by David Wood
Aston raised his eyebrows. “Like Alvar Laine?”
“He was their grandchild, the son of the man sired by Lars Pera and Anna Laine.”
“He never mentioned he was the grandchild of Nazis,” Slater said, with a smile.
Old Mo nodded, laughing. “Why would he? There are quite a few descendants of that lost regiment here in town, and none of them are particularly keen to admit it. As well as Laine, there’s also Superintendent Rinne, and his siblings. Old Karl from the sheep farm in the next valley, the woman who runs the service station. Several more. The regiment was here quite a while, after all, and lots of people are from lines started on nights they were bored and in town. For many of the women here at the time, it seems they had little choice on whether they… interacted with the Nazis or not.”
Slater frowned. “That’s messed up.”
Aston laughed, tried to lighten the mood. “Why am I not surprised that policeman has got Nazi blood?”
Mo smiled, shook his head a little indulgently. Aston hoped the offhand comment had not caused offence. “The things you can learn from pillow talk,” Mo said.
Aston didn’t miss the way Slater’s eyes flitted toward him for a moment.
“Anyway,” Mo went on, “according to stories the Ahnenerbe uncovered in Sweden, somewhere in this region lay an entrance to the Hollow Earth.”
Aston cocked his head. “The what?”
“I know this one,” Slater said. “It’s the belief that there’s another world beneath the Earth’s surface. Theories vary wildly as to what’s actually down there, but the Nazis believed in it. Back when I was doing a story on the Yeti I stumbled across stories of one of their missions to the Himalayas searching for an entrance to the world below.”
“A nature documentary on the Yeti?” Mo asked, one bushy white eyebrow high.
“I work in many areas of television,” Slater said.
The old man inclined his head.
“That’s seriously a thing?” Aston asked. “I mean, outside of Journey to the Center of the Earth? What did they expect to find down there? Goblins and fairies?”
“Don’t be so quick to dismiss it,” Mo said. “Stories of the Hollow Earth, or human forerunners who emerged from or still live in the ground, can be found in cultures all around the world – in Europe, Asia, even America.”
Aston dismissed the old man’s comment with a curt wave of his hand. “It seems absurd. Why waste time with such a thing when they had a war to win?”
“Any more absurd than a spear that will lead your army to victory simply because it pierced the side of a man who was known as The Prince of Peace? Or a cup that grants eternal life because that same man bled into it? Even the idea that bread and wine are the flesh and blood of a god? People believe all sorts of absurdities.”
“I’ll grant you that, but what was the Nazi’s particular interest in this world? More ‘research’ into the origins of the Aryan race?”
“That was a factor, but in the case of the Lost Legion, they believed they would find something that would help them win the war.” Mo’s eyes twinkled. “Alien technology.”
“Alien.” Aston hoped his expressionless tone conveyed his utter disbelief.
“Think about it. Living under the earth without benefit of sunlight and fresh air would be virtually impossible for humankind as we know it. But if one had the benefit of highly-advanced technology, a race could survive, perhaps even thrive down there.”
“And the Nazis believed this?” Slater asked.
“Some did. There are basically two schools of thought. One holds that alien observers live beneath the earth, making a study of us, but keeping out of our affairs.”
Slater scratched her chin and frowned, deep in thought. “So, UFO sightings might be supply runs, or a changing of the guard.”
Mo grinned. “Precisely. The second theory holds that the aliens who reside beneath the earth were either our direct ancestors, or interbred with primitive hominids. That interbreeding resulted in the emergence of Homo Sapiens. The same race of aliens built Atlantis and provided the knowledge to build things like the pyramids. Eventually, these ancestral aliens died off, but their artifacts remain hidden in the Hollow Earth.”
“So the Ahnenerbe thought to win the war with alien technology?” Aston considered this. It was mad, but at least it made a perverse sense, if you accepted these people were true believers.
“Correct. Through their research, Pera and Gebhart concluded that somewhere in the system of underground and underwater caverns and passageways in our area, they would find an entrance to the Hollow Earth, guarded, the legends said, by a mighty leviathan. They brought soldiers, weapons, scientific equipment, and enough explosives to blast through even the greatest obstacles.”
“So what happened to them?” Slater was staring at Old Mo in rapt attention.
Mo shrugged. “They went down into the caverns and never came back.”
“Do you think they got lost? Trapped in a cave somewhere?” Aston asked.
“I don’t think they were trapped. They had a mountain of explosives at their disposal, remember?”
“So what do you think happened?” Aston grinned crookedly. “Maybe they found the Hollow Earth?”
Mo smiled. “The monster.”
They all laughed, but a little nervously. The story was one of the most bizarre yarns Aston had ever heard spun, and he’d spent long nights drinking with Queensland cattle farmers. But he couldn’t help being fascinated and slightly disturbed by it. However, it wasn’t much help with their current mission. He needed to bring the topic of conversation back to the present day.
“That’s all quite amazing,” he said. “I could listen to stories like that all day. But is there anything you can tell me that might be of particular use from a research perspective now? Anything I could study or measure?”
Mo stared up at the ceiling. “About the monster? Well, there’s the animal exodus.”
“What’s that?” Slater asked.
“Every year, around this time in fact, most of the local wildlife disappears. I’m sure you’ve noticed during your studies of the local fauna. It doesn’t literally vanish, of course, but drifts away. Centuries ago the natives noticed that around this time of year they were forced to go farther and farther away to hunt game. Also, the fishing wasn’t nearly as productive as other times of the year.”
“And it’s believed to be connected to the creature?” Aston asked.
Mo nodded. “No one’s proved it, of course, but it’s accepted. People tend to stay away from the lake this time of year. Many even keep their pets inside.” He chuckled. “It’s become such a common practice that I doubt many of them even know why they do it, save custom and superstition. And most people think I’m mad living out here, so close to the lake.”
“Are you?”
“Probably, but it keeps me away from the crowds and I prefer it that way.”
Aston chuckled. Even for someone as used to remote locations as he was, it was hard to conceive of a tiny town like Kaarme ever having crowds. But everything was a matter of perspective. Two people in a room made that room crowded if they didn’t get along. “That’s something we could follow up for certain,” he said. “Keep an eye on the animals, see if we observe any migration patterns.” They couldn’t, and wouldn’t, do anything of the sort, of course. They lacked the manpower or the inclination, but the scientist in him was fascinated and wished they could put some time and resources into the subject. Besides, a migration didn’t necessarily prove a monster was the cause, though there was no need to tell Mo that when the old man was being helpful. But it was a strange thing to consider.
“Why do you think the animals migrate?” Slater asked him.
“Could be any of several reasons: post-hibernation feeding, mating season, protecting freshly-hatched young.”
&
nbsp; “Do you think there’s a breeding population in the lake?” Slater asked.
“Of the monster?” Mo said, confused. “Well, there has to be one somewhere, doesn’t there? Unless you think this one beastie is a thousand or more years old. But whether it’s in our lake or not? Who knows?”
Aston took a sip of his coffee, considering his next question. The brew was strong and bitter, and he surprisingly found it to his liking. He hadn’t drunk instant in years.
“Is there anything else you can tell us about this exodus?”
“Not about the exodus, but I can tell you people die on the lake this time of year.” Mo’s face became serious as he stood, moved to the nearest bookshelf, and took down a large scrapbook. “Take a look at these articles, and mind the dates.” He handed the book to Slater.
A yellowed newspaper clipping from 1972 told of two teenagers who had vanished while boating late at night. Their boat had been found, but no bodies. Page after page, one or more for almost every one of the last forty-plus years told of people going missing while on or around the lake, and all dated at roughly the same time of year.
The last item was the most disturbing: a hand-written entry about the body of a fisherman that had been found on the lakeshore the previous year. Rather, half of his body had been found. The cheap Polaroid photograph pasted into the book provided mute testimony to that fact.
Slater made a gurgling sound in her throat and turned her head.
“Bitten clean in two!” Mo said.
“How do they know he was bitten?” Aston asked. The photograph was taken from above the victim’s head and showed little in the way of detail, even for a Polaroid.
“What else would do that to a man? Besides, I know for a fact he was bitten in half because I’m the one who found the body. It was ragged, like something had clamped down on him and thrashed around until he tore in half. But the bones? They were sheared right through, not snapped. Terrible thing.”
The gleam in his eyes said Mo considered it anything but terrible.
“Was an autopsy performed?” Slater asked. “The results could be helpful.”
“Should have been.” Mo rested his mug on the upturned crate that served as a coffee table, steepled his fingers, and leaned in close. “But I think it was covered up. The story never appeared in the news. Nowhere at all. I looked.”
Aston took another swallow of coffee and considered this. Why would a small town hide such a secret? It had no tourism industry to be harmed by the revelation. “Who do you think might have covered it up?”
Mo crinkled his brow, the lines in his forehead deepening.
“The man I reported the death to – Superintendent Rinne.”
Chapter 18
Aston was glad to get back out into the fresh, crisp day after they’d thanked Old Mo and made their retreat, but he was frustrated. If anything, they had emerged with more questions than they’d taken in. The animal migration story was a useful scientific tidbit, however. It gave him pause that they really might be dealing with something strange. And the annual deaths, the body torn in half. How did a town this small cope with the fact that someone died almost every year on or near the lake? Sometimes several someones. Aston couldn’t help thinking he’d have moved away at the first opportunity, but perhaps most of these people simply didn’t have that option, maybe for financial reasons, or simple familial loyalty and staying where they had always been. The idea of tradition had a lot to answer for in its various incarnations.
As they made their way back to the harbor, Aston decided he was really getting suspicious of everything to do with Superintendent Rinne too. The local police chief gave him the creeps on many levels. There was obviously mutual dislike, but he couldn’t blame Rinne for that if the lawman suspected them of lying to him about their reasons for being here. But Aston’s distrust ran deeper, and not based on that quip about Nazi blood. It was something else, more immediate and contemporary, that bothered him about the gruff official. He smiled inwardly, self-awareness rising. He had often run afoul of the law, since his teens and on into adulthood. He needed to remember that his distrust of the police was because they were a hornets’ nest he regularly poked. But even taking that into account, something discomforted him about Rinne. Even if the man wasn’t the local Superintendent, Aston was pretty sure he wouldn’t like the guy.
Slater broke his reverie. “We’d better get back.” She scanned the jetties with their large variety of watercraft. “Where’s his dinghy?”
“What’s that?” he asked.
“Dave’s dinghy.” Slater waved a palm left and right. “We should have checked when we arrived, but it’s only just occurred to me. If he came to town, why isn’t it here?”
Aston pursed his lips, scanning the vessels to confirm it wasn’t in sight. “I don’t remember seeing it.”
“Me either.”
“Maybe we’ll find Dave back at the boat, waiting for us.”
Slater looked at him for a moment, and then turned her gaze out over the iron-colored waters of the lake. “No, we won’t.” She turned hard eyes back to him. “Will we?”
Aston licked his lips, ineffectually as his mouth was suddenly dry. “No. No, I don’t think we will.”
“Shit, Dave.” Hurt lay heavy in Slater’s voice.
Aston put a hand on her shoulder, went to give her a hug.
She pulled away, striding off toward their dinghy. “Come on. Let’s not waste time.”
* * *
They motored back to the Merenneito in silence. It was easy to forego speech over the noise of the small outboard, but Aston was a little concerned at Slater’s coldness. Was she just concerned for Dave or was she making it very clear that last night was last night and he wasn’t to think any differently? She might, of course, be cool with him for both those reasons. He shook himself. There was no point in pining like a bloody teenager for her and she was right that they had bigger things to deal with. Play it cool, Sam. You might get to fool around with her again, but not if you’re an idiot about it.
Holloway appeared on deck as they drew near, his face stretched with a wide smile.
Slater turned to Aston with a frown. “What’s he so happy about?”
Aston shrugged. “Who the hell knows? Maybe his stocks went up a point.”
“Welcome back!” Holloway called to them. “Why isn’t Dave with you?”
“We can’t find him,” Slater shouted back.
Holloway moved to the side and lowered the cradle to help them rehang the dinghy. Sudden, almost oppressive silence descended as Slater killed the engine.
“Can’t find him?” Holloway asked, his voice subdued.
“No sign anywhere,” Aston said. “Just vanished.”
“Do you think he abandoned us?” Holloway asked.
Slater climbed aboard and Aston followed. “Maybe,” she said. “We don’t have anything to go on. No sight of him.”
“Unbelievable. I can’t abide irresponsible, unprofessional behavior!” Holloway spat. “It’s just as well you’ve proven you can manage without him thus far. Looks like you’ll have to carry on that way. Are you up for that?”
Slater nodded curtly. “Yes, we’ll be fine. Don’t worry.”
Clearly she didn’t want to discuss the matter with Holloway and Aston couldn’t blame her. The billionaire’s effusive nature and innate selfishness made him the last person Aston would ever want to talk to about anything serious. Let him concentrate on his folly.
True to form, Holloway practically danced across the deck, Dave’s disappearance forgotten in an instant. The beaming smile was back. “Well, we’ve certainly had some interesting happenings while you’ve been gone. Come on and we’ll give you the good news.”
He led the way back to the bridge where they found Alvar Laine, Olli Makkonen, and Carly waiting for them. Carly held the camera trained o
n the large table that was now covered in printed images. She looked at Slater with one eyebrow raised and Slater shook her head. Carly frowned and a look passed between them that Aston interpreted as, ’we’ll talk later’.
“Look at what we’ve got here,” Holloway said. “Two of our underwater cameras were working overtime last night.”
Carly slowly circled, capturing the moment on film.
“Which ones?” Aston asked.
Holloway pulled the lake map over and indicated two spots near the lake shore where a pair of cameras were positioned less than half a mile from where he and Slater had just been – a stone’s throw from Old Mo’s shack. “Here and here,” he said. He shoved the map aside and pulled two grainy black and white images to the fore. “What do you make of these?”
All the images showed the same thing: a grayish, diamond shape in the murky water. Aston leaned in for a closer look. “They look like flippers,” he said cautiously. “Based on the shape, it could be a seal, though with no reference to size…” His words sounded doubtful to his own ears and the others obviously shared that assessment.
Slater gave him a look, part amused, part chiding. “Is there any way we can get a scale?” she asked, turning her attention back to the photos.
“Not really,” Holloway admitted.
Aston had to agree. “If there were an object of known size in the image, or if we knew the flipper’s precise distance from the camera, we could make a reasonable calculation, but with no frame of reference, we’re stuck.”
“So, either it’s a small object that’s very close to the camera or it’s a huge object that’s far away.”
Aston nodded. He assumed Slater’s statement of the obvious was for the benefit of the slower-witted of her television audience.
“It’s definitely way bigger than a seal,” Laine said disdainfully. “At bare minimum it’s about ten feet from the camera, else it wouldn’t be in focus at all. And the shape really isn’t seal-like.”
Aston nodded, chastised. “You’re right. It’s too long, too pointed.”
