Catch Your Death of Cold
For once the guns to the East were quiet. No Stalinorgel rockets shrieking into thunderous explosions. No gut-clenching reports from 152mm artillery signaling the deaths of dozens. Wind drifted through the corpses of slagged buildings, moaning into the emptiness. Rendelberg moved quietly through the snow-shrouded ruins of what had once been an apartment block. He could hear his men whispering to each other from his location, and he damned each of them to a Hell colder than this one for giving their position away. They had at least the good sense to keep their fire low and hidden in the corner of a couple of walls.
“I am telling you again, German, I saw them,” it was Ivar, their Cossack scout. The man was a half-tamed bear, gigantic and unkempt. “Saw them plain as I am seeing you. Six Russians, all frozen solid like statues of ice.”
“You steppe-men are all liars, Ivar,” countered Lehmann, the runty Bavarian. “You've been lying for decades, ever since you realized how ugly your women are.” He snorted loudly, as his overlarge nose ran in the cold. The other seven men chuckled at Lehmann's attempt at comedy, but Ivar was undeterred.
“You are a small man, German, and you do not know History. You have forgotten about Baba Yaga and the Holod Prizrak, the frozen ghosts. I remember them from stories from my great-grandmother, warning us of the icy death that lurked in the middle of winter. Now, I have seen their marks. They hunt us.”
As his men made fun of the Cossack, Rendelberg slipped behind them, his step sure even across splintered concrete and bent iron. In a low voice of disdain he spoke, “folklore and legend are powerless in the face of the Fürher's will.” A couple of his men flinched, spooked by their Oberleutnant's arrival. “Keep quiet, fools, there's no telling how many Russians managed to infiltrate this far.”
The Oberleutnant warmed his hands for a moment over the fire and then said, “Ivar, I want to see these bodies.”
The Cossack nodded once and drew his antique bolt-action rifle out from under his long coat. The Oberleutnant saw the heavy saber and long dagger Ivar also carried. The rest of them cast searching glances for infiltrators, checked the safeties on their MP40's and followed slowly after Ivar and Rendelberg. In the dark, the cold was torturous. It numbed fingers. It ate away at noses and ear tips. All of them bore pale white scars where the cold had lingered overlong. Moving through the bomb-blasted landscape set them all on edge. There were Soviet snipers and troops in hiding, waiting for a chance to kill them.
Ivar led them to the remains of a shop where the six bodies lay arched and twisted on the ground. Their hands stretched out in hook-fingered claws. Even Lehmann, who hated Russians with a passion, was awed by the naked suffering that had killed them so horribly. Blue-black lesions marked the grayed chalk of their faces and throats. The skin looked cracked, crazed, split apart as if from some terrible pressure.
The men were staring dumbfounded at the bodies when Kalb started screeching. Rendelberg turned to see the boy struggling with someone. The hooded attacker had managed to latch onto Kalb's back and hook a gray-black forearm under his chin; his other hand was clamped across Kalb's face, but was too thin to block the boy’s scream. Rendelberg thought it must have been one of Stalin's Rattenkreigers - snuck out of a shadow to kill his men.
Instantly, the soldiers went into action. Lehmann squeezed off a burst into the sewer rat’s head, tearing away the thin cloth of the babushka. The bullets had no further effect and sounded with solid wet smacks. The rest of them took cover as the OL and Cossack charged to grapple Kalb's attacker. Rendelberg was only two or three steps away when he saw with horror the color leaching out of Kalb. The Landser was being frozen, just like the other corpses.
Ivar threw himself bodily at the thing, his long knife flashing in the moonlight. The effect was horrific. Kalb's flesh, weakened by the intense cold, shredded, tearing away most of his cheeks and his left eye, stuck fast to one of its fingers. The Cossack stabbed at it repeatedly until his knife shattered in its rock-hard torso. Only then did Rendelberg see that it was an emaciated old woman, a frozen corpse given life.
The Cossack roared in horror and his screams were matched by the rest of the squad as the other corpses quickened and reached for the warm, pulsing life around them. Rendelberg had only a moment of sanity left to yank the pin on his last grenade and toss it into that wretched tangle before running headlong into the lethal cold of dying Stalingrad.
I can't remember if I posted this before, so if I have, my apologies. Game Design is rearing its head again and asking me to get to work.
“I am telling you again, German, I saw them,” it was Ivar, their Cossack scout. The man was a half-tamed bear, gigantic and unkempt. “Saw them plain as I am seeing you. Six Russians, all frozen solid like statues of ice.”
“You steppe-men are all liars, Ivar,” countered Lehmann, the runty Bavarian. “You've been lying for decades, ever since you realized how ugly your women are.” He snorted loudly, as his overlarge nose ran in the cold. The other seven men chuckled at Lehmann's attempt at comedy, but Ivar was undeterred.
“You are a small man, German, and you do not know History. You have forgotten about Baba Yaga and the Holod Prizrak, the frozen ghosts. I remember them from stories from my great-grandmother, warning us of the icy death that lurked in the middle of winter. Now, I have seen their marks. They hunt us.”
As his men made fun of the Cossack, Rendelberg slipped behind them, his step sure even across splintered concrete and bent iron. In a low voice of disdain he spoke, “folklore and legend are powerless in the face of the Fürher's will.” A couple of his men flinched, spooked by their Oberleutnant's arrival. “Keep quiet, fools, there's no telling how many Russians managed to infiltrate this far.”
The Oberleutnant warmed his hands for a moment over the fire and then said, “Ivar, I want to see these bodies.”
The Cossack nodded once and drew his antique bolt-action rifle out from under his long coat. The Oberleutnant saw the heavy saber and long dagger Ivar also carried. The rest of them cast searching glances for infiltrators, checked the safeties on their MP40's and followed slowly after Ivar and Rendelberg. In the dark, the cold was torturous. It numbed fingers. It ate away at noses and ear tips. All of them bore pale white scars where the cold had lingered overlong. Moving through the bomb-blasted landscape set them all on edge. There were Soviet snipers and troops in hiding, waiting for a chance to kill them.
Ivar led them to the remains of a shop where the six bodies lay arched and twisted on the ground. Their hands stretched out in hook-fingered claws. Even Lehmann, who hated Russians with a passion, was awed by the naked suffering that had killed them so horribly. Blue-black lesions marked the grayed chalk of their faces and throats. The skin looked cracked, crazed, split apart as if from some terrible pressure.
The men were staring dumbfounded at the bodies when Kalb started screeching. Rendelberg turned to see the boy struggling with someone. The hooded attacker had managed to latch onto Kalb's back and hook a gray-black forearm under his chin; his other hand was clamped across Kalb's face, but was too thin to block the boy’s scream. Rendelberg thought it must have been one of Stalin's Rattenkreigers - snuck out of a shadow to kill his men.
Instantly, the soldiers went into action. Lehmann squeezed off a burst into the sewer rat’s head, tearing away the thin cloth of the babushka. The bullets had no further effect and sounded with solid wet smacks. The rest of them took cover as the OL and Cossack charged to grapple Kalb's attacker. Rendelberg was only two or three steps away when he saw with horror the color leaching out of Kalb. The Landser was being frozen, just like the other corpses.
Ivar threw himself bodily at the thing, his long knife flashing in the moonlight. The effect was horrific. Kalb's flesh, weakened by the intense cold, shredded, tearing away most of his cheeks and his left eye, stuck fast to one of its fingers. The Cossack stabbed at it repeatedly until his knife shattered in its rock-hard torso. Only then did Rendelberg see that it was an emaciated old woman, a frozen corpse given life.
The Cossack roared in horror and his screams were matched by the rest of the squad as the other corpses quickened and reached for the warm, pulsing life around them. Rendelberg had only a moment of sanity left to yank the pin on his last grenade and toss it into that wretched tangle before running headlong into the lethal cold of dying Stalingrad.
I can't remember if I posted this before, so if I have, my apologies. Game Design is rearing its head again and asking me to get to work.