Monsters of the Reich

by Eric S. Brown

  “I can speak for myself,” Kristen growled, limping up behind Payne.

  “Glad you’re still breathing,” Kendal said, smiling at her.

  “Me too,” Kristen answered. “I wouldn’t be if it wasn’t for her.” She gestured at Payne. “Where in the heck did you learn to fight like that? I’ve never seen anyone moving as fast as you were.”

  “I just tapped into what this game gave me,” Payne said. “My character is apparently a very deadly gunfighter with near superhuman skills.”

  “Right,” Kristen said, not sounding as if she entirely believed what Payne was telling her.

  “What are these things anyway?” Payne asked, kicking at one of the wolf-like corpses. “They’re too weak and slow to be real werewolves.”

  “They look and move like real ones to me,” Kristen argued.

  “No,” Payne said, “take a closer look. These things aren’t changing back into people like a werewolf is supposed to do when it dies. Whatever they are, they aren’t real werewolves.”

  “Maybe they’re some kind of genetic experiment,” Kendal offered.

  “Does it really matter?” Kristen snapped. “They’re dead and we’re not. We should be hunting for Chuck, not standing here talking about this crap.”

  “If he went into those woods, he’s dead,” Lance told them as he rose up, cleaning his knife and sheathing it. “You can count on it.”

  “We’re not just abandoning him, Lance,” Kendal said.

  “Go hunt for his body if you want,” Lance shrugged, “but doing so is just a waste of time. Besides, there are still more of these wolf-things in those trees. You sure that you want to force another encounter with them?”

  “Whatever it takes. We’re not leaving anyone to die.” Kendal started for the trees.

  “Kendal, if Lance says that Chuck is dead…” Kristen said.

  He ignored her, keeping his hurried pace toward the trees.

  “Wait up!” Payne called after him. “I’m going with you.”

  Kendal smiled as she caught up to him and walked at his side.

  “We’ll give you five minutes and then we’re gone,” Lance shouted, and Kendal knew he meant it.

  ****

  The two of them didn’t have to go far. Kendal and Payne found what was left of Chuck not far from the clearing. His body had been gutted. Strands of blood-smeared intestines coiled about his corpse like purple snakes. Chuck’s eyes were open wide in death, his mouth locked in the rictus of a dying scream. His rifle lay in the snow nearby. Payne picked it up and examined it.

  “He never fired a single shot,” she commented, keeping the rifle as she knew Lance had lost his and would be needing it as they set out again.

  “Chuck never was much of a fighter,” Kendal said sadly.

  “I’m getting sick of Lance being right all the time.” Payne looked at Kendal as she spoke, knowing he had to be hurting from the loss of his friend.

  “Nobody deserves to die like this.” Kendal knelt beside Chuck’s body to gently close its eyes with his fingertips.

  “We don’t have time to bury him,” Payne told him.

  Kendal remembered the furious rage that filled Payne as she demanded they make the time to bury Derek…but knew she spoke the truth. There was no time. Every second they lingered here in the woods was just asking whatever wolf creatures that remained to come at them again.

  “Let’s go.” Kendal got up and started back toward the clearing where Kristen and Lance were waiting.

  “I’m sorry.” Payne put a hand on his shoulder as they walked.

  “It is what is.” Kendal shrugged. “Chuck made his choice and paid the price for it.”

  Payne smirked at him, trying to lighten the mood. “I thought Lance was supposed to be the cold one.”

  “I have my moments,” Kendal assured her.

  As they emerged from the trees, Lance came to meet them. Payne tossed him Chuck’s rifle. Lance caught it and started looking the weapon over to make sure it was functional.

  “Thanks,” Lance said, nodding at Payne.

  The group got moving again. They were all tired. The night had brought them little rest, and it wasn’t over yet. There was a long day of marching ahead of them. Eventually, they would be forced to stop and rest again, but for now, they needed to put as much distance between them and the wolf creatures as possible. They moved at a fast pace. Kendal wiped at the sweat that formed on his head under the rim of his helmet despite the cold.

  They all stuck close together with Lance in the lead and Payne bringing up the group’s rear. No one brought up what had happened to Chuck, and Kendal was thankful for it. He was still processing Chuck’s death. Sure, Chuck had brought it on himself, but that didn’t make it any easier to deal if he was honest with himself. Kendal shoved the thoughts of Chuck out of his mind and forced himself to focus on the skills the game had given him and his character. He had thought he was doing pretty well at accessing the downloads to his mind, but after seeing Payne in action against the wolf creatures, he figured he had in truth barely scratched the surface of his character’s potential. Payne was a real warrior now, and he was still learning to be one.

  Hours later, after the sun had risen, Lance finally brought them to a stop as the woods ended and they found themselves stepping out onto a road. It wasn’t paved or anything. It was just a well-traveled gravel route. Along it sat the corpses of demolished tanks. A battle had taken place here and not too long ago from the looks of things. The bodies of troops dressed in green and brown uniforms were scattered everywhere. The creepy thing was that the tanks didn’t appear to have been taken out by other tanks. Their armor was covered in dents and torn open in patches. Their top hatches were ripped from them.

  “What the devil went down here?” Kristen asked.

  “Looks like these guys were trying to push through here last night and something got them,” Payne said.

  “Something…” Lance agreed. “It wasn’t the wolf creatures either. As strong as they were, I don’t think they would have the strength to tear up those tanks like that.”

  “These guys died fast too,” Kendal commented. “Whatever hit them swept through them like a hurricane and just decimated them.”

  “I don’t see any tracks that don’t belong to anything else,” Kristen said.

  “Since when did you become a tracker?” Lance asked, smirking.

  “Since I tapped into what’s in my head,” Kristen shot back at him.

  Lance accepted her explanation and seemingly believed it.

  Kendal walked over to an intact turret that had been completely detached from the tank it belonged to. It lay on its side a solid twenty yards from the tank.

  “This is some seriously disturbing stuff,” Kendal commented as he stared at the turret.

  Payne walked even closer to the detached turret, examining it herself. “Are those the imprint of fingers?”

  Kendal moved to take a look at what she was pointing at. Sure enough, there was the imprint of fingers in the tank’s armor. It was as if someone had grabbed a hold of the heavy vehicle with enough strength that their very fingers had sunk into its armor so deeply as to leave their mark on it.

  “What the…?” He was blown away by what he was seeing.

  “Vampires,” Payne said. “It had to be. What else could take out all these men and tanks so fast?”

  “Guys!” Kristen called out from where she knelt next to one of the dead. “Come take a look at this!”

  Kendal and the others rushed over to her.

  Kristen pulled back the collar of the dead soldier she knelt over. “You seeing what I’m seeing?”

  “Dear God help us,” Kendal muttered.

  The soldier’s neck was marred by twin puncture wounds. There was no mistaking what they were either.

  “We need to stake these buggers before we get moving again,” Kristen told Lance. “And don’t you dare give me crap about not having the time. We let these guys reanimate and
come after us, we’ll regret it.”

  “We don’t have enough stakes,” Payne said.

  “We’re standing next to a forest that’s full of trees,” Kristen countered.

  “No,” Lance said. “There’s an easier way. We’ll cut off their heads and burn their bodies. It’ll take a lot less time than carving stakes for all of them.”

  The group set in at the sickening task before them. Lance used his hatchet to deal with the worst of it as the others dragged the bodies into a large pile in the center of the road. Kendal used fuel from the tanks to get the fire started and make it burn hotter. The smell of cooking meat soon filled the air. Kendal’s stomach rumbled as he inhaled it. That was all it took to break him. He collapsed to his knees and vomited. When he was done, he wiped at his mouth with the backside of his hand.

  They all stood watching the giant pyre burn. Kendal was ashamed that he had lost it. Lance was as cold as ever, his stare devoid of emotion as he studied the fire, making sure that all the bodies were going to burn up enough to keep them from returning to life as the monsters that killed them.

  The day was half gone by the time that they got moving again. Lance pushed them on despite their utter exhaustion. Kendal didn’t know how much longer they could keep going like they were. If they ran into trouble at this point, they would be in no shape to deal with it.

  “Lance,” Kendal said, catching up to him on point. “We’ve got to rest, man.”

  “I know,” Lance admitted, which surprised him. “But we’re going to have to find somewhere that we can secure to do it.”

  “We’ve passed a few houses and farms along this road already,” Kendal told him. “Let’s just take the next one we come across before we all collapse.”

  Lance didn’t look happy with his suggestion, but he agreed to it nonetheless. Twenty minutes later, Kendal spotted a house off to the side of the road among the trees and pointed it out to Lance.

  “It’s as good a place as any, I guess,” Lance said half-heartedly.

  ****

  The house was nothing spectacular. It was a simple, small residence. The front door dangled, broken, on its hinges. Several of the downstairs windows were shattered and scattered bullet holes scarred its walls. It was easy to see that a family had once lived here, but they were long gone now. Kendal hoped that they had truly made it out and escaped the war before it spread into this region.

  Lance worked to get the house’s front door repaired. Its windows were already boarded up so dealing with them wasn’t an issue. Payne helped Kendal reinforce the house’s backdoor before the team began to get settled in. The sun still lingered in the sky as they all finished up their work. A search of the house had turned up some canned food, and they feasted on it instead of the rations they carried with them. Beets made up the bulk of what they dined on. Kendal didn’t mind. He was partial to them once in a while and the meal was a pleasant one for him. Payne ventured outside to refill their canteens via a hand-pump well in the house’s backyard near the edge of the woods surrounding it.

  Kristen and Lance claimed the first watch. M1 in hand, Kristen headed up the stairs to find which window up there would give her the best field of view of the woods behind the house. Lance took up a position in the middle of the house’s living room not too far from both of its doors. No one really wanted to separate given all they had been through. Numbers were safety. It was better to face anything that came at them as a squad than alone. As thus, that meant Kendal and Payne found themselves sleeping in the living room where Lance was standing watch. Kendal let Payne take the couch. She stretched out on it and used her uniform’s coat as a blanket. He reclined in a chair near her. It wasn’t comfortable in any way, but he was too tired to care. At this point, he would take any shot at sleep that he could get. He was out not long after closing his eyes.

  Kendal dreamed of the map the game had provided them with. It consumed his dreams. When he awoke, Kendal realized just how close they were getting to their destination. That certainly explained all the monsters they were running into. The closer they got, the worse it was likely to get. The Nazis would surely be protecting the place with everything that they had. He didn’t see the massacre on the road as a random occurrence anymore. The way he figured things now, those poor troops had just passed too close to the Nazis’ project on the road to wherever they had been bound for and were taken out because of it.

  Payne was still asleep on the couch. Kendal stared at her, thinking thoughts he shouldn’t be thinking. She was a young, beautiful woman. Her skin was pale, her blonde hair cut to the perfect length. Though her eyes were closed, he could see them clearly in his mind, the deepness of the blue within them. Romantic relationships were never something he was good at. And regardless, it would be wrong to make a move on her so soon after Derek’s death. He knew how strongly the two of them had been connected in spite of how briefly they had known each other. If his thinking was correct, Payne and Derek only met months ago. Derek had been recovering from his breakup with Kristen and Payne had swept him madly off his feet and into her arms. He flinched as Payne’s eyes shot open, looking directly at him.

  “Are you staring at me?” she asked.

  “No,” he lied quickly. “I was just thinking about how close we are to this project of the Nazis’ that we’re supposed to destroy.”

  “Oh,” Payne sighed, sitting up on the couch and shrugging her coat back on.

  “It’s about time you two were up,” Lance growled from his seat in the middle of the room. “Somebody needs to go relieve Kristen. She’s been up there half the night.”

  “What time is it?” Kendal asked.

  “3 AM,” Lance answered.

  “Why didn’t you wake us?” Payne rose from the couch, stretching with her hands clasped over her head.

  “I figured Kristen could handle it and you two really needed the rest,” Lance told her.

  “I’ll take over for her,” Payne said, starting for the stairs that led to the small house’s second floor.

  “Hold up,” Kendal stopped her. “Let me do it.”

  “You bloody well know that I can handle myself,” Payne snapped.

  “That’s not it,” Kendal blushed. “If something breaks in down here, you’re dang well better suited to stop whatever it is than I am.”

  Payne’s anger vanished, replaced by a smile that made Kendal break into a sweat like a nervous school kid. He attempted to match her smile with a wry grin and then quickly turned to Lance.

  “You need some sleep too, Lance,” Kendal said. “You’re pushing yourself too hard. Let Payne take over down here. I mean it.”

  Lance, laughing at the tone of Kendal’s voice, raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Sure thing, boss.”

  “Make sure you send Kristen down here,” Payne called after him as Kendal started up the stairs to the house’s second floor.

  “Will do,” Kendal acknowledged.

  ****

  Kendal found Kristen in an upstairs bedroom at the corner of the house. She sat at the window, her rifle braced against her shoulder as she looked through its scope. Kristen must have heard him come in because her head wiped around in his direction.

  “You just about scared the crap out of me!” Kristen exclaimed.

  “Sorry about that,” Kendal apologized. “I’m here to relieve you. You need to head downstairs and get some rest.”

  “It’s about bloody well time,” Kristen huffed. “I was beginning to think you guys were going to leave me up here alone all night.”

  Kristen got up from her the chair she had dragged next to the window and slung her rifle onto her shoulder by its strap. “You sure you can handle this, Kendal?’

  “Oh ye of little faith,” Kendal said, chuckling.

  She eyed him with a stern expression that reminded him of the way his mother used to look at him when he was a kid, and she knew that he was likely to get into trouble.

  “Seriously,” Kendal assured her, “I got this.
Now go get some rest already.”

  “Okay,” Kristen said reluctantly.

  Neither one of them saw the monster coming through the window until the wall around it shattered with it, spraying the room with shards of broken glass and flying splinters. The thing landed on the floor of the room with a loud thud as its three-toed feet touched its wood. Its wings were spread wide and appeared almost translucent. Kendal could see the veins inside where they were stretched open beneath its arms. The creature stood nearly six feet tall. Its body resembled that of a bat’s crossed with a man’s. Sharp claws extended from the ends of its fingers and from its mouth came a screech like fingernails being raked over a chalkboard. Its blazing, yellow eyes fell on Kristen as it moved toward her.

  Both he and Kristen had been forced to cover their ears from the intensity of its cry. Kendal’s ears were still ringing, but he jerked his hands away from them and dove to retrieve his machine gun which had clattered to the floor at his feet. Kristen was in the process of unslinging her M1 when the thing’s claws hit her. She cried out as they slashed through the thick cloth and her skin alike. Blood splattered the room’s wall from the blow as the creature pressed its attack, moving in for the kill. Though wounded, Kristen fought with a powerful determination that kept her alive. Her teeth gritted against the pain from where the thing’s claws had opened her side, she moved like a professional soldier. Knowing a shot with her rifle was impossible in such close quarters, she whirled the weapon about in her hands and rammed its butt into the creature’s bat-like face. The creature was as surprised by the move as Kendal was. It let out a grunt as the butt of Kristen’s rifle smashed into its nose, crunching bone. Kristen threw herself sideways, dropping to the floor to give him a clear field of fire. Kendal managed to bring his M3 to bear on the thing before it could get out of the way. The M3 chattered, hosing the creature with a volley of rounds that sent it reeling across the room as the bullets ripped holes in its body and wings alike.

  “Silver!” the creature howled in an inhuman voice. “You have silver!”

  The creature thudded into the far wall of the room and paused there for the briefest of moments, collecting itself before it sprang at him. Kendal fired again as it did, but this time the creature seemed ready for the pain that his bullets sent coursing through it. It accepted the hail of fire he poured into it, surely knowing that it was going to die from doing so, in order to get close enough to take a swipe at him with its claws. The creature’s desperate attack missed its target, hitting the side of his M3 instead of him. The thing’s claws slashed clean through the metal of his M3, cutting it in half as it was knocked from his hands. The pieces of the gun bounced onto the floor as Kendal scrambled to get out of the creature’s path as it collapsed. Just as he had suspected, the damage he had already done to it was too much for the bat-like thing to handle.