Grim Tidings Read Online Free PDF Page B

glass. I was knocked out so fast I didn’t even feel myself fall.
    I was immobile when I came to, and I really hoped it wasn’t because I’d had my brains bashed hard enough to paralyze me. I moved my arms and legs, feeling hard leather straps holding me down, cold metal under my back and aching head. I thrashed against the restraints and managed to bruise my wrists and ankles for my trouble. Of all the places you want to find yourself tied down, a Nazi hospital isn’t top of anyone’s list.
    â€œQuiet.” The voice came from beyond my field of vision, which admittedly was about as crisp and clear as a dirty windshield on a rainy night. Everything was blurry, and every time I tried to move my eyes my vision slipped sideways.
    â€œUngh,” I said to the invisible voice.
    â€œPlease,” it replied. “I apologize for the pain but you must be quiet.”
    I lay back against the cold table, feeling my heart thudding. “I hate to break it to you, but if your plan is to torture me quietly that’s not going to work out.”
    â€œNothing could be further from my mind,” the voice said. It was male, clipped dry syllables that came from somewhere in this neck of the woods, but not the immediate neighborhood. Not a German. Maybe a neighbor.
    â€œThen why all this?” I said. Raising my head up felt like somebody had taken a hammer to the side of my skull, but I did it all thesame. A face swam into view. He was painfully thin, sallow in the dim light, black hair swept back from a high forehead. He looked down at me without blinking.
    â€œI thought you were a German at first,” he said, indicating my uniform. “Then I thought you might be sick.”
    â€œSick like I’m covered in blood and chasing folks looking for more?” I asked. He grimaced.
    â€œI’m sorry I hit you,” he said. “You are an American?”
    â€œBorn and raised,” I said, relaxing into the dizzy waves bearing me up. Born and raised and died and was born again as a monster was just long-winded.
    He moved away and came back to put a cold cloth across my forehead, then undid all his good work by shining a light into my eyes. It felt like being sliced across the face with a butcher knife. “Jesus!” I snapped. “Do you mind?”
    â€œYou have a concussion,” he said.
    â€œYou really are Sherlock Holmes,” I sighed. “What did you hit me with?”
    â€œA bedpan.”
    I glared at him. “Better and better.”
    He leaned over me to unbuckle my straps. He was wearing a plain white shirt, not the ragged pajamas most of the prisoners in the camp had to make do with, but it was ancient, yellow at the armpits and collar. His pants weren’t any better, worn at the knees and so filthy they were stiff. “Are you a POW?” he asked. “I have not met any female GIs. The men they keep far away, in a satellite camp with the Russians.”
    â€œI’m not a prisoner,” I said.
    â€œThen you are a spy,” he said, nodding to himself. “And you could not have chosen a worse time to slip inside these fences.”
    â€œAnd what about you?” I said, sitting up and feeling the back of my head. It was tender and a little bloody, but I was basically whole.
    â€œI am a doctor,” he said. “They brought me here and made me assist the staff with procedures.” He held up his hands, turning the long fingers this way and that. “There are few skilled surgeons in the camps. Most are at the front lines or sitting on their fat asses in Berlin, ducking bombs and drinking tea.”
    Something crashed out in the hall, and I watched the doctor’s whole body get taut. “Are we safe in here?” I said.
    â€œFor now,” he murmured. “Until they find a way to open that door.”
    â€œAnd ‘they’ would be . . . ?” I lifted an eyebrow. He sighed, running water over his hands and