Oliver Pötzsch - The Werewolf of Bamberg

“Barbara!” Jakob shouted, as if he hadn’t heard his elder daughter, and kept hammering on the door. “Can you hear me? Are you inside?”

Hearing no answer, the hangman raced along the front of the house without another word, until he reached a boarded-up window. With his huge hands he seized the boards, ripped them off the house, and soon had an opening large enough to enter.

“You. . you stubborn damned ox,” Magdalena shouted. “At least wait until the others get here.”

But Jakob paid no attention to her. He heaved himself up onto the sill and disappeared inside the building, from which a muffled, drawn-out moaning could be heard. Magdalena by now was certain that the cries were not coming from her sister. But who, then? Perhaps Hieronymus Hauser? She briefly thought she heard another female voice, but she could have been mistaken.

Desperately she looked around for her comrades-in-arms. Georg, Simon, and Bartholomäus were approaching, but Bartholomäus was having a lot of trouble running across the slippery ground with his stiff leg. Only Jeremias was still hiding behind the thornbush, staring out anxiously at them.

“Isn’t that just wonderful,” Bartholomäus snorted when he finally arrived. “In all these years your father hasn’t changed at all. He just plunges ahead, hell-bent, come what may.”

“Well, at least he ripped out a hole in the wall first,” Simon said, pointing at the opening. “You might call that progress.”

“But what the hell shall we do now?” Magdalena scolded. “Nobody knows what to expect inside.”

“I’m afraid your father has made that decision for us. Now all we can do is act fast and pray.” Bartholomäus was already hoisting himself onto the sill, and despite his handicap, he was astonishingly nimble. He pointed at Simon, who was standing next to the window holding his wheel-lock pistol, uncertain what to do. “You’ll stay out here with Jeremias in case the fellow somehow gets away from us. Do you at least know how to use that weapon?”

Simon looked at it doubtfully. “Uh, my father-in-law gave me a quick explanation earlier. I think it’s loaded, but-”

“Fine, then everything is all right.” Bartholomäus slipped into the house.

Once again there was loud moaning from the depths of the house, and by now it no longer sounded like a human wail. Magdalena looked at Simon, who was staring at the pistol as if it were a poisonous snake.

“You probably won’t even need it,” she reassured him, “and if you do, just hit the fellow over the head with it.”

“Magdalena,” Simon pleaded, “don’t go in there. It’s enough that your father and your uncle and Georg are risking their lives.”

Magdalena hesitated, but then she stood up straight. “Simon, you don’t understand. My little sister is somewhere inside there, in the hands of a madman. I can’t stay outside. If anything happens to her, I’d never forgive myself.” She attempted to smile, but it looked strained. “Everything will work out-you’ll see.”

Then she climbed in after Georg and her uncle.

Inside it was as dark as in a rotting coffin. Magdalena thought she saw some dust-covered furniture wrapped in blankets, and some places on the walls were a bit lighter than their surroundings-presumably doorways leading to other rooms. A few steps in front of her, she could see the outlines of her uncle and her brother.

“If your father hadn’t been so stupid as to come crashing in here, we could have lit a torch or a lantern,” Bartholomäus hissed. “Now we’re standing here blind as bats. Why couldn’t he wait for us?”

“His daughter is being held captive in there, and perhaps being tortured. Don’t forget that,” Magdalena chided him. But silently she had to admit that her uncle was right.

Sometimes Father is like a little boy, just a lot stronger and with a lot less common sense.

She had just reached one of those lighter sections along the wall, which did, in fact, turn out to be an open doorway, when she heard a rumbling and crashing somewhere in the building. There were more screams, but this time she couldn’t have said whose voice it was. Near the back of the building, someone shouted Barbara’s name, followed by silence.

“That was Father, I’m sure,” Georg said excitedly. “Then he’s already found Barbara!”

“It sounded more like something happened to him,” Bartholomäus said as he rushed into the next room. “That’s what he gets for being so impatient.”

Magdalena followed him, squinting as she groped her way forward. They were standing now in a sort of reception room or parlor; the main entrance was visible on the left. A faint ray of moonlight fell through a crack in the entrance, and the wind rattled the boarded shutters. In front of them, emerging from the shadows, a rickety stairway led up to a balcony, underneath which there were two other doors, both open.

“And now what?” Magdalena asked. “We have no idea where Father is. Perhaps he’s already headed off in another direction.”

“I’m telling you, we need a light,” Bartholomäus grumbled. “I left my lantern outside with Jeremias. I can still get it and light it.”

“We don’t have time for that-let’s just keep going straight back.” Georg turned to the door on the right underneath the stairway; it appeared to lead to the back of the building. “One way is as good as the other. If we don’t find Father there, we can always-”

A sudden sound caused Magdalena to spin around, and, looking up, she saw something black swooping down on her and Georg. At the last moment, she threw herself to one side, dragging her brother along with her. There was a crash, and Georg let out a loud shout.

“Damn it!” he gasped. “What is that? That hurts like the devil!”

Magdalena, beside him, smelled a sharp, biting odor that made her cough. Choking, she turned and bumped into something metallic.

“Be careful, that’s lime!” Bartholomäus shouted. “It seems there was a tub of it up there that fell down. Quick, get away. The stuff is as sharp and biting as devil’s piss.”

Magdalena felt a burning spot on her hand. Quickly, she rubbed it against her skirt, and the stinging subsided. Then she moved cautiously away from the balcony and was just barely able to make out Georg and Bartholomäus standing along the wall on the opposite side of the room.

“I nearly tripped over something,” Georg whispered as he also rubbed his hands. “I think there was a wire leading up to the balcony. That bastard set traps here to scare off intruders.” Then he turned toward his sister. “I have to thank you. If you hadn’t pushed me away, I’d probably be blind now.”

“So would I,” she mumbled.

Magdalena couldn’t help thinking of Jeremias and his scars. If she or Georg had gone just one step farther, they would have ended up looking just like him.

Did our werewolf use this caustic treatment on his victims? She shuddered. Is that how he disposed of them?

“We’ve got to be careful,” Bartholomäus said. “Perhaps my brother ran into a trap like that a few minutes ago. God knows what’s still in store for us. From now on, we’d better think about every step we take.”

They passed through the door on the right, under the stairway, into another dark room that seemed just as large as the first and led them to two more hallways. By now, Magdalena’s eyes had grown accustomed enough to the dark that she could see more than just outlines. The walls were lined with deer antlers covered with dense cobwebs, and alongside them, in wooden frames, faded paintings so horrifying that even the marauding Swedish mercenaries didn’t want to take them along. Something scurried between their feet, squeaking-a rat or mouse that they had startled.