My Immortal: The Vampires of Berlin

by Lee Rudnicki

“Kill the bitch!” Axel gasped.

  Sebastian looked back at the pilot, but he didn’t say anything. He gets a pass, he thought. He doesn’t have long to live. The uncomfortable silence that he left behind in his wake was broken by a short burst of gunfire just outside the graveyard.

  The Russians were coming.

  39

  Stars

  Eva sat on the riverbank and watched the nighttime sky as the sounds of battle resounded in the distance. She didn't say anything when Sebastian sat down next to her. Nor did he expect her to.

  “Guten Abend,” he said.

  Eva didn't respond.

  Sebastian never believed in vampires until he met one. Until one bit him. Now, the sight of blood excited him and his strength was increasing by the hour. He knew what the other men had only suspected. Eva was a vampire. He was turning into one himself. He also instinctively knew that their survival depended on Eva, for reasons known only to God—assuming that God was still in Berlin.

  “Are you okay?” he asked. “Do you understand me? Do you know where you are?”

  Eva just stared at the sky. If she heard him, she didn't show it. Opening the lines of communication with the young vampire was going to be much harder than he had thought. Frustrated, he turned her towards him and raised his voice. “Look at me. That Luftwaffe pilot over there...”

  “Axel,” Eva said softly.

  “Yes. Axel is about to die from burns he got when a vampire torched his face. He got hurt saving you. Now, please. Tell me what this is all about.”

  She blinked hard and then pointed to the sky. “It’s in the stars, Sebastian...”

  He looked up. Smoke and fog covered the city. There were no stars, only a dark gray gloom lit by the flash of occasional explosions in the distance.

  Before he could ask her another question, an artillery shell exploded in the river in front of them. The cold water that cascaded over them brought him crashing back to reality. He got up and took her hand.

  It was time to go.

  40

  Running up that Hill

  The injured pilot strained to speak to the men who were gathered around him. “The vampires will kill you. They will kill all of you,” he gasped.

  Klaus spoke up first. It broke his heart to see the life force ebb out of the man who saved him from the horrors of Stalingrad. “He’s right. The vampires want that evil girl.”

  Wolf shook his head. “She is not evil. She saved our lives. I know this is a difficult and strange situation, but your Luftwaffe friend is horribly burned. He is delirious from the pain.”

  “If we get rid of her, we get rid of the vampires,” Klaus argued. “We might survive this night.”

  Wolf had no response. He had no desire to die trying to save civilians whose fate was sealed anyway. He probably could be talked into leaving Eva in the graveyard, but for the fact that Sebastian wouldn’t leave her side.

  “Why does your friend continue to protect her? Her very presence puts our lives at risk,” Klaus said.

  “I trust his instincts,” Wolf replied.

  “This goes far beyond human instincts. We are dealing with supernatural forces. Vampires. Possibly even black magic.”

  “And the Russians,” Dieter added.

  “And the Russians,” Klaus repeated. “We’re going to have enough trouble getting out of Berlin without having to fight vampires too.”

  “Sebastian’s girlfriend is creepy,” Dieter said.

  Wolf bit his bottom lip. “Dresden,” he said loudly. The men stared at Wolf, unsure of what was going to come out of his mouth next.

  “What about Dresden?” Klaus asked.

  “You wanted to know why Sebastian protects the girl. So, I told you. He is from Dresden.” That statement instantly changed the tenor of the conversation.

  “I heard the rumors,” the old man said, brushing his silver hair out of his eyes.

  “The rumors are true,” Wolf began. “The Allies dropped tons of incendiary bombs on a city that was packed with refugees and created one of the largest firestorms in history. No one will ever know how many tens of thousands of people are buried in the mass graves. They’ll debate it for the next 100 years, but no one will ever truly know.”

  The men stayed quiet. News of the tragedy spread through Germany almost as fast as the hurricane-strength winds that sucked people into the fire. The attack on the beautiful baroque city on the Elbe was an attack on the very soul of the German people.

  “At the height of the firestorm, people got trapped in the Dresden city center. Many of them jumped into the city fountain to try to escape from the flames. That’s where they found Sebastian’s wife and little girl.”

  “Did they live?” Dieter asked.

  “They were boiled alive,” Wolf said solemnly.

  Dieter shuddered at the thought.

  41

  The Miracle

  Klaus cursed under his breath as Sebastian and Eva emerged from the darkness. “Devil girl is back,” he said.

  “Kill her!” Axel gasped.

  Overcome by emotion, Klaus stood up and pointed his rifle at Eva. “Let’s shoot her! The vampires will stop hunting us—we’ll be safe!”

  Sebastian jumped up and put himself in the line of fire. “Easy there, old man. Put the gun down. We’re all on the same side.”

  Klaus didn’t flinch. “How many more of us have to die because of that evil bitch? We can get out on a plane if we make it to Brandenburg Gate. You said so yourself—that’s why we followed you. We don’t need this vampire shit!”

  Sebastian put his hand over the muzzle. “I’m not going to let you to shoot her.”

  “Get out of my way! She is not your daughter! Your daughter is dead! I will shoot that witch!” Klaus yelled, his voice breaking with emotion.

  “Shoot her, pop!” Dieter shouted.

  As Klaus began the muscle contractions on his index finger to squeeze the trigger, Sebastian moved at lightening speed and tackled him. Dieter jumped on his back, but he ended up on the ground next to his grandfather. With his growing strength, Sebastian could have easily killed them both. Instead, he held them down just hard enough to prevent them from hurting someone.

  Unnoticed during the mêlée, Eva put her hands on Axel’s face. She closed her eyes and a soft blue glow emanated from her palms. Axel moaned and tried to push her away as the light grew brighter, but she kept her hands on him.

  Dieter noticed the light as he tried to wrap his hands around Sebastian’s throat. “She’s hurting him!” he screamed.

  Sebastian released his grip on the two and the fight ground to a halt. Eva fell away unconscious as Klaus and Dieter ran to Axel’s side. “Are you alright?” Klaus cried. “Axel, are you still alive? Talk to me.”

  Axel slowly pulled his hands away from his face.

  The men stared at him in wide-eyed disbelief. “Oh my God,” Klaus said. “This is a miracle ... a true miracle.”

  The pilot opened his eyes and touched his cheek. It wasn’t burned anymore. In fact, his complexion was as clear as the day he was born. When Axel realized that his burns had healed, he wept like a baby.

  Sebastian cradled Eva in his arms. “Do any of you brave warriors still want to kill her?”

  Before anyone could answer that question, a Russian patrol swept a spotlight across the cemetery. The men dove to the ground and went still. Fear gripped them as the bright light lit the cemetery around them. After a few tense minutes, the patrol left. “We’ll wait here a few more minutes, then move out,” Wolf whispered.

  Dieter nervously adjusted the trigger guard of his new Panzerfaust. Suddenly, the weapon roared and the shell flew straight up into the air. The horrified men watched it fall back to Earth thirty meters away and explode.

  Klaus tried to comfort his distraught grandson. “Relax, Dieter. Those drunken idiots probably didn’t even notice where the fireworks came from.”

  Then all hell broke loose. Russian soldiers shouted, gunshots rang out and t
he searchlight headed straight for them. Machine gun tracer fire whizzed through the air at unseen targets of opportunity. “Lock and load. We’ve got to take them out!” Wolf shouted.

  Klaus hyperventilated and dropped a handful of bullets as he tried to load his rifle. “My life does not need to be this interesting.”

  “Where would you rather be, old man?” Wolf replied with a smile.

  Suddenly, a blood-curdling scream filled the air. A second later, the searchlight went dark and the gunfire stopped. Klaus and Wolf exchanged curious glances and wondered if it was a Russian trick.

  A quick movement to their right caught them off guard; Sebastian emerged from the shadows covered in blood. “What the hell happened to you?” Wolf asked.

  “The Russian scouts have been dealt with,” Sebastian replied.

  Flares shot overhead and bathed the cemetery in eerie red light. Then they heard the distinct pop of a mortar tube.

  “They’ve got friends!” Wolf shouted. “Incoming!”

  The men took cover as best they could as the shells exploded around them.

  After a few rounds, the bombardment stopped and silence enveloped the graveyard. Wolf did a quick inventory and was happy to find everyone still in one piece.

  “Maybe they think we’re dead,” Dieter whispered.

  A Russian soldier with a megaphone shattered that illusion. “Achtung! Brave soldiers of the Wehrmacht,” he called out in broken German. “You do not need to die here tonight in this lonely graveyard.”

  “I heard this shit before,” Axel said.

  The Russian continued. “Surrender now and join your comrades in a holding camp until the war is over. You will be given food, medicine and water and treated in accordance with the Geneva Convention.”

  Axel’s anger boiled over. “The Geneva Convention? What kind of bullshit is that? They don’t even know where Geneva is!” Then he got up and fired a few rounds at the sound of the voice.

  Axel hit the dirt as bullets exploded around him. He was unscathed when the return fire stopped, which amused him to no end.

  “Do you ever think before you fucking shoot?” Wolf asked the grinning pilot.

  “No. No, he doesn’t,” Klaus said, answering for him. “I suspect he has anger-management issues.”

  Before Wolf could rebut that smart-ass remark, the bombardment resumed. The men took cover as each successive salvo got closer; it was only a matter of time before the mortar team zeroed in on them. The Russians weren’t going anywhere as long as they thought that the cemetery still contained a pocket of resistance.

  “We’re trapped!” Klaus yelled over the explosions. “They’ll keep bombarding us with those goddamn mortars until we’re dead.”

  “The river! It’s our only way out!” Sebastian replied.

  “But I can’t swim!” Klaus yelled.

  Wolf pulled him off the ground by his collar. “You’re about to learn, old man! Get your ass up!”

  42

  The River of Death

  The squad hesitated on the riverbank as mortar rounds continued to explode in the cemetery behind them. Eva was still unconscious; the effort to heal Axel had completely drained her of energy. Sebastian slapped her on the cheek. When that failed to wake her, he put her over his shoulder. Crossing the river would be tough, but trying to do so with an unconscious girl in his arms could prove fatal. He desperately scanned the water for floating debris as he went into the river.

  Klaus stared at swirling black water. “The current is too strong. We’ll drown,” he muttered.

  “This is the only way out,” Wolf replied. “We have to get out of here. Let’s go.”

  A sudden explosion sent shrapnel whistling overhead. “Now!” Wolf yelled as he jumped into the river.

  Klaus stayed on the riverbank and watched Wolf and the others drift away. As his friends were about to learn, the old man was far more scared of water than he was of Russian bullets.

  “Come on! We’ll help you swim!” Wolf yelled.

  “I promise not to shoot you this time,” Axel added, trying to add some humor into what was turning into a desperate situation.

  Klaus responded with an obscene gesture. Two more mortar rounds exploded nearby and the voices of angry Russian soldiers filled the air.

  “Come on, Pop! They’re coming! Please!” Dieter yelled. Wolf pulled the kid deeper into the water as Klaus stayed on the shore and contemplated his fate. He had grown fond of the old man, but the time for indecision and debate was over.

  A salvo of bullets hit the water just in front of Klaus. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw armed men running down the riverbank towards him.

  “Pop!”

  The old man took one last long look at his grandson. Then he ran back into the cemetery.

  This was to be his finest hour.

  43

  Dreams of Heaven

  Klaus ran through the cemetery like a wild man; he was Custer taunting the Indians. “Hey ass face! Over here!” he shouted. When he finally made out the faces of confused Russian soldiers through the fog, he raised his rifle and shot the one with the red stripes on his sleeve.

  Klaus ducked down behind a gravestone as the angry Russians returned fire. Then he threw a potato masher in their general direction as far as he could. He knew that the grenade had found its mark when the explosion was followed by the screams of a mortally wounded soldier.

  “Stalin is a skunk!” he shouted. Then he jumped up and picked off several more Russians who were popping up between the gravestones to get a bead on him.

  Unfortunately, Klaus saw the rifleman flank him a split-second too late. A bullet slammed into his forearm, instantly snapping his radius in half. He fell to the ground as gunshots ricocheted off of the gravestones.

  Despite his horrific wound, Klaus surprised his adversary by rolling across the ground and quickly changing his firing angle. He took the Russian out with two carefully placed shots to the chest.

  With a second to catch his breath, he looked down at his arm. His sleeve was red and there was a bone sticking out through it. The only thought that ran through his mind was that getting shot hurt less than he had expected; his arm was numb. Klaus felt tired and warm and began to black out. This isn’t so bad, he thought. I’ll just fade away. He saw his mother and father beckoning him down a long white tunnel and he felt incredibly happy and peaceful.

  Angry shouts brought him back to the fight. The old man stood up and prepared to take on a determined enemy that was closing in on him like a pack of wolves. He leaned his rifle on a tombstone and took a few more down, but his position became indefensible when a Soviet machine-gunner blasted the stone monument to pieces.

  Klaus staggered down the path as the blood gushed out of his useless arm. He didn’t have much time left on Earth, but he had successfully led the Russians on a wild goose chase away from his grandson and the rest of the men.

  Mission accomplished, he thought.

  44

  Acceptance

  The squad drifted downriver. When they heard the shouts on the riverbank, Dieter’s heart raced. My grandfather is a survivor—he lived through the Battle of the Somme, for crying out loud, he thought. Maybe he got away! Maybe the Russians lost him! His pulse quickened and he half-expected to see Klaus jump into the river.

  Wolf had a far more realistic expectation of the situation. The old man led the patrol away from them. But like a soldier who dives onto a grenade, Klaus paid a steep price for his heroism. He was right about one thing, though. He died in a cemetery—they wouldn’t have to take his body far.

  Suddenly, another flurry of gunfire rang out, followed by the cheers of Russian soldiers. Dieter felt his stomach turn. He knew what had happened. He looked to the sky and made the sign of the cross. “Thanks, Pop.”

  Under normal circumstances, that moment would have broken Wolf’s heart, but he had no time for sentimentality. The enemy wouldn’t assume there had only been one soldier in the cemetery. They would search the
grounds until they got to the water, the obvious escape route. If the Russians caught them in the blood-filled river, they would be sitting ducks.

  45

  Tank Camp

  A bonfire fueled by Nazi parade banners and gasoline illuminated a surreal scene of drunken debauchery.

  With their massive T-34 battle tank behind them, tank commander Sergei Tokolovskii and his crew drank vodka and sang obscene songs about Hitler. On the turret, twenty-seven crude slash marks kept track of the German armored vehicles that had fallen victim to their deadly 85 mm cannon.

  Tokolovskii was a tough son-of-a-bitch from Minsk with a notorious reputation as a warrior who drank as hard as he fought. The crew respected Tok, but they also feared him; his tendency to lash out in a rage when he had been drinking was legendary. And he was always drinking.

  As was his custom, he brought a guest with him to the party, a young, beautiful and rather unlucky German woman who had chosen the wrong Soviet officer to befriend in exchange for protection from other Russian soldiers. The fräulein wasn’t enjoying her evening, but Tokolovskii didn’t care. There were no innocent Germans as far as he was concerned.

  As they did each night, the crew alternated taking shots of vodka and giving each other slaps in the face, a bizarre ritualistic pain contest between men who had caused more than their fair share of pain to others in this war.

  Yuri didn’t take part in the festivities. He was more interested in tinkering with the huge abandoned searchlight that he found near the river. The crew was frustrated with his reluctance to drink with them, but they had long since grown used to his eccentricities. They tolerated Yuri because he was a brilliant mechanic and driver who helped them survive combat time and time again against the far superior German panzers.