by David Bishop
"That thing isn't Yuri anymore," I said out the side of my mouth at Uralsky. "Finish it off. Quick!"
"What if part of him is still alive?"
"He's gone. You know he's gone - finish him!"
"But he still looks so much like my grandfather," Uralsky said. He raised his weapon, ready to stab the bayonet into Antonov's corpse, but couldn't go through with it.
"I can't..." he whispered, lowering his bayonet. "I can't."
I was about to intervene but saw another of the resurrected looming towards me. I shoved the blade of my entrenching tool into the creature's mouth, through the brain stem and out the back of its head, and then flung the severed skull in a high arc over my shoulder. By the time I turned back to help Uralsky, it was too late. The thing that had been Antonov was gnawing on the sniper's neck, a jet of blood spurting from the wound. Uralsky did not cry out, did not protest. He simply nodded to me, knowing what had to be done.
Eisenstein got to him first, slicing the sickle through Uralsky's head before using it to finish off the lifeless body of Antonov as well.
"Let that be an end to it."
A volley of shots rang out and the last of the resurrected fell at our feet, joining the carpet of corpses that covered the ground. Most of no-man's-land was hidden beneath this mass of death. Even in those last few minutes of fighting, we had lost four more to the lifeless army, including the implacable Uralsky. From the eight members of the Smert Krofpeet, only four remained: myself, Sophia, Yatsko and Eisenstein. But how much longer could any of us trust Eisenstein?
We staggered back to our front lines, eight survivors from the hundred who had gone out to fight the resurrected. As we neared the Red Army trenches, the inhuman wailing started up once more from the German side of no-man's-land, but nothing moved in response to the howling.
"We killed them!" Yatsko shouted across the wasteland of bodies. "You can call all you want, nobody's coming!"
Brodsky was waiting for us when we climbed past the soldiers guarding the front line positions. "I want all those corpses burned," the captain told Yatsko. "Send a squad out with kerosene, have them pour it over the remains, and then set the lot on fire. Otherwise we'll have an epidemic on our hands within a week." Brodsky noticed that Eisenstein was among the few survivors. "Since he seemed so eager to venture out into no-man's-land, he can lead the squad back there."
"Hasn't he done enough?" Sophia protested.
"You've already cost me one of my convicts tonight," the captain sneered. "Better for you to stay quiet and stay alive." Brodsky told us to remain where we were while he sent for the leaders of all the units that had been guarding the front line. Once the men were gathered, he climbed atop one of the trench ramparts to address them all.
"Now hear this. I forbid any mention of what happened here tonight to pass beyond this place. Our soldiers fight to the death for Mother Russia, gratefully laying down their lives to defend her from the fascist invaders. How do you think they would react if someone told them that the Germans can raise the dead to attack us? Tell others what you witnessed and it will destroy morale. I hereby make it an offence, punishable by execution, for anyone to speak of this battle, even among those who were present with you. If it is never spoken of again, then nobody will ever know it took place. In case you doubt my word or my resolve in this matter, know this: there are members of the NKVD amongst you. They will enforce my order. Stay silent and you will stay alive. Let the secret of this terrible night die here with all those who lie out in no-man's-land. That is the price we must pay for our victory!"
The captain climbed back down from his vantage point, giving Yatsko a glare. "You have your orders; carry them out." Brodsky marched away, staggering slightly as he departed for his quarters. We all watched him leave, nobody saying a word until he was out of earshot.
"This is madness," I protested to Yatsko, keeping my voice down to stop it reaching beyond the members of the Smert Krofpeet. "We should be warning others of this danger, not suppressing the truth."
"What we think does not matter," Yatsko replied quietly, his eyes flickering towards Eisenstein and Sophia. "All that matters is that we fight and, if necessary, die for our country. The truth is a luxury in war. Haven't you realised that yet?"
Chapter Thirteen
Winter finally came for us in December that year, freezing the air and the water, stealing away our precious hours of daylight. We knew our generals were planning a counter-strike to lift the siege in January. The German line blocking overland access to Leningrad was at its narrowest along the southern shore of Lake Ladoga. Once our troops crossed the Neva River and took Shlissel'burg, there would be less than twenty kilometres between them and the rest of the Red Army. We had to be ready to attack whenever the order came.
What remained of the Smert Krofpeet spent the last days of 1942 re-arming and preparing for what lay ahead. Twice more we heard the eerie wailing during those long nights, but no empty graves were found during December. Perhaps the supply of corpses had been exhausted during the fighting in no-man's-land. Fresh orders had since passed along the front line, requiring the decapitation of any and all corpses before burial. The official explanation for this was a sudden rise in banditry now that winter was slowing the importation of new food supplies to the blockade. This excuse made little sense, but there was much about the war that made little sense. By then most people had lost the will to question such peculiarities.
Those of us who had survived that horrific battle with the resurrected knew the truth behind the order. But none of us spoke about what we had witnessed, except among those we knew and trusted. The Narodnyi Komissariat Vnutrennikh Dei was making little attempt to hide its increasing presence near the front line. The rare, uncensored letters we received from people outside the blockade talked about a decree from Stalin published five months before, demanding there be no more retreats.
"Not one step back - this must now be our slogan," Stalin was quoted as saying. To reinforce this order, NKVD men with machine guns were often placed behind soldiers as encouragement to keep advancing. Those who dared turn back were summarily executed. Such measures had not been necessary around Leningrad because the front line was static. It was the arrival of these NKVD enforcers that inadvertently confirmed that the counter-strike was not far away. The remorseless brutality of the Narodnyi Komissariat Vnutrennikh Dei was legendary. I knew the truth of that reputation better than most, having been a political officer. The NKVD would not hesitate to execute anyone who disobeyed a direct order, such as Brodsky's command that none of us were permitted to speak of our battle with the resurrected. What I have written thus far, it is the first time I have dared mention these events.
Many things troubled me about that bloodbath in no-man's-land. How were the Germans able to raise the dead and form them into an army to fight against us? The most obvious answer was that the Germans had had little to do with it. I thought it more likely that the Rumanians had turned our own deceased against us, though I had no evidence at the time to support this belief. I had seen what Constanta and his kind could do with my own eyes and I had little doubt they were capable of even worse.
One night Yatsko and I sat beside a small fire, talking about the things we had seen and experienced. I had developed a grudging respect for Yatsko since his intervention to save Sophia from Strelnikov. He was no angel, but none of us were; otherwise we would not have been members of a shtrafroty.
"What I don't understand is how the fascists ever formed an alliance with the vampyr," Yatsko whispered to me, careful to keep his voice from carrying to any of the soldiers sleeping nearby. Numbers along the front line were growing by the day, as preparations accelerated for the January counter-strike, codenamed Operation Spark.
I told Yatsko the rumours I had heard during my time in Moscow, tales about Hitler's fascination for the occult and all things supernatural. "The Führer is supposed to have sent spies around the world in search of legendary artefacts like the Spear of Destin
y and the Arc of the Covenant; artefacts he believes will bring him greater power. Perhaps one of his spies went looking for one of these relics in Rumania and found the vampyr instead." I believed that the alliance had formed in Berlin, and was forced upon the rank and file of the Wehrmacht. "Remember what Haustein said? He and his men were ordered to cooperate with Constanta, no matter what. Haustein was willing to fight alongside us against the vampyr, rather than become one of their thralls. I don't believe most of the Germans are any happier than us about having the undead in their midst."
Yatsko grimaced. "That's how I feel about Eisenstein lately."
"What do you mean?" I asked quickly, trying to hide my dismay at his comment. Had Yatsko deduced that Eisenstein was halfway to becoming vampyr?
"Since Ivanovskoe, he's been... different. When Brodsky put me in charge, I thought Eisenstein would make things difficult, challenge my authority. Instead he started... I don't have the words to describe it."
"Try," I urged.
Yatsko frowned. "He became a different person, going off on his own all the time. He stopped caring about anything or anyone besides himself." Yatsko leaned closer to me, making sure what he said next stayed between us. "As for our battle against those - things - in no-man's-land... An hour before that he wouldn't lift a finger to stop Strelnikov hurting Sophia. Then he turns up like a man possessed, takes command and leads a hundred soldiers into battle! What the hell happened to him in that hour?" Yatsko sat back again, his eyes watching the fire, his face troubled by shadows. "Like I said, he makes me uneasy."
Men from another combat unit joined us and we couldn't discuss the subject any further. But Yatsko's words underlined my own feelings. Eisenstein changed that night we fought the resurrected, but how and why? I was determined to find the answers to those questions before the counter-strike was launched. If I was going to trust Eisenstein with my life, I needed to know what he had become.
It was the first week of January before I discovered the truth, but what I found did little to ease my disquiet. We had been relocated to the frozen shores of Lake Ladoga, where the Neva River acted as no-man's-land between us and the German stronghold of Shlissel'burg. We all knew the shift brought us one step closer to the counter-attack: Operation Spark. Eisenstein and Sophia had become close again since Strelnikov's death, spending most of their time together, whether on patrol or resting in one of the underground bunkers. Eisenstein was strong and full of life once more, the listless shadow of recent months banished. By contrast Sophia was becoming increasingly pale and wan, struggling even to fulfil her duties as radio operator.
She often complained of stomach cramps and nausea, making me wonder if she was pregnant. It was difficult to be sure if she was suffering from morning sickness as the onset of winter had reduced each day to a few hours in length. But Sophia's nausea did occur at about the same time every day, which seemed to confirm my suspicions. Sexual activity between soldiers was never welcome in the Red Army, but the presence of women in front line units had complicated the matter greatly. I decided to ask Sophia directly and bring the truth out into the open. If she was pregnant with Eisenstein's child, I felt it was wrong to include her in any attack against the Germans.
Before her reconciliation with Eisenstein, she'd paid a former silversmith in another company to turn her crucifix into a dozen silver bullets, giving half of the precious ammunition to me. Sophia and I agreed to use them on Eisenstein if the vampyrism tainting his body took too strong a hold upon him. If she was carrying his child, would she still be able to fulfill that promise? It was another difficult question, but one I still had to ask her.
The next time I saw Sophia, she was retiring to one of the bunkers, looking about furtively to check nobody was watching. I waited a few minutes to see if anybody else joined her. Satisfied that she must be alone, I went to the underground entrance. Before I could go inside I heard what sounded like two people making love inside. Sophia was moaning quietly while a man was breathing heavily with excitement. I did not consider myself any sort of moral guardian, but I could not let this continue. If the NKVD caught them, both Sophia and her lover would almost certainly be executed. I had to intervene, no matter how embarrassing it might prove to be.
I marched into the bunker and cleared my throat loudly. A familiar scent assaulted my nostrils: not the sweaty musk of two people having sex, but another smell, hot and vaguely metallic. "Have you any idea how dangerous what you're doing is? I... "
Words failed me after that, as my eyes adjusted to the dim light inside the bunker and I saw what was going on.
Sophia was lying on the ground, her gymnastiorka hanging open and her breasts spilling out. When I first spoke her head was tilted back in apparent ecstasy, teeth biting down on her lower lip. Eisenstein was crouched beside her, one of his hands groping her breasts. His other hand was clenched around Sophia's right wrist, pinning it to the packed earth floor. He looked at me guiltily, his lower lip and jaw wet with blood - Sophia's blood. She had two fresh puncture wounds on her right forearm and dots of crimson around them where Eisenstein had been suckling.
"Bojemoi," I gasped. "What are you doing?"
Eisenstein wiped his face with the back of one hand before licking the blood off his chin, savouring every drop. "Sophia has been helping me."
She sat up abruptly, pulling her blouse together and doing up the buttons. "Victor! What are you doing here?"
"I thought you were pregnant," I replied. "I came to confront you about it, to see if I could get you to admit what was wrong, to explain why you were always tired and nauseous at the same time every day." I laughed bitterly at how wrong I had been. "How long has this been going on?"
"Since the night Strelnikov died," Sophia said shamefacedly. "When you told me what had happened to Grigori, I went to him and offered to help. I thought if he drunk a little of my blood, it would make him stronger and turn him back into the man he used to be."
I pointed at Eisenstein, who had retreated to a corner, still licking the back of his hand. "Is that the man he used to be, Sophia?"
She couldn't meet my gaze. "He was, for a while. But then he needed more of my blood to sustain himself. Then more still."
"What about the wounds on his neck?" I demanded.
"He won't let me look at them."
I moved over to Eisenstein, watching him carefully. "I need to see where Constanta bit you. I need to know how far you have gone, Grigori," I said quietly.
"Leave me be," he hissed.
"I can't do that. I made a promise to you and to myself. You said if I saw you changing into one of the vampyr, I should finish you off and save you from that fate. I swore I would keep that promise, no matter how much it hurt either of us."
"Leave me in peace!"
"I can't do that, not now. Not after what I've seen. I should have realised sooner what was going on, but I didn't want to think about it. Now you've left me with no choice."
I drew the Nagant pistol from the holster on my right hip and aimed it at Eisenstein.
"This gun contains six silver-tipped bullets. Unwrap the bandage from your neck or else. Man or vampyr, the ammunition in this pistol will kill you, you can be certain of that."
He faced me, his eyes wild and fearsome, his fangs proudly bared. "I don't believe you, Zunetov. Where did you get silver-tipped bullets?"
"Does it matter?"
"I suppose not," Eisenstein snarled, his voice darker and more sibilant than usual, like a cornered serpent. He glared at Sophia but she did not waver.
"Grigori, do as Victor asks," she pleaded.
I closed my finger around the pistol's trigger. "Now."
Slowly, methodically, he unwrapped the bandage, coiling the material into a roll. As the last piece came away, Eisenstein tilted his head aside so we could see the vampyr wounds.
Sophia sobbed and ran from the bunker, while I swallowed hard, trying to stop myself from retching. Eisenstein's neck had turned black around the infected area. The wounds
were larger than I had ever seen them, suppurating sores lined with row upon row of tiny, snapping teeth. I peered more closely and was sickened to see tiny tongues inside each wound, writhing and twisting. I almost expected these vile mouths to start talking, hissing and calling to me, summoning me nearer.
"Satisfied?" Eisenstein asked, and I hastily nodded. "Judging by your face, it's worse than before."
"Yes."
"The hunger grows stronger every day. It's all I can do to resist it, to stop myself from completely draining Sophia of blood. She's kept me going, though I can barely stand to be outside in the daylight anymore. How I will survive in summer, I do not know."
"You'll be a true vampyr by then," I said.
"Not while I still have my faith," Eisenstein murmured. He reached inside his gymnastiorka and brought out the Star of David. "If I were a true vampyr, simply touching this should burn my flesh. But its presence by my heart and Sophia's love have kept me pure." Then he remembered the wounds on his neck. "Mostly..."
"What are you going to do?"
"I need your help. I have to stop the infection spreading through my body. Cauterising the wounds is not enough anymore. I must try to burn them out for good."
"How?"
Eisenstein held out the Star of David. "You must hold it against the wounds while I put the bandage back on. I do not have the strength to do that alone."
I did as he asked, trying to shut out his screams as I shoved the Jewish symbol deep into the twin mouths. It was large enough to reach inside both wounds simultaneously. The tiny mouths spat and hissed at me in protest, moist tongues squirming about, trying to avoid the searing touch of the icon. The sickly smell of burning meat violated my nostrils, forcing tears into my eyes. I took care not to put my fingers into the screaming mouths, fearful that the teeth would tear the flesh from my bones. Once the Star of David was firmly lodged in both wounds, I nodded to Eisenstein. He wrapped the bandage tautly round his throat, trapping the emblem against his infection.
