Blood of Vipers Read Online Free

casting the room in shadows.
    A single soldier in a Russian uniform bent
     over the
     screaming woman with his hand at her throat. Her dress was torn,
     and she
     struggled beneath the man’s bulk, pleading in German. The
     Russian soldier was
     trying to get his pants down with his other hand, but both his
     wrists and hands
     were covered with so many looted watches and rings that he was
     having a hard
     time finishing the job.
    A farmer—presumably the woman’s husband—lay
     to one side with
     blood streaming from his forehead and a glazed look on his face.
     A dead dog lay
     next to him, neck a bloody hole.
    Cal crossed the distance to the Russian
     soldier in two
     steps, and lifted the gun as the man turned toward him, surprise
     written across
     his face. He reached for something, but Cal didn’t wait to find
     out what it
     was. His finger squeezed on the trigger. The gunshot exploded in
     the confined
     space. The man fell on top of the woman, who started to scream.
     Cal looked
     down, stunned, unable to believe what he’d done.
    A movement caught Cal’s eye. He whirled with
     the pistol to
     discover the farmer crawling toward the Russian’s jacket, where
     the dead
     soldier’s rifle lay.
    Cal waved the gun. “Don’t think about it,
     Pops.”
    The man continued to crawl toward the gun.
     The woman cried
     at her husband, “ Nein! Nein! Englisch! ”
    The man hesitated.
    “Not English, lady. I’m an American. But if
     he makes one
     more move, I’m going to blow a hole in his brains the size of
     Berlin.”
    She kept screaming at her husband, and at
     last he gave up
     and sat up and touched the blood on his forehead. When he looked
     at Cal, his
     eyes burned with hate.
    “No thanks necessary, you ungrateful Kraut.
     Now crawl over
     there.” He gestured with his pistol. “Back. Move it. I haven’t
     got all night.
     That’s it. More.”
    Cal picked up the dead soldier’s rifle, and
     then made his
     way to the woman’s side. The farmer groaned and tried to rise to
     his feet.
    “Cool it, pal. I’m not going to hurt your
     lady.”
    He helped the woman stand. Apart from some
     bruising about
     the neck she looked okay. She straightened her dress, then spat
     on the dead
     Russian. “ Frontschweine. ”
    “Move away,” Cal said. “I need a look. Let’s
     see what stupid
     thing I did this time.”
    He bent over the dead Russian. Dammit. And to
     protect
     Germans, too.
    Maybe the man had something that would help
     keep him alive.
     He searched the man’s belongings. A hunk of dry, nasty-looking
     bread,
     cartridges, a hunting knife, and a bunch of stolen loot: rings,
     old coins, more
     watches, a pair of binoculars that looked English made. Finally,
     a picture of
     an elderly woman with a scarf wrapped around her head. Mom?
     Grandma? What would
     the old lady say if she could see her beloved boy’s last,
     murderous hours on
     earth. Would she be ashamed? Or proud?
    He kept the binoculars, and decided to take
     the rifle and
     the cartridges with him as well. No sense having these two
     shooting at him as
     he left their property.
    Meanwhile, the German couple started a heated
     argument, no
     doubt something about whether or not they should try to kill him
     now or wait
     until morning to rush off to find Little Hitler, or someone
     similar. Cal had
     what he needed. Time to hightail it out of here.
    But as he turned to go, the woman grabbed his
     sleeve and
     asked him something.
    “No spreken ze Deutch, lady. Now let go of me
     before I’m
     doubly sorry for saving your Nazi hide.”
    She let go and rushed toward the back of the
     barn, calling
     out as she went. He kept an eye on her, but backed his way to
     the open barn
     door as she reached a pile of hay and tore it away in big
     handfuls. Whatever
     she had back there, he was not interested. But to his surprise,
     the woman
     reached into the pile and pulled out a girl who had been hiding
     beneath the
     hay. She