by Unknown
“Wait…” she was reluctant to stop with the little army of writhing bodies nearly on her, but she had to do whatever it took to keep the children safe. She reached down into her coat and pulled out her gun. It seemed heavier than before, but she quickly pushed it into Ira’s little hand. “Go upstairs, now. Go in the bedroom with your sister. You need to lock the door and push the dresser in front of it. You stay there till I come get you.” She couldn’t tell if his head was shaking from fear, denial or understanding. But before he could move, a guttural growl came from the bottom of the stairs. She had forgotten about the open window.
“Smoky!”
Iris’s little voice echoed against the walls. Anna looked up to see her enthusiastically coming down the stairs, brown curls bouncing on her shoulders.
“Iris, no. Stop!” Anna cried out, raising her hands. Before she could manage another thought, the dog pounced, bounding up the stairs and sinking its sharp teeth into her flesh. Anna cried out as burning pain shot through her right arm. The children screamed. Anna shook her arm hard, trying to shake the dog free. Her shoe caught on a baluster, and she fell forward, head first down the stairs, taking the dog with her. He let go of her arm with a yelp only when she landed hard on top of him. As his mouth came away, he ripped a chunk of her skin and muscle with him. He swallowed it, licking his lips, before wiggling out from under her. He got back on all fours quickly and sniffed the air around her. His ears perked up and he bared his teeth, dancing from one paw to the other. Panting… Preparing… The amount of blood she was losing was obviously whipping him into a frenzy. But instead of wrapping her coat around her arm to curb the bleeding, she quickly threw it over the dog’s head and scrambled for the solarium at the front of the house.
In the fight to save herself, for a brief moment, she forgot about the children. She turned quickly to brace herself against the door frame, and as she did, everything suddenly seemed to turn into slow motion, like the room and everything in it had become encased in honey. The dog broke free from her coat and started toward her. Ira raised the gun, and a shot rang out. And just as Smoky lunged through the air, he howled in pain and crashed into her, sending her reeling backward. Her shoes slipped on the ceramic tiles. Her body was suspended in mid-air for a moment before it hit the floor and knocked the breath from her lungs. She struggled, her vision darkening, unaware that the dog was no longer near her. Suddenly she gasped. She took in deep long breaths. As her vision returned, she heard a low growl. The dog was behind her again, pawing at the floor. Anna scrambled and rushed out the door. She ran and ran, into the forest at the end of the street. She could hear the dog closing in. She looked around for higher ground as the underbrush whipped at her legs. Just as she spotted a tree she could climb, the dog burst from the shadows and they both crashed into water.
Just when she thought she could simply let herself sink to the bottom of the pond until the dog’s lungs filled with water, the children came to her mind again. She grabbed the dog by a leg, as he tried to swim up to the surface. She was astonished that the instinct to stay alive was still in the animal somewhere. She quickly realized it was a grave mistake when the dog opened his vacant eyes and cracked his jaw wide, biting down hard on her hand and taking one of her fingers as a prize. Anna opened her mouth in a silent scream, and muddy water rushed in. She choked and gagged, and swam up and away from the dog, furiously kicking toward the surface. But before she could break for air, she saw them. Dark little shadows circling and diving at her from above. Futility overwhelmed her as the last of her air was pushed out by stinging water. And all she could think about was that she had expected the water to be colder than it was.
Anna woke with a start, unable to breathe. She took a moment to focus, her thoughts slowly acknowledging reality and finding comfort in the fact that what she remembered of her night terror, was just that, a nightmare. The same one she had been having since the Reich had set up command at the edge of the city. A brief moment of dread and confusion froze her beneath her covers, as a tapping on the windowpane seemed insistent. Was it her turn to die?
But she remembered… Lullabelle.
She remained silent and unmoving for minutes, until she was sure that it really wasn’t one of them at her door, coming to take her like all the others. Only then did she throw an arm out to test the air. She shivered and curled back up into a ball.
Tap...tap…tap.
She groaned and threw off the blankets. “Fine! I’m coming already.”
She moved quietly about the small attic apartment, the place she had been staying since they had taken over her ancestral home. Since they had killed her parents, her sister and her niece and nephew, shooting them point-blank in the head, without a second thought. She threw on a robe and slippers, wishing she could build a fire in the small stove. But she knew that if they saw the smoke coming from the chimney, she was as good as dead.
Tap…tap…tap.
“Alright then,” she breathed, and then she moved to the tiny cabinet in the corner of the kitchenette. She pulled out a balled up paper bag, dumping its contents on the counter. She took a wooden spoon from its nail on the wall and began slowly smashing up the dried bits of bread into fine crumbs.
Tap…tap…tap.
She rolled her eyes, brushed the crumbs into her hand and moved swiftly to the window. Sliding the curtain back, she opened the window and dumped the crumbs into a tiny pile on the window sill.
“There. That’s all I have right now... Stop being such a pest,” she said to the pigeon.
Then her breath caught.
Through swirling ash, she could see them at the end of the street. Women and children were being pushed out of their homes by the men in uniform, the contents of their suitcases being thrown about. Their papers were examined but not returned. The people were crying and screaming, fear claiming them, as gloved hands pulled at their hair and clothes, poked at the yellow stars on their jackets and used large guns to direct them into the back of a large army truck.
Anna had to move fast if she was to survive. But before she closed the window, she saw him—the one from her dreams. She squinted and rubbed her eyes. Maybe this was still a dream? They all seemed so real, until she woke. Perhaps... He raised his head, tipped his hat so she could see the lower half of his face and pressed a finger to his lips. She blinked. He was still there. He raised an arm and pointed down the street in the opposite direction of the round up. She blinked again. But this time he was gone, disappearing in a cloud of swirling ash. Just like in all her dreams. Deep inside, she knew what she had to do. She moved from the window, closing it as quietly as possible. She dressed quickly. She had her hand on the doorknob when a loud knock came from the other side.
“Anna? Ms. Anna Fuchs?” A thick German accent came through the wood. She held her breath and remained still, her heart pounding in her chest. “We know you’re in there. We saw you from the window.” She clutched her chest and slowly stepped back, her mind racing to find another way to escape them. “Open this door, or we will break it down.” She continued to move backward, scrambling on top of the bed. What good would that do? She didn’t know. But the more space between her and the door, the better. Suddenly a large crash rang through the apartment, and the door burst open, wood splinters flying through the air toward her. And then, two officers stood in the doorway, guns drawn.
“Are you Anna Fuchs?”
She shook her head.
“Let me see your papers.”
She remained unmoving.
“Get down from the bed and show me your papers!” he demanded, shaking his pistol at her. Anna couldn’t deny them now. She knew that much; their glassy pupils stared at her, but did not really see her. They had been infected, brainwashed into mindless zombies, followers of a cause that was now beyond them. She knew whether they agreed with their orders or not, they would kill her to save themselves.
“Please,” she managed to whisper, as she pointed to the kitchen cabinet. If she was to survive th
is, she had to move now. Anna jumped from the bed and ran to the kitchenette, quickly putting her back against the cupboard. A hand behind her, feeling around for the weapon she knew was waiting there. And just like she knew they would, one of the officers launched toward her, lunging at her, barely giving her time to react. She managed to slip a steel serving plate in front of her, catching him off guard and knocking his pistol out of his hand. It fell to the floor, spinning out of his reach. A loud clanging vibrated against the walls and through her fingers, along her arms, making it hard to hang on to her only defence. Quickly, she brought the plate over her head and sliced through the air, bringing it down hard, repeatedly, across the officer’s face. She didn’t stop until she heard the crunch. Blood spilled down his chin onto his uniform. She’d broken his nose. Anna didn’t waste a second. She scrambled over to one of the kitchen drawers and wrapped her fingers around the cold metal handle of the gun. She turned and fired it, straight on. The second officer fell backward clutching his chest. But by then, the first officer had recovered enough and shouted at her.
“HALT!” He was now pointing his recovered pistol, leveling it at her head. “Move!” He motioned her toward the door with the shiny barrel.
Anna stood motionless at the corner of the cobblestone street, surrounded by Reich officers, watching her apartment building. Others were being escorted out, too. They all came together, tears streaking their cheeks. She listened, taking in the scene as she stood motionless under the streetlamp, its soft glow illuminating the ash that fell steadily from the sky. She could see the morning sun trying to shed light on the world through the thick grayness of it all around her, but the sun never really shined brightly like it had before. Dull light was now all there was to let her know when it was day and when it wasn’t. The streetlamps were always on. Now that the crematorium had opened, it seemed to run day and night, and there was no escaping the constant ash that covered the land. She tried to imagine that the flakes were fat snowflakes coming down in swirls from the heavens. But that was only for a moment.
A dog barked. She leveled her eyes in the direction of the sound and sucked in a breath at the sight of the man. The black overcoat hung loosely on his broad shoulders, long to the ground. The felt fedora shaded his face until he slowly raised his head and made eye contact. Her heart skipped a beat. They stared at each other for what seemed like an eternity but were only a few seconds, before he raised an arm and pointed down the opposite street to her left. She turned and looked in the direction he was pointing. The whistle blew as the train made its way along the track toward them, down from the mountaintop, where they had built the crematorium. She knew its purpose. When she turned back to where the man in the fedora had been, he had vanished. There was no trace of him. Not even a footprint.
And then...it finally dawned on her.
She looked about; the officers all seemed busy with other people. This was her chance. She broke free from the crowd and raced in the direction the man had been pointing. She ran hard, her shoes slipping on the ash-covered road. She could hear the officers yelling behind her, but she didn’t stop. Not until a shot rang out and pain spread through her back.
The man in the fedora watched as Anna’s blood soaked the ash around her body. A tear slipped down his cheek and he vanished in as swirling cloud of ash.