by Alex Archer
Annja stood over the fallen golem’s torso. She had stopped it.
She wasn’t sorry.
It was a monster.
She turned to see Garin cradling the golem’s head in his hands as though mourning the passing of a friend.
48
Roux was in pain.
There had not been enough time for his leg to heal. No matter how stubborn he was, mind couldn’t always triumph over matter. There were limits to human flesh. He was, at the end of the day, only human.
It was a long time before he was able to stand, even with her help, but there was no immediate hurry to get out of there. It was done. The golem was dead, the guts of its gears strewed across the stone floor.
“You owe us the truth, Garin.” That was all he said.
“I don’t owe you anything,” Garin shot back, but despite the bitterness and anger in his voice, he told them.
Listening to his confession, Annja remembered what Roux had said about each of them having their own truths and knew that Garin’s tale was colored by his own experiences. Garin rose unsteadily, carrying the golem’s head. Its features looked anything but innocent as he carried it to the desk on the other side of the room and set it down.
“I found these notebooks,” he said, pulling them out of the drawer. He leafed through the pages, shaking his head. “It took me a long time to work out what they were, or rather what they meant. These are the last thoughts of our friend, Roux. These are the very final thoughts of Johannes Kepler.”
“Go on,” the old man said.
Garin nodded. “In his final days he was working on something new, something he hadn’t even shared with anyone other than his surgeon. It was perhaps his greatest—certainly his most audacious—idea. It was centuries ahead of its time, but flawed. He intended to build a mechanical man that would keep him alive even as his traitorous body failed him.”
“You’re kidding me,” Annja said.
“No. Cankers were consuming him. He grew weaker and weaker by the day, but he was determined to complete his work, and to do that, he had to find a fresh vessel to carry his mind.”
“So that thing? That…monster? His surgeon actually went along with this insane idea and, what, tried to graft his brain into that machine?”
Garin lifted the golem’s head again, offering it to Annja.
“See for yourself,” Garin said. “There is certainly a brain inside this head. Kepler left specific instructions with his surgeon about the kind of nutrient that would be needed to maintain the golem’s life. They were complicit in one of the most amazing creations of man, a literal creation.”
“But it didn’t work. It couldn’t communicate. Look at it. Whatever lingered was trapped in there, mute, filled with rage it couldn’t vent. That’s horrific,” Roux said.
“Tragic,” Garin said. “That’s different. It drove the creature out of his stolen mind. Immortality is a curse if you are trapped like that, voiceless, for eternity. Able to move, think, function, but not in any way remotely human, not even close to what you had been before.”
“What happened to the surgeon?” Annja asked.
“There has to be a first victim,” Garin said. “He was found murdered barely a week after Kepler was supposed to have died.”
There was a moment of silence as each of them took in what they had been through, absorbing the facts to create their own truths.
Annja had no idea what Garin had thought he could achieve by protecting the golem. Even if Roux’s blood had somehow given the half man/half machine a further lease on life, what was that existence worth? Wasn’t it just adding to the tortures of several hundred years? The old man’s blood couldn’t have cured it, could it? Death, this time, had been a blessing. It had redeemed what little remained of the scientist. Perhaps he could find peace now.
She looked up to see Lars in the doorway, camera in hand, Turek beside him.
She didn’t bother trying to explain it. Lars had caught the entire thing on film.
Beside him, Turek looked like he’d won the lottery only to realize he’d lost the ticket in the wash.
49
Annja ran.
She glanced back every now and then but she looked as if she was running hard, the cameraman struggling to keep up with her. The suits around the conference table watched the big screen, engrossed with the story of a chase to catch a monster straight out of history.
It was everything they had hoped it would be with one important difference—it wasn’t live. There was no social media event here.
Lars had worked for a week splicing the footage, making loops out of the scenes he’d filmed to give them depth and heighten the tension. They’d stayed in Prague for three more days getting more material to show how a myth could be superimposed on a real monster and how even today that myth could endure.
It was part drama, part adventure, part history lesson, part social commentary, and it had them on the edge of their seats. Annja could see it in their faces.
No one moved.
She looked across the table at Doug Morrell.
She couldn’t read his expression.
The image on the screen shifted. Now it was a composite of the material she’d shot on her cell phone, the video where they first saw the golem. So grainy were the shots that it was impossible to really focus on it. The first sighting of the childish ink-sketch face had one of the suits fidget nervously in his seat. Annja could hear the murmurs as they talked among themselves, unable to take their eyes from the screen. She had them in the palm of her hand. Lars had used all of the tricks that horror movies and those tacky ghost-hunting shows employed, but they worked. He knew exactly what he was doing.
And the best was yet to come, the final reveal of the slain killer, the Golem of Prague.
At the end of the screening, the shot returned to that same image, the first freeze frame that Lars had captured of the golem, and Annja hit Pause on the remote, leaving it up on the big screen as the lights went on again.
She waited.
No one moved.
No one made a sound.
She looked at Doug, who seemed absolutely horrified by what he had just seen.
She waited some more, giving one of the suits the chance to say something. Anything.
Silence.
Then the woman, the one who had talked about them having a duty to the shareholders, began to clap somewhat uncomfortably. Annja wasn’t sure how to react to it. No one else moved.
“It still needs a little more work in the editing room—it’s too long—and we haven’t got the whole social media angle sorted yet, but you said we weren’t here to educate the world. If I remember correctly, you said our purpose here was to entertain it. And what I’ve given you is an hour of heart-thumping entertainment.” Annja grinned and pointed to the unsettling image.
One of the men leaned back in his chair, shaking his head. “I don’t think anyone here can deny that you’ve given us exactly what we asked for, Miss Creed. In fact, if anything, you’ve given us too much of it.” He clasped his hands together as though in prayer. “Unfortunately, we can’t possibly use it as part of Chasing History’s Monsters. It just won’t happen. I’m sorry.”
“I don’t understand. You said yourself it is exactly what you asked for. Why can’t you use it?”
“Because,” the man said, “and it pains me to say this, no one will ever believe that it’s true.”
“So, is that it? Are you telling me it’s over? That everything we’ve done was for nothing?”
“I’m sorry, Annja,” the man said, using her name for the first time in any of their meetings. “Our hands are tied. We explained how it was. We aren’t a charity. The show is hemorrhaging money. The network can’t afford to keep it on the air. It’s just not viable. Besides, we did say we needed a live presentation, hence our problem with people not believing this.”
“No,” Annja said. “It can’t end like this. It’s not fair. Doug? Say something. Please. You’
ve got to give us another chance.”
One of the other suits leaned forward and planted his elbows on the table in front of him. He raised his index finger. “All right, Miss Creed. You have one chance. As it stands, we still have a problem, we haven’t got a final show. What we’ve got is an empty time slot. I suggest you do everything in your power to fill it with sixty minutes of incredible television.”
Epilogue
Two weeks later
Annja waited in near darkness.
Could you do us a little favor, Garin had said. It won’t take long, Garin had said. Piece of cake for someone with your particular talents, Garin had said. Think of it as a nice couple of days in the sun, Garin had said. A holiday on us. What he hadn’t mentioned was the bit about risking life and limb, or the fact that these particular folks were not having a quiet night in—as they were no longer dead!
The sky was clear and the moon full, like a silvery bullet hole up in the blackness. The canopy of branches high above held the night at bay. She’d been out there for the best part of an hour, moving along the tree line, but keeping well clear of the path. Every rational part of her mind wanted out, anywhere but here. She shouldn’t be there on her own. The irrational side of her that made up a huge part of who Annja Creed was argued tooth-and-nail that she should have brought a camera with her. And yet here she was, in Haiti, alone, no camera, letting down both sides of her personality at the same time.
All she wanted to do was watch. Having to do it through the filter of a lens would only serve to make that so much more difficult. And frankly, she still wasn’t one hundred percent sure Garin wasn’t having a laugh at her expense. If he was, well, that wasn’t the sort of thing she wanted recorded for posterity. So, she waited and tried to ignore the sounds of nature, keeping low, and still and silent now. She heard feet trampling through the undergrowth some distance away. The sudden flurry of noise sent a tropical rainbow of birds flying up through the trees.
Annja took a breath and pressed herself tighter to the trunk of the vast tree, feeling the wet stickiness of the bark pressing against her cheek.
This was a Bad Idea.
Haiti. Middle of the night. Full moon in the sky. A voodoo moon. What the hell was she doing out here?
Right… Garin.
She could have happily killed him, if she thought there was the slightest chance he could die. He hadn’t said exactly what he needed from her, only that he thought there was something here, a relic of some ancient voodoo cult that was capable of raising the dead. She’d mocked him. He’d challenged her to come and prove him wrong.
And here she was, proving him wrong.
There were people up ahead. A dozen, maybe more. Each one carried a flaming torch to light their way, filling the space beyond the line of trees she was hiding in. Their silk ebony skin glistened with sweat in the flickering light as they moved without speaking. Annja saw daubs and swirls of white paint on their faces and chests, conjuring elaborate and arcane patterns. They planted the torches in the ground, the flames forming a circle. Annja had tried to ask some of the locals what happened out here in the dark woods, but only one man would talk to her and all he would say was “Go away.” Nothing else. There was no mistaking the fear in his eyes.
All she had been given to go on was that enigmatic message from Garin.
When she had first read the email she’d been convinced that it had to be a hoax, but Garin swore it was on the up-and-up.
The problem, as far as she was concerned, was that outside a few scary movies, there were no such things as zombies. When someone was dead, they stayed dead. That was pretty much the one definitive fact of life. Sure, Garin and Roux might be able to cheat it, but once you shuffled off this mortal coil there was no way back onto it. And yes, she’d seen plenty of stuff that seemed impossible, but almost always had rational explanations, so, was that what this was? A seeming impossibility that was actually quite rational? It certainly didn’t look like it.
The silence was broken by the sound of a single drumbeat as the one remaining torch was carried to the center of the circle and the bare chested Haitian knelt, touching it to the treated woodpile, igniting the blaze.
Annja watched, waiting to be sure that all of the people who were supposed to have gathered in the clearing had taken their places around the fire, then risked taking a couple of steps closer, banking on the fact that everyone’s attention was held by the spectacle before them. The drum struck up a steady rhythm, one note over and over, boom, boom, boom. Annja paced herself, making her steps in time with the beats, trusting the sound to cover any that her feet might make.
Flames licked up from the bonfire, high above the heads of the throng gathered around it. Arms outstretched, fingertips touching those of their neighbor, the bodies formed a ring around the fire and began to circle slowly around the fire, moving to the rhythm of the drummer. It was hypnotic. The sweltering heat had her shirt clinging to her back, soaked through. Annja’s hair clung to her brow. Why am I doing this again? She thought, shaking her head as voices began to chant in time with the mystical beat of the drum. It matched the pulse pounding through her veins, she realized.
The words meant nothing to Annja, but the men and women in the clearing were caught up in the chant, giving themselves over to the rite.
Faster and faster they moved, the symbols inked onto their skin seeming to glow in the firelight.
She needed to get closer if she was going to be able to see exactly what was going on.
There was no escaping the rapture that seemed to have swept the participants up. They were blind to her presence, heads thrown back, chanting and wailing, always moving. One of the men in the ring started to beat at his chest, hammering his fists off two sigils swirled around his nipples. He cried out, his voice a powerful counterpoint to the chant, filling in the spaces between the other voices.
Annja risked taking another step, and then another, until she was on the fringe of their circle.
Still, no one seemed to even notice her.
The bodies moved past her, sweat glistened on the map of their flesh, the contours catching the refection of the firelight until the symbols on their skin seemed to have a life of their own.
Annja had seen things like this before, a sort of mass hysteria brought on by belief—obsessive belief—and superstition. Rituals and rites were the same all over the world as far as she could tell. The faithful believed body and soul. That made them dangerous. But contrary to Garin’s claim, there was nothing here she hadn’t witnessed in some form or other before. Certainly nothing worthy of a show, and not a show exciting enough to save Chasing History’s Monsters which of course was what it was all about. The suits might have offered a stay of execution, but the reality of the situation was without something big they were sunk… Zombies would have been big. That was why she’d taken up Garin’s ridiculous plea for help and ended up in the middle of nowhere, sweating to death, watching seminaked fanatics dance around a fire. The one thing missing was the one thing that would have made it interesting. The dead.
The drumming stopped as suddenly as it started.
Two men approached the fire.
They were twenty feet apart.
There was something between them.
At first Annja didn’t recognize the body for what it was, because of the way writhing shadows masked it on the bier.
They set it down beside the fire.
The circle fell silent, motionless, then one by one the dancers fell to the ground.
They lay there, eyes on the flames, ready, anticipating whatever was to come next.
Annja watched the man on the other side of the fire smear his glistening black skin with daubs of white—great slashes across his pectorals and stomach, like wounds.
The air filled with his laughter.
The circle of followers prostrated themselves on the ground, pressing their faces into the dirt. Annja caught sight of the man on the bier’s face for the first time. Her mind raced
. There were two possibilities here, one, he was a corpse they were trying to resurrect, the other that he was a sacrifice.
She couldn’t just stand there and let them murder him—but that assumed he was alive to be murdered, which was far from guaranteed.
She tried to make out any signs of life, knowing that even if he was alive they’d almost certainly drugged him to keep him calm as they ended his life. Unless he was another fanatic eager to go into the flames or whatever else was about to happen. She was outnumbered twelve to one. She’d fought against much worse odds than that and come out on top.
The painted man brandished a silver knife for his congregation to see.
Annja could feel the collective intake of breath at the sight of it.
He raised the knife, holding it high above his head, breathing fast and hard, nostrils flared as he prepared to plunge it into the body’s heart—
When the silence was broken by the blaring wail of an American pop song. Damn. She’d meant to change her ring tone for months, but had never gotten around to it.
Annja tapped the earbud Garin had given her so she could operate hands free.
She was quick, but not quick enough to stop the young singer from doing her thing, loudly.
“This isn’t a good time,” she whispered, not taking her eyes off the man on the bier.
It was too much to hope that no one had heard the song, or that they were so out of it under the influence of whatever they were feeling that they just assumed it was part of the ritual. But one by one heads began to turn in her direction.
“Annja,” the voice said, filling up the inside of her head. She’d never get used to how weird it felt having someone’s voice piped directly into her ear. “Got a second? I’ve got news.”
It was Doug.
“Not really,” she answered, this time a little louder than a whisper. She wasn’t sure if her voice would carry all the way back to New York. Telepathy would have been better, but sans some amazing psychic breakthrough in the next few seconds, whispering was the best shot she’d got at remaining hidden.