“Don’t be stupid, be a smarty
Come and join the Nazi party.”
Mel Brooks, The Producers

“We are the dead of night
We’re in the zombie room
We’re twilight’s parasites
With self-inflicted wounds”
Depeche Mode

Prologue: The Beginning of the End
November 4, 1937
7:12 AM

1
Andreas Brauer had woken up about ten minutes ago. He had a natural body clock that got him up around seven every morning. He didn’t know when he first developed it, but at sixty-one years of age, he knew it was reliable enough to keep him from needing one of those new alarm clocks he saw in stores.

Brauer was in the kitchen of his home, Duisburger Strasse 29. He was getting ready to make breakfast and check on the experiment he was running in the basement. He opened the refrigerator door. Refrigerators weren’t common in homes in 1930s Berlin because of their high price, but Andreas had made a good deal of money before he was fired from his job. He still winced when he thought of the mistake he made. It cost him almost everything.

The surgeon got out the eggs. They were fresh-laid, having been bought two days ago from a chicken farmer in Nunsdorf, just south of Berlin. He cracked three eggs against the stove and the innards fell into the skillet. Brauer watched the whites begin to sizzle and thought about the past year.

2
Brauer went back further than the mistake on January 15th. He reflected on his childhood. He grew up in the infancy of the nation of Germany. The glory years, under the Kaisers and Otto von Bismarck, before the Weimar Republic and worse, the Nazis. Brauer didn’t like the Nazis much, and he secretly thought their leader, Adolf Hitler, was a fool, though saying so was a good way to get imprisoned or killed. Brauer had read in Der Stürmer about a place called Dachau near Munich. He knew he didn’t want to go there, and the frightening thing was, he was nearly sent there in January.

Brauer’s father was a violent man. He had fought in the Schleswig Wars between Prussia and Denmark. That had permanently changed him and not for the better. Brauer was often beaten along with his two sisters. Both of his sisters were dead now, as was his father.

He eventually escaped his father. He went to medical school at Humboldt University. It all went well, though paying for tuition was hard. Still, he trained as a surgeon and began working at a hospital in Berlin in 1910.

The Great War began in 1914, though Brauer was mostly unaffected by it. He continued to perform surgeries, but around the end of the Great War, he began to have flashes of anger. His childhood was catching up to him. He’d tried to run from his traumatic past, but he knew he was turning into a rotten human being.

The Weimar Republic was mediocre in Brauer’s view. In 1933 the Weimar Republic was replaced by the Nazis. Brauer vaguely disagreed with the Nazis, but didn’t come to truly hate them until after the fifteenth of January.

3
One of the top Gestapo leaders, a man named Jürgen Keller, had suffered a major heart attack while at a café on Pohlstrasse. He was taken to the nearest hospital, and Brauer had to do surgery on him. He was just starting the surgery when he made a major mistake. He gave the patient five times the dose of anesthesia required for the operation. It turned out that his bad handwriting had caused the anesthetist to inject Keller with way too much of the chemical. The Gestapo officer died.

Later that day an Obergruppenführer of the Gestapo named Reinhard Heydrich paid Brauer a visit. He was livid over the death of Jürgen Keller. Heydrich was almost yelling at several points. Brauer had tried to apologize, but nothing would placate the Obergruppenführer. Finally he agreed to quit his job in exchange for his life being spared. He could practically see Dachau in his future.

So without a job, what did he turn to? The answer was quite terrifying.

As Brauer stewed around at home, he thought things over. He wanted to keep contributing to medicine, but he knew he had no chance of getting a job with the death of the Jürgen Keller on his record. At the same time, his childhood was becoming more and more prominent in his mind and because of this, his rage got worse. He snapped on Hitler’s birthday.

In the weeks before April 20th, he had been collecting samples of various diseases and trying to make new diseases out of them. His techniques were quite advanced, and he began to wonder if he could create a biological weapon with the new viruses he’d invented. Of course, he needed someone to test them on. He knew that a war was eventually going to break out between the powers of Europe, and the highest bidder would get a splendid new weapon.

On April 20th, a young Aryan couple were walking along Hindenburgpark, enjoying the first warm spring day of the year. They had a seven-year-old son with them. Brauer pretended to be a Kripo agent and lured the boy away from the parents, telling him that he suspected the parents of secretly opposing Hitler. He kidnapped the boy and locked him the his basement. While there, he started infecting him with various diseases. The boy was given doses of flu-like diseases at first, and then infected with worse, such as cross-strains of cholera and typhoid. He got extremely sick and died after an agonizing month. The Nazis learned of the boy’s disappearance, but they were content to just blame it on the Jews. The Jews took the blame for everything, Brauer knew.

As spring turned to summer, Brauer kidnapped more people. Orphans, the few homeless people that hadn’t been rounded up and shipped away by the Nazis, the occasional kidnapped child, these were the most common people that Brauer used. He didn’t target Jews specifically, though he had killed two Jewish children with various diseases he’d created.

By November, he’d killed twenty-one victims. His latest work was a virus called the Dead of Night. The test tubes containing the virus were black as night, thus giving it the name. Brauer had kidnapped a young Aryan girl named Alexa Stein three days ago by claiming he would give her a ride home from a Bund Deutscher Mädel meeting. She accepted and he took her to his home and infected her with rabies. The Dead of Night was created after various chemicals were added to the rabies strain. He’d also captured Alexa Stein’s Jack Russell terrier and infected it with the Dead of Night. The dog went completely insane. It was vicious and nearly bit Brauer to death. He only managed to stop it by stabbing it in the head. A day later Der Stürmer reported that Alexa Stein had been kidnapped by Jews attempting to infect the pure Aryan race with subhuman Jewish blood. Brauer rolled his eyes and set the newspaper down.

Last night he’d tested the virus on Alexa herself. The girl was only fourteen or so, but she had developed to the point of a girl of nineteen or twenty. Brauer normally had no sexual interest in girls of fourteen, but he admitted he was aroused seeing Alexa. It was a shame, he’d thought, that he had to infect her with the virus.

Brauer finished cooking the eggs and put them on a plate. He ate quickly, wanting to get to work. He was just on the last bite when he heard a loud thump from the basement.

He set the plate in the sink and walked to the basement door.

4
He stepped down the stairs. He had an operating table with leather straps in the basement. He looked at it and saw black liquid on it, but no teenage girl.

“Hallo?” He asked. “Alexa, where are you?” There was nothing but a scratching noise coming from behind a bookshelf. He noticed that another bookshelf had been knocked over, with medical textbooks all over the floor. Some had that black liquid on them. He then looked at his lab area.

All of the test tubes and graduated cylinders had been shattered, and liquid all the colors of the rainbow lay in puddles on the table and the floor. Brauer got a sudden feeling of rage. He’d spent a lot of money on this setup, and now this idiot girl had destroyed it.

The other bookshelf was kicked down and Brauer was tackled by something.

He turned around and fell onto the broken glass. His hands were cut on several places and his clothes were soaked by the various strains of diseases. Brauer hoped he wouldn’t get infected with anything. He looked up and saw his telephone sitting on a table. It was still intact. He decided to call the Ordnungspolizei, not realizing that he might get in trouble for it once they learned of his experiments. He also saw his diary by the phone. He tried to get up and reach the receiver. Brauer, being wealthy, had three phones in his house at a time when most Germans had one or none.

The girl attacked again. She was still nude, though covered in black liquid that looked like India ink. The glop was pouring out of her ears, nose, mouth, anus; every orifice she had seemed to be leaking the black. She charged at him and tried to bite him on the wrist. He grabbed the phone and the operator picked up.

“Get me the Orpo, please!” He yelled. “It’s an emergency.”

“I’m putting you through to the Orpo, sir.” The girl bit down on Brauer’s toe. He screamed and kicked her off.

“This is Oberwachtmeister Adelbert Buchheister of the Orpo station on Wilmersdorfer Strasse, what is your emergency?” The man said.

“I’m being attacked by a burglar. She’s a teenage girl. Help me. I’m at Duisburger Strasse 29. Come quick!” The girl grabbed Brauer’s shirt and bit down onto his collarbone. He screamed again and began to feel faint. He dropped the phone and the Orpo heard no more from him.

5
“You have to admit, ever since the Nazis took over, crime has been low.” Adelbert Buchheister said.

“Yes, but we’ve still lost a lot of our freedoms. I don’t know, I think that trip I took to the United States made me a bit wary about Germany under Hitler.” Wachtmeister Aldhelm Kinski replied. The two Ordnungspolizei were almost at the end of their shifts. They loaded their Mauser pistols and got into the squad car.

“Eh, I’d rather have low crime than a few freedoms we don’t really need.” Buchheister said. “And Germany isn’t America. Although I’m wondering what in God’s name this is about. A teenage girl breaking into a house? It’s been months since we last had a burglary.” The Oberwachtmeister let out a loud sigh. “Sometimes I hate this job. Maybe the burglar is on drugs, maybe they’re armed, you just never know.”

“Hitler disarmed the population. Another freedom the Americans have that we lost with the Nazis.”

“I prefer it being the police who have the guns. Still, our shift ends at eight. Let’s get this over with.” Buchheister raced toward Duisburger Strasse. He found it and parked the police car in the driveway. The house was large with a kept-up lawn. There was a Bentley in the driveway. The two Orpo figured this man must be wealthy.

The pair walked up to the house with their guns drawn. They opened the door and looked inside. They could hear a strange noise from the kitchen. Kinski and Buchheister walked toward there. When they got there, they saw that the noise was made by the teenage girl. She had managed to tear the door off the refrigerator. With her was a man of about sixty. Both were covered in black liquid. The girl, Kinski realized, was nude. Her hair was almost gone.

“Stop! Both of you!” Buchheister said. The man glared at him with eyes showing nothing but rage.

“What is wrong with them?” Kinski asked.

“I don’t know.” Buchheister aimed his Mauser at the man. The man jumped forward and knocked the gun out of Buchheister’s hand. The Oberwachtmeister tried to throw a punch, but the man grabbed his wrist and bit him. Blood began to trickle from Buchheister’s wrist.

The girl ran after Kinski. The Wachtmeister ran and threw himself through the plate glass window. He landed in the lawn and bolted to the squad car. He got inside just as the girl made it outside. Kinski slammed the door shut. The girl bashed her hand against the window. She was covered in the black, and it smeared on the car’s window. Kinski tried to think of why the blood, if that’s what it was, was black and not red. He saw Buchheister stumbling around inside the living room.

Kinski got on the radio.

“This is Wachtmeister Aldhelm Kinski! We need back-up at Duisburger Strasse 29. We have an Orpo Oberwachtmeister injured and two criminals loose. One is a nude teenage girl, the other is an older man. I don’t know what is happening, but I need Kriminalpolizei men here now!” The message was interrupted by the girl banging against the window.

She bashed her hand so hard that the window cracked.

6
“This has to be a joke, right?” Obersturmführer Lorenz Schroeder said. “A naked teenager and a man injuring an Orpo officer?”

“The radio frequency is the one used by the Schutzstaffel.” Untersturmführer Felix Haack said. “So the call is probably legitimate, even if weird. I think we should go see what’s happening. If it’s a prank where some Jew has got a hold of a radio, we can arrest him and get another one sent to Dachau.”

“Get Sigmarsson. Tell him we’re going there. We’ll need his help as well.” Emmerich Sigmarsson was the Hauptsturmführer in charge of the Kripo office in the borough of Wilmersdorf. He was not well liked among the Kripo who worked in Wilmersdorf. He often took credit for the bravery of others. Haack recalled an instance where Schroeder and himself ran into a burning school to save several children. Sigmarsson claimed that they did it under his orders, and got a pay rise. Haack and Schroeder got nothing for it.

The three piled into the car they used for emergencies. Haack stuck the siren on the roof and they headed for Duisburger Strasse.

“Do you think we should send some medical interns to the scene? The Wachtmeister said people were wounded.” Sigmarsson said.

“I think that would be a good idea.” Haack said. It, Haack thought, would be the first good idea Sigmarsson had had since he’d met the prick. Sigmarsson called for interns to get an ambulance to Duisburger Strasse 29.

Ten minutes later, the three Kripo men arrived. Haack saw the squad car in the driveway, along with a Bentley. He wished that the Fuhrer would pay him enough to afford a Bentley. The three drew their pistols and saw what there was to see. All three were scared, something rare for them.

The girl had broken the window, dragged the Wachtmeister out and tore his intestines out of his abdomen.

“Good Christ. Is she eating his guts?” Sigmarsson said.

“It appears so.” A old man covered in black liquid was walking around the lawn. He approached the girl and the corpse. The three Kripo men watched the man bend down and tear an ear off the Wachtmeister’s body. Schroeder wanted to vomit at the sight of it.

“Men, get ready to open fire.” Sigmarsson said. Just then, the Oberwachtmeister appeared. He jumped out of a broken window. The Kripo officers saw that the Orpo man was also covered in the black liqiud that the girl and old man had on them. The man opened his mouth and black goop poured out like a waterfall. He ran quickly and attacked Sigmarsson. The Hauptsturmführer yelled and fired his gun, though the round flew harmlessly into a tree. The monster then grabbed his necktie and bit down into his neck. Blood covered the thing’s mouth and it swallowed as much as it could.

Haack and Schroeder opened fire and killed the Orpo man. He fell to the ground, and they saw that the blood that came out was black, not red.

“Are you hurt, Hauptsturmführer?” Haack asked.

“I’m fine.” Sigmarsson said, though it was obvious he wasn’t. In the distance they heard the sirens of the ambulance.

The girl walked up to Haack and Schroeder. Haack asked her a question.

“Are you hurt? What’s wrong?” The girl responded by slashing Haack’s stomach open with a piece of shattered glass. Haack fell onto the driveway and Schroeder drew his gun again. He was scared. The girl looked like she was possessed by a Satanic demon, but Schroeder knew such things didn’t exist. His grandmother had told him about demons and Satan, but he no longer believed it.

He did know that he had his own little girl at home. She was six years old, and seeing this teenager bleeding black from every hole in her body terrified him. He backed up, only to run into the old man. He turned around and screamed as the old man bit down into the back of Lorenz Schroeder’s neck and into his spine. His last thought was that no, this wasn’t a joke after all.

7
The two interns were named Axel Bratsch and Quintus Eberhardt. Both men had worked a long night shift. There was an old man with a broken hip at an apartment in Wedding, a baby with a bad cough in Tiergarten, and then a man who took ill with food poisoning back in Wedding. The two interns were exhausted and were counting the minutes until nine when their shift ended.

Meanwhile, at Duisburger Strasse 27, two German shepherds were barking at an intruder. The dogs were the guards of an elderly woman who lived next door to that crazy ex-doctor. Agnetha Weyraih was a Gypsy, though she’d managed to hide that from the Nazis. She knew the Nazis didn’t care if she was ninety-one years old. If she was a Gypsy, she was evil. She heard the dogs outside barking. A teenager and someone in a Kriminalpolizei uniform walked into her yard. The teenager was pounced on by Blitz. The other dog, Donner, bit the man in the Kripo uniform. She knew that the Gestapo and Kripo often spied on her.

The Kripo officer was bitten in the leg by the dog. Weyraih supposed it served the man right.

She looked out the other window and saw an ambulance pull up to Andreas Brauer’s house. What now, she wondered.

Bratsch and Eberhardt parked the ambulance in the driveway, though between the two police cars and the Bentley, they could only get most of the ambulance out of the actual street. Bratsch recognized Felix Haack, or what was left of him. Two other Kripo officers had their heads in his chest. They were eating the Untersturmführer’s innards. The two interns had seen many horrific things in their careers, but nothing prepared them for this.

Next door, an old lady came out. She went into her back yard and was attacked by her two German shepherds. They seemed to be possessed by some madness.

“Go help her.” Bratsch said. “I’ll handle this.” Eberhardt ran toward the woman.

Bratsch then approached the two men eating Haack. He saw Haack’s heart ripped out of the hole in his chest. A man with a Hauptsturmführer insignia bit down into the heart. Bratsch yelled at the man.

The thing that was once Emmerich Sigmarsson stood up and let out a loud barking noise at the intern. He raised his gun and fired three shots. His ability to aim had been lessened by the virus that infected him, but Bratsch still turned and ran. Sigmarsson roared and fired three more shots. This time he struck the intern in the back. Bratsch fell onto the driveway and tried to crawl away, but Sigmarsson grabbed his leg and dragged him toward the other meal.

Eberhardt saw the woman’s throat torn out by the dogs. One was brown and black; the other was off-white. It was an odd color for a German shepherd, he thought. He kicked the off-white one in the stomach. It glared it at him and bit him on the toe. Once he was bitten, the other dog seemed to know not to attack. Eberhardt began feeling faint.

He tried to walk back to the ambulance to get away. His toe was bleeding badly. It hadn’t been severed, in fact the wound didn’t look that bad. He wondered why he was feeling so faint. Blood loss could do it, but he knew he hadn’t lost that much blood. You couldn’t from a wound that small. He got back into the ambulance and felt a surge of rage inside him. It was rage and something else. Hunger. He’d last eaten twelve hours ago, having had a ham sandwich and a bottle of imported Coca-Cola. Eberhardt was starting to get really hungry. The blood-soaked bodies around him started to look appetizing.

No, he thought, I can’t eat those. They’re corpses. Dead people. And yet… Eberhardt shut his eyes and leaned his head down on the steering wheel.

When he raised it again, the transformation was complete. He got out of the ambulance and walked back to the old woman’s house. He and the dogs shared her flesh.

8
After the former humans and dogs finished eating the flesh and blood of the fallen, they started going door to door. They wanted more food and more of their kind to share it with. The first one they found was a homeless Jew. None seemed to care that the man was Jewish. The Nazis hated the Jews, but to those hungry for human flesh, being considered an Untermensch meant nothing.

They went to Duisburger Strasse 28 next. A mother was there with her children. She was getting them ready for school. The flesh-eaters attacked her and ate her, then turned the children into their kind. After that they knocked on Duisburger Strasse 26. An old man lived here. He was quickly eaten, and three dogs he owned were infected, though strangely enough, the cat he owned was left alone. They kept knocking on more and more houses, and either attacked and infected or ate the inhabitants.

Thus begins the dead of night.