The Lost Castle

by Nick Cole

  “Move forward you miserable louts!” some sergeant roared.

  Men were screaming. More men moved forward. Holiday found himself hustling faster to keep up as he tried to quell a rising anticipation within himself that was more excitement than fear.

  By the light of the star shells above, he could see the dead and dying lying alone on the surface of the moon-like landscape. Everything was ruined and lifeless and cratered. Smoke drifted across all of it without rhyme or reason. There were no trees, and it was as if there had never been any. Huge water-filled craters lay ahead, and everywhere was churned and uneven black earth. By the stark white shifting light of the falling-star shells, he could see ancient broken bones and bullet-holed skulls buried in the churned black earth. They were everywhere.

  “I’m stuck!” screamed a man off to Holiday’s left. Holiday crouched and peered into the darkness of a wide shell crater.

  “It’s got me!” he shrieked desperately. “Mud’s got me!”

  “Let ‘em go, mate, he’s a goner. S’like me mum’s porridge in there. ‘E’ll never get out! So it’s ‘ta for good, don’tcha know.”

  The machinegun fire was chewing up the wave in front of Holiday. Men faltered or stopped, or were torn to sudden bloody sprays in the dancing light-flicker of the falling stars that burned like white-hot coals of sobriety from above. Burned with a truth that could not be spun. This... this is really death, thought Holiday.

  “Move forward!” some rough voice screamed, as the man in the crater was sucked further down into the mud. It was already up to his shoulders now.

  Bullets slapped into the soupy ground all around, or whizzed by like angry wasps.

  A series of deep bass note THUMPS whumped in successive concussions behind Holiday as the ghostly white letters again appeared all around him.

  Move Forward.

  “That’ll be the mortars. Get ready to enter the trenches, mates!”

  A moment later, head down and running forward, his mind desperately scrambling to remind him that all this was some sort of super-advanced video game and nothing more, Holiday watched cinematic impacts of the mortars blow mud and the dark silhouettes of bodies skyward.

  Everyone around Holiday, all the running shadows, began to scream as one and rushed for the exploding maelstrom of the trenches ahead. It was like the sound of some terrible ocean that was never meant to be.

  And yet, to Holiday, it was as if he’d heard it all before. In another time. Another “when.”

  Another life.

  A moment later, Holiday could see the beginnings of the trenchworks ahead. There was a slightly disorientating moment when the simulation shifted into the trenches, breaking the fourth wall enough for Holiday to wrap his mind around the bullets, explosions, and screams as mere special effects in this ultra-realistic violent video game. Stunningly lifelike special effects designed to horrify and shock. But just tricks nonetheless.

  Until he saw the Nazis.

  They were flooding out of a concrete pit that led back down into a dark tunnel in the side of the trench. Air raid horns were winding up to call the Germans out to the battle as whistles and shrieks accompanied their dog-like barking. Behind their gas-masked faces, Holiday could hear them shouting at one another in muffled German. One raised a pistol, a luger with a laser sight, and aimed it right at Holiday.

  There were five Nazi storm troopers coming straight for him.

  All around, the shadowy members of his team leapt down into the pit of the trench and machine-gunned the surging Germans erupting from their massive slate-gray underground bunkers that looked to Holiday like the gaping entrances of tombs.

  Holiday pulled the trigger on the automatic shotgun and held it until the murder machine wouldn’t fire anymore.

  Empty.

  Reload.

  What that particular weapon did to a human body, even if it was all just make-believe, was rendered in horrible reality. A moment later, Holiday stared down in disbelief as the mangled and shredded bodies of the German storm troopers lay against the clean night-gray concrete steps. Banks of searchlights from above the trenches flooded the area with pale bone moonlight. Blood sprays painted the far wall of the ordered and clean trench with inky washes of no apparent reason. Blood spurted and pumped through the ragged flesh wounds of the dead and dying as legs twitched and bodies jumped one last time. A storm trooper tried to crawl back down into the darkness from which he’d just come, but then stopped and collapsed. Dead.

  “1st Platoon!” ordered a disembodied electronic voice. “Clear that bunker!”

  One of the Boba Fett armored soldiers knelt down next to the entrance, popped a grenade and rolled it in shouting, “Fire in the...”

  An explosion sent a plume of debris shooting out into the trench.

  “You’re up, noob!” said the soldier who’d tossed the grenade, looking directly at Holiday.

  Holiday clicked reload, and followed the barrel of his shotgun down into the darkness as another ghostly direction arrow appeared.

  There were more bodies on the floor. More storm troopers. Nazis, in strange heavy gray trench coats and oversized boots. Here, many had donned gas masks, their faces like skulls. Others were gaunt-faced, thin, hollow. Dark circles under their eyes. Their faces also like skulls. All of them were lean and overly tall.

  An iron door lay on its hinges. Beyond, a shifting light threw shapes and shadows in wild disarray. The sound of the automatic gunfire coming from the trenches was muffled and distant now. Not a part of the work in front of Holiday that would need to be accomplished to get the high score.

  The killing work.

  Beyond that unhinged door, the Germans came out at him in waves. Shooting, shouting and dying as Holiday worked the auto-shotgun back and forth, pressing reload, and dealing out digital death in an almost rhythmic dance. Shredding wave after wave with lead sprays of subsonic shot dealt out with wild abandon.

  Welcome to the gun show, thought Holiday like some action hero.

  At first they just came at him in waves, attempting to defend the upper levels where Holiday passed munitions waiting to be used at the front. Below, beyond railings, catwalks and stairs descending into a blue darkness where klaxons still wailed urgently and incessantly, the game changed, and now Holiday surprised Nazis without their armored trench coats and small deadly triangular laser-sighted machineguns. Here they were eating, or sleeping, or wounded and dying. And every so often a ghostly number would appear...

  20

  30

  40

  At the bottom of it all, Holiday was rushing, charging really, shredding bodies with gusty blasts of hot lead and moving faster than any digital Nazi could react. All the pretend soldiers died in satisfying, wet pulpy slaps, as clouds of lead sent blood spraying and bone coming apart in horrible detail. And if the soundtrack had them moaning, or screaming, or begging for their lives in unintelligible German, Holiday didn’t hear. Maybe he didn’t even care. Battle was a game. And he’d felt that way.

  More ahead...

  And that’s when the pit opened up and he fell down into a complete and sudden darkness.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Zombies crawled across and over each other to reach the five seething flares that burned among them. Some peeled away from the mounting pile at the gate to grab at what they thought was life in a hissing flare burning like a dying sun in the blaze of noon.

  Even from here Frank could smell the propane as it mixed with the rank foul stench of the dead. Mixed with rotting flesh. No movement in the air. All was hot and heavy, and sickly sweet. Like a failure that would not erase, or leave, or disappear. It was something that must be lived with.

  “C’mon,” muttered Frank and tossed another flare. “Catch already.”

  He watched all those once-someones crawl over each other to mindlessly claw at the flare as its br
ight little hell sizzled and the police siren in Doomsday mode called out to every zombie far and near.

  Then one tank exploded. A clump of bodies arced upward, and the doomsday siren was suddenly gone from the soundscape of groans and horror whispering.

  Another tank exploded off and away, like a jet engine suddenly igniting, shooting off toward the approaching mob still streaming down the street toward the gate. It left a smoky black exhaust trail as it raced through the shambling crowd, striking and even knocking some of the dead down to the hot pavement. Probably caving in chest cavities that wouldn’t stop the corpses for a second. The cylinder moved so slow, Frank could track it as it wildly ricocheted off in another direction.

  Some of the burning dead wandered mindlessly on fire, only to fall and smolder. Some thrashed about as though the flames actually tormented them.

  All those someones... finally dying again, thought Frank. The worst thing that could ever happen to them had finally happened. He wondered if there was a someone out there for each one of those flaming corpses, and the surrounding mob pressing in toward the castle gate. Some someone who’d promised to love them until death did them apart. Someone who’d hoped for something different than this.

  Some forever eternity beyond death.

  We got what was coming to us, he thought. Even if we never saw it coming.

  Then the three other propane tanks exploded, sending waves of flying corpses directly into the gate. A loud screech echoed out as the top container shifted inward a millimeter. The one Frank was standing on. He stumbled as it shifted.

  The top container was moving off the base of the second container. If it went over, the crowd would spill into the Vineyards. Into the castle. Then it would all be over.

  He was stumbling, backwards, scrabbling for the edge.

  Wondering about all those other someones who would never know that the worst had finally happened to their loved one.

  One of Andrea’s “Terrible Horribles” had finally happened.

  Frank was falling off the shifting container. Three stories up. Reaching out. Flailing for a ledge to grab onto.

  Don’t let go.

  ***

  After Andrea met them on the dock. Frank and Jordana. After the long walk to a nearby café where everyone seemed to know and avoid Andrea. Respectfully of course. Maybe even... fearfully. Cappuccinos and hot croissants are served.

  The strange happy people of San Giorgio are going about their lives. The deliveries. The craftsmen. The market opening. The bells of some unseen church ringing out across the rooftops and down into the narrow streets and even narrower alleys.

  “Where are we?” Frank had asked the man known as Andrea. The man in the white suit and fedora. Dark sunglasses and white teeth. An Italian gentleman of a certain age and distinction.

  “San Giorgio, Frank. And... we’ve been waiting for you for a very long time.”

  “Have you?” asked Frank.

  “We have. Isn’t that right, Jordana?”

  Jordana said nothing. She only pulled at pieces of her croissant and ate them as they sat in a café. They were still wearing the same clothes they’d worn in the club almost three nights ago in Marseilles. Golden sunlight filtered through the high windows of the café, mixing with the steam from the espresso machine. Spoken Italian and French swooped and dove about them as other patrons talked importantly about subjects Frank could not comprehend.

  “My name is Andrea,” said the man. He did not hold out his manicured hand to Frank. He merely used the small spoon on his saucer to stir his cappuccino once. Then he placed it back exactly where it had been, and sipped.

  “And what are you?” asked Frank.

  “A priest. Of sorts. And... I’ve been guarding a secret my entire life. Now, you’re going to help us, Frank.”

  “Who is us?”

  Andrea smiled again.

  “Me. Jordana. The order.”

  “And who are you guarding this secret from?”

  “Ah, well... straight to the point. The rest of the world, generally. The Black hand, specifically. You’ve already met one of them. The... ah... gentleman you disposed of in Marseille.”

  Andrea offered all this without secrecy or guile. No attempt to disguise murder and all that had been done, in the morning café amid the sweet, rich smell of hot croissants and dark coffee being expressed amid plumes of steam.

  Just the truth.

  Frank looked away from the conversation, buying himself time to figure out how to get out of all this. Taking in the street beyond the tall crystal-clear leaded windows that ran past the café and continued upward toward the top of the ancient hill. Cobblestones wound toward a monolithic wall made of massive stones, farther up the street. Distant seabirds called and spun over the spires beyond the wall.

  “What is this place?” asked Frank, his voice irritable and perturbed. “What am I... what would we be guarding?”

  Frank’s blue eyes returned to the smiling Andrea. They were hard and accusatory. Daring the man to something unspoken.

  “This place... among other things, my son, is...”

  Frank slammed his fist on the bistro table.

  “I’m already sick of this! Tell me everything straight up or I walk outta here.”

  Andrea adjusted his coat. Jordana was holding another piece of the flaky, buttery croissant halfway to her mouth.

  Andrea leaned forward, his voice low. A different Andrea. Not the priest. The capo.

  “I don’t care if you’re sick of it, boy. This is a war and you’re in it, and it’s gotta lot more to do with a lot more people than just one man. More than just you. You want out? Fine. Go back down to the harbor and get back on that boat and forget about this place.”

  There was a long pause. Andrea took a small sip of his coffee and seemed to compose himself once more. “But if you go on... If you go beyond the walls with me tonight... then you’re in.” Andrea checked himself, cast his eyes about, then leaned back as though assuming the role of prelate once more. “You’re going to find out, my son, that the world is in a lot of trouble. Lives are at stake, and there’s a lot more to it than just that. You were recruited because you stuck when others ran. Well, we’re about to find out if that’s really true. If you are the kind of man who sticks when others run. Tonight. Eight o’clock. I will come for you. Then I will bring you inside the inner wall and take you to the old temple. If you’re gone, then I suggest you forget about this place forever because if you talk... we’ll know. And that would not be in your best interest.”

  Andrea stood, sweeping his coat out behind him. He grabbed his silver-handled cane, realized he was clutching it too tightly as he glared down at Frank and Jordana, then adjusted his grip. Composing himself he walked away, and by the time he’d made the street on which no cars passed, he was smiling again, his head swiveling about, greeting others as he passed. An Italian gentlemen of a certain age leisurely going about the rest of his day.

  “Will you leave?” Jordana asked in a husky whisper from across the tiny copper-topped bistro table. Watching him with her cat’s eyes. Still wearing the dress of several nights ago.

  Frank took up the last of his cappuccino and swallowed it. In his mind he was already leaving. In his mind he was gone. He was on that boat with the Portuguese and back to Marseilles. The record producer from Paris. He could find him and get away from whatever craziness this was.

  “Come,” said Jordana standing. And she led Frank out and away from the street, passing along alleyways of quaint multicolored apartment blocks where ancient urns of flowers spilled out along the cobblestones of the street. Old women swept silently. In time they found a narrow building at the intersection of three streets. It was a three-story triangle rising up into the blue Mediterranean sky. Jordana knocked and an old woman, clad in black, answered, stepping wordlessly aside as they passed into the inte
rior of the building. A huge shadowy atrium opened above. A partially-hidden stairwell climbed around the inside of the building, passing in and out of porticos and balconies. Birds darted and whistled among the high eaves and blue shadows.

  Jordana, her heels softly clicking against the ancient burnt tiles of deep sienna, led Frank up along the stairs and the old woman was seen no more.

  On the third floor, all was silent and dust and smelled of flowers. Jordana stood before a door and a moment later had it open. There was a room. Light and airy. White lace curtains floated off onto a narrow balcony. A wide bed took up one wall. A small kitchen of enameled pots and porcelain cups. The rest of the room was absorbed by pottery. A studio. A wheel. Drop cloths and tools.

  She turned to Frank, staring only at him as he studied her studio. The basins and small things she had shaped and made. These things were her. The real her. Not that person he’d seen covering up with a sheet as the monster lay dying at the foot of the bed.

  She only watched him. Staring straight into him with those green eyes.

  She unzipped her dress, stepped out of it and came to him, burying her head in his shoulder.

  “Don’t,” she whispered.

  His hands and arms held her. Felt her trembling. Felt her hiding. Felt the night in the villa and the shootout in the village and the chase and all of it... slipping away. Not mattering here.

  “Don’t what?” he asked. His voice was dry. Barely a croak.

  “Don’t let go.”

  ***

  Frank was hanging from the shifted container.

  Don’t let go.

  His feet dangled above the three-story fall. A thousand beating fists vibrating from the far side, hammered at his shaking hands. In his mind, Frank could see more and more of them throwing their dead weight into it. Saw the container he was hanging from shifting. Falling. Toppling down onto the street and... onto Ash. Ritter. Candace. Dante. Skully. The big kid... Cory. And Ash.