Undying Love - Brian Hesse (best non fiction books of all time txt) 📗

next batch of mass killings. Over the few weeks, after the first gassings at the Red and White house’s respectively, the Nazi guards were increasingly drunk. Security was still tight, but more astute prisoners, like Aleksander, noticed an increasingly slackening off within the SS guard elite. He thought to himself with some amusement, our Nazi masters are not even immune to the horrors of killing the innocent. May our blood be on their souls for the rest of their lives and, eternity beyond. His thoughts were interrupted as he saw Aaron pass by him on his way to his own barracks.

“Pssssss, hey Aaron, come here,” whispered Aleksander. Aaron walked with his usual cautious demeanor.

“I cannot accept any more notes for a while. I think I am under suspicion, he stated with wide eyed paranoia.

“You’re crazy my friend. If they suspected you, you would already be a cloud of smoke. Now listen carefully, I need Anastazja to meet me tomorrow night at eight O’ Clock outside the sick barracks, number four.”

Aaron waved his hands in front of face and shook his head back and forth, with mouth wide open but not making a sound.

“Now listen to me you fool. You will find a way or I will commit suicide. I will tell the SS guards about our little arrangement. I will die. Anastazja will die, but you will come with us.”

Aaron stared at Aleksander for a few moments as if looking at the final hold out in a poker game. Aleksander’s gamble paid off as Aaron replied,” Ok, but after this our arrangement is finished. You hear me, finished!”

“So how you going to do it, my little messenger boy?” asked Aleksander.

“I am tasked tomorrow with carrying all of the SS uniforms and distributing them throughout the camp and administrative offices. I am also in charge of compiling a list of five girls to help me distribute the uniforms. I will place Anastazja’s name on my list. Sunday is the girl’s day off, and will not look suspicious if I use girls directly responsible for sewing and repair of the very uniforms I distribute.”

Aleksander thought with just a tinge of guilt, he doesn’t even know we are going to escape. He will surely be blamed when Anastazja goes missing. Aleksander stuffed this guilty thought down deep within his subconscious, to be later brought out later when he could afford to feel such luxury as guilt.

“So why are bringing her to the sick barracks,” asked Aaron, as if reading the guilty thoughts on Aleksander’s mind.

“Because this is the safest place on a Sunday evening, and that is all you need to know.”

At eight O’clock the next evening, Anastazja was brought to the sick barracks number four. Aleksander did not give her a time to speak. He quickly wrapped his arms around her and stopped his tears from flowing as he felt her ribs protruding from underneath her tattered dress.

            “No time for talking my dear. Get underneath the bodies quickly.” He grabbed her by the left arm and swiftly walked her to the back of the large open tractor outside the barracks. Piled inside were dozens of skeletonized bodies with slick pale skin and expressionless dead faces.

            “Take off your clothes, hurry.” he commanded. Anastazja was tempted to argue, disgusted at the thought of what must be done, but she knew the reason for Aleksander’s uncharacteristic sternness. If they were caught now, they were sure to die slowly. Anastazja took off her clothes and crawled naked into the back of the truck. The weight of the corpses was crushing her, but she managed to wiggle just enough to the front of the pile to find a small opening for fresh life-giving air. The smell of decay and the feel of the stiff corpses made her vomit several times through the night.

            Aleksander could not use the same truck as Anastazja. His plan was well thought out and he determined that it was safer to use the second truck. He stripped naked himself and threw both sets of clothing underneath the barracks. He heard the familiar footsteps of the standard knee-high Nazi jackboot crunching gravel beneath each heavy step. He quickly ran to the second truck parked next to Anastazja’s and pushed his way underneath the dead. He too would vomit and silently wretch throughout the night.

Onward to Russia

     At six am the next morning, the tractors filled with the corpses of the sick were brought to a large Poppy field just two miles from the camp. Anastazja could feel the back of the tractor being raised on an incline. She took a deep breath filling her lungs one final time with the foul odor of the bodies directly above. With her mind numbed by the horror of spending the night in this condition, she felt her body slide free onto the dew-covered grass below. She braced herself for the impact of dozens of bodies falling on her already fragile form. She waited until the tractor pulled away to drive the two miles back to camp for another load of inanimate ghastly cargo. When she felt safe to emerge, she pushed and squirmed her way from underneath the pile of dead and frantically scanned the area for Aleksander. Almost ready to give up hope that her Aleksander survived the night, she heard grunting from underneath the second pile of bodies dumped by the second tractor.

            “Aleksander. Aleksander,” she repeated, as she crawled through the grass to the location of his gasps. Aleksander slowly crawled from beneath his own burden as Anastazja frantically pulled at the corpses still crushing him from above.

            “I’m ok love. We are Ok,” he whispered between involuntary fits of coughing and gagging from the stench.

            Both lovers rose to their feet and stumbled through the morning fog in silence. That night, just ten miles East of the camp, the lovers found an abandoned farmhouse still standing despite having been set on fire during the early days of the invasion. By a twist of fate, the barn was set on fire by an incendiary shell just before a downpour of rain. Anasytazja and Aleksander were not religious, but could not help wondering if fate provided them this life saving shelter four years before this moment in time.

            That night, both lovers embraced and made love to each other for the first time in four years. For just one night the world of horror and insanity, just outside the door, melted away into obscurity, as both lovers became one again.

 

End

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Publication Date: 09-26-2017

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