Blackbone

by George Simpson

  “They could have closed the other end,” said Steuben. “It could have collapsed. You just don’t know.”

  “Could it hurt to go in and find out?”

  Steuben hesitated.

  “Sir, I’m sure we can get through. We can find the river, wade upstream so we don’t leave a trail, find a farmhouse, steal a vehicle and some food—Why are you laughing?”

  Steuben forced himself to be serious. “Where will you go?”

  “Canada.”

  “Ah, yes, Canada. One of the Fatherland’s staunchest allies, Herr Mueller. Good thinking. Bold, daring—you’re a determined adventurer, but unrealistic. You have no maps, no idea of terrain or distance, or whether there are any nearby farms, or whether they have vehicles or food, or whether the river flows north, south, west, or east.... This is winter. The big storms are about to hit us. You’re in enemy country, planning to escape to another enemy country. Trading one bad situation for another. And all to no purpose. No, Leutnant Mueller, I cannot permit you to endanger your life and the lives of others.”

  The soccer game erupted in their laps. The ball arrived on a rebound off someone’s knee. With it came a frantic pile of players. The escape committee scattered off the bench and re-formed at the goal line. Mueller was incensed. “It is the duty of officers to escape,” he told Steuben.

  “I know that, Mueller. But there is no point in being utterly foolish. If you wish to present the committee with a more viable plan, we are prepared to hear you. But forget this—it won’t work.” He turned to the others. “Do I speak for all of us?”

  They nodded. Bruckner added, “I hope you realize, Major, that the very reasons you’re giving Mueller apply to any escape attempt.” He looked around the valley and said, “Escape to where?”

  Mueller wheeled and departed angrily. The committee broke up. Several of them joined the game as replacements. Bruckner took Churchill for a pee and a drink. Steuben reflected on what Bruckner had said—Of course there was nowhere to go, and the committee would go on rejecting ideas that risked lives. But they couldn’t flatly turn down every single escape plan. Some attempts might be worthwhile—even if they failed, they would cause the Americans considerable trouble. Orders were the same for all prisoners everywhere—escape if you can—confuse and confound the enemy. But Mueller was a fanatic for personal reasons, and that made him dangerous.

  Steuben saw Hopkins approaching, flanked by MPs and grinning at Steuben’s underwear. He called out, “Too bad your men are working up such a glorious sweat. The shower hut is still off limits. I don’t suppose Kirst has confessed yet, has he?”

  “No.”

  “That’s unfortunate, but I’m sure you wonderful people can endure your precious bodily stench for as long as it takes.”

  Steuben gave him a cold grin. “Would you care to join us for some soccer? We need a new ball.”

  One of the MPs snorted. Hopkins acknowledged the barb with a smile. “Use your scrotum. Around here it’s not good for much else.”

  Steuben shrugged and went into the game. Hopkins brushed past Gebhard and walked along the edge of the foul line, a rough furrow in the ground. He watched the Germans chase the ball and threw smiles as he passed men on the sidelines.

  Gebhard walked to the shower hut, stared at the padlocked door, and trembled with anger.

  Dearest Frieda,

  Your letters are the soul of my life, the warmth of my winter nights. In my solitude, your words are my prayers. In my dreams, you come to me and whisper your love in my ear. I tiptoe to your bed, lie down with you, our bodies barely touching. My hand clasps yours. We gaze at each other, and we both know that nothing has changed. Our marriage is before us—only the wedding is over. Trust in me, my loving Frieda. I shall return.

  A near beatific smile creased Eckmann’s face as he looked to Schliebert for approval. Schliebert turned away, embarrassed. Eckmann turned to Kirst. “What do you think, Kirst? Shall I make it more poetic?”

  Kirst looked up from his bunk and fixed Eckmann with a murky stare. But Eckmann was already back at work, scribbling quickly, whispering to himself as he wrote. Kirst sank back on his bunk, tired. He closed his eyes for a moment. They flew open as Mueller stormed in, banged his empty coffee mug on the table, and moved to the window. He looked out at the back end of the camp, at the cave-in and the fence, and he swore.

  “The tunnel is out,” he told Eckmann. “Steuben said no. The fool is perfectly content to sit out the rest of the war and force the rest of us to do the same. Someday he will pay for his timidity.”

  Mueller glanced at Kirst then shifted uneasily. “What are you looking at?” he said sharply. Kirst turned away.

  Eckmann put down his pencil and looked out the window with Mueller, who then voiced what Eckmann was thinking. “I’m sorry, Eckmann—it will be a long time before you see your wife.”

  Mueller straightened, clasped Eckmann’s shoulder, gave Kirst a foul look, then walked out. Eckmann sank back against the wall, his letter forgotten, his gaze settling on his wife’s photograph.

  “Frieda...” he said quietly.

  Kirst was barely conscious, weakened by the djinn’s increased appetite for his emotions, his eyes kept open by his curious tenant. At last, the churning that had been going on inside him all day began to subside, and he was flooded with a peaceful, relaxing warmth. He sensed a new feeling forming in his brain. A feeling of readiness.

  Loring Holloway stood on the platform at the tiny station in Ringling, Montana, waiting for the connection to White Sulphur Springs. It was night. A rusted wall thermometer read forty-one degrees, and she was shivering despite her thick coat. Her baggage was on a bench by the station door. She could have chosen to wait inside, but it was no warmer in there: the local handyman responsible for supplying wood was home with a sniffle. No wood for the stove, no heat.

  She moved under a conical light and fumbled to fix her makeup. Her hand shook with the cold. Her fingers were numb and, as she struggled to hold it steady, the compact slipped from her grasp and crashed to the platform.

  “Damn!” She stooped to pick it up. As she lifted it, pieces of glass fell out. The mirror was broken. She sighed and swore again. What was she going to do with her face half made up? She couldn’t board the train looking like a clown.

  Remembering the silver talisman around her neck, Loring drew it out on the chain and held it up to catch the light. She stared into it and discovered something she hadn’t seen before—an inscription within the pentangle. In Arabic, it translated as, In the name of Allah...” That was all.

  She frowned. What use was this against a demon who predated Islam? Yazir had meant well, but this little hunk of silver was probably useless as anything other than a substitute compact mirror.

  She heard a far-off approaching horn and quickly finished her makeup. By the time the train arrived, she was standing on the edge of the platform with her bags. A conductor helped her aboard for the final leg of her journey. She took a lower berth in a nearly empty car and fell on the bed, pulled up the covers, and waited to drift off to sleep, cold and exhausted.

  Silver. Silver talisman. Silver flask.

  Korbazrah had trapped the djinn in a five-sided silver flask. Yazir’s talisman had five sides and was silver. But the decanter he had given her was round. Her head began to spin with worry and, with a sinking, angry feeling, she realized this would be another near-sleepless night.

  The train pulled out of Ringling, picked up speed, and was soon roaring toward White Sulphur Springs.

  Chapter 15

  Light swept across the crawl space beneath Hut 7 and stopped. Vinge got down on his knees and peered at the huddled white mass caught in the beam of his flashlight. It wasn’t moving. And it wasn’t black, so it obviously wasn’t his wildcat friend. Vinge lowered his sidearm and shivered. The first breeze of the coming storm whipped under his coat and chilled his throbbing back. Borden had changed the dressing twice today, dousing the wounds with iodine. His flesh the
re was raw and sweating despite the cold. Cosco had asked him again if he wanted off night duty. Again he had refused, but as night had drawn closer, his nervous anticipation had risen. It was fear he was fighting, not anger. That basic fear of animals that had always haunted him. He was determined to get rid of it once and for all by bagging the cat.

  But it wasn’t a cat he had in his light. He got down on hands and knees and started to crawl forward, wriggling under the hut, the light bouncing off the floorboards as he moved, the light in one hand, gun in the other.

  It was past midnight, and the Germans were asleep in Hut 7 as Kirst’s lips parted and his cheeks drew back in a distended grin, and the nightform spilled from his mouth and pooled on the floor.

  Blackness edged across the room, approaching the bunk where Bauhopf slept below Eckmann. Curling around the corner post, the nightform drew itself under the bunks, then bled into the shadows beneath Schliebert’s bed.

  Vinge rose to avoid catching his crotch on a sharp rock embedded in the dirt. His back scraped along the floorboards and he froze at the pain. It shuddered deep into his flesh and he had to force himself to keep from crying out. Tears welled up in his eyes and blurred his vision. He swiveled the light and fixed the white furry mass in its beam. He pulled up his right leg and, keeping his body against the cold ground, continued toward his goal.

  He stopped, hearing something above.

  Eckmann stirred in his sleep, woke drowsily, and turned. He looked up at the ceiling and listened. Nothing.... Wait.... Something. A rustling sound, as of sheets moving together. A muffled grunting. Eckmann snorted to himself. Just Bauhopf jacking off. He rolled over and faced the wall, staring at Frieda’s picture.

  Vinge pulled himself across the last two yards and drew up even with the white animal. It was dead. He knew it before he got there. He could smell it. Holding the light steady, he reached out with the gun and prodded it. It was stiff, unmoving. He nosed the gun barrel beneath it and, with a quick jerk of his wrist, flipped it over.

  It was a dead white rabbit. The ears were back, eyes wide, snout pulled back in a terrified grimace.

  Vinge stared at it. What the hell had killed it? He prodded the body again, turning it around, looking for blood. There was none. No wounds of any kind, no teeth marks. Frowning, caught up in the puzzle before him, he almost didn’t hear the sounds coming from above. They were faint and indistinct.

  Uhm... uh... oh... ah...

  What the hell is that idiot doing? Eckmann rolled back again and peered over the edge of his bunk at Bauhopf below, whose face was concealed in shadow.

  “Hey,” Eckmann whispered. “Bauhopf.”

  There was no reply, then:

  Oh... uh... ah...

  And the brief, muffled chuckle of a woman.

  It wasn’t coming from Bauhopf’s bed.

  Vinge heard only the grunts, then the wind picked up and carried the sound away before it could reach his ears. He turned back to the rabbit. Pointless to haul it out of here, he decided. What would he do with it? Show it to Gilman? Hopkins? What for? They would only want to know how it got into the compound. They would institute a search for a break in the fence, and then he might have to tell them about the black cat, and he didn’t want to do that. He wanted to find it himself, kill it....

  Vinge turned away and left the rabbit, crawling out as he had come in, pausing to listen once again as the wind shifted and he thought he heard a woman laugh.

  Eckmann rolled upright and listened again. He scanned the darkened room and made out sleeping shapes in the beds. No one moved. Every bed was filled.

  A woman? Must have been dreaming.

  He dropped to his pillow and tried to get back to sleep.

  Oh... ah... oh... ah...

  The sound grew, became insistent. Then another voice—lower, throatier, but distinctly feminine.

  Uhmmm... oooh... jaaa...

  German! She was German. How did they get a German woman into this camp? Eckmann sat up, eyes narrowing suspiciously. A prank. One of his roommates was playing a joke. Again his eyes swept the room, this time stopping at the top bunk directly opposite his own, catching slight movement under the covers. Schliebert making love to himself, playing five against one, hand-to-cock combat, and fantasizing that he had a woman under there—

  Oooh... jaaa ... ungh!

  The covers moved rapidly. They rose up and down with ferocious speed then slowed, collapsed... then came up again. Moaning and grunting overlapped and became indistinguishable—

  Uh... oh... oooh... ungh... jaaa... uhmmm...

  Two voices.

  Eckmann stared and imagined Schliebert faking two people making love, as the covers jerked from side to side and up and down. Schliebert waving his arms beneath the covers, moaning and grunting in separate voices—why play such a stupid game?

  Obviously it’s for your benefit, he told himself. A prank for the sensitive Leutnant Eckmann. Seeing no one else awake or even stirring, despite the noise, Eckmann was sure of it. They were all in on it.

  Oh... aaahhh... Frieda...

  Eckmann’s eyes widened. Schliebert’s covers moved vigorously.

  Frieda... ooohh... Frieda...

  Eckmann swung his legs over the side and dropped to the floor.

  Frieda... mein Liebchen... ungh!

  A woman groaned in ecstasy. Schliebert faking, Eckmann was sure. No, not so sure. That voice! He remembered that groan from his wedding night. Common sense told him no, this is a joke, don’t be taken in, but that voice!

  He couldn’t stand it any longer. He crossed to the other bunk in a bound. He jumped onto the lower bed and snatched Schliebert’s covers off, expecting to find Schliebert performing some gross parody of the sex act—

  Her eyes flashed at him madly, her tongue shot out and licked the air in a rapid quiver. She threw out her chest and laughed, and Eckmann flew back in shock. He lost his footing on the bed below, sprawled on the floor, and looked up. She was naked and sitting on Schliebert’s hips, grinding herself over him, lost in sexual abandon. She was blond and beautiful. She was his own darling Frieda!

  He sprang up in rage and yanked the covers off. They came tumbling down—the man, the woman, and the mattress—all crashed to the floor. He whirled and stared at Frieda sitting up in the center of the room, unhurt but naked, her breasts flushed with excitement, skin glistening with sweat. She leered at Eckmann. Her laughter filled the room, mocking him, burning into his heart.

  Schliebert gazed up at Eckmann in surprise. Others in the room woke. Eckmann turned from his beautiful but grossly unfaithful Frieda and bellowed as he grabbed Schliebert’s neck and wrung it, and banged his head repeatedly on the floor. Schliebert thrashed and choked and coughed for help, but Eckmann was too strong, superhumanly strong, growing even stronger as rage took over his entire body and made it a weapon of vengeance.

  Her laughter rang in his ears. Schliebert felt his hands clutching something firm but squashy and squeezing and throwing it against the floor, and he saw it as his Frieda’s thigh, his Frieda’s beautiful, soft, unfaithful thigh, and he smashed harder and harder, as frustration exploded inside him.

  Others tumbled out of bed and grabbed Eckmann. Ignoring their clawing hands, he continued bashing the life out of Schliebert, who struggled weakly then lapsed into unconsciousness. Blackness rose up Eckmann’s back, beneath his undershirt, closing around his neck and drawing energy from his seething brain—life-giving, power-giving energy—energy the djinn needed to grow and make itself stronger—power from Eckmann, from Schliebert’s terror, from the others’ confusion—power that would enable the djinn to go out and get more power-

  Power from death.

  Power from terror.

  Energy, sweet bubbling electricity of the mind, the human mind that the djinn knew so well. Fear for power. Fear and frustration, the human equation, the formula for power.

  Bauhopf and Mueller struggled with Eckmann but couldn’t break his grip on Schliebert’s neck. Eckmann�
�s sobs and groans filled the tiny room, and only the dead could have slept through it.

  Kirst did.

  And in the commotion, unseen by the men dragging Eckmann off Schliebert, the nightform oozed back toward Kirst and was swallowed up between his parted lips.

  Eckmann cried out then, throwing his hands to his head and realizing in one blinding instant what he had just done. As they held him down, struggling and kicking, he looked around wildly.

  “Frieda! He had Frieda! He was fucking her! He was fucking my Frieda!”

  His eyes shot in all directions, searching for his Frieda’s sweat-streaked body. She was gone. The door slammed open and Sergeant Vinge crashed into the room, brandishing his .45.

  Gilman ran off without a coat. The duty officer who had rousted him now double-timed behind him. Gilman charged through the gate and was out of breath as he stumbled into Hut 7. Hopkins was waiting for him, calm and cool but giving off an aura of impending vengeance. Everybody from Eckmann’s room was lined up in the corridor for interrogation, guarded by a squad of nervous MPs. Eckmann was at the far end of the hut, handcuffed under guard, sobbing uncontrollably.

  Gilman glanced at the Germans. They were pale and frightened, eyeing him expectantly, worried. All except—

  Kirst again.

  He was slumped against the wall, hands stuffed deep in his pockets, lost in a world of his own, apart from the others. Gilman stared at him.

  “In here, sir,” Hopkins said in his ear. Gilman turned. Hopkins toed the door open with his foot.

  Gilman edged past Vinge, who was just inside, and stared down at the body covered with a blanket. “Who is it?” he asked.

  “The prisoner Schliebert, sir,” said Hopkins, barely concealing an excited gloat.