Chapter One #2
People sat at beer garden tables covered with tacky red-and-white checkered paper tablecloths. Most were already on the way to drunk and talked about…whatever. The alcohol didn’t make their accent any easier for me to understand.
Not that I get what they say when they are sober.
I had taken German at college but, honestly, I’d never paid much attention in the few lessons I actually visited.
Hockey had always been my top priority, leading to my contract with the renowned Veitsreuth Pumas.
The locals’ accent was challenging. I was freaking thankful we mostly spoke English at work.
The people at the shops were okay with my rudimentary knowledge of their language.
Some of them even took pity on me and changed to English when they heard my standard phrases ‘Mit Karte bitte’ or ‘Nein, ich brauche keine Tüte, danke.’ That way I’d never be able to improve, but I couldn’t blame them.
I know I suck.
“Hey, you must be Martin’s team member.” I turned and met the pretty eyes of a woman around my age. She checked me out over her beer.
“Yeah, hi, I’m Decks.” She tracked my hand as I swept it through my hair, then dropped to where my biceps bulged under the thin long-sleeved shirt I wore.
I’d lost my hoodie the minute we arrived—it was boiling hot in here—and dropped it somewhere by the bar.
“Nice to meet you. I’m Esther. Wanna have a beer and sit with us?”
I agreed, grabbed another bottle, and joined her and her friends at one of the long, rectangular tables.
“Hey, guys, this is,” Esther tried to introduce me to the group, but apparently my name hadn’t made a deep impression.
“Decks,” I supplied but got hardly any reaction from the others.
They asked me a bit about myself, but their interest soon waned. A couple of minutes later most of them were speaking German again. I’d never been the sensitive type, but tonight I felt left out.
I should have stayed home and watched something on TV instead.
What intrigued me was the lack of diversity. As far as I could tell, our Swedish Forest Troll team member Bo was the only non-human guest.
So strange.
Bo had made acquaintances with a few of Guns’ friends and was entertaining them with funny stories.
Bo was like that, the life and soul of any party.
My frat would have loved that big green guy.
You couldn’t help but like him and have a good time when Bo August Persson was around.
We’d become pretty close over the past couple of months.
Bo’s German was a lot better than mine so it wasn’t really a surprise that he fit in well.
I spotted Guns occasionally. He kept his phone in his hand as if he was waiting for a call or a late comer he needed to give directions.
At least the people at my table kept me supplied with beers as the night dragged on. The alcohol made the vibe less awkward, and a pleasant buzz kicked in. I really couldn’t complain.
Then, when most of the others were drunk, making out, bored, or deep in conversation, one guy—Klongi? Kleini?—leaned in conspiratorially.
“So, Decks, have you ever heard of the mystical creatures in our forests?” I barely understood what he said thanks to his thick accent.
“Of a few, ja.” Come on, at least I tried to speak their language.
“There are very many big, scary creatures.” He raised his arms and howled like a fake ghost at a haunted house. “But none as cool as the Elvertritsch.”
“What’s an El-fur-dritch? Like an Eldritch Horror?”
“El-fur-dritch.” He repeated the word slowly and exactly how I had pronounced it before.
“With a hard D.”
I stared at him. The fuck did he mean by that?
With a hard dick? What kind of creature is that?
“Okay yeah, a hard D, ha.” I forced a laugh, and his face softened. Then my brain caught up, and I remembered what Guns had told me at our first team practice.
The locals’ pronunciation didn’t distinguish between d and t, or b or p. They used ‘soft’ or ‘hard’ to indicate how a word was spelled.
“Doch net so dumm,“ he murmured into his beard and even drunk as I was, I couldn’t shake the feeling he wasn’t my biggest fan.
“The Elfurdritch is a creature in the forest, very hard to catch, very big, and only comes out in the dark.” Every time he pronounced very with a w, a shudder travelled down my spine. It felt as if my brain was shivering in my skull.
Don’t be a judgmental asshole, Decks, I scolded myself inwardly. At least he’s trying.
“Only Americans have caught the creature. They like Americans, you know? And they have ridges.”
“Ridges?” On their hard Ds?
“Yes, you know, money, gold.”
“Oh, riches, yeah.”
“Yeah, very ridge. They’re hard to catch, but when you get one, they give you their ridges.”
What the hell, get out of the gutter, brain!
Brownies had ridges. I’d played with one in college and I had never seen an entire hockey team so united in their interest in a single dick.
“So when you want to trap one, you need a big stick”—he didn’t make it any better—“and a net. Just put the stick up, put the net over it and wait. Very easy.” He stared at me, and I had no clue what he wanted.
Sorry to disappoint? No ridges to expect from this guy, only a perfectly boring human D.
“Jorg’s dad has a…Schuppen.”
“Sorry?”
“A Schuppen. You know, for his tools?”
Why the fuck does everything he says sound sexual? Is he hitting on me?
I mean, yeah, it had been a while since I’d gotten any, but that guy definitely wasn’t my type.
“A shed?”
“Yes, shat! That’s it. You should try to catch an Elfurdritch. Get the ridges.”
Next thing I knew, I was on my way into the forest with a stolen net over my arm to get some mythical creature’s ridges.
Or maybe you just wanted to get away from… I was fairly sure it was Kleini.
His parting words had been more instructions.
I needed to get in pretty far to have any chance of catching one, and he advised me to keep the torch burning; that would attract the creature.
I followed a forest trail for a bit, then decided to venture off and go through the trees. Surely an “Elfurdritch” Horror would lurk somewhere in there.
I’d pulled on my hoodie before I left, but it was freezing outside. I got colder by the minute and the mud already crunched under my boots.
Let’s hope they won’t only have ridges but a means to keep me warm.
Once I’d gone far enough, I stuck a branch into the forest earth. I draped the net over it, and placed the stolen torchlight on the ground. There was a hollow in the trunk that hid me from view.
That should work.
Once I had done what Kleini told me, I collapsed next to the tree.
Now we wait.
I had a moment of clarity, and hoped the nights in late autumn weren’t cold enough yet for me to freeze to death in the middle of a Bavarian forest before I collapsed against the thick trunk.
I fell asleep—or fainted, I wasn’t sure—and let the lure of a silent mind take me under.