by Matt Killeen
“Who? The professor?” Stern’s young face worked through it all.
Sarah had only a few seconds. She moved past him, the ax bumping along the ground next to her. She pointed back down the corridor. Look there, don’t look at me. Her irritated eyes produced tears easily, but she wasn’t sure whether they were real or not.
“He set fire to everything and then shot himself. It’s all going to explode, we have to leave, now!” She tugged on his arm. Look at me now. Another tug. Sarah was now on the other side of Stern. If he tried to grab her, she could outrun him.
Then she realized: She was free. He was not.
Stern looked back down the corridor. The far end was a wall of red sparks and black smoke playing along the frame of the inner white door. He needed to see for himself, to figure it out in his own slow but sure way.
“You really have to come now,” Sarah cried. The real feelings that she’d kept in check—she could feel them bubbling over. She allowed a small sliver of terror loose.
“If you go in there, you’ll die,” she yelled. “Come away—now!”
If she couldn’t make him believe her, if she couldn’t make him want to come with her right then and there, he was going to die anyway. She might as well have hit him with her ax.
Don’t be the man. Don’t be responsible. Be the boy. Run away.
“I have to see what happened—fight the fire.”
“I told you what happened.” She was sobbing now and pulling on his arm. “You can’t stop it, all his chemicals and things . . .” Sarah pleaded with her red-rimmed eyes.
Take my hand and run away with me.
He straightened up, and Sarah’s heart sank. He wasn’t a boy from Dresden. He was a soldier. The enemy. The Schutzstaffel. The most hated of all enemies.
“I’m going in,” he said, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket and covering his mouth. “You wait here. You’ll be quite safe.”
Sarah nodded through her tears and let him go. She swallowed the next sob, hefted the ax up over her shoulder, and ran. Now that she was an executioner, she might as well look like one.
* * *
• • •
Inside the darkened kitchen, she found what she was looking for. The coat was still on the hook. It must have been Elsa’s, because it felt expensive, even if it was too big for Sarah.
She was about to leave when she spotted a shape among the shadows on the table. She grabbed the peanut butter and stuffed it into a pocket.
The stable door was wide open, and Anneliese was gone. Good—at least one life wouldn’t be on her conscience. She had trouble telling the other horses apart, so she stood in the middle and called Freya’s name.
The mare trotted to the gate and looked out of the stall.
You again.
Yes, me.
Sarah advanced slowly, hands up. The clock might have been ticking, but Sarah ignored it. “We have to get away, and I’m not sure you’ll make it if you stay. What do you say, huh, Freya girl? Will you carry me out of here?”
The horse’s ears went back as Sarah touched her muzzle, but she didn’t rear or try to get away. She had no bridle, no reins. Sarah doubted now whether this would work at all, no matter how gentle the horse. Maybe she was better off just running.
She put the ax against a pillar, put her boot against the gate, and carefully climbed to its top. Freya took a step away and shook her head. Sarah kept her voice level. “No, no you don’t, girl. You’re the goddess of war, right? Don’t get scared of me now.”
Pushing the gate out, she swung a leg over the horse and reached for the mane. Her hand closed on the thick hair, and she began to haul herself onto Freya’s back.
There was a flash and then an almighty bang—the sound of a million windows being blown out and glass hitting metal. A moment later the blast shook the shutters and gates. Freya reared and screamed. Sarah fell from the top of the gate but landed on the horse’s sloping back, clinging on by her handfuls of mane. Freya kicked off and out of the stable at a full gallop with Sarah suspended on one side by her left leg. She watched the doorframe speeding toward her and could only close her eyes. She felt the wind of the passing wooden beam and something graze her hair.
“Easy, girl! Easy! Whoa, stop!” she howled as Freya tore through the paddock. Sarah made one final effort to pull herself onto the horse, her fingers screaming and her aching leg acting as an anchor. Finally, she leaned over Freya’s neck and slid into the space between the barrel and shoulder. “Now, now we can—”
Freya leapt over the paddock fence in one graceful movement. Her neck hit Sarah in the face on the way up, and at the zenith of the jump, the girl nearly slid off. But Sarah’s fingers stayed strong, and as Freya’s front legs thumped into the turf, she was, more by luck than judgment, in the right position to ride the impact.
The horse didn’t stop on the other side. She just kept galloping into the dark and ignoring Sarah’s pleas and kicks. Sarah held on and looked back at the house, silhouetted in fire, with a jagged shape where the greenhouse had been. A column of smoke was billowing black into the cloudless indigo sky. The house itself seemed relatively undamaged. They would find Schäfer’s body. She was hoping it would vanish, and not just because she doubted they’d believe the suicide story. She wanted him to disappear. Had the bomb triggered the gas explosion? Or had the gas explosion triggered the bomb? Had it gone off at all?
Freya hit the driveway and swerved. This time Sarah rode the movement and kept her balance. It’s just a floating edge, a balance beam—it’s heaving, but it’s three times as wide. They were heading for the gate, which she could now see over the brow of the hill. Someone had switched on floodlights, bathing the guards and their checkpoint in cold blue light. She could make out figures staring at the plume of smoke and saw headlights speeding toward her. Freya was breathing hard, and when Sarah ordered her to slow and stop, the horse responded. Sarah summoned up her crying face and waited. Would the story hold up? If his body had been in the lab it would have been better, but they only had to believe it long enough for her to escape.
The open-topped car decelerated hard over the rise as Sarah and Freya were illuminated by its lights. The officer and guards stood up and began shouting. “What happened?” “Who are you?” “What was that noise?” No one was really in charge—they were just junior officers and even more junior men. She delivered her pre-prepared panic and tears.
“The professor set fire to the house and then—then he shot himself. I sent Elsa to get help; is she with you? There was a massive explosion . . .”
The soldiers were confused and began arguing among themselves. There were more questions, but she ignored them.
“Where’s Elsa?” Sarah screamed at them. One pointed back to the gate, and, with much shouting and dispute, they drove off. No one wanted to deal with a crying girl. Easy, she thought with immense satisfaction. She kicked Freya into a canter.
As she approached the checkpoint, she found the few remaining guards much less bemused, much more curious, much better organized. She was brought to a halt by an officer, so Sarah kicked the horse to make it rear and fuss.
“She’s scared, the noise!” she hollered.
“What happened?”
“The professor set fire to his lab—”
“Fräulein Schäfer said nothing of this—”
“She’s in shock—her father just shot himself in front of her!”
“Where was this?”
This one was clearheaded, asking the right questions. Sarah couldn’t read his expression against the floodlights. Never lie when you can tell the truth. “Upstairs in one of the bedrooms.”
“His bedroom?”
“No . . .” Sarah wrestled with the memory, made it tell her story. “He came into mine with his gun, drunk, said he’d set his lab alight, that he wanted to end it all . . .”
“Where was Fräulein Schäfer?”
Careful now.
“She heard the noise, came in—we tried to calm him down. He fired the gun . . . Where is she? Is she all right?” Where was she?
“What did you do then?”
“She was hysterical, there was blood everywhere—I sent her to find you, then I went to check the house—”
“Why would you do that?” Curious. Perceptive. Dangerous.
Because his work was important. Because the house was valuable. Because . . . because . . . I’m just a girl.
“Because I left my doll in his lab. I wanted to get it,” she let herself whine. “Please, where’s Elsa? I want to know she’s all right—please?”
“One of my men has taken her to the local doctor. She needed to be sedated.”
Excuse to leave.
“I must go after her—”
“No, Fräulein, you must stay. You were the last person in the house, it seems.”
“I passed one of your men—Stern? He insisted on going into the house . . . He must have . . . must have been there when the lab exploded.”
“Regardless, you must stay here and make an official statement.” That was final.
No, no, no. No official questions. No paperwork.
Sarah coaxed Freya into taking a step back. She was desperate now. “Let me go and find Elsa, she needs me!”
The door is closing.
The officer called one of his men over. Freya sensed Sarah’s tension and sidestepped away from the approaching trooper.
“Please, I have to go to her!”
“No, Fräulein, please dismount.” He was annoyed by her disobedience. She had only a few seconds.
To escape she would have to gallop around the concrete barriers blocking the gate, a feat of riding well beyond her skills. Even if Freya jumped some of it and Sarah stayed on her back, there were more guards on the other side. She might get through, but there would be a hunt, people looking for her with automobiles.
The trooper reached for Freya’s muzzle. The horse reared up in protest, and the trooper shrank away. Sarah shouted for him to be careful. The officer took a step forward, and the other guards were converging. Freya backed away, farther from safety, access to the gateway blocked . . .
Everything went white.
The men in front of Sarah cried out, covered their faces, and doubled over. The light hurt Sarah’s eyes, but she saw a gap and went for it, kicking the bucking Freya into action.
Then the world turned red. Freya had reached a canter halfway to the first barrier when the sound hit.
It was the crack of thunder from the creation of the world, deep as a well, dense as lead. All possible noises, all at once.
In a stab of pain, the sounds of hooves on tarmac were replaced by a high-pitched whine and muffled screams. Freya staggered, reared, and broke into a gallop, jumping over the painted barrier blocking her path.
Everything moved. The horse and its rider. The guards. The barbed wire. The grass, plants, and trees. The air. Everything was picked up by an unseen hand and thrown downwind, along with every fragment of dirt, mud, ice, and dust. Even the concrete blocks scraped across the tarmac, tearing into it.
The horse landed on her side, screaming, with Sarah thrown clear into the next barricade. The roaring died down, leaving the air filled with cries of anguish, panic, and terrified whinnying.
The gateway was drenched by a fading red light as Sarah sat up. She was in pain all over, but she didn’t feel it. She wanted to look at Freya, but she couldn’t. The only thing she could focus on was the rising fireball being swallowed by the darkness above the hill, becoming a black cloud that curled into itself as it filled the sky. Fragments of brick and metal began to rain down, some still burning.
Ragnarök.
The bomb hadn’t gone off at all—until now.
If that is a fraction of that power . . .
Freya scrambled to her feet, flanks bloody. Sarah approached her with her arms wide, calling her name, but her voice sounded muted in her head. The horse backed off, shaking her mane. Sarah limped away, gesturing to Freya to follow. She had to get out of there, one way or another. Freya would follow or she wouldn’t. Elsa was being cared for or not. Stern had suffocated in the lab or lived. The bomb was gone or there were a hundred ready to rain down on Europe. It no longer mattered to her. Walk. Just walk.
The guards at the barricades were picking themselves up but weren’t interested in one ragged girl when there was the end of the world to look at. Sarah just kept going, keeping her mind clear of anything that could sap her waning resolve.
As she turned away from the gates onto the road, she felt a nuzzling in her back. Freya was bumping her nose into Sarah. Bump. Bump. Bump.
“Hey,” Sarah mumbled over her shoulder. Bump. Bump. “How exactly do you think I’m going to get onto you?” Bump. Bump. Bump.
The pair shuffled along the road, Sarah unable to run, Freya unable to leave her.
* * *
• • •
The bar was nearly empty. Most patrons had long since left, but the town’s more dedicated drinkers were gathered to toast the first minutes of Christmas Day. This particular evening had been very exciting. There had been a booming noise and strange lights in the sky, which had led to an animated debate.
The door opened, triggering a bell and letting in a cold draft. The discussion petered out as, one by one, the drinkers turned to look at Sarah as she passed them. She was dressed in ripped and sooty riding gear and a stained red silk nightdress, wrong for her age. Her face was burned, and her golden hair, long since shaken loose from a long braid, was matted with dried blood. She trailed a dirty bandage from her hand across the floor. Around her neck was a sparkling necklace of clear stones so thick they must have been fake.
She approached the bar, one eye twitching. “Can I use your telephone?”
The barman wanted to ask a question, but something in the girl’s expression discouraged him. He pointed to a cubbyhole in the corner. She didn’t move.
“I need a pfennig.”
The barman again decided that discretion was the better part of valor. He fished out a coin and proffered it. She took it and hobbled to the phone.
No one talked while she made her call, but she couldn’t be overheard. When she finished, she returned to the bar.
“Do you have a dog bowl?” Sarah asked.
He was intimidated, but curiosity overcame the barman. “What do you need a dog bowl for?”
“For the horse. Unless you have a horse bowl, of course, in which case I’ll have that. Except there isn’t such a thing as a horse bowl, is there?”
“Not that I know of,” he said defensively.
“So I need a dog bowl, then,” she said, as if explaining something to a toddler. “Don’t I?”
* * *
• • •
Sarah climbed into the front seat with some difficulty. Her body evidently didn’t intend to function a second more than necessary.
The Captain pulled away from the curb. They drove in silence, away from the town, down the country lanes, merging with bigger roads and highways like a stream joins a river.
“So, that’s not your blood?” he asked finally.
“No.” Sarah stared ahead.
“You’re wearing a nightdress.”
“Stop the car.”
“I just asked—”
“STOP THE VERFLUCHTE CAR,” Sarah screamed with sudden venom.
The Captain came to a halt on the side of the road.
Sarah spun around and began swinging her fists at him in a vicious, unfocused rage. He raised his hands to fend her off, but he didn’t stop her.
“You Scheißkerl, you knew, you knew, you knew what he was, you knew . . .” Tears stung her burned cheeks.
&nb
sp; “Knew what? What are you talking about?” he interrupted, raising his voice over hers.
“You knew about him, that’s why you sent me, why you knew I could get in there—” Her voice grew more frantic, her blows weaker.
“What about whom?” Sarah couldn’t tell if he was actually confused or not.
“About Schäfer, that he—he liked—” Sarah lacked the vocabulary, even a grasp of the concept. She realized she didn’t truly know what Schäfer would have done if Elsa hadn’t intervened. If anything, the ignorance was even more terrifying. “That he liked . . . you knew. You Arschloch, you knew.”
“Sarah. What. Did. I. Know?” he asked gently.
“That he . . . liked to have his daughter, who was now too old for him, invite girls to the house.”
He was silent. It was too dark to see his face properly.
“No, I didn’t,” he said finally.
“You liar. You’re lying. What did I say to you about lying? When we first started, what did I say?”
“I didn’t—”
“What did I say?” she screeched.
“Never to lie to you.”
“Or?”
“Withhold any information.”
“Well?”
“I didn’t lie to you, or withhold anything.” His delivery was flat. Unreadable.
“You’re lying,” she howled. She hit him again, and again, the tears turning into sobs.
“Sarah—”
“Shut up, just shut up—”
He took hold of her hands. She tried to pull away, but her wrist hurt too much.
“Look at me. Look. At. Me.”
Sarah wouldn’t. He waited. Finally, she looked at him out of the corner of her eye.
“I didn’t know.”
In the moonlight and reflected headlights it was impossible to tell if he was lying or not. As so often, his face was like a mask. She pulled her hands free.
“Do you believe me?” he asked, and for a moment Sarah thought he might be hurt.
“Do you honestly care, one way or another?”