The Keep ac-1

by F. Paul Wilson

  He stood and watched the men who were not on guard duty shuffle dispiritedly back to their quarters. Only moments ago when gunfire had erupted at the far end of the causeway, he had called them all to battle stations. But no battle had ensued and they were disappointed. He understood that. He, too, wished for a flesh-and-blood enemy to fight, to see, to strike at, to draw blood from. But the enemy remained unseen, elusive.

  Woermann turned toward the cellar stairway. He was going to go down there again tonight. One final time. Alone.

  It had to be alone. He could not let anyone know what he suspected. Not now—not after deciding to resign his commission. It had been a difficult decision, but he had made it: He would retire and have no more to do with this war. It was what the Party members in the High Command wanted from him. But if even a whisper of what he thought he'd find in the subcellar escaped, he would be discharged as a lunatic. He could not let these Nazis smear his name with insanity.

  ... muddied boots and shredded fingers... muddied boots and shredded fingers ... a litany of lunacy drawing him downward. Something foul and beyond all reason was afoot in those depths. He thought he knew what it might be but could not allow himself to vocalize it, or even form a mental image of it. His mind shied away from the image, leaving it blurred and murky, as if viewed from a safe distance through field glasses that refused to focus.

  He crossed to the arched opening and went down the steps.

  He had turned his back too long waiting for what was wrong with the Wehrmacht and the war it was fighting to work itself out. But the problems were not going to work themselves out. He could see that now. Finally he could admit to himself that the atrocities following in the wake of the fighting were no momentary aberrations. He had been afraid to face the truth that everything had gone wrong with this war. Now he could, and he was ashamed of having been a part of it.

  The subcellar would be his place of redemption. He would see with his own eyes what was happening there. He would face it alone and he would rectify it. There would be no peace for him until he did. Only after he had redeemed his honor would he be able to return to Rathenow and Helga. His mind would be satisfied, his guilt somewhat purged. He could then be a real father to Fritz ... and would keep him out of the Jugendführer even if it meant breaking both his legs.

  The guards assigned to the opening into the subcellar had not yet returned from their battle stations. All the better. Now he could enter unobserved and avoid offers of escort. He picked up one of the flashlights and stood uncertainly at the top of the stairway, looking down into the beckoning darkness.

  It struck Woermann then that he must be mad. It would be insane to give up his commission! He had closed his eyes this long—why not keep them shut? Why not? He thought of the painting up in his room, the one with the shadow of the hanging corpse ... a corpse that seemed to have developed a slight paunch when he had last looked at it. Yes, he must be mad. He didn't have to go down there. Not alone. And certainly not after sundown. Why not wait until morning?

  ... muddied boots and shredded fingers...

  Now. It had to be now. He would not be venturing down there unarmed. He had his Luger, and he had the silver cross he had lent the professor. He started down.

  He had descended half the steps when he heard the noise. He stopped to listen ... soft, chaotic scraping sounds off to his right, toward the rear, at the very heart of the keep. Rats? He swiveled the beam of his flashlight around but could see none. The trio of vermin that had greeted him on these steps at noon were nowhere in sight. He completed his descent and hurried to where the corpses had been laid out, but came to a stumbling, shuddering halt as he reached the spot.

  They were gone.

  As soon as he wheeled into his darkened quarters and heard the door slam behind him, Cuza leaped from his chair and went to the window. He strained his eyes toward the causeway, looking for Magda. Even in the light of the moon that had just crested the mountains, he could not see clearly to the far side of the gorge. But Iuliu and Lidia must have seen what had happened. They would help her. He was sure of that.

  It had been the ultimate test of his will to remain in his chair instead of running to her side when that German animal had knocked her down. But he had had to sit fast. Revealing his ability to walk then might have ruined everything he and Molasar had planned. And the plan now was more important than anything. The destruction of Hitler had to take precedence over the welfare of a single woman, even if she was his own daughter.

  "Where is he?"

  Cuza spun around at the sound of the voice behind him. There was menace in Molasar's tone as he spoke from the darkness. Had he just arrived or had he been waiting there all along?

  "Dead," he said, searching for the source of the voice. He sensed Molasar moving closer.

  "Impossible!"

  "It's true. I saw it myself. He tried to get away and the Germans riddled him with bullets. He must have been desperate. I guess he realized what would happen to him if he were brought into the keep."

  "Where's the body?"

  "In the gorge."

  "It must be found!" Molasar had moved close enough so that some of the moonlight from the window glinted off his face. "I must be absolutely certain!"

  "He's dead. No one could have survived that many bullets. He suffered enough mortal wounds for a dozen men. He had to be dead even before he fell into the gorge. And the fall..." Cuza shook his head at the memory. At another time, in another place, under different circumstances, Cuza would have been aghast at what he had witnessed. Now ... "He's doubly dead."

  Molasar still appeared reluctant to accept this. "I needed to kill him myself, to feel the life go out of him by my own hand. Then and only then can I be sure he is out of my way. As it is, I am forced to rely on your judgment that he cannot have survived."

  "Don't rely on me—see for yourself. His body is down in the gorge. Why don't you go find it and assure yourself?"

  Molasar nodded slowly. "Yes ... Yes, I believe I will do that ... for I must be sure." He backed away and was swallowed by the darkness. "I will return for you when all is ready."

  Cuza glanced once more out the window toward the inn, then returned to his wheelchair. Molasar's discovery that the Glaeken still existed seemed to have shaken him profoundly. Perhaps it was not going to be so easy to rid the world of Adolf Hitler. But still he had to try. He had to!

  He sat in the dark without bothering to relight the candle, hoping Magda was all right.

  His temples pounded and the flashlight wavered in his hand as Woermann stood in the chill stygian darkness and stared at the rumpled shrouds that covered nothing but the ground beneath them. Lutz's head was there, open-eyed, open-mouthed, lying on its left ear. All the rest were gone ... just as Woermann had suspected. But the fact that he had half-expected to face this scene did nothing to blunt its mind-numbing impact.

  Where were they?

  And still, from far off to the right, came those scraping sounds.

  Woermann knew he had to follow them to their source. Honor demanded it. But first... holstering the Luger, he dug into the breast pocket of his tunic and pulled out the silver cross. He felt it might give him more protection than a pistol.

  With the cross held out before him, he started in the direction of the scraping. The subcellar cavern narrowed down to a low tunnel that wound a serpentine path toward the rear of the keep. As he moved, the sound grew louder. Nearer. Then he began seeing the rats. A few at first—big fat ones, perched on small out-croppings of rock and staring at him as he passed. Farther on there were more, hundreds of them, clinging to the walls, packed more and more tightly until the tunnel seemed to be lined with dull matted fur that squirmed and rippled and glared out at him with countless beady black eyes. Controlling his repugnance, he continued ahead. The rats on the floor scuttled out of his path but exhibited no real fear of him. He wished for a Schmeisser, yet it was unlikely any weapon could save him were they to pounce on him en masse.

&nb
sp; Up ahead the tunnel turned sharply to the right, and Woermann stopped to listen. The scraping noises were louder still. So close he could almost imagine them originating around that next turn. Which meant he had to be very careful. He had to find a way of seeing what was going on without being seen.

  He would have to turn his light off.

  Woermann did not want to do that. The undulating layer of rats on the ground and on the walls made him fear the dark. Suppose the light were all that kept them at bay? Suppose ... It didn't matter. He had to know what lay beyond. He estimated he could reach the turn in five long paces. He would go that far in the dark, then turn left and force himself to take another three paces. If by then he found nothing, he would turn the flashlight back on and continue ahead. For all he knew there might be nothing there. The nearness of the sounds could be an acoustical trick of the tunnel... he might have another hundred yards to go yet. Or he might not.

  Bracing himself, Woermann flicked the flashlight off but kept his finger on the switch just in case something happened with the rats. He heard nothing, felt nothing. As he stood and waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, he noted that the noise had grown louder, as if amplified by the absence of light. Utter absence. There was no glow, not even a hint of illumination from around the bend. Whatever was making that noise had to have at least some light, didn't it? Didn't it?

  He pushed himself forward, silently counting off the paces while every nerve in his body howled for him to turn and run. But he had to know! Where were those bodies? And what was making that noise? Maybe then the mysteries of the keep would be solved. It was his duty to learn. His duty...

  Completing the fifth and final pace, he turned left and, in so doing, lost his balance. His left hand—the one with the flashlight—shot out reflexively to keep him from falling and came in contact with something furry that squealed and moved and bit with razor-sharp teeth. Pain knifed up his arm from the heel of his palm. He snatched his hand away and clamped his teeth on his lower lip until the pain subsided. It didn't take long, and he had managed to hold on to the flashlight.

  The scraping noises sounded much louder now, and directly ahead. Yet there was no light. No matter how he strained his eyes, he could see nothing. He began to perspire as fear reached deep into his intestines and squeezed. There had to be light somewhere ahead.

  He took one pace—not so long as the previous ones—and stopped.

  The sounds now came from directly in front of him, ahead ... and down ... scraping, scratching, scrabbling.

  Another pace.

  Whatever the sounds were, they gave him the impression of concerted effort, yet he could hear no labored breathing accompanying them. Only his own ragged respirations and the sound of his blood pounding in his ears. That and the scratching.

  One more pace and he would turn the light on again. He lifted his foot but found he could not move himself forward. Of its own volition, his body refused to take another step until he could see where he was going.

  Woermann stood trembling. He wanted to go back. He didn't want to see what was ahead. Nothing sane or of this world could move and exist in this blackness. It was better not to know. But the bodies ... he had to know.

  He made a sound that was almost a whimper, and flicked the switch on the flashlight. It took a moment for his pupils to constrict in the sudden glare, and a much longer moment for his mind to register the horror of what the light revealed.

  And then Woermann screamed ... an agonized sound that started low and built in volume and pitch, echoing and re-echoing around him as he turned and fled back the way he had come. He rushed headlong past the staring rats and beyond. There were perhaps thirty more feet of tunnel to go when Woermann brought himself to a wavering halt.

  There was someone up ahead.

  He flashed his beam at the figure blocking his path. He saw the waxy face, the cape, the clothes, the lank hair, the twin pools of madness where the eyes should be. And he knew. Here was the master of the house.

  Woermann stood and stared in horrified fascination for a moment, then marshaled his quarter-century of military training.

  "Let me pass!" he said and directed the beam onto the cross in his right hand, confident that he held an effective weapon. "In the name of God, in the name of Jesus Christ, in the name of all that is holy, let me pass!"

  Instead of retreating, the figure moved forward, closer to Woermann, close enough so that the light picked up his sallow features. He was smiling—a gloating vulpine grimace that weakened Woermann's knees and made his upheld hands shake violently.

  His eyes... oh, God, his eyes... Woermann stood rooted to the spot, unable to retreat because of what he had seen behind him, and blocked from escape ahead. He kept the quaking light trained on the silver cross—the cross! Vampires fear the cross!—as he thrust it forward, fighting fear as he had never known it.

  Dear God, if you are my God, don't desert me!

  Unseen, a hand slipped through the dark and snatched the cross from Woermann's grasp. The creature held it between his thumb and forefinger and let Woermann watch in horror and dismay as he began to bend it, folding it until it was doubled over on itself. Then he bent the crosspiece down until all that was left was a misshapen lump of silver. This he flipped away with no more thought than a soldier on leave would give to a cigarette butt.

  Woermann shouted in terror as he saw the same hand dart toward him. He ducked away. But he was not quick enough.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Magda drifted slowly back to consciousness, drawn by rough prodding at her clothing and by a painful pressure in her right hand. She opened her eyes. The stars were out. There was a dark shadow over her, pulling and pulling at her hand.

  Where was she? And why did her head hurt so?

  Images flashed through her mind—Glenn ... the causeway... gunfire... the gorge...

  Glenn was dead! It hadn't been a dream—Glenn was dead!

  With a groan she sat up, causing whoever was pulling at her to scream in terror and run back toward the village. When the vertigo that rocked and spun the world about her subsided, she lifted her hand to the tender, swollen area near her right temple and winced in pain when she touched it.

  She also became aware of a throbbing in her right ring finger. The flesh around her mother's wedding band was cut and swollen. Whoever had been leaning over her must have been trying to pull it off her finger! One of the villagers! He had probably thought her dead and had been terrified when she had moved.

  Magda rose to her feet and again the world began to spin and tilt. When the ground had steadied, when her nausea had faded away and the roaring in her ears had dimmed to a steady thrum, she began to walk. Every step she took caused a stab of pain in her head but she kept going, crossing to the far side of the path and pushing into the brush. A half-moon drifted in a cloud-streaked sky. It hadn't been out before. How long had she been unconscious? She had to get to Glenn!

  He's still alive, she told herself. He has to be! It was the only way she could imagine him. Yet how could he live? How could anyone survive all those bullets... and that fall into the gorge...?

  Magda began to sob, as much for Glenn as for her own overwhelming sense of loss. She despised herself for that selfishness, yet it would not be denied. Thoughts of all the things they would never do together rushed in on her. After thirty-one years she finally had found a man she could love. She had spent one full day at his side, an incredible twenty-four hours immersing herself in the true magnificence of life, only to have him torn from her and brutally murdered.

  It's not fair!

  She came to the rubble fall at the end of the gorge and paused to glare across the rising mist that filled it. Could you hate a stone building? She hated the keep. It held nothing but evil. Had she possessed the power she would have willed it to tumble into Hell, taking everyone inside—Yes! Even Papa!—with it.

  But the keep floated, silent and implacable, on its sea of fog, lit from within, dark and glowering with
out, ignoring her.

  She prepared to descend into the gorge as she had two nights ago. Two nights ... it seemed like an age. The fog was right up to the rim, making the descent even more dangerous. It was insane to risk her life trying to find Glenn's body in the dark down there. But her life did not matter as much now as it had a few hours ago. She had to find him ... had to touch his wounds, feel his still heart and cold skin. She had to know for certain he was beyond all help. There would be no rest for her until then.

  As she began to swing her legs over the edge she heard some pebbles slide and bounce down the slope beneath her. At first she thought her weight had dislodged a clump of dirt from the edge. But an instant later she heard it again. She stopped and listened. There was another sound, too—labored breathing. Someone was climbing up through the fog!

  Frightened, Magda backed away from the edge and waited in the brush, ready to run. She held her breath as she saw a hand rise out of the fog and claw the soft earth at the gorge's rim, followed by another hand, followed by a head. Magda instantly recognized the shape of that head.

  "Glenn!"

  He did not seem to hear, but continued struggling to pull himself over the edge. Magda ran to him. Gripping him under both arms and calling on reserves of strength she never knew she possessed, she pulled him up onto level ground where he lay face down, panting and groaning. She knelt over him, helpless and confused.

  "Oh, Glenn, you're"—her hands were wet and glistened darkly in the moonlight—"bleeding!" It was inane, it was obvious, it was expected, but it was all she could say at the moment.

  You should be dead! she thought but held back the words. If she didn't say it, maybe it wouldn't happen. But his clothing was soaked with blood oozing from dozens of mortal wounds. That he was still breathing was a miracle. That he had managed to pull himself out of the gorge was beyond belief! Yet here he was, prostrate before her ... alive. If he had lasted this long, perhaps...

  "I'll get a doctor!" Another stupid remark—a reflex. There was no doctor anywhere in the Dinu Pass. "I'll get Iuliu and Lidia! They'll help me get you back to the—"