Behind the Lines

The Commandant was enjoying his favourite dream.

He was standing on a pedestal beside Adolf Hitler watching as a huge parade began filing past. White blond perfections of manhood and womanhood had began to file passed their arms out in the Nazi salute.

These perfect children of the Great German Teutonic race marching in perfect step where saluting him their creator, the master of Eugenics.

Now passing him were his Supermen and Women, his demigods. Warriors with powers to match any Mystery Men the Allies had.

He turned to speak to his glorious leader to find he had gone.

Looking down at the passing ranks he noticed something was wrong. Their steps were faltering getting out of phase with each other. Their faces were pockmarked and several had suppurating sores. Before his eyes they were rotting away.

He screamed out in anger and fear.

He shut his eyes as if to cut out the terrible vision as the stench of rotting bodies assailed his nostrils.

He opened his eyes and screeched in pain as a trooper threw molten molasses onto his face. As he laid in the hospital bed he became aware of a gas masked figure watching him from the end of the ward.

Suddenly without moving he was beside the bed staring down at him.

Behind him were two vile creatures. One was huge obscene fat creature oozing a greasy stinking sweat. The other was incredibly thin with cracked dry skin.

He was no longer in the ward but instead in a grey featureless plain.

“Confess your sin’s” The gas masked figure hissed at him.

“Please don’t hurt me!” The Commandant was weeping, shaking with fear.

“Tell me all the security devices in the research building. Tell me all I need to know.”

“No!”

He was running across the featureless plain at full speed his legs pumping manically. He looked over his shoulder to see the two demons turning into wolves to follow him with ground eating strides. Suddenly ahead of him was the gas masked figure of the Sandman.

“You cannot escape yourself no matter how hard you run , you always take you with you.” The Sandman’s body glowed with great heat and acrid smoke pour out of his eye sockets.

The Commandant tried to veer away only to be bold over by the wolves. He lay there naked with the two demons back in their natural form licking him, relishing his fear.

The Commandant begged, pleaded before breaking down and telling his tormentors everything.

The Commandant was back on his plinth watching the march pass once more.

“There is no place that evil can hide and dream. No evil is out of the reach of the Sandman.

Blob and Stink we are done here.”

“Yes Sandman.” The fat one replied in a high pitched woman’s voice.

They faded away leaving him looking down at the parade. A parade that no longer brings him pleasure.

With a blink the Commandant was back in the room a mere second after he had fallen asleep to awake in the timeless Dream Plane.

He shivered convulsively.

“Are you alright Commandant?” Wesley asked him.

“Yes fine. Just somebody walking over my grave.” He replied with a laugh before confessing to a minor infringement.

After the Commandant there were six others coming to confess. The first five yielded the plans of the building while in the Dream plane without any need to put them under any duress.

When the sixth crossed over to the curtained off area Wesley noticed Marta grimace in anger and pain.

Wesley looked at the cocksure guard.

“Go in and sit down. I’ll be with you in a minute.”

Wesley crossed over to Marta and whispered and signalled his concern.

“Is this the man who raped you and took your tongue.”

The woman signalled back that the answer was yes.

“When I call you come in and do everything I say with out question or hesitation. I’ve only done this once before.”

She nodded.

“Sorry about that, church business I’m afraid. Well my son you have come before God and the Saints to confess your sins.” A green vapour surrounded his head and he fell asleep.

Wesley put his fingers on the mans temple before calling Marta in. He had her sit beside him.

“You can only watch you must not do anything otherwise you will be lost to the dream plane.” He cautioned her before placing the fingers of his other hand against her temple. With a sucking sound they were in the dream plane.

The guard, Thomas, was in a large gothic hall. At the far end a grey haired old man stood at a lectern on which was a huge book full of flowing script.

Tomas walked down the aisle of this huge church to the sound of Angels singing.

He grinned an evil smirk. He was totally unafraid which worried Sandman as he stood there as Saint Peter.

“Tomas Berdich you come before me to have your soul weighed against your actions in life.”

Tomas grinned wider.

“Do you confess your sins.”

“I have no sins to confess too. I have followed my Gods teaching. I just wanted to show you a real man.”

“That is not what the book of the dead says. It say’s you have broken several of the Commandments brought down from the mountain by Moses.” Sandman looked down at the book again feeling more and more concerned as the churched morphed into a court room. “You did lust after Nicole Bordure and on the twentieth of last January had carnal knowledge of her.”

A pretty school girl came out of the shadows of the court room.

Tomas giggled.

“Oh she was so, so, wicked.” He crossed over to the girl and went behind her. “She wanted me I could tell but that is so naughty.”

He put his arms around her as he did in life and ran his hands over her body. His right hand grabbed her throat and began to squeeze whilst his left one pinched her nose shutting off her airways. Unable to breath the poor girl thrashed about but to no avail.

“She danced such a pretty dance at the end.”

The girls heels rattled against the floor as she died.

With a convulsive twitch he broke her neck and let her fall to the ground.

“What about Cecile du Mer did she deserve to die too.”

Another woman stepped out of the shadows.

“Oh yes.” He breathed as he used a spoon to scoop out her eyes as they made love. She screamed only to get a back hand from him as he forced the chicken leg down her throat chocking her. “And guess who was picked to investigate.”

He was screaming with laughter.

Then Marta stepped forward.

“The one that got away.” He cocked his head to one side. “But you wont speak out against me will you. You know I would come for you and finish the job. After all I have your tongue.”

Around him on the walls were his trophies, bits of the bodies of his victims.

“Who told you to do these heinous things?” Sandman asked dreading the answer.

“Why my God, the only true God, Satan.” He laughed. “He promises a time when there are no laws save those of the strong. I shall be his lieutenant, his avenging spirit, he’s most loyal servant.”

“No my son. He has tricked you like he has a thousand times before to thousands of individuals. You have broken the New Covenant between God and Man laid down by his priest Moses and made anew by Jesus, the Christ.

You are condemned to hell for your crimes till the time when we shall all be judged.”

Still he didn’t understand as Blob and Stink now in the form of two lesser devils crossed for him as the courts wall faded from view and the planes of Hell could be seen. The screams of the tortured echoed over the smoky land as braziers heat branding irons to white heat.

Tomas drew himself and with pride called out.

“Take me to Satan? Tell him he’s Lieutenant has arrived.”

The creatures in front of him laughed. Devils strung out over the plane joined in with a manic chorus.

“Now, now sweetmeat there is plenty of time before you are consumed by him. We have such wonderful tortures just for you.” Blob sucked her filthy fingers seductively.

“I said take me to Satan?!” Tomas screamed loosing his composure. “No it’s not supposed to be like this I was supposed to be the torturer, the punisher of the evil ones.”

He was weeping like a little child in a strop stamping his feet.

“He isn’t interested in you my son.” Sandman still in the guise of Saint Peter waved his hand and a thin ghostly lifeline appeared, attaching the dream self of Tomas with his true self back at the confessional.

Tomas turned and ran as fast as his legs could go. But it was no good as he always came back to Saint Peter and the gates of Hell.

Blob and Stink grabbed a leg each and proceeded to drag him toward the flames of hell.

Tomas’s fingers clawed at the ground as he franticly tried to avoid his fate.

Sandman turned to Marta and offered the scissors that had appeared in his hand.

“If you cut the lifeline he will be lost in the dreaming suffering his own version of hell till all the energy he has has been ripped from him. He will become a voice in the wind that only the sensitive can hear.

It’s your choice Marta.”

Marta walked over to where Blob and Stink held Tomas down and looked down at him with the scissors in her hand.

Sandman signalled his two servants to let Tomas go.

Tomas stood up and looked Marta in the eyes.

“You stole more than my tongue and virginity, you stole who I was.” She said clearly. “But I won’t become like you, I refuse to become a murderer.”

“You can’t do it. Like all the rest, you are a coward.” He cackled as she dropped the scissors.

He drew a vicious knife from its sheath at the back of his spine.

“Die whore!!” He slashed out but she shot backward to be beside Sandman.

The blade slashed through his life line.

He stared in horror before dropping to his knees. He picked up the two severed ends and tried to push them back together without any luck.

Blob and Stink stood back in their true forms as Devils swarmed over him and dragged him screaming into hell.

“Blob, Stink aid Marta. Ease her memories.”

“Yes boss.” Blob was now a hansom woman in her forties whilst Stink was a distinguished man in his fifties. “Do not fear us child.”

They gently laid their hands on each of her temples.

Warmth flooded her, love and peace grew in her breast.

“It’s over my child you can be at rest. I can not replace your tongue but I can lift your burden and give you life a new.” Wesley said as they reappeared back in the confessional. “In the name of God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.”

He dipped his finger into the Holy water and drew the cross on her forehead.

He touched Tomas’s neck to find no pulse pulled the curtain back with force. His eyes looked frantic as he searched the room.

There waiting his turn was Rot Wang.

“Professor I need help the young man has had a heart attack.”

The Professor rapidly closed the distance and checked Tomas for life signs, but finding none stepped back.

“It is to late Father he has gone.” Rot Wang turned to the three waiting soldiers and signalled them over. “You three take this to the mortuary for an autopsy.”

Reluctantly they did what they were told leaving the four clergy and Rot Wang alone together.

Rot Wang turned and walked to the door.

“Do you wish to confess my son?” Wesley called.

“Next week Holy Father I am to busy today. Good bye Father.” With that he left.

Wesley cursed under his breath. The only one he truly wanted in the Dreaming had walked out the door.

He’d have to try another way of reaching the Professor and preparing him for the lift.

“Michelle, Marta? Will you return all the things to the lorry please whilst Father Pierre and I go up and visit the sick.”

Marta signalled him to be careful.

“I will do my best.”

Together the men left to face what they were totally unprepared for. There are many different hells but the next one the fabled Sandman entered would take all his self control to deal with.