SNAFU: Survival of the Fittest

“Then again, if you want to assist me in my investigation, I could surely use your help. After all, if your desire is truly to see to the safety of the camp, then we can work better together than I can alone. Because as sure as I am a colonel in my country’s army, I know that if we care more about the way we do things rather than what it is we have to do, more people are going to suffer.”

I could see the information processing by the shifting features of his face. Finally he clenched his teeth and locked his jaw. It was then I knew I’d won. I not only had him on my side, but I had three other people to assist in the search.

Meanwhile, I had my own research to perform and needed the Cerberus to help.

BOHEMIAN GROVE

July 9, 1970

Evening

It took some convincing, but Everett eventually agreed to allow me to hypnotize him. We’d gone back to his house to spend the night and I’d decided that I wanted to try and retrieve some memory of his possession if possible. We’d put all the furniture back in place and we’d wiped away the heptagrams. He sat on the couch in the same position we’d originally found him. I used voice modulation to lull him into the state I needed and within moments he was under.

It took an hour before I found something useful. Once I did, I woke him and we began to talk.

“Ever heard of The Mothman?” I asked.

“Wasn’t it involved with the Silver Bridge collapse in West Virginia a few years ago?”

I nodded. “It was. Locals believe that it was trying to warn them about the bridge collapse.”

He looked skeptical. “So you think it was The Mothman who came to me?”

“Here’s what we know of The Mothman. He wasn’t warning people, he was looking for something. Special Units Division of the Pentagon had a special detention facility in Point Pleasant. It was well-hidden and ultimately never found. But The Mothman let it be known that he was going to collapse the bridge and kill dozens if not hundreds of people if we didn’t release one of its own.”

“Seriously?”

“It was classified Need-To-Know. The only reason I knew was because I’d just left there for a position at the Pentagon and they called me in to help prepare the prisoners for movement to a new location.”

“When you say special you mean…”

“Yes. Bottom line was that we didn’t give into the blackmailing and a lot of people died. We’ve rationalized that a lot more would have died had the facility been discovered and the inmates released.”

“Why was it trying to—” Then his eyes brightened. “You had someone it knew.”

“There’s a family originally from Stribrna, which now lies in the Czech Republic. Not much of a town, it began as a medieval trading post along one of the mountain routes into Germany back when the country was known as Bohemia. We’ve traced several legends back to this family. They are as smart as they are wicked.”

“What are they?”

“Ever hear of the Spring-heeled Jack?”

He stared toward the ceiling as he thought. “London. 1800s. Killed some men and women. Mysterious figure who could leap incredibly. Flame shot from its eyes. It wore some sort of helmet.”

I chuckled. “It’s all accurate except for the flame part. That was Boniface Zdarsky. Incidentally, the last name means ‘from the forest,’ which was where the family originally came from before they moved to Stribrna. He wore the helmet because he’d sometimes jump so high and far he’d land on his head.”

“How do you know so much about him?” he asked.

“Because he’s the one we have in custody.”

Everett seemed to do the math and said, “But that would mean that he’s—”

“They don’t die.”

He stared at me.

“They lived so long that the locals thought they were vampires, which is why they were run out of town.”

“You said there’s a family?”

“Two other brothers and a sister. We killed the father back in ’42. He was running a concentration camp for the Nazis. Boniface claims the mother died in World War I.”

“Do you know how the family came to be like this?”

“No one really knows. Boniface doesn’t even know. They tell each other that sometime back in the 1400s his grandmother was impregnated by a nature spirit, but I think that’s just something they say just to have an origin story. There’s really no way of knowing.”

“So who was it who attacked me and how did you connect him?”

“In your memory, you said that the man’s legs shook, trembled, was your actual word. It was the trembling that initially struck me. You also mentioned the boots. The family requires stability and a fairly large heel. They’re immortal, but they can still break. His sister, Radana, is missing her left arm, for instance. She lost it to a Russian count who took it for a souvenir. Ever since then she’s been killing off the man’s family line. It’s what’s kept her in the Soviet Union. Boniface was a few beers short of a six pack himself from hitting his head too many times as a child. Rehor, on the other hand, is something else entirely — he’s the one whom I surmise came to you… did this to you.”