Nazi Gold

Chapter 24 — Hoia Baciu, the Haunted Forest

“I don’t think this fish is going to bite, Sam,” Nina said as they waited by the vehicle. She was leaning against the side door, arms folded so that she could rub her upper arms in anticipation.

“Are you cold?” he asked.

“No, but if we don’t get a move on soon, I’m going to be sorry I did not pack my sweater,” she moaned, staring back at the small house where Professor Kulich was bartering for a price to get Mihail to accompany them to Hoia Baciu.

“All this is really beginning to get to me. It is borderline supernatural,” Sam noted.

“I know, right? And add all this to the shit that has already been plaguing me thanks to the arsenic poisoning, and I am ready to get my straight jacket on!” Nina whispered loudly.

In the orange western sky the sun was gradually making for cover behind the horizon. They had less than two hours before sunset and still they were stuck at Mihail’s house.

The only person who appeared unperturbed, was Stefan. Sitting in the driver’s seat and listening to the faint crackle of some AM frequency radio, he could not care less. Nina figured he was probably being paid by the hour, because he was in no hurry. Suddenly Sam said something that did not put her at any ease.

“You know, this is Transylvania.”

“Yes, thank you, Sam. I know,” she rolled her eyes.

“No, seriously. I mean, if you think about it, we are in a legendary part of the world, in a place where Bram Stoker based ‘Dracula.’ I think it is kind of…cool,” he smiled as he looked around the surrounding hills. “I mean, it is not exactly wilderness and tall mountains, but it is that very part of the world where vampires have always been reputed to walk freely.”

“Strigoi,” Stefan said behind Nina and she shrieked with fright at the sudden sound of his voice.

“Jesus, Stefan! I almost gave you a wallop!” she shouted, pinching her eyes shut as she puffed her cheeks. The two men laughed at the petite woman who almost lost her breath. From a distance Igor watched them. He was waiting right outside the door for Professor Kulich to persuade her target. Now that his mother knew where Sam was, he could simply wait and make sure Sam did not leave his sight. The captain she employed had already lost enough men due to Sam Cleave and still the journalist had possession of his camera…and his life — something that would be rectified shortly.

“What is Strigoi?” Nina asked the guide.

“They are people who die, but they come back to feast on their family. They are always hungry. They eat everything. Why do you think we watch our dead for days before we bury them?” he asked with a satisfied smirk.

“As an excuse to get drunk?” Sam chuckled.

“In Transylvania, everything presents a good excuse to get drunk, Mr. Cleave,” the smiling Romani affirmed. “I suggest we keep drinking now. There is definitely not enough alcohol for a visit to Hoia Baciu.” Now he was not smiling anymore. Stefan was serious for a change.

“Does she seriously want to go in there now?” Nina asked.

“I think so. I think the professor has picked up blood scent and now she cannot stop. She must chase that blood otherwise she will lose the smell, the trail, you see?” he remarked.

“What does she expect to find there?” Sam sighed.

“The Black Tarot,” Nina answered. “Don’t you ever listen?”

“No, I know why she wants to go in there, but where does she think she is going to start looking in an entire fucking forest in the gaining dark, no less?” he asked with an inkling of frustration.

“I imagine that is why she is trying to procure Mihail’s services, so that he can use his ability to see where all this shit happened so that she know where to start hunting for Petr Costita,” Nina said.

“Petr is dead,” Stefan remarked indifferently. “He is a legend, and now he is a dead legend. No one who walks into Hoia Baciu like he did, with his evil, will survive the power in the circle,” the guide said. He pulled out a cigarette, and offered some to Sam and Nina, who were only too grateful for a fag in this unsettling situation.

“Tell me about that,” Sam uttered through his first smoke exhalation.

“Yes, I am well up to date on the whole evil, devil, upside down angle of the locals, but what is it really about the forest?” Nina added.

“I was raised here. And there was always a lot of superstition, a lot of foreboding fear. I always say superstition is just another religion, because it is an exaggeration of beliefs where people use relics and rituals to protect themselves from things that are going to get them anyway,” Stefan told them. “The thing about Hoia Baciu is, I think, just that it is one of those places on the earth that has confused magnetic fields. If you don’t believe in ghosts and demons, then you better believe in aliens and portals. Either way, you cannot take this forest as a forest. It is known for the clearing, a large circle where no plants or trees grow.”

“I’ve heard of that. They say that was where UFO’s landed,’ Nina smiled at Sam.

“And as absurd as it sounds, Dr. Gould, if you stand there you will feel a definite energy or power there that overwhelms you,” the guide assured her. “Sometimes the energy causes confusion and panic deep inside you. It affects your emotions and your judgment, and that gives the energy intelligence, an evil presence. Admit it — if it were science it would affect your balance or your vision, maybe make you get your directions mixed up, right? But this power fiddles directly with your soul and disturbs your feelings…like it is acting deliberately.”

“No wonder the Nazis were so fascinated by it,” Nina remarked.

Nina and Sam smoked in silence, mulling it over by themselves. If the place was a vortex of energy, by laws of physics it could very well be a portal to other dimensions — if physicists could manage to convince people that the theory of other dimensions was acceptable. After all, paranormal phenomena was not really much else but the perception of electro-magnetic energy fields which in turn would of course be capable of interfering with our own, upsetting our emotional balance.

This theory had Nina wondering if love, grief or rage were even emotions, if they could be altered by chemicals or magnetic fields. Perhaps humans did not really feel. Maybe it was just the atmosphere or the shift in energy around us. It was a stretch, but not altogether impossible to imagine. But it meant that, once inside the forest even those who were wary of its thrall would have no defense against the effect of energy fields on their bodies.

“Alright, people!” Petra yelled as she ran to the van. “We’re going to Hoia Baciu! Get in!”

“Now?” Sam asked, tossing his cigarette after one last drag.

“Yes, Sam. Now,” she answered.

“We’re fucked,” announced Nina unceremoniously.

In the professor’s trail Mihail and Igor followed in a light trot. They still had daylight left and hoped to locate a point of search fast enough to sate Petra’s burning curiosity. Nina was not happy. Sam was excited to see the place and take some pictures. Igor was wondering what the Black Sun had planned for Sam. Mihail sat between Nina and Igor, his legs pulled up and grasping his rosary tightly. As the minibus pulled away and drove towards the forest the occupants were dead quiet.

“I suppose road songs are out of the question,” Sam mentioned, his voice cutting through the silent contemplation of each of the passengers. Igor sniggered from the seat in front of him while Nina gave him another of her death stares. Sam shrugged boyishly and Igor thought to himself that he would actually miss the amusing journalist. He was great to have around, but unfortunately he had tangled with the wrong people.

The road to the forest was inconspicuous and pretty. Long and flanked with long grass that bent lazily in the soft breeze, the tips were gilded in the sun’s glare. People walked in groups of two to five here and there, coming from the forest vicinity, carrying cameras and picnic baskets. The scene did Nina’s nerves some good. It proved that the place appeared to be a local hang-out and not some sinister and desolate woodland that entrapped the souls of unwary travelers.

Every now and then one of the party would point out an interesting sign or structure until finally they came to where the road turned slightly.

“We are here,” Stefan announced and looked at them in the rear view mirror. “I’ll wait in the car.”

“Lucky bastard,” Mihail muttered.

Nina and Sam’s eyes combed the place, the tall trees and the dreamlike pathway that was covered by understory and loose dry leaves. The weather was lovely, tepid in the mellow stir of the breeze. Mihail stayed well behind the other four who were far too thrilled with the trip in his opinion. Igor turned to look at him.

“Come now, Mihail. A man of your knowledge should be the least worried, shouldn’t he?”

Mihail gave a humorless chuckle, “Yes, it is because I have the knowledge that I am worried, my friend. That should impact you all a little more than seems to be doing.”

Nina took heed of his words and agreed within herself, but she was being paid to be here and it would be expected of her to not let silly things like the threat of death perturb her.

“This is so beautiful. Why is it always that such breathtaking places are always so perilous?” Petra asked no-one in particular.

“It’s just hype, Professor. I think it does wonders for Romania’s meager tourism appeal,” Igor answered. “And in truth the so-called haunted forest is just a psychosomatic mechanism to provoke wonder and fear to a patch of dry land where nothing grew solely because the soil is contaminated by something the Red Army probably dumped here during the war.”

Nina imagined that could have happened, but they would not only have contaminated one pointless circle clearing in a forest. However, his words did comfort her. She chose to believe it was all hype from the start and that Professor Kulich was chasing shadows.

‘What good Gypsy would not exploit a desperate, obscenely wealthy Czech woman looking for something of unequalled power right in their backyard?’ Nina thought.

Sam stopped every few steps to record the ethereal allure of the ancient forest on camera. “Look at the trees! I could shoot an entire book just on the strange behavior of the plant life in this place,” Sam said, as he stood still to capture yet another striking scene.

“I thought the place would be far spookier than this,” Igor remarked as he looked around.

“That’s the thing about places like this, mister,” Mihail replied, “is that they don’t have to look spooky for what is really in here with us. Here it is not what you see that scares you…but what you do not see.”

“See, now, you are not helping, Mihail,” Nina snapped plainly, visibly nervous. Igor snickered off to one end while Sam snapped another frame.

The trees were remarkably full overhead, even though they possessed no substantial size of trunks. In fact, their trunks were very thin and bare, only branching out near the higher parts of its total length. From just above the forest floor, barely above their roots, the thin trunks would bend completely into a bowed formation and recover a few inches higher to continue growing upwards normally. That would be an interesting anomaly if it were just one tree’s shape, but all the trees in the entire area exhibited the same unnatural growth, as if a low magnetic band pulled their trunks aside at the bottom.

“Kind of looks like the handle of a brolly, ‘eh?” Nina remarked in wonderment as she joined Sam, looking at the strange occurrence from his point of view.

“Aye. Tim Burton trees,” Sam smiled at her.

“Do you think the stories are true? I mean, looking at the weird trees and that clearing where nothing grows…” her words waned as if she did not want to mention it out loud.

“There are so many peculiar irregularities in the world that I don’t think it is the work of some magical force. It is just biology gone creative, methinks. As a matter of fact, I find it very interesting. I love it when things rebel against their nature,” Sam relished the subject in an explanation gone ode that had Nina smiling and shaking her head.

“At least the sun is shining. I doubt you would be so lyrical at night, Sam,” she told him and skipped to catch up to Petra and Igor.

“Listen,” Petra told the others, “there is no sound whatsoever. It is just dead air.”

“Please don’t say ‘dead’,” Sam’s voice came vaguely from behind them as he trotted zealously to join the group. “I feel like there are a million eyes on me. It feels like the trees are watching us.”

“Sam. Stop it,” Nina reprimanded him for jesting, but when she looked at him, he was dead serious. He seemed very anxious suddenly, turning from side to side to see if anything was approaching. Nina walked back to him and hooked her arm in his, as much for her as for him.

The woods were serene, or maybe apprehensive.

All the while Mihail was clutching at his rosary and stayed to the back of the party as if he wished to use them as a buffer between him and what was coming. From nowhere, and for no reason that could be explained by climatology, a thick fog rolled in from ahead. It crawled right up the road they were walking on, the road leading to the circular clearing. They couldn't see any fog anywhere else. It swallowed up the forest floor in its white oblivion and rose higher in size at it came nearer.

Petra kept walking, Igor followed her, but Sam and Nina stopped in their tracks. Mihail almost walked right into them.

“Don’t worry. It is just for tourism,” he exclaimed sarcastically. The three of them watched the professor and her assistant disappear into the mist.

“Professor Kulich! Don’t walk in there!” Nina cried through the still air.

“Yes, do not go any further or you will get lost!” Mihail warned. He told Sam and Nina in a lower tone, “You know she has not paid me yet. She cannot disappear now.”

From the white cloudy nothingness they heard the professor say, “Come along, guys! We have to get to the circle!”

“Fuck this,” Mihail said and stepped backward.

“No, no! You can’t bail out on us now,” Sam bellowed as they turned around to talk to the superstitious mechanic.

As Sam and Nina watched, Mihail reached out to one of the tree trunks to lean against it, and before their eyes his hand, wrist and forearm disappeared into thin air.

“Oh my god!” Nina screamed, her hand over her mouth and her eyes bulging. She held tightly onto Sam who stood befuddled and shocked with his mouth wide agape.

“What is it?” Petra shouted, irritated by the delay, but she too stopped in her tracks at the sight of Mihail’s limb disappearing into another dimension. He did not notice what was happening to his arm, because touching the tree jolted him into a violent vision into the past.

His entire body was locked in tremors and he clenched his jaw hard from the fury of the vision. A shrill grunt emanated from his throat, his eyes rolled back in agony and terror.

“What do you see, Mihail? Tell me!” Petra shouted. She was cautious about her vicinity, but she stepped gradually closer to him to hear him talk.

“I see them!” he grunted, bulging veins protruding in his throat. “I see Petr Costita! I see him running from dogs. Human dogs and real ones. It is night and the moon is lighting up this road, but it does not matter because they know where he is,” he screamed.

Sam could feel his flesh crawl with the similarities between Petr and his own pursuits. Suddenly he remembered the night when the captain and his dogs chased him down.

“There is a woman leading them. Dark hair, German. She has a stick in her hand…no wait…a rifle? No, it is a harpoon?” Mihail frowned. From his nose a red ribbon of blood emerged, running over his mouth and spraying as he spoke through it.

“He has the cards, the evil cards in his hands. They are close behind him, but they cannot see him because he is standing on the other side…” he reported, shaking insanely.

“What other side?” Petra asked loudly so that he could hear her.

“The other side of the portal. He is right there, but they are blind to him. Petr is sitting down! Why is he sitting down? Shut those fucking dogs up! They are hurting my ears!” he screamed at whatever he was seeing. Then he panted so deeply in continuous succession that they thought he would pass out, but he continued.

“He is laying out the cards, terrible cards that make him throw up, but he keeps putting them down while the dogs are looking for him! I see the Nazis searching, calling to each other, letting the dogs loose. They call the woman Greta. That’s…that’s her name. Greta! She sees Petr’s leg when she walks to the side, sticking out from the portal,” Mihail huffed through the bubbling blood on his mouth. He cried out in pain, screaming into the air. But his cries did not echo, instead it sounded as if his shrieks duplicated into a few layers and then were bluntly consumed by the lifeless atmosphere.

“Jesus Christ! We have to get out of here, Sam!” Nina screamed, clawing at her friend’s arm and tugging at him to move, but he was frozen in astonishment. The churning mist swallowed them up, but still they could see each other.

“Hang on, Nina!” he said. “I want to hear this.”

“We are going to die here!” she cried.

It was then that Nina noticed that Igor was gone.

“She shot the arrow through his leg! Pulling…it through. My god, I can feel it! Here come the dogs! Petr! The dogs!” the hysterical clairvoyant wailed. “They have him! They have him by the leg, pulling him through so that they can see him. The woman is stepping on the shaft of the harpoon arrow to put Petr on the ground and keep him there for the dogs. Holy…h-holy…c-c…they are tearing his throat. Bitch! She is trying to take the cards, but Petr throws them backward and they vanish in the air. There is only a few she can see and she is taking them. Bitch! Petr is ripped to pieces. He is dead, my god! They are chewing his flesh. Petr is dead and the woman tells the men to look for the portal but they cannot find it. She walks away with some of the cards and leaves the body behind. Like he is some fucking animal…Nazi bitch. Greta!” Mihail screamed in the mist, but his words were drowned by the rising vomit and he sank to his knees to throw up just like Petr did.

Nina buried her face in Sam’s chest.

“Please Sam! Can we get out of here?” she pleaded.

“Fuck yes,” he replied sternly and pulled her with him. They left Mihail and Petra on the path and went back on the road to get to the car.

“Thank god the fog is lifting,” Sam wheezed as they labored to hasten away from the evil woods. But as the fog lifted, there was no sunlight and no road. It was dark as midnight and they halted abruptly. In silence Sam and Nina looked around them, clinging to each other.

“S-Sam?” Nina stammered. “Tell me I am not insane. Are you seeing this?”

“Aye.”

“What the fuck is going on?” she whispered.

“I don’t know. I suppose it is night?” he answered, looking up at the tangled branches and fallen dead trees he took pictures of not fifteen minutes before.

“Don’t leave me,” she said, her voice brimming with hysteria.

“I won’t. I won’t. You are the only good thing about this situation. Why would I leave you?” he said, again inadvertently revealing his feelings for Nina at the worst of times.

Still, she welcomed it, bad timing or not.

Behind them in the dark, something rustled. As if he knew what was going to happen, Sam quickly put his hand over Nina’s mouth as she screamed. They could not see anything, so Sam switched his camera to video and tuned on the infra-red function.

“Night vision,” he boasted.

“I’m not so sure I want to see what is in the dark with us,” she admitted, her breathing shivering as she spoke.

“Well, we have to see how to get out of here,” he explained.

“This is seriously fucking with my head, Sam. This actually tops all the other shit I thought had driven me over the top before,” she gritted in sheer panic.

“I know. Me too, believe me. I hope we are just having some lucid nightmare from Mihail’s hash or something,” Sam replied, trying to keep his cool as much as he could. He flicked the screen on HD and started walking forward, dragging Nina’s little body heavily with him with every step. By her shaking torso he could tell that she was absolutely petrified.

“Sam, do you feel it too?” she whispered.

“I feel so many things, you are going to have to be more specific,” he said while the grey square of the screen glimmered on his frowning dark brow.

“Like we are not alone. Like…like there are a thousand people standing among the trees and they are moving one step forward every time we do,” she rasped, digging her nails into his arm.

“Aye. That, I feel clear as day,” he accidentally punned and got another leer from her. “Sorry.”

They trudged forward until they came to the edge of the trees, but instead of finding the road they had come from, where the minibus was parked, Sam and Nina discovered that they had progressed in the opposite direction. When Sam raised his screen, they saw that they were standing at the border of the feared circle, the heart of Hoia Baciu’s haunted forest.