The Dead Alone (Empires Lost Book 3)

by Charles S. Jackson

  The sound of sirens, the crackling whine of the Lighting overhead and the subsequent roar of explosions however brought every patient who could stand upright out into the hallways and central admin area of the hospital, where the three guards on duty immediately began to hurry them back to their beds, shouting loud and mostly unintelligible orders in Japanese.

  “Sounds like the same thing we heard yesterday morning,” Watson observed conversationally, not trying hard enough to hide his satisfaction over the quite accurate assumption that the jet outside was the cause of the destruction they were also hearing.

  “Our pilots will blow it from the sky.” Oshiro declared automatically, as if the whole subject were a foregone conclusion.

  “Mmmh, that’s probably them right now…” Watson suggested with dry sarcasm as a second sequence of explosions (the almost instantaneous destruction of Junyō) shook the walls of the hospital. He regretted the words instantly, recognising they’d been spoken far too loudly, but it was far too late now as Oshiro burst forth from his seat at the operating table, thrusting the doctor aside and rounding on him in wild-eyed rage.

  “You keep your mouth shut!” He snarled, hand on the hilt of the sword he now wore at his belt. “There is another doctor here: this hospital can work with one…!”

  “I meant nothin’ by it…” Watson attempted to placate, hands raised and taking a slow step forward. “I’m nae finished wi’ yer nose there, fella… come and sit back down and I’ll look after it…”

  “You insolent pigs…!” Oshiro growled in return, calming a little but still wary as he allowed the doctor to guide him back. “We are in charge now! You bow down to us!”

  “Oh, aye…” Watson muttered under his breath, careful to keep any negative tone out of his words this time. “That we’ll do… that we’ll – !”

  His last sentence was cut off by the crash of the main doors being flung back, followed quickly by several short sharp bursts of automatic fire as two of the three guards were cut down in an instant. The third emerged from a room at the far end of the hall, weapon raised, and fired a long burst from the hip in return, killing two Australian prisoners and wounding two German sailors behind them. Stepping forward behind the falling men, a Dutch solider raised his captured Type-100 SMG and emptied his magazine into that last guard, leaving a shattered, bloody mess of its upper body as the corpse crashed to the floor in the middle of the hall in a spray of blood and torn flesh.

  Inside that small operating room, not at all far from the entrance, Oshiro had drawn the pistol at his belt, cocked it and pointed it directly at Watson’s face, making it clear that the man should make no sound if he wanted to live. Backing up against the inside wall beside the doorway, the pilot kept the weapon aimed directly at him as he took several deep, calming breaths and waited for his moment to strike.

  “Albert…!” Reuters bellowed loudly, stepping forward over the bodies around him and taking a few steps down the hallway. “Albert…!”

  “In here, Kurt… in here…!” Schiller’s weak but clear voice floated out from one of the rooms at the far end of the main hall.

  The Reichsmarschall reacted instantly, striding down the main hallway with no heed for safety or the calls for caution that came from Ritter and Donelson. He was completely unprepared as Oshiro burst unexpectedly from the open doorway to his right, both bodies slamming into the wall on the opposite side. Caught in an awkward position and crushed under the force of the impact and the combined weight of both men, Reuters’ left arm snapped under the impact with a loud and sickening crack, and he cried out in sudden agony as Oshiro caught him about the throat and turned to place the Reichsmarschall’s body between himself and the rest of the group.

  “Lower your weapons…!” He screamed in Japanese, too tense and frightened to even think about English as an alternative as he jammed the muzzle of his pistol into the side of Reuters’ head. “Throw them to the ground now, or I will kill him…!”

  “Put your guns down… put them down…!” Ritter bellowed in English, translating desperately and throwing both arms out as if to physically restrain the men around him.

  “Piss off, Fritz…!” An Australian corporal growled from the middle of the crowd, somewhere behind him. “He kills the Jerry and we kill him… win-bloody-win for everyone, I reckon…”

  “Do it…!” Oshiro howled, forcing the muzzle hard into his prisoner’s ear and drawing from him a guttural moan through clenched teeth.

  “Captain…!” Ritter warned, turning to staring darkly at Donelson and using every ounce of his control to refrain from revealing everything in the interest of keeping Reuters alive. There was a long, intense moment as both locked eyes, a lifetime of silent information passing between them as she considered the ramifications of allowing the death of a man who – hated as he was – might well hold the key to the success of Hindsight’s entire mission.

  “Do as he says, men...” Eileen ordered finally, drawing a sigh of relief from Ritter just as it drew a chorus of dissent and complaints from the Allied prisoners present. “Do it…!” She barked, filling her tone with all the officer’s authority she’d spent an entire career developing.

  Grumbling under their breath, those who were armed grudgingly lowered them to the floor in the seconds that followed as a smug, superior grin spread across Oshiro’s face.

  Now… you… step forward, whore… step forward and enter that room…!” He instructed, momentarily removing the pistol from Reuters’ head as he used it to indicate the open doorway on the opposite side of the hall, to Donelson’s left.

  “I think he’s talking to you, captain,” Ritter explained awkwardly as she moved to stand beside him, deciding a literal translation was unnecessary. “He wants you to step closer…”

  “Oh, aye… does he now…?” She asked croakily, struggling to affect a calm tone and not really managing to hide the fear in her words.

  “Now…!” Oshiro screamed, in English this time and understanding their exchanges well enough.

  “All right, alright y’ scunner, I’m movin…!” She growled, raising a hand in some semblance of a placatory gesture.

  “You also…!” He added, firing that order in Japanese at the only man present who understood it. “After her: get in…!”

  “No need for anything foolish to happen here, lieutenant,” Ritter suggested with as calm a tone as he could manage. “There’s no need for any further lives to be lost today…”

  “The only thing foolish would be for you to disobey my orders!” Oshiro barked in return, once more jamming the muzzle of his gun into Reuters’ temple. “You want your commander to live? Do as you are told!”

  “I’ll outlive you, you yellow pig-dog!” The Reichsmarschall snarled under his breath, teeth still clenched tightly and drawing short, sharp breaths as he fought off his body’s growing desire to slide into shock in reaction of the pain coursing through him.

  “Shut your mouth!”

  “Shoot him!” Reuters wheezed angrily, too distracted in that moment to think about using English, which might well have gotten him exactly what he was asking for. “Shoot this filthy whoreson!”

  “Silence…!” The pilot howled, almost hysterical now.

  “We’re going, fella – we’re going… see...?” Eileen called sharply, drawing his enraged attention away from Reuters and calming him slightly. “Come on, Carl… we’re going in now…”

  With her hand still raised in warning, Eileen stepped carefully forward and moved through the open doorway into the examination room beyond with Ritter right behind her. Oshiro followed awkwardly a few seconds later, forced to hold most of his hostage’s weight as the old man’s adrenalin levels began to fade and his strength along with it.

  “You – German: close the door!” He ordered the moment he was clear of the doorway, stepping quickly to one side as Ritter turned and did as he was asked.

  “Lock it!”

  “There – there is no lock…” Ritter replied after a
moment, voice shaking and unsure what reaction that might bring.

  “Then block it, you fool…! Block the doorway! The cabinet there: push it across!”

  Ritter immediately leaped to it, to the other side of a tall, metal framed cabinet with clear glass doors that stood against the wall on the right side of the doorway. With a grunt of exertion, he slowly forced its grey-painted bulk across the closed door until it came to a halt against the door knob on the other side, its metal feet screeching across the floor the entire time.

  As this was happening, Eileen backed carefully around the examination table in the middle of the room and eventually found herself up against a set of stainless steel sinks on the far side of the room. An unexpected, metallic jab in the small of her back at that point for the first time reminded her of the tanto she’d stuffed into the belt of her trousers after taking it from Ritter.

  “Now, let’s just think about this for a minute…” she began, trying to reason with Oshiro as he turned his attention back to her. “You kill the Reichsmarschall there, fella, and these boys out there will break in here and kill you before he’s even hit the floor…”

  “You think your allies will care if a German dies?” He shot back, tightening his grip again at Reuters’ throat as the old man struggled to loosen the pilot’s grip with his only good hand, his left arm clutched in protectively against his chest.

  “There’s Germans with ‘em too, matey, and they’ll damn-sure care about it…” she suggested, raising a steadying hand once more. “Without him, you lose your human shield, and as far as the Aussies out there go, most of ‘em know what happened over at Laha...” she added, her pointed gaze making it quite clear what she was talking about. “You think they need a reason to kill Japs right now…”

  “Maybe you are right,” Oshiro conceded in English, an evil smile spreading across his face. “Maybe it would be foolish to give up protection. Perhaps I kill you instead!”

  The sudden, dark intent in his smile and his tone were such that Eileen actually saw what was coming in the split second before he made his move. Even as the pistol was again drawn away from its position against Reuters’ left ear brought to bear on her, she was already diving away to her right. The weapon discharged, deafening inside that small room and an 8mm slug sizzled past her, punching through her sleeve and cutting a shallow channel of crimson across the back of her upper left arm before slamming into the wall behind and shattering a large mirror above the sinks. Eileen crashed to the floor, crying out in pain over the flesh wound as Ritter hesitated for just a moment, weighing his options before darting forward to attack.

  Realising he’d missed anything vital, Oshiro lost all rational control at that point and he heaved Reuters around to his left with a roar, sending him crashing into Ritter as the German came at him with fist drawn back. Forced to change tack mid-flight, Ritter awkwardly caught the Reichsmarschall and rolled him to one side, drawing him to the floor as carefully as he was able and protecting him with his own body as the Reichsmarschall cried out with renewed agony.

  Oshiro fired again, the second slug striking the top of the exam bed Donelson had taken cover behind and whining away as it ricocheted into the same back wall, not far from where the first had struck. Oshiro turned just long enough to give Ritter a vicious kick to his right side, winding the man and sending him rolling away from Reuters. He slammed into the cabinet blocking the doorway, where he received a second kick to the groin that fortunately did no long term damage but left him senseless and curled into a foetal ball, waves of nausea washing through him.

  The shots had galvanised the men outside into action, and there was loud shouting and a heavy banging on the door as several of them jammed their shoulders into it, trying to gain entrance. It was to no avail however, as the blockage of the tall cabinet and Ritter curled up at its base were more than enough to wedge the opening shut tight.

  Oshiro was now able to focus his attention completely on Eileen, and the act of taking just a few steps to the left was enough to expose her as she came to a halt in the opposite corner of the back wall, immediately finding her feet and rising into a sprinter’s crouch. With nothing but hatred in his cold smile, he raised the pistol once more, aimed straight into her eyes and without hesitation pulled the trigger.

  The absolute nothing that followed the faint click of the trigger pull and sear release was about as ‘deafening’ a moment as Eileen Donelson had ever experienced. It took a moment or two for both shooter and target to realise what hadn’t occurred, and only then did Oshiro’s eyes alter their focus from Eileen to the weapon he was aiming at her. It was only then that he noticed the spend 8mm casing that had failed to extract properly and had become jammed in the ejection port, its smoking, empty mouth angled partially skyward in a common malfunction known as ‘stove-piping’.

  Oshiro reacted completely by reflex, reaching up without thinking and grasping the rear of the slide with the intention of cycling the action to clear the jam. Had his target been a few dozen yards away rather than just a few feet, that might’ve worked as an option… as it was however, Eileen was far too close to allow time for weapon clearance drills. Even as he lowered the weapon and frantically snapped the slide backward, she was already launching from her tensed, crouching position, her right hand drawing the tanto from behind her back and thrusting it forward as she released a roar of her own. It was guttural, predatory sound: one filled with a burning rage that gave voice to the hatred, fear and violation the man before her had visited on her body and mind just hours before.

  She crashed into him with full force, crushing his hands against his body as the pistol flew from his grasp and skittered away across the floor. The point of the tanto found his groin too in that moment, punching effortlessly through his uniform and flesh alike and plunging deep into his body to the hilt. Oshiro Takeshi screamed, the sound something visceral and devoid of any coherent thought as he fell backward, Eileen on top of him, and he felt the blunt, upper edge of that cold, steel blade drag upward through his intestines and his vital organs, leaving devastation in its wake.

  “You feel that, fucker…?” Donelson hissed in adrenalin-laced fury, lips close to his ear as she forcefully twisted the blade inside him and surrendered to her baser, most atavistic instincts. “Do you feel it…?” She asked again, drawing another mindless scream from him as she lifted her own body slightly and wrenched the blade upward again, raking the blade against the bottom of his sternum. “Does that feel good for you…?”

  Forced out under pressure from Oshiro’s failing heart and from the weight of Eileen’s body, blood and viscera poured in torrents from the terrible, mortal wound in his lower abdomen, and from the matching, jagged exit wound torn into his back, next to his spine.

  “Look at me, you bastard…!” She snarled viciously, her face no more than inches from his as she released her grip on the blade and clasped his head in both dripping, gore-soaked hands. Using a pair of bloody thumbs against his forehead, she forced his eyes open and stared deep into them as his last moments of consciousness began to fade away. “Look at me, and know you were my bitch… my bitch…!”

  The light had faded from his eyes now, however, and her voice was already cracking as rage and adrenalin gave way to reality once more. Suddenly horrified by the scene, and also by what she’d done, Eileen rolled desperately away from the body, scrabbling backward once more until she was again jammed up against that far wall, hands clutched about her knees and a wild, hysterical stare in her eyes. Tears began to stream down her cheeks and her body was again wracked by huge sobs as she buried her head in her chest, trying to forget the last few moments and finding it completely impossible.

  Captain… Eileen…” Ritter croaked, crawling slowly across the floor toward her while gingerly nursing his own injured side with one hand. “Are you all right? Are you hurt…?”

  “Who…? What…?” She started softly, looking up and looking desperately about in a sudden, irrational fear of further danger b
efore her eyes finally focussed on Ritter.

  She released a sigh of held breath, only to finally register what he’d asked and think about the reasons behind such a question. Sitting there in the semi-darkness of the shuttered room, the air filled with the ongoing sounds of men working to clear the doorway, she only then realised that the front of her body felt warm and wet through. As she cast her eyes down with a growing terror, she noticed for the first time that her entire uniform was soaked in dark crimson from her chest down to her knees.

  From an outsider’s point of view, it would’ve been impossible to tell if there were wounds beneath all that blood, and there was indeed another growing stain at the back of her left arm where one bullet had actually left a shallow crease in passing. Releasing a moan of utter disgust, she clambered quickly to her feet and without any thought to company or modesty, began to claw at her clothing, desperate to get the awful sensation of those blood-soaked garments away from her body.

  The cabinet finally gave way at that moment, tipping forward to crash heavily into the examination table and missing the fallen Reuters by scant inches as he lay in a dazed state, moaning and clutching at his broken arm. Ritter had made it to his own feet by that stage, and with an uncaring, irrational Donelson at that moment in a state of semi-undress, his own latent sense of honour and decency quickly kicked into operation.

  “Out! All of you, out…!” He bellowed, arms outstretched the door flew open and the first two men barged through. “Everything is all right… everything is fine… out… now! Give the lady some privacy…!”

  “You’ll need me, Fritz,” Watson called urgently, forcing his way through the throng of Aussies and Dutch clustered against the doorway.