Eric Lindblom

Slaughterhouse

Chile

Prologue:

The Warnings

Slaughterhouse Chile

Eric Lindblom

October 15^th 1972

“Kill Him!” a voice shouted out of the darkness of the street. Victor heard the threat and knew they meant him.

“It’s that f_ing singer!” the voice challenged. A young man dashed into the partial luminescence coming through a street side window. The young man was in paramilitary dress: Nazi.

He paused, unsure, flighty. He looked quickly to the left. His uniform was the color of night, of darkness, of evil. He was a storm about to break. He sneered. He tittered. His grin was cruel, bent, and sharp. A rose would wilt in his hands. The hated swastika encircled his arm like venom. It twisted, turned in the half-light. He hissed through tight teeth, slithered across the street then dashed again, quickly. Jackboots smashed enraged on the pavement, slipping, stomping, impotent. A taxi passed splattering him with sewer water from the gutters. He couldn’t care.

“Kill that Indian!” a second voice shouted. The second young man dashed into the light. The sounds of jackboots running toward Victor were terrifying.

“Patria y Libertad!” the first voice yelled.

“Stop or we will shoot!” the second voice threatened.

“Halt!”

Victor, not saying a word, ducked into the nearest doorway. It was the University of Chile (“La U.”). A group called Patria y Libertad was protesting in front of the university (on the Alameda) and on the adjoining street, Avenida San Diego. After a long, spring day the sun had set but the protestors continued. They weren’t really Nazis but some rich boys who tried to elevate their cause through identification with a larger and more disgusting framework than which they could be entitled: Commandos Gremialistas.  Noticing the commotion, someone from an upstairs window poured a bucket on Victor’s pursuers. It was ; Victor was to learn. She was one of his students.

A door opened from the inside provided a fast escape in time. It was Pablo. Victor let out a whoosh of air and threw himself against the door to close it. He turned, looked at Pablo.

“What are you doing here, Pablo?”

“I’m a student,” Pablo said.

“I knew that,” Victor said. Pablo was another of his students from the other university: “Téchnica”, The State Technical University.

“No, really. I just came to see friends.” Pablo smiled. A rock flew through one of the windows. Pablo kicked at it contemptuously.

“Don’t break your foot,” Victor said.

“Believe me, if I break my foot, it will be on their heads.” Pablo threw the rock out the window. They heard a muffled scream. Someone yelled: “Grenade!”

There was a scuffle of boots tripping, stuttering staccato echoes, leather and taps across storm grates in the sidewalk. Grunts. Pablo’s rock bounced and skittered among them. The Nazi boys ducked waiting for an explosion. Was it only a rock? They suspected not. Eyes in the night went wide, suspicious, terrified, then silence. They waited. They watched. Hidden bodies around corners shivered: tight lips. Idiot’s grins like death heads. Their hands reached for pistols: Lugers. The rock came to rest. It sat silently like the last grenade seconds before lethal disintegration. Nothing happened. It was a rock. They heard Pablo chuckle from inside and knew they had been duped. Tails between legs, they emerged then disappeared into the night.