by Amy Cross
“Hey!” Elly called out, heading back across the store. “Hey kid, you're better off in here for now. We're not -”
Suddenly the door clicked open.
“No!” Elly burst forward, racing along the aisle and grabbing the girl just in time, pulling her back inside. As the girl began to scream and fight back, Elly slammed the door shut with her hip and then turned around, trying to make sure that the girl wasn't able to punch her in the face. “Will you just calm down?” she said firmly. “We're trying to help you, and there's sure as hell nobody else out there right now! We're not -”
Before she could finish, the girl turned and bit down hard on Elly's wrist.
“Let go!” Elly yelled, stumbling back against the wall but somehow managing to keep her arms around the girl's shoulders, even as she felt blood dribbling down onto her hands. “For God's sake, will you let go of me!”
Annie hurried over, yelling something that Elly didn't quite hear.
“Stop it!” Elly shouted, letting go of the girl and trying to pull her hand free. “You're hurting me!”
Suddenly the girl stopped biting and spun around, turning just as Annie stopped and shouted something else in a language that Elly didn't understand.
The girl stared for a moment, before replying in her own language.
Annie said something else, and then turned to Elly.
“German,” she explained. “This kid's German.”
“How did you know?” Elly asked.
Annie stared at the girl for a moment.
“Just a hunch,” she said finally, with a hint of fear in her voice. “Her name is Katia, and I think I might have read about her a long time ago. I think I finally understand why so many people are so keen to get their hands on her.”
Chapter Eight
“Are you sure she won't try to escape again?” Elly asked as she dabbed at her bite wound with another piece of toilet paper. “What did you say, to make her trust you?”
Leaning under the gas station's main counter, Annie fumbled for a moment before turning a lever. Immediately, a rushing sound rose up from the ground, and some pipes shuddered on the wall.
Getting to her feet, Annie turned to the basin and switched on one of the faucets. There was a brief rattling sound, and finally water emerged. Slightly brownish water, with a metallic smell, but water nonetheless. And as it flowed, the water began to clear until it finally looked drinkable.
“How did you do that?” Elly stammered.
“Someone turned the water off before they left,” Annie explained, washing a cup and then filling it with water, before handing it over to Elly, “but I was hoping the actual supply had never been cut off. Lucky us, huh?”
Elly took the cup and downed the water in one go.
“More?” Annie asked, taking the cup and then filling it again. “I'll give some to the girl in a moment,” she added, and then she gave Elly some more water. “She has no choice but to trust us. She's scared, she's alone, and I'm probably the first person who's spoken to her in her own language in years. Maybe even decades.”
“She only looks like she's eight or nine years old,” Elly pointed out.
“Maybe,” Annie whispered. “Maybe not.”
“What's that supposed to mean?” Elly asked, as she set the cup down.
She waited, but she could see that Annie was lost in thought.
“You have to tell me,” Elly continued finally. “I came all this way with you, Annie. Not entirely voluntarily, but I'm here now and you owe it to me to tell me what's going on. If you don't, I'll... I'll take the girl and I'll get her out of here.”
“How the hell would you even begin to do that?” Annie asked.
“Do you doubt me?”
“Imagine you could move your brain from one body to another,” Annie said after a moment. “Imagine it was possible to -”
“I know it's possible,” Elly said, interrupting her. “I saw it. Remember?”
“Sure, but think about what that must be like. Think about the pain, and think about the period where you have to get used to the new body. From what I've read, it's not easy at all. A human mind changes a little when it's moved into a new body. Not a lot, but enough to requires several years of adjustment. The brain is in a new skull, with a slightly different shape. It has a new body that it has to learn, new instincts, new impulses. That's a staggering change, and more often than not it really screws people up. Madness is almost inevitable. Sometimes the madness is even permanent.” She paused. “But now imagine that you don't need to make that change quite so often. Imagine that you're not limited by normal human lifespans.”
“What do you mean?” Elly asked.
“That's where someone like Katia fits in.”
“I don't understand.”
“These types of people are rare,” Annie continued. “They're so rare, most people haven't even heard of them. And when they show up, they're extremely valuable. Most estimations suggest that there are barely one or two every century. They're the result of some genetic fluke, but they've never been properly examined because they're always spirited away by whoever can pay to acquire them. Some people believe that they're evidence of a mutation that's very slowly spreading through the human race, although it'll take tens of thousands of years for the mutation to become widespread. I don't know whether or not that's true. But these people do exist, and this girl – her name is Katia Steiner – was first reported to have been identified in the 1940's.”
“Reported in the...”
Elly's voice trailed off for a moment.
“They can live for centuries,” Annie explained. “They age so slowly, their bodies last for hundreds and hundreds of years. Maybe even a thousand. That girl out there was born in 1934, which makes her more than seventy years old, but she looks -”
“No way is she seventy,” Elly pointed out. “She's seven, eight, something like that.”
“They age normally for a few years,” Annie continued, “but at some point – usually around the onset of puberty – the aging process dramatically slows.” She paused again. “I first read about Katia in some papers a few years ago. She was identified at a German concentration camp, but after that the trail went cold. She was the first of her kind to emerge in the twentieth century, and you can imagine how valuable she became around the time when the brain-swapping technology became viable. And you might not be too surprised to learn that according to the paperwork I found from the 1940's, Katia Steiner was swiftly delivered into the custody of Doctor Rudolf Langheim.”
Elly felt a shudder pass through her chest.
“You recognize that name, huh?” Annie continued.
“What does he have to do with any of this?” Elly asked.
“Before he died, he was involved in a lot of obscene experiments.”
“Did he experiment on Katia?”
“I had no idea she was here in America until today,” Annie added. “No idea at all. It never occurred to me that she could be the item that the cult members are chasing down. I just assumed she'd been spirited away all those years ago, bought by the highest bidder. Now I'm starting to understand that the situation was more complicated. I think she was fought over. Maybe the confusion at the end of the Second World War meant that she slipped away and changed hands. It's hard to believe she's still on the market, but I guess there have been lots of competing groups and cults, all vying to get control of her so that they can...”
Her voice trailed off for a moment.
“That's the problem,” she added finally. “I still don't quite understand how these different pieces fit together. I haven't figured out the endgame yet, although I've got a few theories.”
“What does any of this have to do with Nurse Winter and that thing that was under Lakehurst?” Elly asked.
“That's what I have to work out,” Annie replied. “Something about this whole situation doesn't quite make sense yet. If the cults are trying to get hold of Katia Steiner, they must have a brain they w
ant to put into her body. I'm worried that somehow the entity might have found a way to enter a body without burning that body up. If that's the case, maybe that's what Katia's supposed to be. A physical body for the evil that existed beneath Lakehurst. A long-lasting body that'll allow the entity time to grow and to get accustomed to its new form. Given enough time in a human body, the entity could become all-powerful.”
“And I guess there's no way we can just go to the police and get them to handle everything?” Elly suggested.
“It'd take too long to convince them that we're not crazy,” Annie pointed out. “Whatever's happening, it's happening fast. I just have to figure out how to stop it all. Besides, the cults have plants within all the major branches of government. I'm sorry, Elly, but we can't rely on them for help. We're on our own.”
***
Limping through to the gas station's bathroom, Elly stopped for a moment at the sink and tried the faucet. After a brief rumbling sound, water finally began to run, and she took a few seconds to wash her face. She winced every time she moved, thanks to her fractured ribs, and then she turned to go back through to the back room.
She froze as soon as she saw Katia standing in the corridor, staring straight at her.
“Hey,” Elly stammered, unable to shake a sense of discomfort. “Annie's through there, if that's who you're looking for.”
She waited, hoping that the little girl would simply go away.
Instead, Katia continued to stare at her.
“Um...”
Elly's voice trailed off. Something about the girl's stare was deeply unsettling, and she couldn't help but feel that there was some kind of sorrow in Katia's eyes. She still wasn't quite convinced that the girl could truly be more than seventy years old, but she kept reminding herself that she'd already experienced plenty of crazy things back at Middleford Cross and at the site of the old Lakehurst hospital. Now, as she tried to think of something to say to the kid, she felt that maybe those eyes really did seem older than they should.
“There's water now,” Elly explained finally, speaking slowly and clearly in the hope that Katia would be able to understand. She still wasn't entirely sure how much English the girl knew. Stepping back, she turned the faucet back on. “See?”
Again, Katia said nothing.
“Just help yourself, okay?” Elly continued, turning the faucet back off.
She hesitated, and then she forced herself to walk along the corridor. She really didn't want to get too close to the girl, but at the same time she wanted to get back through to Annie and try to persuade her to call the police. She was convinced that there had to be somebody out there who could help.
“No problem,” she said as she slipped past Katia, trying not to touch her. “I'll just -”
“I'm sorry,” Katia said suddenly, with a thick German accent.
Elly froze.
“Your arm,” Katia continued, looking down at Elly's wound. “I'm sorry I bit you.”
“You speak English?” Elly asked.
“No. Not much. A little.” Katia paused. “My mother taught me some. She said we'd need it when the Americans came to rescue us, but the Americans never came. Well, they did, but it was too late.”
“Too late for what?” Elly asked cautiously.
“We were taken to the camp,” Katia said, her voice trembling slightly now. “Everyone else died in the chamber. It's not my fault that I didn't die. Everyone was coughing and screaming around me, but I just held my breath. I don't even think I needed to do that, though. The gas didn't work on me.”
“You mean...”
Elly hesitated for a moment.
“You were in a concentration camp?” she asked finally. “In Nazi Germany?”
Katia nodded.
“And you survived?”
“There were bodies all around,” Katia explained. “It was so dark in there. As they fell, they fell against me. I felt them sliding down to the floor as they screamed. The chamber was small, and all the cries were so loud for a few minutes until finally they stopped. Then after a little while, I heard the guards coming.”
“Your English is pretty good,” Elly replied, before realizing that she was skirting around the situation. “So, do you mind if I ask you something? How old are you?”
Katia stared up at her.
“Seven?” Elly continued. “Eight? Nine, or ten?”
“I don't know,” Katia said. “It's been a long time. I have trouble remembering, because there's so much to remember. I have to choose things that I want to keep in my head, but most of the rest gets lost. I think my head isn't big enough to remember all the things I'd like.” She paused. “I remember my mother, though, and my father. I remember that night when we were taken to the chamber. I remember...”
Her voice trailed off.
“No,” she added finally, “I don't remember my mother's face after she was dead. I didn't decide to remember that, but it was hard to forget. I did forget, though. Eventually. I tried to remember my family.”
“Huh,” Elly said, although she immediately realized that Huh was a pretty weak response. “You should probably talk to Annie about that stuff. I don't think she even knows you can speak English.”
“I was scared,” Katia explained. “Annie is strange. She scares me a little bit. You have a nicer look in your eyes. I feel like I'm safer with you.”
“Well, thanks,” Elly replied, “but Annie's okay too. Maybe she's a little strange, you're right about that, but I think she means well. We've just all got to find a way out of this mess, and that means getting away from this gas station and finding a town. And then I'm going to get help, I promise.”
“What kind of help?”
“There has to be someone.”
“No-one has ever come to help me,” Katia replied. “Well, not until Annie came and grabbed me from that hotel room. This is the first time since the camp that I haven't been kept prisoner by someone.”
“You're free now,” Elly told her, with tears in her eyes. “No-one's ever going to hurt you again.”
She paused, before glancing over her shoulder. A moment later she heard a faint bump in the main part of the station, and she realized Annie was far enough away that she wouldn't overhear anything. Turning back to Katia, she hesitated for a few more seconds before crouching down in front of the little girl.
“Just trust me,” she said finally. “When we find other people, I'm going to call the authorities. Don't tell Annie about that, by the way. It's just that I need to do the right thing here, and the proper authorities will be able to figure the whole mess out. That doesn't mean Annie's a bad person, because she's not, but I think she needs help. We all do.”
“I need to use the bathroom,” Katia replied. “Can I?”
“Of course. The toilet should work just fine. Do you need me to come with you?”
Katia hesitated, as if she was considering the offer, and then she shook her head.
“Are you sure?” Elly asked.
Katia nodded.
“Go on, then,” Elly said, getting to her feet as Katia stepped past her and headed toward the bathroom. “When you're done, come find me and I'll figure out where we're going to get some food. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“And my name's Elly, by the way.”
“Elly.” Katia paused. “That's a pretty name. I like you, Elly.”
Watching as Katia went into the bathroom, Elly couldn't help but feel desperately sorry for the girl. Whether she was seven or seventy, Katia was clearly a lost and scared little girl, and Elly knew deep down that she had to get her to the police. She knew Annie would get angry, but she felt that the welfare of a child was more important than letting Annie run around on some kind of wild-goose chase. All she could hope was that some day, eventually, Annie would be able to forgive the betrayal.
Wearily, Elly turned and headed along the corridor. She needed to speak to Annie, to come up with a better plan than hanging around at the gas station, but after
a moment she glanced at one of the dusty windows and spotted a figure in the distance, ducking down behind a rock.
She froze, but now the figure was gone.
Did I imagine that? she wondered, figuring that perhaps she was desperate and hallucinating.
Heading over to the window, she peered out, and to her shock she saw a couple of other figures heading around to the other side of the building, and then a few more going the other way. Finally she spotted a black SUV parked a little way further off, and she realized with a growing sense of horror that these people – whoever they might be – were surrounding the gas station. And then, as one of the figures hurried to another rock, she saw the glint of a gun in the sunlight.
“Annie?” she called out, before turning and running through to the main room. “Annie, we've got -”
Before she could finish, a gunshot rang out and blasted the nearest window, showering Elly with glass as she dropped to the floor.
Chapter Nine
“They've got us surrounded,” Elly whispered, leaning against the wall and watching one of the far windows. “Who the hell are they?”
“It's one of the cults,” Annie replied, hiding behind the counter. “I knew they'd catch up to us eventually, but I thought we had a few more hours. I was trying to come up with a plan.”
“And how did that work out?” Elly hissed.
“Not too well,” Annie muttered. “I needed more time.”
“Ladies!” a voice shouted from outside. “Forgive the warning shot, but it was necessary to get your attention. My name is Thomas Carlyle and I represent the interests of the First Order of the Divine Occlusion.”
“The divine what?” Elly hissed.
“I don't know where they get these stupid names from,” Annie replied. “Sometimes I think someone's playing them off against each other, just using them like pawns in a game.”
“I'd very much appreciate it,” Carlyle continued, “if you could come out of there with the child. Things might get a little ugly if you force us to come in after you, but nobody has to get hurt if you just make the right decision! We're all on the same side here, but time is pressing and I'm afraid we will use force if necessary.”