Twilight of the Dead

by David Bishop

  I swallowed hard, searching inside myself for the will to run out into the open. As I began to stand up a firm hand on my shoulder pressed me back down again. The Mongolian twins were already on their feet with determined looks set on both their faces.

  "We go," Saikhan said. As a joke he'd shaved his beard into a goatee when we entered Berlin, saying it would make his body easier to identify if the two brothers died together. I had a sinking feeling his prophecy was about to come true. Saikhan took the stick grenades from my grasp and gave one to his sibling.

  "You stay," Baatar said, gesturing at Mariya while winking to me. "Look after her."

  "Are you sure?" I asked, still ready to go myself despite the gnawing fear in my gut.

  "Da," Saikhan replied. "May 1st is good day to die." He nodded to Levshin, who had watched our exchange impassively. The veteran rifleman had seen too many deaths, too many senseless sacrifices, to care about anyone's fate except his own.

  "Give them some covering fire!" he snarled, leaning round the pillar to empty his PPSh at the German machine gunners.

  Mariya and I followed his example, firing our confiscated MP38s at the enemy, driving them back behind a stone balcony. The Borjigin brothers raced out into the open and sprinted towards the Germans' position, activating their stick grenades as they tore across the marble tiles. But the covering fire died as we emptied our weapons. Within moments the enemy soldiers were back behind their machine guns, taking aim at the Mongolians. Baatar threw his stick grenade at the Germans, but his brother never got that chance. Both of them were cut down by the enemy's bullets, stumbling forward in a heap on the cold, pitiless floor.

  Baatar's stick grenade landed in the middle of the Germans. I heard them cry out in dismay, one appealing to God in heaven for mercy before the device exploded. The second grenade spilled from Saikhan's grasp on to the marble beneath him and detonated moments later, blowing apart the bodies of both brothers. Levshin, Mariya and I stayed behind our pillar, not certain the suicidal attack had been a success. But as the smoke ahead of us cleared, Levshin peered round the column for a quick look.

  "Yes!" he said triumphantly. "They got those bastards!" He was up and running before Mariya or I had a chance to react. The veteran campaigner had been among those defending the outskirts of Moscow in December 1941, when the Germans came within twenty kilometres of Red Square. He'd fought in dozens of battles, lost count of the comrades he'd seen riddled with bullets or blown apart by enemy shells and bombs. He'd battled his way halfway across the continent and was within a few floors of achieving the ultimate glory, being among those who planted the Red Flag atop the Reichstag.

  Maybe it was the thought of achieving that immortality that sent him racing forward, or maybe he'd simply had enough of death and destruction. Whatever the reason, he hadn't advanced more than a few metres when a single gunshot cut through the air. Levshin staggered on a few more steps before tumbling down the staircase on which we'd lost dozens of good men and women earlier.

  I began to rise, determined to succeed where Levshin had failed, but Mariya pulled me back behind the pillar, saving me from being the German sniper's next target.

  "We're staying here until we know it's safe to come out, okay?" she said.

  Bullets sprayed the other side of the pillar, thudding into the stone column. I nodded my agreement. Better to stay silent and not let her hear the fear in my voice, I decided. We settled down to wait, clinging to each other for comfort while the battle for the Reichstag raged on the floors below. There were just the two of us left now, from all those who had mattered in this bloody conflict. I slipped an arm round Mariya's shoulders and pulled her closer as she silently wept for Baatar and Saikhan, the latest casualties of war.

  "Das Führer ist kaput!" I wasn't sure which surprised me most when I first heard those words: the news that Hitler might be dead or that I'd somehow fallen asleep amidst the sound and fury of the battle still raging for the Reichstag. I was woken by triumphant shouting from below us, drifting up to Mariya and I between explosions and volleys of gunfire. The voices calling out were Russian, but they were speaking in the enemy's language, using some of the few German words every soldier in the Red Army knew.

  I shook Mariya awake while listening intently to the shouts flying back and forth between my comrades below and the Reichstag's defenders. The Germans refused to believe the news about Hitler, but the Russians seemed certain. They claimed to have heard of the Führer's demise from a captured German general who'd been in the bunker where Hitler committed suicide. This inflamed the defenders, who showered those below with a rain of grenades and Panzerfausts, creating a thunderstorm of explosions in the main hall.

  Mariya pointed past me to the staircase. A squad of Russian riflemen were creeping up the steps, using the smoke clouds from the fires below as cover for their advance. There were dozens of men, all well-armed and grimly determined. Reinforcements must have been brought in while we slumbered against the pillar. Perhaps the claims about Hitler were mere propaganda, but they served their purpose, diverting the Germans' attention.

  The advancing squad swept past us and continued onwards, climbing up to the next level. Once that was secured, I knew it wouldn't be long before the primary objective was achieved: raising the Red Flag. Mariya and I were preparing to follow the reinforcements upwards when a chilling, nerve-jangling shriek sliced through the air. It echoed around the Reichstag, becoming louder and louder until all inside were forced to clamp their hands over their ears.

  The high-pitched cry continued for at least a minute before ceasing as abruptly as it had started. Silence lingered afterwards, as if everyone was afraid to break the spell of that inhuman howling. Then the rattle of machine guns firing echoed inside the building once more and the onslaught resumed.

  "I know that sound," Mariya whispered to me. "When Gorgo was interrogating me in that Rumanian farmhouse and your unit attacked, he used that shriek to summon his followers."

  I nodded. "It's a rallying cry; a call to arms. But that voice we just heard, it wasn't Gorgo."

  Mariya stared at me, wide-eyed with fear. "Constanta?"

  "Yes. He must be here in Berlin, close by, gathering his vampyr together. But why now?"

  "Perhaps they're forming into a single unit, to be used against a specific target."

  "Perhaps. Or else what the men below were shouting was accurate: Hitler is dead. If that's true, his generals will be forced to surrender in the next day or two. They can't hope to hold out any longer than that."

  "And once they surrender..." Mariya whispered, her words trailing away.

  "The next war can begin: vampyr versus mankind."

  The shriek rose up once more, calling out to the undead, summoning them away from whatever battles they were fighting. This time it was ignored by those near us in the Reichstag; dismissed as merely one more noise in the cacophony of conflict and carnage. But Mariya and I knew better. The sound was a warning. One war was ending but another waited in the wings, a battle that would determine the future of all humanity, and nobody on our side was ready for it. Constanta's scheme for supremacy was proceeding exactly to plan.

  I searched our surroundings, looking for a window that might tell us whether it was day or night outside. Eventually I spotted a grey rectangle in the distance, the last glimmers of twilight visible through the smoke and dust that hung like a shroud inside the Reichstag. It had taken us long hours to penetrate the building, and longer still to get up to this level. I had little idea of how long we'd been dozing, but the darkening dusk outside suggested it was late afternoon or early evening on the 1st of May. The battle for the Reichstag was tipping in favour of the Red Army, and our comrades had little need now for Mariya and me to bolster their numbers. Besides, the precious knowledge we had about the vampyr and their few weaknesses would be needed elsewhere.

  "Let's get out of here," Mariya said, pulling her weapon closer.

  "You must have read my mind," I replied, smiling at how
similar our thinking had become.

  Waking up with Mariya in my arms, even in the middle of a murderous battle, was the best I'd felt in a long, long time. The warmth in her eyes, the way she bit her bottom lip when afraid, the way her breasts pushed against the fabric of her tunic: all of these stirred feelings in me that had lain dormant since the war began. There was little time for love on the battlefield, when death could claim you at any moment. Forbidding such feelings from your heart was emotional armour, a sound defence to stop yourself being destroyed.

  At that moment, looking at Mariya while others fought and died for a devastated building in the middle of a blistered and battered Berlin, I knew my defences had been swept away. I felt a fear chill my heart unlike any other I'd experienced. I wasn't scared for myself or about what might happen to me. Now I was scared for Mariya.

  I did my best to push these futile thoughts aside and peered round the pillar at the staircase beyond it. "That's the most direct route out of here, but also the most dangerous."

  "It'll do," she replied, already on her feet and running towards the stairs in a low crouch. I scurried after her, my eyes sweeping the balconies and doorways around us for enemy soldiers. I had been raised a good communist, denying the existence of God and religion, but I prayed to God to keep Mariya safe as we descended into the flaming hell of the Reichstag's main hall.

  We emerged from the building to find the Red Army celebrating. Nothing had been officially announced, but the rumours about Hitler's suicide were spreading rapidly through the centre of Berlin, passed from one excited soldier to another; whispered in the gathering dusk like a benediction. For most of our comrades, being alive in the German capital on this day was an honour. To Mariya and I, it felt more like a death sentence. I stopped an officer who was on his way into the Reichstag, pressing him for more details about the Führer.

  "The fascists sent emissaries to meet with Chuikov before dawn this morning, hoping to negotiate a cease-fire. They told Chuikov that Hitler committed suicide yesterday in his bunker, a kilometre south of here. The war's as good as over, comrade!"

  "So why are we still fighting?" Mariya asked. "Good men and women are dying in there."

  "Orders came back from Moscow that Stalin wants an unconditional surrender."

  The officer embraced both of us before leading his men into the Reichstag. It was the first time in weeks I'd seen so many soldiers all smiling at once. As they were swallowed up by the murky interior, the vampyr summoning rent the air again, the noise clawing at our minds like so many fingernails being dragged across countless blackboards.

  Mariya and I both wrapped our arms over our ears, trying to block out the inhuman shrieking. It died away after a minute, the pitch of the sound changing as it faded away once more.

  "That's a recording," I realised. "Constanta's voice is being broadcast across the city."

  "How?" Mariya wondered. "Electricity supplies were cut off days ago."

  I searched our darkening surroundings for the source of the vampyr's howling. Flashes of light from nearby explosions gave me the answer. I pointed at a loudspeaker mounted on a nearby lamppost, the wooden beam tilting listlessly amid the rubble.

  "He's using the city's air raid sirens. They must have somehow altered the noise, replacing it with his summoning cry. That'll be heard all across Berlin, gathering every vampyr in the city to their master."

  "This could be our chance to hurt them," Mariya said. "If they're assembling in one place, that makes them vulnerable to attack. But how can we find out where they are gathering?"

  I heard a familiar voice in the distance and heard the crunch of boots on nearby rubble. I clamped a hand over Mariya's mouth and dragged her into the shadows of the Reichstag, ignoring her mute protests.

  "Quiet," I whispered, pulling us both down beside the rotting corpse of a German soldier. The stench of his decomposing flesh assaulted my nostrils, but I was hoping it might also save us. Mariya stopped fighting against me, her senses becoming alert to the danger getting nearer by the moment. We breathed shallow, trying to melt into the darkness.

  The footfalls got closer and louder, more and more of them becoming audible as they grew nearer to our position. There was another sound mingling with them, a curious sniffing noise. My fingers crept for the trigger of my MP38 and I could feel Mariya doing the same. She had quickly realised what I feared was approaching and shared my apprehension. Human shapes shuffled past us, their heads twisting and turning in the air, visible against the black and blue sky. One silhouette stood out, strutting arrogantly among the others.

  "Keep searching!" Gorgo bellowed, his voice like gravel and thunder combined. "If the last two are not inside the Reichstag, they must be out here!"

  As one of the shapes moved closer, I caught a glimpse of his face, lit from above by an aerial explosion. It was Gorgo's vampyr bodyguard, his nostrils flared, his red eyes scanning the ground urgently. I caught my breath, not wanting the slightest movement or sound to give us away. Gorgo and his thralls would tear us apart if we were discovered.

  The Rumanian stopped abruptly, something halting his movement. He was opening his mouth to speak when the inhuman wailing sounded again from the nearby loudspeaker, drowning out all other noise. The shapes in the darkness turned as one to stare at the siren, slowly shuffling closer to the source of the beckoning sound. When its cry died a minute later, Gorgo called his thralls to attention.

  "The hunt will have to wait: our Lord Constanta summons us. Follow me and I shall take you to him. Come!"

  The vampyr marched away, quickly vanishing into the darkness. His thralls trailed along after him, their feet shuffling carelessly through the debris. They were gone before the next siren sounded, leaving a glinting cloud of dust behind them.

  Only when they'd gone did Mariya and I relax. She staggered away from the rotting corpse whose stench had saved us before bending over to vomit. I waited for her retching spasms to subside and for my own hands to cease their shaking. Once Mariya had recovered, I moved over to be beside her.

  "We can't wait much longer, otherwise they'll get too far ahead," I said.

  "Bojemoi, Victor, the vampyr nearly had us then... And now you want to follow them?"

  "Not really," I admitted. Given the chance, I'd much rather go home with you, I thought. Back to Russia, back to somewhere we could be together, somewhere we could be safe. But I knew there would be no such place once the vampyr instigated their blood war. It was selfish to want Mariya by my side, but I'd rather we died together than apart, if that was what the future held. For better or for worse, we had to follow this bloody destiny to its conclusion. I could only hope it was for the better - for both our sakes. "But we need to know what Constanta is planning. Gorgo will lead us right to him."

  "I know, but..." She rubbed a hand across her temples. "I wish there was somebody else to do this. If the war is over, I want to go home, go back to Stalingrad."

  "If we don't do this, there won't be homes for anyone to go back to. Don't forget, Gorgo's got the plans for Rainer's winter bomb. Imagine what life would be like if the vampyr succeeded in building and using such a weapon? Permanent night, day after day, no relief, no hiding place from the undead. That's what the future holds unless we stop them."

  Mariya shook her head. "Two of us against an army of vampyr. It's hopeless."

  "But we've still got to try."

  "I know." She slung her machine pistol over one shoulder and set off in the same direction Gorgo had taken. "Come on, then. We haven't got all night."

  We stalked the vampyr and their thralls as they moved south from the remnants of the Reichstag, passing the Brandenburg Gate. Mariya and I were careful to stay at least a hundred metres back, not wanting to risk our scent being detected on the night air. Having spent time in Berlin before the war, I kept scouring my memories, trying to anticipate where the vampyr might be gathering. But my student days were a beer-soaked haze of sunshine in a city blessed with magnificent architecture. What
remained was a brutalised, beaten ruin; the corpses of German soldiers littering the streets and Russian tanks sat like behemoths in the dark. It was only when we passed the Reich Chancellery on our left that I realised we were still on Hermann Göringstrasse.

  "Potsdamer Station," I whispered to Mariya. "I think they're headed for Potsdamer Station."

  "Is that good?"

  "Perhaps. I visited it before the war so I might be able to find us a vantage point."

  As we got closer to the station, more vampyr and thralls emerged from side streets, swelling the numbers around Gorgo. By the time they reached what was left of the battered station, there must have been a hundred undead and their servants clustered outside. A full moon was rising over the remains of Berlin, casting an eerie blue light across the throng.

  Mariya and I slipped into the shadows, keeping watch on the gathering. As we waited, Constanta's piercing cry filled the air once more. But this time it was not being channelled through any loudspeaker. I heard his voice so clearly it was as if he was standing next to me. The effect was mesmerising, calling me from the darkness and urging me to join his crusade.

  I was already stepping from the shadows when Mariya grabbed my arm, snapping me out of my trance. "Victor, look! More vampyr but they're German!"

  I followed her gaze across the barren road to see many more thralls creeping forward into the moonlight, all of them clad in enemy uniforms. They joined the others, mingling freely with them.

  "Of course," I realised. "Constanta spent three years as part of the Axis forces. He must have converted hundreds, even thousands of Germans into his servants. When the Rumanians switched sides, the thralls were left in place: a fifth column to use against the Wehrmacht from within. These must be the survivors, the ones who made it back to Berlin alive."