The Last Survivor (A Wilde/Chase Short Story) Read Online Free PDF Page B

‘The … the Enklave,’ she echoed. Malignant satisfaction was clear on the man’s face at her fearful stammer. ‘You’re one of Kroll’s people.’
    ‘I am more than that,’ he snapped. ‘My name is Ulrich Kroll. I am a
son
of the Führer!’
    Nina knew he was speaking the truth even before he finished the sentence. In most physical respects, he was very different from the leader of the colony of escaped war criminals; after seventy years in hiding, even with the water from the Spring of Immortality to slow his ageing, Erich Kroll had become bald and morbidly obese, while his offspring was fit, with the honed body of a soldier. But their eyes were the same: intense, hard, cold. She had been shown a photograph of the older Kroll at the time of his brief capture by the Allies after the war, and the more she looked at his son, the more she saw the resemblance.
    ‘Yes, now you know me,’ he said. ‘And I know you. I was there when you were sentenced to death by the Führer. And I was there when your friend was executed.’
    The words were like a hammer blow to her heart. For a moment she was incapable not merely of speech, of action, but even of
thought
as the nightmare that had tortured her played out in her waking mind as vividly as if it was happening for real. The bloated monster Kroll raising his gun, pointing it at the helpless Jared Zane – then whirling to aim at Macy’s chest and pulling the trigger. The young woman convulsing, squeezing Nina’s hand so hard that she could feel it all over again, staring at her with shocked disbelief and pain … before collapsing to the floor.
    Reality returned along with her horror and grief, the younger Kroll’s features replacing his father’s.
Now
she knew him, now she remembered him amongst the guards the Nazi leader had summoned. Some had dragged the surviving prisoners back to their cell, others taking Macy’s body away with no more respect or care than if they were removing garbage.
    Her kidnapper had been one of the latter. Her anger returned, this time accompanied by deep loathing. ‘You took her away. You
dumped
her in a pit.’
    ‘She was an enemy of the New Reich.’
    ‘She was an innocent young woman!’
    Kroll sneered. ‘She would not have died if you had obeyed the Führer. Her death was your fault.’
    ‘
Fuck
you!’ she roared, with such sudden fury that the Nazi was momentarily shocked. ‘I didn’t kill her – Kroll did! That fat psychopathic bag of
shit
pulled the trigger, not me!’ She glared at him, breathless – and only belatedly realising that she had just rejected responsibility for Macy’s death for the first time.
    But there was no opportunity to celebrate the psychological breakthrough. Kroll flushed with a rage of his own and thrust the gun at her. Nina flinched, but he caught himself before squeezing the trigger and instead lunged to backhand her across the face, sending her staggering. ‘
Schlampe!
’ he growled. ‘You will not insult my father!’
    Nina put a hand to her stinging cheek. ‘I’ve done worse than that to him!’
    His eyes narrowed. ‘What do you mean? What happened to my father and the others? Where are they?’
    ‘You mean you don’t know?’
    Something about his shift in attitude told Nina that while he wanted answers, he was also afraid to hear them. Rather than ask directly, he said instead: ‘I left the Enklave aboard the train with the other members of the New Reich—’
    ‘Apart from the children you left to burn to death in a locked building,’ she said with disgust. She, Eddie and Zane had gone in to rescue them, delaying their pursuit of the Nazi forces.
    Kroll seemed not to care. ‘You attacked us – you, the
Engländer
and the Jew. Many of us were killed when the truck carrying our weapons exploded. I was thrown from the train, knocked out. When I woke, I found the bodies of my brothers around me – and the Argentine police moving in. I hid until I was able to make my escape, but I