by G T Almasi
“No!” I shout.
Gross!
Brando rises from his prone position on the two seats next to me and surveys the area. Traffic, farmland, and more traffic. He cranes his neck to see the roadblock in front of the gloriously named town of Walddorfhäslach.
He comms, “We’re going pretty slowly.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “Yeah? And?”
“You could go behind those big bushes.”
I look out at the tall shrubs and hedges lining the road. I can’t see through them at all.
“Fine,” I grumble.
I hop out of the Meat Locker and run into the thicket. When I’m properly out of sight, I drop trou and do my business. A napkin serves as T.P.
I emerge from my Girl Scout powder room. The Meat Locker is in the checkpoint, which looks like a hobo yard sale. The gate is simply a railroad tie propped up on two shopping carts. Four slobs work each side of the barrier. One quartet scrutinizes the traffic headed into town, and the other foursome inspects cars leaving for points west.
The weekend warriors at previous roadblocks have been so impressed by our aristocratic go-cart they’ve just waved us through.
Not this time. The four well-armed militiamen surround the car, barking orders at my guys inside.
“Darwin,” I comm, “what do these fuckers want?”
“They’re demanding we step out of the car.”
“Why?”
Before my partner can answer, Krysta rolls down the driver’s window. His long arm reaches out to grab the nearest guard’s shirt. Krysta yanks the goon against the car’s side and holds him there. A sharp bang precedes the sudden exodus of Herr Goon’s brains from the back of his skull.
Madrenaline rushes into my bloodstream and everyone except me and Krysta moves in slow motion. I unholster my sidearms and flick off their safeties before the three remaining guards raise their guns from their sides. One guard brandishes a Walther pistol, one carries a Mauser rifle, and the third troublemaker totes a Sauer submachine gun.
Herr Sauer is the most dangerous, so I unleash Li’l Bertha on him first. She rips his arms off. The Sauer SMG clatters to the pavement, followed by its owner. While my left hand absorbs Li’l Bertha’s heavy recoil, my right hand aims Punx at Herr Mauser. The railgun launches a volley into Mauser’s backbone, severing it in at least five places.
Krysta leaps out of the car and fires his LB503 at Herr Walther. Wet, nasty chunks fly away from Walther’s midsection and drop to the street, followed by his lifeless body.
Maybe I’ll skip the sausage at supper tonight.
I run to our car, heave the rear door open, and jump in. Krysta is already back behind the wheel and floors it. I roll my window down, haul myself out, and sit on the door sill. My elbows rest on the car’s roof while my guns blaze at the four guards on the other side of the gate. I nearly fall out when Krys, instead of driving straight through the barrier, swerves left into the roadside fence. The Meat Locker’s sturdy front end makes mincemeat of the thin wooden stakes and we barrel into town.
We flash down a tidy street of small stores and modest houses. Children point and grown-ups gape. I hold my guns flat to the roof; no need to frighten the civilians. Less than a minute later, we exit the other side of Walddorwhatever.
“Tiny town,” Doska comments.
Before any of us can answer, a stand of trees to our left disintegrates in a ball of fire. We all swivel our heads, looking for the source. I see it first, coming up behind us.
“Chopper, six o’clock high!”
It’s a narrow-bodied helicopter. The pilots sit front and rear instead of side by side. The aircraft’s flanks bristle with rocket pods and machine guns. It looks like an armored wasp.
The helicopter bears down on us and pounds twin rows of bullet holes into the road. Krysta swings onto a small side street that takes us into a wooded area on the edge of town. The enemy gunship pulls up to avoid the trees. His rockets blow the upper forest apart and shower us with abruptly pruned foliage.
“How the fuck does this burg rate an attack helicopter?”
Krysta pilots our big car around the country lane’s tight corners, narrowly missing trees, ditches, and protruding rocks. We lose a lot of momentum to stay on the curves, but at least we’re concealed.
And then we aren’t. The wooded path leads to a wide clearing. It’s not natural, nor is it empty.
“Golf course,” Doska comms.
“And tents,” Krys adds. “Hundreds of ’em.”
“Christ,” Patrick comms. “It’s a Staatszeiger encampment!”
Rows of tents blanket the ground. Flattened grass gasps between furrows of red-brown dirt rutted by thousands of marching feet and the wheels of hundreds of trucks, motorcycles, and jeeplike Kübelwagens. Many of the toadies already face our direction, following the helicopter’s noisy flight. When our Meat Locker barges out of the woods in a cloud of branches and burning leaves, I can practically see the little question marks over their heads.
Was die Teufel ist das? What the hell is that?
The chopper pilot completes his circle and steadies into a hover directly over the camp. The rotor wash buffets the soldiers with a billowing cloud of dust. Our Mercedes serpentines across the first hole and sails over a sand trap. The car’s undercarriage catches on a tent and carries it away. Krysta’s Dukes of Bavaria stunt lands with a grinding bang. The noise is nearly lost amid the incredible bedlam we’ve stirred up.
I sight through Li’l Bertha’s targeting sensor and lock onto the thrumming helicopter. I dial up “Pu-Pu Platter” and pull her trigger. My pistol’s flight of .50-caliber Incendiaries and Explosives streaks through the dust clouds and splatters into the chopper’s windscreen. A fiery ball of smoke swirls around the helicopter.
Krysta wrangles the Meat Locker onto a fairway and redlines the motor. We barrel down a path between the tents. We hit so many knuckle-draggers I have to duck back inside to avoid their spinning bodies. One squad bounces off the Mercedes to the rhythm of “Shave-and-a-Haircut.”
Thump, thump-a thump thump! Thump! Thump!
We skid across the second hole and burrow into the woods beyond. Krys follows a thin path between the trees. Patrick and I look out the rear window. The forest’s edge sweeps past us until we emerge onto a farm’s plowed field. The car bounces across the muddy furrows. Our speed drops precipitously.
The car sluices like it’s on an ice rink. Krysta spins the steering wheel back and forth. “Gówno!” Shit! He desperately tries to keep us from getting stuck. Mud spatters all over the windows. Each big bounce shoves our heads into the ceiling. Then our straining motor is drowned out by something louder and bigger.
Brando sees it first. “Chopper’s back!”
The damaged helicopter cuts through our airborne mudslide and soars over the fields. The front-most pilot slumps in his seat behind the shattered windscreen, but the copilot swings his bird behind us, firing his machine guns with a vengeance. I hike myself back out the window and aim my pistols at the approaching gunship. Li’l Bertha’s sensors activate her gyroscopes and supply an aiming reticle for Punx. I squeeze both triggers and fill the sky with slugs and disks. My weapons’ combined recoil pushes me off balance and I lean back like the crew of a racing boat. Krysta swerves to avoid the incoming fire and jellies over a plowed strip of earth. The car tilts crazily. I fall out the window and splat into the dirt, still firing my sidearms.
“Darwin!” I comm.
The enemy helicopter thunders past me, chasing the Meat Locker. I roll onto my side to keep my pistols pointed at the steel wasp in time to see a plume of flame spout from directly beneath the rotating blades. The tail rotor stops turning and the helicopter pirouettes wildly. Before the pilot can regain control, his craft slams into the ground and explodes.
I roll onto my stomach and cover
my head against the hail of scrap metal.
“Scarlet,” Patrick comms. “You all right?”
“Yeah, I think so.” I stand and jog across the field to catch up with my teammates, trying to brush the mud off me. I’m absolutely filthy.
Krysta has coerced the car out of the field and waits for me on a dry dirt road. Sharp, acrid smoke from the wrecked helicopter coats the roof of my mouth. By the time I reach my team, my eyes are watering and I’m coughing like a coal miner. I open the door and stop in my tracks. The car’s fine leather upholstery glimmers like a royal throne.
Brando says, “What’sa matter? Get in.”
“I can’t get in there like this.” Cough, cough. I stand back and hold my arms out to my sides. “Look at all this mud on me!”
My partner stares at me for a moment and then starts laughing. When he tells Krys and Dos what I said, they bust out laughing, too.
Boys.
24
FOUR DAYS LATER, FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 10:20 P.M. CEST
DACHAU, GREATER GERMANY
It’s been four days since we nearly got churned into helichop suey. We’ve raced, hidden, and fought our way across Germany’s southernmost region, Bavaria. Despite the distance we’ve traveled, our view remained the same. To our left seethed sectarian warfare. To our right the indifferent Alps shrugged their majestic shoulders. Straight ahead, somewhere, loomed our next objective, Dachau.
After our first day on the road, my partner and I introduced Krys and Dos to our finely honed urban survival techniques, commonly known as a crime wave. We swagged meals from markets, siphoned gas from parked cars, and broke into under-occupied buildings for shelter. The farther east we drove, the more utilities we found still in service. Shops even had their lights on, which was great; it meant we could actually see what the hell we were stealing. We mostly took food, but last night we scrounged a few loads of laundry to slough the mud, crud, and gore out of our fast-fraying duds.
It’s the middle of the night when we finally make it to Dachau. Krys, Dos, Brando, and I droop in our seats as we roll into town. We’re hungry, exhausted, and—speaking for myself—pretty ripe from going a week without a shower. My head hurts because the dry, crunchy bandage on top of my scalp has scraped it raw. Mine isn’t even the most severe injury—Patrick’s stitched ear has become a pus-oozing mess. It’s hard to say which is grodier, his wound’s appearance or its smell.
My partner takes his turn driving our grubby Mercedes, renamed the “Mud Locker” for the comprehensive layer of dirt caked on every surface.
“Tune in to my commphone,” he tells me. “I found the Dachau House’s comm-code in the FED. We’re close enough to comm ahead for reservations.”
I patch into his call. “Dachau,” he comms. “This is Darwin plus three. Do you copy?”
After a moment we hear a woman’s comm-voice, “Darwin, this is Dachau. You’re nearby?”
“Yes.”
“Do you need directions?”
“No, ma’am.”
“You have a car?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Very good, I’ll leave the garage door open. Dachau out.”
A few minutes later Brando swings the big car into an alley behind a row of neat two-story houses.
“Fifth house on the left,” Patrick says to himself, counting the fenced-in little backyards. “Blue shed…There it is.” He turns onto a short driveway in front of a flimsy-looking one-car garage. The blue door is open. Brando eases the giant auto inside. The shed is so narrow our car doors can’t open. We climb out the windows and slide off the back. Our butts leave clean smears in the dirt on the trunk lid.
The house is dark, until a single light comes on and pours a long shadow from the back door. The shadow’s source is six feet tall, full-figured, and wears a kerchief tied over her hair. The silhouetted figure greets us.
“Welkommen.” Welcome. “Ich bin Helen Räder.”
We hoist our duffel bags out of the Mud Locker’s trunk. I comm to Brando, “What’s with the names on this mission?”
“Whaddya mean?”
“Didn’t she just say her name is Hell On Wheels?”
“Not exactly,” he comms back. “Räder means ‘wheels,’ more like you’d find on a—”
“But it still comes out—”
“Yes.” He grins. “In English it comes out as Helen Wheels. But German doesn’t have that expression.”
We clomp into Helen Wheels’s kitchen and squint in the brightly lit room. The aroma of home-cooked food is heavenly.
Helen shuts the door and seats us at her kitchen table, which she loads with meat and cheese sandwiches, bowls for a stew bubbling on the stove, and a small pot of sausages in heavy gravy.
The four of us tear into this hearty feast like a pack of starving coyotes. We eat with such vigor I imagine bones flying above our snarling heads. Helen circles the table refilling our soup bowls and beer mugs until we lean back groaning in our chairs with our hands over our tummies.
Krysta releases a big belch. Doska frowns at his uncouth partner, but Krysta just smiles and says, “Delicious. Thank you, Helen.”
“Bitte.” You’re welcome. She takes an armful of our dishes to the dishwasher. “Now,” she says, nodding her chin at the bandages on my and Brando’s heads. “It looks like at least two of you need a doctor.”
Patrick touches a splotched length of tape holding a pad to his left ear. “Yes, ma’am.”
“I will call someone. In the meantime, you people settle downstairs.” We follow Helen to a small closet under the stairs. Inside the closet, behind a row of neatly hung winter coats, Helen slides a panel to the side. Behind it is a steep cellar staircase. Our hostess leads us down the steps.
Her basement is sparely furnished. Two rows of aluminum-framed cots line the big open room, four on each side. The table in the middle is just a sheet of plywood over short columns of milk crates. The floor is white linoleum and the walls are light pine veneer. Definitively not the Ritz, but it’s clean, which is more than I can say for us.
Helen walks between the cots to a pair of white doors. “This isn’t the first House I’ve run,” she says. “Rather plain sleeping quarters serve well enough, but my visitors always appreciate a chance to wash up.” She opens the two white doors to reveal a matching pair of full bathrooms. Each sparkling room has a toilet, sink, lots of counter space, and a walk-in shower stall.
I dump out my duffel bag on a cot, grab a set of underthings, and march straight through the left door.
“Girl’s room,” I announce. “You stinkos take the other one.”
One of the boys protests, “Hey—”
Slam!
I haven’t been alone in days. I slowly shuck off my pistol harness, carefully unwrap the grubby bandage from my head, then peel off the rest of my clothes. In the steamy shower it takes three soapings to get my skin clean. Next I try to wash my hair, but the shampoo stings like crazy. I can’t even rub my fingers near the top of my scalp without searing pain, so I settle for a rinse while the water massages my shoulders.
I towel off in front of the sink. What I see in the mirror does not make me happy. I look forty instead of twenty. The lines around my eyes and mouth are deeper, plus the white streak through my red hair is wider. Sooner than later, people are gonna stop calling me “miss.”
First kid who calls me “ma’am” gets a pistol grip up their nose.
I pull on my Friday panties, denim shorts, and orange Bugs Bunny T-shirt, then return to the main room. Patrick sits on one of the beds jotting in his notebook. His hair is wet. He wears his red Indy 500 T-shirt over plaid boxers. Doska, stretched out next to him, reads one of Germany’s many newspapers, Die Welt. Their serious expressions tell me they’re comming with each other, probably sharing bloggobytes of intel. From the other bathroom a gentle
hissing indicates Krysta is showering.
My partner notices me. He stares at my legs for a second before pulling his eyes back to his notes. Doska turns to see what Brando is looking at. His light-blue googlies appraise me from top to bottom, linger over my shiny clean tootsies, then return to his paper.
As the team’s leader and lone femme fatale, I’ve claimed three beds—one for sleeping, one for clothes, one for towels. I lay a heavy shirt, my black pants, and my red leather jacket next to my pistols in their harness. Then I pack everything else back in my canvas duffel. Finally I flop facedown on bed number one and shut my eyes.
I’m in a long, long hallway. The walls and arched ceiling are crumbly old bricks. The floor is so black, my feet look like they’re floating in outer space. As I walk, the passage becomes smaller and smaller. I bend down and continue onward. The hall gets tighter. I have to crawl. The ceiling scrapes my back. Then the ceiling presses me out of the corridor and I fall through the floor.
It’s freezing. I watch my fingers turn into icicles. The absolute cold paralyzes my limbs. Soon enough, my organs freeze. I drop through a doorway and crash down a flight of stairs. As I tumble, my body cracks into a thousand pieces, each with its own little eyeball, rolling wildly.
My legs thrash against the sweaty, tangled blankets. I kick off the covers and sit up. Krys is stretched out on his cot fast asleep. Dos has disappeared. The boys’ shower still gurgles with running water. Patrick looks up from Doska’s newspapers.
“Hey,” he comms. “You’re okay. It was just a dream.”
Footsteps from above indicate Helen has a visitor. I frown and roll off bed number one to my pile of gear on bed number two. When I click my pistols into my palms, Brando raises his gaze to the ceiling. A gentle scrape whispers from the top of the stairs. Someone’s opening the secret panel. I crouch next to my bed, taking aim at the entrance. Patrick scoots off his cot and hides behind it.
“Hallo-o-o!” Helen yells down to us.
Krysta—who I swear was dead asleep—pulls his gun from under his pillow and coils into a crouch on the floor. His arms extend like pistol-tipped tree branches, aimed at the entrance.