Luckily for me, Germany is not Canada.

  That’s not just because I hate that frozen wasteland of Tim Hortons and hockey or even because Germany has better beer and hotter girls. That’s because roads crisscross and towns dot even the largest of German forests. Though I had no idea where I was, I could go in any direction and likely find some landmark within only a couple miles. In Germany I only had to stumble through the woods for an hour before hitting a small country road that led me to another larger road which led me to a small town. There was no room for the endless, trackless forests of Canada where I would have been lost for months before being eaten by a wendigo.

  So, at least I had that going for me.

  The sign outside of the town said Grünbach, and it looked like it once held a little over a thousand people. It had probably been a pleasant place to live; peaceful, quiet and nestled in the forests and rolling hills of southeastern Germany. Most of the houses looked like something out of Thomas Kinkaid painting, before the German Army, the Bundeswehr, had come along and blown the hell out of it.

  I can’t really blame the Germans. They were probably fighting Wotan or one of the other Old Gods and I can speak to personal experience that such activities are hell on the landscape (there had hardly been anything left of Arroyo Grande by the time we had driven the Chumash and their followers out of there).

  Why the Bundeswehr decided to have a little battle in what was really just a small clearing in the woods like Grünbach was a mystery to me. I don’t know if they were attacking or defending or what their objectives were. It’s likely that they didn’t know themselves. Those tumultuous days after the Resurgence featured far too many doomed last stands, forlorn assaults and apocalyptic battles for one skirmish to receive any notice by anyone beyond those who had fought in it.

  Similarly, in a time when whole cities, nations and peoples were being annihilated, the death of a hamlet like Grünbach would only be marked by those who lived there. Burnt out and collapsed buildings were the only monuments to the town’s dead received. Men who had died battling gods only got the shattered chassis of Puma Infantry Fighting Vehicles as their headstones.

  “We’re in some place called Grünbach.” I told Kris after I had taken her out of my pocket. “Do you know where we should go from here?” I held her up to my ear like a radio.

  “I believe so, we are about twenty-five kilometers from the border.” Her tiny voice sounded in my ear like an insect’s buzz. “Once we are across we will have to go to Hof and make contact with the Resistance cell there. They will help us get across the rest of Frau Wyrd’s territory.”

  “Great, so we only have about twenty miles and a border to cross.” I contemplated trying to do that with no supplies, no weapons and no allies. “Is there anyone between here and there that can help us? Any Resistance cells or safe houses?”

  “Even if there were, I would not tell you. No more of my comrades will die because of us. Once we are out of One Eye’s lands I’ll tell you more.” I’m sure that declaration would have sounded more impressive in her head before it squeaked its way out of her tiny vocal cords.

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  “Well… crap.” I took a quick tally of the assets that I had, it was quick because my assets weren’t much. Two guns with twenty three rounds of ammunition, the clothes on my back and a German girl about the same size as those misleadingly named ‘fun sized’ candy bars that people used to hand out on Halloween (before that night had turned into a supernatural murderfest, anyway).

  “First thing I am going to do is find a nice doll house to carry you around in. If you are lucky we might even be able to find a Barbie car for you to drive.”

  “Fich dich! Du scheisse…” I dropped Kris back into my pocket and cut off the torrent of cursing (though considering her size it was really more of a trickle) and started to pick through the remains of Grünbach for anything that we could use.

  I only gave myself an hour or two to scavenge. The Wotanvolk were likely still on my trail and we needed to find a place to hide from the terrors of the night. Unfortunately, Grünbach had already been pretty picked over, whatever had not been destroyed was gone. Anything of use had long ago been taken by someone desperate to survive the nightmare that their world had become. I had hoped to maybe find a forgotten blanket, or can of food in the corner of a pantry but there was nothing. The best I could find was an empty sardine tin that would fit Kris and keep me from accidentally squishing her.

  The climbing sun had devoured the last mists of the morning when I searched one of the destroyed Pumas in a final, desperate bid to find anything that I could use. Most of the German armored vehicles looked like that had been ripped apart by something with claws the size of a forklift’s loading arms and then lit on fire leaving nothing but blackened scrap. If I had to guess I would say that Wotan had sent a dragon or few wyrms after the poor, doomed bastards. Unlike its fellows, this IFV was mostly intact and looked instead like it had been hit by a single, immensely powerful bolt of lightning. It was almost too intact as all of its hatches had been welded shut. It was only by crawling through the hole made when the magazine blew that I was able to access the crew area at all.

  The smells of charred meat and burnt plastic assailed my nostrils.

  The Puma had been carrying a full crew and a load of infantrymen when it had been hit. The immense surge of electricity had fused all nine men to the armored chassis by their own clothing as it killed them and even years later their bones still hung from the walls, suspended in the air by melted masses of synthetic fabric.

  Death hung in the air and my every instinct told me to get out and leave this tomb alone. The living were not meant to be there.

  Maybe that’s why I found at least a few things that that I could use. It wasn’t much; a KM2000 combat knife, some bootlaces, a canteen, a lighter with no fuel and even a pack of cookies that was secreted behind the driver’s chair. Sadly, no grenades or rifles or god killing super weapons but I couldn’t afford to be picky. I stripped some mostly intact faux leather from the seats and improvised a quick satchel for my take. I even got a couple strips of cloth to line Kris’s sardine can.

  “Veile danke, meine Brüder.” I said with a nod towards the suspended corpses before climbing out of the wreaked Puma.

  Those men had gone into battle with gods and monsters and likely knew that there was no way for them to win, but they went anyway. They deserved more than the small measure of respect that I could give them after robbing their corpses.

  The sun was already too far along in its arc across the sky and while I was really hoping to uncover the smallest silver locket or bent silver spoon I really had to get going. I munched a cookie, dropped a couple crumbs into my pocket for Kris, oriented due west and began a race with the sun.

  The shadows in the forests around me deepened.