The Damnatorium

A mad Nazi scientist discovers the secrets of the afterlife. What happens when he tests it out on a captured American soldier?

Private First Class Tommy Malone, may he rest in peace, had thrown himself on that grenade like a true soldier, bravely saving the rest of our brigade only for us to be caught and sent to different camps. It wasn't our first time being caught, mind you. Not any of us. We were all prepared to escape again, and each of us had most likely smuggled in some kind of tool to help.

I know I had.

I stretched the fingers of my bound hands to my pocket to make sure Granddad's Zippo hadn't been discovered and confiscated while I was unconscious last time. I didn't know what the others had managed to sneak past the Germans, but as for me, I had the spirit of Grampa Kane to get me out of here.

The tent reeked of gasoline, though, so they would have to move me before I could use it to escape, or my victory would be very short-lived. The sound in there was deafening, too, like a factory, making it hard to plan my escape. I was beginning to think that, just maybe, was why they did it.

Or maybe not.

I shared that canvas prison with four stormtroopers, their automatic rifles aimed straight at my face the whole time, and a big iron box that was the source of the sound, the smell, and the constant rumbling which vibrated that folding steel chair in ways that were all sorts of uncomfortable. The box itself kind of reminded me of a smaller version of the engines on one of those Flying Fortresses.

It was no engine, though. Well, kind of, but the machine it operated wasn't designed to fly you around from place to place.

Almost, though.

They brought him in, two black-clad Gestapo on either side clinging to their Lugers and doing their best to look threatening despite being fresh out of Hitler Youth. He wore an ancient labcoat, muddied with stains I was better off not thinking about.

"So, Major Reynolds, are you ready?" His English was spot-on, but still screamed Kraut. Without waiting for an answer, he began attaching diodes to my face, neck, chest, and recently-shaved dome.

"What if I say I'm not?"

"Herr Mengele," one of the soldiers whispered, beckoning the Doctor over. The doctor leaned in with a questioning grunt, cracking his knuckles through thick, black rubber gloves, and the soldier whispered something in his ear.

"Ah," he sighed after hearing what the pimple-faced boy had to say, a smug grin stretching across his face. He locked his gaze on me like an animal, a devil in the forest with eyes on a rabbit. "So you have already been tested once, eh?"

Yeah. Yeah, they had already tested me once. I kept quiet, though, and he continued his carefully-practiced sermon.

"The Damnatorium is not simply a device for torture, Herr Reynolds. There is still another setting with which you are unfamiliar, one that shows pleasure rather than pain. It is to be used specifically to prove to the bravest of our men the reward that awaits them for their service to their Fuhrer. It  however. Are you willing to help me, as repayment for the unpleasant business my men have already put you through?"

The smell of that Otherworld was just like the smell here at Auschwitz, only infinitely stronger and coming from every direction, including from me. I remember back in the day, back in Sunday School, they tell you that brimstone burns with a thick black smoke, so you'd never see anything but fire and blackness in Hell. I always thought that was just a tactic to scare you into behaving.

They were right, to a degree.

Every other sense kicks in at that point, especially the ones that tell you how bad the situation really is. There's a lot to experience there that you don't need to be able to see: the millions of mixed smells (all of them human flesh rotting or burning in some unique way), the groans of panic and agony and abject horror, the taste of blood and noxious smoke and the ashes of human flesh, and the horrible, unspeakable pain that doesn't stop once your nerve endings have been seared away.

It only makes sense that Hell would be such a horrible feast for all the senses, since your eyes boil out of your skull pretty quickly anyway.

Just the thought of it sent me fingering the warm metal body of the lighter in my pocket, my fingertips barely scratching its surface, anxiety and terror both resurfacing from the memory of an event that should never have even been possible. That little keepsake was my only chance to get these ropes off and escape this madhouse, and I prayed to God and Jesus and Mary and Michael the Archangel and whoever else would listen that the fluid hadn't evaporated yet.

"What do you say?" he reiterated, and I instinctively nodded. Anything would be better than what I had seen last time.

He smiled silently, and then spun on his heel and began barking orders. His men, trained dogs that they were, fell into place and commenced flipping switches, turning dials, and pushing buttons.

"Gehen!" the Mad Doctor shouted. One of them pulled the giant lever on the side of the machine, and my voyage began.

Have you ever been to the doctor, and they had to clean out some extra wax from your ears? It felt like that, when they suction a whole bunch and just kinda yank it through the side of your head. Only, imagine the earwax is your soul, and the ear canal is every single pore in your body. That's a bit what it was like.

When the swirling stopped, and my consciousness reformed before a giant throne carved from a single, massive pearl, the same bite of despair came over me as before. That empty, crumbling seat was the only feature in a landscape otherwise dominated by pillars of acrid, black smoke stretching out to the furthest horizon.

"Just a few seconds," I heard a familiar accented voice drift out of the darkness. "We don't want to overstimulate our guest."

With that, the horror of infinity swirled away, and my mind came once again to rest in my physical body.

But not to rest. I shouldn't use that word. There's no more rest for me again, ever.

Panting, soaked to the bone with sweat, and eyes blinded by tears, I gasped the air tainted by the fuel of the Damnatorium deep into my lungs. Only after gulping down several helpings was I truly able to understand that I had returned.

"Something is wrong," I heard Mengele say.

He didn't know the half of it.

I lolled my head, weakly but frantically scanning the tent. My sight hadn't fully returned, but I could see faded shapes and shadows, blobs of desaturated color where those Nazi b******s should have been. I thought about Gram, and Ma and Pa, and my little brother Walter who hadn't made it past a bout of leukemia when he was seven.

I thought of Grampa Kane, and I half expected to hear him tell me to blow the place to Hell and back. 

Then I remembered why he wasn't saying anything.

I thought of Private First Class Tommy Malone, and I realized in that moment that no one else could know what I had seen. There was a grenade in the room, just like the one that had taken out Tommy, and I knew what I had to do.

I took what little bit of the lighter I could fit between my middle and index fingers and nudged the lid open.

The telltale click was obvious. The blur that was Mengele's face twisted, and he bolted from the tent without even telling his soldiers why or ordering them to retreat.

A moment later, we were all together, although I could only tell by the sound of their screams joining in with mine.