Chapter 40 Stefan
FORTY
STEFAN
Crunch after crunch alongside grunts of various volumes, tones, and strength act as a broken metronome—repetitive, but out of sync, balance, and rhythm.
It’s the sound of suffering.
Above the layer of sweat, blood, and tears, there’s fresh air—cold enough to freeze the hairs inside my nostrils, but there are hints of pine, moss, and damp earth.
My eye twitches, a warning. My stomach is raw, shriveling up within me.
I try to imagine the taste of Mama’s pastries—the ones I would take with me to the factory—how heavenly they would smell during our lunch break.
The buttery taste mixed with almond and vanilla…
“Schneller!” It’s all they shout, telling us to move faster as if we aren’t doing everything humanly possible to stay on our feet.
Shades of gray pilfer the sky, morphing from whiter hues scaling toward black until night steals any remaining light. Every step is one second, and sixty steps is one minute, but that means nothing since we don’t know where we’re going or how long it will take to get there.
What I do know is that a coat, clogs, and a wool blanket aren’t enough to protect any of us from the brutal winds, freezing temperatures, pain, weakness, and starvation…This isn’t just a course of travel between one location and another. We’re on a death march.
And we’re walled in by guards. One on each side, front-right, front-left, middle-right, middle-left, back-right, back-left.
Not an hour passes without the SS shooting another man for moving too slow or tripping. They even shoot the men who fall to their deaths to make sure they’re dead and not dying.
The wooden clogs have no soles to grip the icy terrain, making every step more dangerous and painful.
The guards had us stop last night, and the night before too, but I believe it was so they could sit down and rest their legs.
They want us to believe this is some sort of evacuation, but we all know the truth.
We aren’t heading toward safety, or anywhere with shelter.
They want to move us away from the Soviets who will quickly see the truth of what the Reich has been doing to innocent people.
I’m sure it will be less obvious to Soviet soldiers when they find just one or a few dead men but hiding all our bodies at once to conceal a scene of mass murder would be far too risky.
Instead, the guards will just watch us all die slowly, one at a time—a torturous promise of the end for the rest of us.
Piotr and I were able to reunite. I didn’t know if he was still alive after all the men shot.
He was toward the beginning of the lines, and I’ve been at the end.
He hasn’t said much, but we used each other’s backs for support to rest last night.
I tried to sleep, but I feared being shot if I didn’t wake up at first call.
We’ve been on an incline for hours, the air growing even colder, the trees shorter.
Not even my blanket draped over my head is doing much to keep my muscles warm enough to move.
My hands tremble and the distinction between cold and seizing nerves are hard to decipher.
It’s been a few weeks since I’ve had a full-blown seizure, but they will never stop, which means I will either make it to whatever destination we’re heading to, or I will be shot to death on the way.
The more days that pass, my hope of survival runs slimmer.
If I knew how long—how far we’d have to go, I could keep counting seconds. Time would matter.
“Body,” someone mumbles from ahead.
A warning so no one trips over a frozen corpse, partially buried in the snow.
Another Soviet plane is growing closer, hovering atop the tree line. The throat growl and drone of the Soviet engines. They sound different to German aircraft—the Soviet planes rumble like they’re drowning in petrol. German aircraft scream and cut through the air like blades.
This Soviet plane is louder than the previous. Maybe because of the elevation. Despite being closer to their flight path, I know they still won’t see us through the thick pine brush.
Even if they did, they might confuse us for the German soldiers they want dead.
It doesn’t go unnoticed that each of the guards barricading the lines stare up through the trees, waiting for the plane to pass. Their eyes wide, chests out—almost as if they’re holding their breath.
The rumble grows stronger, thrusting heavier gusts of wind at us as it closes in. Then it will unravel, the volume will decrease, and the rattle of the world will simmer.
Not this time.
A piercing shriek slices through the air and a rush of heat and pressure wallops against us. Some of the other men fall to their knees, but I manage to wrench my arm around a tree, reaching out to grab Piotr who’s stumbling. I catch the fabric of his jacket and yank him toward me.
The guards are shouting, but not at us. To each other.
“Take cover!”
“Air raid!”
They aren’t telling the prisoners to take cover.
There is nowhere to take cover. But they’re all running in various directions, frantically.
Not paying attention to what’s happening between these trees.
Guards fires their weapons into the woods, but black smoke replies, gathering thickly toward us.
The ground stops shaking but the trees are still swaying, snow is falling in chunks from branches.
I can only hear the breaths pumping within my body when I look to the left, finding a short cliff.
I release my grip from the tree and stumble down the cliff, grab tree to tree as if my arms are made of rubber.
Just thin bone that might snap if I hit them the wrong way.
I manage to make it toward thicker tree trunks, finding another short cliff then a narrow-frozen stream.
Beyond the stream are boulders large enough to hide behind.
Nothing is steady. Everything vibrates like an endless echo.
There’s no time to hesitate. I claw my way through the woods, reaching the stream, testing the toe of my clog on the ice to check if it’s solid. It isn’t.
I jam my foot into the water then plunge the other, taking the four long, numbing steps to the other side before falling against a rock.
I press my hands against it as if holding it upright, then twist my body around to the other side before falling into the wet soil untouched by snow because of the slight shelf on top of the boulder.
A thud and a huff of exasperation land beside me. Piotr, breathing hard and heavy.
“We—we—have to keep—keep—moving,” he utters.
He’s right. There’s no distance safe enough to claim we’ve gotten away. Only one other man has managed to break free from the group. In the middle of the night when a guard dozed off for thirty seconds while on watch.
I grab the side of the rock and pull myself far enough to peek up the mounds of snow and rock. I can’t see up to the path we were on. I don’t know if they’re still rounded up there. Or if they’re counting people.
Maybe staying still and silent is better. Though if we hear anyone come after us, there won’t be time to run. We’ll get shot immediately. We’re also going to freeze to death with wet feet and pant legs if we stay on the ground.
“There’s another ledge ahead,” I say, pointing through the trees to where the snow dissolves into a dark shadow.
Ledge after ledge, hills and more hills, we’ve gotten a good distance away from the rest, finding ourselves in a thick patch of fog and more boulders, a few that butt against each other, forming a hollow.
I grab a short branch from the ground and stab around inside the dark hole, checking to see if the space is occupied by man or animal, but the branch only slaps against the rock walls.
God only knows where we are, how far away from civilization we might be. We’ve been walking through the woods for almost two days. We squeeze into the narrow rock cave, our bodies pinned side by side.
“This is a good spot,” Piotr says. “We can stay here.”
I didn’t have a plan when I decided to make a run for it. I still don’t know what direction to go but I know we can’t stay here. We’ll freeze tonight.
I grab the bottom of my pant legs, the fabric a frozen sheet. “I don’t think we should stay,” I argue.
He clambers out of the rock cave first, checking the surroundings before exiting.
I take in the last second of damp heat from our breath and follow.
Our speed slows, both of us trudging as if carrying bags of sand tied to our legs.
We haven’t eaten in more than two days. There isn’t a squirrel or bird in sight, not a sound or life, just crackling branches.
Another stream interrupts our direction, and I question if I can wade through any more frozen water. My pants are still clad with ice.
I test the surface, adding more weight until I’m confident it will hold us up to cross. “I’ll go first,” I tell him.
Aside from a slight crackle, the ice holds up. I stop and wait for Piotr, watching him test the ice the same way I did—as if it’s different than the ice I just crossed.
He finds it to be solid and moves toward the side I’m on.
Two steps in and the crack thunders, deep and guttural, followed by a splash. It isn’t a shallow stream. Not like the last. He slips hard and goes under fast. His arms thrash overhead, splashing, grasping for nothing but air.
No. Oh God. No. No.
I search wildly for something to grab onto, finding a branch partially exposed from a mound of snow.
I yank it out and swing it toward the hole.
“Piotr!” I shout, louder than I should be in our situation.
“Grab the branch!” He reaches for the branch, grabbing a hold of it, pulling—testing my strength.
His head bursts through the surface, gasping for air, his eyes wide with shock as he chokes out a mouthful of water.
“Hold on to the branch,” I groan, pulling with nothing to press my feet against for support—the ground solid ice.
“St-t-top! L-l-l-et go, St-st-st-efan,” he grits through chattering teeth.
“No. Hold on. I’ll get you out.” I keep a hold of the branch but shift my body around so I can reach my hand out, hoping the toes of my clogs will catch on the ice to get me more pull.
“L-l-let m-m-me go.” He’s breathing harder as frost thickens across his face.
“No. I’m not going to let you drown,” I bark back. “We’ll find somewhere to go. You’re not giving up now.”
“G-g-o. L-l-live. Y-you c-c-can s-s-still ha-ha-have a l-l-life. I—” His breaths become shallower the more he talks. I wish he would just focus on moving toward the ledge. “I l-l-li-ved m-m-mine. Y-y-you d-d-don’t n-n-need m-m-me n-n-now. L-l-let g-g-go—”
I yank the branch to my side, knowing he’s still got a grip on it, but the branch goes flying, and I slide backward.
He let go.
The image of him grabbing my arm two nights ago, telling me to use his back for support. To get some sleep. I don’t know if he slept.
You don’t need me now.
“Yes, I do. I still need you. You need me. We’ll make it out of here together,” I snap at him.
I throw myself to my knees, clawing at the frozen ground, reaching for his hand as if it’s within physical reach. “You’ll fall in. Don’t.”
I’m still reaching for him as he begins to sink sinking.
I can’t blink or breathe. All I can do is watch him let go.
Watch him staring, while also dying.
Shivering until his body submerges under the water’s surface, his face skyward, eyes open, shock.
My chest might collapse. I’m wheezing. My heart’s bleeding. But I drag myself away, leaving a man behind for a direction with no destination. My bones are brittle, limp, and shaking too hard to keep going as night falls. I use a tree for support, begging it to keep me alive.
“I need to get back to Rosalie. God, help me.”
My eyes are heavy, and the tree bark scrapes against my cheek as I rest for a weary moment. The tree replies, but in creaks and croaks. My arms tingle, knees melt.
The tree crackles again…No. It doesn’t. That isn’t the tree I hear.
Footsteps. Footsteps crunch in the snow. Too close to me.
“Don’t move,” a man says.
A metallic clink shatters the frozen forest air. Then the cock of his rifle.
The end of me.