SSSHHHAAAGGGTTT! the beast thundered over the gunfire and terror-laced screams.
When the dinosaur came into view, Christoph braked to a stop without even thinking about it. His gaze lifted from the theropod’s mighty legs up to its hideous jaws, where teeth clamped around a crewman’s torso, as his arms and legs hung limply toward the earth. Was this a T. rex? The dinosaur was big but not as big as he had imagined. This one was either young or a species of theropod he wasn’t aware of. Didn’t matter. It was made of flesh and blood. He and his men had weapons and would fight back.
Christoph steadied his aim and fired at its chest. Small trickles of blood indicated that bullets had an effect but were the projectiles deadly enough to kill it?
Men backed away as the ire of the allosaurus increased. It flung the crewman in its mouth to the side and snapped at another who had turned and run.
Ten rounds from his gun in the beast, and no telling how many others rounds it had taken from others, had done nothing to slow it. The dinosaur’s head constantly moved, so he had concentrated on targeting the chest where he thought the heart should be. Now, Christoph patiently waited for the head to move between his rifle’s sights.
Bam! Bam! Bam!
His bullets ripped toward the allosaurus’ head, at least one striking it in the left eye.
The dinosaur reared its head backward and uttered a deep, reptilian bray. It then leaned forward, turning its good eye in the direction of the blow.
Christoph darted behind a tree, thinking all he had done was make it madder.
The allosaurus stepped forward and jutted its neck toward the tree the commander hid behind.
The dinosaur’s roar felt like a steam whistle blowing a scant meter from the other side of the tree. Christoph turned and ran. Large feet with railroad spike-like claws crashed down in hot pursuit.
The allosaurus roared again. The commander felt his body became weightless as if his feet no longer touched the ground. He didn’t know how far ahead he was and didn’t dare take a split-second to turn and look. Zigging and zagging, using the trees as best he could to slow its pursuit, he came to the presence of mind that he realized in his fear he had inadvertently led the dinosaur back to camp!
“Dive to the ground, Commander! Dive to the ground!” Bach yelled.
Christoph instantly recognized his lieutenant’s voice and wasted no time in complying. The military had taught him in situations where seconds mattered that there was no time to question orders.
He hit the ground on his belly and slid across dry leaves. Placing his hands over his head, he closed his eyes and expected the worse.
One grenade exploded, and the allosaurus answered in obvious pain. Rifle fire continued, and two more grenades went off.
Boom! Boom!
Dirt and something wet rained on Christoph. Gunfire continued for a few seconds, and then faded.
“Commander, are you okay?” Bach asked.
Christoph flipped off his stomach and sat with his rear on the ground. The dinosaur laid on its side. One of its legs was nearly blown off by the grenades. Its chest looked like ground meat from all the bullet holes. A large hole cratered its stomach, more damage from explosives, entrails sloppily spilling along the ground.
“I am fine,” Christoph said as he rose. He brushed dirt and bits of flesh from the top of his forearms, smearing the dinosaur’s blood mixed in the mess. All he managed to do was transfer the muck from his arms onto his palms. Not wanting to wipe his hands on his clothing, he looked about for a large-leafed plant.
A low noise, similar to the buzz of insects, emerged in volume. As the sounds became louder and more distinct, there was no questioning it was from some type of those reptilian-like birds.
The brush came alive around them. A crewman screamed as a velociraptor attacked him from his blind side. The dinosaur looked just like the one killed earlier. It savagely ripped into his thigh and bit at his hands as he tried to pull it off.
More startled cries followed by gunfire coming from all directions told Christoph a full-scale attack had been launched.
Velociraptors invaded the campsite by the dozens. The fierce creatures were unintimidated by the humans or the discharge of gunfire.
Christoph grabbed for his sidearm and pointed the Luger at a raptor coming in for the kill. He waited for the dinosaur to get within a couple of meters before double tapping the trigger.
The velociraptor hiss-cawed as its legs weakened. Its momentum carried it forward, and it collapsed at Christoph’s feet.
He considered his shots more luck than skill. Still, it wasn’t difficult to kill these dinosaurs. The problem was hitting the targets before they got hold of their victims. Christoph watched in horror as the velociraptors teamed up on crewmen, biting and slashing as feet kicked and arms flayed. The raptors used the sickle-shaped claws on their second toes to tear at the soft flesh of throats.
Erik! Where was Erik? Christoph turned to locate his son, and a stray bullet whizzed by his ear. In the pandemonium, bullets flew in every direction.
He caught a glimpse of Erik standing behind Lt. Bach. Erik had a rifle up to his shoulder, but the bewildered expression on his face told he wasn’t mentally prepared to fight.
Christoph ran to a crewman who had succumbed to the enemy. As the two velociraptors fed on the sailor’s flesh, the commander peppered the bodies of the predators with the remaining bullets in the gun. Two more dead with many more to go. He ejected the pistol’s magazine and jammed in a fresh one, ready to fight once again.
*
“What is all the shooting?” Adolf Hitler, the real man under the disguise of Frank Viktor, asked. His patience had been growing thinner by the minute in this confounded place. How did the commander manage to run a U-boat so far aground in the first place? Inexcusable! And now there was some level of attack. Had the Americans found them?
“I’m scared,” Eva said, reaching out in the dim light filtering inside the cave and finding her husband’s trembling hand.
“Doctor Mengele, give my wife another sedative,” Hitler said. He gently squeezed Eva’s fingers, feeling the tension growing in her grip. “There, there, my love. You have nothing to fear…you have nothing to fear.” He wished he believed his own words.
Blondi’s ears perked straight up, and her back began to bristle. She darted for the cave’s entrance, where Klaus Barbie guarded, his pistol drawn.
“Creatures like the crewman killed earlier are attacking!” Barbie said. He raised his gun and fired two shots.
Hitler lifted his back off the blanket and sat upright, pulling his hand free from Eva. Gunfire, men’s yells, and guttural caws from the bird-dinosaurs electrified the air. The madness reminded him of the last few days hiding in the bunker under the streets of Berlin. He and Eva had barely escaped with their lives their final day in Germany. There were no covert operations going on in this strange place to come and rescue them. No! I must live. I will have victory over the Allies! I will shame them tenfold for what they have done to the Fatherland.
Blondi’s barks turned into snarls as she sped from the cave’s entrance. A loud yelp followed, soon replace by whimpering cries.
The blast from Barbie’s pistol amplified between the cave’s walls as if striking blows against Hitler’s head.
Then he saw one of the predators as it leaped toward Barbie’s outstretched arm. It dug the claws on its feet near his wrist, and the gun dropped from his hand.
Barbie yelled and tried to beat the creature off with his left hand.
Mengele cowered to one side of the cave wall.
“Use your gun, you fool!” Hitler ordered Mengele.
Unsteadily, the doctor removed his weapon and cautiously stepped toward the entrance as Eva nervously cried.
Barbie’s yells increased as more velociraptors took him to the ground and began the feeding frenzy.
Mengele fell backward at the onslaught of raptors entering the cave, his head falling a meter away from Hitler’s
feet. The doctor bellowed like a stuck pig—his voice strained with agony.
The first velociraptor to reach Hitler landed on his chest. Sharp claws pierced his skin, sending waves of pain throughout. Its toothy mouth snapped inches away as his raised arm shielded his head.
Eva screamed now, horrible shrieks sounding almost feline. Hitler felt her blood splattering on his arms and cheeks.
The velociraptor reached a claw toward his face, but the bandages on his face and neck kept it from slicing his throat. Then, both of his legs lit on fire, as more dinosaurs joined the fray.
The pain was unimaginable. Multiple claws cut deep, and flesh ripped out in chunks from the powerful jaws of the raptors. Each second felt like hours as teeth mutilated his arms while fighting them off.
His mind flashed to a report he read where his scientists put a man in a room of starving bedbugs to gauge how long he could survive. The man screamed and slapped at his body for over eight hours until he became exhausted, and then let them feed until his death. At this moment, he had an idea of what it was like to suffer like the commoners who fell to his whims. It seemed so wrong to die this way. No human deserved to suffer horrific pain such as this.
Jaws latched onto his nose. Cartilage cracked as a hungry velociraptor ripped it from his skull. Blood gushed down over his lips into his mouth, the metallic taste, bitter. Claws scraped along his scalp, streaming crimson down his head.
More claws dug into his abdomen. Hitler’s pain was so great he no longer heard his own dying screams. His sphincter muscle loosened, and he soiled himself.
When will this end? He prayed to God to make the pain stop. To let him just die. To have the peace of void.
Then he thought of all the others who had suffered by his will. How none of them deserved such a horrible fate. For the first time, he felt guilt. No level of reasoning could absolve him from his sins against mankind, including the Gypsies, homosexuals, and even the Jews!
Hitler now saw himself differently. He was no longer the savior of his people. He had become Satan to the rest of the world, and in turn, became the destroyer of his beloved Fatherland. All the evil he had perpetrated combined to assign sins to his soul. How many? Thousands? Hundreds of thousands? No, millions of sins blackened his name.
A hum rose in his brain, pushing back on the pain riveting his body. At last! At last, death would arise to cradle him in its arms and take him away. The muscles in his back began to relax, and he had the urge to curl into the fetal position. He was becoming calm and felt like a child waiting for his mother to come in and tuck him in at night.
Then the faces of the innocent, those emaciated faces with eyes devoid of life appeared. The atrocities they had experienced by his hand carved into their expressions. They opened their mouths and began to cry, scream, plead with every ounce of energy for mercy. Others faces, young and old, of every race, creed, and color, lifted from broken bodies blown to pieces in the rubble of cities and the slaughter fields of war. A jury of spirits hurled accusations at the fallen leader.
Above the faces, a giant white throne appeared. From the dais, the Being of Light lifted its left hand and pointed.
Hitler looked as a massive lake of fire formed. Its surface boiled like molten steel as orange and blue flames licked toward the heavens.
Adolph Hitler felt his soul leave his body. The fiery lake drew him toward his final destination.
*
Eichmann and Stangl had engaged the allosaurus, along with the others, and now stood side-by-side targeting the velociraptors.
It surprised Eichmann that something that small in size could be so deadly. It further surprised him to see crewmen overwhelmed by the beasts and the ease of which they killed. So far, he and Stangl had held their ground, killing almost as many as shots fired from their rifles. By the looks of things, the tide appeared to be turning their way. As more raptors fell, the predators’ tactics became less certain.
“To your left!” Stangl called out.
Eichmann stood between Stangl and a velociraptor charging from the side. He hastily squeezed off two rounds before the dinosaur leaped toward him. In one smooth move, he brought the butt of the rifle square against the raptor’s chest. One of the animal’s front claws extended enough to dig a groove out of his left wrist.
The velociraptor fell to its back and fluttered its wings, hiss-cawing in anger.
Stangl’s rifle boomed by Eichmann’s side. The bullet ended the threat.
“Good shooting, my friend,” Eichmann said.
“Eh, I won a plaster Krampus at the carnival once for being such a marksman.”
“The Führer!” Eichmann said the realization aloud. The two of them had been so caught up in the battle that neither had considered the safety of their leader.
With no immediate threat to delay, the two sped toward the caves.
Eichmann’s heart sunk when he saw the dead body of Klaus Barbie and two raptors feeding on it. He put his arm out to slow Stangl, and then came to a stop, watching from ten meters away. Blondi lay dead not far, suffering a similar fate. From the sound of things, there were more velociraptors in the cave doing the same.
Eichmann looked over at Stangl.
Stangl shrugged and replaced the magazine in his rifle. “Looks like we made it back a bit late.”
Dropping his magazine, Eichmann reloaded and raised the rifle. “I’ll take the two on the left, you, the one on the right.”
Five shots later, three more velociraptors lay dead.
“Let’s go,” Eichmann said.
The two stormed the cave and took out targets as they presented themselves. The cries from velociraptors reminded Eichmann of the time he fired a shotgun into a murder of crows.
When the dust and turmoil settled, Eichmann counted seven velociraptors dead in the cave.
Dr. Mengele’s insides draped across his torso onto the ground.
Eva had a nasty cut deep into her throat.
Adolph Hitler’s entire body looked like it had been painted in blood. Flesh had been stripped to the bone in places on his arms and his legs. Intestines and body goo adorned his thighs.
“Such a violent death,” Eichmann said in a trailing voice of empathy.
“I’ve done worse,” Stangl said. “Much worse.”
Eichmann turned an icy gaze at his companion. The future was even more uncertain now than before. “The Führer is gone. The dream cannot continue.”
“No matter. I can go back to owning a ranch and supervising gauchos. I will, however, personally do all the branding,” Stangl said. “There is something invigorating about the smell of smoldering flesh.” He walked over to Barbie’s body, fished out a nearly empty pack of cigarettes from his pocket, careful to avoid unsavory body fluids. After tapping one free from the pack and placing it between his lips, he said, “Do you have a match?”
*
SKEER-AK!
Overhead two giant pterosaurs, like the one they saw on the beach when they had arrived, circled above. The smaller pterosaurs in the trees chattered at the carnage below. Some left the safety of branches to harvest the flesh of dead sailors and velociraptors strewn across the jungle floor.
Christoph now had a rifle and stood alongside Lt. Bach and Erik. Ironically, the tide of battle shifted from the predators to the prey as the velociraptors, distracted by their kills, paused to enjoy the spoils. Gruesomely, dead sailors became bait and the raptors easy targets. Crewmen giving a reprieve from being hunted avenged the lives of their fallen mates.
Erik had overcome fear’s hold and fired sporadic carefully-aimed shots. Christoph didn’t have time to know of his son’s success and concentrated on watching for any hidden threat lurking to attack.
A human cry, not heard for several minutes, cut through the air.
Christoph and Bach turned and saw a new threat had invaded the camp.
One deinonychus had its mouth clamped on a crewman’s right arm and another had the left arm down its throat to the elbow. The sai
lor’s head jutted back as he screamed toward the heavens. The dinosaur with the left arm pulled its head back, stripping flesh to the bone. Blood squirted to the ground as if from a broken water pipe.
The shock of seeing the man-sized theropods had faded quickly. Christoph and Bach had their rifles up in an instant and ran toward the fray. Both had hesitated, not wanting to misfire and hit the crewman. With the fate of the man certain now, Christoph fired first, with Bach following after.
The theropods immediately loosened their hold. The sailor collapsed to the ground in a useless attempt to stop the bleeding of his left arm with his injured right hand.
Unfortunately, the commander and lieutenant had chosen the same target. While their combined gunfire sent the deinonychus in retreat, the ire of the other inspired it to charge.
Both only had time to squeeze off one shot before diving to either side as the theropod never slowed its pace and blew right past them.
With his right side on the ground, Christoph rolled over to see the deinonychus bounding toward Erik. “Run, Erik! Run!” he yelled, scrambling to his knees.
Erik started running well before the warning came from his father. The short distance between the dinosaur and the boy closed by the second.
Something blocked the sunlight from above as Christoph, left knee to the ground and the other leg up, propped his right elbow on his thigh to steady the rifle’s aim. To shoot the dinosaur, he had to lead his target. If he overcompensated, he might hit Erik.
A shadow passed over him as the sunlight once again beamed down on his shoulders.
The theropod was too quick, and his nerves too unsteady, for him to fire a shot. An instant before the deinonychus lowered its head to grab the prey, taloned feet and huge bat-like wings swooped into Christoph’s field of vision.
A giant pterosaur sunk its claws into Erik’s backpack and lifted him into the air. The deinonychus’ backward-curved teeth missed his son’s boots as it sprung up to claim its prize.
Bach rushed to the commander’s side and fired at the theropod.
Christoph stood, and with chin hanging, watched powerlessly as his son rose above the treetops and faded out of sight.
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