Fiction by Matthew O’Hearn

We spent the night amidst the remnants of a small lake house. The structure was still mostly intact, but a layer of sand slowly consumed it from the ground up like a pervasive, ubiquitous plague. I lifted my body out of the filthy sheets, seeing an already awoken Friedrich from the side of my eye. The sentimental man wiped the sand off of the stack of photos in his chest pocket as he marched, lightly kissing them before putting them back in his pocket.

“Traudl’s probably forgotten about your sandy ass now Friedrich!” I joked.

“I don’t know about that, but I do know that Lena dumped your ass before it even got sandy the night before deployment!” Friedrich replied with a slow chuckle.

He got me there. Hopefully, instead of Lena, I could go back and at least see the Elbe before it dried up. In the side of my eye, I could see the neon red sun creeping over the horizon. Foolishly, I instinctively dragged my body across towards the bathroom, creaking the rusty faucet open in hopes of washing my disheveled face. I could only let out a mirthless chuckle when the sink basin remained dry, slapping myself awake because I forgot why we were here in the first place.

The twelve of us had been marching for several days, ever since the Ostmänner retook Stettin and we had to flee west across the Eastern Desert. The war began back in the year when winter never came, and the continent began to scorch and dry up. The Reich then had to expand out into the Eastern Desert, previously Poland, to secure the food and water needed to save our race. At least that was what I was told, I was too young to remember.

We wandered on this isolated lake house late last afternoon. It even had a boathouse by the small dock in the back, but it only led to nothing. In the hallway, you could see flickers of the life that the people who once lived here had. Now murky pictures of weddings, birthdays, and memories made in this very place littered the walls. That family of four has faded away just as their photos are, but their house has so courteously stuck around to be a home for just one last time. Stepping outside for some air, I notice Wilhelm is the next to get up through the back window. His eyes look heavy and droopy as he lowers his head, as if he is just realizing that this wretched place is his reality, and the weekend getaway he was dreaming about was just that.

Trudging through the sand back over towards the rotting dock, an echoing laugh pierced through the eerie silence like a chainsaw. I trudged up the small hill overlooking the dock towards where the sound was coming from, but had to immediately duck down when I reached the top. My heart pounded rapidly through my ears as my face went pale. There was a convoy of at least 50 or 60 Ostmänner marching across the desert with their screeching trucks below. Far more than the twelve of us could hope to hold up for even five minutes. My heart pounded rapidly through my ears as my face went pale, but I couldn’t stop myself from stealing glances over the hill. Their bulky makeshift khaki helmets and goggles masked their faces completely, with their trademark hooked bayonets affixed to their polished rifles. Rumour had it that they were hooked so they could torture us by easily pulling out our teeth and ripping off our nails if we were ever captured.

Leading from the front was an officer in his early 20s, no older than myself. He was the only one without a helmet on, laughing with his adjutant beside him. His thin silver epaulets indicated that he was a Captain based on my albeit failing memory. Snapping myself out of my trance, I sprinted back down towards the lakehouse to warn the rest. As the door came into view, I could see Lieutenant Lügner by the door frantically gesturing me inside.

“Get in and shut up!” he curtly said in a whispered shout.

After running inside I could only slouch by the wall, hyperventilating with my rusty rifle in a death grip.

“What were you thinking, Private? Do you know what would happen if they saw you? They’d riddle you with bullets before drinking your blood to stay hydrated,” the Lieutenant screamed, as his array of gleaming party badges clanged against his polished uniform.

I could only offer a blank nod to his beratements before he was so rudely interrupted by the reverberations of a mortar shell that shook the lakehouse and all of us inside. They found us. Bullets began to pound into the walls like Swiss cheese, followed by a piercing demented shrill that cut through all of the gunfire. The sound was too close, as if it was coming from inside the building. But I didn’t have to wonder for too long. In the corner of my eye, I could see Brüchig, the youngest of our group. He ran across the hallway with his arms extended like an airplane, before he abruptly stopped by the window and looked up and out towards the sky. Before I could call him away from the window, bullets riddled into his body as his blood splattered across the floor. But although his gruesome death was harrowing, it was his face that shook me to my core. A terrifying smile was plastered across his visage, staring completely through me as his corpse seeped blood across the floor.

“Leave the fucker and shoot back you cowards!” screamed the Lieutenant, as he vainly attempted to wipe Brüchig’s blood off of his uniform.

I could only crouch under the window. I stole glances as I half-heartedly shot my rifle over my head. But the bullets stopped all at once, leaving only a deafening ringing in my ears.

“Lay down your arms, your leader is already dead, the war is over,” a voice calmly echoed through the silence.

Peaking my head over the window, it was the Captain from before, looking resigned as if someone told him that he had to fetch some milk from the corner store.

“More lies! Keep firing back!” shrilled Lieutenant Lügner, as he broke the ceasefire with his sporadic pistol shots.

But eerily enough, no fire was returned from the Ostmänner. I could only hear a faint whizzing coming from on top of me. Every instinct in my body told me to run, but my body refused to comply. I stood frozen, making my peace as a fiery explosion consumed everything in front of me.

How long has it been? Pain, seethed through every inch of my body. I couldn’t move anything except my eyes under my closed eyelids. Opening them, rubble and bodies littered across the floor. A stinging thirst gripped my bone-dry throat.

“That’s the fucking Lieutenant that massacred the village near Posen has been over for over a month now. We’ve been looking for him for over a month now since the war ended,” the Ostmänner Captain muttered as he stared down at Lügner’s corpse.

A voice then said behind me excitedly, “Captain, this one is still alive!”

I brought myself back to my family in Friesland as the Captain approached me with his dismounted hooked bayonet in hand. He crouched down to look at me and I readied myself.

“You must be thirsty, drink this,” he said, as he used the tip of his bayonet to crack open a can of apple juice.