Dracula's Ghost - Chapter 18 (Part II)
A Ruined Tomb in an Unknown Land
XI.
“I don’t care what you found in the bloody castle, Sarah!” Jonathan spoke in a low hiss as he pulled her toward the stairs. “Amy is waiting at the plane, and we need to leave now.”
“You have to listen to me, papa.” Sarah took a deep breath and started again. “Dracula –“
“Dracula has been dead for forty years! It is over, and we need to leave before the sun sets!”
“If he is dead, why are you so anxious to be gone?”
Jonathan flinched at her question, but his shock yielded to a broad smile, the solicitor’s indulgence of a dull client. “I watched his body turn to dust, Sarah. We left it to blow away in the wind.”
“Arthur thought he was still alive. That’s what drove him mad, wasn’t it?”
Jonathan shook his head. “You cannot possibly know that.”
“I do know.” The pit of her stomach trembled, a distant echo of the horrors of Vienna. “Quincy Morris is alive - he’s here.”
“Let me see your neck.” Jonathan’s face was deathly pale, his shock a distant echo of her mother’s funeral.
“You already knew, didn’t you?”
“Let me see your throat!”
She flinched as Jonathan seized her arm. His lips moved soundlessly, the self-talk of a madman, as he examined her from several angles. Sarah’s thigh began to itch, and she clenched her jaw tightly against the discomfort. Jonathan circled her again, and when he found the pale skin of her neck unmarked, his tension gradually eased. Sarah asked again, speaking softly,
“Did you know about Quincy?”
“No… At least, I was never certain.” Jonathan settled on the low wall and stared at the valley below. “Arthur’s final year was… difficult, but sometimes I wondered if there could be something to his ravings. He is alive. I knew how Quincy died, but I couldn’t bring myself to find out for certain - to come back - and I abandoned him.”
“That’s quite a touching story.” Jonathan cried out in alarm, and Sarah followed his gaze. Not now. Not when we are so close to safety. Reinhard Heydrich stood at the top of the landing, a bolt action rifle draped over one elbow.
“When I had set sail thence, the wind took me to Ismarus, which is the city of the Cicones. There we sacked the town, putting the men to the sword and dividing their wives among us.” The hint of a smile touched the thin lips. “Do you know the significance of those words, Herr Harker?”
“No, Herr Strauss. Or whatever you’re calling yourself these days.”
“Figure it out, and perhaps I’ll let you live. Kindly remove your weapons and place them on the ground. The knife too, please.”
Jonathan laid both weapons on the ground. Heydrich tossed the pistol over the courtyard wall and after a moment’s thought, tucked the kukri under his arm.
“Now, inside. Both of you.”
Not all monsters sleep when the sun is shining, Sarah thought. Jonathan acknowledged her look with a slight nod, and they walked toward the portico. Reinhard Heydrich followed as the sun sank lower on the horizon.
XII.
The body lay at the back of a one-room hut, shielded from view by discarded furniture and covered with a heavy blanket. Give the boy credit, Hans thought. Martin lacked Peter’s braggadocio, but he was still a callow youth, and the discovery must have given him a shock. The tremor in his voice, Hans noted with approval, was barely detectable. “We found Sulzbach. I think he’s dead.”
Hans had quizzed the boy on the short walk. Yes, they had checked the houses yesterday, but Martin had wanted to make himself useful with a more thorough search. Hans suspected that Martin had peered inside the house from sheer boredom, but he nodded gravely and praised the boy’s work ethic. Martin had seen no wounds, but Sulzbach was not breathing and was cold to the touch. He doesn’t look dead. Hans thought of the nasty wound on Peter’s throat and felt sick.
He stepped through the doorway and uncovered the body. His first impression was that Martin had been wrong, that Sulzbach had deserted overnight and fallen asleep in the shelter of the old village. No pallor marked his countenance, and indeed, Hans thought, Sulzbach looked better than he had for days, a man rejuvenated by a long rest. He pressed two fingers against the wrist and found no pulse. Hans turned the head gingerly, searching for wounds, and the clammy sensation of dead skin made his scalp crawl.
“Help me move him outside,” Hans said. Martin loitered at the entrance, reluctant to cross the threshold. “I want to get a better look at him in the light.”
Each man clutched an arm, and they dragged the body free from the blanket. Sulzbach’s head hung loosely from the neck, and the heavy boots left tracks in the dust. Hans never ceased to wonder how a dead body could be so heavy. They reached the threshold and rested, panting from the exertion, and Hans adjusted his grip. One more pull, he thought. Let’s get him outside and we can put him down. He nodded at Martin, and with a mighty heave, they pulled the corpse over the threshold. As the sunlight hit them, the dead fingers wrapped about his arm. Hans dropped the body with a yelp, and all hell broke loose.
XIII.
Holmes watched the commotion from his vantage point, as two Germans wrestled a third man to the ground. Another joined the melee and delivered a hard kick as the victim struggled to his knees. He was not a brutal man by nature, but his heart began to race as the malefactor was thrashed. It’s justice, Holmes thought. The kidnapping of Sarah Spencer and the murder of Jack Seward. The extortion of Jonathan Harker. The deaths of my friends in the trenches. Arthur Holmwood. Quincy Morris. Lucy Westenra - especially Lucy. The suffering man bore the guilt for those crimes, and his peers served as jury and executioner. And when the sun goes down, they will all pay…
Something registered in his mind - the odd jerking of the victim’s limbs or the strange keening wail that was not wholly human - and Holmes snapped back to reality like a man waking from a dream. The rancid odor of burning flesh wafted to his nostrils, and he peered at the circle of men, trying to see what was happening.
“Mary, mother of God…”
Ten yards from his hiding spot, Holmes broke into a run, dropping the rifle as he went.
XIV.
“You fucking malingerer.” Hans’s surprise yielded to anger as he punched at the base of Sulzbach’s chin. “We were looking for a corpse, and we found a deserter instead!”
One of the others gave Sulzbach a rough shove, and Karl kicked at the fallen man as he fell. They had been stalked by a ghost for two nights and had seen one of their own shot dead. Now they were afraid and angry, and the deserter provided a convenient target for their wrath. Good. Let them give the son of a bitch a beating, and perhaps I’ll stop them from killing him. Hans forced himself into the crowd and readied another punch, even as doubts forced themselves to the surface. There was no pulse. No breath. The body was cold! Hans faced the traitor, and his eyes widened in shock.
The face remained unmarked by the beating, but the whites of the eyes were darkened to an unhealthy, mottled red, as if Sulzbach had been injured by a severe flash burn. The pupils were enlarged, a pair of yawning black holes, and Hans shrank back as blood began to pour from the eyes. The dark liquid congealed almost immediately, leaving vertical streaks encrusted on the cheekbones, and a noxious steam began to seep from the skin, which became jaundiced in appearance. The lips and cheeks began to sag, and Hans realized with horror that the face was slowly detaching from the skull. Sulzbach began to moan piteously.
“Hans. Help me, Hans!”
As steam continued to pour from the body, the muscles tightened and his joints drew up, contorting the limbs painfully until tendon and bone began to snap. The sounds emanating from Sulzbach’s mouth grew louder, incomprehensible. Hans stood mesmerized as the muscles of the abdomen began to tighten, and the thing at his feet drew up into a fetal position. Gradually, the cries gave way to a low moan, and Sulzbach looked at him through blasted, empty eye sockets.
“Hans. Listen to me Hans.”
“What is it?” His voice was a strangled croak, barely audible in his own ears.
Sulzbach opened his jaws impossibly wide, like a serpent swallowing a mouse, and vomited a large quantity of blood.
“Get out before the sun sets.”
Its thrashings weakened and finally ceased, and the others slowly approached to stare at the mummified husk. Gradually, they noticed the stranger in their midst.
“Dear God,” Rupert Holmes said, his face ashen, as the men around him raised their weapons.
XV.
Amy stirred from a fitful doze. Sleep was difficult in the cramped quarters of the plane, but proper rest was no joke, if one wished to avoid a nap at ten thousand feet. Sleep now, or Jonathan will be prodding you awake for the entire return trip. If he makes it back alive. The thought soured her mood, and Amy pulled the blanket about her shoulders. She had slept little the previous night, and her dreams were haunted by the vision, half-remembered, of a dark figure at the water’s edge. She breathed deeply and let her mind drift.
The gunshot was near enough to penetrate the veil of sleep, but too distant to startle her awake, and she dreamed of a hunter searching for game. The shot must have found its mark, Amy thought, for she heard the cry of a wounded animal, an high shriek oddly akin to the scream of a woman. Presently, she became aware of another sound, the distant tap-tap-tap of metal on metal. The tapping became louder, more insistent, as she was pulled from sleep. Someone was knocking on the window.
Amy jerked awake and stared at the man on the other side of the glass. He had waded the river, but the current had not washed the bloodstains from the sodden garments, and flecks of dried blood dotted the hands and face. He held a knife in one hand and smiled, a quick, nervous grin, as he opened the cockpit door.
“Listen to me,” the stranger said in accented English. The tongue flicked at the lips, and Amy wondered if he tasted blood. “Do exactly as I say, and I won’t hurt you. Do you understand?” Amy nodded and the stranger relaxed a little.
“Good. Start the plane - we’re going to do a little flying.”
“Where?”
“Just get us in the air, and I’ll show you.”
She began the preflight inspection. Her passenger made no overt threat beyond the initial display of the knife, but the bloody shirt provided a stark warning of the consequences of resistance. He stared with unfocused eyes as Amy snapped her seat belt into place.
“What is it?” The stranger stared at her, suspicious. Pilots live by checklist and procedure, and she could not conceal her anxiety over the missing item.
“It’s nothing.” Amy shook her head. “It’s not every day that I get kidnapped, and I’m a little nervous.”
She pressed the starter and turned into the wind, forcing herself to forget the killer beside her. Black smoke billowed from the exhaust as she pushed the throttle forward, and they were moving, gaining speed as the plane raced down the center of the sandbar. The water’s edge loomed as she pulled back on the stick, and the plane rose into the air at a stomach-churning angle. Amy leveled off at treetop height and circled the water as her passenger sighed in relief.
When I get back to London, I really need to get that door fixed.
The plane yawed violently as she jerked the stick to the right, and the scarred man was thrown against the passenger door. Amy had the advantage of surprise, but she had mere seconds to act, and if her passenger recovered, he could - even at the cost of his own life - murder her in a fit of rage. Otto Skorzeny stared at her, wild with fear, as Amy stretched out her right hand and popped the latch on his safety belt. The door held for a brief instant as the big hands scrabbled for purchase, then the latch yielded to gravity, and he plummeted through the open door toward the river below. How far to the water? Forty feet? Fifty? Her tormentor had a chance, albeit a slight one, of survival from that distance.
The river receded, a ribbon of blue in a sea of autumn red, as she gained altitude. Perhaps Jonathan was already dead – the bloodied stranger had done violence to someone – but she needed to see the truth with her own eyes. Besides, she couldn’t fly back to London with that blasted door flailing in the wind. Gaining altitude, the plane began circling as Amy searched for the open plateau.
XVI.
Jonathan sat on the floor, his knees drawn to his chest, as Heydrich pulled up the chair. Light and shadow highlighted the cheekbones against the dark circles around his eyes and gave the German’s face a cadaverous appearance. Sarah slipped an arm around him, and Jonathan realized that he was trembling. Not much time left. Heydrich toyed with the rifle and gazed around the room, lost in thought.
“If you had accepted my offer, you would have saved so much trouble for both of us. Instead?” Heydrich clicked his tongue in mock disappointment. “A dead doctor in London, a dead Jew in Vienna…So much needless tragedy. Do you have the answer to my riddle?”
Jonathan shook his head.
“Then let us start with something easier. The man that you called Dracula - where is he?”
“I don’t know what –“
Heydrich cut him off. “Don’t play games, Herr Harker – I heard the argument with your lovely daughter. This place turns your bowels to water. Do you really wish to haggle until the sun sets?”
“You’re absolutely correct.” Jonathan glanced upward, trying to gauge the amount of sunlight in the windows. “I am more afraid than you could imagine. But Dracula is dead – I cut off his head myself! If you really have a journal, then you know that – there is nothing left here but cobwebs and mice.”
“Perhaps this will convince you.” Heydrich rummaged through his pockets with exaggerated slowness and tossed a series of crumpled photographs onto the floor. They landed at Sarah’s feet, and she blanched at the sight of the dead faces. “Those were mailed to Berlin, along with the coordinates of this very place, and - what is that word painted on the rusted metal? Ah, yes - a name. His name. Now, let me ask again - where is he?”
I don’t know! In his mind, Jonathan saw Quincy Morris, covered in blood as his life ebbed away, and he tried to banish the image from his consciousness. Perhaps this was my punishment for abandoning my friend. Heydrich drummed his fingers on the stock of the rifle as his patience ebbed.
“The old junk room.” Sarah’s voice was a hoarse whisper. “I know where he is.”
“Good. Take me there.”
She led them into the darkened hallway. Jonathan followed, and Heydrich walked a few steps behind, his weapon pointed at their backs. Jonathan found it difficult to breathe, as if the dank air was heavy with a portent of his own doom. He drew a little courage from the steady tread of his daughter - but for Sarah’s presence, he would have fled screaming and risked the German’s bullet. Outside, afternoon yielded to evening as they moved inexorably toward the dragon’s lair.
XVII.
Klaus woke just before sunset. Images danced at the fringe of his consciousness, like the fluttering of a bat’s wings outside of a child’s window, and Klaus struggled to put the pieces in order. Something happened to Peter. His head pounded as Klaus rolled to his knees, but the movement cleared his head a little, and a few memories returned. There had been a struggle, and Peter had bitten him, oddly enough – Peter was a fine boy, and Klaus doubted him capable of any real malice. Is Peter hurt? His legs wobbled as he stood, and Klaus tasted cotton on his tongue. Dehydrated. There was a fifty liter can of water outside, more than enough to ease his throbbing head, and perhaps his memory would improve after he slaked his thirst. Klaus took a careful step to avoid the blanket that held the body.
No - that can’t be right. The image appeared before his eyes with frightening clarity, of Gerhard and Martin rolling the body into a blanket as Hans patched his face. They had staggered to the truck with their burden, cursing at Peter’s dead weight, and Klaus had staggered to the other truck before passing out. Klaus knew – he remembered as surely as he recalled the trembling of his hands and the sobs that emanated from his own throat. And yet the body lay at his feet, wrapped in the same makeshift shroud. He peered outside, and the headlights of the second truck – his truck –returned his blank stare. Klaus fumbled with the latches on the tailgate and as he stepped forward, the truck bounced on its springs. The dead weight shifted beneath the blanket, and Klaus felt a light touch on his ankle. A strangled cry escaped his throat, and Klaus teetered on the precipice, arms pinwheeling for balance, before the ground rushed upward to meet him. The bare earth struck him like a hammer blow, but he forced himself to move, rolling to his feet and staggering a half dozen steps before falling again. He moved!
His panic subsided by slow degrees, and Klaus found that he could stand. Returning to the water can, he filled a tin cup and drank until his belly distended and strength returned to his limbs. The camp was silent, and as the sun’s glow died in the west, he could not shake the feeling that the others had been swallowed up by the forest as he slept. No one is coming back for you.
Behind him, the truck rocked gently on its springs.
Klaus whirled at the sound, and the sudden exertion made his head spin. An instant of relief flooded through his body - Peter is alive, and we’ll find a way out of this godforsaken forest - before the memory of the morning’s events struck him again like a punch. Peter sank his teeth into my face, and Heydrich put a bullet in his head.
Inside the truck, the blanket was moving.
A hand protruded from the cloth and crawled upward, spiderlike, as the fingers probed the folds that covered the boy’s face. As the shroud fell away, Klaus prayed fervently that Hans, Skorzeny, anyone, would emerge from the stillness of the forest. The arms and legs moved with a stiff, jerking action, like a marionette controlled by a novice, as Peter opened his eyes and sat up. Dried blood – his blood – crusted about the boy’s lips and chin, and Klaus realized with horror that the wound on the Peter’s throat was gone. The cup fell from his fingers as shining eyes focused upon him.
“The singing is beautiful, Klaus. Do you hear the singing?”
Klaus ran, staggering drunkenly as his feet carried him into the forest. Peter watched, impassive, until he disappeared into the trees, then followed.
XVIII.
Sarah paused to light the lantern as they passed the library. In the sitting room windows, the hard blue of midafternoon had darkened to a rich purple, and the last rays of sunlight glinted redly on the clouds. A most beautiful sunset, she thought with a touch of irony. A droning hum, like the buzz of some great insect, carried through the open windows, but if Heydrich noticed the sound, he paid no attention.
“He’s somewhere in here, but the door is locked.” Sarah tugged at the iron ring and grunted in surprise as the door swung freely.
“Somewhere in here?” Heydrich prodded her with the rifle. “I’m disappointed - you were so certain when your life was in danger.”
“He’s here,” she said with forced politeness. “What are you going to do when we find the coffin?”
“Open it, of course!” Heydrich’s laugh, his first indication of real mirth, was grating. “I want the vampir to be at my mercy when we negotiate. Have you figured out my riddle?”
She shook her head. When I had set sail thence the wind took me to Ismarus, she repeated as they made their way through the maze of debris. A feeling of betrayal wormed through her stomach. Quincy had given her shelter, and now, when he was at his most vulnerable, she was leaving him at the mercy of Reinhard Heydrich. The wounds on her leg itched with each step, and Sarah wondered if the rats in the castle carried disease.
Those weren’t the bites of a rat - those were puncture wounds.
Ten feet beyond the mirror, the passageway made a sharp turn to the right. She rounded the corner, and it was there - a rectangular wooden box lay on the stone floor. A heady mixture of fear and excitement thrummed in her muscles as Heydrich pushed them forward, and Sarah placed the lantern in a recess on the wall. He saved my life, she thought again, a trifle uneasy.
No, he didn’t. He’s feeding on you, and you’re too blind to see the truth.
“So embarrassing.” The German ran a fingertip along the grain of the wood. “At the end of such a long journey, I should have a speech ready. Open it.”
“For God’s sake, don’t do it!” Jonathan’s eyes shimmered in the lantern’s glow. “You have no idea what you are dealing with.”
“Herr Harker.” Heydrich’s finger caressed the trigger of the rifle. “If you question me again, I will shoot you and leave your daughter at the mercy of our host. Now, open the fucking box.”
The lid of the coffin was flush with the sidewalls and held in place by wooden pegs. Heydrich tossed the kukri at Jonathan’s feet, and he worked the blade into the seam with a back-and-forth motion. When the blade was deep enough, Jonathan pressed downward on the handle, using his own weight for leverage, and a wooden dowel came loose with a scream. Jonathan repeated the process, sweating in the cool air, working faster with each iteration as he traversed the circumference of the lid. Heydrich watched from a safe distance as they worked, the rifle draped over his elbow and one hand inside his coat pocket. Finally, they lifted the lid from either end, and Sarah heard a sharp intake of breath as the contents of the box were revealed.
“Frau Spencer, is this your idea of a joke?”
The skeleton was wrapped in a rotted burial shroud, and the remnant of a wooden stake protruded from the ribcage. The cervical vertebrae were marked with deep incisions where the head had been severed with a heavy blade. Jonathan stared at the remains with a mixture of horror and fascination, as if he were recalling the sudden death of a lover.
“You never answered my riddle.” Heydrich’s body trembled with cold fury, and he flicked off the safety with a metallic snap. “I gave you the opportunity to live, to do what is right, but you chose to play me for a fool.”
“The Odyssey!” Jonathan shouted with the agony of desperate inspiration. “Christ, it’s a passage from Homer’s Odyssey! For God’s sake, let Sarah go, at least!”
“The man knows the words but not the music.” Heydrich raised the rifle and glanced between them. After a moment’s indecision, the muzzle swung in her direction, and time moved with agonizing slowness as Heydrich’s finger tightened on the trigger.
A cold wind blew through the room, and the shot went wide as Sarah saw, or sensed, a formless shadow – a dark, devilish something that threw off the German’s aim and wrenched the rifle from his hands. Beside her, Jonathan yelped as the lantern burned white-hot and exploded, and shards of hot glass showered the room. A searing pain radiated from her injured leg, and she staggered, dizzy with sudden nausea. Sarah felt her father’s hands probing in the dark and pulling her into an embrace. She touched his hand and found it cold but steady.
“When I had set sail thence the wind took me to Ismarus, which is the city of the Cicones. There we sacked the town, putting the men to the sword and dividing their wives among us.” The voice was deep and rumbling, like the rush of a great torrent. The dark shape resolved into anthropoid form as torches, a dozen or more placed on the walls, came to life of their own accord and illuminated the room.
“The significance of those words, John, is that they are spoken not by the villain, but by the hero. The man who plunders and murders and is celebrated by all.” Quincy Morris smiled, showing a hint of large teeth under the mustache, and the torchlight flickered in the eyes as they fixed upon Heydrich. “An excellent recitation, Herr Heydrich. Welcome to my home.”
XIX.
Amy circled the castle as she prepared for her final approach. The ground below was level with no obvious trees or rocks, and if she skimmed the treetops, she would - perhaps - roll to a stop before running out of room at the far end. A few more minutes, and it’ll be too dark to see the ground. Go now, or don’t go at all. The tail fin clipped a branch at the treeline as she nudged the stick downward, and the plane bounced once, a terrifying lurch that made her stomach churn, as the wheels made contact with the ground. Amy cut the power and raised the flaps to slow her momentum, and the wheels settled firmly onto the earth. Not pretty, but I’ll make it in one piece, she thought. With luck, I might even be able to take off again. She did a quick post-flight check in the fading daylight. She heard gunfire in the distance – a few scattered shots followed by a long volley. Somewhere in the forest, at an indeterminate distance that was far too close, a wolf howled.
It held the note in a long, lupine aria and ascended for a full octave before tapering off to a deep bass whine. Another wolf answered, its call a high-pitched whistle that sounded almost avian to Amy’s ears - the cry of a large hawk or falcon. Soon, the entire valley was alive, a yipping cacophony that resounded throughout the forest. It was an eerie sound, but the wolves did not frighten her. Not too much, at any rate. Perhaps they would give the plane, that odd contraption that smelled of gasoline and rubber, a wide berth.
The gunshots were another matter. The ugly crumb that tried to steal her plane was dead at the bottom of the river, but the shots suggested that he wasn’t alone. Best to be unavailable if they come looking for a ride. Amy waited for the howling to subside and pushed open the cockpit door. The gatehouse was a mere hundred yards distant, and if the wolves didn’t eat her first, she could hole up inside the castle. Amy began running, a clumsy, shambling gallop in her boots and flight jacket. Her lungs burned, and she stumbled once, but thirty seconds of painful effort took her to the threshold. Not giving Tommy Hampson a run for his money, but I made it in one piece.
The gatehouse door was locked. The wolves resumed their howling, much closer now, and she felt the first hint of real fear.
“John?” Amy pounded at the door. “Open the bloody door, I’m outside!”
Behind her, a half-dozen or more wolves, big ones, emerged from the shadows and milled about the plane. Their tails stood erect as they sniffed the tall grass, following the scent of her post-flight check. The circles grew wider until an enormous black wolf broke loose from the pack. It headed for the gatehouse at a trot, and two others followed. Bollocks, he’s as big as a bull mastiff! Amy’s experience with wolves was limited to a childhood excursion at the London Zoo, and she dredged through her memory, desperate for any snippet of wolf-lore. If you’re chased by a wolf, don’t run, because they’ll think you’re a rabbit. Very helpful. Play dead? No, that’s something else – perhaps elephants. Christ, what are you supposed to do when a wolf attacks? The answer came to her in a flash.
Die. When you’re chased by wolves, you’re supposed to die.
Amy flattened herself against the wall as the wolves approached. Her fingers touched a gap in the stone, where the masonry had worn away, and she probed carefully with her left hand. Just wide enough for fingers and toes. She reached upward, stretching her arms to their limit, and grasped a high crack with both hands. Her feet scrabbled for purchase, and Amy clawed at the stones as the wolves broke into a run. She found another gap as the wolves covered the last few yards. A leaping wolf miscalculated the distance by inches, and the jaws snapped shut on empty air.
She climbed higher. With judicious placement of her hands and feet, the stones provided enough gaps to make steady progress, and the ground receded below her. Thirty feet below, she heard rustling in the weeds and the low, frustrated whinny of the predators. Come on, Amy. Just a little more, and you’ll be over the top.
Her hand slipped as a rock crumbled beneath her.
Amy yelped as her fingers, swollen and tender, probed desperately at the wall. Falling would mean shattered bones, ruptured organs, and having one’s broken but still-living body devoured by wolves. She forced herself to breathe deeply. Good pilots don’t panic, girl. The nearest handhold was tantalizingly out of reach, but if she could lift her foot a little higher, she could, perhaps, shift her body enough to reach the empty space. Bits of stone crumbled under her fingers as she adjusted her position, but the rock held her weight. Amy closed her eyes for a moment, then lifted her left foot as the howling resumed. Ignore what’s below and get to the top. She reached with her left hand, stretching her fingers to their limit.
Got it!
The stone gave way, and Amy’s feet scissored in the air as her left hand lost its tenuous hold. She dangled from her right hand as her fingers clawed at the rock until her grip failed. Amy fell, sliding down the stone face as the wolves rushed forward.
XX.
Hans straggled a few paces behind the others and kept an eye on their prisoner as they as they retreated toward camp. The others followed Gerhard in a loose procession, alternately crowding and lagging one another like the coils of a spring. To his left, the last rays of light disappeared behind the mountains.
The Englishman had materialized out of the trees like a ghost, transfixed by the gruesome finale of Sulzbach’s death agonies. He spoke fluent German, and Hans interrogated him at some length, but their prisoner could provide no satisfactory explanation for the missing men or for the plane that he had seen the previous day. Hans could have - should have - carried out Skorzeny’s order and shot the Englishman, but the others were fearful and suspicious after their encounter with Sulzbach. If he killed a prisoner in cold blood, Hans feared, they would break entirely. Instead, he decided to return to the trucks and question the stranger again when Heydrich and Skorzeny returned. If they return at all.
“Gerhard!”
The big man veered into the grass, and a few of the others followed. The remaining men hesitated at the edge of the road as Hans cursed Gerhard’s stupidity - ambling along like he was taking a midday stroll in the park. Get out before the sun sets.
“Gerhard! Where in hell are you going?”
“Can you hear them?” Gerhard stumbled to the edge of the burned over hawthorn patch. “They want us to stay! They’ve been waiting for so long, they’re so lonely…”
“Everyone, back to the road!” Hans shouted. “Out of the woods and back to the fucking road, now!”
Gerhard sifted the blackened ground through his fingers. Hans felt an overwhelming urge to follow him, to drag them back to camp by force if necessary. Instead, he waited, and the decision saved his life. In the east, a harvest moon cast a pale glow on the trees.
“It’s okay, Hans,” Gerhard cooed. “They’re so happy to see us, and -”
The words dissolved into an agonized scream.
An arm sprouted from the earth and locked firmly about Gerhard’s wrist. A head appeared, and Hans caught a glimpse of alabaster skin, nearly luminous in the moonlight, as it pulled Gerhard downward and battened upon his neck. The others stood frozen with terror as the hawthorn patch disgorged the dead from their resting place. Some wore uniforms from the War, German field gray and Romanian blue, rotted and fouled by fifteen years beneath the soil. The clothing of others had rotted away, and they emerged naked from the grave like stillborn infants. Only the eyes seemed alive, shining in the moonlight with a saturnine glare. The vampires flowed around the Englishman like water, leaving him untouched as they dragged another man to the earth.
Martin dropped his weapon as he sprinted past, and his headlong flight broke the spell that held the others in place. They fled with the blind panic of the herd, and Hans followed, running in a stumbling gallop that carried him back toward the village. He staggered to a halt at the far end of the village and bent at the waist as he fought the urge to retch. Somewhere ahead, Martin was wailing, a shrill, ululating cry of despair. Karl blundered through the trees and shrank with fear as Hans touched his arm. A twig snapped to their left, and Egon fell in behind Karl. Three of us, Hans thought, plus Martin, who won’t live much longer if he keeps blubbering. My God, are we the only ones left? Heydrich had gone this way, and there had to be a road, a path, something, that led away from this desolate valley. He knew all along, didn’t he? That’s why he disappeared before the sun went down. If he survived the night, Hans told himself, he would put a bullet in the head of Reinhard Heydrich and leave his body to rot in the forest.
In the distance, Martin’s cry became a joyous shout. “Hans! Hans! I found a way out!” - and Hans vectored toward the sound of his voice. He fought the urge to run as they made their way through the trees - a hundred yards, then seventy-five, then fifty. Just a few more steps and we’ll be there.
The vampire slipped from the darkness so silently that Hans wondered if she were truly a thing of flesh and blood. She twisted Karl’s head to one side, and her lips curled back to reveal long teeth as the head lunged downward. A wet gurgle emanated from Karl’s lips as she fixed upon his throat. Hans placed the muzzle of his rifle against her ribs, and the gunshot was muted, little more than a muffled thump as the expanding gases were trapped inside the scrawny torso. She stared into his eyes with a viciousness that would have held its own in the lowest circle of hell, then returned to body at her feet. Hans stared in wonder as her fingers stroked Karl’s thinning hair, a grotesque pantomime of tenderness, as she returned to her meal.
Egon placed his own rifle against the woman’s temple, and desiccated matter puffed from her skull as he pulled the trigger. She fell backward, and Egon prodded at the body with the barrel of his rifle. Hans switched on his torch and examined the wound in Karl’s throat. Poor light discipline would have gotten them killed in the trenches, but stumbling in the dark achieved nothing, and he wanted to see the next monster that crept from the forest. Karl was dead, or near enough to make no difference, and Hans panned the light in the direction of Martin’s voice. They advanced, and the torchlight gave them confidence as they walked.
Behind them, the woman’s hand began to twitch, and the bloodshot eyes regained their focus. After a few minutes, she stood and followed, pausing occasionally to sniff the air.
Martin stood at the base of a steep ridge, his face bathed in moonlight. Behind him, a series of steps were cut into the rock, and Hans nearly sobbed with relief. Oh dear God, thank you, I’m still going to kill that bastard Heydrich, but thank you. Martin grinned like an excited child.
“I found steps, Hans! They lead up the mountain!”
Hans clapped his shoulder. “Good job, Martin. Lower your voice a little, so those things don’t hear us.”
“That was awful, wasn’t it? I saw what happened to Gerhard, and I wanted to cry.” Martin’s head bobbed as his voice carried through the trees. “So I ran - I know that makes me a coward, but I was afraid, and I just couldn’t help myself -”
“I understand, Martin.” Please shut up before you get us killed.
Hans took a step forward, and Egon restrained him with a hand on his shoulder. The punctures on Martin’s throat were small, almost unobtrusive compared to the savagery of Karl’s attack. There were more punctures on his face and arms, and Hans shrank from the sight as Martin continued to smile.
“It’s not so bad.” Martin continued to smile. “If you just close your eyes and let it happen, it’s really not bad at all.”
The leaves rustled as the dead closed ranks around them. Hans shined the torch into their faces and saw Gerhard standing passively among the others. To his right, Karl shambled forward with the woman that had killed him. Her mummified skin appeared fuller now, rejuvenated. They stared at him with sullen eyes.
“It’s not so bad,” Martin repeated. “Just close your eyes and let it happen.”
The semicircle tightened around them like a noose.
Thanks for reading! The final part of Chapter 18 will be published tomorrow.