Apexology: Horror

by Anthology

  Mengale stepped out of the truck. Behind him came the struggling figure of a young girl, clasped roughly by the arm and dragged along. The Rat's eyes narrowed, but he didn't move.

  She was young, he estimated, no more than fifteen. She had the stark, dark beauty of a Cigani, a gypsy, and he felt the anger rising in him again, like a tide breaking against rock. It was a miracle there were any gypsies left, any that were not incinerated in the ovens along with the Jews.

  Mengale marched her forward, towards the church. The only sound in the square was that of his boots echoing distortedly, not corresponding entirely to his steps. The girl's bare feet made no sound on the flagstones.

  She looked frightened.

  The Rat felt the hairs on his arms stand on end. It was that same feeling, that same presence he dimly felt at Bran, the one felt in his makeshift grave. Was it Tepes? he wondered. There was a lot in Transylvania that remained hidden, even from him.

  Perhaps.

  Mengale stopped in front of the church. His eyes roved over the building, then seemed to hover, almost stare directly at the point where the Rat was crouched. A smile played on his lips.

  "Impaler," Mengale said loudly into the air.

  He extracted a long, surgical blade from his jacket. Seeing this, the girl tried to wrench her arm away in panic. He hit her, a backhanded slap that sent her reeling on the flagstones.

  "I will make you this sacrifice, in the name of the Führer." He extended his arm in the air, displaying a freshly-laundered armband with a swastika on it. "Heil Dracul!" he shouted.

  On cue, the Wolfkommando all turned as one to face the church. "Heil Dracul!" they cried, extending their arms in a Nazi salute.

  The girl began to cry in loud, gasping sobs that seemed to suck in all the air around her.

  The feeling, the presence, that the Rat was feeling intensified. He shifted his gaze, scanning the rooftops, noting the position of his men. They were going to take out the Nazis, no matter what happened.

  Mengale's hand came whipping down towards the girl, the blade glinting in the moonlight.

  It only took a moment.

  The blade cut across her neck, severing her cries, sending blood spouting on to the ancient flagstones. The girl's body collapsed, crashing softly to the ground.

  She lay in a pool of blood and Mengale waited, wiping the blade thoroughly on a handkerchief before returning it to his coat pocket.

  The handkerchief he dropped, as if in distaste, on top of the body.

  In the sudden tension–the feeling of the presence was now overwhelming for the Rat–a wind rose at the entrance to the church. Dust ebbed and flowed in complex patterns that floated and merged, forming eyes, mouths, liquid faces that changed and ran into each other.

  The wind formed mouths, some crooked, some bloodied, and spoke through them. It spoke in many voices: in old dialects of Romanian, of Magyar, of Mongol and German. The sound was like a shockwave, sending Mengale reeling, disturbing the corpse so that it rolled, pathetically, on its side.

  Even the Wolfkommando were affected, crouching low against the bellows of sound and wind, their faces changing, teeth lengthening, rough hair growing uncontrollably.

  "Ordög!" The sound broke windows, threw carts in the air, intensifying. "Pokol!"

  From above, the Rat watched, trying to resist the power of the wind. It was trying to force him to change, to mould himself into animal form. To revert to savagery, as it was doing to the Nazis below. His mind fought against the change, watching the metamorphosing faces, conjuring identities for them from the deepest recesses of his mind. There were Boyars there, noblemen and petty kings, princes and bloodied rulers. He saw Tepes' face there, merging into that of a Knight Templar, then into an unfamiliar face with Asiatic features.

  They were all there, these ancient men who each fought for Transylvania and for Wallachia, these elder kings who were roused at last from their slumber.

  "Ordög!" the voices screamed. "Pokol!"

  The Rat gritted his teeth. Devil, the dead kings were shouting, and Hell. It was as if they had finally encountered a kind of evil they couldn't understand, a precise and tidy kind, one that didn't gloat over its mutilated victims, but rather sat down to note the fact in volume after volume of leather-bound ledgers.

  Fighting the wind, the Rat signalled to his men.

  The volley of ancient bullets flew like drunken mosquitoes through the turbulent air, ripping bloodied gashes in the animal hides of the Wolfkommando. The Germans roared, howling anger and pain at the skies, at the partisans and the ghosts of the kings, and their howl was a thing of menace and fear intermingled. It was a tragedy, the Rat thought, that the Nazis had managed to subdue even these wild and feral creatures, and mould them in their own image. They smelled of a corruption that penetrated all the way to the soul.

  He prepared to jump. Below, the bellowing wind still fought the wolves–now entirely transformed–while from above, almost unnoticed in the confusion, the partisans rained down their bullets. If only they had silver, the Rat thought, perhaps they would have made a difference.

  But this was the war. What silver there was had gone, secreted away or taken along on a pilgrimage of death.

  He jumped.

  The wind hit him like an iron bar. He stumbled, lashed out at a wolf who was too close.

  This was going to be fun. The bullets stopped as he landed, and now he had the square to himself. He felt the presence at his back quieten, shifting its attention to this creature who had fallen into its own private grievance.

  Then, "Vrolog!" the voices screamed. Vampire. There was a hint of amusement in its combined voice.

  The Rat turned, lashed out again, drew blood. His nails became long, sharp spikes. His teeth extended, fangs extruding. The world was painted red in front of his eyes; right here, right now, there was only one thing that mattered. Kill.

  He looked for Mengale. Scenting the man, he followed a bloody path through the wolves, lashing, biting, hitting. The wolves, already weakened by the wind and the bullets, did not fight as hard as the first one, back in Brasov; by the time he reached the truck, where his senses told him Mengale was hiding, he had left the corpses of three young men behind him.

  Seeing nothing but revenge in front of his eyes, the Rat broke the door to the truck as if it were a toy, and in one fluid motion threw himself inside.

  The bullets struck him as he was airborne, slamming into him with hot, searing pain, throwing him to the floor. Through blooded eyes the Rat saw Mengale watching him levelly, carefully re-loading a revolver with gleaming bullets. Inside, the noise of the storm abated somewhat, and the Rat had a sudden feeling of unreal serenity, as if he were encased in a small, comforting cocoon, a metallic womb–or a coffin.

  "It is fascinating," Mengale remarked, "the phenomenon of silver poisoning in vampires. I have had occasion to experiment on the more, shall we say, unwelcome members of the populace–communists, Jews, Gypsies–you know the type," he smiled casually at the Rat, "who happened to possess these particular diseases, but so few! I'm so glad I've found you." He aimlessly played with a couple of remaining bullets in his palm. "Teeth," he said. "Jewish teeth from my own foundry. Ironic, really, don't you think?" He levelled the revolver in the Rat's face. "It's been an extraordinary pleasure. It really has."

  He pulled the trigger.

  In the moment before the bullet erupted, the Rat sensed a sudden calm. Ancient instincts took hold of his body, metamorphosing his physical shape. As his body began assuming, arduously, the rat shape, he rolled. In the moment the bullet fired, the source of the calm outside hit the truck with an unnatural force.

  Sound came crashing back around them as the supersonic wave of the force tore through the truck and sent it flying in the air, propelling it upward and away. The Rat, half in human form still and half a rodent, slid helplessly down through the open doors, falling with a hard, painful impact to the ground. Above him he could see the truck, driven by the winds like a toy
in the hand of capricious children, sailing over the market square and beyond the town's walls.

  For a long moment the Rat followed the movement of the truck until, from far away, came the sound of a reverberating crash.

  Then, at last, he passed out.

  Bucharest, September 1945

  The Rat stood in the shadow of the great train station, looking dubiously at the newly purchased ticket in his hand.

  It had taken a long time for his wounds to heal following the disastrous episode at Tirgoviste. Only months later, after his faithful partisans had operated on him yet again, pulling out silver bullets, preparing a shallow grave for the second time, scouring for blood, did he ask about Mengale.

  There was no body found.

  Tirgoviste's market square was nearly destroyed. The corpses of the Wolfkommando remained, and their bodies were carted to a common grave and set alight. The apparition of the old kings, of Tepes himself, had disappeared, and Castle Bran was once again inhabited by the living remnants of the royal family, the Queen and her children, cowering against the might of politics. Soon, they too would flee, and nothing would remain but a tourist attraction.

  As the Rat languished in his makeshift grave, Romania turned. In August 1944, the Red Army marched into Bucharest, and by the beginning of 1945 Hitler was in his bunker in Berlin, surrounded on all sides by the allied forces.

  It was the end.

  And, the Rat had decided, it was also a beginning.

  Draped in his new clothes, dark and unassuming, holding an English cigarette between his teeth, the Rat searched for the platform of the train to the coast.

  The Old World was dying, its dark forces powerless in the face of what later philosophers would call the banality of evil. Humanity could provide more evil, more pain and suffering and humiliation, than any legend up in the Carpathians. It brought about a cold, efficient mass murder, and it had done so sitting civilly around the table, drinking tea and listening to orchestral music.

  And the Old World was dying.

  Decisive now, the Rat threw down the cigarette to the floor, ground it with his foot and climbed onboard the train.

  He was going to a new world. The New World.

  The train, with a bellow of steam, pulled out of the station, heading for the coast and the shores of the Mediterranean Sea.

  And in the small port in Greece, the Rat had decided, he would follow the rest of the war's survivors, the rest of the uprooted and the homeless.

  In the words of so many before him, he would take ship to America.

  The Rat settled down in the narrow chair, leaning against the window. He opened his coat pocket and took out the by now bruised and worn book, Stoker's book, and with the immigrant's hunger for the language of his new homeland, began re-reading the familiar passages as behind him the Carpathian Mountains disappeared slowly from view.

  If you enjoyed the international flavor of Lavie’s story then you might enjoy his anthology of dark SF and fantasy THE APEX BOOK OF WORLD SF.

  The world of speculative fiction is expansive; it covers more than one country, one continent, one culture. Collected here are sixteen stories penned by authors from Thailand, the Philippines, China, Israel, Pakistan, Serbia, Croatia, Malaysia, and other countries across the globe. Each one tells a tale breathtakingly vast and varied, whether caught in the ghosts of the past or entangled in a postmodern age.

  Among the spirits, technology, and deep recesses of the human mind, stories abound. Kites sail to the stars, technology transcends physics, and wheels cry out in the night. Memories come and go like fading echoes and a train carries its passengers through more than simple space and time. Dark and bright, beautiful and haunting, the stories herein represent speculative fiction from a sampling of the finest authors from around the world.

  “From S.P. Somtow’s World Fantasy Award-winning “The Bird Catcher,” a restrained horror tale of a young boy’s friendship with Thailand’s most infamous human “monster,” to “Wizard World,” Galaxy Award winner Yang Ping’s story of high-tech gamers, this extraordinary anthology of 16 tales introduces English-speaking readers to some of the world’s best writers of sf, horror, fantasy, and metafiction. Contributors include Jamil Nasir (Palestine), Aleksandar Ziljak (Croatia), Guy Hasson (Israel), Kaaron Warren (Australia/Fiji), and Jetse de Vries (Netherlands). VERDICT This literary window into the international world of imaginative fiction, the first in a new series, is sure to appeal to adventurous sf fans and readers of fiction in translation.”

  —Library Journal, August 2009

  Available today from Apex Publications

  http://www.apexbookcompany.com

  INSIDE LOOKING OUT ((OR: FALLING THROUGH THE WORLDS))

  Mari Adkins

  Mari Adkins is an editor/author living in Lexington, KY. She’s been involved with Apex Publications since 2005, having worked as a submissions editor for Apex Magazine and editing the Harlan County Horrors anthology.

  In fact, Mari has an unhealthy obsession with Harlan, KY, believing vampires live in the hills and that the FX show Justified is a faux-documentary. She’s been known to walk around yelling at people that “He pulled first.”

  Mari doesn’t write short fiction often, but when she does, it’s always quiet and understated in a graceful sort of way. Read below and see if you agree with my assessment.

  —§—

  Platter Shack had the best collection of vinyl records in town. After I paid my rent each month, I liked to peruse the latest additions and chitchat with the owner. Easy for me, since I lived upstairs in a one bedroom hole in the wall that tried its best to pretend to be an apartment; the lease bore my name and signature, and the rent was inexpensive.

  Devon Hensley had always known he could find me at the record shop. As a policeman, his job was to know where and how to find people. We had met there several years ago when I was still in high school and still had hopes and dreams of escaping this small, nothing town. I stood there, bent over the 33 rpm bin somewhere between Grand Funk Railroad and Led Zeppelin. His shadow fell across the records, and me, but we didn't speak. Often, we had no need. Not because we had nothing to say to each other. Not because we didn't know the right words. No, we didn't have to speak. We had been this way together from the beginning. We couldn't even call it telepathy; we just knew. Our nonverbal communication bothered some of our mutual friends, what few we had, but for us, our behavior was normal.

  My fingertips paused at a selection of Little Feat, and I looked up at Devon. I hadn't seen him or heard from him for three months, but of course he hadn't changed. He never did.

  "Hello, Erin," he said, his hands jammed into the front pockets of his jeans. A knit cap pushed down his long black hair, made him look like a child molester. He was the type of man, though, who didn't like to eat meat because it hurt animals and who didn't like to eat vegetables because it hurt plants. Until I had gotten used to him, it would surprise me to see him standing in leather boots at a salad bar.

  I flipped through more records, moving on to the Ns. "What do you want, Devon?" I didn't look up. After so long an absence, I was sure he needed something from me. We never met anywhere by accident. He didn't believe in accidents, and I didn't believe in coincidence. I suppose that made us even.

  He stepped closer, moved my hair away to nibble on my ear. "Who said I needed a reason to drop by?"

  "After three months? Yes, you do." Or had it been five? My memory was a bit cloudy about that. I pushed his mouth away from my ear.

  Chuck, the shop owner, looked up from the old-fashioned clangy register that popped up SALE and NO SALE tabs in its window. He raised an eyebrow.

  I didn't need him to protect me from Devon and went back to searching through the records.

  Devon leaned his hip against the bin, rattling the chains on his belt and around his wrists. "We really need to talk."

  Then, I made the mistake I always make. I looked into his eyes. Drowning pools of ebony backlit with something feral I
had only ever gotten a hint of but had never been allowed to see. Even so, his eyes mesmerized me, turned my soul into silly schoolgirl mush. "I'll talk with you if you'll buy me dinner."

  "I'll buy you anything."

  Somehow, some part of me believed his words despite the mischievous expression he wore. I continued to browse and shop. He would lean there waiting for me for the rest of the day if that's how long I took. We both knew it. And I took my time. I always took my time at Platter Shack. Too many people, usually clueless kids, rushed in and rushed out and missed the treasures buried in the bins. Sometimes I thought Chuck buried certain things just to see if I could find them. I went around Devon to cross the shop to see what cassette tapes and 45s had come in over the last month. A tattered sign that had always hung on the wall above the singles bin caught my attention. Someone had defaced the sign with a bright red and white Corbin High School sticker. It now read WE CARRY REPLACEMENT PARTS FOR YOUR PHONOGRAPH! GO REDHOUNDS! I almost giggled, but I had more pressing matters to attend to. By the time I reached The Grateful Dead, Devon had crept over but kept his distance, pretending to ignore me and feigning interest in a glass display case of patches and stickers.

  The bell over the door jangled as someone entered the shop. The three of us—Chuck, Devon, and I—looked up. I looked only because I'd had a few close calls with people I didn't want or need in my life. In fact, one afternoon about three years ago, I had been on my way out the front door as my dad had been on his way through the back door.

  I carried my stack of records to the counter, eager to leave, but not so eager to be alone with Devon. Chuck and I made our usual small talk, joked and teased with each other, and bitched about the weather while he rang up my purchases. And even for April, a streak of lousy weather had come to southeastern Kentucky. We agreed to start building an ark if the rain didn't let up soon. Devon paid, and I held out my hand to receive the paper bag. "Thank you, Chuck," I said. On autopilot, I turned left outside the shop intending to go straight upstairs to my apartment.