Grim Tidings by Caitlin Kittredge

search of the drawers and cabinets for anything I could use against what was happening outside. “What’s with those people outside? The short version.”
    Jacob was bent over, examining the man in the uniform. He wasn’t really a man, I saw as he sat shaking, his close-cropped head in his hands. He couldn’t have been more than seventeen or eighteen. A couple of months ago he’d probably been happily heiling his way through a Hitler Youth meeting, with no idea that the Fatherland was being crushed around him like a tin can in a vise.
    â€œHow about you give me the short version?” Jacob said, turning the man’s head from side to side and shining a small light into his eyes. The soldier flinched, and Jacob squeezed harder until he stopped struggling. “I have been here for two years and never seen an American who wasn’t a prisoner at death’s door, and now that you are here, everything is going to Hell.”
    â€œThere are no scalpels in this place?” I demanded, deciding to ignore his comment. I tossed the instrument tray to the floor. It clanged, and the soldier whimpered. “Not even a damn pair of scissors?”
    â€œThey lock up the instruments so we don’t steal them,” Jacob said mildly. “Who are you, really? Why are you here?”
    He reached for gauze and a needle and thread, gesturing at the soldier’s arm. “Roll up your sleeve.”
    The soldier shook his head violently. “Nr. Ich werde nicht von einem Tier genäht werden . . .”
    â€œHey!” I drew back my foot. “You want one that actually hurts? Shut your Nazi trap and let the good doctor work.”
    Jacob’s mouth twisted into an almost smile as he poured disinfectant on the soldier’s wound, wringing another shriek out of his thin, bloodless mouth. “You are a liar, but I confess I like you. What is your name?”
    â€œAva,” I said. “Like Gardner, not Braun.”
    â€œOne of those dying prisoners was the first,” he said. “An American. Many of them arrive sick, and Kubler uses most as fodder for the anatomy lab, or for his hypothermia tests. But this man was different. He was . . .” Jacob trailed off, his eyes narrowing as the dimensions of the soldier’s wound became clear.
    â€œNow, I’m not a doctor like you,” I said as the twin half-moons of purple, bloody squares dribbled a little fresh blood, “but that’s a human bite mark.”
    Jacob hissed something under his breath, jumping back from the soldier as the man bared his own teeth in a stiff, bloody grin. His gums were bleeding, his nose, even his eyes were pooling with runny red tears. He let out a long croak, unfolding from the floor like he was spring-loaded.
    Jacob wasn’t fast enough. Nobody who was only human would have been. The soldier grabbed him by the throat and they both crashed into the exam table, Jacob ramming the thick roll of gauze into the soldier’s snapping jaws before they could close on his neck or his face.
    â€œThey change!” he shouted as the soldier let out an anguished roar, a welt of thick, black blood oozing from his mouth as he vomited. “The doctors that the GI attacked, and now—”
    He trailed off as I landed on the soldier from behind, wrappingone arm around his neck. I couldn’t use the knife, even now. It held Kubler’s soul, and if I didn’t come back with that, I might as well just leave myself for whatever was outside the doors.
    The soldier jolted upright, swinging around and trying to shake me off, but I pressed down with all my strength, using my forearm like a bar to press down on his windpipe and the fat veins of his neck that got blood to the brain.
    He sank his teeth into the meaty part of my forearm, but I held on. Even when he ripped and pulled at the flesh, I held on. If only one of us was walking out of here, it was going to be me. I’d be damned if