Fading Light: An Anthology of the Monstrous: Tim Marquitz (30 page)

Andreas felt pride at the competent efficiency with which his squad
worked, effortlessly moving to cover the whole facility without any
further instruction. They had truly come a long way under the
tutelage of the Scharführer.

He smiled at Dolf, the stocky youth giving him a toothy grin in
return. Andreas had no doubt similar thoughts were going through his
friend’s head.

Andreas crept further toward the chemical vats. He had taken only a
few steps when he sensed he now moved alone.

Dolf stood perfectly still, grin splitting his face. His gun was
clutched tightly in his hands, held against his body. Andreas frowned
as he noticed his friend was shaking, almost vibrating. The stock of
his shotgun rattled against the buttons of his coat.

What is it?
Signaled Andreas, furious at his friend for
breaking stealth. Was he panicking?

The smile grew wider.

“Dolf,” Andreas risked a whisper, shaking him by the
shoulder.

Dolf’s smile grew wider still, stretching grotesquely. Andreas
could only stare as the other boy’s lips began to crack, tiny
drops of blood appearing.

“
Mein Gott.
” Andreas’ eyes grew wide.

The flesh around Dolf’s mouth split, teeth bulging outwards and
piercing through skin. They glistened wetly as they fell from his
mouth, plunging through the mesh of the catwalk to clatter to the
floor below.

Skin and muscle sloughed off Dolf’s face in long, narrow arcs,
meat flensed from the bone by an invisible butcher’s knife.

In a heartbeat, patches of gore-coated skull were visible, swelling
unnaturally.

Dolf still seemed to be smiling when his head exploded.

The decapitated corpse, massing almost half again as much as
Andreas’s slim frame, smashed into him, blood fountaining from
the ragged stump of a neck. Andreas was thrown backwards, the heel of
his boot catching on the raised metal lip of the catwalk, hands
instinctively grasping for a railing that was not there.

He seemed to hang in the air for an eternal moment before hitting the
factory floor.

Andreas’ eyes snapped open as gunfire rang out, the sound of
rifle shots echoing weirdly. The muzzle flashes lighted the building
in brief strobes before the darkness returned, only to be snatched
away again as more bullets flew.

He sat up groggily, fingers grasping at the deep cut that decorated
his forehead. Dolf’s killer was nowhere to be seen.

He watched Lukas and Gregor firing from halfway across the room,
accomplishing nothing beyond giving their positions away. He opened
his mouth to call out, to tell them to cease fire.

Even as the thought occurred to him, Andreas watched in horror as
Gregor suddenly stopped shooting. Time seemed to slow as the boy’s
body expanded grotesquely, like a glove filled to bursting. With a
wet roar, Gregor’s torso disappeared. A bloody mist hung in the
air, for an instant, as he was torn apart by an internal explosion.
Andreas stared, wide-eyed, as a viscera-streaked arm smashed into the
wall beside him with the sickening crunch of breaking bone.

Still in slow motion, Lukas turned toward his companion, mouth agape
as he saw the shredded remains of Gregor.

Andreas had the briefest glimpse of a shadowy figure, cloak streaming
behind as it moved impossibly fast, before Lukas disappeared, lifted
from the ground and propelled behind a jutting piece of machinery.
Lukas’s pistol and combat knife clattered to the floor.

The squad leader’s surprised shout became a strangled gurgle,
and then all became silent.

It had all happened so fast. One deadly moment.

Andreas climbed to his feet, bringing his rifle to his shoulder and
hammering the location where Lukas had disappeared. He knew his squad
leader was already dead, murdered with the same ruthless efficiency
that had claimed Gregor and Dolf.

Oswald and Fabian opened fire from the window of the upstairs office
they had been investigating. One of them was screaming at the top of
his lungs.

Andreas’ magazine ran dry. He breathed hard, chest rising and
falling rapidly, heart hammering in his chest. He pushed the stripper
clip into the battered rifle and reloaded, discipline slowly
returning, when something thumped, wet and heavy, at his feet.

It was Lukas’ head.

Andreas stumbled backwards, teeth grinding together as he desperately
tried not to scream.

A noise echoed from the darkness. It took Andreas a moment to
recognize the guttural sound for what it was.

Laughter.

“Poor children, you really had no idea what you were getting
into, did you?”

The words were an inhuman rumble, spoken in German of flawless
inflection, and deeply amused in tone. Even without the baffling
effect of the detritus scattered around the building, Andreas
suspected the sheer power of that voice would be so overwhelming as
to make determining its origins impossible.

“Six little boys trying to make a name for themselves.”
The Russian, or whatever the hell he was, took a deep breath, as
though tasting the bitter air of the factory. “On a mission to
gain acceptance as
real
soldiers, no?” Another inhuman
laugh. “Perhaps wishing to join that pathetic group, in their
pretty black uniforms, who masquerade as the lightning-wielders of
old?”

Andreas shifted, shocked at the man’s dismissal of the most
feared fighters of the Third Reich.

“Only three of you left, now.” Andreas could hear the
smile in the enemy’s voice. “Not including your friends
outside, of course. I can hear them whimpering in the dark, deciding
whether to investigate or to simply run away. After all, there are
always more children.”

Andreas perked up at this. If the enemy was telling the truth then
that must mean Volkard was outside. All he had to do was keep this
bastard talking and they would have experienced soldiers on their
side. Then they’d see who would be laughing.

“How do you know that?” Andreas called out, face
reddening at the fearful squeak that crept into his words. He stalked
toward the center of the room, circling in an attempt to disguise his
position as he spoke, the way he had been taught. Either he would
keep their tormentor occupied long enough for reinforcements to
arrive, or he would find and kill the bastard himself.

“The same way I knew you were following me. I could hear you
whispering, so safe up on your rooftop. A huddled mass of children
and murderous thugs playing soldier.”

Though he could still not tell where the voice came from, Andreas
sensed his enemy was also moving.

“You heard us talking?” he asked, trying to keep that
ghastly voice speaking.

“My skin also tingled with the feel of your eyes upon my back,
stalking me as though I were some beast, prey to be hunted.”

The last was said in that same amused tone, but tinged with a faint
anger. Though it was impossible to tell for sure, Andreas sensed he
was getting closer.

“But most importantly,” the voice said. The words were no
longer an ethereal shout echoing from the walls, but a whisper from
behind. He felt hot breath then, on the back of his neck; the breath
of a predator toying with prey.

“I could smell your fear.”

Andreas spun, trying to raise his rifle, but impossibly strong
fingers closed around his arms, the gun torn instantly from his hands
and tossed aside with the ease of a child ripping the wings off an
insect.

He tried to shout, but a giant hand snapped to his throat with
superhuman speed, lifting him from the ground as though he weighed
nothing. He was held against a support column, feet thrashing the air
uselessly. He stared into the dark hood of his erstwhile victim,
seeing a hint of pale skin where the gasmask had been removed.

“You all reek of it.”

Even at a whisper, the voice boomed like that of an ancient god.

“But you less than most. The others, their fear is
overwhelming, a cloying musk that brings bile to my throat.
Cowardice
. Yours ... ”

It trailed off, inhaling deeply.

“Your fear is tightly controlled, a quivering ball surmounted
by sweet rage and bitter hatred. For me?”

The face hidden in the depths of the cowl seemed to shift, revealing
the hint of a smile, perhaps imagined.

“I shall end you last.”

Andreas struggled to breathe, feeling himself losing consciousness
with the giant’s fingers clamped around his windpipe. When a
brilliant white light filled his eyes, he felt a moment of peace,
thinking he was finally going to join his lost father and brothers at
the feet of God.

Thoughts of the afterlife were shattered by the screech of rusted
metal as the roller shutter was thrown open.

“Kill that Russian bastard!” Herr Volkard cried, his men
opening fire with their rifles even as two of their number aimed
army-issue spotlights into the inky blackness, targeted directly at
Andreas’s assaulter. He had never seen a more heroic sight, the
Scharführer and his men garbed in their splendid uniforms,
weapons raised.

They had come to save him; to save them.

The hooded head snapped toward the garage door, the bright light
profiling a face that looked far too human to belong to his monstrous
tormentor.

Andreas was flung aside, the single hand holding his neck launching
him against a nearby assembly line with contemptuous ease. He hit the
waist-high piece of equipment hard, somersaulting uncontrollably,
screaming as he felt his shoulder dislocate during the tumble.

The back of his head struck the concrete floor, tears filling his
eyes at this further agony.

The spotlights exploded. Shards of glass and burning metal scythed
through Volkard’s men. War cries turned to shouts of agony as
the brilliant light was suddenly transformed to utter darkness.

Andreas lay in the pitch blackness, blinded, unable to tell if his
inability to see was caused by the sudden removal of the spotlights
or blood leaking into his eyes. It was hard to care. The pain of his
wounds was all-encompassing, a pulsing, throbbing agony. It took all
his concentration not to wail at the top of his lungs at the spasms
wracking his body.

Panicked gunfire sounded from the upper story of the building,
throaty shotgun blasts accompanying the whip-crack of a rifle.
Andreas did not bother to look up.

The gunfire stopped, the fresh silence punctuated a second later by
the sound of shattering glass.

A body landed messily at his feet, launched through the second floor
office window like a rocket. He reached out blindly, numb hand
scrabbling in the dust until he finally touched the shattered skull.
He gently dragged the corpse in close, blood seeping between his
fingers, and cradled its head in his lap.

He determined from the short, wiry hair it was Oswald who the monster
had killed this time. He had never liked Oswald very much. The
younger boy had always seemed arrogant to Andreas, always pushing to
take charge and be accepted by the older youths. It had been Oswald
who led them to attack a group of Soviet looters in broad daylight.
That impetuousness had gotten them caught, dozens of enemy soldiers
pouring from the nearby buildings to give chase. It had been an
ordeal that ended with them fleeing across the ruins of outer Berlin
for several terrifying hours, losing two of their fellows in the
process. The pursuit had only ended when Volkard had found them, his
men making quick work of the lightly armed and unprepared Russians.

Andreas had never quite forgiven the other boy for that, but even
still he felt a pang of sadness wriggle its way into the strange
detachment he was feeling.

“It doesn’t really matter, I suppose,” he mumbled,
not realizing that he spoke aloud. “We’re all dead
anyway.”

“Fire!” roared Volkard.

Andreas sucked in a breath through bloodied teeth as he saw the
impossible.

A shrouded figure stood in the window of the prefab structure above,
highlighted by the muzzle flashes of the German weapons, body rocking
from the impacts of multiple bullets. The all-encompassing cloak it
wore caught fire, perhaps struck up by a spark from an errant round.

The flames spread quickly, engulfing the entire robe and throwing an
eerie red light across the building. The figure toppled forward,
landing prone on the catwalk above, blood seeping through the cloth
to ooze with glacial slowness through the mesh. As the shooting
ceased, the
drip-drip-drip
of the liquid was surprisingly loud
in the cavernous darkness of the warehouse.

“You two, up those stairs,” ordered Volkard. Andreas
wanted to shout a warning, to cry out that this was not how such
monsters were killed, but he could find neither the words, nor the
will to speak them.

The soldiers reached the burning corpse above. They trained their
weapons on it the entire time, fingers on triggers in case it somehow
sprang back to life. One of them moved closer, daring to prod
the body with a foot.

The soldier drew back the hood with the bayonet mounted on his rifle.
The flames engulfing the corpse spat with renewed fury, the sudden
light revealing the burnt, bullet-riddled corpse of Fabian shrouded
in the enemy’s cloak. Andreas whispered a silent prayer for the
soul of his last squad mate.

The flames engulfing the body roared outward, forming a fireball to
rival any of the bombs that had fallen upon the city. The explosion
engulfed the supervisor’s office, taking most of the northern
catwalk, and the two unfortunate Schutzstaffel members with it. A few
of the ancient chemical vats ruptured, little geysers of volatile
liquid spraying dirty flames across half the building.

Andreas sat there, watching in silence as the far wall of the factory
caved in with a rumble of falling bricks and the tortured groan of
collapsing girders. Screams erupted behind him. Their hunter had
finally had enough of toying with its prey.