Twilight of the Dead Page 7

  An eerie whistling of the wind around the battlements and the banging of a wooden shutter against the castle wall could be heard. Blank windows stared down at the two intruders, offering no hint of what lay behind them. A doorway from the courtyard into the building hung open, inviting them to enter. Ralf and Gunther accepted, moving swiftly inside. They cautiously advanced through the ground floor, checking each room and corridor, each nook and cranny, each shadow and stairwell for signs of life or the undead. Inside it was cold and draughty, with high ceilings and plaster crumbling from the walls. A lingering scent of disinfectant hung in the air, no doubt a legacy from the time when this place had been a rehabilitation centre, but the Wehrmacht had long since moved such a facility nearer the Ostfront.

  Ralf and Gunther crept up a staircase to the next floor. It proved as vacant as the one below, as did the one above. Finally, after more than an hour of moving through the deserted castle, both men were satisfied that there was nothing and no one to be discovered here.

  "This may have been Constanta's ancestral home," Ralf muttered, "but I doubt he's been inside these walls for months, perhaps years."

  He and Gunther were moving back down through the castle, making one last sweep before signalling for the others to join them.

  "I've seen more life in a cemetery," Gunther agreed, cheerful as ever.

  "Don't make jokes like that. Especially not in here," his comrade admonished.

  "Sorry," Gunther said, looking abashed. "Should I call the rest to come in?"

  "I guess so." Ralf let himself relax at last, easing a finger off the trigger of his MP38.

  Gunther wandered outside and fired off three quick bursts, the signal that all was well. Ralf extracted a pipe from the bottom of his knapsack and began wadding tobacco into the small wooden bowl. He had been delighted to find a pouch of fresh tobacco among Cringu's possessions, and it was good quality as well, not the ersatz rubbish given to German soldiers. Constanta obviously made sure his thralls got the best as reward for serving him well. Exchanging your soul for a good smoke and better rations didn't sound like much of a bargain to Ralf, but he knew such choices were never consciously made. You gave yourself with a thousand tiny compromises, not one simple decision.

  Ralf patted his pockets for matches before leaning back against a heraldic crest on the wall to light his pipe. He was more than a little surprised when the crest slid aside and he almost tumbled backwards down a flight of stone steps that had been concealed behind it. Ralf teetered on the brink of the staircase but regained his balance just in time. He moved away from the rectangular space where the heraldic crest had been mounted on an oak panel, hands trembling as they clutched at the stock and trigger of his machine pistol.

  A mixture of stomach-turning odours escaped from the stairwell: the musky iron of spilled blood, the sickly ripeness of decomposing flesh, and something else, something Ralf couldn't immediately identify. Light danced at the bottom of the stone steps, casting strange shadows on the curved walls. Was something moving down there? Something alive?

  "They're coming in now," Gunther announced from beside Ralf, startling him.

  Ralf spun round, ready to fire, hissing curses at his comrade. This startled Gunther in turn, who jumped backwards in surprise, grappling at his own weapon.

  "God in heaven, Ralf! What's the matter with you?" Gunther demanded once the two of them had recognised each other and relaxed.

  "I might ask you the same question, fool," Ralf snarled through gritted teeth. "Are you tying to get yourself killed, sneaking up on me like that? I almost executed you."

  "I'm sorry, I didn't realise that..." Gunther's voice trailed off as he noticed the open panel. "Where did that come from?"

  "That's what I was about to find out!"

  "Ahh. Sorry."

  Ralf smiled. Despite his best efforts, he could never stay mad at Gunther for long. They had been through too much together and had seen too many horrors to take each other for granted.

  "How long until the others get here?"

  "It'll take them five minutes to reach the outside walls," Gunther calculated.

  "Good. That's long enough for us to take a look in the dungeon." Ralf edged closer to the open panel, his weapon at the ready. "Coming?"

  The two Germans crept slowly down the winding stone staircase, moving almost soundlessly, their senses straining to detect any threat ahead of them. The dancing light came from a burning torch hung on the wall. Gunther took the torch from its bracket to help illuminate their downward path, but Ralf remained in front of his friend. After descending for more than a minute, they reached a landing laid with flagstones perhaps a metre square in area. Opposite them stood a heavy wooden door with a mighty bolt closed across it.

  The sickly smells were seeping through the door, leaking out from whatever lay beyond it. Ralf pressed an ear against the wood but could hear no sound. His hand slid across to the bolt, ready to pull it back.

  Gunther tapped Ralf on the left shoulder. "Are you sure about this?" he whispered hoarsely. "We've no idea what's inside there. Maybe we should wait for the others. They'll be here in the next minute or two."

  "Better we face whatever's inside alone. If it's too much for us, the others'll still have the chance to escape," Ralf reasoned.

  With one hand still clutching his weapon, Ralf tugged on the bolt but it would not budge. Eventually he shouldered his machine pistol and used both hands on the stiff shaft of metal. After several seconds of intense effort the bolt abruptly gave way and slid aside. As it did so, the door swung inwards and Ralf stumbled forward into the dungeon. A rank stench billowed outwards into the stairwell, choking both soldiers. Light from Gunther's torch spilled into the chamber, exposing the horrors within. It took all the pair's experience not to flee when they saw what was inside the dungeon.

  The chamber best resembled the charnel pit of some savage predator. Dozens of rotting human corpses were strewn carelessly about the floor, some missing limbs, others so decomposed it was difficult to know what age or gender they had once been. Tens of thousands of maggots writhed atop the bodies, crawling in and out of wounds, fighting with each other for the tastiest morsels of flesh. Pus and blood oozed from the corpses towards the flagstones of the landing, while a mass of flies were buzzing and weaving in the fetid air.

  On the far wall beyond the corpses was a grisly selection of unfortunates left hanging from manacles and chains. Some were little more than skeletons, cold collations of brittle bones held together by scraps of skin and cloth. Others looked almost fresh, their naked torsos and faces still bloated by gases expanding from within them. No light other than that from Gunther's torch was visible within the chamber. Neither man could see any windows that might let a glimmer of sunshine or hope into this dank, damned place. The dungeon beneath Castle Constanta was like hell on earth, a chamber of torments and tortures, the sort of hole where even a deal with the devil could not save your life.

  Ralf and Gunther gagged and choked on the foul odours escaping from the dungeon, both of them forcing their faces into the crook of an elbow, trying to shut out the stench of death and decay and despair.

  "Close the door," Gunther urged his comrade. "Better that we seal this place off forever and let nature take its course."

  Ralf nodded, not opening his mouth to speak lest he breathe in any more of the malodorous air leaking from the dungeon. He was about to pull the door shut when a tiny squeaking noise beyond it caught his ears.

  "Did you hear that?"

  "Hear what?" Gunther gasped.

  "A noise from inside, as if someone was trying to call out to us but their words were being muffled... or gagged."

  "You don't think anyone could be alive in there, do you?"

  "I hope not for their sake," Ralf replied.

  Both men stood silently, concentrating all their senses in search of the noise. After a few seconds the squeaking resumed. It was louder now and more insistent. Soon it was not a single squeak being repeated
, but dozens of similar noises, as if the sounds were conversing.

  "Ye gods, where is it coming from? Who's making that noise?"

  Ralf peered upwards at the ceiling of the dungeon. The space above the rotting corpses was black... blacker than it ought to be. More disturbingly, the blackness appeared to be moving, shifting, flinching. Ralf took the flaming torch from Gunther's grasp and lifted it closer to the blackness, trying to get a better look at this strange phenomenon.

  "Not who's making it, but what. Look!" Ralf moved the torch closer to the pulsating darkness so Gunther could see it too.

  The ceiling of the dungeon was covered in bats, thousands and thousands of black bats. They were hanging upside down from rows of tiny hooks, each of them moving and twisting about on their perch. The chorus of squeaks kept jumping from one bat to another, as if they were calling out in their sleep. Gunther took a step closer and his boot crunched a brittle piece of bone that had rolled out on to the landing when Ralf opened the dungeon door. The bone cracked loudly and the bat nearest the door opened its beady red and black eyes. The creature shrieked in anger at the two intruders, a cry so high-pitched it was almost beyond their hearing. All the nearby bats opened their eyes as well and hissed at the German soldiers.

  "We should get out of..." Ralf began, but he never got the chance to finish his sentence. In that moment thousands of bats dropped from their perches and flew at the open doorway, the great mass of them forming a cloud like some massive black, silken shroud. Ralf and Gunther threw themselves down on the flagstones, wrapping their arms across the backs of their heads for protection. The flapping of so many wings and the bats' shrieking went on and on and on, as wave upon wave of bats swooped and thrashed at the intruders before escaping up the stairwell.

  Moments later the sounds of gunfire and men screaming could be heard echoing down the stairwell from above as the bats flew up to the ground floor, startling the Panzergrenadiers as they entered the castle. Finally, after what seemed an eternity, the last of the bats had fled the dungeon, leaving Ralf and Gunther alone on the stone floor. Eventually the noises from the top of the stairwell died away too, to be replaced by an eerie silence. After checking there were no more bats lurking inside the dungeon, Ralf pulled himself upright. He helped Gunther to his feet and the two friends checked each other for bites or wounds from the colony of bats. They were surprised to find themselves unscathed, although their uniforms were badly soiled by bat droppings.

  "Those can't have been vampyr," Gunther said. "They would have eaten us alive otherwise."

  "Remember what happened at Ordzhonikidze?" Ralf asked. "The vampyr sent thousands of bats to attack us, so many they blotted the moon from the sky. This must be where Constanta kept them." He retrieved the burning torch from where he'd dropped it, using the flames to illuminate the dungeon interior. Now the bats had left, a few blackened, greasy windows could be seen in the far corners of the chamber close to the ceiling. Also visible was the outline of a hatch set high in a wall with footholds in the stone beneath it.

  "That probably leads to a concealed tunnel of some sort," Ralf speculated. "It could be where they let the bats in and out."

  But Gunther's attention was elsewhere. He pointed past Ralf to one of the torture victims hanging from the opposite wall. When the bats had been hanging from the ceiling, their presence stopped any light seeping into the chamber from the high windows. As a consequence, all the captives had been shrouded in shadow, their faces and features hard to make out in the murk. Now the bats were gone, there was a little more illumination. The half-naked figure chained to the wall opposite them was twitching, fingers flexing as if trying to get their attention.

  "Ralf, that poor bastard over there... I think he's alive!" Gunther gasped.

  "God in heaven, you're right," Ralf whispered.

  The two friends scrambled over the uneven carpet of rotting corpses towards the survivor, trying to ignore the sound of their boots crunching the decomposing bones and organs underfoot. When they reached the bedraggled figure, they eased his hands out of the cold metal manacles, a task made easier by the prisoner's chronic emaciation. His wrists were red and raw from where he'd tried to escape his bindings, the skin worn away right down to the bone. A German soldier's uniform hung in shreds from his body, ribs protruding against skin, ankles bloody from where chains had bound his legs in place. Faeces and urine stained what was left of his trousers, while his hair was knotted into greasy cords and a wispy beard hung from his hollow-cheeked face. The prisoner coughed and gasped, trying to stammer out a few words, but his throat was too dry to speak.

  Gunther pulled a drinking flask from his waist belt and tipped a few drops on the survivor's lips to moisten them. "Slowly... slowly... Not too much at once," he warned.

  The prisoner nodded, letting the precious liquid trickle into his mouth. He swallowed and swallowed again, then licked his lips and smiled.

  "Th-thank you..." His eyes rolled back into his head and he fell silent again. Ralf pressed an ear against the survivor's chest, listening intently.

  "It's okay. He passed out, that's all."

  "Poor bastard," Gunther muttered. He shook his head in amazement that anyone could have survived in such conditions. "Has he got any identification on him?"

  Ralf felt inside the man's tattered tunic and discovered an oval-shaped metal ID disc. "Yes. His name's..." Ralf peered at the disc as if unable to believe its inscription. "Karl Richter."

  Gunther shrugged. "Richter's not an uncommon name. Our last radio operator in the Panzer, Helmut, he was called Richter too, remember?"

  "Of course I remember," Ralf snapped. "Don't you get it? This is Karl, Helmut's brother!"

  It was another three hours before Karl was able to speak again. By then he'd been moved up to the ground floor and the dungeon had been sealed shut once more. Ralf and Gunther looked after Karl while Hans and the other Panzergrenadiers secured their hold on Castle Constanta. Sentries were posted along the battlements while patrols went out to forage for food and fuel. A thorough search of the building found it had been stripped clean by the last occupiers with no ammunition, water or other supplies left behind. The castle was intact but utterly deserted, not a living soul within two miles of its stone towers and imposing presence.

  Ralf and Gunther found Karl a fresh uniform by borrowing spare items of clothing from the other soldiers. Gunther smashed apart a set of six wooden chairs to provide fuel for a fire to warm enough water so the pitiful survivor could wash and cleanse himself. Once Karl was in the bath, the embers of the fire were used to cook a makeshift meal of cured sausage and tinned tomatoes augmented with some stale crusts of black bread. The Panzergrenadiers were sick to the stomach of this meagre fare, having eaten nothing else for days on end, but Karl fell on the food as if it were a feast fit for a king. He wolfed down the meal, drinking flask after flask of water to quench his thirst. Finally, when his hunger was sated, Karl asked Gunther for a haircut and a shave.

  "I'd do it, but I doubt my arms have got the strength left in them," he said apologetically.

  Gunther used the sharpened blade of his bayonet to slice away the mass of Karl's matted brown hair before shifting his attention to the wispy beard. As the last vestiges of his captivity were removed, Karl told his rescuers how he'd ended up in the dungeon of Castle Constanta.

  "I always wanted to be in a Panzer crew like my brother Helmut, but when the time came I was only deemed good enough for the Panzergrenadiers. I was part of the initial assault upon Stalingrad back in August 1942. We stormed across the steppe from the Don River to the Volga in a day. I remember standing on a hillside looking down on Stalingrad in the late afternoon. Stukas and Heinkels had been carpet-bombing the city for hours. Fireballs and columns of smoke rose a mile into the sky and we could smell the burning from where we were. The river was on fire, oil slicks ablaze from where ships had been blown apart on the water. The Luftwaffe did victory rolls overhead and we all cheered them until we were hoarse. I t
hought victory could only be days away since we'd bombed the Bolsheviks into submission. But we didn't realise our bombs had turned the city into a killing ground for the Russians to use against us."

  Ralf nodded, his face stricken by the memories of his own experiences in Stalingrad. Too many good men had been lost fighting for that damned city, Karl's brother among them. Did the survivor know what had happened to Helmut? Ralf wasn't sure but decided this wasn't the time to mention it.

  "We were in Stalingrad too, fighting for the Mamaev Kurgan. That bloody hill must have changed hands dozens of times in the months we were there."

  "My unit was further north trying to secure the Red October factory. Not that there was much left of the factory by the time we'd gotten a foothold inside the building - broken glass and twisted metal, all the machinery rusted beyond recognition. Half my comrades were slaughtered in a single Soviet counter-attack at the end of September. After that we were given a new commander, a Rumanian Hauptmann from this area..."

  "Constanta?" Gunther asked.

  "Yes," Karl replied, puzzlement evident in his face. "You know about him?"

  Gunther and Ralf exchanged a look. "Our paths have crossed his," Ralf said.

  "Well, he said he must become like the enemy to defeat the enemy; fight like them to have a hope of winning the city. We would only attack at night. In daytime we would use the sewers and tunnels to stay out of sight, travelling underground to infiltrate the Russian positions. We would take no prisoners, soldier or civilian. We had to fight without mercy, give no quarter."

  "Sounds like Constanta," Ralf agreed. "When did you begin to suspect what he was?"

  "To prove his resolve to us, the Hauptmann paraded a local girl in front of us. She couldn't have been more than thirteen or fourteen, but the Russians had used her to spy on our movements, or so Constanta said. Then he ripped her throat open with his teeth and sucked the blood from her neck. All the time he was draining her dry, he was looking at us and making sure we had no illusions about the sort of monster who was in command. I think he wanted us to be more afraid of him than of the Bolsheviks. It worked."