The Girls from the Beach

by Andie Newton

  “The war,” I said. “Don’t you hear all that? We don’t have time to rest.”

  “Please,” Roxy said. “A rest. I beg you. We’ve been walking all morning. Sorry for speaking it out loud, but this is different.”

  “No, let’s go!” I said, making a move toward the butcher’s, but Red grabbed me forcibly by the elbow.

  “Sit down!” she said, pulling me to sit on the ground. “I’m in charge. We’re not going yet.”

  My mouth hung open in shock. Even Gail broke away from her deep thoughts to look at Red. “But the POW camps. If we don’t get down there and get the package before the werewolves… You heard Jack. They’ll attack the camps.” I threw a finger in the air towards Karlsruhe. “My brother’s POW camp!”

  “You’re going off half-cocked,” Red said, sitting down next to Roxy. “Just like in the tent when a critical comes in. You always rush. Think. Will you?” She rubbed her face, covering her eyes.

  “Well, what a thing to say!” I said, but Red kept her face in her hands, and the longer she ignored me with Roxy staring at the ground, the warmer my neck grew. I pulled my collar forward. “Say it to my face why don’t ya?” I said, and when Red looked up, I stood.

  Red studied me for a second and then stood up too.

  “Sit down.” Red put her hands on her hips.

  “No.” I looked up at her, shaking my head.

  Roxy jumped up, despite her aching feet. “Whoa! You gals wanna start somethin’? You’re best friends!” She held her arms out to keep us apart. “We’re in this together. Goddamn it! If we can’t work as a team then I don’t know what the hell I’m doing here.”

  It was the first time I’d ever heard Roxy talk like the men. Red backed away in a huff, and so did I, each moving to opposite sides of the tree.

  The longer I stood with my thoughts and my back to the girls, the heavier my eyes felt, and soon enough they’d welled with tears. We’d never talked to each other that way before. The stress of the real werewolves beating us to the package weighed on me more than anything I’d ever endured before. How dare she.

  I turned around, about to confront Red again, tell her I was going by myself if I had to, but was surprised to find her standing right behind me.

  “Sorry,” she said. And that was all she had to say, and the tears I’d been wiping away turned into a flood. She put her arms around me. “I’m scared, Kit.”

  It was the first time I heard Red say she was scared. The first time. After everything we’ve been through since the beach, and I think those words alone hit me the hardest.

  “I’m scared too,” I said. “Trust me, Red. Time isn’t on our side. I know what to do, and you know we can’t sit here.”

  She only looked at me. No words, before finally nodding ever so slightly.

  I walked over to Gail and touched her shoulder, which startled her. “It’s us, you know? We’re going to have to do all the talking.”

  “I know,” she said, eyes flicking to mine. She tried moving her fingers, and it looked like they were getting a little stiff, especially her pinkie. “I think the poison is starting to take hold.”

  I took a look myself, holding her wrist and moving her fingers, but it was hard to tell if it was the poison or because she’d been shot. “Don’t worry, Gail,” I said. “We’ll get the package and get back to France in no time. Before that poison does any harm. Besides, the bullet hadn’t broken up like it was supposed to.”

  She looked up, and I thought she was sniffling, but realized she was more upset than scared and hurt. “I hope you’re right.”

  “Are you in pain?” I said.

  Gail shook her head. “I got enough morphine to dull it.” She looked off toward the farm again. “Can we go now?”

  I motioned for Roxy, and together with Red and Gail we huddled together. “This is what we’re going to do,” I said, and I told them my plan, which was absurdly simple. “Me and Gail will speak. That’s it. That’s all.”

  They followed in line behind me without question. I took a deep breath when I felt a twinge of nervousness, which they couldn’t see from behind. Get in, get out. Ask for the package and leave, I thought, and we walked down the hill.

  The grass turned longer and harder to walk through the closer we got to the farm. Red swatted a fly near her face. “Ugh!” Red said. “What’s that awful smell?” And when Red said it, the most disgusting odor wafted up from the grass and rained down from the trees.

  “Ugh is right!” Roxy said, covering her nose. “That is awful!”

  Red looked for a place to get sick from the stench. One fly turned into two, and then three, and then a hundred, all buzzing up from the grass, landing on our arms and hair. Big giant flies, the ones I normally saw when we drove through smoldering battlefields, swarming around mounds of earth mixed with flesh and fluids.

  Sometimes cow pastures smelled that way, although faintly, especially near a slaughterhouse, but there were only three cows in the pasture, and they looked like dairy cows. It was then I noticed the cows weren’t mooing. In fact, it looked like they weren’t even moving. I waved the flies away, trying to get a better look, and I was sure they were still. More still than I’d ever seen a cow before.

  “Is this what farms smell like?” Roxy asked. “It smells like… like…”

  Saint-Lô.

  None of us wanted to say it.

  In the hospitals, on the battlefields, we knew what to expect. But out in the country where the colors were so vibrant, the green grass, the blue sky, it was jarring to the senses and the mind.

  “Not our farm,” I said, and we continued our walk. As we got closer, the house appeared more and more German. Wood and cream-colored stucco, with a dilapidated porch and painted decorative beams. The smell wasn’t as strong toward the front of the house, less pungent, but it was still there, only intermittingly broken with a little breeze that seemed to brush it away in sweeps.

  A woman popped out from behind the fence and scared us all. “Willkommen!”

  Roxy and Red screamed, immediately covering their mouths to keep their English words from tumbling out.

  “Guten Tag,” I said.

  Her eyes were wide and unmoving as if resisting the urge to blink.

  “Sorry, for the fright,” I said in German. “We didn’t see you.”

  She moved closer to us through the grass, using a pitchfork for a walking stick. Her dress looked oily and stained, dark circles covering lighter ones, and it was about three sizes too small. When she took a breath, the bodice tightened and the hem lifted above her knees, showing her dirty legs.

  She talked through her teeth. “I scared you?” She covered her mouth with one hand, only to uncover it long enough to speak. “Good day indeed!” She motioned for us to follow her. “I’ve been waiting for you. Come… come. This way.” She walked toward the house.

  “Wait!” I said.

  She stopped, her back to us, pitchfork gripped tight in her hand.

  “Are you the butcher?” I said, clearly, directly, and her shoulders dropped.

  Gail lifted her chin. “We’re on orders from the Führer.”

  She turned around slowly, moving one hand to her hip. “Maybe I am and maybe I’m not. Come in for some tea,” she said, “then I’ll let you decide.”

  She walked on to the front of the house but turned sharply and we headed toward the back. “Decide what?” I said, and she glanced at us over her shoulder.

  “If I’m the butcher or not of course!” She cackled like a witch about to throw us in a pot.

  Roxy took my hand and squeezed while Red looked utterly confused. When we stepped up on the back porch, the smell had turned into something more ghastly than uncomfortable. Death. Roxy was right, the smell was exactly like the exposed, decomposing corpses of Saint-Lô, though there were no bodies. Only a few motionless cows in the pasture.

  “Is there something wrong with the cows?” I asked, and she giggled again as I tried to make sense of what I saw. T
he blue and white fabric woven through the pergola beams fluttered whimsically with the wind, yet the flowers cascading out of window boxes had turned black with flies. Cats fought viciously over something wet and red in the corner underneath a broken rocking chair, and she scatted them away.

  I gagged into my hand.

  “Will you be all right?” she said, blinking for the first time since we’d met.

  “It’s the smell,” I said, and she looked at me as if I’d had two heads.

  “Whatever do you mean?” She opened up the door and we walked inside where the smell wasn’t as bad, but where its imprint had marked the space clearly. She closed the door. “Oh, do have a sit, will you?” She bobbed around her kitchen taking five teacups from her cabinet. “I’ve been waiting for you…”

  Two chairs had been set out as if she had definitely been waiting for us, or at least the werewolves. She smoothed a lacy tablecloth over a round table and pushed it toward the chairs with a manly grunt. “You are early, no?” she said, “and I expected two of you.” She brought out more chairs before reaching for a steaming yellow teapot.

  “Is that a problem?” I said.

  “No!” she half yelled, followed by a smile. “Early is good, and four is fine. Absolutely fine.” She set the teacups on the table, placing one in front of each of us, but held on to mine and took a moment to marvel at the cup’s hand-painted alpine scene before pouring me some tea. The tea bubbled up near the rim, and Red looked at me, shaking her head slightly, warning me not to take a drink, and Roxy followed, but I thought they were being overly cautious after what happened to Gail. This woman thought we were werewolves.

  The woman’s tongue probed her wet lips, waiting anxiously for me to drink, nudging with her chin. I moved the cup closer to me on the table, sliding it slowly so as not to spill.

  Roxy looked around the house, examining every corner of the room. A painting of a boy in traditional clothing hung on the widest wall, near the stove where soot had streaked the bricks. Cobwebbed candle sconces hung in the strangest of places, under shelves, and much too close to the curtains. And the windows, dirty as if a thousand dust storms had blown through. She reached for my hand when she saw Hitler’s portrait hanging on the wall behind us.

  “We’re here for the package,” Gail said, shifting her hurt arm, and I could tell she was growing tired of the delay. “We’re not here for tea.”

  The woman plopped down in her own chair opposite of us, and her belly mushroomed from the middle of her body with her feet flying out from under. She smiled. But this time her smile was different. Oddly different. Condescending in a way that made me think she felt smarter than us. She reached into her pocket and played with something I couldn’t see, something bulky, and when she caught me staring, she pulled her hand out, glaring.

  “I want us to drink some tea!” she shouted, and we jerked in our seats. “Only then will you know where your precious package is. Führer or not, this is my rule. My name’s Gilda, what’s yours?”

  She reached for the teapot again, and this time topped off each of our cups, making it almost impossible for us not to spill the tea in order to drink it. She pulled a bread bun out from under the table, but from where I didn’t know. She leaned back.

  I gulped, staring at the cup of tea before me, and I swear I smelled something tart and tangy, something that didn’t belong.

  “I don’t get many visitors. And the ones I do get aren’t—” she coughed “—very talkative. I want a little company. I’m owed this much. You have some tea with me, we finish off this pot together, and I’ll tell you where your package is.” She put a finger in the air. “Oh! And after each sip, I’ll give you a hint. That will put some excitement into my day.” She giggled into her cup of tea, chewing her bun and swallowing loudly.

  Red shot up from her chair, dragging me to the corner to talk, leaving Roxy sitting on her hands at the table and Gail staring at a fidgeting Gilda.

  “I have a bad feeling about this,” Red whispered.

  “What kind of feeling?”

  “What if the tea is poisoned?” Red said. “Maybe she wants to kill the werewolves, not help them.”

  Gilda craned her neck around. “No whispering! Get back here!” She pointed at our seats.

  I shared glances with the others as I considered what to do, but we had little choice. “Put your lips to it, but don’t drink it,” I whispered back to Red, and before she could protest, I’d walked away.

  We took our seats again, and while Roxy examined the walls and Gail continued to stare, I lifted my cup with a little clear of my throat. I sensed the warmth of the liquid nearing my mouth as it rippled from my breath, and I smelled that tang again. I closed my eyes briefly, wondering if Red was right, but I felt I had to at least put my lips to the rim. A low-flying bomber rumbled overhead, rattling the glasses in her cupboards and spooking the cats. We looked to the ceiling, following the sound of the engines, which gave Gilda a laugh.

  “We’ll all be dead soon,” she said.

  “What?” I said, my lips inches from the rim.

  “War…” Gilda said, smiling. “So many dead.” She motioned with her chin for me to take a drink of the tea. “Go on.” She slurped a long drink from her cup, which made me feel better since the tea was poured from the same pot—the odds of two Germans poisoning us did seem like a long shot. Red was being paranoid, I decided, and she’d made me paranoid.

  I moved in for a drink and Red stepped on my foot under the table, pressing, pressing, trying to get my attention, but I took a sip anyway, knowing it was the only way to get what we wanted out of Gilda. Surprisingly, the tea didn’t taste as horrible as it smelled.

  “It’s hibiscus,” Gilda said, smiling.

  “I took a drink.” I set down the cup. “You saw.”

  Gilda set her cup down too only to pick it right back up. “Oh, yes… yes. I did see you. Of course.” She stared at us with her silly smile. “Oh! You want a clue.” She put a finger to her chin. “What’s black and white and dripping red?”

  I repeated Gilda’s words while Gail squinted, tapping her good fingers on the table.

  “You lose!” Gilda shouted. Her feet kicked out from under her chair with excitement, and she spilled tea onto the front of her dress. “Oh no…” She dabbed the wet spot with a tea towel from her lap. “Look what you girls made me do!” Her voice had turned angry, and Gail stood with command, having had enough of Gilda.

  “We came for the package!” Gail bellowed, and Gilda covered her ears, shrieking.

  “Sorry, sorry, sorry,” Gilda cried, “don’t hurt me.” She slipped off her chair and crawled away on the floor like a cowering dog from Gail’s booming voice, and I don’t think any of us could believe it; all we could do was stare.

  The door opened with a bang, and a man walked into the room. We stood up behind Gail, huddling together and reaching for each other’s hands. He wore black overalls with a blood-stained white apron and had a machete gripped in his hand.

  The butcher.

  “Black and white and dripping in red…” Gail said, and Gilda sprung up from the floor and clapped wildly.

  “Yes, yes!” she yelped. “You understand!”

  “What do you want?” The butcher looked at us with a keen eye, studying the details as if to make a mention of us later.

  “We came for the package,” Gail said.

  He took one step closer and the floorboards creaked under his weight. He looked at Gilda, he looked the table, the teapot, and my cup. He took a sniff, holding my cup close to this nose, before dipping his finger in and dabbing his tongue with the tea.

  “Husband,” she cried, and he threw the cup across the room in a fit of rage. He grabbed her shoulders, bringing her upright, spouting in her face. “What did you do, Gilda?”

  “I did nothing,” she said. “Ask them… ask them…” But he kept looking at her. “I only wanted them to stay. Only wanted the company. I swear it, husband.”

  The butche
r turned to me. “Did you drink the tea?” he said, and my stomach sank as I nodded.

  He stood over Gilda as she crumpled on the floor. “What have you done to us now, woman? They’re the werewolves. We’ll end up in our own pasture, collecting flies in our insides!”

  I sat back down in my chair, holding my throat. My God, Red was right. “Did you poison me?”

  “No!” the woman cried. “Nothing was in the tea but the tea!” She reached for my arm only to pull her hand back. She looked at her husband. “If there was something else, she’d feel it already.” She nodded at me. “You feel fine, don’t you, fräulein?”

  “Do you feel fine?” he asked while Gilda pointed to the blue teapot she had on her cooktop.

  “It’s the blue one I use for the other company, the special company,” she said. “Not the yellow.”

  Other company? I felt my own forehead, but didn’t feel any different than before I took the drink. I thought maybe she was telling the truth—the tea was just tea. I nodded.

  “See! She’s fine… she’s fine!” Gilda said.

  The butcher paused, looking at my face, studying my features, before saying, “Follow me.” He motioned for us to follow him, but when we did, he yelled. “Nein!” Roxy and Red jerked, grabbing on to each other. “Only her,” he said, pointing to me. “Nobody else.” He left out the back door and stood on the porch waiting for me.

  I put my hands up, mouthing that it was only me who was supposed to go. Red whispered for me to use the gun if I had to when Gilda wasn’t looking.

  I closed my eyes for a brief second. The gun.

  “In case,” she mouthed, and I nodded.

  “Sorry about my wife,” the butcher said to me on the porch. “She…” He waved a finger in the air while I swatted at flies. “Gets lonely. Doesn’t think straight.” We walked toward a barn, a large Bavarian barn that looked like it was built for horses. He paused with his hand on the door. “Stall fifteen. Prepare yourself.” He rolled the door open and the scent of death hit me like a blast of car exhaust. Rotted garbage, diarrhea, and burnt sugar. I immediately gagged amid a swarm of flies. He stood next to me, looking stoically into the barn.