Andrews had recovered sufficiently to stand, but was forced to lean back against the wall, afraid now of losing his balance and tumbling into the spreading pool of blood from the first creature. Robert closed his eyes, his head thumped sickeningly and he could smell the putrid flesh of the creature’s torn, exposed skull. When he opened them his eyes fell on the cold, lifeless mask that was the thing’s final attitude of death. The remaining eye had turned black, but something now stirred in the lake of darkness. The thing’s eye blinked once and a small spark of sentience flickered.
Robert squirmed frantically away from the thing. His breath tasted like fire each time it was forced from his lungs and his rib cage ached from the gashes he had received. He felt winded and nauseated and the room swam in front of his eyes, in a liquid tapestry of images. In the brief passage of time since the bullet had removed a large section of the thing’s head, blood had continued to spread across the carpeted floor, gulping up space like hot, red lava, bubbling and popping. And it was in this foul, viscous slime that Robert now attempted to gain some form of equilibrium, but his limbs seemed to counter his every effort.
His head thumped like it had been bludgeoned with a baseball bat, and try as he might to get away from the corpse, he could not. He only succeeded in an unintended dance that promised escape momentarily, and then threw him forward and off balance, back to face the grotesque half face on the floor. And back to the one dead eye that had just animated itself enough to blink. Another blink, a slight bloom of red and Robert fell again, landing on his back, more sickening pain jarring his body as his arms fanned out like a grounded bird.
Now Andrews was approaching on his knees. Robert’s right arm arched and wheeled as he tried to bring his gun in line with the thing’s one, remaining, blinking eye. He was beguiled and repulsed by the thing, but as he struggled to attain control of his body, and more importantly his mind, and to level the weapon, he realized that what was left of its jaw was beginning to move. It was beginning to work like a ventriloquist’s dummy and beginning to mouth words. The thing’s head was like that of a deviant mannequin, like an effigy that had had its wooden face blasted off to reveal real bone and tissue underneath.
It spoke in a muffled, liquid voice and a fine spray of blood accompanied the words from the ripped mouth, ‘Jesus, that feels good.’
Robert pressed the pistol hard against the thing’s eye as a malign smile began to form on what remained of the vile mass of its face. Then Robert pumped two more shells into the thing’s head and there was a wet, gurgling sound. Again Robert swam in the lake of warm blood that flowed unchecked about him, desperate for a foothold and a way to regain some semblance of control over the situation.
Robert’s head was full of fog and his body burnt with pain as he realized the blood from the creature was eating through his clothes, partially cooking his flesh. A hammer was repeatedly tripped at the back of his skull, relentless and sending dull spasms of pain down through his spine. The thing attempted a smile and the fractured, near-obliterated jawbone separated from its hinges with a clicking noise and slid to the floor, leaving the half face working almost mechanically.
Silence covered the room like a shroud. Robert turned onto his back; he did not think he was the hero type. He looked at the ceiling. Blood had even found a way to lay a scarlet scar across that surface. He looked at his hands, shaking and convulsively clenching and unclenching them. He had dropped the gun and it lay in the blood by the thing’s torso. A clock ticked eerily, almost apologetically as it disturbed the quiet at regular little intervals.
Andrews sat next to Robert and withdrew a large hunting knife from a custom-made holder strapped to his lower leg. ‘We got a gun and a knife. Somehow, I don’t think that’s gonna be enough.’
As Andrews spoke, Robert thought he heard a sound, or sensed one inside, like the clapping of distant thunder, deep and reverberating. He felt the thudding more than heard it, but when he looked at the prone thing on the floor, he observed its chest rise and fall slowly as another thumping beat echoed in his ears and in his own chest. The slow, languid heartbeat of the thing lying obliterated by his side still working, though the brain was dead. In one smooth movement Robert slipped the hunting knife from Andrews’ hand and reversed his grip on the handle, whilst simultaneously rolling off his back and using that momentum to lift his upper body. Then he came crashing down onto the thing’s chest, blade first, sending the steel slicing into the flesh and muscle almost to the hilt of the weapon. A deep red fountain of blood spurted in an arch from the incision like a devilish rainbow, but the thing did not move again and Robert skewed the knife’s blade in the chasm of its chest.
Then Robert turned back to Andrews and said, ‘It’ll have to be.’
Chapter Sixteen
Alex had landed facing the sky and had sunk almost the depth of her body before she was still, waiting for the pain to pour in, with the mire that now filled her mouth. But the hurt did not come and she found herself looking at the stars. The sky was storm-like as morning dawned and it soaked up the smoke and screams of a new day. Alex wondered if she was now in the midst of the awful landscape of chaos and pandemonium that had been hinted at on the outskirts of the giant’s camp. So she lay quietly and she waited. Alex heard the rifle fire and wondered if it mattered. Would it still hurt? The man in black had implied a state where the mind held sway over the body, but this could just as easily be an inducement to pain as a barrier to it.
She rose cautiously, keeping low and at first looking for the only familiar landmark she knew in this dismal, bleak landscape, the man in black’s campfire. But it was nowhere to be seen and she knelt again, apprehensive and unsure, hearing the tremor in her own voice when she questioned, ‘Where the hell are you Alex?’
No answer came back, thankfully, so she rose again but maintained a crouched stance. She automatically began to tie her mass of unkempt auburn hair back, thinking to herself how many times she had performed that task, when I was alive? The words in her head were laced with confusion and incredulity, but she was roused from contemplating this strange little detail by large pearls of rain splattering on her face and she stretched her hands out to feel the coolness of the moisture on her skin. She was surprised to still be invested with the ability to appreciate the softness of the refreshing rain falling on her palms. After enduring the flames of the giant’s fire without any adverse effects, she had subconsciously assumed she was now deprived of nerves and sensation in the flesh of her hands. She almost grasped then the nature of the cabalistic matter that this place was built from. The man in black had not treated it as a deeply recondite subject and Alex had been in too much shock to see the significance of his words. She looked at her body and saw that she no longer wore the hospital gown. She wore combat trousers, boots and a tee shirt. She almost allowed herself a smile. ‘Jesus, I’ve been reincarnated as either a lesbian or Sigourney Weaver!’
Then Alex stared at her hands again, turning them and flexing the fingers. ‘Maybe these are some kind of cyborg arms? Maybe I lost my arms and legs in the car crash and either I made these up in my own head, from… from whatever it is you make stuff up from here? Or maybe the giant man made these for me? Maybe I can mold this place to how I want things to be, maybe that will come with practice. Then maybe I can find Jake.’
She stopped as the cold, harsh fact of Jake’s death washed over her again and she put her hands to her face and thought of Jake’s smile, the icy rain trickling through her fingers.
Then she concentrated on the sea of mud beneath her, focusing as if she were directing a beam of energy at one section of it, as if her eyes were headlamps.
A single flower unfurled, as if in frames sped up by a camera trick, and it budded and spread its red and gold petals, an oasis of life in the barren wasteland of mire and sludge. She bent and picked it, placing it in her pocket and instinctively dodged the first bullet as it whistled past her head.
Alex began to run, keeping low the whole tim
e, noticing a break in the ground ahead, and an excavated area of some kind. Just as she gained the edge of the trench, a shell hit her shoulder, spinning her around and dumping her on her back in the dirt, one arm trailing into the pit. She gasped for breath and felt a warm rush flowing through the muscles of her shoulder and found herself almost enjoying the sensation. A hand reached up from inside the trench and fastened on to her arm, dragging her down into unconsciousness.
The rain continued to fall and Alex dreamed. She was chasing Jake through a field of tall grass, the little boy giggling and tumbling as she swooped for him. But before she could catch him, laughing and shouting, ‘Mummy’s coming to get you, little man!’ her husband Robert was there to surprise her with a flanking maneuver that sent them both plunging into the meadow breathless and embracing, with Jake climbing over them, all kisses and cuddles.
Alex woke in tears that were hidden by the downpour. It took her a moment to recall what had happened directly before she lost consciousness and she tentatively slipped a hand inside her tee shirt to inspect the wound. To her amazement there was no damage, no blood or pain, and she rested her head against the wall of the trench and closed her eyes. She was roused again by an arm on hers and a soft voice and she opened her eyes. She was exhausted and her fatigue was lashing out like a caged beast desperate to escape and overpower her and she felt herself succumbing to sleep.
Through the rain she saw a face, close to hers, a young man maybe twenty years old, consuming brown eyes and hair as black as coal, with a sad, careworn face. But compassion was etched deeply into the face and Alex felt safe enough to slip into her dreams again.
Frank sat in the rain and looked at the woman. She was beautiful, but she was an enigma. She was dressed like a manual worker from the mines or steel industry but with deeply blue eyes like sky on an early summer morning. Her auburn hair was tied away from her face to expose remarkable features, strong sensual lines that he had previously witnessed only in his mother’s smile, though he had not understood then the power of that beauty. Frank had made Alex comfortable in a dugout, cut into the side of the trench, where he himself slept and consulted with the men under his command. How long had it been since he had held discourse with his fellow officers, days, months, years? He tried again to remember, but again he could not.
Frank touched the woman’s cheek as she slept but withdrew his hand as she stirred. Alex opened her eyes and for a second she was lost in the miasma that can accompany awakening. Then things began to fall into place and she jumped to her feet and backed away from Frank, trying to assimilate her surroundings.
‘Please don’t be alarmed, madam, I mean you no harm, I am First Lieutenant Francis Douglas of the Border Regiment. This is my command and you are in the officer’s dugout. You are unharmed,’ said Frank, holding his hands forward, palms out in a placatory gesture.
Then he added, ‘Although you were shot in the shoulder yesterday, but the wound appears to have healed?’
Alex looked at her tee shirt and saw that there was not even a tear in the material now. She looked at the young man and felt as though she was listening to his words via a satellite link, with their meaning taking a disproportionate amount of time to register.
‘Where am I?’ she finally asked.
The soldier sat and invited Alex to do the same. When Alex had sat again, the weariness began stealing back into her body as if she had been placed on an intravenous drip, filled with sleeping potion.
‘You are in an entrenchment on the Western Front of Belgium, near the town of Paschendale, or at least,’ and he faltered, looking at the ground as if he had misplaced something, but he could not remember what it was, ‘at least that’s what I believe.’
He lifted his revolver from where it rested on a wooden shelf on a paneled wall. ‘Curious,’ he mused with the same puzzled inflection in his voice. ‘I do not remember my pistol looking this way?’ and he turned the weapon and found it light and awkward in his hands.
He recalled memories of battles, of divorcing his feelings from his actions, of becoming motor-driven, fulfilling functions without empathy or care, operating on a base level. Memories of having other deeds that would need reconciliation, actions that had been stored in little compartments in his subconscious, to be dealt with later, or to never be dealt with.
Alex spoke and Frank’s attention returned. ‘I don’t think anything is as we remember, or as it should be, Frank.’
The familiar use of his name made Frank feign a cough as he stood, stiffened his back involuntarily and replaced his cap, his sense of duty re-establishing itself as he suddenly became suspicious of Alex.
‘I’m afraid I don’t understand, madam, now if I may inquire as to your name and how in the blazes you came to be in my trench?’
Although Alex did not think Frank was angry and did not feel threatened, she decided to consent to his line of questioning. ‘My name is Alex Douglas.’
‘Did you say Douglas?’
‘Yes, Alex Douglas.’
‘That cannot be, madam, my name is also Douglas; the coincidence is almost too bizarre to be possible!’
Alex abruptly recalled his introduction, Francis Douglas, and she had to stop talking and think, I know that name, I’ve heard that name before, Frank Douglas.
‘Why are you here, Alex Douglas? Where did you come from?’ Frank persisted.
‘Frank Douglas, yes, Frank Douglas, I remember now! My husband Robert bought the asylum and I saw your photograph, Robert’s grandfather told a story of his father, your cousin, spending summers with you at the institute, yes!’
Frank seated himself on the edge of the small bed and removed his cap. ‘That is not possible. How do you know these things? Why do you speak of events yet to happen as if they were someone’s memories? The year is 1917, yet you speak as if it is not, are you trying to make a fool out of me, madam?’
Alex stood and walked over to where Frank sat, head bowed, revolver still in hand and rested against his knee, and she spoke softly, ‘Francis Douglas, only son of Daniel Douglas and Eve Douglas.’
Frank’s head rose slowly at the mention of his parents’ names and a tear welled in his eye.
‘You were a war hero, Francis; you even received a medal after your… afterwards. It isn’t 1917 anymore, Francis, at least not on Earth it isn’t, that was one and a quarter centuries ago. All this is a creation, partly yours, partly others’.’
Frank’s face contorted with incredulity, but his eyes betrayed a narrowing of his skepticism as he questioned, ‘Are you trying to tell me I am dead? That is preposterous. I led an offensive from this very trench twenty-four hours ago, young lady, twenty-four hours. Now, I may admit to my reason being stretched as thin as a lunatic’s, but I know the facts. And they are that I command a platoon of infantry and that this is my firing trench and that we executed an offensive on the Hun’s position less than one day ago.’
‘Okay, Francis, okay, then where are your men?’
‘What?’
‘Where are all your men, your platoon?’ Alex asked again.
‘Young lady, I am an officer in the British Army, fighting a war on allied soil, I am not subject to interrogation from a… from a woman!’
‘So you don’t know where your men are, your platoon?’ she pursued.
‘For God’s sake woman, my men are enjoying a well-earned rest after their laudable actions in the offensive on the Boche front line. Now I really do believe you should start to answer some questions!’
‘Show me.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Show me your men, enjoying their rest,’ she pressed.
‘Damn your impertinence, madam. If you persist in this behavior I will be forced to have my sergeant escort you to a reserve trench, where you will be interrogated. And I can assure you no leniency will be afforded you on account of your… disposition.’
‘My disposition?’ smiled Alex. ‘Oh, you mean I’m a woman.’
‘This is not the
time for levity, madam!’
‘Then call your sergeant, Francis, call him now.’
‘Do not goad me, young lady; I will not be made a fool of in my own command!’
‘Then call him, Francis.’
‘You leave me no alternative, madam. I pray you will be more accommodating when questioned by our boys,’ and he moved to the front of the dugout and pushed the section of corrugated iron aside.
‘Sergeant Tompkins, Sergeant Tompkins… Tompkins, get here man!’ he barked.
‘Sergeant Tompkins isn’t coming, Frank, no one’s coming.’
‘What? What on earth do you mean? Tompkins, for God’s sake!’ and a note of desperation infiltrated his tone.
The silence was almost visual; it hung in the air with a presence of its own, like a third occupant of the room, its eyes darting from Frank to Alex and back again. Even the sporadic gunfire had died away, as if whatever or whoever was firing those weapons also now waited for the unfolding of events in the trench. Frank looked into the emptiness of the trench, he was not waiting for a reply any more or searching for the glimpse of movement or the sound of splashing muddy water as someone made their way through the filth to heed his call. He was trying desperately to reconcile his sense of duty and responsibility with the frightening veracity of the woman’s words.
Frank’s hand strayed to his tunic and his fingers sought the rips and tears in the material. He knew them well, even though he did not know how or when they had arrived.
The woman was behind him now. ‘Francis, Francis, are you okay?’
‘What do you mean?’ he said.
‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes. Yes, I am fine,’ but he could not look at her.
‘What is the last thing you remember, Francis? About the offensive, yesterday?’
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