by Travis Tufo
“What the fuck, man? We are right in the middle of Germany—you can’t just go firing off rounds here. Snap his goddamn neck and let’s get the hell out of here!” Vladimir exclaimed. He was beginning to fear for his life, but Joseph showed no concern for the situation they were in as he pulled the trigger two more times. This time he struck Wolfgang once in his chest—not a fatal wound, and another struck his left bicep.
“Joseph, man, you need to stop! You are making too much noise!” Vlad yelled as he looked down at Wolfgang bleeding out from his wounds. He lay there silent, covered in blood and gore. Before Vladimir could say anymore his attention was diverted to the sound of banging on the side door they had entered earlier.
Vladimir began to panic and ran towards the door to the office to see if he could spot anyone. Joseph knelt down next to Wolfgang and glared at him. Wolfgang said nothing; his life was slowly being taken from his body.
Joseph gave a heavy sigh and pressed his handgun against Wolfgang’s chest, right where his heart would be, but instead of shooting him there and ending his suffering he dragged the barrel of the gun down to the man’s ribcage and let off another round.
A few seconds after blood began to spurt from the new wound more gunshots could be heard, and this time not from Joseph. It was Nazi soldiers shooting the doorknob off the locked side door to the building. Vladimir reached for his rifle. Joseph paid no attention as he watched the life slowly fade from Wolfgang’s battered body. Joseph stared, fascinated. He loved every moment of Wolfgang slowly slipping away from life’s grasp.
“Joseph, we need to go right now. There are at least ten of them down there, and they’ve spotted the other bodies,” Vlad whispered.
Once again Joseph ignored Vladimir’s plea. Vladimir had no choice but to fire down at the Nazis headed for the only lit up room in the whole building. Vladimir rested his rifle on the broken window of the door and fired off two rounds towards the soldiers from his SVT rifle.
The first shot whizzed by, hitting nothing. The second shot caught a soldier right in his hip, dropping him to the ground. It was now a one-sided firefight in the factory. A wave of bullets came firing into the office from below giving Vlad no chance to return fire; the only thing he could do was find cover by crouching behind the door.
His cover wouldn’t last for long; he heard footsteps on the stairs to the office. He felt as if he was fighting these men alone. He could see a German rushing towards him.
Vlad lifted up his gun and shot the man three times in the chest, killing him where he stood, but as Vlad shot the man he felt a bullet hit his shoulder right next to his previous wound. He let out a shriek as blood spattered on his face and sank down against the wall next to the door.
Joseph remarkably didn’t flitch or react to the bullets hitting all around him or even to his best friend’s shriek of pain. Joseph could see that Wolfgang was seconds from bleeding out. He didn’t want him to die like that; he wanted the final blow. Putting his handgun up to Wolfgang’s head he held it there, savoring the moment.
Before he could pull the trigger a sound of glass shattering caught his attention. He looked up to see that a grenade had been thrown through a window into the room, and had landed within a foot of Wolfgang’s body. He gazed at it for no more than a couple of seconds before a loud sound followed by a blinding white light engulfed him and he was thrown across the room.
***
Joseph could just make out what sounded like a German man yelling. He thought he had been knocked unconscious. He couldn’t understand what the soldier was saying but he could make out that the soldier had yelled down to his commanding officer that there were three KIA in the room.
Joseph was confused to hear that the soldier could make such a mistake as to not counting the dead correctly. As Joseph sat up he saw that Wolfgang had been blown to pieces by the grenade, his blood and insides everywhere.
He looked around the gore-covered room and as the smoke cleared he saw another body. He stared at it, not wanting to believe what he saw. It was the body of his best friend, who was so badly torn up by the explosion that he could barely even tell who it was. As he stared at the mangled body he heard more Germans heading for the room.
Joseph let out a scream of anger as he got up quickly and ran for Vlad’s rifle. As he reached the gun he knelt down to grab it. He tried to pick it up with all his might, but it wouldn’t budge. He was shocked that he couldn’t pick the gun up and even more shocked that the soldiers who had walked into the room hadn’t shot him yet.
Joseph felt a chill rush down his spine. He turned back to Wolfgang’s bloodied remains. With relief he realized the body next to Wolfgang’s wasn’t his friend’s body after all. Then he felt a sinking feeling. He realized the mangled mess lying there on the floor was his.
Chapter thirteen
Viktor sat in his chair behind the table where he assigned his soldier’s missions. It had been eight days since he’d sent Vladimir and Joseph to Berlin.
He knew they were dead at this point but sat there and waited anyway in disbelief. Viktor never liked informing the families that their sons or fathers had died doing some mission.
However this time, Viktor felt that it was his duty to tell the families face to face, instead of sending them a letter saying how truly sorry he was for their loss or some bullshit like that.
Viktor took a deep breath and stood up from his seat, pushed his chair in and headed for the door. As he stepped outside he was met by a beautiful blue sky and a warming touch from the sunshine. He soaked it in and headed for his truck. Viktor was lucky when it came to Vladimir because he had no family to inform of his death. But Joseph had Maria, and Viktor hated that he had to be the one to tell her.
For the next few days Viktor drove towards the farm where Joseph was taken.
Viktor could think of nothing to say. He knew something made up on the spot such as; “he was a good soldier and served us well” wasn’t enough.
Before he knew it he arrived at a beautiful farm. Flowers grew rampant all around; the grass a lush green.
As Viktor got out of the truck, he noticed an eerie silence that surrounded the small farm and home.
He walked around the property for a while, soaking in the beauty of it all. It seemed to have been untouched for years and the vegetation had just majestically grown all around.
After exploring for a while longer he glanced up at the small house to see that it, unlike the land around it, wasn’t a beautiful sight. The house was run down and falling apart. He thought to himself that Maria must have been so devastated that she let her house decay around her.
He walked up to the doorstep and knocked. After waiting for a response that did not come, he slowly opened the door and yelled inside, indicating that he was going to enter. Still no response. He walked around for a bit in the dusty silence of the home, exploring the first floor.
He felt as if he was being watched, and the entire time he was covered in goose bumps. He had a strange feeling being in the home. As he finished looking around the first floor he heard the faint scream of a woman from upstairs. He quickly rushed to the staircase leading up. As he reached the stairs he saw the shadow of a person enter a room.
He darted up the stairs and into the room the shadow had entered. He saw what seemed like an almost empty room with nothing more than a bed. He walked to the bed and looking down at the floorboards saw the decayed remains of a woman. Next to the pile of bones was a small handgun. He put a hand over his mouth. The body was so decayed at this point it seemed she must have shot herself years ago. A cold touch swept up over him, which he took as a sign to leave.
Before he did so he picked up a small piece of paper that had been laid carefully on the bed and read it.
My dearest Joseph,
I knew the day you left to fight this God forsaken war that my life was over. You had lied to me. You had not meant to of course, but I knew you were never coming back to me and I could not go on without you. I will wait
patiently on the other side for your return. –Your Maria
Viktor stood by his truck, speechless. No one’s death has ever affected him like Maria’s had. He knew deep down that Joseph would never return from Berlin. Hell, it was the capitol of the country they were at war with. How could any soldier possibly complete a mission like that?
He turned to his truck and opened the door. He sat back in his seat and slammed the door shut. As he started up the engine, he heard the same woman’s voice as earlier, only this time it wasn’t a scream, but sobbing. As he started to drive off he looked in his rearview mirror to see the silhouette of a woman standing in the dusty window of the upstairs room—the same room in which Maria had taken her life.
Chills filled Viktor’s body as he sped off. Miles down the road when he’d finally lost his goose bumps, Viktor stomped on the brakes and almost swerved into a tree to avoid hitting a man standing in the road. When Viktor looked up from the near accident, he saw faded image of a Russian soldier carrying a bag over his shoulder, a helmet in the other hand. Viktor sat in his truck and watched the man slowly walk towards the direction of Maria’s home red sky and grey clouds hanging overhead of him.
“Joseph?”
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