The Billy Club Bastard Case Files: The Case of the Electrocuted Gangsters, Part 3 of 4

Strangeness is afoot, from the Grave to New Orleans to France. Horrible circumstances and poor choices force everyone into corners, with little hope for happy endings.

Crazy, Crazy, Crazy, All the Time is available as a Kindle ebook, in paperback, and as a DRM-free ebook.

This is Part 3 of The Case of the Electrocuted Gangsters, and Parts 1 and 2 are essential reading to avoid spoilers.

Content Warnings: Mild Swearing, Violence, Gore, Death, Body Horror, Tobacco Use, Alcohol Use, Nazis

SATURDAY MORNING, OCTOBER 3, 1942
HUMAN ASSET RETENTION CENTER, LEVEL -18
“THE GRAVE”, CAMP X, ONTARIO

“Happy Erntedankabend, brothers,” the masked guard said after the metal door groaned open. A light set in the frame above him blinked and changed from yellow to red.

“Erntedankabend?” Mulholland Grace wondered. “But that is in October...”

“Yes, it is,” the guard told them. He pulled a canvas roll from beneath his padded armor and handed it to Grace. “You have been here far too long. Help me rectify that. Do you know how to build this?”

Grace took the bundle and set it on his bunk. Colliver, Gregg, and Stableson watched over his shoulder he unrolled it. He recognized the parts of a Thompson sub machine-gun instantly.

“Who are you?” Grace hissed.

“Mister Schmidt sent me to tell you that the Fatherland requires your help once more.”

“Schmidt? That is not even a real name.”

“There are many Mister Schmidts in America, Herr Grace. Missus Schmidts, even. The one that sent me needs you, today.”

Grace studied the man before him. Like the rest of the guards, his identity was completely concealed by a black mask and bulky armor. He had a fat spider stenciled on his chest, helmet, and shoulder. If he hadn't spoken, there would have been no way to even tell his gender. But his eyes were blue and his pronunciation was impeccable. That was enough for Grace.

“We only have a few minutes,” Grace sad. “Once that light turned red, they started converging.”

“That is what we want,” the guard said. “Be ready for them. I will be outside, you will know what to do.”

The guard stepped out of the cell and shoved the door closed behind him. It thunked shut and the bolts within slammed into the frame.

“What the hell,” Gregg said. His drawl and complaints had become unbearable in their time locked up.

“Can it,” Grace snapped.

“Five months...” Stableson whispered to himself. He slumped back against the smooth stone wall.

“Whatever that was, this thing's all here,” Colliver told them. He was looking over the Thompson. Colliver had been their point man when running guns for the other Legion cells. He'd know if something was missing.

“Well then it ain't a trick,” Grace snapped. “We're on the clock, boys.”

Colliver began piecing the Tommy gun together. He was rusty, but he'd once been quick, precise, and it came back quickly. He hadn't been able to do any fine assembly work since they'd gotten their clocks cleaned in Charleston. During their time in the clink, the boys had figured it was that Bastard character from Florida who’d gotten them, though none could settle on a reason he'd have been there, then.

“You done?” Stableson asked.

“Just.. about... got it!” Colliver said. He hefted the Thompson, testing its feel. He and Grace had helped the Abwehr move hundreds of these guns to Legion cells all over the country. It was familiar and reassuring in his hands.

“What in the Sam Hill is this about?” Gregg wondered.

“This is the big leagues, boys,” Grace said. He smacked all three of him men on their shoulders, nearly jumping with glee. “They know what we can do! They want us to direct the future of this country.”

“Respect,” Stableson whispered.

“Exactly,” Grace said, rubbing his hands like a fly. “They trust us with their vision.”

“I knew we'd get there,” Stableson hissed.

The hatch's bolts clanked open, cutting off whatever Grace was going to say next. The door groaned open, and three guards stood in the breach. They each held their studded batons, ready the bash in their prisoners' skulls.

“Against the wall, now!” one shouted, a man.

“Que diable?” another asked. She was pointing over the first's shoulder at the Tommy gun Colliver was holding.

“Pull back!” the male guard ordered. Grace couldn't let them lock that door again.

“Fire!” he shouted.

Colliver raised the gun and pulled the trigger. Bullets tore through the three guards. The cell was so small that they had nowhere else to go. Their armor was to protect against blades and bludgeons. Lead perforated them like a fork through grits. The three masked officials fell. Their batons clattered to the floor.

The four Legionnaires stood in silent shock, frozen until the last echoes died away.

“Jesus God, Cal,” Gregg gasped, barely audible over the ringing in their ears. “What did you do?”

“He secured your keys to freedom,” the scheming guard said from outside the door. “I'm coming in, hold your fire.”

He appeared from behind the bedrock door frame, hands raised. He stepped over his dead comrades.

“Good aim,” he said. He pointed at their fallen batons with his own. “Take those and come with me.”

“C'mon, men,” Grace said. He picked up the nearest baton. Brent and Stableson followed his lead.

“Hey!” Stableson shouted. The guard with the crawdad on her vest had a death grip on her baton. She grunted and gurgled blood.

“Take this,” the surviving guard hissed, shoving his own baton into Colliver's hands while ripping the Thompson away. He stood over the bleeding woman and let loose a burst that dropped her limp. Stableson sheepishly retrieved the formerly contested baton.

“Everyone armed?” the guard asked. They all nodded. “You got to know, those aren't just clubs, they're keys.”

The Legionnaires nodded. They already knew that the guards used their studded nightsticks to open cell doors.

“We're going to grab one of our friends, then we're hitting the road, got it?” The guard didn't wait for an answer. “Let's move.”

The Legionnaires froze in the breach. They'd all been brought in hooded and sedated. The vertical shaft, with its narrow catwalks and infinite depths, overwhelmed them.

“I thought we were in jail,” Brent whispered.

“Focus, men,” the guard snapped. “I'll tell you everything after we accomplish our mission.”

The five men packed into the dangling elevator cage.

“Where are we going?” Grace asked.

“Down, fourteen floors.”

The guard pressed a button and the elevator lurched. Grace clamped his hands onto the rails like they were vices. He might as well have been glued into the cage. They counted catwalks as they descended.

“Minus thirty-two,” the guard announced. He pressed the button again. The cable above them twanged and the cage jolted to a stop. He was the first out of the cage. On this floor, there were only two hatches. Grace's floor had held twelve cells, arrayed like a clock.

The guard approached the closer hatch.

“You see here?” he asked, shining his lamp over the door. “This is where you help your Reich.”

The hatch was thicker than theirs had been, and set around its edges with four large keyholes, big enough to fit a nightstick. They were spaced out so that it would take four people turning a baton each with perfect timing to make any headway.

“You heard the man,” Grace said. He stepped up and slid his baton into the hole. The studs clunked as they locked into place under their rollers. Stableson, Gregg, and Colliver did the same. “On three.”

Grace counted down, then the four of them all turned their batons ninety degrees to the right. The bolts reluctantly retracted into the hatch, slamming into place like they weighed a hundred pounds each.

“Let's say hello,” the guard said. The Legionnaires pulled the hatch open. It barely budged. They hauled together, with all their might, breaking a sweat and grunting. Eventually the door creaked open enough for the guard to slip through.

They found him sitting with a wrinkled old man, gaunt and bald. The man's jowly face hung funny off his skull, like there were threads inside trying to hold it in place. A tattoo on his neck displayed a faded 'zero.' He had a open book laid across his knee to save his page. The two were talking in German too fast for Grace to understand.

“Can you...” Grace asked Gregg, his German guy, but he just shrugged.

The pair seemed to be arguing, but the old man was defiant in a laconic, disinterested fashion. The guard threw his hands in the air in frustration, though the old man was unfazed.

After a moment's further discussion, the guard passed the old man something from his inner vest, then stood up from the cot and rejoined the waiting Legionnaires.

“Gentlemen, this is Doktor Fleischer, one of the Führer's most valuable assets. He has asked me to retrieve something for him. That leaves you to escort him to the elevator and meet me at the surface level. Do you understand?”

“We do,” Grace said. The guard patted him on the shoulder as he left the cell.

“Good. I'll need this...” he said, and grunted as he extracted one of the batons from the hatch and hefted the Thompson. “Move quickly, the red light is on. They'll be sending someone to check on him soon. See you up there.”

“Wait,” Grace said. “Who are you?”

The guard peeled his fabric mask down and winked. He was beaming with a smile so wide that it contorted the rest of his face.

“I'm a patriot,” he said, then disappeared through the hatch.

The Legionnaires looked at each other for a moment, then at their ward.

“Saddle up, men, let's show them how the Legion gets it done,” Grace said. He approached the old man and squatted next to him. He kept his voice soft and touched his knobby forearm, saying: “Come on, doc, time to go.”

“Are they coming?” the doktor asked. Grace was taken aback. Fleischer had almost not accent at all.

“Who?” Grace asked.

“The officials.”

“Who?” Grace repeated.

“Bah,” the old man grunted, swatting at Grace. He stood up out of his chair and set his book down on the arm rest.

“Okay, grandpa,” Brent chuckled. His grin faded after a glare from Grace.

“You mean the guards? Yeah, they got to be almost here by now.”

Fleischer doddered past him, clutching a small brass object.

“What do you got there?” Grace asked his back.

The old man grunted, then held it up to his mouth. Gas hissed. He inhaled with such force that his entire crooked spine straightened, then bent backward. Yellow vapors curled out of his nostrils, and a low hum filled the cell. The light began to flicker, then went out.

“What the hell?” Brent asked. The darkness was absolute.

The hum rose into a moan, then a howl. Grace clamped his hands over his ears. Something brushed past him, making him jump. He was blinded and deafened. Warm liquid spattered against his face.

He stumbled toward where he thought the hatch was, but tripped over something soft but heavy. The cell stank like exhaust and blood. He tried to navigate around the unknown obstacle by touch. He found torn fabric, warm skin, and sticky liquid.

The lights came back on before he found his way out.

Grace's hands were covered in blood. Stableson was on the floor, twice-over folded in half.

“Holy shit!” Grace yelped. He stumbled back, landing on the cot. Blood had sprayed across the itchy wool blanket. Gregg was pancaked against the wall with such force that he was still stuck there like a thrown tomato.

The cell was empty. Neither the doktor nor Colliver were anywhere to be found.

Men were shouting outside. Grace gathered himself and slithered through the open hatch, trying to draw as little attention to himself as he could.

He found some of Colliver out on the catwalk. He had been slammed so hard into the railing that his bottom half stayed while his top half went sailing over the edge into the deep darkness.

“What is that?” someone yelled, his voice echoing through the shaft. Grace caught sight of flashlights swinging wildly. The familiar groan sounded, met by a scream. Across the shaft, two guards were attacking something.

The figure that loomed over them was like a corpse carved from granite. It was gray-skinned and walked like its joints needed oil. Fumes and horrible wailing escaped its slack mouth. Black lines, thick as worms, coursed their way over every inch of its flesh. It held a screaming guard in one hand, its horrible fingers latched onto the man's face. It was oblivious to either man's blows, even as studded batons rained down on its head and chest.

The guard screamed at a higher octave for an instant before the thing closed its hand. Pulp threshed between its fingers and the body dropped, still and silent. The second guard tried to run, but the thing lurched after him. Its movements were explosive and lightning quick. A backhand and a stomp was all it took to was all it took to end him.

“Jesus,” Grace whispered.

The thing's head snapped around. Its bloodshot eyes locked onto him. Black exhaust boiled out of its mouth.

Grace had nowhere to run. The elevator was gone and the catwalk formed a perfect circle around the shaft. The catwalk above was close, but he didn't think he could reach it, even if he did risk standing on the rail. But the cell was still open. He scrambled inside and began hauling at the hatch. It was nearly two feet thick, all steel and stone. He finally had it moving when a gaunt arm speared through and grabbed a handful of his jumpsuit.

“No!”

It yanked him off his feet and out of the cell in a single motion. Grace landed heavily and bounced, nearly rolling under the railing and off the catwalk. The hungry darkness pulsed below. He scrambled to his feet and tried to run, but the thing had him. It pounced like a panther, slamming him hard into the metal grating. He wheezed under the weight.

The thing howled and let up. Grace rolled onto his back. It stood over him, huffing black smoke. It was dressed in shredded, blood-stained rags, but Grace recognized the fabric: it was all he had worn for the past five months. A blue-inked 'zero' rose and fell in the hollow under the thing's throat.

“Doc?” Grace whimpered.

Fleischer's red eyes went wide, and the smoke that blew out of his mouth was so hot that Grace could feel it pinking his skin. The twisted thing that had once been an old man lunged, catching his ankle in an iron grip.

“No!” Grace managed. Fleischer snarled again, then swung his arm like he was a snare drummer and Grace was his drumstick. The Legionnaire whiplashed against the metal grating, snapping bones and knocking him senseless. He groaned, unable to move.

The exhaust roared out of Fleischer again, so hot that an orange flame flickered in the back of his throat. He grabbed Grace by both ankles and howled, swinging him upward as hard as he could.

Grace was somewhere else, sitting on the hood of his cruiser with a fried fish sandwich, watching the high tide come in through the marsh grass. He never felt it when he collided with the rails and struts beneath the catwalk above.

MONDAY NIGHT, AUGUST 10, 1942
BEHIND 'THE POUNCE CLUB'
NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA

“Hey.”

The voice wasn't loud, but it rolled down the alley like a dump truck. The four men froze in place and looked for whoever had the gall to interrupt their stabbing.

A mountainous shadow fell across the attackers and their victim. A huge man, dressed all in black, was blocking one end of the narrow alley.

“Mind your business, you loon!” the sweatiest of the bunch snarled.

“Yeah, kick rocks if you know what's good for ya!” another piped up, amplified by liquid courage.

“He is my business,” the apparition growled, pointing at the man they had pinned to the brick wall. He was white, thin to where he was almost scrawny, with a sad excuse for a beard. The new split leaking red from his right eyebrow mirrored the healed scars on his left. His nose was bloody, but the crooked bend in its bridge was an old injury.

“This guy?” the guy with the knife squawked.

“He's a two-bit shylock, looking to twist arms,” the sweaty one snapped, his words slurred. He buried his fist into the restrained man's gut again to show he meant business. “You can have him when we're done.”

“I need him now,” the shadow rumbled. He reached inside his coat and pulled out a long wooden club. Its angular head looked like it could drive rivets and crack river ice.

“It's him,” one of the men whimpered. He stumbled back, bumping into a trash can that rattled with old beer bottles.

“Who's him?” the sweaty one asked.

“Don't you read? It's the Bastard!” the scared one stammered.

The looming shadow stayed silent.

“'The Bastard?' Shut up, he's some dumb drunk, just like you,” the sweaty one said.

“No, it's him!” With that, the terrified goon took off, bolting down the far end of the alley and disappearing around the corner.

“What do we do, Clint?” the guy with the knife asked.

“Stick this joker, then we'll stick that one,” Clint, the sweaty one, snapped.

“So you're Clint?” the pinned man asked.

“What's that?” Clint hissed.

“Couldn't figure out which one you were, all you dumb hicks look alike,” the bleeding man told him.

“Gimme that, I'll stick him myself,” Clint yelled, trying to snatch the switchblade out of his buddy's hands. The three remaining goons argued for a second, distracted, drunk, and scared.

The pinned man twisted out of their grip like he was an eel. He lashed out three times, three quick punches. His fists fell like meteors. Clint's buddies dropped, collapsing as quickly and completely as sandcastles, while the man himself stumbled away and face-planted into the wall. He slid down to the filthy asphalt, scraping his face as it dragged against brick.

The now-freed man shook his fists out and then wiped the blood leaking from his nose off on the back of his arm.

“Donny Fast Hands, you still got it,” the Bastard rumbled.

“Nobody's called me that in a while,” Don Iker said. Sweat and blood dripped off his chin. The former featherweight champ ambled across the alley and squatted over Clint. He rifled through the half-conscious man's pockets until he found his billfold. He took the cash out and tossed the wallet into Clint's face.

“Used to be that you were a sure bet,” the Bastard said.

“I thought so, too. 'Til I wasn't,” Iker said. He stood up and leaned against the wall next to Clint and lit up a cigarette. “You think I owe you money, too?”

“I heard you're working off a debt,” the Bastard replied. “I've been there. What do you say I pay it off?”

Iker chuckled. He took a long drag, then turned back to Clint, who was coming to. One side of Clint's face was already purple and puffy, the other was bloody and oozing.

“Hey, Clint, buddy,” Iker said, nudging the man with his toe.

“Huh?”

“Next time, just pay Leon what you owe, okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, of course.”

Iker waved the wad of pilfered cash in Clint's face, saying:

“I'm going to tell him you offered this to get by. But if you don't catch up, next time he's going to ask me to break something. Off.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Iker left Clint where he lay and walked over to examine the Bastard. The masked man looked like he was three grizzly bears in a trench coat.

“So what's the catch?” Iker asked. “Paying off my tab ain't cheap. For anyone.”

“Catch is that you're going to keep finding people,” the Bastard said. “I hear you're the best at it.”

“I know where to look,” Iker said.

“Leon told me you found this guy by running a liquor truck off the road, then delivering the only intact cases of Glenglaine Single Malt in town to this bar.”

“He told you where to find me?”

“My friends introduced me to him. I don't know if you know Silver Dollar Sam.”

Iker's eyes went wide for a split second, betraying a look of panic. He surveyed the alley for a way past the Bastard like a cornered leopard.

“I paid him in cash and threats, if that helps,” the Bastard replied.

“His favorite currency,” Iker said, his throat dry.

“So the single malt worked.”

“Clint's former lady friend told me he wouldn't touch a thing other than scotch and soda,” Iker confirmed.

“Leon and Sal told me that you can drive a debtor out of any hole they're hiding in. If you go after someone, it's just a matter of 'when.' That's the kind of person I need.”

“What I'm not hearing is any improvement over working for Leon,” Iker said.

“Guys like Leon, you ain't ever done. Once they know that you'll give 'em a drop, they'll wring you dry. My deal's got an end date.”

“When would that be?”

“When the war's over.”

“The war? I'm not fighting any war.”

“War's here, pal. Remember that big to-do in February? Nazis. The country's lousy with 'em. Hoover's boys know how to find the soldiers and the spies, the people who operate by a playbook. But that's not all they got over here. I need people who can find the scum and the smugglers, the ones who don't think like the feds do.”

“And kill ‘em?”

“Find them, arrest them, stop them from hurting any more people.”

“So you're what, deputizing me as some masked asshole?”

“I get why Clint wanted to stab you.”

“Yeah, my mouth helped me learn how to take a punch young.”

The Bastard looked at the three splayed drunks, the trash, and the sticky asphalt.

“We done here?” he asked.

“Yeah, I think Leon will be happy with my work. So where to now?”

“Canada,” the Bastard said. “I hope you got a coat.”

SUNDAY MORNING, JUNE 21, 1942
DEPARTMENT 3 QUARANTINED STUDY FACILITY 992
SAINT AMABLE, VICHY FRANCE

//translated from French//

Colonel Marcel Dufossé dropped when the rifle barked up ahead, but Rafael Bastedo was not so quick. The round hit him dead-center in the chest and he crumpled to the mud.

“Tree line!” Dufossé shouted. He pressed as low to the ground as he could get and squirmed across the dirt to Bastedo's side. Pelting raindrops splashed down around them. The former cop was still breathing at least. Dufossé threw himself over the sodden man and yelled out his orders: “Covering fire!”

Cecile popped up behind a a bent sapling and squeezed off rip from her MAS-38. The muzzle flashes lit her maniac grin and blew her curly hair back, even with the heavy rain and storm winds. The black-shirted SS trooper disappeared behind one of dense yew trees that formed a privacy wall around the compound. The moment's respite let Laure and Pierre finish throwing their Bren gun up on its bipod. Pierre patted Laure on the helmet and she let it rip. Their machine-gun roared, chopping down the entire tree and the cowering Nazi behind it.

“Mark one!” Laure whooped, and Pierre pulled a knife from his belt and scored a tally-marked square onto their their steaming gun barrel.

“Can Bastedo move yet?” Cecile asked. Her eyes were darting back and forth across the treeline, waiting for a counterattack.

“Do not rush me, woman,” Bastedo groaned. Dufossé got off of him and redirected his gaze toward their objective. He could see the facility through the new gap in the trees.

Bastedo sat up, wiped the rain off his face, coughed, and gingerly patted his chest. Yellow powder dribbled out of a hole in his shirt and was immediately soaked into a paste.

“That Nazi is a good shot,” Bastedo croaked.

“That Nazi was a good shot,” Pierre noted.

Bastedo grunted and brushed the rest of the itchy yellow goop off his shirt and out of his thick black beard. Dufossé did the same, though more frantically. The second skin paper armor that Bastedo kept pasted all over his body might have stopped the bullet, but it was highly toxic. Even if he survived the war, it would be less than a decade before illnesses incurable wore him down to bones and tumors. Dufossé hopped to his feet and waited until Bastedo had finished brushing himself off before helping him up.

“It's raining like a pissing cow out here,” Bastedo grumbled.

At full height, the other man stood more than half-a-meter taller than Dufossé. The colonel was used to looking up to his officials and they were used to following his lead.

“Advance with Cecile, up to the trees,” he ordered. Bastedo hefted his rifle and formed up with the war-painted commando. Dufossé checked that his carbine wasn't clogged with mud, then followed a few meters back.

“Cover us,” he told Laure and Pierre. The cousins gathered their big gun and followed close.

They picked their way across the overgrown field, trusting Cecile to spot potential landmines and trip wires. For a Department Three facility, the area was poorly guarded. Dufossé could not decide whether having only seen one guard thus far was ominous or fortuitous.

“What was this place?” Pierre asked.

“Speaking of pissing cows, this is, was, a dairy farm,” Dufossé said. “The Nazis took the cattle last year and repurposed the facility.”

“If that kraut was not alone...” Laure started.

“We only have a short time before reinforcements arrive,” Dufossé said. They slogged the rest of the way to the trees as quickly as the soggy terrain would allow. Dufossé had hoped that the gray cloud cover and driving rain would have covered their approach, but one wandering Nazi had ruined that plan. He grunted and hauled his leg out of the mud.

“Need a hand, colonel?” Pierre asked.

Dufossé shook his head and grunted one last time as he freed his foot. The others trudged through without sinking in deeper than the tops of their boots. He was in up to his knee. This was not new for him, either. He had always had to walk further, reach higher, learn faster, and talk louder.

His achondroplasia had made him a target for the fascists. They would have discarded him like a broken vase. But Dufossé was not broken. He learned how to hide and the survive. He turned his education in psychology and history from the Sorbonne into a weapon. To the partisans, and the Office, deception and manipulation were as sure to kill as a bullet.

“Are we clear?” he asked.

Cecile slithered in behind the trunk Laure and Pierre had felled and peered out to the open area beyond the wall of concealing trees.

“No sign of activity,” she reported. Dufossé trusted her. She'd led them into and out of stranger places.

“Move up,” he ordered.

The squad stepped over the tree, leaving the dead Nazi were he'd fallen. Dufossé had to vault over, but he kept up the pace.

Before them, the dairy lay sprawled in the midst of a vast, unkempt lawn. It was a squat gray building, longer than a football pitch. There were no windows on its exterior. Vines climbed its facade and choked the huge rusted milk tanks standing in a row. The officials dashed across the short distance from the trees to the wide doors. Cecile and Pierre stacked up to their left with Laure, Bastedo, and Dufossé to their right.

On the 'three' of a practiced, silent countdown, Cecile and Laure kicked in the front doors and rushed through, guns at the ready. Dufossé followed them in, with Bastedo and Pierre flanking. The doors opened up to a long lane that ran all the way down to far end of the building. Stalls for holding cattle lined either side. Plenty of room for enemies to hide.

A fetid stench immediately bowled Dufossé over. He felt his stomach churn and twist. Unless the Nazis here had gas masks, they could not wait in ambush for long.

“Did they slaughter all those cows in here?” Pierre gagged.

“Not that I know of,” Dufossé coughed.

“So what's that stink?” Laure asked, her nose crinkled.

“That is corpses,” Bastedo said. “A lot of them.”

They all looked at him. He had been a homicide detective in Paris for a decade before the war started. If anyone knew what a decomposing human body smelled like, it was him. Pierre and Laure mouthed silent prayers.

“On me,” Dufossé said. He hustled to the point position, carbine leveled. They could not be distracted. The nearest German garrison was only a half-hour away by truck. They would have to extract or eliminate the Abductor of Saint Amable before any additional Nazis could arrive.

“Search these stalls, all of them,” he ordered. “Cecile, left, Laure, right. Pierre, rear. Bastedo, with me.”

Cecile and Laure wasted no time. They each drew their sidearms and opened the first stall on either side.

“Empty.”

“Clear.”

Dufossé peeked inside one. The floor had been swept out, with only mottled brick remaining. An unoccupied hospital gurney sat in the middle, gleaming and stainless. Open manacles dangled from its rails. The opposite stall contained an identical set-up.

“That is blood,” Bastedo said. He pointed to the discoloration on the floor. It was reddish-brown, easy to miss against brick. Dufossé took this is stride. He trusted Bastedo to identify blood, as well.

“Keep going,” he ordered.

Every single stall they opened was the same: the gurney, the chains, the blood. Some stalls had red sprayed up the wall, others saw it pooled so thickly on the floor that it filled in the spaces between the bricks, while some were lightly misted from top to bottom. But no matter its distribution, the blood was always there.

“Jesus Christ, there are dozens,” Bastedo said.

“How old do you think the blood is?” Dufossé asked him.

“The first? Perhaps three months. But it is growing redder as we go, newer. This one,” he said, motioning at the closest that had been ribboned with scarlet arterial spray, “A week at most.”

It was another ten stalls before they found black mixed in with the red.

“Smells like oil,” Pierre noted. The blood was still sticky, and the black fluid glistened like it would never dry.

“What the hell?” Cecile grunted. She swore and spat. Laure crossed herself.

“Ignore it, find the target,” Dufossé snapped. It was all he could do to not vomit from the stink, which had only grown stronger.

Cecile and Laure reached the last few stalls, with only a half-dozen between them and the rear exit. The bloodstains were all black, without a drop of crimson among them.

“What were they doing here?” Laure wondered.

“And where is everyone?” Bastedo added.

Metal clattered across brick somewhere close. Dufossé ducked into the closest stall. His boots skidded through the black ooze. He regained his balance and aimed down his sights, searching for a target.

“Whoever that is, show yourself, now!” Bastedo shouted. He was in the stall behind Dufossé, his pistol gripped in steady hands.

Metal scraped against brick.

“We are armed and we will shoot!” Bastedo called out. He'd put on his cop voice. Even Dufossé wanted to lay down his guns and put his hands up. Bastedo roared, his voice reverberating through the empty building: “Show yourself now!”

“Do not shoot!”

A woman stood up in the very last stall. She was wearing a white nurse's uniform, with graying brown hair done up in rolls, had a cigarette burned nearly to the filter hanging from her lip, and had no accent.

“You are French?” Cecile asked.

“A victim?” Dufossé wondered.

“Show your hands!” Bastedo roared, loud enough to silence the rest of them.

The woman smirked and raised her hands. They were both smeared with black to the elbow. She held a shining bone saw above her head.

“Throw that into the next stall,” Bastedo ordered. She followed his direction. The saw clanged against the floor.

“What are you doing?” Dufossé demanded.

“Cleaning,” she hissed.

“Cecile, secure her. Laure, cover Cecile,” Dufossé ordered.

The officials rushed her, clearing the stalls between as they advanced. Cecile snatched the woman's hand out of the air and twisted her wrist behind her back. Laure went to secure the blade and almost tripped. She stifled a scream when she saw what was in the stall. Bastedo rushed to her side.

“The animals,” he gasped. He turned on the woman like he was going to do something to her, but thought better of it and stalked away. He snarled at Cecile over his shoulder as he paced past Dufossé: “Tie her up! Now!”

“What is it?” Dufossé asked. He made his way to the stall. Laure was weeping. He patted her on the arm, whispering: “Help Cecile.”

Laure shuffled away, wiping her eyes, letting Dufossé see what had disturbed her. Bastedo had made his trade in horror, and Laure, Cecile, and Pierre had been at the forefront of the resistance since it had formed. They had seen and made carnage for years. What Dufossé found shook even him.

“What have you done?” he whispered to no one. The rain drummed against the roof, but his own heartbeat pounded in his ears.

“She tried to saw off that man's head,” Bastedo said like he was reading out of a textbook.

Dufossé reached up and touched the naked, still man's shin.

“He's still warm.”

Black fluid dripped off the far end of the gurney where there should have been a torrent of blood.

“You cannot understand this work,” the woman hissed. Cecile wrenched her bound wrists back until she gasped.

“Were there people in every...” Dufossé asked. He had lost count of the blood-spattered stalls that they'd passed.

“There is one here,” Cecelia grunted, nodding to the last stall, opposite from where she was holding the smirking woman.

“A survivor?” Dufossé asked. He rushed over to find a pale, gangly man chain in place, breathing in shudders and staring at the ceiling. His skin was was nearly translucent; blue veins ran beneath a maze-like web of scars that marred its surface. He had a tag tied to his toe.

“'Jourdan LaChance, age twenty-six,'” he read aloud. “'First procedure, ninth of August, nineteen-forty-one.' Jourdan, can you hear me?”

The man stared upward with gummy, unseeing eyes. His ribs rose and fell in time with an unheard, irregular jazz beat. He was not home.

“She has been cutting him for nearly a year,” Bastedo said. “Bring her here.”

Cecile shoved the bound woman. A leather apron covered the front of her dress, its pockets stuffed with tools and its surface stained with red, brown, and black. The yellow rubber rain boots she wore had more black smeared on them.

“Who are you?” he asked, his face inches from the smoking cherry of her cigarette.

“I am Merci,” she replied. Her voice rattled like a toad's.

“The hell you are,” Bastedo snapped. He reached for his belt to retrieve his knife. Before he could, the back doors of the dairy lurched open. Two uniformed SS troopers stood in the open doorway, soaked but laughing at some joke. They each pushed a bloody wheelbarrow. Their smiles melted away when they saw the five officials standing before them.

“Schiesse!” one shouted. They dropped the wheelbarrows and reached for their guns.

Cecile threw Merci to the floor and tried to bring up her MAS-38, Bastedo scrambled for his holstered pistol, and Laure fumbled with her own.

Dufossé fired first. His M1 carbine barked twice, felling each Nazi in turn. When they were on the ground, he walked over shot each of them again. He kicked their MP-40's out of reach and threw their Lugers and knives aside.

“Everyone alive?” Pierre shouted from the far end of the dairy. His voice echoed through the stalls.

“Everyone who should be,” Bastedo called back.

“Secure the back of the building,” Dufossé grunted. “There may be more where they came from.”

“That was all,” Merci told him.

“And shut her up,” Dufossé added. Laure, grateful for a breath of fresh air, joined Bastedo and slipped out into the rain. Cecile pulled a compression bandage out of her bag and wrapped it around Merci's head, covering her mouth.

Dufossé tried to take inventory of the situation. Save for the gasping, senseless man, the final stalls were empty. No files, no information, just black fluid staining everything. They had one woman, a collaborator, in custody; one victim secured, and one body, but with evidence of dozens more. No Nazi torturer, no intel to collect, no indication of what was actually happening here. No answers to the families of the missing people of Saint Amable.

“Colonel!” Pierre called. “Headlights!”

Dufossé swore. There was no telling how many Nazis there would be, with what level of armament. Moving a prisoner and a comatose body would take at least two of his gunners out of any fight. Pierre could always light them up with the Bren gun, but there might be innocent abductees among them.

“Pull back, we will exfiltrate here,” he ordered.

Pierre dashed down the long lane between the stalls. His head whipped around as he took in the growing carnage around him. The horror on his face grew at the blood grew fresher and fresher, then blacker and blacker. He was always more squeamish than his cousin. When he reached Dufossé, Cecile, and Merci, he vomited.

“Sorry, sir,” he gasped. Merci's laugh was muffled by the bandage over her mouth. Cecile smacked her in the side of the head, knocking off her little paper nurse's cap and earning herself a glare from the prisoner.

“Collect yourself, soldier,” Dufossé said. He pointed Pierre at the wheezing, unresponsive man. “This man is coming with us.”

“Okay, can do, sir,” Pierre said. “Keys?”

Cecile patted Merci down and found a set in her pocket. Pierre caught them and unshackled Jourdan. He slung the Bren across his back and lifted the skeletal man with a grunt.

“He is heavier than he looks,” Pierre wheezed.

“Bastedo can help once we are outside,” Dufossé told him. He asked Pierre and Cecile: “Everyone ready to go?”

They nodded while Merci shook her head, though she did not get a say. Dufossé shoved the back doors open, and the three rushing officials and their prisoner nearly ran headlong into their comrades. Bastedo and Laure were standing stock still, silent and staring as the rain drenched them from head to toe.

“What are you doing?” Dufossé demanded.

Past the two officials, the yard behind the dairy was churned from recent digging and quickly turning into a mire.

“What is it?” he asked. They stepped aside, revealing a deep pit before them. Dufossé trudged through the sucking mud and looked down.

“My God,” Dufossé whispered. He was not a religious man, but old habits die hard.

The pit was nearly half full of churning rainwater, and a pale, naked, headless body was floating in it. Black fluid oozed and swirled atop the brown.

Nearly sixty people had been reported missing from Saint Amable, abducted by SS kidnappers. Dufossé had been assigned command of Operation Fieldmouse to find them. They were all still there. The Nazis had taken them all of a kilometer away from their homes, torn them to pieces, and discarded them like trash.

Headlights lit the treeline, jolting Dufossé out of his furious stupor.

“Run!” he told his people. The Office needed to know what had happened here. Merci needed to rot for it. And they needed her to talk. Whoever she worked for needed to burn. “Run!”

The officials took off with their two prisoners. The ground was soft with rain and Dufossé nearly lost his boots with every step. His toe hooked a root and he fell face-first into the mud.

“Shit!” Dufossé swore. Pierre stopped to pick him up, but he shrugged out of his grip. “Keep running!”

Dufossé's hand sunk into the mud, but he pushed himself up to his knees. He pulled one leg out of the muck, but his other wouldn't budge.

“What is this?” He grabbed his pant leg and tugged as hard as he could. He was caught. He scooped some of the mud away to find hooked, desiccated fingers clutching the cuff of his pants. Dufossé yelped and kicked. He was rewarded with the hollow crack of a rotten socket popping out of joint, and he was free. He crawled on his hands and knees, trying to build up the momentum to run. Each drag of his fingers though the soft ground uncovered ribcages, wormy hands, and empty eye sockets. Dufossé's heart jumped into his throat. A scalp poked out of the ground ahead of him. The bodies were floating to the surface, scores of them. Thumbs and teeth caught on his clothes like thorns.

“Ich sehe sie!” someone shouted behind him.

“You are going to wish you had not, asshole!” Laure roared. She was standing over Dufossé. Her rifle barked, and Nazis shouted in surprise and pain. Dufossé used the distraction to get up. Bastedo opened up on their pursuers as well.

“Keep moving,” Dufossé wheezed. Mud calved from him in heavy sheets that stank of death. The far end of the old dairy farm was just ahead. He stomped the exposed scalp under his boot. On the other side of the trees, their truck waited for them. Horace would already have the engine running.

Shots sounded behind him, but Dufossé ignored them. He ran as fast as he could.

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Copyright © 2023 Daniel Baldwin. All rights reserved.

Written and edited by Daniel Baldwin. Art by Bruce Conners.