Thuringia, Germany

Excerpt from The Day the Rain Fell: an oral history of The Storm by Natasha Silvio and Francisco de Manion

Alfred Müller is a national partk warden in Hainich National Park in Thuringia, Germany. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site that is renowned for its vast, contiguous deciduous forest – the largest in Germany. We catch up with him at the park’s visitor center in Bad Langensalza

Alfred: Most people think my job is incredibly boring. Maybe they’re right, but I absolutely love it. I get to spend all my time outdoors, surrounded by nature. When I was a kid, I used to go hiking with my father. We’d travel to different national parks across Germany, but the one we visited the most was Harz National Park. That’s near where I grew up, in Herzberg am Barz. It’s where my love for the outdoors began.

Most of my day is spent dealing with conservation of the park’s natural resources. I give tours to visitors, explaining the park’s history, its flora and fauna, and the importance of conservation. I also maintain the trails and monitor the wildlife. However, one of the most crucial parts of my job is dealing with wild campers to ensure the park’s ecosystem remains undamaged.

Wild campers? Like people leaving behind beer cans and throwing parties?

Alfred: Not exactly. I guess it doesn’t translate well for Americans. In Germany, camping in a national park outside of designated areas is prohibited. We have specific campgrounds for visitors and sometimes designated spots for camper vans that allow a 24-hour stay. But you can’t just walk into the park and pitch a tent and camp out. Those who do are referred to as wild campers.

They’re a big problem for us because they can have a significant negative impact on the park. They often start fires where they shouldn’t leave trash behind and damage the area around their tents. It’s quite the hassle. When we find them, we pack them up, issue a 500-euro fine, and ensure they don’t try to sneak back in.

Did you have to deal with wild campers the day The Storm hit?

(Alfred looks down at his hands in his lap before clearing his throat and nodding.)

Alfred: Like everyone everywhere, Der Sturm hit us without warning. Normally, we get a five-day weather forecast and make sure to pin up any information we have for our visitors, letting them know what to expect. If there are rain warnings or anything similar, we make sure everyone in the park is informed and do our best to keep everyone safe. But that day, it was supposed to be nothing but sunshine. Instead, we were hit with liters of rain.

Der Sturm didn’t cause damage everywhere it hit. Most places around the world were untouched except for having a bit more rain than usual. Most locations didn’t experience any of the…unusual events. In Germany, of all the national parks, ours was the only one to witness such an event.

At the park, we have these elevated canopy walkways that stretch throughout the forest. Our visitors love them because you can walk among the trees and get sightlines for kilometers. I was leading a tour group when Der Sturm hit. One moment it was sunny, the next, rain was smashing into us.

It didn’t last very long, maybe about half an hour. I had ushered the tour group to one of the towers connected to the walkway and then radioed the other park rangers to check in on them. One of them, a young kid named Friedrich who had just joined us, got on the radio. His voice was quivering, like he didn’t know how to explain what had happened and was worried we wouldn’t believe him.

He called us out to a remote area of the park. Almost nobody goes out there. When we arrived…

(Alfred pauses, seeming lost in thought.)

Alfred: January isn’t the best time to visit the park. It’s cold, wet, and chilly. The trees aren’t in full blood. It’s still beautiful, don’t get me wrong, but it’s much more impressive during the spring or summer months. A lot of the trees lose their luster in January. They look…anemic.

(He pauses again, trying to find the right words.)

This wasn’t the normal January cycle of death though. The forest in a several-kilometer radius was just gone. Dead. It was like all the moisture in the area had been sucked out. The trees were withered husks, the grass decayed and dead. The few animals I saw…they were nothing but bones and dust. Friedrich called me out there, and I was stunned by what I saw. An entire chunk of the forest was no longer alive.

I caught sight of something far in the distance. It was a faint flash of grey. With everyone around us broken and decaying, it stood out. I brought up my binoculars to get a better look and saw that it was a tent. It wouldn’t have been noticeable if the forest was…normal that day.

Friedrich and I went out to investigate. I already had a feeling about what it was – a wild camper who had set up in a remote part of the park we rarely patrolled. When we finally reached the area, we searched around, calling out and searching for any sign of the camper or campers. There was no response. The entire area was eerily quiet, as if the whole world had stopped to watch Friedrich and me in this small section of a national park in Germany.

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We assumed whoever had set up the tent had taken shelter inside when Der Sturm hit. So, we called out again, telling the campers to exit the tent. When there was no sign of activity, I walked over to unzip the tent flap and pull them out.

Once I unzipped it…

(Alfred pauses, pursing his lips before starting again.)

I unzipped the tent and a flood of water poured out. The weatherproofing on the tent was good enough that it had kept it all inside until we got there. It soaked my shoes and the ground all around us. Friedrich jumped back in surprise. I wish I had done the same. It was…a lot of water.

How much?

Alfred: About 90 liters. Maybe a little more.

That’s a pretty exact figure. How did you come to that measurement?

Alfred: The human body holds about 45 liters. We…found two wild campers inside the tent. They had tried to take shelter from Der Sturm. And when all the moisture in the area was sucked up into the sky, like a reverse rainstorm, the campers were trapped inside. All the water…

We found their bodies in the tent, is what I’m trying to say.

Kansas City, Missouri

János had been dreaming about this vacation for years. When the small company he worked for in Slovakia secured a contract to support an American business, János was part of the team facilitating communication between the two companies. That was where he learned the most about American culture. And the more he learned, the more he dreamed of traveling through the country.

He'd saved up for years before he finally took the plunge and purchased a plane ticket to New York. He got to see the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty, he walked through Central Park and watched a play on Broadway. When he was finished with that, he bought a Greyhound bus ticket that was good for a month’s worth of travel, picked a random spot on the map, and set off.

He traveled to Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, Columbus, Ohio, and South Bend, Indiana. He walked through the campus of the University of Notre Dame and scored tickets to a college football game, all while thinking about the movie Rudy he had watched several years earlier. He visited random cities and soaked up the diverse landscape and culture of America. Every new city brought with it a sense of excitement, fulfilling the vacation he’d long ago planned in his head.

From Indiana, he wandered to Chicago – the Windy City, Michael Jordan, and Ferris Bueller. Then, we traveled down to St. Louis, which he didn’t like at all. Finally, he ended up in Kansas City, Missouri.

The fact that there was a Kansas City, Kansas, and a Kansas City, Missouri blew his mind. Everyone he spoke with told him that the Missouri side was much more fun, giving him recommendations on where to visit. Everyone he’d met so far on his vacation seemed friendly and more than willing to share the best spots he needed to check out. They’d all been incredibly nice to him – with the sole exception of the guy he named Osol.

Osol was a trucker, often found hanging with the other truckers János had met during his trip. János was interested to learn that many American truckers didn’t own their own trucks. They’d ride a Greyhound bus through the country, stop in an area where their company had rented a truck for them, hop in, drive the truck and its load to another city, and get paid. Most truckers he’d met on his travels throughout America had been incredibly welcoming, sharing tips on which cities he should visit and which he should avoid. But Osol was the exception.

He was a dick.

What’s worse, he’d been on the same bus as János ever since leaving St. Louis. When they stopped at a rest stop, Osol was there. When János tried to spark up a conversation with the other truckers about the cities they were passing through, Osol was there with a snide remark or a sneer. And when János tried to nap on the ride to Kansas City, Osol woke him with his loud and boisterous conversations.

János had grown tired of the man, and it only got worse the closer they reached Kansas City. The turning point started in Joplin, Missouri.

When the bus pulled into the depot at Joplin, Missouri, János had been excited to get out and stretch his legs and, hopefully, never see Osol again. He’d planned to stay in town for a day and visit the Joplin History and Mineral Museum – rocks were an odd passion of his – but when he arrived at the museum, he found it was closed on Sundays and Mondays. He had no interest in getting stuck in a random city for several days, especially one with nothing much to visit, so he raced back to the bus station in the hopes that the bus to Kansas City hadn’t left yet.

It hadn’t. Well, not entirely.

He reached the bus depot just as the Greyhoud was getting ready to pull out of the station. A flash storm hit the city and, when the bus driver caught sight of János racing alongside the bus, trying to catch his attention, the drenched János seemed to have played on the bus driver’s heartstrings. He pulled to the side and let János on.

János had been the only passenger to get drenched by the rain as everyone else had already boarded. When the bus had finally pulled off to the side to let János on, he was soaked to the bone. His shoes were drenched and make loud squelching sounds as he walked down the aisle of the Greyhound, and he dripped over everything. Thankfully, he had a towel in his backpack. On his way to a seat in the back of the bus, Osol had made a remark that got a few laughs and made János’ cheeks flush with embarrassment.

Things only went downhill from there.

Once in his seat, a wave of nausea hit him, made worse by the bus rocking down the highway. It got so bad that all he could do was lean his forehead against the bus windows,hoping the cold seeping through them would take his mind off things.

When the bus finally rolled into the Kansas City depot, János was one of the first to get off. He rushed to the bathroom, knowing he was about to be sick. When he got to the restroom, he noticed he was the only one there. He raced to a sink and dunked his head under the faucet, letting the cold-water splash over his head in a desperate bid to make himself feel better.

With his head soaked in cold water, János splashed some across his face and stared up at the mirror in front of him. His reflection showed a pale, sweaty face with eyes that seemed darker than usual. That was odd. He’d known what his eyes looked like his entire life. He’d seen them stare out at him from behind mirrors for as long as he could remember. So, how could they have gotten darker?

As he wondered that, his stomach churned. A strange feeling of emptiness stabbed through him. It was a feeling of hunger but…so much more. It was like a profound and insatiable need; a need to devour. Panic set in as nausea wracked his body. What had he eaten to cause all this? He clutched the edge of the sink, trying to steady himself and keep himself from passing out, but his vision blurred, and his limbs felt heavy.

As the minutes ticked by, the nausea turned into something far worse. It felt like every bone in his body was shifting and cracking under his skin. János looked down at his arms. At the skin. The skin. The skin that had become sallow and stretched.

He tried to scream, but all he could do was hold back the urge to vomit. He gripped the sink tighter, and the porcelain started to crack under his fingers. The sound of breaking got his attention, and he pulled his hands away from the sink and stared at them. His fingers had elongated, growing almost twice as long as they should have been. His fingernails had become jagged and sharp. János clenched his fists, desperately trying to hide his fingers and nails in the misguided belief that maybe they would somehow change back to what they had been before.

The restroom door slammed open and János looked back up at the mirror, catching the reflection of Osol as he strode into the restroom. He’d started unbuckling his belt as soon as he entered, and when Osol caught sight of János a look of distaste washed over his face. He turned his back and slipped into a stall, muttering something under his breath.

János was on him in a heartbeat. He didn’t even feel in full control over his body. All he knew was that he was lunging and attacking Osol with a ferocity that was fueled by hatred and anger and a ravenous hunger. Osol didn’t even have time to scream as János bit into his neck, releasing a warmth from the body that János luxuriated in.

When it was finished, János was in command enough to know that he needed to get out of there. A small voice in the back of his brain was freaking out over having killed someone, but another part of him was in control. He had just killed someone, and though it had temporarily calmed the hunger, he knew he needed to run. He needed to hide. He needed to come to grips with what had just happened.