The Strain

FINAL INTERLUDE The Ruins

IN THE INTERVENING DAYS AFTER THE FALL OF TREBLINKA, most of the escapees were tracked down and executed. Yet Setrakian managed to survive in the woods, remaining within range of the stench of the death camp. He gobbled up roots and whatever small prey he could catch with his broken hands, while from the bodies of other corpses he scavenged an imperfect wardrobe and raggedy, mismatched shoes.

He avoided the search patrols and the barking dogs by the day—while at night, he searched.

He had heard of the Roman ruins through camp hearsay from native Poles. It took him almost a week of roaming, until late one afternoon, in the dying light of dusk, he found himself at the mossy steps at the top of the ancient rubble.

Most of what remained was underground, with only a few overgrown stones visible from the outside. A large pillar still stood at the top of a mound of stones. He could make out a few letters, but they had faded so long ago that it was impossible to discern any meaning.

It was also impossible to stand there at the dark mouth of these catacombs and not shudder.

Abraham was certain: down there was the lair of Sardu. He knew. Fear overcame him, and he felt the burning hole growing in his chest. But purpose was stronger in his heart. Because he knew that it was his calling to find that thing, that hungry thing, and kill it. Make it cease. The camp rebellion had scuttled his killing plan—after weeks and months of procuring raw white oak for shaping—but not his need for vengeance. Of everything that was wrong in the world, this was the thing he could do right. That could give his existence meaning. And now he was about to do it.

Using a broken rock, he had fashioned a crude new stake, chosen from the hardest branch he could find, not pure white oak, but it would have to do. He did this with mangled fingers, further ruined his aching hands for all time. His footsteps echoed in the stone chamber that formed the catacomb. Its ceiling was quite low—surprising, given the Thing’s unnatural height—and roots had upset the stones that precariously held the structure together. The first chamber led to a second, and, amazingly, a third. Each one smaller than the other.

Setrakian had nothing with which to light his way, but the crumbling structure allowed for faint columns of late-day light to seep through the darkness. He moved cautiously through the chambers, pulse racing, stricken at the threshold of murder. His crude wooden stake seemed wholly inadequate as a weapon to fight with in the dark, with the hungry Thing. Especially with broken hands. What was he doing? How would he kill this monster?

As he entered the last chamber, an acid pang of surging fear burned his throat. For the rest of his life, he would be afflicted by acid reflux. The room was vacant, but there, at its center, Setrakian the woodworker saw clearly in the dirt floor—as though inscribed there—the outline marking of a coffin. A huge box, two and a half yards by one and a quarter yards, and one that could only have been removed from this lair by the hands of a Thing with monstrous will.

Then—from behind him—he heard the scratch of footsteps along the stony floor. Setrakian whirled with the wooden stake outstretched, trapped within the Thing’s innermost chamber. The beast had come home to nest, only to find prey lurking in its sleeping place.

The faintest shadow preceded it, but the footfalls were light and dragging. It was not the Thing who appeared at the stone turn to menace Setrakian, but a man of normal human size. A German officer, his uniform tattered and soiled. Its eyes were crimson and watery, brimming with a hunger that had grown into pure manic pain. Setrakian recognized him: Dieter Zimmer, a young officer not much older than he, a true sadist, a barracks officer who bragged of polishing his boots every night in order to scrub away the crust of Jewish blood.

Now it longed for it—for Setrakian’s blood. Any blood. To gorge itself.

Setrakian would not be taken here. He was outside the camp walls now, and so resolved that he had not endured such hell only to fall here, to succumb to the unholy might of this cursed Nazi-Thing.

He ran at it with the point of his stake, but the Thing was faster than anticipated, grasping the wooden weapon and wrenching it from Setrakian’s useless hands, snapping the radius and the ulna in Setrakian’s forearm. He cast the stick aside, and it clacked against a stone wall and fell to the dirt.

The Thing started for Setrakian, wheezing with excitement. He backed up until he realized he was in the center of the rectangular coffin impression. Then, with unexplained strength, he ran at the Thing, forcing it hard against the wall. Dirt crumbled out from around the exposed stones, falling like wisps of smoke. The Thing tried to grab for his head, but Setrakian again lunged at him, shoving his broken arm up under the demon’s chin, forcing its sneering face upward so that it could not sting him and drink.

The Thing improved its leverage and flung Setrakian aside. He landed next to his stake. He gripped it, but the Thing stood smiling, ready to take it away again. Setrakian jabbed it beneath the supporting wall stones instead. He wedged it beneath a loose stone and used his legs to pry out the stone, just as the Thing’s mouth began to open.

Stones gave way, the side wall of the chamber entrance collapsing as Setrakian crawled away. The roar was loud but brief, the chamber filling with dust, smothering the remaining light. Setrakian crawled blindly over the stones, and a hand grabbed him, its grip strong. The dust parted enough for Setrakian to see that a large stone had crushed the Thing’s head from crown to jaw—and yet it was still functioning. Its dark heart, or whatever it was, still throbbed hungrily. Setrakian kicked at its arm until he escaped the Thing’s grip, and in doing so dislodged the stone. The top half of the head was split, the skull slightly cracked, like a soft-boiled egg.

Setrakian grabbed a leg and dragged the body with his one good arm. He hauled it back to the surface and out of the ruins, into the very last vestiges of daylight filtering in through the tree cover. The dusk was orange and dim—but it was enough. The Thing writhed in pain as it quickly cooked, settling into the ground.

Setrakian raised his face to the dying sun and let loose an animal howl. An unwise act, as he was still on the run from the fallen camp—an outpouring of his anguished soul, from the slaughter of his family, to the terrors of his captivity, to the new horrors he had found… and, finally, to the God who had abandoned him and his people.

Next time he met one of these creatures, he would have the proper tools at his disposal. He would give himself better than a fighting chance. He knew then, as surely as he was still alive, that he would follow the tracks of that vanished coffin for years to come. For decades, if necessary. It was this certainty that gave him a newfound direction and sent him forward in the quest that would occupy him for the rest of his life.