The Children’s Train

Outside the ghetto gates, Wolfgang and Kurt lined up and shot another group of prisoners at the ditch. One man, injured and slumping, but not dead, still stood. Wolfgang shot again, and still the man stood.

Wolfgang and Kurt walked over to the man, and Wolfgang used his old schoolboy trick of hitting his legs out from under him. The man finally fell into the ditch, and Wolfgang shot him again for good measure.

They lingered at the edge. Kurt covered his nose and mouth with his hand against the smell of the decaying bodies still piling up. “That stinks,” he said.

“The ditch is almost full,” Wolfgang said. “The ghetto is running out of room. That’s why they’re shipping them out.”

Smiling, Peter drove the truck down the street. When he saw Wolfgang and Kurt examining their fresh kills at the ditch, his eyes squinted into angry slits. Then he jerked the wheel, turned sharply, and headed on a seldom-used side road toward the death ditch.

“What are you doing?” Sloan demanded.

“I know those boys, and I owe them one,” Peter said.

“No! No! Pull away! Don’t do this!” Sloan shouted.

Mica pressed his hands on the dashboard. “I knew we shouldn’t let him drive.”

“Stop, Peter!” Sloan yelled in his booming voice. “There is no room for emotions. Personal vendettas will only detour our plans.”

Peter couldn’t pull away. His eyes were fixed, his face emotionless. With the power of the truck under his hands, and Wolfgang and Kurt in his sights, Peter pressed the gas pedal to the floor.

As the truck sped closer, Sloan grew quiet. “More to the right and hold her steady.” Accepting the danger of his destiny had always been one of Sloan’s strong suits.

The truck bounced off the road, barely missing the trees, and drove closer, narrowly missing Wolfgang and Kurt. With looks of horror very similar to those on the faces of the people they’d killed, the two Nazi boys dove into the pit of murdered, decaying bodies to avoid Peter’s vengeful onslaught.

The truck’s wheel rode the edge of the pit. The front right tire lost its solid ground, and, for a moment, the truck was headed into the pit, too.

Peter suddenly jerked the wheel away, and the tires finally grabbed.

The truck careened erratically back through the trees and onto the road. It merged into the traffic of the street, with other cars screeching to a stop and honking.

“You are a very bad driver!” Mica shouted.

Sloan gripped the dashboard in front of him. “That was incredibly stupid!” He paused and took a breath. “And one of the greatest rides of my life!”

“Wish I was driving a garbage truck! Would have been more terrifying to them,” Peter said, his transformation into a merciless commando complete.