“You are the first strike of this Blitzkrieg. Today you are Germany”
Brian Knight reaches beyond the zombie motif to deliver a story that speaks to the relationship of Nazi German and Poland on the eve of World War II.
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TITLE:
APOCALYPSE GREEN
WRITER:
by Brian Knight
ART:
by Alex McVey
GENRE:
Horror Fiction, Thriller.
DESCRIPTORS:
Zombies, Luftwaffe, Germany, Poland, Biological Warfare.
CHARACTERS
Fritz, A member of KG 200, a secret branch of the German Luftwaffe.
SUMMARY:
In the days before Germany invaded Poland, after Hitler’s demands for Danzig and the corridor have been rejected, Goebbels hands the KG 200 Luftwaffe pilot named Fritz a special case which he is to take into Poland. He has to use a stolen dilapidated polish plane — to avoid suspicion — and deliver payload in the case to the capital building in Warsau, Poland.
The plane fails before it reaches the Capital and crash lands in a small Polish farming community in a fiery green explosion. Parachuting, Fritz lands over a mile away and decides to forcibly take up temporary residence in a nearby farm.
Fritz callously disposes of the family except for the beautiful young woman, one of the daughters, who he rapes. Afterward, he fantasizes about a life together with her.
His idyll is interrupted when investigates the damage that his plane, and its payload, did when it crashed. In the shell of the village, he finds a multitude of dying people — their skin and eyes glowing green.
Even as he escapes, he doesn’t understand what he was dealing with. He has no idea that the villagers are no longer human and the hunger they feel would make them follow Fritz . . . all the way back to the farm.
APPEAL:
In many ways, Fritz embodies Germany on the eve of World War II. Cold, aloof, and without a moral conscious. The family he slaughters and rapes embody Poland. Most interesting his his relationship with the daughter he rapes and then dreams about living with.
Whenever I think about that story I think about the brutal love/hate relationship between people and between countries. In the end, and perhaps indirectly — or with great personal sacrifice, the daughter (an to extrapolate, Poland) gets a measure of revenge — pyrrhic as it is.
How much did Mr. Knight expect us to read into Apocalypse Green? Quite possibly he had no idea that it could be read on this level — and it’s also possible that I haven’t gone far enough and deep enough with the story. But in the end it doesn’t matter because, planned or not, Apocalypse Green resonates with metaphor and symbolism that marks it as the kind of story that lasts long after the author is gone.
NOTES:
I must confess that what first attracted me about this chapbook was Alex McVey’s gorgeous and yet disturbing cover painting. The second thing that attracted me was that this chapbook would be my first chance to read a story by Brian Knight.
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