Primordial

Chapter 17

“Think this is it?” The motley collection of weathered boards, dirty glass, and rusted nails that passed for a cabin made Aston feel a bit off. Every corner was almost a right angle, but not quite. Bits of tarpaulin and canvas hung here and there, some covering irregular lumps on the surrounding grass. Bones — some fish, others he couldn’t immediately identify — lay scattered on the ground. All around, the sickly-sweet odor of decay hung heavy in the air, cloying in the shade and closeness of the surrounding trees. To their right, the land sloped steadily downwards, Lake Kaarme glinting distantly between shadowy trunks a few hundred yards away.

“I’m pretty sure I’ve seen several horror movies that started out like this,” Slater said.

“Not scared are you?’

“No, just rethinking all the times I called those characters ‘stupid’ for walking up to the creepy old house.”

“And chatting with the scary old man?” He inclined his head toward a figure seated on a rock under one particularly old looking tree, whittling a piece of wood with a large, wicked-looking knife.

Old Mo, if this was indeed him, was not what Aston expected. In fact, Aston had seen the fellow before, several times around town. The snow white hair was bright even in the low light, the man’s short frame thickly muscled, and his leathery skin was tanned a golden brown. He glanced up from his carving and smiled.

“Can I help you?” he called.

“Are you Old Mo?” Slater asked.

“That’s what they call me.” Old Mo stood, slipped his knife into a sheath at his belt, and ran a hand through his shock of hair. “My mother named me Moses, but I was never very good at parting the water.”

Aston forced a laugh.

“We’re making a nature documentary,” Slater began. “We’re interested in stories about the lake monster and we hear you’re the man to ask.”

Mo flinched. He knitted his brow and folded his arms. “Try again.”

“I’m sorry?” Slater asked.

“Nature documentary that wants monster stories? Anyway, I’ve seen you around, seen what you’ve been up to.” He gestured down the slope. “I watch what happens out there on the water, you know. Sometimes I take long walks.” He tipped his head in the direction of their boat, a couple of miles along the shore.

“We really are a film crew,” Slater said.

“I’m the researcher on the crew,” Aston interrupted. “We are making a film, and of course the monster, or its legend, will have to feature. We just want to learn about the creature and assess the plausibility of its existence, and how that might affect the local fauna and so on.”

Mo appeared unconvinced. “All I know are stories. No facts.”

“That’s fine,” Slater said. “Stories often contain some truth. Also, they’re more entertaining than straight facts.”

“You’re going to put me on television?” The old man raised his bushy eyebrows.

“Maybe. It isn’t up to me, but can I record your stories and run them past the man in charge. You never know.”

Mo considered this for a full ten seconds before giving a single nod and striding toward the shack. “Come on in,” he said over his shoulder as he passed them by. “But I should warn you, some stories are best left untold.”

Slater cast a doubtful look at the shack and then at Aston.

“He’s good at setting up his trade as a yarn spinner, I’ll give him that,” he said. “It’ll be all right,” he added, in voice intended only for her ears. “You’ve got me.” He gave her a wink.

“I’m not afraid of him trying something. I’m worried about the roof falling in on us.”

Aston chuckled. “That’s a chance we’ll have to take.”

The interior of Mo’s shack wasn’t much better than the outside. The walls were lined with rickety shelves stuffed with old books, magazines, and loose papers. Most of the titles were in Finnish, but those Aston could read were of the unsolved mysteries ilk — the sort of stuff Slater covered on her show. Dirty dishes filled the tiny sink, drawing more than a few flies. A hot plate, an old university dorm-style refrigerator, and an even older microwave oven were the sole appliances. A few tattered sofas and armchairs were scattered around, and a scored and stained wooden table stood in the center of the room, one broken leg propped up on a stack of five or six hardback books.

“Coffee?” Mo asked.

“Please,” Slater said, courtesy winning out. Her polite smile twisted into a grimace as soon as their host turned his back.

They settled gingerly onto an old couch while Mo filled three hopefully clean mugs with water, microwaved them one by one, and added heaped spoonfuls of instant coffee. As he busied himself in the kitchen, he sketched out the history of the creature in a bored voice. It was all the kind of stuff they could have learned anywhere, and mostly already had.

As Mo rejoined them, Aston decided to toss the old man a softball question to break the ice before asking more directly about the monster’s modern activities.

“We heard an interesting tale about something else that happened here and were told you’d know more. Something about Nazis exploring this area.”

A wide smile split Old Mo’s wrinkled face. “Ah, The Tale of the Lost Legion. I’m surprised you’ve heard of it. Now there’s a story worth telling.”

“I have to confess, we weren’t aware of it before we arrived,” Slater said. “It came up in conversation.”

“The bartender?” Old Mo quirked an eyebrow at Slater, and chuckled when she nodded. “He loves to talk, that one. I think he fancies himself my heir-apparent as local storyteller. Of course, that’s many years away. I’m too mean and stubborn to die.”

“A sentiment I can appreciate,” Aston said.

Old Mo nodded sagely. “In any case, the story should properly be called The Lost Platoon. I suppose Lost Legion just rolls off the tongue in a more pleasing way. According to my research, Hitler didn’t even send anything close to a full regiment. As best I can tell, there were between fifty and one hundred men in all, including civilian scientists.”

“But Hitler did send men here looking for something?” Slater asked.

“Oh yes. That is not in dispute. Not only have I collected numerous stories from locals, but a few had photographs their parents or grandparents had handed down to them. It’s common knowledge the platoon was here.”

“Could we see some photographs?” Slater asked. Aston wondered if she was feigning interest in order to get on Mo’s good side, but she seemed genuinely curious. Probably considering it as a future topic for her show.

Mo rummaged around for a bit and produced a small box. Opening it, he took out a pack of some twenty or thirty black and white photos in a Glassite envelope. He carefully removed the contents and handed them to Slater.

“They’re in remarkably good condition,” Aston said, glancing at the first photo; a shot of a scowling young soldier in a German uniform standing on the lake shore.

“They’re reprints, not originals. I still try to take good care of them though.”

Aston looked over Slater’s shoulder as she shuffled through the pile. All of them showed soldiers in town or wandering the area around the lake. The buildings in the pictures were largely unchanged from the streets he had only recently walked through. Seemed like change was slow to come to Kaarme. Most pictures were blurry, but they got the point across.

The final one in the stack was different. It displayed an older man, an officer by the markings on his uniform, standing at the back of a truck. He was deep in conversation with two civilians, one a dark-haired man with prominent jowls and a thick unibrow, the other a severe-looking woman of late middle years. The vehicle they stood behind was piled high with wooden crates, all marked with the Hoheitszeichen, the stylized eagle perched atop the swastika.

“These people look important,” Slater remarked. “Any idea who they are?”

“The officer was Herman Frick. A prominent member of the Nazi party who disappeared from the historical record around the time the Lost Legion arrived here. The man is Lars Pera and the woman is Greta Gebhardt. Both were scientists associated with the Ahnenerbe.”

“The what?” Aston had more than a passing familiarity with world history, particularly World War II, but he’d never heard of that organization.

“Now that,” Mo said, easing back in his chair and folding his hands in his lap, “is quite a tale.” He gave Slater an appraising look. “Surely you have heard of them?”

“I know the name, that they had an interest in the occult, but I’m afraid I don’t know any more. They’d make a good subject for a show.”

“A nature documentary?” Mo asked, one side of his mouth hooked up in a smirk.

Slater inclined her head with a smile, but said nothing.

Mo nodded and then went on. “They had much more than an interest in the occult. They were true believers.” A faraway look filled the old man’s eyes and he seemed to focus on a point somewhere in the distance. “Ahnenerbe translates to ‘inherited from the forefathers’. It was an institute in Nazi Germany whose purpose was to investigate the history of the Aryan race. Heinrich Himmler was a co-founder along with Herman Wirth, and Richard Walther Darré.

“Originally the group was tasked with simply finding evidence to support the so-called racial heritage of the German people. Himmler, however, was obsessed with the occult, and he soon expanded the group’s directive to include pseudoscience and the investigation of ancient myths and legends. They began conducting research and experiments in the hope of proving that, in ancient times, Nordic people ruled the world.”

“Is this the group that sent an expedition to the Antarctic, hoping to find Atlantis or something like that?” Slater asked.

“Yes. New Swabia they called the Antarctic. But it was much more than a single expedition. The Nazis were obsessed with the region. Records show that many scientists were sent there and none returned. Some believe they settled somewhere beneath the ice, and that a German presence remains hidden in Antarctica to this day.”

Aston caught himself rolling his eyes and was grateful Old Mo didn’t notice. No need to offend the old man, particularly when they still hadn’t brought the conversation around to tales of the lake monster.

“What interest did the Ahnenerbe have here?” Aston asked.

“The Nazis had a particular interest in the Nordic region, believing this was possibly the place where their imagined pure white race originated. They visited Bohuslän, in Sweden, to study the petroglyph rock carvings, which were believed to be evidence of an ancient system of writing that predated all other known systems. As a result of that expedition, they claimed to have uncovered and translated an ancient alphabet which proved, among other things, that Rome was founded by ancient Nords.”

“And that relates to the expedition here?” Slater asked.

“The only evidence I have comes from tales handed down from locals who interacted with the Nazis, but the stories are consistent enough that I’m confident I’ve got the story right, at least in the broad strokes. One comes from the daughter of a woman who fell in love with Pera and bore his child. But she kept her maternal surname. Laine.”

Aston raised his eyebrows. “Like Alvar Laine?”

“He was their grandchild, the son of the man sired by Lars Pera and Anna Laine.”

“He never mentioned he was the grandchild of Nazis,” Slater said, with a smile.

Old Mo nodded, laughing. “Why would he? There are quite a few descendants of that lost regiment here in town, and none of them are particularly keen to admit it. As well as Laine, there’s also Superintendent Rinne, and his siblings. Old Karl from the sheep farm in the next valley, the woman who runs the service station. Several more. The regiment was here quite a while, after all, and lots of people are from lines started on nights they were bored and in town. For many of the women here at the time, it seems they had little choice on whether they… interacted with the Nazis or not.”

Slater frowned. “That’s messed up.”

Aston laughed, tried to lighten the mood. “Why am I not surprised that policeman has got Nazi blood?”

Mo smiled, shook his head a little indulgently. Aston hoped the offhand comment had not caused offence. “The things you can learn from pillow talk,” Mo said.

Aston didn’t miss the way Slater’s eyes flitted toward him for a moment.

“Anyway,” Mo went on, “according to stories the Ahnenerbe uncovered in Sweden, somewhere in this region lay an entrance to the Hollow Earth.”

Aston cocked his head. “The what?”

“I know this one,” Slater said. “It’s the belief that there’s another world beneath the Earth’s surface. Theories vary wildly as to what’s actually down there, but the Nazis believed in it. Back when I was doing a story on the Yeti I stumbled across stories of one of their missions to the Himalayas searching for an entrance to the world below.”

“A nature documentary on the Yeti?” Mo asked, one bushy white eyebrow high.

“I work in many areas of television,” Slater said.

The old man inclined his head.

“That’s seriously a thing?” Aston asked. “I mean, outside of Journey to the Center of the Earth? What did they expect to find down there? Goblins and fairies?”

“Don’t be so quick to dismiss it,” Mo said. “Stories of the Hollow Earth, or human forerunners who emerged from or still live in the ground, can be found in cultures all around the world — in Europe, Asia, even America.”

Aston dismissed the old man’s comment with a curt wave of his hand. “It seems absurd. Why waste time with such a thing when they had a war to win?”

“Any more absurd than a spear that will lead your army to victory simply because it pierced the side of a man who was known as The Prince of Peace? Or a cup that grants eternal life because that same man bled into it? Even the idea that bread and wine are the flesh and blood of a god? People believe all sorts of absurdities.”

“I’ll grant you that, but what was the Nazi’s particular interest in this world? More ‘research’ into the origins of the Aryan race?”

“That was a factor, but in the case of the Lost Legion, they believed they would find something that would help them win the war.” Mo’s eyes twinkled. “Alien technology.”

“Alien.” Aston hoped his expressionless tone conveyed his utter disbelief.

“Think about it. Living under the earth without benefit of sunlight and fresh air would be virtually impossible for humankind as we know it. But if one had the benefit of highly-advanced technology, a race could survive, perhaps even thrive down there.”

“And the Nazis believed this?” Slater asked.

“Some did. There are basically two schools of thought. One holds that alien observers live beneath the earth, making a study of us, but keeping out of our affairs.”

Slater scratched her chin and frowned, deep in thought. “So, UFO sightings might be supply runs, or a changing of the guard.”

Mo grinned. “Precisely. The second theory holds that the aliens who reside beneath the earth were either our direct ancestors, or interbred with primitive hominids. That interbreeding resulted in the emergence of Homo Sapiens. The same race of aliens built Atlantis and provided the knowledge to build things like the pyramids. Eventually, these ancestral aliens died off, but their artifacts remain hidden in the Hollow Earth.”

“So the Ahnenerbe thought to win the war with alien technology?” Aston considered this. It was mad, but at least it made a perverse sense, if you accepted these people were true believers.

“Correct. Through their research, Pera and Gebhart concluded that somewhere in the system of underground and underwater caverns and passageways in our area, they would find an entrance to the Hollow Earth, guarded, the legends said, by a mighty leviathan. They brought soldiers, weapons, scientific equipment, and enough explosives to blast through even the greatest obstacles.”

“So what happened to them?” Slater was staring at Old Mo in rapt attention.

Mo shrugged. “They went down into the caverns and never came back.”

“Do you think they got lost? Trapped in a cave somewhere?” Aston asked.

“I don’t think they were trapped. They had a mountain of explosives at their disposal, remember?”

“So what do you think happened?” Aston grinned crookedly. “Maybe they found the Hollow Earth?”

Mo smiled. “The monster.”

They all laughed, but a little nervously. The story was one of the most bizarre yarns Aston had ever heard spun, and he’d spent long nights drinking with Queensland cattle farmers. But he couldn’t help being fascinated and slightly disturbed by it. However, it wasn’t much help with their current mission. He needed to bring the topic of conversation back to the present day.

“That’s all quite amazing,” he said. “I could listen to stories like that all day. But is there anything you can tell me that might be of particular use from a research perspective now? Anything I could study or measure?”

Mo stared up at the ceiling. “About the monster? Well, there’s the animal exodus.”

“What’s that?” Slater asked.

“Every year, around this time in fact, most of the local wildlife disappears. I’m sure you’ve noticed during your studies of the local fauna. It doesn’t literally vanish, of course, but drifts away. Centuries ago the natives noticed that around this time of year they were forced to go farther and farther away to hunt game. Also, the fishing wasn’t nearly as productive as other times of the year.”

“And it’s believed to be connected to the creature?” Aston asked.

Mo nodded. “No one’s proved it, of course, but it’s accepted. People tend to stay away from the lake this time of year. Many even keep their pets inside.” He chuckled. “It’s become such a common practice that I doubt many of them even know why they do it, save custom and superstition. And most people think I’m mad living out here, so close to the lake.”

“Are you?”

“Probably, but it keeps me away from the crowds and I prefer it that way.”

Aston chuckled. Even for someone as used to remote locations as he was, it was hard to conceive of a tiny town like Kaarme ever having crowds. But everything was a matter of perspective. Two people in a room made that room crowded if they didn’t get along. “That’s something we could follow up for certain,” he said. “Keep an eye on the animals, see if we observe any migration patterns.” They couldn’t, and wouldn’t, do anything of the sort, of course. They lacked the manpower or the inclination, but the scientist in him was fascinated and wished they could put some time and resources into the subject. Besides, a migration didn’t necessarily prove a monster was the cause, though there was no need to tell Mo that when the old man was being helpful. But it was a strange thing to consider.

“Why do you think the animals migrate?” Slater asked him.

“Could be any of several reasons: post-hibernation feeding, mating season, protecting freshly-hatched young.”

“Do you think there’s a breeding population in the lake?” Slater asked.

“Of the monster?” Mo said, confused. “Well, there has to be one somewhere, doesn’t there? Unless you think this one beastie is a thousand or more years old. But whether it’s in our lake or not? Who knows?”

Aston took a sip of his coffee, considering his next question. The brew was strong and bitter, and he surprisingly found it to his liking. He hadn’t drunk instant in years.

“Is there anything else you can tell us about this exodus?”

“Not about the exodus, but I can tell you people die on the lake this time of year.” Mo’s face became serious as he stood, moved to the nearest bookshelf, and took down a large scrapbook. “Take a look at these articles, and mind the dates.” He handed the book to Slater.

A yellowed newspaper clipping from 1972 told of two teenagers who had vanished while boating late at night. Their boat had been found, but no bodies. Page after page, one or more for almost every one of the last forty-plus years told of people going missing while on or around the lake, and all dated at roughly the same time of year.

The last item was the most disturbing: a hand-written entry about the body of a fisherman that had been found on the lakeshore the previous year. Rather, half of his body had been found. The cheap Polaroid photograph pasted into the book provided mute testimony to that fact.

Slater made a gurgling sound in her throat and turned her head.

“Bitten clean in two!” Mo said.

“How do they know he was bitten?” Aston asked. The photograph was taken from above the victim’s head and showed little in the way of detail, even for a Polaroid.

“What else would do that to a man? Besides, I know for a fact he was bitten in half because I’m the one who found the body. It was ragged, like something had clamped down on him and thrashed around until he tore in half. But the bones? They were sheared right through, not snapped. Terrible thing.”

The gleam in his eyes said Mo considered it anything but terrible.

“Was an autopsy performed?” Slater asked. “The results could be helpful.”

“Should have been.” Mo rested his mug on the upturned crate that served as a coffee table, steepled his fingers, and leaned in close. “But I think it was covered up. The story never appeared in the news. Nowhere at all. I looked.”

Aston took another swallow of coffee and considered this. Why would a small town hide such a secret? It had no tourism industry to be harmed by the revelation. “Who do you think might have covered it up?”

Mo crinkled his brow, the lines in his forehead deepening.

“The man I reported the death to — Superintendent Rinne.”