Katarina Kills VII

When we last saw Mike and Kat they were headed to Aurich, riding in a recently stolen car. It's former owners, a mother and her child, left weeping beside the road. Not the prettiest of pictures. 

It surprised Hudson how quickly they made it back. The trek to the ambush site had taken a couple of hours. Of course that had been on foot, cautiously moving through the woods, made wary by the explosion of gunfire that had erupted in Aurich not long after their departure.

The Mother’s Subaru moved much faster than their feet. The thought of the two, mother and girl, alone on the road, haunted him. But not as greatly as the thought of the beasts he had fought at the cottage in the woods, the beast that had tracked him to Tanenhause (see World at War: Revelation), and the monsters that had attacked his convoy, controlled by a single malefic entity such as Üdvöske.

They ditched the car outside of town, in the parking lot of a quiet DHL packing station. Lights shut down, empty container trucks backed to abandoned docks. Hudson wondered if people still shipped overnight packages during a world war. Seemed unlikely.

A belt of thick woods surrounded the town, and the two crept through them cautiously, heading for Aurich’s suburbs, not wanting to stumble into a Russian listening post, unaware that in their absence the Americans had taken the town, and captured the remaining Russians. Dried leaves from the previous autumn rustled and cracked, annoyed by the pair’s passage. Insects sang, unconcerned.

In the lead, Hudson angled away from the asphalt. Kat spoke. “Why not trace the road? It’s faster.”

He turned. “You’re right, but that road is sure to have a checkpoint on it.”

Kat shrugged. “So we kill them.”

An owl hooted, their discussion irritating him.

“No doubt, you could kill them. We could kill them,” Hudson corrected himself, “But we could also make a hell of a lot of noise.” He waved an insect from his face. “And noise is bad.”

Kat frowned, Hudson turned to the woods. “Come on, let’s find a phone book.”  

Hudson headed north, skirting Aurich, losing valuable time, but avoiding Russians. Kat walked beside him, helping him navigate the darkness. After fifteen minutes, Hudson turned east. At least he hoped it was east. It was time to head in.

The woods thinned where they abutted northeast Aurich, giving way to first an occasional home, then light industry. They passed through parking lots, fenced by box-like corrugated steel buildings. They saw no Russians. They saw no one; not at first, but ten minutes past the first of the box buildings, creeping through a darkened Aldi grocery store, Hudson heard an engine approaching fast. The Aldi was built on the intersection of two semi-major four-lane streets, one north-south, the other east-west. The noise approached from the south and soon clarified into a Gaz Russian truck.

Hudson ducked behind an abandoned VW Rabbit, to his left Katarina did the same. The truck ran no lights, yet still moved at a brisk clip. As it passed, Hudson got a glimpse of two soldiers in the cab, a few more in the back. Strange.  He stared after the truck for several seconds after both lost sight of it.

“What is it, Mike?”

He shook his head, more as if to clear it than express negation. “I don’t know,” he mumbled, “but…”

“But what?” Kat interrupted, more insistent now.

His eyes met hers and he shrugged. “Those soldiers… I think they had on United States Army uniforms.”

“How’s that possible?” Her eyes scanned the empty street.

Once again he studied the now vacant road. “Shouldn’t be.”

“Mike?”

He turned to her and she smiled, raising a hand to point behind him.

Warily he turned. There, next to the Aldi’s doors, stood a phone booth, its illumination light glowing softly. He nodded. Within minutes, its phone book was in his hands.

Hard plastic comprised the book’s cover, a finger-thick chain leading from the bottom of the spine to an anchor point below the phone. It wasn’t a phone booth, per se, rather a station set on the brick wall beside the Aldi’s large, double doors. Kat stood next to him.

“You read German?” Katarina asked, surprise in her voice.

Hudson didn’t look up. “I’ve lived here two years.” He found the listing for churches and quickly ran his finger down the page. “Well, we caught a break. Only one Catholic Church. Saint Luke’s.” 

Mark H. Walker served 23 years in the United States Navy, most of them as an Explosive Ordnance Disposal diver. He is the owner of Flying Pig Games as well as Tiny Battle Publishing the designer of the aliens-invade-Earth game Night of Man, the author of Desert Moon, an exciting mecha, military science fiction novel with a twist, with plenty of damn science fiction in it despite what any reviewer says, as well as World at War: Revelation, a creepy, military action, with a love story, alternate history, World War Three novel thing, Everyone Dies in the End, and numerous short stories. All the books and stories are available from Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing right here. Give them a try. I mean, what the hell? The games? Well that's Flying Pig Games and Tiny Battle Publishing Retribution will release in the summer of 2015. Okay, Okay. It looks like Retribution will be a fall release. Should I Kickstarter it?