The Keep ac-1

by F. Paul Wilson

  The rest of the descent was easier. She reached the base of the wedge unharmed. More difficult terrain lay ahead, however. The floor of the gorge was a never-never land, a realm of jagged rocks and rank grasses, steeped in cloying fog that swirled around her as she moved, clutching at her with wispy tentacles. She moved slowly and with utmost care. The rocks were slick and treacherous, capable of causing a bone-breaking fall at her first unwary step. She was all but blind in the fog, but she kept moving. After an eternity, she passed her first landmark: a dim, dark strip of shadow overhead. She was under the causeway. The base of the tower would be ahead and to the left.

  She knew she was almost there when her left foot suddenly sank ankle deep in icy water. She quickly drew back to remove her shoes, her heavy stockings, and to hike her skirt above her knees. Then she steeled herself. Teeth clenched, Magda waded ahead into the water, her breath escaping in a rush as cold spiked into her feet and lower legs, driving nails of pain into her marrow. Yet she kept her pace slow, even, determinedly suppressing the urge to splash over to the warmth and dryness of the far bank. Rushing would mean noise, and noise meant discovery.

  She had walked a good dozen feet beyond the water's far edge before she realized she was out of it. Her feet were numb. Shivering, she sat on a rock and massaged her toes until sensation returned; then she stepped into her stockings and shoes again.

  A few more steps took her to the outcropping of granite that formed the base on which the keep rested. Its rough surface was easy to follow to the spot where the leading edge of the tower stretched down to the floor of the gorge. There she felt the flat surfaces and right angles of man-made block begin.

  She felt around until she found the oversized block she sought, and pushed. With a sigh and a barely audible scrape, the slab swung inward. A dark rectangle awaited her like a gaping mouth. Magda didn't let herself hesitate. Pulling the flashlight from her waistband, she stepped through.

  The sensation of evil struck her like a blow as she entered, breaking her out in beads of icy perspiration, making her want to leap headlong back through the opening and into the fog. It was far worse than when she and Papa had passed through the gate Tuesday night, and worse, too, than this morning when she had stepped across the threshold at the gate. Had she become more sensitive to it, or had the evil grown stronger?

  He drifted slowly, languidly, aimlessly, through the deepest recesses of the cavern that formed the keep's subcellar, moving from shadow to shadow, a part of the darkness, human in form but long drained of the essentials of humanness.

  He stopped, sensing a new life that had not been present a moment ago. Someone had entered the keep. After a moment's concentration, he recognized the presence of the crippled one's daughter, the one he had touched two nights ago, the one so ripe with strength and goodness that his ever insatiable hunger quickened to a ravening need. He had been furious when the Germans had banished her from the keep.

  Now she was back.

  He began to drift again through the darkness, but his drifting was no longer languid, no longer aimless.

  Magda stood in the stygian gloom, shaking and indecisive. Mold spores and dust motes, disturbed by her entry, irritated her throat and nose, choking her. She had to get out. This was a fool's errand. What could she possibly do to help Papa against one of the undead? What had she actually hoped to accomplish by coming here? Silly heroics like this got people killed! Who did she think she was, anyway? What made her think—

  Stop!

  A mental scream halted her terrified thoughts. She was thinking like a defeatist. This wasn't her way. She could do something for Papa! She did not know what, exactly, but at the very least she would be at his side to give moral support. She would go on.

  Her original intention had been to close the hinged slab behind her. But she could not bring herself to do it. There would be comfort of a sort, scant comfort, in knowing her escape route lay open behind her.

  She thought it safe to use the flashlight now, so she flicked it on. The beam struggled against the darkness, revealing the lower end of a long stone stairway that wound a spiral path up the inner surface of the tower's base. She flashed the beam upward but the light was completely swallowed by the darkness above.

  She had no choice but to climb.

  After her shaky descent and her trek through the fog-enshrouded gorge, stairs—even steep ones—were a luxury. She played the flashlight back and forth before her as she moved, assuring herself that each step was intact before she entrusted her weight to it. All was silence in the huge, dark cylinder of stone except for the echo of her footfalls and remained so until she had completed two of the three circuits that made up the stairway.

  Then from off to her right she felt a draft. And heard a strange noise.

  She stood motionless, frozen in the flow of cold air, listening to a soft, far-away scraping. It was irregular in pitch and in rhythm, but persistent. She quickly flashed the light to her right and saw a narrow opening almost six feet high in the stone. She had seen it there on her previous explorations but had never paid any attention to it. There had never been a draft flowing through it. Nor had she ever heard any noise within.

  Aiming the beam through the hole, Magda peered into the darkness, hoping and at the same time not hoping to find the source of the scraping.

  As long as it's not rats. Please, God, let there be no rats in there.

  Inside she saw nothing but an empty expanse of dirt floor. The scraping seemed to come from deep within the cavity. Far off to the right, perhaps fifty feet away, she noticed a dim glow. Dousing the flashlight confirmed it: There was light back there, faint, coming from above. Magda squinted in the darkness and dimly perceived the outline of a stairway.

  Abruptly, she realized where she was. She was looking into the subcellar from the east. Which meant that the light she saw to her right was seeping down through the ruptured cellar floor. Just two nights ago she had stood at the foot of those steps while Papa had examined the...

  ... corpses. If the steps were to her right, then off to her left lay the eight dead German soldiers. And still that noise continued, floating toward her from the far end of the subcellar—if it had an end.

  Repressing a shudder, she turned her flashlight on again and continued her climb. There was one last turn to go. She shone the beam upward to the place where the steps disappeared into a dark niche at the edge of the ceiling. The sight of it spurred her on, for she knew that the buttressed ceiling of the stairwell was the floor of the tower's first level. Papa's level. And the niche lay within the dividing wall of his rooms.

  Magda quickly completed the climb and eased into the space. She pressed her ear to the large stone on the right; it was hinged in a way similar to the entrance stone sixty feet below. No sound came through to her. Still she waited, forcing herself to listen longer. No footsteps, no voices. Papa was alone.

  She pushed on the stone, expecting it to swing open easily. It didn't move. She leaned against it with all her weight and strength. No movement. Crouching, feeling locked in a tiny cave, Magda's mind raced over the possibilities. Something had happened. Five years ago, she had moved the stone with little effort. Had the keep settled in the intervening years, upsetting the delicate balance of the hinges?

  She was tempted to rap the butt of her flashlight against the stone. That at least would alert Papa to her presence. But then what? He certainly couldn't help her move the stone. And what if the sound traveled up to one of the other levels and alerted a sentry or one of the officers? No—she could not rap on anything.

  But she had to get into that room! She pushed once more, this time wedging her back against the stone and her feet against the opposing wall, straining all her muscles to their limit. Still no movement.

  As she huddled there, angry, bitterly frustrated, a thought occurred to her. Perhaps there was another way—via the subcellar. If there were no guards there, she might make it to the courtyard; and if the bright courtyard lights were still
off, she might be able to steal across the short distance to the tower and to Papa's room. So many ifs ... but if at any time she found her way blocked, she could always turn back, couldn't she?

  Quickly, she descended to the opening in the wall. The cold draft was still there, as were the far-off scraping sounds. She stepped through and began walking toward the stairs that would take her up to the cellar, making her way toward the light that filtered down from above. She played her flashlight beam down and just ahead of her, careful not to let it stray off to the left where she knew the corpses lay.

  As she moved deeper into the subcellar, she found it increasingly difficult to keep up her pace. Her mind, her sense of duty, her love for her father—all the higher strata of her consciousness—were pushing her forward. But something else was dragging at her, slowing her. Some primal part of her brain was rebelling, trying to turn her around.

  She pushed on, overriding all warnings. She would not be stopped now ... although the way the shadows seemed to move and twist and shift about her was ghastly and unsettling. A trick of the light, she told herself. If she kept moving, she'd be all right.

  Magda had almost reached the stairs when she saw something move within the shadow of the bottom step. She almost screamed when it hopped up into the light.

  A rat!

  It sat hunched on the step with its fat body partially encircled by a twitching tail as it licked its claws. Loathing welled up in her. She wanted to retch. She knew she could not take another step forward with that thing there. The rat looked up, glared at her, then scuttled off into the shadows. Magda didn't wait for it to change its mind and come back. She hurried halfway up the steps, then stopped and listened, waiting for her stomach to calm.

  All was quiet above—not a word, not a cough, not a footstep. The only sound was the scraping, persistent, louder now that she was in the subcellar, but still far away in the recesses of the cavern. She tried to block it out. She could not imagine what it might be and did not want to try.

  Again she flashed her light around to make sure no more rats were about. Then she took the stairs, slowly, carefully, silently. Near the top, she peered cautiously over the edge of the hole in the floor. Through the ruptured wall to her right was the cellar's central corridor, alight with a string of incandescent bulbs, and apparently deserted. Three more steps brought her up to floor level, and another three took her to the ruined wall. Again she waited for the sound of guards. Hearing none, she peeked into the corridor: deserted.

  Now came the truly risky part. She would have to travel the length of the corridor to the steps that led up to the courtyard. And then up those two short flights. And after that-One step at a time, Magda told herself. First the corridor. Conquer that before worrying about the stairs.

  She waited, afraid to step out into the light. Until now she had moved in darkness and seclusion. Exposing herself under those bulbs would be like standing naked in the center of Bucharest at noon. But her only other alternative was to give up and go back.

  She stepped forward into the light and moved quickly, silently, down the corridor. She was almost at the foot of the stairs when she heard a sound from above. Someone coming down. She had been ready to dart into one of the side rooms at the first sign of anyone approaching, and now she made that move.

  Inside the doorway, Magda froze. She neither saw, heard, nor touched anyone, but she knew she was not alone. She had to get out! But that would expose her to whoever was coming down the steps. Suddenly, there was movement in the darkness behind her and an arm went around her throat.

  "What have we here?" said a voice in German. A sentry had been in the room! He dragged her back toward the corridor. "Well, well! Let's have a look at you in the light!"

  Magda's heart pounded with terror as she waited to see the color of her captor's uniform. If gray, she might have a chance, a slim one, but at least a chance. If it was black...

  It was black. And there was another einsatzkommando running toward them.

  "It's the Jew girl!" said the first. His helmet was off and his eyes were bleary. He must have been dozing in the room when she slipped in.

  "How'd she get in?" the second said as he came up.

  Magda tried to shrink inside her clothes as they stared at her.

  "I don't know," said the first, releasing her and pushing her toward the stairs to the courtyard, "but I think we'd better get her up to the major."

  He leaned into the room to retrieve the helmet he had removed for his nap. As he did, the second SS man came alongside her. Magda acted without thinking. She pushed the first into the room and raced back toward the break in the wall. She did not want to face that major. If she could get below, she had a chance to reach safety, for only she knew the way.

  The back of her scalp suddenly turned to fire and her feet almost left the ground as the second soldier yanked viciously on the fistful of hair and kerchief he had grabbed as she leaped past him. But he was not satisfied with that. As tears of pain sprang to her eyes, he pulled her toward him by her hair, placed a hand between her breasts, and slammed her against the wall.

  Magda lost her breath and felt consciousness fade as her shoulders and the back of her head struck the stone with numbing force. The next few moments were a collage of blurs and disembodied voices:

  "You didn't kill her, did you?"

  "She'll be all right."

  "Doesn't know her place, that one."

  "Perhaps no one's ever taken the time to properly teach her."

  A brief pause, then: "In there."

  Still in a fog, her body numb, her vision blurred, Magda felt herself dragged by the arms along the cold stone floor, pulled around a corner and out of the direct light. She realized she was in one of the rooms. But why? When they released her arms, she heard the door close, saw the room go dark, felt them fall upon her, fumbling over each other in their urgency, one trying to pull her skirt down while the other tried to lift it up to her waist to get at her undergarments.

  She would have screamed but her voice was gone, would have fought back but her arms and legs were leaden and useless, would have been utterly terrified had it not all seemed so far away and dreamlike. Over the hunched shoulders of her assailants she could see the lighted outline of the door to the corridor. She wanted to be out there.

  Then the outline of the door changed, as if a shadow had moved across it. She sensed a presence outside the door. Suddenly, there was a thundering crash. The door split down the middle and smashed open, showering them all with splinters and larger fragments of wood. A form—huge, masculine—filled the doorway, blotting out most of the light.

  Glenn! she thought at first, but that hope was instantly doused by the wave of cold and malevolence flooding in from the doorway.

  The startled Germans cried out in terror as they rolled away from her. The form seemed to swell as it leaped forward. Magda felt herself kicked and jostled as the two soldiers dove for the weapons they had lain aside. But they were not quick enough. The newcomer was upon them with blinding swiftness, bending down, grasping each soldier by the throat and then straightening up again to his full height.

  Magda's head began to clear as the horror of what she was watching broke through to her. It was Molasar who stood over her, a huge, black figure silhouetted in the light from the corridor, two red points of fire where his eyes should be, and in each hand a struggling, kicking, choking, gagging einsatzkommando held out at arm's length on either side of him. He held them until their movements slowed and their strangled, agonized sounds died away, until they both hung limp in his hands. He then shook them violently, so violently that Magda could hear the bones and cartilage in their necks snap, break, grind, and splinter. Then he threw them into a dark corner and disappeared after them.

  Fighting her pain and weakness, Magda rolled over and struggled to a crouching position on her hands and knees. She still was not able to get to her feet. It would take a few more minutes before her legs would support her.

 
Then came a sound—a greedy, sibilant sucking noise that made her want to retch. It drove her to her feet and, after she leaned against the wall for an instant, propelled her out toward the light of the corridor.

  She had to get out! Her father was forgotten in the wake of the unspeakable horror taking place in the room behind her. The corridor wavered as she stumbled toward the ruptured wall, but she determinedly held on to consciousness. She reached the opening without falling, but as she stepped through, she caught a movement out of the corner of her eye.

  Molasar was coming, his long, purposeful stride bringing him swiftly, gracefully closer, his cloak billowing behind him, his eyes bright, his lips and chin smeared with blood.

  With a small cry, Magda ducked inside the wall and ran for the steps to the subcellar. It did not seem even remotely possible that she could outrun him, yet she refused to give in. She sensed him close behind her but did not look around. Instead, she leaped for the steps.

  As she landed, her heel skidded on slime and she began to fall. Strong arms, cold as the night, gripped her from behind, one slipping around her back, the other under her knees. She opened her mouth to scream out her terror and revulsion but her voice was locked. She felt herself lifted and carried downward. After one brief, horrified glance at the angular lines of Molasar's pale, blood-flecked face, his long, unkempt, stringy hair, the madness in his eyes, she was carried out of the light and into the subcellar and could no longer see anything. Molasar turned. He was bearing her toward the stairwell in the base of the watchtower. She tried to fight him but his grip easily overcame her best efforts. Finally she gave up. She would save her strength until she saw a chance to escape.

  As before, there was numbing cold where he touched her, despite her multiple layers of clothing. There was a heavy, stale odor about him. And although he did not appear physically dirty, he seemed... unclean.