The Light in the Woods

by Jean Marie Pierson

  The opening of the door was now just a pile of rubble. The men reached for every angle to get some sort of foothold into the building. Looking up he noticed the top of a window not completely caved in. Hal climbed up the rocks and knocked out the remaining glass. He shimmied the top half of his body inside. He winced as he popped his head in. He didn’t know if there was anything or anyone in the room waiting to greet him other than a gray cloud of soot. After squirreling into the building, he rolled over the rocks and stones from the fallen walls towards the floor and began to pull debris away from the door, giving the others an opening to get inside. When he finally made an opening, he was shocked to see that that the first face to run through was none other than Pickett’s.

  “They don’t call me Captain Lightning for nothin’,” he barked as the other men filed in behind him. Puddy ran to an opening in the wall and yelled out in German.

  “Seid ihr da?” Puddy called out, asking if anyone was there. “Wir holen euch raus!” saying the soldiers would get them out. Everyone stood silently as a small female voice crawled out from between the cracks in the ceiling.

  “Wir sind hier!” she called out, announcing they were there. “Tun sie uns nichts.” Don’t do us harm.

  “Wirt tun euch nicht!” he called out, saying they would not. Puddy turned to Pickett but Pickett didn’t need to know what the girl said.

  “Keep her talking. We’ll follow her voice,” Pickett shouted as he pointed to the half blown-out staircase. He then turned and pointed at Hal. “I lift. You climb,” he ordered as he grabbed Hal. His thick paws grabbed Hal’s uniform and with one quick heave, Pickett hoisted him up the second section of the staircase. Hal ran up the other two sections and stopped at a bookshelf that had collapsed across the door. Once he pushed past it the large oak door swung open with ease. He pulled his gun from around his back and carefully peeked into the room. After seeing what was there, he dropped his gun to his side in shock.

  Hal was the tallest one in the room. Between and under every blown-out opening in the room was a child, their eyes wide in fear as they clung to each other. None appeared older than Ray. They looked like typical kids. Some dressed like they were going to church. Some were in rags. Some wore birds on their shirts and some wore stars on their sleeves. Hal spun around the room and found the only adult sitting on the floor, clutching her blood-covered legs. She cried out in German.

  “Er ist oben,” she cried. “Ich muβ zu ihm.” He is upstairs. I have to go to him.

  Hal looked at her and shook his head in confusion. Tears cut a path through the ash that covered her face. “I’m sorry. I do not understand you,” he said. Hal didn’t take his eyes off of her as he yelled out. “Captain! I found them.”

  The children let out a pained cry. They did not understand that he would not be shooting them. He pulled the strap of his gun so it rested on his back, got to his knees and held his hands out.

  “We will get you out,” he said patting the air. “It will be alright.”

  A hundred hopeful eyes did not understand. They looked too young to know any language other than German. His body language tried to soothe them but the orders being screamed from two floors below were anything but calming.

  “Get them on the ground, Kozak! Now!”

  Hal got on the floor and patted the ground. He looked back at the older woman in the corner of the room. Her head lobbed from side to side in pain as she repeated.

  “Ich muβ zu ihm.”

  “Ma’am,” Hal yelled. He put his head on the ground, hoping she would be able to understand him. “Tell them they need to get down.”

  She looked at him in defeat. The tired worn face of a mother nodded. She strained to turn her head towards the children as she mustered the energy to speak louder than a whimper. “Kinder,” she ordered, “zu boden.”

  One by one, the children lowered themselves to the floor, looking to each other for permission that it was safe to do so. Hal demonstrated by putting his body close to the floor. He looked up to see if the woman was following suit. A screaming whistle from the air began to drown out her voice. Then he felt a hand grab his helmet and press his head to the floor.

  “Runter!” Puddy screamed before the explosion blew the sunlight out of the room. This time the bomb landed in the street somewhere near the front of the building. A black cloud barreled through the window openings, throwing any standing kids to the ground. Hal opened his eyes and through the dust saw leather boots and olive drab pant legs fly over his head and scatter around the room. He was yanked to his knees to see Puddy, Carrig, and Lonergan scooping up as many up as kids as they could carry. Donner’s smiling face popped in front of his, blocking his view.

  “Sorry to be so rough on ya, old man,” he said as he slapped his helmet before running to pick up a child. Hal shook his head in an attempt to stop the ringing in his ears. Each soldier had at least one child in each arm with one holding onto their back.

  “Get’em out! Get’em out! Get’em out!” yelled Carrig as he struggled to hold a feisty red-headed five-year-old. “This place won’t be standing for long.”

  Hal ran over to the woman. Her flowered dress ripped to shreds from the waist down. The blood from her knees cast a red dye into the yellow of the dirty roses of her skirt.

  “We’re going to get you out,” Hal said in a reassuring tone but nothing in her face appeared calm. She grabbed Hal’s uniform with one hand and pointed up in the air with the other. Her eyes became crazed and she struggled against him.

  “Mein sohn,” she cried. “Mein sohn ist oben.” My son is upstairs.

  Hal pulled the woman to her feet but she kept crying. She repeated the words over and over. Hal tried to block her out. “Mine zoon,” is what the words sounded like. By the time Hal got her to the opening most of the children were gone. The men had passed them down a hole by the stairway to Pickett, Asher, and Rancer.

  “Take them to the back. To the back,” Pickett bellowed. “Run like me, you young bucks,” he hollered as he grabbed the kids, picking them out of the air with one hand as if he were plucking apples off a tree. Captain Pickett looked up past a set of twin boys and caught Hal’s eye.

  “Separate heaven for you, Private,” he yelled. Before any battle, Pickett would say there was a separate heaven for the men in infantry. That anyone sitting in a foxhole and not in the safety of headquarters or a plane or a tank got to cut the line at heaven’s gates. Hal nodded to Pickett nervously. He knew where his heaven was. It was a million miles west from this place.

  Hal tried to hand the woman over to Donner but she would not let go of his jacket, her panicked expression an inch away from Hal’s eyes. Every space of her face creased with desperation.

  “Mein sohn!” she cried as she pointed up. “Mein sohn!”

  Suddenly, Hal knew what she meant. The boy. The first one he saw. That must be who she was talking about. Hal nodded and pulled her away from him.

  “I’m going upstairs,” he said to Donner while looking at the woman. “That boy is still up there.”

  Donner nodded but his eyes pleaded with Hal not to go. His voice cracked in an attempt to hide his concern. “Go get him,” he said as he slapped Hal on the shoulder. Hal nodded in agreement, turned on his heel and disappeared into the dust.

  Hal took the stairs by two. The stairwells were surprisingly clear. The higher he went, the more the stone walls hid the barking and crying of children and soldiers. It almost seemed peaceful if not for the terrifying sounds of rock crumbling and the small volcanoes of dust that shot down from the ceilings. Hal reached the next floor and entered every room the same way. Back to the wall by the side of the door, a quick head turn into the room, then enter the room with his gun drawn. But each room he entered held no life. No enemy soldier. No boy. Not anyone. Hal wished he had thought to ask the woman for the boy’s name. All she repeated was something that sounded like “mine zo
on.” Maybe that was his name or nickname. He figured he might as well give it a try.

  “Mine zoon!” Hal called out. “Mine zoon, are you there?” Suddenly, another high-pitched whistle pierced the air. Hal crouched down inside the doorway and braced himself. Black ash blew inside from the openings in the wall as the blast shook the building. More crumbles, more cracks, and more dust. The mortars were acting like timers, signaling everyone that the clock was running down.

  Hal got to his feet and ran into each room, yelling the same thing. “Mine zoon! Mine zoon!” hoping to get some sort of return call or cry. As he barreled into what once looked like a bedroom he began to yell until he heard a whimper. Hal dropped to his knees and looked under the furniture. Tucked deep under a desk was the little boy he saw in the window. He couldn’t have been much older than seven but like Hal, his frame was small for his age. He curled up like a cat behind the foot bar of the desk, his big blue eyes looking at Hal in utter terror.

  “Mine zoon?” Hal asked calmly. The boy cocked his head to the side in confusion. Hal reached in to grab him but the boy recoiled tighter behind the slab of wood separating the two. Hal looked at himself. He realized he must look terrifying to the kid. He pushed his gun to his back and took off his helmet. He handed it to the boy and pointed it to his head.

  “Here, mine zoon,” he said gently. “For your head.”

  The little boy looked at Hal, then at his helmet. After assessing the situation, he began to crawl out from under the desk and stood in front of Hal. The boy standing was as tall as Hal kneeling. Gaunt and sickly, Hal fastened the large helmet on the boy’s tiny head. Hal looked at him and smiled.

  “Hold onto me tight,” Hal said. He demonstrated by grabbing fistfuls of his uniform. The little boy nodded in agreement as Hal scooped him up and began to dart out of the room. Before leaving the bedroom, Hal grabbed a knitted piece of lace from under a fallen lamp on the top of a dresser. He flung it over the helmet. From a distance the boy might look like an American soldier and an instant target. He tried to cover the helmet as he ran down the hallway and down the stairs. After safely making it to the floor below, Hal ran to the opening he last saw Donner. No one was there. Hal looked around and then down at the hole. He and the boy were both small enough to go through the opening together.

  “Hold tight, mine zoon,” Hal said as he wiggled his way through the gap. He could feel the boy’s grip firmly on the straps on his collar as they dropped through the ceiling. Hal landed square on his feet on a flat surface. Looking down, he realized that the men put a table there for the other kids to get down. Hal scrambled off the table and looked around. There was no opening, anywhere. The little boy lifted his head from Hal’s chest and pointed to a doorway on the other side of the room.

  “Da,” he said loudly. Hal took his word for it and ran through it, entering deeper into the building. Even as the halls turned black as pitch, the boy knew how to navigate them. He would tug at Hal’s collar, grab his hand and point the direction for Hal to run. They made their way like this until Hal saw the light at the end of the building. As he ran closer to it, he heard the sweet familiar yelling of the Old Reliables. Hal ran out of the building and into the daylight when he heard another familiar voice yelling.

  “Mein sohn!” Hal heard her cry. He followed the voice into an abandoned butcher’s shop. Once inside he saw all the children on the floor with their backs to the wall. Hal swung his head around to see the woman in the doorway, her useless legs spread out on the floor as she held her shaking arms out to him. Hal ran to her and got on his knees to deposit the boy on her side. She wedged her arms between Hal’s chest and the boy. She tried to pull him to her but the boy would not let go.

  “Nein!” the boy screamed as he struggled against his mother. “Gehen sie nicht!” Do not go.

  Hal tried to pry the boy off of him but he would not loosen his grip. For such a small twig of a kid, he was strong. Then he heard Carrig’s voice outside in the road.

  “Captain’s got it in the neck! We need to move him!”

  Panic ripped through Hal. The boy kept yelling as the woman tried with all her strength to force him away. As she tried to wrench the boy off, Hal’s neck jutted forward and began to burn. Then Hal saw why. The boy’s hands were wrapped around his dog tags.

  “Gehen sie nicht!” he screamed but Hal ducked and ripped the chain over his head, releasing him from the child’s clutches. Hal rolled onto his side, scrambled to his feet and dashed out of the door towards the voices of his squad. Even as he listened for the various accents of home he could still hear the boy screaming from inside the building.

  “Papa! Papa Geh nicht!” Dad, do not go.

  By the time Hal made it out into the street the others had gone back into the building. Hal ran in behind Carrig to the men crowded around the far corner of the room. Lonergan knelt over Pickett, his hand covered in blood as he held it over Pickett’s neck. Pickett looked like a Greek god who fell from the sky. His eyes were alert but his mouth hung open as if he were asleep.

  “We’re going to lift you in three, Captain,” Lonergan yelled into Pickett’s face. The other men filled in around him to help lift Pickett’s massive frame. Pickett’s eyes grew stern.

  “Leave,” Pickett gurgled but no one could hear him. Another loud shrill sliced through the air. The bomb hit so close the walls moved like a tree in a storm. It took Hal a moment to get the ringing out of his ears. He looked around and saw all the men still huddled around Pickett. All except for one.

  “Where’s Donner?” he yelled as Asher got to his feet. “Where is he?”

  “He’s not with you?” he answered, focusing on the Captain. “He said he was going to find you.”

  “Oh, God,” Hal uttered to himself as he jumped to his feet. Hal’s legs wanted to sprint through the halls but the darkness would not allow it. He tried to remember the way the boy instructed him to go but when he reached the hallway he could not see. If only he could flick on a light. He suddenly stopped and tapped his pocket. Yes, he thought. Maybe, I can.

  Hal grabbed Donner’s headlamp and turned the switch. The white light flickered on, then shone as bright as any headlight on a car. He pulled the straps tight around his head and began to run. With a light to guide him he could finally see the dangers that lay ahead. He leapt over every piece of fallen furniture and crumbled wall that crossed his path. He made his way back through the opening and lifted himself up through the hole in the ceiling to the floor above.

  “Donner!” Hal cried. “Donner, where are you?”

  Hal’s mouth dropped when he turned around. It wasn’t dark anymore on that floor. Light illuminated every corner of all the rooms. The façade of the building was gone. The front wall of the entire structure was reduced to a pile of rubble and ash in the street. Hal walked to the edge and looked down into the mountain of debris.

  “Donner?” Hal said, this time only in a whisper. He did not expect an answer. He heard one nonetheless.

  “Here!” Hal heard Donner’s cry from inside the building. Hal took off again into the rooms. Ash and dust seemed to be spewing from every crack as the walls fought to keep themselves together.

  “Donner! Talk to me!” Hal yelled as he ran into the stairwell. His light targeted every room in search of his brother. After racing up to the third floor he heard what sounded like someone shuffling through rocks. Hal ran towards the sound and into a large room. There was no light other than what came from his lamp. He stopped in the door and slowly scanned the room for signs of life. In the corner of the room is where he saw Donner. His head and arms were the only parts of him not buried by a pile of fieldstone. From Hal’s view, it looked as if he were taking a swim in a sea of bricks. His hand tried to limply push a small boulder off his chest.

  “Daddy…” Donner cried. His voice as weak as a kitten. “Daddy, I’m over here.”

  Hal scrambled over the stones as
the sound of thunder began to grow. He knew Donner could not see him. All Donner could see was the light of his father’s headlamp.

  “I’m coming!” Hal yelled over the rumble. The roar overhead sounded like a racing locomotive baring down on them. “Hold on! I’m coming!”

  “Daddy…” Donner cried. This time his voice turned over into tears. “Daddy, I knew you would come to get me.”

  “I’m here!” Hal yelled as he reached out for his friend’s hand. “I’m here!”

  Then he wasn’t.

  Grass. Everything that was in front of Hal vanished and was replaced by vibrant green grass. Jack Donner, dust, rock, ash, the sound of thunder. All gone in a blink and replaced with another scene as quickly and seamlessly as a switch of a movie reel during a matinee. On the grass in front of him was a hand. All five fingers were splayed out on the warm soft fescue. The hand was smaller, smoother, and a bit pudgier than his own. He turned it over to look at the palm. The lines were the same as his. Hal studied the inside of this hand, his hand, until a clanging jingle of a store bell and a quick burst of the smell of sweets rolled into the air.

  He stood up and looked around. There were people far taller than him walking around the street. They were running out of Bohack’s with full bags of groceries and into the Kramer’s Soda Shoppe, chatty and happy. The oak leaves of Main Street shifted in the wind as if waving hello. Hal put his nose up in the air to follow the smell. He turned and saw Mr. Shiller and the man who gave him the dime wave from the white wooden porch of the Penny Candy store. Hal returned the wave with a smile. Mr. Shiller pointed in front of Hal to show him that something was going on that needed his attention. As soon as Hal heard the laughing, he knew.

  It was his brothers. Christopher and Tim sat on a bench in front of the barbershop, both reading from the same comic and cackling in unison with delight. Christopher noticed him first and stood to greet him. He looked as tall as a flag post and his smile sparkled as brightly as any firework Hal had ever seen.