Original Copy: CH1 - Berlin's Ghost

Dec 03, 2025

Berlin lay in ruins. Thick, burnt air choked the streets; bodies rotting under tons of rubble.

Opposing forces marched in from the East and the West, filling the void left by the German defeat.

The brilliant were hunted. Cataloged. Coerced into service by the United States, or forcibly taken by the Soviets.

Uncounted others slipped the gallows’ noose. Compatriots negotiated with sympathetic governments outside of Europe for shelter. They offered the first fruits of a new world order and were given sanctuary. A place where they could peel humanity from bone.

A decade later, the brewing tempest found cracks in its containment. An evil weeping that refused to die.

CH 1 – Berlin’s Ghost

“Our experiment with races failed, but drastic measures must be taken to combat human excesses. Humans must make a decision on how to survive in modern times. Since eugenics has not succeeded in the short run, we must find another equally radical solution.”

—attributed to Andreas, the fictionalized alter ego of Josef Mengele,
The Sentimental Memoirs of the Angel of Death (unpublished manuscript, c. 1960s)

Los Angeles July 18,1954

The hurricane’s remains wrapped the city like a wet dog’s matted coat; steam curled from the storm drain beside the body. The detective flicked his cigarette stub into a puddle that shimmered with oily reflections of streetlights. The frayed edges of his trench coat brushed the cracked pavement as he crouched over the body.

He looked up at the young officer. “It’s good the dead don’t mind waiting.” The coroner was late. No surprise.

But this stiff was different.

A pale lifeless face, untouched by time or fatigue, like it was sculpted. No scars. No wrinkles. Not even a nick from a shaving mishap. Just smooth, flawless skin, stretched too tight.

He snapped his Zippo shut, blew smoke over the rookie’s head. “Third one of these this year.”

The rookie shuffled, flipping his note pad open without looking up. “No wallet, no papers of any kind,” his voice barely above a whisper.

Scanning the sidewalk, he nodded. “Nope. Just like the other two. No history. No family. A body that shouldn’t exist.”

He pulled back the stiff’s collar, revealing a small, almost invisible puncture at the base of the neck.

“You ever seen needle marks in a place like that?”

The rookie leaned in, squinting. “No, sir.”

“Didn’t think so. Notice anything else?”

The detective stood, observing the young officer.

“Yes, sir. Clothes are nearly dry, underneath is wet. He hasn’t been here long.”

“Kind of like…” Glancing up at the lit windows of the apartments above them, “… someone wanted us to find it sooner than later.”

As the stretcher crew rolled up, he motioned one of them over. “Straight to Larchmont’s table tonight, no detours. Make sure you leave it with him, no one else.”

The medic nodded. “You got it, Jack.”

He turned to the beat cops. “More rain’s coming. Search the alley. Don’t let any evidence wash into the sewer.”

“What are we looking for?”

His eyes sharp from years of scouring crime scenes.

“Anything that doesn’t belong.”

Thunder rumbled in the distance, echoing off the steel and concrete of the city’s bones. He watched as they loaded the body onto a stretcher—its limbs too rigid, too precise.

Except for being dead. Too perfect.

The ambulance doors slammed shut. Detective Jack Deckard pulled his brim down low and thumbed his collar up. His shoes scuffed the asphalt as he headed to his car. Tonight wasn’t just another night. Something old was wearing a new face. A ghost worse than all of the mobbed-up riff-raff between L.A. and New York. At least a mobster knew his place.

Three bodies too much alike.

This was more than flesh and blood.

Looking up into the dreary night as he slid behind the wheel, he muttered to himself, “No amount of rain is going to wash away this stain, not now, not ever.”

A figure crossed a distant streetlamp, its shadow knifing across Jack’s side mirror. His spine chilled. A vision of L.A. shattered into ruins. Berlin stalked him with its snapping jaws, reminding him. In the darkness, you have no friends.

He’d kept the memories of Berlin buried. He was there in ’45 when Soviets swarmed the city like locusts. He’d seen things then, things that didn’t make sense. Men with blank eyes and pale skin discarded like broken mannequins. No identification. Puncture marks at the base of their skulls. Easy enough to chalk it up to the horrors of war, one more unexplainable atrocity in a city drowning in them.

Now it was back. Those same wounds. That same lifeless perfection.

His knuckles tight on the wheel. There was only one man who’d been there with him, who’d seen what he’d seen: Donovan Earle, the spook with too many secrets and a drinking problem bad enough to drown the both of them. If anyone could have answers, it’d be him.

Jack twisted the wheel and slung a wet U-turn. He needed a phone. Needed Earle. Before the coroner carved up that body and turned it into just another footnote in L.A.’s endless ledger of the dead.

In the phone booth, the bell stabbed the night as each coin dropped. Jack cursed, fumbling for his notebook. Donovan Earle: notoriously hard to reach sober, impossible drunk. Last known abode, Chateau Marmont. The war cut Donovan deeper than most. The Marmont, it was his refuge, intact, like a piece of France preserved.

The savagery they’d seen while plotting their way from Lyon to Berlin broke many good men. Berlin nearly killed Earle—not just his body, but his mind as well.

Ring…

A voice cackled through the receiver, could’ve been a hello, but Jack couldn’t be sure.

“Operator, connect me with Donovan Earle’s room, please.”

Ring…

Four more. Then the operator. “Mr. Earle isn’t answering.

Would you like to leave a message?”

He exhaled a plume of smoke. “No, no thank you.” He didn’t want Earle to rabbit out of there before he spoke to him.

Jack thumb punched more coins into the phone.

“Larchmont? Jack. Yeah… Who else? Do me a favor and keep tonight’s deposit on ice.”

“…No. That won’t be necessary. Just don’t slice him up. I need forty-eight hours. Thanks, I may actually owe you this time.”

Pulling his coat tight, he half-dashed to his car, ducking as if the mist could punch. He yanked the door open, sliding behind the wheel with Earle on his mind. He fired up the car and headed toward Chateau Marmont.