Kling, kling, kling, kling, kling.

The snapping hooks fluttered in the wind like paper as the air pushed them against the metal masts of the ships lying in the private harbor below. The large yachts and smaller sports boats were rocked back and forth as the storm whipped over the sea and pushed the water into the harbor.

Nobody in their right state of mind was outside, so it wasn’t surprising the two figures who made their way to the old house of the harbormaster were swiftly moving through the waves of rain coming down on them like bullets, the water now pushed by the wind into almost vertical movement.

The man leading the two wore the yellow raincoat the coastal area of Germany was so famous for. The other man had an old worn-out coat, which didn’t even have a hood to protect him from the rain. They made it to the door of the old building with its white wooden elements and the solid red brick walls. They were both older men but kept up admirably against the wind.

As they entered the small house, Jan Jansen, the actual harbormaster living there, cursed in the local dialect and then pushed the yellow raincoat off his shoulders and hung it on the wall hook. He turned to the other man and grinned broadly.

“Quite a bit of weather we have here, hm? Welcome to summer in northern Frisia!” He laughed, revealing his unhealthy yellow teeth. Jansen passed the corridor to the small kitchen to his right, and the man in the coat followed, looking around with a grim look, his coat and hair dripping with water.

“What did you say was your name again?” Jansen asked and lit a petrol lamp on the table. “Damned storm must have knocked out the electricity.”

“Brockmann. My name is Brockmann,” the man in the coat said.

Jansen looked at him and then nodded enthusiastically. “Sit, sit. You need something to warm yourself up. I set up a tea.”

“This house is old, isn’t it? Very old,” Brockmann said. He slowly sat down, sighing and wiping the water out of his face. Jansen grabbed a towel from a nearby mountain of fresh laundry and handed it to him.

“Thanks,” Brockmann said, but if Jansen expected a smile, he was disappointed. The face of the older man in the wet coat didn’t seem to be made for smiling.

“Not that old. 1907. My great-grandfather built it with his own hands. Put up the walls, and neighbors helped with the roof. Back then, there was also no electricity. The old oven is still here. Gimme a moment, and I’ll light it,” Jansen said proudly.

“Not necessary. I’m not cold,” Brockmann replied, and Jansen looked at him.

“So, what can I do for you, Mr. Brockmann? You said this was a matter of some urgency?”

The tea pod on the gas oven began to whistle. Jansen took it off and began filling the can with the tea leaves with expertly trained movements. The Frisians, the sub-group of northern Germans, were proud of their tea rituals. Brockmann rubbed the towel over his hair and then pushed it back.

“Yes, I am here to talk about your family history.” Brockmann nodded as the cup of tea was set down in front of him.

“I see. Not that I know a lot about them. My father was the harbormaster, just like me, just like his father before him. Great-granddad built this house, which my family owned before the Nazis took it away and made it part of the harbor. Nowadays, it’s a few fishermen and a lot of part-time sailors with their fancy plastic boats. In World War II, this little town was important.

“When the allied bombed Hamburg and Kiel, it was here they refilled the submarines. Well, until the allied found out and in the sky appeared the small black dots. Crawling from the horizon all the way here, the people in town saw them coming. Everybody knew what was going to happen. You could run, and maybe you would make it, but if you stayed, there would be no maybe about it—you were gonna burn. The folks around here are stubborn people, you know? Many stayed as the Brits threw what they called a carpet of bombs onto the small town. No stone was left on top of another.” Jansen smiled.

“Except this house,” Brockmann said.

“Yeah, a miracle. They say it didn’t have a scratch when it was over.”

“Really?” Brockmann raised his brows and took a sip from his cup.

“Of course not. Bullshit. The western wall was badly damaged, and shockwaves had broken all the windows,” Jansen said before drinking.

“You know a lot for someone who said he knows little about the family’s history.”

“My grandfather couldn’t get enough of telling me those stories. Felt like I was there, you know? You had a grandfather like that?”

“No.” Brockmann took a brown envelope from his coat.

“A shame. Every man should have one.” Jansen followed the envelope with his eyes. “What is that?”

Brockmann lay it on the table and put his hand on top. “A few snippets from your family’s history.”

“Really? May I see them?”

“Sure,” Brockmann said and took out a photo. It was an old black and white picture of several men standing in front of what appeared to be a boat in dry-dock.

“Wow, when was that taken?” he asked as he took it.

“In 1905. At the Schiller wharf, a mile from here,” Brockmann said with a serious tone. “The man to the left. You recognize him?”

“My great-grandfather.” He smiled.

“Looked a lot like you, didn’t he?”

“Yeah, the men all look pretty much like him in my line.” Jansen took another sip from his tea.

“Yeah, you could say that.” Brockmann put down another photograph, again black and white. A man in a uniform was visible on it. He looked a lot like the man in the original picture, a lot like Jansen.

“That’s your grandfather in 1936. Just before the war. He was a member of the Nazis, it seems.”

“Yeah, something he wasn’t proud of in retrospect,” Jansen said.

The third picture came out. The man on it had longer hair and sat on the hood of a VW beetle. Otherwise, he was identical to the two before.

“That’s your dad, right?” Brockmann asked.

“Guess so,” Jansen said.

“The similarities are remarkable, really,” Brockmann said. Jansen stared at him.

“As I said, we all look a lot alike. Always looked at my dad and saw my older self.” Jansen smirked.

“Really? Funny.” Brockmann leaned back.

“What is funny? The similarities?” Jansen glanced around the small kitchen.

Brockmann followed his gaze to the knives just as Jansen looked back to him. Brockmann smiled the most threatening, humorless smile Jansen had ever seen.

“What’s funny is what we haven’t found.”

“A good-looking Jansen?” Jansen laughed at him.

“Kids,” Brockmann said. “Or wives.”

“What do you mean?” Jansen asked, now visibly tense.

“Not one picture of your family shows children or any wives. Nor any of them as an old man or any of them as a young man. Every picture we dug up, we found exactly this face.”

“Oh, there are plenty of those. You just must not have found them.”

“Really? Do you have a picture of your mum?”

“Sure.” Jansen laughed.

“May I see it?” Brockmann leaned forward and finished his tea.

“I’m tired, and it is too late to look for old pictures. If this is all you wanted to talk about, I would say we call it a day now.”

“No.”

“No? Are you saying you’re not gonna leave if I ask you to?”

“Exactly. Not until I know how you did it.”

Jansen looked at him.

“Did what?” he asked.

“Not age a day in a hundred and seventeen years,” Brockmann said and stared at him.

“Are you serious?” Jansen laughed. “That is ridiculous.” He shook his head.

“Is it?”

Jansen stood up and bit his lip. “Another tea?” he asked and stepped over to his kitchen plate where the tea stood.

“No thanks.”

Jansen nodded, then grabbed the little bell hanging there. He rang it and looked at Brockmann.

“What is that for?”

“Good luck,” Jansen said with a smile. “Something stronger maybe? A Korn?” He went to a cupboard and opened it. It made a gnarling sound.

“A friend of mine made it himself. Moonshine.” He grinned and took out a glass with clear fluid in it. The Korn was the spirit of choice in this area, a clear spirit that was usually strong.

“Okay,” Brockmann said as his hand vanished under his coat.

“How did you get those?” Jansen asked. “I’ve never seen some of them before.”

“A student found them on the internet. You know the internet?”

“Of course, I do. Who doesn’t?”

Brockmann gave him a grunt as Jansen filled small shot glasses.

“Well, there seems to be a place on the internet where you can research your ancestry. This student is a descendant of the brother of this gentleman.” Brockmann tapped on the oldest of the photos.

“Justin.” Jansen sighed. “I wished he hadn’t had such a stupid American name.”

“Yes, I think that was his name. Met my partner on some place they call a forum and showed him these. So, we looked into you. The house was handed from generation to generation as a gift, never inherited until the Government claimed it. You fought hard to stay here. You were lucky, of course. That accident that killed the new harbormaster in ’52 was more than a little convenient.”

“Yeah.” Jansen put the tablet with three glasses of Korn on the table between them, sitting down again.

“So, how did you do it?” Brockmann asked.

“What?”

“Not age?”

“You know that you sound like a damned madman, right?” Jansen laughed at him and leaned forward.

“Mr. Jansen, I’m a man who gets answers when he asks questions. I would honestly prefer if you don’t make this any harder for either of us than it has to be,” he said.

Jansen looked at him.

“You hear the sea? The waves?” Jansen asked. “People always wonder how I can sleep with them hitting the harbor walls all the time. Truth is, after all these years, I can’t sleep without them anymore.”

“You never left the shoreline once in your life?” Brockmann looked at the three glasses standing in front of him.

“And it was a long life, I can tell you that,” Jansen said. “You shouldn’t have come, Mr. Brockmann. It was a mistake. If you leave now and forget what you found, you might still have time to see another day.”

“Who is the third glass for?” Brockmann asked.

“A friend of mine who will join us.”

“The bell.” Brockmann sighed.

“Yes, I’m afraid it was, indeed, the bell. He hears it for miles, you know?”

“I can imagine.” Brockmann took his glass. “Is he the key to your eternal life?”

The door in the corridor made a gnarling sound. Jansen smirked and nodded.

“You could say so,” he said as footsteps echoed in the corridor.

Brockmann nodded and drank his Korn in one sip.

“Fine stuff,” he said, looking at Jansen as the door slowly opened. “Hello, Simon.”

“Hey,” the blonde man answered, entering the kitchen. “You must be Jan Jansen. Or August Jansen, probably. That is your original name, isn’t it?” The blonde man was dripping wet in his grey rain jacket. He straightened his hair and put his hood down. “Pleased to meet you.”

Jansen stared at him and then at Brockmann. “What . . .”

“Finfolk. The Norwegians call that friend of yours Finfolk. I must say I hadn’t seen any in years. We were surprised that one still existed.” Brockmann said.

“He is the last of his kind,” Jansen said.

“Then there are no more of his kind, I am afraid,” Brockmann said. Jansen stared at him.

“We got him yesterday when we were checking the flood gates you visit every night. He didn’t suffer,” Simon said, and the twenty-something man sat down and took the third glass. “How thoughtful of you. Thanks,” he said and drank it, cursing at how strong it was. “God. Tastes terrible.”

“Forgive him. He usually puts it into fancy cocktails,” Brockmann said. Jansen didn’t reply. He only stared at the two men.

“Where did you find it?” Simon asked. Jansen turned to him.

“I caught it in my net. Back in 1903,” Jansen said. “He was injured. So, I nurtured him back to health and in return . . .” Jansen closed his eyes. “What have you done? He was the last of his kind!”

The man jumped up and took back two steps. His hand began blindly searching for the knife that lay on the kitchen counter. Brockmann let his own hand slip from under his coat and revealed the rather large revolver he had. Jansen froze.

“And in return, he bestowed upon you eternal life? Stopped you aging?” Brockmann asked.

“Yes. He kept me from aging. There are things below those waves out there. He showed me. Things much older than humans,” Jansen hissed, then slowly he returned to the table and sat down.

“Will it work now that he is dead?” Simon asked.

Jansen gave him a look. “Not for long.”

Simon looked at Brockmann, and the older man nodded.

“Good,” Simon finally said.

“What is good about that?” Jansen shot him an angry look.

“What’s good about it is that Brockmann won’t have to kill you. We only kill monsters.”

“Well, you might still be one. Right? What happened to the new harbormaster in ’52?” Brockmann asked.

“That was my friend. He wanted to help me.” Jansen shook his head. “I told him he couldn’t do something like that. I was angry with him. Never have I harmed anyone. In all those years, I lived a good life . . . a decent life.” Jansen was close to tears now.

“You still have a few years to live,” Simon said.

“Yes, but without . . . him. What shall I do?”

“Age.” Brockmann finally said. Jansen stared at him again.

“It stopped raining,” Simon finally said to end the tense silence between the two other men. “We should probably go.”

“Why did you kill him? There was so much we could learn from him.”

“Some things are not natural. We are here to make sure they don’t disturb the natural order,” Simon said.

“What on earth was ever more natural than him? You have any idea how long his kind was out there? What he’s witnessed? Before humans began hunting his kind and our ships and trash poisoned the water?”

Simon sighed. He looked at Brockmann, who stood up and walked over to the bottle.

“You have lived long enough,” Brockmann said. “So did he.” He took the bottle and came back to the table. “One for the road?” he asked.

Jansen nodded in silent approval. Brockmann opened the bottle and refilled the two empty glasses.

“You aren’t even a little bit sorry for what you did, are you?” Jansen asked.

“No,” Brockmann said and picked up his glass. “To all things ending,” he toasted, and Jansen and Simon silently took their glasses to drink.