Wolfenstein Fan Fiction

I.

When he rounded the corner there was a familiar-looking portrait of Hitler hanging on the wall in front of him. He was walking in circles. He was lost.

‘Dammit,’ muttered the soldier, ‘Everything here looks the same.’

A metal door clanged open and blue-clad SS man entered, rifle slung over his shoulder. The soldier snapped to attention.

‘Schutzstaffel,’ said the SS man, nodding curtly.

‘Sir,’ the soldier replied. ‘Could you please tell me where the exit is? I’m new here and I can’t seem to find my way around. I’m supposed to report to Floor 9 for duty.’

He pulled a key of dull blue metal from his pocket and showed it to the SS. The SS smiled, and the soldier relaxed; the SS man was no doubt used to giving directions to new recruits.

‘Hinten,’ said the SS, pointing to a door set deep in the wall beside yet another portrait of the Führer.

‘Danke,’ he replied, and turned to leave. The SS unslung his rifle and shot him between the shoulder blades. The soldier fell spread-eagled to the floor, twitched and was still.

‘Nein,’ said the SS man, ‘thank-you.’

II.

William Joseph Blazkowicz plucked the key from the man’s hand and pocketed it. The uniform HQ had devised for him was a perfect replica; the soldier had never suspected Blazkowicz was anything but a card carrying member of the SS. The fact the soldier had been carrying a key was stroke of luck; the time Blazkowicz would save searching for it would be invaluable.

Now all I have to do, he thought wryly, is kill Hitler again.

Blazkowicz dragged the soldier’s corpse into a nearby room, shut the door with a clang, and set off down the hallway.

Little about Castle Wolfenstein had changed in the nearly two decades since he had been here. The same labyrinthine hallways wound with maddening randomness throughout the castle’s interior, decorated with the same oil and stained-glass portraits of the Führer. The same metal doorways opened and closed with the same mechanic sounds, presenting the same unimaginable horrors laying in a silence punctuated by the same MIDI Muzak.  And behind it all, the same cancerous, crazed, calculating Nazi scheming.

HQ claimed the Nazis were planning something big, known only as Operation Zungedreher, and had sent him to stop it. Blazkowicz had accepted the mission with gusto. He knew his way around the Castle better than any man, and it would be a pleasure to let the Reich know they weren’t the only ones capable of making comeback.

‘Heil, Heil,’ he muttered, working the action of his rifle, ‘the gang’s all here.’ Grinning, he set off down the corridor.

III.

The Castle had seemingly been built by two artistically different but identically insane people. One had been fond of long, open hallways with lots of doors, the other of short, winding corridors with lots of doors. It was the latter Blazkowicz presently found himself in, a directionless rat’s warren that could only be negotiated by trial and error.

Sighing, he began opening doors, making mental notes of the layouts and contents of the rooms he visited. Twice he encountered guards, but did not fire. His disguise was holding up, and he had little desire to attract any attention. In one room he found a pile of gold coins and pocketed them. In another he found an untouched meal sitting on a table, still warm. His stomach grumbled at the aroma, and he sat down to eat.

He was halfway through the sauerbraten when the door opened, and huge man pushed himself with some difficulty into the room.

‘Greetings, Herr Blazkowicz,’ said the man, his voice a low, penetrating rumble, ‘how very good to see you again.’

Blazkowicz looked up into the cold, blue eyes of Hans Grosse.

‘I see you have once again found your way to the heart of the Reich’s operations. How sneaky of you to wear that costume. How very Jew-like.’ He pronounced the word like Chew and spat it forth like a lump of gristle.  ‘Unfortunately, you have not fooled me. The sig rune on your collar is backwards. I noticed it as I observed you from an alcove, and decided to follow you. Imagine my delight when I learned you were none other than my arch nemesis.’

Grosse was even bigger than Blazkowicz remembered him, although much of his muscle had now run to fat, and a rubbery double chin rounded out his flat, square head. His face was riddled with scars and pocks. Gun wounds.

‘Funny,’ said Blazkowicz, ‘I could’ve sworn I filled you with bullets. From the looks of your stomach, though, you’ve been eating more than lead.’

Grosse smiled coldly.

‘I survived,’ he said, ‘and, yes, I have put on a few pounds. But we’re all getting older, Blazkowicz.’

Blazkowicz chomped thoughtfully on a blood sausage, and reached for the salt.

‘Don’t try for your rifle.’

BJ smiled and slowly withdrew his hand.

‘I can’t help but notice,’ Blazkowicz said, ‘that your built-in kettenkannone are gone. Did a bigger Nazi push you down and take your toys? Those stumps aren’t nearly as scary.’

The guns that had once made Grosse a walking arsenal were gone, and his arms ended just below the elbow.

‘My guns were destroyed during our battle,’ said Grosse, ‘and my failure to kill you resulted in a dishonorable discharge. But I still can still deliver much pain to you, Blazkowicz. Much pain indeed.’

‘With what? Harsh language?’

‘Precisely.’

From within the folds of his uniform, and with the speed and dexterity his two handless arms permitted, Hans Grosse removed a book entitled 1001 German Insults. Grinning, he opened it at random, cleared his throat and read.

‘Your father,’ he boomed, ‘was known for being frequently unpunctual. What do you think of that blistering verbal assault, Blazkowicz?’

Blazkowicz blinked. The Nazi clumsily flipped to another page.

‘Your mother,’ he intoned, ‘was not adept at preparing food, often neglecting to use precise measurements, which resulted in less-than-palatable fare.’

‘And such small portions,’ muttered Blazkowicz.

‘The Jewish predilection for self-deprecation will not save you from my barbs!’ Grosse roared, and flipped to another page. ‘Your sister, although she waited until the night of her wedding to fornicate for the first time, was merely satisfactory in the carnal act. Don’t beg for mercy, Blazkowicz, for I have none to give!’ ’

Blazkowicz wiped his mouth and rose from the table.

‘Grosse,’ he said, ‘this reunion has been fun, but I have a date with Hitler. You wouldn’t know, by the way, what Operation Zungedreher is?’

‘Your personal mode of dress is several years out of date! Your wife is unattractive! The automobile you drive has sub-standard gas mileage!’

‘Guess not. See you around.’

Blazkowicz stepped around the Nazi and out into the hallway. Grosse started after him, but his massive shoulders wedged him in the doorframe. His round face went bright pink, but whether from panic, rage or embarrassment, Blazkowicz couldn’t tell.

‘Sheisse,’ he muttered, ‘I am become stuck. Help me, Blazkowicz. Find a pry bar and get me out of here!’

‘Sorry dicke, gotta run.’

Grosse’s furious baritone followed Blazkowicz through the halls for a short time, grew soft, faint, and then was lost.

IV.

He found himself in a long hallway with doors set into the walls at regular intervals, interspersed with stained-glass portraits of Hitler in profile. He began opening the doors one by one.

Behind the first door was a small pile of ammunition, which he fed into his rifle. Behind the second door was a German officer with a Luger leveled square at Blazkowicz’s chest.

‘Spion!’ the officer cried, ‘drop the rifle and put your hands on your head!’

Grimly, Blazkowicz let the rifle clatter to the floor.

‘Your disguise doesn’t fool me, spy. Nor will it save you from being executed in the name of the Reich.’

‘You don’t look like much of a Nazi to me,’ muttered Blazkowicz.

The officer wore the flowing black robes of a rabbi and sported the long grey beard and side curls concurrent with Jewish shaving protocol. On his head was perched a great furred kalpak, upon which had been laid a yarmulke, and strapped to his forehead was a black leather tefillin. Around his neck was what Blazkowicz took to be a tailor’s tape, and over his robes was a vest open to expose a thick gold watch fob. The vest was studded with a bizarre assortment of pins and buttons from organizations of every variety: he saw a Mason’s compass, a sword of the Knights Templar, a New York Times press card, a Hebrew National Beef Franks logo, a grinning Mickey Mouse head, and dozens more.

‘I am a member in good standing of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, I assure you. This farcical costume is worn at the behest of Dr. Schabbs.’

‘Dr. Schabbs is alive?’

‘To my chagrin, yes.’

Blazkowicz frowned. The last time he’d seen the head of Wolfenstein’s nefarious medical experimentation project, the not-so-good doctor had been flinging syringes at him. Blazkowicz had gunned him down and left him for dead. Apparently, he had left too soon.

‘Dammit,’ Blazkowicz muttered, ‘I should have shot him in the head.’

The officer peered uncertainly at Blazkowicz, then pushed a pair of thick wire-framed glasses up his nose. Then, realizing the glasses were as much a part of the costume as the yarmulke he wore, he pushed them back down again. A smile broke through his beard, and the hand gripping the Luger fell slowly to his side.

‘Gott in Himmel,’ he whispered, ‘the great BJ Blazkowicz treads the flags of the Castle yet again. I am Oberstleutnan Erich Wessel. It is an honour to meet you, sir.’

Blazkowicz instinctively lifted one hand from his head and reached out to shake with the officer. The Luger snapped up.

‘Not that much of an honour. Re-assume the captive stance, if you will.’

Blazkowicz complied.

‘What a bittersweet happenstance,’ the officer mused, ‘that I should capture and be forced to execute a personal hero of mine. Life is strange indeed.’

‘I didn’t think I had too many fans over here,’ said Blazkowicz.

‘What else would I call the man who crippled my most hated foe, Dr. Schabbs? Watching the doctor struggle through life under the yoke of the constant pain you laid upon him is one of the few things that makes me smile, Blazkowicz. It makes the ridicule he subjects me to nearly bearable.’

‘Schabbs always had a knack for ‘subjecting’ people to one thing or another,’ said Blazkowicz.

‘Unfortunately, yes,’ mumbled Wessel, ‘although funding for his experiments has been discontinued since your encounter with him. He now lectures soldiers on the proper identification of Jewry, and conscripted me to assist him. Hence, my garb. I stand on an apple crate while he prods and insults me to the edification of a lecture theatre of young Gestapo. ‘Notice the pronounced stoop of the Hebrew back and shoulders, evolved from years of hunching over their hoards of gold at the counting table.’ ‘Beware, my friends, of daggers and small explosives secreted in their beards.’ Schabbs speaks empty words to empty-headed youngsters who fill their notebooks with it, and returns home feeling confident he has helped turn the gears of national socialism for the day.’

Wessel spat on the floor.

‘Wouldn’t it be easier to get a real Jew?’ said Blazkowicz.

‘They don’t want to see a real Jew,’ replied Wessel, ‘they want a pantomime, a Semitic minstrel show: “I’m vanting to lure your childrrren into zee woods and have shex wit dem.”’

‘You sound like a cross between a vampire and a candy store owner I knew back in Brooklyn.’

‘You should see it with the fake nose.’ Wessel sighed. ‘It’s sad, really. Nazis today believe the Jewish threat consists of a nothing more than a thrifty, hook-nosed pederast with a tail. The true Jewish menace is men like you, Blazkowicz; intelligent, strong, proficient with weaponry and willing to use it.’

‘I don’t consider myself part of the Jewish menace,’ grinned Blazkowicz, ‘just a menace who happens to be Jewish.’

‘Semitic semantics. A hundred Jews cut from your cloth could topple the Reich within a week.’

‘Sounds like your heart’s not in this whole ‘Nazi’ thing.’

Wessel peered cautiously up and down the corridor.

‘Under the current leadership,’ he said with his voice lowered, ‘the Party’s foundations are eroding, and we will have less and less success in convincing people to fight and kill in its name.’

‘Hitler hasn’t had any problem convincing soldiers to execute Jews.’

‘A political movement should run on ideas, not executions. If a soldier doesn’t know the reason for doing something, he’s nothing but a machine, a piece of meat. And in the end, all he can hope for is to get broken or butchered. Now Eichmann: there’s a Nazi for you. Do you know he studies the Torah, and that he speaks and writes in fluent Hebrew? I once heard him deliver an anti-Semetic tirade in Hebrew! Hilarious, yes, but also an important reminder about knowing one’s enemy. If it were up to me, he’d be running the show.’

‘Dare to dream. Tell me, what do you know about Operation Zungedreher?’

Wessel frowned.

‘Doesn’t ring a bell,’ he replied, ‘although, there’s so many cursed ‘Operations’ going on around here, I doubt I’d remember hearing about it. We can’t just say, ‘Let’s attack England,’ can we? No, that’s far too simple. It has to be ‘Operation X’. Operation Y, Operation Z. D’you know they have a code name for nights when Hitler and Eva are intimate? I swear, there must be a room full of Nazis working around the clock inventing codenames. Brainstorming, writing, re-writing, discussing the delicate differences between Operation Firestorm and Operation Flamestrike. Waste of time. In any event, it doesn’t matter, as I am now going to execute you. Turn around, please.’

Blazkowicz turned to face to wall.

‘Pity,’ he muttered, ‘now I won’t be able to kill Hitler.’

He heard Wessel snort derisively.

‘Oh ho! So you were planning to assassinate the Führer, were you? Just going to waltz through his myriad bodyguards and shoot him? You’ve got balls, Blazkowicz, I won’t begrudge you that.’

‘A waltz has more than one person standing when it’s over,’ said Blazkowicz, ‘this’ll be more like a…wie sagt man…merciless bloodbath.’

‘Hitler stays on Floor 9 at all times,’ said Wessel, ‘and you need a special key to get there. Not exactly easy to find.’

He heard Wessel’s Luger click.

‘I have a key, Wessel.’

‘A lie, of course.’

‘It’s in my right front pocket. Go ahead and check.’

There was a long silence before Wessel’s hand carefully fished the key from his pocket.

‘I’ll make you a deal, Wessel. You let me live, and I’ll kill Hitler. Then you can install a new Führer. One more representative of the Party’s ideals. Eichmann, maybe.’

‘How do I know you won’t return here to kill him?’

‘You don’t. But when I do, I acknowledge I’m fair game for you. You can shoot me if and when you see me at the Castle again. But first let me have a crack at Adolf.’

There was an even longer silence, and then the corridor rang with the Nazi’s laughter.

‘BJ Blazkowicz,’ he said, ‘you are perhaps the most magnificent Jew to walk the earth since Christ Himself. Alright, then, I will help you. You will either rid the Reich of its worst enemy or die trying. Either way, I will be happy. You may turn around.’

Wessel took the clip from Blazkowicz’s rifle, then handed him the weapon.

‘I will leave your ammunition one hundred paces down the hallway,’ he said, not without a trace of apology, ’I can’t trust you entirely.’

‘Fair enough,’ said BJ.

‘The elevator to Floor 9 is just around that far corner, although I can’t vouch for what you’ll find once you get there. The Führer’s personal guard must be considerable. I wish you good luck on your errand, however ill-conceived it may be.’

‘Thanks.’

Wessel studied Blazkowicz for a moment, still smiling.

‘Before we part company,’ said Wessel, ‘there is one thing more I would like you to do for me. You will please sign an autograph.’

Blazkowicz chuckled.

‘You want my autograph?’

‘It’s not for me,’ replied Wessel, producing a fountain pen from within his robes, ’it’s for the esteemed Dr. Schabbs. Just to let him know you were here.’

He handed the pen to Blazkowicz.

‘You’ll need some paper, I guess. Use one of the scrolls from my phylactery.’

‘If you really want to mess with Schabbs, I’ve got a better idea,’ said Blazkowicz, ‘eject two rounds from that clip and give them to me.’

Wessel complied, watching him carefully. BJ sat cross-legged on the floor, and with the bullets held firmly on his knee, and with much squinting, he carefully printed on them, then rose and handed them back to Wessel. The Nazi held them in the open palm of his hand like the delicate eggs of a small bird. They read:

DR SCHABBS:

TAKE TWO OF THESE

AND CALL ME IN THE MORNING

BJB

‘Shalom, Blazkowicz.’

‘Auf Wiedersehen, Wessel.’

The officer turned smartly and walked down the long hallway. Exactly one hundred paces from where Blazkowicz stood, he knelt and put the rifle ammunition on the floor. Then he rounded a corner, and was gone.

BJ picked up his ammo, then got on the elevator to Floor 9.

V.

The doors opened, and he was faced with a legion of German soldiers. He raised the rifle and squeezed the trigger. They crumpled, punched through with holes, careened backwards clutching at themselves and shrieking, or stood, already silent and dead but not yet fallen, bloodied but still on their feet, their tumbling to the ground seeming like an afterthought. Afterwards, he stood calmly amid the hot reek of gunpowder and blood and reloaded his weapon with rounds from theirs, then stepped gingerly over their bodies to the single door at the end of the hall. He inserted the key and entered.

A cathedral lay before him, cavernous and lit by the flickering, uncertain light of countless candles. Stone columns rose into darkness above row after row of long wooden pews, each with a copy of Mein Kampf in the pocket where a Bible was usually found. The windows were stained glass with elaborate portraits of the Führer in re-imagined scenes from history: Hitler presiding over Christ and Barabbas, Hitler inventing the telescope and discovering Jupiter’s moons, Hitler climbing from the cockpit of The Spirit Of Munich after the first trans-Atlantic flight. Chandeliers hung on lengths of immense chain illuminated a carpeted central aisle embroidered with the eagle of theReich. Blazkowicz raised his rifle and started cautiously towards the front of the cathedral.

He walked for a quarter of an hour, row after row of ornate wooden pews trailing by with the hypnotizing regularity of telephone poles on a stretch of desert highway. It was not until he heard a voice in the darkness ahead that he realized he had let his rifle swing to the floor out of sheer boredom. He cursed himself, and snapped to attention. The voice was high and tinny; a radio. He slowed his pace. A shape faded up from the gloom and he saw a gigantic statute of Hitler cast in bronze. He was standing astride the globe with one boot on the face of a sickle-wielding Bolshevik and the other sunk to the calf in the shattered skull of a star-spangled doughboy. One hand was clamped around the throat of a British soldier, the other around the neck of a squirming rabbi while a third hand (yes, Blazkowicz could see now that Hitler was four-armed, and that they were arrayed in the twisted pattern of the Swastika) squeezed the life from a likeness of Blazkowicz himself. The Führer’s eyes were cast in pupil-less ivory and looked at once at nothing and everything. As he got closer he saw the statue was set on a dais which also had an elegantly carved throne on it. Newspapers in all languages were strewn about, some fresh but many bearing the brittle yellow of months gone by. A small wireless radio sat beside the throne. The clipped, precise English of a BBC war correspondent spoke of advances made by Axis troops in Belgium, gave the precise time and then introduced a piece of chamber music. There was no sign of Adolf Hitler.

No matter. Blazkowicz would sit in wait, and when Hitler got back, would interrogate and kill him.

‘Eva?’

Blazkowicz’s heart jumped. The voice was that of the Führer, but Blazkowicz couldn’t see where it had come from.

‘Is that you, Eva?’

He peered through the dim light at the throne. Perhaps Hitler was crouched behind it. Cautiously, and with his finger set lightly on the trigger, he edged forward.

‘Have you come for Operation Muschelwurst? I take it you brought the Churchill costume, my love. I have been a naughty Chancellor, and deserve harsh British naval justice.’

Blazkowicz crept to within six feet of the throne, and gasped.

He had not expected Hitler to be in one piece after their last encounter, and presumed the Führer would be confined to a wheelchair, perhaps kept alive artificially with the aid of machines. There was even speculation and rumour of Hitler’s head and brain ‘living’ in a jar. Such technology was not beyond the deranged ambitions of Nazi scientists. But the scene before Blazkowicz was much, much worse; the twisted efforts of an experiment that outstripped even Mengele’s in its vileness. Despite all he had witnessed in his battle against the Nazis, Blazkowicz was forced to shut his eyes against the abomination before him. For there, on the throne, was all that remained ofReich Chancellor Adolf Hitler.

His moustache.

‘Shall we commence with a recreation of the invasion of Poland, my love?’ said the moustache excitedly. Blazkowicz had no idea how it spoke, only that it tremored slightly as it did, like a landed butterfly in a soft breeze. ‘I’ll be Warsaw, and you can be the first Panzer division…’

Blazkowicz cocked his rifle and strode into the light.

‘I’ve got a better idea,’ he said. ‘You be Hitler, and I’ll be me.’

‘He has returned,’ said the Hitler-stache, fluttering, ‘like a fool, he has returned, leaping into death’s gaping maw. Tell me, Captain, what has brought you back to Castle Wolfenstein?’

The rifle shuddered slightly in Blazkowicz’s hand, and he fought to steady it. The voice coming from Hitler’s moustache was level and calm, so unlike the guttural bellowing he was used to seeing in newsreels, and somehow more frightening for it.

‘I’ve come to learn about Operation Zungedreher, Chancellor. Having done that, I will kill you.’

‘Ah.’

The music from the radio stopped, seemingly of its own accord.

‘I am only too happy to oblige you on the first matter, Captain. Operation Zungdreher will be public knowledge soon enough, so there is little harm in giving you a ‘sneaky-peak’, as the Yanks say. But on the second matter, I must inform you that it is you who will die here today.’

‘We’ll see about that.’

‘Yes,’ snapped the Hitler-stache, ‘we will.’

Blazkowicz inadvertently took a step back. Even in his diminished form, Hitler’s very presence was insolubly unnerving.

‘Operation Zungedreher,’ said the Hitler-stache, ‘simply put, is the final shovelful of earth on the Allied grave. It is the culmination of years of research and experimentation. All other avenues we’ve pursued during the course of the war – the chemical weapons programs, the rocketry development, the dabblings in the black magic of the Thule Society – have been ruses employed to hide our true end.’

The Hitler-stache paused as a small platform rose from the floor with a glass of water on it. A metallic straw maneuvered itself to the Hitler-stache, and there was a bizarre sucking sound as it drank.

‘It is warm in here, Captain, is it not?’

Blazkowicz watched as the water ebbed slowly to the bottom of the glass. The Hitler-stache made a satisfied smacking noise, and the platform retreated into the floor.

‘You know,’ it continued, ‘of the tendency of the German language to compound words. Kindergarten, for example. Literally, ‘children’s garden’. A very precise and efficient form of speech. It does, however, make our language somewhat cumbersome for those to whom the tongue is not native. The English-speaking world, in particular, stumbles through words like donaudampfschif with comic incompetence.’

Blazkowicz scowled, but said nothing.

‘Imagine, then, if we were to extrapolate this premise to its extreme, compounding word after word until they formed a German überwort. A word that embodies all the supremacy, dominance and permanence of the Germanic kingdom and the Reich. A word so long and complicated and difficult to pronounce that it gives people a headache and makes them want to cry, and maybe a little nauseous, even.’

‘You mean – ‘ gasped Blazkowicz.

‘A längenwurtvîlkenschwiëkauzenschabetäubsmittülvërschreîdnunreimakerkleinpüken!’ said the Hitler-stache. 

Blazkowicz rubbed at his temple and wiped a tear from his eye. His stomach rolled.

‘Once this word is introduced into your everyday conversation, your non-Aryan tongues will wind themselves into knots attempting to speak it. Your backs will break beneath the weight of the massive newspapers needed to print it. Your crossword puzzle enthusiasts will be driven to madness by it! Your children will start speaking it in grade school and be feeble elders by the time they finish. Your president will say it on the radio and sound like a fool!’

The Hitler-stache shook with ominous laughter, looking nothing unlike a caterpillar in its death-throes.

‘That’s unfathomably evil!’ cried Blascowicz.

‘What do you expect?’ replied the Hitler-stache, ‘I’m Hitler, for crying out loud.’

It rose from the seat of the throne, hovering before him, rippling in mid-air like a flag.

‘And now,’ cried the Hitler-stache, its voice rising to the vitrolous pitch the entire world knew to belong to Adolf Hitler, ‘the time for talking is done, Captain! Vorbereitung für den kampf!’

The Hitler-stache flew at him. Blazkowicz raised his rifle and fired, but it swung sidewise in the air with the speed and fluidity of a hummingbird. He ducked, and felt it slice across his cheek, followed by the sudden hot flow of his own blood. He spun, crouched, only to watch it vanish into the surrounding darkness of the cathedral.

‘Har!’ he heard it shout, ‘I had expected the saviour of the Allied War effort to be a better marksman!’

A sudden hissing, like a thrown knife, and the Hitler-stache swooped down and raked itself across his chest. A swatch of his improvised SS uniform fell away, revealing a deep gouge in the body armour beneath. He fired after it, the flash frozen like an orange flower at the end of the rifle barrel, but the Hitler-stache retreated into the darkness yet again. He could hear it flitting like a tiny bat somewhere above him. Blazkowicz threw himself behind a nearby pew, scanning the darkness.

‘Silly of you to hide, Blazkowicz.’

The Hitler-stache’s flapping noises grew gradually fainter, then ceased. Blazkowicz peered out cautiously, finger on the trigger.

‘After all,’ he heard it say from far back in the black depths of the cathedral, ‘strength lies not in defense, but in attack!’

It shot out of the darkness with the speed of a Messerschmitt, but did not swoop at him. Instead, he heard the chit chit of machine gun fire and howled in pain as a series of fine, sharp hairs buried themselves in the back of his hand. The rifle swung wild, sending an arc of fire into the air. Cursing, he pulled the hairs from his hand with his teeth, the flesh red and swollen where they had hit. A second series of hairs sank into the hard wood of the pew beside him. There was a brown blur in his periphery and he saw the Hitler-stache rounding on him again. He wormed his way under the pew and lay there, panting.

‘Hide, Blazkowicz! Cower! I will find you!’

He heard a whistle as it sped over him, then stopped. It was hovering directly above him.

He put the muzzle of his rifle to the underside of the pew, shut his eyes, muttered a short prayer, and fired. There was a deafening crunch as the wood exploded, followed by a choked cry of anguish.

He leapt to his feet, rifle ready. The Hitler-stache lay panting in the dull yellow pool of light beneath a chandelier.

‘Ach!’ it spat, ‘whoreson! I am wounded!’

Blazkowicz trained the rifle square on the Hitler-stache and slowly approached it.

‘Lout! A lucky shot! Curse you!’

Blazkowicz placed the Hitler stache square in the rifle’s sights and pulled the trigger.

But the rifle was empty.

VI.

Tableau-like, he stood with the rifle pointed groundward, waiting. But there was nothing. He pulled the trigger again, and the same loud click echoed back from the cathedral’s stone walls.

The Hitler-stache lifted itself upright and, very slowly, rose into the air.

‘Alas,’ it said with mock-sadness, ‘the wheel of fate is fickle, Captain. This brief intermission has given me ample time to recover from my injuries. Now, die.’

It flew at him.

And for the first time in his career as a soldier, he ran.

He ran down the cathedral’s centre aisle toward the throne, ducking as the Hitler-stache lunged at him from behind. A gash in his head opened. It swooped around the throne and started back towards him. He unslung the rifle and threw it at the approaching follicular projectile, and watched in horror as the Hitler-stache cut through it in a shower of sparks, sending it clattering to the floor in two pieces, the ends glowing dull red.

I am, he thought sadly, officially out of tricks.

With blood running down his face and his lungs straining, he took off between the pews into the darkness of the cathedral. He eventually reached the wall, and watched from a distance as the Hitler-stache circled in the light of the chandeliers like a frantic moth, searching for him. Grimly, he realized it was only a matter of time before it found him.

He poked gingerly at his back tooth with his tongue. It was the only option left; not an altogether glorious one, but at least it would be on his terms. A quick, hard bite down, the bitter taste of almonds in his mouth, and then merciful oblivion.

He closed his eyes and leaned against the wall. The stone was faintly cool. He clenched his teeth.

There was a shudder and the gritty sound of stone moving against stone. He stumbled and righted himself, then turned to see a panel in the wall behind him receding. A secret passage. The Castle, he recalled, was riddled with them. They held emergency stores of food, caches of purloined gold and treasure, and sometimes, weapons and ammunition.

Excitedly, he started down the narrow passage. Even if there were a pistol, he could take another shot at the Hitler-stache and go down fighting.

The passage opened into a small room, empty except for a strange-looking gun hanging on the wall. It was squat and square, made of a whitish-grey metal with a barrel the size of a manhole. Stenciled on the side was:

BlutFleckenGewehr 

With some effort, he lifted it off the bracket it rested on and heard a liquid sloshing from within its guts. Gasoline? He sniffed, but there was no odour. The weapon’s weight and bulk surely meant it was made to be fired from the hip, and even then, with extreme certainty; he had to lift no fewer than three separate trigger guards  before he could find the switch that he presumed fired it. There was also a plate of smoked glass as thick and dark as a welder’s visor that swung into place between him and the barrel. He laid his finger gently against the trigger, and a small yellow light blinked to life.

It’s armed, he realized. The next time he touched the trigger, it would fire. Then what?

‘Das leben ist wie eine schachtel pralinen,’ shrieked the Hitler-stache, ‘man weiß nie, was man kriegt!!!!’

Blazkowicz turned to see it hovering in the doorway of the passage. Scarce had it spoken when it flung itself at him. He fired.

At first, there was nothing, and Blazkowicz laughed aloud at the notion that Fate had placed yet another empty gun in hands so thoroughly trained and yearning to kill. Then the gun shuddered, and a green-white nova sprung from the barrel, and even behind the smoked glass shield Blazkowicz clamped his eyes shut and turned his head against the light and heat. There was a roar like a great rush of water, and then a deafening bang (a sonic boom?) and the brief, acrid stench of burnt hair.

Blazkowicz opened one eye, then the other. The walls of the passage were scorched black and radiated heat. There was a moustache-shaped smear on the floor. He watched as the round he fired continued across the huge dome of the cathedral, an incandescent green sphere that sailed for what seemed like half a minute and dwindled to a pinprick before it struck the far wall. For a moment the entire mighty vault of the cathedral lit up glowing white, the shadows pared back to nothing, the flash exposing intricately carved cyclopean columns and stonework. Then the light died, but not before he saw the far wall buckle from the impact of the shot, and saw the first fragments of the ceiling tumble down.

For the second time during his career as a soldier, he ran.

VII.

United States Office Of Secret Actions Chairman General Raymond Grant had a countenance and bearing one would expect from a man in such a position. His grey eyes ran with minute precision over the onionskin document on his desk, face slack and impassive. When he was finished he placed the paper in the top right corner of his blotter, squared it, folded his hands and looked across the desk at BJ Blazkowicz.

‘You’ve sworn a deposition to the effect that everything in your report is true, have you not, Captain?’

‘Yes sir, I have,’ replied Blazkowicz, and swallowed a grin. The boys at HQ were still sorting through the wreckage, literal and metaphorical, of Castel Wolfenstein, but it seemed only a matter of time before they were forced to agree that he and he alone had killed Hitler and toppled the Third Reich.

What kind of medal, he thought, will they give me? The Medal Of Honour would be a good start, but it didn’t seem quite enough. They’d probably have to invent a new one: ‘The Blazkowicz’. They would probably want to erect statues, too. And hang his portrait in the White House. Would there be room in the Oval Office? They’d have to move some flags around, but it could be done. And it would, of course, be only fitting to put his face on the dollar bill. Washington, after all, had been a fine soldier during his time, but his achievements were, in light of recent events, rather meager in comparison.

‘Captain Blazkowicz,’ said General Grant, ‘if even one of the events documented here is true – ‘

‘Yes sir,’ said Blazkowicz excitedly. Would he get the medal now, or later, at a special ceremony?

‘ – then I’m afraid you’re in very big trouble.’

Blazkowicz blinked.

‘Sir?’

General Grant glared at him and flipped to a pink sheet that had been attached to the back of Blazkowicz’s report.

‘You’ve been accused of several grave breaches of the Geneva Convention, Captain.’

‘What?!’ cried Blazkowicz, rising. A glare from the general saw him re-seated quickly.

‘Breach of Article 7:,’ said Grant, ‘The causing of undue suffering to, and failure to provide aid to, a civilian….’

‘That’s not true!’ cried Blazkowicz.

‘Isn’t it? Mr. Grosse was no longer a ranking member of the German army, and was, quite literally, unarmed. You left him wedged in a doorway to die.’

‘He threatened me!’

‘Breach of Article 9:’ Grant continued, ‘conspiring with a known enemy.’

‘I did no such thing!’

‘You wrote that you and Commander Wessel together formulated a plan to, and I quote, ‘mess with’, end quote, Wessel’s commanding officer.’

‘His commanding officer was a Nazi scientist!’

‘Nevertheless. Breach of Article 21: theft of property and artifacts.’

Blazkowicz looked puzzled.

‘The gold coins you took,’ Grant explained.

‘I’ll give them back!’ Blazkowicz cried. He pulled them from his pocket and tossed them onto Grant’s desk. Grant swept them neatly aside and continued reading.

‘And finally, Captain, Breach of Article 27: Willful procurement and aggressive usage of a weapon of mass destruction.’

‘That’s crazy! I –‘

‘ – fired a weapon that set off Geiger counters for five hundred miles around the Castle, Captain. Entire villages had to be evacuated. Switzerland threatened retaliatory action, for crying out loud.’

‘I only shot it once,’ Blazkowicz murmured.

‘One time too many. The president made us turn it over to the USMC so they could study it.’ He brought his palm down angrily on the desk.’ The godammed Marines, Blazkowicz. Do you know how bad that makes us look?’

The general took a deep breath and smoothed his crew cut. Blazkowicz cleared his throat to speak, but Grant’s grey eyes silenced him.

‘The very nature of your crimes,’ said Grant after a time,  ‘made them difficult to defend. Impossible, in fact.’ He thumbed the intercom on his desk. ‘Send in Mr. Von Shrakenberg, please.’

The door opened and a short, fat man in a dark blue suit entered.

‘This is Leif Von Shrakenberg, Chief Prosecuting Officer for The Hague’s Central Committee To Investigate War Crimes.’

Blazkowicz stuck out his hand, but the fat man remained motionless.

‘Please stand, Captain,’ he said in Dutch-accented English. Blazkowicz did so. Von Shrakenberg took a folded document from his pocket, broke a wax seal, put on a pair of wire-rimmed glasses and read.

‘Captain William Joseph Blazkowicz: In the course of your proscribed military duties you have subsequently been found guilty of crimes against humanity and are sentenced to death, effective immediately. Statement read on this, the first of May, nineteen hundred and forty-five.’

‘Witnessed,’ said General Grant softly.

Two MPs entered and slid manacles onto Blazkowicz his wrists, then led him out. Von Shrakenberg followed. A minute passed. Through the open window Grant heard sounds from the parade ground; the hollow wooden thunk of a trapdoor falling open, then the dry squeak of rope stretching. He shut the window with a weary sigh and opened a copy of Stars And Stripes to the crossword page.

32 Across: A 76-letter word for ‘something bad’. That was a tough one.

Fifty Pimps With Plants Named After Them

1. Sweet Woodruff
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45. Cliff Carrot
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47. Danglepod
48. ‘Strangler’ Fig
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Email Eetiquette

With the exception of moveable type, air conditioning and 7,261 other things, no invention has made life better than email. Since its creation in 1954 by the International Brotherhood Of Electrical Engineers And Mailmen, email has become more efficient and more popular than traditional Snail Mail (messages on paper delivered by hand), Pail Mail (messages delivered by lowering them in a bucket from the third storey window of a bricked-up building) and Frail Braille Rail Mail (messages delivered by blind, elderly train conductors). And there’s no quicker way to get your credit card number to an imprisoned Nigerian diplomat than sending it by email.

But despite its widespread use, email protocol remains somewhat vague. This brief tutorial will ‘Reply’ to any unanswered questions you have about email, so you can go ‘Forward’ confident you know everything possible about this ‘Subject’. People may even ‘Send’ you an ‘Email’ complimenting you on your knowledge.

That last one doesn’t really work. Dang.

Email Rule #1: Know The Basics

Y’know how in movies about the future, money is called ‘new credits’? That’s because everything futuristic has its own special language, and email is no exception. The chart below contains some frequently-used email jargon. Take a moment to familiarize yourself with it. I’ll bet you new credits to donuts it pays off!

Email Rule #2: Keep It Simple

In this hurly-burly, squirrely-whirly, churly-Charlie Sheen age, people are busy, so the best email is a brief email. Note the imposing length of the following electronic message:

Is this a death announcement or War And Peace? After dozing off halfway through the second line, I started to envy Ken; at least he’d be spared the task of wading through this meandering missive. With a little editing, however, this email becomes much easier to digest:

Short and to the point. Ken would approve, were he not roasting in Catholic hell for eating meat on Friday.

Email Rule #3: Keep It Fun

Do you know what Easter Islanders put on their graves? ‘Tombstones!’ No…wait…I fucked that up. It’s ‘Headstones’. Dammit. Well, never mind. The point is that humour is a great way to keep people interested in what you’ve written. Your email should provide its recipient with a smile, no matter how serious the subject matter. Note the dire tone of the email below:

A downer and a missed opportunity that will do nothing for already low company morale. But it’s not a total rewrite. Often the opening line can be ‘tweaked’ to make the email and more lighthearted and engaging. Imagine how the message about Jack’s firing would have sounded had it started off like this:

or this:

or this:

or this:

Hilarious! When ‘The Boss’ shows his employees that he can laugh, they all breathe easier and work more efficiently. Granted, it’s wrong to make light of Jack’s misfortune. But maybe if he’d had a better sense of humour he’d still be with the company.

Email Rule #4: Use Emoticons

The word ‘emoticon’ is a combination of ‘emotion’ and ‘con’, the slang for ‘prisoner’, and literally means ‘prisoner of one’s emotions’. Using an emoticon in an email lets people know you are unable to control your moods, both good and bad, and must express them at any cost. In this sense, the emoticon user has replaced the Norse Berserker of old, and is similarly feared and respected. The most commonly used emoticons are listed on the chart below:

Email Rule #5: Some Emails To Avoid

Spam

‘Spam’ is cyber-slang for unsolicited and unwanted email, and derives its name from Spamnish Harlem, the NYC neighborhood where it was invented by criminals to sell penis pills online. While most Spam is merely a nuisance, some contain viruses that can harm your computer. Computer AIDS, for example. If you receive an email with one of the following subject lines, chances are it is Spam and should not be opened:

French emails

These are like regular emails, only written in French. Presumably by a French person. It is beneath you to read or reply to these.

CBmail

These emails are used by long haul truckers to share information about road conditions, speed traps and hookers who lean on juke boxes in diners. These emails contain privileged information for truckers only. If you get one, something terrible will happen to you. Have you seen Duel? That.

Emaul

This is when a large hairy gay man, or ‘bear’, attacks you on the Internet.

Rule #6: In Conclusion

I hope this tutorial has been helpful. If you have any further questions about email, send them to me via this website……by email! —3