Heroes by David Hagberg (reading cloud ebooks TXT) 📗

At the first landing Deland stopped and held his breath so that he could listen for any sound. There was nothing, only the overpowering odor in his nostrils that made his stomach churn.

He was certain that everyone in the building could hear his pounding heart.

In school Gerhardt had not been a bad sort. Somewhat aloof, if Deland remembered correctly, superior that he was a German—a true Aryan—and Deland simply an American. Gerhardt used to make jokes about the Polacks and about the dirty Frogs, but he was condescending about Americans.

Deland continued up a step at a time, careful not to trip over the garbage that lay everywhere.

At the third-floor landing he could hear the sound of dripping water again. Toward the back of the corridor he could see the roof of the building across the narrow alley. Suddenly he realized that there was a gaping hole in the building. The third floor corridor ended at the hole. Most of the ceiling and back wall were gone.

Something felt very wrong to Deland. He could almost sense it in the air. He felt as if a million eyes were watching him from the darkness. Suddenly he had a terrible sense of claustrophobia, of frustration with what he was doing. One more death in the midst of all this death and destruction: Could it mean anything toward the final outcome?

He stepped away from the stairs, crossed the narrow, filthy corridor and reached out to touch the door. It was the only one on this side. He realized that Gerhardt’s apartment fronted on the street. He listened a moment longer, but hearing nothing he tried the door. It was not locked.

Deland pushed it open, a terrible stench coming from inside, making him gag. When his stomach settled, he held his breath again to listen. Someone was inside the pitch-black room. He could hear the regular breathing.

He stepped inside and closed the door. The odors were of human waste, of a long-unwashed body, and of some rotting, putrescent wound; the last smell was cloyingly sweet.

“Rudy?” he called softly. There had to be blackout curtains on the windows.

The breathing across the room was interrupted.

“Rudy?” he called softly again.

“Wer istt’ Gerhardt said. Deland recognized his voice.

“It is me: Robert. I have brought you some eggs,” Deland said, hating the lie. He was shaking.

There was a shuffling. A match was struck. Rudy Gerhardt, sitting up in the middle of a pile of filthy rags and blankets beneath the curtains at the window, reached with the flame toward a candle. “Robert,” he said, smiling. “You’ve finally come.”

It was all wrong! Gerhardt didn’t give a damn about the eggs, after all. But he had been waiting for Deland to show up.

Gerhardt reached up for the blackout curtains. Deland leaped forward, slamming into the man’s chest, knocking him back away from the window, his fingers seeking and finding Gerhardt’s throat.

The lit candle fell over as Gerhardt struggled against Deland’s powerful grasp. But he was a sick man, undernourished and very weak. His single leg thrashed; a horrible smell came from the rotting stump of his blown-off leg.

“Oh God.” The cry choked in Deland’s throat, as he squeezed harder, his powerful grasp crushing Gerhardt’s windpipe. Tears streamed down from Deland’s eyes. This was a nightmare from which he knew he would never be free.

Gerhardt had only wanted eggs. He had wanted food. Nothing more.

Gerhardt’s struggles rapidly diminished, and in the end he lay still.

A corner of the blackout curtains had caught fire from the candle, the flames growing at an alarming rate.

Deland released his grip and fell back away from Gerhardt’s corpse. His stomach heaved, and he vomited, his entire body shaking as he was wracked with terrible chills.

The flames continued to grow, licking the ceiling now, and Deland fell farther back toward the door.

“Rudy,” he Said. “I’m sorry, Rudy …”

For a second or two he contemplated tearing the curtains down and trying to put out the fire. But it was already too late. It would be better this way. The fire would cover the murder.

- Sirens sounded from outside. Very close. Deland scrambled to his feet in the corridor as the downstairs door crashed open.

Someone shouted orders, and there was the sound of boots pounding on the stairs.

Deland spun around, the flames in Gerhardt’s room building into an inferno, choking smoke filling the corridor. He raced to the jagged hole at the back of the building.

It had been a setup, after all! Gerhardt had recognized him! He had gone to the authorities! They had been waiting for him to show up!

Any second the Gestapo troops would be here. There was no other way out. He stepped back, and then sprinted forward, leaping out through the shattered back wall, out into the darkness, down to the debris-choked alley three stories below.

He landed very hard on the roof of the building, rolled once, and then barely knowing what he was doing because the breath had been knocked out of him, he scrambled around the corner of a shed, through a steel door, and down the stairs into the dark interior of the partially destroyed building.

This one smelled of boiled cabbage and onions, and he could hear a baby crying.

Careful to make as little noise as possible, although he must have made a terrible racket landing on the roof the way he had, Deland hurried down the stairs to the ground floor.

Outside, there were a lot of sirens and sounds of shouting.

Flames from the burning building were reflected on the corridor walls from the backdoor.

Deland made his way to the front door, opened it, peered outside. The block was empty. He stepped outside and without a backward glance hurried down the street, back toward Tiergarten.

His mind turned around the only question that mattered any longer.

Stay or go? Or did he have the choice? ~

Berlin seemed more forbidding than ever. The increasing overcast assured there would be no Allied air raids tonight, but it also plunged the city into almost complete darkness.

Deland kept looking