Lycanthropos Read online

  LYCANTHROPOS

  by Jeffrey Sackett

  Digital Edition published by Crossroad Press & Macabre Ink Digital

  Copyright 2011 by Jeffrey Sackett

  Cover Design by David Dodd

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  This book is dedicated to the memory of my late friend, Kenneth Craigo, with whom I shared more cheap wine, watched more bad horror movies, engaged in more arcane conversations, than with anyone else I have ever known.

  Resquiescat in pacem.

  PREFACE TO THE 2011 EDITION

  This book was originally written in 1988. At that time I was engaged in a multi-volume project which attempted to reprise some of the old themes of the classic horror films of the 1930s and 1940s, giving each of them a new twist, a new "spin," to use a current term. Each book fell into the rather limited genre of "historical horror fiction," and each also contained theological or philosophical elements. The first, Stolen Souls, dealt with resurrected Egyptian mummies; the second, Candlemas Eve, with witchcraft; the third, Blood of the Impaler, with vampires; and the fourth, Lycanthropos, with werewolves. (The project concluded two years later with The Demon. They were all published by Bantam Books.)

  One of the twists that I chose to give to my werewolf tale was to set it against the backdrop of the Second World War. As you may recall, the 1940 film The Wolf Man, starring Lon Chancy Jr., Bela Lugosi, and Claude Rains, took place in England, where one member of a wandering group of Gypsies was a werewolf (Lugosi) who bit the title character (Chaney). I liked the Gypsy element, but the Gypsy population of England is practically non-existent; it made more sense to me to set my plot in Eastern Europe, which is where most Gypsies actually live (or lived, until the Holocaust). Europe was, of course, under the military occupation of Nazi Germany during the War: the Gypsies were second only to the Jews as objects of Nazi hatred: S.S. doctors used concentration camp inmates as subjects in horrible "medical" experiments and if the S.S. got its hands on a werewolf...get the idea?

  I was very excited by the plot as it developed, and I assumed that the folks at Bantam would be as well. They were. They only asked me to make one slight change: don’t set the story in Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe fifty years ago.

  Well, that kind of subverted the whole idea of the story. But I knew I was writing pop horror fiction, not fine literature, so I agreed to rewrite the whole manuscript from start to finish. Hungary became North Dakota, 1943 became 1990, and the S.S. became a group of rural American neo-Nazi radicals. It wasn’t my original concept, but it worked. The novel was published in 1990 under the title Mark of the Werewolf (Bantam didn’t like the original title either). It sold reasonably well. But still, it wasn’t my original concept.

  I was recently undertaking the mammoth task of cleaning out my garage when I came across a box containing numerous old manuscripts, including my old werewolf yarn. Decades have passed since Mark was published, and pop culture is currently experiencing a werewolf/vampire revival, so I figured, why not give Lycanthropos another try? So I am.

  And here it is.

  JS

  AUTHOR’S NOTE (from the unpublished 1988 edition)

  The information I am about to convey may give the reader that the impression that this book concerns itself with Nazism, Ancient Near Eastern Religion, modern Protestantism, and other matters quite possibly not of interest. Let me assure you that this book is not really about any of those things. This is a novel about werewolves. If you are not interested in anything other than werewolves, you can skip the rest of this author’s note without suffering any great loss.

  I am quite certain that the reader is familiar with the well-known nonsense about an ancient Aryan master race which Hitler and the Nazis took so seriously, and I feel no need either to summarize the idea or to point out its foolishness. However, it may come as a surprise to some readers to learn that in the distant past there were indeed a people who were called the Aryans. It was this people whose invasions and conquests laid the foundations of the subsequent civilizations of Doric Greece, Vedic India, and ancient Persia. ("Iran," of course, is a name derived from "Aryan.") About the Aryans very little is known, though it is certain that the language group known as Indo-European, and including most of the languages spoken from Portugal to Bangladesh, is descended from the ancient Aryan language. (These languages used to be called Aryan Languages, until the Nazis rendered the term unusable.)

  The reader may also be surprised to learn that the swastika was indeed an ancient Aryan symbol (which is, of course, precisely why the Nazis used it.) The swastika can still be found carved on the walls of temples in India. In those parts of the "Aryan world" (using the term correctly, let me emphasize) which never fell under the sway of the Nazi empire, the swastika does not have the sinister connotations which it has for most of the rest of the world. In India, at least, it remains the religious symbol it originally was.

  My use of a Lutheran clergyman as a major and not particularly admirable character may cause some readers to assume that I am attempting to be disrespectful to that Christian communion. Nothing could be further from the truth. For one thing, I am a Lutheran myself (albeit a somewhat heterodox one). For another, I am well aware of the great risks and sacrifices made by many of the Protestant clergy during the time of the Third Reich, and, of course, by many Roman Catholic priests and nuns. The fact remains, however, that most clergy, Protestant and Catholic alike, did not actively oppose Hitler’s regime. (Rabbis, of course, had neither opportunity nor option.) Germany was and is approximately 1/3 Catholic and 2/3 Protestant, the latter group being the Evangelical (i.e., Lutheran and Calvinist) Church. Inasmuch as my plot required a married clergyman, my choices were thus greatly circumscribed by fact.

  The date of the prophet Zoroaster has never been agreed upon by scholars. The dates proposed range from 700 B.C. to 5000 B.C. My choice for his historical period is therefore arbitrary.

  I have in most instances chosen to use military rank designations which will be recognizable to people from English-speaking backgrounds. I felt that the usage of technically correct German ranks would be confusing, distracting, and rather ponderous. (An S.S. Colonel, for example, would be called a Standartenführer. Who outside of the S.S. would know what that means? Who outside of the S.S. would care what that means?!) My only departure from this has been to use the word Hauptmann (Captain). I have done this for no logical reason, other than the fact that my brother Gary was a captain in the US Army while he was stationed in West Germany, and everyone called him Herr Hauptmann. I always thought it sounded kind of neat.

  Regarding foreign words and phrases, the convention in English is to italicize them. I have adhered to this as regards to most titles and sentences, but I have made exceptions for frequently appearing words. (e.g., Reichsführer, but Führer; Sturmabteilung, but S.A., Schutzstaffle, but S.S., and Herr, Frau, and Fräulein. Those readers conversant with contemporary German ma
y object to the use of the word Fräulein to mean "Miss," because (as I understand it) the word is used today only in reference to very little girls; all adult German women, married or unmarried, are addressed as "Frau" (Mrs.). But in the 1940s, unmarried women were still addressed as Fräulein.

  The name of the main character, Janos, is pronounced "YanMsh." It is a Hungarian form of the name John.

  Some readers may not know that the Nazis’ hatred of the Gypsies was as great as their hatred of the Jews. In the mass murders which preoccupied the S.S. during the last half of World War II, 95% of the Gypsies of Europe perished. If you cannot understand why Hitler and his minions were determined to wipe out people such as the Gypsies and the Jews, and ultimately the Africans and the American Indians, join the club. If you are really curious, I suggest you read the chapter in Mein Kampf entitled "Volk und Rasse" ("People and Race") someday. Now there is a horror story!

  Of course, there are some people who deny that the atrocities at Auschwitz-Birekenau and Treblinka and Sorbibor and the other death camps ever happened at all. I do not propose to waste paper and ink refuting such an absurd assertion, instead contenting myself with reminding the reader that there are also people who believe that the pyramids at Giza were homing beacons built by intelligent lizards from Alpha Centuri, that a Paul McCartney look-alike named Billy Shears has been impersonating the dead Beatle since 1965, and that Elvis Presley is alive and well and working in a convenience store in Des Moines, Iowa.

  Weil es weder sicker noch geraten ist, etwas gegen sein Gewissen zu tun.

  (For it is neither safe nor right to do anything against one’s conscience.)

  -Martin Luther

  I will speak thus of the two spirits at the first beginning of the world, of whom the holier spakethus to the enemy, "Neither thoughts nor teachings nor wills nor beliefs nor words nor deeds nor selves nor souls of us two agree." I will speak of those who adhere to the enemy, of whom it is said that their own souls and their own selves shall torment them when they come to the Bridge of the Separator. To all time shall they be as prisoners in the House of the Lie.

  -from the Avesta

  And all the world wondered after the Beast, and they worshipped the Dragon which gave power to the Beast, and they worshipped the Beast saying, Who is like unto the Beast, and who can make war with him?

  Revelation 13: 3, 4

  PROLOGUE

  The cold wind whipped through the frozen trees, and the old woman pulled her heavy woolen shawl tight around her throat. Cold such as this was not new to her. She had spent the better part of her long life wandering the plains of central Hungary and the mountains of Romania, and the biting cold of the bitter winds of late winter was an old friend to her. But the years were beginning to tell, and she no longer felt able to bare herself to the elements with the abandon of youth. There had been a time when she would have thought nothing of dancing half naked at this time of year, when their caravan made one of its frequent visits to the local villages. The cold would not have stopped her from enticing the peasants to toss a few forints her way while her brother sneaked through the attentive crowd, picking pockets; but she had ceased such activities years ago. Let the young girls dance while the old women read tea leaves and palms and assured the fools from the villages that their futures would be bright and prosperous and happy. It had always been thus, for longer than anyone could remember. The Gypsies moved from village to village, from province to province, even at times from country to country, dragging their meager possessions with them in their ramshackle wagons, waiting for the time when the young girls could dance and the young men could pick pockets and purses, when the old women could tell fortunes and the old men could make music upon violin and mandolin and pipe.

  Theirs was a hard life, the old woman reflected as she tossed a few more handfuls of acorns into the pot of boiling water which rested upon the blazing fire in front of her. They lived from day to day, from hand to mouth, boiling in the summer, freezing in the winter, making do with whatever food they could manage to purchase or find or steal. The fools in the villages seemed almost to envy the Gypsies their freedom, their apparent lack of responsibility. Freedom! the old woman thought to herself, snorting with irritation. Freedom to do what? Freedom to starve? Freedom to live without a home, without land, without the protection of the law? Freedom to fear each petty official? Freedom! Bah!

  She shivered. The warmth of the fire did little to comfort her, and it was as if she were half burning and half freezing as the fire roasted her face and the bitter cold assaulted her back. She dipped the old iron ladle into the cauldron and drew forth a small portion of the brown, steaming liquid. She brought it to her lips and sipped it cautiously. It was bitter and salty, just as it should be. The stew was almost ready, as ready, at least, as it would ever be. Just so much could be done with squirrel meat, acorns, field greens, water and salt. As the old woman spat a generous mouthful of tobacco juice at the burning logs and watched it sizzle, she shook her head and sighed, wondering why the people who lived in the villages and the cities would begrudge her people their precarious existence. And now there were even greater dangers, she thought. She was illiterate and oddly isolated in her incessant nomadism, and was thus only dimly aware of the events in the world outside her little tribe and their caravan, but she knew that a war was raging, she knew that Hungary, the unwilling host country of the Gypsy tribes, was involved in it. She knew that Hungary was somehow controlled by the Germans, and she knew that, for reasons which were far beyond her understanding, the Germans were everywhere arresting Gypsies and Jews. This much she had learned from the people upon whom she and her tribe depended for their livelihood, the villagers whom they entertained and deceived and robbed. But why the Germans were arresting her people and the Jews, this she did not know.

  The old woman looked over at an old man who was sitting on the rear steps of a wagon, changing a string on his mandolin, and she said, "Grigor. The stew is done. Tell Lara to serve it to the others." She picked up a battered metal bowl and began to spoon a helping of the meal into it.

  The old man watched her and asked, "Is that for Blasko?" She nodded her head as he shook his. "He should get his own food, Mother. Why should you be his servant?"

  She threw him a quick, irritated glance. "Do you know what night this is?" The old man did not reply. "Do you want to keep watch over Kaldy while Blasko eats?" Again there was no reply. "No, I thought not," she muttered, and then repeated, "Tell Lara to serve the others." Holding the steaming bowl with both hands, the old woman walked slowly past the wagons and the score of cold, tired, hungry people. The two campfires which had been built were giving forth enough light to dispel the murkiness of the impending sunset, but she walked out into the rapidly darkening forest that surrounded the clearing. She walked along a dirt path, one wide enough to admit the narrow Gypsy wagons into the woods but yet narrow enough to discourage the entrance of motorized vehicles. The once bright colors of her long, woolen skirt had faded away years ago along with the roses in her cheeks, and she was now a gray shadow moving through the woods. She heard the jangling of chains nearby and turned in the direction of the sound. "Blasko?" she called out into the dusky haze. "Where are you?"

  "We are here, Mother," a voice responded.

  She squinted her old, myopic eyes, peered into the deepening gloom, and then snorted with disapproval at the sight that presented itself to her. The man to whom she had called out, the man named Blasko, was wiping the sweat from his wrinkled brow despite the bitter cold. In his hand he held some heavy chains, and he was uncoiling them as he said, "Hello, Mother." Another man stood close to Blasko, a younger man, his hands folded calmly in front of him, his sad eyes gazing vacantly off at nothing. The old woman knew that Blasko had been preparing to bind the other man and that the other man had stood there calmly, awaiting the restraint. From the pocket of Blasko’s dusty trousers protruded a few flowering twigs.

  "You are behind your time, Blasko," she said. "The sun
is almost down."

  "I know, Mother," Blasko said. "There is time. You have no need to fear."

  "I’m not afraid, not of him!" she spat, nodding at the other man with an expression of contemptuous dismissal which she did not truly feel. "If I fear anything, I fear for you, not for myself. I have lived long enough."

  Blasko laughed. "And you will live longer yet, Mother. I often think that you are immortal." She was by far the oldest person in the Gypsy band, and was thus addressed as ‘Mother’ by everyone, even though none of the twelve children to whom she had given birth were still living.

  She returned his gentle laughter with a shrill, brittle cackle which seemed to shoot forth from her toothless mouth. "I have survived for more years than I care to remember, Blasko. And immortality does not attract me." She walked forward and smiled maliciously into the face of the other man. "What do you think, friend Kaldy? Is immortality all that people think it is?"

  The other man did not respond. Indeed, from the blankness of his expression it might have almost seemed that she had not spoken to him at all. Blasko regarded the old woman with a cautious, rather respectful disapproval. "Mother, please. Leave him be."

  "I’d love to leave him be," she muttered, placing the dish of stew on the ground beside Blasko. "I’d love to leave him here and go on our way without him. I don’t know why you seem to feel that you have to..."

  "Mother..." Blasko began, and then smiled. "Thank you for the food." She recognized his thanks as the dismissal it was intended to be, and she turned to walk back toward the camp. She was about to mutter a parting criticism when the sound of gunfire shattered the dusk and screams and cries of fear mingled with shouted orders in the nearby Gypsy camp. The old woman seemed to fly through the forest back toward her people as if her absence was somehow related to whatever was now happening, as if her presence would somehow serve to protect the others. Blasko followed her after a few moments...they were his people too, after all...and, after an even longer hesitation, the other man, the one whom the old woman had addressed as Kaldy, followed Blasko.