WARNING! Violence scenes detected. A small reminder, this is a work of fiction.
Midnight came and silence reigned inside the castle. In theory, this was not unusual, since at that time only guards walked along the corridors, but recently there have even been fewer of them. The Third Reich lived out the last days of its existence, and after the news of the death of the Führer, his a.s.sociates finally surrendered in their struggle.
The difference of this place was that the castle and its activities were subordinate to Ahnenerbe, and the members of the organization had their interests and plans, regardless of whether their supreme commander was alive or not.
And today, this silence seemed to Marcus completely different, a little unnatural, from the very first seconds he went inside the building, an unpleasant chill ran down his back.
Having easily slipped through the pa.s.sageways of the dungeon, he went up to the first floor and headed for his room. More than fifteen minutes have pa.s.sed since he was inside, but still he has not met a single soul.
"Hmmm, this is already suspicious," thought the young man, but remained true to his original plan. Marcus packed up the things he had prepared in advance, put the rest of the medical supplies there, put the backpack on his shoulders, and left the room.
He had only to make sure that Armand and Polina had already escaped, so he could safely set off on the road in order to say goodbye to this place and their past forever. In order to start a new life, in some remote corner of Europe, and maybe even North or South America, he has mastered English and Spanish well over the years.
"All right, going through the adjacent wing will be safer, but longer. If I go through the cells of the prisoners, it will be much faster, but there is a chance to arouse suspicion among the guards," the young man scratched his head, thinking about the most advantageous route.
Time had been playing against him for a long time, so Marcus decided not to spend precious minutes and went directly through the hall, where there were cells of the majority of prisoners.
As soon as he turned the corner, the smell of metal, blood and human secretions. .h.i.t him in the nose. The young man staggered and could not restrain the gag reflex from the picture in front of his eyes.
More than a dozen corpses of soldiers and prisoners lay right in the corridor, frozen in their dying poses; indignation, fear and pain were showing on their faces.
"What the h.e.l.l happened here?" He could still understand the situation if it were only prisoners. Hoping that his father would leave the castle and keep witnesses alive would be naive, but why were there soldiers among the dead?
"The first level has been cleaned, proceed with cleaning of the second floor," a stern male voice sounded from behind the doors of one of the cells, and the next second a tall man, about forty years old, entered the corridor, his uniform and face were stained with blood, but it didn"t concern him much, because the blood clearly did not belong to him.
"Hmm, young Mr. Taubert? By the way, your father was looking for you," he said with a sarcastic grin, his eyes narrowed in narrow slits, and his look, like a sharp razor, returned to Marcus an understanding of the situation.
"s.h.i.t," the young man cursed to himself, he did not expect that he would be so confused by the picture he saw that he would not immediately notice somebody alive among a mountain of corpses. Worst of all, this officer was one of his father"s chief a.s.sistants.
"Well, then I will not distract you from work and I will find my father," Marcus nodded to the officer in reply, diligently pretending that everything was in order, turned around and walked away with a confident but unhurried step.
"GET HIM!" The man shouted loudly, three more soldiers jumped out of other cells and rushed after the young man.
"d.a.m.n, now it"s a s.h.i.tty situation for sure." Marcus ran as fast as he could, maneuvering between the corridors. He saw several more such mountains of corpses, just left in the same place where they were killed.
Sigmund Taubert clearly swept traces of his active research activities. The soldiers who followed him put others on their toes, and after ten minutes of intensified pursuit, Marcus was caught in a bind.
At least it looked like that for others. In his case, this was the departure route that he planned for an emergency.
Jumping from a third-floor window was crazy, but it was the only window in the entire castle, outside of which a tall tree grew. One night, he tied a rope to its upper branch so that he could quickly go down, and all that was left for him was to push correctly and jump to the tree.
"I advise you not to do this, son," said the man in a calm and indifferent tone when Marcus opened the window and was ready to climb onto the windowsill.
The young man turned around and saw his father with a gun in his hand, but that wasn"t the reason why he stopped, the reason was at whom this gun was aimed.
"Marcus, run!"
BANG!
Armand fell to the floor and grabbed his leg with a scream, blood was flowing from his palms. "Run!" he repeated, overcoming the pain.
Marcus saw much of what his father did, he was used to the abuses in childhood, but he had never seen his father beat Armand. Therefore, it was a real shock for him when not one muscle flinched on Sigmund Taubert"s face after he shot at his own son.
"Why are you standing? Come on, jump. I promise no one will chase you. Just one thing," the man racked the slide of the gun and aimed it at Armand, "Your brother"s death will be on your conscience. How do you like this offer?"
"You are bluffing, you will not dare to-"
BANG!
No matter how many years have pa.s.sed, how much older and stronger he has not become during this time, the despair and helplessness that he felt in childhood in front of his father returned in a matter of seconds.
Marcus looked at his brother, lying on the floor in blood, and realized that he was wrong again. He naively believed that if his father cherished Armand more than him, then there was a hope to leave, if not safe, but alive.
How wrong he was. There was not a single gram of humanity left in this monster.
"Marcus, please leave," Armand grunted, the pain drowned his mind and he felt that he could black out at any moment.
Marcus looked at his brother, took a breath, walked away from the window and dropped his backpack on the floor.
"Soldiers, take young Marcus Taubert to the laboratory," ordered the young man"s father, "Klaus, bandage Armand"s wounds, we will need him alive," a second order was given to one of the soldiers.
The man watched the convoy, went to the window and looked at the sky. A cold and full moon stood high, illuminating the walls of the castle and the dark ground soil at the foot of the hill.
"What a wonderful night. A great moment to make history," Sigmund Taubert grinned and slammed the window.