Randall Dyck

Copyright © 2003 by Randall Dyck

 All Rights Reserved

Prologue

April 1945

The nighttime horizon offered a panoramic view of systematic flashes as the artillery and aerial bombings approached the colonel’s position.  The Allies were coming—the inevitable end was near.

Now, drenched in sweat, with his eyes and nostrils burning from the sulfur that drifted in from the widespread detonations, the colonel embraced the walls of the fortress.  With his back pressed flat against the cold granite, he gazed over the deceptive wheat fields in front of him and contemplated the conflicting horrors.  The Allies would surely be upon him in a matter of hours, and he knew that their wrath would be a merciless and decisive war-ending assault.  However, that was not the focus of his fears.  What troubled the colonel the most, the thing that shook his very soul, was the horrific new weapon that was about to be unleashed from beneath those wheat fields.

The colonel’s education and passion for microbiology seemed a perfect fit for Hitler's promise—a guarantee that Germany would become the greatest and most powerful nation on Earth, through the sciences.  It was a new frontier for Germany, and what genetic engineering had to offer was too compelling for Colonel Shultz to disregard.  So, when summoned by the doctor to be his assistant, he couldn’t refuse.

Their mission was to develop a biological serum that would rapidly heal wounded soldiers.  The entire population of the Nazi war machine would be inoculated prior to battle, so when the inevitable happened, the virus would immediately go to work—healing the wound, growing new tissue and blood vessels…even regenerating organs.  But, it would take the trauma of the wound to turn-on the microbe.

            When the colonel questioned the purpose of some of the tests, the doctor always reassured him that his findings were consistent with the success of the Fatherland.  The doctor had an uncanny ability of making the colonel believe that he was on track with the mission’s purpose.

That was until the colonel discovered the truth.  The truth that would make him determined to stop the doctor and his mission.

"Doctor, we cannot do this, it’s madness!”  Colonel Shultz exclaimed, as he followed close behind Doctor Beckken.  Grabbing the doctor by his arm, he continued, "It is over—can you not hear the Allies’ bombs?  They’ll be here soon!"

The doctor stopped and quickly turned toward the colonel, "It's not over—It’s just now beginning—out of my way!” he bellowed, as he turned and once again headed for the cavern doors.

"Doctor, I cannot let you go through with this," the colonel said as he drew his pistol from its holster.

Once again stopping, the doctor turned toward his once faithful assistant and saw the Luger aimed at him, "Do you really believe that you can stop me?  Have you learned nothing over the years?” and then, with facial features and a voice frighteningly familiar to the colonel, the doctor hissed, "Do not interfere again, my dear Colonel…your very soul depends on you not interfering again.”

Fear took its control of the colonel, causing him to lose his grip on the pistol and let it fall, slow-motion-like, to the floor.  The colonel knew all too well what the doctor was capable of, he had experienced his wrath before.  He backed away slowly, taking one step to the rear, then another, and then quicker steps as he pivoted and ran up the stairs to the surface.

Returning to the business at hand, the doctor quickly dialed the combination for entry, and spun the wheel that began to disengage the ten, one-inch thick rods that were attached to the door and penetrated the six-inch thick iron door casement.  The door-latching mechanisms echoed throughout the corridor as the gears began to turn.  A sudden echoing shudder sounded as the rods ended their travel and became fully disengaged.  Pulling down on the two large levers, the doctor easily pulled the enormous weight of the doors open.

The underground cavern was enormous and the view surreal, as the humidity-saturated air gave an appearance of low hanging clouds.  Originally a remnant left behind from a long-ago-retreated underground glacier, German engineers finished the job of expanding and adding the necessary architectural support to hold the ceiling’s structure.  Now, fully five hundred yards long, three hundred fifty yards wide and one hundred twenty-three feet high, the structure was mind-boggling.

Through the mist and barely noticeable, several of the bloated weather balloons were slowly wavering in the underground air current as they hugged their ceiling nest.  Encompassing a ridiculously enormous ceiling grid of neat rows and columns, one thousand balloons, each twenty-five feet in diameter, awaited their mission.  Suspended by numerous tethers and hanging below each hydrogen-filled balloon, was a black box that contained the doctor’s ghastly concoction.

The thundering bombardments from the Allies were echoing throughout the cavern as they detonated on the earth above…the time had come.

Hurrying to the control panels, the doctor began flipping toggle switches on a long row of the release-sequence panel.  Pulling on the large contact switches engaged the power generators, whose start-up whine echoed throughout the chamber.

Lifting the cover that shrouded the main release switch, the doctor hovered his hand over the now exposed red, mushroom-shaped button, looked up toward the huge ceiling, and bellowed in a horrendous echoing howl, "Behold, I come!" then slammed his hand down.

            Mother Earth shook violently as she struggled to keep the doors of Hades closed, but, she lost, and the ground opened.  As the octagonal gate of each portal systematically thrust upward, a great yellow light streaked out and into the heavens releasing its legion of horror.  The colonel’s last vision, before he bit down on the cyanide capsule, were the bowels of Hell defecating its contents over all the Earth.

And he opened the bottomless pit, and smoke arose out of the pit like the smoke of a great furnace.  So the sun and the air were darkened because of the smoke of the pit.

Then out of the smoke locusts came upon the earth.  And to them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power.

—The Bible, Revelations 9:2 & 9:3