By John Westrick
The hall extended, like a slithering snake. Doors to the left and to the right. I walk up to the first one, attempting to turn the handle. It doesn’t budge, refusing to even turn. The light is dim. I feel the need to run, yet I know not why. One word consumes my consciousness, hide. The hall is straight, and there is not so much as a painting on the wall. Nowhere to hide. I hear noises behind me. The sound of screaming drowns my thoughts. Gunshots thunder in the narrow space.
Smoke singes the inside of my nostrils, eyes, and throat; threatening to make me vomit. Tears wash tracks on my dirt smeared face, clean divots on an entirely uniform slate of horror. In jerky, nervous motions I try the opposite door hoping to find an exit to this nightmare. My hand is hardly functioning. The fear is like a disease robbing me of motor skills.
I try to think, analyze, and formulate a route of escape; but the mindless rage and hatred radiating from behind me claws at my sanity. Fear crashes against my courage like the waves of the ocean chipping away at the cliff side. Slowly my willpower is degrading. Is the struggle even worth it? Perhaps, it’s better sitting back and letting it happen. Get it over rather than prolong the inevitable. I dare not look back. Logic eludes me. Thought melts away; glaciers in my mind reduced to puddles leaking out of the cracks.
I hear the scuffing of shoes on the marble floors behind me. Ragged breathing, lungs clutching for each breath of air. I hear the stitches on the man’s side. I hear him panting. The desperation in his raspy voice. In that moment, I connected with that nameless, faceless man; bound by the strongest agent, hardships shared. I was akin with him. I loved him as much as my brother. An explosion, a cry, a thud.
Without glancing, I knew the unfortunate man was no more. They got him. Bullet in the spine. I was certain of it, as sure as the setting of the sun. Tears made my vision sway. Fear, cold as ice froze my innards. Simultaneously, a blaze of fire burned in my belly. Anger so hot it melted the fear gripping my heart. I think of the unfairness of it all. My eyes locked at the door at the end of the hall. If I can get there perhaps, I can escape. Find somewhere to hide. A safe retreat from the smoldering hell, made reality.
The hall seems an unholy entity, having a mind of its own. A twisting, winding snake swallowing me whole; like the depths of Sheol taking me to the land of the dead. I move forward, but the hall seems to get longer, not shorter. I look at the blood-stained marble seeing my burgundy reflection. An awful thought creeps in my mind. Blood brothers as surely as my natural born siblings. My feet are stained red. I am sick all down the front of my clothes.
Those stubborn legs keep pumping, propelling me forward. My mind is numb, slow and sluggish. Bodies clog the hall. I climb over them. Slide on their blood, slip, fall. Get up, repeat. The rapid crack of gunfire makes me flinch. Bullets pelting the bodies all around. Miraculously none hit me. Maybe those lifeless bodies are the lucky ones.
A jackhammer slams into the meaty part of my thigh. I spin, I fall. Glassy eyes, the eyes of a baby doll. Doll no, baby yes. Lifeless, pale, no movement, the quietness of the sea on a calm day. The bitterness of a ruthless winter. Life, cut so short. The child knew only hardships. Never experienced the joys of walking, nor the pleasures of falling in love, nor the comforting hand of a child grasping his. A tragic waste; a regrettable state of affairs. No time to contemplate, no time to mourn innocence lost, no time to wrestle with the unfairness of it all. Bullets flying, men shouting, women crying.
I crawl over the pale bodies. Man, woman, child alike; I despise myself with every breath taken. Every step taken, every inch gained, every moment still alive; a betrayal to the ones who now pave the way to the door at the end of the hall. Their blank stares condemn me, their motionless lips utter curses, their still bodies land blows. The weight is too heavy for me to carry; yet somehow, somewhere I gain the strength to continue towards the door.
I crawl, I squirm, I climb; I am nearly at the door. My hand reaches for the handle. I grasp it, it takes everything within me to turn it. The handle, the final burden to carry. The final struggle before rest. The moment I’ve waited for. Relief, anger, fear, grief, and an intense wave of self-loathing makes me sick for the second time. I push the door open. The door that is my salvation, my safe retreat, that place I can finally rest. The hinges creak, the door opens, I barrel forward not even glancing up.
The door opens to the shower room. Vents cut into the side. I see emaciated bodies lining the floor. There is an ungodly haze in the air. A rank smell singes my nostrils. I find it hard to breathe. Is that sulfur in the air? The door opens a gateway to Hell itself. This door holds no safety, salvation doesn’t lie within. Rest, yes, but not the kind for the living. The eternal rest that waits for all men. Sleep unbroken by the noises or distractions of this world.
I hear more gunshots; I hear the shouts of the German guards. I realize now, there is no escape for some unfortunate souls but the gentle embrace of death. I closed my eyes in resolve, accepting what I knew was to come. The time has come; and there are no deals left to be made, no way to cheat, nothing left to do but surrender. Reality fades, lights dim, everything goes out of focus. Vaguely, I hear distorted voices coming from what seems miles away. I am distant, gone to a place where they can’t reach me. Perhaps, I have truly escaped evil men, this time for good.
*
The younger man, tears filling his eyes, ran out of the cramped, godforsaken hallway noisily throwing up as he went. Lieutenant Daniel “Buzz” Oppenhouser of the United States Marines, looked down, seeing the carnage. Young men, elderly women, and all ages in between laid strewn across the bullet-torn hall leading from one end to the next. Buzz, looked at an elderly woman laying at his feet, thinking she looked remarkably similar to his nana back home.
He was the lone soldier standing amidst the dead, soaking it all in. Buzz didn’t relish it, he wanted nothing more than to follow the younger man. He owed them this. He would remember them. His people. The Jewish men, women, and children; who survived horrors only to be cut down mere hours before salvation. The lone soldier walked the length of the hallway careful not to step on his fallen brothers and sisters. No tears filled his eyes. He willed himself not to cry. He would not let his eyes be obscured. He would see the scene clearly, then he would mourn.
Every face he passed; a rictus of pain forever cast in cement in his mind. The lone soldier saw a baby in the arms of its mother, a snapshot of cruel beauty. The child’s eyes haunted the man’s sleep in the wee hours of the morning for years to come. They seemed to accuse him. Demand justice. Demand sacrifice. Ten years later the lone soldier would be found hanging in his personal office. Sacrifice fulfilled.
Lieutenant Daniel Oppenhouser, finished his solitary trek branding the faces to the deepest depths of his soul. He remembered everyone. Not one was forgotten. Buzz opened the door at the end of the hall to see the prone body of one man. He laid in the center of the room. No bodies near him. He was the lone man lying in the middle of the gas chamber. This man Oppenhouser remembered most.
He was dead, but the face did not report pain; even though he was shot. There was no fear plastered on his face, nor anger, nor sadness. The man looked to be asleep. With his dying breath he thought to share one piece of advice. “Pain doesn’t last forever, it dies when you expire.” Lieutenant Daniel Oppenhouser with a smile on his face said, “You did it, you son of a bitch! You out ran those bastards. Now rest in peace brother. If anyone on earth deserves it, it’s you.”