by Allan Burd
“My grandma, what big teeth you have,” I say.
“You should see my dick,” replies Cooper. Then my werewolf pal reaches his furry paw in, latches onto my arm, and pulls me free. It’s like I just stepped out of a sauna and walked into the world’s largest freezer. I sink into the soft snow so high my balls shrivel up.
“Wear these,” Cooper says, flipping me a pair of snowshoes.
“Thanks.” I slip them on. I also quickly pat my pockets, making sure the keys and the map I came for are still there.
“T’was a very timely fart. I may not have found ya in all this snow otherwise,” says Cooper.
“So, what’s a nice wolf like you doing in a place like this?” I ask.
“Saving your hide... again.”
I can’t argue. Cooper was instrumental in helping me defeat Balzuzu’s army. “How did you find me? Aside from my one cheek sneak, I mean. Did God, through Miguel, give you my exact coordinates?”
“Master Yong notified Father Miguel of your general location. I figured I’d have to follow your scent all the way in, but you have a nasty habit of blowing up the environment. A ruined landscape seems to be something of a signature of yours.” Cooper points towards the mountains. I see what he means. All of the mountains are covered in white except for the one we’re standing under. “Wiped clean like the first stroke of a good shave,” he says poetically.
“Kinda looks like a knocked out tooth if you ask me.”
“Must’ve been a helluva drop,” says Cooper.
“Bumpier than when I rode on your back against Balzuzu, speaking of which…” I look at him with a telling smile.
“Not this time. Snow’s too deep for me to travel on all fours with you on my hump. We’re walking our way out of here.”
I take two steps and despite the snowshoes it’s still a chore to keep from sinking. “Swim might be more like it,” I grumble.
“Don’t worry. We don’t have to go far. Our helicopter’s waiting two clicks away.”
“I didn’t take you for a pilot.”
“That would be something, wouldn’t it? But, nay.”
My mind churns. There’re not many who could fly a chopper and be comfortable taking to the skies with a werewolf for his co-pilot. “Pa’s here?” I guess.
“Miguel,” Cooper answers. “The old codger’s a pilot too… full of surprises?”
Apparently, he is. I had no idea Miguel was a pilot either. “The Father never fails to impress.”
We continue the rest of the way in silence. It’s a slog, but thankfully, it doesn’t last that long. Around an hour later we board the copter.
“Looks like you had an adventure,” Father Miguel says, starting up the rotors.
“Just another day’s work,” I answer, planting my butt in the seat behind him.
Cooper leaps into the co-pilot seat and closes the door. Miguel pushes some buttons and lifts us vertically into the air. We rise against endless white-capped mountains as far as the eye can see.
“I’m surprised Pa didn’t come along. He used to fly combat missions in Iraq. He loves flying and I’m sure he would have loved this view.”
“He had other pressing matters. You can tell him about it,” says Miguel.
I reach into my pocket, pull out the map, study it for a moment then flip it around to make sure I’m reading it right. “We’re not going home just yet. We’re going to Germany.”
Copper turns his head and stares at me, his puppy dog eyes asking me why.
I hold up the map and say, “Up on Yeti Mountain, I found this. And get this… X marks the spot on Burg Frankenstein. I’m supposed to go there.”
“Who told you that?” asks Cooper.
“I’m guessing that’s what the big guy upstairs wants. Otherwise, why else did I come all this way? Though he also said my trip would be rewarding and he sent me into the snowy wild to fend for myself against a pack of yetis which, personally, I didn’t find rewarding at all.”
Miguel bristles. “He works in mysterious ways. But he did give us free will after all. Perhaps we don’t necessarily have to listen to everything he has to say.”
“Fuck that?” says Cooper. “Silas has a treasure map that leads to Castle Frankenstein. I ain’t missing that adventure for anything in the world.”
Chapter 12
We land at the nearest heliport and keep a low profile while Miguel charters us a private jet. We sneak Cooper aboard in a sheeted off cage. He lets himself out to join us in the main cabin as soon as the plane levels off at 30,000 feet, while Miguel slips the pilot some cash to ensure he respects our privacy. After we settle in, I fill them in on the remaining pertinent details of my expedition.
“Did Yong tell you what you’re supposed to be looking for?” asks Cooper.
“No, he didn’t mention that? Only that it was in my wheelhouse, so I guess we should expect more monsters. Though, I’m more curious to find out what’s going to be opened by this set of keys.” I dangle them from my fingers.
“Forget the keys. You really think we’re going to meet Frankenstein?” asks Cooper, his arms out and stiff like the storybook monster. “You think he still exists?”
Miguel tosses Cooper a can of beer while his hand is out. Cooper snatches it and uses one of his sizable canines to puncture a hole in the top. Miguel tosses me one too.
I take a swig, which goes down smooth after hardly eating the last few days. “You’re confusing the tale. Frankenstein’s Monster was the one with the bolts sticking out of his neck. Dr. Victor Frankenstein was the mad scientist who created him. And that was the 1800’s. I don’t think either of them are still around, which in Victor’s case is a good thing because by all accounts he was a sick son of a bitch, more comfortable with the dead than the living.”
“I preferred to think of him as tragic,” says Miguel. “Societal acceptance does not come easy for geniuses, even more so back in those times. I believe mentally he isolated himself and that drove him to do terrible things.”
I shake my head. “Sorry, Father, but a lack of social skills isn’t an excuse to become a psychopathic shut in. The guy raided graves and stole corpses. Then he locked himself away in a lab and spent all his time figuring out a way to reanimate dead body parts he grafted together. That’s seriously fucked up shit.”
“True. But in the end, it cost him everything, including his own life and that of his loved ones. There’s tragedy to that.”
Cooper shrugs. “I bet you the Monster’s still around.”
“Doubt it. If he was, I think a stitched together dead guy with bolts sticking out of his neck would’ve been noticed by now.”
“Yet we are on a jet with a werewolf and the general populace remains completely unaware,” says Miguel.
Cooper takes another long gulp, wipes the froth from his fuzzy jaw. “On point, Padre.”
Miguel nods. “Most people believe werewolves are the stuff of myths and fairytales. Their minds don’t allow them to consider the possibility because the reality that they exist would frighten them to death.”
“They’d crap their pants,” says Cooper.
“And since the governments of this world know this, they do their best to keep a tight lid on it so secrets don’t always come to our attention,” says Miguel.
“See,” boasts Cooper.
“Still the odds are unlikely,” says Miguel.
“Hmmph!” Cooper chugs the rest of his beer and crushes the can in his mighty paw. “I can use another brew.”
“Make that two,” I say, as I polish off the rest of mine.
“Last one. For each of you,” says Miguel. He gives Cooper the one-eye squint. “I’m not sure I’m eager to see you drunk, especially at this altitude.”
“No worries, Padre. I can hold my liquor. So, according to the myth, whatever happened to the Monster?”
“No one knows,” I say. “By most accounts he was last seen leaving the same ship Victor died on, supposedly self aware, quite prepared to die him
self. Legends say he wandered off into the darkness and was never seen again.”
Cooper opens the can. “I’m telling you… we’re going to find him alive, living in that castle.”
“Nah, not buying it. There’s something else in that castle God wants me to find,” I say.
Cooper snaps his fingers. “Maybe it’s something he wants you to kill. Maybe he wants you kill Frankenstein’s Monster.”
“You’re just not going to let this go, are you?” I say. “But it still doesn’t make sense to me.”
“Actually it does,” says Cooper. He pauses long enough to take a long, loud slurp before continuing. “Think about it. Who does this Dr. Frankenstein guy remind you of?”
Miguel shrugs. I can’t supply Cooper with an answer either.
“No clue,” I say.
“Come on. How does a regular guy turn a sewed-up corpse into a walking monster? Electricity. I call bullshit on that. There’s no fucking way a dude back then, no matter how smart he was, simply locks himself away in a laboratory and brings the dead to life. There has to be more to his story than that, more that anyone knows. Something else had to be responsible for that. Someone else. Who do we know that creates monsters from the dead that go around destroying people’s lives?”
Holy shit! I see where he’s going with this. I wrap my head around the possibility as a tremor of fear tenses my shoulders. “But it was 200 years ago.”
“Yeah, it was,” says Cooper. “But Balzuzu’s been around for eternity.”
Chapter 13
I don’t know if what Cooper is theorizing is true or not, but it makes a lot more sense than a mad scientist sewing a corpse together and bringing it back to life with a powerful jolt of electricity. “Then what are the keys for?”
“Maybe the Monster’s locked in a broom closet and before you can kill him, you need to let him out,” says Cooper.
“The guy who had the keys was a dead Nazi hiding in a hole in an abandoned temple atop a frozen mountain overrun with killer yetis. There’s more to this story than simply slaying a monster,” I say.
“We’ll find out when we get there,” says Miguel.
We get some rest, though I don’t sleep well because I can’t outright dismiss Cooper’s theory and taking out monsters created by Balzuzu is the definition of right in my wheelhouse. We touch down just outside of Durmstadt, Germany. A military man named Lenard Baecker greets us on the landing strip as we deplane. I’ve met him once before. He’s a veteran of the Kommando Spezialkrafte, Germany’s elite special forces team that combats terrorism around the world. He’s as professional as they come, a true warrior who’s killed many a bad guy. On previous business, he acted as my paranormal mission liaison. We have a mutual respect for each other but he’s not a lot of laughs. Miguel briefed him on what to expect upon our arrival while we were in the air. Even so, he’s never seen a werewolf before. I give him credit for not immediately pulling his gun.
“Welcome to Germany,” Baecker says, sternly. He shakes Miguel’s hand, then mine. When Cooper approaches with an outstretched paw, Baecker instinctively draws back.
“I don’t bite. Well… I do. But I won’t bite you,” says Cooper, wearing a shit-eating grin. Baecker eyes him warily, so Cooper throws in an “I promise” which works well enough for Baecker to reach out and shake Cooper’s much larger furry paw. “See, no harm done,” says Cooper, letting go.
“Lucky for you,” says Baecker, revealing a dagger he hid in the palm of his opposite hand.
Cooper bristles. I step between them to prevent things from becoming unnecessarily tense. “Keep your friends close and your weapons closer,” I say. I touch Baecker’s pointed blade. “Silver-coated. A wise precaution, but an unnecessary one. I fully vouch for Cooper.”
“Don’t presume I am eager to have you here either, Silas,” says Baecker. “Your presence alone bodes dangerous things.”
I read him. He’s angry about our arrival. I get that. Wherever I go, monsters usually follow and this time I brought one with me. But there’s something else behind his glare, something beyond our mere presence that’s causing his apprehension. He knows something we don’t.
“My last time here we faced that danger together,” I say.
“Your last time here you helped stop a threat to my country. This time, I’m afraid you are the threat.”
“I don’t understand,” I say.
“You came a long way to visit Frankenstein’s castle. It is a place best left alone.”
“And why is that?” asks Miguel.
Baecker sheaths the dagger. “Follow me.” He leads us to a bland hangar adjacent to the airstrip. “Cooper, huh?”
“It’s who I was before I was this,” says Cooper.
Baecker nods his acceptance. He slides back the hangar’s doors. Inside, olive green walls lead to a tall, arched ceiling. The floor is dull grey. Vehicles are parked at the far end. He walks us to a rectangular table sitting somewhere in the middle. He grabs a map marked Odenwald, unrolls it across the tabletop, and uses four paperweights to hold it in place.
“According to every map in existence, Burg Frankenstein is here,” Baecker says. He points to the location clearly marked as such. He pauses to see how we react. When we don’t, he asks, “How much do you know?”
“Only that that’s not the true location of the castle,” I answer.
“It’s not. The entire area is a decoy built in the early nineteenth century, a set constructed to misdirect the civilian population and keep the ‘intellektuelles’ at bay. The real Burg Frankenstein is much larger and resides here.”
“Here,” I say simultaneously, as we both press our fingers on an unmarked area of green on the map.
“Six point three miles away, deep within the Odenwald forest,” says Baecker. “That is a closely held government secret known only to a handful of men. How did you learn that?”
I pull Kiltrace’s map out of my pocket and show him. “Not every map in existence. I found this on a dead German Soldier and was told to come here.”
“That’s all you know?”
I nod.
“Well, there are things you need to know before you go there,” says Baecker. “The story of Herr Frankenstein didn’t conclude like everyone believes. Victor died on that boat, a death he deserved. Our government claimed his corpse, verified it. His passing was a known certainty. What happened in the days that followed wasn’t. They found horrors in his home beyond imagining. The Monster he created wasn’t the only corpse he desecrated. There were many others found, grotesquely dissected along with a live person he was vivisecting as well. Torture in the name of science. It was a dreadfulness worse than any officer had experienced at that time and that was just the beginning.
“They spent weeks investigating his burg discovering nightmares far beyond the physical, far into the macabre. They claimed to hear eerie wails in the middle of the night, as if the dead were still screaming. They told stories of apparitions causing inanimate objects to move on their own, some of which threatened their lives. More than one policienza refused to go back. At the time, those men were branded cowards and reprimanded for their action. Until days later when the lead investigator blew his brain out the back of his skull, right in the middle of Frankenstein’s laboratory. Or did he? The officers present swore his weapon lifted itself out of the holster, impossibly rotated upward in mid-air, and discharged. Imagine watching the trigger cocking back on a floating firearm with no one visible in control and seeing it kill your commanding officer. Or imagine a place so frightful that the officers under his command killed him and lied about it just so they’d never have to go back.
“In the official records, they ruled the lead investigators death a suicide caused by excessive stress on the job. The unofficial record made its way to another department, which promptly sealed off all access to Burg Frankenstein and made it a crime punishable by jail time to ever trespass on those grounds again. It didn’t keep more bad things from happening. It jus
t limited them. More hauntings were reported. Even more unexplained deaths. Decades later, the grounds were sealed off by some sort of paranormal means that even today I don’t fully understand, by people—if you can call them that—so secretive they’re not recorded in any official or unofficial database. These people gave strict instructions never to let anyone enter into this area until the time was right. If we did, even more terrible things would happen as whatever is inside that castle could potentially unleash untold destruction, not just upon Germany, but on the entire world. The decoy site was built after that. It is within the purview of the department I am now in charge of to constantly monitor the real one.”
“And no one’s discovered that ruse in all this time?” asks Cooper.
“It was a different world than the one we’re in today. Two World Wars fueled chaos and destruction here. Forging new history was relatively easy. Some people discovered the secret. Some of them have even gotten through the barrier. None of them were ever heard from again and I’m told that despite the fact that some of them were good men, the world is better off that they did not return. And here are the three of you, with no knowledge of any of these events, eager to venture inside.”
Now I fully understand Baecker’s apprehension.
Miguel feels it too. “Perhaps we should reconsider completing this task,” he says.
I turn to Miguel. “If you remember, I was sent here by someone of great knowledge and importance.”
“Who is not infallible,” says Miguel.
I wince. It’s totally out of character for Miguel to doubt his faith. I’m about to argue but Baecker gets a word in first.
“Personally, I think it’s a catastrophically bad idea for you to visit that castle,” says Baecker. “However, those secretive people I mentioned… they’ve been silent for several years until an hour ago when they contacted my superiors and told them the right time to enter the castle is tomorrow and that only the three of you are permitted in.”