Two Germans at the top of the watchtower focused a bright, intense beam of light on the truck. Two other soldiers walked out of the radio hut and towards the truck. The remaining two sat inside the hut drinking and eating. Six Nazis were now staring at this German truck filled with two Soviets, their guns at the ready.
“We are fucked,” Vlad muttered, sweat breaking out on his forehead.
“We’re definitely fucked if you keep speaking Russian in front of these Nazis.”
“Russian is all I know you fucker!”
“I meant to stop talking, you fool.”
The two quit speaking as a German soldier walked to the driver side of the truck. Vlad kept his head down. His cap hid his face well enough for the German to not know he was Russian. The German said something they didn’t understand. Vlad assumed he was asking them for paperwork so he reached in to the glove box, pretending to look for papers. His hand wrapped around a Tokarev pistol that he had previously placed there. Joseph sat there watching Vlad hold his hand on the gun. He reached over Vlad’s arm and switched the truck from park to drive.
This set the guard off. He started yelling and raising his gun to Vlad’s head. Vlad quickly brought the pistol out of the glove box and pressed it to the German’s chest, quickly letting off two shots. One bullet ripped right through the man’s right lung, the other catching an artery in his heart and killing him instantly.
As the man hit the ground, Vlad pressed the gas pedal down and slammed into the two Germans standing in front of the truck, driving them straight into the hut. He crashed into the small building, crushing the two soldiers and taking out one other German in the hut who had been enjoying his dinner.
The two Nazis from on top of the watchtower opened fire on the hut. Bullets ricocheted off the truck, hitting all around the two Russians. Joseph jumped out of the truck and attacked the last living German in the hut. They struggled for a few seconds but Joseph easily overcame him with his overwhelming strength and grabbed both sides of the soldier’s face. He gave one quick tug, snapping the German’s neck with ease. He let the man’s head go as he fell to the floor.
He looked up to see Vlad still in the truck, unconscious. Vlad had hit his head pretty hard in the crash. Joseph grabbed the soldier’s rifle off the ground and ran to the truck to get Vlad out of the way of bullets being fired from the watchtower and from behind the truck. Joseph opened the truck door and felt something warm hit his face. He looked at Vlad and realized his friend has been shot in the shoulder. Joseph pulled him out and lay him down in front of the truck away from the gunfire. He knew the shot wasn’t fatal so he sat down next to Vlad to figure out how to get out of the situation they were in.
He knew there was at least one soldier about 50 feet behind the truck where they had just run over the two men, and there were still two men in the watchtower. He raised the rifle to his shoulder and stood up, revealing his position to the Nazi still on the ground behind the truck.
He let out two shots before bullets started pelting the truck he was hiding behind. He jumped to the ground and lying prone, maneuvered his way around so that he could open up a shot at the German. He shot the very second he saw an open chance and caught the German in the knee. The bullet hit, carrying shards of bone and blood with it through the back of his knee. The German hit the ground face first. Still on the ground, Joseph aimed a kill shot at the top of the man’s head. He lined up and squeezed the trigger. The bullet left the gun and Joseph imagined in slow motion the bullet traveling towards the German lying on the ground.
He saw the bullet enter the man’s head and then watched the head explode like a watermelon being smashed by a hammer. Pieces of the head went flying everywhere. The sight was gruesome; blood spurting out of the headless body caked in brains was Joseph’s snap back to reality. He looked over at Vlad hoping he was conscious, but no such luck. He knew he couldn’t get a shot off on the men in the tower because their vantage point on him was too good.
He sat there for a second but realized he had to act fast before the Germans’ backup could arrive. He did the first thing that came to his mind. He quickly jumped back in the truck, threw it in reverse, and backed up into a hail of gunfire. When he was back far enough he put the truck back in drive and floored it towards the tower, bullets flying all around him the entire time. He hit one of the four support beams and drove right through it, carrying part of the wooden structure with him. He kept driving and looked in his rearview mirror in time to see the tower come crashing down behind him. A large dust cloud came with it.
“Holy shit!” Joseph yelled as he wrapped back around to the ruined hut to check on Vlad. He stepped out of the truck and entered the ruined building to see that Vlad was moving, a good sign. He looked around at the dead men and noticed that one of the men was split in half by the collision with the truck. He gazed back at the truck he was driving to see the man’s intestines stuck in the grill of the truck. He smirked and walked over to Vlad, helping him to his feet.
“You all right buddy? You picked an awful time to take a nap.”
“Why the hell did you let me get shot?”
“Why did I let you?” Joseph just shook his head. “Good to see you’re ok, man.”
Joseph helped Vlad over to the truck to sit down. Vlad looked around at the carnage but surprisingly didn’t even smile, which was uncharacteristic for him. He was too preoccupied with the pain in his shoulder. He looked over to Joseph who had his head down on the truck.
“Joseph.”
“What, man?” Joseph mumbled without picking up his head. He was thinking about how there was no way out of this mess. They couldn’t drive into Berlin in this truck or with Vlad wearing a blood soaked uniform.
“We’re going to need a new truck,”Vlad said, looking at the man’s guts stuck in the grill.
“Yeah man, we fucked up,” Joseph said.
“No—I actually think we will be all right.”
“What are you talking about?”
Joseph finally lifted up his head and saw Vladimir pointing at a truck parked behind the remains of the hut they had destroyed. Joseph’s face lit up. He ran over to it and noticed the keys were in the truck as well. He looked up at the sky and smiled. He didn’t believe in God, but he knew this was a miracle. He ran back over to Vlad sitting on the truck with a hand on his injured shoulder in a daze.
“I’m also going to need a new uniform. I’m drenched in my own goddamn blood.”
“I’m way ahead of you!” Joseph yelled back as he ran off. Looking at all the dead bodies, he was hoping to find one that wasn’t too bloodied. He didn’t bother checking the headless man or the man that was split in half. He managed to get a uniform off a man from the crumbled watchtower.
He quickly removed the clothes off of the corpse and ran them back over to Vlad. Vladimir spent the next few minutes wrapping his shoulder and putting on the new uniform that was clearly too small for him. Vladimir struggled to squeeze into the uniform with only the use of one of his arms. When he was done he looked like he had just gotten some hand-me-downs from his older sister.
“Why do the Germans dress themselves in doll clothes?” Vlad spat out as the material under his arms ripped.
As he was doing this Joseph was running back and forth carrying their things from one truck to the other. They were now all set to head into Berlin. Fresh uniforms and a brand new truck made Joseph feel invincible. Nothing else was in their way. A few miles more and Joseph was home free.