The Hunter Home

And the hunter home...

'Lupus est homo homini'
Titus Maccius Plautus
(C. 254-184 BC)

It was strange, Mark Clift reflected, on how weather seemed to
punctuate the sentence of occasion.

Remembered childhood picnics of years past, heat shimmering over
boyhood fields. Sweet scents of honeysuckle, wafted around by the draft
from blurred insect wings. The perfect polished sky; cornflower blue,
so unflawed it had seemed unreal. Memory bridged the years in an
instant. He was a teenager, and again staring up with awe on a winter's
night. Stars carelessly cast diamonds on deep black velvet. Cold air
biting his lungs, making him cough silvered plumes through which he
could still see the distant points of light, accepting with a
wonderment, for the first time in his life, that there might be
something bigger and far more important than himself.
Reality brought him jarringly back, to a damp Yorkshire November
morning.
He stood with others; people, who could loosely be termed as 'family',
around the shaven sides of the dark pit, into which, shortly, the
remains of his dead grandmother's husband were to be interred.
Grandfather. He mentally corrected himself.
He'd been discouraged, even from young childhood, from thinking of him
as a grandparent. His 'REAL' grandfather, according to his mother, had
died during the war, and grandma Edith had remarried shortly
afterwards. It was an unvoiced understanding that the man she had
remarried could never be 'one of the family'. Clift's mother was a
strong character, bringing him up alone after his own father had
deserted them early on; he had thought that it was his mother's odd
values that had pre-supposed anyone with a foreign accent was not
British and therefore not one of the Clift 'clan'. But as age brought a
measure of wisdom, he realised that it was something that went deeper
than any irrational xenophobic prejudice.
He had met the man only once, and that was so many years ago now, that
he scarcely remembered it.
He had quizzed his mother many times, when younger, with a childish
curiosity about her formative years with her stepfather. The only
information he had dragged from her was superficial at best. She had
told him that Heinrich Rimmel, the man her mother had married after her
first husbands death, was a German Jew, liberated from 'one of the
death camps' by the Americans, when they had finally over-run the
Rhineland. Rimmel had found himself on refugee status, coming to
England and landing at Tilbury docks where her mother, Edith, was doing
her bit for 'King and Country'.
That's where they had met.
His mother went on to explain that herself and her older brother David,
whom Clift has never known had been killed in an accident several years
before. She went on to say that as children her and David had been
evacuated when the bombing had become too intense for them to remain in
London. They didn't meet their new stepfather until weeks after their
mother had already married. Apparently the Jewish refugee had managed
to smuggle some valuables out of his captivity, as his family had been
quite 'well to do' over there, before the war and terrible pogroms. As
a result, the newly married couple had brought a small farm in an
isolated part of the Pennine hills, only a few miles from the small
sleepy village of Middlethorne, where he was being buried today.
No amount of probing could entice Clift's mother to tell of what the
remainder of her and her elder brother's childhood was like. The period
they had spent at the hill farm was suspended in time for her, lost
years never to be recalled, buried forever in thick layers of oblivion.
All she would impart was that when she had left the farm at seventeen,
a few years after her brother's death. Nothing remained to hold her
there. She had returned to London to find a job and live with relatives
as she missed the city, and memories of happier times. Eventually he
gave up asking, as he found his younger days embroiled in a seemingly
endless progression of academia, which suppressed his curiosity.
Firstly, his final days at school, then onto college for a brief period
and finally University and, with a lesser class English degree, he had
drifted into journalism. He then obtained a junior reporter-cum-teaboys
post at a local rag in Manchester, where he had been at University. It
was intended to be a 'fill in' job till something else came along. It
didn't work out that way. One thing led to another, as life tends
to.
Now, in midlife, circumstances had dictated that he was the Assistant
Chief Editor at the same paper where he had begun his undistinguished
career. Now, with complacency firmly set in, he found himself too
comfortable to pursue any half formed and largely forgotten, young
man's idealistic dreams of becoming a respected correspondent on some
big quality newspaper, when he thought that his writing could make a
difference. He picked up his reasonably substantial salary every moth
and new company car every three years. It was happiness of a
sort.
The priest's dull monotone brought him back from his meanderings and
reminiscences that he had
inadvertently slipped into once more. He watched the Cleric cast the
first handful of earth onto the lowered cask that now rested at the
bottom of the open grave. He had been supporting his mother on his
overcoated arm, when suddenly; with unexpected purpose she disengaged
herself from him, broke away and strode forward to the graveside. She
leaned over, and in full view of the other family mouners spat
forcefully into the open hole.
The shocked, yet muted gasp from the onlookers was very, very audible
in the muffled quiet of the damp morning. Clift's mother then turned
smartly on her heel and strode quickly across the Churchyard, toward
the winding wet tarmac path that ran centrally through it. Clift's
hands fluttered in apology at the other mouners, as he hurried after
her, rapidly caught up and gripped her upper left arm with his right
hand with more force than he had intended and he half jerked her
around, checking her determined gait, almost pulling her of her
feet.

"What the hell are you thinking of, mother? For Christ sake, perhaps
you didn't like the man very much, but that's no excu...."
The look on her pale face stopped him in mid tirade, like a cold dash
of icy water.
"Get me to the car, Mark... don't ask questions, just get me to the
car.... I'll explain on the way back to London, please just get me away
from this bloody awful place."
They drove from the car park amidst the stares and glares of the more
enterprising and swifter family
members that had caught them up, and in studied silence, ignoring the
questions and acrid comments, they drove out of the car park, and
through the quiet village and finally onto the main road.
The drive, from Mark Clift's perspective was a blur. His hands were
locked painfully tight on the steering wheel; his upper and lower teeth
set almost spasm like against each other. They had travelled only a few
miles on the winding Pennine road when his mothers soft sobbing forced
him to look away from the windscreen and at her face instead. Her
crying seemed to release some of his own tensions and with a deep sigh,
which helped a little more, he pulled into an approaching lay-buy and
stopped his vehicle, resting his forehead on the cool leather of the
steering wheel, his eyes closed in welcoming darkness. He lifted his
head and looked at his mother again; she was already staring at him,
studying his face, as if searching for something; a hint of
understanding at her bizarre actions. Finally she reached into her
black Leather handbag then after rummaging around for a second handed
him a worn blue envelope.
"Read it," she said, quietly.
Perplexed, he opened the old envelope and pulled out a tissue piece of
paper, neatly folded, the lettering schooled in a hand taught in a
different age. He read it aloud, more to convince himself of the
reality of the situation than anything else.
It read.

MY DEAREST DAUGHTER,

WE'VE BEEN APART FOR MANY YEARS, TOO MANY. WHEN YOU READ THIS LETTER I
WILL HAVE PASSED ON, AS MUST WE ALL, AS ONE DAY MY HUSBAND, YOUR
STEPFATHER. I ONLY ASK ON THING OF YOU DAUGHTER, IF I STILL HAVE THE
RIGHT TO CALL YOU SUCH. AFTER HIS DEATH, GO TO HIS FUNERAL, SHOW YOUR
REVULSION FOR THE ABOMINATION THAT HE IS. FOR YOUR SALVATION'S SAKE,
SHOW GOD YOUR HATRED OF HIM AND WHAT HE HAS BECOME.
I AM SURE TO SUFFER HELLS DAMNATION FOR WHAT I DID, AND DID NOT DO, BUT
TRY TO UNDERSTAND MY DARLING; MY COURAGE WAS ALL GONE AND MY POOR FLESH
SO WEAK.
I WILL PAY FOR ETERNITY.
FIND ERIC GOTTFRIED, IN BERLIN. THE ADDRESS IS ON THE BACK OF THIS
LETTER.
HE KNOWS, HE WILL TELL ALL.
PRAY FOR OUR MORTAL SOUL AND FOR THAT OF YOUR DEAR DEAD BROTHERS.
IT IS TOO LATE FOR ME NOW, BUT PLEASE, I WANT YOU TO KNOW THAT THE LOVE
I HAVE ALWAYS HAD IN MY HEART FOR YOU AND DEAR DAVID WILL BE CARRIED
WITH
ME, TO SUBSTAIN ME IN MY TORMENTS THAT I KNOW I HAVE YET TO COME.

TRY TO FORGIVE ME, AS GOD WILL NOT

YOUR LOVING MOTHER:

EDITH.

He read it once more, silently this time, letting the words sink in,
and digested them for a moment before turning back to his mother. His
tone had an underlying accusatory tone to it.
"I seem to remember you telling me that my grandmother had died of
heart failure."
His mother sighed before replying and stroked his face gently for a
second. He was eight years old again "You were to young to understand,
how do you explain to a young boy that his grandmother just couldn't
bear to live anymore?"
There was an awkward silence for a moment, then:
"What could your stepfather have done to you that was so awful? Sexual
abuse was it?"
Mark Clift was becoming uncomfortably aware that any of his half-formed
pre-conceptions that he might have had over the years were being pulled
around his ears. Maggots of an unknown fear, a dread of what he must
know were eating painfully at his gut. His mother sat, hunched on the
car seat, head down, absently wringing our her hands, as if trying to
remove an unmentionable and foul soiling.

He suddenly realised how old she now seemed.
She looked up into his face again, red rimmed eyes, dull with
anguish.
"I don't know, really I don't&;#8230;. It's half remembered really,
almost as if I try to shut it all out&;#8230;. images,
feelings, all wrapped up in each other, all confused&;#8230;.the
dreams&;#8230;."
Gently he interrupted his distraught mother.
"Start at the beginning, there's so much you have never told me, so
much I just don't know. What was it
like living on the farm with him when you were a child;
good&;#8230;.bad&;#8230;.what?"
"Oh, I Suppose I have some good memories really&;#8230;.about David
and your grandmother at least&;#8230;.but."
and she shuddered," him&;#8230;! It was like a black blanket over my
head; whenever I saw him&;#8230;.he was away for much of the time,
thank God, on business I think, although as a child I never asked. I
was just happy that he wasn't around to make me feel miserable. I
suppose that my brother felt the same way; but I'm not sure about my
Mother&;#8230;.I think that she missed him in her own way. But David
and myself, well, the atmosphere was so different with him not there".
She smiled in spite of herself. "It was like an eternal summer. There
was always a picnic, or a walk onto the hills to hear the falls at
Waterdale. Then he would arrive back at the farm and it seemed as if
even the birds stopped singing, I hated those times. Then it
happened."
A car pulled onto the lay-by with them; an old couple out sightseeing
probably. The momentary distraction gone, his mother continued.
"I think I would have been eight years old. David was about sixteen or
seventeen. It was around the time of his birthday because it was August
in the summer holidays. I'd gone to bed early, always did when he was
there. Not because I was made to, but because I always felt a child's
security huddled up in my bed under the blankets. It was my escape. I
was must have been asleep, but voices awoke me. My bedroom was over the
kitchen. It was dark and there was a loud argument going on, noisy yet
muffled. David's voice was louder than the rest, he was shouting at
them both, then something smashed, glass or crockery, then the outside
kitchen door slammed shut&;#8230;. I went to the window and looked
out, it was dark but I could see my brother running across the yard,
caught in the light from the kitchen window, then the light went out
and I heard someone crying."
"Your mother?" asked Clift.
"No strange as it seems I think it was him. I heard someone coming up
the stairs, so I darted back into bed and put my head under the covers.
My mother walked in&;#8230;.I knew it was her without seeing her. It
seemed like an age that she stood by the side of the bed, and then she
went out again without saying a word. The next day when I got up,
neither David nor my stepfather was in evidence. My mother sat me in
the kitchen and told me that David and my stepfather had had a blazing
row, about money that David had been saving. David, apparently, had
wanted to buy a motorbike with it, most of the older local lads had
one, it was kind of status symbol between them I suppose, and David had
been on about having one for ages. Anyway he had refused to let him get
one, saying that it was far too dangerous, and it would worry our
mother to death every time he went out on it. My mother didn't say it
directly, but I think that this was the last straw for my brother. He
was at the age where all boys who finally turn into men and felt that
he had to challenge him, for his own self respect, so he had stood up
to him, or tried to. My mother put it that David had 'argued back' and
my stepfather had thrown his half-finished supper plate at him, for his
pains. With this last affront David had run into the night, vowing
never to return as long as he was still there. I can imagine that
though, I mean him throwing his plate of food at someone. He wasn't the
type to use his hands, but he would throw things at us kids; he'd done
it before, you see, many times. The sort of man who would suddenly
explode. Unpredictable, You know the type. Mother was convinced that
David would come back when he was hungry enough and had cooled off, but
he didn't. When three days had passed and there was still no sign of
David, my mother took me to the local policeman's house in the village
and told him what had happened. A search was organised fairly quickly,
the fells are dangerous and inhospitable places, even in the summer
months. Three weeks went by before his poor body was found. The gas
from the decomposition had blown the corpse up like a balloon and even
the power of Waterdale Falls couldn't keep it down. It was so ravaged
by the water pounding it into the rocks on the bottom that they hadn't
even let my mother go and identify it. Explanations were given,
statements were taken, and at the inquest, the district coroner had
recorded an open verdict&;#8230;.having no evidence to the
conclusively say what had really happened on the night that David had
died&;#8230;.only the evidence of my mother, stepfather and the fact
that four others had died beneath the falls in the previous eight
years. So that was that. Oh, there was talk in the village of course,
like all small communities they enjoy their scandals, but even that
died away eventually. But God, I really missed him, you know. I don't
think that I've ever really gotten over it."
Clift brushed his right eyebrow with the heel of his palm for a second,
collecting his thoughts, before finally he said:
"So you blame your stepfather for your brother's death? Him and your
Mother? Is that why you left later?"
"Yes and no&;#8230;.I don't know&;#8230;.it's all so sodding
confused: I suppose I could have reconciled myself to David's death
eventually, if it hadn't been for the dreams."
"What? Dreams about David?"
"Yes about David .I keep seeing him on edge of the falls teetering on
the brink, I'm there with him waist deep in the black water, reaching
out to grab him, but I'm always to late&;#8230;. I can never reach
him in time.
We always stretch out to each other, our fingers brush; and then he's
gone, lost in the swirling mists and
water, he opens his mouth to scream, but he doesn't scream."
For some reason the hair on Clift's arm began to rise.
"What does he do then, what does he say?"

"Nothing", she said, "he&;#8230;.he&;#8230;" a look of total
horror came to her face that turned his blood chill.
"He howls like a wolf."

He had never felt so alone, so afraid.

Totally disorientated, he was unsure if he was even standing on solid
ground, let alone where he was,
or how he had come to be there. Unsure as to anything&;#8230;.
Except the stench.
An all to familiar odour, the heavy scent of musk he had smelled
before, never to be forgotten. He had been covering a story, in his
younger days, sent to safari park that had to run into financial
difficulties. The assets liquidated and the animals shipped out to
other locations; the luckier ones at
least. Amongst the less fortunate ones were the wolves for which no
safe heaven could be found. No
warm and protected compound in a zoo or a reserve for them, only death
from high velocity bullet.
The protests had been unexpected in their intensity and the police and
soon to be redundant park
security had had a hard job holding the protesting groups back from the
slaughter ground. Clift
was there to witness it all. He had watched the wolves as they had
huddled together in a protective group, the males appearing to try to
protect the females with a living shield made from their own bodies,
the females in turn, protecting their cubs. It had sickened him, the
smell of musk clogging his throat; the way the small steel projectile
could tear through flesh, organ and bone with such impunity and
impersonal function.
As the group realised that the combined strength of the pack which had
served them so well for
millennium could not save them; they had gone berserk&;#8230;.the
dominant males desperately trying to
attack the pale creature with the strange smoking stick, protected by
the high chain link fence. He
that would be so vulnerable with his weak teeth and claws in their
environment, so powerful with his
technology in his own.
At last the killing was almost done, except for one lone female, cubs
already shot, wounded and
bloodied she hopped and crabbed around the fence, the look of fear and
desperation clear in her feral eyes; but the light of panic was
extinguished by a final heavy bullet, which had knocked her tumbling
over and over, then she was still. He could understand the animal's
terror now. That trapped horror filled moment when one realises that
escape is impossible, like seeing a car hurling toward you down a road
and rabbit like, caught in the headlights in a frozen awareness,
knowing with certainty that death was upon you equally certain that
there was no escape. His sphincters loosened as he heard a low growl,
which seemed to emanate from all directions at once, impossible to be
certain in the stygian blackness. Then with numbing speed, it was
there, in front of his face as if illuminated by single, powerful
spotlight. The red eyes; a hot breath laced with the stink of a fresh
kill, white fangs salivating copiously. His heart pounded in his neck,
as two huge paws settled on his shoulders.
Then the real horror and his heart stopped.
It's pink tongue lolling grotesquely, the animal spoke.
"TAKE IT."

"How do you take it sir?"
The stewardess had awoken him from his nightmare and her words
penetrated his sleep-dulled brain, everything became sharp and clear
again, as reality foisted itself upon him and memory rushed
back. The goodbyes and promises to his mother, the hurried explanation
to his editor about needing compassionate leave on personal grounds,
packing, purchasing flight tickets at the airport in the company of
tired businessman, and a smattering of excited tourists. He hadn't
realised just how much the last few days had taken from his meagre
physical resources. Years of riding a desk and punching keyboards were
not conducive to fitness or stamina; but they were fatigues and
lethargy's bedfellows.
He took the proffered cup of coffee, sipped it, winced and hurriedly
poured in more sugar from the little
paper packets, which had been handed to him with it. The taste was
clean and sweet on his furred tongue. It helped push the last vestiges
of sleep away. He glanced at the couple in the seats next to him,
young, excited, obviously newlyweds starting on life's great
misadventure. Clift had never married. He'd never found the time for a
family, children. There had been women in his life, but never for more
than a few months at a time. Nothing permanent. It hadn't seemed
important to him, until now. Now he felt a need to share, to have
someone there, to kick his troubles around with, to belong to. Perhaps
even to judge him and his motives as to why he had agreed to go to
Germany, to search Berlin for the enigmatic Eric Gottfried. He could,
of course, pretend that his reasons were purely unselfish. A
humanitarian mission on behalf of his mother, to give her answers,
relieve her self-torture. But he knew it wasn't, at least not entirely.
There was still enough journalist left in him to smell a good
human-interest story, even when the story was so personal to him, when
the oven door was left open. If honesty prevailed, that was his main
incentive.
The 'NO SMOKING' sign was lit, along with the 'FASTEN SEAT BELT' and
the aircraft banked over for its final approach to Templehof airport
and maybe, he reflected, some answers to some very odd questions.

The room was typical of hotel accommodation throughout Europe. Clean,
comfortable and with a feeling of transience and impermanence about it.
His few possessions packed away, he lay on the soft bed collecting his
thoughts, and He lit one cigarette from the smouldering remnants of
another, careless of the ash dropping on his shirt and started at the
ceiling. His plan was clear. His years in journalism had taught him
subtlety, how to draw out a story with innocuous questions. If
Gottfried was still at the given address and there was no reason to
suppose that he wouldn't be, he was sure that he could obtain the
answers that he wanted. Heaving himself up, he left the room and used
the lift opposite his room door, in the corridor, in preference to the
stairs. Leaving his room key with a sleepy looking desk clerk, he went
out into the late, wet afternoon, to find a taxi. He had made no
attempt to contact Gottfried, as he had felt that surprise might give
him another needed advantage. If the truth that he sought was more than
a little unsavoury about his mother's stepfather, and had a feeling
that it might be, Gottfried may not welcome his visit, so it may be
better to see him unannounced. He hailed a taxi on the dim damp road.
Despite the hour the street lamps had come on already, activated by the
approaching gloom of night. He climbed into the cab, settling back in
the rear leather seat and gave the driver the address that he wish to
be taken to. The swarthy taxi driver looks back at him quizzically and
said in terribly broken English, with the strong Turkish accent;
"This no good place. Know good place, girl's&;#8230; drinks, Ahmed
show you good place."
Clift smiled at the well-meaning taxi driver, who obviously had had
many dealings with middle-aged, British businessmen, away from their
wives were just out for a good time and to sample the sordid delights
of a large European City.
"I have to go there&;#8230;. Meeting&;#8230;. Understand? Someone
I have to see."
The taxi shrugged and turned back.
"Your funeral!" And these ominous and slightly disquieting words,
turned the cab in the wide street, it's tyres hissing on the tarmac
surface. Beads of rain water that were caught on the side windows of
the car reflected the street lights, as the rivulets were dragged
dragged down the glass, as the car increased it's speed.
It became apparent that they were moving into a very different Berlin
after only a few miles. First the clean hotels and then family suburbs
vanished. The buildings and luridly lit clubs that he could see in the
fast approaching night were becoming seedier, the people less well
dressed, congregating on street corners, drunks leaned against walls,
or prone on the floor, whilst people stepped indifferently over them.
Prostitutes leered at the cab, beckoning the promise of their dubious
delights.
Eventually they pulled up to a jagged and broken curbside. No more than
a few yards away, was an equally crumbling tenement, constructed after
the war, when cheap materials were used and unscrupulous Europeans
financiers, who had lost, or made great fortunes from the war either
recovered or enhanced their riches, by milking the resettlement and
rebuilding contracts for all they were worth, and for every dollar of
aid that they could skim off to line their own deep pockets.

"This is place."
Clift paid the fare, plus several Marks in an intentionally big tip,
asking the driver to wait for him. The Turk only smaned at his
request, driving off in to the night, leaving a disgruntled Clift at
the side of the road. Muttering 'where angels fear to tread' to
himself, he walked over a sparse grass verge, hoping that he wouldn't
tread in anything nasty and up some stained steps, before gingerly
pushing open a paint peeled door that led to the interior of the
building.
To his surprise he found himself in a well-lit hall. He had half
expected the lights not to be working.
The smell of stale food intermingled with an underlying, if slight
odour of human waste was apparent.
Felling into his overcoat pocket, he pulled out a piece of well worn
paper and checked the address once
more:
'KRIEGSSTAG 17a NORD HOLTZ STRATA.'
The surrounding doorways to the tenement apartments, in the hallway,
were utilitarian drab grey, but,
Thankfully, they were all clearly numbered. In the bottom floor they
were all arranged concentrically around the stairwell, finishing at
number 17. Logic told him that the only place that 17a could be was up.
Gripping his case more tightly in his sweating hand, he began to trudge
up the stairs, again suprisingly well lit. It was if the place was
deserted. Only the sound of loud Turkish music and occasional snatches
of muffled conversations from within some of the flats let him know
that he was not the only person left alive in the world. At the top of
the stairs he found 17a facing him. Licking his lips, their dryness
rasping his equally dry tongue, he tentatively rapped on the
door.
Silence. Then a gritty shuffling of feet, on bare stone, or concrete.
Finally the door opened a crack and partially obscured face appeared
behind it.
"Ja?"
"Hello, Herr Gottfried? Can you speak English? I'm afraid my
Ger&;#8230;."
The voice that cut him off was clear and strong, with heavy German
accent.
"What are you selling?"
"I'm not selling anything, Herr Gottfried. My name is Mark Clift. I was
told that you knew my grandfather, Heinrich Rimmel&;#8230;. He
married an English girl by the name of Edith. I'm afraid I have some
bad news for you concerning him."
"And what might that news be Mr Clift?"
"I'm afraid that Herr Rimmel has died, quite recently, in fact." A
wheezy chuckle came from the faceless German, behind the door.
"This is bad news?"
Clift drew a deep breath, this was going to be more difficult than he
had imagined. A final ploy:
"I'm sorry to have wasted your time, Herr Gottfried." He turned to go,
making it very obvious to the
obscured man that his intention to leave.

The door opened.
"Come in Mr Clift. I have been expecting you, or someone like you for a
long time now."
The hinges on the door were well oiled and Clift was ushered into a
Spartan hallway. The floor was bare concrete, but well scrubbed. The
air was permeated with the smell of strong bleach. The wallpaper in the
narrow passage was clean and unpeeling and the two doors on either side
were gleaming white, with new paint. The door at the far end of the
passage was a rich contrasting blue. As to Gottfried it was difficult
to judge, the slight figure had his back to him as he shuffled toward
the blue door, in obvious pain in his knee joints and ankles.
Arthritic, Clift assumed, looking at the way the old man's hands were
clawed and swollen; yet the back was ramrod straight, indicating a
sense of pride, despite his condition, or maybe because of it. His
clothes, although well worn, were clean and pressed. His hair, Clift
noticed, was iron grey and shaved close to the neck in an obvious and
severe military cut. Reaching the end of the hallway, Gottfried placed
his painful hands on the handle and after wrestling with it for a
moment, turned it. Without standing on ceremony he went straight in,
not waiting to see if Clift had followed or not. The elderly German
carefully lowered himself into a large and overstuffed chair against
the back far wall, in the small and well-ordered sitting room. He
followed the old man's example and sat in a seat opposite him, without
waiting to be asked. Clift perfunctorily cast his eyes around and
couldn't fail to notice how clean and pristine the surroundings were;
from the neatly patterned carpet on the floor, to the perfectly
arranged seating with precision placed cushions and the carefully set,
if sparse ornaments over the polished and scrubbed wooden and tiled
grate. Even the fireplace looked as if it had been lacquered, gleaming
a dull black in the light from a single ceiling bulb. But all too
quickly he felt drawn towards Gottfried. It was the eyes that caught
him first, black in a lined and leathery face, but not the normal
lack-lustre rheumy eyes that so many old men seemed to possess; they
were alert, bright, and watchful. Cold eyes with unplumbed depths.
Shark like, thought Clift; watching me like I was prey, ready to find a
weakness, poised to strike.
Feeling more than a little uneasy he tried to distract the silent old
German from staring at him. Looking around the room once more, he
remarked:
"You have a beautiful home, Herr Gottfried, so well kept, so clean, do
you&;#8230;."?
Gottfried interrupted, his voice harsh, guttural. Perfect English but
with a strong accent.
"Because one's surroundings are a sewer, Mr Clift, it does not
necessarily follow that one lives in filth. Besides, you can take a man
from the army, but never the army from the man. Old habits die
hard."
The old man gave a low, dry chuckle, and eased his legs out in front of
him with an audible crack that made Clift wince. "I have been expecting
someone for many years. Someone like yourself Clift, who I deem to be
curious. Or someone from the authorities, whom I consider foolish.
Perhaps you are both, eh?" With a studied patience, Clift bit off a
curt reply, before it had even passed his lips, at the old man's jibe,
instead he simply asked:

"Why curious and foolish, Herr Gottfried?"
The German smiled back, revealing blackened stumps.
"Because if you had any idea of the danger in which your curiosity has
placed you, Clift. Any notion of
what you are involved in, then you would never have ventured from
England! You would
have stayed at home, where you were safe. Yet foolishly you pursue the
answers to the questions that you must have, even though your mortal
soul is in peril!"
Clift as taken back by the old man's reply.
"I don't understand. You mean answers that could get me killed!"
The old man answered enigmatically; "Or something far worse than death
Clift, far, far worse." The cold eyes narrowed. "Or do you already know
that perhaps? Is that it?"
This was voiced almost like a challenge. Clift was beginning to get
more that a little annoyed with this obscure, old idiot. He snapped
back a question in his irritation; "Well, Gottfried, if the danger is
so great for me, then it must be for you as well! Why the hell did you
let me in at all?"
The Old man merely smiled annoyingly, replying, " True, Mr. Clift.
True. But my reasons are much as yours, my friend. Perhaps I am foolish
and like you, curious also. There are things I must know, to prepare,
to be certain if you like. I consider it an insurance policy of
sorts."
Clift came to the conclusion that the old man was possibly crazy. Or
senile. Or both. But there was one thing the German was right about. He
had been a fool to even come here, to get involved in this insanity at
all. Clift rose to leave, ready to make his apologies. It had been one
big mistake. It was then that Gottfried reached into his inside jacket
pocket and produced a vintage and very ugly looking Luger pistol. It
looked impossibly large in his small gnarled hand, yet his aim was rock
steady. Clift was frozen, half in and half out of the chair.
"Christ, you old lunatic, is that thing loaded? Put it down
befo&;#8230;."
"It is unwise to argue with an insane old man, is it not? Sit down
Clift, or I can assure that I will kill you. I have killed many times
before. Believe me when I tell you that I am quite capable of doing so
now. You came for answers and I shall give them; if you came for
something else, you may not find that so easy. We shall play this game
out to the end. Yes, my friend, you shall listen and sit in the chair,
or I shall shoot you through the shin and you will still listen, only
you will be lying on the carpet in considerable pain. But listen you
will."
Clift thought briefly about going for the gun and the idea must have
flickered briefly across his face. The look in the Germans eye's
convinced him of his absolute sincerity.
He sat
Gottfried began to speak again. "First a question for you. Who do you
think your grandfather is?"
"You mean 'was' surely."
"I mean exactly what I say Clift."

"I don't understand."
"Simple enough questions, who do you think he is?"
Clift simply stared at him.
"Oh, come now Clift. Where did he come from, how did he marry your
grandmother?"
"The same as anyone meets and marries I suppose, how the hell do I
know!" This was going badly wrong,
"So Clift, you feel that everything happens haphazardly, with no form
or function. Fate's will, worked upon mankind?"
"Isn't that how most things happen," replied Clift.
Gottfried oddly changed tack again.
"What do you know of the habits of wild animals, packs of carnivores,
for instance?"
"What!"
"You know, wild animals like Lions, Hyenas&;#8230;how about
Wolves?"
"I don't see what this has to do with my grandfather."
Gottfried continued, ignoring him.
"How do they catch their prey?"
Clift feigned indifference. "I've really no idea."
"Then let me enlighten you, Clift. Let us take Wolves, for example. In
their natural habitat they mainly hurt small game, rabbits, deer. They
have even known to scavenge man's refuse&;#8230; a sign of the
times. I suppose. They do anything, really, as must we all, to survive.
But, my friend they are at their happiest when they hunt. The
fellowship of the pack. They select the weakest of the herd, separate
them from the rest, encircle them, then they chase, or should I say
lead them in the direction that they want them to take. Often times,
when the prey realises that it is surrounded, it freezes. The pack
closes in and it is time for the feast. Sometimes, if the animal which
they have selected is still strong, with a will to survive and with
still a little fight left in it, they deliberately break the circle,
letting the hunted think that it has a chance for life. But, as you can
imagine, more of the pack hunters are awaiting at the periphery. The
rest of the pack chase the prey, exhausted into their waiting jaws. The
result is almost a forgone conclusion."
Totally confused by now, Clift asked:
"But what the hell has this got to do with my grandfather, you still
haven't told me?"
Gottfried sank back into his chair in apparent weariness; only the
unwavering gun barrel gave this the lie.
"I knew your grandfather many years ago, it was at Ravensbruk. I had
been sent there from the Russian front after old 'General Winter' had
claimed two of my toes. The hobnail boots you see. Cold conducted
straight through them due to the metal. The high command had decreed
that any man who could not run could at least stop others from doing
the same, so I was ordered to the extermination camp in the spring of
'43. That's where I met him."

"I suppose my grandfather was fortunate to have such a friend as you
amongst the guards," said Clift, his voice dripping with sarcasm, "I'm
sure it must have sped his years of torture and captivity away!"
Gottfried blinked for a moment, then threw back his head and laughed
long and hard, till his eyes streamed with tears that drained down his
creased face. "Very good, Clift, very good. That is a good joke. Years
of captivity!" His laughter began again, even more loudly that before,
until Clift began to get annoyed again, despite the threat of the
gun.
With considerable annoyance Clift said, "mind if I share the joke,
Gottfried?"
Through his laughter the German stiltedly answered. "So, that is what
he told people. How he managed to escape the wrath of the allies at
Nurenburg. I survived with the Nazi underground, operated by good loyal
men; patriots all. They did not forget our sacrifices and were willing
to help with an escape and a new identity; a fresh start. I thought he
had been taken and shot, or executed without trial. Many were you know!
I hoped that he had been, anyway!"
The horrible truth dawned on Clift.
"You mean&;#8230;?"
Gottfried broke into German briefly. "Ja mine kammeraden, das ist gut!
At last you understand! He wasn't a Jew, one of the 'untermenche'. He
was a guard! A sergeant! For a time even a good Nazi! Or so we thought.
He was transferred to camp duty from the front, three months after I
arrived; and him, pretending to be a Juden to escape and no one
recognising him." He paused and then said: "There again, to be fair, we
had gassed, hung, and shot so many by then, it's a wonder that they
recognised each other, let alone us!"
Silence fell for a few seconds, then, with Clift staring at the floor,
arms crossed over his knees.
"No one in the family realised," Clift said finally, "except my
grandmother, I suspect."
"Ja, she would have known&;#8230;. and much more besides." The old
man added mysteriously. With another of his dry chuckles, he continued.
"But to explain. Let me tell you what happened at the camp." Gottfried
paused as if to add dramatic effect, then continued. "It was the final
winter, before the end, January, I think. That is when we discovered
the first body." He paused then laughed again. "Ah, what a joke from me
this time. Finding a body at the camp. Like you English say, 'coals
from Newcastle'!"
Clift answered mechanically. "To Newcastle."
"Whatever," replied Gottfried offhandedly, "the point being, shall we
say, that it was not unusual to see corpses at Ravensbruk. But this one
was different. Unusual in the manner of its death, shall we say. The
mutilations were severe to many parts of the body. The soft tissues
were ravaged, organs were missing; deep tears and lacerations to the
face and neck. An attempt had been made to conceal the remains, but old
Brunner found them." He nodded to himself. "A demon that Brunner. Best
disposal detail prisoner we ever had! I was genuinely sorry when he was
shot through the back of the neck later that year for smuggling food to
the women's compound. But it was orders, you see." He looked at Clift,
for an understanding, but in finding none, he shrugged and continued.
"We had to get rid of as many of them as possible. When news filtered
through to us of the allied advances, we still had some time, you see,
even at that late stage, the great work must be completed we realised,
in preparation for when we would rise again. When our great vision of a
pure world could be realised. But there was so many of the scum. Jews,
queers, gypsies, dissidents, Polakas. As fast as the disposal details
dug the pits, we would fill them. Got to the stage where we had to push
the perimeter fences back three hundred meters as we were running out
of ground space to put them in. The quicklime wasn't rotting the
remains quickly enough to keep up with the demand. We had the added
difficulty that our incinerators had been demolished by the American's
by then&;#8230;.they could see the light from the chimneys from the
air, as they were working 24 hours a day. There wasn't always time to
damp the fires down during an air raid." Gottfried got a faraway
disassociated look on his face and mumbled: "It's a wonder that they
couldn't smell them as well, the stench of burnt flesh and corruption
was everywhere.". He shook his head. "Surprising isn't it. At the time
you get used to it; learn to ignore it. Now, on some nights, I can
smell it so clearly again." He shook himself from his thoughts and
continued again.
Clift was so sick to his stomach that his eyes had begun to
water.
"Anyway, back to Brunner. As I was saying. A demon, that one. Even
amongst the decay, the rot, he
could still find a 'stray' as we called them. Behind the officers
quarters, in a shallow grave, close to the inner razor wire fence. When
he reported it, we beat him to find out what he knew about it, what he
was hiding. But he knew nothing." Using the gun like a finger, he
pointed at Clift and said in a confidential tone; "can't trust them you
know, lying Jew scum. Sell their own mothers if they thought it would
save them. No honour, you see, no courage. The Furher was right, the
sub-human dogs needed to be eradicated from the face of god's clean
earth, along with the Schwartz and the shirt lifters, or any other of
the parasites that infested us and still do! You were fools, you
British and Americans. You should have joined us in our holy mission.
Look at the mess now! The drugs, the blacks, the Jews; still
controlling, living off our toil, keeping us weak and poor, corrupting
our young with their foul liberal idealism in our schools. Hitler knew
how to deal with them though and we nearly succeeded, didn't we?"
"Yes," said Clift, numbly, "you nearly did, didn't you."
Gottfried leaned forward and patted his thigh in a fatherly gesture.
Clift would have given anything at the moment to have a gun and shoot
this diseased animal, to remove him from the sight of all decent men
and women forever. To make him feel clean again, instead of this
feeling of revulsion and being soiled by this miserable excuse for a
human being. His skin crawled at the German's touch.
God forgive you, you sick evil bastard.
Yet somehow he knew that the almighty would never forgive Gottfried and
his ilk for their crimes, crimes
committed in the same of a glorious new world order.
Almost unnoticed, Gottfried was talking again.
"Our camp Doctor examined the remains and concluded that the body had
been at least partially consumed."

Shit, thought Clift. "Consumed?" He echoed, hollowly.
"Ja, consumed; you know&;#8230; eaten."
Clift tasted bile. "You mean the body had actually been cannibalised?
Someone had taken a knife, sliced parts off the corpse, and eaten the
dead flesh?"
Gottfried tutted in his irritation, as if to the fact that the man in
front of him could not grasp the simplest of ideas. "No, no! The corpse
had not been touched with a knife. A knife punctures, or slices. The
flesh had been torn from the body, gobbets of flesh ripped off. The
camp Doctor thought that from the defensive wounds on the hands and
forearms that it had happened whilst the victim was still alive."
Clift's stomach lost its battle to keep its contents in. After he had
finished retching, he wiped his mouth with a barely noticed and
immaculate white handkerchief proffered by his captor. He looked up and
realised that Gottfried was staring mournfully at his fouled carpet and
obviously thinking of the cleaning that he would have to do. All the
horror that he had described, all the slaughter and brutal sickness and
all he could think about was his damn carpet! Clift began to laugh,
slightly hysterical.
Gottfried took this as a sign of his returned awareness of his
surroundings and continued to talk.
Unbelievably he said:
"We were sickened, I can tell you, by what had happened! At first we
thought it was one of the camp dogs, but the Doctor confirmed that the
bite radius of the wounds did not match, so it could not have been. The
Commandant then ordered the prisoners to be passed in review, to see
the maggot infested remains. After this one in thirty was selected at
random and summarily shot in front of the rest as a warning of what
would happen if it occurred again. But it didn't stop. The second
corpse was found two days later, torn and ripped, tossed on the roof of
one of the male prisoner's dormitory blocks. From the positioning of
the body, coupled with the fact that one person would not have the
strength to place it there unassisted, the Commandant concluded that it
was the work of more than one man. They were like animals! Eating each
other! Murdering each other! So more were selected for execution. One
in twenty this time. But it happened again! This one was found dumped
in the front porch of the Commandant's house! Another prisoner; eaten
and mutilated. The entrails were strewn about the doorway and the
throat was torn out. The Commandant was unwillingly forced to advise
High Commandant of the situation. As a result, the Gestapo arrived to
investigate. They discovered nothing, even with their methods. They had
been around the camp for about three days when the next one was found.
This one wasn't a prisoner though, he was a guard. An officer no less!
I can't remember who he was now&;#8230;.a young major I think; but
remains were the same. The same mutilations. But this one was not a
weak Jew, it was a young fit German soldier and he was armed! His
pistol was still in his holster, undischarged. Now those higher up
began to get rattled. I can tell you! Four deaths, three of them
unauthorised, one of them murdered and not one clue as to who might be
responsible. It finally occurred to them that if a German guard could
be killed and eaten, in this fashion, with such apparent ease, the
murderers going unnoticed whilst it was being committed, then the
prisoners may get the idea that a planned and well executed rebellion
might succeed in gaining them their freedom. Harsh decisions were
taken, meaning that some of us pulled double duties. But it was
decided. The camp was to be given absolute priority cleansing. Not one
word of what had transpired was ever to be allowed to spread to other
sites. Bulldozers were drafted in, along with extra consignments of
quicklime and kerosene to speed up the disposal. You must appreciate,
Clift, that we were still having our normal intake of prisoners at the
same time, so it was all a bit of nonsense, really. I felt that your
grandfather's heart wasn't really in the work; I'd felt that from the
beginning. He seemed to lack the enthusiasm of the rest of us and in
the end he had thrown down his rifle, refusing to take part in it
anymore, saying he was sick of the slaughter. He said he was a soldier,
not a butcher. The Commandant could have shot him out of hand, should
have, for what he had done and said; I was expecting just that. But
that I suppose would have been bad for moral, or so the Commandant must
have reasoned. So instead he had ordered him to be stripped of his
uniform, as he was unfit to wear it. It was discarded and replaced with
a prisoners uniform, with the word 'COWARD' painted on the back. It
served a better purpose in keeping him alive as an example to the rest
of us. He was put in charge of the burial details, with orders to the
rest of us that if he dissented even once, or refused work, then he was
to be hung, straight away, with no chance of a reprieve. He was even
made to sleep the prisoners. I thought that they would kill him, the
first chance they got, but they didn't. The dogs actually worshipped
him for what he had done and the stance he had taken against us loyal
nazi's. Fools, they were actually worshipping a coward and a traitor.
That sums up the Jewish race perfectly, I think. But that's what saved
his life, in the end. Their adoration of him."
Clift watched, as Gottfried wiped his brow with his sleeve before
continuing.
"It was the night of a big allied bombing raid, very near the end. I
was on patrol with Karl Langer when the sirens started; we were at the
far end of the camp, hurrying to reach the shelter. Karl tripped over a
Jew boy who was going as quickly as his legs would carry him to the
camp storehouse, pushing a barrow load of boots and clothes, stripped
from the new arrivals; your grandfather was behind him, urging him on.
Langer picked himself up, clubbing his rifle and split the Child's
head, killing him outright. I had not took much notice of the event,
and was hurrying on when it happened."
For the first time since he had met the German sensed a real horror
from him, in the tone of his voice and his manner.
"I swear to you Clift, I have never seen anything like it; it was
dark, except for the distant flashes of the light from exploding bombs
and fingers of light from the anti-aircraft search lights, as they
probed the sky to try to give the batteries on the ground something to
aim at. It was then that I saw a sight that has haunted my every moment
since. I knew who the killer in the camp was, straight away. Your
Grandfather was standing there looking at the boy's body. Then he
looked at Langer. Even in the dim light, his eyes burned with a
terrible look. He spoke to Langer. He said: "You fool! I had nurtured
him and he had accepted. His future was assured. Tonight he would have
joined us and together we would have started again. You have denied
him. You have denied me. For that crime alone I deny you your very
existence." Gottfried had put down the gun on the arm of the chair. He
gripped Clift's knees with his bony, misshapen hands, his eyes locking
Clift's in and hypnotic embrace. "I'm telling you man, he was inhuman
in his strength, he lifted Langer clear of the floor with such speed it
was a blur, one moment Langer was standing there, the next he was
locked with your Grandfather, feet kicking, trying to reach his pistol.
Then he was on the ground, throat crushed and bleeding&;#8230;.
dead. It was unreal." His hands dropped away from Clift and he sat back
in the chair, white and spent.
Clift leaned forward to the old man and said; "Angry and frightened
people can have bursts of hysterical strength and energy, it's been
well documented&;#8230;. Like the mother whose child was caught
under a tru&;#8230;"
"No, you fool," yelled Gottfried, rising from his chair with suprising
speed, suddenly the old man was terrible and huge in his power, with
that awful gun in his hand again. " He was no hysteric, crazed from the
loss of a single Jew boy, he was inhuman&;#8230;. don't you
understand! He was a monster, slavering jaws, fangs; talons instead of
hands, eyes redder than the pits of hell, a wolf in human guise; more
than an animal, yet less than a man." Gottfried whole body shook with
emotion. He raved on wildly. "A terrible thing caught in the light from
the incoming shell bursts, their light illuminating it, as it put back
it's head and howled, then, thankfully, the concussion of an incoming
bomb detonation smashed me off my feet and on to the floor, which, I
think, saved my life. When I struggled to my feet again the abomination
was gone, I never saw him again, thank God." With that the German's
arms sank to his sides, his head bowed. Things didn't make sense to
Clift. Something was badly wrong here, something that he couldn't put
his finger on. It wasn't that he just disbelieved this madman's wild
tale of monsters, which he did, it was something else, something didn't
connect; and then it hit him.
"Wait a damned minute. You must have seen him again, or at least kept
track of him, or he kept track of you, how else would my grandmother
know of your existence, who you were, where you were,
unless&;#8230;. "
"Exactly," said Gottfried, suddenly looking very alert and menacing.
"My old instincts have served me well, yet again," he hissed. "I've
spent years from that night, tracking, studying, learning and now,
finally I know it all. You came here to devour me, you filthy demon,
but you won't; the world will learn of you and your kind, your
destruction will be assured."
The final truth about Gottfried finally hit him.
Clift realised that the German really was, totally and completely
insane. At first he had thought that he was playing some sick kind of
game for his own perverted amusement, but now he realised that this old
German actually believed everything that he had told him. More
importantly he had now convinced himself in his delusion that Clift was
some kind of a monster that had been dispatched to silence him.
"Listen to me, Gottfried," he said, trying to reason with the
unreasonable, "all the years that you spent in
the camp, doing all those terrible things that you were ordered to do
and having no option other than to do
exactly that, it was enough to send anyone insane. Put down the gun and
we'll talk, I'll explain myself to you, why I came. Everything will be
alright, you'll see!" Gottfried pulled back the slide on the pistol
with shaking hands. "What and give you a chance to tear me apart? I
think not!"

Clift began to panic. The man was raving. He knew, instinctively that
he was about to be shot. In a final bid for his life, he threw himself
sideways, but with the hammer like blow, which knocked him hard to the
floor, and with the foul metallic taste in his mouth accompanied by a
bubbling wheeze from his chest, he knew that he had lost. The pain
didn't hit him straight away and he managed to roll onto his back. He
felt oddly detached from the whole situation. From his view point
Gottfried loomed over him, calmly and methodically he stripped another
round from the magazine and took careful aim at a point between Clift's
eyes and knelt by his side in a parody of a Priest about to give final
absolution. Everything had begun to be seen through a red mist; time
seemed to stop.
Then, from the corner of his eye a terrible sight appeared that drove
all thoughts of his own predicament from his mind. A huge, grotesque
and feral face was at the German's left shoulder. The eyes were deepest
blood red, long hard fangs, glistening, white, wet with drool; a snout,
elongated and covered with long coarse hair, ears set back on the wedge
shaped head, twitching and alert. It spoke in a grating voice, deep and
powerful, almost like a record mistakenly played at the wrong
speed.
"Been a long time, Gottfried, my old friend, but not long enough for
you I think!"
The old man was unable to do anything other than turn his head to stare
at the ghastly apparition that had
appeared there. Its jaws opened to an impossible width and encompassed
the crown of the German's head. Tears came to Gottfried's eyes, and
even in Clift's injured state he could smell that the old man had lost
control of his bowel.
"Please, don't kill me Rimmel&;#8230;. I so want to
live&;#8230;.let me live&;#8230;. You will have my silence, I
swear&;#8230;. "
Gottfried's skull crunched as the powerful teeth came together. Blood
sprayed like a tin of carbonated drink, too long shook, and then
suddenly opened, its contents gushing out. The gun was fired by reflex,
the bullet planting itself harmlessly in a chair in which Clift had
been sitting only moments before.
A dream of death, thought Clift. His last thought before the darkness
took him.
He was a child again and his mother came to kiss him goodnight, or so
he had thought.
She bent down and opened her mouth.
Her tongue, impossibly long, fell out, dropped past her chin, and came
to rest, dangling on her bare breasts; hairy breasts. The tongue had a
life of its own, coming up to caress his face. Warm, wet, revolting.
Comforting.
The drool from her mouth running across his forehead, a thin glistening
rope running down his nose, sliding towards his mouth. A hand came up,
not misshapen like the old arthritic German's had been, but strange,
padded, thickly furred, sharp of claw. A paw that bore a lump of meat
in its talons.
He hungered.
The delicious smell of raw meat made his gastric juices flow. He was
too weak to lift his head to partake of the morsel, but his hunger was
so intense that he thought his stomach would crawl up his digestive
tract and snatch it from her, yet nothing so dramatic happened.
He watched in horrified frozen awareness as his grotesque mother tore a
strip, long and ragged, from the lump of flesh with her long foul
teeth, and delicately dropped it into his eager mouth.
He sucked and chewed at the sliver of meat, part of him revolted,
another, deeper part, savoured the
titbit; the blood in his mouth. Blood in his mouth. Another dream of
death, he reasoned.
Blackness.
The pain in his arm had the white hot, blistering intensity of a
blowtorch.
It seemed that it would never end, and from somewhere he had a hazy
memory that it was not the first time that he had experienced it
either.
Mists swirled across his vision, mists that had the acrid tang of musk;
warm bodies nestled up to him, rolled on him, rasping tongues on his
face, on his nude body, probing forgotten wounds.
He tried to move away from his torment, his agony, but he was
powerless, held down by the press of warm, hairy, stinking entities,
never seeing them, but sensing their presence.
Then the howling began, singly at first, a solitary keening song that
was soon echoed by another, then another, an another, choral unison of
primeval fellowship.
Something stirred within him, a need, a compulsion, stronger than his
pain; and in his fog filled
blindness he felt his head go back, his throat open, and he howled with
the rest, feeling complete, a
satisfaction, a belonging that filled him with an ecstasy of joy.
The intensity of the emotion overwhelmed him. The blackness took him
once more.

With the suddenness of a light switched on in a darkened room, he was
awake. He lay on a small bed, in a neat yet sparsely furnished room. It
was daytime and the sun was bright through a small multi-paned window
to his left. Dust motes danced crazily, speared in the shafts of
sunlight that angled through it. He felt weak and tired, and tried to
move in order to get out of the bed, but the pain in his arm and chest
numbed him instantly, accompanied by a wave of nausea and dull ominous
throbbing at his temples. He collapsed back again. To his right was a
clean white door. The floor, or at least what he could see of it was
carpeted, so he was not in a hospital room. His right arm felt
uninjured, pain free, so he tentatively explored what parts of his body
that he could reach. He began with his face. The stubble was rough and
heavy, which suggests days worth rather than hours. His left arm and
chest were heavily bandaged and very sore, he felt that the dressings
were best left intact and disturbed, so left well enough alone. Flexing
his toes, legs and muscles, he found them to be in good order. He was
debating with himself the idea of attempting to get out of bed again,
to try and find out where he was, or more importantly whom he was with,
then the door opened suddenly. His mother breezed in.

He watched in disbelief, as she pulled up a high-backed chair from the
corner, and dragged it to the
side of the bed, to sit by him. Emotion flowed over him, waves of
relief, a total joy at seeing her. Tears ran from his eyes and down his
face, and sobs rasped from a tight throat. She took his hand in hers.
Words rushed from his mouth in almost jumbled disorder;
"I was shot, dying&;#8230; Gottfried was insane&;#8230; how did
anyone find me? How did I get here? Where am I? The dreams&;#8230;.
"
With recollection of the horror of his half remembered dreams, the
nightmares came back to him. Released once more, the phantoms of his
horrific experiences violated his conscious thought.
He snatched back his hand from his mother's. He studied her face, her
knowing expression spoke louder than any voice. "Oh Christ mother,
Jesus holy mother of God, what have you done?"
He closed his eyes, for a moment, hoping that it would all go away, it
would all have vanished when he
opened them again. It hadn't. He spoke again.
"It's all real, isn't it? That thing in the flat with Gottfried; that
monster. Gottfried spoke the truth, didn't he? Christ!&;#8230;. All
true!" He must have gone mad, he thought. It was just another dream of
death. He was still lying on the flat floor, waiting for that last
bullet to tear through his skull and brain, and end his life. Any
explanation was better than the one that he knew to be the truth. Any!
His mother took his hand again, and drew it back to her. He was too
numb to resist.
"Listen, my darling, the reach of the pack is long. We knew that
Gottfried had been investigating us for
years, probing, and prying&;#8230;. Whilst he was no threat we
ignored him, but he had amassed substantial amounts of evidence of our
existence, and we could ignore him no longer. He had collected eye
witness accounts, substantiated documents, even photographic evidence
of a hunt, God alone knows where he got it all from. He had decided
that we were evil and must be destroyed. He was about to approach
others with his claims. Others that would have pried and probed even
deeper, eventually discovering our true identity and nature. There
would only have been one end for us than; what mankind does not
understand, it fears, and ultimately wipes out of existence. Your
Grandfather, in his wisdom, understood this and could not allow it to
happen. It was decided that Gottfried must be killed, to preserve what
we are."
Clift turned his head to his mother.
"It was all a lie, wasn't it? The letter from your mother, your dreams,
the funeral, even your brother's death; just a sophisticated hunt, with
Gottfried as the prey, and me as the Judas goat, the bait that lured
him to his death."
"Partly," she admitted, sadly.
"But he murdered your own brother, for God's sake! How could you allow
it? You're own brother!"
She ripped her hand away form his. Fiercely she snapped back;
"No, you've got it all wrong!" She settled back and composed herself.
More quietly she added; "David wasn't murdered, he really did fall. My
father tried to save him, but even he wasn't fast enough. The truth is,
is that David panicked and fell over the falls when he was told of the
pack. He was trying to run away from what could have been a glorious
future. The pack was small, after the war, depleted, nearly extinct.
We're not immortal, you know. Harder to kill than a human, a far longer
life span, but certainly not immortal."
She paused, taking his hand in hers once more.
"Try to understand, son. Your grandfather was alone after the war, his
'family' gone. Only he had survived, and he was forced to do repellent
things in order to do so. That death camp was nearly the finish of him.
He had almost given up, was willing to let go and die when he found a
young boy, whom he felt deserving of the gift of fellowship of the
Pack. Then that stupid, brutal guard murdered him on a whim. He fled
after he had revenged himself, his anger giving him new courage and a
fresh determination to go on. Even if it was only a matter of surviving
long enough to see Hitler and his maniacs finished off. Eventually he
found his way to England, where he met my mother, and in time, found
her worthy of the gift, and in later years found others worthy to.
Myself included. About my brother, David&;#8230;. Well, he had high
hopes for David, but he misjudged my brother, and your grandfather's
mistake cost David his life. He has never really forgiven himself for
that."
Clift laughed hollowly. "Never forgave himself? Don't make me laugh!
All the murder's he's committed over the years, and one death plays on
his mind your hypocrisy makes me sick."
We don't murder we hunt," she answered calmly, "we aren't related to
humans anymore than they
consider them related to the apes. We are so far up the evolutionary
ladder that we are as divorced
from mankind, as mankind is from a Baboon." Clift shook his head in
disbelief. She continued.
"The gift of the pack is a wonderful one. It enhances one in many ways;
our senses, strength, reactions, even life span. It also gives immunity
from all human diseases. But as with any gift of great value, there is
always a price to be met, and this is ours. We must hunt, take fresh
human blood and flesh to survive."
Clift, bizarre as it seemed, found himself analysing his mother's
words. After a moment of contemplation, he found himself saying: "So
you take life to give life? Don't you find that immoral?"
She snorted in derision. "Does a human discuss the morals of eating a
sausage? They know the pig is killed to make it, but it doesn't stop
them enjoying it, does it? Or a Sunday roast? The same thing applies.
There are no worries about the niceties, they just eat with relish,
never considering the fate of the animal that has just been
slaughtered&;#8230;. to them it is just an animal to be eaten, and
as long as they don't get their hands dirty in killing it they don't
have any qualms. After all it's just an animal&;#8230; just as
humans are to us, but at least we have the honesty to slaughter it for
ourselves!"
Clift grunted. "So I suppose that I should be grateful for all
eternity, to you and to him, for saving me
from Gottfried, then?" he turned his head into the pillow in misery. "
Rather than find out what I have, and what you are, I think I would
rather have had the bullet through my head. It would have been
kinder"
"Maybe you should be much more grateful than you think," she replied,
sombrely.
Cold chills passed through Clift. He turned his head back to face her
again. "What do you mean?"
"When we came in, it was too late, you had been shot, as you know." She
moved close to him and gently went on, stroking his hair in a
comforting manner. "You were dying, my love, the bullet had caused such
terrible damage to your organs and lungs, that it would have been
beyond their combined human medical skills to save you life. The
injuries were irreparable. There was only one way to preserve your
existence, and, thankfully, my father found you worthy."
Silence.
"Oh fuck. God, no mother&;#8230;. Not that! Please not that!"
"To obtain the gift your blood and flesh must be consumed by the Pack,
Then theirs by you."

The sliver of flesh, the blood, the pain in his arm.

Everything telescoped away in the room now, for a second. Blood roared
in his ears, then he became calm
again. His mother spoke to him once more.
"My father will explain all to you; later when you are rested. Your
obligations to the Pack, your
responsibilities, and, happily, your advantages."
"I'll never accept this, never! I'll use Gottfried's files, his
evidence, anything he had on you
filthy vermin! I'll find it&;#8230;. Get it
published&;#8230;I'll&;#8230;. I'll."
His mother smiled at him. "All gone, my dear. Gone and
vanished&;#8230;. Like all good wolves we cover our tracks well.
This is a masquerade that your grandfather has danced at for many
centuries, far more than you could ever imagine. Be content, my darling
son. You will accept&;#8230;. In time."
Clift began to sob softly. Blinded by tear and his own fear. "I can't
live like this, I can't."
She patted his arm, indulgently. "You will heal soon, and be shown how
to use the gift; it has advantages that you can not for see yet. Now
hush my darling, and wipe your eyes." Her features had begun to alter
subtly, he noticed. Teeth becoming longer, sharper, eyes reddening,
ears lengthening.
"I can hear your grandparents coming to visit; be polite now dear, it's
a real honour you know." The room door swung open. Two huge and
fearsome shapes filled the doorway, hairy, horrifying. They slunk in.
His sphincters suddenly felt loose and watery. Clift closed his closed
his eyes in absolute terror.

STOCKHOLM 2001

The crowed was hushed. The tension wound them like a coiled spring. The
dinner-jacketed speaker was on the podium, sweating under the bright
lights. He opened up a large guilt edged envelope with a theatrical
flourish. "And the winner of this years Athena award for investigative
journalism is.... And may I add, on a personal note, very richly
deserved.... Mr. Mark Clift!"
The applause was thunderous.
Clift rose, his own dinner jacket over his right arm, it was very warm
in the room, shirt sleeves rolled up exposing a large, deep puckered
scar on his left forearm, and pushed his way through the standing
crowd, accepting the back slaps and yelled congratulations with good
natured aplomb.
Mounting the stage steps, he accepted the decorative silver and crystal
award, and leaned forward to
mumble a simple 'thank you' into the clustered microphones at the
gathered audience; then he left the rostrum, to brave the happy crowd
again, and find his seat.
His mother was seated at his table, along with another young and very
handsome couple.
Jack Peters, the highly respected American political correspondent with
the 'Washington Post' came over to them and squeezed his sweating ample
frame in to an empty chair at their table. He assumed that Clift would
know who he was. He was right. Clift did.
"How the hell did you do it Clift? Two years ago you were just another
reporter from some small
Provincial rag. And now; well! Plaudits from all sides, which, may I
add, some of your brethren have been trying to win for the last twenty
five years, myself included on that long and shameless list!"
A wry smile came from Clift. "I've Just been lucky, I suppose."
"Luck's not the word," Peters leaned forward, "no, come on now, let's
have the truth. Tell me honestly, how did you get through fifty odd
miles of jungle and high country, with half a division Paraguayan
troops on your heels, with nothing more than a camera, canteen and a
prayer? Those stills of the massacre at Del Oratina are the most
graphic I have ever seen. It's finished El Presidente Norigia. But that
was your intention, wasn't it?"
"Yes Mr. Peters, that was the absolute intention. His kind doesn't
deserve to live, let alone govern a country."
"Tut, tut, tut, Mr. Clift, impartiality of the press, and al that,"
Peters said.
"Difficult to remain impartial, when you see troops under his direct
order, slaughter women and children in front of your eyes."
"Can't disagree with that, Clift." He patted his shoulder. "Hell of a
piece of reporting though. Listen; while I'm about it, I have a working
engagement for early breakfast with a good friend of mine, perhaps you
have heard of him, Bill Manton? You know, the Bill Manton; Chief
executive with C.N.A.? He specifically asked me to invite you along,
said he'd love to meet you. Good career move for you on the cards, I
think! TV beats working for a living. Have you thought about that move
to the bigger medium? Would you like to come along, discuss it with
him?"
Clift turned to his mother&;#8230;. and grandparents&;#8230;.
with a feral grin before replying.
"I'd be a fool to pass that kind of opportunity up, wouldn't I? In fact
I can honestly say that I'd bite someone's hand off for a chance like
that!"

? Ian M Faulkner 2001