The Amerikaner slept beside the small fire, curled up in a fetal position, hands holding each other and brought close to his chest as though praying, Ivan's jacket wrapped around his waist. With every gurgled moan and shuffle, he fidgeted in his sleep; the poor kid was way out of his league. Ivan didn't rest; it was something that used to creep me out when we first found each other. He was an odd man, a few years younger than myself. When we met six months ago the Soviet struck me as insane, always smiling and walking around the marsh as though it was as familiar as home. He didn't tell me everything, seeing as we were still alive and superficially on opposing sides of this fucking war. In return, I didn't tell him everything. Our relationship is heavily censored, a simple need-to-know basis with a little more intimate information about our lives outside our government employment. He has two sisters in Okhostk, well out of the way of Germany, but not Japan.
A sickening twist of my gut left me momentarily paralyzed. Hopefully Dr. Honda of Japan was not as . . . desperate as we were. If this mess spread across the continent I would never forgive myself. All I could pray was that, once he tested the drugs, he realized that they would be too dangerous to use. Not one of ours had succeeded. This goddamned project to create super-soldiers had ruined us. The line between friend and foe had blurred so horrendously, I truly don't think it even exists anymore.
In all honesty, while I may be a Lieutenant Colonel, that was not my first profession. I am a scientist, formerly a doctor in Nuremberg before the war. I specialized in genetic disorders and mutations, toying with the idea of manipulating the genes of a subject in order to create the 'Perfect Human'. I was picked up by the military, finding me through my brother Gilbert. I personally met with the Führer and he praised my papers I had published over the years. He called me a genius, a true German for the Third Reich. Then he asked me, with proper funding, could I make my theories reality?
A reality I made; a reality that has thoroughly destroyed my hopes, my dreams, and my faith in not only humanity, but God. Whatever did I believe in before this time? I can't remember anymore, and I say this with the utmost honesty. Why did I take on this task the Führer assigned me? Was it pride, curiosity, the chance to see if I was right? My thoughts were well beyond my time; my theories, no matter the amount of scientific proof I padded into it, were still bordering on Science Fiction. Then again, this outcome wasn't anything a sane person would dream up.
Now here I sit; a Soviet to my right and an Amerikaner across the dying fire. Ivan was cleaning his gun, as though we were all sharing a barrack together instead of huddling in an abandoned bunker with those . . . things outside. I could see a small glint of worry in his eyes, he was running dangerously low on ammo, and we were both sharing rations to hold on longer before going back out there to find something that was edible. In a week or two, we'll be eating corpses too if we don't get out of the marsh.
We could have left a very long time ago, weeks, maybe months, but we both stay, taking turns wandering out, looking for those who we hold dear, whom we dragged with us into this place. For me, it's my älterer Bruder, Gilbert. A Colonel in the military since the invasion of Czechoslovakia, he left his post to stay as a military guard in the facility I was assigned. Mein Gott, I miss the idiot. Ivan travels out to find an old friend who was in his battalion. All those men . . . dead, I hardly had a company in the facility, but a whole battalion destroyed. Ivan acts as though nothing else matters other than this one young man, but any sane person would know that it was a major loss of life. All I can truly say is that neither of us has found the ones we're looking for, human or otherwise. I pray every night that they are both still alive, anymore blood on my hands and I think I might just use the last of my ammunition to pierce my own skull.
As I look out the window I can see them. If I close my eyes, I can hear them. If I plug my ears, I can smell their decayed bodies. And if I place myself in a state of absolute solitude where no sense is active, I see these men as they once were: proud and firm, willing to risk their lives for their beliefs to the very end. I look through the bars and out to the marsh, the silhouettes stumbling about in the misty gray. My children I spawned from Satan himself. They came from me; I birthed them.
"You said the facility is a two day's run but holds foodstuffs, da?" Ivan whispered, my blue eyes meeting his peculiar violet.
I nod, "Ja, there is also a drug there, a serum that can reverse the affects of a bite when administered in time." His eyes widen in surprise, I had never before revealed my antidote because I'm not even sure it is still there. I tell him as much, explaining the explosion that had occurred while I had been retreating with my Bruder, but he waves it off.
"I do believe your facility is still worth looking into. Who knows, perhaps we may find survivors there."
"I would pray not," I whispered, my chest tightening, "Only a section of the building was destroyed, but the others are overrun by the creatures. The guards also had many dogs, so there will be more hounds than you would ever want to see."
"Sounds like the perfect vacation," the American accent cut in, we both turned to see he had awakened, how long he had been listening I don't know, but he looked overwhelmingly sarcastic with his comment. He didn't want to leave this place, but staying was nothing short of suicidal. May as well run out there now with a grenade in your hand if you wanted to wait for starvation. Alfred had lost his pack out in the marsh, so he had no provisions to speak of, nothing but another mouth to feed with our rations that could hardly feed a cat, let alone two men and a kid.
Ivan smiled, "I'm afraid we have very little choice in the matter Alfred. We need supplies, and in a facility that housed military personal, there is bound to be more ammunition and rations, perhaps new guns as well. Mine is becoming quite worn and the bullets deviate a little farther from center with each engagement. Also, if there is anymore of this serum I would find the trip worth the trouble."
"You are both fuckin' suicidal. No way I am going out there when we're perfectly safe where we are."
"We are without food."
"And 'safe' is a debatable term," I mutter as well, "Or I guess we can all feast on cyanide pills now."
"I don't have one," Ivan spoke up, almost sounding embarrassed, it was sort of funny.
"Don't worry," I assured him, "I have two."
Alfred's eyes grew huge. I knew he had his own pill, seeing as he had been in an English Company, standard issue and all that. "The hell, you two are willing to give up like that?" he hissed angrily.
"We survive together, we die together," Ivan giggled. Okay, he was taking this a little too playfully. This was supposed to be a persuasive move Ivan, not a serious debate!
I shrug my shoulders, "We can either die now or die later, but if we go we have a higher chance of living, so you can stay here and die alone, kill us all, or tag along. I'd feel rather guilty letting a kid like you defend himself, so would you like to come?"
He glared at the two of us with his deep blue eyes, switching between our faces. "I hate you, both of you."
"Then we'll leave after a quick rest. I need the sleep."
Alfred sat up, pulling the beige coat with him over his shoulders, "I can sit watch." At least he didn't sound any more enthusiastic than I felt.
"Nyet, nyet," Ivan chastised waving his hand flippantly, "The two of you sleep, you need much more rest from the exertion you went through. You're still tired."
"What about you?"
I pull off my jacket and use it as a blanket over my upper body, "Ivan doesn't sleep. So you can rest easy. He's better than a watch dog."
Despite my best efforts to clear my mind and have a good rest for once, it just turned into one of my contemplating hours, laying under the blanket motionless, breathing regular and all the signs of sleep without the unconscious part. I don't quite like these out-of-body experiences, because I notice everything we did wrong. What if I hadn't felt that retrieving Roderich was vital? Why did I even feel that way? It wasn't like we could continue our research any longer, and as associates go we were truly only business partners. Yes, we talked now and again over a cup of coffee and tea, but otherwise he was just a fellow scientist who happened to know Gilbert. Everyone knew Gilbert now that I think about it. The guards were trusted by my Bruder and the Austrian scientist said something about college fellows. Then the young Hungarian female assistant Elizabeta I knew was a childhood friend and used to come over often. Funny how everyone seems to tie back together, much like a damaged strand of DNA that will bring itself back together, though the outcome was usually mutated.
And what if I had given up and told the Führer that the experiments were nothing but a failure, would that have helped at all? For an odd reason I feel like it wouldn't have. Nothing mattered anymore anyways; I don't know why I continue tormenting myself. They're all dead anyway. I don't even know why I keep searching. I saw Roderich, I saw Gilbert, I saw my creations, I have seen what I know to be the truth, so why must I keep hoping, keep searching? I am so alone, so corrupted and evil.
Oh Gott, wo bist du?
"Experiment number forty-eight is a failure," I sighed, Elizabeta covering the young man's pale face with the equally white sheet. I ran my hand through my slicked hair, "Damn it! I could have sworn it would work this time!"
Roderich's hand pat my shoulder comfortingly as brothers-in-arms in our profession, "You and I both know that the laws of science are unpredictable ones."
"But you saw it! I saw it! The Genetic code refused together and everything was in place! Why did he die! It doesn't make any sense! I'm tired of killing volunteers left and right," I shouted slamming the clipboard onto the counter and leaning heavily on the steel. This was becoming discouraging, Note after note of apologies, saying that husbands and sons died in their line of duty and for the good of Greater Germany. It was bull shit!
"Not all things work the way we expect them to Ludwig," Roderich admonished calmly, "We may have to resort to POWs, I don't feel exceptionally comfortable killing our own brethren either."
I heaved a heavy sigh, "I feel like this is becoming hopeless. Perhaps we can simply turn this into a poison gas and use it on the Allies." I gave a heartless laugh, "It's even cheap enough to make and use on the fucking Jews."
"Why don't we go take a break and look over the experiment again," he spoke it more of a statement, not a question. Such an easy-going man whereas I was uptight and high-strung, "We made progress today Ludwig, no matter how small. The DNA connected to the introduced strand, just because it wasn't completely successful doesn't mean it was a total failure. I'll see you in a bit."
He left through the open door as I continued to lean against the cold steel, my temper evening out. I wasn't overreacting, I knew that. No one could react enough when someone met their death at your hand. Still, I had a job to do and the only way it would get done was if I accepted the failures. A sudden noise behind me made me jump, the body on the gurney seized, startling Elizabeta as well. We watched in silence as it continued to thrash for no more than two seconds, though it seemed like hours. When everything returned to quiet, I felt my heart pounding through my temples with rushing blood, my hand gripping the hilt of my Luger under the white coat. The only sound was the ticking of the clock as Elizabeta and I stood as statues.
"A . . . side-effect from the drug perhaps?" she asked as though groping for an explanation. Hell if I knew, but I was ready to go with that. I nodded, straightening myself out, fixing my lab coat and standing up straight.
I glanced at the clock, my adrenaline levels dropping rapidly. Whatever that had been, it was over now. "Elizabeta, can you take this one down to the morgue for me. I have paperwork to fill out."
"Of course Dr. Bielschmidt." I never understood why she liked calling me that other than my first name, so I am left to dream up her answers. Leaving the room, I looking at my watch and find the time, just a little pass midnight. Despite the lateness of the hour, there were still plenty of people bustling by. It was like we were machines, up forty-eight to seventy-two hours and sleeping for four hours if we were lucky, but never complaining. We had become so use to the sleep deprivation that our bodies didn't recognize the term. It was a lot like being a surgeon with the long work hours and gallons of caffeine.
"Hallo!" a voice called from behind me before a hand came down on my shoulder, added weight of another body. The Allgemeine SS uniform was thick for the murky conditions of the marsh, seeing that it was still early in the year and spring was taking its time. The single oak leaf patches on the sides of the collar represented rank. He wasn't too high on the list, but high enough to hold representation, low enough to be able to worm his way into the laboratory without major protest. A Standartenführer, he talked bigger than he was.
"Hallo Gilbert."
He was a peculiar one, and I being his brother, that meant something. His hair was such a bright blonde it was more fitting to call it white. And then there were his eyes, instead of the Aryan blue that my own were, they were a violet-red. In all honesty, it had been his genetic mutation that originally got me interested in the field back in high school. He was arrogant, cocky, but well-meaning and honest. "You look like shit Ludwig," he laughed, mussing up my hair like any older brother would do. I am twenty-five though, and him twenty-seven! I am too old to be treated like a child.
I glared pointedly, fixing my now ruined blonde hair, "Thank you for pointing that out. I see you are off duty."
"Yeah, not much up there. The Allies still don't even know we're here from what I reckon. This is still 'No-man's Land' according to them," he smirked. Why did he have to get the easy job? Standing around and holding a gun and winking to the nurses, I wondered why he got paid for anything. He even confided in me that he did not support Hitler, joining the military so he didn't have to kill innocents. To a degree I agreed with him, seeing as many innocents like those with physical handicaps were eliminated, but the other unfavorable were quite justified, at least in mine own opinion.
"That's comforting. I rather prefer the quiet."
"God, this is why you are never laid my dear baby brother. In the middle of the act while she's screaming in ecstasy, you're going to stop and ask her to be quiet! You are the most boring man I ever met. I mean, even Roderich is getting some!" he shouted. Whereas my brother's vocal cords to emanate sounds that exceeded the volume of a normal human being, I was quiet and stoic. Oh how were we ever born of the same woman? Not just that, but he was vulgar. My fist swung up and impacted him square in the nose, not hard enough to break it, but enough to give him the message. "Fuck that hurt!"
"Then perhaps you will reconsider what you broadcast to the world," I hissed, "Aren't you supposed to be doing something right about now."
"Yeah," he groaned, voice finally quieting to the point of normalcy, "I was heading over to the security room, ask the tech guy what he was finding, check the stupid radar."
My eye twitched in annoyance, "But you decide to come and harass me instead of doing your JOB!"
"Hey, hey, don't bust a vessel on me," he cackled, "Just checking up on you. Roderich said you threw a fit in the lab."
"That isn't your jurisdiction," I growled through clenched teeth. I doubted Gilbert would have ever been able to make it into college anyway. The only terms he thought in were survival.
He pat my back with a hard thump, "Then I see you're back to normal. So no need to shoot me, I'm going go and do my 'job'. Shit, you treat me like a paid guard."
"You ARE one!"
"No," he sang back as he walked backwards down the hall, the other people moving to avoid him, "I'm a volunteer!" He winked at me before running off. For a Standartenführer, he was a toddler. I made my way to the cafeteria where I picked up a late lunch. Or was it an early dinner? Hell, it may have even been breakfast at the time. Regardless, I sat alone and ate, my mind wandering back to the experiment.
For one thing, the introduced strands had connected onto the DNA for the first time, but then the entire body shut down. He had foamed at the mouth as he screamed, I could hear the vocal cords ripping almost, blood coating the inside of his mouth. Then he died. It was the most violent reaction that I had seen in all my years of science and doctoring. I sighed; maybe it was something, maybe it wasn't. I would prefer testing these drugs out on Soviet POWs or Jews, maybe even Gypsies. The only down fall would be if it did work, then I would be stuck with a super soldier prisoner, and that doesn't work even in the same sentence structure. A thought then crossed my mind. Perhaps the drug had done more than just connected to the DNA strand. I needed to see that soldier.
Discarding my meal, I hurried out of the mess hall and scoured the walkways. The one thing with both Elizabeta and Gilbert was that they were hard to miss, but yet I did not see her. To say I was confused is an understatement. I was just about to give up when the lights went out and the emergency power kicked in, the infiltration alarm shrieking.
The nurses and doctors stood stock still as the soldiers scrambled; Gilbert appeared from down the hall, his Kar98k in his hand as he ran towards me. Apparently Roderich was worried about what was going on as well, running up from behind.
"Get all these people into the shelter!" Gilbert shouted to his Sturmbannführer who ran alongside him as they passed us. My legs followed them, running with them, and Roderich following me.
The elder man, though lower in rank, looked petrified, "We can't sir! They've already passed through that sector and more are coming along the way."
"Where the fuck did this start!" my brother screamed, if he was that worried, rest assured that I was more so by a hundred fold, "Better question, WHAT the fuck are they!"
"We don't know sir," the man replied, his own voice becoming hysterical, "There aren't any signs of these things in the marsh!"
Roderich reached out and grabbed Gilbert's coat and spun my brother around, "WHAT is going on? No one knows a thing of what you're saying!"
He looked between me and the other doctor. Both of us were trained with a gun and Roderich was a Sturmbannführer as well. We could handle ourselves. "I'm still trying to figure that out myself. But what I know is that something is here, and the numbers are growing. From what I've been told and can deduce, this came from the inside." A sound sent shivers down our spines, the ungodly moan of dozens of voices, attempting speech through shredded vocals. We all turned at once.
I saw people I knew, all of them I knew. Doctors, soldiers; male, female, it was indiscriminate. They were covered in blood, a young man who had just been transferred in was among them, and his laboratory coat was stained crimson and torn. His jaw hung at an odd angle, obviously broken as his hands reached in any direction, searching for something. Their smell was disgusting, still fresh and oozing with blood. I felt my stomach heave. I have seen dead people, mauled people, gravely ill, and even tortured to the point of no return. This was an entirely new level I never wanted to see. Alive, but dead, hunting, but blind, these creatures were from Hell's pits.
Gilbert raised his rifle, along with his major pulling out and aiming his Luger. It was all a flurry of sound and gore to me. The eerie chorus of groans and the more recent angered shrieks as they clawed, stimuli still being registered due to their brains not yet decayed. They wouldn't fall. They kept coming, kept surging. Screaming as the major was grabbed, the sound of blood falling in pints on the cement floor, chewing, crying. I felt a hand grab my arm and the sound of German swears and gunshots. One was right on top of my brother, the nails black with blood. It went to grab him and Gilbert pulled back at the last possible second, receiving nasty claw marks across his face. The strength of these monsters was unbelievable, my brother being thrown to the floor from the velocity of the swipe.
The hand that held my arm in terror was Roderich, his knuckles turning white as he watched, as I watched. The major lay on the ground, his arm eaten to the point of crimson bones glistening in the harsh light. Then he stood, eyes rolled into his skull unseeing, and screamed. That was the same screech I heard from the volunteer in the lab.
Gilbert was pinned under the weight of a fellow soldier who had passed onto their side, the red of his swastika band blending with the blood running from his shoulder. I was pressed into action, my own survival taking a back seat. When the major fell, his handgun had skirted across the floor away from the group. I swiped it up and dashed to my brother, placing the muzzle to the back of the creature's head and pulling the trigger.
I heard the heavy thunk of the corpse going slack and my brother's gagging and swearing muffled under the body. The exit wound had been like an explosion through the frontal lobe and continued on to embed itself into the ground beside his head. The gore, on the other hand, had become a shower of brain matter and skull bits and pieces. Blood spilled over Gilbert's face, the side without the scratches, some of the dark crimson liquid slipping between his pale lips. Hence the gagging I had heard. I kicked the body off of him and pulled him to his feet before another could reach us. Roderich had retrieved Gilbert's rifle from where it had flown when he was knocked to the ground, aiming carefully and firing shell after shell into their heads. That was how to kill them.
"Come on!" I shouted, dragging Gilbert who had yet to finish dry heaving. The Austrian covered our retreat by running with us before opening up on the perusing mob and downing the first few before running on.
"Shit," it was the first time I ever heard Roderich swear, "No more ammo! Keep running!"
We made it to one of the lock-down points, the sounds of people behind us screaming in terror and agony. The three of us hauled together, pulling the steel doors shut and locking the padlock with Gilbert's keys. No matter how hard I tried, they were still there; the screams that sang through the doors in the vilest of voices.
"I can't activate the electro-guard from here, I need to reach the mainframe," my brother hissed, spitting onto the floor, the blood from earlier still enough to tint his saliva red.
"And that is on the OTHER side," I exclaimed, "What do you plan to do now?"
He glared at me with his red eyes, "Do YOU volunteer going back through those doors?" As I opened my mouth to reply, a loud banging rattled the steel doors. We all froze, our blood running cold. As it was, they wanted through those doors, and would manage any way they could.
Roderich glared at the two of us, "We either keep together or fight and all die! They are breaking through, and the only room with the built-in electro-guard is the Surveillance room which is on THIS side of the wall. Now you can follow me or sit here and bicker!" Without waiting, he started down the halls. Gilbert took my hand and followed after him. We would stick together, no matter what; he would make sure of that. About halfway to our chosen destination, the loud, rising groan of the steel giving under the pressure forced upon it. Screams. So many screams. I recall feeling tears in my eyes as we ran. Had I done this? Was this my fault? After an eternity, or so it seemed, we reached the room.
"The Fuck!" Gilbert shouted, the two techs inside the room were moaning creatures already. But had we not locked them all behind us! The guns and ammunition were behind them, locked away in case of emergencies. In this situation, they were practically useless over there! My brother took the rifle from Roderich, charging into the room.
"You idiot!" the Austrian doctor shouted after him. I didn't think much at this point, so whether he was being heroic of stupid I couldn't determine. I was so lost, so confused. As I watched Gilbert beat into our Aryan brethren with the butt of the gun until their skulls were nothing more than fragments drowned in pools of blood. The screams were nearer, the shuffling could be heard. Gilbert grabbed my hand, "Get your ass in here!" and the door was slammed shut behind me, followed by the loud hum of an electrical current.
The bodies were stuffed into a supply closet we raided for first aid and rations. I set to work cleaning Gilbert's cheek as he attempted to eat Rinderbraten from the can slapped on top a Knäckebrot. He whined pitifully as I dabbed alcohol onto the cuts that weren't lethal, but would leave three scars across his cheek.
"If you keep eating like that we'll have nothing," I chastised, "One doesn't eat his entire ration pack in one sitting."
"I know, I'm just hungry," he growled through cheeks full of food. He reminded me a bit like a chipmunk hoarding for hard times. And lord knew we had hard times ahead. One glance out the tinted, bullet-proof window or the constant moaning and shrieking of electrocuted beasts was enough to back my claim. I had just finished bandaging his wounds when a hollow pounding made us jump. We looked to the window to see a familiar silhouette, her arms flailing and beating against the plastic.
"ELIZABETA!"
I jolt into an upright position, the hollow banging no longer against plastic, but metal. The metal door on the other side of the bunker buckles under the force. Ivan stands, loading the last of his ammunition into the gun, "Looks like we will be having company." The thrashing of those behind the door to Hell drew the attention of those outside.
"Upstairs, we can escape through one of the windows there," I explain quickly, loading my Luger. I could have sworn I had more ammunition. The Amerikaner looked equally downcast. "We can leave now or give up."
Alfred frowned, still not liking the idea, "Then let's get our asses moving." He reminds me a lot of my older brother.