Twilight of the Dead

by David Bishop

  To stand beside one of these powerful devices was a sobering experience, even after all I'd seen during the war. The fuselage resembled a long, metal cigar, with large wings attached one-third of the way back from its pointed nosecone and smaller wings near the tail. Fixed atop the fuselage was another cylinder that was slightly larger at its front end. I decided that it must be the pulse jet engine which generated the sputtering sound said to be so characteristic of the V1.

  The bomb was deceptively simple in its outward appearance. It had been painted a dull grey-green, but there was no swastika adorning the seven-metre long fuselage. The bomb's wingspan was more than five metres. When seen from below while flying, it would resemble an unholy kind of crucifix. But the V1 brought death, not salvation or redemption.

  Behind the V1 was a similar bomb, but that one had a glass canopy fitted over a small cockpit on the main fuselage, just in front of the intake ring for the pulse jet engine. That must be the piloted version of the V1, I realised, also known as the Reichenberg. Heaven help the poor bastard who has to fly that thing, I thought. Such a task was little more than suicide. The rear of the Reichenberg was sat atop a metal trolley, with gas canisters and hydraulic equipment linking the trolley to the V1. That must be some sort of launch mechanism, I reasoned, providing the rocket with sufficient power to launch it from the ground. No doubt the device would be stripped apart by our scientists once they reached this facility, for transportation back to Russia so the technology could be studied.

  Gorgo hissed at me to pay attention. He had been briefing Eisenstein while my thoughts were elsewhere. "Our target should be in the next building. It contains his laboratory and his private quarters. The target's name is Kurt Rainer and he's a German physicist working on a special project for the Nazis."

  "How will we know what he looks like?" I asked.

  "My Lord Constanta and I were introduced to Rainer last summer when we visited Berlin. The Führer summoned the physicist to show us what he'd been developing. It was Hitler's way of showing us the Germans still had the upper hand in their war with your people."

  "Why would a physicist be working at a rocket assembly facility?" Eisenstein asked. "What has Rainer developed for the Nazis?"

  Gorgo's face darkened into a snarl, his lips drawing back to show his fangs. "You don't need to know that, human. Just do as I say or else..."

  "Or else what?"

  The Rumanian's eyes lit up. "If I do not succeed, my bodyguard waiting outside has orders to rip open your comrades' throats and bathe in their blood. I doubt either of you wish to see the Borjigin brothers murdered only to be resurrected as my thralls." Gorgo sneered at me. "And we all know how Zunetov feels about Charnosova. She will be violated in the most savage of ways before her life is taken. I'll make both of you watch unless you do as I say. Understand?"

  Eisenstein grimaced. "We understand, you soulless parasite."

  "That's better."

  Gorgo turned and marched out of the rocket storage building, his bodyguard shoving a rifle into my back to get me moving. I stumbled after the Rumanian, my head still filled with the horrific images he'd planted there. Mariya and I had grown close in the months since we first met, but neither of us had acknowledged the strength of our feelings for each other. We thought we were being discreet. Plainly, that notion had been foolhardy.

  Eisenstein strode along beside me, moving close enough to whisper in my left ear. "I told you having a woman in any unit was a mistake, but you didn't listen, did you?"

  I kept my own counsel, knowing it would gladden the vampyr to see me arguing with my mentor. Eisenstein and I had been through too much to let Gorgo turn us against each other. Ahead of us Gorgo thrust open the door to the next building and strode inside, paying no heed to the lack of lighting and making no attempt to conceal his arrival. The Rumanian's arrogance was almost our undoing as we followed him in, the vampyr bodyguard close at our heels.

  Once all four of us were inside, the door slammed shut and the building's interior was flooded with light. Most of the space was filled with wooden benches, each one laden with scientific equipment. At the far end of the space I could see a frightened man in a white laboratory coat peering over the top of a bench. But most of my attention was focused on the twelve men in grey uniforms waiting in a loose semicircle and facing our position. A dozen German soldiers were standing between us and our target, all of them armed and ready to fire.

  Eisenstein spat a curse at our commander. "You fool! You've lead us into an ambush!"

  Gorgo glanced over his shoulder at us, gleeful malevolence in his black eyes. "Twelve of them against four of us? I call that a slaughter, not an ambush."

  He threw both arms out sideways and screamed at the enemy soldiers, his cry a terrifying cacophony of sound and fury. The Germans staggered backwards, deafened by Gorgo's aural onslaught. The Rumanian faded into a mist, his face and form still visible amidst the cloud as it rose into the air. Behind us Gorgo's bodyguard threw aside his weapon, preferring to flash his fangs at the terrified sentries. One man among the guards stood his ground, the insignia on his uniform marking him out as a gefreiter.

  "Stand your ground!" he bellowed at the others. "There are only four of them! Fire at will!"

  Eisenstein and I were moving targets before the German soldiers had time to react, sprinting in opposite directions. As I ran I opened fire with my submachine gun, spraying the sentries with bullets and not bothering to aim carefully. There were so many of them huddled together beneath the spectral cloud of Gorgo that it was more like butchery than battle. Meanwhile Eisenstein was shooting out the massive lights suspended from the ceiling, each bulb exploding in a flash, showering the Germans below with shards of hot glass. By the time I'd reached the cover of a nearby laboratory bench, all but one of the lights were shattered and half the sentries were dead or dying on the concrete, blood seeping out into a pool beneath them.

  The gefreiter was shooting up at the ceiling where Gorgo was hovering in the air while screaming at the other soldiers to join in. Some followed his example but their bullets passed uselessly through the insubstantial wraith. The remaining Germans were dividing their fire between the other vampyr, Eisenstein and me. Gorgo's bodyguard marched slowly and deliberately towards the enemy, grinning at them. The sentries fired round after round into his chest and head, wounds that would have killed an ordinary man a dozen times over, but their target was no ordinary man. The vampyr chose one of the soldiers at random and slashed a set of razor-sharp talons across the guard's neck, ripping through skin and bone and tendons, a spray of blood flying sideways from the fatal wound.

  Eisenstein and I concentrated our fire on the rest of the sentries, not caring whether we hit Gorgo's bodyguard or not since he was all but immune to our weapons. Within a minute every one of the Germans bar the gefreiter were dead, shot to pieces by us or torn apart by the vampyr. The bodyguard had the sole survivor in his grasp, talons clasping the front of the gefreiter's bloodstained uniform. The vampyr was stretching forward, ready to plunge his fangs into the German's neck, but a snarl from Gorgo halted him.

  The sergeant floated back down to the ground, his gaseous form solidifying once more. Once fully corporeal again, Gorgo strode towards his bodyguard, snapping at the underling in Rumanian. The Transylvanian dialect was beyond my understanding but the meaning was clear: Gorgo was claiming the right to slay the troublesome gefreiter for himself. The bodyguard acknowledged the will of his master, not noticing that the German soldier was retrieving a wooden stake from the concrete floor.

  The gefreiter stabbed his crude weapon deep into the vampyr's body. The creature cried out in anguish, looking down in dismay at the stump protruding from its chest before exploding into a cloud of dust and ash. Gorgo stopped in his tracks, startled by the sudden demise of his bodyguard. The Rumanian faded into mist once more, disappearing before our eyes.

  Moments later he reappeared behind the gefreiter, his fingers already closing round the enemy soldier'
s neck. One vicious, sideways twist and the last German sentry was dead, slaughtered like the rest of his men. Gorgo lifted the gefreiter's body into the air and threw it against a wall with a sickening thud, the impact so severe it must have shattered every bone inside the still-warm corpse. Gorgo moved to where his bodyguard had been killed, the dust and ash slowly settling on the floor. The Rumanian crouched on the cold concrete, letting his fingers touch the remains of his comrade as if he was caressing the dead vampyr.

  Eisenstein and I emerged from where we'd taken cover, carefully approaching Gorgo. Neither of us had seen him act this way before, never seen him show any concern or affection for those under his charge. Had the bodyguard been someone important to him? A relative, perhaps a friend, or even something more? It was hard to imagine vampyr having families or friendships as we did. Their violence and bloodlust were so alien, so inhuman, that it defied belief to think of them as anything but supernatural monstrosities. But Gorgo was evidently hurt by what had happened to his bodyguard, so much so it was if he'd been on the end of that wooden stake.

  A glass container shattered at the other end of the building. Gorgo, Eisenstein and I spun round, tensed and ready for another attack. There was a single living soul left in that space with us: a quaking, terrified man clasping the lapels of his white laboratory coat. He stood beneath the remaining light, bathed in its illumination, with fragments of glass strewn at his feet.

  "Dr Rainer, I presume," Gorgo snarled in German. "We've come a long way to find you, doctor, sent here on orders of the Lord Constanta himself. Those orders have cost me the life of one of my most trusted companions. If I were you, I'd pray the effort was worth it, otherwise your suffering and torment shall be long and exquisite."

  Rainer was a slight man with sallow skin and grey, thinning hair scraped over a balding pate. He had small, circular glasses perched on the tip of his prominent nose and trembling afflicted his liver-spotted hands.

  "What are you?" he asked meekly. "What do you want?"

  "You've already seen what I am," Gorgo replied imperiously. He moved towards the scientist, nonchalantly stepping over the corpses of the German guards. The vampyr paused by the last of them, removing three stick grenades from his waist belts. His fearsome appearance had so terrified the soldiers that they'd never thought to use the explosive devices. Eisenstein and I followed Gorgo, intrigued to discover what was so important that Constanta himself had assigned Gorgo to come here looking for it.

  "As for what I want," the Rumanian continued, "well, I think you already know the answer to that question, don't you?"

  Rainer gestured at the scientific equipment around him. Much of it had been destroyed in the brief but bloody battle, leaving little evidence of whatever research was being done here. "My project? But it's still years away from being complete. Besides, your men, they've just destroyed much of what I've been working on these past six months."

  By now Gorgo was within reach of the doctor. He rested a hand gently on Rainer's left shoulder, as if he was a disappointed teacher quietly reprimanding a schoolboy who hadn't finished his homework.

  "Please, Dr Rainer, let's not start with lies and deceptions, shall we? You and I both know the equipment in this laboratory has little to do with your true purpose here at Gottow. All of this," Gorgo gestured grandly at our surroundings, "is merely an illusion, a ruse constructed to hide the real work of this facility. Much like the V1 bombers in the adjoining building are there to fool the Allies when they reach this site in a few days. No, I'm talking about what is hidden underneath us." All trace of good humour vanished from the vampyr's face. "The Wunderwaffe, as you Germans rather grandly like to call it, the Wonder Weapon."

  "I don't know what you're talking about," the scientist pleaded, his face all innocence and bewilderment.

  Gorgo withdrew his hand from Rainer's shoulder, shifting it sideways to grasp the meek man's throat. Slowly, steadily, the Rumanian tightened his grip, threatening to squeeze the life from his captive while lifting him off the ground. Rainer's legs kicked and thrashed at Gorgo, while the scientist's hands tore at the talons crushing his neck, all to no avail.

  "Stop it," Eisenstein said. "You're killing him!"

  Gorgo twisted round to glare at my comrade. "Don't ever tell me what you do."

  "Grigori's right," I interjected. "If you slay this scientist, you'll never learn his secrets. What would Constanta have to say about that?"

  The Rumanian's face contorted with anger. For a moment I thought he might snap Rainer's neck out of spite, but instead he released the little German. Rainer fell to the floor, choking and gasping for breath, livid red marks evident on his throat. Gorgo waited until the scientist had regained some composure before crouching beside him.

  "Well, Dr Rainer, what's it to be? Will you share what you've found out, or do I risk my master's wrath by slaughtering you?" The Rumanian smirked. "Perhaps I will make you my thrall, a worthless slave defiling yourself for my amusement, begging for table leavings, licking the blood from your countrymen's corpses?"

  Rainer whimpered, a dark stain appearing round the crotch of his brown corduroy trousers as urine seeped through the fabric, dripping on to the concrete. "I'll show you," he conceded. "I'll tell you what you want to know."

  "That's better." Gorgo straightened up, rubbing his hands together. "Well, lead on!"

  The scientist scrambled to his feet, one hand feebly trying to hide the wet patch on his trousers. Rainer retreated to the far corner of the building and pulled down a lever on the wall. The laboratory bench he had been standing near slid aside, revealing a set of stairs leading down into a brightly lit basement. Gorgo sent Eisenstein down first to make certain there were no more soldiers waiting. After a minute my comrade reappeared at the foot of the stairs, calling up to us.

  "There are five more scientists down here, but they're all dead. Looks like mass suicide, probably capsules of prussic acid. No more sentries in sight, and no other entrances or exits."

  Satisfied, Gorgo sent Rainer down next before following me into the basement area. I was surprised to see how vast the underground chamber was, perhaps four times the size of the building above it. In fact the secret research laboratory was equivalent to the space covered by the entire facility. Constanta obviously had access to extremely accurate intelligence. Whatever the Germans had been developing here, it must be of great importance to merit such elaborate precautions. But what could this Wonder Weapon be, and why did the vampyr desire it?

  Gorgo examined one of the dead scientists, checking Eisenstein's assessment of what killed them. An attractive blonde woman in her early thirties was sprawled on the cold floor, white foam seeping from her red lips, bright blue eyes staring accusingly at us.

  The Rumanian grinned wolfishly up at Rainer. "You should have committed suicide down here with your comrades, doctor. That would have been an honourable death."

  "You took us by surprise," the scientist replied weakly. "My assistant Inga was always saying I should keep one of the capsules with me at all times in case the worst happened." He turned away from the dead woman's gaze, not wanting to look at her corpse. "I never listened."

  Gorgo stood up and folded his arms, glaring expectantly at the scientist. "I've come a long way to hear what you've discovered down here, Dr Rainer. Don't keep me waiting."

  "No, of course not. I just need a few moments to gather my papers..." The small man bustled away, moving around the room, snatching papers, diagrams and blueprints from the various research areas. Finally he came back with armfuls of documentation, his head tilted back to stop the larger rolls of paper jabbing him in the nose. Rainer paused beside a large wooden table, two metres wide and twice as long. It was littered with plates, cups and cutlery. This must have been where the scientists ate their meals. A row of bunks against a nearby wall suggested they had slept down here. Now the men and women had died here too.

  "Would you mind clearing a space for me?" the surviving scientist asked meekly.


  Gorgo nodded to Eisenstein who lifted up one end of the long table and tipped its contents on to the floor. Once the surface was cleared Rainer dumped everything he'd gathered on top of it, briskly sorting his documents into a rough order of importance. Finally satisfied with his arrangement, the little scientist pushed his glasses up his nose and began the remarkable, almost unbelievable tale of what the research team had discovered in this subterranean facility. I did my best to memorise his story in Russian so I could relay the details of it to Eisenstein later. My mentor had picked up a lot of German words and phrases in recent months, but needed me to fill in the blanks. I knew this would be such an occasion.

  "For years there have been wild theories and concepts circulating in the scientific community for a new kind of bomb," Rainer began. "What could be called nuclear bomb, I suppose. In 1938 Fritz Strassman and Otto Hahn published a paper proving an Italian physicist had witnessed a uranium nucleus being split, resulting in nuclear fission. Once news of this spread among my peers, the race was on to describe the theoretical mechanism of this fission. It soon became obvious that large amounts of energy could be released by this process if it was replicated on a larger scale.

  "When the war began, the scientific community knew German physicists were leading the world in this bold new area of study. Many of my colleagues pressed for the establishment of a programme to develop nuclear weapons, so they became reality instead of theory. But those in charge of the purse strings did not believe such weapons would be ready for use during the war.

  "The progress of the Wehrmacht was such that nobody in Berlin believed we would ever have a need for such devices." The scientist eased off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger, gently massaging the area where his spectacles usually rested.