Remembering Dresden (Jack Turner Suspense Series Book 2) Page 4

  Finally, they made it to the bridge and began to cross. The wind picked up speed with each step. A third of the way there, Luther heard screaming over the stone rail. He looked and saw a large number of people fleeing from the buildings closest to the river. Some were already on fire. When they tried to cross the road that ran along the river, something terrible happened.

  It took a few moments for Luther to realize what he was seeing. The people only got so far across the street, screaming in agony the whole while. One by one they stopped, as if their feet could not take another step. Luther realized why. The asphalt on the street had melted from the heat. Their shoes were becoming stuck in the liquid tar. Seconds later, they’d fall right into it and their bodies would catch fire.

  He couldn’t watch any longer.

  The wind had become even worse halfway across the river. Luther had to hold tight to the railing with each step. Their group was met by another group going the other way, toward the flames. For a brief moment, Luther got excited, because it looked like another combination of firemen and Hitler Youth. But Ernst was not among them.

  The father who led their group yelled to their leader, a middle-aged man. “You have to stop, or you’ll all die. The fires are almost to the riverbank, and this wind. It’s because of the fire. It’s sucking all the oxygen into itself.”

  “We have our orders,” the older man said. “There are people over there who need our help. Step aside.”

  “Please,” the father pleaded. “Turn back. It’s too late to help.”

  The fireman ignored him and continued leading his group toward the fire. As they crossed paths, Luther looked at the faces of some of the youth. Their eyes looked straight ahead, terrified by the sight. It made him shudder to think Ernst would have been led by someone just as foolish. And that Ernst might already be….

  Luther couldn’t finish the thought. He kept walking, one foot after the other, against the hot, violent wind. Soon it became too hard. His legs started feeling weak. An extra strong gust knocked him on his behind. He started to roll down the bridge, the wrong way. He couldn’t stop or get up. “Ernst!” he screamed, not knowing why.

  The wind dragged him a few feet more then someone grabbed his wrist. “Give me your other hand.” Luther looked up. It was the father. Luther did, and the man pulled him to his feet. He helped Luther back to the group he’d been leading. He took the child he had been holding back from its mother and they all continued their trek. The father held Luther’s hand. Luther was more than happy to let him.

  Right when they reached the far side, they heard shouts and screams coming from the other end of the bridge. Luther let go of the father’s hand and braced himself behind a stone piling, then turned to see. The line of firemen and Hitler Youth had reached the street but so had the sucking wind.

  Luther was horrified by what happened next.

  The older man who’d been leading the group was flying through the air, reaching back with his hands toward the others, screaming for help. They couldn’t help. They linked arm in arm, trying to stay together. Suddenly, the next man in line lifted off the ground. For a few moments, he still clung to the third man’s hand. But he couldn’t hold on, the sucking force was too great. He started flying away.

  The first man continued to fly up and back toward the wall of flame. Before reaching it, his clothes caught on fire. In a few moments, so did the second man. The rest of the group broke rank and fled across the bridge toward Luther.

  He slid down to the ground, his back against the stone piling and covered his face with his hands. It was like the fire had come to life, like some huge monster, swallowing up everything and anything in its path. All he could think of was to flee. He had to get away from this sucking wind before it reached him. He knew the way home from here.

  He got up and ran as hard as he could. But as soon as he reached the first street, he knew it wouldn’t be that simple. The street was gone. So were all the buildings on either side. Now just a mountain of smoking bricks and rubble.

  The bombs from the second raid had reached this side of the bridge. Oh no, he thought.

  Mother and Eva.

  9

  The sucking wind had become less intense the further Luther got from the river. But the heat still made it hard to breathe. All around, new buildings were on fire. Ones left untouched after the first raid.

  The biggest problem was how to get home. He had no trouble seeing; the fires continued to light up the ground and sky all around him. But the roads he’d used to get here were now blocked by the rubble. He started walking in the general direction of his house, hoping something would begin to look familiar before long.

  He tried to keep his eyes focused in front of him. It was all so frightening. Luther had only seen one other building on fire before tonight, and it was just part of a top floor. Happened about a year ago. He, Ernst and some friends had stood on the far sidewalk and watched the firemen put it out with their hoses. The whole thing took less than an hour. The boys had talked about it for days.

  This was too much to take in. There were almost as many buildings on fire as not. And some were just…gone. Completely gone.

  He hadn’t seen any firemen trying to put the fires out, at least not yet. When he’d made it beyond the first few blocks, he finally saw a few working on one building. He stopped to watch. It didn’t seem like what they did made any difference. He wondered why they even bothered until he heard the faint cry of people screaming from the cellar. The stairwell was blocked by chunks of debris.

  Just then a boy about his age tapped him on the shoulder. Luther turned and was startled by the boy’s face. It was completely black. Only his eyes and teeth were white.

  “Do you know where my house is? I know where it used to be but everything’s changed. It’s not where it’s supposed to be.”

  Luther shook his head no. “I’m trying to get back to my own house. Do you know where your mother is?”

  The boy didn’t answer. He repeated the same thing, almost word for word, then walked away. Luther realized he should keep moving. He really did have to get home, see if mother and Eva were okay. What if they weren’t? What if the bombs had reached his neighborhood? If they were gone, he’d be totally alone. He hadn’t found Ernst yet. Would he ever?

  Luther looked toward the Old Town area for a moment. His view was partially obstructed by a collapsed building. He stepped to the side to see better. Another row of bombed and burning buildings blocked his view of the river, but above them the tops of the flames spread out from one side of the sky to the other.

  That’s where Ernst was. Somewhere back there.

  Tears began to roll down his face. As he turned and began to run toward his house, it felt like he was saying goodbye to his brother. But he didn’t have any choice. He had to make sure Eva and his mother were okay.

  How could he make it without them?

  A walk that used to take fifteen minutes took three times that, but Luther finally made it to his neighborhood. As he neared his street, he took some courage that far less homes had been bombed here compared to the area by the river. He turned the final corner. His eyes shot halfway down on the left. A great sigh of relief. Their home was intact. Two homes at the far end of the street, however, were gone.

  He somehow found the strength to run. There was plenty of heat and smoke here, but it was less intense. He came in through the side door, which led to the kitchen. The house was dark. Someone was crying in the living room. “Hello? It’s me, Luther. I’m here?”

  “Luther! Oh thank you, God.”

  His mother’s voice. “Is Eva with you?”

  “Eva? No, why would she be?”

  She ran up and hugged him. “She left about twenty minutes ago, looking for you.”

  “I didn’t see her.”

  Still holding his shoulders, she pulled back a little and bent down. “Where were you? Where did you go?”

  “I couldn’t sleep without Ernst. I went out to look for
him. I made it to the river, then more planes came.”

  “You could’ve been killed.” She hugged him some more. “Did you see Ernst?”

  “No. I couldn’t find him anywhere,” he said, still leaning against her. “Mother, it was terrible. The fires are everywhere. The whole Old Town area is gone. It’s one big fire from one end to the other. And it was so hot, I could hardly breathe.”

  She walked him back to the couch where they sat, side by side. She started crying again.

  It made him cry. “I don’t know if Ernst is safe, Mother. I don’t know how he can be. The whole area his crew was working on is on fire. And it’s not just fire. There’s this terrible wind that is sucking everything into it. I was standing on the bridge when it started sucking me in. I fell down and it started dragging me into the fire—”

  “Oh, my gosh!”

  “Then this man grabbed my arms. He pulled me back—” Luther was seeing everything all over again in his mind…the people running toward the river, their feet getting stuck in the street, them falling and catching on fire. The men being dragged into the air, right off the bridge, catching on fire. The wind sucking them into the wall of flames. He buried his face into his mother’s sweater and sobbed.

  He heard her pray, “Please God, bring Eva home safe. Speak to her. Let her know she should come home. And if Ernst is still okay, please keep him safe. Bring my children back to me.”

  She had barely said the words when a loud bang came from the same door Luther had just walked through.

  “I can’t find him anywhere. I’ve walked all around the neighborhood and all the way down to the river. If he's on the other side—” It was Eva.

  “He’s in here,” Mother said. “He’s alright.”

  She stood, so Luther stood.

  When Eva saw him, she ran to him and gave him a hug, crying the whole while. “I thought we lost you, too.”

  What did she mean by that? Did she know something about Ernst? It sounded like she believed he was gone for good. They all sat in the living room. “I had to try to find Ernst,” Luther said. “He never came home, and I couldn’t sleep. So I went down by the river to the last place I saw him, but it wasn’t like before. The whole place was on fire. Then more planes came.”

  Eva wiped her eyes with a handkerchief. “Mother, you can’t believe what’s happened, what the bombs have done. The whole downtown area, not just the Old Town, is completely destroyed. It was so hot and so windy I didn’t dare go near the bridge.”

  “That’s where I was,” Luther said. “Except across the bridge. But it got too hot, then the fire started coming toward us. Then the wind grabbed me—” He started feeling all the same feelings and seeing everything all over again in his head. He burst into tears.

  Eva put her arms around him and let him cry into her lap. “We were sound asleep until the planes came again. We kept calling your name as we ran down the cellar, but you didn’t answer. I ran into your room. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Neither one of you were there.” She started to cry. “Don’t ever do that again!”

  They all sat for a while. When Luther was done crying, he lifted his head. Eva looked like she had stopped too. “What are we going to do? What if more planes come back again? Where can we go?”

  For a moment, no one answered. “What else can we do?” Mother said. “Just go back in the cellar. And pray. There is nothing else.”

  “I’m so tired,” Luther said. “Can we at least sleep out here? I don’t want to go back in my bedroom alone.”

  “You can sleep in my bed,” Mother said.

  “That’s okay,” Eva said. “I’ll stay out here with him. I don’t know how much sleep I’ll get, but we’ll try to make it work here on the couch. You go on back to bed.”

  Mother got up, leaned over and gave both of them a kiss on the forehead. “You come wake me if Ernst—when Ernst—comes home.”

  “I will.”

  10

  Luther awoke totally disoriented. It was definitely daytime. Light came in through the windows. But where was he? He couldn’t be in his bedroom. The wrong walls were staring down at him. He smelled smoke. Why smoke? Where was it coming from?

  Then he remembered.

  The planes. The bombings. The explosions. The fire. It all came rushing back.

  He was in the living room, on the sofa. He sat up. He had been leaning against his sister Eva, who was still asleep. Rubbing his eyes, he looked around. Except for the lingering smoke which hung in the air like fog, everything looked the way it should. He stood, then remembered something else.

  Ernst.

  He ran into the bedroom they shared, desperate to find him there. But his bed was empty. Still made from the day before.

  He fell across the bed and burst into tears, his fists grabbing Ernst’s bedspread in bunches. He could think of only one reason Ernst had not returned. He would have come home if he could. He was gone, perished last night in the fire and the flames.

  Lying there, he tried to imagine Ernst’s face. Instead, horrible images replayed in his mind. The people running in the street toward the river, all of them getting stuck in the melting tar. That man on the bridge with the crew of workers, the look on his face as the sucking wind pulled him up and away. His screams and others as he flew through the air and disappeared into the inferno.

  Luther lifted his head off the bed and opened his eyes, trying to dispel the scenes. Eva came into the room and hurried to his side. They hugged, tightly.

  “It’s okay, Luther. It’s going to be okay.”

  But he could hear her crying. She knew what the empty bed meant.

  “He’s gone, Eva. Gone.”

  “Maybe not, Luther. He could still be down there working.” She lifted his face to look into hers. “There was so much work to do. Maybe his crew worked through the night. Don’t give up hope yet.”

  “You think it’s possible?”

  She nodded. But her eyes didn’t seem very sure.

  Just then, their mother stood at the doorway. She looked down at Ernst’s empty bed. Tears filled her eyes.

  “Not you too, Mother. I’ll tell you the same thing. Ernst might just still be working with the Hitler Youth. So much of the city was destroyed last night. There’s so much work to be done. I’m sure that’s why he didn’t come home. Why don’t we all get some breakfast, then we’ll head down there and look for him together?”

  Luther liked that idea. That’s what they would do.

  It was nearly noon.

  No one said a word as they walked from their house down to the river. Luther knew they hadn’t seen the worst of it yet. But in the light of day it was already beyond anything they could have imagined. The sky was gray and dingy. Nothing looked the same. Not a single road was clear and passable, not a single block of buildings was intact. Smoldering rubble lie everywhere. Smoke and fire also, increasing in intensity the closer they got to the river.

  Although his mother and Eva constantly shifted their gaze from side to side, trying to absorb what their eyes almost refused to see, Luther kept his focus straight ahead. So many people had died last night in these buildings, and he didn’t want to see any more of it. When they reached the river, ignoring it became impossible.

  Death was all around, everywhere he looked.

  Work crews were dragging charred bodies out from the cellars of nearby buildings and stacking them into a pile in the street. What they carried didn’t even look like people, more like burnt pieces of shriveled wood. But Luther knew what they were. He wished he didn’t. It was almost hard to look away. The three of them had to stop walking a moment as a man dragged three blackened bodies by, their limbs intertwined.

  Eva gently turned his head. “You don’t need to be seeing that.”

  They kept walking until they reached the row of bombed buildings that faced the river. All of them gasped when they stepped into an opening, as the full panorama of destruction lay before them.

  “My city, my beautiful city,” his
mother said. “Everything is gone.”

  Eva just stared, her head moved slowly from one side to the other then back again.

  Luther looked at their faces then at the scene itself. He had already seen more than his young mind could absorb. Nothing in his world made sense anymore. He might just as well have been walking on the moon. Nothing felt real. His mother was right. The city was gone.

  But they had come down here for a reason, to find Ernst. If he could be found. Luther’s eyes immediately focused on the bridge, which was still intact. People were still walking across, though in lesser numbers than last night. The Old Town area was still on fire. Thick billows of smoke still rose high into the air, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as before. And the sucking wind was gone. Just a regular wind now, carrying with it the thick smell of smoke and other smells that Luther didn’t like or recognize.

  “I don’t know if I can do this,” his mother said. “There are too many horrible things to see, everywhere I look. I feel like I’m going to be sick. And the smoke, I can hardly breathe.”

  “We have to do this, Mother,” Luther said. “We have to find Ernst. You said we would do this together. We have to try and find him. If he’s alive, he’s somewhere over there, across the bridge.”

  Eva pointed to an area across the river, near a block of burned-out buildings. They were still smoldering, but it appeared the fire there had burned itself out. “We could start looking near those buildings. See the groups of people walking around it? Maybe Ernst is with them. And see over there?” She pointed in a different direction. “Someone brought a wagon full of food. See all those people standing around eating. We could check there, too. C’mon, Mother.” She gently tugged on their mother’s arms. “We’ll just take it slow.”

  Luther knew Eva was trying to snap their mother out of the gloom she had fallen into. They needed to get her moving, get her mind off the destruction. He took her other arm and nudged her forward. Soon she was walking in step with them.