Red Winter

Red Winter (first paragraph by Ray Foster; published in Powder Burn Flash, 10 February 2009 as part of Flash Fiction Challenge)
Red Winter by Paul Brazill.

The tree near him explodes in a violent rage. Victor looks to the right and then to the left and sees nothing. He moves one step forward, the ground in front of him spits up dirt, pelting his legs like sand in a windstorm. He dives behind the tree, branches creaking from the earlier destruction and he screams, "Who the fuck are you? What do you want?" Suddenly his face feels hot and the clear blue sky turns red. Victor can’t hear a thing.

***
The train shook and rattled, like a drunk in the first stages of withdrawal, invading Victor’s dreams and dragging him by his lapels into consciousness. He opened his eyes but the day was as bright as a migraine and he clamped them shut again. Taking a deep breath, he started to count to ten but the dry heaves kicked in around six.

He peeled back his eyelids. The compartment was hot and cramped with soldiers except for a little old man with a bushy beard snoozing close to to the window .Victor looked outside. All he could see was snow except for a murder of crows that sliced through the whiteness. The soldiers glanced over at him muttering to themselves in Polish. Victor fiddled in his jacket pocket for his hip flask .

How the fuck had he ended up on this train? Was he leaving Warsaw or returning? His sleep had been fitful and stained with disturbing dreams. Or were they memories? He swigged on the vodka to wash away the dark and dingy thoughts that were lurking in the murky corners of his mind.

***
The face int the toilet’s cracked mirror wasn’t exactly what you’d call handsome but neither was it particularly ugly. A lived in face, perhaps. With more lines than the London underground, someone had said. Who was it who’d said that? Daria? Yes, Daria. He winced at her memory as the train ground to a halt.

He washed the encrusted blood from his face and rushed back to the compartment as the old man, who was waving a pocket watch, jumped onto the station platform.
‘Come on Victor,’ shouted the old man, in some strange accent.Victor followed, feeling more than a little like Alice heading down the rabbit hole.

The platform spilled with soldiers and Victor presumed that it must be some sort of holiday; the squaddies returning home on leave.Was it Christmas? He coudn’t remember. He took another sip from his seemingly endless hip flask and looked around.

He was in Gdansk. Shit, Gdansk. He shivered as he remembered coming here with Daria. A flashback to her naked on a bed, a slash of lipstick across her mouth, segued into her in a raincoat, in an alleyway, splattered with blood. The old man jolted him out of his reverie.
‘Come on Victor, he said,’the boat leaves soon.’
Boat? He thought? In this weather?



***
The ferry was surprisingly warm as it drifted west, through the shipyards. Victor peered at the old man
‘I’m sorry if this sounds stupid but, well, do I know you?,’ he asked.
The old man grinned.
“Oh, Victor. Such an Englishman. Ever the gentleman. So, polite, so,er, phlegmatic.’

Phlegmatic, thought Victor. He’d been called that lots of times since coming to Poland. The first time it had happened it had been at Daria’s house an hour or so after her husband had fallen asleep drunk and thirty minutes before they'd shagged on the kitchen table.
‘How’s that for phlegmatic?’ he’d smirked afterwards.

He always loved to prove her wrong.

The ferry docked with a metallic clang and Victor got off with a small group of soldiers. He turned and saw that the old man was still on the ferry waving. It was getting hotter as he walked down the docks and along the beach. Dark memories pebble dashed his thoughts. And then he heard gunshots.

***
The sky gets redder. Everything gets redder. And Victor is almost calmed by the silence. He finally understands where he is and whey he’s there. It had been stupid of him to get involved with a woman with a history. Especially Daria’s tainted history. From their first night together, they were on a road that was bound to end in tears. And blood.

Hers.

Or his.

‘It’ll be a cold day in hell when I let you walk away from me,’ Daria had once said. She was wrong on that account.

It was a red hot day. And it would only get hotter.