Fleisch (Unedited)
Petr ran low to the ground through the white ruins of Stalingrad. He stopped and crouched against a fragment of wall overlooking the street. Alexander and Nikita took up positions on his right, Boris and Ivan on his left.
Petr held his hand up at throat level and made a passing motion. His men held their breath.
Yes, Germans, somewhere in the buildings on the other side of the street. Close enough that he could hear their terrified breaths, the soft click of metal on metal, the tense whisper of a voice.
“Goddammit,” Peter moaned inwardly. “Why do they keep fighting? Just run away for God’s sake.”
He looked over at Ivan and pointed to his eyes. The little bespectacled sniper scampered into the shell of a bombed out building. Petr gave the rest of the men the signal to wait for Ivan’s shot.
Once the sniper found his target it was over quickly. The seven Wehrmacht across the narrow street returned fire in Ivan’s direction, exposing themselves to Petr and the rest of the squad. They poured fire into the small building housing the Germans.
Nikita finished the exchange with a fragmentation grenade thrown through a gaping window. Petr clamped his hands over his ears to muffle the blast. The ground shook beneath him. All was still.
He looked up at the second story of the building Ivan had entered. The sniper waved down at Petr from a huge crack in the wall.
Alexander lay behind a pile of fallen bricks, calmly rolling a cigarette. Petr whistled at him and he looked up lazily.
“Go make sure they’re dead,” Petr said.
Alexander sighed and picked up his rifle. “Hey, Germans!” he shouted. “I’m coming over! Don’t shoot!”
Boris’ huge bulk shook with silent laughter. Petr shook his head and watched Alexander trot across the road to peer in the window. “This is why there are only five of us left,” Petr thought.
“They’re all dead!” Alexander called back. “Can we go home now?”
“You are home!” Boris laughed out loud. He hefted a machine gun in his massive arms and lumbered across the street. Petr waved Ivan down and stalked with Nikita to the ramshackle building.
He scanned the streets before stepping through the crooked doorway. German corpses lay sprawled and broken across weathered furniture or scattered on the floor. It was hard to tell which men had been killed by small-arms fire and which had been finished by Nikita’s grenade. The bloody carnage registered in Petr’s mind, but he no longer associated the wreckage with human beings. Less than a year ago, the sight would have made him sick.
Alexander looked up at the gray sky where the roof should have been. “How much longer?” he moaned as Ivan entered the house.
“Not much,” the sniper replied. “They say the winter has been hard on Hitler’s army. No supplies, no support.”
“Sounds like us,” Boris chuckled as he riffled through the dead men’s clothing.
“Find anything?” Petr asked the big man.
“No papers,” said Boris. “Nothing that looks like orders.”
“Let’s get moving then,” Petr said. They followed him out of the building and into the street. “We’ll search one more block before sundown. Alexander, you’re on point.”
“Thank you, Sir. So much.” Alexander flicked his cigarette at Petr.
“Could you just try and act like a soldier?” Nikita rasped. “For once?”
Alexander turned on him. “We’re fucking factory workers!” he yelled. “I don’t know about you, but they just stuck a gun in my hands and sent me to the front.”
“We’re Russians,” Nikita said. “It’s our duty.”
Petr laughed quietly.
“Oh,” Alexander mused darkly. “Our illustrious leader has a thought.”
Petr glanced up at the men. “This isn’t about whether we’re factory workers or soldiers or Russians. That’s all the same to Stalin. This is survival. Look around.” He motioned at the towering ruins, the corpses. “We’re the living in the land of the dead. And we’re all fighting to be the last ones.”
“Well,” Ivan adjusted his glasses. “That’s encouraging.”
“Don’t worry,” Petr smiled. “It’s my job to keep you alive. I’m not losing any more.”
“Shit!” Nikita flipped his rifle up and aimed it down the street. The other men spun, leveling their weapons.
A group of five Germans walked slowly towards them. They couldn’t have been more than fifty meters away. Petr cursed himself for not paying attention and dropped to one knee as he raised his rifle.
Alexander fired as Petr saw that the Germans’ hands were raised. One of the soldiers dropped face first to the ground. The others stopped and slowly looked at the body.
“Hold your fire, damn it!” Petr screamed. He heard the plaintive cry in broken Russian drifting up the street.
“Surrender….”
Alexander took aim at the long-coated officer in the lead. Petr shoved him.
“I said ‘hold your fire!’” he growled.
“They’re fucking Germans, Sir,” Alexander spat.
“They’re surrendering.”
“Then they’re fucking cowards, too.” Alexander lowered his rifle.
Petr sighed. “Alexander, come with me. The rest of you, cover them.
“Why me?” Alexander asked.
“Because I say so. And you speak German, asshole.” He stood up and walked slowly toward the group.
The others kept their weapons on the newcomers. Petr scanned the wreckage on either side of the street for an ambush. Alexander chuckled as they walked.
“At least there are only four of them, now,” he grinned.
“Shut up,” Petr said. “Tell them to get down on their knees and put their hands on their heads.”
Alexander barked out Petr’s words in German. The group knelt down and obeyed. As he drew closer, Petr noticed the blank stare that each man wore—a bleak mask of nothingness.
“Why didn’t they run when I fired?” Alexander asked.
Petr shrugged. “They’re too hungry, or sick, or they just can’t fight anymore.”
Indeed, the German soldiers looked pallid, hollow cheeked. The officer’s glassy eyes slowly picked Petr out from the landscape.
“Surrender…” the man said in little more than a whisper.
“Search them for weapons or explosives,” Petr ordered. With a grumble, Alexander prodded each of them until he was satisfied.
“Nothing,” he said.
“Then tell him his surrender is accepted. He and his men will be escorted to the nearest base camp and turned over to the officer in charge.”
Alexander translated. The German officer nodded.
“Yes,” the officer said. “Thank you. I speak your language. There is no need to translate.”
“Very well,” Petr said. “Get up. Name and rank?”
“Lieutenant Freidrich Oberst.”
“Lt. Oberst, I expect you to keep your men under control. We will not hesitate to shoot.”
“I see that.”
Petr frowned and waved Ivan and the others forward. Alexander kept the prisoners covered.
“The sun will be down soon,” Petr said. “We’ll make camp for the night. Tomorrow, we’ll take the prisoners to Stalingrad-1. Let them decide what to do.”
“You think there might be a decoration in this for us?” Boris asked.
“Don’t hold your breath,” Petr sighed. He pointed a building that still looked relatively stable. “Start setting up in there. Two men on watch, four-hour shifts. On second thought, why don’t you take a double shift, Alexander?”
“I love you, Sir.”
Petr lay in the orange gloom cast by their small fire. He stared at the small, battered photo of his wife and two sons wondering where they were, what they were doing, if he would ever see them again. It was late, but he couldn’t sleep…as usual. Boris didn’t seem to have that problem. The man’s soft snores punctuated the conversation between Alexander and Ivan. Petr listened. The two men sat near a shattered window across from the slumbering German prisoners.
“What is your problem with the Sergeant?” Ivan asked.
Alexander chuckled. “Petr? We used to work together on the same line. We built tanks. He couldn’t even aim a rivet gun. Now, he’s a sergeant. And I’m supposed to trust him with my life?”
“Maybe he’s found his calling.”
“There’s only five of us left,” Alexander sneered. “Out of ten. Not such a good ratio in my book.”
Peter shifted to his side, away from them. He spotted Nikita lying on his stomach, staring intently at the prisoners.
“What’s wrong Niki?” Petr asked quietly.
“Them.” Nikita nodded towards the Germans. “There’s something not right. The only one that talks is that Oberst.”
“Maybe the others don’t speak Russian.”
Nikita shook his head. “But they don’t even talk amongst themselves. And I don’t remember hearing Oberst translate for them.”
“What do you think it is?”
“I don’t know,” Nikita sighed and rolled over. “Nothing, maybe. They’re probably terrified.”
“Do you smell that?” Alexander asked. Petr turned his head toward them.
“Smells like fuel,” Ivan replied.
“Getting stronger,” Alexander agreed. He stood and peered through the glassless window. He screamed and disappeared into the dark rectangle as if pulled through. “Jesus! Help!”
Petr and the others were on their feet, charging to the doorway. Petr slid to a halt outside. “Hold it!” he yelled to the men and raised his hand.
For a moment, he found it hard to make out just what had a hold of Alexander. A dirt-streaked nightmare held the man to its chest with one burly arm. In that hand, Petr spotted a stick of dynamite, the fuse trimmed dangerously short. In the other hand, the figure clutched a lit blowtorch, the flame perilously close to Alexander’s face…and the fuse.
It dawned on Petr that the thing that had Alexander was a man. He wore a five-gallon fuel can chained across his back and it smelled like he had rubbed the gas into his skin. The large man’s hair jutted in greasy spikes and his eyes stared madly from the dark behind Alexander’s head. From what Petr could see, the man wore no shirt, just the pants and boots of the Wehrmacht infantry.
Alexander clutched his rifle ineffectually, his hands fidgeting along its length. He stared helplessly at Petr.
“Wir müssen sie brennen,” the German rasped from the shadows.
“What the hell does he want?” Boris asked, his machine gun raised.
“Nicht verstehen Sie? Sie sind nicht menschlich!”
“What is he saying, Alexander?” Petr said nervously.
“Finding it a bit hard to concentrate just now, Sir!” Alexander’s eyes rolled as if trying to peer at the man behind him.
“Sie aßen jeder!” The German shrieked. “Sie essen Leute, Fluch es!”
“I think he said he’s hungry,” Alexander whimpered.
“Gewehren arbeiten nicht. Sie müssen sie brennen.”
A shot rang out and the side of the man’s head blew apart. Alexander dropped his rifle and grabbed at the blowtorch, pulling it from the dead man’s hand. The German collapsed to his knees and folded backwards. Ivan stepped from the shadows, his rifle barrel smoking.
Alexander sank to one knee, clutching the torch. He tried to speak, but all that came out were gasps.
“Nice shot.” Boris clapped Ivan on the shoulder.
“I slipped out the back,” he replied. “Waited for a clear shot.”
“Clear shot?” Alexander finally managed, shaking his head. He turned the torch off and bent over the German.
“Oh, good God! Look at this!” He waved the others over. “His skin!”
As they looked, they could see that the man had pierced his exposed flesh with rusted nails and small, sharp scraps of metal. It was as if the man had tried to make himself into the stem of a rose. Face, arms, torso all bristled with dully glinting metal. Across his breast, he had pinned a worn photo of a woman and small child. Petr grit his teeth, thinking of the similar photo he carried.
Petr glanced around at the gathered men. “Where’s Nikita?” he asked.
“In here!” Nikita called from the building housing their camp. “Somebody had to watch the prisoners, didn’t they?”
“Where did he get dynamite?” Alexander asked incredulously.
“Probably part of an engineering unit,” Petr said. “Don’t leave it lying out here,” he ordered as he stalked back inside.
Nikita crouched on the floor, covering the awakened Germans. They stared silently at Petr as he entered and he felt a strange chill. Those vacant eyes….
“What the hell was that?” Nikita asked.
“Crazy German,” Petr said as he leaned against the wall. “Gone mad from hunger or disease. Or war.”
“You sure he wasn’t trying to rescue these ones?” Nikita nodded at the prisoners.
Oberst spoke up in a hollow voice. “He wasn’t one of us.”
Petr cocked his head. “You didn’t even see him. How can you be sure?”
“He wasn’t one of us,” Oberst repeated.
Nikita grunted. “I don’t trust him.”
“I believe him,” Petr said. “The man was insane.” Petr described the self-inflicted wounds of the man, the stench of fuel.
“Why would someone do that?” Nikita asked.
“Don’t dwell on it.” Petr leaned out the window. “The rest of you, get in here!”
They entered, Alexander holding the dynamite out like it was alive and Boris hefting the fuel canister. Alexander set the explosive in his pack then dropped onto his bedroll. He threw an arm over his eyes. “Clear shot…” he moaned quietly. Ivan snickered.
Petr watched the Germans’ faces. All he saw were more vacant stares, but something lurked behind those dull eyes…something…. He shook his head.
“All right. Listen up,” he said. “It will be dawn in a few hours. We head for Stalingrad-1 at daybreak. Be ready.”
He glanced at Oberst. The man smiled, staring at nothing.
“They’re your responsibility,” the obese captain spat. He scornfully looked Petr over from behind round, wire-frame sunglasses. Petr figured the black leather gloves the captain wore cost more money than he had ever seen in his life. He sighed and looked around the train station that had changed hands innumerable times during the war.
Wounded and sick men lay everywhere: under tents, in ramshackle buildings, in the open in the near-freezing temperature. Alexander and the others stood a short distance off, listening and watching the prisoners.
“Sir, we…” Petr began.
“Sergeant,” the captain snapped. “I have less than one-hundred men left who can still fight. The rest are wounded, diseased, or dead. I don’t have enough food or supplies, and I certainly don’t have time to baby-sit captured Germans.”
“Why can’t we wait for the train and put them on?” Petr asked.
“The train is not coming. The Germans have sabotaged the rails outside the city.”
“Can we shoot them, then?” Alexander called out.
The captain spun and pointed at him. “No! Who are you? No! Stalin has ordered amnesty for any surrendering Wehrmacht.” He turned back to Petr and said quietly, “He wants to use them as leverage against Hitler in case he takes the city again.”
“Sir,” Petr tried again. “My men and I don’t ….”
“No, Sergeant,” the captain warned. “Your orders are to take the prisoners to the main-force headquarters.”
“But that’ s across the city!” Petr exclaimed. Two of the captain’s lieutenants drifted over, eying Petr.
“You have your orders,” the captain grinned. “Now, I have serious matters to attend to.” He turned to one of his lieutenants. “Prepare my music.” And with that, he strode with his subordinates to the train terminal. Petr lowered his head and closed his eyes.
Alexander stepped next to him. “So, we’re supposed to drag these bastards to the other side of the war zone? Across a sniper’s paradise full of pockets of hungry, desperate German soldiers?”
Petr nodded.
“Sounds like fun,” Alexander scoffed as he turned away.
“Enough,” Petr said. “Let’s go.”
Oberst broke from the group and caught up with Petr as they strode through the camp. “We’re leaving?” He asked.
“What does it look like?” Petr snapped.
“Why are we not staying?” Oberst became agitated. “Why are we leaving?”
“It doesn’t matter! Get back with your men!” Petr shoved him to the rear. “Jesus!”
On a day without war, they could have made it across Stalingrad by noon. Now, fallen buildings, wrecked vehicles, and the constant threat of attack slowed their progress to a crawl. Streets and alleys were choked with rubble and every darkened window might conceal the enemy.
The day dragged on, one tense moment of straining senses into the next. Alexander walked next to Petr.
“We’re not going to make it by nightfall,” he murmured.
Petr grunted in agreement.
“Should have shot the rest when I had the chance,” Alexander snorted and looked back at the prisoners. “Odd bunch. They haven’t asked for anything. Not food or water or medicine.”
“And?” Petr asked.
“And they’re always watching us. Sometimes feels like we’re their prisoners.”
“You’re starting to sound like Nikita. One more day, Alexander, then we’ll be rid of them. You have something better to do?”
Alexander was silent for a moment. Then he started to laugh.
“’Something better to do.’ You’re much more enjoyable when you’re pissed, you know that?”
They walked on until the sun hung ominously, casting the city into deep shadow. Petr called the group to a halt. A half-collapsed warehouse loomed before them.
“Time to make camp,” he said wearily.
“In that?” Ivan nodded at the warehouse. “Looks like it might fall on us.”
Boris snorted. “Little Ivan,” he grinned. “Don’t worry. If the roof doesn’t cave in and kill you, some German’s bullet will. Or maybe disease.”
“Nice, Boris. Thank you.” Ivan bowed to him sarcastically.
“Or starvation,” Boris went on as he walked away. “Or bad water, blood poisoning, freezing to death. Did I mention bullets?”
“Make us a fire, Nikita,” Petr said. “What food do we have left?”
“Not much if you don’t like rat,” Nikita said as he scrounged for something to burn.
“Remind me to thank that captain for his generous nature,” Petr growled.
The dark settled in. The Germans and Russians traded stares as the night wore on. Petr could feel his men tensing as they tried to carry on conversations with each other. The prisoners simply sat, watching them silently, expectantly. Finally, Nikita threw his mess kit to the floor with a loud clatter.
“Say something, goddammit!” he roared at the Germans. The light from the fire danced, amber and shadows playing on the fragmented walls of the warehouse.
Oberst grinned fiendishly. “What would you have us say, Nikita?”
“It’s not natural!” Nikita leapt to his feet and chambered a round in his rifle. “There’s something wrong with them!”
“Nikita!” Petr barked. “Take first watch.”
“Gladly.” He stalked out of the building through the gaping front wall.
Petr turned to Oberst. “Do not address my men. Ever.”
“As you command, Sergeant.” Oberst held his hands open placatingly.
“Two hour shifts tonight,” Petr instructed as he lay down. “Ivan, go tell Nikita to fetch me when his time is up.”
He hadn’t thought he would sleep that night. He drifted off, though, clutching the photo of his family and thinking of the similar picture the mad German had nailed to his chest.
He woke with a start. All was quiet save for the crackling of planks in the fire. He had no idea how much time had passed. His men still slept and Nikita hadn’t come to rouse him yet.
Groggy, he turned to look at the prisoners. All five of them slept in the same position—seated, with arms and heads folded across their knees.
“Wait,” Petr thought, his mind jumping with alarm. “Five? There were only four….”
The prisoner at the far end of the group raised his head. Fresh blood and chunks of raw flesh dripped from his mouth. He opened his eyes—twin pits of darkness that seemed to consume the ambient light of the fire. The thing pretending to be a man shrieked, its jaws wrenching open to reveal teeth like razorblades streaked with gore.
“Christ!” Petr’s mind screamed. “It’s the one Alexander killed!” For a moment, he envisioned the dead man following his comrades, hiding in the shadows, waiting.
The rest of the German’s heads snapped back, echoing the squealing cry.
“Up!” Petr shouted. “Up! Now!” His men bolted upright as the creatures attacked.
A few of them got wild, quick shots off before the monsters closed. Peripherally, Petr noticed two of the things leap on Boris as he unsheathed his massive knife. Somewhere close by, Ivan screamed. Alexander roared as he beat at his attacker with his rifle butt.
It was Oberst that Petr was concerned with. The thing that masqueraded as a man crept toward him. Petr fired as Oberst neared. The round tore a ragged hole through the creature. He smiled with that awful mouth full of teeth. Petr unloaded again at point-blank range, refusing to believe that his weapon had no effect.
Oberst grabbed the rifle and wedged Petr against the wall behind him. The Russian choked as Oberst forced the length of the weapon against his throat.
Up close, Petr saw the terrible, endless depths of the thing’s eyes. Like concentrated shadow, like all the secrets hidden in the dark from the human race, those eyes regarded him with nothing but malice.
Oberst laughed cruelly. “Thank you for your hospitality, Sergeant.” The sounds of the creatures eating, his men dying, assaulted Petr’s ears. “I’m afraid you’ve outlived your usefulness.”
Oberst spun, hurling the sergeant across the room. Petr tumbled wildly until he impacted with the leaning sheet metal and girders of the fallen roof. He felt his ribs crack, the cold earth reach up to greet his body. Then the world fell in on him.
Pain. The cold claiming him. A great weight held him still. He thought he might be dead and buried if it weren’t for the light creeping in from somewhere.
And he breathed. There was that, though every breath lanced fire up his side. He tasted blood.
He remembered the attack. The roof falling on him. The screams of his men. And those creatures…eating.
Something dug through the rubble above him. Muffled grunts of exertion drifted to his ears.
“Come to finish me off,” he thought. He tried to reach for his knife but his arm was pinned. “So be it.”
The darkness slid away and Alexander peered down at him, framed by the gray morning.
“You look like shit,” he grinned.
Petr managed a weak chuckle as Alexander pulled the remains of the roof off of him. Alexander helped him to his feet. Petr felt a liquid weight in his lungs and coughed up a great gout of blood. He couldn’t catch his breath.
“That’s not good.” Alexander put an arm under Petr’s shoulder.
Petr ignored the comment. “Anyone else make it?” he asked.
Alexander looked at the warehouse floor where they had made camp. “No,” he said grimly. “They even got Nikita.”
Petr followed his gaze. The floor was awash with blood and grisly remnants of his men: fingers, fragments of bone, clothes chewed to rags.
“Good Christ,” he whispered. “How did you survive?”
Alexander scoffed. “I fucking ran, Petr. I watched the man I killed two days ago tearing chunks out of Boris. I put a round through its head and it just kept eating.”
“But how did you get away from them?”
“I remembered what the crazy German with the dynamite said. He was trying to warn us. ‘Guns won’t work. You have to burn them.’ That’s what he said. I grabbed a burning board from the fire, beat them away, and ran like hell.”
“You’re memory has terrible timing,” Petr grunted as Alexander helped him walk to the campsite. “What else did he say?”
“None of it made sense at the time. Now, though…He said they ate everyone. The Germans fell for their disguise, too. He must have been the last of his unit, trying to track them down, destroy them. What the hell are they, Petr?”
“Hungry.” Petr laughed until he coughed blood. He felt hysterical, but the sight of his own blood spat in the snow sobered him. “I don’t know what they are. Maybe they were driven here by the war. Maybe they’ve always been here, hiding amongst us. Look.”
He pointed at the bloodstained boot prints. Five sets heading back the way they had come yesterday.
“God,” Alexander said. “They’re going back to Stalingrad-1.”
“We lead them right to a new food source,” Petr exclaimed. “That’s why Oberst was so upset about leaving the base yesterday.”
“Do you think they’ve made it back yet?”
“Hard to say,” Petr winced. “Listen, Alexander. This is my last order as your sergeant: Get your ass to main force HQ, warn them of these creatures.”
“While you do what?” Alexander asked.
“You still have the blowtorch and the dynamite? Give them to me.”
“You’re going after them?”
Petr took the torch and put the explosive in his pocket. He limped toward the gas can where it lay on its side by Boris’ shredded bedroll. He moaned in pain as he tried to heft the can by its chain.
Alexander stood watching him, his hands on his hips. He shook his head. “You can’t even pick the can up!”
“I gave you an order,” Petr gasped.
“Well, then, Sir.” Alexander took the gas can and looped the chain over his shoulder. “My last act as your subordinate will be to disobey your order. You can inform the next commissar we happen across. I’m coming with you.”
“I’m going to die, Alexander.” Petr looked at him. “If those things don’t kill me, I’ll drown in my own blood. But I’m not going to let them get away.”
Alexander saw the ominous realization on Petr’s face. “Then we better get moving,” he said.
The night seemed to come on unnaturally fast, but they didn’t stop for the dark, this time. Both men were quiet as they followed the tracks left by the creatures. Even though Alexander could hear Petr’s lungs gurgling, the sergeant never called for a rest.
Petr thought something must be wrong with the stars as they neared the base. He didn’t know if it was blood loss, lack of air, or fear and stress, but nothing in the sky seemed to be where it should. It was as if they entered some new, alien realm as they closed in on Stalingrad-1. Even the air felt different—tight, like the walls of reality were wearing thin.
The camp was quiet. The killing had already been done. The stench of blood and death was heavy, even on the winter air. The train yards were barren save for the twisted half-eaten carcasses that dotted the ground under the bizarre starlight. The sick and wounded had been slaughtered where they lay, their tents ripped to shreds. Spent casings and useless weapons littered the snow.
“The five of them did all this?” Alexander asked incredulously. “Don’t they ever stop eating?”
“And the whole time they were our ‘prisoners,’” Petr breathed. “Just hungering, waiting for the right moment. They’re watching us. You feel it?”
Alexander nodded. “Hold on. Give me the blowtorch.” He bent down and wrapped discarded, ragged clothing around the barrels of two rifles. He soaked the makeshift torches in the gas and fired up the blowtorch with his last match. The rags blazed in the intense heat. He handed a torch to Petr. “At least we’ve got weapons, now.”
A pale light from the windows of the terminal station drew their attention. The sound of a tinny waltz played on a phonograph drifted to their ears.
“That’s as good a place as any to start,” Petr said. As they made their way to the building, they heard other boots crunching on the snow.
“They’re behind us,” Alexander said quietly.
Petr nodded. The footsteps behind them broke into the sound of running. “Let’s see how much they really hate fire.”
Petr swung his torch around, screaming at the twisting knife of agony in his chest. The flaming end of the rifle connected with one of the beasts. It reared back from a mouth full of fire and fell on its back.
The others had been almost upon them. Now they stopped, gross caricatures of men watching hollow eyed as one of their own writhed in the snow. Petr counted only four, none of them Oberst.
The dying monstrosity arched its back, shrieking, as the fire spread beneath its skin. Its face came away in charred swaths until only the fanged, smoking skull remained. The thing fell still.
Alexander roared at the rest of them. As they tried to step forward, he fended them off with the blazing rifle and the blowtorch. Petr thought he almost seemed to be enjoying it.
“That’s quite enough,” Oberst said from behind them. Alexander spun. The crack of a pistol sounded and Alexander tumbled to the ground, a bullet hole placed neatly between his eyes.
Petr slowly turned to find Oberst standing on the stairs leading to the station entryway. A pistol smoked in his hand. Oberst examined the weapon as the music from the phonograph drifted out of the station.
“Remarkably effective against your own kind,” Oberst said of the pistol. He gazed at Petr, seeming to decide whether to let his minions have him. “Bring him inside.”
The torch was kicked from Petr’s hand. Two of the creatures grabbed him by his arms and bore him into the station like a rag doll. The interior loomed huge and silent like some industrial cathedral. Work lights powered by a distant, humming generator lit the metal cavern with pools of pale light.
They dragged him to the rear offices where the Russian captain had made his quarters. Apparently, Oberst had taken to the captain’s tastes.
The ghoul paraded like a king in the largest of the offices. Seemingly oblivious to the cold, Oberst had stripped off his coat and dress shirt. He strode about clad only in boots, trousers, suspenders, and a blood-streaked undershirt.
“Look!” he proclaimed as Petr was dropped to the floor. The monster held his arms out, gesturing at the room around them. “The opulence, even in the middle of war.”
The captain had stripped the room of its previous furnishings save for the small wood burning stove in the center. He had turned it into his private palace with a king-sized bed, oak writing table, the phonograph. Such amenities his men never had.
Petr’s eye fell upon the captain’s corpse sprawled atop his writing desk. Half his face was covered in shaving cream, the other half smoothly finished. Beneath his jowls, a ragged blood-caked gash ran like a crescent.
“Leave him,” Oberst waved at the creatures behind Petr.
“You’re humor seems much improved,” Petr rasped.
“Indeed,” Oberst smiled as he picked up the captain’s gloves from a chair and stretched them over his hands. He donned the officer’s sunglasses and peered experimentally around the room.
“You humans,” he chuckled. “The things you invent.”
“Are you going to kill me?” Petr wheezed. Blood leaked from the corner of his mouth.
“Kill you?” Oberst smirked. “Seems pointless to spend the effort. You sound like you’ll be dead within the hour.”
He picked up a bloody straight razor from the table where the captain lay. “Do you know he tried to kill me with this? Seems I interrupted his ritual.” Oberst ran a finger through the drying shaving cream on the man’s cheek and flicked it away. He stared at the red gleam of the razor, fascinated. “I took it from him and cut his throat.”
“What are you?” Petr shook his head.
Oberst stared down at him. Petr saw himself reflected in the black glass over Oberst’s eyes.
“Shadows,” he said. “Memories, the hunger for life screamed out into the void by the countless dying throughout the centuries, reborn in the mass graves of the forgotten. We are the real children of war.”
“I don’t understand.” Petr glanced at the wood burner. Dull light flickered from within. A fire still smoldered inside! He fingered the dynamite in his pocket.
“Neither do we fully understand out existence.” Oberst slashed the captain’s shirt open, exposing his bulging white belly. “But you have seen what we do. What we must do to stay real.” He drew the razor across the captain’s gut. The blade made a soft hissing sound through the flesh. “We must eat.”
Petr swallowed hard as Oberst lowered his face to the mass of bloody innards pushing out from the captain’s belly. He ignored the sounds Oberst made as he tore greedily at the organs, burying his face in the abdominal cavity. Instead, Petr began to drag himself slowly, painfully toward the stove. He was nearly there when Oberst looked up, gore streaking his face, dripping from his mouth. He fixed Petr with his hungry, dark gaze.
“I’m cold,” Petr gurgled. He could barely breath now. The world swam in his vision.
Oberst wiped a glove across his face, smearing the blood. “You’re dying, fool!” A frown crossed his demonic face, then it softened. “I’m sorry,” he said. “That wasn’t very polite. I’m still becoming, you see. By the time I’m done eating you, Petr, I should be nearly human. The next group that stumbles upon us, be they Russian or German, shouldn’t notice anything odd.” The great hunger overcame him again, and he thrust his face back into the captain’s gut.
Petr watched the corpse jerking grotesquely as Oberst feasted. He felt numb now, his head swimming. He inched closer to the stove, forcing his body to move, barely conscious of his own plan. His breaths came as a thick liquid rattling, and he stared wildly at the phantasmagorical display before him. Unconsciously, he gripped the photo of his wife and boys as if that alone powered his limbs into motion.
He embraced the stove to keep upright, not feeling its searing touch against his skin. Petr slid the dynamite into his hand. With his other, he fumbled madly at the small latch of the stove’s front plate. His vision had mercifully drained of color. He couldn’t feel his cheek scalding on the cast iron.
Oberst smelled it, though. Once again, he raised his dripping face. “Petr, look what you’ve done! You’ve burned yourself! Pity. We do like our meat raw.”
He noticed Petr flip the plate open. “What are you doing?” Oberst saw the explosive in Petr’s hand. For a moment, he appeared confused. Then he read the intent on Petr’s face.
Oberst leapt over the table, his face twisting into an inhuman mask. An unholy warble issued from his fang-lined mouth.
Petr closed his eyes, held the photo to his chest, and rammed the dynamite into the stove.
Nothing happened.
He collapsed to the floor as Oberst landed atop him. The impact sent blood squirting from Petr’s nostrils.
He tried to open his eyes out of sheer morbid fascination. Under half-closed lids, he watched Oberst’s look of fear and rage subside to one of ghastly mirth.
“Alas,” Oberst breathed with a grin. “The fire has gone out.”
There was a pop from within the stove. Smoldering embers cracked out one last blaze of life. Petr heard the fuse of the dynamite ignite, its short hiss a mocking laugh directed at Oberst. He smiled as the world lit up.
