by Ryder Stacy
“Stop, stop,” Yigmar screamed, standing on the front seat of his jeep some 75 feet ahead. He raised his long curved scimitar, striking as fierce a pose as possible. The golden rubles were slipping from his fingers with every lifeless body that crashed to the ground.
“Come, come,” Yigmar said, grinning a gold-toothed smile at the inflamed prisoners. “Now is not the time to rebel. If you wanted to fight us, you should have done so on the battlefield. Trip almost over for you now. Just a few more hours—you get food, get places to live, work to do. Not so bad. Many have much worse.” He smiled idiotically at them trying to make it all sound like some sort of idyllic paradise. Not one believed him, but the few seconds of time of his words bought cooled their tempers from the explosive to the boiling point. They settled back into their ranks, their heads bowed in shame and repressed rage as they walked along, their ankle chains clanking loudly.
They marched through the day, until the sun at last began setting again, falling from the purple blue sky like a silver gull hunting for darting fish just below the horizon. Those of the prisoners who were going to, had died already. The rest seemed to be surviving, Yigmar noted with satisfaction. He had only lost 10 of the original 80—better than usual.
“We almost there,” he screamed out. “Just hour or two—then food.” He smiled again, though not a man could see the artificially stretched mouth in the semi-darkness. The stars filled the vast skies like a billion little lips all opening and closing, sucking in the waste of the universe. After a time the moon suddenly appeared over a grove of trees, illuminating the road with a merciless light. At last the low walls of the Fortress City of Goerringrad appeared ahead, just as they came over a rise in the road. They could see thousands of lights twinkling in the mild breeze, and could, even from several miles off, hear the sounds of heavy machinery, of engines roaring. The Nazis were working non-stop on building their American headquarters, work-crews going around the clock with giant floodbeams lighting their task.
In their hunger and weariness, the prisoners prayed that they would get to eat and have a night’s sleep before they would be forced to whatever jobs they would have to work at. God knew what their fate would be, though everyone of them had in the back of his mind the surety that he would escape, once he had regained strength, once his wounds were healed. These were Freefighters, not groveling slaves of the work sectors of the Russian cities. If they could just survive the next few days, weeks, they would get the hell out of here and rejoin their comrades in the hidden cities. Only that thought kept them from ending their lives right then and there.
Four
They were marched up to the steel gates of Goerringrad where four machine-gun emplacements were manned, their huge .55mm muzzles aimed at all four roads that met in front of the fortress entrance. Yigmar showed his papers to the bored officer on duty who walked over and looked the new slaves up and down, making sure they were properly secured, shaking their chains, checking the locks. He would pay if some should escape and cause any harm. But satisfied that they were all incapacitated, he waved the slave convoy through. The other soldiers laughed and pointed at the American prisoners.
“So these are the fierce American warriors,” one said in broken German-English.
“Now I know why I was so afraid to come over here,” another laughed. The Freefighters gritted their teeth. They knew this would be only the first of many insults they would endure during their captivity. Rockson’s eyes met the eyes of the lieutenant in charge. The German felt the strangest sensation run up and down his spine as if he had looked into the eyes of death incarnate.
“Stop! Stop!” he yelled, rushing over to the Doomsday Warrior. “Who is this man?” he demanded of Yigmar.
“Just a worthless American piece of scum,” the Slave Master answered apologetically. “For what reason does he even catch your attention?”
“There is something about him—those eyes.” The officer walked around Rockson looking him up and down while the Freefighter stood motionless as a rattler ready to strike. The Nazi walked back around in front of Rockson and stared into his eyes from only inches away. He wanted the slave to back down, to avert his gaze from his superior. But Rock just looked back, his eyes as cold and unbending as the stars above, fearing nothing. At last it was the Nazi’s eyes which broke as he felt his very will going under the gaze. He had the sudden urge to shoot the man where he stood. But he knew the S.S. needed every man they could get. There would be an investigation. Better to do nothing.
“On with you then,” the officer said, smirking as he walked back to his own troops, acting cocky as if he had made the prisoner bend under him. “Just I another piece of slime,” he laughed to the heavily armed Germans he commanded. “Soon he will be in the swamps.”
The human cargo marched through the wide gates of the fortress and into the recently built city. Though the Nazis had been here less than six months they had already constructed nearly a square mile of barracks, munitions dumps, officers’ headquarters, a landing field and generating plant. But then the Nazis have always been a most efficient organization. Yigmar drove ahead of the column of slaves through the absolutely straight streets that had been planned with typical German logical perfectionism in mind—the entire expanding Fortress laid out in rigidly symmetrical lines on every side—a perfect square with a hundred little perfect squares within it.
Rock saw with disgust the American slave teams being herded around like so many cattle to their backbreaking jobs. These weren’t Freefighters—there weren’t many of them within the Fortress walls as most would die before being captured.
The slaves who tramped along the wide main central avenue of Goerringrad looked as if they were not long for this earth. The Germans fed them enough, but kept them going day after day, in 16 hour shifts, without a day of rest. It was more functional for them, they had calculated, to push the workers to their limits—let them die—and replace them with new ones. And with men like Yigmar out there doing their collection work for them it was all quite simple.
Yigmar’s jeep pulled up in front of a large concrete building, one of the biggest in the fortress and stopped. He disappeared within its ominous walls and within minutes reemerged with a gaunt-faced S.S. major who walked quickly down the rows of prisoners observing each one carefully. His eyes seemed devoid of the slightest shred of humanity or compassion—just two floating icebergs in a frigid sea. He came to Rockson but the Doomsday Warrior looked down. No sense to challenge every one of these bastards. Just act the humble slave—until the strength could emerge. Maj. Krupt reached the last man and headed back toward Yigmar.
“Yes, yes, these will do. Your selections are getting better, my greedy friend,” Krupt said with a razor-thin grin, the writhing white moon far above reflecting its cutting rays off his golden S.S. symbols with their skull emblem, so that they looked as if they were on fire, glowing, illuminated from below by the very burning darkness of the man’s soul. The S.S. man snapped his fingers together and an orderly ran over with a large leather bag that looked quite heavy from the way he held it tightly to his chest.
“Here,” Krupt said, as Yigmar grabbed the bag and opened the cord at the top. His eyes widened as if they would pop out of his skull and a lascivious smile crossed his thick lips as he ran his fingers through the shimmering gold coins within.
“We need more,” Krupt said, slapping a pair of black gloves he held in one hand into the palm of the other. “Many more. You will now be paid even more. And for every group of slaves over 100 you can bring us—an extra thousand ruble bonus.” Yigmar’s eyes widened even more. He was the smartest man alive. Everything he did was right. Why, he would be a rich man, perhaps the richest in America in a year or two if this kept up. A fortune in the flesh trade. And one thing about people—there were always plenty more where these came from.
“I will do my best, Herr Commandant,” Yigmar said, bowing low as if to an emperor.
“Yes, yes, I’m sure you will,” Krupt smirked, understanding t
he deep greed that motivated the man. “Just make sure they’re not Russian or German,” Krupt added ominously. “Because should I ever find out that even one of our men has been hurt or captured by you . . . well, I think you understand. We will take them from here. Men—” Krupt ordered, as a phalanx of underlings surrounded the now 70 prisoners and led them off toward their barracks. The workers huts were at the northern edge of the camp, barely habitable concrete barracks with the walls already collapsing in many places, without glass in the window frames, or doors in the unfinished entrances. The Germans had more important things to do than add the finishing touches to slaves’ houses. As they were led down the narrow street, lit by rows of high floodlights the new prisoners were split up, four or five at a time pushed brusquely into one of the barracks. Rockson being last in line ended up at the last of the cement hovels at the very northern perimeter that the camp had reached thus far. On the other side were rows of barbed wire and floodlights with machine-gun emplacements every two hundred feet.
One of the Nazi guards pushed him forward into the darkness. Rockson felt himself hurtling forward but managed to curve his arms in a half circle so he landed with a roll—on top of something soft.
“You’ll be unchained in the morning,” the guard yelled out as he stomped off.
“What the fuck,” a voice screamed out of the darkness below Rockson’s arms where he had fallen. He sensed a blow coming up and pulled himself backward. Sure enough, a fist flew by where his head had been and in the semi-darkness, as his eyes adjusted a little he could see the narrow glinting of a blade. The Doomsday Warrior jumped to his feet and backed off a yard.
“Don’t want no trouble whoever I just fell on,” he said, trying to sound friendly. “The guard pushed me and—”
“Shut up you,” a voice sneered from several yards ahead of him. Suddenly the 40 x 50 foot spartan concrete shell was lit by the single flame of a candle from the far side of the room. Rockson could see that the floor was filled with slaves all sleeping on coats or little piles of straw or just thin strips of cardboard—anything, to protect them from the frigid cold of the concrete. Nearly every square foot of the floor was taken, each man somehow just fitting in between the arms and legs of those around him, so the entire group was bunched together like some insane jigsaw puzzle of humanity. The commotion had awakened them from their dark driftings and they leaned up one elbow to watch the confrontation.
“Who you, man?” the body Rockson had landed on yelled out. By the flickering light of the single candle Rock could see that the man was huge and tough as nails. Probably the ruler of this little roost, Rock thought, as he took in with revulsion the primitive state of the inhabitants. Their hair was matted thick as dirty mops, their scalps having been untouched by water for as long as any could remember. Their flesh was filled with sores, many of them open and oozing thin trails of pus. Most of the slave laborers had half their teeth missing, inflamed white gums filled their mouths. Their clothes were torn and ripped apart as if they had been worn for years, and were so coated with dirt and mud and slime that all were the same dark blackish brown without a trace of their original color left. The barrack dwellers looked at Rockson with grotesque grins stretching across their near toothless mouths. At last some excitement. Foster 236 would make quick work of this newcomer. They felt not a trace of pity for the man even though they knew he had not done anything wrong—except to fall on the ruler of their wretched little world.
“Look pal,” Rockson said, holding up both hands in a conciliatory gesture. “I don’t want to take over your operation here or anything. Just let me find a nice little corner, nothing too big or fancy—and I’ll just curl up there and you won’t hear a peep out of me.”
“You make jokes,” Foster 236 said without a trace of a smile. “This not a funny place.” He came slowly forward, all 359 pounds of him, on a 6' 7" frame so that he looked more like a walking table than a man. In his right hand he held the long blade, a stolen kitchen knife, which had already come within inches of Rockson’s jugular. The flickering flame cast a sudden wave of light over the man’s face and Rockson shuddered. The face was just a mass of scars. Whatever human features had once been there had long ago been swallowed up in cuts, slashes, punctures and burns. The man had obviously been through countless battles—and won.
“I am king here—me—” Foster 236 roared out in a blind fury. “No one touch me, no one.” He came toward Rockson slicing the nearly 12-inch blade at the air, making little circles.
“Look fellow,” Rock said, backing away, moving instinctively into the quick deflect and counter-strike position he had developed over the years. “I really, really don’t want to get into a fight. Because if we do, one of us will have to kill the other. Now, I don’t have any particular reason to want to kill you. You seem like a nice enough fellow, and I’m positive that I don’t feel like dying myself tonight as I’m too tired and too hungry to go into the next world. So how about we just relax.” Rock held his hand out with as friendly an expression as he could muster.
Foster 236 lunged forward, the knife blade searching for Rockson’s chest. But the Doomsday Warrior’s fighting instincts had been honed to the sheer edge of perfection. His body turned in a split second as the steel came toward him. The huge body came forward as Rock stepped past the attacker and then swung his leg around catching the man’s ankle. At the same moment he slammed down hard on the Slave King’s shoulder. Foster 236 shot forward and down onto the concrete floor without even a second to stop himself. The entire momentum of his body had been directed by Rockson with the hand push/leg kick maneuver.
The huge body pulled itself up from the floor in a daze, the Slave King shaking his head trying to clear it. He stood up wobbling and the entire assemblage could see by the candlelight that his face was just a mass of blood. If there was room for any more wounds on that testament to slaughter called a face, another twenty or thirty gashes were added to the total and two more missing teeth. The nose had been broken so many times already that it was just a large lump of pliable cartilage. This particular fall had smashed it flat as a pancake, a pancake from which a syrup of blood poured to the floor. Foster 236 rose to his full height and once again hefted the blade, moving toward Rockson.
“Oh come on pal, do we have to go through more of this? You’re the one getting roughed up—in case you hadn’t noticed.”
“I slipped scum—now you die!” He laughed a guttural snarl of contempt, half for Rockson and half for himself. Not one of the slaves had ever been able to challenge him. A few had tried but he had disposed of them within seconds. This one was different. But more than just a fight was at stake. With all the other slaves looking on, his power among them, all his “special” privileges—which consisted primarily of taking things whenever he felt so inclined—all were in jeopardy. And without that there was nothing.
Rockson sensed all this and again tried to give him a way out. “Look, let’s just say you won—okay? All I want is to sleep.”
“You will sleep,” Foster smirked. He jumped forward with all of his immense weight with amazing speed for such a huge man. Rockson was caught slightly off guard. He managed to avoid the knife blade but Foster’s full body weight caught him on the shoulder and the two men rolled over onto the floor with a resounding thud of over a quarter ton of combined flesh and muscle. Rock felt the tremendous bulk of his attacker slam onto his chest as his head whipped back against the concrete floor. He felt himself slipping under, into unconsciousness, yet just at the very moment that the darkness seemed about to fall, a light awakened his sense as some inner voice told him to come to—to move or he was dead.
It seemed like he had been out for minutes, in fact it was less than a second. Rockson opened his eyes to see the bulging eyes of Foster 236, and the knife hand high in the air about to begin its descent into his throat. The Doomsday Warrior pulled his head to the side as the blade fell like a guillotine and ricocheted off the hard floor. Rockson slammed up with his elbow
directly beneath Foster’s chin. The attacker flew up from the floor, nearly a yard into the air and then fell, landing on his knees. Rock rose in a flash and rushed over knowing this entire episode was not going to end in talk. As Foster rose to a standing position Rockson swung his right fist around in a roundhouse punch, from the Tam-tui system, letting it arc all the way around in a hidden orbit with his full body weight behind it. His steel-hard fist slammed into the side of Foster 236’s head like a piston. The bleeding skull slammed back and forth on the bulldog neck like a vibrating gong and the narrow eyes closed as he sank slowly toward the floor. Rock let him have another one of the rocketlike punches from the other side as the unconscious body flew by. He didn’t feel like having his newfound friend come and get him in the middle of the night. This would keep the fool out until morning. Foster’s body hit the concrete like a toppling oak tree landing atop two bedraggled slaves who had been watching it all with great interest. The two squirmed out from under the elephantine weight and snatched their own little cardboard mattresses out of the way. It was clear that no one was going to elevate this whale of a man.
There was utter silence for a few seconds as every eye in the room zeroed in on Rockson who stood breathing hard, a huge bump welling up on the back of his lower skull where he had been struck.
“You are new bossman,” one of the pitiful slave creatures, a man with no hair at all, even eyelashes, said. The others joined in a chorus of assent. Someone had to keep order, even if cruelly—otherwise they would all go at one another like wild beasts. The new fighter—he would be the leader. Perhaps he would be kinder than Foster 236.
“You leader,” a wild-eyed man screamed.
“You new king,” another said between drooling lips.
“King, king,” they chanted, rising up from their filth-encrusted beds.
“No, no,” Rock said, waving his hands with a bemused expression. First they tried to kill him—now they wanted him to rule them—all in the space of about two minutes. He saw a small empty spot by one of the window openings at the back end of the cement hut and walked over to it, rubbing his neck. The others followed behind, scampering around him, making animal grunts of excitement. Rock lowered himself down onto the 2 x 5 foot space, on each side of which grungy specimens were lying, their unwashed bodies sending out a somewhat pungent smell. But it would have to do. Rockson felt bone weary. He took off the field jacket he was wearing and made a pillow against the cracking wall. Then he lay back, settling into as comfortable a position as a human body could find, resting on two pieces of rough concrete. He put his hands behind his head and breathed out a deep sigh. It felt good just to not move after the marching of the last few days.