It was the grieving grandmother of one of the several missing hikers who had alerted Spanish authorities. The young German had told his Oma on the phone, voice overdosing with excitement, about being invited to explore an eerie abandoned village in the Basque hills with a young fellow backpacker, an American.
An American who had been sighted alone, wandering the streets of Vitoria a few days later. Policemen finally tracked him to Otxate, crossing crumbling barriers into an abandoned village whose name chilling translated to ‘Wolf Door”.
There were three decaying bodies in the plaza, arranged like votive offerings in front of weathered stones that might have been part of a small church. Their faces were hidden by elaborate masks made from black goatskin, complete with curving horns; thei
