E.B.E. 21
The Hunt
Novel
by
Peer Lehregger
Revised and corrected edition June 2019
© 2019 by Peer Lehregger
All rights reserved
Peer Lehregger
c/o Autorenservice Patchwork
Schlossweg 6
A-9020 Klagenfurt/Austria
[email protected]
The characters and the plot of this novel are fictitious. Any similarities with actual events or living or deceased persons would be purely coincidental and are in no way intended.
The EBE photo shown on the cover is a modified photo of the photographer "ivanovgood", who released this photo under the "PIXABAY-License".
Link: https://pixabay.com/de/photos/mädchen-porträt-foto-shooting-augen-2623543/
Contents
Prologue
Arrival
Discovery
Getaway
Washing - Part 1
Washing - Part 2
Washing - Part 3
10 days of nursing care
First alarm
Briefing
The skeleton in the closet
Communication One
Communication Two
At night
Observation
Contact
Refusal
Duty
Closing time
Conversations
Appointment
Meetings
Class Five
The machine
Homesickness
Christmas market
The Cell Phone Man
The big ones
Transcriptions
The Krampus
Conversations II
The Representative
The package
Vagina Dentata
Arbitrary act
Interrogation
Replies
Conversations III
Parasite
Funeral pyre
Epilog I
Epilog II
Prologue
What is loneliness?
Is there even such a thing as loneliness?
Or is it just being alone?
With the knowledge that you are no longer welcome at home ...
loneliness ...
Among strangers ...
Forced to move under the sight of men.
Forced to hide in plain sight...
Forced to survive in cities, invisible, undetectable.
From time to time some food ...
From time to time some new clothes ...
From time to time a safe place to sleep ...
Always hiding...
According to her, however, things could have gone on like this forever; she no longer had any expectations of herself and her existence.
She could have lived like this forever ...
But then she got caught.
Arrival
"Fucking car!" Hannes yelled and hit the dashboard with his flat hand. The ventilation in the car started howling again. There was a gob stink in the air. What a shitty idea to leave in a foggy night. Hannes was freezing. It was freezing cold outside. The cold sneaked through a hole in the car floor and through the leaking windows. There was a draft, and the ventilation failed sometimes.
Heavy snow was forecast, and the fog started to dense. It hadn't been a good idea to leave after work, but Hannes didn't feel like staying in the musty little room the company paid for. All his colleagues had left in the afternoon. While he slowly drove with squinted eyes, holding the steering wheel with one hand, he pulled up the zipper of his jacket.
The whole thing was a joke. His boss asked him, no, ordered him and two colleagues to help out a branch of his company for a week. He would pay for rooms and food and on Saturday he could go home. He would be off the following Monday, which wasn’t the problem, but the branch only had two truck loading places and a hall, and it was in the middle of nowhere. In the Palatinate, in Elmstein. There was no question that the food and drinks were good, but the room was a small, cold, windowless room in the basement of a guesthouse.
Hannes couldn't even reject the job; he lived alone and needed the job and the money. So, he agreed and drove his rickety Renault 300 kilometers to Palatinate. As a forklift-driver, you don't have a choice, when you've already passed the magic fifty. And if you had another job before. The colleagues were much younger, stayed up longer at night, could eat more and above all drink more, even slept better.
He had no more cigarettes, was hungry and thirsty, was freezing, and just wanted to go home. But he had to stop by Lamprecht to deliver an envelope. The clock in the dashboard showed shortly after eleven. The radio was playing a song; he had turned the volume down. The spotlight stroke like two soft watercolor brushes into the foggy darkness. Hannes drove slowly. When he left Elmstein, there wasn’t any fog yet, but it started almost immediately behind the town sign. The spotlights were a joke. Two tired, yellow light cones tried to penetrate the fog, mostly unsuccessfully. Well, the whole car was a joke. A Renault R21 Nevada, first model, with tired 70 HP, half of which had retired.
The gears crunched while shifting, the brakes were rattling and squeaking, and from time to time parts of the electronics were failing. Hannes had to buy the car; it was offered at a ridiculous cheap price and he could not afford more, because his ex-wife got most of his money. He only had a small apartment in Cologne in Gingerbread-Street. Gingerbread-Street! What a joke. Hannes often thought it would fit in Nuremberg. The apartment was small: two rooms, laminate, warm, reasonably in shape as in the building fabric and inexpensive. Third floor, not under the roof. Last summer, he was happy about it.
In Lamprecht, he still had to throw the envelope into the mailbox of the manager. "Urgent! On the last day!" he had been told. So, he would have had to drive anyway, and until Lamprecht, Hannes thought, it wasn't that far either.
Again, the ventilation fell silent, and again Hannes struck with the flat hand on the dashboard. Fucking car! Hannes hoped that the fog behind the hills of the Palatinate Forest, perhaps already near Neustadt, would be dissolved. If he could then drive quickly, he might be able to get to Cologne before the snow. That would be about three hours on the highway, and then he would be at home, off to bed and sleep in.
The Renault crept along the road, which was well developed, but Hannes could barely see anything. Soon the Breitenstein foresters house would come up, then a few more kilometers to Lamprecht. The navigation system showed a long right turn, then Breitenstein, and then a short distance.
Still in the curve, Hannes could recognize flickering blue lights. He shifted down a gear and slowly drove towards the crossway. Two cars had become wedged behind the intersection, had driven into each other, an ambulance and a police car stood in front of the two vehicles, there was hectic activity. Hannes stared through the window, not sure if he should wait or go back. A police officer looked around, discovered Hannes, and came up to the car. Hannes rolled down the window. "Where are you going?" the officer asked and bent over to the window, sniffed. Hannes smelled sweaty, but not like he was drinking. "I have to go to Lamprecht," said Hannes. "There's no getting through here," the officer said. "Still going on. What do you want in Lamprecht? Late at night?" Hannes wasn't sure if it was any of the policemen's business, but he decided to answer. "I've got something to deliver. An envelope." " Why don't you throw that thing in the mailbox on the corner?" was the answer. "The road here will be closed for some time. I see that you are coming from Cologne. Do you want to drive back tonight?" Hannes nodded. "Turn right here and cross the Kalmit[1]. You will end up in Maikammer, Neustadt is only a stone's throw away. You can get on the freeway there. But you'l
l have to hurry, snow is forecasted for tonight. It will start soon. Are your tires all right?" Hannes nodded. "Then drive up here, straight ahead, Maikammer is signposted. Neustadt is then easy to find." The officer tapped the edge of his cap and walked away. Hannes looked to the right, saw the road, thought for a moment, then sighed loudly, cranked up the window and turned off.
Almost immediately it went uphill, into the deepest blackness, into the foggy forest, hardly any visibility. The road was narrow but visible and reasonably straight. After a few minutes, it was crackling on the windshield. Hannes couldn't believe his eyes, half rain, half sleet. The fog lifted a little, but the shower became stronger and stronger. Full attention on the street, Hannes ordered, no swearing, no despair. The tires weren't working well. He shifted into second gear and crept up the road. There was no car behind him or in front of him. Not a trace of being freezing cold anymore, Hannes began to sweat. Sweat was running down his face. If the engine died here, he thought that would be it. Hannes decided to finally install the winter tires he had in the basement when he would arrive at home.
The road was endless, rising further and further, the crackling became stronger and stronger, the way whiter and whiter, and, as Hannes noticed, icy and slipper. Then it was pitch dark. Suddenly. Hannes was deeply frightened and hit the brake. Immediately the car slid sideways, the ABS rattling, but it was slippery. Really slippery. The headlights had failed. Hannes was clinging on to the steering wheel tight and released the brake. The car caught itself, but maybe it would go downhill in the next few seconds. Or hit a tree. He kicked the clutch and let the car rollout. Hannes hadn't driven particularly fast, but he had utterly lost his orientation in those two or three seconds. The car stopped. Hannes put on the hand brake and breathed a sigh of relief. He noticed that he was still holding the steering wheel and loosened his grip. His heart was in his mouth, and Hannes breathed in and out deeply. Hannes didn’t know what to do now.
With a crack, the headlights lit up again, but this time switched to high beam. Hannes paused. The car had moved only slightly to the side but was still standing in driving direction. There was a blue sign with a white "P" on the side of the road. Hannes shifted into first gear and drove off. Slowly and carefully. In the trunk, he recalled, was his tool bag, which contained a headlamp and contact spray. Perhaps it would help if he would spray the contacts of the headlights in the engine compartment generously? Hannes wasn't sure if it would do any good, but he'd try.
Finally, the entrance sign appeared on the left side of the road. Hannes drove carefully into the parking lot. Deepest blackness. He drove to the middle of the square, a lonely white SUV was standing at the edge of the parking lot, became visible and then disappeared again. Hannes barely noticed it. He stopped, zipped the zipper of his jacket up and got out. He kept the engine running. The cold took his breath away in the first moment; it was undoubtedly minus 10 degrees Celsius. Shivering, he looked around briefly and then went to the trunk. He opened it, no light, the bulb was probably broken. But he knew where to look and bent into the trunk. He didn't want to touch the trunk cover. Perhaps the blind of the cover would tilt or break down completely.
He dug into his tool bag until he found the headlamp, gloves, and contact spray. He closed the lid, went to the driver's door, reached under the dashboard, and pulled the hood lever. Nothing happened. He pulled again, stronger, and heard a brittle "Sproing!". The wire's torn. Not a chance.
Hannes took a deep breath, trying to resist the impulse to throw all the stuff into the mud and leave it to his rage. He stood next to the car, threw his things on the passenger seat, wanted to smoke a cigarette. He was digging unsuccessfully in his jacket pockets. No cigarettes. With a loud crack coming from the engine, the headlights went out again. Hannes was trapped by darkness like a wet washcloth. The lights in the dashboard glowed scornfully, and Hannes noticed how quiet it was. But it wasn't completely quiet. Hannes heard crackling in the undergrowth. Something was wandering around! Was watching him perhaps? He jumped into the car, closed the door. Then, with a crack, the headlights lit up again.
Hannes puffed. That would be an interesting trip back. He was thinking. Back to Elmstein? Bad idea, he had thrown the room key in the landlord's mailbox. He looked at the time, it was just before midnight. Find a hotel or something? Nope. On you go. Probably somewhere in Neustadt would be an open gas station where he could get coffee or at least an energy drink, although he always would get terrible heartburn from this stuff. And cigs. That was important. Maybe even a sandwich or a snack. It would be no problem to buy these things in Cologne. But here? No way. He let the engine howl once, engaged first gear, and drove back on to the road. The sleet stopped as suddenly as it had begun. The fog was gone, too. Relieved, he shifted into second gear, accelerated, noticed the tires losing grip and took the throttle back a little. A sharp left turn appeared in front of him, and Hannes sneaked around the turn. Then accelerated a bit again. A long right turn, although the road was covered with sleet grains, did not break out the Renault. In the next corner, the car broke out, and Hannes felt a cold fist in his stomach. The car caught up again, and Hannes crawled on. So, the next sharp, tight turn was no problem because he drove it at walking speed. Hannes noticed signs of a headache. He cursed loudly and drove on. The road became narrower, continued uphill, but was, as far as he could see, a whole stretch straight. "Clack" made it and the light went out. Hannes held the steering wheel tight and hoped that he wouldn't get off the road. After a few seconds, it clicked again, and there was light. He passed the Kalmit summit, saw the sign pointing towards Maikammer and drove on, but this time downhill. Easy, easy. Take it easy. He passed Breitenberg parking lot.
The first snowflakes came down. Not like in fairy tale movies, with big, soft flakes that slowly float to earth. But with thick, wet, heavy, sticky giant snowflakes that shut the windshield within seconds. Hannes was speechless. He couldn't think anymore. He saw the white, sticky film on the windshield, turned on the wiper. Unsuccessfully, new flakes hit the windshield immediately.
The road was already white, the trees next to the way turned white, and he was way too fast for a left turn. He slowed down carefully, steered, it cracked. Darkness.
In first gear, he let the car roll around the curve, saw the guard rail vaguely, but heard a car coming up the road. He heard the engine, loud and revving. First shreds of light illuminated the guard rail, which became very bright very quickly. When Hannes drove his car around the curve, he saw the car. At the same time, it cracked again, and the black SUV was caught by the cone of light.
The driver of the car was obviously frightened because he braked, Hannes saw, as in a dream, that a red shadow suddenly appeared behind the vehicle. He saw the SUV started to roll, a ghostly apparition passed him on the left and crashed sideways through the guard rail with an infernal bang and then disappearing into the darkness.
Completely horrified and in shock, Hannes looked into the rear-view mirror. He braked, saw in the rear-view mirror and for another one or two seconds some lights flickering through the darkness, another terrible bang, then darkness. With his throbbing heart, breathless and frozen Hannes remained sitting, could not grasp what he had just seen.
Discovery
He stayed in his seat for a while, trying to get out of his stiffness. But only after a few minutes, which felt like hours, was he able to take his hands off the steering wheel and released the view from the rearview mirror. A thousand incomplete, fragmented thoughts shot through his head. With trembling hands, Hannes sat in his seat for a moment, then turned on the hazard lights. His gaze wandered to the passenger seat, where the gloves and the headlamp were still lying. He put on his gloves, put on his headlamp, took a deep breath and opened the door. Immediately he was shaking, the cold did the rest and he felt sick.
He staggered to the guard rail next to his car, bent over it and waited. You can't throw up here, it shot through his head, these are DNA traces that clearly would identify you! He straightened
up and wanted to follow his first impulse to search his car for traces of the accident, whether any scratches or marks of paint were visible. But he resisted, switched on the headlamp, opened his trunk and rummaged for the first aid kit. But the box and the warning triangle were nowhere to be found. He looked at the damaged crash barrier, which was like an open door into hell, into darkness, despite the snow. He thought for a second. Anyone who would come by would see right away that something had happened. And they would drive very slowly and carefully.
The wind whistled around him, he was cold and miserable, the flakes in his face as he staggered towards the slope. Under his feet, the slush made strange sounds, then a strong, ice-cold gust of wind. It stopped snowing; the wind calmed down. Astonished Hannes looked around; the light cone flickered ghostly through the darkness. He heard the wet snow falling from the trees, but he didn't notice it, then he gazed down into the abyss. Hardly anything was to be seen, no light from the accident car, only the light cone of his headlamp, which restlessly, hectically illuminated the sloping ground in front of him. The traces of the accident were clearly visible. Mudded and agitated earth, which appeared in the white snow, holes in the ground, where perhaps a small tree or bush had stood. Hannes took a deep breath and set off on the descent.
It turned out to be more difficult than expected. Hannes steadily lost his footing and slid downhill a bit further. Hectically his hands searched for branches or twigs, but there was nothing, only the deep holes and furrows that the car had left on its way down. In the end, Hannes had to climb back on all fours. Feet and hands were quickly cold and wet. But he barely noticed. The slope became steeper and steeper, and more and more he had to turn around and illuminate the ground. He followed the trail, it seemed to him as if he had been climbing downhill for hours. His breath was visible in the cold as a white cloud. He wondered that this cloud was so dense, that he was breathing so heavily. Hannes thought he was fit and in good shape, but he felt entirely exhausted.
E.B.E. 21- the Hunt Page 1