Blending In

Canicatti |July 10th, 1943 | 10:36A.M

Ulrich didn’t mind the pleated dress, and matching red blouse. Mostly because the outfit accentuated her bosom, and ass. As he stared Nadine down from behind, Ulrich fought with the uncomfortable tendrils of his wool sweater that had fresh blood stains on the cuffs. It was ruining his inappropriate moment.

“I don’t understand why we’re dressed up,” Nadine snarled, “Why are we hiding?”

Ulrich stepped closer, twirled a few strands of her dangling hair around his finger into a tight curl, and leaned in close enough that she could feel the sour sting of his warm breath invade the delicate flesh of her ear.

“We’re not hiding, my love. We are blending in. There are thousands of British and American troops in Sicily now. We must remain unseen. Until it is time for us to be noticed.”

Upon finishing his sentence, he shoved his right hand under her blouse and began fondling her cold breasts.

An immediate elbow to the gut made the invasion quick, and unsavory.

“Not here, you pig.”

Ulrich spat saliva from his mouth, moaned from the pain, then cackled like a playful child.

“Even dressed as a filthy Sicilian whore, you still - ”

Instead of finishing his sentence with words, he used his teeth and tongue to bite, lick, and salivate on her right ear while using both of his hands to pull her waist into his hardening groin — yanking both of them back into the shadows of the small barn.

Nadine growled her protest, elbowing and kicking Ulrich as hard as she could while he dragged her on her heels towards a three foot high stack of bristly hay. She knew what he was capable of doing when he got into this mode, which made her fight him off harder. Deep down, she loved Ulrich, but he was a man who took what he wanted whenever he wanted, regardless of the feelings of the person he was violating.

As soon as her back touched the hay, she hiked up the dress and quickly found the hilt of her dagger.

A well placed, and brilliant slash into the flesh of Ulrich’s upper thigh persuaded the man to call off his attack.

He hopped back, nearly bouncing on one leg, and laughed off the pain from the wound to his upper thigh. He stepped into a narrow cylinder of sunlight, pulled down his pants, and inspected his leg. The three inch long slash was just deep enough to draw blood, yet not deep enough to expose flesh. He was more turned on than anything else, and laughed at the innocent wound. He spat on it, slapped it with an open palm, yanked his pants back up around his waist, then stepped back over to Nadine.

She kept the dagger firmly clutched in her hand, ready to inflict another slash, but Ulrich had enough of her insubordination. He removed the Walther P-38 from the small of his back, and pointed the long, narrow barrel directly between her eyes.

“Put the knife down, Nadine. You are of no use to me dead.”

Flashbacks of Elmar bleeding out in her arms loosened the grip on the knife. His death was unexpected, and cruel. During their battle with the siblings, Elmar had been shot through the knee and throat. He was no more than five feet from Nadine’s side when he got hit, and she could do nothing to stop the bleeding. He died, painfully, choking on blood, broken bones, and hot fragments from the bullet that tore a massive hole in his neck.

Ulrich studied the shifting of her facial expressions, and lowered his pistol. He knew how much her brother meant to her. He knew about their traumatic past together as kids, and how their bond calcified as adults. He knew she was vulnerable, and he made the mistake of trying to take advantage. With the added loss of Rolf and Erich, who were both reduced to tiny chunks of flaming flesh and fabric from a grenade during their attack on the Tutino’s home, he needed Nadine now more than ever. He just didn’t know how to tell her that.

A deep voice with a thick Texas accent suddenly boomed from beyond the barn door. Echoing throughout the ominous silence around them.

“Check out that barn behind the farmhouse, private.”

Ulrich yanked Nadine by the wrist and they scurried to find a place to hide. Ulrich spat on the hay covered ground in disappointment in himself for letting them get caught off guard. They were not well armed, and there was most likely an entire platoon of American troops standing outside. Now was not the time to get discovered. He still had a mission to complete, as well as a new lust for retribution for the loss of his men.

Wedging themselves behind a stack of hay in the furthest stall, they lowered themselves to the floor, and waited.

The rusted hinges on the barn door moaned as it swung open. A young, tan-faced American paratrooper stepped inside, keeping his M1 Garand rifle held high, and firmly secured to his right shoulder. He studied the interior of the barn before moving deeper, assessing the area for immediate threats. Counting six stalls on either side, and hearing nothing but the faint and muffled murmuring of his platoon. He tactically stepped from stall to stall. Moving slowly. Prepared to fire.

Listening, and counting the crackling steps of the American, Ulrich knew that he was approaching the final stalls. Finding a slithering gap between the hay bails, Ulrich peered through.

What he saw raised his adrenaline, and pissed him off at the same time. He forgot to fully cover the body of the man who once owned this barn, and there was a visible blood trail in the center of the aisle that led directly to his body.

Nadine savagely slit his throat when they arrived, then went inside the barn's farmhouse, killed the old man’s wife, then dressed herself with the dead woman’s wardrobe. She also brought Ulrich his own Italian-disguise outfit from the dead husband’s dressers. They looked the part, but they could not speak the part, so they had no choice but to hide, or else their ruse would fail.

The soldier’s pursuit continued, which left Ulrich no choice but to draw his Walther. The body of the old man was surely going to be discovered, forcing the young private to alert his platoon, inciting a complete search of the grounds. He craned his neck back towards Nadine, who was peering through a separate gap in the hay, and noticed that she was already gripping her dagger - clearly she was formulating the same situation as he was.

With two stalls left to check, the private stopped dead in his tracks. A faint rustling of hay jingled behind him, but that’s not what froze him. It was blood. A thick trail of it streaked like a burgundy and black rainbow from the middle of the aisle into the final stall on the right hand side. His grip on his rifle tightened even more, melting the butt of the rifle deep into his own flesh - index finger wrapped firmly around the trigger.

Sensing that the private either saw the blood or the body, Ulrich prepared himself to shoot through the hay.

Nadine had a better vantage point of the soldier, and saw the young man inspecting the blood trail. She knew what needed to be done, and began to silently slither herself into a better attacking position.

Afraid to yell out to his platoon, fearing that whoever was responsible for the blood might still be inside of the barn with him. Watching him. Waiting. He decided to switch to his 1911 sidearm, a better option for close quarter combat, and followed the blood streak.

A single rifle shot suddenly erupted in the distance.

“Sniper!” An American voice screamed.

Two more shots were fired, this time finding flesh.

“Murray’s hit!” Another American voice hollered out.

“Medic!”

A barrage of cover fire from the platoon consumed the morning, startling the young private to the point of dropping his weapon. The 1911 hit the hay covered floor and slid towards a stack of hay bales pressed against the interior of the furthest stall wall.

Nadine’s nose was inches away from the American’s pistol, but she decided to wait for the boy to reach down before plunging her dagger deep into his hand.

More American voices cried out amidst the firefight, and they seemed to have intensified their defensive position with multiple mounted machine guns.

The private scanned the barn floor, dropped down to one knee beside the hay bail, and reached for his 1911.

The barn door kicked open with force, and a burly man in full paratrooper gear, wielding a Thompson sub-machine gun stood in the threshold.

“Get your ass back out here private. There’s German infantry and a sniper in the steeple of the church up ahead. They’re keeping this back road into town choked off. We’re going to give it some oxygen. Let’s move!”

The private retrieved his sidearm from the hay, holstered it, then reacquainted himself with his rifle. He surveyed the blood streak one final time, cursed at his predicament, then obeyed his Lieutenant’s orders. He sprinted towards the barn door, regrouped with his platoon, and fell in line with the advancing assault.

“Let’s go,” Ulrich said, just above a whisper.

Nadine’s right hand was still in its attacking position when Ulrich’s voice broke through her focus. She had been seconds away from sinking her four-inch blade into the soldier’s hand when the barn door exploded open. Her opportunity had become a risk she knew they could not afford. So she called off her attack, and let the boy leave.

Emerging from her hay bail, like a poisonous black widow, Nadine crept to one of the windows. Using her fingers, she gently pushed one of the wooden shutters open, and watched as the American platoon continued advancing down the road.

A small wave of relief washed over her, regardless of how badly she wanted to stab the soldier. She also realized how important it was to blend in. Ulrich was right. They were no longer solely dealing with the Italian people. The allied invasion of Sicily had changed everything.

She turned around, and watched as Ulrich lit a long cigarette with a match.

“We cannot be this careless,” Nadine snarled.

Ulrich exhaled a ridiculous amount of smoke, then fidgeted in an odd way only Ulrich knew how to fidget. It was his way of expressing acknowledgment and acceptance without verbally doing so, and Nadine knew all of his tells and ticks.

“That boy killed my brother,” she said as she stalked Ulrich, “He needs to die.”

“I need him alive,” Ulrich said.

Nadine plucked the lit end of the cigarette out of Ulrich's mouth with her teeth, then spat it onto the stack of hay bales surrounding the dead man’s body.

While the embers slowly started to crackle, she pushed him down into a hay bail in the neighboring stall. As the flames licked and crawled up the far wall, she bent down and began tugging off Ulrich’s pants. Once she had exposed his hardening flesh, she raised her dress, and mounted the quivering man. Moaning as she felt every part of him enter her.

Sensing when he was about to climax, she leaned in close, lifted herself free of his throbbing muscles, and whispered into his ear as he ejaculated.

“He needs to die.”