Standing Outside the Fire

50

[Everybody Hates Hitler]

EXT. COUNTRY ROAD - NIGHT

A person rode a motorcycle with a sidecar along a narrow road.

Vitsyebek, Belarus

1944

Drums rolled.

EXT. NAZI CAMP - NIGHT

The soldier riding the motorcycle parked outside a large house with a Nazi banner. He approached a sentry who was standing outside a smaller building.

The solder raised an arm in a casual salute. "Hell Hitler."

The sentry said in German, "You're late."

"Don't blame me. It was the shoemaker's daughter."

The sentry handed the soldier a pass. "Lucky bastard." The soldier walked past the sentry into the camp. "Get the clap."

The sentry tried to light a cigarette, but his lighter wouldn't catch. Heavy footsteps approached and a shadow fell over the sentry, who looked up. The cigarette dropped from his mouth and he screamed.

INT. NAZI CAMP BUILDING - NIGHT

A soldier looked out a window upon hearing the sentry's scream. He stepped back in alarm as the sentry crashed through the window. The soldier checked the sentry's body, but the sentry was dead. The soldier sounded an alarm as heavy footsteps approached.

A Nazi officer poured blood from a jar into a large bowl. He looked up as screaming sounded. A soldier writing on a ledger and a radio operator looked up and the radio operator removed his headset. Another soldier slid a table in front of the door. Soldier Two closed the ledger and handed it to Soldier Three.

The radio operator had put on the radio headset and spoke in German. "The thing won't go down - it broke through the lines of the east gate."

Soldier Three carried the ledger into an adjoining, well-appointed room where the Nazi officer was standing behind a desk. He put the ledger into a briefcase on a small table near the desk. Screaming and gunfire could be heard from outside.

The radio operator spoke again. "Commandant - it tore Richter in half!"

"My God - what is it?" Soldier Three asked.

""It" is coming to kill you, soldier," the Nazi officer replied. "I suggest you ready your weapon." He raised his voice. "All of you. Destroy it or die."

Three soldiers tipped a table on its side and stood behind it in a line, pointing their guns at the door.

The Nazi officer added ingredients to the blood in the bowl. "Damn you, sorcerers of Abraham-"

The soldiers looked at each other as heavy footsteps approached. The Nazi officer lit a match and picked up a candle. The radio operator took off his headset.

The Nazi operator spoke in Latin. "Cloaking flame, I ignite you."

The soldiers fired as someone broke in the door. A very large man entered and the radio operator shot him with his handgun. The large man lifted the radio operator from his chair. The Nazi officer let wax from a candle drip into the bowl as the radio operator screamed.

"The fire born from blood leaves behind no man."

Bones broke. Blood ran down the radio operator's body.