“Is it actually dangerous?” Chiara finished her coffee.
“Don’t know, don’t want to find out the hard way,” I replied, draining the rest of my cup. “That’s why I need anything you can find for me. If I’ve got to chase the damn thing, I want to know everything about that property, and that ghost.”
Chiara looked up as the door chimed and a customer walked in. “I can work on it tonight, after we close. Should have something to you first thing tomorrow.”
I grinned. “Blair’s got fine taste in women. You’re the best!”
Chiara punched me in the shoulder, just enough to twinge. “Gotta go. I have to set up for the Bunko meeting tonight,” she added with a wink.
Shit. That meant she’d be closing late. I was in a hurry for her data, but not enough to piss off a coven of witches. I sighed, carried my empty cup up to the counter, and ambled back to pick up the rest of my purchases from Blair before I headed home.
I pulled into my driveway with a truckload of supplies and a hot pizza. “Home” is a cabin down a gravel lane in between Adamsville and Atlantic, two towns with a combined population of less than two hundred. Suits me fine, although now and again I still have to go out and handle restless ghosts from the big tornado twenty years ago that damn near took out both towns and a couple other ‘burgs, too. I reckon we’ve got more residents under the ground than above it, and since I keep the local cemeteries blessed and ghost-free, it makes for a nice, quiet place to put my feet up between hunts.
Chiara pulled some strings—legal and not so much—to get me better internet out here than anyone would ever believe. I popped open an Iron City beer and fired up my laptop to go over everything again. Demon, my big softie of a Doberman, planted himself next to me and dropped his head into my lap for attention. I scratched his ears as I read over my notes.
If I’d have put as much effort into my homework back when I was in school as I do getting ready for a hunt, I’d have the grades to be a brain surgeon. Sadly, I couldn’t see my way past anything that didn’t have to do with cars or girls back then. Girls broke my heart; cars didn’t, which is one reason I’m still a mechanic after all this time, but my love life’s deader than most of the things I hunt.
It’s not that I’d mind having a good woman in my life. It’s just that finding one who would put up with my anime and comics collection, my poker nights, and the odd hours I keep at the shop would be rough enough, without the monster hunting stuff on top. My wife Lara left me after the wendigo incident. Blair and Chiara are lucky—they didn’t have to convince each other that the supernatural shit is real. Blair saw stuff that can’t be explained when she was military, and Chiara’s brothers offed a werewolf when she was in high school. Most of the time, I’m too busy to think about finding myself a girlfriend.
Or maybe I’m just chickenshit.
I finished the beer and pizza and powered up my secured search engine. There are many times when my browsing might raise a few questions, so I figure it’s better not to take chances. Urban explorers have done a pretty fine job of taking pictures despite Keystone’s “off limits” status. The photos revealed dilapidated two- and three-story brick buildings with their windows long broken out, rusted machinery, junker trucks from the 1940s, storage silos, and the famous water tower—still standing after all these years. According to the blog posts, someone had thought it was a good idea to raise cattle on what had to be a Superfund site. I wondered if the cows still ran loose at KOW, and if the sniper cared.
I’d heard the story about the Nazi spy at the TNT plant when I was growing up, but now that I needed details, they were hard to find or were classified, and any eyewitnesses were either over ninety or dead. Still, I pieced together what I could. It wasn’t a pretty picture.
My phone rang at the same time a chime on my computer indicated that I had new email. “Did you get what I sent?” Chiara asked as I juggled the phone and logged in to the Dark Web, trying not to get pizza sauce all over my keyboard.
“Give me a minute,” I growled, wiping away a stray bit of sauce as I pulled up her file on the anonymous file-sharing network and looked at the results. “All right, walk me through it.”
“The spy’s name was Helmut Zinzer, but he infiltrated the plant back in 1944 as Hank Stump. His job was to sabotage the production of ordnance in any way he could, and also to find out about the secret projects German high command suspected were taking place at the plant,” Chiara recapped as I scanned the old documents she sent. Even though they came from government servers and over seventy years had passed, parts were blacked out for security reasons.
“Secret projects?” I took a swig of IC and peered more closely at the old files.
“Pittsburgh manufacturing was hot stuff back then, some of the best engineering in the world,” Chiara said with pride. “There was a big glass company that tried to build an invisible plane.”
I let out a low whistle. “You mean, like Wonder Woman’s?”
Chiara sighed. “You win, Blair,” she called out, and I heard snickering. “Yes, comic nerd, like Wonder Woman’s. Only they wanted to build it for real, out of super special secret glass. Zinzer was supposed to halt production, assassinate the engineers on the project, and grab the plans.”
“Only it didn’t work out,” I added, still torn between being annoyed and secretly pleased that Chiara and Blair had bet on whether my comic-fu would pick up on the connection.
“Closer than you’d think,” Chiara said as I flipped through the rest of the file. “The two lead engineers died suddenly, one with a heart attack and the other from a car accident, both suspicious. An early prototype was destroyed in a lab fire. But the project continued, and rumor has it that a second, improved prototype was not only built, but aced its initial tests. Zinzer stole some schematics and passed them off to an associate, then went back to finish the job. He planned to detonate some of the ordnance, destroy the lab and prototype, and get the hell out of Dodge.”
“But someone picked him off the water tower before he could do that, and now he’s haunting the place,” I said. A long pull finished my beer, and I scowled at the computer. “Bad enough we never got the flying cars they promised, but we coulda had invisible planes, too?”
“Life’s a bitch,” Chiara commiserated.
“So why now?” I asked, leaning back and debating popping open another beer. “Has ol’ Helmut been haunting the place all this time, but there wasn’t anyone around to see?”
“You mean, if a ghost haunts in a forest and no one’s there, does he make a sound?”
“This is the sound of one finger clapping,” I muttered, tossing her the salute. She responded with a chin flick.
“Could be,” Chiara replied. “I mean, who would know or care? But get this—the corporation that hired you is the legal successor of the company that wanted to make the invisible plane out of special glass all those years ago. Only now, we’ve got all kinds of polymers…”
“And so it might actually be possible,” I said. “Holy shit...so Helmut’s back on the job, different war, same shit.”
“That’s what it sounds like to me,” Chiara replied.
“Okay, thanks. You totally rock. This helps.”
“Hey Mark—be careful,” Chiara cautioned. “Helmut was a dangerous guy, and he offed a couple of people before he lost his luck. He might be pissed about that, so watch your back.”
“Will do.” Just what I needed: a pissed off Nazi ghost assassin. Well, I already spent the advance so it’s too late to back out now. Guess I’d just have to gank the Jerry and save the invisible airplane.
Funny, I’d always pictured myself more Space Ghost than Wonder Woman.
“And I scored big,” Chiara continued.
“TMI,” I protested. “I don’t want to know—”
“Not like that, perv,” she joked. “I was talking about the whole TNT plant thing with Blair, and she reminded me that her aunt’s neighbor used to tell stories about working there duri
ng the war. Want to go see what he remembers?”
Which is how I ended up standing on a stranger’s doorstep to see a man about a ghost. I’d like to say my innate charm opened the door, but I’m betting it was Chiara’s box of homemade Italian pastries that did the trick.
Despite being over ninety, Eugene was sharp as a tack, and he told us plenty of stories, including a first-hand account of the night his Army patrol shot the sniper off a water tower.
“Thank you so much,” Chiara said, after Eugene’s story came to an end. “We’ve taken up enough of your time.”
“Would you like to see the stuff I kept from when I worked there?” Eugene’s rheumy eyes sparkled, and I bet he was having more fun flirting with Chiara and eating the pastries than he’d had in a long time.
“We’d love to!” I replied before Chiara had a chance to protest.
Eugene got to his feet and reached for his cane. “Be back in a moment,” he promised, setting off down the hall.
“Blair is gonna kill me,” Chiara murmured. “I’m late opening the shop.”
“Wait ‘til she finds out you’ve been flirting up a storm,” I joked, elbowing her.
She rolled her eyes. “Blair knows better.”
Eugene shuffled back with a box in one hand and put it on the coffee table before settling back into his worn recliner. “I kept a little of this and a little of that over the years,” he said. “This is the box from my time in the Army.” He opened it, revealing a collection of badges and medals, hunting licenses, snapshots, and…buttons. Dozens of buttons of all kinds.
I must have looked confused because Eugene laughed. “My mother was quite the seamstress when I was a boy, and I used to amuse myself playing with her button jar. Never quite got over my fascination, so I’ve always picked up the odd button when I saw it and added it to my collection.”
Then he held up a pebbled black button. “You know where I got this?” Eugene asked. When Chiara and I shook our heads, he chuckled. “Our Jerry spy ripped his jacket when he took a header off the water tower. We found the button in the grass. German-issue. I pocketed it, since I figured it didn’t matter to anyone else, and I’d been part of the team that got in the lucky shot.”
I felt a chill go down my spine. “Mr. Sprake—”
“Eugene,” he corrected.
“You probably aren’t going to believe me, but that spy you shot came back as a ghost.”
To my surprise, Eugene nodded. “That’s old news, son.”
“You know?”
“Yep,” Eugene replied, and helped himself to another pastry. “We’d see wisps up on the catwalk around the water tower after he was shot and hear a voice muttering in German. Never came to anything, and then we all cleared out, and the place stood empty for a long time. Figured it served him right, being stuck as the last sentry after trying to kill us.”
“He’s back, and a lot stronger—strong enough to cause trouble,” I said. “I was wondering, I know it’s a lot to ask, but may I have that button? I need to make sure he doesn’t hurt anyone else.”
Eugene fixed me with his gaze, and I felt like a teenager caught breaking curfew. “You’re that monster hunter guy, aren’t you? I’ve heard about you.”
I tried not to cringe. For obvious reasons, I didn’t advertise my side job, figuring that people who needed my services would find me on their own. Still, word gets around, and I hated to think what he might have heard.
Eugene chuckled. “None of that now,” he chided. “Blair’s older brother was at the VFW and had a bit much to drink one night, started telling stories, and got to the one about that werewolf he and his brothers took care of. Said there was more stuff like that out there, and that you were one of the guys who got rid of it.” He shrugged. “At the time, I blamed it on the whiskey, but I saw him later, and he swore it was true.”
“It’s true,” I confirmed.
Eugene nodded. “I’ve seen a strange thing or two in my time as well,” he said, and dropped the button into my hand.
“I won’t be able to return this,” I warned.
He shrugged. “You gonna use it to get rid of that Nazi bastard once and for all? Keep it, with my blessing.” His eyes blazed with the fire of the young soldier he once had been. “And when you send the son of a bitch to hell, you be sure to tell him that’s for my brother Mickey and his friends, the guys who never came back from Normandy.”
My fingers closed around the button. “It would be an honor.”
The old Keystone Ordnance Works looked even more ominous in the dark. The full moon should have let me navigate easily, but the cloud cover kept blocking the moonlight. We’re in one of the spots in the US that has the most cloudy days, and I’d been told that was one reason the TNT plant got located here—because aerial surveillance didn’t work well. Tonight, it made my job that much harder.
Forget about climbing the fence. I found a hole in the chain link and crawled through. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who’d decided to ignore the warnings. Thanks to the maps and Chiara’s research, I’d come in near the old water tower instead of near the front, because the site covered acres and I didn’t want to hike through tick-infested scrub or fall into a polluted catchment pond.
The clouds broke, and I could see clearly. In the distance, I could make out the silhouette of one of the larger buildings, like a hulking shadow. Ahead of me, I saw the water tower, and to its right, a stand of trees.
I’ve got to admit, I was feeling pretty jazzed about this hunt. My grandad fought in “Dubya-Dubya-Two” as he called it, and now here I was, picking off a Heinie sniper. I felt like Indiana Jones and the Hunt for the Last Nazi.
Shoulda known it was all gonna go right to hell.
The weeds tangled around my legs like tripwire, dragging at my jeans with burrs. Mosquitos rose into a fierce, bloodsucking cloud, and I wondered if I could get turned into a mutant superhero by getting bitten by one, considering the stuff that probably got dumped in the shallow ponds. The ground beneath my feet felt rutted and squishy, probably from the rain we’d had lately. Bats dive-bombed me, swooping out of the broken windowpanes like a squadron on a mission.
Great. Bats, mosquitos, ticks, and Nazis.
That’s when I tripped over a rusted piece of equipment, landed flat on my face in the mud, and added “lockjaw” to the list. I got to my feet, and then I realized there were two water towers and I had no idea which one held the ghost of Helmut the sniper.
A shot rang out. I heard the cha-ka-ching of the bolt and guessed Helmut had a Mauser K98k, one of the deadliest guns of the war. Ghost or no ghost, I ducked and ran for cover. Another shot, and son of a bitch if the dirt didn’t kick up close to me. Fucking ghost sniper was shooting fucking ghost bullets.
I didn’t intend to find out whether or not those shots would kill me. I dodged into the stand of trees between the water towers and weighed my options. The clouds parted again, and I could make out some cattle far down the field, apparently oblivious to the spectral sniper. Then I looked from one water tower to another and spotted my quarry.
“Gotcha,” I murmured, watching the silvery shape of a man in an outdated uniform scan for his next shot, with his rifle sighted and ready.
Except, I didn’t have him, not yet. I knew where Helmut was, but I had fully expected him to come down from his perch and hunt me like a man. Fortunately, I’d come prepared. I shrugged out of my backpack and pulled out my paintball grenade launcher pistol. I grabbed a paintball shell I had repurposed, pre-filled with salted holy water and an iron BB inside, and let fly.
The first shell hit the tower just over Helmut’s head, and I heard cursing in German as the water splashed the rusted catwalk where the sniper had just been. His ghost winked out, only to reappear at a better vantage point to take a shot at me, and I threw myself out of the way as a bullet cracked against the tree trunk behind me.
I popped up, got off another shot, and this time, the shell went right through Helmut’s chest before i
t hit the tank behind it and splashed all over everything. The yowl of pain might have been from the salt, iron, or holy water, or a little of all of them. Damn, this was even more fun than firing holy water balloons with my hunting slingshot.
Helmut showed up again, a few feet to the right along the walkway by the tank, and I nailed him again with another paintball shell. His shot nearly parted my hair, forcing me to scramble to change positions before I discovered whether his bullets were “real” enough to do damage. I had the feeling we could shoot at each other all night and still be at a draw come morning.
According to what Chiara and I had found in the records, the Feds took Helmut Zinzer’s body away and disposed of it, so salting and burning his bones wasn’t an option. But I had Eugene’s button, and a half-assed plan, and that was as good as any of my jobs ever got.
First, to distract Helmut. I had made a run over the Ohio line earlier in the day and came back with a trunk full of fireworks I couldn’t buy locally. I pulled out a string of firecrackers, tied it to a stone so it would fly when I threw it, then lit them and tossed them so they hit to the right of the water tower.
They went off like a series of loud pops, and in the distance, the cows mooed their annoyance.
Then I pulled out a big cylindrical container of salt that I had duct taped onto an M80, lit the fuse, and lobbed it under the water tower where Helmut’s ghost was still firing at my dummy shooter.
The M80 exploded, tearing the canister to bits and spraying salt in a wide radius that effectively trapped Helmut on the tower. I used my grenade launcher pistol to send another holy water paintball shell through Helmut, momentarily dispelling him and buying myself enough time to run headlong for the safest place—directly under the water tower. Helmut couldn’t come down to ground level because of the salt, and he couldn’t see me from the catwalk. The water tower tank and its catwalk might be steel, but the rusted support structure was iron, which ghosts hate.
Spells, Salt, & Steel--A New Templars Novella Page 2
