by Lee Rudnicki
Boris pulled her close and licked her ear from top to bottom. “No one is coming for you, fräulein. You and all German women have become the property of the Soviet Red Army. You are my property.”
“They’re here,” Eva whispered. “And you’re going to bleed tonight. You’re all going to bleed tonight.” There was excitement in her voice, as if she were a child describing an upcoming birthday party.
Boris nervously backed away and looked around. When he didn’t see anything out of the ordinary for the aftermath of a brutal gunfight, he relaxed. “This one is feisty,” he said.
“And crazy,” Mikhail added. The men laughed hard until the candles blew out. Then they grabbed their weapons and fearfully tried to pick out unseen targets in the darkness. A minute went by, but nothing happened.
“Boo!” Boris shouted, causing Mikhail to jump.
The men laughed again as Boris relit the candles. They were having a good time. But when they turned their attention back to Eva, she made an ominous statement. “Russian soldiers, be afraid. Be very afraid of the dark.”
Then the candles blew out and the room was again enveloped in darkness. All of the sudden, the good times didn’t seem so good. Something was wrong. Very wrong.
Without warning, two dark shapes flew through the windows and the Russians instantly found themselves in a desperate fight for their lives. Unfortunately for them, it was not a battle that they were capable of winning. The intruders were fast and deadly, and only one soldier got a shot off before he had been eviscerated. After that lone gunshot, the only sounds to be heard in the darkness were the screams and whimpers of dying men. After one final loud crunch, the room went still.
The candles relit by themselves. The Russians were dead, their bodies scattered all around the room in a gory mess. Mikhail was folded in half. Backwards.
Vampires Zina and Dumitra stood over the massacre. The beautiful twins had long straight burgundy hair and angular facial features. They were dressed in black from head to toe, but the dark clothing didn’t hide their victim’s blood.
“We missed one,” Zina said, pointing to the corner where Boris stood alone and shook with fright.
Dumitra playfully shook her finger at him. “You have been naughty, commander. You were brave enough to molest the young girl, but you ran away while your men valiantly fought for their lives. What should we do about that?”
Boris panicked and ran for the door. When he got there, it slammed shut on its own. Terrified, he grabbed the doorknob and pulled with all of his might. It wouldn’t budge. He cursed his fate. Then he turned around slowly and put his hands up. Stalin had ordered the suicide of every officer rather than surrender; Soviet military law regarded POWs as traitors. But Boris didn’t think comrade Stalin had vampires in mind when he issued that order.
“What’s the matter? You don’t like the girl anymore?” Zina asked. “Maybe she is not sexy enough for you. Perhaps you will like my sexy better.”
Boris trembled as the gorgeous vampire put her arm around him. When she seductively licked his ear from top to bottom exactly as he had done to Eva, piss ran down his leg.
“Shhhhh. Do not be afraid,” Zina said. “I like Russians. Do you—Mr. not-so-brave Russian soldier—like my sexy?”
Boris smiled nervously as she kissed his neck.
“Do you?”
“Yes,” Boris replied. Unaware of the fate of his snipers, he thought Lyudmila would take them out if he got them closer to the windows.
Any hopes or strategies for survival that Boris Kolachenko may have had that night instantly disappeared when Zina bit his neck and tore out a chunk of bloody flesh.
As her victim writhed in pain and bled to death on the floor in front of her, Zina turned her attention to the very reason that she had come to the Hotel Neptune. “We missed you.”
Eva didn’t respond. She just knelt down beside Sebastian and held his hand. A single tear rolled down her cheek.
Zina didn’t notice the bite marks on the soldier’s hand when she pulled Eva away from him. “Come with us, dear. There will be many more German soldiers for you to feast on before this night is over.”
Wolf regained consciousness as Zina spoke. He couldn’t make out what she was saying, but she wore black and his Russian tormentors had obviously been killed in a spectacular and somewhat creative fashion. To Wolf’s line of reasoning, that could only mean one thing—the Gestapo had saved his life. Unbelievable!
Ordinarily, he couldn’t stand the sight of the bastards who tortured in the name of the Fatherland, but Wolf couldn’t contain his glee. He jumped to his feet and kicked Mikhail’s corpse. “How do you like Berlin now, you backwards-folded borscht-eating heathen! God is with us!”
Zina’s response brought him crashing back to reality. “God is not with you, Nazi scum. Your kind is poison to this planet and to all life on it. You and all those like you shall burn in hell with Adolf Hitler.”
Wolf stopped in his tracks and tried to comprehend the situation. He wasn’t dealing with the Gestapo. But who are they? The enemy? But they kill Russians. Run or negotiate? Then he remembered a quote that made the decision for him. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
He smiled and tried to look as non-threatening as possible as he picked up his Iron Cross and showed it to them. “I’m a decorated officer. I can get you on a plane.”
Dumitra shielded her eyes and bared her razor-sharp fangs. Wolf dropped the medal. His mind raced and came to a stunning conclusion that sent a chill down his spine—vampires had saved him from the Russians. Fucking vampires. What kind of miserable screwed-up scenario is this?
As Wolf contemplated making diplomatic overtures to vampires among his dwindling options, Zina kicked a pistol across the floor towards him. “We have our own way out of your wretched city,” she explained. “But when the Russians catch you again, use the pistol.”
“But ... I ...” he stammered.
“On yourself.”
27
Transformation
Surrounded by blood and gore, Wolf strained to read a map of Berlin by candlelight. He wondered if the subway tunnels were still accessible. If they were not, the only way out of the city would be through the Russian lines; not a pleasant option.
Suddenly, a moan broke the silence in the Hotel Neptune. Wolf shot to his feet and waved his pistol in the air. He had a rough day and was in no mood for any more chaos—he was ready to shoot anybody at that point, including himself.
“Who is there? Identify yourself!” he yelled, straining to find a target in the dark room. “Come forward or I will shoot you!” Then it dawned on him. Sebastian was dead. The vampires took Eva. Whoever was left was either SS or Red Army. Fuck them both.
Just as he prepared to spray the room with gunfire, someone got up and moved into the light. He couldn’t believe his eyes. “You’re alive...”
“I think so,” Sebastian replied. He felt the back of his head for the bullet that had somehow not killed him and tried to sort out vague memories of the fight with the SS.
Then Sebastian noticed the blood. It covered the floor. It covered the walls. Hell, blood spatters even covered most of the ceiling. The fantastic sight excited his senses. His heart raced and he felt different, more alive than he had ever felt before. That extraordinary and almost sensual thrill dissipated when he saw the smashed skull and brain matter on the floor, looking like a disgusting pile of smashed tomatoes and grits. He had to suppress the urge to vomit. “Major, what happened in here?” he asked. “You must have had one hell of a party while I was out.”
Wolf stared at him in disbelief, trying to find the words. “You were dead. I saw you get shot. I saw you die.”
“No, my friend, you didn’t see me die,” Sebastian replied. “I felt the impact, but I’m fine. The round must have bounced off my helmet and knocked me out.” Then suddenly, he remembered. “Where is she?”
Wolf looked around the room evasively.
“Major, where is Eva?”
Wolf knew that his response would only raise far more questions than it answered. “They took her.”
“They took her? They? Who exactly are they? The Russians?”
“No. As you can see, the Russians are dead.” He pointed to Mikhail’s corpse. “They turned that motherfucker into a pretzel.”
Sebastian was angry. He had seen the aftermath of many battles, but nothing like the blood-soaked room. “Major Kepler, what the hell happened here? Why does this place look like the slaughterhouse on the bottom of the sea? How did you kill everyone?”
“I didn’t kill anybody.”
Sebastian angrily pulled the map out of Wolf’s hands and flung it across the room. “You’re sitting by yourself in a room stacked with more corpses than the Leningrad morgue, and you can’t tell me what happened? I want some answers!” he shouted.
“Vampires,” Wolf replied softly.
Sebastian wasn’t sure that he heard him correctly. “What did you just say?”
“Vampires.” Then it was Wolf’s turn for his anger to boil to the surface. He didn’t know who he was mad at—or why—but after a horrific couple of days in Berlin he was ready to completely lose it. Then he did.
“Do you want the truth?” Wolf screamed. “Do you want the fucking truth? Do you want to know why I’m sitting here reading this shitty map surrounded by body parts in Caligula’s fucking bizarro-world nautical-themed fucking aquarium hideout? Because two pissed-off Gestapo fucking vampires slaughtered everybody and took your girlfriend to wherever it is that fucking vampires hide out during a fucking apocalyptic war. My best friend was dead, now he’s not, and I still don’t know how the fuck I’m going to get out of Berlin. Rebuttal?”
Point of fact, Sebastian had no rebuttal to an irrational, angry, obscenity-laced tirade of that magnitude. He had never seen Wolf so mad. He figured that yelling back would accomplish nothing, so he tried another approach.
“Wunderbar,” he said, throwing his hands into the air, making the motion as comedic as possible. “We are surrounded by evil vampires, our squad is dead, and my commanding officer has gone cuckoo. I lost the magical princess but gained a babbling idiot and a headache. This is just like Oktoberfest without the beer and songs.”
That ridiculous statement got Wolf to break a smile. “They know a way out,” he replied.
Sebastian was not impressed. “I know. Flights are supposedly still getting out. All we have to do is blast our way through the Soviet lines and get on a plane that might be waiting somewhere near the Brandenburg Gate. No problem. There will be a lot of Russians to shoot though. We’re going to need about two million bullets.”
“I’m not talking about Brandenburg Gate, you sarcastic bastard. The vampires know another way out.”
“The vampires know another way out?” Sebastian asked incredulously. “Major, we don’t have time for fantasy life. In case you haven’t noticed, the Soviet Red Army has surrounded Berlin and its soldiers are not very pleasant to be around right now. If we’re not getting out on an airplane, we’re not getting out. We don’t have the firepower to survive another day in this hellhole, let alone break through the Russian lines. Wake up already!”
The men stared at each other for a moment, neither one knowing what to say. The uncomfortable silence was broken by the sound of wood and metal crashing to the ground just outside the Neptune.
Battlefield instincts took over. The men moved fast and pointed their guns out the window, safeties off. They were ready for anything ...
They were ready for anything but the seventeen pathetic, weary and dirty German soldiers who stood in the street below them. Weapons of all shapes and sizes littered the ground. Many of the men were covered in bloody and dirty bandages. The sad little group was the picture perfect illustration of the word “defeat.”
“Jesus,” Wolf mumbled.
A weather-beaten old man waved a white flag. His back was shaped like a question mark; his warrior days long since passed. “Attention Soviet soldiers in the Hotel Neptune! We surrender! We lay down our arms! We surrender to you!” he shouted.
“We’re Germans, you idiot!” Wolf yelled back. “Go surrender to somebody else!”
Old man Klaus stopped waving the flag. He felt sorry for the ignorant soldier in the window who would soon suffer a violent death. “Come with us!” he yelled. “The war is over! The Russians guarantee the safety of all who surrender!”
“Get your fat ass off the street before I use it for target practice!” Wolf replied.
Frederick, the leader of the group, pushed Klaus forward. “Come on, soldier. You’re wasting time on a dead man. Let’s go.” Klaus raised the flag and the miserable trek resumed.
Wolf was disgusted. He had seen many dismal things in the German army, but watching a group of once-proud soldiers march off to their death under the white flag of cowardice was the worst.
Suddenly, Sebastian got up and ran downstairs.
Wolf watched him run out of the Neptune and down the street after them. For a second, he thought Sebastian decided to surrender, but that analysis changed when he heard him call out to the group. “Wait! Wait a minute! I need to talk to you! Hold on!”
Wolf sighed. He knew what that meant.
28
Confrontation
Down on the street, Klaus pushed Sebastian away. “Young man, you have no right to tell me anything. I fought for Germany in the first war, before you were born. We lost a generation in those trenches and our economy was destroyed! Then Adolf Hitler—who wasn’t even born here—rearmed Germany and led us into another stupid war. Those of us who were dumb enough to pick up arms are now left with a choice. Surrender or die!”
“There’s still a way out!” Sebastian insisted.
“Fairy tales! This battle is the sequel to Stalingrad, only Hitler and his cronies are stuck here with us in the Kessel this time. There is no way out, no means to fight back and nothing left to fight for!”
Klaus dismissed Sebastian with a wave and the despondent group trudged down the street after him.
But Sebastian wouldn’t give up. “You have to believe me! There is a way out!” he shouted.
Klaus stopped in his tracks and went straight for Sebastian. The other men crowded around the two warriors, like a schoolyard fight. Just when they were about to come to blows, a kid with round glasses and an oversized helmet jumped right between them. “Are you sure you can get us out of Berlin? Are you really sure?” he asked.
Sebastian looked at the kid and the bazooka-like Panzerfaust that he clutched in his arms in disbelief. Jesus. Is this what had become of the invincible Wehrmacht? There truly is no hope. “How old are you, kid?” he asked.
“Thirteen, sir. Next month.”
“What’s your name?”
“Dieter, sir. Dieter Hübner.”
“Well, little Dieter Hübner, you should be at home with your mother, not wandering the streets of Berlin with a weapon that is bigger than you are.”
Dieter held up the Panzerfaust. Large red letters on the metal tube read Achtung! Feuerstrahl! “I may be young, sir, but I can fight like a man. I blasted a T-34 yesterday!”
Axel, a handsome young Luftwaffe pilot with long, unkempt blonde hair slapped the kid on the back. “And the Russians they pulled out of it looked like burnt schnitzel!”
“And then a thousand tanks replaced it,” Frederick replied. “Stalin has an endless supply. We must surrender. It’s our only hope.”
“If you surrender, they will kill you,” Sebastian said. “And if you’re not lucky enough to be killed quickly, you will get shipped off to Siberia to experience a wintery hell in a prison camp until you die from frostbite.”
Wolf arrived. He was nervous and uncomfortable to be out in the open with snipers in the area, but he was determined to get his friend out of there. “Sebastian, leave these men alone. They made their decision and we made ours. We have to leave. Now.”
“Excuse me, sir,” Dieter asked. “Do you rea
lly know a way out of Berlin?”
“No, kid. No, I don’t,” Wolf replied. “And don’t listen to my friend here. He got shot in the head tonight. I think that maybe his brains spilled out.”
“Major, we need firepower to get to the Brandenburg airfield,” Sebastian argued. “They can help us get there and we can save their lives in the process.”
Wolf laughed out loud. “Are you out of your mind? Children and men who are old enough to remember the Battle of Waterloo are not going to help us do anything but die. That’s not the firepower we need—we need soldiers.”
Sebastian raised his voice just loud enough to be heard by everyone. “Attention group. My commanding officer and I have devised a plan to get out of Berlin. We can’t promise you that it will work, but we can promise you that we’re going to shoot anybody who gets in our way.”
The soldiers laughed.
Sebastian pointed at Dieter, “Who else—besides this brave member of the Hitler Youth—will help us execute our plan?”
Wolf angrily grabbed Sebastian’s arm and whispered into his ear. “Plan? What the hell plan are you talking about? We don’t have a plan.”
“I agree with you, major. Our plan is genius,” Sebastian said loudly. He prayed that Wolf wouldn’t interrupt him again. “Raise your hand if you will join us!” he shouted. “We have a genius plan—who is with us?”
No one moved.
Wolf smiled. “Can we go now?”
Sebastian looked into their eyes, desperately trying to get a read. Their spirit is broken, he thought. It was time for a more drastic approach. He put his arm around Dieter. “Is this little guy here the only one among you who isn’t a sniveling coward? Now, who is brave enough to join our squad?”
That insult brought a murmur from the group, but their anger dissipated when Klaus handed the white flag to Frederick. “I am brave enough to join your squad,” he announced. “If you are brave enough to accept an man who is old enough to have fought against Napoleon.”
