Riley cursed loudly and takes hold of his helmet, cowering under the sky in fear, even though they're miles away. So he's back? Back for more? I gaze up at the five blimps, envious. Why doesn't America invest in that shit? Surely, they're filled to the brim with reinforcements unable to be carried by car or train through the treaturous terrian of the wood. And here we are, Americans, sitting ducks while the hunter's on the prowl. The football field blimps are getting closer by the second, domianating the skyline with their enomitity and causing the trees to breathe in a deep, last breath, waiting for death.
"Get... behind me, Riley." I whisper, and prod him with the nozzle of my caliber, anxious, feeling the tension in the atmosphere. It won't help in the least where the hell he's at what with the blimps, but I feel the need to protect him. And I don't want him to see what I'm about to do. The Nazi is gazing up at the sky, towards his rescue, completely blissed out. -Numb. I smash him to pieces with my steeled boot to wake him up from his placid dreamland. I hear a sickening crunch and I feel my lips curl up in smile as he silently howls in pain, clutching his broken arm. "You'll pay for what you've done!" I hiss, glaring at the man with eyes of fire, livid. I dig my gun into his chest, I must look like a monster to him. His worst nightmare- death.
"I have one bullet left, but surely you already knew that. If you were like any good soldier, you'd have counted my shots..."
The Nazi nods, crazed.
"Bitte! Töte mich nicht..."
He can't peel his eyes from my raging face.
"Bitte!"
His eyes are glassy and wide with horror, his mouth in a doomed "O" shape.
"But I don't think I'll use it," I continue and chuckle as I flick the gun with two fingers, causing it to ring for emphasis. "Because I can kill a man just fine on my own." I crack my knuckles and watch as the pussy of a man wets himself right in front of me, the piss freezing into his pants.
"Nien, Bitte..."
"You think I'll let you go?!" I scream, pummeling it in the face. Hard. Black blood trickles out of his nostrils and soils the gray wool of his long Nazi coat, spilling over into the snow. "After what you've done to the Jews, to me? You think you deserve life? I don't." My hands are in a frenzy now. Like sharks, they respond to blood instinctively. Take hold of the preys weakness, crush it, make it bleed. I pound and pound intil I'm hitting nothing but a red, wet, faceless being that's gurgling nonsense.
I get up and wipe the blood off my hands in the earth, watching as the snow gobbles up it's new red meal.
"Sir..." Riley breathes, eyeing the dying Nazi, who's trying to breathe through a crushed windpipe. "what have you done...?"
"I did what any true American would do, Biers." I wipe the remaining blood on my coat, smearing it with red marks. War paint for me, for my soul. I take a deep lungful of air, cleansed. I check the sky again. The blimps are closer now, minutely. I give it an hour, maybe two, before they arrive and blow the brains out of the last of us.
"But he's still alive!" begs Riley. "Why don't you end it all? He's in agony. Sir-"
"Don't call me Sir." I hiss curtly, and twirl my gun around my index finger. "We're equals, you and I. It's Mason. Now-" I turn and face him, giving a glare that shows he better follow me, equals or not. "Those Nazi blimps will be here in a matter of hours. We have to warn the General -if he's still alive- so we can evacuate the area."
"Does that mean surrender, Sir- er, um, Soldier Mason...?" Riley sniffs and wipes his face with the back of his hand. It comes back scattered with sprayed blood from the enemy. I watch him wipe it in the snow and then on his coat like I did. Good boy. Rid your skin of he German filth.
"We have no other choice. We were defeated the moment the sun came up."
***
"Edward!" Jasper shouts, sprinting up the hill toward me and Riley. We must look raged, covered in blood and dragging empty guns (excluding my one bullet) with limp arms. The treacherous walk back to camp had taken much longer than I'd thought, draining our energy. The adreniline this dreadful morning had disseved me into miscalculating the distance of the journey. Riley and I were absolutely spent.
"Edward, brother!" Jasper clasps an arm around me for a quick hug. I shrug him off.
"Half-brother."
"Right."
That makes the corners of Jazz's lips curl up a bit into an almost-there smile. I sigh and run fingers through my hair.
"How bad is it?" Riley and I haven't yet reached the treeline, so what remains of the camp is obscured by ash, leaves, and limbs. Jasper just coughs and waves us both over. He knows I hate that. But still- I shuffle over like a good soldier. "I need to see the General, Jazz, there's five Nazi blimps heading our way."
Major Whitlock's eyes go wide with fear as he blanches. "...How do you know this?" His eyes are shuttered now, giving me a quizzing look, aprehensive.
"We were far up the hill, -able to see the skyline. We have a matter of hours. Maybe one...if our luck stands as is." I say, and twirl my caliber around on a finger. No way to treat a gun- but who gives a shit? No one.
"Hell..." Jasper states and pulls on my arm. I do a double-take at Jasper because he almost never swears. "The General is injuried, but not too severely, so he's still calling all the shots."
"He shouldn't even be here." Riley mutters.
I suddenly have new respect for that mousey doughboy with the knobby knees and helmet that barely holds its own. Hear hear.
I sigh. "Look- we all know the General doesn't know what the fuck he's doing half the time, but he's the one calling the shots. We need to go."
Jasper nods and fiddles with a medal pinned onto the breast pocket of his iniform. "The more distance we put between us and the blimps the better." He turns and struts off without a backward glance, living Riley and I in the muck.
"Come on, Biers." I grab Riley's neck playfully and shove him forward. He yelps in surprise and stumbles along beside me, hefting the rifle in his hands. "You sure you know how to shoot, boy?" I say, creasing my brows and cocking my head in his direction.
"Yes." Rileys says curtly, sniffling.
"You sure? What you did up there almost cost my foot. We could've done it quietly, but you had to go on and ruin the shot." I tease, and punch his shoulder.
"Hey!" Riley squeals and rubs his arm. Guess I hit him too hard. Oh well, he needs to toughen up. I could murder that boy with my little pinkie. "I've never taken a life before."
"Shut up, Biers. They aren't human." I put a hand out, casting a wavering glance to the sky, inhaling the sight with my eyes. Nothing but unwavering gray clouds depressing the landscape. It's going to snow again. We need to move faster so we can get enough distance before we're forced to stop at nightfall... If they can track us...
I'm immediately praying for snow.
I start jogging after Jasper, Riley on my tail. Suddenly, we break through the mesh of trees and into the clearing at the bottom of the hill. I clearly hear Riley retching at my feet, spattering my tight laced-up boot with bile. How much can that boy hold? He must be running on empty, surely?
The snow is bleeding, coughing up bits of men and soot with it, like a tuberculosis-ridden Virginia ghost. I see my blood brother, Emmett, heaving a souless body onto the back of the Tent's truck. He's covering in sweat from head to toe.
"Emmett!" I shout, jumping over a fallen soldier. He doesn't look up from his work so when I approach him he jumps back suddenly, started shitless, dropping the body. It lands heavily with a thud, splattering gore all over our boots. "Emmett, man..." I say, and pick up the dead man by the boots, glancing up at my brother expectantly. After a moment, Emmett regains himself and picks up the arms. We heave, and load the body into the now-full cart. I wipe sweat off my brow, afraid of the chill I'll have from sweating in the cold. I'm not looking forward to tonight's air that will surely be cold enough to cut right through you with the skills of a cold knife.
Emmett slaps the side of the truck twice and is sputters off to a mass burial hole on the edge of camp. Jasper walks up behind me, clasping my shoulder.
"The General, Edward?"
"Right. Where is he?"
He jabs his finger towards our south side, and I follow. The General is placed on a makeshift cot made up of sleeping bags, pine needles, and a few dozen blankets. One of our five medics left alive are tending to two bullet wounds: one in the crook of his elbow, one laid deep into his right shin. I can already see the swirling marroon veins of blood poisoning. I approach the General, eyeing him to see if he's awake. His breathing is regulated, but his eyes are squished closed and a sheen sweat layer masks his body.
"General?" I fabricate concern.
His eyes flick open, but refuse to dilate. He's half delerious. "General?" I ask again, with more authority than I'll ever have. "I spotted five blimps, coming our way fast. We have only an hour or two, Sir, before they breach our location."
The General coughs and waves me off, like it's nothing. The nerve of that ridiculous man, I swear. The medic is staring at me in a panic, wide-eyed. Yah, I don't like the General's idea of action, either, buddy.
"General Marcus, sir!" His eyes finally focus on me, pentrating fire. He hastily lifts his bulky body up and leans on an elbow, much to the medic's protests. ("Sir, no!")
"Don't you ever call me by my first name, boy! Where is your place?" He sputters out and lands back on his make-shift cot in a huff.
"My place? What about yours?" I seethe, "There are a roughly a thousand Nazis on their merry way and you blow me off? What are we going to do?"
"Relocate- of course! I'm not an imbecile, Soldier Mason. Don't make me barricade you for speaking out of line and refusing to solute me. I am your commanding officer!"
I bow my head in mock shame. "Sir!" I give a weak solute, rolling my eyes, angering him further. Why the fuck would I care? He can barricade me all he wants, it won't change how I feel or act toward him. Suck my ass, Marcus.
"Consider yourself barricaded. There is no proof of these blimps, I will send a scout up the hill in search of them."
"That's doing nothing but wasting precious time! We have two hours at the most, with men still to bury and supplies to arrange!" I retort. I can't believe the man's stupidity! What is he thinking?
"Barricade!" The General orders, and waves to two of his henchman stalking his cot. They give me a cold, hard look grasp me by the arms, tightly.
"Let go of me, fuckers!" I shout and kick at them. They wince but otherwise do nothing. I've never felt so helpless. I thrash around, obviously making a spectacle of myself.
"Mason's finally baracaded! Laurent- take at look at this!" Mocks James, a foot soldier from my squad: Squad Three.
"Go to hell, James! You Cullen fuck!"
Jame's blue eyes go livid, he approaches me from across the camp. Flurries are heading down from the clouds, saturating his long, blonde German hair and mine, covering my vision with dark brown. James is our spy, in the squad. Being one-hundred percent German, he looks like any other Nazi. That's why he can slip past them, out of notice. Personally, I think he doubles in that "spying" of his. I wouldn't be surprised if he tipped off the blimps to our location. The General trusts him and he has a two-way radio...
"Mason." He hisses, crossing his arms. The guards holding me keep moving, but James keeps up easily, just out of my reach. "I always thought you were a little shit." He spits in my direction. My sight goes red, my nostrils flare, and I clench my hands, praying for a kill. He laughs at me and it's all the guards can do to keep me from ripping the skin off his back and feeding it to the dogs.
The General shouts from afar. "You're out in three days, Mason. Teach you a lesson, it should. We don't need you right now."
I clench my teeth.
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