Emanations of Hate
Chapter 14
The storm was gathering strength. The rain pelted down with such force that it seemed to bounce off the road like hail. Sudden furious gusts whined and howled through the trees, causing bursts of wind and rain to lash violently against the stolen staff car.
The three men within were silent. Newkirk was too busy trying to figure out what was going on inside of him to talk, even if he had been allowed to. Part of him, or at least something - someone - inside of his skull, was focused intently on the road. But the greater part of whatever, or whoever, it was, was gloating at the German in the back. It, or they, were separate from him; he was regulated to the role of observer in his own body. And yet, he knew what they were thinking. He did not understand how, and at bad moments, he wondered if he had simply gone insane.
But personal insanity did not explain Schuler or what was going on with Carter. Having been allowed to listen to their previous conversation he realized that Carter, or whoever, obviously knew Schuler; and while Schuler did not recognize him, he did finally seem to comprehend that this person knew him. Newkirk started; without his paying attention, the alien part of him had stopped the car. They were here.
For so long he had had questions, but until they had arrived at Schuler's house that night, whatever was inside of him - revelling in its new found senses and wanting control - had kept pushing him further down inside himself, keeping him from hearing the things he had needed to hear to make sense of all this.
But now, here, at this place, he suddenly feared the answers that he knew were coming.
Townsend saw the truck. There was no question in his mind as to what it meant and who it had brought: interference. Pulling Schuler roughly out of the car he paused for a moment, wondering if it would, in the end, be simpler to finish the bastard out here.
Schuler also spotted the truck and brightened momentarily. Between the darkness and the rain, along with being unconscious for part of the ride, he had no idea as to where he was, but the truck meant that there might be potential assistance nearby.
He straightened and looked down at Townsend. "Dear me, what does this do to your plans?" he sneered. "I'm sure that whatever treason you intended can hardly be played out in front of witnesses." The arrogant intimidation was somewhat ruined however by the need to yell over the downpour.
Townsend merely chuckled as he yanked Schuler sharply towards the trees. "Conceit and all of your German 'breeding' has apparently left you addled-minded," he shouted. "How do you know that they're not part of this?"
Schuler hadn't thought of that. He attempted to retain his haughty air, but it was difficult as he shivered and blinked against the deluge. Then a sudden, blinding flash burned across the heavens, illuminating blackened and charred timbers in the form of a cross. At nearly the same moment a terrifying crack of thunder seemed to shatter the world apart, deafening him and driving him down to his knees in front of it.
"DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOU ARE NOW, AMON SCHULER?" Townsend yelled, the air ringing out with his triumph. "DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM NOW, AND WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN TO YOU?"
Still on his knees, Schuler whipped his head around to face Townsend, snivelling and gibbering with terror. Townsend doubted Schuler could put a name to him, or even a face, but he knew. He knew that his victims had finally come for him. Schuler would repent now - only out of fear Townsend realized - but it was enough. Townsend quickly marched over to Schuler and drove his fist into Schuler's face. Blood gushed forth from the mangled pulp of Schuler's nose and he howled. Townsend and Newkirk then walked around behind him, both grabbing one of his feet and pulling him forward so that he fell flat on his face, letting out a piercing screech of pain as his nose hit the ground. Schuler continued to shriek as his face ploughed through the earth as Townsend and his accomplice dragged him, clawing at the ground, towards the cellar doors.
None of this was heard by the men in the cellar. They had arrived to find the place empty, causing each to fear that Hogan had been right, and that Carter and Newkirk had been taken somewhere else entirely. But following Dietrich Heidemann, who was privately fearing the same thing, they went deeper and deeper down.
It was an awful place, especially to the men who did not perform missions on a regular basis and so were not used to hiding in such dismal spaces. They were hardly all inside before it seemed as if the roar of the storm outside had been completely swallowed up by the oppressive silence. Only Foster and Heidemann had flashlights; Dietrich had his because, with his mediocre night vision he had needed it to find the tree stump entrance to Hogan's tunnel system, and Foster had thankfully thought to throw one into the pocket of his German overcoat at the last minute. The lights danced eerily back and forth as Heidemann in front, and Foster at the back, swung them from side to side to guide the men slowly down the stairs. They went forward reluctantly, not saying a word. By the time they reached the upper room, each felt as if they had never been anywhere else in their lives but in this dark place.
Of all of them, only Hogan and Heidemann had been there before, and the others marvelled at its size, or at least what they could make out of its size. The pervading shadows drowned their light before it could reach any of the walls. They did not stop long to ponder this, but hurriedly fell in behind Heidemann as he strode towards the other end of the cavernous room, swinging his light in a wide arc.
"Do you know what we're looking for?" Hogan asked him quietly, when he judged they should be nearly to the far end.
"No." Dietrich's sad answer reflected the sounds of a man lost in his own terrible thoughts.
In spite of the ambivalence Hogan felt over Heidemann's conduct all those years ago, he realized that the man was hurting. Without a word, Hogan stepped over to him and gently placed his hand on the older man's shoulder. Finally he said, "We can't change the past, but we can use the present to fix its mistakes."
Heidemann nodded. He drew himself up straight.
"That's it," Hogan went on, "Help me help my men and I promise you that we will stop Schuler."
Heidemann looked at him regretfully. "Unfortunately Colonel Hogan, I believe that the only way to help your two men is to let them stop Schuler."
"But there must be something we can do!" Lebeau protested, "You said it was hurting them!"
Heidemann turned to Wilson. "Can you suggest any medical means of freeing someone from possession Sergeant?"
Wilson shook his head.
"But they're not even here," Foster put in.
"No, but look!" Heidemann flashed his light against the wall, revealing the sliding door and the gaping well of darkness beyond. Hogan's men closed ranks, definitely not liking the look of that door.
"That just goes into a storage room doesn't it?" Hogan asked.
"Yes, but the last time I was here the door was closed. Carter and Newkirk must have gone in there. Perhaps they found something in there that I missed. It would be wise to check before we think of moving on."
"I don't know, I think we should go look for them. Maybe Lebeau's right, maybe there's something we can do," Foster said.
"They're coming here. I can't tell you how I know that, but seeing that door, I'm more sure of it now than I was before. Whatever will happen, will happen here."
"But we can't just let this Townsend guy and whoever the hell else keep controlling them, making them do things they don't want to do!" Olsen argued.
"He's right," Kinch agreed. "He plans on killing Schuler. Not that I don't think Schuler doesn't deserve it, if all of this is true, but what's that going to do to Carter?"
"Oui, mon Colonel," Lebeau said, appealing to Hogan instead of debating Heidemann. "What if he can remember all of this when it is finished? Poor Carter will feel terrible! He's never had to kill anyone in cold blood before."
However, Hogan was thinking and it was Heidemann who replied. "If any of you have a plan, I would be more than willing to help you, but I fail to see what exactly it is that we can accomplish. At this moment, our only option for freeing Sergeant Carter and Corporal Newkirk would appear to be to let all of this play out."
"In other words, to let Carter and Newkirk do your dirty work for you," Hogan snapped. "Tell me, why exactly does Townsend need to keep controlling Newkirk?" Hogan demanded out of the blue. "He could have kept Newkirk in the dark the same way he did us. Why does he need Newkirk as well?"
Heidemann sighed; he had wanted to spare them this. "For insurance - in case Sergeant Carter does not live long enough for him to carry out his plans. If that happens, Townsend would then have Corporal Newkirk's body to inhabit." Even in the dim light he could see the seven shocked sets of eyes that now stared at him.
"You didn't tell us that this could kill him!" Hogan bellowed. "How? What exactly is it doing to him?"
"I don't know. I have no idea how Townsend is doing this and I have no idea of what specifically it is doing to Sergeant Carter."
"And yet we're supposed to trust not only your assertion that they are coming here, but also your motives for letting it happen!" Hogan shouted, whatever previous sympathy he had had for the older man vanishing in an instant. "Even though you're perfectly willing to let my men be forced into doing something that you should have done years ago or let them die in the attempt!"
"NO!" Heidemann objected as Hogan quickly turned and strode towards the stairwell. "Wait! Please listen!"
"We are going out to look for them NOW! If they are coming here, we'll meet them on the way."
His men ran to catch up to him. "But what will we do when we find them?" Baker asked.
Hogan stopped and took a deep breath. He did not look back at them as he answered. "If death can drive Townsend out of Carter, maybe pain will as well."
"Sir, what are you saying?" Kinch asked. "What do you expect us to do - break his legs? Drive Townsend out by beating poor Andrew senseless? How will that work?"
"No, wait Kinch, he might have something there," Baker argued. "Pain would cause his adrenalin levels to go up, like when you get in a fight. Maybe some kind of severe physical change like that would drive Townsend out!"
"I hate to say it, but that would probably do more harm than good," Wilson put in. "We have no idea how bad off Carter is now. Doing something like that to him might cause his heart to stop or God knows what else."
"Besides, I don't think I could hurt Carter like that," Lebeau declared.
"Not even to save his life, Corporal?" Hogan questioned.
"But we don't know that it will sir, do we?" Kinch put in. "It might even kill him like Wilson said."
Hogan peered at his second in command for a minute in the feeble glow of Foster's flashlight. "What do you suggest Kinch? You said we needed to do something."
Kinch sighed and looked back to where Dietrich Heidemann still stood and waited. "I hate to say it sir, but he may be right."
"What? Kinch, we can't trust him!" Olsen protested.
"Matt, the fact is that we don't know what to do. Whoever, or whatever, this Townsend is, he's been able to control us for how many days now? Seven? And he just waved his hand in the tunnel and we were flung against the wall and caught in a cave-in. And, on top of that, he's not alone! I want more than anything to go out there and help Carter and Newkirk, and not just sit here. But let's face it, none of us has a clue as to how to stop him, and trying anything could just make it worse. How much strength will it take out of Carter if Townsend has to fight us off? Besides, what's to say that even if we manage to get him out of Carter that he won't take over someone else?"
The other men looked unsure as they considered this.
"So you're suggesting we just give up?" Hogan asked.
"No! Yes. Hell Colonel, I don't know what I'm saying. I guess what I'm trying to get at is that this may be out of our control now. I believe Heidemann; whatever is going to happen is going to happen here. I can feel it, I think we all can. Maybe if we look around we can find a clue as to how to stop it, but we also might have to accept that by trying to stop it we could be making things harder on Carter and Newkirk."
Unnoticed, Heidemann had walked up to them. "Please, Colonel Hogan, listen to Sergeant Kinchloe."
"Look, you're the last damn person I want to hear from right now!" Hogan barked.
"I understand. I don't know what I can say, but please believe me when I say that I wish with all my heart that this wasn't happening. If there is any way to save your men I will do whatever it takes. But if there is a way, I truly believe that it will be found here."
All logic, all of his experience, told Robert Hogan to lead his men up those stairs. It told him that you do not wait for the problem to come to you, that you go out and face it before it grows too big.
Rob, he found himself thinking, in this particular situation, I think you passed that point the day you were born. Actual, honest to God, Fate may have caught up to you at last.
Hogan, the set of his features terrible and grim, lead his men back towards the black void of the storage room entrance.
If the first tunnel had not filled them with apprehension, then this one certainly did. Upon walking into the storage room and finding the open entrance Heidemann had only been able to stare. How could I have missed it? How could I have never found that before?
This time it was Hogan who lead them down a dark stairwell. Implacable and determined, he did not hesitate, despite an unusual feeling of claustrophobia that had started to clench at his stomach the further he went along the narrow passage. His men, not quite as confident, still followed.
When they reached the door to the lower chamber they felt all that Carter had felt before them - the thrumming, almost subliminal vibrations; the murky heaviness in their lungs as the breathed in the fetid air; the grimy coating on their skin as if the very atmosphere of the place was marking them with its own pollution. They stared at the door when they came to it, with even Hogan hanging back, unwilling to touch it.
"Do you think they went in there?" he asked Heidemann.
"I have no idea," Heidemann answered. "If they did, why would they close this door again and not the other one?"
"I don't know, but…" and he reached out to open it.
As his hand brushed against the lock a bombardment of frantic sounds pummelled his eardrums, causing him to flinch and draw away sharply. A hundred voices were there, clawing overtop one another to be heard, but too piercing for him to listen to. He threw his hands over his ears and a quick glance behind told him that the others were in just as much pain.
"Mon Dieu! What is it? Can you make it out?" Lebeau shouted over the din.
"No! I don't…I can't…!" Wilson yelled back, shaking his head.
"Everyone be quiet! Try to listen!" Kinch bellowed. "I think I can almost understand!"
The sound continued to grow; the frequency becoming higher and more rapid in its urgency, driving the men to their knees, clutching at their heads.
"Please, please stop!" Foster screamed, or at least that's what it looked like to Hogan, who couldn't hear him over the noise. There was a panicked look on Foster's face though, that Hogan didn't like.
"I wish to Hell you'd stop this!" Olsen cried out.
"We don't understand!" Lebeau pleaded. "Please! We want to help you!"
The voices still ran together, but suddenly the message was clear. Donotstopus donotinterfere leaveusalone thisisourtime letusbe leaveus donotstopus wewilldothis noonemuststopus wemustdothis donotinterfere leavenow gonow donothingtostopus wewilldothis noonewillstopus leaveusalonedonotstopusleavenow GoawaygoawayGOAWAYGOAWAYGOAWAY!
With every order from this invisible chorus, the men were assaulted; indefinable grey shapes, lit by the frenetic flashes of two flashlights being wildly brandished about as weapons, punched and slapped them with cold, slimy, fish-like hands. Vainly trying to defend themselves, they were pushed and yanked off their feet and kicked back towards the way they had come. An icy wash of panic hit them all at once and, frightened beyond coherent thought, they turned almost as one and made a bolt for the stairs.
All but Hogan. He rose to his feet, unwavering, and stared at the door.
"I WILL NOT BE CONTROLLED LIKE THIS!" he shouted and made a lunge for the crossbar, yanking it open.
An eerie, sickly-green luminescence flooded out of the open doorway, lighting upon the faces of Hogan's men as they watched their commanding officer steel himself and then stride into the lower chamber.
Slowly, wordlessly, they followed. The invisible assault dropped off as each walked into the light; Dietrich first, then Kinch and Lebeau. After them it was Wilson and Baker and then finally Olsen and Foster.
Inside, the light persisted but it took on a flickering underwater quality. If Carter had been there - and had been himself - he could have told them that the chamber was very different than from when he had seen it. The unnatural radiance reflected off of metal gurneys, metal kidney-shaped bowls such as the type they used in hospitals, metal trays.
Metal instruments.
Despair choked at Dietrich Heidemann's heart. Oh Merciful God in Heaven! It was all true. Please forgive me, I let it go on and it was all true. But as the thought came, he was distracted by the scene before his eyes.
The light grew stronger as the small forms that had tormented them merged with it, and phantom sounds came from all around him. He flinched at a clatter of scalpels. He heard restraints snapping shut, padlocks and chains clanging against stone, even drops of blood splattering one by one into a metal pan - each of these sounds resounding in his ears with a terrible clarity. Squeaking wheels going over the now tiled floor caused his chest to tighten, and he turned to witness the barely visible spectre of a sullen, beady-eyed man pushing an emaciated boy on a gurney right through Foster and Lebeau. He saw Hogan and his men jumped out of the way of each apparition with dismay and growing panic, but for him there came a curious sense of calm. Perhaps it was resignation. Perhaps a part of him realized that this was his penance, and he accepted it, and even felt relief that it was here.
Hearing the small Frenchman cry out the word "Carter!" made him and the others turn to the door. The physical presence of Andrew Carter stood before them, virtually unrecognizable. His eyes - the pupils contracted to mere pinpoints - were glowing unnaturally bright, the blue irises seeming to burn within the dark sockets in his skull. He was also sickeningly pale and the sheer awfulness of his appearance was enough to pull them out of their own nightmares to stare at him with alarm.
But it was not Carter who heard his friend's shout. Jaw set, Townsend did not acknowledge Lebeau, other than raising one eyebrow towards the group in general. Instead, the strange Englishman reached down and hauled up by his shirt the man that he and Newkirk had been dragging between them. The man, dressed in SS uniform pants with suspenders and a white shirt that was now covered in blood and dirt, was bruised and sobbing, and he started whimpering when Townsend jerked him to his feet.
"The gang's all here I see," Townsend complained ruefully. But then he smiled. "Ah still, the more the merrier to watch the worm squirm, eh?" he said to Schuler, shaking him so hard that the German's head snapped to the side like a broken-necked doll.
"CARTER! STOP THAT!" Hogan instinctively ordered, not thinking.
However, Townsend paid him no more attention than he had Lebeau. Ignoring his audience he addressed Schuler with a mocking courtesy, "Now, Herr Schuler, I believe that we'd all like to get this over with as quickly as possible. If you would…"and he waved his hand to indicate that the German should get up on the operating table.
Schuler screamed hysterically and tried to bolt backwards, but Townsend still had him in an iron grip.
"Now, really! Must you make things so very difficult?" Townsend chided the blubbering doctor, as Newkirk wrestled him onto the table and Townsend bent over to snap the restraints in place. "It's all for the greater good, I do assure you."
"NEWKIRK!" Hogan yelled. Newkirk's gaze flickered towards him for just a second and Heidemann saw Hogan's hope surge. "Newkirk, can you hear me? Let him go Peter! Let him go!"
Townsend straightened up and sighed mightily. "Let him go?" he repeated, sounding like a defeated parent who was tired of explaining a complex matter to a child. "Let him go? No, no, this just won't do," he said, shaking his head.
He calmly walked over to face Hogan. With a pedantic and condescending expression, he seemed about to lecture the dark-haired man, but then he paused. The set of his features changed to one of serious resolve, but the same look of sadness beyond telling that Schuler's housekeeper had seen, was present in his eyes.
"This was only meant for Schuler. All of it. You were never meant to see." It was a voice of sincere pity.
An explosion of brilliant white light blinded them.
