Until the Sun Comes Up

Lola staggered to her feet as the Basterds crept down the street towards her. She held her arm as she kicked his gun away from him, then started kicking Dieters body that was face down in the snow, calling out all the obscene things that she held back in her mind.

“Sie böser Sohn von a Weibchen! Brennen Sie in der Hölle Sie bumsendes unbarmherziges Nazischwein! (You nasty son of a bitch! Burn in Hell you fucking ruthless Nazi pig!)” She didn’t hear his the low growl that came from his chest, but when he grabbed her ankle, she knew his death was too good to be true.

He pulled her feet from right under her and quickly climbed on top of her. His hands instantly went around her throat, choking the life out of her. Blood was trickling down his chest and dripping through her coat. She tried to claw at his hands, even with the arm that had been shot twice, but his iron grip wouldn’t falter. Choking sounds emitted from her throat as she gasped for air. Her legs kicked left and right as his vice grip seemed to tighten. Her eyes were bulging, watering from the lack of oxygen. Loud boot steps were heard stomping down the street, she just hoped that they’d get there soon enough. She started seeing black dots block her vision, the feral look on Dieters face as he was slowly stripping her life from her.

The next sound she heard could only be described as a piece of wood coming into contact with a brick wall. Dieter’s hands left her throat, making her gasp out, as he fell on top of her, crying out in pain. She tried to roll away, but her lack of strength couldn’t move him. He was forcefully kicked over by a large, black, leather boot. Lola rolled as far away from Dieter as she could, grasping her own neck, coughing oxygen back into her lungs. She stopped, face first in the snow, heaving for breath. Her entire right arm was pulsing from the wounds and the rough fight that she put up as she was almost strangled to death.

Sound came back to her as the sound of the wood coming in contact with something came tumbling through her ears. The men around her laughed as a large, muscular man with a head full of dark hair continued to beat Dieter to death. There was more blood spilling onto the snow and just the sight of his mangled body was enough to make her sick. She sat on her backside, her legs folded underneath her.

“Ich denke, dass ich oben werfen werde… (I think I am going to throw up…)” She mumbled as the man stopped beating the blue eyed monster to death. She held her good hand to her mouth.

“Utivitch, scalp ‘im. Wicki, check on the girl.”

“Yes, sir.” Both men said at the same time. Lola looked up to see a very handsome man coming her way. She recognized him as the one who was speaking to Dieter before the shooting happened. He kneeled down in front of her. She looked around at the empty street, besides the group of men that were surrounding Dieter’s dead body.

“Werden Sie gut sein? (Are you going to be alright?)” The soldier’s deep voice cut through to her. She looked back up at him. She opened and closed her mouth a few times, not sure if she could trust him. Sure, they saved her from Dieter, but they also shot her and were doing God knows what to the dead man’s body. She could only guess what they would do to her.

“Ich erhielt Mann behandelt von einem Gestapo Major, der mir seit dem Anfang der letzten Jahreszeit gefolgt hat, ich wurde gehalten mit Waffengewalt und ich bin Schuß, zweimal gewesen. Ich bin absolut fein (I got man handled by a Gestapo Major who has been following me since the beginning of last season, I was held at gunpoint and I have been shot, twice. I am absolutely fine!)” She snapped in a pissed off tone at him. He jerked back a little at her bark and raised an eyebrow. “Wer feuerte zuerst ab? Wer ist Hirschberg? (Who fired first? Who is Hirschberg?)” She leaned in towards him, careful of her arm that was cradled in her lap. She saw his gaze go to a smaller man who was talking loudly with a lisp. She shot up, taking Wicki by surprise and bolted towards the man.

“You shot me! You fucking shot me, you lunatic!” She screamed out in English, her accent making her seem a lot more angrier than she was, as she clutched her bleeding arm with her right hand. She tried to tackle the man, but was held back. She screamed in pain as the person grabbed onto her right arm, right where the first bullet entered, and pulled her into a solid figure. She looked at the line of men in front of her, still fuming. She saw that the smallest one had something that wasn’t a weapon in his hand. Her eyes immediately went to Dieter, then widened. She covered her mouth with her left hand as she tried to break free of the man’s grasp. She managed to pull her left arm free of the man’s grasp and bent down to empty the -barely there- contents of her stomach. She made heaving noises that may have seemed over exaggerated, but they surely weren’t. Dieter’s scalp was in that little man’s hand. Who the fuck were these sick men?

“Whas the matter, Cupcake? Never seen a little blood before?” The man with his lip jutted out asked, a smirk clad on his face. This caused the line of men to laugh and a chuckle to rumble from the chest behind her.

“Zorry, I’ve never had ze pleasure of getting shot, zeeing a man beaten to death vith a club, zhen proceeding to zee his scalp detached from his head. My apologies.” She spat back. She looked up at who was holding onto her. The man who had beaten Dieter with his club was behind her, a smirk on his plush lips. “Could you possibly take your hand off of me before you break my already vounded arm vith your bear claws?” His thick eyebrow raised in humor. He squeezed down on her arm, putting a little more pressure on the wound. She took a deep, sharp breath and bit her lip from crying out again.

“Alrigh’ no more sass. Who are yeh? Why are yeh out here in the middle of Bumfuck with Major Peckersucker over here?” He pointed to Dieter’s mangled body. The man crossed his arms as he walked the few feet in front of me. “I know yeh speak Anglish, so yeh better get teh talkin’, otherwise, we’ll have Donny right here give you a reason to cry.” She really wanted to know why she was being questioned as if she had a giant swastika drawn onto her body like a target.

“I live here. Since ze bombings, it has virtually been abandoned,”

“Then why are yeh out here?”

“I have novhere else to go. Zhere is one shop open a few streets over. Since ze fall, I’ve had a neighbor go out and get my groceries because of Dieter, but she has fallen ill, so I had to go out myself. Zhen zis happened,”

“That still doesn’t explain why he was manhandlin’ yeh.”

“He had tried to make advances tovards me, but I have denied. He vasn’t zomeone who took no for an answer.”

“Wha’s yer name?”

“Lola,”

“Well,”

“Who are you?” She asked. This whole situation seemed a little peculiar.

“You don’t know who we are?” Aldo questioned. She gave him a look that told him that she obviously didn’t know who they were. “We’re the Basterds,” She scowled at the name, “Ah, so yeh have heard of us?” A smug look that held glory made its way onto his face.

“No, zat just sounds ridiculous,” His look fell.

“Really, yeh haven’t heard of us?”

“Nope,” She said once more, in more of a whisper and gave him an awkward look.

“Well, that’s a damn shame. You don’t get out much?” He chuckled at his own little joke. She never understood men and their dumb sense of humor. She just glared at him.

“I vould zay zank you, but…you know,” She motioned to her arm. He gave her a nod with a weird look on his face…it could’ve just been his face though.

“Alrigh’ boys, pack it up.” The men packed up their weapons and picked up their bags. The man, Donny, put her arm down and went to get his things.

“You are leaving?” She questioned, slightly outraged.

“Uh, yeah. That sounds about right,” Aldo replied, a small chuckle in his voice.

“And you are leaving me here, to deal vith zis?” She pointed to her bleeding appendage.

“Well, what do yeh want us teh do ‘bout it?”

“I don’t know, but you are ze reason I vas shot in ze first place!”

“Sorry little lady, but we have orders to follow. Let’s head out!” The group started moving forward onto the snowy street, leaving Lola behind.

Tears streaked down her face, not only from getting shot, but from having a gun to her head mere seconds before. Also, seeing a man as handsome as Dieter get his body smashed in with a baseball bat, then watching his dead corpse get scalped.

She fell to her knees in the snow, sobbing. Couldn’t she catch a break, just once?

***

They were almost two blocks away from where they had left Lola and Donny made the mistake of turning around to look at her. She was on her knees, her head bent down, clutching her arm, her whole body shaking.

“Don’t even think ‘bout, Donny.” His Lieutenant warned. He didn’t have to look at the Sergeant to know what he was thinking. She was a beauty, he’d be stupid to deny that, but she was also German and that was a big problem. Donny put a hand on the Lieutenant’s arm, making them both stop short while the others kept going forward.

***

Lola pulled herself off of the ground and dusted the snow off of her knees. She walked around Dieter’s dead body -making sure she was no closer than three feet- and grabbed her purse from the snowy ground. Her body was shaking from the cold and her sobs, and she couldn’t control herself.

She started the short walk back to her apartment. She had to get this bullet out and she needed to do it fast. She noticed Donny and their Lieutenant lagging behind the others as she made it to her stoop. They were arguing about something, though she couldn’t hear a word they were saying. She pushed the red entrance door open and closed it lightly behind her. She trudged her way up the stairway that led to her second floor apartment.

She made it up and unlocked her door. She threw her bag on the floor and shut the door. She went into the bathroom and locked the door behind her. She carefully shed her coat, vest and finally, her shirt, leaving her in just her bra and trousers. Her whole arm was covered in drying blood, but the wounds stopped bleeding so profusely. They let little spurts out here and there, but they weren’t pouring like they were earlier.

***

“Lieutenant, we can’t just leave ’eh out heah,” His Boston accent coming out thick, “I…I think we should bring ‘eh with us. We can drop ‘eh off as soon as we fix ‘eh up,” They would both glance back at Lola, noticing when she got up and when she started walking in their direction.

“Donny, are yeh listenin’ to yerself? Really, listen to those word that are just pissin’ out of yer mouth. Does any of that make sense to yeh? ‘Cuz it ain’t makin’ any got’damn sense to me.” Aldo’s left eyebrow was raised as he looked up at Donny, who had a pleading look on his face. “Ah, I see what’cher doin’,” A sly smirk made its way onto Aldo’s face, “But we don’t have the time for that, Donny. We’re in the middle of fuckin’ Kraut Central and need to skedaddle our asses outta here. We’ll find a nice brothel in France when we get there, just keep it in yer pants 'til then, ” They looked back at her to see her walk up a stoop and into one of the buildings.

“It’s more than that, Lieutenant! I can’t leave ’eh out heah!” He put his foot down, figuratively speaking, obviously. Aldo gave him an incredulous look.

“You have got to be kiddin’ me,”

“Lieutenant,” Donny challenged. Aldo sighed.

***

Lola’s screams could probably be heard from the other end of Berlin. The hand towel that she had in her mouth muffled the noises, but they didn’t silence them completely, as she tried to dig the bullet out of her arm. She let her mirror guide her as her tweezers dug into her flesh. She finally gripped the damn thing and started wiggling it out. That sent a jolt up her arm, causing her to drop the tweezers in the sink and blood to start pouring out of her arm. Tears were streaming down her face as her breathing started getting heavier and heavier. She took a deep breath to calm herself and grabbed the bloody tweezers again. Digging them back into her arm, she did what she thought was best and most rational at the time, which really wasn’t all that rational, because when she finally got a hold of the bullet once more, she yanked it out. The towel fell out of her mouth as it gaped open, the pain too intense to make any sound. The only thing that could be heard was the clanking of the bullet and tweezers hitting the sink. Blood dripped on the floor and into the sink as she held her dripping arm over it, staining the white tiles and white basin.

While in screaming pain, Lola didn’t hear the knocks coming from her front door, but whoever was knocking had heard her scream bloody murder. It sounded like a bomb had went off in her living room. Heavy footsteps stomped through the apartment and soon enough, her bathroom door was busted open. The sheer intensity of it sending her flying into the claw-footed bathtub, making more blood spill every which way.

This would be fun for her to clean up.