The Last Day of Camp

TW: Violence and swearing.

Looking at my colleagues from the stage as I receive employee of the year it is hard to describe how much I want all of them to die. Every one of them has a glass of wine in their hand.

            “Raise a toast,” I say. “We all drink together. Today is a celebration. To the death of rats.” My voice echoes in the dance hall.

            Uniformed guards raise their glasses and say it with me. “To the death of rats.”

            I sip my wine. The rest of them drink. Lowering my hand beneath the lectern I pour the rest of my wine into a bin hidden beneath. Raising the empty glass as if I downed my drink with the rest of them, I smile.

            “Another drink for the workers!” I shout. I look at empty glasses around the room. I watch the children with the wine bottles fill every glass again.

            I wait as our slaves do their work. They keep their eyes down. They want to live.

            “I want to thank you all for being here today. I am heartened to see all your faces as I look down from the stage. For three years I’ve worked here among you.” I look at the clock. The paralytic can’t have set in yet. “We have done everything we were told to do.”                        The men in their leather boots cheer.

            “Do you all have your drink?” I ask.

            They raise their glasses.

            “This one is on me, men. For everything you’ve done. DRINK.”

            I’m sweating. My heart can’t make up its mind whether it should beat faster than our machine guns or stop entirely.

            “Does it taste good?” I yell.

            “Yes,” they reply. Some of them stand. Others try but can’t, the smaller ones have already been taken by the drug. Their glasses fall from their hands.

            Two men fall as their legs fail.

            “Rats. We call our prisoners rats. We give them numbers. We took their clothes. We cut their hair. We robbed them.” More men fall between the chairs.

            The last of the unaffected look at me as my tone hardens. “We were happy to play with them. We used them for sport. We used them as raw materials. They weren’t like us. That’s what we told ourselves isn’t it. They’re different.”

            None of them are standing anymore. Some have already hit their heads off chairs and are dying. I talk because the words have been spinning in my mind for months. The grey uniforms are one giant mass of genocidal bastard.

            “My wife never told me about her grandmother. Not until the day she was taken away. Taken to a camp like this. Pregnant.” I look at the wine beneath the lectern.

            A guard is still moving somehow. Fumbling hands pull the gun from the leather holster on my hip. My bullet pierces his stomach. He collapses.

            He spills out over his grey friends.

            “I wouldn’t have cared if they hadn’t taken my wife. I would have done all of this and never thought about it twice. That’s the kind of scum I am. We all are. We make them dig their own graves. We make them carry the bodies.”

            I look at the clock. It’s nine. Bells ring in the tower over the front gate. The bell only rings five times before the first crack of gunshot echoes in the night.

            My hands are starting to feel numb. I didn’t spit out the paralytic fast enough to escape all the effects. I unbutton my jacket and throw it down. The patches of colour that symbolise my service as a murderer hit the wood of the floor.

            The boys who served the wine return with a different liquid in metal cannisters. The stinging smell of petrol fills the air as it sloshes over men who can’t move. Buried in the fields beyond the outer fence are hundreds if not thousands of innocents who turn in their graves to watch. Their last revenge is at hand.

            One of the guards is watching me, whimpering.

            “Don’t worry. I’ll be in hell soon as well. I owe an old woman my life. I have an appointment with some bullets.”

            I turn back to look as the flame is lit. Flaming bodies remind me of hell. Perhaps the burning will ease them into the punishment they’re headed for.

            Prisoners in their uniforms, numbers tattooed on their arms, hold guns. I raise my hands as I walk. They know what I did. Grudging respect glitters in their eyes. Hot hatred bubbles beneath. Neither I nor they will ever forgive me for everything I did before this.

            “Where is the mother?” I ask. The escapees point me to the last dormitory. The rest are already on fire. Nothing will be left of the camp tomorrow.

            Younger prisoners are being herded out of the front gate, given back the clothes and shoes that were stolen from them and told to run for the hills. The old will ride in the cars of their enemies. They will be picked up by the resistance.

            “You did it,” says the old woman with a number branded on her arm. She wears the grey uniform as if it is a badge of honour. Her badge is a yellow star. “I never believed you would do it.”

            “One thing to atone in the slightest for my endless sins. Now I come to atone for everything I have done to you. Mother. Wife. Sister. For everything I stole from you.”

            Guns turn to face me as I pull my pistol from the holster on my hip. I hold the cold barrel as I hand it to her. I picture her face each time I told her I had taken another one of her family to the gas chambers. I can’t make eye contact. My shame is too much. I know she wears her grief in every wrinkle. I know she has bald patches from ripping out her grey hair. I know she has cried until she had no voice to cry. I remember the faces of each family member as I led them away.

            “Of all those I have wronged here, of those who remain, I did the worst to you.” I get on my knees in the mud outside the dormitory. “I’m sorry. It’s too late but I’m sorry.”

            “It is never too late to apologise.” Her voice trembles with emotion. Her tears hit the mud beneath me. “But it is too late for my daughters.” She fires the gun. I feel hot pain in my stomach. “And my sister.” She pulls the trigger again. “And my husband.”

            I fall, unable to move. A bullet must have struck my spine.

            The last words I hear are “burn him.”

            Death begins to wrap icy fingers around me, to take me away. All I see are the faces of the dead. Those I murdered see me off to hell.