Escape From Bastard Town

by Jack Quaid

  “Are you American?” she asked with a thick Austrian accent.

  Lee grunted.

  “Open the cell and get me out of here,” she said.

  “I’m looking for Dr. Wake,” he said. “Do you know where he is?”

  She threw him an unimpressed look. “Dr. Wake? I am Dr. Wake. Dr. Susan Wake.”

  It took Lee a moment to comprehend that, but he quickly realized he didn’t have time to reconcile his own expectations, so all he did was grunt.

  “Bet you’re going to let me out now,” Susan said.

  He unlocked the door, and Susan made a beeline to the fallen guard. She scooped up his MP 38, cleared the chamber, yanked out the magazine, checked it, and slammed it back in.

  Lee was impressed; Susan Wake was no damsel in distress.

  “Let’s get the hell out of here,” he said.

  “Not without my book.”

  “Forget your goddamned book. This place is crawling with Nazis.”

  She stepped forward and got in his face. “I’m not leaving without the Book of Evil.”

  Thirty-Eight

  “Wait, wait, wait,” Parker Ames said as she climbed up from the booth at Heather’s Diner. “You’re talking about the Book of Evil? The Book of Evil.”

  Heather looked from Parker to Lee and back again. “What’s the Book of Evil?”

  “Only the most dangerous book ever written,” Parker said. “Rumor has it if you read certain passages, it can raise the dead, bring people back to life, that kind of thing. It’s meant to be even able to open up a portal to hell.” Parker ran her fingers through her dirty hair. “I thought it was a myth.”

  “I didn’t know what it was,” Lee said. “All I knew was that I wasn’t leaving without it.”

  Thirty-Nine

  The alarm was still ringing as Lee and Susan ran down the hall. They took a corner and ran straight into two Nazis.

  Without thinking twice, Susan raised that MP 38 in her hands and unleashed a hail of rounds, taking them both out within seconds.

  Lee cocked his head and gave her a look. A woman after his own heart.

  She caught that look. “What?”

  “Nothing.” he said.

  “The lab is this way,” Susan said, leading the way.

  They raced through a maze of corridors and rooms, none of which were on any of the maps Lee had memorized, until they busted through the doors of Dr. Wake’s laboratory.

  After four years of war, Lee had seen some shit but nothing like what he saw in that lab. It was dark and dingy, with cables running everywhere, beakers bubbling away, and crude diagrams of what looked to be deformed humans all over the walls.

  “What the hell were you working on here?” Lee asked.

  “Do you really want to know?” Susan asked as she moved around the laboratory searching for the Book of Evil.

  Lee took a look around at the body parts that were sitting around in jars and gave it some thought. “There’s a high chance I don’t.”

  Susan pulled a sheet off a shark cage, and inside was a Nazi slasher that was simply known as Gustav. His skin was burned to a crisp, his eyes were red, and he was rocking a leather SS overcoat.

  Lee’s face scrunched up at the sight of him. “I guess you weren’t running a beauty contest here.”

  “The Nazis wanted super soldiers,” Susan said. “Men who could go into battle, take a hundred bullets, and keep on killing. Men who couldn’t die.”

  The slasher moved closer to the bars and put his face only inches from Lee’s.

  “He looks like he’s already dead,” Lee said.

  Susan found the Book of Evil and, holding it firmly in her hands, she made her way across the laboratory and over to Lee. “He is, and he isn’t,” she said. “They say that there’s some men so evil in this world that not even hell wants them.”

  Those words hung in the air for a moment before they were broken up by bangs on the locked laboratory door. The Germans were coming.

  “It’s not going to be easy getting out of here,” Susan said.

  “Probably not,” Lee said, shifting his attention back to Gustav. “How mean is this son of a bitch?”

  “About as mean as they come,” she said.

  Lee took the butt of his Luger and smashed the lock clean off the cage—it fell to the floor with a clunk.

  “What are you doing?” Susan yelled.

  “Creating a diversion.”

  “That diversion is going to get us killed.” Susan pulled him through the laboratory and out the back door just as the German’s kicked in the front door. The soldiers were just regular soldiers. Not a single one of them knew what went on at Castle Hohenwerfen, so when they stepped into that room and saw Gustav, they all froze. It was that hesitation that killed them.

  Gustav busted out of the cage and charged at the soldiers. A couple of them opened fire, but it made no difference. Gustav just kept on charging. He tore through those soldiers and tossed them aside like rag dolls with their bodies smashing against the walls and falling to the ground.

  Forty

  The sound of gunfire and screams chased them out of the castle as Lee and Susan crossed the clearing toward the cable car. The operator yelled something at them in German and reached for his weapon.

  Too slow. Lee put two in his chest, and he hit the deck.

  “Come on,” Susan yelled as she climbed into the cable car. “Get in!”

  Lee hit a couple of switches on the control panel, and the cable car started its descent down into Erlebnisburg. Just before it was about to start its journey over the cliff, Lee jumped inside and slammed the door.

  Lee and Susan watched Castle Hohenwerfen grow smaller through the windows, and even though the distance between them grew, they could still hear the brutal sound of the massacre filter out from the castle and into the night.

  “How bad is it going to be for them?” Lee asked.

  “By morning, there will be nobody left alive in that castle,” Susan said.

  Lee gave that some thought. “Better those sons of bitches than us.”

  Then not a second—not a single second—after those words left his lips, a giant figure launched itself off the castle. As the shadow grew bigger and bigger, it became clear as day that the figure was none other than Gustav. He slammed onto the top of the cable car with such a thud that it smashed all the windows and violently rocked the thing back and forth.

  When it slowed, steadied, and became quiet again, Lee and Susan looked up.

  “Is he still there?” Susan asked.

  They heard footsteps above them. He was still there, all right.

  “Damn it!” Lee mumbled. He pulled the Luger from his holster, took aim, and starting firing rounds off through the roof.

  Pop!

  Pop!

  Pop!

  “That’s not going to work,” Susan said.

  “What is?” Lee asked, lowering the weapon.

  “You need to take his head.”

  “What?”

  “Take his head from his body.”

  “Is there another way?”

  “Hope he goes away?” Susan said, unsure.

  “It doesn’t look like he’s going to go away.” Lee wrapped his big hand around the smashed window frame and lifted himself up.

  “What are you doing?” Susan asked.

  “Wait here,” Lee said as he climbed up.

  “What other choice do I have?” Susan asked herself.

  When Lee pulled himself up, Gustav was just standing there. He didn’t move. He didn’t say anything. He just stood there, all scary like.

  Lee looked up into his red eyes. The slasher was easily a head taller than him. “You’re an ugly bastard, aren’t you?”

  Gustav didn’t budge.

  So Lee balled up his fist and threw a massive haymaker right into Gustav’s face. It bounced off him like a wet rag.

  “Oh, hell,” Lee said.

  And then, for the first time since Lee had climbe
d up on top of that cable car, Gustav moved. He swung back his gigantic hand, and in one huge swoop, he swatted Lee so hard that he flew over the edge of the cable car and into the darkness.

  Gustav kind of shrugged as if to suggest he’d expected more of a fight. He took a couple of steps and peered over the side.

  Lee hung from the handle of the open cable car door, flapping about in the wind with over one thousand feet between him and the ground.

  Lee pulled himself into the cable car, and Susan pulled him to his feet.

  “Did you get him?” she asked.

  “Not exactly,” Lee replied.

  Gustav swung around and into the cable car. There wasn’t much room in a cable car for two people and a slasher, so as you could imagine, it was a little too close for comfort.

  “Now what?” Susan asked.

  “I’m working on it.”

  Gustav opened his big evil mouth and screamed. It was a god-awful chilling scream that sent shivers up Lee’s spine. But it was in that moment that Lee took his chance. He charged like a pro-football player, slammed into the slasher with his shoulder, and dug into the middle of the beast. Lee used all of his might and pushed, getting one step forward, followed by another step forward, and finally pushing Gustav to take a step back, followed by another step back. Lee pushed harder until both he and Gustav went out the open door together.

  Susan screamed as shock and fear washed over her. She stumbled forward and forced herself to look out over the edge. Susan saw two things at the exact same time. The first was Gustav plummeting one thousand feet to the snowy ground below. And the second was Lee hanging from the handle of the cable car’s door.

  Susan helped him in, and once Lee was back on the inside of the cable car, they both collapsed on the floor, completely out of breath.

  “Let’s not do that again,” he said.

  Forty-One

  “It took me two months to smuggle Susan and the Book of Evil out of Austria and back to the United Kingdom. Shortly after, I asked Susan to marry me, and I was lucky enough that she said yes.”

  During the story, Lee’s cigar had gone out. He relit it, took a drag, and let the smoke dissipate in front of his face before speaking again. “The war ended shortly after that, and I spent the next thirty years working as a cop in San Fran while Susan taught at the college. We tried to forget about Gustav, Erlebnisburg, and that entire goddamned awful affair. At first, neither one of us could go a day without thinking about it. Then we would go a couple of days, then a couple of weeks, a couple of months, then a couple of years until so much time had passed that everything that happened at Castle Hohenwerfen felt like it had happened to somebody else. Like some bad horror movie you remember seeing once and have half forgotten about.”

  “And what about the Book of Evil?” Parker asked.

  “Ah, yes. The Book of Evil,” Lee said. “Susan knew the power of that abomination. We tried to destroy it. It wouldn’t burn, the pages wouldn’t tear, that son of a bitch just wouldn’t die.”

  “What did you do with it?”

  “The only thing we could think of,” Lee said. “We hid it.”

  “In Whittier,” Heather added. “You hid it in Whittier, didn’t you?”

  Lee nodded. “We came here back in forty-five to hide the book. My uncle was the priest here back then.”

  “Father McLane?” Heather asked.

  “McLane hid the book for us.”

  “The Book of Evil—the most dangerous book on the face of the planet and, from what I understand, quite a difficult read—has been in Bastard Town since 1945.”

  Lee nodded.

  “But the killings didn’t start until a few months ago,” Heather said. “If it’s been here for decades, why has it only…”

  “Started being evil now?” Parker said, finishing her sentence. She looked to Lee. “That’s a very good question.”

  Lee rubbed his jaw. “That good question has a very bad answer,” he said. “You need to understand that Susan was the love of my life. All the broken parts of me all made sense when I was with her. She had the best laugh, like one of those laughs that just makes everybody else around her laugh as well, even if you wanted to or not. She was just one of those people that…”

  “What did you do?” Parker said with a bit more firmness in her voice.

  As the memory faded, so did the smile in on his face. “I would have done anything to have her back again.”

  Already a couple of steps ahead, Parker put her head in her hands. “Oh, shit.”

  “I didn’t think any of this would happen,” Lee said.

  Slashers, the Book of Evil, and the whole nine yards was all new to Heather, and she was playing catch-up. “Lee? What did you do?”

  “He read from the Book of Evil,” Parker said.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “The Book of Evil has many powers,“ Parker said. “One of those powers is to bring the dead back to life. Lee tried to bring his wife back. What he did instead was open up a hell gate.”

  “I should never have gone near that book,” Lee said.

  “You think?” Parker said.

  Heather couldn’t breathe. She stood up, paced, used one of the benches to hold herself up, then paced some more. She was halfway to a full-blown panic attack. “It’s all your fault,” she managed to say. “All these people dead, because of you. My Jimmy, gone, because of you. I only just got him back, and now he’s missing or dead or whatever—all because of you.” She pulled out a snub nose .38 from the pocket of her apron and aimed it squarely at Lee’s face. “This is all because of you.”

  Lee didn’t say anything. He didn’t do anything. He didn’t even move a muscle. He just kept his eyes on Heather’s and his mouth shut.

  “Heather,” Parker said, “I know you’re hurting real bad now, but don’t do this.”

  Heather pushed the .38 right between Lee’s eyes. “Give me one little reason why I shouldn’t.”

  “I know where the Book of Evil is,” Lee said. “I can close the hell gate.”

  A tear rolled down her cheek. She pushed that .38 into his skull a little more. Heather was about to put an end to Lee, when at the very last millisecond, she took a step back and lowered the pistol. “To hell with you,” she said through the tears. “To hell with you.”

  “I’ll make this right,” Lee told her. “If it’s the last thing I ever do.”

  “It very well may be,” Heather said as she walked away.

  When she was out of earshot, Parker lit a cigarette and turned to Lee. “Well, I think you handled that pretty well.”

  Forty-Two

  Heather leaned against the wall, closed her eyes, and cried. She was tired. Tired of being hunted. Tired of being scared. Most of all, she was tired of all the killing. All she wanted to do was get into a time machine and go back to when all the people she knew were alive and the nightmare she was in was nothing more than that… a nightmare. Something she woke up from in the middle of the night then forgot about by morning.

  She wiped her eyes with her palms, dried her palms on her uniform, and took a deep breath to compose herself. Heather was about to make her way back to the main floor of the diner when she heard three gentle knocks on the back door.

  She froze, not even a muscle twitched. Then she heard those three little knocks again. They weren’t of the aggressive kind, like there was some monster on the other side ready to stab her to pieces. They were like three ordinary, run-of-the-mill knocks, so Heather took baby steps over to the back door and peered through the square window in the middle.

  “Jimmy?”

  It was Jimmy, all right. He looked the same as he had the very last time she’d seen him. Just before he left to check on his old man. He had the same red flannel shirt and the same leather jacket he’d worn since high school.

  “Where’ve you been?” Heather asked.

  “I’ve been trying to get back to you,” Jimmy said. “I went up to the trailer, but when I got ther
e, so was Hatchet Bob.” He paused. “Dad’s dead.”

  “Oh no,” Heather said.

  “He almost got me, and I was hiding out over at the old Ward house. What’s going on? There’s these monsters everywhere.”

  “Otis is dead?”

  He nodded. “You must have been so worried.”

  She nodded, trying to push back tears. “The tunnel’s blocked, and all the boats have been destroyed.”

  “I tried to call,” Jimmy said. “But the phones, they’re out.”

  “I just…” Heather said, still trying to come to grips with it. “I can’t believe you’re alive. It’s a miracle.”

  “Yeah,” he said with a laugh and a smile. “I made it. Hey, let me in.”

  “Oh, of course. Shit. I’m sorry. I’ll unlock the door.” She put the key in the lock but paused before turning it.

  “What?” Jimmy asked. “What is it?”

  She slowly looked up at her husband. “What if you’re one of them?”

  “What are you talking about?” Jimmy said. “Hurry up, open the door.”

  “A lot of funny things have been happening.”

  “Doesn’t it look like me?” Jimmy asked.

  “Yeah,” Heather replied.

  “Does it sound like me?” Jimmy asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Then it’s me.”

  Heather was still hesitant. “Like I said, Jimmy. A lot of strange things have been happening.”

  “Look, if it wasn’t me, would I know the place where we first kissed?”

  She blushed at the memory.

  “It was in your bedroom,” Jimmy continued. “We were listening to Transvision Vamp. Would I know that even though you say you’re not religious, you pray every single night just before you go to bed?”

  She smiled.

  “See? It’s me.”

  Heather gave him one last sidelong glance and sized him up. Then she laughed at herself for being silly. Of, course it was Jimmy. “I’m sorry, baby,” Heather said as she turned the key. “Gimmie a sec.”