Chp 2 – Unit 731

Created And Written By Brandon K Montoya

Comic line art by Cressa Rainbows

Colorwork By Brandon K Montoya

February 14th, 1945.

Skies Over Manchuokuo (Harbin, China)

“Manchuoku?” Marie’s face contorted with confused. “Where’s that? I thought we were flying to Japan?”

“Well that’s what I thought to. But my research help is needed out here.”

“Why China? Why not Japan?”

Horst shrugged. “It is probably because they don’t experiment on their own people; only prisoners.”

I felt sick to my stomach but not because of their words; human speech was babble me except certain phrases. The thing we were we in was lurching and heaving from side to side. Bumping and shaking. The room we were in was filled with constant rattling noises. The humans were calm but I was not. My eyes were as big as an empty saucer of milk.

I was scared meow-less; the humans had no idea how absolutely frightened I was of our method of travel. The bumping and swaying continued. I could smell wine down below as well as German cheese. They were having a good time, even if I was not.

Soon the whole room began to slant and the engines got louder and even more terrifying. Soon I heard a terrifying screeching sound and the room rattled and shook. In spite of my fears the room was slowing. After a few moments Gerda carried me down the runaway stairs, swaying and shaking with each step. As rough as it was I was relieved to no longer be inside that thing.

The air was frigid and cold. It was snowing heavily and the crunch of boots on snow were terribly loud. New smells assaulted my nose; I glanced about in my soft carrier and took in everything. A loud motor sound came around and we were hustled into a car. We shook and we swayed again; but I was familiar with cars so I wasn’t as afraid.

“Horst what is that,” Marie explaimed. “Why do they have scarecrows in the sn-?” She squinted. “Why are they wearing clothes?”

“Let me see, let me see” Fritz cried.”

“Children don’t look,” Horst said. He leaned into Marie and whispered “Those aren’t scarecrows, they’re people.”

“Are we near a battlefield,” Marie cried out.

“No,” Horst coldly replied. “We are near a laboratory.”

The car slowed to a noisy stop, the crunch of the snow once again agitating my ears. Another day, a new set of barracks. This time in the cold expanse of a strange smelling land. I mewled once, the first time since we had landed, but not on one soul heard me.

The children were eager to play in the show, Gerda quickly shoved me into Horst’s hands as she went out to play. Horst carried me with a suitcase and a coat, and gave me about as much reverences as the former and latter.

“Are you Heissmeyer San?” A Japanese officer approached us in a coat. “My name is Masaru, and I was tasked with welcoming you to our installation.”

“Why yes I am,” Horst reached out a hand for a handshake. “Glad to meet you.”

Masaru looked confused for a moment, then remembered his German guest might not know about bowing. The two shook hands awkwardly. “So you are here to help us with our research Heissmeyer San. I read that you worked on pneumonia in Hamburg?”

“Why yes, we did a lot of experiments with younger subjects. My wife did notice the uh… scarecrows on the way in. What are those about?”

“Scarecrows? I’m not sure I understand, what is a scarecrow?”

“It’s a man we build out of straw to scare birds. But those were not straw were they?”

Masaru’s face darkened and then he laughed, “No those are test subjects. Mostly prisoners of war. Mostly.” He casually glanced out towards the field of men tied to fence posts and then back towards Horst “We are testing for hypothermia and frostbite.

“Oh I see,” Horst mused. “Isn’t it time to bring them in from the cold?”

“It is not time until it is time for them to go to the morgue.”

There was a silence and both men laughed together. The laugh seemed strange. I heard men and women laugh before. This laugh was different.

“So Heissmeyer San if you follow me I will show you our germ lab-” Masaru paused and looked right at me. “Is that a cat?”

“Ah yes, this is my wife’s sister’s cat.”

“Aa, chiisai kagakusha,” Masaru said with a smile. The Japanese scientists laughed.

“What does that mean,” Horst asked.

“Oh nothing Horst-San, just ‘little scientist.’”

Horst laughed awkwardly, only somewhat amused.

“I love cats! But we shouldn’t take your cat into the biological weapons lab. We don’t want to get your children sick.”

Masaru pointed to one of the officers under him and spoke brusquely in Japanese. The man quickly strode forward.

“Heissmeyer San, let Hiro take your cat to your family while you and I discuss work!”

“That sounds wonderful.”

I was passed off as unceremoniously as a loaf of bread. As they walked away the officer raised my kennel to look me in the face. He smiled and made a cat sound.

---

March 11th, 1945.

Unit 731 Laboratory, Manchuokuo (Harbin, China)

Our family had good housing, but Marie kept complaining about my litter box. So one day I started going to work with Horst every other day, although I rarely stepped outside of the office. The rain pattered down against the glass windows, securely closed to keep the heat in during the rainy season.

The place was always noisy, I could hear screams and muffled cries of agony through the walls at most times. But after a while, I learned that things beyond the wall cannot touch me. So things I could not see face to face stopped bothering me.

Suddenly my head was getting a massage by a scientist heading into to do his work. I could smell the scent of chemicals and death all around my head as he rubbed his hands on me. It was both pleasant and disconcerting. But I am but a cat; pleasant won. In a few minutes he would be presiding over the death of a human being in the name of research.

I was never able to sleep. I always felt as if I was being watched. I was never sure why this was. It was an overwhelming feeling. Wall corners. Windows. Shadows. Always shadows. If I turned there was nothing. But I felt them. Hateful. Angry eyes.

Suddenly the door flew open. Masaru had news that seemed to disturb Horst. They left as quickly as Masaru came, shutting the door and leaving me alone in the room. I rested my head on my paws and closed my eyes. I could feel the stare again. Staring. Staring. The fluttering of paper. I opened my eyes as the sheets of paper on Horst’s desk scattered in a wind that wasn’t there.

---

May 18th, 1945.

9:30 AM, Unit 731 Laboratory, Nagasaki, Japan.

Another ride in the shaking cabin. This time I protested quite loudly and was yelled at in return by Marie. I am miserable. The children are miserable. Marie is obviously miserable and is not letting Horst have even a moment of silence.

This shaking cabin is colder than the other. It is also noisier. There is no drinking or partying. Everyone is either quiet or vocally annoyed. I lay my head down and accept my fate. Trapped in a kennel there is nothing I can do but trust the humans that take me everyone aren’t as crazy as I feel they are.

“I can’t believe they even sent us there that was not safe!” Marie’s face wrinkled as she complained bitterly. “We should be treated better than this!”

“At least we escaped with our lives. Now Japan has not been touched by bombers. We will definitely be safe there.”

Marie sighed deeply. “Where to this time?”

“A quaint little port called Nagasaki.”

---

June 18th, 1945.

Heissmeyer house, Nagasaki, Japan

The garden was quiet in Japan. But today was different. I was at the threshold to the house when something caught my eye. I quickly and silently followed, my tail wagging slowly behind me. The high pitched squeak gave away the identity of object of my curiosity.

In a moment I was seated nearby watching it run in the garden grabbing sunflower seeds. Periodically it would stop and look around to check for predators; for some reason it never saw me. It ate, it pilfered more seeds. It ate, it examined a mushroom. Then I decided to strike.

Five bats with my paw and it was done. It lay there twitching and bloody as I watched it take its last breath. Isn’t this what my owners did? Is this what made them happy? I was not happy. I was confused. I had no reason to kill. I did because I could. Were my owners confused?

I picked up my prize and delivered it back to the threshold of the door and meowed. My meow was of concern and puzzlement. The sound I made was just enough enough to attract Marie’s attention; she came around the corner and screamed in horror.

“Ew! Ew! What did you do! Disgusting ew!”

I was even more confused now. How was this different than Horst? Before I could think more about my confusion she was shoeing me away with a broom, then she swatted my kill out to the garden. She shook a finger at me “never do that again! Filthy animal!”

I was not sure what to think of what happened. So I sat there, sad.

---

July 29th, 1945.

3:34 PM, Unit 731 Laboratory, Nagasaki, Japan.

Ever since I had brought my gift to Marie, I had spent every day at the laboratory with Horst. She had told him that she was tired of cleaning up after her sister’s cat. “She’s probably dead anyway.” I wasn’t sure why human words echoed in my head, I did not understand them as clear as they did.

Masaru came in for his mid-day visit. “Chiisai kagakusha,” he called up and I stretched to greet him. Horst and Masaru would talk about their experiments in very crude terms. The most frequent phrase they used as time went on is that they were running out of “stock” to test on.

My days were pretty boring. There were no children here to chase or worry about. The place smell of chemicals, rot and death; but such smells were not new to me and they had stopped bothering me some time ago. Sometimes the female attendants would come in and pet me while they were giving paperwork to Horst. Yoriko started bring me bits of fish from her family market. I really liked her.

Although if Horst was not careful, he would sometimes find me in the lap of a particular test subject. He was bound, but his could move his hands just enough to pet me.

The office itself was always busy. Horst constantly oversaw an onslaught of test subject autopsies and experiment analysis. It wasn’t abnormal for me to hear some of the subjects scream. The walls of the facility were thick, built of old brick work long before the war started. If the experiments weren’t close to me, no one could hear them. I only knew something was wrong because the men that came up from “the hole” smelled worse than the others.

---

August 6th, 1945.

9:30 AM, Unit 731 Laboratory, Nagasaki, Japan.

Horst was quickly throwing papers into a bin. He was scared and panicked. All the humans around me were talking about bombs and mushrooms. I couldn’t understand what they meant.

“Oh it’s you. You will stay here, we have no more room for cats.” The words meant nothing to me. But the fact he opened a can of food, did. He gave me a few pats on the head so I purred. He picked up his bag and walked out the door. I never saw Horst again.

The room became quiet, very quiet. The shadows were long for mid-day. They fluttered and waved, almost looking like more than just shadows when I looked at them. The room was empty but I could hear a wind when the wind was still. The door suddenly closed and I was locked into the laboratory. After a moment I began walking around the facility on my own. After months of activity the place had fallen silent. There was not a living soul left in sight, but the smell of blood, gangrene and demise flooded my senses.

The shadows were not still. Every part of the facility rippled like water as I walked about. When I came to the part of the facility where the hypobaric were at the blackness of the room was immeasurably dark. There were windows; but there was no light. The silence was deafening, I felt as though I would dissolve into blackness if I walked that way. I became fearful and sat down, staring into the inky blackness. I meowed a single time.

I was answered by heavy knocks on metal. Weighty. Purposeful. I fled.

August 7th, 1945.

11:46 PM, Unit 731 Laboratory, Nagasaki, Japan.

I had walked around the entire building by the second night. My food was gone. My water bowl was empty. The shadows rippled if I came close, but they would not reach me. I never quite felt alone. I slept by moonlight and although the wind would become loud at times, nothing ever happened to me.

My tail twitched below the table I sat on. I faced away from the door into the facility. I no longer felt at ease putting my back to it.

“Wait, are those eyes,” I asked myself. I stared into the distance. They didn’t move or blink. “No. Normal eyes blink. I am alone.” Unmoving, Unblinking. Fatigue crept up on me. I blinked for a moment and the glints of light were gone. Sleep came again; the wind grew louder as unconsciousness took me.

---

August 8th, 1945.

6:36 AM, Unit 731 Laboratory, Nagasaki, Japan.

The mist hung low over the town, industrial lights had started to flood through the windows as nearby areas got back to work. Suddenly there was a turn in the lock and the door flung open. “My my, what are you doing here little scientist?” Masaru walked in with deep concern on his face. “Gaijin,” he grumbled. “They treat their animals like toys.”

I stood up and stretched, as he looked around the room. “It looks like they got all the paperwork out of here. We don’t want the Americans to get that.” He turned to me and smiled. “Looks like all they forgot was you. Poor thing.”

He sat down on a chair nearby me and gave me attention for a while. Then he reached into the drawers, something I could not do, and found the tins of cat food to feed me. I was starving, as all cats always are. There was a phone on the wall. As I ate he picked up the receiver and called Director Ishii. After a few moments of talking he hung up.

Masaru sighed deeply and gave me one good head rub on the head. “You are a good cat. If my wife wasn’t allergic to cats I would take you home. Sayonara.” As he left, and propped the door open with a block. “Leave. Go find a happy with life with some cats around here.” He walked away quietly, and the wind blew by gently. But as I was eating, the door slammed shut, and there was a loud click.

---

August 9th, 1945.

10:53 AM, Unit 731 Laboratory, Nagasaki, Japan.

The laboratory was full of noise, I couldn’t sleep. I wanted to nap. But the wind wouldn’t let me sleep. It rustled and whipped by little cat ears every time I started to nod off. Louder. Louder. Louder.

I closed my eyes harder hoping the wind would stop.

Silence.

I thought it was strange, and started to relax.

My ears pricked. Another cat? Here?

There again was the sound of a cat.

The wind was silent. The room was silent. I silently crept around. The lab was silent. The light flooded through the windows but the deeper rooms were as dark as caverns and twice as spooky. A few months danced in a sunbeam, but there was no noise.

I stopped and surveilled the room again. Gone were the men examining bodies. The locked doors where I heard muffled screams. Just pitch blackness all around.

Suddenly. A bang on metal. I turned my head; my hair stood on end but I sat still.

I turned my head. There was no other cat here. Was there? Was I mistaken? What if they have food. I’m hungry. I’m so hungry.

As if to answer me there was a clang of metal in the distance. Light. But laden. A bowl of food? I licked my lips at the thought but the corridor was so, so dark.

I meowed again.

My eyes were wide as saucers but my hunger was more powerful. Slowly, ever so slowly I made way down that dark corridor.

Past the gurneys with the bloody shackles.

Past the empty rooms that stank of infection and death.

Deeper. Deeper I went.

The silence was deafening. I could hear the outside before. I could hear automobiles. I could hear people working. Here I heard nothing.

Tuna? I smelled tuna? Food. Food! Food!

But I stop at the stairs that lead to “the hole.” It was something I had never seen but I could feel. The men that smelled the worst smell of this place. There was no light. Just pitch blackness. I could smell food. Tuna. Real tuna. But I wasn’t going. It didn’t feel right.

I turned around to leave and that’s when I felt it. I could not see it. But I felt it. At the very end of the hall where the light ended and dark began. A screech fell across the room with the loudest banging and clanging of metal I had heard since Germany. I turned immediately and fled so fast I fell down the stairs to the bottom with the a loud thud, forgetting landing on my feet entirely.

And then with a huge bang, the door to the celler closed.

11:02 AM

The room shook. The room shook so hard it was so scary.

I remember feeling fuzzy.

So fuzzy.

Dizzy.

Sleepy.

In the blackness I closed my eyes.

The darkness went on for eternity.

And I slept.