Authors: Len Gilbert
“Surviving,” Peiper answered, and turned around to point the Browning at a mortified William Perl.
Through all the commotion, each of the 72 SS defendants vanished in a white flash. Whatever was going on outside, it didn’t last long. Within minutes an M4 Sherman tank crashed through the wall and hundreds of infantry swarmed in. Thank god their uniforms were green.
“They’ve escaped?!” A captain shouted.
Lieutenant Perl popped up from under the desk, like a mole popping out of its hole, and screamed at Everett.
“It was HIM! He gave Peiper a weapon and helped him escape!”
The soldiers clasped onto Willis Everett and dragged him away.
“Oh shit.”
Kasha
“Stay where you are… Nice and easy, there…”
White vapor escaped from Werner Poetschke’s mouth as he aimed the muzzle at a disheveled young wolf who stared blankly into its barrel. He’d found another male wolf while scanning the perimeter of their new ‘territory.’ This one looked both tired and beaten up. The wolf had some black dye smeared on his right breast. Whatever the painting used to signify, Poetschke couldn’t make it out anymore.
“Ugh. Another one of you pointy-nosed humans.” The young wolf scoffed, “What do you want?”
Poetschke nudged the wolf with the barrel. Doing so elicited a growl.
“Tell me where you’re running from.”
“South and east.”
“From who?”
“I don’t have to tell—”
Poetschke turned the muzzle around and flames went roaring out to swallow up some nearby pine cones and green needles.
“You’ll be next if you don’t talk.” Poetschke grimaced at the young wolf, who sighed.
“I’m running from the Grimeskins.”
“Grimeskins? What about ‘Raiders?’ You seen any of them?”
The wolf stared blankly at him.
“They’re the same thing.”
“So,” Poetschke smiled, “Do you want to kill these Grimeskins?”
The wolf stared at Poetschke once again. He could probably have jumped the human if he really wanted to.
“The Grimeskins did terrible things before my eyes. So yes. I want to kill them.”
Poetschke grinned at the wolf and pointed down his flame nozzle.
“I think you’ll fit in well here…”
The young wolf tilted his head and stared blankly at the human.
“Unless. You already have a pack?” Poetschke said.
“…A pack? Didn’t know Humans had packs…”
“These ones do. Humans and wolves. It’s up to the Alpha. But I think he’ll take you in. What’s your name?”
“Kasha. used to be of the Goldgrass Tribe. What’s your tribe’s name?”
“We’re a new tribe,” Poetschke said, gesturing for the young wolf to follow him. “Of humans and fleeing wolves. Don’t have a name yet.”
“We got a raid tomorrow after dusk. Can you fight?”
“Yes, I can.”
“Well come on.”
Poetschke lead Kasha through the dark, snow-covered woods.
“So where were you headed, wolf boy?”
“I came up here looking to find a new pack, among the forest wolves. Before the Grimeskins got here,” Kasha answered.
“Hate to tell you this. But the Raiders are already here.”
Poetschke brought Kasha deeper into the woods, until they reached a snowy cavern encircled by a trench.
“Here it is,” he looked back to Kasha before shouting aloud.
“Herr Generaloberst! I found another straggler!”
The fire-starting human led Kasha to a narrow “moat” surrounding their lair. Kasha couldn’t understand why the waterless moat was there. That surely wouldn’t stop the Grimeskins. The two hopped over the man-made ditch. A small handful of other wolves were there, staring at him. Some male, some female. The flame-wielder pulled Kasha along until they found another human dressed in the similar, otherworldly attire. This one had a coat made of animal skin.
“This is our alpha. You may call him Master Sepp.”
For an alpha, ‘Master Sepp’ was awfully short, but his weathered face spoke of long, intense wars and sudden intrigue. His being looked strangely invigorated by the struggle, not weighed down by it like most would be.
“What’s his name?” The ‘master’ asked.
“Kasha. I tracked him in the woods. He’s a refugee.”
“A refugee, eh? Do you smoke?”
Kasha jumped back. “Uh-ah. N-no! I don’t do Cottonwine, with other men.”
Both Flame Wielder and Master Sepp looked confused.
“I don’t know what Cottonwine is. I’ll tell you a secret, though, Herr Poetschke and I are from another world.”
Master Sepp took a tubular twig from a packet and lit the tip ablaze.
“In our world, smoking calms the nerves. And by the way, I also only like women.”
Master Sepp seemed honest, but there could have been anything inside those twigs.
“Ah. If you don’t mind I’ll pass.”
“Alright.” Master Sepp exhaled a cloud of smoke.
“Fleeing from the monsters, I take it?”
“Yes, Master Sepp.”
The human smiled, illuminating his weathered face.
“You from a tribe?”
“Yes. The Goldgrass. I’ve been fleeing for months since the rest of my party was killed.”
“We’ll take you in. As long as you don’t shrink from war. For us, war is life, and as men, the greatest thing we can do is exude warfare. Understand?”
Kasha nodded and Sepp smiled at him.
“Besides,” he continued, “our enemy is the same as yours.”
Master Sepp was strangely likable, especially for a Human. Perhaps this ‘Sepp’ was worthy of a chance.
“Thank you for taking me in, Master Sepp.”
That night the alpha called the whole pack together. Master Sepp and Flame Wielder, whose name was hard to pronounce, were the only two humans in the pack. The other seven members were wolves. Five males and two other females, both of whom tagged right behind Master Sepp. Only the moonlight illuminated them in the crisp winter air.
“Ahem.” Master Sepp spoke up in a grunt.
“Everyone, we have a new member of this pack. His name is Kasha. He will help us tomorrow when we take back our loved ones. The loved ones that scream for our help right now.”
The others nodded to the newcomer. Their eyes carried anger and fear, probably much like his own eyes.
Later that night Kasha learned his job was the most simple one: Follow Sepp and keep harm away from him. Simple, but probably not easy. The alpha spoke of their task as if it were already etched into history. The little pack had blind confidence in this man. Such beliefs in a lowly human did seem foolish.
Destiny
ZAP!
That was the only sound Jochen heard when he fired that American pistol at William Perl. But now Perl was gone, and so was everything else: The judges, the looming American flag, Everett, the Leibstandarte. He was all alone in a plain white space.
“Hallo?”
‘Our world needs you…’
A firm, feminine voice called back to him.
“My family needs me!” Peiper yelled back indignantly to whatever was responsible for this hallucination.
After another ‘ZAP’ Jochen found himself back in his own world. Perhaps the Valkyries themselves were talking to him. Whoever it was, it was fortunate he came back, especially to a location where there were no Americans in sight. He looked around to see a snow-capped mountains with pines and firs all around him. The forest’s edge sat in the distance. Behind him was a desolate, frozen river.
“Commande—” a familiar voice carried through the cold air, but Jochen saw no one.
“Commander!”
A tall, bald man flashed before him, then disappeared like a flicker on a film reel.
“Knittel?”
Yes, it was Gustav Knittel, an officer who walked with him to Bavaria, and his voice was wracked with panic. Knittel appeared again and was thrown violently to the ground by an unseen hand. His body flopped down and then was still. Jochen bound over to Knittel and looked down at the unconscious, uniformed body.
“No…”
This was his fault. Somehow. Peiper knew that he caused Knittel’s suffering here, but he didn’t know why, and he didn’t know how to fix it. Sick to his stomach, he considered getting on one knee and praying, but to what? Even in the worst moments of Kursk he never believed praying would do any good.
“………Don’t take this man’s life on account of my insolence. Take mine instead if you must.”
He’d never prayed before in his adult life. Those words just flew out.
There was no response, but a dune of snow kicked up in the distance. Was that an omen?
Knittel groaned and then put his bare hands in the snow. Jochen got back to his feet and stared down at him. Unable to to get up, Knittel reached his hand up from the snow. Jochen reached down and pulled him up. The stricken soldier stood gaudily for a moment, then reached out to shake his hand, but Peiper grabbed the 6’4” man and hugged him anyway.
“This was my fault. I’m sorry about this, Knittel. Something was speaking to me, but I’m not sure how. I won’t make that mistake again.”
“It’s fine, sir…”
Just as he patted Knittel on the back, more zapping sounds went off, as if some invisible electrical current was running through the land. This time he saw Koechlin, then Roettlinger. Then Paul Guhl appeared.
“Is this—Is this Valhalla?” Guhl shouted. Seeing old friends made Jochen beam.
“Guhl! No, I don’t think this is Valhalla.” He chuckled. “We might actually be alive…”
“Alive? So it’s the five of us again? Just like in Austria.”
“I don’t know. Where were you last? I was at Dachau.”
“At home, Stuttgart.” Guhl replied.
A loud series of hums went off like a biblical hoard of locusts through the distant forests. The five of them stared at the woods’ edge and saw nothing, but the stillness was only there for a moment. Gray-uniformed men began emerging from the treeline. He recognized each individual face. There was Paul Zwigart, Hennecke, Felps the Volksdeutsche from Romania, Arndt Fischer, Motzheim, Hans Siptrott, Neve.
His black officer trench coat swayed in the winter wind as he looked on to watch dozens of men emerge from the trees and make a trail through the knee-high snow. All of the men had placards around their necks. Then it made sense to him: The defendants were here, too. In one collective motion, the 71 of them tore off their placards and threw them into the ground.
Without even a word, each of them formed a semicircle around Peiper. There had to be some 80 of them in total.
“Everyone…” Jochen raised his voice. They were already silent.
“I don’t need to tell you what the situation is. The war is supposed to be over, but the enemy has decided to continue their personal war against us. The Americans use whatever false pretext to circumvent convention. It’s on us to make them regret that.”
“As far as what’s going on east of the Oder, god only knows. But I know one thing, and that is I know what we are and what it is we must do. Our lives. They’re forfeit. There’s nowhere for us to run and we’re not going to be able to disappear quietly into civilian life. Not at least until every last one of these occupiers are dead. I’ll tell you what our fate is: We start killing them when they’re not looking. And we don’t stop until they are gone.”
He paced around, looking at each of the men in the front row. He saw the Alsatian, Marcel Boltz, straggle in to the crowd.
“Comrades, there are other cells operating here in the Fatherland. One of them was so kind as to break us out of Dachau. However, as far as we do things, it is only us. If you don’t want to be a part of this endeavor, that’s fine. You may leave now and I won’t trouble you further. But if you stay, you are the resistance.”
The silence continued. Not a single one of them left. For them, the war was back on.
“Shhhh! What’s all the noise outside?!”
The sleeping snow leopardess rubbed her eyes and stood upright to look beyond her thicket. Someone in the nearby glade was talking about some very weird things. Tail swishing about, she clutched to a tree trunk and stared out into the snow.
“H-humans?”
Humans! Almost a hundred of them! In gray uniforms, some in black too. She stared out into the crowd and saw a man in the center of them wearing a long black coat. He was tall and had a thin face. She saw his steely eyes from all the way in the trees. He looked like an angry, angry man!
The snow leopard suddenly felt stricken with fear. Why so many humans? How did they get here and why were they angry?
“T-t-they might hurt me! I need to hide!”
She cried to herself and scampered off into the dark.
Nacht Und Nibel
The day’s preparations were complete and now the forest raid could begin. Werner Poetschke once again had a reason to live. A handful of wolven fleers bolstered the numbers of their week-old pack. Some of them came from the forest village that was the target of tonight’s raid.
While none of the wolves protested Dietrich’s plan, Poetschke could tell that the young wolves were frightened of seeing the Raiders in battle again. As for himself, Poetschke had never seen a ‘Grimeskin’ before, but it didn’t even matter. He’d long accepted that he’d die at some point. Maybe that day would come when he was old. Maybe it would come in the raid tonight.
The ten of them fanned silently through the forest until the wolves came upon a break in the trees where moonlight poured in. Before them was a collection of straw huts circled around one great hall. Poetschke mounted the propellant tanks on his back, and charged up the pressure of his flame thrower.
Dietrich tapped his shoulder and Poetschke made a fist. Dietrich looked back and nodded, then Poetschke stalked to the other side of the village. The homes looked like mushrooms made of straw, with grains bunched up at the top in the center.
From the snowy ground he stalked forward. Yes. He neared the furthest hut in a corner of the hamlet, yet he still had the cover of the evergreens. Adrenaline coursed through his body and he shook in anticipation. Just a few more seconds…
His tension was interrupted by a blood-curdling scream from the other side of the village. Poetschke knew that scream. He heard it too many times in Hungary.