Monsters of the Reich

by Eric S. Brown

  “Penny for your thoughts,” Payne whispered to him.

  “Keep your penny,” Kendal told her. “You don’t want my thoughts. Trust me on that.”

  “None of this is real, Kendal,” she said. “Try to remember that.”

  “And we’re not heroes either,” Kendal sighed and said more harshly than he intended. “We’re just a bunch of gamers trying to make it home.”

  Payne frowned at him. “I guess we’re not,” she agreed, “but we still have to see this through, each of us playing the role of one.”

  Up ahead of them, Lance said, “Something’s coming.”

  His words had been loud enough for them to hear despite the distance between them. Lance turned toward them, motioning for them to get off the road and take cover. Kristen was already darting for the trees and as soon as he was done signaling to them, Lance was too.

  Kristen and Lance scampered off the road into the woods to the east.

  “Come on!” Payne said and led Kendal off its other side. They crouched in the trees, using the brush around them as cover. There was no time to clear their tracks behind them. If whatever was coming stopped to look around, they would all be easy enough to find with a little effort.

  The ground seemed to shake as the first of the German tanks emerged over the horizon at the top of the hill they had been walking up and rolled down the road toward where they had been. Another followed it. There were close to a dozen soldiers marching alongside the tanks. At first, Kendal thought they were human, but as they got closer, he saw that they weren’t. Each of the soldiers was part man and part animal. One had the snout of a pig that protruded from his face beneath the helmet he wore. Another was covered in brown fur with overly long arms like those of an ape. It moved like one too. The animal-man-thing that was clearly the commander of the marching soldiers was a human/cat hybrid. The claws of its paw-like hands gleamed in the sunlight where it clutched its rifle.

  “Okay… That’s just messed up,” Kendal heard Payne mutter. He couldn’t disagree with her. Zombies, vampire-like bat monsters, and wolf creatures were one thing; these “animal men” were entirely another. As horrific as the other things that had come after them had been, these things dressed in Nazi uniforms were far more disturbing. They moved with clear intelligence and even bantered among themselves like human troops would have done in their place. Kendal felt sick looking at them. Part of him pitied them, and the rest of him just wanted to wipe the abominations that they were from the face of the Earth.

  The tanks were the real threat. The group didn’t have any means of dealing with them and Kendal knew it. He could only pray that the German unit wouldn’t notice their tracks as it passed by. A fight with these buggers was one that they couldn’t possibly survive.

  His prayers were answered. The tanks and the animal men with them kept moving on up the road without pausing. Kendal and Payne remained hidden for what seemed like an eternity and saw Lance emerging from his cover with Kristen on his heels.

  “That was too freaking close,” Kristen rasped as the four of them met up in the middle of the road.

  “Tell me about it,” Kendal agreed.

  “Look on the bright side,” Payne told them. “At least they won’t be at this base we’re heading to when we get there.”

  “Enough talking,” Lance ordered and got them all moving again. Kendal took point with him, leaving Kristen and Payne a small distance behind them as they walked along the road.

  “Don’t you think you’re moving a little fast?” Lance said, careful that his voice couldn’t be heard by the two women behind them.

  It took Kendal a moment to figure out what he meant. When he did, Kendal shot back, “I could say the same thing about you and Kristen.”

  “Something between Kristen and I was always going to develop, Kendal,” Lance told him. “It was only a matter of time after she dumped Derek. This situation has just sped things along. Payne though…”

  “Payne what?” Kendal tried to keep his anger in check.

  “You barely know her, Kendal, not to mention the fact that she just lost Derek,” Lance said. “Do you really want to just be the rebound guy for her?”

  “What makes you think I even care about her?” Kendal demanded.

  “Don’t fool yourself, man. A blind idiot could see what’s happening between the two of you,” Lance said, laughing.

  Kendal bit his lip to stop himself from saying anything that he would regret later.

  “Look, man,” Lance turned his head to scowl at him, “you’re my friend. I just don’t want you to end up getting hurt, you know?”

  “I appreciate that, Lance,” Kendal answered, “but frankly, my personal life is none of your business.”

  “This situation has made it my business, Kendal,” Lance told him. “We all have to pull together or we’ll never make it out of here. I just don’t want you making any bad choices because of the butterflies raging around in your stomach.”

  “Really? Butterflies?” Kendal gaped at Lance. “That’s a pretty lame thing to say.”

  “It’s the truth though, and you know it,” Lance said.

  “How much further?” Kendal asked, changing the subject.

  “Not far,” Lance answered. “We’re going to need to leave the road soon and start sticking to the woods. Whether they know we’re coming or not, there’s no use making things any easier for them.”

  “Did you guys get a look at those soldiers with the tanks?” The disgust Kendal had felt at the sight of them leaked into his voice.

  Lance nodded. “Yeah. I was about to crap myself from the fear that one of them would smell us.”

  “Thank God they didn’t,” Kendal said. “That may have been the first break we’ve caught since we entered this hell we’re stuck in.”

  Kendal and Lance stopped and waited for Payne and Kristen to catch up to them. Lance explained how they were so close that they needed to get off the road now and keep to the trees as they began their last leg of their approach to the Nazi base.

  Moving through the woods was a lot slower and rougher than simply marching along on the road. The uneven ground pressed them a lot harder and took its toll on their already tired bodies. Lance wouldn’t allow them to stop and rest though. As close as they were, there were surely patrols around, and none of them wanted to encounter one.

  Their journey had taken much longer than any of them had expected from looking at the map. The sun was beginning to set when the enemy base came into view in the valley below. It was a massive structure that reminded Kendal of a sprawling New York warehouse. Lance dug out his binoculars, scanning over the base, and then passed them to Kendal so he could get a good look at it too. The main building was enormous, taking up most of the area behind the fencing that surrounded the base. There were three other smaller buildings. One looked to be a communications center. Another appeared to just be some kind of storage shack. And the last was clearly a garage. Its wide door was opened, and there were tracks in the snow leading out of it to the main gate of the fence. The tracks had to belong to the tanks that had passed them on the road.

  There were lights on inside both the main building and the open garage but other than that, there was no sign of anyone around. The place looked as deserted as the houses that had lined the roadsides on the way to it. Kendal knew it wasn’t though. Whatever was waiting on them inside, it would be the worst they had faced yet. He just hoped that they were all up to the task of dealing with whatever it was that would be waiting on them.

  ****

  There didn’t seem to any point on waiting for night to fall and give them the cover of darkness. There was no sign of life behind the barbed wire fencing that surrounded the complex at all. Even so, they weren’t brave enough to enter through its main gate. Lance led them around through the woods to the complex’s rear. Payne had a set of wire clippers inside her pack, and they used them to make their own way through the fence.

  Kendal’s breathing was rapid and
his nerves raw. They were finally here and only God knew what hell was waiting on them. He was ready to get it all over with though as he followed Lance through the hole in the fence. Lance took point with the others spreading out behind him as the group crept toward the closest of the complex’s buildings. It was the garage with its wide door open and lights on inside it. They moved cautiously around the side of the garage, keeping as quiet as they possibly could.

  “You and me, on three,” Lance said, gesturing at Kendal. He nodded back, letting Lance know that he understood what they were about to do.

  “Three… Two… One!” Lance sprang forward, the barrel of his M1 rifle sweeping over the inside of the garage in front of him as he searched for a target. Kendal was by his side, his M3 loaded and ready.

  There was nothing inside the garage but empty space, scattered mechanic tools, and barrels of fuel. Kendal let out a sigh of relief, slumping against the edge of the garage’s open doorway.

  “What the frag?” Lance cursed. “Where is everyone? This doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Main building next?” Kendal asked and Lance nodded. They waited for Kristen and Payne to rejoin them before moving toward it.

  There looked to be numerous doors that led into the massive warehouse-like structure that was the base’s main building. Lance wasn’t picky about which one they used. He picked the closest at hand. It wasn’t locked and creaked eerily on its hinges as Lance twisted its knob and swung it inward.

  “That’s so cliché,” Kristen said, giggling as if the tension they were all feeling was getting to her.

  The doorway opened in a corridor that led deeper into the building. Again, Lance took the lead as they moved cautiously through it. The air in the building stunk of rot, blood, strange chemicals, and other worse things.

  “Come! Come!” a man’s voice suddenly echoed through the corridor. “You’re almost here.”

  The group came to stop at the sound of it, glancing at each other in utter terror and confusion.

  “Don’t stop now!” the voice begged them. “Take the door up ahead to your right and at last we can finally meet in person!”

  “Holy frag,” Kendal muttered. “What is this crap?”

  “You got me,” Lance whispered. “Let’s just play along and see how this shakes out for the time being.”

  They followed the instructions the voice had given them and moved along the corridor to the door it had told them about it. Kendal reached for its knob but hesitated at the last moment.

  “You sure we want to do this?” Kendal asked Lance.

  “The honor is all yours, buddy,” Lance replied. “Besides, it’s not like we have any other choice.”

  Kendal opened the door. It led into a vast laboratory so large it was impossible to see the far wall through all the chemical-filled tanks and work tables within it. The bodies of dead men and women floated inside the tanks clustered about inside the room and more lay rotting, some cut open with their entrails exposed or hanging out, on top of the work tables. A man, or at least what appeared to be a man, stood in the center of the huge lab waiting on them.

  “I simply can’t believe you’re here,” the man cackled. “No one has ever made it through my children before. All of you must be very, very special.”

  “What the frag is this place?” Kendal asked the man, afraid that he already knew the answer.

  “This is where my children are born, or rather, created.” The man laughed and then seemed to catch himself. “How rude of me, I haven’t introduced myself yet, have I?”

  Kendal could only shake his head. Words were beyond him at this point.

  “Where’s everyone else?” Lance demanded of the man in the blood-smeared lab coat. “Are you alone here?”

  “I am never alone,” the man answered with a smile that showed his teeth. They were jagged, yellow things that broke up the overall human look of his features. “My children are always with me.”

  As to make his point ring home, the man gestured upward at the lab’s ceiling. The group looked up to see a dozen of the bat monsters hanging upside down, asleep above them. And they weren’t the only monsters in the lab. From the shadows emerged dozens of dead German soldiers that moved more like machines than living people. None of them appeared armed but that didn’t matter. They all knew how strong and deadly the dead soldiers were if they got you within their reach.

  “Now where was I?” the man rambled on. “Oh yes, my name. I am Dr. Mephistopheles…and you, you must be the American squad that was dispatched to end my games and slaughter my creations.”

  “That’s one way to put it,” Lance growled.

  “He’s the boss, isn’t he?” Payne asked in a whisper. “I mean, of the game, right?”

  Kendal nodded.

  “I’ve had enough of this madness,” Kristen shouted and stepped forward, bringing up the barrel of her rifle to aim it at the doctor. Before she could even squeeze the weapon’s trigger, all hell broke loose. The bat creatures on the ceiling awoke in a fury of shrieks and screeches, dropping from where they hung above the group. They fell like bombs, each bearing its fangs as they swept downward with their claws gleaming in the dim light of the lab.

  “Scatter!” Lance yelled, taking a shot at one of the bat monsters. He had no idea if he hit it or not; he was too busy diving for cover under a nearby work table.

  A bat monster came streaking downward at Kristen. She would have been dead, but her terror allowed her to tap into the character she was playing deep enough to spend the game points she had accumulated so far. Level up!…an inhuman voice spoke into her mind, and suddenly, Kristen felt tougher than she ever had. The bandages holding her wounded arm to her chest tore loose as she unslung her rifle, continuing the movement to bring its butt around and up in an arc. The butt of the rifle met the bat monster’s jaw with a loud crunch, shattering it. The blow sent the bat monster spinning away from her to crash into a pair of work tables several yards away. The bodies upon them spilled onto the floor of the lab. As the bat monster scrambled to get to its feet, Kristen sent it to Hell with a shot that plunged through its sternum into its heart.

  Payne had started moving the second the bat monsters dropped from the ceiling. She raced across the lab, firing upward at them. One of her bullets gouged a deep hole in the forehead of a bat monster that was diving at her. Red, hot blood splattered outward as the bullet entered its brain. The bat monster spun out of control. Two more of the bullets ripped through the wings of another creature. It shrieked in pain, losing its ability to stay aloft and crashing to the floor of the lab, rolling with the impact. Payne heard the cry of a third bat monster as it swooped in at her from behind. She whirled to face it. Her pistols cracked in unison, pulping its head at point-blank range. Though dead and nearly headless, the monster’s corpse rammed into her like a runaway truck. Her breath was knocked from her in a loud grunt. Payne hit the floor hard, landing on her back with the monster’s body on top of her. She rolled its dead weight away just as a fourth bat monster landed only a few feet from where she lay and raced toward her, its mouth open in a feral snarl that showed her the razor-sharp fangs inside it.

  For a moment, Kendal was paralyzed, mesmerized by watching Payne. The woman was taking on a quarter of the bat monsters’ numbers by herself. He almost didn’t see the one that was coming straight at him until it was too late. Kendal jerked up his M3 at the last possible second, squeezing its trigger tightly. The machine gun chattered and bucked in his hands as he sprayed a barrage of bullets into the bat monster’s shoulders, upper wings, and face. It gave a pained screech as it died horribly, and he dodged its still-moving corpse to let it slam into the floor where he had been. Bone crunched from the force of the monster’s impact, snapping its neck and further mangling its wings. Kendal said a quick prayer of thanks in his mind though he knew the battle was far from over. Another two of the bat monsters were already flying at him. He didn’t chance his ability to stop them both with only a partial magazine in his
M3. Kendal spun about and ran for his life.

  Kristen sprinted to where Payne was engaged with another trio of the monsters that had encircled her. Her rifle cracked as she ran, blowing open the guts of one of the bat monsters. Its intestines splattered outward from the center of its abdomen as the bullet she had fired entered it. The bat monster staggered backward away from Payne, giving her room to better maneuver herself. Payne’s pistols were empty, or at least Kristen figured that they were because they were silent. Kristen watched as Payne spun the guns, slipping them into the holsters on her hips to draw the knives sheathed on the sides of her boots.

  Payne hurled one of the knives at a screeching bat monster that was charging her. The knife spun end over end through the air before it found its target. Its blade plunged into the soft flesh of the bat monster’s throat, impaling it there between its chin and chest. The monster’s screech became a sickening gargling noise as its hands rose to clutch at the weapon buried in its throat.

  Kristen couldn’t get a clean shot at the last of the three bat monsters that had been fighting Payne. The woman was between her and it, and she wasn’t about to risk blowing a hole in Payne’s back. The monster took a swipe at Payne, its claws slashing through the air at her. Payne met its attack with the blade of her remaining knife. The knife sunk through the palm of the monster’s hand, driving it away from Payne as her right leg shot upward in a kick. The sole of Payne’s boot slammed into the underside of the monster’s chin, knocking its head so far back atop its neck that there was a snap of bone. The monster’s body went limp and it toppled to the floor.

  Lance heard the bat monster land on the top of the work table above him. He could see the tips of the claws of its feet protruding over the sides of the table. Lance fired his M1 from where he lay beneath the table. Wood buckled and broke as his shots smashed upward through the table at the monster. The monster above him squealed, and he heard it leap into flight, leaving the shattered table. Lance rolled clear of the table, tracking the monster as it flew with the sight of his rifle. He fired one more carefully aimed shot and the monster dropped from the air. Lance felt cold hands close on his shoulders. He threw himself forward, jerking out of the grip they had on him to whirl about. One of the dead soldiers had closed on him while his attention was focused on the bat monsters. The dead man’s teeth were chattering as his mouth opened and closed over and over again, as if he was already chewing on the flesh of his intended prey. The dead soldier was too close for Lance to use his rifle effectively. Lashing out again, the dead soldier grabbed his rifle and ripped it from Lance’s hands. Cursing, Lance retreated, drawing the sidearm holstered on his hip as he ran.