Summers had ordered the squad to abandon the butchers shop as well as the bodies, although no-one was sad to leave. This whole thing was getting weirder and weirder by the hour, first Kalvo was killed, then Rook took off running, and now they had a building full of bodies looking like they had been pulled straight from some nightmare. The snow was coming down again, covering the tracks they made earlier in the day and Summers, if he was being honest with himself, had absolutely no idea of where they could go. Another house made the most sense, but considering the last house they were in, he didn’t want history to repeat itself.
The squad pushed deeper into the village, every errant sound putting them on edge, every flicker from the corner of their eyes bringing twitchy fingers near triggers. Every crossroads, every corner, every open window they had anticipated an ambush, everything and anything had been a possible trap, a fortification, something to be shot at from. In one of the rare cases that he had called for the squad to take a break, he had the chance to see just how on edge the squad had been.
If they didn’t find somewhere to bunker down and fortify soon, then they could quite possibly go mad from their own nerves. Fear could keep you alive, and it could kill you just as easily if you couldn’t control it. This fear, the thing that ran through their nerves and minds like stampeding cows was slowly taking over and winning. Winning, until Summers finally pointed to one of the houses and decided that enough was enough.
The door was locked, although not for long when Nimer slammed his shoulder against the wood panel, knocking it open as he fell through and landed on the floor, his carbine clattering to the floor alongside him. Summers and Holmes sweeping around with their own weapons, Summers holding his Thompson with one hand and his flashlight with the other. The front room was deserted and as the rest of the house was searched everyone was content to know that the entire building was clear. The doors, windows and everything in between was fortified with what they could scavenge; cabinets, shelves, tables, chairs, anything that could be stacked or lodged to give them a defensive edge.
The mist outside slowly darkened as the night encroached. Summers had asked for volunteers for first watch although no one had felt like sleeping, especially after the events of the night before. Summers had considered picking them for the shifts, but thought against the idea ultimately. Eventually sun slipped beneath the horizon and the world of mist disappeared into darkness. The darkness left them with a growing sense of dread, the anticipation of another attack.
It wasn’t long before their trepidation had borne fruit and they heard someone screaming from outside, the sound seeming like it was coming from across the street and sounding as if it was right outside of the door at the same time,
“That’s Rook,” Holmes gasped after the fourth screech. “He’s outside!”
Rook screamed bloody murder once again and Nimer rushed for the door, stopped only when Summers grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back.
“What are you doing,” Summers demanded, almost screaming at the top of his lungs.
“They’re killing him out there,” Nimer snarled, pointing to the door. “Can’t you hear that!?”
Summers opened his mouth to speak, his voice silenced by another ear-splitting screen from outside. Holmes bolted to the door and flung it open, Nimer hot on his heels with his rifle clenched between his fingers. Summers finally found his voice but the pair had disappeared into the snow before he gave chase as well. If it wasn’t for Rook’s strangled cries he would have considered shooting the two for the trouble they were causing. Once again the night wreathed itself around them like innumerable fingers that covered his eyes before his flashlight burned away the umbra.
Fresh footprints in the snow lead further into the village and, despite his urges to the contrary the rest of the squad followed him out of the house, not out of respect for the stripes he wore, nor because a running sergeant was an important sergeant. They simply didn’t want to be left alone in the house, lest bullets come out of the walls and go into fleshy, half-frozen bodies, assuming that they didn’t freeze to death beforehand. Something had shifted in the air, a thing that had no physical register but the void it left in its absence was palpable, although they couldn’t put their fingers on what exactly had changed. All they knew was that the village, once foreboding and ominous, had become something that seemed… alive; a breathing, hating thing that was waiting for its next chance to attack.
They followed the sounds of yells and screams, Summers leading the way before they found the bombed out ruins of a house that looked like it had been set ablaze and frozen over afterwards. The light had begun to dim in his hand as Summers made a curt motion and both Holmes and Jamie stormed into the building, weapons brandished followed by Summers and Nimer while Tollen and Samson stayed outside, keeping watch.
It had been hard to think anything could have been worse than the butcher’s shop that they had visited earlier, although if any man had dared the universe to come up with something that would leave them with fear and nightmares for the rest of their lives then this house was that wish granted physicality. Frozen bodies lay about, as if strewn hitherto with careless abandon by some demented mind as Holmes and Jamie took their first steps into the front room. Jamie felt a cry of disgust when his boot stepped into a puddle of half-frozen gore that had leaked out of the top half of a German soldier’s head after his crown and scalp had been cleaved off. Even Summers had the urge to heave but somehow kept the urge down.
Eventually, the house was cleared and although the wall of the main room had been burned down, charcoal replacing paint it was still semi habitable. Everyone had agreed that this was one of the absolutely worst places to stay, but the night was fast approaching, once again proving to be a tenement to the time-altering effects of the mist. The fact that Rook was found in the basement, hidden among a rack of nebelwerfer 42 rockets brought a sense of relief to some of the soldiers, although the feeling was fleeting as something banged against the hallway closet, nudging the fallen body of a dead kraut.
It was a miracle in and of itself that the door wasn’t immediately perforated by a hail of gunfire. Summers wouldn’t have blamed anyone had they decided to open up and start firing. He held his own Thompson, finger dangerously tight on the trigger as he motioned to Tollen and then pointed at the door. Tollen glanced at the door before pointing at himself. Summers pointed at him again and then motioned to the door, each gesture sharp and curt. Tollen clearly didn’t want to, but instead he leaned out along the wall, holding his weapon with one hand while the other grabbed at the dead body by his belt and pulled him away by the belt.
The door shuddered again as Tollen’s fingers brushed against the door’s knob, tightening against the frozen metal. He glanced at Summers, clearly unsure about what he was doing and Summers nodded in reassurance. A silent count was given and Tollen flung the door open, something dark and grey flying out, its limbs flailing as it hit the ground, screaming in terror. The scream was what stopped the hail of gunfire, the cloud of lead and copper that would have shredded ice and reduced the monster to a fine crystalline powder.
The German soldier had brought their arms up, as if trying to ward away the weapons, shivering and trembling in fear. Summers couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief as he forced his finger away from the trigger, some part of him realizing that all it would have taken was another pound of force before the gun went off, spitting hot lead down the barrel.
“Pick them up,” he said as Tollen nodded and leaned down, grabbing the soldier by the collar of their uniform and pulling them up.
“Lieber Gott, tu mir nicht weh,“ the German croaked as they were forced to their feet, grabbing at Tollen’s arm both for support and to ward him away at the same time. “Geh weg von mir, du Dämonen!“
“That German needs to shut up,“ Holmes commented as he looked towards the hole in the wall leading out into the darkness.
Summers the soldier away from Tollen and gave them a sharp shake, violent enough to knock their hat off. “What the,” he heard himself ask when he found himself looking at a woman rather than a man who just kept his hat pulled low. Her eyes were wide with fright as she grabbed at his arm, pulling and tugging as if to get away without much strength to back up the attempt. “You’re a girl?”
“Ja,” she replied, her icy eyes focusing on him. “You are American?”
He blinked before nodding. On any other day, let alone a normal week he would have been more than happy to have any Germans he came across strung up for the POW camps, if not shot dead if the need arose. The hell he had been through, both by himself and with the men under his de-facto command, however, left him with a new choice of action.
“How long have you been here,” he asked, loosening his grip on the collar of her uniform.
“Summers,” Holmes spoke up. “Do you really think it’s a good idea to start interrogating that kraut bitch?”
Summers glanced at Holmes with every single intention of “shut up” before looking back at her. “Well?”
“Vier Wochen,“ she replied, managing to pull his hand off of her neck only to feel the barrel of a Garand press against her temple.
“For god’s sake,” Summers grabbed the gun and pulled it up, away from her hand. “We have worse things to deal with, Nimer. If she grabs a gun and starts popping shots off at us, then by all means put a bullet in her.” he glared at Nimer before sighing.
“You have seen them too,” she asked, glancing at Nimer before looking back at Summers. “The demons?”
Summers paused for a moment. “Those things in the ice, yeah,” he hesitated before continuing. “What about those… things?”
She blinked, clearly not understanding.
“Those things that looked like someone got frozen with a gun on their arm,” Holmes spoke up. “One of the freaks that wasted Kalvo.”
Cyana shook her head, a motion that Summers took as “no, I haven’t seen them”. He turned in place, looking at Nimer and then Tollen in turn. “Grab what you can off of the bodies. Ammo, guns, rations, anything.”
“You can’t be serious,” Rook snapped from his spot on the floor, sitting with his knees against his chest against the wall. “You want us to stay here, of all places!?”
“Ok, then,” he regarded Rook with a distasteful expression. “Who wants to go wandering outside in the dead of night? Show of hands, please.”
No one dared vote for the idea, each one knowing just how insane it would have been to go out in the darkness. Rook had survived by sheer luck, and even then he wasn’t able to escape the icy jaws of one of the demons when it tried to eat his head. He managed to get away with gashes lining his face and blood staining the top of his uniform and his weapon lost to the snow.
“That’s what I thought,” he scowled before looking back at Nimer and Tollen. “Get to work, you two,” he said before looking at Holmes. “Take her and make sure the basement can be fortified.”
“What, why her,” Holmes asked incredulously. “Can’t I take Rook?”
“You’ll take her and like it, soldier,” Summers growled, finding his patience strained. He was in no mood for this crap. “Like it or not, she’s going to help you, unless you rather we all stay up here and die.”
Holmes knew better than to open his pie hole, glancing at the German soldier and motioning to the stairs of the basement. She glanced at Summers and frowned when he nodded to her. “Go on,” he said as he stepped towards Rook. Eventually, she let herself be led downstairs into the basement, reaching out as the darkness thickened, finding the oil lamp that had been left there from before the massacre.