Shadows in the mist, p.28
Shadows in the Mist, page 28
“We have to. I overheard them talking. They’re gonna kill us.”
Chambers’s mouth tasted like an oily cloth. “Okay…I’ll create a diversion.”
Garcia’s shadowy head nodded then retreated back into the gloom of his closet. The window divider slid closed.
Chambers reached for his cross again. Got a few inches closer. He took a deep breath then kicked at the door. “Fallon, you son of a bitch, get me out of here!” He slammed against the walls, kicking and screaming. He stopped, out of breath.
Jackboots clumped outside. From several feet down metal scraped against wood, dragging across one closet door after the other. “Eenie, meenie, miney, moe. Catch Lieutenant Reaper by the toe.” The blade scraped closer. “Eenie…meenie…miney…moe.” The scraping ended at Chambers’s door.
“Fallon, let me out of here!”
The eight-inch blade stabbed through the thin wood, narrowly missing Chambers’s right eye. His heart threatened to burst.
Fallon pulled the knife back out. A blue eye peered through the slash in the door, winked. “Make some more noise again, Chambers, I dare you.” Chuckling, Fallon vanished from the slash and paced along the closets. “Boys, while you all sit there, crying in your own misery, contemplating exactly how and when you’re going to die tonight, wondering will it be quick, a bullet through the back of the head, or will it be a slow, torturous death? While you’re pondering your fates, you can thank your Lieutenant Reaper for getting you into this situation.” Fallon laughed. “Your platoon leader’s got a confession to make. Go ahead, Reaper, tell them why they’re here.”
“Eat shit, you Nazi asshole.”
“Not ready to confess, huh? Well, I guess I’ll purify your sins for you. See boys, funny thing is you didn’t have to come on this mission. Chambers volunteered you. Traded your expendable lives for a way out of the war, just so he could get back to a piece of ass. Not very fair to you, but such is life. Or in your cases, death.”
In the next closet, Hoffer released a muffled cry.
“Don’t listen to him! Fallon’s a Nazi agent.” Chambers clawed into his pocket, touching the tip of the cross. “You’ve been planning to screw us over all along, haven’t you?”
“Quiet, Reaper! I’m trying to have a heart to heart with your platoon before we kill them.” The jackboots clumped along the floor. “You boys ever wonder how your lieutenant earned his nickname? It goes back to his days in North Africa. Remember those days, Reaper! Good times. That is, until our last mission together. Your lieutenant and I led a platoon much like yours…”
A cold sweat broke out across Chambers’s face. The speckled moonlight in front of him transformed into desert terrain. Horrific visions bubbled up from dark cesspools in his mind: his recon platoon attacking a German fuel dump…gunshots, explosions…dismembered men…Chambers running through the black fog, flinching with each blast as he walked through the quagmire of scorched soldiers. Fallon’s torched body raced out of the smoke, collapsed. Chambers extinguished the fire and dragged his second lieutenant out of the inferno. Fallon strangled him. Chambers clawed at Fallon’s blackened face, one eye squishing, the charred flesh around it scraping off like slime.
“The Reaper abandoned us, saving his own ass, while the rest of his men died in the blaze. Just like he was going to abandon you, if he got the chance.”
Chambers’s jaw tightened, the muscles forming sharp cords around his swollen cheekbones. His fingers grasped hold of the cross, pulling it out. His hands trembled with such rage he nearly dropped it. He kicked his door, cracking it.
A deep guttural laugh echoed outside the door. “And the prize goes to the hostage in closet number two.” The fiery blue eye peered back through the slash. “Ain’t it funny how history repeats itself.”
Several boots stomped over. Eichman’s voice said, “Stop playing games, Fallon. You are wasting precious time. Pull them out and execute them.”
“Where are you going?”
“Dietrich and I are taking the Jews down to the crypt. Meet us there when you are finished.”
Chambers squeezed his fist around the cross. The door swung open. Hands grabbed his boots and dragged him across the floor. He was slammed against a pew in the nave’s center aisle. Three Nazi shadows stood around him, including Fallon and the two youths. Moose, the double agent referred to as Dietrich, had left with Eichman.
One of the Nazi youths placed a Luger to Chambers’s head.
“No!” Fallon shoved the teen’s pistol upward, and it fired into the ceiling. “Nein, Fritz. I want him to watch the others die.”
Fritz hissed and marched off with the other teen, whom he referred to as Hans. While they dragged another soldier from the confessional closets, Fallon leaned in toward Chambers. “You see these?” His lighter lit up dozens of tattooed daggers that covered both arms. “There’s one for every GI I’ve killed for the Reich.” He flexed his bicep. “I’ve saved a spot right here for a very special Grim Reaper.” The lighter flicked off, and the gloom swallowed up Fallon’s muscular form. Chambers strained against the ropes that bound his arms against his thighs.
A sudden crash came from the rear of the church. Shots fired. German shouts.
The Nazi youths returned dragging two soldiers. Deuce, still bound and gagged, was slammed to his knees. The other GI lay flat on the floor facedown.
“This one thought he vas clever.” Hans grabbed a knot of black hair and lifted the GI’s face off the floor. Miguel Garcia’s bloody mouth hung open, the eyes rolled back.
Chambers pressed the Star of David button. The blade snicked out. He sawed at the ropes.
Fritz aimed the Luger at Deuce’s head.
“No! Wait!” Chambers said.
Fallon said, “Be patient, Reaper, you’ll get your turn.”
“What about the golems? You need us to help fight them.”
“Oh, we have no intention of fighting them. We have our very own Necromancer to protect us. In fact, when your reinforcements finally arrive tomorrow, we’re going to have a big surprise waiting for them.”
Fritz and Hans laughed.
“Now sit back and watch the show.” Fallon grabbed Chambers’s head, forcing him to watch.
Fritz pressed the Luger against Deuce’s temple. A gunshot fired. Blood sprayed Deuce’s face. Fritz, gazing at his comrades, grabbed a wet hole in his chest and fell backward.
Hans jerked his submachine gun at the shadows around them.
Fallon screamed. “Who did that?”
An object flew out of the darkness, smashing the X-2 lieutenant in the face. Fallon’s nose exploded. He fell against a column. The object rolled across the wood floor. Hans grabbed it. “Was ist diese!” He held up a baseball stained with blood. Another shot fired, bursting the Nazi youth’s head.
Fallon dashed for cover, firing at a phantom sniper. Ra-tat-tat! Ratatatatatat!
Chambers’s knife sliced the ropes. He wriggled out and crawled between the pews. Shots rang out across the nave. Muzzle flashes lit up the scope of a GI sniper perched in the choir balcony. Submachine-gun bullets ripped across the balcony. The sniper vanished.
“Where do you think you’re going, Reaper?” Fallon’s silhouette stood at the end of the pew, the brass-knuckled knife in his hand. He stomped between the pews.
Chambers rolled under a pew.
Jackboots sprinted after him. “I’m gonna bleed you like a hog.”
Chambers belly-crawled from one row to the next.
Fallon’s shadow leaped from pew to pew. Cackles echoed overhead.
The pews ended. Chambers jumped to his feet in the vestibule. Fallon tackled him. They rolled into a wall, a scratching, grappling wad of limbs. Fallon straddled his chest. Chambers tore away the eye patch. A monstrous face with one blue eye and a pus gray orb glared with furious wrath.
The Nazi knife stabbed downward.
Chambers caught the wrist, the blade an inch from his chest.
“Your Judgment Day has arrived, Reaper!”
He held the dagger back with all his might. “No, yours has.” He rammed the cross blade into Fallon’s groin. The X-2 lieutenant screamed and fell sideways, grabbing his bleeding crotch. Chambers kicked the knife farther in. Then, roaring, he lunged the Nazi dagger between Fallon’s ribs. The monster coughed up blood. Chambers straddled the beast’s stomach, hacking away into the black pit of its heart.
A GI soldier pulled him off. “It’s over, Chambers.” Buck Parker kneeled with his sniper rifle, gripping the wrist that hungered to keep hacking. “He’s dead.”
Part 9
Immortal Combat
The sun darkens,
earth in ocean sinks,
fall from heaven
the bright stars,
fire’s breath assails
the all-nourishing tree,
towering fire plays
against heaven itself.
—THE EDDAS
Chapter 49
Chambers hung his bloody hands out the window. Rain trickled over them as cold as the blood flowing through his heart. The thunderclouds roared like a malevolent Medusa, their torrential heads flickering with electric snakes. Wind tossed the fir trees about as they strained to hold their ground. An endless deluge pelted the roof and windows, splashing a cold spray on Chambers’s face. Bats of fear flapped inside his ribcage. He craved a cigarette and a double whisky. He squeezed his tingling hand into a fist. Amber light glowed through his fingers.
They’re coming.
He opened his hand, beholding the Kabbalah cross that was now complete.
What do I do now, God? What hope is there left?
He stared out the broken stained glass as if the storm might provide answers.
The iridescent cross shimmered. A voice resonated within: Lieutenant, you are the last hope. Keep yourself and your men together. Fear trickles down the chain of command. If you panic, your platoon will fray at the seams. You must hold together like a stone. The lives of thousands are riding on your shoulders. Make wise decisions. Take action as if you are not alone. And whenever you reach that pinnacle of self-doubt, keep believing in miracles.
Miracles.
Chambers cupped the icy water in his hands and splashed his face.
My men need me. Goldstein and Anna need me. If today is my day to die in battle, I’ll die fighting.
He pumped his fists and grabbed one of the Nazi’s submachine guns. “Men, where are you?”
“Over here,” Buck called.
Chambers found his four remaining men slouched on the altar steps. Mahoney, Buck, Deuce, and Hoffer all wore expressions of defeat. Hoffer was trembling. Mahoney’s face was black and blue with cuts above his thick eyebrows. Deuce cried beside Garcia’s lifeless body.
Garcia’s loss pained Chambers as well, but he couldn’t show it. “Hand me his letter.”
Buck reached into the GI’s shirt and pulled out his final letter to his family. “We’ll get it to them, amigo.” He handed the blood-stained letter to Chambers.
He spoke in an even tone, “Men, I know we’ve just been through an unspeakable ordeal, but we need to shake it off. Goldstein and Anna need us.” Chambers held up his glowing palm. “And the golems are almost here. Let’s get back to our posts.”
“What’s the point?” Deuce sniffled. “There’s only five of us. Our luck’s run out.”
“He’s right, Chambers,” Mahoney said. “I don’t see any way of stopping them.”
“We have the bottles of holy water.”
“They won’t be enough.”
“We’re all dead,” Hoffer said. “They’re going to come in here and kill every one of us.”
“I’ll kill myself first,” Deuce said.
Chambers threw up his hands. “So this is it, huh! You’re all just going to give up.” No longer containing his rage, he shouted, “God damn it, have I ever quit on you? Has there ever been a day that I quit on you?” He moved in closer, face to face, so they could see the intensity in his eyes. “Hoffer, what happened to the invincible Shadow? Deuce, what happened to the Poker King who always comes up aces?” Jaw clenched, Chambers lined up eye to eye with his master sergeant. “Papa Bear, you’re the veteran who’s survived dozens of battles that seemed hopeless. You’ve got a wife and four girls at home counting on you to come through this one.” Mahoney’s rock solid face crumbled.
“And you, Buck,” Chambers said, grabbing the rancher’s attention. “You survived out there on your own for hours. Did you make your way back to the church just to quit?”
Buck spat tobacco. “Hell no!”
“Well then, come on, men! The Lucky Seven never give up! We fight to the bloody end!”
Each of their eyes lit up with the passion he’d seen before in so many combat missions.
Papa Bear stood. “Fuck it, I’m going back to the front. You coming, men?”
“You can count on me, sir.” Buck followed Mahoney toward the vestibule.
Hoffer threw out his chest. “They can’t do this without the Shadow.” He grabbed his rifle and chased after the two sergeants.
Deuce remained on the steps. “Lieutenant, since when did you get all gung ho on fighting?”
Chambers sat on the steps next to him. “Since I learned I got loved ones waiting for me. Today, I received a letter from the woman I left behind.” Chambers reached into his chest pocket and pulled out the photograph of Eva Winchester holding up a toddler. The sight of them brought all his emotions to the surface. “I have a son. Tommy.” The boy’s green eyes stared back at him. Chambers bit his bottom lip. “I don’t know what it feels like to hold him, or hear the sound of his laugh, but more than anything in this world I want to meet my baby boy before I die.”
Deuce looked down at his hands. “I have no family waiting home for me. The Lucky Seven was my family.”
“Well, your brothers need you now more than ever. You’re our wild card, Deuce. Our ace in the hole. We can’t get through this without you. Now, can I count on you?”
“Okay, okay, I’ll do it. As long as ya stop with the bad poker puns.”
“Right. Forgive me. Now let’s join the others.”
“Just a minute.” Deuce reached into his pocket and pulled out a cigar still in the wrapper. “I been saving this for just the right occasion. Congratulations on ya little boy.”
The five soldiers prepared for battle inside the vestibule. At every post they placed their arsenal of guns, ammo, and vodka bottles half-filled with holy water. They also positioned spare weapons up in the tower’s choir balcony and back at the altar.
The bells up in the bell tower clanged twice: 0200 hours.
Storm light flashed at all the windows. Thunder clapped overhead. The farm road and front parking lot remained empty, but Chambers’s palm continued to glow, the tingles intensifying. He set his three Panzerfaust rocket launchers beside his window slot and motioned his men to gather around. “Everybody locked and loaded?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Now everybody use your weapons wisely. Forget trying to kill the golems with bullets. I want you to shoot the weapons out of their hands. Maybe that will send them running. If not, we stand a better chance if they charge us empty-handed. The bottles of holy water are for close combat only.” Borrowing Hoffer’s sketchpad, Chambers drew a face with the word emet on the forehead. “The object is to explode the bottles across this symbol. The holy water works like acid. Melt the sacred word and the golem turns to dust.”
“Hallelujah,” Hoffer said.
“We have no idea how many are coming. Maybe only a handful. If that’s the case then the odds are in our favor. Our main objective is to kill the ones that reach the windows and hold back the rest. Then we’ll focus on taking out our two Nazis downstairs. Everybody got it?”
“Yes, sir.”
Buck wiped the scope of his sniper rifle. “Chambers, that symbol on their foreheads is a perfect bull’s-eye for me. You reckon if it got hit, that’d kill the golem?”
“You know, it just may. If scratching it off with a finger works, I don’t see why a perfectly placed bullet wouldn’t do the same.” Chambers put his lucky watch into the circle. “Everybody lives.”
Buck held out his baseball. Deuce, his poker deck, joker facing up. Hoffer, his Blue Coal matchbook advertising The Shadow radio show. And Mahoney, his rosary. “Everybody lives,” they repeated.
“Let’s roll.”
Four of them returned to the vestibule windows where pews, standing upright, left narrow slots through which to fire a rifle. Remember the Alamo. Buck dashed up the tower steps to his high perch in the bell room.
“What if they attack from behind?” Deuce asked.
“Remember the trip wires the X-2 commandos set between the tombstones. That should at least warn us. The back door is heavily barricaded, and the side windows are too high off the ground. The golems’ best chance of getting in is through the front door and windows.”
“They gotta get past us first,” Hoffer said with a grin.
Chambers said, “Papa Bear, I need a word with you.”
Mahoney set his flamethrower next to his rifle and followed Chambers to an alcove hidden from the vestibule. Chambers flicked his lighter and lit two Camel cigarettes, offering one to the bear-sized sergeant.
Mahoney grinned. “God, I been craving one all day. You really know how to boost a man’s morale.”
Chambers drew on his cigarette. “I figured you were gonna need it when I told you about my sudden-death plan.”
“Sudden death?”
Chambers pulled ten sticks of dynamite out of a leather satchel. “Something our X-2 boys left behind. Still got your lighter?”
In the lower half of Mahoney’s silhouetted face a glowing orange dot bobbed when he spoke. “I already don’t like where this is leading.”
Chambers began strapping the dynamite sticks on his belt. “We got five each. If the golems get inside the church, you and I will lure them down into the graveyard tunnels. Then when we get to the crypt—”
“Yeah, I get it. Sudden death.”
“Are you in?”
