hundred yards she stopped, breathless.
She looked around her and saw no other visitors. Nobody.
But she saw one building.
She looked up and down the path again. No, she stood alone.
Then her eyes locked onto the numbers painted on the door of the large wooden cabin, and she let out a scream.
With slow, precise steps she approached the building, then drew her hand over the roughly painted numbers. She took one more look around her to check she was alone, and then, shivering in the chill that had suddenly descended, she opened the door and stepped inside the cabin.
Only a few strands of light come through splits in the wooden walls, but enough to highlight the uneven soil floor littered with dirty grey blankets and discarded clothing. A few wooden-framed beds line the sides, two of them smashed and sprawled like the ends of a broken bridge. On the far side of the room is a gap leading to a corridor. Somehow now more agile, she steps across, and looks along its darkness.
She hears the grind of boot on gritty earth, but the sound stops as she turns round sharply. To her flanks she notices beams of light being broken and hears cruel laughter. But they both halt when she twists and tries to home in on the source.
She runs back to the entrance and pulls on the handle. It does nothing more than rattle in the gloom. She hears a shout from behind her and turns. Now, as dimness gives way to half-light, she cries out and falls back onto the door, feels her spine catching the rough wooden edges but doesn’t care.
In front of her stands an SS guard in full smartly-pressed uniform. He stands a foot taller than her, with short blond hair poking out from under his field-grey cap.
“You!” He grabs her arm and pulls, spinning her away from the door. “Clothes. Shoes. Off!”
For a few seconds her whole body trembles, but she says and does nothing.
He shouts at her again, then points his rifle at her. “Clothes off! Time for your delouse! In the shower!”
Then, slowly, from where she doesn’t know, a feeling of strength washes over her. She stops shaking and stands up straight, with shoulders pressed back and head held high. Her back no longer aches.
“No,” she says quietly.
Momentarily the guard drops his rifle. “You defy the orders of an armed guard?”
She nods. “Oh yes.”
The guard presses the rifle to her throat. “You have you one more chance, Untermensch.”
She snarls, then spits in the guard’s face.
He wipes his face, glancing at the mess on his otherwise pristine uniform, then cocks the trigger.
Susannah mumbles a prayer, then grabs the cold metal muzzle of the rifle and places it in her mouth. She grips the barrel tightly with trembling hands, closes her eyes and swallows, her throat sticky with dryness. She feels every muscle in her body go rigid with fresh, liberating energy.
The next thing she hears is a solid click. Jung takes back his rifle and pulls its bolt back and forth a few times, grunting through clenched teeth. He throws it onto the floor then reaches for his pistol. He searches frantically, but there is no pistol. He curses a few times, then sighs and his body relaxes.
He looks her up and down, and slowly the corners of his lips start to tilt upwards.
He rasps out a laugh. “You’re lucky today, aren’t you?”
She knocks past him and lunges for the door. But he flings a hand out and manages to grasp her arm. She feels his fingers digging into her shrunken muscle fibres but manages to wrench herself free. A stumble and she runs to the door. Wildly shaking hands grab the handle and pull. Now it opens, but Jung thumps his boot against it solidly and it slams shut again.
He grabs her by the throat and pins her to the door. “From now on, you are The Lucky One,” he says. “Now get out!”
The door emits a screech from its hinges as the guard kicks it open. He grabs her by the hair and throws her out. She falls onto the hard concrete path.
Susannah stirred, blinking in the clean sunlight, drawing one leg out from underneath her and slapping her shoe on the ground. With a struggle that brought water to her eyes she pushed down on her better knee, telling the arthritic groan in it to shut up, and slowly pushed herself to her feet. She stumbled around for a moment, the buildings in front of her appearing and disappearing like the numbers of a roulette wheel spinning past. She turned and spotted a man a few yards away, at first fearing him, then somehow confused to see no threat. Yes, he was a gardener busy raking up leaves. She staggered across the path towards him and grabbed his arm, almost pulling him over in her panic.
The man dropped the rake and held her in his arms. “What is it?” he said. “What’s wrong?”
“There’s an SS guard. Please. Please help me.”
He held her to his chest, her tears turning patches of his bib a darker shade of green.
“No, madam. That’s not possible.”
“Yes, yes!” She pointed back. “Over there, in that building.”
The gardener briefly glanced to where her wrinkled hand was cast. “But madam. There are no buildings left here. And definitely no guards.”
“But I…” She turned and gasped.
The gardener removed his gloves and put his hand behind her, gently stroking the top of her back. “I take it you’ve been here before – a long, long time ago – yes?”
Susannah looked again as a solitary wood pigeon landed in the emptiness – the beautiful, natural emptiness. She took a moment to catch her breath.
“Yes,” she said. “I was one of the lucky ones.”
###
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Thank you for trying out something from an independent author.
If you enjoyed this story please consider leaving a review on Amazon.
Also note that The Sugar Men, the full-length novel based on this short story, is now available on Amazon.
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Further Reading:
Note that the following full-length titles by the same author are now available for the Kindle:
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The Sugar Men
A Story of Holocaust Echoes
The novel based on the ‘The Lucky One’, which expands on Susannah’s experiences before and after visiting Bergen-Belsen.
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Rosa’s Gold
A story of Holocaust echoes.
Nicole Sutton is a young girl with problems. A tragic car accident has taken away her brother, and ripped her parents' marriage apart. She moves to a new house, a new town, and a life she never wanted.
In the dusty cellar of the house she stumbles upon a well-worn notebook, which ultimately inspires Nicole to think beyond her troubles.
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Matchbox Memories
A gentle mystery story laced with warm and insightful humour.
Ian Greefe always had issues with his parents - the main one being that they aren't.
Settled for many years at the other end of the country, out of the blue he gets a call to arms; he has to care for his mother, who now has Alzheimer's, while his father is in hospital.
Over the course of a week ‘back home’, secrets gradually come out that make him reassess his views on family life, and come to terms with his own shortcomings as a son and father.
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Tales of Loss and Guilt
A collection of 16 short stories, ranging from taut thriller to emotional drama to comic farce.
Most have been shortlisted for prizes, many have won. All have been reworked for inclusion in Tales of Loss and Guilt.
*
Slow Burning Lies
(written under the name Ray Backley)
A dark psychological thriller set in Chicago.
A Chicago coffee shop is about to close. The last waitress goes to lock up, but a man appears, desperate to talk to her.
They sit, and he tells her Patrick’s story, a story of a man driven to the edge of sanity by evil dreams.
But is Patrick st
ill out there, demented and suffering?
Or is he the man sitting in front of her?
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Bad and Badder
(written under the name Ray Backley)
A collection of five visceral thrillers focussing on the more ‘challenging’ members of society; what they do, how they affect their victims, how they get their comeuppance, and how – just sometimes – how they
*
Easy Money
(written under the name Ray Fripp)
A modern Comic Farce set near London.
Warwick Pollini is just an ordinary, everyday guy. So when he stumbles upon half a million pounds in used notes he’s sure his life is about to change.
He isn’t wrong.
Full of caustic satire, Easy Money is an irreverent take on the obsessions of modern-day society, served up on a bed of unfathomable mystery and garnished with a side-salad of grotesque caricatures.
*
E.T. the Extra Tortilla
(written under the name Ray Fripp)
A comedy in the style of Monty Python or Spike Milligan, full of surreal touches and weird and wonderful characters. Yes, the plot hinges on an extra tortilla, and yes, the story contains lots of aliens. But don’t let that put you off. It’s nonsense, but it’s funny nonsense.
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To find out more about the author please see www.raykingfisher.com, or feel free to email him with any feedback, good or bad, or just for a chat, at: [email protected]
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