F. Paul Wilson - The Keep

Woermann managed to sneak off for an hour during the late afternoon to sketch in the outline of the village. It was his only respite from the growing tension that pressed in on him from all sides. As he worked with the charcoal pencil, he could feel the unease begin to slip away, almost as if the canvas were drawing it out of him. He would have to take some time tomorrow morning to add color, for it was the village as it looked in the early light that he wished to capture.

As the sun sank and the fading light forced him to quit, he felt all the dread and foreboding filter back. With the sun overhead he could easily believe it was a human agent killing his men; he could laugh at talk of vampires. But in the growing darkness, the gnawing fear returned along with the memory of the bloody, sodden weight of that dead soldier in his arms last night.

One safe night. One night without a death, and maybe I can beat this thing. With half of the men guarding the other half tonight, I ought to be able to turn this around and start gaining ground tomorrow.

One night. Just one deathless night.

Sunday, 27 April

The morning came as Sunday mornings should—bright and sunny. Woermann had fallen asleep in his chair; he found himself awake at first light, stiff and sore. It took a moment before he realized that his night's sleep had gone uninterrupted by screams or gunshots. He pulled on his boots and hurried to the courtyard to assure himself that there were as many men alive this morning as there had been last night. A quick check with one of the sentries confirmed it: No deaths had been reported.

Woermann felt ten years younger. He had done it! There was a way to foil this killer after all! But the ten years began to creep back on him as he saw the worried face of a private who was hurrying across the courtyard toward him.

"Sir!" the man said as he approached. "There's something wrong with Franz—I mean Private Ghent. He's not awake."

Woermann's limbs suddenly felt very weak and heavy, as if all their strength had suddenly been siphoned away. "Did you check him?"

"No, sir. I—I'm—"

"Lead the way."

He followed the private to the barracks within the south wall. The soldier in question was in his bedroll in a newly made cot with his back to the door.

"Franz!" called his roommate as they entered. "The captain's here!"

Ghent did not stir.

Please, God, let him be sick or even dead of a heart seizure, Woermann thought as he stepped to the bed. But please don't let his throat be torn. Anything but that.

"Private Ghent!" he said. There was no evidence of movement, not even the easy rise and fall of the covers over a sleeping man. Dreading what he would see, Woermann leaned over the cot.

The bedroll flap was pulled to Ghent's chin. Woermann did not pull it down. He did not have to. The glassy eyes, sallow skin, and drying red stain soaking through the fabric told him what he would find.

"The men are on the verge of panic, sir," Sergeant Oster was saying.

Woermann daubed color onto the canvas in short, quick, furious jabs. The morning light was right where he wanted it on the village and he had to make the most of the moment. He was sure Oster thought he had gone mad, and maybe he had. Despite the carnage around him, the painting had become an obsession.

"I don't blame them. I suppose they want to go into the village and shoot a few of the locals. But that won't—"

"Begging your pardon, sir, but that's not what they're thinking."

Woermann lowered his brush. "Oh? What, then?"

"They think that the men who've been killed didn't bleed as much as they should have. They also think Lutz's death was no accident... that he was killed the same as the others."

"Didn't bleed...? Oh, I see. Vampire talk again."

Oster nodded. "Yessir. And they think Lutz let it out when he opened that shaft into the dead space in the cellar."

"I happen to disagree," Woermann said, hiding his expression as he turned back to the painting. He had to be the steadying influence, the anchor for his men. He had to hold fast to the real and the natural. "I happen to think Lutz was killed by falling stone. I happen to think that the four subsequent deaths had nothing to do with Lutz. And I happen to believe they bled quite profusely. There is nothing around here drinking anyone's blood, Sergeant!"

"But the throats..."

Woermann paused. Yes, the throats. They hadn't been cut—no knife or garroting wire had been used. They had been torn open. Viciously. But by what? Teeth?

"Whoever the killer is, he's trying to scare us. And he's succeeding. So here's what we'll do: I'm putting every single man in the detachment on guard duty tonight, including myself. Everyone will travel in pairs. We'll have this keep so thickly patrolled that a moth won't be able to fly through unnoticed!"

"But we can't do that every night, sir!"

"No, but we can do it tonight, and tomorrow night if need be. And then we'll catch whoever it is."

Oster brightened. "Yessir!"

"Tell me something, Sergeant," Woermann said as Oster saluted and turned to go.

"Sir?"

"Had any nightmares since we moved into the keep?"

The younger man frowned. "No, sir. Can't say that I have."

"Any of the men mention any?"

"None. You having nightmares, Captain?"

"No." Woermann shook his head in a way that told Oster he was through with him for now. No nightmares, he thought. But the days have certainly become a bad dream.

"I'll radio Ploiesti now," Oster said as he went out the door.

Woermann wondered if a fifth death would get a rise out of the Ploiesti defense command. Oster had been reporting a death a day, yet no reaction. No offer of help, no order to abandon the keep. Obviously they didn't care too much what happened here as long as somebody was keeping watch on the pass. Woermann would have to make a decision about the bodies soon. But he wanted desperately to get through one night without a death before shipping them out. Just one.

He turned back to the painting, but found the light had changed. He cleaned his brushes. He had no real hope of capturing the killer tonight, but still it might be the turning point. With everyone on guard and paired, maybe they'd all survive. And that would do wonders for morale. Then an ugly thought struck him as he placed his tubes of pigment into their case: What if one of his own men were the killer?

Monday, 28 April

Midnight had come and gone, and so far so good. Sergeant Oster had set up a checkpoint in the center of the courtyard and as yet there was no one unaccounted for. The extra lights in the courtyard and atop the tower bolstered the men's confidence despite the long shadows they cast. Keeping all the men up all night had been a drastic measure, but it was going to work.

Woermann leaned out one of his windows overlooking the courtyard. He could see Oster at his table, see the men walking in pairs along the perimeter and atop the walls. The generators chugged away over by the parked vehicles. Extra spotlights had been trained on the craggy surface of the mountainside that formed the rear wall of the keep to prevent anyone from sneaking in from above. The men on the ramparts were keeping a careful eye on the outer walls to see that no one scaled them. The front gates were locked, and there was a squad guarding the break into the subcellar.

The keep was secure.

As he stood there, Woermann realized that he was the only man in the entire structure who was alone and unguarded. It made him hesitate to look behind him into the shadowy corners of his room. But that was the price of being an officer.

Keeping his head out the window slot, he looked down and noticed a deepening of the shadow at the juncture of the tower and the south wall. As he watched, the bulb there grew dimmer and dimmer until it was out. His immediate thought was that something had broken the line, but he had to discard that notion when he saw all the other bulbs still glowing. A bad bulb, then. That was all. But what a strange way for a bulb to go dead. Usually they flared blue-white first, then went out. This one just seemed to fade away.