“So I threw that bad boy right over my shoulder. It landed a good 30 feet away from them and proceeded to roll down the hill.”
“That’s what I expected to hear,” Vlad said as his face turned into a big smile.
“Yeah, so I lift my head over the bed of the truck to sneak a look at my failure exploding at the bottom of the hill by a tree and got right back under cover again. Then I peaked my head up one more time, popped off a few more shots with my rifle and only managed to pick off one guy with my last few rounds. Now I was out of ammo, grenades, and dumb ass partners”.
“I’ll be honest I panicked a bit, but the second I heard a footstep on the other side of the truck I slapped the bayonet on my rifle, threw my helmet in the truck bed to distract them, sprinted right around the front of my vehicle and threw my bayonet right in the upper shoulder of one of the Germans pretty goddamn hard. As the blade of the bayonet ripped through his shoulder, blood spattered all over my face and torso and he let out a high-pitched screech. I pulled the blade from his shoulder and quickly gave him one smack to his face with the butt of my gun. With one loud cracking sound I know I got him right in the temple. He dropped to his knees, spitting up more than a mouthful of blood and fell to the ground face first. As he hit the ground I swung my bayonet at the next German, who was only just turning to see his brother die. My swing was almost perfect! I nearly sliced his head right off his shoulders! As the skin ripped apart on either side of my blade, blood spurted out on me again. When he hit the ground, he reached for his neck uselessly trying to stop the blood flowing from his wound. But he wasn’t dead yet. I didn’t want a good kill to go to waste so I, being the good man I am, decided to put the scum out of his misery. I lifted up my boot and brought it down as hard as I could on his pathetic whimpering face.”
Joseph smirked in an almost evil way. This really grabbed Vlad’s attention. He looked Joseph right in the eyes with an excited look on his face and said “Details, I need details goddamn it!”
“Well, as my boot crashed through his skull, which you could hear from a mile away, bits of his brain flew onto the truck, my pants, his dead friend next to him, and littered the ground with little pink and red chunks of head residue everywhere. I’ve been picking that man’s thoughts out of my boots ever since,” Joseph said, laughing at his own joke.
“Wait a second, you’re one Nazi and a shot to the leg short in this story,” Vlad said, interrupting Joseph’s laughter.
“Yeah, you’re as surprised as I was. I looked up from the second man to find that the third was nowhere to be seen. I figured he was about 10 feet away, aiming down the sights at me. I set my gun on the ground, ready to die honestly, but then I heard some scuffling in a nearby bush. I immediately knew it was him. Who knew he was going to be terrified out of his mind and out of ammo? So I walked over to the bush and pulled it back to see a young German no more than 18 years old. He was sitting there crying with his eyes closed, rocking back and forth!”
“Please tell me you left the poor kid alone and came back to camp.” Vladmir said sarcastically.
“That’s exactly what happened. After the little bastard accidently shot his gun at me right into my goddamn thigh.”
“Accidently?”
“The kid wasn’t even holding the gun; it must have brushed up against something and went off, right into my leg. I dropped to the ground and lay there right in front of this little bitch in the fetal position.”
“So this kid had at least three opportunities to kill you by now?”
“At least, but after laying there for a minute or two bleeding, I rocked myself onto my knees, grabbed the kid by his face, pulled him out of the bush and threw him to the ground. I don’t know what happened to me though; I mean I knew I wanted to beat this kid to death with my fists, slowly and painfully. And trust me I know I should have too, but something clicked in my head and I decided to just kick his face in with my good leg instead.”
“God damn morals always get in the way.”
“Tell me about it.”
“So what happened to the medical caravan?”
“Oh yeah, the whole reason I was there. I stumbled down the hill to the medical truck and opened it from the back. I don’t know what the hell the Germans are doing nowadays. I mean I expected when the door swung open to see a ton of medical supplies like syringes, pills, bandages, crutches, and all that good stuff. But instead I open it up to find four Jewish men, who were beaten pretty badly with broken arms and gashes on their legs and chests. I only knew they were Jewish because they had the Star of David on the black and white uniforms they were in. They were just skin and bones. It also seemed like someone tried to dye their eyes blue. I asked them what the hell was going on, but none of them had the strength to speak. Probably didn’t understand me, anyway.”
“What the hell?”
“That’s what I said.”
“So you left them there?”
“I couldn’t bring them all back. I thought they had a disease or something—they looked like the plague had hit them. Plus this wasn’t in my briefing.”
“What did Viktor say when you told him about the Jews?”
“He said he knew the Germans were up to something but that it didn’t seem like that big of a deal. He thought that maybe they were just trying out new chemical warfare on some random Jewish men.”
“That’s weird man. I wonder what the hell they were doing in the back of that truck.”
“Beats the hell out of me.”
Chapter Six
After Joseph’s story it grew quiet in the truck for the next few hours. Joseph grabbed the picture of Maria and just looked at it, thinking of all their good times together. Vlad just blankly drove until it was too dark to see in front of the truck. When night fell Vlad pulled over to some old house that was pretty badly damaged. The building must have taken an artillery shell right through the middle of it.
“Ahh… I could call this place home!” Vladimir yelled into the night as he slammed the door to the truck and headed for the old, crumbling house.
“Brilliant. Let's just alert every goddamn Nazi in the area that we’re going to be sleeping here tonight.”
“The more Nazis that I invite to come fight me right now, the less I’ll have to deal with in my future. This isn’t the last mission for everyone, you know.”
“Oh really, you’re going to pull that card now, huh? Maybe if you killed half as many men as I have, old Viktor would be letting you go too.”
Vlad didn’t reply. He was standing on what was left of the doorstep. He knocked on a wall next to where the door would be standing if it still existed, and yelled, “Knock, knock is anyone home?”
“You’re an idiot. I’m honestly surprised you aren’t dead.”
“You and me both,” Vladimir said as he walked over to the burnt remains of a couch.
“I call this couch!” Vlad shouted to Joseph as he jumped onto the decrepit piece of furniture. Joseph continued exploring the other rooms.
“That’s fine by me. I found a fully intact bed in this room!” Joseph shouted back with a grin.
“You lying bastard!” Vladimir yelled, jumping off the couch and running through a coffee table on his way into Joseph’s room. When he got to the entrance of the room he looked around to see Joseph lying on a huge king sized bed. The room was fully intact and was the only place in the house not affected by the bombshell. Vladimir looked around once more and threw up a specific finger to Joseph before leaving.
“Goodnight buddy. I’ll see you in…”
“Fuck off,” Vlad yelled at Joseph, cutting him off.
“Love you too,” Joseph whispered under his breath before he quickly fell into a deep sleep.