The Adventures of Andrew Doran: Box Set

by Matthew Davenport

  Olof laughed and his Nazi thugs laughed with him. I joined in and together we killed a good thirty seconds more as we laughed together.

  Olof punched me again, interrupting my laugh. I wheezed in the grasp of the bigger Nazi men and tried to speak.

  "What wasss that you sssaid?" Olof asked.

  I smiled at him again and this time my smile conjured fear within those snake eyes. "I said," I managed to wheeze, "that you should probably board your train."

  Olof forced a smile and put his face only inches from mine. "And why would I want to do that?"

  My eyes drifted past Olof. The Yig worshiper's eyes followed mine and fell on the clock above the ticket-master's station.

  "Because," I answered, "I didn't come alone."

  Olof looked at me, his snake eyes went wide. He looked around me and toward the door.

  To my disappointment, and Olof's relief, nothing happened.

  Olof's look turned to one of confusion and then he smirked, flashing teeth that looked as if they must have been filed to points.

  I smirked back. "You'll have to forgive him." I said. "He's French."

  Olof shrugged and turned toward the platform. "Kill the Anthropologissst," he said over his shoulder.

  Suddenly, and about fifteen seconds later than we had planned, an engine could be heard revving up over the sound of the train. Olof spun on his leather Nazi boots and stared at me. I returned his stare with a genuine smile, flashing him my teeth.

  The two men holding my arms relaxed as they looked over their shoulders toward where I ran into the station. As they relaxed, I pulled on my arms enough to give me the leverage to toss my head back, flattening the nose of the Nazi holding my neck. He released to grab at his nose and I yanked my right arm free, twisting it away and to the left, tackling my third captor and kicking at the midriff of the Nazi who had been holding my right arm. We all broke up and fell away just in time.

  The front of the train station exploded inward and debris battered me as I fell on the Nazi still clinging desperately to my left arm. The Nazi who had been holding my neck disappeared in a crunch under the weight of the truck that had come barreling in.

  I pumped my fist into the face of the Nazi still clutching me and he fell away.

  As I stood up, I saw that Olof had ran out onto the platform. Finally following my advice the German snake-man boarded the train. The train itself was already pulling away, and I wasn't going to be fast enough to jump onto it.

  Turning to the truck, I reached through the driver's side window and smacked the Frenchman, Leo Dubois, on the arm.

  "What took you so long?"

  In heavily accented English, Leo answered by pointing at his wristwatch. "You bought the watch. Your American-made machinery is shit!"

  I ignored the barb and jumped into the bed of the truck. "Go after the train!"

  The Frenchman gunned the engine and the truck crashed through more of the station as it widened the path to the platform.

  I had met Leo Dubois in France about a year previously. He had been instrumental in my traveling through Nazi dominated Europe. Leo had been a member of the French Resistance until I had introduced him to a world of monsters and beasts from beyond the veil of reality as we know it. He'd realized that if the Nazis were to get control of those monsters then France would be much worse off than it already was in Nazi control. In the capacity of a soldier against the monsters, Leo had joined me in my return to America.

  Leaping the platform, the truck almost threw me as Leo jerked the wheel and took us onto the tracks. It was everything I could do to stay on the truck while Leo bounced over the rails. The thud-thud-thud reverberated through my body as it tossed me about the back of the truck. I gripped the edges of the truck bed with all of my strength as I shouted, and was largely ignored, for Leo to get off the tracks.

  After I was certain that I wouldn't make it much farther without being tossed out, Leo jumped the rails again and the ride smoothed out. We weren't on a road, so the ride was far from smooth, but it was manageable and versus the tracks themselves I was on a pleasure cruise.

  Leo managed to keep the truck stable as he caught up to the caboose of the train. Having just left the station, the train hadn't reached maximum speed yet, but the speed was climbing and it was turning into a game of cat and mouse as Leo would catch up with the caboose and then it would start to pull away.

  Finally, Leo had brought the truck along the side of the train. We were dangerously close to it, but we still were not close enough for me to grab the rail on the back of the caboose. I stretched out my hand and tried to close the gap between the truck and the train, but it was no use.

  I decided then that if I was going to make it, I was going to have to jump. I steadied myself on the back of the truck and waited through two large bumps before taking two steps and jumping off of the edge of the bed.

  At the same time I made my move, Leo must have thought I needed a boost. He swerved the truck as I jumped and instead of having to reach out to the caboose rail, it greeted me in the abdomen, blasting the air from my lungs. I started to fall, and clutched at the railing under my arms. Pulling myself over, I glared at Leo as he pulled in behind the train.

  The train was a relief compared to riding in the back of Leo's truck while we'd been on the tracks. The steady rocking of the train was as solid as the Earth itself by comparison, and I took a moment to compose myself before slapping my hand to my holster...

  ...and remembered that Olof, that snake-eyed bastard, still had my pistol.

  I threw open the caboose door but I did it while standing to the side. When no gunfire came exploding out, I peeked in and saw no one at all. The car was filled with a couple of small boxes and general supplies. I stepped in and saw some extra chairs stacked in a corner. This train was using the car for storage.

  I ran through the car, not wasting my time there and came to the next car with less care. Stepping in, I immediately noticed that the car was stacked on each side with luggage.

  The second thing that I noticed was the three Nazis standing around a makeshift table that still had a pile of cards across it. Olof must have interrupted their card game when he ran through.

  While they weren't dressed as Nazis it was easy to tell that they were. The soldiers of the Nazi army, specifically those who had worked with the Traum Kult, all seemed to hold themselves a certain way. It was as if they thought they were better than everyone else.

  They were also holding pistols aimed in my direction.

  The guns began to roar from two of the closer German soldiers, but the third Nazi turned and ran from the car. I assumed that he was going to alert Olof.

  Leaping out of the way, I jumped behind the stack of luggage to my right. All of the luggage was stacked tightly, and as the bullets flew, I had a quick idea. Throwing my weight behind my shoulder, I slammed into the luggage and leaned. I was pushing it forward and away from the carriage wall. The tightly stacked row of luggage all moved together and fell into the cramped walkway where the Nazis were shooting.

  They must have assumed that my intention had been to knock them out with the falling luggage, because they stopped firing for just a moment to laugh loudly at me. Fortunately, the thought of knocking them unconscious with the luggage hadn't even entered my mind. Instead, I used the break in the gunfire to scoop up a wide, black suitcase and push it out and in front of me.

  When you use a piece of luggage as shielding, the most important thing to remember is that luggage can't stop all of the bullets. If you think that, then you're dead. It'll stop some of the bullets and it might even stop most of the bullets, but you're using two pieces of wood or fabric with more fabrics squeezed between them. It's that squeezing of fabric that stops the suitcase so you don't want to use a necessarily heavy suitcase so much as you want to use a solidly packed suitcase.

  I could feel as I lifted the suitcase up and over my torso that I had chosen wisely. While the suitcase had weight to it, it didn't jostle
around at all. It was packed very tightly.

  I began walking toward them, and I did it quickly. I didn't want them to have time to realize that shooting my feet would be an easy way to end my advance.

  When they stopped to load another clip into their pistols, I swung the suitcase as hard as I could into the nearest Nazi soldier. I let the suitcase fall with him and spun back at the other soldier. Before he could pull the trigger, I swatted the gun aside and slammed my fist into his face. With satisfaction, I watched as his eyes rolled back into his skull and he collapsed to the floor of the car.

  I didn't waste any time on the downed soldier and instead returned my attention to the Nazi that I'd hit with the suitcase. I fell on him and hit him twice, before picking up the suitcase that I'd dropped earlier and raising it above my head.

  With a grunt, I brought the case down on the Nazi's face a couple of times until he stopped moving.

  Relaxing, I dropped the suitcase again and stood up. I scooped up the extra clips and both of the pistols. I checked the chamber on the pistols, put one in my waistband, and moved toward the next car.

  I opened the door to the next car and stopped as I noticed all of the eyes. This was a passenger car and all of the passengers' eyes were on me. More importantly, they were on the dirt-covered man who had just barged into their quiet car with a pistol in the air.

  A few of the women started but no one made any move to do anything other than stare at me. I frowned for a minute and remembered where I was.

  This was the greatest nation in the world. The most evil things that this nation could face were currently using this train as their get-away vehicle.

  "I'm looking for the Nazi bastards who just ran this way." I said just loud enough for everyone in the car to hear clearly.

  There was silence and I was beginning to wonder if maybe the whole train had been filled with Nazis when an elderly man from the other end of the car stood slowly. He grabbed the seat back that he had just risen from and swayed with the rocking of the train.

  "You mean that tow-headed son of a bitch with the devil-eyes?" he shouted.

  I nodded.

  "He ain't in here. He moved on to the next car." The man looked proud of himself.

  I ran forward until I was at the man and gave him my thanks.

  "I should go with you," he added. "You might need back up."

  Calling the vocal passenger an old man was being generous. He was barely able to stand with the rocking of the train and asking him to be my backup just wasn't in the cards.

  I pulled the pistol from my waistband and handed it to him butt first. "I actually need you to stay here, friend. If anyone comes after me, put them down. Am I clear?"

  The man took the pistol and saluted. "Captain James Sterling. Fought in the Great War. I've got practice killing Germans. You can count on me."

  I saluted him back and then went on to the next car.

  I wasn't worried about Captain Sterling at all. I'd left one Nazi in the last car dead and the other pretty close, but giving him the pistol would keep the passengers calm.

  Of course, in my travels I'd learned that dead isn't always a permanent state. It was always good to have a someone watching your back.

  I slid the door open to the next car but didn't step in. As I did so, bullets flew out of the hatch and slammed into the metal door of the previous car.

  I took a quick second to peek in. To my relief, the next car was filled with Nazi soldiers and no passengers. I aimed my pistol in and fired blindly, hoping to scatter them.

  Not taking the time to see if it worked, I grabbed the access ladder and climbed to the top of the car. Sand and wind buffeted my face and I had to raise my arm to shield myself just to move forward. From the top of the train, I could also see Leo and the truck about three cars ahead.

  I began walking forward and shooting down into the car, trying to place my bullets where I had thought I had seen Nazis. It wasn't precise, but it was the only thing that I could think to do that might keep them from shooting up at me.

  My suppressive fire didn't work at all. Instead, as soon as I began shooting down into the car, bullets began exploding up through the roof and toward me.

  I hopped lightly, allowing the train's movement to carry me back and then rolled off of the side of the carriage as the bullets continued to pop up under my feet.

  Terror gripped me for a moment as my hands fumbled to find a purchase. Here I was, Monster-Hunter and Nazi-Killer, about to be killed by falling off of a train. I wasn't just scared, but I was embarrassed, too.

  Finally, my hands grabbed the lip of the train, and I just let instinct kick in. I allowed my weight to shift into my legs, bringing my momentum down harder than it would have been if I had just fallen, and used the tenuous grip that I had on the roof of the train to swing my legs in.

  It was only by luck that I had lined up with one of the car's windows. I crashed through it and ignored the glass that sliced into my body.

  There were no passengers in the car, but plenty of places for those nonexistent passengers to sit. I slammed into a seat and felt the wind go out of me. I tried to bring up my pistol, but I was too slow and a bullet hit me in the arm.

  I retreated then, falling back into my chair. As soon as I touched the seat again, I bounced back into the open. I didn't wait, I just began firing.

  My first two shots were spot on and the two nearest Nazis fell without making a sound. My next shot winged one Nazi and he fell back. I turned and shot the other two Nazis, each in the head, before turning to finish off the wounded one.

  My eyes searched the car quickly trying to assess if that had been all of the Germans in this car. Once I was satisfied that had been all of them, I looked at my arm.

  I had been lucky. The bullet had passed straight through. I tore some cloth from one of the dead Nazis and tied it around my arm. Then I grabbed one of the machine guns they'd been using and checked the magazine.

  That quickly solved the mystery of how I was able to kill five German soldiers without taking too much return fire. This Nazi had emptied his clip into trying to kill me on the roof. I was willing to bet that the others had done the same.

  I slammed the clip back into the machine gun when I heard the car door toward the front of the train open up. I spun, bringing the gun up as if it were loaded, and saw the German idea of Uber-Soldat.

  The Super-Soldier.

  It was a bare-chested man about 7 feet tall and almost four feet wide. He was bald and had so much muscle on his body that his musculature was literally tearing his skin. His army boots shook the carriage with each step that he took.

  And he was dead.

  His flesh carried with it the lifeless coloring of a body drained of blood. His eyes were white with the cataracts of death. He was a giant, undead, Nazi.

  When I had seen his size, I hadn't flinched. I wasn’t a novice to fighting, and I had tricks for taking down the big guys. Most of them involved being fast: kick out his knees, box his ears, a headlock, punches to the temple, kick to the groin, and so on. Every one of those tactics went out of the window when you were fighting one of the undead.

  I wasn't a novice to fighting monsters, either. The easy attacks were to use my .38 Smith and Wesson, or my Cavalry sword, both imbued with the ability to destroy the creatures of the void. Unfortunately, my sword had been impractical to bring with me on a high speed chase across Utah, and Olof still had my pistol.

  That left two options, the first of which was to destroy his head. It was the only way to stop the reanimated corpses that the Germans had become so fond of using. I had no idea how I was going to do that.

  The second option wasn't on the table. I was still healing, and that meant that I couldn't use option two.

  All of this went through my mind in less time than it takes to blink. I spun the emptied machine gun around in the air and caught it by its barrel. Then I ran at the beast.

  He stopped stomping forward, obviously confused by me running at
him. When I was within striking distance, I jumped into the air and swung the machine gun as if it were a club. My target was his right temple and I was moving fast.

  Whatever powers had been used to create this animated husk had been used to amplify all of his other processes as well. With blinding speed, the monster grabbed my makeshift gun and yanked it from my hands. At the same time, he punched me in the chest with an equal amount of speed.

  The wind rushed from my lungs and I was sure that I heard something crack. I don't know how much time passed before I realized that the cracking noise had been my head against the far side of the car. His blow had thrown me across the car.

  I clutched at my chest as I laid on the floor, gasping for breath, when I felt more than heard the tell-tale sound of the beast walking toward me.

  I forced myself to my feet and was surprised that I was able to actually succeed at the task. The dead Nazi liked this and smiled at me.

  That told me a little something more about the magic that had created the monster. If it had just been a reanimated corpse, then the monster would have no personality. It wouldn't smile.

  But if it had been a soldier who had volunteered to have its soul trapped inside of its flesh while some whacked-out wizard poured enhancement spells into it then it would smile, delight in inflicting pain, and essentially have a mind of its own.

  So, I had learned that I wasn't fighting a dead guy, so much as a smart dead guy.

  I squared off, deciding that I was going to at least go down swinging, and the monster continued his progression toward me. Once he came within reach, he didn't hesitate to start swinging at me.

  His moves were so fast, but having a personality meant that he would be drawing on skills and patterns he'd learned while a Nazi soldier, and I have beaten hundreds of Nazi soldiers.

  Recognizing the swing, I ducked it with as much speed as I could muster. I almost wasn't fast enough. The wind from the swing brushed my hair. As I ducked the swing I also stepped under it and past the dead Nazi. In one fluid motion, I put my heel into the back of the Nazi's right knee.