The Arendt Files
Page 23
“Peter Dilger. You have been found guilty of collaborating with the enemy by a wartime tribunal and have been sentenced to death. May god have mercy on your would” Now he could really see Peter there with his robe untied and open in the front. His chest covered in grey hair, the grey and black hair on his mostly bald head. He had a dignified handsome face, wrinkled, starting to sag but still full of life. His eyes were swimming, dark and liquid when he looked up at Stacey. “It’s just all shit and I chose to survive. I wanted to see my son grow up.”
“Well you should have known better Peter. It's our country” Stacey nodded to Rick who drew his bowie knife from its sheath as Peter Dilger looked straight ahead. Rick cut deep into his throat and blood poured out. There was a gurgling sound as Dilger tried to take his last desperate breaths. Rick pushed the man’s head forward and the noises stopped. He held him down as he jerked and struggled a bit in vain, but Peter wasn’t going anywhere, then it was over. It all happened fast.
Rick stepped out of the tub, grabbed a hand towel from the rack, and wiped his blade. He tossed the bloody towel in the tub, then Stacey moved forward with the saw. He shifted it into his left hand and placed the teeth against the back of the dead man’s neck and started the back and forth motion. Mike smelled the ocean and a sour taste filled his mouth, the room lurched like a ship swaying in a swell. It felt to him like his body was submerged suddenly in the flu, in sickness. His went weak all at once. He tried to steady himself inside but the thought swept into his mind, “I’m not a good man any more.” and he wanted to die.
Mike squeezed himself past Stacey as his body clenched all through him in one spasmed and he vomited onto the dead man’s legs. He looked down and saw his bile mixing in with the blood that was pouring down and he wretched again. When that wave, finished he straightened himself a bit and turned to look at Stacey hoping for something; censure? Kindness? An order? He didn't know. Stacey wasn’t even looking towards him, his face was grim and terribly clenched covered in thick oily sweat, his lips puckered in. It was taking everything he had in him to continue with the task.
Mike spun around to turn away from the scene, to gather himself and see if what they had done had affected anything, he expected the world to be physically different, changed in form or substance. Rick was looking down and away, clearly trying not to loose it himself as sweat leaked through his mask. Mike wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “Those are strong guys, I wonder how they are holding it back after I let it go” and then to the right he saw a flicker of a movement, down low by the door, to the right. There he was standing in the doorway looking right at him, a little boy in his pajamas, a light blue onesie with some drawings of some animals on it, farm animals, a horse and cow and sheep. The child stared at him and then looked around wide eyed.
Chapter 24