Thrillers: April 2012

As they drew closer the men instinctively slowed their pace. It was the smell in the air. Sheered copper was the way the colonel had heard it described once. When large amounts of blood were spilled there is a smell in the air of sheered copper. Some call it the smell of death. But there was also the distinct smell of sulfur. Von Gruber could feel his stomach tightening into a knot from the anticipation of what he knew they would find in the clearing ahead. The colonel had spent most of his adult life in the military. When he was only fifteen he had fought in the trenches in France during the last war. The vivid memories of that other time and place still came to him in his nightmares. Von Gruber was with the first assault troops into the Rheinland and Poland. He had witnessed many violent and brutal deaths, but he was not prepared for what lay ahead.