My Immortal: The Vampires of Berlin

by Lee Rudnicki

  Axel bowed his head. “Yes.”

  Artillery rumbled in the distance. “It sounds like Germany’s last stand will be in the Reichstag,” Sebastian surmised.

  “They’re wasting their time. Hitler burned it down for them years ago,” Wolf replied. Underneath the dripping sarcasm, he was worried. The Soviet forces had advanced much further and faster than he had anticipated. Which meant they were probably still behind enemy lines.

  The men gathered around as Wolf drew a crude map in the dirt with a bayonet. “The Russians will attack with everything they have at sunrise. Before then, we need to get right here,” he said, pointing to a mark in the dirt. “The landing strip near the Brandenburg Gate. If we can get to the gate, we might be able to get on a plane.”

  Axel scoffed. “The great panzer divisions couldn’t break through the Russian lines and they had waves of Stukas to support them. How do you plan to break through?”

  The roar of a T-34 tank engine in the distance answered the question.

  54

  Grand Theft Tank

  Yuri revved the powerful engine. He was in the driver seat of his beloved tank, the place where he felt the safest in the entire world. The steel beast had a soul. It protected him and gave him the means to strike back at a potent enemy who had taken so much from him.

  Tokolovskii shouted to his men over the roar of the engine. “Give Yuri a hand—get the beast ready!”

  As the drunken crew stumbled back to the tank, Tokolovskii pressed a crushed packet of cigarettes into the German woman’s palm and closed her hand. “I have to go kill more of your friends and family,” he said. “Buy yourself a new dress on the black market, fräulein. Make yourself prettier for the next time.”

  The woman shrieked and threw the cigarettes into the fire. Tokolovskii laughed as she ran off into the darkness, her dress in tatters. He liked German women. He hoped to be stationed in Berlin after the war.

  Suddenly, a hand tapped him on the shoulder. Tokolovskii turned around. He smiled because he thought that he was looking at one of the thousands of pathetic German soldiers who were surrendering to anyone and everyone in a Russian uniform. With the hour of the final assault approaching, Tok didn’t have time for a prisoner. Instead, he decided to make the end of the war quick and painless for this German. “Give me your pistol,” he ordered.

  Sebastian didn’t move a muscle. He just stared at Tokolovskii as a blind rage boiled deep inside of him.

  “I told you to give me your pistol.”

  Sebastian grabbed him by the neck and lifted him off of the ground.

  The Russian remained defiant. “You Nazi scumbag,” he gasped.

  “I am not a Nazi,” Sebastian replied. “I am a German citizen and I am a fucking musician. I just added vampire to my resume, so you are highly advised against antagonizing me further.”

  “Bite me.”

  Sebastian bared his fangs and Tokolovskii had a sudden change in attitude. He gasped in terror and tried to form the words to beg for his life from a vampire in a German uniform.

  “You should respect the innocent,” Sebastian said as he squeezed his airway closed. Then he punched him so hard that bones shattered. Blood, spit and little white crunchy pieces of teeth gurgled out of his mouth as Sebastian threw the whimpering Russian into the fire.

  The crew heard the garbled scream over the engine. They grabbed their side arms and unleashed a furious volley of gunfire at the intruder in their midst.

  Sebastian felt the bullets rip into him as he fell. When the shooting stopped, he had been shot exactly twenty-seven times, by his count. The impact of those bullets, however, felt no worse than getting poked with a stick. Annoying, at best. He didn’t ask to be transformed into a creature of the night, but if it was going to get him through the war, so be it.

  As the petrified crew looked on, Sebastian stood up and brushed off his jacket. For the encore, he held up a smoking bullet, blew on it and threw it back at them.

  The crew ran for their lives, but they didn’t get far. Sebastian was just beginning to realize his newfound speed as a vampire. When the massacre was over, he pulled the three badly wounded Russians into a dark corner of a bombed out building. Eva quietly joined the feast as he quenched what was becoming an unyielding thirst for blood.

  Alone in the tank, Yuri never heard the commotion, nor did he have any idea that the rest of the crew was dead. He was annoyed as hell though. “Those drunken slobs will be late to their own funeral,” he said to himself. When he opened the hatch to read the crew the riot act, a gun was stuck in his face.

  “Get out,” Wolf ordered.

  Yuri put his hands up and climbed out of the tank. He loved his machine, but there was no reason to die for it. The Wehrmacht was on the verge of annihilation and the Great Patriotic War was over. His main fear was that the psychopath who just pulled him out of the tank at gunpoint might not see it that way.

  When he saw Tokolovskii’s body in the fire, Yuri panicked. He dropped to his knees and begged for his life in broken German. “Please, don’t kill me ... I have family ... three little babies ... please.”

  Wolf didn’t know that Yuri was lying about his family, but he wouldn’t have cared if he did. He was tired of the death and destruction. He motioned for Yuri to leave.

  Yuri froze. He was convinced that Wolf would shoot him in the back.

  “Go,” Wolf said.

  Still, Yuri didn’t budge. He pointed to Wolf’s pistol and shook his head. Wolf smiled and put the pistol back in his holster. “Relax, Ivan. I’m not going to shoot you.”

  Yuri sobbed and kissed Wolf’s hand. “Danke schön! Danke schön!”

  “Get the hell out of here before I reconsider my offer.” Yuri didn’t give him a chance to change his mind. He jumped up and ran for his life.

  With the crew out of the way, Wolf and his men inspected their new prized possession—a Soviet T-34 battle tank.

  Sebastian put Eva into the turret. Then he climbed into the driver’s compartment and studied the controls. Although different from the Panther that he had driven until a few days ago, the driving mechanism looked close enough to figure out. This small crew compartment is more like the inside of a submarine than a tank, he thought.

  Wolf climbed into the turret. “Get in here with us,” he told Axel. “I’m gonna load. You’re gonna shoot. It’s very simple. Got it?”

  Axel was dumbfounded. “You want me to shoot that freakin monstrosity?”

  “You’ll be fine. Besides, the loading system on a T-34 is complicated; not as efficient as our panzers.”

  “I’ve never even been inside of a panzer before. Are you really sure that you want me to fire the cannon?”

  “Listen, pilot. I can’t let you drive this thing unless we want to crash in the first five minutes. It’s better to have you shoot the enemy than blow us up from within, which is exactly what will happen if I put someone as stupid as you in charge of the high explosives.”

  Axel shrugged and climbed into the turret. “Good morning princess,” he said to Eva. “I’m here to blow shit up.”

  “Sit down and pay attention if you want to live,” Wolf warned. “I have three rules for the gunner. First, line the target up in the crosshairs before you pull the trigger. Second, don’t press any button or pull any lever if you don’t know what it does. And finally, and most importantly, don’t shoot anything unless and until I tell you to shoot it, under any circumstances. I don’t care if Stalin himself dances into your line of fire; do not shoot him unless I give that order. Do I make myself clear?”

  Axel saluted smartly. “Crystal clear, sir.”

  “Good, because basic tank training is over. You’ll have to learn the rest as we go.”

  55

  The Rat Patrol

  The T-34 roared down the street as Sebastian navigated around and through the Russian positions. The tank was a challenge to drive—especially given the horrible condition of the streets—but he was getting the hang of it. A
few blocks later, he grew confident enough to roll over a shot-up Mercedes, crushing the car as flat as a pancake. This is a monster, he thought.

  Russian infantrymen waved as the tank passed, never imagining in their wildest dreams that they were greeting their mortal enemy.

  In the cramped turret, Axel poked Wolf. “I was skeptical before, but I must admit it now. Your plan is genius.”

  “Your plan is genius,” Eva parroted as she curiously studied the interior of the tank. She had no idea where she was, but she felt safe with the men.

  Wolf gave Axel the thumbs up, but their problems weren’t over. The real trouble would start when they got to the German lines—they had no radio capable of communicating with German units to convince their nervous anti-tank gunners that their Russian tank wasn’t a threat.

  Fifty meters up the street, Major Federov watched the T-34 rumble towards him on what he expected to be the greatest day of his military career. In the weeks that led up to that proud moment, he had never stopped reminding his men that the unit that planted the flag on the top of the Reichstag would be Heroes of the Soviet Union for all time.

  They’re early. That’s strange, Federov thought as he waved their orders in the air. Tokolovskii won’t be happy to learn that his tank will lead the attack. “Halt!” he shouted.

  But the tank didn’t halt. In fact, Sebastian wasn’t entirely sure how to stop a Russian tank—he had barely figured out how to get the damn thing to start. The other problem was the T-34’s notoriously poor visibility. Strategically, this affected the driver’s ability to use the terrain to his advantage. Practically speaking, Sebastian couldn’t see shit. Federov had to dive out of the way at the last second to avoid getting squashed by the tank treads.

  Twenty meters later, Sebastian found the brakes and the steel monstrosity ground to a noisy halt. Federov fumed as he got up. What had been a spotless military tunic was now covered in mud. As he picked up his Ushakov combat medal from the ground, a few soldiers laughed openly.

  Federov was furious—he decided to hold the crew accountable. He would lose his lead tank, but it would be a powerful demonstration of the importance of discipline in the Soviet Red Army, a lesson that would save the lives of other men in the fighting that awaited. He took a hammer from his belt. “Get out! Get the hell out of the tank!” he screamed.

  When there was no response from within the tank, Federov pounded on it, growing angrier with each strike of the hammer. The only question in his mind was whether or to allow Tokolovskii to publicly apologize before he shot him.

  Inside the tank, the men were strangely calm and even found humor in the situation. “Subtle communication system they have here,” Axel said.

  “Major, what does the Wehrmacht field manual say to do when you are in a stolen tank and surrounded by hundreds of enemy soldiers?” Sebastian asked.

  Wolf laughed. “It says to tell the angry guy with the hammer that we’re not filling out paperwork today.”

  Federov continued to pound on the tank as the surreal banter continued inside. Angry at being ignored, he screamed at soldiers who were gathered around the tank. “You men! Get these incompetent assholes out of this tank—I will court martial them myself! The entire crew will be shot if any of them have so much as a drop of alcohol on their breath!”

  In response, a grinning soldier from Tajikistan jumped onto the tank with a crowbar.

  “Uh-oh. They found a can opener,” Wolf announced. He knew that if the Russian got the hatch open, their tank excursion would not end well.

  Then the tactical situation suddenly got worse—Yuri showed up. The driver grabbed Federov and pointed at his tank. Federov looked at Yuri, then back at the tank, then back at Yuri. Then he pushed Yuri out of the way and pulled out his pistol. Game over.

  “Fire,” Wolf said.

  Axel froze.

  “Please pull the trigger,” Wolf said as the crowbar scraped against the hatch.

  “Axel, pull the fucking trigger!” Wolf screamed.

  Axel closed his eyes and pulled the trigger.

  The checkpoint exploded! The soldier with the crowbar flew off the tank and men dove for cover everywhere. Federov dropped his hammer and just stood there with his mouth open as a thick black cloud enveloped the street.

  “Gun it!” Wolf shouted as he slammed another round into the chamber.

  Sebastian hit the gas and the T-34 roared forward, belching exhaust fumes and causing Federov to dive out of the way for the second time. Angry Russian soldiers struggled to make sense of the pandemonium and started shooting, whether or not they had a target in sight. Hundreds of rounds pinged off the tank as it rolled down the street.

  “Fire!” Wolf shouted.

  Axel pulled the trigger and the powerful 85 mm sent the façade of a bank crashing down onto a platoon of dazed Russian soldiers. The T-34 swerved around a concrete barrier and crashed through the remnants of the checkpoint, sending wood, metal and men everywhere! Yuri emerged from the dust cloud and ran away as fast as his legs would carry him, never to see his beloved tank again.

  Federov screamed and gestured wildly at another tank, a KV-85. “Regroup! Regroup! Fucking Regroup! Kill them!” The massive KV-85 roared forward, its exhaust fumes adding to the dust cloud. Just as it passed Federov, it fired its massive cannon, causing a street lamp to launch into the air and crash to the ground right in front of the T-34.

  “They almost got us! Turn the turret! Turn it!” Sebastian screamed. “Hurry up! “

  “Take them out!” Wolf yelled.

  Although the T-34 had a high velocity gun and sloped armor, its Achilles heel was its thin turret armor. Wolf knew that if they didn’t get another shot off before the KV-85 did, they were probably as good as dead.

  Up the street, an astonished detachment of Volksstrum watched the two Russian tanks slug it out as Panzerfaust shells swished through the air around them.

  “Achtung!” came the cry. “Finish them both off!” The German gun crew pulled the camouflage netting away and their deadly 88 mm gun roared to life. Boom!

  The resulting explosion violently rocked the T-34. Eva screamed as the side of the tank lifted into the air and crashed back down.

  Wolf slammed another round into the chamber and prayed that the treads hadn’t been destroyed. If they got stuck in the kill zone of the 88, they were finished. “Fire!”

  Axel pulled the trigger and the ground in front of the KV-85 erupted. He panicked when he realized that he missed. “Damn! Reload! Reload!”

  The KV-85 responded with cannon fire of its own and the T-34 shook violently, as if it had been hit with a giant sledgehammer. Flames shot out of the back.

  “We got hit! We’re on fire!” Wolf shouted.

  “Give me one more shot!” Axel screamed.

  “Screw it!” Wolf yelled as he slammed a shell into the chamber. “Fire!”

  Axel pulled the trigger one last time. It was a direct hit—the KV-85 exploded!

  With their most immediate threat eliminated, Sebastian turned the burning T-34 towards the German lines at full throttle. Fifty meters later, another explosion rocked the tank. He wasn’t sure where the shot came from, but it didn’t matter—everybody was shooting at them.

  “Hold on!” he shouted. Then he crashed the flaming tank into what used to be a department store.

  Smoke and orange flames engulfed the tank. “Get out! Everyone out!” Wolf yelled.

  They jumped out of the tank and sprinted through the burning building. The upscale store had long since been looted of merchandise, but bomb damage and debris made it very difficult to navigate.

  Suddenly, the tank exploded behind them. The force of the blast knocked them down in front of a row of mannequins. They got up and scrambled for the exit as the flames spread throughout the building.

  Two serpent-like eyes followed their every move from a dark corner of the burning store. Rodika licked her lips and waited for the opportunity to strike.

  56

 
Mercy Street

  The squad ran out of the store as explosions rang out behind them. Then they stopped dead in their tracks.

  “Holy shit,” Wolf said. In front of them, an apocalyptic scene of death and destruction. Destroyed vehicles littered the street. The bloated and decomposing bodies of German soldiers swung back and forth on nooses hung from the lampposts. Crude cardboard signs around their necks labeled them as deserters.

  “We’re killing our own now,” Wolf said as he plugged his nose from the unbearable stench.

  “When is this lunacy going to end?” Sebastian asked.

  Eva pointed at a little boy who knelt on the sidewalk and desperately tried to open a small package. “Boy is hungry,” she whispered.

  When the boy noticed everyone staring at him, he scurried away through a hole in the wall, leaving his precious package behind.

  Sebastian picked the package up and ripped the brown paper away to reveal a small loaf of bread. The thought that they scared the boy away from what little food he could find made him sick. The kid was starving, he thought. He couldn’t have gone far.

  The squad crawled through the hole in the wall. It didn’t take long to find the child; he was huddled next to his mother in a corner of the building. His mother’s leg was purple and oozing pus, compliments of a badly infected shrapnel wound that she got while standing in a bread line. She couldn’t be moved, so they decided to remain there until the bitter end. Which for her, was soon.

  Sebastian offered the bread to them, but the scared little boy pushed it away. “We won’t hurt you. Please, take it,” he said, still holding the bread out.

  “Get the hell away from us,” his mother replied. “We don’t need food or anything else from you. The Russians will kill us if they find you here.”

  “Get out!” the boy yelled.