by David Nickle
“Did they investigate? No. Perhaps we might investigate now, I suggested. Once the rain had cleared up. ‘Do what you want,’ said another of the men. ‘We will return to the farm for supper.’
“And return they did, in plenty of time.
“When they had gone, I attempted to form a party. I finally persuaded Frederich to join me on a hike. The rest had little enthusiasm for the adventure—none wanted to tarry too near the haunted pass—and I think Frederich only joined me when it was clear I would go alone if he didn’t. We packed rifles and a hatchet, a pair of binoculars and an electric lamp in case we found ourselves on the mountain slope in the dark. Which, Frederich made clear, we would endeavor to avoid at all cost.
“‘We will stay to the road. And we will not enter the pass.’ He wagged his finger at me. ‘Do not even consider it.’
“I promised solemnly enough to satisfy Frederich, and off we went, up the road as it wound up the slope. The sky was clearing as we went, but there was still plenty of cloud, some of it low enough that it collected in a steely mist that gleamed where the late-day sun struck it as it shone here and there. The binoculars were of little use, so I slung them. I wasn’t sure what we were looking for . . . or rather, I didn’t want to say what I was looking for . . . some tiny clue as to what was transpiring in the valley.
“As it happened, we found rather more than a clue. The road crested a low ridge, and to one side the land fell off into a rocky gully, carved by a fast-moving mountain stream that caught the sun here and there through gruel-thin mist that collected at the bottom. The far side of the gully was much higher than ours, the rock there nearly as steep as a cliffside. The road followed the ridgeline and after a few hundred yards disappeared again into trees. As we followed it, we began to hear . . . noises. Voices.
“High, clear voices . . . singing. I heard them first—I think. Frederich had little interest, at first just marching on with great resolve, as though he might overtake the song. But I convinced him to stop and we both crouched down at the edge, turning our ears to try and locate the singers. It was no good: the gully formed a natural amphitheatre, and the music echoed through the rocks so that it seemed to be coming from everywhere. I scanned the stream bed with my binoculars, again and again . . . but saw nothing.
“‘Give them over,’ said Frederich finally, and I was about to—but I caught a movement, upstream where the gully narrowed into a crevasse. I focussed, but there was nothing—and then, without warning, Frederich let out a cry and fell. He tumbled down the edge of the gully. I dropped the binoculars and turned, just in time to avoid sharing the same fate as Frederich.
“It was girl, blonde-haired and wild, filthy . . . naked but for shoes . . . she had pushed Frederich, and now her thin arms clutched at my shoulders. I let the binoculars fall, and managed to step back from the edge and swing her around over the gully. She scratched at my face, shrieking in a mad rage. I laid hold of her arm to prevent her from reaching my eyes, and with my free hand cuffed her ear. She shrieked again, and kicked out at my groin. She didn’t manage to hit me, but it was enough of a distraction that I lost grip. She gave a last, half-hearted effort to push me into the gully, then turned and bolted, to the trees on the far side of the road.
“I gave a short chase, but not far into the woods. I unslung my rifle, shouting at her to stop as I stepped to the edge of the trees. But I hadn’t a shot and she knew it as well as I. And of course Frederich had fallen. So I returned, thinking he might require aid. He was scuffed, but not badly cut and nothing broken.
“‘Well,’ he said as he dusted himself off, ‘this has been quite a day. We survived a bear attack, and not many can boast of that.’
“At first I thought he was joking, but as we talked, Frederich insisted: the brown bear, possibly protecting her cubs, had swatted him and knocked him into the gully. I was lucky she had not torn me apart.
“There was nothing I could do to convince him otherwise.
“‘Look at that cut on your face,’ he said, pointing at me. ‘That’s not the work of a little girl.’
“Is that the cut?” asked Lewis, pointing to Zimmermann’s cheek. Before Zimmermann could answer, Kurtzweiller shook his head no.
“That is from fencing,” he said.
“The cut was on my jaw, and really nothing more than a scratch,” Zimmermann said. “Frederich was in worse condition from his tumble. Still, he insisted it was time to return to the checkpoint. So we did.”
“The singing,” said Andrew. “Did it continue?”
“Oh yes,” said Zimmermann. “I heard it echoing until we were well out of sight of that gully, and all the way back to the checkpoint I thought I could hear it still. I didn’t talk about it, however, among the other men. Just as I did not contradict Frederich when he told the tale of how he’d faced a brown bear and lived. So we ate our evening meal, and I made certain to volunteer for the last watch of the night. The others would be sleeping deepest then, but I would be roused and be able to report any incident.”
“To your Russian masters,” said Andrew.
“To them. Yes.” Zimmermann looked into the bowl of his pipe, and reached into his pocket to find more tobacco. “I was not sure precisely what I would be reporting. Frederich’s delusion about seeing the bear . . . the presence of the girl . . . I presumed that she was one of the young, rebellious nudists from the valley. I guessed that the reports of bear sightings around the checkpoint might have sprung from a similar delusion. So I hoped that finding and perhaps interrogating that girl might offer up some better intelligence about the valley than a simple visit.”
Andrew didn’t think that was a good plan, particularly, but wasn’t sure what he would’ve done in Zimmermann’s place. “So what did you find, on that last watch?” he asked. Zimmermann struck a match and lit his pipe and puffed, watching the smoke rise before him. Ruth cleared her throat.
“I think we agreed it was an enormous man,” she said. “Isn’t that right?”
Andrew put a hand on Ruth’s arm to indicate that she shouldn’t be leading Zimmermann, but she brushed him away.
“Mr. Zimmermann has had difficulty recalling this moment precisely,” she explained. “That is why, when he arrived to greet me at the house where I was staying in Crete, I was convinced of the rest of his story. He was addled.”
“Addled?”
“In a way very familiar to you and I, Andrew.”
“It is so,” said Zimmermann. “Miss Harper has told me a fair bit about your Juke—the way it can insinuate itself into a man’s perceptions, and perhaps worse, his recollections. This is what I have experienced, more and more, from that evening onward. What did I see that night? Miss Harper and I were eventually able to agree that the true memory was of a very tall, very powerful man. Fully a head taller than I. Twice as broad. But not fat. No fat at all. But he was also a great owl, whose wings blotted out the stars as they spread, or a woman smaller than a child, with razor teeth. . . .”
“But that wasn’t right,” said Ruth, coolly.
“No,” said Zimmermann. “It was a man, as I described just now. I know this for certain, because I saw him again.”
“Did he speak to you?” asked Lewis.
“Oh yes. I had elected to take my patrol farther from the cabin than the others suggested. I brought the lamp with me, and shone it up the road . . . into the woods to the side of it . . . My rifle at the ready—I knew there was danger, but I wanted to see what else ranged on this slope.
“I don’t know how far I would have finally gone—the dark was absolute. But I didn’t make it a long way. The light caught him where he half-hid, to the side of the roadway. He was crouched on his haunches. He was naked, but only from the waist. And hirsute. He grinned at the light, in a way that I first thought was just a squint. But the light didn’t dazzle him. He stood, taking perhaps only two steps toward me before I lowered the rifle and ordered him to halt.
“‘There is no hiding from you,’ he said, and
he laughed. A big man’s laugh. Quite merry. It made me want to like him, I admit, so when he asked me my name I gave it readily.
“‘The pilot,’ he said. I didn’t answer him this time so he elaborated: ‘You flew the aircraft that crossed my sky a week ago. You brought the Übermensch.’
“The Übermensch. The superman,” said Andrew.
“He was referring to Jason,” said Ruth, and Andrew felt an involuntary shiver. It wouldn’t have been the first time that someone had described Jason that way, and they all knew there was some evidence to back that up. But it never went well for him when someone else took notice.
“He spoke to me other things too,” said Zimmermann, “but my recollection of those is less . . . reliable. I know that he asked me questions that I didn’t answer, and others that I did. I did admit to being a pilot. I didn’t tell him about my pact with the Russians. I told him how many men were at the checkpoint, but I think he knew that already. I told him everything I knew about Aguillard, and Bergstrom, and Plaut.
“And I told him finally that no one knew what to make of the valley, or the children who had disappeared there.
“‘The men believe that the children have become the forest,’ I said, ‘and that there is a beast.’
“‘Well,’ said the giant, ‘they are right. In both matters.’
“By then, we found ourselves back at the stoop of the checkpoint, and as we set foot there . . . I was alone.” Zimmermann offered a thin smile. “I suppose that he might have just stepped out of the beam of my lamp, then hurried off. But if he did so, he moved silently and very swiftly, for I remember sweeping the lamp through the trees and up the road, even to the cabin itself. The giant was gone.
“I spent the remainder of my watch close to the cabin—as I’d been ordered to. Although I had really learned little from my encounter with the giant, I felt myself . . . drained of curiosity, of questions. It was a moment of peace . . . and of great awareness, I suppose . . . I can remember the smell of the pine needles, the icy breeze from the mountains . . . the emerging forms of the trees and the rocks under the pinkening sky. I didn’t sleep. But I felt as though I were dreaming.”
“And then,” said Ruth, prompting after a moment’s silence.
“And then,” said Zimmermann, “Jason appeared over the rise. Jason Thorn. Jason Thistledown. He stood tall, and strong. confident. Better than he was when he left the farm . . . than he was, really, when I met him in Paris.” Zimmermann drew deep from his pipe.
“And he was much better off than the man who walked beside him. That fellow, now . . .
“Herr Gottlieb. Markus Gottlieb. That was his name. . . .
“He was a wretch.”
Six
“Jason’s return ended my watch rather abruptly. Aguillard . . . well, he was not pleased to find me at the checkpoint when he arrived with the truck and his doctor’s bag. I had created a minor commotion at the farmhouse in ‘volunteering’ to take a watch—and as I was then the only pilot there with skills to fly the plane, I suppose created a middling crisis in manpower.
“‘What would we do, should anything happen? If we might have to depart?’ he demanded, and when I suggested that he might simply turn the crank on that truck and drive off, he glared at me.
“‘We mightn’t get far,’ he said.
“‘I will stay close to the farm,’ I said. ‘I was merely trying to be of use. There is little for me to do, you will understand, Doctor.’
“Did he believe me? That I was simply bored? Perhaps. If he didn’t, what did it matter? As Aguillard himself said: I was their only pilot.” Zimmermann scratched his beard, and in a moment’s pause pushed his chair back and rose to his feet. “I was vital.”
“Tell them about Markus Gottlieb,” said Ruth, who also stood—somewhat less steadily. “He was like the girl you saw.”
“Yes,” said Zimmermann. “Gottlieb arrived naked, but for a pair of boots . . . a filthy blanket over his shoulders.”
“Just like that girl,” said Kurtzweiller.
“Well she didn’t have a blanket. And he seemed older, much older than the girl certainly. More weathered. Almost as if he’d been beaten, many times over the course of a long time. His hair was filthy, and hung below his ears, even as it was thin at the crown.” Zimmermann patted his own forehead as he spoke. “Jason introduced him to me . . . the first thing he said as they strode up: ‘Albert Zimmermann, say hello to Markus Gottlieb.’ He seemed utterly unsurprised to see me, as though he knew that I would be standing watch that morning.
“Before I could say anything, Markus Gottlieb extended a wretched hand, and Jason said ‘Go on, shake!’ So I took the fellow’s hand, which felt like a bundle of twigs in mine, and we shook.
“‘How do you do, Herr Zimmermann,’ Gottlieb said to me. His voice was strange, at once higher and rougher than I can impersonate. ‘We are both veterans of the Great War—all three of us, excuse me. But I did not fly. It was the trenches for me.’
“He went on like that while we waited in the checkpoint for Aguillard and the truck—jabbering at whosoever met his eye. He was . . . I suppose you would say manic. While he interrogated Frederich, I pulled Jason aside and asked him about his new friend.
“‘He’s pleased to meet you all,’ said Jason. ‘Doesn’t get a lot of conversation in the valley.’
“‘So he is from the valley,’ I said. ‘I had guessed—’
“‘—and now you know,’ said Jason. ‘He’s not too well. We talked, and he agreed it was a good idea for him to come out and see the doctor.’” With a finger, Zimmermann tilted the back of his chair towards him, so it balanced on two legs.
“It was only when we returned to the farm that I understood it was not Dr. Aguillard of whom Jason spoke.” The chair landed back on all four legs as Zimmermann let it go.
“It was Bergstrom.”
“He intended to see Bergstrom? Did he know him?” asked Lewis.
“Oh yes,” said Zimmermann. “Quite well. Gottlieb had been in Dr. Bergstrom’s care, a long time ago. He explained this to any who would listen. Bergstrom had cared for him for a short time in that very valley, when the chateau served as a health spa.”
“And a nudist colony?” asked Kurtzweiller.
“Just so,” said Zimmermann. “Gottlieb arrived there in the vain hope of curing himself of . . . homosexual proclivities, one might say. Of course, he said, it was a good deal more complicated than that, and in the end . . . he left the valley spa, with Dr. Bergstrom’s blessing, to return to the world and find what he only described as ‘the source.’”
Andrew frowned. “The source of his homosexuality? That sounds absurd.”
“Indeed. Gottlieb didn’t illuminate matters during the ride back, but when we returned to the farm and Bergstrom met us, the nature of ‘the source’ became clearer.
“Bergstrom did not know who was accompanying Jason. Weber was quick to radio in a report of Jason’s return with what he called a captive, but he didn’t know his name. Bergstrom expected that he would speak to Jason first, and deal with the ‘captive’ afterward—so when Gottlieb climbed from the truck, Bergstrom kept his distance and let the S.A. men surround him, demanding Jason report. He did not recognize Gottlieb until Jason reminded him. ‘Your old patient,’ said Jason. ‘How ’bout that?’
“It was only then that the reunion began. I cannot say it was especially joyful, not for Bergstrom. Although once Gottlieb was released, he was happy enough.
“‘Doctor! You are looking very well!’ he shouted, dropping the blanket from his shoulders so he stood nude in the midst of the men. He strode confidently over to Bergstrom, took the poor man’s hands and shook them. This did not improve matters. The colour drained from Bergstrom’s face and he regarded Gottlieb with what I might only describe as horror . . . the sheerest horror.”
Zimmermann breathed deeply, his eyes focussed over all of their heads. His lips parted. Andrew started to say something encouraging, Zimmermann raise
d a finger, and continued.
“It is difficult to describe the moment, its impact. Perhaps if I employ your system. The truck . . . it was an old Büssing truck, crank-started. The cab was painted an awful yellow. At one time it had had doors on the cab but not anymore. It was stopped behind the house.” Zimmermann’s eyes fluttered and closed. “The door to the kitchen is open. A woman within, looking out and turning away. Seven men in total from the house. Gerhardt among them. The morning light was . . . brilliant. It seemed not to strike the world, but come from within it.
“Doctor Bergstrom wore . . . what did he wear? A pressed white shirt underneath a dark wool vest. He had shaved that morning, but badly. Flecks of blood on his jaw.”
Zimmermann’s eyes opened and he dragged the chair back, sat down again.
“‘Herr Gottlieb,’ Bergstrom said. ‘I thought . . .’
“Gottlieb interrupted. ‘You thought I might be dead?’
“‘‘No,’ Bergstrom said. ‘But I am glad to see you are not. Still. I had thought we’d seen the last of you.’
“‘Yes!’ Gottlieb exclaimed. ‘You sent me off, and perhaps thought we were finished. For a time we were. But I returned, see? You helped me—and now, I return to help you.’
“‘Help . . .’ Bergstrom seemed confused at this, so Gottlieb clarified.
“‘The source,’ said Gottlieb. ‘I found the source. I found Orlok. And I have brought him here.’
Kurtzweiller frowned. “Orlok?”
“It is from the cinema,” said Zimmermann. “A film shown a few years ago. Nosferatu.”
“Ah,” said Kurtzweiller, and nodded. “About the vampire.”
Andrew steepled his fingers on his chin, allowing himself a smile.
“Orlok,” he said. “Let me guess. Was Orlok the fellow you met in the early morning?”
“Yes,” Zimmermann answered. “I believe that Orlok was that fellow’s name.”
“Was he a vampire then?” asked Andrew.
“Vampires are superstitions,” said Zimmermann, a little sharply. “All I might say was that the name had an effect on Bergstrom—it seemed as though the word struck him bodily. He didn’t say anything more to Gottlieb, not there. He ordered some of the men to escort him upstairs. When they did so, he followed, and Aguillard did too. Jason stayed back, came to me when the area had cleared somewhat, and when he spoke he spoke very quietly, and in English.