The beastial rumble of engines echoed through the sleeping forest. Richtofen squinted his eyes as he watched the glow of the last lantern fade into the night. Despite the withering trees, enough foliage remained to conceal the land from the pale glow of the moon above. The village itself was completely plunged into darkness as the only light which remained came from the convoy vehicles. The jostling headlights cast themselves to and fro erratically as they revealed gnarled outlines and ghostly figures of decaying trees and hollowed buildings.
The first vehicles began to pull up outside in the cobbled village square as Richtofen's car prowled behind. The anticipation of the night ahead excited him. He had longed to lumber his way out of the vehicle and finally begin his work. But as the tyres of the car left the dirt road and clamoured across the cobbled town square they began to gradually slow to a creep.
The doctor readied himself as a rush of excitement tried to overcome him. Richtofen could already feel the terror of the quaking villagers as it hung in the air and engulfed the village. As his car came to a stop, he could make out the faded silhouettes of his men as they had already begun to exit their vehicles. One group of soldiers began to cautiously look around as they tensely gripped their MP40s. The sudden quietness of the village left the men visibly unsettled - which only added to the already tense atmosphere.
Soon, more soldiers gathered as they stood to attention. Then, Richtofen heard the door of his staff car click open. The lowly private gave a stiff awkward salute before keeping his eyes down to the ground whilst Richtofen lumbered out. The quivering soldiers turned towards Richtofen as they watched him slowly emerge. Once he unfolded himself and stood upright, he adjusted his hat and looked around. His men quickly stood to attention as Richtofen began to stalk towards them.
"Offload zhe equipment", Richtofen commanded before walking off - eagerly slithering towards the quaint houses.
The long serpentine convoy had meandered its way through France. The many vehicles it consisted of carried various pieces of equipment and cargo which were also being hauled along. There were wooden crates containing scientific instruments along with everything required for setting up a temporary field laboratory. The large green Mercedes trucks ferried their cargo and personnel across the land. However, their arrival at this sleepy little village was only the first destination of many.
Over the next five months of Richtofen's deployment; residents from French villages would be taken from their homes in the stillness of the night. Men, women and children were dragged off into the night - never to be seen again. Each night, the land would howl with curdling cries and woeful wailing as the voices pleaded for their lives. Both personnel and villager alike would lay awake trembling in fear as their imaginations unwillingly visualised the horrors taking place.
And each time, upon arrival, Richtofen would make it a ritual to seek out the mayor - or leader - of every village. His men would then march the villagers from their homes into the town square and subject them to a violent display. Their beloved leader would then be executed by firing squad in the middle of the town square for all to see. Such a display was enough to send most into a fit of drowning despair.
The leader's typically larger home would then be seized and turned into the next field laboratory - for Richtofen to conduct his research. In each of the rooms, the furniture would be rearranged to resemble surgical theatres where the large oak tables doubled as a theatre table. In the cellar, the kidnapped residents would be stripped of their valuables - which was pilfered by the more sadistic of Richtofen's men - and kept in cramped conditions. In their damp dark prison, they would be subjected to the shrieking cries of agony of their fellow captives as they awaited their turn with trembling bones and horror in their hearts.
Over the course of days and weeks, they would only be fed the bare minimum to keep them alive until needed by Richtofen. And when their turn came around, two soldiers would come to drag them from the mass of bodies. The wooden steps leading to the cellar had a trail of shattered fingernails and blood as the victim's desperately tried to resist.
They would then be taken up stairs to the second level of the house where Richtofen awaited them with a grin of pleasure. The sadistic doctor would slowly savour their despair as he calmly anchored them to the table with thick leather straps. Their racing pulse and ragged breaths set the rhythm of the procedures - almost like a metronome.
The doctor would then begin conducting the new round of experiments on the unwilling subjects. But beforehand, he would make sure to terrorise his victims as he bled them dry of fear. He would unfurl his leather bag of medical instruments for them to see all the scalpels, pliers and bone saws it contained. His heart would well with excitement at the widening of their eyes which exposed the stark white of their sclerae. Then, he would really begin his torment.
But once he had extracted enough pleasure and pushed his victims to within an inch of their life - he would then begin the work he was sent to undertake. As expected, his male test subjects were always relegated to testing out the newest super soldiers serum. After their torture, Richtofen would wheel over a trolley with glass syringes containing various liquids.
With giddy excitement he would agonise over which one to inject; as many of the substances were too potent and almost always resulted in death. But for him, his indecisiveness was over how he wanted to watch his victim die. Though, for those who did not immediately succumb to the serum; they would be left dead eyed as they remained strapped to the table with glazed eyes - like their soul had long since departed the vessel.
But it was the women and children who were used for other purposes. Richtofen would test out his own theories on information extraction and torture. Even from a physiological stand-point, women fascinated him. It was their vastly higher pain tolerance which intrigued the doctor. Oh how ironic it was that the weaker sex should be gifted such an ability. Something that was far more useful on the battlefield and wasted on such meek individuals.
Elderly and young alike, Richtofen would test the women's resilience to their limit. Whenever he tried out his techniques on the men they would barely put up a fight. But even the most elderly women hung on till the edge of death. Though, with every young maiden he would obtain as a test subject, her torture seemed to reach a deeper level.
The younger women under twenty-five would be subjected to a different - more extreme - form of torture. No longer would Richtofen gleam with pleasure as it quickly turned to primitive violence as his eyes stung with malice and his mouth contorted with snarling teeth. It was almost as if Richtofen would use these young women as some kind of lightning rod for his own inner turmoil. His deepening hatred for women had soured rotting him from within. But each time he exacted pain upon them - it was a cathartic exacting of revenge. This was something beyond simple pleasure.
But the children, those small humans Richtofen had come to loathe since Samantha, they also had their uses too. He would use them to further torture the women as he forced them to watch their own children being murdered before their eyes. The mental anguish welling in their tearful eyes served only to entertain Richtofen.
Unlike Dr Maxis, Richtofen refused to believe that simply injecting a serum would achieve Group 935's goal. The idea of simply injecting a serum and overriding the victim's freewill seemed far too optimistic. Of all the elements on Earth; there were none that had the ability to. And this lead him to work on surgical interventions on the side. To him, the brain held the key. The intricacies of neural pathways seemed far more logical to probe instead. And that was what he did; conducting lobotomies and sometimes even injecting the serums directly into the brain instead.
Richtofen enjoyed working throughout the night. The frigid air carried the anguished cries of agony throughout the house and surrounding area - inflicting fear upon all who were unfortunate enough to hear it. From each blood-curdling shriek to even the smallest whimper Richtofen revelled in the satisfaction - enjoying the hellish cacophony he conducted.
And with each battery of tests and experimentation; Richtofen would add his findings to his research journals. He kept one for each type of research study. One for torture and information extraction, another for testing the limits of human pain tolerance and another for creating the Führer's super soldiers. Each journal would be filled with endless pages of notes as he carried out his research and sent his finding back to Berlin.
But at the end of ever night, as the sun began to rise, Richtofen would quietly retire to his sleeping quarters. He would carefully retrieve his personal leather-bound diary and eagerly fill its pages. Everything he would ever need would reside in that book. It contained his deepest thoughts and desires, his prized formulas and, most importantly, the blueprints for his ultimate goal.
This is the true reality of Richtofen's madness; a deep lingering madness that had long preceeded his encounter with the MPD. It was a deep set rot which had been nurtured by the creators of the device and ate away at the last remaining ounce of his humanity.
As the months rolled by, Richtofen's convoy continued its journey throughout rural France. And on one particularly freezing afternoon, they found themselves leaving the icy country road and travelling along a withering creek. The faint trickle of the stream snaked through the ice and snow before leading to some houses. Richtofen perked up in his seat at the sight - which he did each and every time - as the convoy approached the new village. He would eagerly look out the window to examine the ruined buildings and check for signs of life.
The village's survivors sheepishly milled about before hastily running indoors once they heard Richtofen's convoy approach. As he pulled into the village's main square it had suddenly become a ghost town. Terrified residents anxiously peeked through tattered lace curtains as they dreaded the arrival of the Nazis. However, there was something even more terrifying than the Nazis that they feared.
Throughout Axis control, a rumour had begun to spread amongst the people. Wherever Richtofen's convoy went throughout Europe - the devastation left behind seemed worse than the chaos of bombs and wrecking of dysentery. Graffiti would soon appear as the same words were scrawled across the walls of towns and villages:
"Beware the Doctor"
Those ominous words sent a dreadful rumour across the land. Everyone feared the day their village would be visited by the doctor. And it only made the inhabitants dread the sound of engines even more as they feared it would be Richtofen's convoy. That deep reverberating rumble in the distance would echo over hills and fields like a prophetic omen. And whoever was around to hear it knew they would be next.
And the doctor himself soon caught on to the tales spun about him. In fact, he relished the unofficial titles that his victims bestowed upon him. To many, he was known as "The Angel of Death" and to others he was simply known as "The Butcher". And in order to continue feeding off the collective terror; Richtofen would purposefully allow one victim from each village to survive - knowing they would recount the atrocities which they had witnessed and suffered at his hands.
And so, this malevolent mystery began to perpetuate as it monstrously grew - passing through the lips of many. Even the Allied forces came to fear him amongst their ranks as with each town liberated came more horrific tales of torture.
Though, Richtofen's assault on one particular village would leave a lasting impact forever...
End of part three...