Heller’s heart was beating so hard he thought it might burst, his skin taut like stretched cloth. For Karin, he thought—he would fight for her.
Another sound, this time different. A soft hiss, like an atomizer, like a breath that couldn’t be held any longer.
Heller parted his eyes a little more and turned under the blanket as if doing so in his sleep. Then he saw, among the darkest shadows along the wall, a figure. Blurry, with soft edges, almost sheer. He froze. His chest ached. Was this his adversary? The Fright Man? Was he hiding in the shadows, crouching there on the floor?
No, he did not believe in ghosts. And certainly not in the Fright Man.
Heller needed to act while the intruder still believed he was sleeping. He’d count to ten, then attack.
Heller started to count in rhythm with his breath: one, two, three, four—
“He cannot be killed,” whispered a little voice, nearly inaudible and yet close to his ear, a cool breath hitting his face. Startled, he opened his eyes wide. A grotesque face was staring at him through equally huge eyes.
Heller swung. And connected. A shriek rang out.
Karin shot up. “What? Max! What is it?”
Heller was already out of bed and throwing himself at the intruder. It fought, floundered, screamed. He screamed too and pressed down on his opponent with all his weight. Someone was tugging at him, hollering at him. “Max! Max, stop it!”
It was Karin. She pushed by him and turned on the light. He gaped at the figure lying under him, whimpering.
It was Frau Zinsendorfer. She’d thrown her hands up in front of her face and was bleeding profusely from her nose. Her nightshirt and dressing gown were all red. Heller looked at his hands, which were covered in blood. He slowly rose, and Karin knelt down next to Frau Zinsendorfer, who slapped wildly at her.
“You cannot kill the Fright Man! You cannot kill him! He’s a demon, he’s still creeping through the streets. Creeping around and whispering and cackling. And one day he’ll come get us. All of us!”
“Quiet, goddamn you, silly woman!” Heller barked at her. He was irate that she’d dared creep into their apartment, into their most private of rooms and right into his fears. He was ready to slap her. He stood up instead.
“Black that out!” someone yelled from out on the street.
Karin leaped up and shut the shade.
Frau Zinsendorfer wiped at her face, smearing blood across her cheeks and into her hair. “I will not be quiet,” she hissed, and blood sprayed onto the Hellers’ white bedding. “He’s there outside, a dark demon, a being from hell.”
“I’ll have you admitted if you don’t shut your mouth. You’re mentally ill is what you are!”
“You tell him, you tell him!” Frau Zinsendorfer screeched, pointing at Karin, who was staring from the window as if frozen. They shared a glance for a moment, and Heller saw how his wife struggled with it, trying not to give in. Frau Zinsendorfer wheezed and sobbed hysterically at his feet.
“What does she want you to tell me?” he asked Karin.
Karin opened her mouth, then shook her head.
“All of us heard him, we’ve all heard him!” babbled Frau Zinsendorfer.
“Heard who?”
“The demon!”
Heller bent down and grasped Frau Zinsendorfer, furious now. “Be quiet!” he threatened, and as he let go her head hit the floor.
“You two heard him?” he said. “Both of you?”
Karin looked at her feet, ashamed.
“Tell me. What did you two hear, for God’s sake?”
“It was during the air raid siren,” Karin said. “We were sitting in the cellar. Everyone was silent. Everyone was afraid that something bad was going to happen since they’d already come once during the day. And then we heard him, as if he were standing right in our building, as if he were climbing the stairs. Herr Leutholdt wanted to go out and take a look. But then his fear got to him too.”
“Karin, what exactly did you hear?”
“All of it,” she said, flinging her hand in a despairing gesture. “Everything the people are telling each other. He was laughing loudly, like a madman, with this crazy joy. Bellowing, howling like a wolf. Then he was crying.”
“He was crying, that’s right,” whispered Frau Zinsendorfer.
“That’s why I took her in, Max. Because she was just so terrified. I told her she could come to our place.”
“You should have told me!”
It was all his fault. He hadn’t bothered inquiring about how her day had gone. Karin hadn’t been upset because of Magdeburg. It was because of the Fright Man.
“Very well,” Heller added and straightened up, smoothed out his pajamas, and buttoned his undone buttons. Then he helped up Frau Zinsendorfer. “Go wash yourself. And Karin, please make her some tea?”
Karin glanced at him. “What are you going to do?” she asked, though she already knew the answer.
February 13, 1945: Night
The nerve-racking howl of air raid sirens shrilled in Heller’s ears. Full alarm.
He ran across the cobblestones. He slipped and stubbornly fought his way onward, not wanting to squander his energy shouting. Air raid sirens had sounded many times in the last four freezing weeks, during which he’d been roving the streets, night after night, despite his wife’s speechless glances pleading with him to stay home. Of course he should’ve stayed with her instead of hunting down a phantom through the pitch-black alleys of the Johannstadt neighborhood where the first murder had taken place.
Heller leaped onto the sidewalk, his freezing hands balled into fists.
The endless howling was piercing and all-pervading. It penetrated his bones and his brain, allowing no other thoughts. Demons singing. And it seemed it would never cease.
He’d lost sight of the man yet again. Where now? To the left. Heller’s shoulder grazed the corner of an apartment building, and he lost his step yet continued on. Sweat ran down his face, chilling quickly, his teeth chattering, his nostrils frosting over. Biting frost covered everything. He rubbed at his face, a nagging pain hammering at the inside of his forehead, growing worse every time his heels struck the sidewalk. He’d lost his cap long ago. His overcoat hung heavy off his shoulders, and the tails smacked at his legs. The man ahead of him was wearing only pants and a white shirt, his upper body radiating steam that trailed behind him. Heller ran through it before it could evaporate; he was that close to him. Could nearly grab him.
The sirens, howling from hell, filled him with such fear. You could scream just not to hear it.
Heller had already heard the man’s odd cackling and yelping twice now, from a distance. He had been following the noises, kept on listening for more, but to no avail. Yet it had strengthened his will not to give up, not after all those long freezing nights where nothing happened apart from having to see so many mute and dispirited people outside.
This time he’d gotten so close. This time he’d nearly had him. He had heard him howling, right as the air raid warning had gone silent. “Come here,” the Fright Man had whispered. “Come over here, come over here to me. I have something sweet for you,” came the purr, “delicious goodies, sweet goodies. Just come here, be a darling child.” Heller had crept up, finding him in the darkness, and felt for the fabric of his sleeve. He dug his fingers in. Yet the man had torn himself away and given Heller a harsh slap in the jaw with the back of his hand.
Heller staggered onward, still tasting the blood in his mouth, yet he kept chasing the man through the darkness of the blacked-out streets. Were they running in a circle? All the buildings looked the same with their high dark walls. No light, not a soul around, the people all squatting in their cellars, squeezed together, filled with that fear, resigned to their fate. It was as if the two of them were all alone in the world. Only he and the other. Hunter and hunted.
Heller just missed a streetlamp at the last second, painfully knocking his elbow against it and losing his balance, falling back a few yar
ds.
His eyes burned. He wheezed and gasped for air. But the other man wasn’t giving up. He was steaming, a moving bulk, clumsy. His head tottering, all wide in the neck, chin jutting forward. His breath came in spurts, staccato. He didn’t look around, just kept running as if the Devil were behind him.
The ground started vibrating. There were maybe ten yards separating them. Yet Heller’s right foot hurt so much that he’d started hobbling and had to grit his teeth so as not to moan with every other step. He wouldn’t be able to endure it much longer. He reached into his overcoat pocket and grasped at his pistol but could hardly feel it with his frozen fingers. The pistol got caught on the lining.
He yanked the gun in anger, jerking it back and forth, and suddenly got it free. He grabbed the gun with both hands. “Stop where you are!” he shouted. “I’ll shoot!”
The howl of sirens was ebbing. No all clear? What about that other sound, this vibration? Could it have been rumbling thunder?
The fleeing man dared a glance back but kept running. His arms were flailing frantically, his breath pumping out, wheezing.
Heller took aim at full speed. He shot, a quick, sharp crack. Sparks bounced off the sidewalk. The man stumbled, toppled over. Heller was on him at once, about to pounce. But a foot struck him in the stomach, knocking air from his lungs. And the man was up again and bolting onward, running for his life.
Heller gasped for air. Everything went black for a second, but his rage won out. Hunching now, his guts stinging, he ran onward. He would not let him get away. He wouldn’t aim for the legs next time.
The sirens had ceased yet that droning vibration still filled his ears. Was it his blood rushing through him and making him shake? Or was it airplanes? And where was the man?
Something struck his legs. Heller went down hard, fully stretched out, scraping his hands but somehow still clutching his pistol tight. The man kicked at him now, striking his kidneys. Then he gave up and fled again. Heller aimed from the ground, and shot twice. Hit him.
The man let out a hoarse scream, and his white shirt darkened. Heller sprung up. This was his chance. The droning grew louder, rolling nearer like a hurricane, filling the whole sky, making the earth quake.
“Come on, come on!” yelled a man who had emerged from an apartment building and suddenly blocked his way.
Heller tried to push by, but the man grabbed him by the arm. “Come on, in here! You need to get out of here. This one’s serious.”
“No!” Heller tried to free himself from the man’s grip. Flashes across the sky lit up the street. “I’m a cop!” he shouted, and in the eerie glare he could see the desperate man disappear around the corner. That was no demon, nor monster. It was just a person. Bleeding and full of fear.
“You not hearing me?” insisted the man—an air raid warden—and Heller gave up.
This was terribly serious.
The flak guns fired away, but sporadically, having almost no effect against the rolling cloud of steel and explosives since most of their guns were at the front. Tracers soared into the sky, and spotlight beams reached into the night, found their first targets, sunk in their teeth. Buildings blocked his full view, but he could still see an unnatural glow above the rooftops in the west. There was a delay before the bomb bursts reached his ears. Hurtling his way. Whistling and shrieking.
“Come on already!” the man yelled, grabbing Heller’s arm again.
Heller followed now. They heard the thunder rolling over them before they could reach the cellar. A massive blast hurled the front door shut as they entered, shattering windowpanes.
“Lord in heaven!” bawled the air raid warden, shoving Heller, urging him down the stairs.
Heller missed the last step, stumbled, fell against a wall, and ended up crawling through the door on all fours. Five, ten, fifteen, twenty solid hits after another kept him from finding his feet. The shelter door slammed shut behind him and was locked. Heller looked up and, under the light of two naked bulbs, was left peering at a row of distorted faces, at panicked eyes, mouths hanging open. There, among all the people pressed up against the bare walls of this small room, sat a child wearing an American Indian costume. What an absurd sight. Carnival season, Heller suddenly realized. And the next series of bomb strikes was already nearing, the tenth exploding really close by. The light went out. Heller’s mouth dropped open. Little pebbles trickled down on him. He tasted dust and blood, and what he first thought was his ears ringing was actually the women and children screaming. But the roar of more bombs was already drowning them out. This was the very moment when Heller, who’d already been in one war and stopped seeking any consolation in God long ago, figured his life was over. He thought of Karin. It hurt not to be with her now. He would have held her in his arms, consoling her, thanking her for all their years together. He’d always wanted to die with her.
Not even those thoughts could last. What followed now robbed him of all senses, of any sensation of time and space. Bombs exploded one second after another, deafening all, allowing no breaths, no time to think. Explosions shook the cellar, hurling people all over. A shrill blare filled Heller’s ears.
The bursting and quaking would not cease. Another close strike made all noise around him fade. All he heard was a piercing whistle. Now, he thought, now. Death was finally coming, to claim what it could not in the trenches.
He wasn’t sure how long it had lasted. Maybe he’d lost consciousness, maybe he’d lost his mind. Far in the distance he thought he could make out people, hear them coughing, sobbing, moaning. This could not be. It simply wasn’t possible. No one could still be alive. Including him.
Yet then he was sensing things again, feeling concrete under his stomach, tasting metal and stone grit, coughing, spitting, trying to pull himself up. His head felt so extremely heavy that he was barely able to lift it off the ground. Something warm was running across his face from his ears. He felt the back of his head and found a warm and sticky spot—blood.
Eventually the beam of a flashlight punctured the darkness. Heller squinted, saw nothing but a white fog. It was dust that refused to settle, with blurry movements within, like people floating in soapy water. He had such a horrible thirst, and sand grated between his teeth. Someone grabbed him, turned him over onto his back. The light beam blinded him for a second before moving on. He struggled to turn onto his stomach again so he could prop himself up on all fours but hit his head hard on something. He felt around in the darkness and grasped at a large chunk of concrete. Finally he pulled himself up, took a step, struck something soft.
“Pardon me,” he said, but he couldn’t hear his own voice.
He detected things rustling and feeling around, vague hands moving in the faint afterglow of the flashlight. There was whirring, recombining into words. Someone shook him. The harsh movement made him topple backward against a wall.
“Help us! We have to get out!” he finally understood. He pushed himself off the wall and followed the crouching silhouette scurrying through the dusty air, hunching over too. They felt their way along the wall with their fingertips. “Over there!”
“It’s stuck!” someone screamed.
Heller wanted to grab hold and help pull the door open, but he couldn’t get a grip. The men were already giving up.
“Dig our way out,” Heller understood, as the shrill ringing in his head continued.
It’s impossible, he thought, digging out like this.
“Someone will be coming soon enough,” someone said to calm everyone.
“Just who might that be, jackass?” cursed another. “Don’t you hear?”
It was completely still for a moment. Out from under the shrill piercing in his ears came a big wave of something, a great rumble. Heller knew the sound. Fire. Only now did he feel the heat radiating from the door.
“We have anything to pry it open with? An iron bar?” he asked. He could barely hear himself yet his words seemed to reach the others. They fanned out.
“Here. Over here,
” one shouted. “Come on!”
Heller followed the shout and the flashlight beam shooting around the room but ended up getting tangled on the same concrete chunk he’d used to pull himself up. Next to it, half-underneath, lay the air raid warden. The light beam only paused on him a second before darting up high to the ceiling from which the big chunk had fallen. One of the men was already climbing up there, reaching into the gap with his bare hands, but he leaped clear as quickly as possible to save himself from the avalanche of rock, debris, and wood that came tumbling down.
More dust welled up, enveloping them completely. Heller pressed his overcoat collar over his mouth and nose yet still breathed in dust, feeling it clogging his hair, coating his skin, stuffing up his nose. His throat turned raw; clearing it and spitting did no good. His thirst suddenly became overpowering.
“We must get up above,” someone ordered. “On the double!”
The coughing in the cellar was multiplying.
That was one way to die: suffocating on dust. Now came the women and children, stumbling, stunned, feeling their way along as if blinded. All wanted to get away from here fast. No one was screaming anymore. They pressed and pushed in a silent panic, all white faces, looking up to the gap in the ceiling, ashen figures with dust covering their hair and shoulders, among them the little Indian.
Heller tried not to think about water, cold water, clear water. He bent down, picked up the boy, and handed him to the man who’d climbed back up on the big chunk of concrete. The man took the boy and shoved him up through the gap.
“Next! Where’s Egon?”
Heller helped to push up another child and then another much too heavy for him. His back stung. He couldn’t lift the women. A second man came up, braced himself, and pushed the women up while holding them wherever he could, no shame left here. Once all were up, the man with the flashlight made another round.
Heller waited.
“Everyone’s out,” the man shouted. “Is Alfred up? Hannah?” he then shouted, and got an affirmative reply.
Now it was Heller’s turn. It took all he had to climb up onto the concrete chunk. He had to kneel and got dizzy looking up. His neck hurt more than his back. A brick must’ve hit him.
The Air Raid Killer (Max Heller, Dresden Detective Book 1) Page 13
