Berlin or Bust

^{CHAPTER TWENTY} RUN

Confusion.

Eagle Company fell back on itself, cramming the lobby as the SS charged inside with a roar. Howls of pain filled the space as the draugr tore into the Fallschirmjäger, bayoneting anything that lived.

Oberfeldwebel Wolff found himself doing something he’d never done before and never thought he would.

He ran for his life.

The English sergeant huffed alongside him. On his other side, Leutnant Reiser ran, his face purple with rage. Wolff spared a final glance over his shoulder and saw Animal at the center of a wide circle of charred and burning corpses, firing bursts from his flamethrower at the swarming dead.

Then he went down under the flashing bayonets.

“We will regroup,” Reiser fumed. “Then return and butcher the bastards!”

The lieutenant was nuts. Instead of taking his time and reconnoitering, he’d led the company to its slaughter. All because of his blind loyalty to the Führer, who’d emerged from his Führerbunker to rule over the undead.

The soldiers pursuing them were Hitler’s Leibstandarte Guard Battalion and Führer Escort Battalion, his palace guard, 2,000 strong. Like Hitler himself, they’d all injected themselves with the Overman serum and continued to follow him even after the bacterium had destroyed their minds.

They’d carried on miming their pageants and rituals, like a cartoonish caricature miming their former glory.

Wilkins pointed. “There!”

Wolff didn’t wait for orders. He veered onto a side corridor and headed toward daylight flooding in through a hole blasted in a wall.

Gunfire echoed through the hallways. The remnants of Eagle Company were falling back in good order towards the tunnel.

Where they’d be trapped.

Wolff scrambled over the rubble and reached the outside. From here, he had a clear view of SS pouring into the building, which was now smoking.

The last stragglers came out of the hole. Besides Reiser and Wilkins, he counted Beck, Weber, Braun, and Engel. They were missing Schneider, Schulte, Muller, and Steiner.

They were also missing the rest of their platoon.

“This is it, Herr Leutnant,” he said. “I recommend we occupy the opera house and attempt a diversion.”

“Nein.” Reiser watched the building burn, his face pale and drawn. “You still have a pure sample of the Overman serum.”

“But the company—”

“Will fend for themselves,” Reiser grated. “We must carry on with our mission. We will proceed to Belle-Alliance-Platz and rejoin the regiment.”

“Zu befehl, Herr Leutnant,” Wolff growled.

They jogged south down Wilhelmstrasse.

Two SS officers stepped in the avenue, their faces grinning death masks under their peaked black caps. The first croaked, “Lebensraum,” his Luger clicking empty as he fired.

Braun and Weber rushed forward and knocked him on his back. Beck bayoneted the creature under the chin, the blade sliding up to destroy the brain.

The lights in the ghoul’s eyes went out.

The other SS officer blew a whistle.

A whistle answered in the distance, followed by others. No need to play it quiet anymore. Wolff raised his FG42 and sent a round between the SS officer’s eyes. The man toppled like a sack of meat.

“Herr Wolff!” Wilkins said and pointed.

Platoons of the Führer’s personal guard had peeled off at the sound of the whistle and were now marching down the street towards them.

Even more whistles answered in the distance, a chorus that spread in a chain reaction across the city.

“Time to go,” Wolff said. “Los, los, los!”

The squad again bolted down Wilhelmstrasse. Hardened by training and war, they made a good distance before the weight of their gear forced them to pause.

The draugr didn’t tire. As far as Wolff knew, they didn’t sleep. They only paused to eat. They kept coming in a shambling flood. The platoons chasing him had grown to hundreds of howling undead cramming the streets behind him.

And still more let up a howl as they advanced along side streets.

Reiser drew his Luger and glared at the army of the undead. “They are seeking to flank us. I need a volunteer to stay and divert them.”

Wolff didn’t hesitate. “I’ll do it, Herr Leutnant.”

The lieutenant aimed and fired with a loud bang. Wilkins collapsed onto the cold pavement with an anguished cry, writhing and clutching at his leg.

The squad stepped back with a stunned gasp. A puff of smoke drifted in the air. They looked from their lieutenant to the Englishman in horror.

Wilkins would serve as a distraction for the dead, who would tear him to shreds and devour the pieces.

Wolff fell to his knees besides the wounded man and tore his fatigues to expose an entry and exit sound in his calf. Both were pouring blood. He only had seconds before the lieutenant ordered them back on the move.

He pulled out his med kit and set it on the pavement next to Wilkins while the man raved at him in English, trying to reach for his carbine. Reiser kicked it away. The sergeant cursed him.

“Expendable,” the lieutenant said. “Aren’t we all, Herr Wilkins? Gehen, Herr Wolff. That is an order.”

“Jawohl, Herr Leutnant.” To Wilkins, he hissed in English, “Bandage yourself up, get back on your feet, and move. You can still make it.”

Then he ran after his comrades, leaving the Englishman to fend for himself or die. The lieutenant had acted with a cruel pragmatism, crossing a line Wolff considered uncrossable. But orders were orders.

His first loyalty was to the Fallschirmjäger. Nothing else mattered compared to that, not even his family farm back home, and certainly not a British soldier.

White tenement buildings with red roofs framed the wide avenue, pristine and untouched by the Allied bombing. For a fleeting moment, Wolff could imagine none of this five-year nightmare had ever happened. That he wasn’t being chased by flesh-eating ghouls who looked like Germans. That his madman of a senior officer hadn’t shot a friendly soldier in cold blood to buy time for his escape.

Then a woman appeared in one of the windows overlooking the avenue, jarring him back to reality. Other civilians appeared in windows along the tenement block, old men and women and children, all banging on the glass, begging for his help.

Considering his options, he slowed his pace.

“Keep moving, Herr Wolff,” Reiser snapped, “or you will be next.”

Above him, glass shattered. He looked up in time to see a ghoul claw at the air as it plummeted to the earth. The thing struck the ground with a splat that sprayed blood across Wolff’s boots.

Then more draugr burst from their apartment windows to smash against the pavement like bombs filled with rotting meat.

“Keep going,” Wolff told his squad. “The Platz is just ahead.”

The Belle-Alliance-Platz loomed in front of a wall of smoke rising up from some uncontrolled fire on the other side of the Landwehr Canal. The circular plaza was surrounded by tall tenements.

A practical location for a regimental stand.

As they approached, Wolff saw no signs of life. The rising wall of smoke was closer than he’d thought. A building surrounding the Belle-Alliance-Platz appeared to be burning.

And there was no sign of the regiment.

“Halt!”

Three Fallschirmjäger stepped out of concealment and aimed their weapons.

“Second Platoon,” Wolff called to them. “Eagle Company!”

The paratroopers didn’t ask if they were all that was left of Hauptmann Werner’s command. They appeared to simply assume it.

Wolff had made it back to the 3FJR, but things seemed nearly as bad here.