A HOUSE WORTH EVERY CENT
Michaela Merglová
Old Bulíčková had a stroke at the blessed age of ninety-eight. While the stray cats found her body right away, it took nine days for the home nurse. The young nurse who went into the house on the hill also nearly had a stroke when she discovered Norman Bates’ mother in the rocking chair. In her first panic attack she dialed the wrong number, and so an exterminator, a local psychic, an ambulance, the police and finally the coroner took turns at the country house at the end of Zvědavá Lane. The old lady had no friends or relatives, so she was promptly sent to the cemetery, which was literally a stone’s throw away from her home.
A flashy car pulled up at the house and a chipper lady in a tube skirt jumped out. The broker hammered a large “For Sale” sign with her retouched photo and phone number by the entrance and less than a week later put it away again, its place taken by a beat-up Škoda belonging to a laughing couple. The young couple had brought tools and buckets of paint, but that night a roar sounded through Jilemnice as they ran through the cemetery like two frightened rabbits.
So the sign reappeared, this time a little smaller and without the broker’s photo.
Next came a Toyota, which brought a new couple and their three children, but at the stroke of midnight that Toyota was started loudly and drove off into the darkness with the whole screaming family.
In the following months, a Ford, a Citroën and a Velorex took turns at the mansion. The advertising banner was replaced by ever-shrinking leaflets, until finally all that was left was a hand-scrawled sticker with a phone number on the front door. When a Volkswagen parked outside the mansion with a marijuana-scented foursome, more suited to Woodstock than a haunted house, judging by their clothes, the considerably distracted broker just handed them the keys and muttered something about luck.
Surprisingly, no screams carried through Zvědavá Lane that night, but the broker quickly realized that her nightmare had reached a new phase. The hippies in black body bags headed to the same cemetery where old Bulíčková was buried.
The sticker disappeared and the door was taped shut with police tape.
The house on the hill above the Jilemnice cemetery was officially haunted.
* * *
“No shit, dude, that’s bullshit.”
“Then why are you coming here with me, smart-ass, huh?”
“Well, if it is true, I could buy a Playstation . . . ”
The dried rosehip bush crackled as Anka pushed through it, sliding harmlessly down her sports jacket. Her cousins continued to bicker behind her back, and she was almost certain that if someone knocked their heads together, they would thud hollowly. Marek and Pepin weren’t the sharpest tools in the box; it was just that none of her classmates were talking to her.
Kids could act like real bitches sometimes.
The boys decided to spend today’s afternoon snooping around the haunted house on the hill. There were all kinds of rumors about it, from vampires to mummies, and Anka found a reference to Nazi gold bars in old letters in the library. And since Marek’s single mother turned every penny three times, Pepin as a part-time letter carrier didn’t exactly make a fortune, and Anka wanted to get out of Jilemnice, the three of them came to a consensus that the gold bars were worth checking out.
They had to be stealthy—after all, the lane wasn’t called Zvědavá[5] for nothing—and had already spent nearly an hour combing the garden, because Marek had quite cleverly pointed out that Nazi gold bars were almost always hidden in the ground. They were trying to find anything that screamed secret stash. They crawled through the filthy shed that was practically falling apart, peered into the moldy beehives and the rabbit hutch overgrown with rose hips, and inspected the roots of the old lime tree.
Pepin was now digging up clump after clump of brambles with a rusty spade, while Marek was helpfully advising him how to do it properly.
Anka climbed up the wall. The wind caressed her cheek, the sun slanting towards the horizon, bathing everything in a warm amber glow. No one tugged at her red braids or mocked her for her big glasses and baggy old clothes. Today was a good day.
“Screw it, let’s go check the house,” Marek decided, probably because their search party seemed to be losing their resolve. Anka jumped back down on the grass.
Old police tape with the words DO NOT ENTER stretched across the door and windows, and the boys tried to peel it off discreetly. Meanwhile, Anka squatted on the porch and poked her finger in the crack between the tiles. There were daisies and thick, richly blooming bluebells growing through. She plucked a few blossoms and twirled them in her fingers. If she could find more, they’d make a nice wreath for her hair . . .
“Ready!” Marek announced.
She looked up. The boys had finally simply torn the tape and were pushing their way through the crack in the door into the house. She quickly got up and followed them.
The smell of rot and cat urine hit them. All three of them slapped a hand to their mouths and noses. “Dude, this place smells like my mom,” Pepin grinned.
Anka punched him in the shoulder.
“Ow! What was that for?”
“For my aunt,” she replied.
Marek laughed, but suddenly fell silent and turned to the entrance.
“What?” Anka asked. But then she heard it too.
A car pulled up in front of the house.
* * *
The old Chevy had a lot of work to do to wiggle its way up the narrow cobblestoned road to the house. The car sputtered and twitched with every turn, as if its engine was powered by a hamster in a wheel. The tires finally squealed on the gravel road; a skinny blonde turned the keys in the ignition, and the car stopped with a hiccup in front of the house.
Jolana leaned back in the middle seat to get a better view of their destination. But before she could get a good look at the mansion, the blonde had already opened the door and turned to the trio crammed in the back. “Let’s move, sloths, we don’t have all day. Go, go, go,” she urged them, stepping out herself.
The young man in the passenger seat, whose profile looked like a pale version of James Dean, sighed dramatically, lifted the collar of his black polo shirt and followed her.
“You can go this way,” said the thin man on Jolana’s right, whose appearance most closely resembled that of a mad scientist. He pushed glasses as big as ashtrays up his nose, raked his thinning hair, and after a brief struggle, managed to open the jammed door.
When the five Hunters scrambled out of the car, the body lifted considerably off the ground.
The blonde was already fishing for something in the trunk, James Dean lit a cigarette, and the mad scientist pulled a stack of papers from his leather satchel. The last of the group looked the oldest and also the most serious. He had wild dark curls, bushy eyebrows, a bit old-fashioned sideburns, and a deranged look in his eyes, as if he’d seen too much.
She didn’t know any of them properly yet, but Libor from Fantom had a lot of praise for them, and they worked around the Kokořín area, so they were willing to come here to help her with the haunted house.
She looked around and tried to recall the names of her new teammates. The wild-looking guy introduced himself to her as Larry, the scientist was Viktor, the dandy was Vladimir, and the fragile girl in latex . . .
“Vávra! Where the fuck are the feathers?”
Larry startled and turned to the blonde, who was buried in the trunk with only her legs and round leather-clad ass sticking out. “It’s in the back in the backpack,” he growled. “And I told you not to call me that,” he added more softly.
The blonde poked her head out of the trunk, an implacable expression appearing on lips lined with red lipstick. “I’m not calling you Larry,” she refused firmly.
“Why not?”
“Because your name is Vavřinec.”
Larry made a face. “In English, it’s Larry and all our names start with a V,” he muttered. “It could be confusing for her,” he nodded his head toward Jolana.
“I hope she’s not so stupid that she can’t remember three names,” the blonde snapped, her eyes like thorns staring right at Jolana. “Are you stupid?” she barked out.
Jolana felt herself blush. “No,” she breathed, but it didn’t sound convincing.
“No,” the blonde repeated, pointing her index finger at the remaining pair. “That’s Viktor, that’s Vladimír.”
“Vlad,” the guy in black said in a melancholic tone, but the blonde wagged a warning finger.
“No one has ever called you Vlad and no one ever will, and if you try to add Impaler to it, I’ll impale a stake right up your ass, got it?”
Deciding not to fight a losing battle, Vladimir just let out a long sigh, took a drag from his cigarette and walked away.
The blonde looked around. “What’s wrong with you idiots today, seriously? A new girl shows up and suddenly you all have to act macho and make up some shitty nicknames?”
“I’d just like to point out that I didn’t make up any shitty nickname,” Viktor objected, smoothing back the unruly tuft of hair sticking out.
“That’s because it wouldn’t help you with any girl anyway, honey,” the blonde retorted, turning back to Vavřinec. “Anyone else has any comments? No? Great. So now can someone finally tell me where the fuck those feathers are?”
Vavřinec aka Larry met Jolana’s gaze and lowered his eyes in shame. “I told you it’s in the backpack in the back of the trunk. In the yellow one.”
“There is no yellow one.”
“Of course there is!” Vavřinec dove into the trunk next to the blonde and started pulling things out of it.
Jolana walked slowly over to Viktor. “What are these feathers for?” she asked in a whisper.
“It repels evil forces, especially chorts,” he explained.
“And won’t holy water do the trick?”
“Yeah, but feathers are more localized. It’s more potent, plus we’re using kingfisher feathers, and they’re hard to find.” He flinched as a notebook slipped out of the papers in his hand, and another one flew away in his attempt to catch it.
Jolana bent down to help him. “Is this all related to the house?” she asked curiously as she handed him back the thickly labeled papers.
He nodded. “The information you sent me, plus my own research. I asked around a lot in the community, I know a few elves in Háj, and they recommended a local informant who got me a lot of additional data.”
“And who is our most likely suspect?” she asked as the argument over the yellow backpack grew louder behind her back.
Viktor licked his lips. “It’s a little convoluted,” he admitted. “People’s testimonies vary a lot. The first tenants swore that a headless horseman chased them through the cemetery. Others said it started with noises in the old barn, which would point to a stodolnik. So far, the most likely conclusion I’ve come up with is a black lady, a rampaging melusine, or a bosorka who cursed this place. But everyone agreed that the house began to echo with screaming, screeching and banging just after dark, lights and appliances switching on, and according to the autopsy reports . . . ”
“You got the autopsy reports?” she interrupted him in surprise.
“Sure. But they don’t say anything that would . . . ”
“So, boys!” The blonde interrupted his explanation, putting her hands akimbo like an angry dominatrix. “And lady,” she added, looking at Jolana. “Larry here,” she drawled his nickname mockingly, “made things a little difficult for us when he left one of our bags at the hostel. Fortunately, the SRS warehouse of paranormal junk in Stará Paka is not far from here, and I have a great relationship with the manager.”
“Is that the guy who tried to pick you up by giving you a beer with Rohypnol?” Viktor said.
“No, this is the guy who tried to pick me up by telling me stories about the Lord of the Woods.”
“No difference,” Larry muttered quietly.
“Look, I know him so I’m going to go over and plunder that place a little. I’ll be back as soon as I can, but I probably won’t make it before dark. Can you manage not to screw up the first tour of the house at least?”
Vlad took a drag from his cigarette. “This line of discussion seems rather unfortunate,” he remarked dramatically.
Before the blonde could take a breath and start another tirade, Larry interrupted. “Look, Len, don’t make idiots of us. Or do I have to remind you who fought that navka at Pšovka while some of us slept at the Kanín train station because they got drunk on box wine?”
The blonde deflated. She obviously didn’t like that story, so she just raised her head haughtily. “Vávra pulled out the bags, so go dig through it. I’ll be here soon, kittens. Behave yourselves.” Her leather pants creaked as she reached the driver’s door.
While Jolana didn’t like the fact that they were splitting up, she was actually a little relieved that the prickly woman wasn’t going to boss them around. She realized one thing, though.
“The two of us weren’t actually introduced,” she said. “I’m Jolana.”
The blonde frowned. “I know.”
“Great, but I don’t know your name. Larry called you Len, so I’m guessing it’s Lenka?” she tried.
The blonde glanced at Viktor, who quickly hid behind his papers. He was the one in charge of communicating with Jolana, and obviously this minor oversight in introducing the team fell on his head. “No,” she retorted sharply, slamming the door.
Jolana blinked in surprise.
The car started. The blonde rolled down the window and leaned her elbow on it. “It’s Lenora,” she snapped, her eyes fixed on the rearview mirror as she backed away from the house.
“Oh. Like that village in the Bohemian Forest?” Jolana guessed.
She got no answer; the American veteran rattled back up the driveway before Lenora backed out, then shot down Zvědavá Lane with a screech of tires.
All that remained by the house was the smell of burnt rubber, dust swirling in the dusk, and a pile of backpacks and bags dumped haphazardly on the ground.
And above all, peace.
Lenora’s departure had a noticeable effect on the mood of the rest of the team.
Vlad flicked his cigarette butt into the bushes and straightened up with sloppy grace.
Viktor lowered the papers he had been instinctively hiding behind.
Larry knelt down by the backpacks and began to pull weapons from them.
Jolana stopped paying attention to them and finally looked at the reason for their arrival.
The house on the cemetery hill looked like most buildings in Jilemnice—picturesque. Thatched roof, half-timbered gable, a coat of green paint on the wood between the windows. But unlike the others, it impressed with its size. It had three floors and looked more like a mountain hotel than a family house.
But decay was everywhere. The paint was peeling, the window frames were rotting and the grounds were overgrown with uncut grass and rose bushes. Lids of the beehives at the back of the garden had caved in and the shed looked like something a wolf would blow into and the whole thing would collapse to the ground, with all three little pigs inside.
“Hey, Jolana. Come get your stuff,” came Larry’s gruff voice.
Vlad was standing astride, wearing a black patterned coat combining the aesthetic of a Nazi officer with a modern dandy, and he was in the process of sliding a trio of stakes with art nouveau silver tips into a leather chest rack.
In contrast to that, Viktor was balancing two large leather satchels on top of his body, and clutching a third in his hands, glass softly clinking in it. A tug on the zipper, a rustle in the bag, and Larry spread three boxes of clinking ammo in the grass. “Hollow point, lead with silver tip, normal,” he tapped them one by one with his finger and looked up. “What kind of a gun do you have?”
“A knife,” Jolana replied, squatting down beside him.
Larry frowned. “Don’t you have a gun?”
“We’re in Jilemnice, not in Texas.”
A match struck above her head as Vlad lit another cigarette. She turned her head to see the dandy smiling crookedly as he nonchalantly rested a shotgun on his shoulder. “We live everything as it comes, without warning,” he said.
She wrinkled her brow in puzzlement. “Excuse me?”
“Kundera,” Vlad smiled, exhaling cigarette smoke.
“Kundera?”
“Milan Kundera,” he clarified.
“Don’t mind him,” Larry waved a hand. “Mr. Intellectual likes to talk in quotes.”
“Why use your own words when everything important has been said with much more feeling in times past?” Vlad shrugged.
“And who said this?” Jolana wondered.
Vlad bared his perfectly white teeth. “Me.” Then he reached under his coat and pulled out a shiny Beretta. “You know how to use this?” he asked.
She nodded.
He handed her the weapon and smiled with satisfaction. “Well, as the classics said, truth and love will overcome lies and hatred. Take the gun and come on. It’s time to find out the truth about this damn place.”
* * *
Anka stood as still as a living statue and heard the nervous Marek and Pepin breathing loudly behind her.
They watched the strangers through the lobby window. One of the women and her car left, and the four who remained armed themselves to the teeth and spread out across the grounds—two were headed for the cemetery wall, two for the shed.
“Clear,” Marek hissed. “Let’s go.”
Anka started to back toward the door, but her cousin caught her by the sleeve.
“Not there!” he growled.
“Where do you want to go then?” she didn’t understand.
“Well, further into the house, of course,” he replied calmly.
Anka blinked. “There are four strange armed people here—we’d better get out of here while they’re loitering in the garden.”
Marek stepped over and looked at Pepin. “Look,” he began cautiously, “they don’t seem to be rushing in, and we’ve already been through the garden. Let’s take a look around the house and then we will get out.”
“But they have guns!”
“And? They’re outside.”
“For now! But what if they come in here?”
Marek licked his lips and hesitated.
“Dude, they look like larpers who came here to do stupid things after they heard about the haunted house,” Pepin took the initiative. “Just look at that vampire in black—a larper for sure! Nobody’s stupid enough to walk around with a real shotgun on their shoulder at the end of Zvědavá Lane where all the Jilemnice gossipers lurk.”
Marek snapped his fingers. “Yeah, larpers! That makes sense. I bet they’re some Prague tourists who came here like it’s a zoo visit. It’ll be fine, you’ll see. And if not, we can still jump out of the window.”
The girl looked from one to the other. They both grinned proudly and were already rushing out of the lobby and on into the hallway.
She twirled the flowers in her fingers and sighed. “Okay, fine.”
“YES!” Pepin signaled, punching his fist in the air. “Up for the gold!”
“But we have to scram in an hour,” she added quickly. “I don’t want to stay here after dark.”
“Sure, no worries,” Marek chimed in, pointing down the hallway. “After you, ma’am!”
* * *
Viktor walked to the cemetery wall and looked around carefully. The grey concrete wall was overgrown with ivy and lichen in several places. Viktor stopped at a large crack, beyond which grey marble crosses peeked out, ran his finger along its edges and frowned.
“Anything interesting?” Jolana turned to him when he stopped.
He squatted down, nearly overbalancing himself with the weight of the three satchels.
“Do you want me to carry anything?” she offered quickly, but he shook his head.
“Nah, it’s okay, I’ll handle it,” he muttered, digging through one of the bags and pulling out a bottle of liquid. “See that white powder on the wall?”
“Huh?”
“Some monsters leave chemical traces behind.” He rummaged in another bag and found a pipette.
“Like devil’s brimstone?”
“That’s right. But this isn’t sulfur.”
“What is it?”
“I’d say Chile saltpeter. Nitratin,” he added when he saw her blank face.
“Okay, and what creature leaves it behind?”
“I have no idea,” he breathed. Almost ceremonially, he drew the liquid into the pipette and dripped it on the white powder. When nothing happened, he cleared his throat. “Or maybe it’s just peeled paint,” he said in frustration, straightening up heavily and turning toward the house. “It would make sense, they painted the first day, and if they ran that way afterwards . . . ”
“What exactly are we trying to find?” she interrupted him.
“Traces.” Viktor raked through his sparrow’s nest. “The first couple swore they were chased by a headless horseman from the house through the cemetery. And this is the only place low enough to get to the cemetery.”
“The headless horseman is supposed to show up at midnight, and his horse leaves prints surrounded by hellfire, right?”
“Or brimstone, depending on whether he’s coming out of his grave or through a portal from hell. In any case, yes, if a headless horseman rode through here, we’d see scorched grass, hoof prints in the dirt, the remnants of a strong electromagnetic field . . . ”
“We could try an EMF detector!” she gasped excitedly, pointing to one of Viktor’s bags. She had never tried an EMF detector before. Although she had downloaded an app on her phone, she strongly doubted its legitimacy. Her phone buzzed with supposedly heightened electromagnetic resonance in the least scary places, like the candy store by the town square or a corner of a bus station. The latter was indeed scary, but for entirely different reasons than the paranormal.
Viktor, however, smiled indulgently at her suggestion and pointed with his thumb at the row of crosses behind the wall. “I’m afraid that might not mean anything here, considering . . . ”
“ . . . that there’s a graveyard, sure,” she nodded, feeling a twinge of embarrassment.
Jilemnice was a quiet town, and so she had so far only dealt with smaller bounties—rarachs causing mischief in the crops of local gardeners, a curse or suspicious nightmares. But she’d never faced any of the things Viktor had found in his research. While headless horsemen, a stodolnik or a bosorka sounded like lesser evils than vampires and the undead, she still had considerable respect for them.
She looked around and her gaze fell on the marble crosses and moss-covered statues of angels. “You mentioned a bosorka and a black lady,” she said slowly. “But shouldn’t we also take into account the fact that the house is so close to the cemetery? After all, all the trouble started when they buried the original owner, and a lot of the phenomena sound like the ravings of a vengeful spirit. What if . . . ”
“Cremated,” Viktor interrupted. “Sorry to jump in, but that was the first thing I checked. Mrs. Bulíčková stayed in the morgue, where they determined a natural death with no external cause, and then she was taken to the crematorium, from where she went to the family vault in a cheap urn. If it’s a ghost, it’s not hers.” He poked his finger in the lichen once more and smiled. “But it’s probably not a headless horseman either. There’s nothing here to suggest that.”
“Too bad,” she breathed as they made their way through the tall grass back to the house.
Viktor tried to untangle the tangled straps of the two satchels, but only succeeded in dropping the third one on his foot. He grunted, winced, and grabbed his leg, causing the tangled remaining bags to roll off his shoulder as well. Viktor fell on his ass in the grass. “Were you hoping for a headless demon?” he huffed as he picked himself up.
“I was hoping for a hot young Johnny Depp,” she replied with a laugh, shaking her head. “But mostly I was hoping for answers.”
“You will get them, you will.” He ruffled his hair and rose to his feet. “The answers. I can’t promise Depp.”
“What a shame.”
He reached for the large satchel, but Jolana snatched it from his hands. “I’ll carry it,” she said firmly.
“I can handle it,” he protested lamely.
“I know, but if a headless horseman happens to show up, I’ll need you to have functional legs, too.”
“And what if that sexy Depp shows up?”
“Then I’ll catch up to him even if I have to be festooned with all the bags we have, don’t worry.”
* * *
The house was shady, large and unkept. Long strips of plastic were lying on the tiles in the hall, probably dragged in by the first tenants in the naive hope of redecorating. A few steps away, they saw the tattered, tacky brown wallpaper and a huge white stain where they had probably knocked over a can of paint in panic.
“What’s the plan?” Anka turned to the boys.
Marek scratched his neck. “Like . . . the gold will probably be in the attic or basement.”
“Or inside the safe,” Pepin added quickly.
“Or inside the safe,” Marek nodded. “So I guess we should split up. I’ll run out to check the attic, Pepin will look for the safe, and . . . ”
“No,” Anka retorted quickly. “We shouldn’t split up.”
“Come on, you’re not worried, are you?” Marek teased.
“Of course I am,” she blurted out. “It’s about to get dark and the last people who slept in this house were carried out feet first, remember?”
“That’s why we should split up though, so we can cover more ground,” he countered.
“But . . . ”
“I’ll go with you to the basement, then,” Marek breathed, as if he hadn’t registered her words at all, and exchanged a knowing look with the freckled Pepin, as if to say, “Women, eh?”
Pepin saluted jokingly and stomped up the stairs.
Anka sighed. “We shouldn’t have split up,” she insisted, but Marek was already striding further into the house.
* * *
When Jolana and Viktor reached the house, she saw Vlad walking on the other side and Larry shaking some mess out of his hair.
“Anything in the shed?” Jolana asked.
“Lots of things, but not a stodolnik,” Larry grunted.
“The skeleton—
thing is bad,
he’ll come and
you’re trapped,” Vlad recited, and when Jolana looked at him with raised eyebrows, he flashed a bright smile, “Egon Bondy.”
“Egon Bondy is hiding in the old lady’s shed in Jilemnice? Wow, and I thought he is buried at the Smíchov cemetery.”
“Irony is the weapon of the unfortunate,” Vlad said, snapping his fingers. “Jaroslav Havlíček! A local native.”
“And how is Egon Bondy connected to the shed?” Jolana wondered.
“There was a lot of crap in there, and as we moved some stuff, a nest of bird bones fell on me,” Larry said, ruffling his curls again. “There were lots of skeletons of mice and shrews and other vermin, probably some kind of poison. But otherwise, no sign of anything else. Definitely no monsters.”
“We found no trace of a headless horseman,” Vikor reported.
“So if it’s neither a headless horseman nor a stodolnik . . . ,” Jolana began, glancing from one to the other, her gaze finally falling on the large mansion, the facade of which cast a dark shadow over their heads.
“Time to go inside,” Vlad added, stepping up onto the porch and pushing the torn police tape aside.
* * *
The corridor behind the lobby resembled a hotel. On the left and right were closed doors, of which Anka counted eight even in the darkness. The last one, directly opposite the entrance, was the only one open.
Marek flicked the switch, but the lights did not come on. “Hmm,” he grunted.
“Maybe the fuses are blown?” she asked, but at that moment they heard huffing on the stairs and saw Pepin rushing down.
“Is something wrong?” turned Marek.
Pepin threw up his hands. “It’s locked.”
“Like, everything?”
“Like right above the stairs there’s a locked grate.”
“And there’s no way to get past it?”
“Dude, I’m a mailman, not an Azkaban prisoner. What about you?”
“Nothing yet, we haven’t even tried . . . ,” Anka started, but didn’t finish the sentence. They all stared into the lobby, where footsteps and voices came from.
Marek grabbed the nearest doorknob and panicked when it didn’t move.
“Oh shit, dude,” Pepin gasped. Anka and Marek grabbed one arm each and pulled him briskly into the only open room at the very end of the hallway.
The front door opened.
The strangers entered the house.
* * *
Jolana remembered the map she’d scanned for Viktor when she’d contacted him—the mansion had three floors, plus an attic and a basement, for a total of nearly four hundred square feet of living space. So it was definitely not a tiny place.
“Bedroom, green lounge, red lounge and restroom,” Larry listed, pointing to the various crosses on the map. “They found one body in each of those rooms. The two in the lounges died of sudden cardiac arrest; the woman in the restroom suffered acute poisoning and, according to the coroner, basically shat her guts out. The one in the bedroom had a fractured skull from an unfortunate accident including a fallen painting, so everyone is obliged to wear this,” he added, raising his right hand.
“A helmet?” Vlad breathed in disgust, leaning casually against the old pendulum clock in the corner.
“Peltor brand protective helmet, there’s no better on the market,” Larry clarified.
“Maybe for workers.”
“You’re a paranormal worker, so just wear it and shut up,” the older Hunter growled at him.
“I’m sure there were better colors on the market,” Vlad muttered as he was handed a canary yellow helmet.
“We’re going to a haunted house, not a fashion show.”
Jolana and Viktor tightened the chin straps without protests while Vlad continued to twist the helmet in his fingers. “Vávra, this is really gross,” he sighed in frustration.
“No, Vladimír, it’ll be gross when your own brains come out of your ears,” Larry assured him.
Vlad sighed dramatically.
“Didn’t Paul of Tarsus say he rejoiced in his suffering?” Jolana tried, but Vlad gave her an annoyed look.
“Paul of Tarsus also said that the world should belong to the fools,” he replied. He leaned the shotgun against the side of the clock and smashed the helmet on his head in resignation. “And apparently he got his wish.”
“Tighten that strap,” Viktor urged, but Vlad shot him a look sharper than the stakes he carried on his chest.
Larry cleared his throat. “Well, we’ve all got bulletproof protection and guns, and it’s time to figure out where everyone’s going,” he continued in the voice of a Boy Scout camp leader. “We’ll head out in pairs like we did just now, and look around for clues. Have your EMFs, garlic, salt, guns and just about everything else ready, and if things get rough, call the other group,” he tapped the radio at his waist. “We don’t know exactly what we’re up against yet, so don’t take any chances. There’ll be time for a heroic rodeo.” Then he pointed his thumb at the old flat staircase. “We’ll take the top, you take the bottom, okay?”
Jolana nodded and looked at Vlad, who still looked stylish even with the yellow helmet on his head. “Any quotes for good luck?”
“Every true adventure begins with a collision of fantasy and reality,” he obliged immediately.
“Ota Pavel?” Viktor guessed.
“Karel Čapek,” Vlad replied, reaching for his shotgun. “Well, good luck, newts.”
* * *
The room in which they hid was a long, dark corridor, and the only light came from a small, dusty skylight through which a doll, let alone a man, could hardly squeeze. It had probably served as a huge pantry, but age and Mrs. Bulíčková’s limited mobility had turned it into a museum of dust, mold, and the remains of old food.
There were bags with lumpy grey matter spilling out of them. Cans with something that swelled beneath their puffy lids. Folded paper pastry bags forming little rotting pyramids and plastic margarine boxes lined up as neat towers of Babel. Water dripped from the ceiling into a large plastic laver balanced on pillars made of beer crates, and a maze of rusty shelves dominated everything, with old cans and oily jars full of compotes, purees and jellies.
Marek picked up the nearest one. “Znojmo pickled cucumbers, ’92,” he read from the yellowed label and frowned. The brownish-green jelly inside did not match the description in any way. He set it aside and reached for another one, perhaps hoping to discover preserved gold.
“Dude, how do we get out of here?” Pepin whispered in a panicked voice, measuring the skylight with his palms as if hoping to spread it open.
Anka shivered. Her heart was still beating wildly from being locked in a strange house with armed people who had probably come here to steal, yet she felt no fear, only anger that she had told the boys and they hadn’t listened.
She realized she was still clutching the daisies and bellflowers she had picked outside the house. She could have just thrown them away, they would have been lost in all the mess and dirt, but just as she was about to let them go, guilt stabbed her—they had been growing quietly just a moment ago and she had picked them. She should at least let them live for a while, now that she had.
As if in a daze, she scrabbled for the nearest empty jar, reached the laver with drip water, and scooped it into her makeshift vase. Then she set the flowers on the shelf between pepper stew and faded ajvar.
At that moment Pepin waved his hands at them. “There’s a door,” he hissed, pushing aside moldy crates. Indeed, a keyhole-less door, apparently unused, appeared between the shelves.
Pepin took the handle cautiously.
* * *
“Where do we start?” Jolana asked.
Viktor flipped open the dusty lid on the fuse panel. “First things first, let’s get the lights on,” he said, flipping the switches up in an unexpected crackle of sparks.
* * *
The room beyond the door flickered. Something huge in the corner shook loudly and began to growl.
Pepin yelled and slammed the door back.
* * *
“Did you hear that?” gasped Jolana.
Viktor, who was blowing his tingling fingers, nodded. “I did.”
“Like a cat getting electrocuted?” she guessed. “It smells like urine everywhere, maybe . . . ”
“Maybe,” he conceded, but his hand slipped to his waist. Like her, Viktor had a gun in a holster at his waist, but the small Ruger felt like a child’s water gun in his palm.
He pushed at the door and stepped into the hallway.
* * *
Vlad watched Larry fumble with the lock of an old door with an ornate grille, tapping his foot.
“Good things come to those who wait,” Larry looked up at him.
Vlad grinned. “And every waiting represents a shackled impatience. Otta Babler.”
Larry twisted his lockpick. “Sometimes I really wonder what your brain looks like,” he remarked. “Because every time you pull out a quote, I imagine you’ve got a giant filing cabinet with a cataloging system in your skull.”
The lock clicked.
“I think you’d be disappointed,” Vlad stretched, watching the grate swing open with a creak. “My brain will be as gray and disgusting as everyone else’s. Besides, as Ivan Fontana would say, ‘A man’s absolute worth is in his brain. The real value is in the character.’”
Larry stood up and dusted off his knees. “You really are a freak, Vlad.”
Vlad’s teeth gleamed in a smile. “A freak with a shotgun, baby.”
* * *
When Marek ventured out of the pantry a second time, this time armed with a huge bottle of chutney, they found that they were in no danger. The light came from a light bulb hanging lonely from the ceiling, and the shocks and thunder worthy of a rocket launch to Mars were provided by a refrigerator from the days when such devices could serve as fallout shelters.
They found themselves in the kitchen.
There was no window, and the stench of ammonia was more concentrated in the air here than in the hallway. It made Anka’s head spin. Cats were obviously in their element here, because thick tufts of dark fur and feces covered the floor.
“This is disgusting,” Pepin whispered.
Despite the huge space, the kitchen felt cramped. A large dining table was lost under a mass of cardboard boxes, the chairs were covered in plastic bags, glass bottles were standing on the floor and the worktop was drowning under bags, newspapers, magazines, empty cereal boxes and detergent bottles.
“Grandma didn’t throw anything away, did she?” grumbled Marek, pushing aside a column of margarine tubs with his foot. They seemed to have found liquid gold, hidden in the jars, rather than Nazi gold bars.
Anka shuddered in disgust and glanced at her watch.
6:38 p.m.
Sunset was at seven.
There’s still time, she reassured herself mentally. We still have plenty of time.
Now we just have to figure out a way to get out of this mess.
* * *
Viktor flicked the switch. Intense red light flooded the room from a dusty chandelier.
They both gasped in unison.
The Red Lounge didn’t earn its name for nothing.
Red linocut faces grinned from the walls. Underneath, feather pillows and knotted ropes lay on velvet footstools. Above an Art Nouveau table with a mirror, a huge fan made of dyed peacock feathers and four leather whips arranged on hooks according to their size caught the eye.
From a painting, a larger-than-life Mrs. Bulíčková was looking down on them; her likeness was captured by the artist at a time when the one with the most interest in her body had been gravity. A huge metal cross with handcuffs and details in faded red leather stood against the wall on the right, a long plush sofa on the left, and above it was a display case with a majestic collection of . . .
“I was expecting to find a lot of things here, but I admit that I really didn’t bet on a collection of dildos in the room of a brothel madam from the nineties,” Jolana sighed.
Viktor cleared his throat. His cheeks were a thematic shade of purple, and he carefully avoided looking at the portrait of the naked former owner. “This is where they found one of the last tenants with cardiac arrest.”
“Well, if he lit a UV lamp in here, I’m not too surprised.” Jolana idly poked a finger at the oily plush handcuffs. “You want to explore this place?”
“I’m sure the other rooms will provide more clues,” Viktor cleared his throat and backed out into the hallway.
Jolana laughed, but followed him. As she closed the door, she thought she heard the scurrying of rats behind her.
* * *
“It looks like the hotel from The Shining,” Larry grumbled, running his fingers over the moldy geometric wallpaper in the hallway.
Vlad, who was clearly more interested in the ancient piano next to the staircase, gently tapped out a few notes. “Monsters are real. Ghosts are too. They live inside of us, and sometimes, they win.”
“A little out of your usual range, to quote King, no?”
Vlad shrugged and closed the piano again. The piano shuddered at the click of the lid, as if it was one strong sneeze short of buckling under him. “Just because I prefer our people doesn’t mean I’m an uncultured barbarian.” He wrinkled his nose. “But the smell is really awful.”
“What a wasted opportunity to quote Hamlet!” Larry laughed, raising his hand in a dramatic gesture. “Something is rotten in the state of Denmark! Come on, where’s your literary soul?”
“Suffocated by the stench of cat piss,” Vlad sighed, pushing open the first door with his shotgun.
* * *
The clock read 6:44 p.m., and there was not a single window in the kitchen, only the door back into the pantry and out into the hallway, where they could hear the chatter and footsteps of strangers with guns.
But Pepin and Marek were clearly not worried about ghosts or intruders. They scanned one locker after another as if their instinct for self-preservation had taken a vacation.
Pepin suddenly straightened abruptly. “Hey, look what I found!” He was grinning excitedly, clutching a paper box in one hand and waving a blue tube triumphantly in the other.
Marek squinted his eyes. “What is it?”
“Jesenka, dude! And it’s not expired!” Pepin was already squeezing sweet condensed milk into his mouth, grinning happily.
Marek’s eyes lit up. “No way!” He quickly grabbed the box.
“Guys, maybe we should . . . ”
“Anka! Anka, here!” Marek hissed at her, thrusting a can with sweet condensed milk labeled Salko in her unresisting hands.
Anka slumped her shoulders and just watched as her cousins filled their mouths with the sweet Jesenka and chuckled softly. She stared blankly at the can in her hand. She didn’t even spare a thought for the milk inside. But cat hair swirled around her legs as Pepin did a comical victory dance, and something occurred to the girl.
It took a moment before she saw a bowl on the floor among the mountains of clutter. It was lying next to a pile of scattered ice cream boxes, but it was quite unmistakably the cats’—it had a picture of a paw on the side.
Anka knelt down beside it and opened the can. When the thick, sweet milk stuck to her fingers, she wondered if cats could actually eat Salko. Dogs weren’t allowed chocolate, so couldn’t a can of sweet milk hurt the cats?
She looked around as if to make sure, but no matter how hard she looked, she couldn’t see any cats anywhere—just hair, poop, and that ever-present smell.
Shaking her head, she set the can down beside the mess on the table and looked at her watch with growing anxiety.
The time jumped to 6:50 p.m.
“Hey! There’s something here!” Marek hissed in a whisper, tapping his foot on the floor.
His stomping sounded hollow.
* * *
Even the green salon did honor to its name. There was a moss chandelier, a khaki carpet, spruce wallpaper, and furniture made of malachite-patterned plastic. Mrs. Bulíčková was obviously fond of eccentric furnishings in her home, as posters of Czech singers in the psychedelic style of Andy Warhol looking down from the walls. In shades of green, naturally.
“Do you think that the hippie here had a stroke after seeing this?” Jolana pointed to a framed picture with four portraits of Waldemar Matuška.
Viktor waved his pistol towards a pile of vinyl records, on top of which lay an LP record called Uppers and Downers—folklore songs by Jan Slabák’s Moravanka.
“I’d guess it was because of the choice of music.”
“This house is an awful mishmash,” she shook her head.
“There’s only two salons, we should be past the weirdest stuff by now,” he comforted her, flipping through the vinyls.
“Anything interesting?” she asked.
“Surprisingly, yes,” he nodded.
Jolana stepped closer, expecting Viktor to reveal a clue that would bring them closer to understanding what they were facing here. Instead, he pulled out one vinyl after another. “Bowie, Beatles, Jethro Tull . . . Maybe I’ll take something when we’re done here!”
“Isn’t that stealing?”
“Not if no one knows.”
They spread out around the room. Jolana peeked behind the furniture, ran her hand over the bottom edge of the chairs, bent over the carpet, but found nothing but cobwebs, old rodent skeletons, and a dried-up milk dish—no herbs, no chalked symbols, no wax or bloodstains. She flicked the dried flowers in the vase with her finger and shook her head.
Viktor put the pistol back in its holster and squatted on the ground. He ran his fingers over the soiled fibers of the carpet, keeping a close eye on the EMF detector display. “This is where the police photos say they found the guy,” he said. “If there was an angry ghost here, there’d be energy left behind, but there’s nothing here at all.”
“But?” she pitched, sensing he wasn’t finished.
“But it seems to me that there is something here after all, see? This little thing? And here?” he pointed.
She bent down. In the high-pile carpet she saw tiny paws at regular intervals. “That looks like the tracks of an animal. It smells like urine everywhere, probably a cat . . . ”
“But this is much smaller.”
“So maybe a mouse? I found quite a few skeletons of shrews.”
“Maybe . . . ” He shuffled his glasses thoughtfully up his nose and looked at her. “Did you find something?”
“Nothing that requires an exorcism besides that radio over there in the corner,” she replied.
Viktor glanced at the large transistor radio with a cassette unit and chuckled. “I remember Grandpa used to have one of those,” he said, his eyes twinkling dreamily. “He used to play Karel Gott’s songs on it from morning till the night for the whole village to hear. Everybody hated him for it. Only his wasn’t growing mold.”
Jolana cast a skeptical glance at the furry layer covering the speakers in thematic green. “This is really a house worth every cent.”
* * *
The upper floor held eight rooms, each with an entry from the corridor and each looking like a mausoleum—furniture covered with age-yellowed bedspreads, corners of the walls nibbled on by black mold wheels, dust dancing above the floor. The biggest surprise awaited them in an unused smoking lounge, where they found a framed official portrait of first Czechoslovakian communist president Klement Gottwald with a noose painted around his neck and two crosses for eyes.
“Viktor said the family had the place confiscated after the war, and in the 1970s the Socialist Youth Union used to hold conventions here. The owner only got it back in restitution in the nineties,” Larry explained as the portrait was set aside.
“So maybe it’s haunted by dead commies? Cool. I’ve always wanted to smash Comrade Gottwald’s face,” Vlad said.
Larry chuckled. “And are you going to do that before or after you quote Václav Havel to him?”
“After, naturally. I couldn’t possibly deprive him of the Garden Party monologue. I’m no barbarian.”
Larry squatted down and ran his fingers over the floor in the last of the rooms. A swirl of air made gray wisps dance around his feet.
“Anything interesting?” Vlad asked, his hand on the doorknob of the last room, when he saw Larry sniff his fingers and brush himself off.
Larry shook his head. “I’m not sure,” he replied. “It smells like cat piss everywhere.”
“You don’t say; I didn’t even notice,” Vlad grinned.
“But I haven’t seen a single cat yet.”
“They probably escaped when there was no one to feed them.” Vlad turned the doorknob and entered the last room.
Larry stood up. “But why is there not a single trace of them in all this decades-old dust?”
* * *
Anka stared at the dark hole in the ground framed by the rectangle of a trap door.
Marek picked up the phone and shone a light in the darkness.
“Dude, it’s a basement!” Pepin squealed with the excitement of a child as they saw an outline of stairs.
“That’s where we have to go,” Marek gasped.
“You guys are crazy!” Anka hissed.
The boys exchanged glances, and Marek stepped provocatively on the first rung. “We’re looking for gold.”
“It’s getting dark! We have to get out of here, not go deeper in the house!” she whispered urgently. She looked at her watch and swallowed.
At that moment, the sound of an ancient pendulum clock came from inside the house.
* * *
Diiiiing.
The first blow startled Jolana so much she jumped a little.
Diiiiing.
Viktor jerked as his EMF reader’s display flashed red.
Diiiiing.
Vlad crossed the threshold and stood stunned as his eyes reflected giant shelves full of books.
Diiiiing.
Larry heard Vlad’s gasp.
Diiiiing.
Anka stared nervously at the large seven followed by a pair of zeros on her watch.
Diiiiing.
Marek, who was just about to descend the stairs, slipped and slid awkwardly down on his ass.
Diiiiing.
Pepin tried to shine his own phone’s light at his cousin, but the device slipped through his sweaty hands and fell down after Marek.
* * *
There was a heavy silence.
Jolana straightened up. “Stupid clock,” she forced a laugh to shake off her surprise. “I didn’t even notice it.”
“It was in the hallway,” Viktor replied absently, but didn’t take his eyes off the EMF detector.
“Is something wrong?” she asked, taking a quick step toward him.
Viktor tapped the display in puzzlement. “Something popped up for a second, but . . . There’s a lot of appliances in here, the power’s on, so it was probably just interference.”
Jolana snapped to attention. “Something popped up when the clock started striking? Isn’t that weird?”
“I . . . ”
“FROM THE WALL IT STARES BLANKLY AT ME—A DARK HOLE WHERE THE SAFE USED TO BE . . . ”
Jolana and Viktor shrieked in unison.
* * *
Solid wood bookcases stretched from ceiling to floor, with volumes squeezed side by side on the shelves.
“Finally, a stylish place in this dump,” Vlad whistled, stepping forward. “Proust, Joyce, Turgenev . . . ”
“Boring, boring, boring,” Larry grinned from the doorway.
Vlad shot him a disapproving look. “There’s Stoker and Shelly. Or would you prefer something simpler? Some pulp named Tentacle monsters and alluring astronauts?”
“I prefer Revenge of the Surfboarding Killer Bikini Vampire Girls like Lister,” Larry winked at him. “And unless you find Necronomicon here, we can ignore the library.”
“You might.”
Karl Gott’s song shook the floor.
A double roar followed it.
Larry immediately stopped smiling. “Viktor? Jolana? Are you okay?!” he shouted into the radio.
Gott fell silent.
The shouting stopped.
“Viktor! Come in!” growled Larry again and turned to run down the hallway toward the stairwell.
The radio woke up. “We’re all right,” Viktor’s voice answered. “We just got caught off guard by the radio.”
Larry relaxed.
At that moment, Vlad yelled.
* * *
Pepin froze, but Anka did not. As soon as Marek disappeared into the darkness, she started for the staircase.
On her knees, she slid to the opening, grabbed the wooden frame and jumped down on the stairs. They were steep and wet and slick, making her sneakers slip. And that’s exactly what happened on the second to last step and Anka fell on her back. She quickly shoved her hands under her, pain shooting through her right palm.
“Ouch,” she heard from the side in the darkness.
She blinked.
Her eyes began to adjust to the darkness and take in the space around her. Marek was just picking himself up off the ground and examining the hole on his pants.
“Dude, are you okay?” came from upstairs.
Anka looked down at her palm. It glistened damply, and even in the dim light she could see that the skin under her pinky was torn—probably the work of a splinter or a nail sticking out. I’ll have to wash it out so I don’t get tetanus, she thought, yet she calmed Pepin softly. “Yeah, we’re all right.”
Marek had already found the phone and beams of white light ran through the basement. It seemed as if the things from upstairs had grown through the floor to here. Cables sprouted from the ceiling, stalagmites of crates, jerry cans and plastic barrels rose from the sides, where piles of slimy dirt glistened. Droplets of water glistened on cocoons of old cobwebs, and Anka could have sworn she heard scurrying somewhere in the corner.
“Wow, this is really disgusting . . . ,” Marek whispered, his eyes bulging. His resolve was obviously wavering. “Maybe we should . . . ”
“I’m coming to you!” Pepin shouted, hurrying down.
Anka wiped the blood on her jacket. At that moment she heard a thud above.
They looked up and saw that the trapdoor had closed above their heads.
Then there was music.
And a roar.
And the scurrying again.
This time much closer.
* * *
Vlad ran his fingers over the spines of the books and lazily looked up to examine the titles on the top shelf. And there he saw it.
The Way of Blood. The Good Guy and The Cynic, both volumes of the unavailable Kulhánek[6] in perfect condition. And next to them . . .
He gasped.
Nightclub 1 and 2.
The complete Wild and Wicked.
Even The Lords of Fear.
“Lull the enemy, then destroy him,” he smiled broadly with the only Kulhánek quote he could think of, and clasped his hands together. “Vlad, you’ve earned your retirement!”
He pulled himself up on his tiptoes. His fingertips touched the book, but he hadn’t reached it yet, his belly sliding down the spines. Just a little more, just a little more . . .
He braced himself against the shelf to get higher.
A rustling sound came from the room.
Scurrying.
Vlad gripped the white spine with the publisher’s logo between the tips of his fingers and pulled.
The bookcase tipped over with a thud.
* * *
Larry turned around just as Vlad came crashing down, followed by a giant, massive bookcase. The black-coated Hunter was still clutching the book when he landed on his back on the floor. The canary yellow unfastened helmet bounced off his head and swung like a spinning top against the wall. Heavy volumes drummed on the floor.
Vlad’s scream was muffled by the combined power of The Strontium and The Prospect of Eternity.
The wood rumbled with a crunch.
“Vlad!” Larry yelled and run to him
Dust and torn pages swirled through the air. When they settled down a little, Larry realized Vlad had been right.
His brain really was as gray and disgusting as everyone else’s.
* * *
The ceiling shook. The moss green chandelier swung, clanging, and a blizzard of dust and flakes from the old painting descended on Viktor’s and Jolana’s heads.
“What was that?” she yelped.
“Larry? Vlad? Are you all right?” Viktor called in the radio.
Silence.
White noise.
Muffled scurrying somewhere in the room.
“FROM THE WALL IT STARES BLANKLY AT ME—A DARK HOLE WHERE THE SAFE USED TO BE . . . ”
Viktor and Jolana turned to the transistor. The radio roared at the top of its lungs despite the mold and the fact that it was switched off.
* * *
“Pepin, why did you close it?” Marek frowned and shone his light up to the trap door.
“I didn’t close it!”
“Then who did?”
“I don’t know!”
“You were the last one in, so who was it, huh?”
“David Copperfield, you idiot!”
Anka stepped decisively into the escalating argument. “It doesn’t matter, guys, come on, cut it out!”
Marek took a breath to say his last word, but his gaze slid to her hand. “Jesus, what happened to you?” He shone his phone directly at her palm.
It was the first time Anka had seen it directly in the light, and she was almost frightened herself too. She hadn’t felt the blood dripping down her fingers until now, but there was a deep gash in the muscle under her pinky.
“Holly shit, dude!” Pepin yelled, digging through his pockets for a handkerchief.
Together, the boys bandaged her arm with the thankfully unused handkerchief, spilling out one piece of advice after another.
“You have to disinfect it.”
“Dude, my aunt’s gonna be pissed . . . ”
“And clean it up so you don’t get anthrax.”
“Tetanus, dude.”
“It’s the same thing!”
“It’s not, dude!”
Pepin found his phone in the dark to demonstrate the difference between tetanus and anthrax, but realized that the screen was cracked and wouldn’t pick up a signal.
From the floor above them came a scream and a thud that rang through the house.
And then something scratched in the darkness.
* * *
Larry cautiously touched the shoulder that stuck out from under the shelf, but the squashed Hunter didn’t move. The radio at his hip was crackling.
He ignored it.
“Vlad?” he said softly. Then he noticed the puddle that was slowly widening where Vlad’s head used to be.
Larry howled.
“Larry? Vlad? Are you okay?” Viktor’s urgent voice echoed for the umpteenth time.
Larry stood up and angrily pressed the button. “No!” he barked. Then he threw the radio across the library.
He pried the shotgun from Vlad’s motionless fingers and pumped it. “Come out, you bastard, let’s dance!” he yelled, stepping forward decisively.
* * *
Viktor pressed the radio button again. Karel Gott’s voice faded, replaced by shouts from upstairs. “Come out, you bastard, let’s dance!” Larry’s voice boomed through the walls.
“Larry? Larry! Come in! What’s going on?” Viktor kept trying the radio, but no one answered. “We have to go upstairs,” he decided.
Jolana didn’t move. A red light flashed in her head; she couldn’t help the sudden feeling that she’d missed something. Something important.
But what, what was it?
Viktor was almost out in the hallway when the radio started again.
“FROM THE WALL IT STARES BLANKLY AT ME—A DARK HOLE WHERE THE SAFE USED TO BE . . . ”
“What the . . . ,” Jolana gasped, but Viktor turned back to the radio, his eyes darting around the room in confusion.
It was then that she realized what she had overlooked.
Ammonia.
Dirt.
Rat bones.
Milk trays, dead flowers, and no one to take care of the house.
Someone to take care of the tenants.
“Viktor, I think I know what’s going on here,” she breathed in a sudden burst of insight.
* * *
As one man, Marek and Pepin pointed their phones at the source of the sound. Light skipped over crates and boxes until darkness swallowed it. Something glimmered at the end of it, though.
“I think I see an exit!” Pepin, who was apparently also beginning to find the environment of the dank, crowded underground quite unpleasant, hissed.
“Great, let’s go!” Anka shouted.
* * *
Lenora threw out her turn signal and the old Chevy drove sharply onto the gravel road.
“An alder stick, my ass,” she snorted contemptuously, glancing at the object the old warehouse worker had given her. He didn’t have feathers, but he’d left her a piece of wood instead, meant to protect her from evil forces. She hesitated for a moment, deciding if she should leave it lying on the passenger seat, but in the end she grabbed it with a grunt and stuffed it in her pocket. Better wood than nothing.
“Old fart,” Lenora cursed and got out.
She slammed the door maybe a little louder than she had to.
She raced toward the porch, leather pants creaking.
The lights were on in the house and screaming and loud music could be heard.
“You must have started this party without me,” she grinned, reaching to her waist for her Glock. Checking the magazine while still walking, she nodded and put it back in place with a click. “Showtime!”
* * *
Martens drummed on the ancient parquet floor.
Dust particles swirled in the light around the chandelier.
The eyes under bushy brows were dark and dull as shale.
Larry rubbed his sideburns with a snarl and pointed his shotgun behind another bookcase.
Two steps, three, four, he peered into the aisle behind the shelves.
It was dark in there, and though no one else would probably notice, Larry had exceptionally good hearing. His ears caught a fleeting rustle.
He didn’t bother with a warning; he simply fired the shot.
* * *
Viktor ran to the machine and slammed buttons with his fist. The divine Karel Gott fell silent.
He pulled his helmet off his head and smoothed his matted hair. “What?” He turned to Jolana. His eyes mirrored his growing frustration; he was like jack-in-box, just waiting for someone to turn the crank and finally let him out of the box.
“I think it’s a domovoy,” she blurted out. “A housekeeper.”
“Like a house elf?”
“Domovoy, housekeeper, lar, penat, lutin, hob, gob, whatever you call it, but I think this one is very old and used to its quiet and its routine—and it’s upset that someone invaded its house.”
“We would have noticed!”
“Hair. Little tracks like rats. Ammonia. It’s not the cats that we can smell, it’s him. Empty milk dishes, dry flowers, skeletons . . . He has no sacrifices, so he eats whatever he can get his hands on, like . . . ”
“ . . . like mice and birds.” Viktor swung the helmet in his hand. “But domovoys don’t kill people!”
“No, but this one is furious. It’s probably very old and hungry and trying to evict the tenants because it doesn’t like the changes—and if that doesn’t work, then . . . ”
BANG!
An unmistakable shotgun blast echoed upstairs.
“Holy shit,” Viktor hissed.
At that moment, the radio started again.
* * *
Pepin held the phones while his cousin tossed the junk aside so they could fight their way to the door, which they could already see quite clearly. He was just wrestling with a lawnmower when suddenly Pepin’s light slid over the edges of the old garden tool onto something tucked away completely . . .
Anka felt her stomach tighten.
“Guys, it’s . . . ,” she began.
Marek raised his head.
Pepin shone his light closer and in the cone of white light, they saw a black lacquered box with a picture of . . .
“A swastika!” Pepin exclaimed.
“I knew we’d find it here!” Marek exclaimed.
One over the other they scrambled for the box, Marek tangling himself in the cable of the lawnmower, while Pepin tripped over a bag of plaster. But together they finally got the box with the Nazi insignia on the ground. It thudded with the promise of a lot of weight inside.
Marek cleaned the cobwebs and dust with the back of his hand, and Pepin opened the latch.
Anka squatted down beside them.
“Shouldn’t we say something?” Pepin suggested, licking his lips nervously.
“Like what?” frowned Marek.
“I don’t know, like ‘Sieg Heil’?”
“You’re going to heil in a haunted cellar for luck?!”
“It can’t hurt, can it?”
Anka unlatched the lid without a word.
The boys fell silent and all three of them tilted their heads to peer inside. Marek and Pepin’s foreheads collided, and to Anka’s surprise, there was no hollow thud.
Marek frowned.
Pepin swallowed.
“Well,” Anka gasped, “this is unexpected.”
Then they heard a shot from the floor above them.
* * *
Pieces of masonry joined the dust in the air. The buckshot went through the side of the library, shredding the nearest books and carving several dents in the wall. The aged wood tilted aside with a creak and vomited its contents on the floor. The volumes pounded the ground with their spines, corners, pages. The weight and mold-tested shelves finally succumbed to the lure of gravity. Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud, one by one they came down like dominoes until it rumbled.
Larry pumped his shotgun again and waited.
Silence. No scurrying, no shuffling, no sounds.
With his left hand, he pulled a plastic case from his pocket and tapped out a thick Ashton cigar. He bit off the tip. He stuck the cigar in the corner of his lips, lit it from the red-hot barrel of the shotgun, and took a long drag.
Still nothing. All the while he waited for the creature in the house to take advantage of his inattention to attack again, but there was no movement, no sound.
“Suddenly you’re not such a badass when you see a gun, huh?” grinned Hunter. Taking a drag from his cigar, he brushed past Vlad’s crumpled body and stepped out in the hallway.
As he slammed the door behind him, a pair of eyes glittered in the corner of the room.
* * *
For the fourth time that evening, the multiple Golden Nightingale award winner interrupted their conversation, and Viktor, who was about to take off upstairs to meet Larry and Vlad, had had enough of the jovial story about the stolen safe. He slammed his fist on the off switch, and when the voice coming from the moldy speakers didn’t stop, he angrily reached for the cable.
A flash of recognition passed through Jolana. “No . . . !” she started, but didn’t have the time to say any more.
A flash passed through Viktor as well. Unfortunately, without the recognition.
He yanked the power cord to the radio.
Sparks appeared around the cable.
Viktor froze, his already tousled hair standing at attention.
“Viktor!” Jolana yelled.
The bulbs in the mossy chandelier flickered and popped.
Viktor slumped to the floor, and—judging by the sound—took a table full of valuable LPs with him.
The smell of burning flesh filled the air.
Jolana lunged toward him.
“DO NOT DESPAIR, OH, YEAH, YEAH, YEAH!” came a mocking voice from the radio.
* * *
Lenora stepped up on the porch and opened the door to the house. “Sweethearts? Mommy’s home!”
A gunshot echoed from upstairs, the sound of a radio came from the hallway.
The blonde frowned.
She took a step forward.
There was a crash and all lights in the house went out.
* * *
They slammed the box shut and looked at each other. Marek finally broke the silence. “I think we can agree that it’s not Nazi gold.”
“We should have heiled for luck,” Pepin complained.
“Anyway,” Marek interrupted him, “it’s still a Nazi box, and it could be worth something.”
“We should take it to the police,” Anka said firmly.
The cousins exchanged glances. “Or . . . ,” Marek began, but the girl shook her head decisively.
“We will tell the police, end of discussion. This isn’t fun anymore, guys.”
Marek sighed. “All right. But we’re taking the box with us!”
* * *
Jolana could still see sparks flashing in front of her eyes.
“Viktor?” She stumbled to where the young Hunter had collapsed to the ground.
She searched for him; there was a moment of uncertainty, and then a realization that she was touching his knee. Quickly she groped further—the hard denim, the soft material of a sweatshirt. She knelt down and hissed. There were shards under her feet and something wet. From the smell, it was urine and probably some chemicals that had shattered in Viktor’s bag when he fell.
She finally found his hand, his shoulder, his face.
She bent over his lips.
No breath.
She tried his wrist.
No pulse.
“Shit,” she hissed, and started to pull her cell phone out of her pocket. But the display didn’t light up. Could the battery be dead?
“Shit, shit, shit!”
She grabbed the radio at Viktor’s waist. “Larry! Larry, I need help!” she shouted, but after getting hissing silence instead of a reply, she realized she was alone in this.
No.
She was not alone.
She was here with an aggressive domovoy.
From the darkness, she could hear scratching.
* * *
The chandelier went out, but Larry didn’t care. The cigar glowed between his lips and a he had powerful flashlight at his waist that resembled car headlights. He switched it on.
And all hell broke loose.
* * *
Lenora heard the fuses click loudly to her right. Frowning, she lowered the gun and fished in the pocket of her leather jacket for the flashlight.
She didn’t notice that the alder twig had fallen out of her pocket in the dark.
* * *
“Three, four, five, six . . . ”
Jolana pumped Viktor’s chest.
The smell of burnt flesh stung her nose, the shards of precious vinyl cut through her pants, and the fabric was soaked with piss and Viktor’s chemicals, but she tried not to think about any of it, just administered CPR with her elbows extended, like she’d learned to do back in school.
When his ribs crunched under her fingers, she felt horror, but knew she couldn’t stop.
“ . . . eight, nine, thirty, one, two . . . ” she continued.
Something rustled behind her.
“ . . . six, seven, eight . . . ”
Still no pulse.
Still no breathing.
Just the approaching little steps.
* * *
Lenora shone the light on the fuse box and flipped the switches up.
* * *
Bang!
All the doors in the corridor opened.
Larry stood there with his shotgun ready.
The hallway lights came on and a chair shot out of the nearest room, a white sheet trailing behind it like a veil. He sent it across the hall with a kick and fired as it skidded around and headed back toward him. The buckshot rattled against the floor. Furniture was blown into splinters.
Unfazed, Larry dropped the shotgun, pulled a massive Ruger revolver from his coat, and took a drag from his cigar. “That’s all you can do?” he grinned, but suddenly regretted it.
A velvet stool flew out of the next room.
A pillow followed it.
Another cushion.
A blanket and a moldy fringed shawl.
Several dresses made of frayed fabric, blouses the size of tarp, bras with cups that could have been a soldier’s helmet, and other pieces of underwear that Larry decided not to think about because they brushed against his face.
Then the creature apparently realized it needed more dangerous objects, and in quick succession came an antique vase, an old stained glass lamp, and two coat hangers wedged together and swishing like Frisbees. Larry felt like Neo from The Matrix as he was narrowly dodging them.
His back was hurting, but he didn’t have the time to find out how bad it was.
From the left, spinning plates began to shoot out, bang-bang-bang, twelve pieces from a set the owner had apparently been saving for a royal delegation.
Larry threw himself to the ground, thankful that his helmet was still firmly fastened on his head.
The creature continued in the trend started by Italian marriages, and the plates were followed by tiny cups, saucers, a sugar bowl and tongs, and finally a floral teapot that showered the Hunter with a shower of porcelain shards.
“Well, well, someone’s angry, eh?”
Larry rolled to the side; the edge of a metal case for thread and needles stuck into the floor. The treadle pedal of a sewing machine whizzed past his head like a stone from a sling, and he avoided a fatal hit to the forehead from an old Singer only by diving to the ground again before a cloud of buttons like projectiles hit the wall at the end of the hallway.
“This is really starting to feel like The War of The Roses,” the Hunter muttered.
A cupboard traveled out of one of the rooms, rattling and clanking like a skeleton with maracas. The floor buckled and creaked dangerously beneath it. But before Larry could say or do anything, he took an unexpected hit to the stomach.
Comrade Gottwald knocked the wind out of him.
* * *
The house shook violently and a shower of dust fell from the ceiling of the cellar.
Pepin covered his mouth with his sleeve. “Wow, what do you think is going on up there?” he said.
“No idea, but I’m glad it’s not happening here. Don’t just stand there and help me!” Marek said as he was tugging the mower out of way to drag the Nazi box to the exit.
Anka was there already, trying the door leading outside. But it wouldn’t budge.
* * *
The chandelier over Jolana’s head lit up just as she was giving Viktor mouth-to-mouth breathing.
She stood up, blinked, and screamed.
Viktor grabbed the vinyl as he fell, and the Bowie he’d been admiring broke into pieces. One of them was stuck in his windpipe at the end of what was a practically smooth cut across his neck.
The wetness she’d been kneeling in this whole time wasn’t just chemicals and urine.
Something rustled off to the side.
Jolana turned her head and screamed for the second time.
* * *
Lenora heard a rumble from upstairs, as if the whole house was falling to pieces, but before she could climb the stairs, a scream came from downstairs. Then she saw the Jilemnice chick who’d called them here scrambling out of one of the rooms on her back and elbows.
The blonde gasped and strode after her. “What, did you see a ghost?” she snapped, but even as she said the words she could feel the smile stiffening on her lips.
Jolana was disheveled and covered with blood.
“Holy shit,” Lenora gasped and started running.
The girl was shaking and seemed on the verge of crying, but Lenora ignored her and peered into the room. A long red streak glowed in the sea of green as Jolana stumbled out of the room, and at the end of it . . .
“Holy shit apostolic!” Lenora cursed.
Viktor was on the floor.
Viktor’s blood was everywhere.
Lenora turned on her heel. “What happened here?!” she barked at the girl, who was curled in a ball, hyperventilating. When Jolana didn’t respond, the blonde grabbed her arm and pulled her to her feet. “Hey!” she snapped fingers in front of her face. “What’s going on here?”
Jolana’s eyes were glossy with shock, most of her clothes were soaked with blood, and her cheeks were smeared with red goo. A string of words that didn’t make sense came out of her mouth: “I knew they were made from the souls of slain children, but this one was horrible, it had the body of a rat but the face of a toddler, but not a cute one, more like something out of a horror movie, like when you take one of those ugly plastic dolls with giant eyes and screw it onto a fat rat, that baby was probably eaten by rats, oh God, it was so disgusting and it bared its teeth at me and it was holding the piece of vinyl in its paws that cut through Viktor’s . . . “
“Jolana!” barked Lenora, shaking her. “What are you talking about? What’s going on here?”
The girl finally focused on her. “A domovoy,” she gasped.
A crash echoed from upstairs. The ceiling shook.
Lenora lifted her head.
The ceiling shook once more and then caved in.
* * *
Larry coughed. He frowned at the picture of the communist leader, which gave him a big punch in the stomach, and without any remorse, he hit the fifth president of Czechoslovakia between the eyes. The glass cracked and Larry scrambled to his feet.
The cupboard wobbled in place and then, with a clatter of cutlery, lurched forward. Forks and knives spilled out of its drawers, doors slammed, dishes clattered on shelves. Larry groaned and fired a full magazine in the furniture.
The cupboard didn’t budge.
Facing the rolling sideboard, the Hunter assessed his options. A bookcase with a dead colleague still sounded like a better option than getting smeared across the wall.
He backed up and searched blindly for the door. Even as he grabbed the knob, he realized something was wrong. It was in a different place than it was supposed to be, tipping forward on one rusty hinge, and the handle twisted strangely under his fingers.
He turned his gaze to it.
“Oh, shit,” he only managed to stammer out before a giant tentacle pulled him in.
Larry didn’t even have the time to cry out. The sideboard slammed into the wall and rolled onto its back with a thud.
The wall, which a moment ago had been a strange doorway, was now perfectly smooth, and a glowing cigar on the floor was the only proof that anyone had ever been there.
A few moments later the floor caved in.
* * *
The old ceiling could not handle the excitement of the movement of the massive furniture, and it crashed into the green parlor space. A cupboard, a door, and a large part of the bookcase, including the body of poor Vlad, fell in with a clatter from upstairs. It collapsed in a tangle of dirt and mess, rolled across the broken parquet floor and tripped over the feet of the two women in the hallway.
Jolana found herself knee-deep in foreign bodily juices for the second time that day and couldn’t help but scream again.
Lenora turned the dusty corpse around so she could see its face, then jumped away as if bitten by a snake.
“Angel’s ass!” she yelled in a falsetto that didn’t suit her tough talk one bit.
Jolana was shaking uncontrollably.
Lenora stood up, her pants creaking and a layer of white dust settling on her face that looked like she’d stuck her head in cocaine.
“Girl, get up. Let’s get out of here!” she urged Jolana, pulling her car keys out of her jacket.
Jolana stood up shakily. “Larry . . . ”
“Screw him, if he’s alive, he’ll get out of here too. And I’m not waiting for you either,” the blonde snapped, already scrambling away.
Jolana followed her, swaying.
Over their heads, the old Jilemnice house creaked and groaned as if it was in its death throes. Gradually, the ceiling caved in more and more, and Jolana could hear the building moaning behind them, the walls shuddering. It was as if something that held the house together had finally given way.
* * *
“Dude, that’s heavy as fuck!” Pepin yelled as they tried to lift the box.
“And what do you know about fucking, huh?”
“Dude, I have Pornhub at home, right?”
“Anka, what’s taking you so long??” Marek paused as he lifted the other end of the lacquered box with a huff.
Anka turned the handle, but the door didn’t budge. “Please, please, please,” she breathed like a prayer and slammed into it with all her might.
The rusty hinges came loose. The door brushed against grass and the girl sighed in relief.
The haunted house released them from its clutches.
* * *
“Screw this job,” Lenora growled as she trotted in the hall, “I don’t know what possessed Viktor to come here when we could have been drinking wine in peace and . . . ” She stopped in front of the staircase as if struck by lightning. She saw an alder branch on the ground. The alder branch that was supposed to protect her from evil forces. Frightened, she reached into her jacket pocket.
“The twig,” she gasped.
At that moment, Jolana arrived.
And so did the piano, falling down the stairs, picking up speed.
* * *
For the third time that day, Jolana was splashed by the bodily juices of one of her colleagues. This time she didn’t bother to scream.
When the piano pinned Lenora against the wall, she just lethargically wiped the blood spatter from her face, reached for the car keys in Lenora’s agonizingly twisted fingers, and after a brief hesitation, picked up her last word from the floor as well and staggered out the door.
* * *
The cellar spat them out in the garden just a few steps from the shed. The box was heavy and slippery, and even with two of them it was hard to carry. Anka tried to persuade the boys to leave the box behind and just carry the contents, but Marek hissed something about the need for evidence and the huge money they would collect as a reward. Anka suspected that no police would give them money for finding a strange thing in someone else’s basement, but she didn’t want to argue.
Rumbling came from the house, like someone with a sledgehammer started working inside, and Anka thought the building was shaking at its foundations.
“Just be careful around that car!” Marek hissed as they approached the Impala parked on the green grass off the path.
“Dude, I can’t carry it anymore,” Pepin complained breathlessly.
“What?!”
“My arms hurt.”
“You carry packages at the post office!”
“I carry letters, dude, that’s not gonna turn me into Rambo!”
Pepin lifted his end of the box with a grunt and started shuffling backwards towards the car.
“What are you doing?” Marek hissed, following him.
“What do you think, dude? Let’s put it on the hood!”
“Are you out of your mind?!”
“If I try to pick it up off the ground again, I’ll break my back!”
Thud!
The car buckled a little as the black box was thrown on its hood.
The door of the house opened.
All three of them froze in terror as a lone figure staggered out onto the porch.
It was a woman, and more than anything she resembled Carrie. She was covered from head to toe in a sticky mass which they quickly identified as blood, and she moved with the dreamlike grace of someone trying to crawl out of a nightmare. With unwavering confidence, she headed for her car.
The boys panicked and tried to lift the box, but only achieved dropping it back on the hood.
Anka froze like a pillar of salt.
The female version of Patrick Bateman stopped in front of them, flicking her gaze from one to the others until her gaze landed on the swastika, which even now glittered like Göring’s half-shoes in the night.
“We were . . . uh, looking for treasure,” Pepin tried to explain.
“Treasure,” the woman repeated, rubbing her eyes. “Do you need a ride?” she asked, unexpectedly calm for someone who looked like she’d just rescued the crew of Serenity.
“It’s okay, we . . . ”
“If you could drop us off at Sportovní Street by the housing estate, that would be great,” Pepin chimed in.
Anka and Marek shot him significant looks.
Pepin threw up his hands. “What?!”
Marek nodded his head towards the bloodied woman who was just unlocking the car.
Pepin shrugged his shoulders. “And?”
“And . . . I wonder what your mom would say about hitchhiking!” Marek hissed.
Pepin shook his head. “We’re not hitchhiking. She offered!”
“Well, look at the way she looks! She’s like someone from Cannibal Holocaust!”
“Because she is a larper, dude! I’ve been saying it all along!”
The blood-covered woman ignored their exchange, unlocked the car and calmly got behind the wheel. She merely asked: “Are you coming?”
The boys pushed each other for a while, but eventually they picked up the box and climbed in the back seat with it. Anka pursed her lips and sighed, but opened the passenger door and climbed in next to the driver from hell. The woman wiped blood from her eyes and slid the keys in the ignition.
With a grunt, the car started and sped forward on the gravel.
The building behind them shook, and then the roof fell in like a house of cards.
“Um . . . a hard night?” Anka suggested cautiously.
Bloody Mary nodded. “Yep.”
A short, awkward silence followed.
“What’s in the box?” the driver asked as she threw out her turn signal.
“Bones,” Pepin answered immediately.
“Bones, huh?” she repeated, taking a slow breath. “Let me guess—baby bones. And rat bones, too.”
Pepin’s mouth fell open in an admiring O. “How did you know?”
“A lucky coincidence,” the woman replied wearily, turning the wheel.
She entered the roundabout a little more abruptly than she probably intended, and the box skidded over the edge off the seat. Pepin and Marek tried to catch it, and though they all heard the crunch of bones, Anka also heard something else—a clink, like metal rubbing against metal.
“That’ll do,” she blurted, pointing to the street behind the playground. There was a moment of suspense, wondering if the car would actually stop, but by then the driver was pulling over to the side of the road and slowing down.
“Well, thank you!” Pepin thundered, shooting out of the car.
“Yeah, thank you and, uh, have a nice evening,” Marek added, quickly stumbling out after his cousin.
The bloody driver turned to Anka, who was just taking hold of the handle.
“Burn the bones,” she said in a voice that brooked no objection.
“Sure, sure,” Anka nodded, confused.
“That box looked really sturdy. I’d have a good look at it if I were you. The Nazis loved hidden compartments,” she added.
“Um, okay. Thanks.”
Slamming the door, she felt like she was in a dream. The Impala thundered off into the darkness, and soon its lights left nothing but an afterimage in her eyes. Anka shook her head and turned around. The boys continued to pull the crate, but the impact on the edge seemed to have damaged it a little. When they lifted it again, the bottom had loosened.
“Holy shit, dude!” Pepin yelled.
A huge gold brick fell out onto the pavement in the Jilemnice housing estate.
* * *
The car stopped in the parking lot of a closed general store. “A domovoy,” Jolana gasped in disbelief and shook her head. The basis of coexistence with the creatures of a home was to appease them and bring offerings—flowers, food, or in the extreme case, prayers and one’s own blood. When one angered them, they pulled mischievous pranks, but Jolana had never encountered such violence.
Well, one is always learning.
Maybe it’s not too late to change careers. Her cousin was retraining to be a hairdresser, which would be a much more pleasant job. She’ll call her tomorrow and ask her about it.
But in the meantime, she’ll have to do the paperwork for this bloody mayhem. Three dead, Larry’s fate unknown, and three civilians who somehow got involved, God, what a mess . . .
Jolana rubbed the dried blood out of her eyes. She was almost certain she looked like Samara Weaving at the end of Ready or Not.
But then she remembered something. The alder branch she’d picked up in the house shortly after Lenora had been splattered against the wall was still on the dashboard. It didn’t look strange or mystical by any means, but there had to be some reason why it was the last thing that went through Lenora’s mind—unless she counted the half-ton Petrof piano. Thoughtfully, she put down the stick and flipped off the blinker.
She knew that she should report the events to Fantom, and also that it would be a good idea to contact the relatives of the dead Hunters. Only she was all too aware of what a nightmare those calls would be, so she preferred to turn her attention toward the twig. Lenora had set off for Stará Paka, and from what Jolana could see, she hadn’t returned with the feathers. So maybe it would be better if she stopped by now and asked around. There was a chance that someone might try to pull a Lord of the Woods on her, but after tonight she probably wouldn’t say no to some beer.
The serpentines were winding through the darkness and the American veteran struggled on the broken road, but in the end Jolana successfully passed a big sign saying STARÁ PAKA. She pulled off at a turnoff separated by a gatehouse and a barrier, beyond which stood a tall, dilapidated building. It was far from perfect; it would have benefited the most from the visit of a bulldozer and a demolition crew.
Jolana stopped the car in front of an abandoned gatehouse, grabbed the twig and stepped outside. She felt the night breeze caress her blood-streaked hair.
She took two steps.
Then there was a crash and the ground shook so violently it knocked Jolana on her butt. When she blinked, the whole world suddenly seemed greener and brighter. She shifted her gaze to the old building.
The good news was that the building no longer needed a bulldozer and a demolition crew—wild, hot flames were shooting out of the windows and roof.
The bad news was that they were a poisonous green color.
Jolana watched the havoc suddenly unfold before her eyes and shook her head. “Typical,” she muttered.
* * *
Larry opened his eyes. He was lying on his back, it was dark and damp all around him, and he could smell the scent of earth.
“Sir? Sir! Hey!”
He heard footsteps and the someone was shaking him.
He blinked, his eyes beginning to adjust to the darkness, enough that he could make out the outline of a person in it.
“Where am I?” he gasped, sitting up.
“In a sunken town near Jilemnice, sir. Something has pulled you here. Do you have weapons? We need help, there’s a monster here that won’t let us go . . . ”
Larry sighed and rubbed his eyes. A Hunter’s work obviously never ends.
He fumbled in his pocket for ammo and loaded his empty revolver.
5) “Zvědavá” meaning “curious.”
6) Jiří Kulhánek is one of the most prominent figures of the modern Czech science fiction and fantasy scene. In the 1990s, he stood at the birth of a subgenre that is now called the Czech action school—a distinctive offshoot of splatterpunk with over-the-top action, indestructible heroes and politically incorrect black humor. However, Kulhánek is infamous for being dissatisfied with his published works and stubbornly refusing to reprint them, which is why his books have become unavailable and pricey collector's items.
MICHAELA MERGLOVÁ (* 1990)
When beauty and talent come together, it can never go wrong. Born in Pilsen, Michaela moved to Prague on the verge of adulthood to work in the world of advertising and marketing until she fulfilled her big dream and became a renowned writer. She fell in love with fantasy as a child and creative writing came only a little later.
She first introduced herself to readers as an author with the short story Three Brothers in Kočas (Nová vlna, 2015) and continued to win top spots in major fantasy literary competitions, as evidenced by obtaining the title Lady of the Order of Fantasy three times. She excelled as a short story writer in anthologies The Other Side of the World (Odvrácená strana světa, Straky na vrbě, 2017), On the Trail of Crime (Na stopě zločinu, Straky na vrbě, 2018), In the Shadow of Magic (Ve stínu magie, Epocha, 2019), as well as in the pulp-tinged Beauties and Aliens (Krásky a vetřelci, Epocha, 2021) and the science fiction collection The Law of the Gene (Zákon genu, Epocha, 2022).
By then, however, she had also already written her debut novel, Song of Steel (Píseň oceli, Epocha, 2019), a classical heroic fantasy in Gemmell’s style, whose heroes, highlander Cuchenan and poet Minangar, would accompany her in two sequels titled Song of the North (Píseň severu, Epocha, 2021) and Song of War (Píseň války, Epocha, 2022). Her novel The Cursed Tower (Prokletá věž, Epocha, 2020), is a slightly different cup of tea, as it delves into the thieving underworld. She most recently proved her versatility with a paranormal science fiction with detective themes titled The Void (Prázdnota, Epocha, 2023).
Michaela’s potential is simply too tempting, which is why the editors of the MHF project were as intrigued by her as she was intrigued by the project itself.