for me, I never complain.

    In my 25 years on the job I’ve seen just about everything humans can leave behind in public, even after they’re dead.  And oh yeah, I realize that most of you don’t believe when you die you leave anything behind.

    But most of you are just plain stupid and you do leave things after you all the time. I know because I’ve cleaned up your mess too many times to count.

                   ***

    

    Berlin is a big old grimy city and in spite of all the new construction, not much has really changed here since the 20’s. People here are mostly mean, ugly and stressed out most of the time.  Also, it’s no secret that in a city of cramped apartment buildings, you can live right next door to someone for years and years but if they passed you on the street, you wouldn’t even recognize them. 

    Even after two world wars, many of these old buildings are hundreds of years old and stuffed with memories of generations of cranky, anonymous voyeurs: if anything, Berliners love to watch.  

    Some of the old factories and U-Bahn stations I’ve cleaned up have seen a lot. There are times when I truly believe the walls of the buildings and train stations remember all the things that people have forgotten, like the things that happened during the last war.

    I guess if I were a train station built in 1902, like the one on Wittenbergplatz, sixty-something years ago might seem like yesterday to me too. 

    Frankly, I think the stations get frustrated and confused sometimes, just like the people who use the trains everyday, losing their sense of time and space.  Imagine all those years of being used up by grumpy, stupid people, all that stress from decades of panic, anger and hurt.  After years of non-stop chaos, I can imagine how some of these old places, by now, would be plain worn out.

    My Oma once told me when the Russians invaded in the last days of the last war, thousands of women were tortured, abused and murdered.  She said the Russians were merciless, that countless rapes took place in the underground train stations and the bunkers beneath where women and children tried to hide.  She said it didn’t matter if the women were fifty, sixty, seventy or eighty years old, the Russian troops went crazy and you know, sometimes I think these underground places still remember.

    She said after that a lot of folk lost their minds, wandering around in the shadows of the parks every night, women hungry for comfort, men buying sex for the price of a pack of cigarettes, venereal diseases taking over their bodies, unrelenting loneliness and blood-lust driving people mad. 

    Even if most folk don’t remember this stuff anymore, I figure some of the places keep the memories somewhere, perhaps in the wetness of the underground walls and tunnels, or the canals below.

    The vast water table underneath Berlin has remained because the city was built on top of a swamp and I’m sure the sewers and gutters saved the smell of this misery.  Anyone who knows about The National Socialists - the slave labour they used to dig the tunnels, the suffering, the pain, the agony, the castrations, the torture, the suicides - can smell those leftovers sometimes.  This smell endures in each damp, dank cranny of every bunker and crawl space.  All the stains of bloodshed serenaded by suffering moans, the putrid stench of hatred and the stammering of bombs layer those tunnel walls like moldy old cigarette smoke. This collective terror, I am sure, still wades in those waters.

                   ###