The Tomb

Herr Oberst arrives at the Dig Site

Chapter 10 �" The Tomb

The massive vehicle ground to a halt, causing the cabin to list slightly forward before settling. Captain Itchy Pants got up and opened the hatch on the cabin. The windows in the cabin had fogged up during the trip but nobody had bothered to try and wipe them. Tracey turned and wiped away some of the condensation. Through the blur she could see the frozen surface of Tordvastnet stretching out for thousands upon thousands of square meters. It was beautiful despite the circumstances. One by one the men disembarked the Ice Rover until only Tracey and Oberst remained. He remained still, watching her every move.

“Are you afraid of me?” He asked quietly.

“Yes.” Tracey’s voice quivered as she spoke.

“You should be.” He hissed. “Now get out.”

Tracey stood up too quickly and slammed her head against the low ceiling of the cabin with a thud. Momentarily daze, she shook her head then hurried to the hatch and climbed out onto the ladder, not registering the pain. He had done something to her, but she could not find the words to explain it. The moment he spoke, she felt an inexplicably raw sense of fear turn a tight knot in the pit of her stomach. Her mouth had gone dry almost immediately and her eyeballs felt as though they would explode. 

When she reached the bottom of the ladder she dropped down onto the snow. It crunched beneath her feet as she landed. While the cabin had been cosy, the icy wind gnawed at her cheeks and her lips tightened as the moisture on their surface began to freeze. She pulled the face mask up over her nose and the goggles down over her eyes. The vehicle had come to a stop at the base of a small hillock near the digsite.

“Let’s go.” The Captain said as he followed Herr Oberst up the slope toward the dig site. 

When she climbed out of the vehicle, Tracey had thought they had arrived at the campsite, but when she looked back along the tracks, she saw the crushed remains of severy tents and even a snowmobile. The driver had taken the behemoth vehicle straight through the camp.

“Don’t look.” Vladimir smiled as he gently turned her toward the rest of the party. They were already some fifty meters ahead by then. The Russian had come back for her. She was thankful for him. Of the company she found herself in, he was the only who had a heart to speak of. The snow thinned out revealing dark hard earth as they reached the summit of the slope, where the ground began to slope downwards again. A short distance ahead, perhaps two or three hundred meters, set deep into the exposed blue-grey cliff face was entrance to the tomb. One of its vast, heavy stone doors flung open. Dozens of lines of ancient runes in a long dead language covered the outer surface of the door. The soldiers dropped their backpacks on the ground and pulled out their glow sticks. 

“Procede with caution. I do not want further damage to any more of my property.” Herr Oberst stood with his back to her now, but every now and then he would turn so that Tracey could only see his profile. It suddenly struck her that despite his claims to be of pure Germanic blood, Herr Oberst had a distinctly Scandanavian bone structure. 

“What are you hoping to find here, Sir.” She stepped in beside him. 

“What is it to you?” He did not turn to face her, but his tone was so thickly indignant he did not need to face her for her to know that he did not appreciate her question. His response was precisely as she had expected it to be.

“Call it curiousity.” She looked him in the eyes and pressed on. “What were you looking for.”

This time he turned to face her. “There is nothing in that temple that concerns you Miss Gibson, so step back and stay out of my way.” He turned to walk away, but she caught him by his wrist. He turned to her with intense disgust pulsating in his eyes as he looked down at her hand clutching on to his wrist.

 “Let’s get this straight. I am fully aware that I will never leave this place alive. So come on, level with me.” 

“You have quite some nerve, Miss Gibson.” He hissed, yanking his arm from her grip. Herr Oberst gestured for Vladimir to join them. The Russian approached quickly and stood a little distance from the colonel. “Vladimir here will take you for a walk and tell you all you wish to know.” Oberst smiled and evil smile. “Right after he shoots you.”

“What?” Tracey gasped, stepping back involuntarily. “You can’t do that, damn it!”

“Look around you Miss Gibson. You may find that I really can.” His smile opened up into a broad toothy grin. 

“You’re an a*****e. You know that.” Tracey stepped forward as to attack him, but Vladimir took her by the arm and pulled her away from Herr Oberst.

“Please come with me Tracey.” He said gently as he pulled her.

“And you!” She turned and punched him square in the face. Vladimir’s grip remained as firm as ever, never loosening.

“Good bye, Miss Gibson.” He said, turning his back on her again.

Vladimir pulled at her arm as he walked. She struggled against his grip, her face pink from the strain, but she could not break free. Panic began to set in and Tracey tried to punch him again, this time he was ready. He caught her fist mid air with his free hand and pulled it down, looking her square in the eyes. “Don’t do that again.” His face was hard and cold as he spoke, yet in his eyes she could see pain and sadness. Nothing made sense anymore. Ever since Herr Oberst had first appeared at the firm to hire their team, nothing had ever gone to plan or made proper sense. And now, here she was, the sole surviving member of a one sprawling excavatory team. But not for long it now seemed.

“Close your eyes.” Vladimir said as they approached the remains of the camp. “You do not want to see this.”

“No. I want to see.” Tracey returned defiantly.

“Suit yourself. But I did warn you.”

Tracey gasped as she saw that carnage the was the last remains of the camp. There were tents, snowmobiles and crewmember scattered across the snow, rock and tundra, all torn apart like paper. She covered her eyes with her free arm and whimpered as Vladimir continued to pull her further away from the noise at the tomb.

A gust of wind howled through the desolate camp as they walked on toward the lake, just a single gust. Then nothing. The winds fell still. A group of soldiers carrying the silver caskets up the hill slowed a moment and Tracey heard mixed responses of surprise coming from the group as they passed her.  At the edge of the frozen lake Vladimir turned left and they walked a long distance along the rocky edge of the lake until they reached a small cave. Here they stopped and Vladimir let go of her, and pushed her into the cave. He reached into his back pack and pulled out a satellite fone and dropped to his haunches to set it on a rock. Tracey glanced at the phone and back at him in complete bewilderment. He smiled that damned smile again and stood up. 

“Not until we are all gone.” He said flatly, before pulling out a Glock G38 and shot her once in the shoulder. The force through her backward against the rockface, smacking her head with a sickening thunk against a protruding boulder. Vladimir then fired two more rounds in to the dense beach sand, as she slumped to the ground, before reholstering the firearm and leaving.

“It is done.” Vladimir’s tone was flat and distant when he reported to Herr Oberst.

Herr Oberst did not respond. He stood at the entrance to the temple and smiled. No one on the team had ever seen the man smiling. It was not so much a smile of joy, but rather that of deep malevolence. “Do you know what this is, Vladimir.” 

Vladimir tensed up as he heard his name. “A tomb?”

Herr Oberst sniggered derisively. “Oh much more than that.” He turned to face the Russian, “It is the seat of an ancient power, the likes of which man has not seen since the dawn of his history.” He turned away again and lowered his head as his toned faded to almost a whisper. “It has since faded, but I will rise again to reclaim it.” 

The radio on Oberst’s belt crackled. 

“Yes.”

“We have five of the bodies, Sir.” 

“Where is the sixth?”

“There are only five here sir.”

“Very well. Bring what you have.”

The radio clicked as transmission was broken again. Herr Oberst turned back to Vladimir. “When the caskets are brought up, make sure they are loaded on to the Rover.” He sighed. “You know what to do from there.” He looked back once more at the ruin that had once been the grandest construction on the face of the earth, then turned and walked to the Rover he had arrived in and climbed inside.

As the behemoth trundled away across the snow, the first of the silver caskets arrived.

“Load them.” He barked as the men carrying them came to a halt outside the tomb doors.