a silent eruption of poisonous gas spreads outward in a foggy whisper of air and rips through the lungs of innocent children writhing and twisting blindly among the spasming bodies of their mothers and fathers whose rib-heaving and suffocating gasps for air are never heard outside the walls and the naked and starving stumble though the frozen grass to the rim of a giant grave waiting for the shot that will sweep the brain through the back of the head in a blaze of searing wind .