Chapter 10 #2
“Our Supreme leader is beyond reproach. He must rule with an iron fist.”
“I suppose the gold, which the Nazis hid and was going to use to rebuild their party in Germany, bringing about a new, stronger regime would be used for your movement. You may not be a Nazi, but you are also not something I want in America or the world, as well.”
“Our movement is better. It is better for everyone. Everyone is the same, same food, same clothing, same housing, same everything.”
“Same? Hypocrite! You might not have been giving the orders, but you’re certainly eager to give out orders now, aren’t you?
Telling Boris what to do and not do. That’s not equal.
There’s no getting out of this. Your movement killed my country.
Your movement, your communist guerillas in China, killed me. This is what you deserve.”
“Killed you? What are you?” Igor asked. “If you’re dead...”
She spat in his face and brought the saw closer.
“Wait,” he said, eager to do anything to get himself out of the dreaded predicament.
She smiled. “Come to think of it,” she said, her eyes narrowed in thought. “How much gold did you say you have?”
He shrugged.
“Come on,” she pressed. “You can tell me.”
“A few gold bars... a bag or two of gold coins... some jewelry.”
“Interesting. And where exactly did you bury this golden treasure?”
Pressing his lips tightly together to keep mum, he looked up at her.
“Really?” she said with a comical tilt of her head. “You don’t want to tell me?”
“I can’t.”
“You can’t or you won’t?”
“I can’t.”
“You said you were prepared to give anything to be spared... anything. Well, I want the gold.”
“I can’t tell you.”
Sonya picked up Igor’s knife and with one swift motion, stabbed it through his foot.
“Ah! Ah!”
“Do you really want to continue playing this game?” she said as she pulled the bloody blade from his foot and brought it to his face. “Tell me, or you’ll never tell a living soul anything again. I’ll slowly drive this knife straight through your eye so it's the last thing you will ever see.”
“I can’t,” Igor wailed. “I can’t. That gold is for the Supreme Ruler. That gold is for him to do what he wants with it.”
“Then prepare to join Boris over there.” She gestured to the mangled and partially eaten body on the nearby table.
Igor’s face scrunched up in disgust as he looked at the unrecognizable body. “What happened to him? They ate him alive. What sort of beast are you keeping here?”
“Hmm,” Sonya mused. “You really want to know?”
He shook his head. Did he want to know? Then he nodded, shook his head and finally nodded. “Yes. I have to know.”
“You know what they say about curiosity, right?” she said with a beautiful smile.
To see her, one might have thought she was chatting with a friend at the park. The horrors around her had absolutely no effect on her. She was as bright and bubbly as could be.
“It killed the cat,” she whispered into his ear. She lowered the gas mask back onto her face. “Some claim that satisfaction brought the cat back... but I don’t really believe that.” She looked at him with an amused glint in her eyes. “Do you?”
Igor had known many vile and cruel men in his military career, he’d even been one of them. But there was something supremely disconcerting in seeing a woman, a sweet, smiling, petite woman speak in such a manner.
“Tell me where the gold is,” she said with finality.
“Hey,” he said with a forced grin. “Wouldn’t everyone like to know. I mean, we found the two Nazi men who told us about the gold. Before we knew it, they offed themselves, but we found a map on one of them.”
“Well,” she said, once again pushing the mask off her face. “You’re here in California now, so the gold must be around here somewhere, right?”
He shrugged and looked at the table where Boris was.
“You’ve wasted enough of my time.” Sonya grabbed his chin and forced him to look into her eyes. “Now. Tell me now. You will tell me where the gold is, then you will forget this entire conversation.”
Igor held her gaze, entranced and mesmerized. “On a farm,” he said although it was far from what he’d intended to say. He didn’t want to tell her. The gold had to remain hidden until a it is found for his Supreme Ruler. “On a farm,” he said again.
“What farm? Where?”
Feeling a little drowsy, he looked down at the hand that lay on his chest. How strange it was to see it there. It was his, and yet it no longer was. Profound sadness sunk in. He was bleeding to death.
He grew cold, chilled to the bone. Other than setting a wet rag on his stump, she’d done nothing to stem the flow of blood. Was she going to let him bleed out?
“I don’t have an address or directions,” he said solemnly. “All I have are these coordinates.”
“What coordinates?” she said as she followed the direction of his gaze. “Where?”
“Written on my hand.”
“This hand?” she said as she playfully picked the hand up by the index finger and turned it so she could look into the palm. “Well, what do you know. Look at that. Good thing I didn’t throw it away.”
“My wound,” he said, growing tired and weak. His arm was numb. His entire body was growing numb. “Stop the bleeding. Please. I’m so cold.”
“Oh. Right.” She carefully set his hand down on the table behind her and raised his forearm to look at the bleeding stump. “You want me to stop the bleeding on this thing?”
His eyelids heavy and his breathing shallow, he nodded.
“Well, since you were nice enough to give me the coordinates to this golden treasure, the least I can do is stop you from bleeding all over the floor. I mean, you’re really making a mess here.”
He pressed a wan smile, pleased that she was going to tend to his wound. But then he saw her bring his bloody stump to her mouth. With a grin that was like nothing he’d ever seen before, she hungrily sucked on the stump, drawing his blood into her mouth.
Then he saw the fangs. Her mouth was full of them. And her eyes were glowing.
He was frozen with fear. “You are a upyr!”
“Upyr?” she said with blood-stained teeth. “Perhaps. Either way, I do believe you’re on my menu.”
“Boris?” Igor looked over towards his comrade’s body. “You’ve already eaten, why would you need more to eat.”
“So ready to throw your comrade under the bus. So ready to sacrifice him. I thought you were all about equality.” She pulled a small stool up to the table and sat down, her face at the perfect height.
Resting her head on the stainless steel table, she resumed sucking on his stump, like a baby at its mother’s breast, thirsty for nourishment.
His face went numb. He couldn’t feel his body anymore. He wanted to gag, to throw up, but his muscles were useless. All he could do was watch as she slowly drained him of his blood.
Through the haze of semi-consciousness, he heard a door open. Had someone come in to save him?
He opened his bleary eyes to see April at the door, shocked as she stared at the scene playing out in the room.
“Help me,” he managed to croak through his cold, dry lips. “Please... help... me.”