“So he went after it,” Garret said quietly. “Just like I’m doing.”
Joseph nodded again. “You should at least read the last journal entry. Then maybe we can piece this together.”
Joseph flipped the journal towards the end of the book and pointed. “Start here.”
Chapter 19
Journal Entry
The Appalachian Mountains. March, 1911
It played me all along.
Every step of the way, through every town and hamlet, across every wagon-rutted, bloody mile of Europe, It has been using me. I have released upon the world a demon in the flesh. I have brought death itself to life, and I have made It invincible. The Devil take me, for he will not take the creature.
How many years did I see, yet not perceive? How could one so intelligent and educated as myself be so thoroughly fooled? Its appearance of weakness was no more than that: an appearance, a trick, a ruse. How, in all these years, did I not stop to ask myself why It did not turn upon me? I pursued It, I attacked It time and again. I plagued Its existence, driving It from body after body. What madness possessed me that I did not once wonder why It allowed me to continue?
The creature knew my intent, in fact It led me to it. How many centuries, how many millennia would it take the creature, journeying the world one person at a time, to find Its match? Not even It could accomplish such a task before the curtain fell at the end of the world. So each time It tasted a sating quality within someone, It feigned weakness before me, as if that which made It stronger was injuring It. So I stayed by Its side, building Its register of needs as though I were the town half-wit, counting beans and potatoes for the grocer. It planned, scattered bread crumbs for me, leading me by the nose.
A rebellious host was the keystone of Its needs, and when I read the letter from the mother, describing her daughter’s symptoms, I thought I had found the person who would set us all free. Now she is our damnation.
She was a most disagreeable Girl if ever I had laid eyes upon one. The Girl was nothing like my dear Elizabeth, with her infinite grace and charm. The Girl was pinched and acerbic, as full of vinegar and salt as Elizabeth was full of kindness and light. The Girl had taken rebellion against her mother to a new art, quite literally.
Her mother was a sour old woman, and about her I will only say that, were it not for my mission to extinguish the creature, I would have gladly left she and her daughter to it, knowing that no pair has ever more fully deserved one another.
For a month, Brommel and I evaluated the Girl. We tested and retested her for soundness, both of mind and body. I had correctly divined her psychology from her mother’s letter. The Girl’s mind was an exact match to the profile, though we needed to employ chilling treatment in ice water and later by chaining her in snow drifts to affect the necessary cognitive resets. However, her body we found quite lacking, and endeavored to build her up to better withstand It, which I referred to simply as the Final Treatment so as not to further disturb the Girl.
Meanwhile, we starved It. I had been starving It since we left Italy some months before. It seemed to no longer be capable of entering the catatonic state in which Elizabeth and I originally found It, yet as soon as It came within some miles of the Girl, It became agitated. Sometimes at night, Brommel and I could hear It rattling the three boxes within which we kept It locked. Towards the end, It began to throw itself against the side of the boxes with enough force to dislodge them. It was a sight I will never forget, the first time I saw the box jump from the shelf and land between the Girl’s legs, seemingly of its own accord. Had I any wits about me, I would have realized something was amiss.
Brommel was a fouler creature than I suspected. I regret what I know he visited upon the Girl when my back was turned, but what was I to do? I could not administer the necessary preparation by myself, and I believed that her sacrifice would save us all. Regardless, Brommel has been repaid. Through my long chase, the creature has displayed such creativity in mutilation and dismemberment that I thought myself grown insensate. What It did to Brommel has robbed me of sleep for days now.
When at last the day arrived for the Final Treatment, I found myself worn down by the stress of the preparation. I seized the box from the shelf, unlocked it, and removed the inner box from it, and the innermost box from that. The Girl had long ago ceased to scream or protest. She had entered a curious state of torpor which I should have liked to study, had there been opportunity.
As I gazed upon her, lying there on the table, I saw her for what she was. A young girl, damaged, ravaged by life as we all have been, as my precious Elizabeth was. My will drained out of me. There was no strength left in me to open the final box and set It loose upon her body. I stood there until Brommel began to question me.
His entreaties were beneath my intelligence and his reasoning as fouled as his conscience, but he persisted until I said, “God above, Brommel, has not enough innocence been destroyed in the name of this creature?”
When he replied, the light in his eye unsettled me. “You know It’ll never stop.”
This I thought I knew better than he, but as I looked upon his unfortunate countenance, I realized that he was speaking of something he knew better than I, for in his own low way, he was like unto the creature. Like him, It had only need and desire (or so I thought), and both It and he would continue to satisfy themselves until their last breath.
I admit that my science could not guard me, nor could the dispassion of reason shield me as I released the throbbing grey heart-of-hell onto her chest. I wept for her. I did not know I was weeping for us all.
It took her in a manner I cannot long describe. It displayed its cruelty in blood and screams as It forced Itself down her nose and throat. Only when she transformed did I see my fatal mistake. As It rose, twice as large as ever It had been, It raised Its arms and rolled Its eyes towards the darkened sky in a gesture of relief, and It took one long, slow breath. At that moment, an even more frightening realization came upon me. A connection had formed between It and I, yet I had not felt it. For years it had grown inside me, quiet and creeping, like a vine through soft earth. I knew naught of it until the creature looked down upon me—not Brommel—but me alone, and I felt Its heart and Its mind in my own, and I knew that It was finished. I had given It fullness of life.
It fell upon Brommel. I do not know how long It kept him alive. I only know that I took the opportunity to escape, and that his screams followed me for miles, until my mind refused to hear them anymore. It let me go. It could have killed me immediately, or It could have killed Brommel and then pursued me, but it did not. Perhaps Brommel was the fortunate one. Death would be too quick a punishment for me.
So I have sat down on a log to pen this, my last journal entry. I have not the courage to do the honorable thing, to present all my work to science and be laughed out of this world with the hope that someone, somewhere would hear the truth and heed it, for all the good it would not do us now. I must go and do one last thing, but I will not do it without leaving something behind. So I have written the end of the account, and I will leave this journal, not in the hands of science, but in the cabin owned by the Girl’s father, where perhaps it will be found or perhaps it will not. I have returned there now, after many days journey. The creature is gone. Brommel remains, in part.
I will leave this journal here. I will let chance decide, as it decided the fate of my wife.
—Dr. Johann Sebastian Goldblume (J.S.G.)
Garret pushed the journal away from himself. It was making him sick. Joseph was shaking his head in frustration. “Goldblume didn’t write the name of the person he intended to infect with the creature, and the journal ended at that point, so I don’t know what happened from there.”
Garret said nothing. He shifted to a wolf and sniffed the edges of the journal. It was laden with scents, his own, Joseph’s and several others, but close to the top was Mrs. Malvern’s scent. She had taken the journal to Joseph. Garret shifted back to human.
“What did you smell?” Joseph asked.
Garret started to answer, but the look in his friend’s eyes stopped him. Joseph’s thin face was desperate, certainly, but beneath lay something Garret had not thought to ever see in his gentle friend. A gleam of vengeance.
“Garret?”
The creature had taken everything from Joseph, and he wanted revenge. Garret didn’t blame him. Garret wanted the creature dead too, but not right now. At the moment, Garret needed it alive because it was the only living thing that knew where Molly and Sarn were.
Without realizing it, Garret had edged back from Joseph.
Joseph was confused, leery, a little hurt. “Garret, what’s wrong?”
“I’m sorry Joseph, but I have to go.”
“Garret,” Joseph said, a sharp look coming into his eye. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“Joseph, you’re my best friend, and a better person than I’ll ever be, but you can’t help me right now. I can’t let you.”
“Garret, this thing killed my father, and you know something.” Joseph’s voice was unsteady, but both his face and his hands looked ready to do violence. “Tell me what you know.”
Garret was ashamed. “I’m sorry Joseph.” He whistled shrilly at Babe, shifted into wolf form and sprang into the heaps of rubble and flames. Joseph couldn’t pick his way through the rubble, and neither could he run all the way around the perimeter before Garret was long gone. Either way, Garret would easily leave his friend behind. Joseph called, cried out.
Babe was right on Garret’s heels when he emerged from the far edge of the flaming debris. Joseph’s voice stayed with him too, begging him to come back.
Garret didn’t. He couldn’t. It was all so fucked up.
Germany, 1589
Youngblood crouched in the bushes at the edge of a field. Bright sun lit up the tangles of grasses and flowers, and little breezes scurried around in the stems like rodents, making Youngblood salivate as he imagined their meaty flavor. Two days had passed since the she-pup, Gerda, had grieved with her father outside their treebox. One day had passed since Youngblood had found food. While prowling around the outskirts of Gerda’s clearing, he’d happened upon a rabbit, its eyes wide, its ears tall and shaking. The deadwalker’s scent was all around the rabbit, but not on it. The rabbit had been petrified by whatever it had witnessed. It hadn’t budged as Youngblood ran down upon it and devoured it.
The meal had been enough to sustain him a few days longer, but not enough to rejuvenate his wasted strength. Furthermore, he’d had to use a precious portion of that strength to follow the Gerda-pup to where she now lay in the field. He dared not let her out of his sight, so he kept watch on her from the treeline.
The field skirted the base of the mountain and flowed partway up its side. The forest formed its lower border, the evergreens on the slopes its upper border. Huddling at the edge of the field made Youngblood sad. The mountain had been a favorite hunting ground of his pack, so much so that they had often come to the field even when they weren’t hungry. The pups would wrestle and play in the flowers and vines, and the adults would sprawl together in the sun, groom each other, or if it was a quiet night and the moon was full, they would sing together, each lifting their nose to the sky and joining in as it felt right.
This was also the field where mates would often come. Particularly the One Who Leads and his mate. The thought of the One Who Leads cut Youngblood’s heart open again. He missed his uncles terribly. Both of them had left holes in his chest, as though bitten and torn away. Youngblood’s pack had left him, too. Why didn’t they see that Youngblood had no choice? He was bound to the Gerda-pup. He could not leave her. She was in danger. His heart panged with regret and loss. Why had his pack not understood? The tame wolf-cousins understood.
The breeze shifted and Gerda’s scent grabbed Youngblood’s nose, hot and close. Right in front of him. Youngblood yipped in surprise and whipped his head out from between his paws. He’d been lying with his eyes shut tight against the memories, but he’d also been whining and whimpering, and the noise had drawn her to him. She was kneeling right there, close enough to touch him. With one hand, she held back the tall weeds between them. The other hand was wrapped around her apron, holding the bundle of flowers she’d been picking.
Her hair was dark and long, pulled back with a piece of string into a long tail a bit like his own, but coming from her head instead of her behind. In her eyes, Youngblood saw the same fear he felt. He’d never been so close to a man-pup before. The tightness in her shoulders and arms said she’d never been so close to a wolf before either, but she didn’t retreat.
He averted his eyes. Why had she come? Her presence was uncomfortable for him, more so than he would have thought. Her smell, though he liked it, warned him of danger. He should growl and run. The growl would let her know that he was dangerous too, so she would not follow. The running would put distance between them, because she could not run as fast as he. His lips rippled away from his teeth.
She spoke in the strange tongue of men, but her voice was not like theirs. It did not scratch his ears. Her voice was like her motions, like her face when she looked up at the moon. She was serene. Calm. She could live her entire life without crushing a single flower.
“Why do you watch me?” she whispered, though he had no idea what it meant. “You poor thing, you look half-starved, but you won’t leave me. Why?”
Youngblood’s hackles started to rise because he thought she was going to touch him, but she didn’t. She released the grasses and backed away. She did it so smoothly that she seemed to flow away from him. “If you stay outside our cabin again tonight, I’ll leave food for you.”
Bending to pick a flower every few steps, she moved to the middle of the field. As she did, she began to make soft sounds. It sounded like his pack’s song to the moon, but smoother and more beautiful, as if the sweet scents of all the flowers in the field had at once become sound to soothe Youngblood’s ears.
Her sounds settled into him and began to work the knots out of his weak muscles. The instinct to run was difficult to deny, but eventually it laid down as well. Youngblood placed his head between his paws again. He watched Gerda pick flowers and listened to her sing. Instinct reminded him that he should at least find a different place to lie so she wouldn’t know where he was, but she was again at a comfortable distance and he felt no danger, so instinct came and went. With a chuff, he resigned himself to watching and waiting. The Gerda-pup’s song sounded nothing like his mother’s song, which she had sung outside their den, but it comforted his weary heart just the same.
Not much time passed, barely enough for his body to begin begging for sleep, as it would often do when he hadn’t eaten enough for too many sunrises, but his fatigue disappeared when he heard a twig snap in the woods. The wind brought the deadwalker’s cruel scent to him. Motion comes naturally to wolves, and Youngblood was moving before the monster cleared the forest. It came forth in a ripping, tearing flurry, pushing with all four limbs against rocks and trees. It flung itself into the field with slivers of wood still impaled on its curving claws.
Youngblood sprinted to put himself between Gerda and the monster. Gerda had seen it coming and begun to move as well, but Youngblood wouldn’t have made it in time if the creature hadn’t seen him coming and, oddly, stopped to wait on him. The blossoms scattered from Gerda’s apron as she ran. Though she made no sound, the plea for help on her face was unmistakable. Youngblood stopped between them and spun to face the monster, his legs spread, hackles bushed, teeth bared.
The monster was, if possible, even more horrible to behold in the daylight. Its head resembled a wolf’s head, but only if a wolf had given itself over to evil and had lived, growing and doing wickedness for more suns and moons than Youngblood could imagine. Its forelimbs and upper body resembled that of man, but muscled to the point of ugliness. It had a thick swath of dark fur around its neck, running from atop its head down its back, and it bristled as the crea
ture laughed. It had stopped and waited for the tired, foolish young wolf to place himself in harm’s way. It laughed as a man would upon finding a frightened animal in a trap he had set, but deeper, fuller, and with more intent. More desire. It laughed at Youngblood as he slobbered and shook with weakness.
A sharp boom rang across the clearing, followed by another. The creature lurched towards Youngblood, as if it had been hit from behind. It stood to its full height and turned away from Youngblood towards the tree line. Three men stood at the forest edge. Two of them held men’s thunder branches. To the right of the monster’s spine, a trickle of blood ran from a small, round hole in its skin.
As the creature hunched over into an attack posture, Youngblood saw the glint of a steel ball in the wound. Youngblood had seen such a wound before. The men had tried to kill the monster with their thunder branches, but they had only made it angry.
The creature’s back was turned. Youngblood leaped, jaws straining wide to clamp either side of the creature’s neck, but several things happened at once. More booms rang out, this time from the other side of the clearing, a few arrows fell through the air around Youngblood, and the creature moved so fast that it ran out from under Youngblood while he was in midair.
With a yip, he tumbled to the grass, tangling himself in the weeds. The monster arrived at the edge of the clearing in two heartbeats. The creature moved so quickly that the men it was attacking appeared to be in slow motion. Youngblood struggled against the vines, wiggling his way free. Gerda was struggling similarly several paces away.
Of the three men it attacked, only two managed to scream before they were pulverized. At previous times, when Youngblood had watched the monster kill men and their tame wolf-cousins, the creature used its claws and teeth. This time it used neither. Like man’s hands, the monster’s paws could be closed into fists. It used them to pound the men into unrecognizable messes on the rocks, trees, and ground.
Brimstone Page 39