“God-damn-it, I’m in charge here!” Monte shouts.
Yusif smiles, “Well, of course you are, Sergeant,” and bows his head, letting Monte lead them into the tunnel.
Smith is under the grate, pushing hard to break it free his face barely able to get out of the water for air, “Come on, you bastard.” He works harder, struggling to get a good hold as blood runs from the headless German corpse and onto his face, “Guys! Hey, guys!”
Chapter 7
Monte leads them though an intricately carved tunnel. Strange symbols adorn the walls, crude drawings of women warriors, hooded priests, and human sacrifice. Camir waits in front of a headless German corpse, scimitar in hand. Yusif looks at him; Camir shrugs with a smile.
“Only one?” Monte asks.
Pilch looks at the head, “What the fuck?”
It’s the German with the scared face.
Monte looks to him, “What?”
“I shot that guy.”
Monte looks to the head, “Seems you missed.”
“No, before up top…”
A screaming German soldier emerges from the darkness running toward them at full speed. He slams into Pilch, and they both fall to the ground. Pilch rolls on top of the struggling German and pins him down, “Crazy Kraut.”
The German looks up at Pilch as he continues screaming his feet kicking as he tries to run.
“Jeez, shut ’em up,’ Oddball says.
Pilch punches him in the jaw and he stops screaming, looks into Pilchs’ eyes and then stops moving. Pilch checks for a pulse, “He’s dead.”
Monte kneels and looks him over.
Oddball looks to Pilch, “You didn’t have to kill him?”
“I only hit him.”
Monte checks for wounds, “He ain’t shot.”
“Then what?” Pilch asks.
All eyes look down the tunnel.
Matty gulps, “Scared to death.”
Johnson shakes his head, “Bullshit.”
“No, I heard about it from a guy in Baker Company at Kasserine,” Matty claims.
Monte stands, “Matty, shut up.”
“It’s true; my pa saw it in the Great War,” Clint says.
“We should go back,” Oddball turns to leave. Monte grabs him and turns him around.
“All of you, shut the hell up,” Monte barks, eyeing the men.
A distant whump of a grenade shakes the tunnel.
Monte, satisfied that the men are listening, looks down the tunnel, “Let’s get moving.”
Screams and gunshots come from ahead. A bullet whizzes past.
“Johnson, get that other Thompson up here,” Monte orders.
Johnson moves forward, and they both have the submachine-guns pointed forward, “Let’s go, slowly,” Monte tells him.
Johnson holds the Thompson tight, ready to shoot. Bullets breeze past them. The screams get louder. Something moves from the shadows ahead. Johnson stops.
“Steady,” Monte says.
A German soldier comes at them, walking backwards and firing wildly. He turns to face them.
One of the Americans steps on a discolored brick. There’s a click from the floor. The American looks down.
The German and Johnson lock eyes. The German brings his weapon up, Johnson fires, blowing him down. There’s a loud crash, and Monte spins to see one of the Americans pinned to the ground by a large lead spike that has fallen from the ceiling and now sticks out of the man’s neck where his head used to be. It holds the twitching corpse up right like a pin through a doll.
“Nobody move!” Monte screams.
Camir looks at the brick; he points out another booby-trapped brick nearby.
Monte nods, “I got it.”
A bullet whines in and hits an American in the head, and he falls back dead. Some of the men drop to the ground for cover at seeing this. Another American lands on a bobby-trapped brick. A metal spike plummets from the ceiling, the tip of the spike impaling him through the skull and exiting his mouth. He writhes and groans in agony, vainly trying to pull himself free.
“God-damn-it. Nobody move!” Monte screams even as more rounds fly in, “Yusif.”
Yusif waves Camir forward, and he walks confidently, pointing out the bricks they should avoid. Monte looks to the men, “Everybody got it?”
The men nod.
Monte looks back to the impaled man to see he’s no longer moving, “Alright, slowly.”
The men move down the tunnel cautiously, on edge, stepping over the booby-trapped bricks. German bodies litter the corridor, some impaled by spikes, others with bloody wounds.
“Who are they fighting?” Oddball asks.
“Shut up,” Monte says over his shoulder.
The hallway ends at an octagon-shaped room with passages leading in eight directions. Gunfire and screaming echo through the room, and the nervous Americans look down every corridor for the unseen enemy.
“Which way?” Pilch asks.
A sickening scream of agony comes from the dark, and Pilch spins, looking for the source.
“Which way!” Pilch yells.
The scream intensifies into shrieks of pain and then suddenly stops.
Oddball turns around to go back the way they came, “Fuck this.” Monte grabs him, spinning him back and into the room. Gunfire continues to echo through the passage.
Monte listens but can’t discern which passage the sounds are coming from, “Yusif, get us out of here!”
Yusif examines the hieroglyphic carved into the stone floor. He indicates a passage, “This way.”
“Are you sure?” Monte asks.
Yusif nods and leads off.
Pilch watches him go and leans in close to Monte, “We can’t trust him.”
“Yes, we can.”
“He read that gibberish on the fuckin’ floor Sarge, come on!”
“We can trust him!”
“How you figure?”
“I don’t know, but I do.”
Monte follows Yusif into the tunnel.
“That’s real fuckin’ reassuring,” Pilch mutters.
Chapter 8
Yusif leads them to an open doorway and stops. He peers in.
Monte looks in to see a dimly lit room with large, gold double doors and a tunnel leading off in the opposite direction.
Monte points to the gold doors, “Looks like an exit to me.”
“Yes,” Yusif agrees.
“Clint, Matty, lead off.”
Matty and Clint lead them into the room.
Clint gazes at the large gold plated door, “Think it’s real gold?”
Something moves from the shadows at the end of the room. Matty taps Clint and points.
Clint calls out in German, “Halt and surrender!”
Two figures step from the shadows.
Clint continues in German, “Hands up!”
Clint looks to Matty, “See, told you my grandfather was from the old country.”
The figures move into the dim torch light, revealing two Napoleonic soldiers in full uniform.
“What the fuck?” Clint says.
The Frenchmen come at them, bayonets fixed on their ancient rifles. Clint and Matty open fire. Round after round slam into the Frenchmen, but they keep coming. Both rifles click empty.
“Oh shit,” Clint says reaching for his pistol.
Monte pushes his Thompson forward and fires into the approaching Frenchmen with no effect. Yusif knocks Matty to the ground to face the charging Frenchmen. He swings his scimitar wide, cutting a Frenchman in half at the waist.
Clint draws his pistol as a bayonet hits him in the chest with a wet pop. “Momma,” he cries out.
The Frenchman pulls the bayonet out with a spray of blood. Clint raises his pistol and shoots the Frenchman in the face, and they both fall to the ground. The scream echoes through the room, and as the Frenchman falls back, the ball of energy exits his head. Monte stares at the ceiling where the ball of energy disappeared, “What the hell was that?�
�
Camir and Yusif move forward, scimitars in hand to clear the room.
Oddball pulls Clint back, “Aw, Clinty.”
Matty looks over from where he lays, face down on the ground, “Clinty, you okay bud?” Clint doesn’t move, “Aw no, Clinty.”
With a hiss, the legless Frenchman that Yusif cut in half crawls toward Matty with a dagger in its hand. The men get a good look at the mysterious soldier from the past. Its skin is dried out and has withered tight onto the bone. Its eyes are sunk deep into the skull and its voice comes out as dry hisses.
“Jesus!” Johnson cries out.
The Frenchman crawls up to Matty and drives the dagger into his back.
Oddball shrieks and crawls on his butt backward in fear.
Matty claws at the Frenchman, “Get ’em off, he’s killing me!”
Oddball continues screaming, and Johnson stares in horror. Monte calmly steps up and, using his pistol, shoots the Frenchman in the head. There’s another evil scream and a ball of energy shoots toward the ceiling, Monte falls back on the ground watching it go.
Not realizing the Frenchman is dead, Matty continues to struggle, “Help! Get him off me!”
Oddball is still screaming.
Monte stands up and goes to Matty, “Hold still, and Oddball, for fuck’s sake, will you shut up,” Monte pulls the half corpse off Matty’s back and throws it down the hallway.
Yusif and Camir return. Yusif shakes his head, “No more.”
Monte pulls the dagger out of Matty’s backpack and then pulls the pack off.
“How bad is it Sarge?” Matty asks concerned.
Matty tries to get up as Monte feels along his back for wet spots indicating blood. Finding none, Monte looks at Matty’s pack and pulls out the gold box. He hands the broken box to Matty, punctured by the dagger, “Lucky bastard.”
Yusif looks at Matty’s box, “Luck had nothing to do with it,” Yusif indicates the symbol on the box, “This talisman wards off evil.”
Pilch rolls his eyes, “Yeah, right.”
Matty examines the box, “Hey, the gold’s peeling off.”
Pilch looks concerned, “Gold don’t peel,” he pulls out his box and scratches it. He looks to Matty, “It’s gold alright. Gold paint. Twenty bucks!” and disgusted, Pilch throws his box aside, “God-damn filthy A-rabs,” he looks to Yusif. The two lock eyes.
Monte looks at Clint’s motionless corpse and then to Pilch, “Open up the door. Let’s get out of here.”
Pilch doesn’t move, his eyes burning as he stares at Yusif.
“Pilch!” Monte barks.
Pilch breaks his stare and walks for the door, “It’s locked.” He spits the words out over his shoulder in disgust.
“Break it down then.” Monte orders.
Oddball looks over the dead Frenchmen, “Well, that was pretty much the most fucked-up thing I’ve ever seen.”
Chapter 9
Oddball smashes at the door with his entrenching tool while Pilch sits relaxed against the wall looking on, “Oddball, you wouldn’t last two minutes on my construction crew back in Chi-town.”
Oddball glares at him.
Pilch smiles, “Come on, you want out of here or not?”
“You could give me a hand.”
Pilch holds up a hand, “Shh, you hear that?” he says looking around, “Shit. Could be more of ’em.”
Oddball starts working on the door even harder. Pilch smiles.
Monte sits with Yusif and looks over all that’s left of his command, “Six left, six out of eighteen.”
Yusif looks over the men, Pilch lounges against the wall watching Oddball work on the door, Johnson sits with Camir cleaning his weapon and Matty busy writing a letter home. Yusif rubs his eyes and silently nods in agreement.
Monte shakes his head and looks to the dead Frenchmen, “What are they?”
Yusif looks at him and thinks, “Zumbi, the undead.”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing my ass, what?”
Yusif shakes his head, “You are not ready,” He stands, “But you will be,” and he walks over to Oddball smashing away at the door.
Pilch toys with him, “Like you mean it, Oddball.”
Yusif leans down to Pilch, “It would be easier if you knocked out the pins,” and he points to the hinges.
Pilch glares at him, “Mind your business.”
Yusif smiles and walks off.
Pilch watches him go and then walks up to Oddball, “Why don’t you just knock out the pins?”
Oddball smiles, “Hey, that would be easier.”
Johnson cleans his gun as Camir wipes down his scimitar. Johnson looks over to him, “Devil’s work bein’ done down here.”
Not understanding, Camir smiles and nods.
“We need a priest, that would stop those bastards cold, I tell you,” Johnson strokes a small cross on a chain around his neck, “Yeah, you know what I’m saying,” he glances at Camir’s scimitar, “Hey, you got an extra one’a those?”
Camir grips the hilt of his scimitar and grins. A crash announces that the door is down.
Yusif leads them into a large room with pillars and a vaulted ceiling. It’s dim. Torches give off twinkling light, but the ends of the room are lost in the darkness. Along both walls are alcoves with carved relief writing. A stone table stained red with blood sits just inside the doorway. Yusif stops to look at it as Oddball and Johnson continue into the room. Monte joins Yusif, where they look at a fresh heart on the table. Oddball gazes around the ancient room, “Looks like a church.”
Johnson frowns, “If Satan had a church.”
They hear muffled voices ahead. Oddball and Johnson move slowly forward, weapons ready.
Monte bends down, looking at the heart, “What the fuck?”
“An offering.”
“To who?”
Yusif looks to Camir and begins to answer when from the far end of the room, they hear a blood-curdling scream.
Oddball and Johnson freeze. There’s another agonizing scream that’s quickly silenced. Oddball spins around to leave, only to find Monte there. Monte spins Oddball around and pushes him forward. Yusif joins them and Monte signals his men to spread out with hand signals. The men move ahead with weapons at the ready. As they round the last pillar they see a stone block in the center of an open space with two men dressed in hooded sackcloth cowls holding an Arab man bent backward over the block. The Arab man screams and struggles to break free as one of the priests raises a bejeweled dagger to strike. Monte looks on in horror; the priests are ancient with grey leathery skin pulled tight onto their bony skulls. The Arab man screams as the knife drives home.
“Jesus Christ!” Monte exclaims.
A third priest holds a young woman captive.
Monte speaks through clenched teeth, “Take ’em down!”
Pilch aims his rifle and fires. The priest holding the women falls back, a hole in his head. As the priest falls to the floor his head explodes in energy. Bolts of lighting strike out, hitting several of the men and knocking them down.
The women is stunned but manages to pull the priest’s dagger from his hand and jumps onto one of the priests at the alter, driving the dagger into his back.
The other priest looks to her with a snarl as the next round hits him in the face. His head also explodes, and more men are knocked to the ground by the explosion of energy. The Americans look on, awe struck, as the woman drives the dagger again and again into the priest’s back.
Monte, finally snaps to, “Oddball, get in there and help her.”
Oddball smiles, “Looks like she’s doin’ fine.”
“Oddball!”
“Yes, Sarge.”
Oddball walks up, draws his pistol, and shoots the struggling priest in the head. The explosion sends Oddball sailing through the air to land roughly on the stone floor. The woman falls back on her butt and looks over to him.
He smiles at her, “OK, now that just ain
’t normal.”
The Americans get to their feet, scared and confused, looking at the headless corpses of the priests. Johnson drops to his knees and begins to pray.
Monte looks around, “Anybody hurt?”
Nobody trusts their voices to speak. Oddball stands and approaches the woman.
“Matty, check for exits,” Monte orders.
Matty looks around, “Sure thin’… ,” his voice crackles like a teenager and he coughs, “Sure thing, Sarge.”
Oddball smiles at the women as he walks up, “Howdy.”
Hands shaking, she drops the dagger and looks up to him. He holds out his canteen, and she slowly reaches to take it. Oddball tips his helmet, “People call me Oddball.”
Monte walks to where Yusif stands over the body of the Arab man on the block. Blood runs from his opened chest and his legs still twitch.
Monte shakes his head, “No way to go.”
Yusif shrugs, “One way is no different than another.”
Monte looks into the dead man’s eyes, fixed wide in horror.
“Speak for yourself, mack.”
The women hands Oddball his canteen back, “Thank you, Oddball,” she says with a French accent.
Oddball smiles, “Well, my momma named me Cletus,” he says taking the canteen back, “Guys in the Army named me Oddball. Can’t figure which is worse.”
She smiles, “I’m Vanessa.”
Monte looks at the body of a priest, it’s skin drawn tight from age, bone showing through in places; it looks long dead, “You want to tell me exactly what the hell is going on down here?”
Yusif mutters a word in an ancient African language, “Zumbi.”
“Zombie, what the hell is a Zombie?” Pilch snaps.
“Zumbi, the undead,” Yusif translates.
Oddball looks over, “Undead! Whattaya mean undead?”
Yusif shrugs, “Undead. No longer alive.”
Pilch shakes his head, confused, “Dead bodies?”
“We seen plenty of bodies, pal. You heard of Kasserine Pass?” Johnson says.
Pilch shakes his head in disgust, “Dumb ass A-rab thinking we’re scared of bodies.”
Camir says something in Arabic, and Yusif nods. He looks back to the Americans.
Monte shrugs quizzically, “Yeah?”
Rise of the Undead 1943 Page 4
