At that moment, a great groan rumbled around the chamber like a warship powering up its engines. Startled by the menacing sound, Haas dropped Stahl’s lifeless hand and reverting to their natural battle mindset, he and Wolff raised and aimed their carbines. Their filtered breathing was fast and shallow, obviously fuelled by fear and trepidation. Haas moved closer to his colleague and abruptly yanked him towards the steps and the apparent safety of the funnel, no mean feat given the pressure-suit and its accompanying equipment.
‘Let’s get the fuck out of here!’ Haas cried.
‘What about Stahl?’ Wolff asked. ‘We can’t leave him.’
Haas pushed his comrade away again. ‘Fuck the Sturmbannführer! Leave him, he’s dead.’
Wolff lingered over the Stahl’s body and pointed to the flashing chest-pack. ‘But his life-support system’s still working.’
‘Fuck his life-support system too. I’ve seen plenty of corpses in my time. Believe me, he’s dead. Come on!’
Haas moved on as the rumbling grew in strength. But Wolff wasn’t persuaded by Haas’ statement. For a moment, the soldier let his gaze drift down towards the body at his feet. The chest-pack was now dark and inert, the dials still and the Nazi’s eyes remained blank, but then, all of a sudden, they snapped to one side, focussing chillingly upon the bemused soldier. At the same time, the thunderous shifting of machinery abruptly stopped.
‘Herr Stahl?’ Wolff hesitantly asked.
Stahl’s eyes remained fixed on Wolff, but as he stared, his pupils started to dilate, and dilate, and dilate, until the whites of his eyes were swamped by the ravenous black pupil.
‘What the hell?’ Wolff exclaimed.
Suddenly the soldier was blasted off his feet.
He slammed into the chamber’s circular wall and slid limply to the deck. His chest-pack, like Stahl’s, now indicated a dead inhabitant inside the suit.
Konrad and Ziegler saw the muzzle flashes peppering the darkness below them.
‘Herr Sturmbannführer. Herr Sturmbannführer!’ Ziegler cried.
Another burst of gunfire roared in response. Its rattling mixed with the harsh static that emanated from the prisoners’ radios.
‘What are we going to do?’ Ziegler said as he looked towards his friend as if waiting for some sort of response, but Konrad remained still. ‘Well?’
Konrad continued to stare down into the pit, seemingly oblivious to his comrade.
‘Aren’t we going to help them?’ Ziegler asked again as another burst of fire reverberated from the darkness.
Thinking fast, Konrad then pushed past Ziegler and clambered blindly into the chamber below.
‘I never thought I’d see the day when I saw you risk your scrawny neck in the service of the swastika,’ Ziegler smiled.
Konrad raised a single finger to his face-plate. ‘Ssssh! It can be our little secret!’ He then smiled bravely as he started to climb down. ‘May fortune favour the foolish,’ he whispered as the gunfire once again sounded.
The smoking Schmeisser pointed towards the centre of the chamber as Haas waited for a response from his comrade’s invisible assailant. The soldier cautiously stepped forward, his boots ploughing through a field of spent cartridges.
The unseen foe struck again.
It slapped the weapon from the soldier’s grasp. It clattered agonisingly away as Haas crashed into the chamber’s wall. He painfully eased himself up and saw a small light-beam waving and shaking toward him from above. For a moment he hesitated to move, unsure as to what was approaching. He toyed with the idea of running away from this mysterious light-source, but after a moment, he saw Konrad appearing from the gloom.
‘Quickly, reach up here,’ Konrad shouted. ‘Up here!’
Haas hesitated before the prisoner’s inviting hand.
‘I promise not to tell a soul that you were rescued by a prisoner,’ Konrad said quietly.
Only now after his irrational snobbery had been satisfied did Haas attempt to grab Konrad’s hand. But just as their hands met, the soldier was pulled back down into the chamber. He didn’t scream. He didn’t cry for help. It was as if the officer fully expected the darkness to reclaim him. For a moment, Konrad was frozen on the spot, his hand held out impotently, but his resolve soon returned and so he continued to climb down.
Haas splashed into the rotting carcass and rolled down onto the ebony floor. He reached for his side-arm, but like his carbine, the invisible enemy smacked it from his grasp. He frantically searched the surrounding area for his lost weapon. Fear was now starting to take over, his coolness and professionalism ebbing away. His eyes darted around the smothering darkness that surrounded him until eventually he made out the angular shape of his precious pistol. He lowered himself to the floor and pawed at the weapon’s butt. His fingers wrapped themselves around the weapon, which he then pulled towards him, but with the chamber now devoid of all noise, the gun’s metal casing scrapped thunderously across its surface. Nevertheless, relief flashed across his face as the weapon inched closer. Eventually he grabbed the pistol and pressed it tightly to his chest.
But the relief soon disappeared as he saw a ghostly shape standing nearby. In front of him was a figure in a space-suit.
‘Stahl?’ Haas asked. ‘Is that you?’
The figure didn’t react.
Haas cocked the pistol, its shrill whine building in volume as the quivering weapon powered-up. ‘Who are you?’ he now demanded.
A rasping voice crackled over Haas’ radio. The voice sounded like it belonged to Stahl, but there was something different in its tone, something menacing and evil.
‘Stahl is indeed here, Haas. Unfortunately for you, so am I.’
The figure raised its hand and Haas shot off the floor. He floated in mid-air, his boots kicking impotently in all directions. The figure then slowly stepped forward into the glare of Haas’ lamp. It was indeed Stahl, his eyes pitch-black orbs, who smiled back at the soldier.
‘Stahl!’ Haas gasped. ‘Help me, in the name of the Führer.’
The soldier’s helmet shook as it was struck by the unseen force again.
‘Help me, Stahl!’ Haas begged.
Another blow hit the face-plate. This time a small crack appeared and air started to fizz.
As his precious air supply escaped, Haas pointed his now charged pistol at his statuesque tormenter and fired.
The brilliant particle beam shot towards Stahl like a tracer bullet. Ordinarily the bolt would have smashed into Stahl’s sneering face, but it simply swerved away from its target.
Haas fired again. And again. And again.
Not one blast hit its intended target. At the same time, the blows continued to rain upon the helpless soldier. The crack in his face-plate grew and more air escaped, the shrill whistle transforming into a banshee-like screech. Haas dropped the pistol and raised his hand in front of his helmet to try and somehow block the relentless attack, but it was to no avail. With one final destructive blow, the face-plate shattered. He thrashed wildly as the pressure-suit was flooded by the poisonous atmosphere. Skin stretched and marbleised as his grotesquely distended veins ballooned and burst. Soon, blood gurgled and vomited in all directions.
Stahl, silent and motionless during all this, cocked his head like a curious dog as he watched the gory tableaux. Then with an almost sadist lust, the soldier was smashed over and over again against the chamber’s walls and floor. Bones shattered, ligaments snapped and organs ruptured until all that remained of Haas was a soft, shapeless space-suit.
The Nazi’s death-throes sounded shrilly in Konrad’s helmet as he reached the base of the chamber. At that moment he wished the static that had previously fizzed over his headphones would return to drown out the sickening shrieks. When the screams eventually stopped, a haunting silence followed as he pressed across the now blood-splattered floor.