Haunted: Dark Delicacies® III

by Del Howison

Second soldier: “Permission to fire, Sergeant?”

  Sergeant: “Short bursts. Keep them pinned down.”

  They rise above the tops of the ferns. Aim, fire. They mime recoil, but the guns do not discharge.

  Dr. Lippisch steps screen center. “Three subjects medically unfit for military service. Twenty-two days of C2 has produced what you see here. Three men who believe they are soldiers, who genuinely believe they are on the battlefield. They hear gunfire, see shells detonate. Now watch.” Off screen someone hands her a pistol.

  Powell demanded, “Do you know the three men?”

  Leo regarded the incoming waves. “We should get away. It’s not safe.”

  “Vortex was based adjacent to the submarine pens. Why?”

  “You can’t interrogate me like this. You’ve no right.”

  Dominic felt stirrings of pity. Leo was agitated to the point where tears glittered in his eyes. Nevertheless, Dominic found his gaze drawn away from this brusque interrogation to the screen where Dr. Lippisch cocked a revolver. He’d heard legends about films that documented grisly communist-era experiments. However, he couldn’t believe that the old regime hadn’t incinerated the reels before reunification of East and West Germany. They’re evidence of crimes against humanity, for God sakes. Even on this sunlit beach the first gunshot was startling.

  Dr. Lippisch coolly shoots Soldier 1 in the back of the head. Though he slumps into the ferns, the others continue to fire—pretend to fire, that is. The docter aims at Soldier 2. He pauses, sensing something amiss. Lippisch fires. The bullet penetrates the top of his skull, then exits through his mouth, smashing his teeth. The round embeds in a wall, leaving a black mark.

  Lippisch taps the surviving infantryman on the shoulder: “Sergeant? Where are your two comrades?”

  Even though he looks around, he doesn’t see the two men lying dead close by. Crisply, he states, “They’ve been redeployed to another part of the line.”

  “Don’t you see them?”

  “No, miss.”

  “If I told you that I saw them lying dead at my feet, how would you respond?”

  “My response is that you are lying, miss. I see only two enemy dead.”

  “Look closer. Aren’t those your comrades, Gruber and Istryn?”

  “I know my comrades, miss. These are strangers. Gruber and Istryn moved off to support an assault on the enemy position. They are—”

  Lippisch doesn’t wait for him to finish. Turning to the camera, she states, “Picture an army of men such as these. Loyal, determined, fearless. They are incapable of self-doubt; nor can they comprehend the death of their fellow soldiers. If comrades die, the survivor truly believes they have merely been redeployed elsewhere.” She smiles. “I take ordinary farm boys, prisoners, mental patients; I transform them into artists, scientists, warriors. Ladies and gentlemen, give me mortal clay; I will give you supermen.”

  “That’s what I call an advertising pitch.” Scarlet smiled. “Lippisch could sell condoms to cardinals.”

  On screen: The sergeant is suddenly puzzled. “But I’m not outside. This is a room.” He stares at the assault rifle. “Why am I holding—”

  Lippisch fires into the man’s eye.

  “Oh my God …” Larchette, camera in hand, freezes.

  “I told you it was bad.” Powell nodded at the screen. “You should see the other experiments.”

  “What’s wrong with his head?”

  Powell shot a questioning look at his colleague. “What the hell’s wrong with you?”

  But then Dominic realized that Larchette was staring past the screen into the surf.

  “Heaven help us,” breathed Leo as he saw too.

  By now the foaming tide rolled over the sand not ten paces from them. Dominic’s scalp prickled as he saw what was being jostled by the surf. His gaze fixed on the head of the male corpse. The top of its skull had been sliced away. “What’s wrong with his head?” Larchette had been right to ask the question. Looking into the open top of the skull was like looking into a cavern. The brain, eyes, roof of the mouth, tongue had all been scooped out to leave a void. When the sun struck the face of the corpse as it floated on its back, twin beams of light shone through lidless eye sockets to illuminate the interior of the head. The top of the spinal column formed a pearly white bud at the base of the skull. Wavelets made the empty head nod rapidly as if it agreed with their feelings of horror.

  Leo cried, “See! I told you not to come here!”

  The twentieth century is dominated by those who own oilfields. The twenty-first century will belong to those who control the human mind.

  —Dr. Lippisch, Moscow, 1972

  Scarlet drove the car from the beach. In the front passenger seat sat Dominic. In the back, flanked by Larchette and Powell, Leo Fiedler slumped with an air of utter resignation. The 4x4 was scraped by branches along an overgrown highway. Rusty signs, in both German and Russian, warned unauthorized visitors: FORBIDDEN ZONE. ELECTRIC FENCES. EXPLOSIVE MINES. Dominic hoped that the military had been allocated sufficient resources to remove all the landmines. As a one-legged veteran had once dryly remarked to him, “They only have to miss the one….”

  Then Dominic didn’t avoid danger so much as render himself invisible to it. He’d attended the kind of school where you grew accustomed to the sticky sensation of spilt blood beneath your shoes. To survive, he merged with the background. Dominic was neither stocky nor skinny, neither short nor tall: the kind of guy that nobody ever picked out of an ID parade. As an adult he prided himself on slipping unobtrusively into situations where he could solve his employer’s problems, then move on without anyone being exactly sure who he was. Similarly, his encounters with women were as fleeting as they were anonymous. He liked it that way.

  Leo grunted. “Here it is. The road to the left leads to the complex that housed Vortex. Nothing will remain aboveground. They used dynamite by the truckload.” He sniffed. “The body of the fisherman. Why leave it on the beach?”

  “The man died in an accident. We’ll notify the police once we’re done here.”

  “Strange kind of accident,” murmured Leo. “If you consider the state of his head. All hollowed out like that.”

  Powell shrugged. “Obviously, the man fell overboard—a boat’s propeller chewed up his skull.”

  “With surgical precision?” Dominic raised an eyebrow. Powell’s arrogance had begun to grate. More than ever, he found himself on Leo’s side rather than with these three. Officially, they were his colleagues, but in name only. As for trusting them? Well …

  Wanting to get this case concluded, he said, “Scarlet, can’t you go any faster?”

  “Why the rush?”

  Dominic kept his patience—just. “Haven’t you noticed? It’s almost dusk.”

  “If we’re here after dark, promise you will shoot me.” Leo wasn’t joking.

  It was obvious that the Stalin-era research complex had been obliterated. Apart from warning signs, sections of crumpled fence, and a few yards of exposed blacktop that had escaped the encroaching moss, there was little to see. Other than forest, that is. Beech trees engulfed the place. This area wasn’t open to the public, but he knew that elsewhere the Isle of Rugen was a popular tourist destination. Most visitors were happy to stroll its white beaches or enjoy a refreshing dip in the ocean that was so often a dazzling turquoise. However, some visited grim regions of the island. Such as the Strength through Joy Resort: uncannily pristine buildings erected by the Nazis for party members when they needed a break from planning dark deeds. When Hitler exited, Stalin entered. He demanded his puppet regime build submarine pens (together with other sinister installations) on Rugen. Now this was what remained of Soviet domination. A thick forest that no doubt hid many a grisly secret. Project Vortex, for instance.

  The team took the opportunity during the jolting drive to roll more footage on the laptop.

  “Leo. Do you recognize the man in the right of the picture?” Powell asked. “The one helpi
ng carry the dead soldier on the stretcher?”

  “It’s obvious, isn’t it? It’s me. Only my hair is darker.” He touched his own scalp, which shed its strands. “Dear God, I’m falling apart.”

  “Can you identify the corpse?”

  “Otto Neumann. My best friend. By God, listen to what Dominic told you. Soon it’ll be dark. Do you really want to be here in this damned forest when it is?”

  “Why? What’s so—”

  “Enough of these games.” Leo glanced through the rear window. It was as if he expected someone to be there. A someone he definitely did not want to see. “I’ll tell you what I know. Larchette, keep that little camera of yours turning because I shan’t repeat myself. After that, kill me if you wish. I shan’t mind.” He stared at the lens. “All I know of Vortex is that it took men and women, scrubbed away their minds, erased who they were, then replaced them with new identities. Vortex sucked ordinary people in, then it spat out soldiers, artists, musicians! You saw the film. Truthfully, even though I was military personnel, I only ever sat at a desk and compared title deeds with maps of military installations. When the Wall came down, we knew the communist government would fall and we were to be reunited with the West. There was total panic amongst party leaders and the generals. They were desperate to dispose of incriminating evidence. Senior Stasi appeared here on the island to terminate Vortex. You know of the Stasi? The East German secret police? Far, far more brutally efficient than the Gestapo, they had a staff of over one hundred thousand. They were rather good at repression, torture, and espionage. They even forced children to spy on their parents, and coerced wives and husbands to tell tales about each other.” He sighed.

  “Here on the island, regular troops were smart enough not to get involved with concealing human experimentation: they swapped uniforms for civilian clothes and simply returned home. I, and my fellow pen-pushers, were foolish enough to accept triple pay to tidy up some loose ends. What those loose ends were, we hadn’t a clue.” Leo glanced uneasily about the forest. Shadows there were altogether darker as dusk crept down onto this remote corner of the island: a place that no longer appeared part of the human world.

  “Go on.” Scarlet tensed with anticipation. “You saw Vortex?”

  Leo shrugged. “New Year’s Day, nineteen-ninety—we assembled in the Vortex block. Already, filing cabinets had been emptied into the yard, papers set on fire. The place was a mess. Its permanent staff had fled. It was left to us poor bloody clerks to bring an end to Vortex. Clearly, there weren’t enough Stasi officers to do the job themselves. Already, most of them had deserted too. They knew we wouldn’t have the guts to see it through, so they gave us bottles of strong Danish beer along with little pills that, they said, would give us stamina. Little and black they were, like berries that grow on juniper bushes. They ordered us to swallow them. Ack, bitter as aspirin! Within ten minutes my heart was racing—everything twinkled with silver stars. Amphetamine, I guess. Probably with a bit of acid, just enough to make everything unreal so we wouldn’t be troubled by our consciences. Then they issued guns, and we went to work.”

  “What then?” Powell demanded.

  “I should be asking you a question. You’re so smart, but you’ve missed something blindingly obvious … something under your idiot nose.”

  “Leo. I ask the questions.”

  “Then be it on your head.”

  “What did you do once you were issued weapons?”

  “We formed into squads of ten. The first squad was sent into the subterranean levels of the building to terminate the experiment.”

  “And?”

  “Do I have to spell it out? They never came back.”

  Dominic shivered. The sun shone blood-red through the trees. Shadows fused, pooled, spread. Time to go … it really is time to go …

  Leo suddenly took pleasure in this, as if he was close to springing a surprise on them all. “So the Stasi commander sent in the next squad of pen-pushers, toting their submachine guns. The drug made them laugh, a screaming laugh. To those men it became the most hilarious thing in the world. Those were strong drugs, huh?” He nodded, seeing it all again in his mind’s eye.

  Gently, Dominic urged, “Tell them everything, then we can leave.”

  “Only after he’s shown us the Vortex site,” Scarlet countered. “Once we get a fix, the excavation team can do the rest.”

  Leo groaned. “Why must I keep stating the obvious? The squads entered the complex. They never returned. Three officers went down there to find out what was making our soldiers vanish. One officer came back. His face was missing—only the eyes stared out from this red, dripping mask. We were high. We laughed like maniacs as we emptied our guns into his belly. Ha, the Stasi had a bellyful too.” He chuckled. “They raced out to their big black cars, fled back to the mainland. I realized then that someone had a video camera—no doubt for the benefit of the top brass. They could see Vortex destroyed without having to actually step on tainted ground—at least, that’s what they hoped. Eventually, a couple of us ventured into the first of the underground levels. Believe me, they went on for kilometer after kilometer. With big silver pipes that made whooshing noises. As we stood there … wondering what the hell we should do, we heard a humming sound. That sent us crazy … we fired into the tunnels … then I realized it was the elevator rising up through the levels to our floor. The doors opened. I found my friend Neumann. We carried his body out on the stretcher. You’ve video of us doing just that.” He paused, smiling. “But I wonder why you haven’t seen what I’ve seen.”

  “And what’s that, Leo?”

  “Look at the footage again of the corpse on the stretcher. See the state of his head. Now cast your mind back to the corpse washed up by the tide. Then compare the two.”

  To end Vortex is madness. See the films I have made. Visit my test subjects. Whatever it takes, find a way to continue this research—for I can give you absolute power over the human mind.

  —Dr. Lippisch, 1989

  Within five minutes of leaving the car, Leo pointed to the setting of the long-gone building that had housed Vortex. Now there were only beech saplings and stinging nettles. Hemlock gifted the evening air with a bitter scent. Scarlet wielded an aerosol to mark pink streaks on the turf where the walls and entrances had once stood. Soon, yet more weed-covered mounds of rubble were marked with splashes of fluorescent pink. Powell, still wearing his grim seen-it-all-before expression, employed a handheld electronic device to record the exact GPS coordinates.

  Larchette, however, obsessed about the dead fisherman and footage of the corpse Leo had helped carry on the stretcher. “They had the same wounds,” he insisted. “Both had undergone the identical surgical procedure. Their brains had been removed. It must have happened to the fisherman only hours ago. How can that be when this place was dynamited back in nineteen-ninety? Is there—”

  “Larchette,” Scarlet interrupted. “We can speculate later over a beer—you clearly need one.”

  Larchette fired anxious glances into the forest. “We don’t know what happened to those test subjects. Leo told us the execution squads simply vanished. Except for the guy recovered from the elevator. He—”

  Scarlet snapped, “That’s enough.” Even as she spoke, they heard a soft thump, one loud enough, nevertheless, to make birds in the trees screech in alarm. Dominic’s three colleagues exchanged puzzled glances.

  “Sounds like a big door being slammed shut—underground.” Leo chuckled. He’d taken satisfaction from Larchette’s unease. “Someone just left the house. In a temper. A steaming rage.”

  Dominic shook his head. “That’s no door.” He raced back through the trees. By now, the sun had sunk behind the uppermost branches to stain the ground with shadows that stretched out like so many limbs, eager to seize unwitting victims. “Damn.” He stopped dead. The big 4x4 had been waiting on the track to take them home. Now that would no longer happen.

  Larchette howled, “I knew it was going wrong. I knew
it!”

  In the growing gloom, the car stood on its roof. Four tires, slashed to shreds, pointed forlornly at the evening sky.

  Powell frowned. “Somebody’s playing tricks.”

  “Tricks?” Leo smiled strangely. “This is no prank.”

  Scarlet seized his arm. “What do you mean?”

  “You’re in danger. Dreadful danger. Don’t you understand?”

  The sunset’s bloody light gushed through the leaves.

  Larchette trembled. “We’ve got to get out of here. Now.”

  “How, you idiot?” Powell bellowed. “Someone flipped the damn car!”

  Leo chuckled. “See? This place unmans the strongest. Even Herr Powell is frightened now.”

  “Frightened.” Powell sneered. “I’ll do the frightening.” He drew an object from under his fleece. Dominic saw the gunmetal black of a revolver.

  “Useless.” Leo’s chuckle turned manic. “A child’s toy.”

  “Quiet.”

  Leo pressed on, eyes bulging as memories flooded him. “My comrades went rolling into Vortex armed with AK-47s, those big, fat curving ammo clips full of armor-piercing rounds. Consummate widow makers. Yet only one man returned. With his brains scooped out. Hah, how will your little pistol save you? How—”

  Powell slapped Leo hard.

  He wiped blood from his mouth with grim satisfaction. “I am right, Herr Powell. You are frightened.”

  Powell raised his fist. “Stupid old—”

  “Enough,” Dominic barked. “Leo’s no fool. You should be listening to him. Because right now you’re the stupid ones. You’re blundering round like you’re playing spies in your own backyard. You’ve absolutely no comprehension about what happened in this place. The experiments! The atrocities! Even worse, you haven’t realized something is continuing. There’s an aftermath. Some agency is still at work in this forest. Can’t you get the fact into your thick heads? People flipped that car. They shredded the tires. Therefore, someone wants to trap us here: they have plans.”

  “He’s right.” Scarlet drew a handgun from a concealed holster. “Start watching each other’s backs.”