The Skinny Little Boy

It was falling again. Not the rain- though it had rained for most of the last week, and the damp had sent deep aches running down the boy's bones, nor was it snow- the snows would come in a month or so. No. It was ash, settling quietly over the Earth, blown from the bigger camps upwind. By the end of the day, everything would be covered in a fine layer of the stuff. The work crews would be coughing and sputtering as the stuff got into their noses and their lungs, but there was no relief.

There was no relief for anyone, except at the leisure of the Doctor.

The skinny little boy understood that his life was in the hands of the Doctor, the tall, slender man standing before him, whose dark eyes fixed the boy into a serpentine stare. He understood that the Doctor gave him more food than the others, so he was merely hungry rather than starving, that the Doctor would treat him as best he could if he fell sick. That as long as the Doctor needed him, he would not be killed. The boy knew that if he somehow disappointed the Doctor, that he may very well be killed for it.

Max Eisenhardt knew that he was lucky, compared to the others in the camp. A few of them, the Doctor's favorites, were like him, kept alive at his pleasure. He was ordered to do some work, but only enough, he imagined, to keep his muscles worked and fit- no more than a few hours of hard labour. Occasionally, the Doctor even gave his favorites sweets, mostly when he took their blood. On the days after he took blood, there would be no work at all.

But for the shuffling masses outside, they existed only to be worked until they died, or herded into the showers, or at least, that's what they said they were. The reality made him want to vomit, even as far removed from the stench as he was right now. Once, he'd been dragooned by a guard into helping the Sonderkommando, to drag blue and twisted corpses from the chambers, awash in a river of blood, shit and urine. They would have forced him to pry the gold from their teeth, search their cavities for hidden treasures, cut off their hair to be made into wigs or linings, except for the arrival of the Doctor.

He still remembered that day, nearly six months ago, as if it was yesterday. He remembered seeing the thin, drawn, agonized faces. How could I ever forget? I shouldn't. It's not right. They must be remembered. I will remember them.

And yet, a small part of Max wanted to do nothing more than to forget all of this and go to sleep and wake up back home. He would be going to school now, probably working very hard, so he could go to university like his father had. His youngest sister, Anya would be playing with her dolls or trying to get Sophie to play tea party with her. He remembered his father putting on old records and dancing with their mother after dinner or listening to the newest songs on the radio. He could still smell his father's pipe tobacco as he read the newspaper and pointed out the more important happenings to Max. And his mother, talking long hours away on the telephone with her friends, both Jews and non-Jews- certainly there were people who disliked Jews in their city, but neither Mother or Father lacked for friends.

They had been well-off, almost wealthy, in truth. It was expected that Max would attend university and become a doctor or a lawyer, though he'd always wanted to become a great scientist like Albert Einstein. Sophie and Anya could look foward to good marriages, probably with young Jewish men, though they would be far from the only Jewish girls to marry Christian boys. Mother didn't like that, though Father- Father was always more secular, would have shrugged and said that it was the way of the world.

Above their fireplace, Max remembered some of his father's most prized possessions- his helmet from the Great War, dented and scratched by bullets and shrapnel and in elegant glass cases, his Iron Crosses, First and Second Classes, won for bravery. Father was such a proud German. He fought for the Kaiser over four years, was wounded thrice and got mentioned by name in the general's dispatches three times. Father didn't quite fit into his old uniform anymore, but there was an old photograph of him, smiling proudly with his mother, just after their engagement. He was recuperating from his second wound then, at Verdun. The first had been received at Tannenburg. They'd made him a lieutenant when he returned. At the end of the war, he was a captain.

The Doctor liked to pretend that he was being kind to Max by saving him from work details, by giving him the occasional sweet after he took blood, by giving him anesthetic when he had to do something more serious. The Doctor had told Max that he was marked as different from the others, from the other Jews- that he was something special and that if he was good and did what the Doctor required, that the Doctor would look after him. The Doctor had even once come to him and said, cheerfully, that he was going to give Max a girlfriend.

Max didn't want to recall what followed, but he felt that he had to- Ruth could not be forgotten, what the Doctor had made him do, could not be forgotten. He had to survive, had to remember and tell people about what had happened, even though he doubted people would believe him. How could anyone? At first, he'd truly thought that Ruth was willing enough, perhaps desperate for comfort in the midst of the endless hell that was their lives. But one time, he saw her away from the 'visits' that the Doctor had arranged and the haunted look she'd given him, that she'd had no other choice.

The last time that he'd seen Ruth was a few months ago and Max wondered what had happened to her- she was one of the Doctor's favorites too, perhaps he had not tired of her yet. If he had … I will remember. Ruth. It is the least I can do. I will remember her, and what he made us do together. Maybe I will be able to find you.

And then what? She hates me, I'm certain. I hate myself for what happened. I should have known. But he'd been lonely, desperately lonely and for a short moment, he hadn't felt so alone. His hands balled up into tight fists and he longed, desperately, for a face to punch. But Max knew that he was no longer that cocky young man in Breslau. It wasn't just risky to fight back when the Nazis picked on you anymore, it was suicidal. And I must live. I need to survive and remember. And avenge, if I can. But remember, above all else.

Perhaps. Perhaps I can use the power myself, like the Doctor makes me when he takes over my body. He says that I should be able to, that it is only dormant. I need to try again.

Max closed his eyes for a moment, and no doubt to anyone around him, it would look like he was trying to shake off a terrible memory- but he was doing something altogether different. If he shut out everything, all the horrible memories, all the screams, the dying, the smell of decay, the sad, dead eyes of the girl the Doctor made him … if he could shut it all out, he could feel something entirely different. He could feel his perception of the world around him change, to something infinitely changed from the endless death-grey of his existence, where he could escape from good and evil and life and death, where every single thing in the world was ordered perfectly into two categories.

Metal and non-metal.

The bed was wooden, most of the room was useless to him. Non-Metal. But there were a few items that were usable. The Doctor had left some tools around him on the bed. A scalpel. A mirror surrounded by good steel. A surgical saw. Max opened his eyes again and reached out with his hand, trying to summon the metallic object to him. If he can make me use the power, maybe, somehow, I can use it myself.

His heart sank when nothing happened. Hot tears played at the corner of his eyes. "No." He managed to whisper in a voice that was shockingly hoarse.

I have to. He thought of his mother and father and sisters- he had seen his father die and could only assume that his sickly mother and small sisters had perished as well. To hope was a fool's crusade, he knew the fate of his people in the hands of these butchers. I have to. He remembered being kicked and beaten and threatened with death, he remembered the sadistic guards who once set a dog on him. I must. Max remembered the impassive face of the Doctor when he took over Max's body and his mind, rooting through all of his memories and his secrets, right into the core of his very beginning.

I will.

The scalpel, mirror and saw hurtled off the table and towards his hand, stopping, floating in mid-air about three inches from his flesh. He then concentrated on shaping the metal again, discarding the glass portion of the mirror, and shaping the rest of the metal into a long, jagged weapon. Max grabbed the weapon from its place. It felt good in his hand, cold and hard and he imagined plunging it into the Doctor's blackened heart. Then a thought struck him. If I can move it with my mind, shape it with my mind, I don't need to hold it. The blade began whirring about his head like a deadly halo. He reached out with his other hand, feeling pipes amid the concrete of the infirmary where he was. Max could feel his power stretching out to those pipes, bending them, and twisting them.

The wall first shook and then shattered with explosive force as the pipes raced back towards him. There was the immediate shouting of guards, but the shock of what had happened unmanned them for a brief time. A few seconds was all that Max needed. Dropping the pipes, he pulled at their guns and ripped them out of their hands. He stood up and turned towards the hole in the wall and the guards who were frozen in terror. Max turned his gaze towards one of the guards- Dirty Hans, the sadistic guard who forced him to empty the gas chambers, the man who made the women in their huts scream.

Max pointed at him and one of the guns fired several rounds, Dirty Hans falling backwards as bits of bone and brain sprayed out of the back of his head. Max pulled the trigger on the remainder of the clip of the gun, doing his best to obliterate the man's face. The other guards remained motionless, shocked beyond all action. It was easy work to pull the triggers on them as well, though they were cleaner kills. The perimeter of the camp beckoned, not far. Freedom was only a short walk away, and who would stop him?

He stopped for a moment when he heard the sound of applause behind him, a slow clap. Max whirled around quickly, two of the guns opening fire immediately, spraying the area with bullets. When he saw that it was the Doctor, for a brief moment, he dared to have hope, that the vile, evil man was finally dead. If I can't free Ruth, maybe at least I have avenged her. And God help me, I will find a way to destroy them all.

The brief moment of grim triumph was, however, totally obliterated by the sounds of laughter coming from what should have been the Doctor's corpse as he got up and moved towards Max with inhuman speed, his hands at the young man's throat, all of the guns and the other metal clattering to the floor. The Doctor's familiar bland face had melted away into a dark, satanic cast with chalk-white skin and featureless glowing red eyes. The Doctor, using strength that should have been impossible for a man like him actually managed to lift Max off the floor.

"Very impressive, little Eisenhardt. Very impressive indeed. But I'm afraid, nowhere near adequate. I require your service for somewhat longer, I am afraid." His grip tightened and Max desperately clutched at the Doctor's wrists, trying to make him let go. He felt the pressure building up inside him as his air supply was cut off. He struggled as hard as he could, but nothing could possibly displace his iron-hard grasp. The world seemed to explode in building pain and then, as quickly as it did, everything went black for him.

When his eyes opened again, he felt horrible pain all over and the sensation of tubes sticking into his body at several places. It took some time for anything to become clear but eventually he could tell that something terrible was happening. There was noise outside, still distant to him but clearly people were agitated. He heard the crack of guns first, then the whistling of bullets and the heavy thud of what he imagined were mortars. The Russians. Max tried to will himself to get up and out, not caring about the tubes clearly stuck into him. The Russians are here. Do I hide from them or do I run and join them?

Forcing himself into alertness he first sat up, and then started looking for the tubes to pull them out, hoping that none of them were keeping him alive. I can't stay here. I could get flattened by guns. The noises got louder and louder, and closer and closer, though they seemed to be made by fewer and fewer people. Perhaps the Russians are winning. It was then that he heard a different sound, a whistling sound, but one very different than a gun, followed by several pinging noises and a jubilant cry in a language he did not immediately recognize, but he knew wasn't Russian. Perhaps it is a unit from another part of the Soviet Union.

He managed to pull the tubes out of him and pull himself out of bed, though he immediately stumbled and fell to the floor. He could hear more talking now, in the same … no, actually, the language did sound a little familiar. Some of the words sounded much like German, though it clearly wasn't. It struck him then like a thunderbolt. English. They're speaking English. It's the Americans.

I'm going to live. They'll see what happened here. I'm going to live and I will remember. I will never forget.

Max could hear more heavy shouting, this time in German and some of what he figured was cursing from the Americans. What I am I doing here? I can help them. He reached out again and pushed out the infirmary wall through the pipes in it as hard as he could. He couldn't grasp the wall itself, mostly being concrete, but large chunks of wall went flying twenty, thirty, maybe even forty feet into the air, along with shards of pipe that went much further, spraying several troops and surely killing a few of them. He summoned the pipe fragments back towards him and then came out the hole in the door again.

He heard the whistling of bullets towards him and instinctively threw his hands out, inadvertently dropping the pipe fragments and also, to his utter amazement, stopping the bullets in mid-flight. The guards continued to fire, but every round they fired at him was stopped as well, hovering, spinning in mid-air, held as if by an invisible net. His eyes opened wide in astonishment.

How powerful am I?

But soon his jaw set in grim determination and he tried to reach out with his power and push the bullets back the way they came, as hard as he could, faster, he thought, than they had been shot out of the guns to begin with, judging by the sickening ease with which the hail penetrated helmets and flesh and even the siding of an armoured vehicle. He reached out again, to the vehicle itself this time and, gritting his teeth, tugged at it, trying to lift it up. He could feel a burning pain through his entire body, but surely enough, the armoured vehicle lifted up into the air, uncovering terrified soldiers.

"No more!" He screamed, the only thing he could think to say as the heavy vehicle came crashing down on them. Those that were not crushed underneath it scattered and ran. He slumped against the wall, exhausted, looking towards the other side where he saw a small group of very unusually dressed soldiers looking at him.

"No English." He managed to gasp out. "German. Polish. A little French." He tried speaking in those languages successively.

"I know a little French too." The one man, dressed in a gaudy outfit in the colours of the American flag said as he walked towards him. "We're … we're not here to hurt you."

"Nice trick with the vehicle, kiddo." His companion, a short, scruffy-looking man said, in a French that was both heavily accented and far more fluent. "You one of the Englishman's lab rats?"

Max nodded slowly, assuming that they meant the Doctor. "Yes."

The man with the ridiculously bright uniform spoke again, in his much more halting French. "We can take you with us. You'll be safe, son." Max wanted to yell at him for daring to call him 'son' but one look at the man's face and something about it clearly suggested that he could be trusted. Max took a few breaths and nodded quietly. "Okay. I will go with you."

"An' quickly at that. The Krauts are gonna be bringin' up more forces soon and HYDRA's sniffin' around these parts. Not even you can handle the whole Wehrmacht, kiddo." The short, scruffy man looked at him, lighting up a cigar. "Think you got it in you to pull that place down? Make it easier to stop `em from using that lab again."

"Nothing … nothing would make me happier." Max replied. I will remember. He then stopped for a moment. "We need to find the Doctor. Your Englishman. He cannot get away- he can't."

"He's already gone, son." The bright blue man replied. "But I promise you, we will do whatever we can to find that man and bring him to justice."

"If you find him." Max replied, haltingly, gazing into the far taller man's eyes with all the fury and passion he could. "Kill him. And pray there is a Hell, or there is no justice in the universe."

The tall man in the bright blue looked like he wanted to say something for a moment but then thought better of it. The short, scruffy man seemed to understand better. He's seen things too, I know it. The truth of it, however, was that Max didn't want them to find the Doctor. He wanted to find the Doctor himself and tear him apart, limb from limb. He wanted to hear the Doctor scream, scream the name of the people he'd killed and tormented, to cry out Ruth's name, to cry out Max's own name.

He took a deep breath and walked about twenty feet away from the building, the laboratory-infirmary-prison that he had been kept in for- Max didn't know precisely how long, but he was guessing it was nearly two years and reached out towards it with his hand. He closed his eyes and felt the conduits and pipes, the bits of metal inside the concrete, by the masonry. He raised his arms in a grand gesture, as if composing a symphony and then opened his eyes and sent his arms crashing towards the ground, flattening the building utterly and then sucking it into the earth as the building collapsed into the basement and into the bomb shelter below.

The tall man in the blue and the short man in a scruffy uniform looked at each other and then at the gaping crater.

"Can we leave? I don't want to be here anymore." Max's gaze turned back towards them.

"Yeah, kid, we can go." The short, scruffy man replied after a pause.