Economic Creatures E-Book

Denny N. Dwight

• Herausgeber: Freeze Verlag
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 366

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Book 1 of 3:

Hardy is a hotheaded young man who turns his back on his homeland, driven by personal demons, and enlists in the military. But war is nothing like the stories—its brutal reality drags him into a world of corruption, betrayal, and ruthless power struggles. When secret service agent Frank pulls him out of one disaster only to offer him a job in another, Hardy plunges even tiefer in the murky depths of elite conspiracies.

Just when he thinks he's hit rock bottom, fate proves him wrong. Locked away in a Russian prison, serving a life sentence, he watches the world outside collapse. A mysterious plague spreads like wildfire, turning the dead into insatiable predators. Cut off from civilization, trapped in the icy wastelands, the prison becomes a death trap where survival is measured in days—if not hours.

Then Bartosz arrives. A man on the run, claiming the apocalypse isn't just a freak event of nature. He swears that one single creature unleashed this nightmare upon the world.

As the undead break through the prison's defenses, Hardy, Bartosz, and a small band of survivors attempt a daring escape. Their only hope lies in a remote cabin deep within Russia's endless forests. But the undead are just the beginning. Starvation, the merciless cold, and the true monsters lurking in human hearts make survival a brutal challenge. As Hardy fights for his life, he discovers something unexpected: himself.

But just when he begins to believe in something greater than survival, it attacks. The creature that was supposed to be a myth. And now, for Hardy, the fight is no longer just about making it out alive. It's personal.

Economic Creatures is Denny N. Dwight's adrenaline-charged love letter to the horror and action films of the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s. Packed with callbacks, references, and classic undead carnage, this story doesn't just embrace the genre's tropes—it cranks them up to eleven.

Leseprobe

DENNY N. DWIGHT

ECONOMIC CREATURES

BOOK ONE - A STORY ABOUT

THE UNDEAD

First Edition 2022

© / Copyright: 2022 Denny N. Dwight

Publisher: Freeze Verlag

Original title: Economic Creatures – Book one – A story about the undead

Title photograph: Denny N. DwightCover design and illustration: Denny N. Dwight

Translation from German: Dr. Duane March

Editing (logical consistency):

Valeska Harrer, Tim Donart, Sebastian Kroker, Isabel Hofer

Editing (orthography and grammar): Dieter Holubek

Dennis NowakowskiDinnendahlstr. 4346145 Oberhausen

GermanyE-Mail: [email protected]

The work, including all contents, is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. Reproduction (even extracts) in any form (printing, photocopying or other means) as well as the storage, processing, reproduction and distribution by means of electronic systems of any kind, in whole or in part, is prohibited without the express written permission of the publisher. All translation rights reserved.

The Creature

The sweat ran from every pore as I made my way through the forest. The darkness made my progress difficult, small branches regularly lashed my face, tearing skin. Slowly, the pain I suffered in my first fight with the creature spread. My face hurt from the lightning fast blow it had inflicted, intentionally or not. At least I was no longer bleeding from my nose – the blood had since dried and frozen. The damned snow fell relentlessly, partially obscuring my sight, although I could still clearly recognize the silhouettes of the numerous undead that I scurried past. From time to time, I stumbled over a branch, stone or dead stump in the cursed fog that covered the ground like a soft, downy blanket and hid it from view. Luckily, I was able to catch myself each time and avoided damaging myself any further. But with each step I took, the tide could turn in my opponent’s favor. If I broke my leg now or otherwise injured myself, it would be all over. Amazing, what pranks the weather had played on me in the last few months.

I didn’t know exactly what I was running away from, even though I had already faced the creature and had heard quite a bit about it. Whatever it was, it was gaining on me, getting closer and closer, bit by bit. Fleeing from a heartless beast through treacherous undergrowth is an intense experience that I wouldn’t wish on anyone. Until now, I have always been the one who dished it out, not taken it. That’s why the whole situation really pissed me off. Did people feel that way before I took their lives? A taste of my own medicine? No, I did not like this at all, and somehow the comparison wasn’t quite fair. I had never murdered out of willfulness or revenge. I was just a victim of, let’s say, circumstances. I killed when legally ordered, or just had to save my own skin. No, the situation I found myself in was the work of unscrupulous powers that didn’t care a lick for humanity. They had created something unsurpassed in cruelty, something that had plunged the world into misery. A creature that infected us, transformed us and turned us into something that made a joke of the most frightening nightmare imaginable. It made people into beings without conscience, fear or empathy, but with a relentless appetite for meat. It had begun insidiously. People hadn’t given it much attention at first and were paying for their carelessness now. Thank God this only happens to others, that’s how people think. Not only in terms of our immediate circumstances, no, but in terms of anything that could disturb our blissful existence. Wars didn’t interest anyone as long as they were only far enough away. Our own lives were furnished and primped in just the way needed and wanted them to be, in imitation of a way of life that people who never lacked anything dangled in front of us, people who never went hungry or suffered loss. They were people who told us what was important in life but never had to work a single day for their luxurious existence. They grinned at us from screens with their false smiles and told what was right and what was wrong. They were the ones who hammered moral values into us, values about people and their rights, but who themselves went over dead bodies to get what they want. They told us that everything was fine while oppressing their own people, waging wars or, worse, raining war, poverty and hunger on us. But the zenith of our systematic extermination was the One.

The creature that was chasing me through a forest that apparently had no end. To be honest, that’s how I had wanted it. Stupid when I think about it that way. Who jumps voluntarily into a shark tank after cutting into his own flesh? Why am I doing this to myself? After our world went down the crapper, there were no real goals to pursue, apart from simple survival. Many found it difficult enough to survive because there were no more shopping malls and burger joints. People only now realized how dependent they had been on the corporations that let them vegetate, sickly and incapable. Because they had consumed media that made them more and more stupid, had met on social networks that suggested friends to them. The primal instinct of the hunter, the individual, had been taken away from us a very long time ago. We’ve been bred into incompetent mass consumers who are not supposed to think and would eventually be led like meek cattle to the slaughter. No one’s going to slaughter me. You are welcome to try, but I won’t willingly climb a scaffold. Especially not for the damned creature that’s so hot on my heels that I thought I could feel it breathing down my neck. That thing caused me to turn my back on a quiet and perhaps even long life, to throw away all thoughts of safety and leave my new home. How many souls do you have to answer for? You may not be like the ones you bit and condemned to damnation, but you are also not as smart as a human being. I’ll still get you, and when I do, I’ll I finish you off. You will no longer pump your poison into anyone’s veins and turn defenseless people into raging beasts. Finally, the edge of the forest loomed in front of me now. Just don’t stumble. Not now. I gradually slowed my pace until I came to a stop. With my hands braced on my thighs, I struggled for air and looked around alertly for a few seconds. A frightening scene like those I remembered from the old horror movies my father had often shown me. I loved those films and the unnatural fear that came over me. But reality, the here and now, did not scare me. The little boy back then, the one who could not fall asleep in the dark, had not existed for a long time now. Only a few meters to the edge of the forest. Beyond it stretched a clearing the size of a football field, which strangely enough was not as heavily covered in snow as the area around it. A sound tore me out of my thoughts, made me whirl around. Just darkness, branches, tree trunks and this ghostly silence. Something briefly scurried through the fog and cast a long shadow across the white, still life scene. I turned around and set off across the field, which ended abruptly at a steep slope. I looked down, couldn’t see the ground and thought for an instant about risking a plunge. But my will to survive prevailed. Even the tops of the tall trees below could only be guessed. The dense fog enclosed them like a gigantic cape. Rambo could at least still see the tree when he broke away from the stone wall and leaped into the depths.

Completely soaked in sweat, I supported myself with my hands on my thighs, greedily sucking in air and exhaling steam. My lungs burned like fire. Hopefully, the snow hadn’t blurred my tracks, the thought shot through my head. I turned around. No, I wouldn’t kid myself. He would find me faster than I’d like. He just had to find me. It was something personal that needed to be settled, once and for all. Noises rang from the forest, which lay like a huge threatening shadow before me. I straightened, now totally alert. I stopped breathing, looked right and left. For a few seconds there was an icy silence. Then I saw him. Slowly, his figure peeled out of the dark forest and then stopped. The night, the falling snow and the foggy forest behind him made him seem unreal. Tall, lanky, with long hair and claws that could tear you to pieces. He just stood there, not a muscle twitching, just like a few minutes ago when we first met and fought. Even though I didn’t see his eyes, I felt the cold look that sent a shiver down my spine. Arms dangling forward, in a slightly hunchbacked posture, he stood there and regarded me for half an eternity.

I got rid of my thick jacket and turtleneck sweater, which would have hindered me in what I now planned. I immediately felt the cold that stretched its icy fingers, reaching for the warmth of my body. At least now I was awake, refreshed and ready again. Now there was no escape, neither for me nor for him. Gradually, more silhouettes emerged behind him, peeled out of the fog and staggered directly towards me. They appeared in small groups at first, but their number quickly rose to over thirty as far as I could tell. His army of dull-witted undead, compelled to plunge the world even deeper into chaos, an army he does not even need to command, although I’ve long suspected him of the capability. My heart suddenly beat in my throat, my salivary glands failed their purpose. Nausea rose in me, and my hands began to tremble. I felt like Arnold in Predator, when he finally stood before the monster face to face and then took a huge beating before chance gave him an idea that saved his ass. I could only hope for such a chance. I had no firearm now, and my knife also lay far away, somewhere beneath the snow. Despite the little surprise I carried hidden in my trouser leg pocket, doubts about my plan plagued me for a few heartbeats. Had I perhaps overestimated myself this time? A very bad time to weigh up the pros and cons of a situation that my big mouth had maneuvered me into. He seemed somehow bigger and more threatening than just a few minutes ago.

Suddenly, and with a speed I wouldn’t have thought him capable, the dark figure rushed towards me. First on two legs, with short, quick steps, then on all fours, like a rabid animal determined not to miss a sure kill. Almost thirty meters separated us from each other. With every bound and every meter, the creature gained speed, like an onrushing wolf in bloodlust. Only this predator was even more determined, aggressive and unpredictable. Every time he touched the snow-covered ground, the fog, which resembled steam rising from a bathtub filled with hot water, fled from his path, as if nature itself feared this creature and voluntarily cleared the way. Another fifteen meters. It seemed strange, but with every meter closer, I grew calmer. My hands were no longer shaking, my pulse was almost at rest. A last dreamy look at the cloud-streaked moon, which now hung like a gigantic light bulb over the scene and colored the cold night into a dark gray-blue. I reached into my leg pocket and drew the only weapon that could save my life now. I wasn’t afraid. Adrenaline coursed through my body, my muscles were on the verge of tearing with tension, and my focus was entirely on the thing in front of me. I had never lost a fight and wouldn’t fail this time either. With these thoughts I also began my sprint, directly towards my adversary.

“Come on, you bastard.”

A few years before

I wish I could say that I am the Savior of Humanity, but unfortunately, that’s not the case. I’m not a brilliant scientist who developed an antidote to this, let’s call it virus, nor did I have any idea how to stop it. I’m not a genius, I didn’t have superpowers, and I didn’t have any special weapons. I was as surprised by this whole end-of-the-world scenario as anyone on our planet. Or I should I say, anyone it should have surprised. What happened to us was no accident, even if our heads of state and their media people wanted us to believe it. The illusion was hammered into people’s heads for too long, which is why everyone believed in an unfortunate calamity whose dimensions could neither be foreseen nor controlled. Those responsible for it all just leaned back and watched the spectacle from a safe distance, as they always did. How I managed to survive so long in the new world they created is no secret and does not fill me with much pride. I was a selfish loner who didn’t give a rat’s ass for the welfare of his fellow human beings. Was anyone interested in how I was doing, what I had experienced or suffered?

No, not a single person. So, I made the same mistake as millions of others. I ignored the rest of the world and focused on my problems, which really weren’t problems at all compared to the misery suffered by millions in other countries. My isolation from the rest of society had clouded my perceptions, as I soon realized. At some point, all of us are inclined to see everything from a pedestal and look down on other opinions with arrogant contempt. It’s easy to play judge and executioner when there is no one there to contradict you. Until recently, I was inmate number 187, Penal Colony 56. Once a high-security prison, it lay deep in the Russian forest, seven hour’s drive from the nearest civilization. Only insiders knew the exact location, which effectively discouraged escape attempts. It had all the charm of a Second World War labor camp. A double layer of wire fences topped with barbed wire enclosed the area. Four high watchtowers housing heavily armed guards completed the picture of the prison harmony. Walls were not necessary there.

Once, the colony housed 260 convicted criminals who accounted for more than eight hundred murders between them. Many had waited a long time for their execution until the death penalty was abolished in Russia in 1996. Their convictions were then commuted to twenty-five-year sentences. The lifers sat in the high-security wing, in one- or two-man cells. The rest lived in a large communal tract. There were clear rules and hierarchies among the prisoners. In winter, temperatures could drop to minus forty degrees Celsius, which sometimes claimed victims. Any escape without help from outside was out of the question. Even if someone had made it out of the camp, he would have frozen to a popsicle within an hour, unless wild animals got him first. My convict number was assigned to me by the law enforcement officers. They took it from the California Criminal Code. The paragraph for murder. I spent a very long time staring at walls in solitary confinement after I took care of three Russians who cornered me in the shower. Despite various scars and abrasions, I managed to ‘neutralize’ the attackers. Not an unusual story behind those walls. But the guards, who liked to close their eyes to such goings-on, were astounded. The prisoners had been long-established there and known for their complete lack of scruples. Ivan, a name that could not have been more typical, was the leader of a group of three men who regularly raped newcomers. A giant of a man you just did not defy if your life meant anything to you. I stood leaning my head against the yellow, slightly reflective tiles and felt the toasty warm water that splashed onto my neck, ran over my back and down my legs. The chlorine smell of the detergent that they used daily to clean the showers and toilets had been offending my sensitive sense of smell for several minutes. I already heard them coming in the hallway that led to the communal showers, knew that they were coming to intimidate me, to impose their rules on me, rules I had to follow to preserve my physical integrity. The door opened and my senses sharpened. Yes, there were three of them, towels around their hips, their bath slippers slapping the floor as they made directly for me, laughing their contempt. Reflecting tiles could be very useful. I saw them take up positions behind me. A semicircle from which escape seemed impossible if one was stupid enough to try. Three bald guys with long beards and covered with prison tattoos. They were damn sure of themselves and stood there with the coolness of a well-rehearsed routine they had probably performed dozens of times. Ivan said something in Russian that didn’t sound friendly. I turned off the water, clutched the towel in which I had previously wrapped a large bar of soap, and lashed out hard as I turned to them. The first strike, a picture-book blow to the middle of Ivan’s face, took him aback. His friends, who had not expected the sudden attack, were likewise stunned. They lost their balance, their slippers shot out beneath them, and they hit the hard floor with resounding slaps. Those slippery bath shoes had gotten on my nerves from the start, which is why I had soon gotten rid of them. My adversaries’ oversight now proved their undoing. I acted quickly, grabbed Ivan behind the neck, who was still holding his hands in front of his face, and thrust my knee into his groin as hard as I could. After a deep scream, he clapped both hands between his legs and tipped over sideways. Blood poured out of his nose and ran onto the tile floor. His henchmen were just about to get back on their feet when I took turns whipping the sides of their heads with my improvised flail. Quick, hard blows to the skull will rob even the toughest opponent of consciousness at some point. With best regards from Private Paula, I thought with each blow.

I was on my way to the door, thinking that I had made my point pretty clear, when they got up again and directed hateful glares at me. Then they went at me. Knives made of broken glass, the devil only knows where they suddenly came from, were standard equipment here. I was supposed to hurt now. Their thrusts and slashes were uncoordinated – most missed their target. Those that caught me inflicted only minor cuts. Still, they had enraged me now. The first one I got hold of, I pressed the fist-sized bar of soap into his mouth and struck it so hard with the heel of my hand that it wedged itself in his throat. He stared at me with wide-open eyes as he desperately tried to squeeze the soap out again. I savagely kicked the shin of Ivan’s second lackey and then slammed his head against the wall so hard that the tiles broke. Streaming blood, he slumped to the ground. I briefly looked over my shoulder and saw his buddy finally fall over, soap bubbles pouring out of his mouth on impact. Now only bald Ivan remained. He reared up in front of me again, still believing he could impress me with his mountain of muscles. He drew his right fist back and swung a wide hook at my chin. I easily had time to smoke a cigarette while he was cocking his arm. His muscles made him so slow I had time to calmly consider just how I wanted to take him down. Another kick to the groin ended the attack, and he went to his knees in front of me.

“Next time, I’ll get serious.” The arrogant remark came without conscious thought as I hammered my knee into his ugly face and finally knocked him cold. They lived, but had to be flown out to a special clinic. The guards, and even the prison director, dismissed the matter as an ordinary brawl because they did not want to expose themselves to unpleasant questions concerning an attempted rape by three inmates. Amazing what an effect such a deed could have on fellow prisoners and guards. No one approached me out of my line of sight anymore, except for the one rascal who tried to take me from behind at dinner. He wanted to put an end to me with some strangling wire. His choice of weapon was more than stupid. In the plain sight of other prisoners and the guards, he wanted to garotte me slowly. No real traction on the wire, no firm footing. He would have done more damage with a sponge. Before anyone could intervene, the guy lay dead on the floor. Maybe I would have spared him if he hadn’t attacked me so cowardly from behind. A dinner tray, the preferred murder instrument in numerous prison films, is versatile and leaves nasty injuries. You could literally smell the fear of the other inmates as I calmly went to get another serving. The guards flattened me with electric bats. Later, in solitary confinement, I learned that the attacker was Ivan’s son, who had entered prison with his father and had now wanted to take revenge. A clumsy kid who had survived so long only because of his old man. Two generations of murderers in one and the same prison. What a fucked-up world. No one cared what was going on behind those walls. The Geneva Convention had no validity in Colony 56, and Amnesty International provoked only hilarious laughter. The perfect place to make people disappear. Time would do the rest to make them fade into oblivion.

My father was originally from Detroit, Michigan and met my mother on a business trip in Berlin. He quickly got her away from my grandfather, who had been a drunken bastard and tyrant, and flew with her to the United States. Of course, not without giving my grandfather a proper thrashing as a parting gesture. Shortly after, in August 1998, I was born and christened Hartmuth Edward Mora. But for as long as I can remember, everyone called me just Hardy. My father was a considerate man who cared about his family’s welfare. His job required constant travel. Sometimes he would vanish from the face of the earth for several months at a time, which drove my mother to the brink of madness. She cried all the time, worried for her missing husband. My father did not care much for cell phones and was therefore difficult to reach. Then my parents would fall into each other’s arms every time he came home. As I grew older, I asked my mother what work my father did that separated him from his family regularly and for so long. She always shrugged her shoulders and said that he had something to do with water wheels for energy production, which required him to travel all over the world. If I can say anything positive about my old man, whenever he was home, it’s that he brought me closer to understanding films. He was especially into the action movies of the eighties, like Die Hard or Lethal Weapon, as well as the black and white monster horror movies of the early fifties. Jack Arnold, a brilliant director of his time, was my father’s personal hero. Something I actually admired him for was the fact that he wasn’t afraid of anything or anyone. He stood five feet, eleven inches, had wiry physique and gave the impression of a fighter who could not be beaten by anyone. No one dared to mess with my father. If anyone did, he came to regret it. It seemed as if he stood above things, didn’t let anything bother him and mastered everything he set out to do. I, on the other hand, got pushed around at the school and regularly came home with scrapes or bruises. My mother was a rather serene, composed woman and saw only the good in people, which occasionally upset my father. But he didn’t make a big deal out of it either and hoped that I would one day learn to defend myself. In many conversations, the kind that fathers have with sons starting at a certain point in their lives, he told me never to put up with anything or let anyone take anything from me. After all, I was his son. I was just not aware my abilities yet. His blood flowed in my veins and would make me someone special. Someone who pursued his goals doggedly and did not let anyone stop him, just like him. They were uplifting words that, although not very important to me as a child and adolescent, did not miss their effect. Shortly after, I fought back for the first time in my life and beat up four classmates who tried to rough me up again. The fact that they were all much older did not bother me. My mother made a huge deal of the matter, accused my father of having put fanciful ideas in my head and said that this was not the right way to resolve conflicts. It was the first time I heard my parents arguing. Later, my father came to my room, sat down on the bed next to me and smiled at me.

“How did it feel when you finally fought back and showed it to those little asses?” he whispered to me. I thought about my answer for a moment, didn’t know if I should lie or tell the truth. Honesty was another of my father’s hobbyhorses, although even then I suspected that his alleged job was just a pretext, a lie. I chose the truth.

“Indescribable. I felt liberated.”

He smiled, tousled my hair and left. The following day, he set off on a business trip from which he never returned. Weeks became months, months became years. My mother was heartbroken and slowly withdrew from reality, while debts slowly broke our backs. We were forced to return to Berlin because there was no future for us in America. She worked in a laundry while I drifted around, looking for trouble and sinking gradually deeper into crime. I felt untouchable, invincible, an attitude I also projected to the outside world. My mother once said that I had inherited the arrogance from my father. Violence lurked around every corner, and the prospect of ever getting out of there was virtually zero. The Berlin that the glossy picture brochures and the media presented, I never got to know. Organized crime, drug trafficking and prostitution were my Berlin, in addition to corrupt policemen, powerless authorities and incompetent politicians who closed their eyes to reality. Then came my mother’s diagnosis, and the world collapsed on me. A year of hopelessness ensued that also cost us our small apartment. Her death, after a long and hard battle against cancer, led me to turn my back on my homeland. I still miss my conversations with her. Over an occasional cup of coffee, she enlightened me about life, her view of things, and our unjust world. She subtly made clear to me where I now stood in life and that no one else would come and get me out of there. Racist remarks, which often crossed my lips at the time, always made her look at me in disappointment, and that hurt more than any slap in the face could. Judge the person and not where they come from. She drummed that into me every all the time, and she was right. A kind-hearted person who never wished any bad on anyone, trapped in a world that trampled her in the end. It was the reason why I never grew into an amoral criminal, it sharpened my sense of goodness and justice. And more than that, she taught me not to just blindly believe everything, but always to question and get to the bottom of the truth.

“Don’t let yourself get distracted by what’s happening, but find out the cause of it. Nothing happens by chance,” she used to say. A piece of wisdom that was indelibly burned into my brain. She had loved my father unconditionally, without any doubt. Nevertheless, it was a love born of fire and water. She was buried on a gray, rainy day. I stood alone in front of her grave with a rose in my hand and wept bitter tears. They were probably mixed with tears of fear. Fear of being all alone now. To know there was no one left at my side who could answer the many questions of life that tormented my soul. My father did not appear at the funeral of his deceased wife. I never heard from him again and never spoke about him again from that day on. It was better that way. Many wasted years spent going ever farther down the wrong track made me realize that I had to change something. It was only a matter of time before I would commit my first murder. My heated nature and my heedless dealings with dishonest individuals were not conducive to any meaningful future. So, I left that life behind. I at least tried. But the past regularly returned to knock on my door, dragging me back again down into a quagmire of violence and hatred that I just didn’t understand. After numerous jobs that made me sick rather than happy, the German Bundeswehr seemed a promising ticket out of my hellhole. So, I immediately enlisted for life. I just wanted to get away and finally bury the past.

Military life is, however, clearly structured and quickly rubbed me the wrong way. Especially since I didn’t really think much of governments and political leaders since they hardly seemed to differ from one country to the next. Despite everything, right after basic training in 2016, I began close combat training, which exhausted me mentally and pushed me to the limits of my strength. Nevertheless, everyone thought I was a natural talent and wanted to send me on missions as soon as possible. Rescue operations in Iran, Iraq and Syria showed me the true face of war, and I hated it. In addition to the scorching heat that wore us down, it was the mangled corpses of women and children that deprived me of sleep at night. Fallen comrades, torn to pieces by landmines or shot in the back, haunted my dreams for a long after. Many could not take the psychological strain and put in for transfer or discharge. Many others were sent home in zinc coffins but received no media attention. The images and intolerable conditions entrenched themselves in my head forever. Our mission in the Middle East involved ever increasing violations of international law, which Western politics skillfully managed to ignore.

What the hell were we fighting for down here? For peace or against terror? Against the evil so often condemned by the United States? Of course not. These statements were pure propaganda meant for the public, whatever the public. It was always about profit and power. That’s the only reason why we were here, government stooges. Just like our enemies, who were also just puppets of the system. No one was good or evil. There were only the wealthy and the scum. Even before the borders of Europe opened to refugees in 2015, American units were present in the Middle East to secure the balance of power there. Of course, they were not concerned with the oil or gas deposits that existed there in raw quantities. They have always been concerned about the freedom of the people who had to be saved from a dictatorial regime. A philosophy that was hard to beat in absurdity. I don’t know how many times I’ve had to listen to this during my career. Confidence in my country of birth, the country from which my father came and of which he proudly spoke, had sunk so low that I could no longer cared to maintain it.

Our unit decided to stand up to this madness, to ask why. So, they branded four soldiers, myself included, deserters and threatened us with a court martial when we laid down our arms and refused to serve. Because we operated jointly with the United States, the pressure grew all the greater. A crazy colonel named Shaw, whom everyone called Tombstone, even threatened us with a firing squad. Tombstone carried out every order he received immediately and to the letter, no matter what it was. Despite his high rank, he loved serving at the front and did not let anything prevent him from exercising the privilege. He also gave great speeches, similar to a football coach who inspired his team to glorious victory. An exemplary soldier who didn’t ask too many questions. He regularly bombed small villages, killed countless civilians and grinned arrogantly over his immaculate uniform. After every obvious violation of international law, another decoration would probably be waiting for him to proudly pin to his chest. An intolerable situation that most people came to terms with because Tombstone was not a person you trifled with, especially since he was clearly in a position to make you regret it. My unit, Team Rescue Storm, consisted of four soldiers trained for special rescue operations.

John B. Reilly was a mad mechanic from Kansas who always wore a cowboy hat in his spare time and incessantly listened to Katy Perry, which almost drove us crazy.

Killian O’Brien was a no less crazy Irishman who constantly quarreled with Reilly, even though they were best friends. He was an otherwise rather quiet kind of guy who preserved remarkable calm in the face of trouble and read a lot.

Jacques le Fleur was a black giant over six and a half feet tall who had fled from America to France a few years before because, as we know, the French don’t extradite. He never explained the exact circumstances to us, although one could gather that it had to do with some act of violence. If you knew him better, you knew that he was incapable of harming a soul in anger. On the contrary, he was a really humorous guy who always managed to lift our mood whenever the shit began to steam. For a long time, I was regarded as a hot-headed loner who would not let anyone tell him what to do and especially liked to disregard orders. This attitude very often got me into some rather unpleasant situations that the guys were able to get me out of often enough to avoid demotion. They mostly involved violent attacks on other soldiers who dared to drag my German origins through the mud. They called my mother a Nazi whore who had fucked every Allied soldier or other opinions they really should have kept to themselves. The mental capacity of my tormentors was far below the average intelligence of cockroach shit. And when I say something like that, it means something. I once took on four men at the same time and hardly got a scratch. Again, it was such a great feeling to release all my energy and pent-up anger. It was my comrades, especially O’Brien, who got on my ass about it and made it clear that things could not go on like that. They worked on the hotheadedness my mother had always faulted in me. With great success. In the weeks that followed, I became calmer and jogged a lot to get rid of excess energy and vent my aggression. I read a lot of books and watched action movies with the guys, which reminded me of my childhood and the unfortunately few hours I spent with my father. We grew into a loyal band of brothers that could blindly rely on each other. We went more missions than I can count and rescued dozens of soldiers, who were finally allowed to go home. Nevertheless, Tombstone’s terror campaign did not stop. Under false flags, the number of rescue operations increased. Most of them turned out to be purely attack missions. Our unit refused to play along and withdrew whenever that became obvious and before carrying out any attack. We were there, after all, to save people and not shoot them in the back.

One day, Jacques confronted Colonel Shaw in front of the rest of us. There had been no enemy resistance for months, let alone any attacks on us. Which is why we were still there attacking unarmed civilians. Jacques advised Tombstone to leave it alone before he ended up being tried before the World Court in The Hague. Tombstone looked at him with a wide grin for a few seconds, then called him a nigger with a brain and wondered how such a thing could have happened. Then Tombstone laughed, drew his pistol and shot Jacques in the head from point-blank range. The two-meter giant collapsed into a motionless heap. We just stood there, paralyzed in the face of so much cold-bloodedness. Jacques’ blood dripped from my face as I stared at my friend’s lifeless body. Then Shaw trained the pistol at Reilly, who was standing next to Jacques’ corpse, staring at our friend’s body at his feet in disbelief. Another loud bang, and Reilly also sank to the ground with a thick fountain of blood spurting from his head. O’Brien, who was behind Reilly, raised his hands appeasingly, tried to talk to Tombstone.

“Stop this madness…”

A third bang ended the sentence and O’Brien’s life. I heard my heart pounding loudly in my ears. All of a sudden, everything around me moved as if in slow motion when Tombstone trained his pistol on me. I took one step forward, grabbed the wrist of Tombstone’s gun hand and with my other hand struck the crook of his arm. The mouth of his gun barrel now stared at him and, without ever knowing what had happened, he pulled the trigger. His fancy officer’s cap flew away with the brain mass that spurted from his head. Silently, I sank to my knees and looked at the lifeless bodies of my friends with wide-open eyes. I touched them with trembling hands in the hope that there was still life in them somewhere. My mind refused to accept the horror that had just played out a few seconds ago as my eyes slowly filled with tears. One thing was clear for sure. I was alone in the world again. As if muffled by cotton wool, I heard men talking nearby. When I looked up, several G.I.s had surrounded me with M16 rifles at the ready.

Our attempt to create a fairer world was now to cost me dearly. The trial was a complete farce. Supposedly, I had grabbed Tombstone’s gun, first shot him and then my friends. War trauma was the diagnosis given by the tribunal’s specialist. In addition, I was branded a deserter and certified insane. I was immediately sent to prison. Custody under the highest security since I was now a mentally unstable enemy of democratic values. Some men even called me a terrorist who needed to be eliminated. My dead comrades, my brothers who had saved my life more than once, could be safely overlooked. Just three more zinc coffins to be sent to relatives. Nicely packaged, with a flag and a bunch of filthy lies. But for Tombstone, the author of that massacre, I got twenty-five years. There was not a word about Tombstone’s wartime activities and the countless innocent lives he could answer for. There were no records or statements from other soldiers that could have exonerated me. Only my exemplary career and my record for enemy kills saved me from execution. No real consolation. But that’s not why I was in Colony 56.

An offer I couldn’t refuse

After my dishonorable discharge from military service, I squatted for a few months in some desert prison in Afghanistan, waiting for something to happen. The sand and sun made it hard for me. My ever-longer hair and beard drove me to the brink of madness. During one of my sleepless nights, a guard named Jim stepped up to the bars, opened the cell door, and disappeared again. A neatly dressed man with dark sunglasses pushed back on his black, relatively short hair, entered and looked me over with dark brown eyes. He clutched a jacket under one arm, a thick file under the other, and stood some distance away. Puddles of sweat darkened his sky-blue shirt around the armpits. He had something of a sleazy sales rep about him, one you wanted to get rid of as quickly as possible. But his clothes and appearance made him look more like a federal agent. With a slight grin on his face, he just stood there without saying a word and stared at me.

“Not an especially practical outfit for a place like this, is it?” I mockingly commented.

“Not really,” the powerfully built man answered and then took a seat on the second flatbed opposite me. He opened his file folder, on which my name, rank, type of weapon and a long number were clearly legible. Then he began to read aloud.

“Hartmuth Edward Mora, born August 6, 1998, in Detroit, Michigan. Returned to Berlin, Germany in 2013, with his mother, Josefine Mora. Hank Edward Mora disappeared without a trace since 2011. Josefine Mora passed away on October 21, 2014. Difficult youth. hot temper. Prone to outbreaks of violence. Entered the service of the Bundeswehr on January 1, 2016. 2020, Special training in Israel. On assignment in the Middle East until 2029. Various missions behind enemy lines. No citations...”

“Thank you for updating my CV,” I said to him. “Do you want to make a film of it? Then please get the young Jeremy Renner to play me. I’m supposed to look like him, so I’ve been told."

The stranger briefly glanced at me from over the file but quickly focused again on the contents in his hands.

“Hank Edward Mora was your father?” he asked.

“Yes,”, I confirmed in slight annoyance. I paused for a long time, could not interpret his gaze and the way he asked me about my father. Was there something significant about my father in that file that I didn’t know about, or was he just trying to bait me. I decided to wait and give my counterpart the chance to explain himself. After he had leafed through the file in silence, he abruptly closed it again and looked me over again.

“You’ve gotten yourself into a pretty awkward situation, Hardy.”

I sat up and looked him in the eye.

“No, it’s a shitty situation that a crazy colonel named Shaw put me in."

He smiled briefly, got up and paced back and forth for some time.

“Tombstone had been a thorn in our side for a long time. He brought Uncle Sam quite a lot of disrepute. He relied on the sanctity of the United States to do whatever he wanted. A crazy cowboy if you ask me. Your intervention saved us a lot of trouble and paperwork.”

I shook my head in disbelief, looked at the tall agent, who was now leaning against the cell door with his arms crossed, still appraising me.

“Who are you and what the hell do you want from me?”