In_Darkness_Dwells

In Darkness Dwells

The Romanian sky was black as ink, held hostage by the greedy clouds hoarding the moonlight while soaking the darkened land in freezing rain. The autumn chill weighed heavily and fogged the breath of man and creature alike. In this small village of Runa, everyone should have been asleep in their beds, kept warm by quilts made with love and fires crackling in hearths, but there was little peace this night.

“The Lord rebukes you, O Devil, for he came into the world and dwelt among men in order to shatter your tyranny and free mankind; hanging on the Cross, he triumphed over all the hostile powers, when the sun was darkened and the earth was shaken, when the graves were opened and the bodies of the Saints rose; he destroyed death by death and conquered you, O Devil, who had the power of death! I adjure you in the name of God who revealed the tree of life and appointed the Cherubim and the fiery sword that turns each way to guard it!”

The timbers of the local church groaned and creaked like a ship at sea, as the house of God tried to contain the malevolence frothing within. Inside, a man lay on the floor, crucified like the effigy of Christ overhead to try and defeat the demon possessing him. He screamed with a voice that wasn’t his and pulled at his binds with strength that he shouldn’t possess. Nearby, the priest stood, reciting the prayers of exorcism with haggard breathing. He held a cross in one hand and a bible in the other, but both were trembling from exhaustion. The demon’s malice was a physical force, washing over him like powerful gale and threatening to knock him off his feet. Each wave felt like someone walking on his grave, filling him with a chill that reached deep into his heart.

“Be rebuked and depart; for I adjure you in the name of him who walked on the water as if it were dry land, and calmed the tempest whose look dries up the abyss and whose threatening makes the mountains melt away! It is this same Lord who now commands you, through us!”

The man howled in retaliation, and his clothes became shredded, ripped away by invisible hands. His muscles undulated beneath his skin as if his body was a sack filled with seething rats, all trying to claw their way out. His flesh was rapidly changing color, switching back and forth from deathly white to darkened and bruised. When it paled, the blackness of his veins was clear as day.

“Fear, come out and depart from this human being, and never return, not hide in him, neither meet nor act upon him, not by night or by day, not at dawn or at noontime, but depart to your own darkness until the appointed day of judgment! Fear God who sits upon the Cherubim and looks down into the abyss; before whom tremble Angels, Archangels, Thrones, Dominions, Principalities, Authorities, Powers, the many-eyed Cherubim and the six-winged Seraphim; before whom tremble the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them!”

The man howled again, his unholy scream accentuated by a crack of lightning. The wind was picking up, hurling the rain at the church windows with seemingly malevolent force.

“Come out and depart from this soldier or Christ our God, for he has been marked with the sign of the Cross and newly enlisted! For it is in His name that I adjure you, the name of the Lord who walks upon the wings of the wind, who makes his Angels spirits and his ministers a flaming fire! Come out and depart from this human being, with all your power and your angels! For the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit is glorified, now and ever, and to the ages of ages! Amen!”

“Amen!” The word was repeated by a dozen frightened villagers, trying to keep their eyes on the candles in their shaking hands. Several of the men bore cuts and bruises, wounds suffered while trying to apprehend the raving beast before them. The crucifixion wasn’t only to aid in the exorcism, it was the only way they could properly restrain him. They were trying to support the priest with their faith, but every time the man screamed, they felt the hatred and malice of the spirit bound within his flesh, and they could smell his breath, stinking of rotting meat.

“God the holy, the fearful, the glorious, incomprehensible and inscrutable in all his works and all his might, who ordained for you, O Devil, the punishment of eternal torment, through us his unworthy servants, orders you, and all the powers that work with you, to depart from him who has been newly sealed in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, our true God!”

The priest barely finished shouting the words, then broke into a coughing fit. It was like ants were crawling through his throat, biting and stinging his flesh. He felt the blood pepper his hand with each hack and tried not to look at the crimson shine catching the light of the torches and candles. The demon was fighting back. Fear gripped the priest, and it took everything he had to resume the prayer.

“Therefore, I adjure you, most wicked, impure, abominable, loathsome and alien spirit: Come out of the man and never again enter into him! Depart, admit the vanity of your power which could not even control the swine!”

Then, everything fell silent, as if all the air had been banished from the church. The rain still pelted the windows, but produced no sound. The priest and the attendants could no longer hear their fearful breathing and racing hearts. It was as if God himself had been left stunned in terror. Then, a lightning bolt struck the church, breaking the silence with a thunderclap that boxed the ears of everyone inside. The windows shattered, filling the air with broken glass while the wind and rain surged inside, blowing out candles and sending bible pages flying. Though every flame was extinguished, light poured into the church from the lightning outside, but not even the booming thunder could drown out the man’s screams.

“Remember him who, at your own request, commanded you to enter into the herd of the swine!” the priest roared, forced to his knees by the overpowering wind. “Fear God, by whose command the earth was made firm upon the waters; who made the heaven, who weighted the mountains in a balance and the valleys on a pair of scales, who placed the sand as a boundary to the sea and a safe path in the raging waters; who makes the mountains smoke at his touch; who clothes himself with light as a garment; who covers over his lofty dwellings with waters; who laid the foundations of the earth so secure that it should never be shaken from them; who lifts up the water and the sea and returns it as rain upon the face of all the earth!”

The priest then watched in horror as the man began to rise in the air, still tied to his cross. He was hanging vertically, upside-down, defying both gravity and God. Then, with one final howl, the man, at last, ripped his hands and feet free from the cross and dropped down onto the floor. He kneeled before the effigy of Christ as if in reverence, but beneath his flesh, his muscles were twisting and changing shape.

He slowly stood up, with all his bones and joints loudly cracking. The men and women behind the priest were either rendered silent by terror or weeping like children. The man was no longer screaming. Instead, he turned and began to approach on unbalanced steps while lightning continued to flash outside, casting his shadow upon the attendants.

“Come out and depart from him who is now preparing for holy illumination!” the priest shouted, pushed by fear for his own life. His words no longer evoked any kind of reaction from the man, not even slowing his steps. Still, he prayed, as it was all he could do. His legs lacked the strength to carry him away. “I adjure you by the saving Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ and his sacred Body and Blood and his awesome return; for he shall come without delay to judge all the earth, and shall assign you, and all the powers working with you, to the fire of hell, having deliver you to the outer darkness, where the worm constantly devours, and the fire is never extinguished!”

The man grabbed the priest’s head, glaring at him with bloodshot eyes and gnashing teeth. Faced with such horror, the priest continued to pray, but his words were hollow, as all faith and courage had left him. “For the power belongs to Christ our God, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and ever unto the ages of ages. Am—”

He was dead before he could finish the prayer.

———-

Samuel Wilks woke with a start, looking around for invisible enemies. What he thought had been a shell going off was simply the train coming to a stop. “Attention, everyone!” a train worker announced in German. “Some debris has fallen onto the tracks ahead. We’ll have to wait for the obstruction to be cleared, but it shouldn’t take long.”

It was the middle of the afternoon, but the sun was quick to set here in the Carpathian Mountains. The region had been buffeted by storms lately, causing the cliffs to crumble and blanket the tracks with debris. This was just one of many stops to clear the way. Sam reached into his coat and checked his revolver. Five bullets. Only when he saw them could he breathe easily.

His body was stiff from sleeping in the hard seat, and he decided to stretch his legs since the train was still. He walked through the alleys and cars, eyeing the other passengers, all of them muttering among each other in German and Russian. Riding from Warsaw to Bucharest, the passengers weren’t exactly the image of wealth and modernity. With his patchwork clothes and shoddy appearance, Sam fit right in.

He went to the dining car and got himself a sandwich and coffee, which he topped off with liquor from his flask. While there, he noticed someone who stood out, a German man wearing a suit, looking like he should be giving a lecture in Munich. He was eating an orange omelet with one hand and reading Kritik der reinen Vernunft by Immanuel Kant with the other. Germans loved arguing about philosophy when they got drunk. Sam had heard that name argued about in a few of the countless German taverns he had visited while bumming across Europe.

Eventually, the tracks were cleared, and the train resumed rolling. Though the hour of his arrival to Bucharest mattered little, Sam was still relieved that they were moving again. Waiting aimlessly left him tightly wound, feeling like a sitting duck in the crosshairs of unknown enemies. The train crawled out of the valley and began its climb up the nearby mountain. With its raised elevation, the passengers could enjoy a better view of the mountains, a picture of priceless beauty. Though the grass was still green, the trees had donned autumn colors, and their leaves now fell like the snowflakes soon to come.

Seeing them, Sam thought back to the Great War, fighting in the trenches. Shells blanketed the landscape like rain, erasing every structure and hint of life to be found. The trees were killed just as easily as the soldiers. Bullets would shred the trunks into woodchips, and explosions stripped the branches of their leaves. Those that survived the incessant gunfire and artillery could not escape the ravages of the war. Though the blood of countless men should have nourished the roots, the toxins of combat had befouled the soil. Rust, lead, and deadly chemicals saturated the earth, leaving it so even weeds struggled to grow. In his post-war journey, Sam had seen lands both untouched by violence and raped by fire and poison. He was glad to have a view like this, to be reminded that even the most horrific war in history could not eclipse all life.

Then, just when he could finally breathe gently, all the air was ripped from his lungs, courtesy of a catastrophic tremor that ran through the train. Sam and countless other passengers were knocked to the floor, feeling it shake beneath them. Sam scrambled to his feet and looked out the window. A boulder had fallen down the mountainside and struck the steam engine, knocking it off the tracks and sending it rolling down the cliff back into the valley below, and it was pulling all the other cars with it. “Oh God,” Sam gasped. It was the only thing he could think to say.

They were falling over one after another, becoming a wave of death moving down the line. The passengers were screaming as the car began to tip. In anticipation of the plunge, Sam secured his belt around a railing and gripped it with all his strength. Then, the world flipped. For the briefest second, his body seemed weightless, and Sam felt his stomach rise up into his throat, then came the first impact as the car toppled over. Every window shattered, and the passengers were thrown around like ragdolls. The train was twisting as it rolled down the cliff, with every car experiencing a mind-jarring tremor with each impact.

Sam clung to the railing with everything he had, feeling his body pulled in all directions. He had experienced something like this before. Every time a crash rumbled through the car, he remembered a shell striking the ground near him and his buddies. The sound, the shockwave, and the jarring force throwing him off his feet shot through his brain like a bullet every second. He kept one eye shut, but the other saw everything. He saw bodies and debris tossed into the air and blood splattering nearby surfaces. Pain replaced the terror in everyone’s scream, then silence as victims lost the ability to voice their fear and suffering. It was impossible to count how many times his car flipped while rolling down the hill. Sam only remembered the final impact of it hitting the valley floor, when it seemed like all of the kinetic energy of the crashing train was transmitted straight through his body. He was robbed of consciousness while cars continued falling like meteors.

Sam didn’t know when he woke up, only that every inch of his body was in excruciating pain, and his entire skeleton felt like crushed cardboard. It was a struggle to think, and his position didn’t help. The train car had landed on its side, leaving him suspended from the railing by his belt. It took everything he had, but he reached into his coat and grabbed his revolver. The sun was setting, and the last light struggled to fill the valley, so he had to count the bullets by feel. Five bullets, he had five bullets.

He put his gun away and tried to look around. Even without the darkness, the crash had wrecked his vision. It was like his eyes could only communicate with his brain through Morse code. He reached up and tried to unfasten his belt, but under tension, his buckle might as well have been a steel lock. He leaned his head back and groaned. Something answered. Sam looked over, spotting movement farther down in the car and hearing sounds he couldn’t recognize. He focused his gaze, trying to sharpen the blurry world around him. There appeared to be someone in the wreckage, crouching over another person, but Sam couldn’t see what they were doing.

“Hey,” Sam groaned. The stranger perked up. “Please, help me.” The stranger stood up and turned around. Sam could only see their lanky body in silhouette, but they appeared to be naked. “Please, help me,” he said again, this time in German.

The stranger replied, not with words, but with a malicious growl. Hearing that sound, primal fear flared up within Sam, coursing through his brain and forcing his grogginess aside. Half-dead from the crash, his body suddenly felt a rush of strength. The stranger stepped forward into the palest, dimmest light in the valley. Sam could see the man’s body; it was ghostly, but looked like it had been badly burned. His face remained in darkness, but blood was dripping down his chest. Sam pulled out his revolver and took aim with a shaky hand, feeling like a worm on a hook.

“Stay back, I’m warning you.” The stranger took another step forward, and in the darkness, Sam could see the gleam of its eyes, staring at him without a shred of humanity. “Stay back!”

He was about to pull the trigger, but then he heard voices outside the train. “Hello! Can anyone hear me?” they shouted.

“Here! I’m in here!” Sam replied in English. He dared a glance away from the stranger. “Help me!” He could see light in the broken windows above his head and hear multiple footfalls as people climbed atop the overturned car. He looked back, and the stranger had vanished. Or had they been there at all?

Men and women climbed into the car, fellow passengers like himself holding candles, torches, and a few intact lanterns. They helped Sam get down from the railing and carried him out. As soon as he touched the ground, he collapsed. Finally, his body could begin to recover, but there was a lot of damage to fix. A small crowd of fellow survivors was working its way down the train, pulling out the wounded from among the piles of dead. Few had come out of the crash alive. By the time the survivors had gathered, the sun had fully set, and the night was upon them.

“What do we do?”

“Where do we go?”

“Is it safe out here?”

The survivors all tossed these questions back and forth until, finally, someone stepped forward. It was the well-dressed German man Sam had seen earlier. “People, we are not without hope. If we are where I think we are, the village of Runa is not far from here. Let us make camp here tonight, gather our strength, nurse our wounds, and then set out in the morning.”

It was as good a plan as any, so the survivors set out to find food and bedding in the train. They set up camp in the wrecked cars, building fires to keep the autumn chill at bay, but that wasn’t all. The mountains were full of bears, wolves, lynxes, and plenty else. Fortunately, enough firewood and coal were available to keep the fires burning through the night. Sitting by one fire, Sam heard a wolf howl in the distance and checked his revolver. He had to be sure. Five bullets. He slept lightly that night, cursed with soreness.

No one was quick to rise the next morning. Everyone was feeling the trauma of yesterday’s wounds, and the bruises were vast and many.

“Those of us who can travel should head for Runa. Those who can’t should wait here for help to arrive,” said the German man in his native language.

“We should do something about these bodies first,” said Sam in kind. “We need to collect them, pile them up, anything. We can’t leave them where they are to be scavenged and rot.”

“American, yes? You speak German?”

“I know enough to get by, along with some French and a few words in Italian. If we don’t have the strength to deal with the dead, we won’t make it far through the forest. Besides, the fact that our train never made it to Bucharest will draw plenty of attention. We shouldn’t have to wait long for help to arrive.”

“You make a good point.” He extended his hand. “Volker Hofmann.”

Sam shook his hand. “Sam Wilks.”

The word was spread among the survivors that the dead were to be collected. They moved through the cars, grabbing mangled bodies and dragging them out into the sun. Women cried, and men crossed themselves, trying not to look at the smashed and contorted faces of the victims. Luck, that was all that separated the two groups. Had they been sitting in a different location, had they grabbed onto something else for support, or had they simply faced in another direction, they would be dead. That was all that separated the corpses and those who now carried them. Sam wished this was a new experience, but he had done more than his fair share of hauling corpses during the war. At least these bodies hadn’t been chopped into pieces by artillery and machine gun fire.

They laid the bodies out in the morning sun, but a scream soon cut through the autumn air. A pack of wolves was feeding on one of the corpses and dragging another into the woods. Enraged by their audacity, one of the survivors ran over while screaming and waving a stick. They felt no fear at his charge, and one leaped into the air with its jaws spread wide. Sam drew his pistol and fired a single shot, piercing the wolf’s heart and killing it midair. The rest continued the attack, biting the man from all sides and tearing into his flesh. He screamed in agony as his blood soaked the ground. Sam, Volker, and the other men charged in with any makeshift weapon in reach. The wolves snarled and howled, refusing to give up their food.

BOOM!

Volker blasted one of the wolves with a shotgun, knocking it off its feet with its pelt turning red. The crack of a pistol didn’t dissuade the wolves, but the thunderclap of a shotgun decimated their courage. They hastily retreated, but surprising everyone, the wolf Volker shot slowly got up and limped away, wounded but alive.

“We might have to rethink splitting up,” said Sam, panting heavily while others tended to the wounded man. He instinctively checked his pistol and removed the empty bullet casing. Four bullets.

“We can’t stay here, not with those prowlers close by,” said Volker.

“It’s because of those prowlers that we have to. Almost half the survivors can’t travel. What do you think is going to happen to them if they get left behind? Besides, how long will it take to reach Runa on foot? A day? Two? Do you really want to be out in those woods during the night?”

“My friend, I’ve hunted lions and elephants in the Savanah. This is not my first time in the great outdoors.”

“Well when you were in the Savanah, were you shooting those lions with fucking rock salt like you did that wolf? You do that to a bear, and all you’ll accomplish is pissing it off. He’ll take the time to eat your soul along with your face. At least here, we have some decent shelter. I’m not normally one for waiting, but I say we dig in, try to fortify our defenses, and wait for help to arrive.”

“And the bodies? They’ll lure every beast of the wild.”

“We could just stick them in one of the cargo cars.”

“If you do that, the moment you open those doors again, you’ll be awash in a tidal wave of maggots. We need to bury them.”

“Less than a dozen of us came out of that train alive, and not unscathed. Digging a grave for every corpse simply isn’t feasible.” Sam then paused. “Actually, there may be a way to do one without having to do the other.”

The dead bodies were lined up at the very base of the cliff, with the newest addition bearing fresh bite wounds. Sam, Volker, and the few other capable survivors climbed above them with shovels and began digging into the cliff, with all the loose dirt and clay falling down onto the bodies below. It didn’t take much to set off a small landslide, leaving many bodies sufficiently covered. The mass burial was repeated down the line, and once complete, a cross was hammered into the ground.

With that taken care of, the survivors worked on defending themselves from wild animals. One of the cars tipped on its side offered the best defense, and the broken windows overhead were covered up with logs and metal. That night, the survivors huddled together, sleeping on scavenged bedding with what space they could find. Sam stayed up, cooking a can of beans over a fire and drinking. Volker sat across from him, nursing his own liquor bottle with his shotgun across his lap.

“So what business does an American have this deep in Romania?” he asked.

“The same business I have everywhere else: none at all. I’m just wandering across Europe.”

“You didn’t see enough of it during the Great War?” Sam glanced at him. “The way you check your gun five times a day and the way you drink tell me you spent time in a trench.”

“I spent a lot of time in a trench, and plenty other places. Once the war ended, I decided it would be nice to explore Europe without getting shot at, so I’ve just been roaming from one country to the next for the last few years. You’re on the few Germans I met that hasn’t held a grudge.”

“I was never in the war. I’m a scholar, and what is the point of knowledge if I end up dead in a futile battle? What about you? I hope you don’t hold a grudge against my people for the deaths of your friends.”

“I wish I could, I really do, but I can’t. Speaking to prisoners, I learned that your guys really were no different than ours. There was no malice or ideology on the battlefield, just men told to kill each other. We were merely pawns, fighting over nothing.” He paused for moment and eased himself with a sip of spirits. “Anyway, what brings you out here?”

“Runa, that’s where I’m headed. The train crash just made the last leg of my journey extra cumbersome.”

“And what’s in Runa?”

Volker took a long drink from his bottle. “The truth, in all its beauty and horror.”

“And you expect an answer like that to satisfy me?”

The German chuckled. “I’m a psychologist, a doctor and researcher of the mind, from the Wilhelm Wundt Institute for Psychology in Leipzig. I’m looking for someone, someone in Runa I believe is worthy of extensive study.”

“You’re looking for a madman.”

“That wouldn’t be far from the truth. My goal is to find what caused his condition, see if it can be fixed, and if it can’t, then to bring him back to Leipzig for further study.”

“So that’s what the rock salt is for.”

“As much as my colleagues and I would enjoy dissecting his brain, I need him alive. I also brought a couple nets and a steel cage. They’re in one of these cars. Hopefully the cage is intact, it’s worth a great deal of money.”

“Yes, THAT’S what you should be worried about….”

It was another restless night for the survivors. The beasts of the wild showed little fear, sniffing and growling outside the train cars. Fortunately, help arrived the following day. A hunter, passing through the region, spotted the crashed train and returned, leading a party of men on horseback. Tears of joy were shed by many as the survivors were finally rescued. Most of the survivors’ luggage was left on the train, except for the most essential items. A few hours of riding brought them to a muddy road, which they followed to the town of Runa, a small farming community hidden in the mountains. Life here had experienced little development over the centuries. There was no electricity or running water, no cars, and the only machined steel was a handful of shotguns and rifles.

Sam and the other survivors were brought before the mayor in the Town Square. He was a wrinkled man with wool clothes and a bearskin coat, flanked by villagers. “Welcome to Runa. I’m sorry your arrival doesn’t come under better circumstances, but my people will give you shelter as long as you need.”

The villagers appeared genuinely sympathetic to the survivors’ plight, but something felt wrong to Sam. They all looked tired, weathered by stress and fear, but of what? Sam and a few others managed to get rooms above the local tavern, a dream come true for him. It was a quaint establishment, a watering hole born of the soul of Romania. He parked himself at the counter and remained there for the rest of the day, nursing one mug of beer after another. But as afternoon turned to evening, his drunken solitude began to eat at him.

“Where is everyone? This place looks big enough to hold half the village, but the only other drinkers are from the train?”

The bartender, a large man with a thick mustache, shuddered. “It’s not safe to be out at night. Four people have already been killed.”

“What, do the wolves prowl the streets?”

“Wolves don’t kill like this.”

“You’re saying a person is responsible?”

“Not a person, not anymore.” He then spat on the floor to ward off misfortune and refused to say any more.

After some biscuits and rabbit stew, Sam went to bed in a spare room upstairs. He looked outside and expected to see candles burning in windows, much like his own, but shutters had been drawn, and curtains were closed across town. The villagers were blocking out the night as if the darkness was a flood leaking into their homes. They huddled around their fireplaces and surrounded themselves with candles and lamps, hoping the light would keep them safe.

Sleep came easily for Sam, thanks to having a real bed and a belly full of beer. His body was still recovering from the trauma of the crash, so he was out cold, but no matter how deeply he slept, some part of him was always on alert, and it ripped him from his dreams in the middle of the night. A gunshot and a scream rang across the town, opening Sam’s eyes and sending him tumbling out of bed. He grabbed his pistol and checked it. Four bullets.

A second gunshot echoed, and the screaming continued. Sam stood by the window with his pistol in hand. He couldn’t tell where the shots had come from, but it made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. The fearful screaming had now become a wail, a cry of grief. Someone had died this night, and no one who heard it managed to fall back asleep.

The following morning, Sam got up and was given breakfast by the tavern owners. However, as soon as he sat down at his same spot from yesterday, Volker entered the bar. “For God’s sake man, the day has just started.”

“Yes, and I’m already way behind on my drinking. A pint, my good sir,” Sam said to the barkeeper.

“Come on, I need help catching my madman, and you’re the perfect candidate to help me.”

“Can’t you see that I’m busy?” A stein was handed to him, but it was empty. “Excuse me, I know I was rather vague, but when I asked for a pint, I didn’t mean a pint of air.”

The bartender glared at him. “Due to your misfortune, the mayor has asked me to offer room and board to those on the train. I’ve agreed to feed and shelter you, but liquor is another matter. You used up all your free drinks yesterday. If you want a drop, I had better see some money.”

“Et tu, Brute?” Sam stood up and emptied his pockets, building a small pile of garbage on the counter. He had the currency of numerous nations, but unfortunately, they were all just pennies. “There, that should be enough for at least an eye-opener.”

The bartender continued to glare until Volker laid some marks on the counter. “Give him something quick.” The bartender filled a shot glass, and Sam downed it. “Now come on, there is work to be done.”

“Fine, but I want to be able to get absolutely smashed tonight.”

They left the bar, with Sam groaning in the sunlight. “So you got a plan to catch this guy or what? I hope you don’t expect me to put on a wig and be your damsel in distress.”

“I’ve been trying to talk to the people around town about this madman, they’re too afraid to even give me his name. I have managed to learn a few things, though. Follow me.” They went to the town church, only to find that the doors, heavily damaged, were chained shut. “Let’s check around back.”

“If you’re telling me to break into a church, then it’s clear you’re the madman. Wait a second….” Sam held his hand up to the gap between the doors. “There is a strong draft coming through. There may already be a way inside.”

“If what I’ve heard is true, there will be no need to break anything. Come on.”

They went around the side to find all the windows were broken, allowing them to climb in. “Good God,” Sam muttered, looking around.

Many pews had been smashed to pieces, and the floor was covered in shredded bible pages. The effigy of Christ was even missing its head. Birds had already begun making their nests in the rafters and claimed the building as their home, for clearly, this was no longer a House of God.

“What the Hell happened here?”

“Apparently, our madman was the subject of a failed exorcism.”

“And just what is an exorcism?”

“The process of driving out a demon that has possessed a person. Romania is Eastern Orthodox, but when a priest dies while performing an exorcism anywhere in the world, the Vatican hears about it. I have a friend in the clergy who relayed the story to me.”

“And what? You want to prove he wasn’t possessed, but just crazy?”

“Exactly. We’re in the 20th century, but mental illness is still seen as something caused by ghosts and demons, and those who suffer from neurological afflictions are considered morally corrupt and condemned.”

“Look around you, Doc, I think this guy might be the real deal.”

“All I see here is broken glass, wood, and stone, nothing that a mortal man couldn’t accomplish in an agitated state.”

“You said that the priest died while performing the exorcism, right?”

“That’s correct.”

“Did your friend mention how?”

“Only that it was horribly gruesome.”

“Strange.”

“What do you mean?”

“In the war, I’ve seen blood splatter in every way imaginable from every type of wound. Gunshot and knife wounds, artillery shredding, concussive force and beatings, and the most gruesome deaths usually make quite the mess. There are a couple drops of blood on some of these pages and the floor, but I’ve seen nosebleeds make more of a mess. It’s easy to kill someone without leaving traces, but to make it gruesome implies some kind of splatter. The priest couldn’t have been hanged, maybe strangled? Either way, all of my instincts are telling me that something terrible happened here.”

“What are you two doing?!”

Sam spun around and drew his pistol, finding himself staring down the sights at a raven-haired woman. She was in her early twenties and quite attractive, but her scowl was off-putting.

“Sorry about that,” Sam said, lowering his gun.

“Excuse us, please,” said Volker. “My name is Volker Hofmann, a doctor from the Wilhelm Wundt Institute for Psychology in Leipzig. I’m here investigating the rumors of a madman who escaped an exorcism. This is Sam Wilks, my assistant.”

“Whoever you are, you do not have permission to enter this place!”

“People are dying and we’re trying to stop it. Don’t pray for help and expect it to knock.”

“Samuel, you’re not helping. I’m sorry for intruding, Miss….”

“Bucur, Sorine Bucur.”

“Ms. Bucur. I heard that a priest was killed during the ritual.”

“He wasn’t just a priest; he was my father,” she said softly, pressed by grief and rage. She turned to Sam. “He was murdered right where you’re standing.”

“Sorry,” Sam said, stepping away.

“We want to find the man responsible for your father’s death, and prevent further deaths, but no one is willing to answer questions. Please, will you help us?” Volker asked.

“Everyone is afraid to talk, but I’m too angry to remain silent. Call me Sorine.”

“Thank you. What can you tell us about the man in question?”

“His name is Danut Zaituc, a hermit who lives in the outskirts of the village. He is rarely seen, but weeks ago, he started wandering into town, talking to himself and ripping out his hair. When someone tried to help, he attacked them, then ran off. It happened two more times, Danut turning violent whenever someone approached, and on the third occasion, he was captured. He was chained up in an empty shed, in the hopes he would calm down with some time, but he refused to eat or drink, and only spoke in curses and nonsense. We worried that he was suffering rabies, but when he started scrawling things on the wall, my father realized that he was possessed.”

“What happened during the exorcism?” Sam asked.

“I was only there for the first part, before my father sent me away out of fear. It was storming that night, with so much lightning that it was as bright as day. Even outside of the church, I could hear Danut’s howling and the breaking of windows. Then, when others began screaming in terror, I could no longer stay back, and I returned to the church. When I got there, Danut was gone and my father was dead.”

“Do you believe he really was possessed?” Volker asked.

“I looked into Danut’s eyes, and there was nothing human left. What you hunt is no longer a man, but a monster. You can feel it, can’t you? This place is no longer holy, it is cursed. Many others have died since the exorcism, and normally, we would hold the funerals here, but no one dares enter the church. I know my father would chastise me for letting it remain in this condition, but I just can’t fix what has been broken.”

“Someone was killed last night,” said Sam. “Attacking strangers who approach is madness, but entering someone’s home and killing an innocent has to have a reason.”

“Agreed. Man or monster, his actions surely have a pattern. We should meet with the bereaved family, see if there are any clues in the way the victim died. Sorine, we’ll need you to do the talking.”

“At the moment, the body is being cleansed in preparation for the wake. We will have to go later in the day.”

“But wouldn’t now be the best time?” Sam asked. “We need to see the body to know how they died. Should we do it now, before the wake, or later, when their house will be full of guests?”

Sorine sighed. “You may come with me, but please be respectful. These recent tragedies have hampered our traditional funeral rites, but they are still very important to us.” They followed Sorine out of the church and through the town, where she brought them to a house surrounded by mourners. “You two wait out here.”

Sorine went inside, leaving Sam and Volker to stand with the grieving. This was a close-knit community, and the fact that these two strangers were intruding irked many. The men solemnly bowed their heads, hoping it would give them some invisibility. Eventually, Sorine beckoned them inside, but she looked hesitant.

“I’ve convinced the family to let you see the body and ask questions, but one wrong word or move will get you thrown out.” Sorine then flashed Sam a glare of warning.

She led them through the house, smelling of timber and past meals. Everything was handmade and steeped in family history and local superstition. As per tradition, all the doors and windows were open, ensuring the deceased didn’t become trapped in the house, and all the mirrors were covered. They were brought into the parlor, where the grief-stricken parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles were preparing for the wake, trying to keep their minds and hands busy. They wanted to remain strong at the arrival of the two strangers, but it was clear to Sam and Volker that they were on thin ice.

“Sam, Volker, this is George and Olga Cinca. They just lost their daughter, Ilena”

“Please forgive our interruption,” Volker said as he bowed. “We stand before you, offering our respect and condolences, driven here by a sense of urgency. Our goal is to find your child’s killer, and we hope that doing so will offer you and she some comfort.”

Sam likewise bowed his head but said nothing, fearful of a faux pas.

The father, his face still wet with tears, cleared his throat. “What killed our Ilena was no man. It may look like a man, it may walk like a man, but it is a beast from the pits of Hell.”

“I know this is difficult, but could you please tell me what happened last night?” Volker asked. “Any detail, no matter how small, will be of great help to us.”

George turned to his Olga, wringing a handkerchief. “We were awoken last night by the sound of breaking glass. I lit a candle and George got his shotgun from under the bed. We went to our daughter’s room and….” She broke into fresh tears, so her husband spoke up.

“The beast was standing in her room, holding our little girl off her bed by her arms. Her face was covered.”

“Covered with what?” Volker asked.

George shuddered “It wore no clothes, and its body looked like it had been horribly burned and then healed.” Sam thought back to his strange vision when he woke up in the train after the crash. He had hoped it was simply a hallucination caused by trauma, something he had suffered before during the war, but it was beginning to seem like someone had really been there. “My wife screamed and I raised by gun, but I could not fire without hitting Ilena. The monster turned to us and snarled like a mad beast. It dropped Ilena and I fired, wounding it with the first shot, but missing with the second as it jumped out the window. When we rushed to our daughter, she was… she was….”

“I understand. I can’t begin to imagine how terrifying and painful that experience must have been. The monster you speak of was a man named Danut Zaituc. Do you know that name?”

“Yes, everyone knew about Danut, how he had gone mad. His body was in Ilena’s room, but it was no longer his.”

“Did he say anything? Perhaps something he screamed or muttered?”

“He was without mind or soul, a vicious creature.”

“When you said you wounded him, can you be specific? Where did you hit him? What kind of ammo were you using?” Sam asked.

“It was buckshot. I aimed for his chest, but the gun kicked and I winged his shoulder.”

“And you said he jumped out the window. Did you see him run off?”

“No, it was too dark, and he was fast, very fast.”

“With your permission, we would like to examine your daughter’s wounds. How she died may give us a hint to tracking him down.”

“She is in her room. I will show you,” George said. He brought them upstairs to a door, but hesitated to open it. “What that monster did to her… no man could have done it.”

He opened the door, and they entered Irena’s room. The autumn wind blew through the broken window, and the cloudy sky cast the room with gray light. Handmade toys sat on shelves, simple dolls staring into nothingness with button eyes. She lay on the bed, covered by a white sheet, with an anxious young man sitting nearby. Per tradition, bodies had to be observed until they were buried for protection against evil spirits.

“Andrei, you can go,” George said, ushering the young man outside. He then turned to Sorine and two men. “Please, be kind to her, and let her have her dignity.”

“Of course,” Sorine replied.

The door was closed behind them, and the three were left alone with her. At that moment, the weight hit them, the presence of a slain innocent. A young life had been cut short, leaving only a husk filled with the pain and love of her family.

“In Romania, death is something to be celebrated,” Sorine whispered. “It means a loved one is ascending to the afterlife, a place of serenity where no pain can reach them. You don’t say goodbye, you say good luck.” She walked over and placed her hand on Ilena’s covered forehead. “But when a child dies, even the most faithful struggle to find beauty in their passing. Rather than rewarded in Heaven, it’s hard not to feel they have been cheated on Earth.” She took a deep breath.

“Sorine….”

“She’s the sixth person Danut killed. The second was killed during the night after leaving my father’s funeral. The third? Killed after leaving the second’s funeral. Our funerals last for days, usually involving singing, games, and masks, but no more. Bad enough we are losing so many friends and family, now we’re too afraid to mourn them properly. Danut, whoever or whatever he is now, truly has lost his soul, for it is clear that nothing is sacred to him.” She then turned away and sat in the nearby chair. “Go on, then. Get what you came here for.”

Volker approached the bed and murmured a small prayer in German, then slowly pulled back the sheet to see Ilena’s face. “Oh Dear God,” he hissed, staggering back and covering his mouth.

Sam rushed over to see what had shocked him so. “Sweet Christ,” he muttered.

Ilena’s eyes were gone and her skull was completely hollow, like a carved pumpkin awaiting its candle.

“That’s exactly what my father looked like after the exorcism,” Sorine cursed after looking. “His brain had been sucked right out of his skull, leaving two empty pits where the windows to his soul used be.”

“Volker, please tell me you’ve seen something like this in the past, because not even No Man’s Land had shit like this.”

Volker was just barely keeping his breakfast down. “In a-ancient Egypt, when pre-preparing bodies for mummification, the brains would be pulled out of their noses with a metal hook. Perhaps this is some kind of ritualistic practice, similar to—”

“For God’s sake, man! This was not done with a metal hook!”

“Keep your voice down!” Sorine hissed.

“George said Danut was covering Ilena’s face. It’s possible that Danut did something to liquify her brain and then consumed it through her sockets. It’s not demonic possession, it’s deranged cannibalism.” Sam grumbled in annoyance and then examined the wall beside the bed. “What are you searching for?”

“I may not be a fancy doctor or historian, but I learned plenty of interesting things in the war, like what happens when soft stuff gets hit with hard stuff. Ah, here we go.” He held up a doll from a shelf above the bed, showing its face had been torn. He removed the rest, revealing several pockmarks in the wall, with several lead pellets embedded in the wood. “George said he winged Danut with buckshot, so there should be some kind of splatter, and here it is, take a look.”

Along with buckshot, the wall was also peppered with dark tissue, like drops of tar. Volker leaned in for a closer look. “What is that?”

“It sure as shit ain’t blood or flesh, at least not from a human, and you can believe that. That is from something demonic.”

“They also said his body looked molted, like he had been badly burned and then healed. This could be the result of some kind of horrible infection that’s addled his brain and distorted his flesh.”

“Look, I wasn’t a choir boy growing up, and I get that you’re trying to look at this thing scientifically, but it’s pretty clear you’re dealing with something demonic.”

“Well we won’t know until we find him.”

“No, not until YOU find him. You hired me to help you catch a madman, not a monster. I’m not looking to get my brain sucked out of my eyes by some demon in human skin. I quit.”

He then walked out of the room, ignoring all voices.

Later that day, after attending Ilena’s wake, Sorine visited the tavern to find Sam at the counter, nursing a half-empty mug. “Volker told me you would be here.”

“It’s a small town. There really isn’t anywhere else for me to go,” he replied with slurred speech.

“He also told me that you were broke. How did you afford that?”

“I’m no stranger to doing odd jobs, or even begging. The barkeeper gives me a drink for every chore I do. This nectar of the gods is my reward for sweeping the floor. He told me he’ll give me a shot for each rat I manage to kill. Hopefully there are enough for me to get totally shit-faced and forget everything about today.”

“So you’re really just quitting on us?”

“What’s the point of working for booze money if my job gives me even more reason to drink? I saw the inside of a little girl’s hollowed-out skull. Even after all the shit I witnessed in the war, that still left me shaking.”

“Sam, we need your help, and you know it. Don’t walk away from us.”

“Don’t talk like you know me. You don’t know me. You don’t know the things I’ve done. I’m not a fancy doctor or some hero from your crazy folk tales. I’m just a guy who rolled into town off a cliff. You got a whole village of people who can help you.”

“Everyone is too afraid. After what happened in the church, hope has left them. All they wish to do now is hide and wait for this evil to eventually leave.”

“Well winter is coming, so unless Danut gets mauled by a bear or succumbs to his wounds, he’ll probably freeze to death.”

“He’ll kill us all before then.”

“So then leave. I thought you Romani were wanderers.”

“This is our home. Our ancestors put down roots here, and we can’t just pack up and run.”

“Sure you can, it’s easy.”

“Oh yeah? What are you running from?” Sam didn’t answer. “I thought so. Volker and I aren’t giving up, and neither should you. We’re going to hunt down this monster and we could appreciate your help.”

“I already have more than my fair share of demons. I don’t need to go chasing after them.”

“Well it’s not like you have anything better to do.” She turned around and walked away.

“I got some fucking rats to kill!” Sam shouted as she left.

Sam’s mood didn’t improve for the rest of the day. He worked around the tavern to earn his drinks, all while muttering better responses he could have used on Sorine. That night, though he went to bed in Romania, his dreams carried him back to France. America was only in the war for a year, but that was long enough for the horrors of war to be forever etched into Sam’s soul.

He could still smell the spilled blood and voided bowels of the slain, and the pungent stink of burning gunpowder. How many days did he spend in those trenches? As a member of the 315th Infantry Regiment, all he and his fellow troops could do was hide in their holes, waiting for death, while occasionally shooting at enemies they couldn’t even see. When it rained, all they could do was shiver, and when they did advance, they ran in an awkward shamble, all suffering from trench foot. Their uniforms were caked with mud from crawling across the ground and shredded from barbed wire. Machine gun fire chopped men into pieces, making it look like their bodies were exploding from the inside.

Hiding behind a tank, Sam and several others made it to an enemy trench, finally able to look their foes in the eyes. He now used his rifle to stab and slash at his opponents, slipping his bayonet between their ribs like he was stabbing a pillow. Those beyond his reach, he dispatched with his trusty revolver. How strange that something so small as a bullet could end lives so easily. A simple piece of lead could erase memories, dreams, fear, pain, and love and turn human beings into nothing more than cooling meat.

Sam couldn’t remember the date, as the days all melted together. He didn’t know when it was that that grenade landed in front of him. All he remembered was the flash, brighter than the sunrise, and the sound of the explosion, like—

Sam bolted out of bed, awoken once again by the sound of a gunshot. However, unlike the night before, it didn’t happen in some house down the road. Instead, it was right down the hall. Sam grabbed his pistol and checked it. Four bullets. He ran out into the hall, driven by primal instinct and a soldier’s restlessness. He could hear movement and sobbing in the tavernkeeper’s bedroom. He kicked the door open, finding the barman dead on the floor beside his shotgun. His skull had already been hollowed out. The man’s wife was cowering in the corner, as before her stood Danut, growling like a hellhound with a sickening gurgle in his throat.

As he stepped forward, Sam raised his gun. “Danut!”

The ghoul turned to him, staring with soulless eyes that gleamed in the dark, and screamed with an inhuman voice of wrathful bloodlust. Sam pulled the trigger, drilling a hole through the center of Danut’s heart and severing his spine, causing instant death. Danut collapsed like a puppet with his stringers cut, and it was like the world had frozen. The barman’s wife was still weeping in the corner, but Sam couldn’t hear her, for to him, all seemed silent. He had killed numerous men during the war, but this felt different from all of them. He didn’t feel weighed down by guilt, questions, or terror. He didn’t feel sin dripping from his hands like blood, and he took a shuddering breath, breathing the clear air as though he had just pulled off his gas mask in the trenches.

“It’s over.” He then grabbed Danut’s cold wrist and dragged him out of the room, with other guests hesitantly stepping out to see what was happening. Sam pulled the corpse outside into the middle of the street. “Everyone! It’s dead! The monster is dead!”

He repeated it in every language he knew, while all around him, candles were lit, and fearful villagers came out of their homes. Several were carrying weapons out of caution, and Volker and Sorine were among those gathering. Under the light of torches, the villagers looked upon the slain beast, gasping in both horror and relief. They nudged it with their feet and poked it with whatever they had in hand, making sure it was dead.

“Let me through, please!” Volker exclaimed, worming his way through the crowd until he could see the body up close. “My word,” he gasped.

Danut was nothing like what he was before the exorcism. His entire body appeared layered with an infected scar, rough with crusted tissue like tree bark, and leaking pus like it was sweat. His muscles and skeletal structure also appeared to be undergoing transformations as well. The jagged tips of bones had torn free of his flesh, growing too fast for his skin to cover them. His feet had grown longer, letting him stand with his heels off the ground, and his toes and fingers were growing claws in place of nails. His cheeks were torn like a horrific smile, and he had a vertical wound going down the middle of his face as if he had been slashed with a sword. His mouth was slightly open, showing that the middle two teeth on his upper and lower jaw had extended and sharpened.

“Volker, I’d be very interested to know what I’m looking at here,” said Sam.

“I… I honestly have no idea. I’ve never seen anything like this. This is…”

“Monstrous,” Sorine muttered.

The mayor stepped forward and grimaced as he looked at the body. “Everyone, gather wood and oil. We’re going to burn this thing tonight, until not even bones remain. The sun shall shine on a valley freed of evil.” Everyone began to cheer and pray to God to voice their gratitude, and the mayor turned to Sam and shook his hand. “This town and I owe you a debt that can never be repaid. You’ve saved us all, and freed us from the oppression of terror. May God smile upon you always, just as he smiled upon you tonight.”

“Thank you, I just wish I could have saved the barkeeper.”

“You’ve saved the town, no more can be asked of you than—”

The mayor was cut off as he fell to the ground. A fearful scream silenced the celebration, and all eyes turned back to Danut, back on his feet and holding the mayor off the ground by the ankle. Sam raised his pistol and took aim, but Danut swung the screaming mayor like a pillow, smashing the two men together and knocking Sam through the air. Danut did it to everyone still in reach, forcing them back.

He then held the mayor by the shoulders, covered in blood and barely conscious. The few men with guns wanted to shoot, but they risked hitting the mayor. Then, fear robbed them of the ability to pull the trigger. Danut’s jawbone split into a pair of mandibles, followed by his cranium. His entire skull opened up into four segments, like a flower, filled with teeth, and what had originally been his brain was now a writhing mass of tentacles.

“Oh God,” the mayor gasped with his last shred of coherence.

The tentacles shot into his eyes, and Danut enveloped the mayor’s head with his own. The four elongated incisors at the ends of the segments perfectly hooked onto the ridges of the mayor’s cranium, ensuring that he couldn’t pull himself free. The mayor jerked and spasmed as his brain was devoured, with everyone unable to do anything but scream in terror. It was only a handful of moments, then Danut dropped the mayor’s corpse, his skull completely hollowed out.

“Monster!” Volker roared, raising his shotgun and blasting Danut with rock salt.

The beast staggered back, momentarily disoriented, then pounced on a fallen woman and began to feed. A man with a pitchfork ran over and stabbed Danut in the back, causing him to release the dead woman and howl in pain. He pulled himself off the pitchfork and turned around, slashing the man across the face with his claws. He fell back, screaming in agony and pouring blood, and Danut was immediately upon him. A bullet from a M1893 rifle pierced the monster’s chest from the side, wounding him, but failing to interrupt his feeding.

After hollowing out the pitchfork-wielder, he pounced on a woman, proceeding to suck the life out of her skull. Several men gathered around and began beating on him with shovels and torches, but Danut knocked them back with a swing of his arm and retreated several meters. Crouching on all fours, he released a furious snarl, with the four segments of his skull shaking like vocal cords.

“Don’t let it get away!” Sorine yelled as she grabbed a rock and threw it with all her strength. The rock struck Danut in the head, failing to wound him, but drawing his ire. He charged forward with ravenous fury and pounced on her, only to be slammed midair with another burst of rock salt from Volker. He rolled across the ground and darted into a nearby house for cover.

“There are people in there!” one man yelled as a trio of screams echoed from within.

He and several others were about to charge inside, but Danut burst out of the upstairs window and back into the street. He gripped a child’s severed head between his four mandibles and glared at the men with soulless eyes. One man screamed in fury and attacked with an axe. Danut dodged and slashed his throat with his claws, only to be struck in the shoulder by another rifle bullet. Having finished devouring the child’s brain, he crushed the hollow skull between his mandibles and went after the man with a rifle.

The beast dodged two rounds as he ran and pounced on the shooter. He raised his rifle, locking it between Danut’s mandibles with the brain tentacles trying to reach him like striking snakes. Sam ran over with a dropped axe and buried it in Danut’s back, drawing another shriek of agony. The beast moved away, facing the villagers now coming together with weapons in their hands. He gave one final threatening roar and then turned around, disappearing into the darkness.

“God help us,” one man said.

“This is not God’s fight,” said Sorine, “it is our own. We’ve managed to drive it off, but it will return, and when it does, we’ll be ready. Next time, we’ll kill it.”

The curtain of terrified silence had been broken. The villagers knew the face of their enemy and could no longer ignore what was happening.

“So, are you ready to believe that this is legitimate demonic possession?” Sam asked Volker.

The German sighed and opened his shotgun, discharging the two spent shells. “I’m going to need new ammo.”

The next day, the townsfolk gathered in the center of the village to devise a plan. The mayor was dead, so all the most respected men in the community were standing in the tavern, arguing about what should be done.

“Let’s form a hunting party, get out there, and kill it!”

“We should trap it in a building a burn it down!”

“We need to get help from outside the town!”

“God is punishing us for our sins! We must repent or we will all be killed!”

“We must abandon the village! This land is cursed!”

Sam, Volker, and Sorine sat in the back, listening to the rabble.

“We’re not going to get anywhere like this,” said Sam, turning to Sorine. “Shouldn’t you get in there? What happened to all that “this is our fight” puff you were throwing out last night?”

“I’m simply the daughter of a dead priest. You think they’ll listen to me?”

Finally, Volker stepped forward. “ENOUGH!” he boomed, silencing everyone. “Please, listen to what I have to say. Now it’s clear this monster is not something of our world, but it seems to follow the behavioral patterns of a typical nocturnal predator. We’re its prey, and it’s feeding. If you remain scattered in your homes, it’ll just keep picking us off every night. I propose we gather every villager and sequester them here in the tavern and the surrounding buildings.

We’ll put up walls and barricades between the houses to create a box with one opening. Then, when the monster returns, it will be drawn to where all its food has gathered. We lure it into the box and attack it from all sides.”

“We tried that last night,” one man argued. “It’s fast, strong, and doesn’t die. We can’t pin it down, chase it, or kill it.”

“Back in the train wreckage, along with my luggage, there is a cage I brought with me to deal with him. It’s heavy, and takes several men to move, but it’s built to hold wild lions and rhinos. If we can transport the cage here and drive the monster inside, then it will be trapped. After that, we just stick our guns between the bars and shoot it until its reduced to pulp. Powerful as it may be, it is just a mindless beast, and I’m sure it can be killed.”

It seemed the best idea, so Volker, Sam, and Sorine set out on horseback with several other men. They brought a cart with them to transport the cage, but their travel time slowed to a crawl once they left the road. Nevertheless, they reached the train late in the morning, no different from when they left it.

“Has no one really come to investigate this?” Sam asked in disbelief. “A train just goes missing and neither Warsaw nor Bucharest think to send anybody to take a look?”

“Considering how much debris was on the tracks on our way here, it’s possible that help simply can’t reach us. All it takes is a foot of bent rail to keep any trains from coming through,” said Volker.

“Over here!”

Everyone’s attention was drawn to Sorine, waving them over from down the line. They arrived to find several dead Romanian soldiers, all showing signs that they had been slain by Danut. Numerous bullet casings littered the ground, indicating they had tried to put up a fight, but it was clear how well that worked. There were also hoofmarks, showing where their horses had panicked and taken off.

“Once these guys are reported missing, help will surely arrive,” said one man.

“But it took them this long to get here on horseback. The tracks must be completely unusable. There is no telling how many men they’ll send or how long it’ll take to get here,” said Sam. He crouched down and examined the bodies and the torches they had carried. “This happened recently. No more than twelve hours ago.”

“So Danut came here after we drove him off? But why?” Sorine asked.

“Oh God, look over there,” said Volker. He pointed to the base of the cliff, where the dead passengers had been buried. They hesitantly approached, finding the mass grave dug up and all the corpses missing.

“We wounded him last night, so he came here to feed and regain his strength,” said Sam.

“How many people were buried here?” Sorine asked with her face turning pale.

“Dozens,” Sam muttered.

“This doesn’t make sense,” said Volker. “I can understand digging them up to feed, but why take the bodies? He left the dead soldiers behind.”

“Who knows how that monster thinks. Let’s just get the cage and get out of here. I don’t want to be out in these woods when it gets dark,” said Sam.

The group worked fast, finding the cargo car with Volker’s cage inside. Fortunately, the car hadn’t landed on its side, so they got the hulking steel craft out. It was not an easy task, as the cage was large and extremely heavy, but that raised everyone’s hopes that it would work. If a rampaging rhino couldn’t smash its way out, then even Danut would struggle. Once they got the cage onto the cart, they left the area as quickly as possible. They also took the dead soldiers to provide a proper burial at Runa and use their equipment.

They arrived at Runa just as the sun was approaching the horizon. The villagers had been busy turning the Town Square into a fortress. Barricades were erected between the buildings to create a ring, and all outward-facing doors and windows were boarded up. All the villagers were gathering in a few buildings, huddling together in fear of the coming night. It would be a cramped, uncomfortable evening with little sleep, but it was the safest place for everyone.

Sam, Volker, and all the men were anxious, each armed with whatever weapons they could get. Hammers, sickles, and hatchets hung from belts, pitchforks and knives were tied to shotguns and rifles as makeshift bayonets, axes and scythes were sharpened, and wooden spears were distributed to the women as the last line of defense. Numerous torches and lanterns burned in the Town Square, keeping the area lit so Danut couldn’t sneak in. Their defenses had one weakness: an opening meant to lure Danut in so they could attack from all sides. All they had to do was wait, but that in itself was agonizing.

The men paced back and forth, peaking through the boarded-up windows. Those with rifles sat up on the roofs, trying not to shiver. As the hands of the tavern clock reached ever higher, no sightings were reported, but they could hear plenty of noise in the village. An inhuman growl echoed, accentuated by the occasional snarl.

“Come on, you bastard,” Sam muttered, standing on the tavern porch with Volker.

“Do you think he knows we’re here?” Volker asked.

“He’s already circled our location twice, so there’s no doubt about it. I don’t know if he’s smart or a coward.”

Sam checked his gun for the umpteenth time that night. Three bullets. Shotgun shells were aplenty, and veterans like himself living in Runa had a stash of rifle rounds, but no one had any pistol ammunition.

“I must ask, why do you check your gun so often? Even when everything is safe and quiet, I see you checking that thing. That cylinder is going to pop out soon if you don’t ease up.”

Sam sighed. “This is the Colt 1851 Navy Revolver that my grandfather used in the American Civil War. It served him well then, so I brought it with me to use in the Great War. When America first joined the fighting, we had no fucking idea what we were doing. Our tactics hadn’t changed since Gettysburg. We were still doing bayonet charges, for Christ’s sake. Our training left us completely unprepared. Anyway, in one of my first battles in the trenches, we get the order to advance. I run my ass off along with hundreds of other guys, and we’re just getting mowed down.

I drop down into a shell crater and try to shoot over the edge, but my rifle is jammed, and I can’t get it working again. So I take my pistol and fire a couple of rounds, I don’t know how many for sure, but I think it was three. We pause there, and I don’t even think to reload because I’m trying not to throw up. Anyway, we get the order to charge again, and here I am with a busted rifle and what I assume to be three bullets in my revolver. So me and the guys jump into an enemy trench, and now we’re fighting up-close and personal. I see one German and put a round between his eyes—no offense.”

“Some taken.”

“I see a second, and pow, right through the heart. I get the drop on a third and pull the trigger, but all I hear is a click. It turns out I had fired four shots earlier from that pit and didn’t realize it. Anyway, the German soldier points his rifle at me, and I’m sure I’m about to die, but one of my guys shoves me out of the way and ends up taking the bullet in my place. I grab his gun, kill the enemy soldier, and then try to help him, but he’s dead.

I wasn’t paying attention to my ammo, and someone got killed instead of me. Since then, I’ve had this nervous need to always know exactly how many bullets I have in my gun. Before I go to bed, before I get up, any time I’m alone, I just have to be sure. If I don’t, my stomach twists into a knot, and I get overcome with dread. That click of an empty gun echoes through my brain. It’s the sound of death. Speaking of death, do you think this thing really can be killed?”

“Hopefully not yet.”

“Wait, you still want to take him alive?”

“Of course, this is the find of the millennium.”

“That’s insane. We’re literally dealing with a monster of Hell. This beast can’t simply be captured like some animal from your jungle safaris.”

“Don’t you understand what Danut is? Living proof of the ethereal, of the divine, that this world goes beyond what the five mortal senses can perceive. Imagine being able to put an actual demon under a microscope, imagine being able to study the psychology of a man possessed.”

“Danut isn’t simply a deranged man or a mindless beast. He is pure evil. Nothing good can come of letting him live.”

“Regardless, I have to take the risk.”

“Why? What could be worth it?”

“This isn’t merely about the institute. I may not have seen the horrors of the Great War, but I am living in the nightmare of its aftermath. Germany is starving. The Treaty of Versailles has left my country gutted like a fish, and if we are ever to recover, we’ll need a valuable resource. Whether it’s utilized as a research subject, a weapon, a trophy, or a chained pet, having this monster in Germany’s possession will help us regain authority and prestige, even if it’s just a little.”

“I spent plenty of time in Germany after the war, and I know things are terrible, but if you let him live, you risk dooming your homeland and the world in the process.”

“Well this is all assuming we can get him into the cage.”

Despite Volker’s drive, the night ended without a single shot. Most were grateful to have one evening without violence and loss, but many men felt cheated of the chance to kill the monster and end the horror. They felt Danut was toying with them, wearing down their patience. That was until they left the Town Square and discovered what their enemy had been up to. In family plots and behind the church, every grave in Runa had been desecrated, and the bodies removed. Even dry skeletons in the oldest graves were taken.

George and Olga screamed in despair upon seeing their daughter’s open grave, the same with every other family with a buried loved one. When Sam and Volker saw Sorine, her face was wet with furious tears. The local priest’s grave had been similarly emptied.

“That monster killed my father and won’t even let him rest!”

Sam shook his head in confusion. “I don’t get it. He had already fed on your father and numerous others, so why come back for their bodies? And why take dusty remains and old bones that he couldn’t feed on?”

“He must need them for something other than food,” said Volker. “We need more information. We need to find out exactly what is possessing Danut.”

“And how do we do that?” Sam asked.

Volker turned to Sorine. “Has anyone bothered to check his house?”

“Of course. Once he first started attacking people, we looked for him there, but it was clear he had abandoned it.”

“I think it might be worth another attempt.”

Thus, the trio journeyed on horseback to the far edges of Runa village, to a lone shack built deep in the woods. The house was quite old, and the wood had grayed with time. They were all armed, in case Danut was hiding inside, and announced themselves with a simple knock on the door. There was no answer, so they let themselves inside. The interior was pitch black, courtesy of the shades over the windows and the branches of the trees outside, immersing the house in darkness.

They cautiously moved through the house with lanterns, while lighting candles and opening the windows to let in the light. Danut lived a very Spartan life; the furniture was simple, the walls were bare, and the few shelves had only tools and materials like paint and glue.

“Sorine, what exactly do you know about this man?” Sam asked.

“Very little. No one knew much about him. He was the last of a family of hermits. He kept to himself and threatened to shoot anyone who stepped on his land.”

“This is not a house of pleasant memories,” said Volker. “All my hairs are standing up, and they’re telling me that terrible things happened here.”

They searched every room, and though their instincts told them they were in the presence of evil, they could find no sign that Danut was anything but a miserable, reclusive bastard. Then, while walking down one of the halls, Sam felt something was off. The floorboards were flexing under his feet. He reached down and pulled the ratty carpet away, revealing a hidden door, and upon opening it, the smell of blood struck him like a slap to the face. He had found something, but deep down, part of him wished he hadn’t.

“Over here!” he hollered.

Volker and Sorine rushed over, and both grimaced from the stink. “I’ll go first,” said Volker, shouldering his shotgun. He had replaced the rock salt in his shells with nails, ready to shred whatever they hit.

They followed him down the stairs and into the cellar below. They lit several candles to pierce the oppressive darkness, and the sight that greeted the trio almost drove them to flee the house and never return. Danut had made himself a workshop of horrors, full of mutilated animals and human remains. Body parts sat in jars on shelves, forest critters had been crucified and twisted into macabre displays, and totems for dark magic and obelisks to unholy gods were crafted from bones. The far wall, over a work table covered in blood-crusted tools, was plastered in pages of unholy diagrams, horrific pictures, and an unknown language, all of which were inked in blood.

“Oh God,” Sorine gasped before turning around and retching onto the floor. Volker was trying not to do the same, and even after the horrors of war, Sam still felt himself shaking from head to toe.

“I… I don’t even know where to begin with this….”

“It’s true, it really is true. I didn’t want to believe it, but what my father said was right,” Sorine said between spits.

“You know what this is?” Volker asked.

“Centuries ago, the people of Romania were simple pagans, but when Christianity spread across Europe, they had two choices, either convert or die. According to my father, many took the third option. These mountains are riddled with caves, offering plenty of room to hide what you’re doing from the world. Some even believe that caves reach all the way down to Hell. Those who refused to convert went underground, hiding their true beliefs and practices, and in the darkness, their souls became twisted. Reverence for nature and the spirits turned to the worship of dark forces. Over and over again, the church tried to stomp the cultists out and eventually cut them down to a number low enough that they could never rebuild the movement. Still, the people of these lands are all descendants of devil-worshippers, even me.

The Zaituc family must be one of the few bloodlines that stuck to the old ways, keeping the beliefs alive. My father held some of their pieces as a reminder of the evil that slumbers beneath the mountains. It’s how he knew that Danut was possessed. I discovered his collection once as a child, and when he told me the truth about my ancestors and the kinds of things they did in those caves, I was overcome by hatred and disgust. I wish I could bleed out all the blood I share with them and be free of their sins.”

“We should take these papers back with us. They might explain what Danut has become and how we can stop him,” said Volker.

They collected all the information they could find and set Danut’s home ablaze to destroy any remaining traces of wickedness. Then, they returned to Runa, and Volker and Sorine went to work deciphering the pages. After getting a few hours of sleep, Sam checked up on them.

“How is it going?”

“It certainly isn’t easy. These pages are written in a mixed form of Vulgar Latin, ancient Romanian, and Celtic,” said Volker. “And what we can read is awful, the most horrific knowledge mankind is capable of learning.”

“Then I guess it’s a good thing we have the Romanian daughter of a priest and a German intellectual. Have you found anything?”

“A little bit. I believe we’ve identified the demon possessing Danut, or rather, we know what Danut has transformed into. Its true name is Rathodor, the Devil’s Seed, but that is a very rough translation. It feeds on people’s souls by devouring their brains. It also feeds on “knowledge” of some kind.”

“Anything else? What about the graves?”

“From what I’m reading here, Rathodor uses dead bodies to form its nest, or something along that line,” said Sorine. “Specifically, it uses the bodies of those who have already been buried by human hands. It needs the sin of burial desecration, to defile the remains of those who were loved and mourned, and to torment those who remember them.”

“So that’s why it didn’t bother with those Romanian soldiers. Any idea on how to kill it?”

“I don’t think so. There is something about Rathodor being unable to stand beneath the face of God, but not much else. If we want to kill this monster, I think we’ll just have to do it the old-fashioned way.”

“You two should get some rest. You’ve barely slept the past three days.”

“But there is still so much to uncover, so much to translate,” Sorine huffed.

“I can see the puffy veins in your eyes from a mile away. We have a long night ahead of us, and the two of you need your strength. If this monster doesn’t show up again, then you can work on translating the rest.”

Despite their desperation, the two knew he was right. They were both exhausted and could barely walk, let alone fight. All the men in the village were also using these daylight hours to regain their strength. It was late in the afternoon when they finally returned, surprised to find a funeral in the middle of town.

“What’s going on?” Sorine asked as she walked over to Sam.

“We’re burying those Romanian soldiers.”

“Beneath the road?”

“It’s as good a spot as any.”

“You’re using them for bait, aren’t you?” Volker accused.

“You have a better idea? The only way we can kill this thing is on our own terms. If he’s not going to come after the living, hopefully he’ll come after the dead. It seems like he can tell where and when people have been buried.”

“Have you no respect for these fallen men?”

“They’re soldiers. It’s their job to protect this country and its people. If it will help us destroy this evil, I’m sure they’d be willing to donate their bodies to the cause. Besides, I talked it over with the other men and they agreed. Everyone here knows what we’re doing. Anyway, there is something the two of you should know.” He pulled them aside, out of earshot of everyone attending the funeral. “I went back to the church and looked around all the other places this monster has been. The tracks he left behind last night aren’t like what he left behind the night before. They were larger, farther apart, and it looked like he was dragging something with him, like a big sack.”

Volker sighed and rubbed his forehead. “Danut, no, Rathodor must be undergoing some kind of growth cycle. He was barely human the last time we saw him, and with all the brains he’s eaten, God knows what he looks like now.”

Sorine seemed less perturbed. “This doesn’t change anything. We’re going to kill him and end this madness.” Her voice was full of bloodlust, causing Sam and Volker to exchange glances.

That night, everyone prepared for battle once more. The corral was ready, with an open-ended pen leading straight to the buried soldiers in the town center. This time, no fires were burning, and everyone lay in hiding. The whole place was quiet as a grave. They could hear Danut working his way around their position, searching the village for graves. He was certainly taking his sweet time, but eventually, they heard movement beyond the perimeter. All the men with their weapons tensed, waiting for their foe to reveal himself.

Then, when the clouds parted and the moonlight bathed the town, the demon arrived, to everyone’s horror. What was a twisted human two nights ago had grown into a hulking monstrosity. It stood a solid ten feet tall with a body like an obese gorilla. Its disproportionately small legs supported its huge bloated body, and its arms had transformed, becoming two massive tusks, like tree trunks sharpened into points, with its forearms branching off. A mat of gnarled spikes grew out of its upper back, resembling branches. Its head was still vaguely humanoid, and the four segments quivered as it growled.

The unholy behemoth entered the pen, with all those watching unable to believe their eyes. They weren’t supposed to attack until given the signal, but it wasn’t discipline and patience keeping them still. They were too terrified to move. Rathodor reached the buried soldiers, dug one of its arm spikes into the soft soil, and then pulled out a skewered corpse. Its ribcage split open like its skull, becoming a second mouth full of jagged teeth, and it stuffed the corpse into its fat gullet.

“You’re going to need a bigger cage,” Sam whispered beside Volker.

Sam now understood how the monster had carried away so many bodies and why he left those marks on the ground. It had loaded its stomach with corpses until it dragged through the soil. Everyone was gripped by fear, but it was now or never.

“Now!” Sam shouted.

At that moment, torches lit around the pen, and everyone with a gun opened fire. Buckshot, dear slugs, and rifle rounds riddled the monster’s body, drawing a howl of fury and pain but failing to do any real damage. Rathodor charged towards a nearby house where several men were shooting from. It raised one of its massive arms and carved the place open like he was splitting firewood. Everyone kept shooting, managing to rip chunks of flesh off, but it just wasn’t enough.

“It’s not working!” Volker cursed as he ejected two empty shell casings from his shotgun.

“We have no choice, everyone, chop him up!” Sam shouted. All the men with their melee weapons charged, Sam himself wielding an axe. They surrounded Rathodor, now howling furiously and swinging its massive arms. It managed to strike one man, ripping him in half at the waist, then stabbed another through the chest. “It doesn’t matter if someone dies! Ignore everything and focus on the attack!”

With that brief opening, the others all got close and began hacking away with their weapons. Wielding hammers, axes, sickles, scythes, and pitchforks, they attacked with everything they had. Their weapons did more damage than the bullets, though Rathodor wasn’t going down. Instead, it lashed out, forcing the men back to avoid its swinging arms. Anyone who got too close was ripped to shreds, and their eviscerated corpses were scattered across the ground.

Spotting an opportunity, Sam ducked down under Rathodor’s swinging arms and swung his axe, striking the monster’s left knee. It howled and dropped down, no longer able to move its body. All the men attacked again, knowing they couldn’t let this chance slip by. Rathodor tried to fend them off with its arms, so they focused on hacking them off like cutting down trees, and when it swung wide, they’d aim for its torso and head.

Snarling in fury, Rathodor reached out and grabbed one man, the youngest of all the fighters. He cried in terror and tried to wriggle free, but the demon’s hold was firm. The other men attacked with relentless desperation, but ultimately, all they could do was watch as Rathodor’s head split open and enveloped the young man’s, vacuuming the brain out of his skull and taking his soul in the process. Once it had its fill, Rathodor hurled the corpse like a cow caught in a tornado, striking another fighter and shattering his skeleton.

Rathodor then released a threatening howl and slashed the ground with its arm, sending a wave of earth at the men and forcing them to shield themselves. The demon then took off, its knee having healed enough to carry its body. It was heading straight for the tavern, where most villagers had gathered. Sam, Volker, and the other men chased after Rathodor, trying to cut the monster down, but it fended off their attacks with its mighty arms.

One man tried to strike from behind, but the jagged spikes growing out of the monster’s back lashed out and impaled him, filling his body with holes. Finally, one man with a scythe scored a lucky hit, slashing the monster across the stomach with a wound that reached down deep. Toxic fluid and rotting flesh poured from the opening, and Rathodor groaned in a way no one had heard before, an almost pitiful rumble of pain. It covered the gash with its hand and increased its speed, charging towards the tavern like a runaway train.

Still with his shotgun, Volker got in the way and took careful aim. He fired two shells at once, striking Rathodor in the right eye and destroying the entire skull segment, leaving the demon with three mandibles. Rathodor screamed and smacked Volker aside in retaliation, then charged and tackled the tavern. It burst through the front wall, trying to crawl in and get the food inside. The women and children shrieked in terror, staring straight at the face of evil and hearing its horrific howl.

Several women gathered their nerves and spears and tried to drive it out while the men attacked it outside. Rathodor released a snarl and pushed itself up, breaking the ceiling and causing the front of the inn to partially collapse. It then turned around, returning its attention to the puny men slashing and beating it with their weak weapons. A swing of its arm slaughtered half a dozen of them, producing a cloud of vaporized blood that caught the moonlight.

There were only a handful of fighters left, Sam included, and they had earned Rathodor’s ire. However, there was a reason these men had lasted the longest. Like Sam, they were veterans of the Great War. They knew the thrill and terror of battle, the strength and bravery required, how to move and fight like their lives depended on it, and had unlocked that primal instinct that drove men to draw blood. They gripped their farming tools, now the weapons of warriors, and attacked all at once.

Rathodor slashed at them with its mighty arms, but its movements were broad and obvious. They could now dodge and close in, striking direct blows to the body. A slash across the neck, a hammer blow to the leg, a stab to the gut, an axe strike to the lower back; they rained attacks on Rathodor while avoiding its counters. No blood was sprayed from the wounds, but its flesh was tearing away, and the muscles underneath were shredding. However, Rathodor showed no signs of slowing down. They needed one more factor to cinch it, and soon enough, she arrived.

Sorine ran out into the street with two oil lamps in her hands. Using fire as a weapon had been considered and dismissed out of fear of destroying the town, but victory would not come by holding back. “Rathodor!” she shouted, drawing the demon’s attention. “Go back to Hell!”

She hurled the first lantern, striking the monster in the chest and spraying it with burning oil. The flames took to its flesh like dry birch bark, and it released a true howl of agony. The second lamp landed at its feet and shattered, with the flames coming up from below. With a spear in her hand, she joined the men, throwing everything they had at Rathodor. Devoured by fire, the monster was too blinded by pain to attack or defend. Sorine and the men assaulted Rathodor from all sides, continuing to slash and hammer with endless ferocity.

Those with guns once more began firing, aiming for openings in the attacks. Rathodor’s tough exterior was being burned and hacked away, and their bullets drove in deeper. Volker, back on his feet despite his fractured ribs, was putting round after round in the monster’s chest, filling its torso with nails. Finally, Rathodor turned and began to hobble off, putting all its remaining strength into escape.

“Don’t let him get away!” Sam shouted.

They tried to chase it down, but despite it wounds and heavy body, the burning demon was moving with great speed, like a fiery meteor. Sorine and the men got on horses and followed Rathodor up the nearby mountain, winging his back with shotguns and rifles. Then, as the sky began to brighten, they spotted Rathodor approaching a cave, dropping vertically like a mineshaft. They managed to get ahead of him and continued the assault from all directions. Sam raised his pistol and fired one round, striking Rathodor’s remaining eye and blinding it. The monster released a wild swing, slashing him across the chest. Sam was knocked aside with his blood flowing freely, and the monster dove into the pit, disappearing beneath the mountain.

———-

Sam didn’t know when he woke up, only that it was with a groan of pain. He was in his room at the tavern, and the sun shone right into his eyes. He tried to sit up but felt hands push him back down.

“You shouldn’t be moving yet,” said Sorine.

“How long have I been out?”

“Most of the day. Rathodor got you across the chest, but fortunately, it was just a flesh wound. You have a lot of stitches, but you’ll be fine.”

Sam looked at the thick layers of bandages wrapped around his chest and huffed.

“What happened?”

“He disappeared down that tunnel, but going in after him just wasn’t feasible, so we retreated. Right now, we’re all praying that he died from his wounds beneath the mountain, but I suppose we won’t know if that’s the case until nightfall.”

“Where is my gun?”

“What?”

“My gun, do you have my gun?”

“Yes, it’s right here.”

She handed him his revolver, and he checked it. He had two bullets left. He released a deep sigh of relief. “Do you think he’s dead?”

“I don’t know. Volker doesn’t think so. He’s still working on those papers from Danut’s house. Anyway, that’s not something for you to worry about. Right now, you just need to focus on getting better.”

“Some whiskey would really help.”

“Fine, fine, I’d say you’d earned it.”

She left the room and came back with a bottle and two glasses. “A toast,” she said after filling them with amber brew. “To victorious Runa.” She downed her whiskey and immediately broke into a coughing fit.

“You’re not much of a drinker, are you?” Sam asked,

“No, but with these last several days, I feel like it’s a good time to start. If my past self could see what I’ve become, I don’t think she’d recognize me. I don’t think my father would either.”

“Maybe not, but I think he’d be proud. You were very impressive last night, I mean it.”

She smiled. “Thank you. I’m proud of you as well. You know, you never explained why you were so willing to get back into the fight. You said you quit, then after putting a bullet in that thing’s chest, you rejoined Volker and me like it was completely natural. What changed your mind?”

Sam sighed and emptied his glass. “My grandfather fought in the American Civil War, and I was raised on his stories. He was just one soldier in a humungous war, but he helped bring the country back together and end slavery. I always wanted to be like him, so when America entered the Great War, I was ready.

This was to be the war to end all wars, and I wanted to be a part of it. I wanted to say I helped win the most incredible fight in the history of mankind and that I accomplished something like my grandfather. All those months of fighting, of suffering in those trenches, of watching my guys get mowed down and blown to smithereens, I kept telling myself that it was all worth it, that it was leading to something incredible. I was a fucking idiot.

You can’t see it under all these bandages, but that cut Danut left is not the worst wound I’ve received. Have you ever heard of the Meuse–Argonne offensive? It was one of the war’s last battles and a giant bloody clusterfuck for the Americans. After weeks of fighting, I got caught in a blast from a grenade and ended up with a chest full of shrapnel. I should have died, but my friends dragged me back to safety, and the field doctors went to work on me, carving out every piece of metal. I was conscious the whole time, able to feel every cut and suture. I remember praying to God, begging Him to either steady their hands or let me die, but I pulled through and woke up just like this in a military hospital.

By the time I was healed, the war was over, and we were all going home, and all I could think was, “that’s it?” All the blood that we spilled, all the money these countries spent, all the land scorched and poisoned, what was it for? Who did I kill that needed to die? What did I fight for that was worth protecting? What noble cause almost took my life? But the only good thing to come out of this war was the end of the war itself. All those men killed and died for nothing more than an eventual stop to the killing and dying.

I decided I couldn’t accept it. I couldn’t go home with nothing but stories of anguish and survival. I didn’t come to Europe just to suffer. I didn’t go through all that pain just to say, “this happened to me.” I came here to accomplish something, so I could say, “this happened because of me,” and I wasn’t going to leave until then. So, I sent a letter to my family saying I wasn’t ready to come home yet and decided to travel around these lands, searching for something meaningful to make everything worth it, but nothing I did felt right. Every time I did some good deed, I’d remember the men I killed, think back to those battles, and ask myself if what I did made up for all that. It didn’t.

Then, the other night, when I saw Danut standing in the room just down that hall, I knew I was looking at evil itself, and I understood that this was something worth fighting. Killing this monster and saving a town from its reign of terror, that was something worth doing. I could finally go home and say I accomplished something that mattered, that everything I did and all my time in Europe was worth it for this one task. At last, I had found purpose.”

The two sat silently for a moment, then Sorine leaned down and kissed him on the cheek. “Consider that a reward for your patience, for looking for a noble path.”

“A proper reward would involve less clothing, but I’ll take what I can get.”

“Oh please. With that gash on your chest, you can’t even lie on your back without whimpering.”

“Yeah, good point. The spirit is willing, but the flesh feels like hammered shit.”

Sorine rolled her eyes and sighed. “You’re pathetic. Don’t tell anyone I did this.”

She then reached her hand under the covers and grabbed his member.

“Oh!” Sam exclaimed as she began to jack him off. “Is this your first time? Because it sure doesn’t feel like it.”

“Just be quiet, will you?” she groaned.

As her strokes became more rigorous, the vibrations moved through his body and agitated his wounds. He began to writhe and hiss in pain, with Sorine failing to keep a straight face. “See what I mean? Look at yourself! You can’t even handle this much!”

“Don’t stop!” he moaned while trying not to cry.

“For the love of God, is this really worth it? I know it hurts.”

“Hurts so good!”

Sorine broke into a laughing fit, not stopping until Sam finally experienced a full release.

“Oh sweet Christ, I needed that,” Sam sighed.

“Yeah, yeah, glad I could help. But that’s all you’re getting.”

“I think I love you.”

“Shut up,” Sorine sighed as she left the room.

No attack came that night, to the relief of everyone. The monster had surely perished, and they could breathe freely again. The next day, two trucks full of Romanian soldiers came up the road to Runa. Everything was still in the process of returning to normal, and the fortifications around the Town Square and the damaged buildings drew strange looks from the soldiers as their trucks came to a halt.

“I am Captain Costi Matei of the Romanian Land Forces. Who is in charge of this town?” their commander announced. No one answered him, as no one was in charge. “I ask again, who is the leader of this town?”

“We have no leader,” said Sorine, stepping out of the tavern. “Our mayor was killed days ago. I am Sorine Bucur, daughter of the former priest.”

“Your mayor was killed? Killed how?”

“Can I first ask what you are doing here, Captain?”

“We are investigating a train derailment. It happened several days ago, but the tracks throughout the mountains have been ravaged by rockslides. Getting here was difficult, especially since your town isn’t on the map.”

“We know about the crash and have been sheltering those who survived. I’m sure they would be overjoyed to finally reach Bucharest. But if you don’t mind, we could certainly use your help rebuilding.”

“What has happened here, Mrs. Bucur?”

From inside the tavern, Volker watched as Sorine recanted the events of the past several nights. He couldn’t hear the conversation or read lips, but the body language of everyone involved let him follow the dialogue perfectly. Captain Matei first seemed dubious of her claims, believing them to be a joke, and the soldiers behind him exchanged glances and snickered. As she continued, he became irritated and dismissive, looking like he was about to demand to speak to a man. Then, as she pointed out the damage Rathodor had caused and described the casualties, he became tense, realizing that this wasn’t simply a hoax or a woman’s hysterical fantasy.

“What’s going on?” Sam asked, coming down the stairs. He was very sore, wincing with each step.

“Soldiers have arrived. Sorine is telling them what happened.”

“Well it’s about damn time they showed up. How is it going?”

“They seem skeptical. I think she could use some support.”

“Imagine our luck, getting visited by the only Romanians in the country that don’t believe in monsters and folk tales.” Sam then left the tavern and walked over to Sorine and the soldiers. “Hello, I’m Sam Wilks, one of the survivors of the train crash.”

“Mr. Wilks, this woman here has been telling us quite the story about a rampaging monster. What do you say to this?”

Sam raised his shirt with a grimace, showing the soldiers the bandages wrapped around his chest, with the bloodstain line that had soaked through. “That monster slashed me across the chest after I put a bullet in its eye. If you don’t believe us, we could take you on a tour through the local cemetery, let you see all the graves it dug up.”

The captain seemed afraid to take them up on their offer, but they wouldn’t take no for an answer. They showed him the deconsecrated church, the destroyed graveyard, the damaged buildings, and the graves of all those who died fighting the monster. Finally, they spoke to Volker.

“I’ve been working on translating these notes from Danut’s home. What you saw out there was no accident. He summoned this specific demon and let it inhabit his body to wreak havoc.”

“My God,” Matei said as he held up one of the pages, inscribed with a pentagram for calling forth monsters from Hell.

“As you can see, while you and your soldiers were getting lost in the woods, we’ve been fighting for our lives. You sure took your sweet time getting here, Captain,” said Sam.

“We will help you rebuild and then bring all the train wreck survivors to Bucharest. My superiors need to know what happened here.”

The soldiers left the tavern, and Volker returned to his work. Translating these pages was a domineering challenge, but learning helped quell the sense of dread he felt in the back of his mind. If Rathodor returned, he wanted to be ready. He worked through the day and into night, pausing to drink with Sam and the villagers. Once all was quiet, and the tavern was empty, Sorine approached.

“You should burn those pages.”

“You sound just like Sam. You have no idea how valuable these pages are.”

“All they’ll do is corrupt and destroy. The threat of that demon will always remain as long as those pages exist.”

“You’re right, these pages are absolute evil, meaning if they exist, so too must absolute good. As horrible as they are, these pages prove that God is real. As the daughter of a priest, shouldn’t that have some weight?”

“My father died because the exorcism failed. God didn’t kill that monster, we did.”

“I hope this incident hasn’t cost you your faith.”

“All I know is that if there was ever a time for God to show He cared and show His power, it was then, and that time came and went. What am I supposed to feel after the things I’ve seen? What am I supposed to believe when my father, the man who taught me my beliefs, died because those beliefs failed him? You said that ultimate evil is proof of ultimate good, but what value is ultimate good if it fails us when we need it?”

“Perhaps ultimate good isn’t something to rely on, but something to strive towards. Like the creation of a utopia; even if it is impossible to seize, it should always been reached for.”

“I find myself wondering if maybe this isn’t a matter of the power of God failing, but all a part of His plan. My people and I are all the descendants of devil-worshippers. Maybe this monster’s arrival wasn’t simply an accident or the endeavor of a madman. Maybe it was retribution, all of us paying for the sins of our ancestors. What if the exorcism failed, not because God wasn’t strong enough, but because He decided that this was our fate.”

“An interesting theory, but I think you’re making a mistake by interpreting meaning in an event. You’re confusing a phenomenon for a message.”

“Then what do you think it means?”

“Nothing. At least, it’s not worth speculating. That is simply another data point in this experiment we call life. I am a scientist, Sorine. It’s my job to collect information. That’s why I’m reading these notes, so that I won’t have to speculate. Word of what happened here will spread. When I tell this story, I want to have all the facts.”

“Maybe there are some things that should not be known.”

Gunfire interrupted their conversation, and both felt a chill of terror crawl up their spines. Volker grabbed his shotgun, and they ran outside, trying to determine where the noise was coming from. This wasn’t simply one or two shots ringing out; it was several rifles all firing at once. People throughout the town heard the sounds of fighting and were gripped by terror. The nightmare wasn’t over yet.

“It’s coming from the north,” said Volker. “That’s where the cave is that Rathodor disappeared into!”

“Matei told me he and his men were standing guard in case he came crawling back out.”

Sam appeared from inside. “What’s going on?”

“We’re not done yet. We need to get up the mountain,” said Sorine.

“We’ll go, you get everyone organized,” said Volker.

The group split up, with Sam and Volker taking horses and riding off down a familiar path. Neither was back to full strength, so the ride was painful. With torches in their hands, they rode towards the source of the noise, only for everything to suddenly fall silent. They, at last, arrived, finding the soldiers reloading their rifles and tending to two wounded and one dead.

“Captain Matei, what happened?” Sam asked, armed with his pistol and an axe.

“Rest easy, men,” replied the captain. “Your monster came back, but we finished him off for you. It’s no wonder he gave you so much trouble, we had to turn him into Swiss cheese.”

Sam and Volker exchanged nervous looks. “You killed him?” Volker asked,

“That’s right, come and see.”

They dismounted their horses and walked over to where the slain beast lay, and though instinct told them it was dead, their fear was only exacerbated. The corpse was vaguely humanoid but not born of any womb. Its body was lanky, with a narrow gut devoid of entrails, just muscles wrapped around a spinal column. Its entire skeletal structure seemed to favor a predatory lifestyle, with legs shaped for it to run on the balls of its feet faster than any man, and fingers tipped with sharp talons. Its skin was dark gray and had a rough texture like an alligator’s back. Its head, though vaguely human-shaped, had no ears or nose and appeared to be made entirely of cartilage. It seemed to split into six segments, each lined with teeth and sporting a glazed-over eye. Its body was riddled with bullet wounds, showing its demonic tenacity.

“That’s not Rathodor,” said Sam.

“What are you talking about? How is this not the bloodthirsty monster you people described?!”

“He’s telling the truth, Captain. You killed a monster, but not what we faced the other night.”

“Then what the Hell did we just kill? What is this thing?!”

“A huge fucking problem, that’s what. It came out of this cave, right?” Sam asked.

“That’s right, and it took dozens of rounds to bring down.”

“Whatever it is, it’s not Rathodor, and if there is one, there may be more.”

“How many more?”

Gunshots and terrified screams answered his question.

“Back to Runa!” Volker shouted.

They raced down the mountain towards the scene, where burning homes lit up the night sky. They arrived to find a legion of demons ransacking the village. They moved with rapid, inhuman movements and screamed with furious bloodlust, like saw blades grinding together. The beasts smashed their way into homes and attacked men, women, and children without distinction. They wrapped their mandibles around the heads of their prey and devoured their brains like they were eating shellfish. Once finished, they dragged the bodies into the middle of town and piled them up into a bleeding mountain.

The citizens of Runa were doing their best to defend themselves, but the invasion was coming from all sides, and their weapons did little to stop them. A shotgun blast might knock these horrific ghouls on their back for a moment, but they always got back up. Their claws carved through the flesh of those who tried to fight back, spilling blood and entrails onto the ground.

When Sam, Volker, and the soldiers reached the town, they were immersed in a sea of fire and blood, as if Hell had claimed the land. “Fan out! We have to save everyone that’s left!” Matei ordered.

The soldiers split up, running in all directions and trying to pick off the demons with their rifles, but bullet wounds only seemed to anger them. One of the demons charged, running on all fours and shrugging off the soldiers’ bullets. It leaped over one man, slashing his face in the process and sending him falling to the ground, screaming in agony. The rest of the soldiers surrounded the beast, attacking it on all sides with bullets, bayonets, and rifle stocks.

Volker grabbed Sam’s shoulder. “Come on, we need to get my notes, they’re our only chance!”

They took off, running for the tavern, which was now in flames. As Volker rushed inside, one of the demons ran toward Sam. He swung his axe and buried the blade in the side of the monster’s neck, but it seemed unhindered as it rode him to the ground. Sam pressed the axe handle to its throat, using all his strength to keep the monster at arm’s length. Its fleshy jaws spread wide, and a mass of thorny tentacles reached toward his face. Inches from his eyes, he could see the small mouths at the end of each tentacle, resembling pits of teeth surrounded by flesh-ripping blades.

Terror gripped him, terror that not even No Man’s Land had instilled. He had been told that Rathodor fed on souls, and these beasts probably did as well. Only now did those words bear true weight. At that moment, he understood what it meant for his soul to be devoured, for his eternal essence to become sustenance for this godless abomination. He’d rather burn to death than let this monster feed.

The beast grabbed his shoulders with its powerful grip, trying to pull him closer. His strength was failing, and he knew he would die in moments. Then, Volker rushed over with his shotgun in hand. He couldn’t go for the head without risking injuring Sam, so he pressed the twin barrels to the side of the monster’s spine and fired both rounds, ripping the beast in half. The wound failed to hamper its fury, and it let go of Sam so it could attack Volker.

It grabbed his leg to knock him off balance, then moved up to his head, with Volker mimicking Sam and using his shotgun to try and stay out of its reach. Sam got to his feet and swung his axe, burying it in the monster’s back, but still, it refused to die. Again and again, he hacked away at its torso until his own chest bled from his stitches tearing. Then, when he was about to collapse from pain and exhaustion, help arrived. Sorine ran over, wielding a pitchfork, and buried it in the side of the monster’s chest, and she and Sam worked together to pull it off Volker. But, unfortunately, it wasn’t giving in without a fight and swatted at them with its claws.

“Keep it pinned!” Volker shouted as he reloaded his shotgun.

They forced the monster to the ground, listening to its furious squeals. When it opened its mandibles, Volker aimed at the mass of tentacles and again fired both rounds, eviscerating the quivering flesh and finally silencing the beast. The three gasped for air and stared at each other. They were doomed if this was what it took to kill just one of these monsters.

“Come on, we’re taking shelter in the church!” said Sorine. They ran through the town as people were being slaughtered all around them. “To the church! The church!” Sorine shouted, trying to guide others to safety.

They arrived at the church, and she led them inside and to a back room, where she brought them down into the basement. Down below, a dozen men, women, and children huddled around candles, all paralyzed by terror or openly weeping.

“Is this all that’s left?” Sam asked.

“There was no warning. They came so fast, attacking the town from all sides. All the farmhouses farther out were raided first. There may be others who are managing to hide like us.”

“They’re coming out of the caves,” said Volker. “There is an entire labyrinth under our feet, and it’s infested with these things.”

“You must know what these are,” said Sorine.

“I can only theorize that they are some kind of progeny born from Rathodor.”

“So not only did we fail to kill him, but now we have to deal with his fucking spawn,” said Sam.

“So what do we do?” Sorine asked.

“We wait until daybreak. Rathodor seemed afraid of the sunlight, so hopefully these bastards will follow that pattern. Once they’re gone, we’ll flee these lands. This is no longer something that we can fight on our own. All of Europe needs to know what’s happening here.”

“So we’re just going to let Runa fall to these monsters?” a man cursed.

“It has already fallen,” Sorine whispered.

“You got those pages, right?” Sam asked.

Volker reached into his coat and pulled out several handfuls of crumbled and singed sheets of paper. “Maybe there is something in here we can use.”

Everyone huddled together beneath the church for hours, praying for a fast-approaching sunrise. Outside, they continued hearing screams of both man and beast, punctuated by the occasional gunshot. Even underground, they could smell the smoke of the burning town. Over and over, Sam checked his revolver, unable to take his eyes off those two bullets. One of the demons entered the church and sniffed around every now and then. They used church pews to barricade the entrance, and once or twice, everyone heard the defenses rattle as claws scraped against the wood. No one could even breathe in those moments as utter terror gripped them.

Volker continued deciphering the pages, looking for anything that could help them, though his face became gaunter and gaunter with dread as he went on. Then, finally, the sun rose, and the demons retreated beneath the earth. The few survivors emerged to find most of the town reduced to ash and the ground soaked with blood. There were no bodies, only drag marks.

“This town really is dead,” Sorine murmured with tears streaming down her face.

“Help! Somebody help me!” The fearful cry reached Sam, Volker, and Sorine, and they followed it to find to Captain Matei, who had locked himself in Volker’s cage. The bars were scratched and bent from the demons trying to break in, and their claws had shredded his uniform. “Please, get me out of here,” he sobbed.

“Were you in there all night?” Volker asked as he unlocked the cage.

Matei slowly crawled out, like a newborn horse taking its first steps. “The screams, those horrible screams. All night, they were reaching through the bars, clawing at me and screaming. I could see it in their eyes, their utter hatred. They weren’t just trying to eat me, they truly and utterly despised me existence.”

“Do you know if any of your men are still alive?” Sam asked.

“They were eaten and then dragged away.”

“I don’t get it, I thought these monsters only ate brains and dug up corpses for their nests,” said Sam.

“Not nests, soil,” said Volker, drawing everyone’s eyes to him. “I’m afraid things are far worse than we imagined.”

“Worse? WORSE?! I’m about to shit myself here and you’re talking about worse! And I’m pretty sure he already shit himself!” Sam exclaimed. Matei simply put his head to the ground and cried.

“Volker, what are you talking about?” Sorine asked.

“We didn’t translate its name correctly. Rathodor doesn’t mean “Devil’s Seed,” it means “Seed from the Devil’s Garden.” When God created the Garden of Eden, he included the Tree of Knowledge and Tree of Life, so the Devil made his own garden in Hell in mockery of God’s creation, and cultivated the Tree of Death.”

“Trees don’t run around, attacking people!”

“This one does, in the early stages. I mentioned before that by eating people’s brains, Rathodor feeds on their souls, but he feeds on more than that. Specifically, he feeds on the free will we gained when Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge, as well as our Original Sin from them disobeying God. The purity and corruption of our souls nourishes him. Then, once he gains enough strength, he begins digging up graves. What Sorine thought means “nest” actually means “soil.” Rathodor uses the bodies and grave dirt as the soil in which it takes root and becomes the true Tree of Death. It is a tree that can only grow underground, for sunlight burns it like fire.”

“And what were those monsters?” Sorine asked.

“The fruit. What form could the fruit of the Tree of Death take other than a monster that exists solely to kill people? They feed on the souls of the living and take the bodies back to the tree to further nourish it. The more bodies it receives, the more fruit it can produce.”

“You’re saying this thing could take over the country?”

“Not just the country. Each one of those things is just like Danut in the early stages of his transformation. Once they’ve fed and grown strong enough, they’ll go out and begin raiding graveyards, preparing their own soil, and they too will become trees and produce their own fruit. They’ll keep spreading and multiplying until they’ve taken over the entire world. Rathodor isn’t just a typical demon, he is Legion, Bringer of Armageddon.”

“Great, just fucking great,” said Sam, leaning on his knees like he was about to throw up.

“So that’s it then? We’re witnessing the end of the world?” asked Sorine, her voice cracking as her hope and courage vanished.

“Not yet, we still have a chance to stop this, but our window is closing. Those demons are not yet powerful enough to bear the will and sentience of Rathodor. Right now, they’re just marionettes. If we can destroy the tree before the demons reach maturity, they’ll all die with it, and Rathodor will be cast back into Hell.”

“The whole village couldn’t destroy that monster. How do you expect the four—” Sam glanced down at Matei, crying in the fetal position. “How do you expect the three of us to do that?”

“You said it yourself, trees don’t run around attacking people. Now that Rathodor has taken root, he can’t move. In those pages was a mentioning of a temple down in the caverns where the devil-worshippers performed their rituals and black masses. That’s where Danut become possessed, and that’s where he is now. We need to go down into those caves and destroy the tree.”

“That still doesn’t change the issue of how we do it. We can’t even kill those monsters.”

“We can with silver. According to these pages, silver and sunlight are Rathodor’s only weakness, same with all the spawn.”

“Ok, so silver, what else? I’m not going down into those caves with just some teaspoons.”

“Tomhelm,” said Matei, drawing everyone’s attention.

“What is that, some kind of Romanian holy spray?” Sam asked.

“It’s a mining town my men and I passed through it on our way here. It’s a few hours away by truck, but they’ll have dynamite.”

“Ok, I’m starting to like the sound of that. We’ll get some dynamite and silver, sneak into the underground temple, and blow Rathodor back to Hell.”

“Doing it now would be suicide,” said Volker, shaking his head. “The caverns are crawling with those monsters. We’d have to do it at night, when they’re out hunting. Let’s split up for now. Sam, you and Captain Matei take all the remaining villagers to Tomhelm, and come back with as much dynamite as you can carry. Sorine, I want you to collect all the silver in Runa and see if you can make something we can use. I’m going to track down the main entrance to the underground temple.”

“If the two of you are still in this valley when the sun sets….”

“We’ll hide in the church again. Please don’t be late,” said Sorine.

It was a slim hope, but hope nonetheless. The group split up, with Sam and Matei taking one of the trucks and driving off with the surviving villagers. Volker took a horse and set off into the mountains, leaving Sorine to pick through the remains of her destroyed village.

As they drove towards Tomhelm, Sam turned to Matei, still shaking from his night in the cage. “You fought in the Great War, right?”

“That’s right,” said Matei, trying to steady his breathing.

“I never thought the day would come when I’d rather be back in the trenches, did you?”

The two men shared a bitter laugh.

They arrived at Tomhelm late in the morning, a town much more urban than Runa. Cars drove down paved streets, and homes and buildings were lit by electricity and gas lamps. Sam stopped the truck in front of the Town Hall. “Get the villagers inside, make sure they’re taken care of, then send word to Bucharest about what’s happening. Send word to everywhere and everyone. If we fail to end this nightmare, the world needs to be ready. This town may be next on the chopping block.”

“I’ll do everything I can. The mine is on the north side of town. God be with you, Mr. Wilks.” They shook hands as fellow soldiers, then Matei got out with the villagers, and Sam set off for the mine.

When he arrived, it was clear that something was going on. Miners and police ran and shouted in a panic, and crowded around the elevator leading down into the mine. Everyone was so preoccupied that Sam drove right in without anyone stopping him. He knew what was going on, but still, he had to be sure. He ran to the elevator and wormed his way into the crowd of miners. He could hear them down below, terrified voices screaming in the darkness, countered by an inhuman screech that chilled his blood.

“Good God, they’ve already traveled this far,” he hissed.

With no time to waste, he went to work gathering dynamite, blasting caps, a T-handle blasting machine, and lots of wire and cannon fuse. He then took off, driving as fast as he dared risk with a truck full of dynamite. As midday passed, he watched the sun, begging it to slow its journey across the sky. It was getting late in the afternoon when he finally returned to Runa. Volker and Sorine were waiting for him in front of the church.

“I’m back, and I took everything I could get my hands on. Please tell me you two have good news.”

“I believe I’ve found the entrance to the underground temple. There are tracks and drag marks from the demons moving in and out, as well as signs of ancient cult activity,” Volker said.

“I’ve gathered all the silver in town I could find and did what I could with it. I’ve never done silversmithing in my life, so it’s not pretty, but it’ll have to do. Come inside, I’ll show you.”

They followed Sorine into the church, where she had been using the stove inside to try and melt down the collected silver into usable tools. Her finished pieces were laid out on a table for them. She had crafted makeshift knives and spear tips, and hammered hot silver onto an axeblade and the prongs of a pitchfork. She picked up one of several shotgun shells, showing signs that the payload had been tampered with.

“I wasn’t able to cast silver bullets or anything so high-quality, but each of these shells has enough silver scrap to hopefully get the job done. And for protection, I’ve got these.” She held up silver candy bowls and chains decorated with jewelry and silverware. “I figured these will make decent helmets, and wrapping these around your necks will keep them from biting.”

“Yeah, this’ll do nicely,” said Sam.

“So we have the tools and we have a plan. We’ll need all the strength we can get, so let’s fill our bellies and set out.”

Upon Volker’s words, the trio all felt their stomachs growl. They hadn’t eaten since the day before and were running on nothing but dread and adrenaline. They gathered food from the few remaining houses and stuffed their faces. Knowing it would likely be their last meal, they did their best to savor every bite. After they had eaten and armed themselves, they loaded their weapons and supplies onto horses and set off into the mountains, following Volker’s directions.

Dusk was approaching, but they arrived at a narrow ravine showing signs of Rathodor’s spawn surging through the area and dragging back their kills. A sense of dread filled the air like the stench of rotting meat, and everyone could feel it, even the horses, growing more and more stressed with each step. Finally, they arrived before a cavern entrance slick with dried blood. The moment they dismounted, their horses went wild and ran off.

“Come on, let’s find somewhere to hide.”

They climbed up the steep slope above the cave entrance, and since it was unclear how well the demons could smell their prey, the three covered their tracks with pepper. They hid in a small alcove, doing their best to conceal their presence, then waited. As the sky darkened, the food in their stomachs turned to bile, and they had to resist the urge to throw up their fear. Sam checked his gun, as he had half-a-dozen times that day. Two bullets. They were useless against the demons, but at least they offered a better death than getting his soul devoured. He could take care of Sorine and himself, and Volker had his shotgun, so he’d be fine if he saved one round.

“Is this what is was like? During the war, I mean,” Sorine asked.

“We did spend a lot of time waiting to die, expecting that one shell to land on our position and blow us to smithereens. It definitely weighed down on us all, but this… this is different. In the trenches, you feared for yourself and your fellow soldiers, and maybe for any civilians that might get caught in the crossfire. But right now, I’m not staring down the barrel of a gun held by someone as scared as I am. I’m not at risk of losing a stretch of land. I can feel evil itself breathing down my neck, and the world has never felt so small, so fragile, so precarious. How did it happen? How did the weight of everything fall on us?”

Before anyone could answer, the sun slipped behind the mountains, and the ground began to shake. Demons swarmed out of the cave like a pack of wild dogs, as well as other tunnels all throughout the region. Hundreds of them spread across the landscape in search of lives to end and bodies to collect. The trio watched from their hiding place, feeling their insides twist into knots. They waited patiently, giving every demon time to get outside. They didn’t want to encounter any stragglers in the dark.

Finally, when all was quiet, they abandoned their hiding place and moved down to the cave entrance. They lit torches and lanterns, though the fact that each of them was carrying a crate of dynamite and a can of lamp oil made them nervous. Before embarking, they all exchanged silent glances. This was it; they were in the endgame. If they failed here, this evil would consume the world. On the plus side, the sight of candy bowls on their heads helped ease the tension.

There was nothing left to say, so Sam took the first step into the cave, and Sorine and Volker followed him. The darkness enveloped them like a tar pit, and the light of their torches and lamps felt like a bubble of air threatening to pop at any moment. They walked down steps carved into the stone, by walls decorated with countless skeletons, raised reliefs of devils, and passages and prayers written in blood.

As they descended deeper beneath the mountain, Sam, Sorine, and Volker could all sense a presence weighing down on them, but dared not speak of it. This tunnel was as close to Hell as they ever wanted to get, and they could feel the evil in the air like a noxious fume. The aura of dread they felt outside was nothing compared to the miasmic malice all around them.

They eventually entered a large chamber with a stairway winding around the edge and a chandelier of stalactites hanging from the ceiling. Upon their arrival, they heard movement, followed by a familiar screech. One of the demons landed before them, spreading its mandibles wide and ready to feed. Sam swung with his axe, but the demon grabbed the handle and knocked him aside, leaving several claw marks on his face. Sorine stabbed it in the chest with her pitchfork, and the beast howled in agony with smoke wafting from the wound.

“Sorine, get down!” Volker shouted.

She dropped to the floor, and Volker raised his shotgun, blasting the demon in the face with a silver-imbued shell. Here in the confined space of the cavern, the thunderclap of the gun was amplified, leaving everyone with their ears ringing. The silver shredded the demon’s flesh and brain, and it fell on its back, utterly still, minus some post-mortem twitches.

“Fuck, that’s loud!” Sam hissed as he and Sorine got to their feet. “It might be a good idea to make some earplugs.”

“Let’s just hope the noise didn’t draw more,” said Sorine, rubbing her ears.

“On the plus side, we know that silver definitely works on them,” Volker said as he opened his shotgun and removed the spent casing.

No sooner had he replaced it did Sorine’s fears come to pass. More demons appeared, crawling up and down walls and closing in from all sides. One came for Sam, and this time, when he swung his axe, he buried the blade in the monster’s shoulder, bringing it to its knees while crying in agony. He pulled out a silver-imbued knife and began stabbing its head frantically, each time drawing more smoke. Another demon tackled him, but upon touching his silver protection, it pulled its hands away, hissing from the severe burns on its fingers. Sam raised his axe and hacked the demon to pieces, giving it no chance to fight back.

Nearby, Sorine was stabbing demons through the chest with her pitchfork, keeping them still. In her other hand, she held a sickle lined with silver and slashed at the monsters’ heads, carving through flesh and brain matter. Like Sam, her swings were frantic and fast, but it was more than just fear and desperation driving her. The way she screamed in exertion revealed the fury within her.

Further down the line, Volker was blasting the demons with his shotgun. The silver rounds blew the monsters’ torsos open and melted their flesh, sending their liquifying tissue splattering against every surface like ink. His head throbbed from each thunder-like boom, but he powered through and focused on reloading as fast as possible. Eventually, the battle was over, and all fell silent. The three stared at each other, not saying anything and gasping for air. Their clothes were filthy with demon gore. They were victorious, but why didn’t they feel any relief?

Sam picked up his torch. “Come on, let’s finish this.”

They continued on through the tunnel, but what they hoped would be a straightforward descent to the temple was growing in complexity with each step. The ancient cultists had taken full advantage of the winding cave system and incorporated it into their designs, creating a maze to trap intruders like the tombs of pharaohs. Volker claimed to have a map of the network, but its reliability was proving spotty. In every passage and chamber, ancient skulls watched the trio get turned around, listened to them argue, and smelled their fear and desperation.

While the labyrinth wore down their mental fortitude, the beasts of the darkness preyed on their stamina. Rathodor’s spawn frequently ambushed the trio, and fighting so often with such heavy cargo on their backs was draining. Volker was even forced to retire his shotgun and conserve his ammo, relying instead on a pair of silver knives. Fatigue resulted in clumsiness, clumsiness resulted in injury, and injuries further frayed their nerves. As they descended ever deeper, Sam began to get annoyed.

“Quiet,” he hissed, hoping to silence the whispering behind him. Still, he heard the hushed voices. “Will the two of you shut up?!”

“We’re not saying anything,” said Sorine.

“I can hear you whispering!”

“Sam, neither of us has said a word. You’re the only one talking,” Volker said.

Sam huffed in annoyance, and the three continued, and so did the whispering. Then, after a minute, he finally turned around. “If the two of you have something to say, say it to my face! Don’t keep mumbling it behind my back!”

“Sam, you’re the only one talking,” Sorine groaned. “We haven’t said a word.”

“Bullshit! I can hear you clear as day! Neither of you thinks I’ll make it out of this. You’re planning on using me as a meat shield, and you’re going to leave me behind to lure the monsters away!”

“Sam, you’re being paranoid. Look, if it’ll calm you down, I’ll walk in front.”

Volker took the lead, and the trio continued onward, but it wasn’t long until she turned around in an angry huff. “Enough, both of you!”

“What are you talking about?” Sorine asked.

“I’m just following the map, Sorine! Don’t blame me for being lost! And you!” He pointed to Sam. “I want this thing killed just as badly as you do. I’m not bringing anything back to Germany, so stop talking shit about me and my homeland!”

“The two of you are losing your minds! I’ll lead!” Sorine barked.

She took Volker’s place at the front of the group and led them further into the darkness. After a few minutes, she began looking over her shoulder, glaring at Sam and Volker. After every occurrence, she’d tuck her hair into her collar or try to fidget with her clothes to cover more skin. Finally, she spun around, brandishing her pitchfork.

“Don’t you fucking touch me, you sick bastards!”

“Sorine, what are you doing?!” Sam cursed, staying out of her range.

“I hear the two of you, your filthy jokes and disgusting plans! I’m not a prize for the two of you to have your way with after this! ‘She’ll put up a fight, but she’ll learn to enjoy it,’ I’ll spear you through before I ever let you near me! I’d be safer with the demons!”

“You’re being hysterical! Just put the pitchfork down!”

“Shut up, both of you!” Volker boomed.

A wave of hushed voices then washed over all three of them. They whipped their heads around, hearing countless whispers pour into their heads like the buzzing of mosquitoes in their ears. Half of the voices could be understood, murmuring profanities, threats, and dark secrets that sent shivers up the spines of the trio. The rest of the voices overlapped, reciting an unholy prayer in an unknown language.

The whispers grew ever louder, the insidious trickle into their ears becoming a painful deluge. Sorine fell to her knees, covering her ears to try and block out the pain. “Make them stop!” she cried out.

Volker, struggling to stay on his feet, looked over to Sam as he pulled a stick of dynamite out of his pack. “What are you doing?!”

“This’ll shut them up,” Sam muttered with a deranged gleam in his eye. Volker tried to stop him, but Sam lit the fuse and threw it down an adjacent passage. “Fire in the hole, you bastards!”

The dynamite exploded, slamming all three with a painful shockwave that knocked them off their feet. They hit the ground with their eyes rolling and ears ringing, but they could all feel the cavern shaking around them even while disoriented. Cracks ran through the floor, walls, and ceiling, and dust and rocks began to fall.

“It’s a cave-in, run!” Volker shouted. The three moved on instinct, sprinting in whatever direction they thought would protect them as they were devoured by the earth.

———-

The light of the torch shone through Sorine’s eyes, and the flames warmed her face, slowly bringing her back from one world of darkness and into another. She was lying on the cavern floor, aching all over. Her weapons were gone, as well as her protective silver and dynamite.

“Sam? Volker?” she called out. No answer.

Further down the tunnel, she could see a light and stumbled towards it as if drunk. As she got closer, she could hear multiple voices, all chanting. Finally, she turned the corner and found herself in a large chamber with a bonfire burning in the center. A statue of the Devil was carved into the wall, and beneath its outstretched arms, a shirtless man, wearing a goat skull over his face, stood beside a stone altar. Several men and women sat around the fire, their unclothed bodies covered in runes and glyphs written in blood. They all bowed over and over again while reciting the dark chant.

A cloth bundle was presented to the masked man, and he set it on the altar, revealing a crying baby. He raised his hand, holding a ceremonial dagger in his grip, shouted something Sorine did not understand, then brought down the blade. “No!” she screamed. As blood trickled down the sides of the altar, all of the congregants turned to Sorine, glaring at her with empty eye sockets. They opened their toothless mouths and released beastly, bloodcurdling screams. Terrified, Sorine took off in a run, sprinting down another passageway. Candles and torches lined the walls, illuminating her way. Countless howls and screams of agony echoed through the passage, and as Sorine ran, she saw who they were coming from.

She passed by countless chambers where men, women, and children were both suffering and performing the most horrific rituals. Torture, rape, cannibalism, murder, every room had some unspeakable horror. People were being dismembered, disemboweled, skinned alive, and burned, with the light of torches and candles dancing on the stone faces of demonic statues. Blood flowed across the stone floor like rain, forming puddles Sorine splashed and sloshed through. The stench was overpowering, mixed with the smell of voided bowels and various body fluids.

“This is the legacy of your people.” Hearing the cold, deep voice, Sorine looked over her shoulder. The man with the goat skull was following her, gripping the knife still dripping with infant blood. “This is the sin that flows through your veins. This is the truth that you have rebelled against, the truth of who you are, but no matter how hard you fight, this truth will never die.”

“Leave me alone!” she shouted, continuing to run.

She passed by rooms where human skin and blood were being used to write pages of profane knowledge, and their bones and organs were crafted into items for witchcraft. The people performing these rituals were covered in tattoos, brands, scars, and piercings, their bodies mutilated almost as horribly as their victims. The squelching of tearing flesh, cracking of bones, splattering of blood, and the screaming of anguish made Sorine feel like hot irons were being driven into her ears.

“No prayer can ever undo the crimes of your ancestors. No amount of time can ever absolve you of their atrocities. You, your children, your children’s children, and every generation that follows will be tainted by what has happened here. All those who carry my blood can never enter the kingdom of Heaven. God does not love you, but we love you. Join us, Sorine. Accept your place in our family.”

“No! Get away!”

Sorine turned a corner and found herself at a dead end. She frantically beat her hands against the stone, praying for it to crumble. Then, realizing she was trapped, she curled up into a ball, covering her ears and shutting her eyes. Despite that, she could still hear the screaming and see all the tortures and horrific rituals with her mind’s eyes. She couldn’t turn away from it; they filled every sense and dug deep into her gray matter like wriggling worms.

“Join us, Sorine,” the man said, entering the room and being followed by other cultists. “Join us.”

———-

Volker didn’t understand what was going on. The last thing he remembered was being in Romania at night, but now he found himself in Berlin during the day. He couldn’t move from where he was standing nor touch or communicate with anyone around him. He was at some kind of rally attended by thousands of people. Red flags hung, displaying a strange diagonal cross, and there were multiple statues of eagles. Behind his podium from atop a stage, a man he didn’t recognize, sporting a tiny mustache, shouted about the merits of nationalism, proclaimed the supremacy of Germany, and heaped blame upon nations and ethnic groups. The louder and more intense he became, the more the people cheered while extending one arm in a Roman salute.

“What is happening?” Volker muttered.

The world around him began to shift, showing him more rallies and parades where soldiers marched down streets with rifles, walking before and in front of military vehicles. He watched German tanks roll across the land, saw soldiers murder civilians, and erect flags and barbed wire. The man’s voice continued to boom from all directions, spouting a manifesto of hatred and fascism. He heard him over the booms of artillery, the rattle of machine gun fire, and the cheering of his supporters as bombs rained across Europe.

“No! Stop! This isn’t how it’s supposed to be!”

He continued to flash to other locations. He watched soldiers drag people out of their homes, loading them into trucks and onto trains. He didn’t need to take one step; he arrived at what he thought was a military base, then looked up at the front gate and read the words ‘Arbeit Macht Frei’. Men, women, and children were herded at gunpoint while dogs barked and snarled. They were stripped of their clothes and possessions, shaved, hosed down, tattooed, and dressed in prison uniforms. Family members wept and screamed as they were separated, and as much as Volker wished to intervene, he couldn’t move from where he was standing.

From there, the horror only increased. He watched the prisoners starve, receive beatings, and work until their hands bled. Beneath surgical lights, he watched as the people were tortured and experimented on, screaming in pain as the most sickening and profane questions conceived by man were answered in the most sadistic ways. He stood in the gas chambers as the innocents clawed at their throats, died atop each other in naked piles, and watched as their corpses were tossed into incinerators.

He was forced to see it all, unable to even close his eyes, and no matter how much he cried or how many times he retched in horror and disgust, the nightmare went on. Then, a voice called out to him. “Ah, Herr Hofmann, there you are. We’ve been waiting.” Finally, Volker could move, and he turned around to find himself facing an officer in a black uniform. “Come, join us. How long are you going to make us wait?”

Volker looked down, realizing he was wearing the same uniform. He tried to speak, but couldn’t say anything. The officer walked away, and Volker followed him, but not willingly. His body was moving on its own, as though he was a puppet on strings. He was brought outside, where several other officers were standing before a row of prisoners. They were hunched over in fear and exhaustion, shivering in the cold, and behind them was the fruit of their labors, a massive pit.

“Now then,” said the first officer, “time to do our good work.” He then drew a pistol and shot a prisoner right between the eyes, sending him dropping into the pit, which Volker now realized was a mass grave. Then, one by one, the other officers drew their pistols and calmly executed the prisoners. Then it was Volker’s turn, and he realized he was holding a rifle. “What are you waiting for, Herr Hofmann? Join us. You must serve the Fatherland.”

“Join us, join us,” the officers said repeatedly.

“No, no! I can’t!” Volker exclaimed, but his body, refusing to obey him, still raised the rifle.

“For Germany, Herr Hofmann, join us.”

———-

Explosions blossomed all around Sam, filling the sky with dirt and smoke. The sun overhead was just a white silhouette, struggling to shine through the haze of war, and the landscape had been bleached with fire and stained with blood. Men fell to the ground, ripped to shreds by bullets, shockwaves, and shrapnel. Sam didn’t know where he was running, if he was heading towards the enemy lines or already behind it, because wherever he went or whichever direction he faced, there were foes before him and allies dying around him.

He shot at men with his rifle, feeling his teeth rattle with each recoil, and kept moving. Then, when he was out of ammo, he’d switch to his pistol, and when his pistol was empty, he’d switch to his bayonet, and then when his arm got tired, he’d switch back to his rifle, finding it full of bullets and ready to go, same with his pistol, and the cycle would just repeat over and over again.

He didn’t know how long he had been fighting or how many people had been killed. Looking behind him, there was always a hill, crater, or barbed wire fence that he didn’t remember crossing, and his boots left no footprints in the soil. There were times when he felt bullets tear through him, or an enemy would get lucky and stick their bayonet between his ribs. He’d gag in pain, feeling death circling him for a few moments, but adrenaline would push him to keep fighting, and he’d soon forget about it upon receiving the next wound. The only constant thing was his thirst. He didn’t have a canteen on him, and the only fluid that wet his throat was his blood.

Up ahead was a machine gun encampment, spitting rounds. Sam and his fellow soldiers charged as they had been trained, and as always, he could see the men getting mowed down. Each bullet was like a monstrous hand digging its claws into the men’s bodies and tearing out a chunk of flesh. Now close enough, Sam pulled out his pistol and killed three men, then jumped on top of the fourth, forcing him to the ground. Sam stabbed the man wildly with his bayonet, sending blood splattering every time he pulled out.

A grenade exploded nearby, knocking Sam on his side and coaxing him to move on. He got back to his feet and kept running, kept shooting, kept killing. Then, finally, he saw the edge of the battlefield, where greenery replaced the upturned soil, and there was even a road. He ran towards that road, and as soon as he stepped on it, all fell silent. No more guns were firing, no shells were dropping, and the screams of pain had ceased. He looked back at the battlefield, seeing nothing but a field of corpses, endless thousands of corpses, laying side-by-side or piled into mountains. The only break in the quiet was the cawing of carrion birds feeding on the dead.

The silence failed to slow Sam’s racing heart. If anything, it told him he had to run even faster. He followed his instincts and the road, soon feeling a sense of nostalgia. This was the road to his house. He kept running, still carrying all his weapons and gear, and finally arrived at his driveway, finding a new mailbox. He continued up the driveway, running alongside the fence he and his father and brothers had built years earlier, yet no animals grazed on the other side.

He expected his home to be there, but instead, there was a house he didn’t recognize. The barn was also missing, replaced with a pile of ashes and charred timbers. This didn’t make sense. Where was his home? His family? He must have misremembered the scenery, but why did everything else look familiar? He spun around, looking for something that would prove or disprove what this place was. He looked across a nearby pasture, where he was sure he had plowed with the family tractor multiple times before, where he and his brothers had played baseball and caught fireflies, and where his sister had gotten married. It was exactly as he remembered it, but at the very edge where the field met the forest, where his grandparents were buried before he went off to the war, he saw a line of crosses.

Feeling a lump in his throat, Sam raced across the field and looked at the crosses, soon dropping his rifle and falling to his knees. His parents’ and siblings’ names, they were all there. “No, no, this can’t be happening.”

The missing house, the destroyed barn, he didn’t want to believe it all, but they pointed to one inarguable conclusion. There was nothing here. There was no home for him to return to, no one to welcome him back. He was all alone. Tears poured from Sam’s eyes, and he beat his fists against the ground.

“I didn’t mean to be gone for so long! I’m sorry! I’m sorry I didn’t come back! I’m sorry I made you worry! I was the one who was supposed to leave, not you! You’re supposed to be here! You’re supposed to be waiting for me! I just wanted to do the right thing! I just wanted to accomplish something that would make you proud!”

“Sam….” He heard a voice and turned around, but no one was there. Instead, the field he had just crossed was filled with more crosses and countless tombstones, each bearing German, Austrian, and Bulgarian names, the names of all the men he killed. “Sam….”

The soil around each grave stirred, and suddenly, rotting hands began bursting out of the ground. One by one, the dead soldiers pulled themselves out of their graves. Maggots and worms poured from their mouths and eye sockets, and their papery flesh tore with every movement. They were missing hair, flesh, limbs, organs, eyes, and a soul, but the power of their grudge could be felt in the air itself.

“You killed us, Sam. Now you must join us,” they all groaned.

Sam looked back to his family graves, watching his parents and siblings clawing their way out of the soil. They all wore the clothes he remembered in life, but their bodies were charred from the flames that killed them. “Join us, Sam. We’ve been waiting for you,” his family moaned as they pulled themselves towards him.

“This isn’t happening! This isn’t happening!” Sam exclaimed, covering his eyes and shaking his head, but when he looked again, he found himself staring into an empty grave marked with a cross engraved with his name.

———-

“Join us, Sorine. Take your rightful place in our village,” the man with the goat skull said. Other cultists held Sorine still, and as hard as she fought to break free, their grip was like iron. The man forced his bloody dagger into her hands, and Sorine watched as a crying baby was presented to her. “Join us, Sorine.”

“Join us, Herr Hofmann, and serve Germany,” said the other officers, standing around Volker. He wept in horror and disgust, but his arm raised the rifle in his hands and aimed it at a young woman crying and begging for mercy. He could feel his finger tightening around the trigger, and he fought with everything he had to resist. “Join us, Volker.”

“Join us, Sam. This is where you belong!” the legion of the dead ordered. Sitting in a sea of corpses, feeling their skeletal hands grabbing at him, Sam’s sanity was slipping away. He didn’t know if he was doing it, didn’t even know if he should stop it, but he felt his fingers close around his pistol and raise it to his temple. His movements were erratic, almost spasming, and his hand struggled to steady the gun as Sam stared into his open grave. “Join us, Sam.”

“JOIN US!”

The crack of a pistol rang out, and searing pain filled Sam’s mind, but though it should have robbed him of his consciousness, he actually felt energy surging through his brain and boosting his awareness. He collapsed, feeling cold soil on one side of his face and hot blood running down the other like liquid pain. He couldn’t see anything, and all he could hear was the agonizing ringing in his ear from his gun going off, refusing to let his mind sink back into darkness.

It took him several moments, but he managed to steady his thoughts, deal with the pain, and push himself onto his knees. His vision was still blurry, but he could tell he was in a dark place with something in front of him producing an eerie dim light. He recognized the stench of death, and its power was almost more than he could bear. His eyes finally settled and he let slip a curse of fear.

Standing before him was a tree with gnarled black bark, almost looking diseased. The trunk stood almost a hundred feet tall before splitting into two large branches like a Y, and from those mighty limbs stretched countless smaller branches. In between the two main limbs, a giant flower blossomed atop the tree trunk, with the pistil and stamen—the antennae-like stalks in the center—producing a green light that lit up the chamber. This was Rathodor, the Tree of the Dead, and hanging from its branches were its fruit, growing into the demonic spawn.

Sam looked down, realizing he was sitting atop a pile of bodies, both old and fresh, used as the tree’s soil. He yelped in disgust and staggered to his feet, though he was already thoroughly befouled by the fluids of the rotting corpses. It hurt to turn his head, but he looked around and spotted Sorine and Volker nearby. They were kneeling just as he had been, caught in a trance and sobbing. Volker had the end of his shotgun in his mouth, and Sorine held her sickle to her throat.

“Both of you, wake up!” Sam ran over to Volker, pulled the shotgun out of his hands, and pushed him over. He then grabbed what he hoped was a dirt clod and threw it at Sorine, hitting her in the face and knocking her on her side. The two were shaken from their dream, swinging from their arms at phantasms before fully coming to.

“What? Sam? What’s going on? Where are we?” Sorine asked,

“We’re still in the tunnel. We’ve arrived at the tree.”

They stared at the tree in horror, just as Sam had done, and mimicked his revulsion when they realized what they were sitting on.

“What the Hell was that? What did I just see?” Volker asked, looking at his trembling hands.

“I think the tree did that. It’s some kind of weapon or ability it uses to protect itself from attackers. If anyone gets too close, they fall into a trance and end up killing themselves.”

“Then how did you wake up?”

Sam pointed to his bleeding temple. “I tried to blow my brains out, but I think my hand must have jerked at the last second so the bullet just grazed me. First time I ever missed.”

“Talk about a lucky shot. This must be the cultists’ hidden temple, the chamber where they prepared for Rathodor’s arrival. They even made it big enough for all the branches.”

“Where’s the dynamite? We need to finish this!” Sorine said.

They split up, searching for their weapons and supplies. Whether they had wandered here during their trance or were delivered here by the demons, everything they carried had been scattered across the vast chamber. Moving around was difficult, as the ground was soft and uneven, and made entirely of dead bodies. Everywhere they stepped was upon either soft flesh or hard bone. Sorine struggled not to cry as she stumbled upon the remains of those she knew. Her friends and family were all in this room.

Being in the tree’s presence, they could feel its evil intent wearing down on their minds. It was the embodiment of horror, the incarnation of hatred for life. It existed to drown the world in blood and bring suffering and death to all of humanity. Each second, it was trying to worm its way into their consciousness and put them back under its spell, so it could add their bodies to its collection and feed on them.

Volker still had a can of lamp oil on him, so they made torches using human bones and shredded clothing. The light helped them search the area, with Sam finding a box of dynamite and a dozen scattered sticks from the second crate, and Sorine locating a few of their silver weapons. But, unfortunately, the blasting machine and the wire spool were missing.

“What do we do now? We don’t have enough cannon fuse to set these off and get to a safe distance,” said Volker.

“We didn’t come here to be safe. We knew going in that this was a suicide mission,” said Sam. “But looking at that thing, I’m wondering if this will be enough to destroy it.”

“I have an idea,” said Sorine. “Look up there.” She pointed to a path carved into the chamber wall, winding up to the ceiling. “Instead of creating one explosion, we’ll use two. The first will be at the base of the tree and the second will be up there. We’ll blast off its roots and bring the whole mountain down upon it.”

The conversation was put on hold as the trio picked up the howling of demons. “Damn it, the spawn are returning,” said Volker. “No time to argue; we’ll go with Sorine’s plan. Sam, take this crate up to the ceiling. Don’t set it off until we’ve set off ours. Go!”

Sam nodded and grabbed the intact crate, then began his run up to the top of the chamber. While he made the frantic hike, Volker took all the remaining cannon fuse they had and connected all the gathered sticks of dynamite so they would go off simultaneously. Sorine left him with the torch and stuck the dynamite in the ground around the tree’s base. “For my father, for everyone you’ve taken,” she muttered as she pushed each stick into the composted mash of dead bodies.

She then suddenly pulled her hand back with a yelp of pain, feeling she had been stabbed. There was a puncture wound in her palm, and she felt several more stings on her legs. She cried out and staggered to her feet, but before she could escape, a black root shot out of the ground and wrapped around her wrist. She tried to pull herself free, but the root was strong and sharp like barbed wire, and all she accomplished was tearing her skin on its thorns.

Sorine severed the root with her silver-lined sickle, producing a stream of smoke and a high-pitched cry. The whole tree shook, and more roots began reaching out of the ground around Sorine, each trying to grab her in retaliation. Volker wanted to run over and help her, but a fence of roots blocked his path. Armed with nothing but her sickle, Sorine looked desperately for a way out. The roots wrapped around her legs like snares, slashing her in the process, and every time she cut them away, more would come after her. She was running around without direction, moving anywhere that seemed safe, but the whole ground was coming alive, and roots of greater size and strength were now lunging for her.

Up above, Sam had reached the top of the chamber and wedged the crate of dynamite against the ceiling. A fuse was extended, and he was ready to light it with his torch, but he had to wait for Volker and Sorine down below. Looking down, he saw them fighting off the roots. “Shit!”

Before he could think to come down and help her, a demon’s scream reached his ears. The developing spawn hanging from the tree branches were waking up, forgoing their growth and obeying the tree’s will. They ripped themselves off the branches with malformed limbs and bodies like babies chewing off their umbilical cords. Despite their premature birth, they moved with monstrous speed and strength, climbing up the walls to Sam’s location.

He brandished his axe, managing to behead a child-sized demon as it climbed up to his perch. Another, the size of an infant, leaped onto him and latched on his head, screaming in pain as its hands touched his silver protection. He ripped it off its face, cursing as its tiny claws left their mark, and kicked it across the chamber. Unfortunately, more were coming from above and below, and he was forced to abandon the dynamite crate.

Down below, the fully-developed spawn were returning to the chamber, and their monstrous squeals were met with a cry of pain from Sorine. A powerful root had wrapped around her, with its sharp thorns stabbing her all over. Sam was surrounded on all sides, Sorine was caught in death’s embrace, and the legion of Rathodor was swarming. Hope was fading like a candle in the breeze, but had yet to be extinguished.

Volker, raising his shotgun, took aim at the flower growing between the two main branches, what was originally Rathodor’s head, and fired. Silver shrapnel bombarded the glowing tendrils, shredding and burning the fragile tissue. A scream of agony echoed from the tree as all of its branches shook. The demons surrounding Sam all stopped, gripping their heads as the tree’s suffering was passed onto them. A second shell compounded the damage, causing all the roots to slacken and for Sorine to be released.

She fell to the ground, bleeding all over and struggling to remain conscious, but fear and pain drove her to her feet, and she limped towards Volker. He opened his shotgun and discharged the two spent casings, but before he could reload, a tree root burst from the ground and pierced him through the chest.

“Volker!” Sorine screamed.

More roots were reaching up and stabbing him. They wormed their way through his body, shredding muscles and organs and draining him of nutrients. Sorine limped over as fast as she could, but his body was shriveling up by the second, and he was dead by the time she reached him. She screamed and cried in anger, but the tree was regaining its strength, and she had no time to waste.

She picked up the torch burning by his feet and the can of oil he had been carrying. She ripped off part of her dress, stuffed it into the can’s opening, and lit it with the torch. Then, with a howl of desperation, she hurled the can at the tree, sending it flying over the sea of shredding roots. The can struck the trunk and sprayed it with oil, immediately catching fire and spreading to the dynamite.

Sam heard Sorine’s cry and saw the flames. Volker’s death was a heavy blow, but he had lost enough friends during the war to know how to keep fighting. What mattered was setting off the dynamite. He was surrounded by demons, and though they were still disoriented, he couldn’t get past them and reach the crate. He had one idea, a meager hope, but that was enough. As the demons closed in on him, he drew his pistol and took aim at the dynamite. He had only one bullet left, and he imbued it with every hope and silent prayer he could think of, then pulled the trigger.

As the bullet pierced the crate and struck one of the sticks inside, the flames burning on the tree reached the dynamite below, and both charges went off simultaneously. The tree’s roots were shredded by a chain of explosions that sent cracks running up the trunk, while the chamber ceiling shattered from the detonating crate. Boulders rained down upon the burning tree, snapping its branches and fully uprooting it.

However, it was more than just the ceiling being destroyed. Titanic fractures spread through the walls, floor, and entire mountain. The ground under Sam’s feet gave away, and he slid down one collapsing slope after another, before landing on a pile of bodies that cushioned his fall. The entire chamber was caving in, leaving him no time to recover. He scrambled to his feet and ran over to Sorine, dodging falling boulders in the process. He hoisted her over his shoulder like a rolled-up carpet, picked up her dropped torch, and ran off, powered by hysterical strength.

He ducked into the first passageway he saw, guided only by the light of a fading torch, while around him, the whole cave system was collapsing in on itself. Then, he saw something he thought he’d never see again: daylight. A crack had opened up in the cave wall, but it was narrow. He hoisted Sorine, and, rather ungracefully, tried to push her through the gap, all while the tunnel continued to collapse.

“Come on, I know you’re tired, but move your ass!”

She pulled herself outside into the fresh air with all her remaining strength, and Sam followed her. They were out of the cave, looking towards the rising sun, but not out of danger. The entire mountain was crumbling, with great fissures splitting bedrock and shredding the forest. Sam and Sorine grabbed onto the nearest tree and held on for dear life until the quaking stopped.

“Stay here, I’m going to look around.”

Sam left Sorine where she was, climbed up a nearby ledge, and then whistled in amazement. Half of the mountain had collapsed like a soufflé, leaving behind a massive crater filled with rubble. Not knowing what to say, Sam threw up his arms and hollered, cheering at the top of his lungs. Down below, Sorine listened to him and chuckled to herself as blood ran down her chin. But then, there was a second voice, one that erased her smile.

“No,” she gasped.

Sam shared her sentiment at the top of the ledge, but with much more profanity. The rubble was shifting, and a monstrous roar echoed from below. Then, with a great snarl, Rathodor raised itself up from what should have been its tomb. Its hard exterior was riddled with cracks, but beneath the shredded bark, exposed muscle quivered and twisted. The stiff petals of the flower served as jaws once more, and though it had no eyes, it looked directly at Sam and howled in fury and pain. It began dragging itself forward, refusing to die, despite its roots gone and all of its fruit-bearing branches snapped.

“Shit! Shit! Shit!” Sam climbed down the ledge and ran to Sorine. “We got to go!” He didn’t hear anything she said and hoisted her onto his shoulder once more, then took off in a run down the mountain.

Behind him, Rathodor had dragged itself out of the crater. As the light of the rising sun shone upon it, its body began to burn. These were not the yellow flames of the mortal world, but the black flames of Hell. Its whole body was wrapped in a dark inferno, but the pain and injuries could not trounce the indescribable power of its hatred. It dragged itself down the mountain, sworn to kill those who had so wounded it.

Sam ran as fast as he could, but he was utterly exhausted and battered from fights, old wounds, his recent fall, and everything else his body had suffered these past several days. He also had to watch his footing, as a twisted ankle or broken leg would mean death, but it was far from easy. The mountain’s surface had been reshaped, with slabs of rock having risen and fallen and smashed trees everywhere. Still, he sprinted with everything he had, driven by nothing more than pure fear.

Behind him, Rathodor seemed less troubled by the topography. It dragged itself over hills and ravines, smashed through stone barriers, and crushed trees like they were made of cardboard. It paid no attention to its wounds, as while Sam was driven by fear, the beast was driven by rage. The black flames intensified with the rising sun, resembling thick fur swaying in the breeze.

“Sam! Our silver! We need to use our silver!” said Sorine, but Sam was too focused on running. “Sam! Listen to me!” she shouted while slapping him until he stopped.

They had reached a flat open area, and Sam stood Sorine up, though she struggled to remain on her feet. She had lost a lot of blood, soaking both their clothes. Still, she faced the oncoming monster charging toward them.

“Until this bastard is dead, I’ll stand on my own two feet, and I won’t look away,” she cursed.

“One last battle,” Sam muttered as he stood beside her, the two of them feeling the sun on their backs.

They removed every piece of silver they still carried, and when Rathodor was in range, they hurled them with desperate strength. After all the wounds it had suffered and was currently suffering, it didn’t seem like bits of silver would turn the tide, but they left their mark. Sam took the chain of silver scrap he wore for protection and threw it, getting it tangled in the brain tendrils between the monster’s jaws. Rathodor stopped and spasmed in agony, and when it roared, Sorine threw her silver knife and sent it down the monster’s throat.

Rathodor halted its advance, shaking all over. Its strength and life were all but expended. It reached out with one arm towards Sam and Sorine, but instead of swatting at them, it kept the limb raised, as though trying to grab something out of the air. They realized it was shaking what was left of its fist at the sun. It glared straight into the light without eyes and released one final snarl, a beastly curse directed at God. Then, finally, it dropped its arm and fell silent and still. Its body continued to crackle and burn, but there were no more snarls, no growls or roars. Throughout the land, all the demon progeny released their death rattles and dropped to the ground. It was finally and truly dead. The nightmare was over.

Like Sam had done prematurely, Sorine raised her arms and released a shout of triumph, then collapsed. Sam rushed over and lifted her head. Now in the daylight, he could see her wounds’ true severity and flowing blood. There was nothing he could do to save her, and she saw it on his face.

“It’s ok, don’t worry,” she murmured.

“No, it’s not. It’s not fair. I should be lying here, not you. I’m the soldier, I’m the one who is supposed to die.”

“You’re wrong, this is how it’s supposed to be. With this, I’ve made up for the sins of my ancestors. I managed to save some people by hiding in the church, but Runa village will die with me, and I’m fine with that. I can leave this world knowing I saved it, knowing that I destroyed my people’s horrific legacy. Whether mankind acknowledges or dismisses what happened here, evil will never again dwell in this valley.”

“I won’t let you be forgotten, even if you want to be.”

“That’s right, you finally have a good story to take home with you.”

“It just doesn’t feel real. So many people died, is this really a victory?”

“It is. Runa may be gone, but the lives you’ve saved are beyond count. You don’t have to fight anymore. Your war is over. You can finally go home.”

“When we were in that trance, Rathodor showed me my family’s graves and destroyed home, but I know deep down that it wasn’t true. I know they’re still waiting for me. When I tell them everyone you, do you mind if I say we made love instead of you just giving me a handjob? It sounds better.”

“After everything you’ve done, tell them I gave you the best sex of your life.”

They shared a heartfelt laugh, and as the sun rose ever higher, the laughing of two became the tears of one. Sam buried Sorine there in the field. It was a beautiful spot, with a nice view of her vanquished rival. As he stood over her grave, he pulled out his pistol and opened it. He was out of bullets. He gave a soft laugh and threw it aside. He had lived around that gun for years, and finally, he felt like he could let it go. After everything he had been through, he was done being afraid and trying to live up to his grandfather’s stories. He had his own story to tell.

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