Protectors of the Veil

by Dawn Matthews

  The Nazi hunter on my right stepped forward and made his way around the table. “You believed firmly in the Nazi ideals, acting as personal secretary to Captains and Generals, working your way happily through the ranks until you began to work directly under Hitler himself. Making recommendations to him, and trying to help him find, use, or destroy the religious, supernatural, and artistic artifacts of people the world over.” He came to a halt beside the weeping creature in the chair.

  The Nazi hunter on my left walked forward. “You asked to sit in several times on the experiments of Dr. Josef Mengele, eventually becoming one of his favored medical assistants as he committed war crimes against every type of life form he could get his hands on. There is even film of you helping to line up Jews and other Nazi prisoners for the gas chambers, and discussing body disposal with SS officers as you pillage the belongings of the dead.” The man came to a halt on the creature’s left side.

  “And once you left the Nazis, you continued to use their methods on random innocents until that very night six years ago, when you killed half my team,” I said, standing up. “I’ve stopped caring about your reasons. The screams of the dead are too loud for me to allow your escape.” I put my hat back on.

  “It had all been so perfect,” she said, sitting back in her chair, and looking out the window. “The fetuses would’ve kept me alive as I slowly drained them of life and stem cells,” she said to no one in particular. “People are always going to keep having babies, and desperate people will always have a price. It would even have given that ridiculous womb a purpose,” she said wistfully.

  Then the man on her left took her under her arm, while the man on her right took her carefully by the body. As I rolled the wheelchair over, they lifted her gently and she began to scream and wail. “Greta Goebel,” the man on her right said, “You are under arrest for crimes against humanity committed while under the Nazi regime.” They buckled her head, body and limbs into the wheelchair, then they attached her medical equipment to it.

  “You are charged with additional crimes committed of your own accord in the years following the Nazi regime’s fall,” I said, as I began to push the chair forward.

  “You shall be taken to Nuremberg for trial,” The man on her left said, “and there you shall be judged for your crimes.”

  She’d quieted by this point to low whimpers. And perhaps it was wrong of me, but I found myself saying, “And may God be the only one to have mercy on the terrible stain you call a soul.”

  And here I am now. I closed that chapter of my life. Justice was had for some, vengeance will probably be had for the rest. But I don’t feel better. I just feel… empty. The price for stopping a guilty woman was almost too high; though the people I’ve saved might thank me if they knew I existed. Nope. Even to save the world. I couldn’t kill the innocent. This job’s hard enough as it is. Thanks though, for the reminder that there’s something worse. That’s the end of my story.

  “That’s an interesting story,” said the guy sitting beside Aiden. “I am sure we’ve all had strange experiences and heard strange stories on the job, but have you ever had one happen to you on personal time?”

  “Not really,” Aiden said, “and you are?” There were others sitting around the bar listening, but he was the only one that spoke. He seemed to be with, or at least to know, Schroder.

  “Special Agent Chris Cortez of the FBI,” he said.

  “You two work together?” Sam asked, motioning to both men as she said it.

  “Agent Cortez is one of my best men; he worked the case I told you about,” Schroder said.

  “You’ve got a personal story, Cortez?” Aiden asked.

  “Yeah, I call it…:”

  “MONSTERS”

  I’ve not always slept on a bed. Sometimes I’ve slept on a canvas cot, or the floor, on the hard ground, or slanted on a roof (don’t ask), or a few other, even stranger places. All by choice. But no matter where I laid my head, there have always been monsters nearby.

  When I was younger, the monsters were big scary spidery things, like the spider and its deadly venom that punctured a hole in my leg when I was seven; or snaky things, like the snake that slithered up my stick and almost bit me when I was four; or ghostly things, like the Kender’s girl that died when I was eight and haunted the swampy dale south of the village where she was drowned by her uncle.

  As I grew older, the monsters sort of faded into the background. Oh, they were still there, but they bothered me less and less. I was too busy working the farm, or finding out about girls. On certain nights, when the rains and lightning bolts fell fast and furious, my nightmares would come and parade around, a motley monster parade of venom, fangs and death, reminding me. But I knew them now to be childish fears. This realization made me feel like a grownup. At least that’s the way it was until I went to war.

  Like many of the other boys, I was young, brave, bold, newly married, and a little fearful of my first war. All we novice fighters slept together in tents, that is until the dreamkillers drifted through the canvas walls and slaughtered us by the tentful. Slipping into the dreams of their victims, the dreamkillers would take over and turn dreams into deadly nightmares. The only reason I survived was that I woke up as the ethereal creatures attacked. I could sense their presence somehow, like a suddenly remembered injury, something special in me could feel when their dream bodies were near. I could fight them in a fashion too, using my monsters to attack the otherwise untouchable. Spider, snake, and even the Kender girl came to my rescue and saved my squad a few times during those deadly days. I was given the war name Dreamer and wore it proudly. After the first wave of attacks I was removed from the frontlines and spent the rest of the war pulling guard duty at the officer’s quarters. There were a few of us that had the talent, and we were pretty popular until the enemy realized their dreamkillers weren’t as effective anymore. The monsters from that time in my life were dark, deadly things that would come swiftly, out of nowhere. But I survived.

  When I came back home I slept in the backyard for a month. This was for the safety of all concerned. I felt comfortable out there in a tent. I couldn’t handle all the softness I found in the house. The softness of my bed, my wife, the food. I would twitch, howl, and punch randomly in the night. Didn’t trust myself with even a knife. By the end of the month I was able to sleep in the house and make it through most nights. Those monsters were the hardest to ignore and the ones that seemed the most real. They had the faces of family and friends. They were shadows of imagined wrongs, unfaithfulnesses and other things that a mind dwells on after a long absence. The pregnancy helped; a young, growing belly made the world a brighter, happier place for all, including me. The monsters from this time eventually reached the point of fading away, coming back every once in a while, as a friendly reminder more than anything.

  On one of those nights; one of those dark, stormy, emotional nights when all of my monsters came back to visit, I awoke and stumbled outside to sleep in the tent. I thought I was the danger. That was the night that the dreamkillers avenged themselves upon me and took my family. That was the night when I acquired the scariest monster of all. The one that makes me cry and howl to this day. The one that makes me yell, “I DON’T KNOW YOU! I DON’T WANT TO KNOW YOU! AND I WANT TO FORGET YOU EVER EXISTED!”

  When she bawls, sometimes I wonder how I know what she would have sounded like if she’d been born.

  And I do know, because I hear her heartbreaking cries every night from under my bed.

  Some days I think that she’s a dreamkiller.

  I don’t know what is worse. That’s the end of my story.

  “Jeebus,” Sam said.

  “What Sam said,” Aiden said, “Holy shit! Do you still hear her?”

  “I have all the old ones and some new ones. My family is dead, what does it matter now? I don’t hear her as often as I used to,” Cortez said.

  “Damn, I’m sorry, dude. That’s crazy,” Aiden said.

  “Thanks, man
,” Cortez said.

  “I have a story for you,” Jacob Harmon.

  “Jacob,” Sam said, “I didn’t see you there. How are you doing?”

  “Hey Sam, Aiden,” Jacob said.

  “Hey, Jacob,” Aiden said.

  “Clearly, I’m doing about as well as you are,” Jacob said, “since we’re all at the bar. I’ll share my story.”

  “THE SEA NYMPH”

  There is a forest near where I’m from in Oregon that has all kinds of stories about it. Many have gone into the forest and never come out. It’s right by the ocean, in fact, and most of the stories are about a tiny island off the beach that you have to swim or take a boat to get to.

  One of my friends, Ben Leffler, and I had been talking about going camping on the island for years. My cousin, Florian Folger, was in town one week, so we decided to go hang out on the island and maybe do some fishing. We took a boat out there and all our gear for camping, fishing, and hunting.

  Once we got to the island, we set up camp in one of the few clear spaces on the island. The forest was pretty dense. After we had pitched all the tents, we went out to explore the island. We had explored the forest area, which pretty much all looked the same, so we decided to go check out the beach on the other side of the island. There was a woman facing the ocean standing in the water. We all stopped for a second and watched her. Then we decided to approach her, well, Ben and I did. We both took a step to approach her when Florian stopped us.

  “That’s not a human woman,” Florian said.

  “What are you talking about?” I asked.

  “That’s a sea nymph,” Florian said.

  Ben and I looked at each other and burst out laughing. “Right,” I said.

  We kept walking toward her. She turned to look at us and smiled.

  “Hi,” I said, “How are you? My name is Jacob, this is my friend Ben, and that guy back there is my cousin Florian. We’re here to camp, fish, and maybe hunt. What about you?”

  “My name is Vanessa Perez,” she said. “I visit this island often, but I never stay long. You boys should be careful, there are strange creatures that wish you harm.”

  “Really?” Ben said, “What kind of creatures?”

  This is where things got a little weird. She giggled and smiled this huge grin, showing razor sharp teeth. Then she turned and dove into the water and disappeared. I couldn’t help wondering if Florian was right about her.

  We got back to camp and set a fire; by this time it was nearly dark. As we were getting the fire ready, I asked Florian, “So, what is a sea nymph?”

  “Ah,” Florian said, “those teeth were rather convincing. A sea nymph is what people usually are talking about when they talk about beautiful mermaids. They are nature spirits, very dangerous nature spirits. Maybe they’ll take you to their dimension, or maybe they’ll just kill you. It is said that they live in palaces made of pearls under the sea, but it’s more than likely another dimension. I’m not sure I’d mind being dragged off to live in their palaces.”

  “Living with a beautiful woman in a pearl palace doesn’t sound so bad,” Ben said.

  “Indeed,” Florian said, “if you’re lucky enough to be taken and not just killed. Though you would have to be very careful. They really are very dangerous creatures. The one we saw earlier will be back, no doubt, probably tonight.”

  “What do we do if she comes and tries to kill us?” I asked.

  “Don’t look at her,” he said, “just don’t move, pretend to be sleeping.”

  “I don’t think I’d want to kiss that mouth,” Ben said. “It’d be like sticking your tongue in a garbage disposal.”

  “That’s a good point,” I said.

  We listened to music, played cards, ate dinner, and eventually went to sleep. When we got up in the morning, there were small wet hand prints on all our tents. Florian was gone, but all his stuff was there. I sent him a text message, but he had even left his phone in his tent. He didn’t take anything with him. Ben and I searched the island for any sign of him. The last placed we searched was the beach where we saw Vanessa. We found his watch laying on the beach right in front of the water. All I could think of was him saying, “I’m not sure I’d mind being dragged off to live in their palaces.”

  Years later, Ben and I went back to the island, just to see if we could find the nymph or any other sign of Florian. We spent three nights there. On the third night, we woke in the middle of the night. Both Ben and I came out of our tents to see what was going on. Neither of us knew what woke us, until we heard his voice.

  “I knew you’d come back,” Florian said. He was all wet, leaning against a tree. “I asked Vanessa if she would let me come see you and explain what happened. I can’t stay long.”

  “I knew it!” I said. “We looked everywhere for you. She dragged you off to her pearl palace?”

  “Yes,” he said, “well, I went voluntarily. After I had told you about it, I realized this was my one chance to experience it firsthand. I took it. She came that night, she meant to kill us. I asked her to let the two of you live and take me as her servant. You didn’t see her come back, neither of you even woke up. Since you didn’t see her at night, she agreed.”

  “You wanted to go, but you also saved our lives,” I said.

  “I wanted to go,” Florian said, “there was no point in either of you dying. We all win this way.”

  “Thank you seems insufficient,” Ben said.

  “No thanks are necessary, Ben,” Florian said. “I got what I wanted, but now I have to go. It was good to see you both.”

  “Wait,” I said, “what’s her dimension like?”

  “No,” Florian said, “it is forbidden to talk about. Goodbye.” He disappeared into thin air.

  The next morning, Mason Shandy was there trying to recruit us. Ben wasn’t interested, so he was taken to the asylum. They didn’t kill him, for some reason. He must belong to the Ancient Ones. I agreed to work for the IVAs. It’s a tough job, but I get to know things most people don’t. That’s how I came to be in the IVA organization, and the end of my story.

  “Sea nymphs,” Aiden said. “I didn’t expect them to be real. I mean, I know there are nature spirits, but ‘The Little Mermaid’ is a Disney cartoon.”

  “The truth is everywhere,” Jacob said.

  “Good point,” Aiden said. “I guess I shouldn’t discount anything…ever.”

  “Well, I guess it’s my turn,” Sam said. “Not to out Aiden, but in order to get into the IVA program in any way, you have to have already seen some shit. In my case, I had seen a lot of shit through my military career. Sorry, Aiden.”

  Aiden sighed, “It’s alright, Sam. I didn’t realize that, but should have. Go ahead, I’m anxious to hear your story.”

  “THE WEREWOLF VILLAGE”

  “Okay, well like I said, I have seen many things during my years in the military before the IVA,” Sam said. “I’ve seen weird air ships in Afghanistan, I’ve seen zombies in Iraq, vampires in various places, but none of those things really changed my life. There were some military scientists that had gotten intel about a tribe of people in Italy that had superhuman strength and were hard to kill. I don’t have to explain why that would interest the military. I was part of the Special Ops team that went to find one of them and bring them back to be put under a microscope…and probably dissected. Technically, I was in charge, but we had one of the scientists that liked to think he was in charge.

  “We landed in Giulia Airport in Trieste. From there we were loaded into cars and taken north to the town of Gorzia, where we spent the night at a hotel. The next morning, we travelled north, right on the border of Slovenia. In the middle of this dense forest on a hill was this tiny little town. Had we gone charging in, it would have looked a bit suspicious. The forest was pretty dense, but we stopped about five miles from the town, climbed to the tops of the trees, and used our binoculars to try and gather information. We thought we were being clever for checking from afar first. As soon a
s I looked through those binoculars, I knew we were in trouble. Every person I saw was looking back at me. Somehow, they knew we were there, so there would be no sneak attack. We could not perform this mission.

  “‘Abort,’ I said over the radio.

  “‘No!’ the scientist said, ‘We need one of them to study.’I looked through my binoculars again. It was like they heard him; they had these angry looks on their faces and were heading right for us.

  “‘RUN!’ I shouted. I got down from that tree as fast as I could. The scientist was bitching and moaning. I just ignored her and I took off running as fast as I could. My men did the same.

  “I heard her say, ‘I’ll get one myself.’

  “At that moment, I knew she was dead. Then I heard a howl, and answering howls. We had to get back to the truck. We were armed, but I wasn’t sure at this point if our bullets would do anything. Then I heard the scientist scream. Some of my men paused. I yelled at them to keep going and not look back. We had a five mile start on them, but it didn’t take long for them to cross that distance and kill the scientist. I knew we wouldn’t all make it.

  “We were almost out of the forest when we heard the growling right on our heels. They were almost on us; if only we could just run faster. I made it to the car and opened the door. I pushed Johns in the car and told him to start it. I turned with my guns held in position. The carnage was unbelievable. There were scattered body parts, bones, but mostly blood. Blood everywhere. Lapping up the blood and carnage were huge monsters. Werewolves, we were running from werewolves. It was daytime, there was no full moon.