by Dave Brockie
I stand, shrieking, holding the man aloft. I snap his spine with an audible crack and hurl his broken body at the pews, bouncing him across the rows and into the retreating horde.
“WHARGOUL! WHARGOUL!” I slobber at soul-shrinking volume, wheeling up the aisle, pausing to shatter the front doors in a blow that surprises even me. I am lashed by rain—the mid-day street is evening-dark with a sudden thunderstorm. My body racked with nausea, I run into the street, bouncing through traffic. If any followed, they were greeted by a black storm that came from nowhere.
There had been a time, I was sure, when my being had inhabited a dismal swamp. Being of the devil, I was highly courted, and bound in covenant to my undead lord. I was granted power in accord with results, and rode a skeletal steed encased in once-fine mail, corroded by the tomb from which it had been wrested. My body was out of proportion with my spirit, which had been sold. When war beckoned, I followed, and found myself at the gates of the enemy castle.
‘Repent!” I screamed, worms writhing across my face.
As mine was a mission of diplomacy, I was shown quarters. Here my body began to vaporize, emitting atrocious odors. My guards could not approach me as I stumbled about the room, still trying to talk to my hosts about a proposed alliance (a lie). When the flesh could no longer support itself, I crumpled to the floor, spirit shrieking back to oblivion.
Almost a dream, that. Except for the imprint of experience, like sun on your face, or dead flesh in your mouth. Horrible feelings you remember without guilt, knowing they were dreams. But then knowing they were not dreams. To be human, deprived of humanity.
I slowly drift back into consciousness until I feel steady enough to prepare another shot. I note with despair that this is the last load. After this wears off, I will have to return to the land of the living.
I ram the horse needle into my chest and shoot heroin straight into my heart, moaning in bliss as I settle back into the chair, which farts softly as it takes my 230 pounds. I really should get a catheter and do the full IV thing. I could stay knocked out for days . . . but who would feed the dog? He might eat me—it could be worth a shot, as I’ve never been eaten. But I knew that killing myself wasn’t an alternative.
If I killed myself I could not fulfill my task—a task which was an attempt to wrest my destiny into my own blood-soaked hands. I had set before myself a mission, a holy quest, and an act of grand redemption that might erase the ugly blot that had been my life.
Something had created me. Some sick thing had formed me from what I did not know, and had set me out upon the earth to rape and slay and maim, somehow feeding off my feeding to sustain its own hideous existence. But perhaps it did not realize that in my years amongst the humans that I might develop empathy or even sympathy for them.
I had to find my creator, and destroy it, so I might save my eternal soul.
To begin, I would have to unravel the clues of my past, things that I had forgotten in the space of my 50 years upon this planet. How had I gotten here? Who was I? What was I? This was the point of my drug-soaked, dream-drenched reveries—a search for the truth in the black pages of my mind. The more time I could spend in this manner, the better chance there was of my remembering the things I had made myself forget. Then it would be payback time.
I sink back into delirium, disappearing into myself, and notice a tangled mass of protoplasmic material. I move towards it, bumping into its gelatinous fringe. It is like discovering a cancer in yourself and the hateful energy repulses me, sending me to other regions, other times.
After WWII, I had slipped away. I was lucky, and not overly Aryan looking. Plus I spoke several languages perfectly, and had money and papers. I had seen the end coming and had made preparations accordingly. This was my second incarnation—what I had become after Stalingrad, and in that time I had done some things—terrible, awful things. And I had felt great about doing them. It had brought me tremendous power, and earned me formidable enemies. But I needed a vacation.
So I went to France, the south of France, near the Spanish border in the foothills of the Pyrenees. It was only ten miles from the Mediterranean, and the climate was delightful. The people were simple, and it was an easy matter to procure a sun-washed villa atop a mountain with an excellent view of the only approach route. I fixed the place up and settled in, taking great satisfaction in my first real house. And I began to out-wait my fate. I began to grow old. And the older I got, the more I believed that at some point in the recent past, I had gone mad, and totally lost track of all my family and friends. It seemed reasonable and certainly preferable to an image of me behind a machine-gun, massacring prisoners. Me slobbering about in a feeding-hive. I began to fantasize about my old relatives coming to visit, and the joyous reunion, and the food they brought. It was good to have a vivid imagination because, of course, they never came. So I planted grapes, and began a modest vineyard so that when they arrived we could drink a great toast. In the meantime, I drank alone. I became quite the drunk, and cultivated specific wines to knock my ass out. That and the considerable supply of morphine ampoules I had managed to hoard. Ahh . . . the south of France.
My features settled at 30 to 50 years old, depending on how drunk I got. I made a lot of wine, good wine. At one point I even had a local boy helping me bottle the stuff. But he became too bright, too curious, and I had to get rid of him. I even forged a relationship with a local prostitute. A fledgling romance, sustained by occasional bouts of mad sex. Yes, I enjoyed sex, but not as much as Gabby did. She started coming over all the time!
I was convinced, as were the locals, that I was an eccentric, rich, reclusive drunk, with an old face but a young body. The hardest time to believe this was when I would run naked through the hills in the middle of the night. I would find myself atop a local precipice, howling, stripped to the primal, the shield of alcohol burned from my blood. The locals heard my screams and warned me the hills were haunted. Only I knew the truth—they were haunted by me.
In Stalingrad, it had been easy. I had fit in, becoming a legend in the city, a mercenary from nowhere with an unwavering lust for mayhem. It was all I knew and it was how I lived and besides, everyone else was doing it—how could it be wrong?
They let me go, knew better than to give me orders. I would just appear out of the rubble, ammo draped around my broad shoulders, clutching an evil gun, grinning . . .
“Where’s the war?” I’d say.
Night fighting was my specialty. It helped being able to see in the dark. I’d take the men on the darkest ways, through the sewers. Then we’d come at them, from below, spilling into their midst in an orgy of hand-to-hand combat. We would beat, stomp and stab them to death, trying to conserve ammo. We’d quickly pillage the place for valuables—I’d go for weapons, watches, drugs and liquor, and then return to the underworld, to my vault, where I would make obscene love to mangled corpses until I was whole. Usually, most of my men would also die. I never led them to a deliberate death, but that didn’t stop me from feeding on them if I had to. In this place it was not unheard for a thousand to die in a single day in one building. But I was one of the few who knew where the corpses went. Figuring out the food chain, I had realized my days as a link were numbered. I had to move up or be consumed by it.
I think that’s why they killed me. That’s why I switched sides. That’s when I joined the SS.
2
Servants of
death’s head
The “Shutzschtaffel,” or as they are more simply known, the “SS,” are best remembered as the henchmen of the Holocaust, killing upwards of 12 million in the death camps. The organization, with a lot of help, ran the camps for which the Third Reich was so famous.
But the SS also produced numerous combat divisions, which saw extensive action in Russia and the West. So while their colleagues were busy slaughtering millions behind the lines, these formations were busy killing millions in the field—resulting in an incalculable number of plundered souls.
Th
e fighting divisions (and a full-strength division is anywhere from 8,000-20,000 men) bore colorful names such as “Viking” and “Prince Eugen,” but were referred to collectively as the Waffen SS. It was one of the best-equipped, trained, and motivated fighting forces ever assembled. The mailed fist of Grofaz, the Führer, Adolf Hitler. To many, they were the devil and his demonic legion, set loose upon the world to slay. To my masters, they were servants of the harvest, tools to herd humans into the maw. Fire-belching titans tore up the landscape, reducing men to a fine pulp. Hitler, giving orders he could not understand, a biological construct with the will of a wind-up doll. Something touching his spine. The SS, obeying with grim fanaticism, believing themselves mystical warriors, receiving their brand-new Tiger tanks at crowded marshalling yards, a new toy in return for their oft-eternal commitment.
Training and morale were outstanding in 1943, despite Germany’s colossal defeat at Stalingrad, from which the SS had emerged unscathed. Hitler would not have wasted his pet monster in that wretched kettle. There were other plans for them, plans coming from below. Plans that made them build the camps.
SS men often bragged of their honored and elite status. They drank and talked loudly to forget the things they’d seen. They were hated and feared by all, but few Germans would shun their company on the battlefield. Most Germans, and indeed the rest of the world, sometimes even those who fought against them, tolerated, ignored, admired or even encouraged their actions. Like the fucking Pope.
They wore a grinning skull as their badge, proudly signifying themselves as servants in death’s army. They didn’t wear a star or a cross. They wanted to wear a skull. They reveled in their evil aspects, and the beast they secretly served empowered them with the unholy strength needed to commit their crimes, and later smile proudly in the face of their executioners.
And for a time, I was one of them.
After Stalingrad had ceased its corpse grinding, I made my way west, following the retreat of the Wehrmacht to Rostov. It was easy to play the wounded straggler, considering my appearance. You see, I had been subjected to a concentrated and sustained blast from a flame-thrower, as well as a considerable amount of additional abuse. This had been my first of many deaths. My flesh was growing back gray and lumpy, stretched tightly across my bones. My face was a mask of scar tissue. The ears were gone, the nose was gone, and my hair was a patch of burnt tar. Over-large teeth glared whitely through the mess. To say I was hideous was a considerable understatement.
When I first came up, after an indeterminable period of blindly questing through the flesh-sewers, I passed through a steppe village that was relatively undamaged. The only people left were old women. When they saw me they began screaming and ran away. I stumbled behind, pleading for directions. Soon after I was picked up by a German patrol who were truly appalled at my appearance, so much so that they were tempted to shoot me. All I could do was sob and collapse into their arms. My charred and bloodied uniform made me a German soldier but that was it. Wrapped in a Wehrmacht blanket I grinned all the way to the hospital, apparently near-death but filled with glee.
The hospital was in an old school on the western edge of Rostov. It was a quiet area except for the screams and pleadings of the wounded. I gazed languidly at them as I was carried in, delighting in their misery. I was taken to a burn ward, and here I stayed, in a bed, twitching and clawing at my sheets. Officers came to question me but I would just stare back with my ruined face until they grew nervous and left. I was a horribly wounded man who had lost his mind trying to walk home from Stalingrad, and that was good cover.
I was very impressed by the Germans and their nurses, especially this buxom blonde from Heidelburg who ran our wing. She was nice to me, especially when she changed my bedpan, which I filled with a pungent green discharge, confounding the doctors. The Germans were more organized than the Russians were and I couldn’t just slip into the ranks. My best bet was to continue to grow flesh and pretend to be brain-damaged until opportunity beckoned. I never spoke, just moaned until I got drugs. I lay and drooled, and healed. In fact my rate of tissue regeneration was quite rapid, and the doctors were astounded. I began to eat their food, though I didn’t need it. All the while, men were dying around me, and I was becoming stronger. But I wanted to make a real turd for Nurse Faber, whose name I could now whisper. She put up a curtain to give me more privacy. I think I knew what it was really for. She had the hots for me.
My ears had healed enough for me to eavesdrop again. It was good to know my ultra-senses still worked. In this way I discovered the SS Obersturmbannführer was coming to visit. My heart leapt!
Nervously, I began to count down the days until the Nazi party. Nurse Faber could tell I was excited, as I had ceased soiling myself. There would be no more of that . . .
Through a crack in the curtain I could see a great swastika banner hung on the wall. Preparations went on for a full day before the event. Many pastries were baked, and a special sausage was unpacked.
I bellow in the middle of the night. When the nurse arrives I am staring straight at her, covers thrown back, my relatively unburned penis draped across my leg, oozing juice.
“Ach du lieber!” she says into her tiny fists, scuttling out to spread the rumors of my size, rumors that would reach the ears of Nurse Faber, and perhaps even the SS man. I wanted both of them to know I was of good stock.
Finally came the night before his arrival. I lay there, assimilating flesh from the soul-fume, stroking my tool until Nurse Faber slipped through my curtain, bearing a hypodermic needle between her fragrant breasts.
My worm-like lips writhe into a ghastly smile as she administers the dose. Its a huge one, much too big . . . my vision melts into a blissful, roaring vacuum and I spin into a warm and furry oblivion. It’s experiences like that one that have left me deeply addicted to all manner of drugs.
After a time, I start to drift back in to hear a confused babble of voices.
“This is the man from Stalingrad?” says a sharp, accusatory voice. “The man who walked over 500 kilometers?”
“Yes, Mein Herr. We thought it best to keep him separate.” This is Nurse Faber, and this is not my room.
“Well perhaps you think too much, Nurse!” he suddenly bellows, then just as quickly grows suave. “Or perhaps you think of . . . inappropriate things. Jewish things. Perhaps you should think more of preparing your body for the rigors of Aryan pregnancy. The Fuhrer has willed it!”
“I merely meant that he was sometimes violent—”
“He is a soldier! He is supposed to be violent! He is a hero! And he is to be treated with glorious consideration, not hidden away like some freak!”
There are other men in the room, and I can smell their guns. He walks to them, slowly putting on a pair of leather gloves with his back to the rest. Then he snaps about, clapping his hands with a thunderous report.
“I want him and all the rest I have chosen ready to move tomorrow at dawn. We must get these poor wretches out of your hospital and back into combat where they can be men again. You destroy their spirit!”
His boots, followed by a swarm of others, thunder away.
I had done it! I was headed back to combat. He had called me “the man who had walked from Stalingrad.” He knew about me. Feeling flushed with delight, I decide to celebrate. Celebrate by heaping abuse upon a helpless unfortunate. The woman who had almost prevented me from meeting my hero. The woman I longed to rape. Nurse Faber.
That night I take a little life from a man in the opposite bed, a little too much . . . and he dies.
I am very strong now. My sinewy arms, not yet fully formed, could still snap necks. I can smell Nurse Faber in the hall, preparing to leave after a 20-hour stint. When she does, I rise quickly and place the corpse from dinner in my bed. Then I’m out the window, scuttling down the wall and dashing across the yard to a copse of trees beside the road. I hear her bicycle coming, the urgent squeak it makes powered by the svelte calves of Nurse Alexandra Faber. In her s
elf-assured way she has, as usual, left without her guard. Her hair, a shimmering blonde wake behind her lovely face, which is alert and poised and suddenly terrified as I rush out of the darkness, clamping one hand over her mouth and grabbing the bike with the other. Then I run, holding her beneath my arm and her bike in the air. Despite her struggles, I run until I am at the river, in the bushes that border its depth. Here the bike finds its grave.
She is on the ground recovering from the chokehold and I wait until she is aware of what’s happening. Her hair is tousled, her shirt ripped open. The mouth is wet, with a piece of straw stuck to the saliva on her cheek.
I slowly wrap a length of gauze about my peeling head.
“Don’t scream,” I hiss, hiking up my pajamas.
She would have if she’d had the breath. She does succeed in making a noise, a sound full of many different emotions but most palatably pure fear. Then my hand is on her mouth, her teeth sinking into my palm. My blood squirts into her as I snatch away her clothing. She fights fiercely, writhing her naked body against me as I force myself into her, bulling her into the dirt. It usually takes me a long time to come so I immediately lay into her at a frenzied clip, hitting her hard with my whole torso and grinding my balls into the mud. I keep my eyes closed, much preferring the image of her bustling about in her nurse outfit, and fuck her with incredible speed and impact. I feel our asses sliding across the bank of the stream and into the bushes as frightened animals thrash away. By now I have pistoned my full length into her, the slamming action creating vacuum. Chunks of soil and small rocks are humped into her, and my shaft begans to swell with molten cum. An exploding sun slowly passes the length of my obese penis. It feels like sperm is falling out of me for several minutes as my body twists against her unseen form, filling places deep within her with my excessive load. Then I collapse upon her.