Something came over the leader and he was, as though it were, thrown into action. He turned and raced back toward the door. He had to stop it! He had to! The others followed on his heels, whether from horror or urgency they could not remember later.
Another smacking sound and another scream!
As they came to the door of the barn and burst out, a great chopping sound was heard and the screaming stopped, abruptly. Around the back side of the barn the swastika, though they could not see it, resumed its nearly indistinguishable appearance and the three men came to a halt for a brief second. They listened. Nothing. Their heart was beating out of their chest, driven by the adrenaline that pumped through their veins.
The leader took off again tearing around the side of the barn toward the back. As he approached the back of the barn he drew his automatic. He flew around the corner, caution thrown to the wind.
“Israeli Mossad, stop where you are!”
There was nobody there.
They all came to a stop once more their chests heaving for air.
They went forward and then they saw it!
The swastika was glowing, pulsating in the night air. They recoiled as if by reflex and stared unbelieving.
Chapter 4
They had all heard it. The three men in the house were just gaining the third floor when the scream pierced the night air. They ran up the stairs, throwing their beams around, unsure of where the scream had come from. Then it came again. This time they realized it was from out in the yard. The three ran to the window and peered out.
“Turn off your light; I can’t see anything out of this window.”
They stared for a few seconds, searching the yard for anybody. There was nobody out there that they could see.
The lead man of the three activated his mic and asked, “Element 2 leader to leader 1, are you guys alright?”
No response.
He was about to repeat the call when they saw the three down below come dashing out of the barn, stop for a second and disappear around the other side.
The three men in the house looked at each other with a greatly troubled expression on their faces. As one man they turned around and started back down the stairs.
What was going on down there? There was something creepy about this place! Why would their leader be running away from something? He had never known him to show fear, much less scream. Then he realized it wasn’t fear that caused the other men to run out of the barn and around the corner, someone was in trouble down there!
His earpiece crackled slightly and a voice boomed over it, nearly blowing his eardrum. “Element 2, get down here now!” He wouldn’t have even needed the earpiece; he could hear the leader’s voice right through the wall of the house.
They stormed down the stairs the rest of the way and ran down the hall and flew down the other set of stairs. They ran across the living room and burst the door nearly off its hinges and disappeared around the house toward the barn.
The old man was sweating now. Now they knew. His breath was coming in great heaves and his hands were shaking uncontrollably. He heard the screams and the banging –it was all too real for him . . .
It had been a sunny day in July so long ago when it happened.
Chapter 5
His parents were emigrants from Germany after the First World War. They came to make a new life for their family and try to erase the scars of the past. It was a partial success. In time his father had saved enough money to move to the Midwest and buy this farm, but the scars of the past never went away. In fact they never truly scarred, but remained a festering wound in the heart of his mother and father, mostly his father. As a young boy his head and heart was filled with many bitter words as he worked the field alongside his father and brothers. He had been the oldest and so it fell to him to hear all of the injustices of the world that had come down upon the head of Germany. His father had not hesitated to include America in the list of unjust, imperialistic forces of the world. Germany could not sustain the retribution, as Cain had said so long ago, her “punishment was greater than he can bear”. So it was with the Motherland. How were people to recover from the war, when their land lay in waste and destruction and upon them was cast blame for so many things, they could not bear it!
All his life he heard these things, until his heart too became black with bitterness, hatred, and revenge. He did not bear in mind the America that he hated was the America that fed him. He only longed to avenge his father and the family name, as well as the German people.
Then his father died prematurely. Shortly afterward, his mother died. The family went it separate ways, while he inherited the farm. As a young man he was very good looking and one day decided to go looking for a wife. He had no trouble finding one. He married a young, beautiful bride, German to be sure, and moved her out to the farm.
For some time the joy of marriage and children muted the black thoughts of bitterness. Without his father there to renew the source, it all faded to the back of his mind and heart. Until Hitler.
There was an awakening that took place with this man’s ascension to power and politics. He had sources to the homeland and received many papers declaring the rise of Germany once again, the new hope, the new beginning, the lasting solution…the Third Reich. He was ecstatic and enthralled. Ecstatic that his native land had risen from the ashes and enthralled in everything that Hitler did. So much so, that as Hitler became more anti-Semitic in his speeches, policies, and writings that he bought into it wholeheartedly.
Suddenly from the darkest corner of his heart the past hatred came crawling into the throne of his existence. It took him over. He changed. He became a different man. He neglected his wife, his family; brooding became his hobby.
All things coalesced in his mind to accept what this man Hitler was saying. He believed it was all the Jews’ fault. It ate at him night and day until one day he went to his father’s grave. There he swore that he would get even.
He knew of a Jewish man in the town who owned a business, he was not wealthy, but that didn’t matter. He would do.
The day came. He had planned it out over a period of months. He went into town and kidnapped the man. No one had seen him. No one had known. He brought him back to the farm. The Jew was a timid and feeble man who did not resist, but refused to accept what was happening, until he told him he was going to pay for the debts of Germany. The man offered him money which only stirred the cauldron of bitterness, bringing to the top frothing hatred and evil laughter. He would accept no money, but would take greater pleasure in doing what he would.
The family was away and there was no one around as far as the eye could see. He tied the man up and left him in the car while he went to get what was needed.
He painted a black swastika outside the back wall of the barn facing away from the house. He then went and retrieved his hostage. When he pulled the man from the car the old man again tried to reason with him. He laughed again, spat in his face and jerked him along.
He had nailed the ropes to the barn and tied the man in a sitting position with his hands spread out to the side. Above him the swastika loomed, its black paint running down into the man’s graying hair.
***
The old German man allowed a tear to come to his eye as he recalled this last portion. He had showed no mercy. He had been cruel. He had been evil. Now they had come for him.
***
He had reached down and picked up the axe and held it in the Jew’s face. The man had started to sob. Then the Jew pled for his life. He had chopped his arm with the axe, partially severing it. The blood sprayed out over both of them, on the ground, and on the barn wall. It splattered on the swastika.
The Jew began to cry out in Hebrew! It was this that drove him over the edge and he cursed him incoherently for living. He began hacking away at the man, spraying blood, tissue, and bone about the ground. Finally, after the man screamed out in He
brew again, he swung the axe with his might toward that vital place and there the screams stopped and the Jew’s life ended. He took the blood and painted over the swastika with it until it was covered.
***
Now the old man knew that the screams he had heard were real, and not just his guilty past playing with his imagination. In the house above him the feet of the men were pounding wildly down, through the house, and then out the door.
One thing held the answer. One thing alone.
He had to know!
Those screams! They were just as real as the day it happened so long ago. Could it be? Was the dead come to tell its tale?
He had to know!
He turned and crawled further into the darkness until he came to a cellar door. He removed the piece of wood from the lock and pulled on the door. He had to tug with great effort before it noisily began to move.
***
The six men stood staring at the swastika. The mission had come to an end, they sensed it. This was the place; months of searching and coming up with nothing and now finally they knew. Still, they were sickened as their leader repeated what had happened in the barn.
“He is here. I feel it. Men, true justice will be served this night upon the head of the man who did this.” He looked them all solemnly in the eyes. “He is in the house, somewhere. The man must be old. If he is alive he will not go far. He is in the house.”
Element 2 leader spoke up. “There is definitely someone living in there.”
“It’s him.” He looked back at the swastika. “Let’s go.”
***
By this time, the old man had gotten the door opened and was now closing it after his dog and him. He had put a bar lock on the inside many years ago; he now secured it firmly putting the bar in place. He turned around and into the cellar. The blackness was almost like a pulsating, inky, darkness. He thought he saw dark forms moving about. His heart caught in his throat. He stared, but could not penetrate the darkness nor tell if it truly was figures or just his old eyes.
Then, as if by some quirk of nature or the supernatural, moonlight began to filter into the cellar, until the entire low space was illuminated by an eerie greenish light.
There lay the wooden caskets upon sawhorses. There were eight of them. The old man hesitated, but he pressed onward toward the neatly arranged rows of wooden caskets. He did not hesitate in his choice though; he knew the one.
He had to work at the lid in order to lift it. The cold sweat mingled now with the sweat of exertion and he worked at the uneven edges. He got a crack opened up and worked his bony fingers into it, tearing the skin on the back of his fingers above his fingernails in the process. He never even noticed. Pulling up he worked the crack open more and then was able to put his other hand in.
With both hands working down the length of the casket, the rusted nails gave way and broke their hold. Still, the hinges he had put on were rusted. He had put hinges on all of their caskets, unsure of why he did it at the time, but now he understood. He knew that this day would come.
He lifted the lid with great effort and dared to watch as the contents came slowly in view.
He was still there! A sort relief came over him. The skeleton was wrapped in rotted clothes, but the skeleton was still there! It was not stealing about in the night behind him! It was not out telling any tales to its fellow Jews! He wanted to laugh, that evil laughter that comes to the throat of the insane. He did not. He just looked down at the skeleton, staring with vacant eyes.
***
The men broke down the front door. They were here as the ‘wrath of God’ now! They flowed in through the door like a winter storm through a cold mountain pass. This was final! Yet, in the back of their mind the strange event still filled each of them with a private trepidation.
The weakest among them, who almost gave away his fright at the chicken shed, was near panic. He believed in the mysterious and now his imagination dredged in his mind to bring up all of the stories that he had read about strange and unexplained events of the paranormal. He didn’t want to see a ghost! He determined never to read another one of those stories if he made it back home. If he made it back home!? What was he thinking? Had it come to this; fear for his life? He stopped and momentarily closed his eyes tight, trying to get a grip on himself. One of the other men noticed that he stopped moving.
“Let’s move it! C’mon!”
Still he remained there trying to get control. Something came over him that he had never felt before. He broke out in a cold sweat and started to tremble slightly.
The man behind him called out to the leader.
The leader had just started up the stairs and stopped.
“Something is wrong with him.” The man pointed to the other, with his eyes still shut and fists clenched around his weapon with knuckles white.
“Move out!” The leader called.
The man opened his eyes and tried to respond, but could only take a small step before resuming his former state.
The leader came back down the stairs and swiftly walked over to him, shining the light in his eyes. He could see the beads of cold perspiration covering his face; he took the light out of his eyes.
***
As the old man stood there looking at the skeleton he too was experiencing a feeling as of panic, yet he was heedless of the footsteps of the men just above him in the house. The trembling came back to him now, as did the cold sweat, running down his back. He wanted to slam the lid to the coffin down and never open it again. He wanted to get out from under this house and steal away into the night while the men were inside the house. He wanted to crawl somewhere in the undercover of the brush where he would never be found again. He wanted to do this, but he couldn’t. Instead, he just stared and shook uncontrollably.
As he stared, he saw something that literally stopped his heart. The leg bone moved! Ever so slightly, but he was sure that he saw it! He threw his head back in horror and let go of the lid. It slammed shut with a loud crash! He stood there and finally his senses caught up with the indescribable horror that he felt. He screamed. In his mind it was a scream, but what he heard was something different altogether. It was like the hoarse wail of a ghost, the shriek of a banshee, and the scream of the dying altogether. It was an indescribable sound.
***
The leader was just about to severely berate the shaking man in front of him when something slammed beneath the house. Every one froze where they were, no one spoke a word; they all just listened.
A couple of the other men unconsciously moved closer to the center of the room where the leader was, their glances were cast about into the dark corners and out the windows of the house. It was getting to all of them. They were men of action, men of logic, fearless and at times showing no mercy, but something about this place overcame their defense of skepticism and penetrated straight into their heart.
They were all a little scared now.
Then the wail pierced straight up through the boards of the floor and flooded the room like water all the way up to their ears. They could feel it in them it held their limbs down and rooted them where each of them stood.
It broke the weakest of them. He jerked his eyes open and started looking about wildly. None of them moved, but it seemed all stared at their comrade in the center of the room, as if they were seeing a depiction of their fear before their eyes.
He started mumbling unintelligible, the droplets of sweat dripping off of his lips into his mouth.
That was it! The leader overcame all their fright with one barked order.
“Regroup, now!”
They gladly came back to the center of the living room.
“Enough of this!” He slapped the frightened man in the face. “Snap out of it! What is the matter with you?”
He quit mumbling and stared as if coming out of a dream.
The leader turned to the other men and spoke quickly.
“He is under the house. That is why you didn’t find him before. There must be some secret entrance, probably in the house somewhere, but we are going to go outside and look for a way in. I don’t want him getting away. He is an old man, it is dark. He knocked something over down there and it frightened him as well as gave his hiding place away, so he cried out. Wake up men! Put all superstitious thoughts out of your mind!”
He looked them all over quickly. Then gave his orders. “Element 2, when we go out the door you go to the left and we will go to the right. Circle the house, looking for any way under it. If you find it, call.” He grabbed the man just in front of him, the frightened one, and spun him around to face the door. “Now, go!” He shoved him forward. “Lead us.”
They flew out the door, their professionalism restored and both teams split up, each in their designated direction.
The old man heard them scramble out the door and realized they were headed for the cellar. It was only a matter of time before they would find the entrance and break through his crude bar.
He turned to look at the cellar door; he wouldn’t make it out in enough time.
He turned to look at the caskets and knew what he had to do. He knew the time would come; he was ready.
Without hesitation he went over to a casket and looked down at it. Could he do it? Of coarse, he could! He was of the Germanic people! They never questioned whether something could be done, but simply did it! He would not let his name fall in shame. He would not disgrace his father!
He started to lift the lid and then realized something. He turned to look back at the casket of the Jewish man. The dust! He had disturbed the dust! They must not know the casket! They must not be able to figure out which one was which, including his own.
He took off his light jacket and began to disturb the dust on all of the caskets by rubbing them with his coat. His dog followed him whining at the behavior of his master.
Something caught his eye. The flashlight of the men could be seen through the cracks in the wood around the cellar. He had to hurry! He hobbled as quickly as he could from one and then to the other. By the time he finished his breath was ragged and his heart pounded with the exertion, fear, and adrenaline.
The Last Nazi Page 2