The Horror Megapack_ 25 Classic and Modern Horror Stories ( PDFDrive )

“Home,” I whispered.
I’d been born in this house, lived my first eighteen years here, and only
escaped when I’d been drafted into the war…
The night in 1944 when the German artillery shot my bomber down, we’d
already dumped our cargo over Dresden. I had watched the city burning below
and felt a vindictive sort of pride: take that, you bastards, I thought. For all the
suffering, for all the innocents you’ve killed or enslaved, for all the terror and
fear and death you caused, take that!
Suddenly the plane lurched, but it wasn’t like hitting an air pocket. We fell to
the side—my buddy Lou on top of me, both of us all knees and elbows as we
tried to right ourselves—and when we couldn’t, I realized it was because the
plane had tilted. We lurched again, and suddenly wind screamed in, along with
an oily black smoke that made me gasp for breath.
“Come on!” Lou shouted in my ear, and somehow we made it to the hatch. He
blew it open and pushed me out.
I don’t remember much after that. I think I must’ve hit my head. Somehow,
though, my parachute opened and I made it to the ground safely, instinctively
tucking and rolling like I’d drilled to do so many times.
When I came up to my feet, several bright lights suddenly shone in my eyes. I
raised a hand to shield my face, blinded, afraid. Squinting, I made out half a
dozen men in German uniforms with rifles leveled at my chest. I raised my
hands. Their captain drew a large knife and stepped forward. I tensed, but he
only cut the parachute away. They he searched me and confiscated my pistol,
knife, and survival kit. He tucked my cigarettes into his pocket and handed my
wallet back after flipping through it once. I don’t think the pictures of my mother
and father interested him.
“Namen?” he asked, pulling out a little black book.
“Private Anderson, Tucker,” I said, and recited my serial number. He jotted it
down, then put his book away.
“You are prisoner,” he said in heavily accented English. “Come now.”
Turning, he led the way to a dirt road, where a dusty old truck waited. At his
gesture, two of his men lowered the clapboard. I climbed in past two alert
looking guards.
“No talk,” said the captain who’d found me. Then his boots crunched on the
ground and he was gone.
I leaned forward, straining to see my fellow prisoners. Had the Germans
caught Lou? As best I could tell in the darkness, about half a dozen sullen men