I stopped and listened, but in the first seconds I only had my own, strained breath in my ears.
There!
A distant rustling.
The crunching of snow under a heavy boot.
I had them again. When I got the three men back into my field of vision, they were just about to cross a man-high wall that separated the cemetery from the rest of Frankfurt. They seemed to feel a little more confident now, because I could hear them exchanging quiet, whispered words without being able to understand them. They took off their backpacks and bags, loosened their muscles tensed from carrying the load and took some time to breathe as I slowly sneaked closer to them.
The men leaned their rifles against the wall and began to throw their stolen goods over. I wondered if there was anyone on the other side who received the bags? Were others involved? A third party I didn’t know of? Hopefully not. And at first there was no indication, because when all the bags and backpacks had found their way across the wall, they shouldered their weapons and climbed over the obstacle. After the last of them had disappeared to the other side of the wall, I started to move, too. When I had reached the spot where they had climbed up, I could hear sounds from the other side, which let me assume that the three of them took up their load again and wanted to continue on their way. As the sound of their footsteps soon told me that they were slowly moving away, I dared to pull myself up a bit and peered over the edge, choosing exactly the spot that the three had already freed from the snow through their climbing action.
On the other side of the wall was the backyard of a car dealership. To my right a showroom with huge and still intact windows, then a few meters of courtyard and to my left the men disappeared just around the corner of a rather large office container. As far as I could see, the whole complex had been spared from past fighting. The glass panes of the showroom all were still unbroken so plunderers had obviously not yet struck here either. The trendy little city runabouts that were standing around here were a little ... out nowadays. The contours of the other vehicles standing in a row in the yard seemed to be just as undamaged and even under the thick layer of snow, they seemed just like they had rolled off the conveyor belts just a minute ago. I did it like my prey, threw the crossbow on my back and climbed over the wall - not very elegant, but almost soundlessly.
When I reached the bottom corner of the container and peered around it, I saw that another showroom adjoined the container at right angles. Within the this way created courtyard were more cars, also snow-covered. Deeply crouched and the crossbow ready to shoot, I moved along the path that the three had left, towards the door in the corner of the L-shaped building.
A faint light penetrated through the cracks of the glass front barricaded with wooden boards and junk, and when I had opened the door quietly and then carefully slipped through, I saw that every few meters a small oil lamp stood on the floor and radiated weak, gently flickering warmth. I followed this trace of light to the left, tense to the extreme, and when I got my eyes on the three again, I flinched back.
They had laid down their burdens and distributed them in the middle of the former office, whose desks, copy stations and computers had been pushed together near a wall into a loveless pile of useless things, apparently without following any particular system. One of the men - the one who had gone ahead the whole time - was kneeling next to an old bed and apeared to be quietly talking to a person who had to be buried there under a mountain of pillows and blankets. The other two began to unpack their loot - according to what I could see in the dim light, it was mainly water bottles and canned food - and to drape them in arm’s length around the camp.
I was very lucky that none of them looked in my direction the moment I appeared in the door frame and I quickly pressed myself into the merciful shade donated by an upright standing office desk.
What happened here?
Apparently these three took care of someone who had to be helpless in some way. Whether old, sick or injured, I could not say. I quietly laid my crossbow on the floor so as not to bump into anything with the rather bulky weapon and this way make some treacherous noise and peeked out of my hiding place again.
The unpacking of the loot was finished. Now two of the men, one on the right and one on the left, sat at the sickbed and spoke quietly to the helpless creature. The third had taken off his thick jacket and got ready to carry something that must have been a kind of night harness with long arms towards some doors on the back wall of the office. Probably had some kind of toilet back there.
Once more I let my gaze wander and tried to grasp the room completely. The men’s guns leaned against the left wall, but I suspected that the two at the sickbed resembled the one who had taken off his jacket and like him carried an additional pistol on their belts.
What did these men actually steal?
I saw various tin cans and other, mostly shrink-wrapped, culinary relics of a past time, which I immediately recognized - they had been part of everyone’s everyday life for so long, and even after the third Great War they still represented the main component of our diet. Fortunately, most of it could still be consumed after the expiration date had long passed.
What else was there?
Warm clothes, more blankets that were certainly intended for the patient, some tools, batteries, also some for cars, and a few bottles that were filled with something. Probably they had the oil in it with which they operated the lamps. All in all, it looked as if the three were about to say goodbye to Ivan’s regime and some not too distant future. Then why didn’t they just leave?
Well, probably because the sick person - I could not tell the gender because of the bad light and the multitude of blankets under which the figure was hidden - was not strong enough for such a journey. Or maybe because they didn’t know where their journey should be going to.
I myself was in a dilemma.
To denounce the three men to Ivan would probably let me arise high as far as his confidence in me was concerned. But on the other hand, I could not blame the three thieves for not longer wanting to bow to his methods. The fact that they cared for someone here, that they cared for someone else in general, made them almost sympathetic to me.
Should I tell Ivan I lost them? Miserably failed my very first mission? Would he give me another
chance? Would Wanda have to pay for my failure as he had threatened?
Just as I wanted to pull my head back and, hide back behind the table and continue to think about it, a scream sounded.
“Watch out, there’s someone there!”
A second of rustle of clothes, suppressed swearing and the trampling of boots. And then, accompanied by the and inhumanly loud crashing of the shots in the small room, the first bullets hit the table top. While splinters flew around my ears, I grabbed my crossbow.
I yelled that they should stop, but they didn’t hear me.
Wanda
Wanda had a bad dream. When she woke up, she couldn’t say exactly what it had been about. However, there were confusing and disturbing images dancing in front of her retina, even after she had long since opened her eyes. Pictures of dogs beating their teeth into the flesh of prisoners. Memories of the grimaces of the degenerates, their mouths turned to horrible laughter. The faces of men they’d raped her over and over again. The emaciated figures of the other prisoners. The shredded abdomen of a girl who could no longer scream because a degenerate had bitten off her tongue after she had penetrated the poor thing again and again with a glass bottle. And Thomas had also been there. Thomas, who reported a food theft to his watcher, miserably begging for reward. Thomas, in whose gaze the horror and fear were gradually replaced with horniness and gloating.
Wanda pushed these pictures away with all her might.
Almost every night she had a dream like this, and every time she woke up she was relieved when she looked over at the lounger on which, cuddled under a thick blanket, Mariam was sleeping.
She sat down next to Mariam on the lounger. The girl muttered
restlessly in her sleep. Wanda gently stroked the child’s hair. The forced state of inaction caused her more and more problems, she had talked to him about that. But she hadn’t told him that she had found ways and means to deal with it a little better.
She listened outside. Just the usual noises of the nocturnal camp. As quietly as she could she pulled out the bundle from below her field lounger. If she until further notice was sentenced to be stuck here in the tent and wait until he came back to deliver his daily report and then completely exhausted fall asleep on his own lounger, at least she could make preparations.
Preparing for the right moment. For the moment they could finally leave the tent and Ivan’s damn camp for good. Of course he was right. Being trapped here offered a certain security. But nevertheless, it was a captivity. And she had already had more than enough of that for several lives.
Sure, what she was doing was dangerous and somehow it wasn’t right to drag Mariam into it. But here, where there was at least a little order and a kind of civilization, even if it seemed to slowly become less and less, the puppy protection reflex that most men had still worked halfway. That’s why Wanda wasn’t particularly worried that anything would happen to the child if they caught her red- handed.
Also today, Mariam, who was now sleeping contentedly again, had been on the move. Slipped under the tarpaulin when they could hear the guards talking quietly on the other side and being more occupied with their own matters than with keeping an eye on Wanda and Mariam.
Mariam had come back with some clothes made of robust fabric, dirty rags more than anything else, but they would do the trick. The durability was much more important than a comfortable wearing sensation and Mariam soon had learned what to look for on her nocturnal excursions.
Apparently something had happened yesterday that the girl hadn’t talked about yet. But Wanda could tell by the proud little girl face Mariam had made when she delivered her loot, that she was okay. During their little bedtime ritual, Wanda also had noticed, Mariam had tried to ask something twice. But apparently she hadn’t really dared to speak out. Wanda would try to get a little more information and details out of the girl during the day, perhaps after Gustav’s visit. For the time being, however, she would start sewing.
Shepard
Reflexively recoiling from the sudden hail of bullets, I escaped around the corner into the entrance area of the office container and out of the direct field of fire of the three thieves. They stopped firing as soon as I was out of sight and I could tell from the characteristic sounds that they changed the magazines of their pistols and then one of them whispered instructions that I could not understand. I crawled backwards a few meters, trembling with adrenaline, and took aim at the corner.
What should I do now? The thought of surrendering to them and hoping for their willingness to engage in dialogue did not suit me at all. They had been too quick with the weapons at hand.
Quiet rustling.
They seem to have moved cautiously towards the corner. Shit, if the three of them stormed around the corner, I didn’t stand a chance. I could only get one of them with the crossbow before the others would sift me. I had just decided to simply take flight and hope that none of the three had seen my face, when a barking order sounded from outside ... from outside the container.
“Fire!”
When the hellish roar of automatic weapons started, I threw myself on the floor, slapped my hands over my ears and didn’t know where to go. In my panic I must have accidentally pressed the trigger of the crossbow and the bolt broke through an powerless and dead office printer. But given the multitude of howling ricochets, flying bullets and splinters, that was the least of the problems. Everywhere around me whirred, flashed, clanked and crashed the shots. A table was torn around by a volley and spun through the room, as if moved by a ghostly hand, before it hit another table and the monitor on it fell down and then swung back and forth, held only by its cables. Something plucked at the collar of my parka and it smelled burned, and right in front of me on the ground was suddenly a hole of the diameter of my index finger, which had not been there for a split second before. Above me a neon tube burst and fine glass splinters rained down on me from the ceiling. I can’t say how long the hellish, seemingly never-ending hail of bullets lasted, but just before the end of the unexpected inferno my brain slowly began to work again.
That voice that had given the order to shoot sounded familiar. And when the shots became rarer and finally did not take place at all anymore, I was sure it was the voice of blond Rolf.
Ivan’s captain. And when I heard the words from outside:
“Three men with me, the rest secure outside”, I received the final confirmation. Rolf must have followed me with some of Ivan’s boys, probably to check on me. Annoyed and appalled at my own negligence, I wondered how they had managed not to get noticed by me. For the time being, I blamed it on the hunting fever that had gripped me. The sound of heavy boots behind me, the small glass and plastic splinters crushed under her thick soles, brought me back to the here and now. I had to reveal myself immediately if I didn’t want to get shot by Rolf and his people. I got on my knees and folded my arms behind my head.
“Rolf! Don’t shoot! It’s me! I’m here!”
Luckily for me, the hail of bullets had shattered some of the tiny oil lamps so that several small fires had broken out in the interior of the container, which did not yet pose a danger, but compared to before caused a significant increase in brightness. Rolf should actually be able to recognize me, and I turned my face to the door, in the frame of which his grim face appeared at that very moment. His eyes felt his new surroundings and although his gaze was no longer resting on my face than on the rest of the room, I was sure he had actually recognized me.
Steadily moving the barrel of his assault rifle back and forth, he took a step into the room and waved three of Ivan’s boys, also armed with assault rifles, to follow him. For a moment it seemed to me as if he deliberately kept the barrel of the gun on me for quite a long time, then he ordered:
“You three, come on, see if there’s still some one alive apart from this guy.”
Only when he several seconds later received an answer in the form of a somehow sober-sounding:
“They are all dead,” he nodded, dropped his weapon and ordered me with a thrifty gesture to get up and go ahead. I obeyed him with soft knees. As we turned the corner, I immediately understood why the answer to Rolf’s question had sounded so cautious. The one of Ivan’s boys from whom she had come stood petrified in front of the completely torn bodies of the three renegades and stared down at them. The hail of bullets that Rolf had conjured upon the container had turned the sheet metal outer wall into a sieve and cold winter air drove away the smell of old sickness and fresh death.
The table, which had protected me from the pistol shots of the three renegades, which in direct comparison seemed quiet puny, lay scattered in the room torn to pieces of the size of the palm of my hand. It was the same with several body parts of the three thieves. The men had literally been shot to shreds and on the opposite side of the room the sifted sheet metal wall was covered in red with their blood, fragments of bone and skin that could no longer be attributed to its original owners.
While I let my gaze glide over the deformed corpses, accompanied by suppressed choking noises of the man in front of me, Rolf stepped closer. His hand lay heavy on my shoulder and pushed me aside.
“Move over, you lucky son of a bitch.”
The look he gave me was so sober and objective and contrasted so much with the man next to us who was still struggling for his self-control that I couldn’t help but obey to his words. He passed me as if all the death to his feet and the spreading stench of blood and torn intestines left him completely untouched, and walked towards the bed further back.
It was only at that moment that I really realized that Rolf had not given the fire order to save me. It didn’t matter to him whether I too was shot to pieces or not. Collateral dam
age is what this is called. I got cold when I realized the real extent of my luck.
Was it something personal for Rolf? Did he wish me dead?
Or had he merely behaved in this way in order to keep the risk for the men entrusted to him as low as possible? His voice ripped me out of my belated sense of shock.
“Hey, come on, come over here. Do you know this one?”
Surrounded by his three men, he stood next to the sleeping place and beckoned me. And while the redsleeve next to me still gave his stomach contents to the corpses, I walked deeper into the room, towards the sickbed.
I actually knew it, that pale, feverish, sickly figure that I saw lying there, and although the face that was seen within all those blankets now looked more pathetic than terrifying, my hands clenched in fists.
It was Onehand who was staring at me and when he recognized me too, he took a deep breath, cleared his throat and spat bloody slime in my direction. A bullet or splinter had shredded his right cheek and through the hole I could see the yellowish shimmer of his molars. He too, as if by some miracle, had not been killed in the ludicrous firestorm that Rolf had cast upon the container. His lifesavers had been the stacked supplies and the pieces of prewar technology, which had stood in the way of the bullets and catched them, and which were now lying scattered throughout the room.
Suddenly I couldn’t stand the chaos, the storm of memory shreds and new sensations anymore, turned around and walked out, infinitely slowly, so it seemed to me.
***
As I laid down my dirty clothes on my lounger in the tent assigned to us and began to wash, I told Wanda what had happened. Meanwhile it had become morning, because with the captured Onehand on an improvised stretcher and the stolen goods of the renegades on our backs we did not return to the camp particularly quickly, even though we were altogether a dozen women and men and this time covered the way above ground.
Under Ivans Knout: The Gospel of Madness (Book 2 of 6) (The Gospel of Madness - (A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller Series)) Page 4