War of the Damned (Relic Hunters)

by Martin Ferguson

  ‘When’s this war going to finally be over?’ Myhill moans.

  ‘Soon,’ I reply.

  ‘I can’t wait to get back to my garage,’ Jenkinson, the former mechanic, says. ‘I’d much rather be repairing vehicles than shooting them up. What about you, Lathbury?’

  ‘Anywhere but the mines I used to work in,’ he replies. ‘I’ll find me a girl and raise a dozen children.’

  ‘Sounds like a nightmare,’ says McClair, the former teacher. ‘It’ll probably be me having to keep them in line in the classroom. What about Myhill, you going to keep using those skills with a rifle?’

  ‘I ain’t going back to poaching,’ Myhill declares. ‘I don’t ever want to fire a gun again after all this. What about you, Corporal?’

  ‘No idea,’ I admit. ‘Probably back to finish school.’

  ‘School?’ the lads all repeat in surprise.

  ‘I was still a student when the war broke out,’ I reveal. ‘I enlisted underage.’

  Lathbury chuckles. ‘I always thought you were one of the oldest.’

  ‘Up ahead, Corporal,’ Myhill whispers, kneeling down.

  ‘What do you see?’ I ask.

  ‘German half-track in the middle of the road,’ our sniper says. ‘It’s broken down by the looks of it. Three men – no, make that four.’

  Both sides of the road are flanked by a low hedgerow. No buildings overlook the area. I give the quiet order for Lathbury to lead Myhill and Taunton through the hedgerow as Jenkinson, Baker, Waters, and I cut to the right. McClair and Jacobs will follow me straight down the road with the Bren light machine gun, which will be used to cover our retreat if needed.

  It goes as planned.

  ‘Hande hoch!’ we yell; just one phrase we’ve picked up.

  As instructed, the Germans raise their hands in surrender. Something’s wrong though. There was no look of surprise on their faces and now, despite our weapons, there’s no fear in their eyes. They were expecting us.

  ‘You hear that?’ Lathbury asks.

  It’s the rumbling sound of engines and tracks and they’re coming from each direction.

  ‘You cannot run, Tommy,’ one of the German prisoners sneers.

  He’s right. A German tank, bigger than even the dreaded Tiger, emerges onto the road. It appears unmarked and perfectly clean, as if it has just rolled out of the factory. Its vast turret and machine guns are pointed straight at us, tracking our every movement. Behind us, McClair and Jacobs are being escorted with their hands raised. The insignia on the German uniforms is the skulls and flames of the SS Totenkopf Division.

  ‘We could cut across the field?’ Lathbury suggests.

  ‘There’s no cover,’ I reply, having already considered that escape route. ‘They’d cut us down.’

  ‘What do we do, Corporal?’ Taunton asks.

  ‘Surrender,’ one of the German prisoners mocks.

  ‘Enough from you,’ Lathbury says, hitting him hard and sending him sprawling on the ground. The German laughs and there is something terrifying in it.

  My section is utterly surrounded.

  ‘Surrender, Englishmen!’ a voice calls as a German officer climbs out of an approaching half-track. ‘There is nowhere to run, and you cannot fight us.’

  Their commander must be in his late thirties, maybe forties, with a spotless uniform and greying hair beneath his cap. He signals to his men to disarm us and we have no choice but to give up our weapons.

  ‘Who is in command here?’ the German officer asks.

  ‘I am,’ I admit. ‘Corporal Andrew Cooper, First Battalion, Suffolk Regiment.’

  ‘Corporal, you and your men are now our prisoners.’

  ‘The war is almost over,’ I say. ‘Your armies are defeated and Berlin is surrounded. Why keep fighting?’

  ‘The war is far from over, my friend,’ the officer says. ‘You will see that for yourselves soon enough. My name is Colonel Heinrich Steinhardt of the honourable SS Totenkopf Panzer Division. You are now my privileged guests.’

  ‘Honourable?’ I question. ‘We saw what you did in Holland, the massacre of Neveltsom.’

  ‘A necessary action, I assure you,’ the colonel replies without remorse.

  ‘Damned Nazi kraut,’ Baker mutters. ‘You’ll burn in hell with the rest of them.’

  ‘Is that so?’ The colonel chuckles. ‘Private Krueger?’

  From the rear of the half-track emerges the brute who has haunted my nightmares ever since Holland. He is taller and broader than even Lathbury; his uniform barely fits him. He carries no weapons, but has a maddened and unfocussed gaze. His eyes are everywhere and do not settle. His skin is dark red, as if burnt, and his uniform is stained with sweat and blood.

  ‘Krueger, teach that Englishman what we think of insubordinate prisoners,’ Colonel Steinhardt orders.

  ‘Don’t you touch him,’ I say, stepping between the brute and Baker, but Krueger throws me aside as if I am nothing.

  At gunpoint, we can do nothing as the German brute grabs hold of Baker by the head and squeezes with his bare hands. The boy pleads and tries to pull away, but he cannot overpower the German. He screams in pain as blood pours from his eyes and ears. I remember the warnings, the word Riese muttered again and again.

  Giant.

  Baker’s screams stop.

  Waters vomits whilst Taunton, body visibly shaking, screams and runs. He doesn’t get beyond the hedgerows before he is gunned down, which might be a mercy.

  43

  ADAM—The Death’s Head Nazi Base, Germany

  Quickly, It becomes clear this is no ordinary army base but more of a hospital or medical facility. There are beds and medical equipment but the floors are stained with blood, and worse. There are bodies on the beds too; some are restrained with straps and chains. The smell is horrendous.

  Few of the lights still function and our group rely on torches to proceed farther into the facility. The Winterbourne operatives jump at shadows and I cannot blame them. At least they have weapons.

  Beyond the initial rooms, there are chambers with glass cylinders, which are unoccupied but have claw marks. There is smashed glass and destroyed equipment everywhere.

  Professor Veitnar leads us into one of the chambers where occult runes are carved into the walls. The floor is stained by decades-old blood. Research paraphernalia is pinned to the walls.

  ‘What happened here?’ I ask.

  ‘Experimentation,’ Veitnar replies, the excitement in his voice too much to bear.

  ‘They did this to people,’ I state in shock. ‘People who were still conscious.’

  Even Follia looks appalled at the sight.

  ‘War crimes,’ Dave says. ‘They should have hanged for this.’

  ‘That would’ve been too good for them,’ Follia replies, agreeing with our view on these atrocities.

  We continue and enter what appears to be the officer’s quarters. The last room holds more interest. It is larger than the rest and every surface is covered in occult runes.

  ‘We should keep looking for Leon,’ Bishop says.

  ‘And get out of this damned place,’ adds Dave.

  ‘Soon enough,’ replies Veitnar.

  Ancient relics, tools, and maybe even weapons are in a display case covered in dust. They don’t appear like any I have seen before; they are intricate and detailed in a bronze-like metal that has not faded with age.

  ‘Any guesses?’ I ask Doctor Zajak who also inspects the relics closely.

  ‘That is not a language in use today,’ she replies with confusion.

  ‘This is the room of Colonel Heinrich Steinhardt,’ Veitnar announces as he peers at the framed photographs at a desk. ‘Good friends with Adolf Hitler, so it appears.’

  ‘You’d be in good company with them,’ Dave remarks, earning a swift strike from one of the Winterbourne operatives.

  ‘So you reckon these were Colonel Steinhardt’s favourites from the stolen relics?’ I ask Zajak, still looking at the pieces
in the display case.

  ‘Maybe,’ she replies, ‘but I recognise this symbol on the blade. I have seen the concentric circles before. It is a symbol of Atlantis.’

  ‘More heresy,’ Veitnar announces as he throws a book of the colonel’s writings to the ground. ‘This madman rants of cheating death and enhancing the human body. He speaks of immortality.’

  ‘And I found it,’ a voice announces from a loudspeaker in the corner of the room.

  The sudden announcement startles one of the mercenaries and he fires his gun, destroying the speaker. The shot echoes beyond the room and other noises respond. A slow march grows closer and a low hum sounds out as the lights of the room begin to glow brighter.

  ‘We need to leave!’ Dave warns. ‘We need to leave, right now!’

  ‘You may be right,’ Veitnar agrees, the fear in his eyes telling.

  ‘What about Leon?’ Bishop replies angrily.

  ‘Not now!’ the professor replies.

  ‘You should not have come here,’ the voice from the loudspeaker calls to us from beyond the colonel’s room.

  ‘Show yourself!’ Veitnar shouts as he draws his handgun, but there is no reply.

  ‘Regroup back at the trains,’ Follia says.

  Nobody disagrees with her order, but as we hurry from the officer’s quarters, terror strikes each of us. The chambers are no longer empty, they are filled with the creatures that attacked us, and they are all roaring at us from behind the glass. Their blood-stained jaws snap. In the other rooms, men and women are strapped to the operating tables as figures loom over them in filthy laboratory coats. Deranged gas masks cover their faces. The ghostly scientists turn towards us but merely watch in silence.

  ‘That’s Mitchell on that table!’ one of our group calls.

  I recognise the man as one of the Winterbourne mercenaries taken in the tunnels. He is screaming in agony, his chest open and his arm removed. An electrical charge is applied again and again to his head, making his whole body jerk before one of the creepy scientists injects him with something. Another of the scientists repeats phrases from a tattered book over and over like a dark incantation. Mitchell’s eyes quickly glaze over and darken as he stops struggling.

  ‘What the hell are they doing to him?’ Bishop asks.

  ‘The same as will happen to you,’ the voice taunts us from speakers.

  A slow march approaches us down the corridor of the laboratory. They wear tattered German uniforms and carry weaponry from the Second World War. Their skin is paled grey and rotten, eyes yellow and black. They are decaying corpses clinging to life, all wearing the skull and flames insignia of the SS Totenkopf Division.

  Just like the victims in the laboratories, these German soldiers have been operated on, each different with arms, legs, eyes, parts of chest, and even heads replaced or encased with iron and steel. Steam rises from the mechanical joints as they lurch towards us without words or a hint of emotion in those soulless eyes.

  ‘Wake up, wake up,’ I tell myself, praying this is all some nightmare.

  ‘Cut them down!’ Follia yells as she and the Winterbourne command open fire.

  They unleash a torrent of gunfire, but still the Nazi soldiers march towards us. Many of the bullets ricochet off the iron and steel, but even those that hit flesh do not slow the march. Black blood seeps from the wounds, but they still keep coming.

  Follia leaps towards one with her Katana, piercing the blade straight through its chest and out of its back. It gives no reaction, lifting its mechanical arm up to strike with the rusted blade fused to the limb. Bishop comes quickly to her aid, firing a shotgun directly into the Nazi’s face. Its body collapses to the floor, smoke pouring from its neck where the head had been.

  ‘Headshots!’ yells Follia, firing her own handgun several times to strike down another of the lumbering soldiers. The undead begin to fall, struck down by the Winterbourne team’s precision, but more emerge from the darkness.

  ‘Back!’ Veitnar yells. ‘Back the other way.’

  We hurry back into the facility, Bishop and Follia leading the way. More of the undead emerge from every corridor, too many for us to fight off. All we can do is run until we reach what looks like a chemical plant. We look down from the gangways onto vats of bubbling foul smelling chemicals. Smoke rises all around us on the raised platforms, blinding our view in the heat of the vats below.

  ‘Here,’ Follia says to Dave, throwing him a knife to free us with. ‘We always find trouble, don’t we, D?’

  ‘It’s usually you,’ Dave replies with a half-smile.

  ‘This doesn’t feel like the way for an exit,’ Doctor Zajak says.

  ‘That is because it isn’t, my dear,’ the voice from the loudspeaker says as a figure emerges from the smoke around us. He wears a German officer’s uniform. His face is pale and his eyes are yellow like the other undead. Despite the deep wounds covering one side of his head, his uniform remains spotless.

  ‘Colonel Heinrich Steinhardt,’ Doctor Zajak says, recognising the man from the photos in the colonel’s quarters.

  ‘Correct,’ he says. ‘I must say, you have shown impressive dedication in finding this facility.’

  ‘You’re torturing and experimenting on innocent people,’ I say. ‘You’re a murderer.’

  ‘Or a visionary,’ he replies, walking around us on another gangway.

  ‘Who are you?’ Dave asks.

  ‘You already have my name,’ the colonel replies with a sneer.

  ‘How are you still alive after all these years?’ Dave asks.

  ‘Through the blood of a demon, I have been able to elevate mankind.’

  ‘Demon?’ I ask. What other nightmares lurk down here?

  ‘These abominations you created do not elevate mankind,’ Veitnar states with detest. ‘They push us further into darkness.’

  ‘Your faith is lacking, but soon you will see truth,’ Steinhardt replies. ‘Through experimentation I was able to create formulas to infuse strength in my men. I was able to create giants.’

  At this word, two hulking forms emerge. They tower over us, mountains of strength with darkened veins and reddened eyes.

  ‘Giant,’ I state the word. ‘Riese. That was what your project was, not railway lines.’

  ‘Railway lines?’ the colonel questions before laughing loudly. ‘Is that what you believed? No, Project Riese was always focussed on the enhancement and betterment of mankind, whether it be by mechanical, or what you would call, supernatural means. The blood of the demon was the key. It was the discovery of a lifetime from an age long lost to us. His blood held many gifts, and with it I could create soldiers for the Fuhrer who do not fear death. They are death. With the blood, I devised formulae that gave birth to my reapers and my giants. At first they were wild and uncontrollable, but I’ve had a long time to discover ways to bend their wills to match my own. The final gift of the demon’s blood was longevity of life.’

  ‘I wouldn’t call that life,’ Dave says, pointing the colonel’s pale, rotting form.

  ‘What’s the endgame?’ I ask. ‘You want us all dead so your army monsters can begin a new Reich?’

  ‘Almost,’ the colonel replies with a knowing smile. ‘But, I don’t want you dead. I want you to join the ranks of my army.’

  ‘I’ll pass on that one, thanks,’ I reply.

  ‘My dear boy, you won’t have a choice.’

  ‘And what’s to stop me just blowing your head off?’ Follia asks, a handgun raised at Steinhardt.

  The colonel smiles smugly as more figures emerge from the gloom around us. They wear the body armour of the Winterbourne operatives, their bodies warped by the experiments. They are completely under the colonel’s command.

  ‘Our recon team,’ Bishop says. ‘Where’s Leon?’

  ‘You will be joining him and all the others soon enough,’ the colonel says. ‘Now, lower your weapons.’

  ‘Like hell we will,’ Follia says.

  Her defiance is met with a burs
t of gunfire tearing through the Winterbourne operative to my left.

  ‘These are fascinating times we live in,’ Colonel Steinhardt states. ‘Your weaponry and soldiers are much advanced. I will take great joy assimilating them into my army.’

  We glance at each other to check we are all seeing the same horror of Leon Bransby standing beside the colonel, his gun still smoking from execution. His skin is pale and his eyes are faded, just like the rest of the colonel’s command of living-dead.

  ‘Leon…’ Bishop calls out, but his once friend’s only response is a raised gun.

  ‘As I said, you will join your friend soon enough,’ Steinhardt says to Bishop. ‘I can’t wait to see how you transform; you’re practically a giant already.’

  The colonel steps closer.

  ‘You came here in search of the trains,’ he says. ‘But I’m afraid I can’t let you complete your mission. I have kept the Fuhrersonderzug in pristine condition for one purpose, the same as Hitler’s; to use it as my mobile war office when I return to the world.’

  ‘We won’t let you do this. We won’t become one of those things,’ I say with defiance.

  ‘That is where you are wrong.’ He smirks, stepping aside to reveal Cecylia and the three Winterbourne operatives thrown to their knees.

  ‘Drop your weapons or I will slaughter them.’

  ‘Why would I care what happens to them?’ Follia says, but as the rest of our group drop their weapons in surrender, she is forced to do the same.

  ‘Don’t you harm her,’ I growl as the colonel lifts Cecylia’s chin. She’s crying but there is still a look of resistance in her eyes. She strikes out, but he catches her by the wrist.

  ‘Spirited,’ the colonel sneers.

  ‘Cezary Nowak,’ Cecylia says. ‘Piortr Nowak. You brought them here in 1943. What happened to them?’

  ‘You are a descendant, I presume,’ the colonel replies.

  ‘What happened to them?’

  ‘Jewish names...’ he says with disgust.

  ‘What happened to them?’

  Colonel Steinhardt shrugs dismissively and signals to his monsters to take Cecylia and the others away. A spider, the size of a small dog, walks across the gangway. The colonel doesn’t flinch, but instead, extends a long serrated dagger from his wrist, impaling the spider with one swift stab.