The Stories: Five Years of Original Fiction on Tor.com

by Various

  “It won’t work,” said Mike. “Those things’ll spot the trap from a mile off.”

  “It needs something else,” said Joan. “I don’t know…”

  She pulled off her satchel, then shook the parachute from her shoulders and draped it around the corpse’s neck. It slipped loose and she tucked the nylon into its collar until it stuck fast, gagging as she worked. Kreuz looked on from the shadows around the clearing, his beady blue eyes full of anger.

  “A parachute?” said Mike. “Still won’t work.”

  “It worked on you didn’t it?” Joan replied. All the same she eased off her leather pilot’s helmet, placing it on the freak’s bald, pasty head and moving the goggles over its eyes.

  “Looks just like you,” said Donnie with a smile. She scowled at him, but there was a tired humor beneath it. She tucked her hair behind her ear, shivering hard. The corpse stood there, its supports hidden by the parachute, which fluttered gently in the imperceptible breeze. Donnie turned to Mike, saying, “Comp B ready?”

  “Ready as it’ll ever be,” he replied. “You want it all on him?”

  “Two blocks on the freak, we’ll hide the rest around the outside in case they make a run for it. Yeah?”

  Mike nodded, carrying the explosives over to the monster’s corpse and tucking them under the skirt of the parachute. He unwound the fuse, trailing it out of the clearing and through the trees. Donnie scooped up the other bricks and walked to Cuddy, tucking one inside his wooden rib cage. He covered it up with some straw from the man’s pocket, pulling the jacket as tight as it would go, smoothing it down.

  “This is for you, Sergeant,” he said, looking at the frozen, formless face above, seeing the treetops through the man’s mouth, through his nostrils, through his eyes. “Chance to get your own back on the bastards.”

  He placed the remaining two bricks inside the other hollow men, one beneath Albert Connaught’s tin helmet, the other in the brittle bone of the deer skull. They didn’t need fuses—the heat and shock wave from the initial explosion would be enough to trigger them. He stood back, feeling like he should salute them but too self-conscious to do so. Instead he nodded curtly and returned to the others.

  “We should get into cover,” he said, following the fuse to where Mike was standing fifty yards away. He had the detonator out, the plunger extended.

  “Far as it goes,” Mike said.

  “It’s far enough,” Donnie replied, looking back to the clearing. The trees between here and there were old and thick, dressed in needles that would cushion the force of the blast.

  “Now we wait?” asked Stefan, fiddling with the MG 42 he’d picked up back at the German camp.

  “We’ll freeze if we wait,” said Donnie, looking up to where the trees tried and failed to scratch their silhouettes against the glowering sky. It had fallen quiet in the last minute or two, but something was coming. He could feel it in the air, like electricity, making the hairs on his neck crane upward. “Spread out, find cover. Be ready; if those things survive the blast then they are going to be angry.”

  “What about you, sir?” asked Henry. Donnie snorted a humorless laugh.

  “I’m going to make sure they know exactly where we are.”

  He snapped off a salute and they all fired one back—Henry and Mike, Joan and even Stefan. Only Kreuz remained still, leaning against a tree with the Luger clutched in a white-knuckled hand.

  “Be careful,” said Mike. “Just draw them into the clearing then get the hell out of there.”

  Donnie nodded. He was afraid, so afraid that when he tried to turn and walk his body wouldn’t let him, as if he had chocks under his wheels. But he had been scared before, so many times. His first jump from a C-47, the ground a thousand feet below and rising fast; floating down over Normandy, the air shaken into a rage by the flak guns, a thousand chutes drifting like jellyfish in the ocean; seeing his first dead man, hanging from a tree by his parachute, riddled with bayonet holes; seeing his first man killed, a platoon sergeant called Buck Hounds who’d taken a round to the throat and still managed to spit out bloodied orders before dying right there on the road; crawling over the bodies of men he’d shared coffee with, played cards with, bullets like wasps beating them back and tanks, those monstrous engines, pulling the world to pieces all around them. And the truth was that he’d always been scared, hadn’t he? Even back at home, Betty sitting beside him on the edge of his bed waiting for him to tell her, to just open his mouth and speak, and him never daring, always too frightened.

  Not now, though. Not now. He wrenched himself forward, the snow crunching beneath his feet, the forest silent and dark and heavy. He forced himself into the clearing, right up to the freak who now wore Joan’s parachute and her helmet, and the fear rose from his stomach like fire, burning up his throat and out of his mouth in a cry that was surely too raw, too loud to be human.

  When it had ended he clawed in a breath and called out again, refusing to let the silence fight back.

  “We’re here, you sons of bitches! You want us? Well, come and get us, come and get us, you yella bastards, or are you scared?” He was sobbing, but his mind was perfectly numb. “Come on, we’re right here, goddammit, we’re right here!”

  Crack, the sound of a branch breaking, a big one. Donnie staggered away, stumbling into a tree on the edge of the clearing as a rustling thunder rose up, something big heading this way. There was a shriek, filled with delight, echoed once and then twice. He swore, bolting, suddenly aware that he couldn’t see anyone else. Was this the direction he’d come from? Or was he barreling right into the enemy?

  A hand, waving to him from behind a tree—Henry—and Donnie had never in his life been happier to see another human being. He skidded down beside him, scrambling into cover then peeking out past Henry’s elbow. The forest was pulsing in time with his heartbeat, flashes of light like AA blasts as his brain threatened to stall.

  But there was real movement there, too, in the trees, a lumbering shape that dropped down on the edge of the clearing. Even from here Donnie could make out its pink, blubbery skin, fold upon fold as if it were melting inside a furnace. Its head was half-sunk into the ring of its neck, its eyes two black holes that scoured the forest. It was the creature they had seen last night, one of them, anyway.

  Mike was crouched behind the next tree over, his whole body tense, his hand gripping the trigger for the Comp B. Donnie waved to get his attention, held up his hand, mouthed Wait! For a moment Mike looked as if he was going to detonate it anyway; then he swallowed noisily and nodded.

  Thump, another impossible figure landing in the clearing, its long limbs carved from mahogany. It scampered to the first, one eye blinking, a growl bubbling from its throat. They could have been dogs, if they didn’t have the faces of boys, utterly ravaged and yet still so recognizable, so young. They both crawled forward, sniffing the air as they approached the freak in the center of the clearing.

  A howl blistered through the forest and Donnie swung around. Joan was to his right, pressed against a tree, her eyes screwed shut. Behind her, close enough for her to touch if she wanted to, another beast, another night child, strode past. This one seemed to have been carved from bone, an exquisite confluence of long, yellow-white limbs connected to a body so thin, so bent out of shape, that Donnie could make no sense of it. It was like a stick insect, and yet its bald, elongated head possessed the features of a kid.

  Don’t move, thought Donnie, willing the message to Joan. She didn’t, not even the rise and fall of her chest. The creature stopped beside her, curling spider-jointed fingers around the trunk of the tree. Two ragged holes in its face snorted out air; then it roared again and loped onward.

  In the clearing, both monsters were investigating the freak, sniffing the corpse. The fleshy one stood up, towering over the body, using unmistakably human hands to pry loose the helmet. When it saw the face beneath, it whimpered, a noise so childlike, so full of grief and confusion, that it almost broke Donnie’s heart
. He had to turn away, feeling the creeping, tickling madness nestling inside his skull. When he looked back he saw the creature nuzzling the dead man, whining, pawing him gently as if to wake him from a deep sleep.

  The third creature stooped into the clearing, barking out a noise that might once have been a laugh. It dropped onto all fours, scuttling forward, the other two moving nervously out of its way. It, too, seemed distraught at the sight of the dead freak, its depthless black eyes like huge, round holes in the skin of the world.

  All he had to do was drop his hand, give the signal, and the clearing would be obliterated, these demons blown back to hell. But they weren’t demons, were they? They were children. Broken by us, he heard Joan’s words. They’re children, just children, they can be saved.

  The china-white creature gave the freak a gentle shake, uttering chirruped cries. Then it seemed to run out of patience, swiping one of its clawed hands hard enough to rip the corpse from its wooden supports and send it tumbling across the ground. It opened its huge, gaping mouth and screamed, its whole body thrashing from side to side, gouging chunks of bark and clots of frozen earth. And in that terrifying display of berserk strength Donnie understood that these things could never be saved, they would forever be children of the night.

  He looked back at Mike, dropped his hand. Mike pressed the trigger. All of them ducked behind the trees, bracing themselves.

  Only nothing happened.

  Mike pulled the plunger out, pushed it again, then again. The creatures railed in the clearing, their fury growing by the second.

  “Fuse must have come loose when that thing knocked it,” Donnie whispered to Henry, thinking, We’re dead, this is the end of it.

  “So what do we do?” Henry hissed. “Donnie, what do we do?”

  There was no other way of detonating the Comp B, not unless they all just started shooting and one of them got lucky before their enemy closed in. They could hide here, hope their cover was better than it looked, or run for it. But every single one of those scenarios would finish in the same way, with them all pinned beneath the bare feet of a monster, then fed piece by piece to the forest.

  “Donnie.” He thought it was Henry, but when he looked he saw Joan there behind him. She reached into his pocket, pulled something free and gripped it in her slender fingers. “Be ready.”

  He didn’t have time to ask for what. She threw herself out from the tree, tearing toward the clearing. The beasts there sensed her instantly, all three unleashing a symphony of rage, their mouths so wide that it looked as if Joan was running toward three lightless caves. There was a soft metallic click as she pulled the pin from the grenade, lobbing it toward them. It struck the fleshy one, bouncing off, landing right beside the body of the freak.

  Joan turned, started running, and even though he knew she couldn’t make it, that she was too far away, Donnie held out a hand to her.

  The world turned white. Donnie crashed against the tree, feeling it tremble with the force of the shock wave. A hail of dirt and wood fell, the air on fire, the forest squealing as ancient trunks swelled and splintered. It seemed as if the ground was opening up, plunging them into darkness, swallowing them whole, and Donnie screamed, his voice lost in the crushing thunder.

  Then, as quickly as it started, it stopped. The storm passed, the hail becoming a rain, a soft patter, then stopping altogether. Donnie flexed his jaw, wondering if he’d gone deaf because the silence was so immense.

  “Joan,” he choked. He pushed himself up, seeing the clearing ahead. It was utterly black, a crater in the ground, the trees closest to the explosion ripped up and stripped bare. The air was thick with smoke, a cloud as dark as the sky. Nothing moved inside it.

  Joan was a ragged bundle of cloth on the ground, so small that Donnie wasn’t sure until he slipped down beside her. The back of her uniform had burned clean off; the skin beneath was red and blistered. Her hair was shriveled into dark clumps. But she was alive.

  “Can you hear me?” Donnie asked, easing her over onto her side. “Joan?”

  She looked up, her eyes swimming in and out of focus before finding him.

  “Did we get them?” More cough than voice.

  “Take it easy, we got them,” he said.

  Stefan ran past them, heading into the clearing with the MG 42. Mike followed.

  “She all right?” asked Henry, ducking down beside them.

  “Just a scratch,” Joan answered for herself. “Nothing a cup of tea won’t fix.”

  Donnie and Henry exchanged a look, one that said everything.

  “Where’s Kreuz?” Donnie asked. “He better not have run.”

  “I’m right here,” said the boy, walking past with his Luger, that same flash of lunatic menace as he followed the others into the clearing.

  “We’d better go make sure they’re dead,” said Henry. “Stay here, look after her, we’ll be back in a second.”

  He jogged into the smoke, black tendrils curling around him, like something pulling him into the depths. There was a burst of fire from Stefan’s machine gun, making Donnie jump.

  “You think…” Joan tried, spitting out blood. “You think there are more of them out there?”

  Donnie placed his hand on her head, smoothing what was left of her hair.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe. But they know not to mess with us now. I think we’ll be okay.”

  They both ignored the lie, Joan resting her cheek on a nest of tangled roots. The snow was gone, blasted into a mist that clung to the warm, wet earth. She snatched in a weak breath, holding it for too long.

  “I need you to do something for me,” she said after a moment.

  “Joan,” said Donnie. “Whatever it is, you can do it yourself. We’ll get you out of here.”

  She ignored him, reaching down to her leg, blackened fingers twitching.

  “I’ll do it,” he said, knowing what she wanted. There was another burst of gunfire from the clearing but he didn’t look up, fishing the envelope from Joan’s boot and handing it to her. She took the photo, the one of her and her fiancé and her children, and smiled.

  “Joan,” Donnie said, and could think of nothing else. He could see the strength ebbing from her body, each movement growing weaker. But the light still shone in her eyes, fierce and full of love. She handed Donnie the letter, marked simply To my darling William. He shook his head, knowing that to take it was to admit defeat.

  “Please, Donnie,” she said. “I need you to give this to him. I need you to let him have it personally.” She broke off, coughing. “Will you do that for me?”

  He nodded, taking the small, white envelope. It was so light, and he thought, How can it weigh so little when it contains so much?

  “Don’t tell them,” she went on. “About this, about the night children. I don’t…I don’t want them to know I died like this.”

  “I won’t,” he said, the pain in his chest, in his throat, like a living thing trying to crawl free. “Where do they live?”

  “London,” and these were her last words, he realized, barely words at all. “Take it to Whitehall, they’ll know him there. William…”

  “William what?” he asked, holding her hand, stroking it with his thumb.

  “Sawyer,” she replied. “William Sawyer.”

  She brought the photograph to her dry, cracked lips and kissed it.

  “My parachute,” she said, her eyes clouding. “He’ll bring me home.”

  Then she was gone.

  He closed her eyes and looked at her, this woman whom he first met less than twelve hours ago but who seemed to have been in his life forever.

  “Thank you,” he said. If it hadn’t been for her then surely they all would have died. It didn’t seem right to leave her here, at the mercy of the forest that killed her, so Donnie lifted her onto his shoulder. Even if he couldn’t carry her all the way back to the nearest Allied camp—wherever that was—he could at least get her away from here, from the clearing, so she wouldn’t have
to spend eternity in the company of monsters.

  Up ahead the smoke was starting to clear and Donnie made his way into it. Stefan and Mike were standing over a puddle of black blood, and as he approached, Donnie saw shapes inside it, a cluster of bones that reminded him of a shipwreck. There was another body nearby, little more than a stain, and a third that had survived better than the others. This belonged to the china-white beast, its legs blown off but its head riddled with bullet holes. Henry stood over it, looking up when he heard Donnie’s footsteps.

  “Was still alive,” he muttered. “Can you believe that?”

  He saw what Donnie was carrying and nodded sadly.

  “We showed ’em,” said Mike, turning around and grinning. “They never saw it coming. She dead?” He sighed without waiting for an answer. “That was brave, what she did. Real brave, broad or no broad.”

  “We should move out,” said Donnie. “That blast will have been heard miles away.”

  “Ready when you are,” said Mike. “I don’t want to spend another second here. What you wanna do about these two?”

  “I will come with you,” said Stefan. “I’d rather take my chances with your officers than my Führer.”

  Mike smiled.

  “Pretty sure they won’t be too—”

  The shot flipped the top of Mike’s head open like a jack-in-the-box, something red and wet springing out. His eyes rolled up, as if he was trying to see what had happened; then he crumpled to the burnt ground, his body spasming.

  “Nein!” yelled Stefan, but by the time he’d swung the MG 42 up there were two neat holes in his chest, blinking like eyes. He pulled the trigger as he crumpled forward, carving a trench in the soil.

  It was Kreuz. The German kid swung the Luger from Stefan to Henry, his mouth twisted into a thin, hateful smile. Henry didn’t even go for his rifle, just threw himself at the boy, making it halfway across the clearing before the shot came. It tore into his shoulder, barely slowing him down.