Then Alex felt something snag her left shin, followed by a warm sensation, like she had spilled tea, and the liquid was seeping through her puttees, not unpleasantly, but she knew of course that she had been hit. Then the world lit up red-orange, a mini sunrise encapsulated in front of Alex, holding her in a bright embrace.
Alex had not heard an explosion. It was as if she was underwater and the world was a dense, murky place. Then she saw John and crawled frantically to where he lay. His arms were thrown above his head in a curious attitude, maybe as an attempt to protect himself from the shell, but it looked like he was surrendering to the sky. His face held a look of utter shock, but not horror, and his eyes were staring, mouth open as if he perceived a wondrous sight that Alex could not behold.
When Alex looked at her comrade’s waist, it was merely a ragged mess of blood and fabric and she saw that his legs were strewn some ten feet away and had by gruesome chance landed next to each other. The feet were turned outwards as if the owner was slumbering on a sunny afternoon back home in England. Alex lay next to John’s torso for some time and waited for her senses to clear, fighting the impulse to just lie and stare at the clouds of smoke with John.
Frank spoke inside Alex’s head and the sound seemed to arrive over a great distance, ‘Alexandra, I need you to tell me this happened, to prove it really happened. Do you understand?’
Alex was aware of gunfire again and of cries in the distance now and then she watched Hawkins coming out of the fog of battle like a stampeding bull.
He grabbed fistfuls of her uniform and hauled Alex to her feet, glaring into her eyes with a boyish eagerness and shouting, ‘Come on, Lieutenant Douglas, stay close to me, sir.’ Then there was a wet, slicing noise, like raw meat being ripped apart, and Alex saw glints of dim light bounce off the steel that came through Hawkins’ throat. Hawkins looked at Alex with surprise and confusion, but no pain. Alex thought he was trying to speak, but although his lips moved, he made no sound as the bayonet skewered his neck, suffocating the words. Alex looked at the German soldier holding the rifle and saw he was furiously trying to dislodge the bayonet through Hawkins’ neck, cursing and shouting. He was forcing his knee into the small of Hawkins’ back, trying to lever the weapon free, and Hawkins still looked at Alex with the same bewilderment.
Hawkins staggered forward, arms outstretched towards Alex, pulling his adversary with him, and the bayonet looked like a steel bone protruding from his throat.
Alex lifted her rifle and tried to steady her shaking hands. But as she began to apply pressure to the trigger, Hawkins pitched forward and fell to his knees, his huge hands clawing at his throat. Alex wondered how much blood there was in a human body. She was sure she knew but couldn’t remember now.
Ribbons of blood were flowing from the wound at Hawkins’ neck, as if impelled by bellows. Alex knelt and looked into Hawkins’ eyes, and they still showed traces of recognition. Then his hands dropped and his head fell forward, his chin resting on the obtrusive blade.
Alex thought how at that moment that he resembled a puppet, with cut and useless strings, and she fired a round into the German’s breastbone. The German took three or four backwards steps, as if he was trying to keep his balance on a sheet of ice, and tumbled to the ground.
Alex’s rifle slipped from her grasp and she fell to her knees again. All around there was chaos, screams, shouting, the staccato report of machineguns and the firing of rifles across no man’s land. A shell exploded in close proximity to Alex, and she was thrown through the air by the blast, landing heavily almost ten yards away.
Alex stood and swayed, disorientated by the high pitched ringing in her ears, and at first she was not conscious of the alteration that she had undergone. She saw Frank staggering towards her. He seemed to be shouting but Alex’s hearing was only returning in gradual bursts and the whole scene was reminiscent of a silent movie.
At the moment Alex understood she was back in her own body, a German soldier emerged from the rolling mist and smoke. Like a berserk apparition, the soldier ran at Alex and slid his bayonet into her thigh. Pain flared in hot spasms through Alex’s leg and radiated into her groin and stomach as the German soldier tore the blade free, screaming incoherently.
Frank had watched from the trench and had been a spectator to his own progress through no man’s land. He had known on some intrinsic level that it was Alex that inhabited and coordinated his body and now he was lurching through the mud towards her.
As the German soldier raised his rifle to deliver another stabbing thrust at Alex, Frank looked down at his hands and found he now held a Lee Enfield rifle and he swiftly fired the weapon. A hole opened up in the German soldier’s midriff and the man froze, rifle poised to strike, and looked at his own stomach. A dark red stain was now expanding like the accelerated blooming of a deep red rose and the soldier looked incredulously towards Frank.
Frank loaded and fired again, almost hitting the exact same spot as the first round and the German soldier cried out this time, dropping his rifle and holding the wound in a vain attempt to stem the flow of blood, as he sank to his knees. The man was now whispering to himself, maybe a prayer, maybe senseless babble induced by shock, and Frank found himself now standing over the kneeling figure, screaming in a paroxysm of undefined rage at the soldier, but something inside him also wanted to console the man.
A deep, dull sensation erupted in Frank’s chest, as if he had walked blindly into a blunt pipe. When Frank touched his tunic blood deluged from a wound in spurting waves of warm liquid. He felt a curious lethargy begin to creep over his mind, making him almost apathetic, as he began to walk towards where Alex knelt.
Another spike of pain punched into him, this time his right shoulder, and he was aware of the bullet passing through him and taking a lump of something with it as it exited his body.
He stopped, his vision seemed to be truncated, as if the periphery had been sliced off and all that was left was the six or seven feet directly in front of him. Into this frame loomed two more of the enemy. Frank’s rifle was still facing forward, at hip height, and he reloaded mechanically and fired once, twice, three times.
As the clean snaps of his rifle fire resonated through his senses, he heard the simultaneous crack of the two German guns being discharged. The sound seemed miles away, yet almost instantly a white-hot lance of pain was driven into the side of his neck and a shuddering pounding began to apply intolerable pressure behind his eyes. He almost traced the path of the next bullet as time seemed to slow down and implode into a defined sequence of disconnected events. It hit him in the cheekbone and Frank felt a shattering, hollow explosion of sensation that became at once blinding and deafening. But he also observed the first German fall to the ground, as two of his own shots hit the man’s head.
Frank was unaware now if he was standing or kneeling. He had no feeling in his arms or legs and was almost blind. There was a riot of color painting a gaudy tapestry across what remained of his vision, but Frank could not ascertain if the splashes of reds, oranges and yellows were stained across the sky or inside his head.
The second German was still shouting as he raced out to Frank. Frank could not feel his hands and wondered if he still gripped his Enfield. He could discern only the shape of the second soldier as it moved towards him. He thought he heard Alexandra shout to him and he turned to face her, but there were only indistinct and amorphous clouds ghosting in and out of his awareness. He slumped to his knees, dropping the rifle, and spoke Alexandra’s name, the words tumbling from his lips as if spilled, as the second German’s bayonet entered his chest and emerged from his back.
Frank’s head snapped back and thin lines of blood splattered from his mouth. There was no pain now. The German was mocking him with a face contorted into a sneer. Then Frank watched as, almost in slow motion, a bayonet emerged from the German soldier’s mouth like a great steel tongue. The soldier slid away to leave Alex standing there, holding the Lee-Enfield that had impaled him. Frank fell fo
rward, the weapon still impaling him, and its butt now sinking into the soft mud and becoming fast there. He managed a deep breath, and then found he did not need to breathe any more. He existed only inside himself now, as a concentrated hub of memories that he conceived from a distance. But even in that moment, he realized sharply that these events had happened before. Maybe even many times.
Frank spoke as Alex fell onto her knees to face him, ‘The young boy in my platoon, the one that crawled out into no man’s land, I can’t remember his name. I saw John Taylor’s body, blown to smithereens, he was a carpenter. Then Hawkins was killed too, a bayonet through his throat. Then, then…’
Frank stopped and looked down at the rifle that seemed to grow from his own chest, ‘Then me too.’
‘Francis,’ and Alex was touching his face now, ‘you fought bravely. No one knew, but I saw.’
And when Frank looked at Alex he seemed as helpless and lost as a small child seeking comfort and reassurance. ‘Why am I here?’
‘I don’t know, Francis; I don’t know why I am here either. I met a man, though, when I first became conscious of being here. I don’t know who he was. At first I thought he was pure evil, but then I began to understand things he told me more clearly. I think I may be here for a reason. Maybe I’m here to help you, Frank.’
Alex stood, feeling the sharp pain in her thigh protest, and moved behind Frank. She slid her arms under Frank’s and bent to whisper into his ear, ‘Ready, soldier?’
‘Ready, Alexandra,’ replied Frank. Then Alex pulled Frank off the bayonet and he groaned once and passed out.
***
Two days later Frank awoke, back inside the dugout in the firing trench, and Alex sat by him. Frank smiled and looked around the dugout.
When his eyes returned to her, Alex spoke softly to him, ‘Watch, Francis, but don’t speak, please,’ and she let her hand rock in the air like a flower bending in a breeze.
Frank watched until he witnessed small whirlpools of energy spiraling like minuscule galaxies in the air around Alex’s hand. The galaxies began expanding, bursts of light flashing from their centre like miniature bolts of lightning, and undulating waves rippled across the display, as if Frank was watching the scene through clear water.
Then Alex delicately pinched at the current and the material warped and bent like hot glass. She pulled a thread of nothingness outwards in a straight line, only its cylindrical properties distinguishing it from its surroundings.
Frank stared at the event, awe-struck, and with a diffident manner he reached out to touch the phenomenon. Alex coiled the filament of ether around itself and it followed every twist and turn of her fingers, like an obedient animal. Then, quickly, she grabbed the strand, and held it tightly between her two hands, and smiling, she began to fashion it into the shape of a crude flower.
When it was complete she passed it to Frank and said, ‘For my patient.’
Splashes of color and torrents of pure energy still danced between them as Frank took the flower from Alex. He rotated it, viewing it from every angle, amazed but somehow not completely surprised, but as he studied the attribute and profile of the flower it began to wilt. Yet it did not wither with an accelerated decay, but instead it melted into another shape, its lines fluidly restructuring themselves into a different form. It elongated and became denser, the soft contours of the flower replaced with harsher, more intricate detail, until the creation began to take shape in his hands.
It was now a gun, a rifle, but not a true replication of the Lee-Enfield he had carried in the carnage of the Great War, as it was more ornate and its curves were more fluid. It was an interpretation, created and fashioned from the pliable, esoteric substance that permeated the plane he existed on now. And it reflected nuances of his personality in its design.
Frank held the rifle in his hands, and then looked at Alex. ‘Why have I not left this place, Alexandra, and why are you here?’
‘Maybe we are here because we have not reconciled ourselves with death. The creature I told you of, the man in black, he said some of the people here still have souls. Not like the shells, they are just motor driven and the machine has some control over them and it wants to take them back to earth, resurrected as living-dead monsters, preying on mankind to fuel their own existence.’
Frank interjected, ‘Stop, Alex, please stop. Who are you speaking of? Shells? A machine? I don’t understand any of it!’ Alex took a breath and rose. ‘The man in black told me this place is populated by the shells that are left behind when souls have moved on. But they are disintegrating slowly, over centuries I think. They lust for life and the energy that can sustain them, but mostly they lust for flesh again, feelings and sensations first hand and not as the parasites they are now.’
Frank stared at the rifle and asked, ‘And this machine you spoke of?’
‘The machine, Frank, is where you come in.’
‘Come in?’
‘Where you connect to all of this. You and I. The machine is, I don’t know how to say this, is the essence of your father, Daniel Douglas, his soul is captured within it, I think, I think.’
Frank gripped the rifle tighter. ‘What has my father to do with this God-forsaken place, with any of this?’
‘I’m sorry, Frank. When you… died, your mother and father were obviously terribly grief stricken and apparently your father became obsessed with bringing you back somehow.’
Frank rose now and turned away from Alex as she continued, distress spiking her voice every time she took a breath. ‘But there was a fire and your mother and father died, although they never recovered Daniel’s body.’
Frank inspected his rifle again, detaching himself from Alex’s words. He did not now believe she could say anything more that could push his mind any further into the barren no man’s land it now stumbled through, shot at and blasted from every angle.
Although Alex wanted desperately to stop, she continued, ‘The man in black told me that your father constructed a machine, a machine to try and tear a hole in the fabric of the physical world and the afterlife, and then drag you back through to him.’
Tears flowed from Frank’s tired eyes and he shivered against the biting wind that had risen. ‘I apologize for my weakness, Alexandra.’
‘No. I’m so sorry, Francis, I truly am.’ But Frank’s mind was now bullet-ridden and deep into that wasteland and he could only weep and listen without hearing.
So Alex went on, ‘The man told me, Daniel and the machine became… fused, spliced together, and now they are promising the shells a route back to earth, a way of being resurrected so they can carry on living and the machine will not have to be alone.’
Frank’s face was suddenly animated and he spoke, his voice low and empty, ‘Why would my father do such a thing, Alex?’
Alex moved towards Frank and embraced the man like a mother would embrace her hurt child, and said, ‘He must be so lost and confused, Francis. The machine part of him is feeding on that, telling him he needs to help the shells so they will always be there to keep him from being alone. I think we need to somehow separate your father from the machine.’
Frank did not struggle against her embrace, even though he would have been unable to envisage such a scenario before this moment. ‘Alex, there must be a reason why I am here. And why you are now?’
‘I think we need to get to the hospital.’
‘Hospital? Which hospital?’
‘I think I died with my son in an accident, and I think I was taken to a hospital. When I woke in this world I was still in some kind of hospital. I had the strange feeling it was the Douglas Institute, or an interpretation of it. I told you my husband, Robert Douglas, inherited the institute?’
Frank seemed to have regained his composure and left Alex’s embrace, nodding his affirmation with no trace of inhibitions left.
Alex grabbed his shoulders. ‘My son, the spirit of my son is still in that hospital. I may be making a massive leap here, but maybe there is a reason the in
stitute is also here.’
Frank seemed lost in thought again but spoke through it, ‘During the war my father admitted servicemen with trauma and nervous illnesses to the institute; that may be the connection?’
‘Maybe, Frank, maybe. There was a nurse, a wicked, evil woman. She may have been an inmate originally and is tied to the place now. But my son said there was a good nurse too, maybe that is Eve, your mother, Francis, I don’t know really. But just maybe you still have a connection to the hospital, a kind of umbilical cord for a reason you have forgotten now?’
Frank looked confused. ‘How? The institute is thousands of miles from here!’
‘No, Francis. It can be ten feet away if that is how you have created it, even unconsciously. That may be the key to something that is about to happen.’
She looked around the trench again, as if she might discover a sign that would display the legend “ANSWERS THIS WAY” with a big arrow telling her where to go.
‘The trench ends in this section, Frank, but it seems to stretch away in the other direction. Maybe it eventually connects to the hospital? Have you ever followed it, can you remember? Maybe you created this trench and have forgotten where it leads?’
Frank retreated into the dugout that was carved into the side of the trench and Alex stood in the rain, tilting her face to the sky. The rain was warm but the day was cold.
Shortly afterwards, Frank re-emerged with his kit bag, still holding the rifle, and he showed Alex a photograph of a beautiful woman with raven black hair and deep, sad eyes. ‘This is Eve, my mother, and if your son is with her, he is indeed safe. We will follow the trench as you say and establish where it leads. Indeed I will follow you, Alexandra, because I believe you may have saved my soul.’
Alexandra smiled softly and turned, walking into the rain, followed by Frank.
Chapter Seventeen
Mary stepped away from the operating table. The figure that lay there was softly singing a collection of mindless words, tuneless and nothing more than a whisper. Mary moved to the small pedestal sink and placed the severed hand in the basin, along with the small saw, washing her bloodied hand and drying it on a small, soiled towel that hung from a rusted nail above the basin. The water falling from the tap was foul and polluted and it replaced the blood, tissue, and bone on her hands and on the saw with dirt, rather than removing the mess. The figure giggled and prodded the stump where its hand had been removed, watching the small jets of blood leap into the air, captivated as if by a firefly.
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