Whenever Olsen appeared at roll call, Marta knew, it was bad news. His presence alone could make a lead weight settle in the pit of her stomach, a sense of impending doom washing over her. This evening, he was here with Brian, the absolute worst of the Kapos. At the sight of them, she fought an unreasoning urge to run. Then Brian caught her eye and winked.
Olsen ran his hand over the goat, briefly, checking his favorite prop for defects.
She hadn’t fully grasped the Kapo system, when she’d first arrived, since she lived apart from most of the inmates; trapped in this hell on earth, they’d been just more demons to torment her. That’d changed the first time she saw a man, dressed like all the other men and with the same green triangle of the habitual criminal that she wore, beat another man for trying to commit suicide. The flat sound of the blows still echoed in her mind, the sickening crunch of bone. She still saw his desperate, haunted eyes every time she blinked.
Now, as Olsen’s cold gaze swept over the assembled prisoners, she felt a numb resignation settle over her. Every roll call was a new game of Russian roulette and, tonight, someone was about to lose. She didn’t even try to brace herself anymore; the horror had become too routine.
Olsen didn’t always explain the reason behind a punishment, if there even was one, but this time he did. “These men,” he announced, his voice clear and pitched to carry, “have been caught, three times now, stealing food from the prisoners’ kitchens to resell for a higher price.”
Men? They looked like teenagers, to Marta. They huddled in front of their captor like errant schoolboys, trembling. One of them, a lanky thing with hollow cheeks and sunken eyes, seemed barely able to hold himself upright—and if he was eighteen, Marta would eat her slippers. The other, stockier but just as young, kept his gaze fixed on the frozen and pitted ground.
Olsen prodded him with a well-polished boot, causing the kid to flinch. “We have, as you can see, been lenient.”
Other guards sneered, at times like this, but Olsen’s face remained an emotionless mask. He performed his duties with a mechanical precision, his eyes reflecting a chilling indifference. To him, torturing children was no different than buffing that leather to a mirror shine—just one more task.
“Compassion,” Olsen reflected, “was a mistake.” His lips twisted into a faint grimace of disgust as he thwacked his whip, slowly, into the palm of one gloved hand. “I also do feel obliged to remind you, friends, that this subhuman scum stole from you. You, not us. We have our own stores, and are in no danger of going without.” He paused, then, his whip hovering in the air as a fresh gust of wind kicked up. Marta wrapped her arms around herself, shivering in Vermont’s arctic air, but she didn’t dare look away as Olsen began walking in a slow circle.
Eventually, he spoke again. His English was stilted, almost lisping, his tone somewhere between revulsion and amazement. “Hardship is the best teacher, or should be. In California, for example, I learned the importance of cooperation.” He fell silent for a beat, and then continued. “You starved, during the siege. So did Allen and Jeff here, but instead of applying that lesson, they turned around and perpetuated the same harm on their fellows. They do not deserve to live among you,” he concluded, looking up sharply. “And so they shall not.”
Jeff only started resisting when his feet went into the box; until then it hadn’t been real for him. Thrashing back and forth like a beached fish, he almost twisted out of Brian’s grasp until Olsen waved for Kevin to join them. Kevin hesitated, to his credit, but he was a survivor.
Brian held Jeff’s shoulders as Kevin bound his hands, wrinkling his nose like he smelled something vile. Then Olsen, as aloof as ever, let his whip uncurl as he stepped forward. Kevin concentrated on blowing his nose, but Brian’s eyes lit up as Olsen swung his arm in a graceful arc. His whip cracked through the air, and grotesque troughs split open on Jeff’s back. Blood sprayed, spattering the guard’s face and dripping down onto his uniform, but he didn’t flinch.
Jeff’s desperate screams soon turned to guttural cries, then to silence. His body jerked in response to the assault, but whatever had been trying to escape…had. What Marta was witnessing, at this point, was simple physics. She pressed her eyes closed, but she couldn’t shut out the repetitive thud, thud, thud. It sounded like Olsen was slapping a side of beef.
The second kid took longer.
Marta had heard rumors about the special falls Olsen made for his favorite toy, falls meant to speed tasks like this—and make them exponentially more painful. She swayed as the second boy shrieked, feeling Rachel’s steadying hand on her arm. Olsen stepped back, finally, producing a handkerchief and wiping at the snot dripping from his nostrils; he had a cold, too, like half the camp.
Brian pushed Allen’s body to the ground, then freed his disgusting little prick and pissed onto it, the steam rising in the air. Rachel turned her face to Marta’s shoulder, her lips moving in silent prayer. Marta shook her off, angrily, and turned to go to dinner. There was no point in asking for help from a God who either didn’t exist, or who’d let a place like this exist.
Before she could eat, however, she had to pass Olsen’s other teaching aids. There were rumors about crucifixions at other camps, but Olsen wasn’t much for Christian symbolism. Rather, he favored something called the strappado. Three additional thieves, who for whatever reason had been allowed to live, were each dangling from their own post with their arms wrenched behind them. The position looked agonizing, but there was no begging this time, just a few soft moans.
The camp was a grotesque tableau of human suffering. As she trudged past the skeletal figures hanging like broken marionettes, she considered a pair of conspicuous absences. Danielle and Judith had been missing since morning roll call. Were they dead? The question lingered in her mind, a shadow of a thought she couldn’t afford to entertain deeply. Compassion was dangerous here, a luxury that could cost her what little sanity she had left. She told herself that she should at least try to worry, but she could barely summon the energy to put one foot in front of the other.
The dining hall loomed ahead, a dismal refuge offering scant comfort from gusts that sparkled with swirling snow in the floodlights. Stepping inside, she took her place and hoped for marmalade. Rachel materialized next to her, as if conjured by the same dark thoughts. “The strappado was first used during the Inquisition,” she announced, sounding like a teacher.
Marta, who didn’t care about history, grabbed a tray.
Rachel’s curiosity was her armor; she lectured everyone, when she wasn’t doing something else equally stupid. Even so, her friend’s intellectual interest seemed grotesquely out of place, almost a mockery of their suffering. “Back then, the Inquisitors added a series of drops,” Rachel persisted, her voice tinged with a detached enthusiasm that Marta found both baffling and infuriating.
Reaching the front of the line, Marta discovered that there was no marmalade tonight. There might, however, be slightly more cheese than usual. Rachel, meanwhile, shared the same pointless fact with Heather. She had a better response, her lower lip quivering in what was to Marta entirely misplaced sympathy. “How long will they be up there?” she whispered, glancing at the door.
Rachel’s shrug was matter-of-fact. “Until their tendons rupture.”
Marta decided that cheese wasn’t so exciting, after all, and went to find a table.
It was stupid, she knew, worrying about the marmalade. She could tell herself that the taste of sugar on her tongue brought back happy memories, of sitting down to breakfast with Bill or visiting with her aunt or a thousand other times where she’d smiled and laughed and taken sugar for granted, but she’d be lying. Marmalade was easier to care about, because marmalade was safe. Danielle might be dead in a ditch, her filmy eyes staring sightlessly into the growing storm, but no one stopped canning preserves; there’d be more, if not now, then some other time.
Dropping her gaze, she fingered the top button on her shirt. Danielle had used green thread, from one of the workrooms, her neat stitches standing out sharply against the coarse gray cotton. The girl must’ve stolen what she needed…or traded for it, came the unwelcome thought.
Abruptly, she stood.
Rachel called after her, but she didn’t answer.
Outside, the world was shrouded in white. Snow blew in thick, heavy flakes, reducing her vision to mere feet ahead. The storm raged with relentless force, a mirror to the narrowing of her own perspective. In this place, vision contracted; broader concerns about the state of the world and one’s own existence slowly diminished, the aperture of the mind’s eye closing tighter and tighter. Eventually, all thoughts distilled down to the most basic struggle for survival.
In her room, she found Olsen.
His back was to her as he examined her makeshift lantern, turning it over in his hands. Replacing it carefully where it’d been, he continued his slow and methodical circuit, each deliberate footfall heavy in the silence. The room was tiny; there wasn’t much to explore, but he studied each of her few possessions in turn with unsettling exactitude, as if savoring this invasion of her privacy.
At first, she wasn’t sure he’d noticed her. Then, without turning, he spoke. “Earlier, an acquaintance of mine called. A…friend, of sorts. He and I served together in California, a lifetime ago.” Olsen’s voice was low and rasping, like leaves blown across concrete. “One Obersturmführer Moritz. Although he was a Sturmmann, a stormtrooper, when I knew him.” Straightening, the guard tilted his head. “He must’ve heard something, because he reminded me that you were off limits. Despite the fact that you force Danielle to do your work and are cruel to her.”
Marta stared at him in shock, her heart pounding in her chest. Her throat tightened, making it hard to swallow. She took an involuntary step back, her eyes wide with a mix of fear and confusion.
Olsen walked over to her bed, still acting like he’d come to a furniture store. Running a fingertip across the top of her headboard, he examined it critically. Then he whirled around, causing her to jump. A spark of amusement flashed in his eyes at her reaction, but his face remained impassive as he held up his hand. “Come here,” he ordered. “Look at this.”
She felt herself move forward, stopping in front of him and staring straight ahead as he savored her terror. The part of her that’d run a tavern for a decade, and apparently had a death wish, wanted to comment that at least he’d washed the blood from his face before visiting—or made Danielle lick it off. The girl was apparently alive, and that was good, although he’d better feed her something other than bodily fluids if he wanted her to stay that way.
“Feld-Hure.” Marta flinched as he leaned forward, his breath hot against her cheek. He held his pointer finger up, almost touching her nose. “Tell me,” he asked, his voice soft, “what do I have?”
Her mouth worked, but no sound came out. The Devil should smell like brimstone, she wanted to blurt, her thoughts betraying her once again. Absurdly, though, he smelled like soap and tobacco. He should also be fiery but, this close, he radiated a chilling menace. “I don’t….”
“Feld-Hure,” he repeated, the slur almost a whisper. “Answer me.”
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
“It’s—dust.” She managed to choke out the word. “Dust.”
“Correct!” Stepping back, he smiled. “See? That wasn’t so hard.” He lowered his hand, wiping it on her blanket. “You might be pigs in a sty, but this is our sty, and you will keep it clean.” His stonewashed denim gaze traveled up and down her body, assessing it with chilling interest. “You’ve gotten too thin to be stealing food,” he remarked. “Otherwise, I’d think of some creative deterrent. A woman only needs…certain parts to service a man.”
“I follow the rules,” she quavered.
“Mostly,” he agreed, without emotion. “But we still have the matter of the dust.”
“Obersturmführer Moritz….” The words faded from her lips at his unblinking stare, her fear sharpening into something almost tangible.
“Was regrettably non-specific,” Olsen finished. He hesitated, then, and she steeled herself for the first blow. Instead, his coat flared out behind him as he whirled toward the door. She was about to release the breath she’d been holding when he stopped, one foot on the threshold, pretending to remember something. “Tomorrow morning, join the others in the dining hall, polishing tables. Until they gleam. And see that your little group’s conduct toward Danielle improves.” He waited a beat, letting his words sink in. “Do we understand each other?”
“Yes,” she whispered, her voice hoarse.
The single overhead bulb cast his face in shadow as he studied her for a long moment. “I drowned Judith last night,” he added conversationally. “In a latrine bucket.”
Then he was gone, leaving a suffocating silence.
Staggering toward the bed, her legs gave out from under her. She sank down onto the thin mattress, barely feeling its unforgiving hardness as she stared blankly into space. Somewhere outside a change of guard was called, and somewhere far above them all the moon was rising, but she hadn’t moved when her first customer arrived. He was rough, his hands digging into her flesh, and the stench of stale sweat clung to him. The second was no better, his breath reeking of sour alcohol. She endured them both with the same detached resignation, imagining Judith’s death.
The third customer did nothing but moan about how much he missed his wife, his words a repetitive drone in her ears. The fourth was too weak to do anything at all, his presence more pathetic than threatening. The fifth was a guard and he smelled even worse than the first two, his body odor mingling with a sickly sweet cologne that made her gag.
After that, her shift blurred into a nightmarish haze. She’d become adept at disassociating, floating above herself, not thinking. Each man was a faceless entity, using her body as a vessel for their disgusting slime. In the dolls’ houses, unlike regular soldiers’ brothels, condoms weren’t required and the risk of disease—or worse—was a constant, unspoken terror.
The unluckiest of the girls got pregnant.
When it was finally over, she cleaned herself up mechanically, her mind as blank as her expression. Then she went for a walk, desperate to escape the claustrophobic confines of her room, if only for a little while. The smart thing would be to get some sleep, but it wasn’t like she needed her wits about her to paw at fabric or be pawed in return. Besides, her time at Williston had taught her not to think too far ahead. Appreciating life’s most basic pleasures was something else she’d learned to do and, passing the women’s barracks, she reveled in the thrill of being alone.
The latrine block came next; inside, their so-called toilets amounted to a long plank of wood with two dozen holes cut into it. Buckets waited beneath; stopping for a minute or two, she studied them, wondering which one was Judith’s. A dozen faucets lined the opposite wall, dispensing frigid water when they worked, and that was the end of the prisoners’ luxuries. There was no soap and no toilet paper, although a lively black market trade existed for both.
The Kapos, like the girls at the doll’s house, had their own real bathrooms.
She’d almost reached the mess hall when she saw movement. Melting back into the shadows, she made herself as small as possible. Catching another thief meant getting another reward, and last time she’d gotten a blanket. This time, she decided, she’d ask for that marmalade. She wanted a whole pot, all to herself, but it wasn’t more pathetic kids after all.
It was Olsen and Danielle.
They were standing by the hay bales, and she was wearing his coat. Marta’s breath caught in her throat as she watched Danielle reach up and caress his cheek. The tenderness in the gesture shocked her; she’d never seen Olsen show anything but cruelty. He said something Marta couldn’t catch, his voice a low murmur; Danielle shook her head, a soft smile playing on her lips.
Then Danielle kissed him, her mouth opening under his as his arms encircled her thin frame. Marta’s heart pounded as she watched Danielle push him back onto their makeshift bed, his hat falling off and rolling in the straw. His coat hung down around her like a shroud as she took her time, unbuttoning his uniform with slow, deliberate movements. The intimacy of the scene was mesmerizing, and Marta felt a strange, uncomfortable mix of emotions—shock, curiosity, and a titillating thrill she couldn’t quite suppress at watching these two lovers come together.
She didn’t make her escape until well after midnight.
As she walked back to her room, her mind churned with a storm of conflicting emotions. Betrayal and anger surged to the forefront. She’d always believed that Danielle, like her, was another victim; the little chit was a regular Julia Roberts! The thought that she might willingly be with Olsen felt like a stab in the back. How could she? After everything they’d endured, after all the silent understandings and shared glances of suffering…to discover that it’d all been an act was galling.
Olsen wasn’t raping Danielle, she was his willing whore.
A wave of disillusionment washed over her, so bitter she could almost taste it. The camp was already a place where trust was a rare and precious commodity, and now even that seemed to be slipping away. If Danielle was capable of such a betrayal, who else might be hiding their true intentions behind a mask of false solidarity? She knew, deep down, that everyone here was just trying to survive and that included the young and pretty; in Danielle’s position, she might’ve mustered a smile for the least odious guard. But even if she couldn’t blame Danielle, she could still hate her for undermining the collective struggle of the other prisoners.
And, a small voice whispered, for making Marta’s own pain somehow less valid.
Her feet were as numb as her hands as she forced the door open, grumbling to herself. The quiet of the night was unsettling, the silence amplifying the chaos in her mind. Everyone else had been asleep for hours, the reception area looking like an abandoned stage set. Back in her room, she’d started to undress when she sensed the presence of another person. “It’s late,” she growled, not bothering to hide her annoyance. “Come back tomorrow night.”
The presence stepped forward, shadows coalescing into a man in uniform.
She glanced at it, she’d trained herself not to look at their faces. Luftwaffe, she noted, that was strange—and an officer to boot. Officers weren’t supposed to use camp facilities but, then again, neither were guards. Someone was always bribing someone, though; there was less of a fuss, here, if one of the girls had an accident. And a lot of men, especially officers, had strange tastes.
“Fine, then,” she mumbled. “Whatever.”
“Marta.” The man’s tone was urgent, almost frantic. “Look at me.”
Her mouth dropped open as what she was seeing dawned on her. “Alex?” she breathed, stunned. “How in the world did you get here?”
He gestured curtly at the bed. “Sit down. We don’t have much time.”
Doing so, she scrutinized him, her mind racing. “Is there a naked captain somewhere, missing his uniform?”
Chuckling, her one-time employee plucked at the lapels of his service jacket. “He won’t be reporting this missing, or anything else.”
Murder wasn’t exactly a laughing matter, even if the victim was subhuman scum. But Alex seemed awfully cavalier for someone who’d just broken into a heavily guarded camp. He’d finally found his courage, she told herself, though she hoped he had an exit plan. “I can’t climb,” she explained, holding up the gnarled and twisted stumps she called hands. “We’ll have to—
“Shut up,” Alex barked, cutting her off. “I’m going to tell you something, and then I’m going to leave.”
Numb realization settled over her, that for Alex nothing had changed. She’d grown up, for lack of a better term, but he’d be on this same crusade forever—and it was a fool’s crusade, tilting at windmills in a world where everyone colored between the lines. “Zelda isn’t here,” she stated flatly.
His gaze turned feverish, almost feral. “I asked her to go with me. There are places in Canada. We could’ve started over, put this all behind us, but….” His voice cracked as he ran a hand through his disheveled hair, swallowing a sob. “Picturing her sleeping with him was bad enough but to find out that they’re actually married? I underestimated the man’s depravity.”
Alex had always been naïve. “You’re going to kill her?”
At Marta’s assumption, his mouth dropped open. “I could never hurt her,” he insisted. He was hurting himself, though, he was tugging so hard on his hair that she worried he’d rip it right out of his scalp. “But him? He’s not just stealing her virtue, the creep, he’s stealing her life!”
“What, then?” Marta’s tone was flat, resigned.
“I’m going to free her,” Alex hissed. “And then she and I—
“Right,” Marta cut in. She’d had about enough of this farce. “Because nothing earns a woman’s love, like—
“She doesn’t love him!” Alex shouted, his eyes blazing. He was bouncing from wall to wall, now, like a caged animal. “She’s just confused, Marta. Voight’s manipulated her, brainwashed her. Once he’s gone, she’ll see that I’m the one who truly cares for her. I’m the one who’s always been there, waiting, ready to save her. And if she doesn’t….”
Marta’s expression hardened. “You’re delusional, Alex.”
“She doesn’t know what’s good for her,” Alex snapped. “But she will. Once he’s out of the picture, she’ll realize that I’m her only real option. I’m the one who’s sacrificed everything for her. I’m the one who deserves her love.” Stopping, he stared at the wall. “And she’s all I have.”
Reasoning with him was pointless, but Marta tried. “You’re talking about suicide.”
The smile he turned on her was knowing, almost serene. “What is there to live for?”
She held his gaze, feeling a profound sorrow for the nursing student who’d once been such a good fry cook. “Trust me,” she assured him, her voice heavy with regret. “A lot.”
His sweeping gesture took in the room. “I can see that.”
As he ranted, her mind wandered to the small things she’d once taken for granted: a warm bed, a meal that didn’t come from the bottom of a pot, the simple pleasure of sunlight on her face without fear—of doing anything without fear. She thought about the countless mornings she’d woken up next to Bill, never once considering that their mundane routine was a treasure. She’d learned the hard way that life wasn’t about vendettas, that pursing them came at the cost of what made it worth living. She wanted to tell Alex that revenge was a hollow pursuit, that his obsession was consuming him, leaving nothing but a shell. Life, she realized now, was about finding peace in the chaos, not fueling the fire of hatred. Instead, she dropped her gaze to the floor.
A bone-deep exhaustion had settled over her, along with a grim acceptance of what was to come. She couldn’t help Alex, just as she hadn’t been able to help herself, and now it was too late—for both of them. The realization was oddly detached, much like the understanding that she’d never know what happened to Danielle. She wouldn’t wake up tomorrow morning, and she knew it. Alex didn’t have much time, either; if his reckless actions didn’t get him killed, whatever infection was ravaging his body surely would. His face was flushed with feverish color, and a sheen of rank sweat glistened on his skin, signaling an illness that was quickly consuming him.
“I was weak,” Alex muttered, picking up her pillow and advancing toward her. “And I was desperate. Even so, I shouldn’t have listened to you about that clinic. You shouldn’t have listened to you—about any of it.” He sat down next to her, the stench of gangrene unmistakable up close, making her bile rise. “But I did, and now you’re going to get what you so richly deserve, for Tommy and the other children you and Bill slaughtered. After which,” he continued, “I’m due in Weston. The Sturmbannführer is having a little get-together.”
Marta nodded in acknowledgment, feeling strangely calm.
Alex pushed her down into the uncomfortable mattress, climbing astride her and pressing the scratchy, stained fabric against her face. She didn’t struggle; he’d always needed some help getting to the point, and she really was tired. She would’ve liked to tell him, even so, that she’d seen this same show earlier and with a better cast. There’d been a better ending, too, if a touch lacking in closure. She might’ve even added that she hadn’t made Alex do a single goddamn thing and neither had Zelda, but the pillow made it hard to talk, and she never got the chance.