He stopped a few hundred meters from the fateful spot and got out of the car. He walked slowly along the road, flanked on both sides by tall pine trees, looking around. He was almost to the bend when he saw something white between the trees to his right, almost invisible in the snow. He didn't slow down. He kept his eyes fixed on a bright, transparent figure, more like a puff of fog than a human being. The extraordinary creature was approaching him at a rapid pace, trailing a white veil several meters long. The figure howled long and desperately. A wave of fear washed over the man, but he didn't slow down. He was one of those people who must see their plans through to the end.
He reached a bend and stopped, and a few seconds later, a white figure stood two meters in front of him. It sobbed softly, then fell silent. Only now could he take a closer look at it, though it kept trembling, blurring, and then gathering again, like a cloud or mist blown by the wind. It turned out to be a young, beautiful woman, slightly taller than Janek and wearing a wedding dress with a long veil. She was semi-transparent, and he could clearly see the trees growing behind her. However, the girl's face held no life—it looked like a mask or a bas-relief. Janek shivered with fear and the cold that emanated from this unusual phenomenon. He sensed a presence behind him, but didn't turn around. He guessed who it could be, and that made him shiver even more.
"Are you Marlena Klauze?" "He asked quietly, his voice breaking.
The girl nodded.
"What can I do to help you?"
Marlena pointed at him, then covered her eyes with her hands.
"Should I cover my eyes too?"
She nodded again, so he complied and stood rigid with fear. Then he felt something very strange envelop him, as if he were in thick smoke. He didn't dare move his hand from his face. After a moment, an image began to form in his brain, until, without opening his eyes, he saw a scene so vivid it was as if he were watching a movie.
He saw a young, beautiful girl lying on the bed, her dress hiked up to her waist and her legs spread wide. Her arms were stretched above her head and tied to the bedpost, and a dirty rag was stuffed into her mouth, muffled by her screams and moans. A broad-shouldered young man in a Red Army uniform was lying on top of her, brutally raping her. A dozen other men stood around, watching, laughing and talking in Russian. They were all heavily intoxicated and stank of sweat and vodka. Then the degenerate stood up, his lust satisfied, and his friend took his place between the girl's thighs. Suddenly, a handsome, enraged, tall blond man burst into the room with an axe in his hand and screamed,
"Leave her alone, you bastards!"
He swung the axe, hitting one of the soldiers in the neck. The man burst into blood and fell to the floor dead, while the young man severely wounded another Russian in the stomach. That was the last blow he landed, as the soldiers threw him to the floor and pummeled him with their rifle butts until they beat him to death. Then one of the Russians said,
"Okay, comrades. This hero won't bother you anymore. Now it's my turn!"
He stepped into the shoes of his companion, who had been raping the woman the entire time, ignoring the fight. Then a dozen or so other soldiers, one after another, satisfied their lusts, until finally one of them said,
"Leave her alone. She's already dead.
" "We have to hide her somewhere so the commander doesn't notice," another said.
"Let's throw her into the well! No one will find her there."
Two drunken soldiers grabbed the girl and staggered out into the yard. They threw the body into the well, while others wrapped the dead boy's body in a cloth. Then four men carried him toward the nearby forest. Two of them had shovels. They entered the pine grove, then reached tall pines, and after walking a few hundred meters, they stopped. They took turns digging in the frozen earth, and when a hole about a meter deep was formed, they threw the body into it, covered it with earth, leveled the surface, and camouflaged it with snow so that no one would suspect that someone was buried there.
Then the image in Janek's mind faded, and something cold touched his hand. He uncovered his eyes and saw a white, transparent ghost turn away from him and enter the forest, followed by a long, white veil, almost invisible against the snow. A tall, slender man in a torn suit walked past Janek, almost catching him with an axe, from which large drops of thick blood dripped. Jurgen caught up with Marzena, and they joined hands, disappearing from sight.
*****
The next day, Janek borrowed a pump and pumped water from a deep well in the middle of the yard. The previous owner had told him the water was undrinkable because it was poisoned. He'd replied that he'd have to cover it up. He would never admit it, but his heart was pounding as he descended a long ladder to the bottom of the well, armed with a flashlight and a bag. As he'd expected, he found a skull and a pile of bones in the ankle-deep water. He crossed himself, took a deep breath, and carefully placed all the human remains into the bag, amazed that for so many years no one had figured out why the water from the well was undrinkable.
Then he went into the forest with another large bag and a shovel. He wandered around for a while before finding the spot where a forester had recently shot a deer. He remembered sitting on the still-warm animal when someone called out to him, dragging him deeper into the forest. He shuddered at the thought of who could have been calling him. He headed in the direction where someone had been dragging a deer through the snow. He remembered that the trail had ended at a large, thirty-meter-high beech tree. He found a huge tree, cleared away the snow, and began digging. The frozen earth was difficult to dig with his spade. After two hours of work, he finally found what he was looking for – a human skull and a pile of bones, also seemingly human. With mixed feelings of relief, fear, and disgust, he glanced at them and quickly tossed them into his bag. He felt very uneasy as he returned home with a bag of human remains on his back.
*****
Janek decided to spend the night after the funeral, during which the remains of the Klauses were laid to rest in a single grave, in Zielonów. He wanted to take his wife to Trzcianka, but she insisted on staying with him. So he had to relent. He lit the stoves, then they ate a hearty dinner, made their beds in the largest room, the one adjacent to the kitchen, chatted for a while, and at a quarter past eleven they went to bed. Just in case his wife went out to meet her needs, he hid a metal rod with a sharp spike under the bed, the same one he'd prepared when ambushing the intruder.
Irena was asleep in a moment, breathing heavily, but Janek couldn't sleep. He sat up in bed and pondered, unsure if the night would pass without incident. When the clock struck midnight, he held his breath and listened. When for several seconds he heard no sound, he breathed a sigh of relief. Prematurely.
The front door slammed loudly, and he heard the clatter of many feet. Then three more doors slammed, and a girl in a torn white dress burst into the bedroom, followed by a squad of soldiers in Red Army uniforms, rifles in hand. The nightmare returned.
Janek jumped to his feet and—more furious than frightened—flew the intruders with his fists. One of the soldiers, a powerful man, threw him aside, and two others struck him several times with their rifle butts. He cursed viciously in pain. He tried to stand up, but one of the soldiers put the barrel of his rifle to his head and hissed in Russian,
"Sit down, or I'll kill you like a dog."
Janek took the warning seriously, so he could only sit and watch. And things were happening that made his blood practically boil with rage mixed with helplessness, and he felt almost no fear.
Irena woke with a loud, desperate scream, muffled a moment later by a rag stuffed in her mouth. One of the soldiers punched her hard in the face and grabbed her arms, effectively immobilizing her. The other pulled her nightgown up to her waist, unbuttoned her pants, and began brutally raping her. Next to Irena, where Janek had been sitting moments before, lay Marlena. She had been forcibly taken by another man in such a brutal manner that blood from her crotch dripped onto the sheets, soaking into them, creating a large, crimson stain.
Janek watched in silent pain, clenching his fists and gritting his teeth, but the cold steel of the barrel piercing his forehead effectively cooled his resolve. This lasted several minutes before the front door slammed again. A few seconds later, Jurgen burst into the room, furious as hell and a completely different person. First of all, he was much taller than when Janek had last seen him. Now he was simply enormous—his head almost reached the ceiling, and his shoulders were as wide as a wardrobe. His face was so badly mangled that his mouth and eyes were almost invisible. He wore black, bloodstained trousers and a white shirt, also heavily bloodstained. His hair was disheveled and matted with sweat. In one hand he held a giant axe, and in the other a razor-sharp knife with a blade nearly two feet long.
The bloody carnage began. Within seconds, two soldiers' heads, severed from their bodies, lay on the floor, and two other Russians were writhing in death spasms, dying from the powerful blows the axe had delivered to their chests. Jurgen was so incredibly fast that Janek could barely keep up with his movements. All the surviving soldiers rushed at the giant man, and several of them fired their rifles. They missed Jurgen, who dodged in the least expected direction. The other soldiers who had been shooting suffered as a result, three of whom fell to the floor lifeless. Both women screamed so shrilly that the high-pitched sounds they emitted pierced their brains like sharp needles. Janek squeezed into a corner of the room to avoid being accidentally injured in this murderous struggle.
Jurgen fought as if he were the god of war. Ignoring the terrible blows from rifle butts, he split open the head of one of the attackers and broke free from the circle of soldiers. He turned and slashed with his axe, simultaneously stabbing with his knife. Two more corpses fell to the floor, one with a terrible wound in the chest, the other bleeding profusely from a knife-blade impact through the heart. Then another shot rang out, and Jurgen staggered, struck in the shoulder. The bullet wound began to bleed profusely. The Russians rushed at the giant like enraged wolves. Jurgen stopped the soldier attacking from the right with a deadly blow of the axe, but he narrowly missed being stabbed by the attacker charging from the left. At the last moment, Janek slipped out his foot and tripped the Russian. As the soldier fell, he impaled himself on Jurgen's blade.
Janek stood up, taking advantage of the soldier who had been guarding him lying dead on the floor. He couldn't bear the sight of his wife moaning in pain and humiliation. He leaped to the bed, pulled a metal rod from under it, and struck the Russian with such force that he fell to the floor. Then he finished him off with a single, powerful blow to the chest with his spike. He looked at the man who was satisfying his lust at Marlena's expense.
Furious, he jumped onto the bed and grabbed the soldier lying on top of Marlena by the hair. He yanked, nearly ripping the skin from his skull. The soldier screamed in pain and jumped up to escape the pain. Janek dragged him to the floor like a thrashing piglet. He released the hair and slammed the rod into his face, lacerating his lips and knocking out several teeth. He took a powerful swing, and the next blow proved fatal. It struck the Russian almost squarely in the middle of the head, driving the bones into the brain and crushing his head like a nutshell.
Janek turned and saw that only three soldiers remained. They retreated, raised their rifles, and simultaneously fired at the giant, confident of their successful volley. Jurgen, faster than lightning, dove beneath the flying bullets, and before the Russians knew it, he was right in front of them. A split second later, their heads, severed by a single blow of a giant axe, fell to the floor and rolled toward Janek.
The women stopped screaming, and Jurgen approached Janek, who was standing by the bed with a rod in his hand. The giant leaned over him, and then Mika bravely looked into the ghost's eyes, even though cold fingers of fear gripped his throat. The man nodded toward the door and left, leaving a bloody trail behind him. Janek, understanding the ghost's intention, threw the rod aside and followed him. Jurgen stood by the well, pointing with his finger into its depths. A moment later, he disappeared, and when Janek returned home, there was no Marlena, no soldiers, and no trace of recent events. Only his wife was there, sobbing quietly into her pillow from pain, fear, and humiliation.
*****
An hour later, the Mikas were back in their apartment in Trzcianka. Irena was in severe shock and didn't say a word for a week. Janek was with her the entire time, and only when she felt better did he secretly go to Zielonów. He borrowed the pump again and pumped water from the well again. This time, he felt no fear. He scooped out a dozen buckets of dirt from the bottom and carefully sifted it through a large sieve. Finally, he found what he was looking for—three small bones that looked like fingers. He wrapped them in a scarf and drove home.
He returned to Zielonów only at night, when his wife was already sound asleep. He drove to an old, forgotten cemetery near the forest. He took out a spade and a flashlight. He wasn't afraid, but he was very uneasy. He began digging where Marzena and Jurgen were buried, and then he suddenly felt very calm. He kept checking his watch, hoping to get there before midnight. At ten to twelve, he dug up the coffin containing the remains of the Klause family, opened it, and tossed inside a handkerchief containing bones. He buried the coffin and, relieved, left the cemetery.
By the time he arrived at the house, it was already after midnight. He cautiously entered and, prepared for anything, stayed inside until half past one in the morning. Nothing happened, just like the next night, which he also spent in Zielonów.
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