400 Boys and 50 More

by Marc Laidlaw

  “But Daddy, the picnic—”

  “Keep quiet, I said. The picnic doesn’t matter.”

  Dewey's father slammed the door and went striding toward the picnic table. He took hold of Mommy's arm and began to whisper urgently in her ear. Dewey saw her look change from concern to fear and then to irritation. She was about to argue, when a scream caused everyone to turn.

  One of the girls playing kickball was standing in the middle of the grass, pointing up at the hills. Dewey saw a black figure come stumbling down through the bushes, a weird man dressed in rags. And he wasn't the only one, either. All of a sudden the hedges and hills were dotted with terrible-looking people; they came staggering toward the picnic tables, pushing through the bushes, howling and scraping at the air. They had left their picket signs behind, demonstrating their protest now with actions instead of words.

  The company picnickers moved back toward the car. A woman ran out into the field and grabbed the screaming girl. Panic broke out among the tables. Dewey's father pushed his mother toward the car, and she came running willingly now, her eyes wide with terror. Daddy drew his gun and aimed it at the nearest target. A small black shape broke free of the hedges where Dewey had sought the soccer ball. It reminded Dewey of a spider, a charred spider with half its legs pulled off. The sound it made was a horrible, senseless wailing. It lunged at Dewey's father, and he fired without hesitation.

  The black thing fell dead on the weeds. The gun sounded again and again. By now the other men were running for the cars, pushing their families inside; a few pulled out shotguns they carried mounted behind the seats. With loud whoops, they rushed out to join Dewey's father. The protestors kept on coming, and the killing began in earnest. The long grass hid the bodies as they fell.

  “Come back here!” Dewey's mother screamed from the car. “Come back here right now, damn it!”

  Dewey's father hesitated, glanced back at her, then lowered his arm. He ran across the field and jumped into the car. “Out of bullets anyway,” he said as he started the motor. Dewey's neck snapped as the car leaped backward, screeching out of the parking space. The station wagon lurched forward in a sharp turn, and then they were speeding along the narrow road.

  At a blind turn, a car shot out in front of them. Dewey's mother screamed; the brakes squealed. The cars collided with a soft metallic crunch and the shattering of glass.

  After that, Dewey lay dozing in the seat, aware of the stillness of the hills, the soft sound of settling dust, the warmth of the sun. He thought it was the most beautiful moment he had ever known. Then he remembered what had happened, where he was.

  He sat up and saw Daddy standing on the road talking to another man, the driver of the other car. Mommy leaned against the hood, holding her forehead. As in a dream, Dewey opened his door and walked toward them. Everything seemed to speed up; it felt as if the world were beginning, ever so slowly, to spin like a carousel. He was dizzy and sick to his stomach.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Dewey's father asked the man.

  “What do you mean? I came for the picnic.”

  “The hell you did! You're on duty this afternoon—you're supposed to be watching the board.”

  “Not me,” said the man angrily. “I swapped with McNally. He's watching the board. We made a deal.”

  “I just left McNally in the picnic grounds. He's back there taking care of some demonstrators.”

  “The ones at the gate?”

  “That doesn't matter. What matters is that your butt is in the wrong damn place. You're not supposed to deal with McNally; you deal with me.”

  The man shook his head, staring at the broken noses of the cars. “Shit. You mean McNally's here? Then who's at the board?”

  “That's what I'm asking you!”

  The other man shrugged, avoiding the eyes of Dewey's father.

  Just then Dewey's nausea surged. He didn't have time to ask his mother for help. He ran to the side of the road, bent over in the bushes, and began to vomit.

  Everything went dark. The carousel was spinning full tilt. Dewey sprawled over in the dirt, crying wordlessly for his parents. Thorns tore at his face; the sun scorched his arms, and his lungs filled with dust that tasted like smoke and ashes. He thought he was going to faint; he saw his father's hand reaching to pull him to his feet. He grabbed hold of Daddy's wrist for the merest second, then lost it. The world got even darker.

  Dewey's dream seemed to last an eternity. He saw bits and pieces of his whole life, strewn together and flying about in a feverish whirlwind. For a time he lay comfortably on the backseat of the station wagon, wrapped up in a blanket and listening to his parents talk while streetlights flickered past. Then he was at his grandparents' house, playing with their old dog, the one with cataracts who peed every time the doorbell rang. He was climbing the tree behind his house, eating fresh corn, smelling the dusty electric smell of rain and thunder that came with a storm.

  And then he woke up, still burning with fever. He must have wandered off the road farther than he thought, deeper into the bushes. He could hear voices, someone shouting. He crawled toward the sound, wanting only to be safe with his parents, away from the animal people, the zombies, the gunshots, the bodies, away from the accident and the thorns. He got to his feet in the bushes, and suddenly he was out in the open; he was free.

  He tried to suck in a deep breath, but it hurt his lungs. He blinked away harsh tears and sunlight. Then he saw Daddy.

  Dewey wailed with relief and started running. “Daddy!” he cried, though his throat was still sore and the words didn't seem right.

  In fact, nothing seemed right. He had come all the way back to the picnic grounds. There were the tables; there were the cars; there was Mommy running away.

  And here was Daddy, aiming his gun. Aiming it right at Dewey and squeezing the trigger.

  * * *

  “The Demonstration” copyright 1989 by Marc Laidlaw. First appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, February 1989.

  LOAVES FROM HELL

  It was in a sweltering dusk that Charlie stumbled on a tombstone and lay panting in the grass. He longed to stay where he had fallen, to sleep for days in the peace of the old graveyard, but where the dead were buried, the living must be near. He needed a more secluded bed or else he would surely be discovered.

  He had awakened in the early hours of the previous morning, head bloody and ringing, to find himself in a black mist, tangled in the arms of a German corpse, left for dead on the Brooklyn shore. He’d thought he heard the soft lapping of oars slowly fading over the harbor, but he hadn’t dared cry out for fear of alerting the British to his position. In the dark stillness, he had searched for living allies and found none, nor any sign of the Patriot Army’s boats. That was when he’d known for certain he was alone, except for any prisoners of war the British might already have taken—as they would soon take him if he weren’t swift to flee.

  By dawn, he was on his way eastward. From Jamaica Pass he looked back and saw the mist clearing as though slain by the enemy’s advance. They moved ominously out of it, the kilted Black Watch as well as the Hessian troops with their tall, glinting brass helmets and brighter bayonets. The Patriots had avoided defeat by surrendering Long Island. Now the enemy was dispersing along the northern shore, spreading out to take possession of the coast and thus securing the interior, entrapping Charlie.

  He made his way through dense woods, avoiding roads that might carry British troops. He skirted farms and towns as well, fearing that anyone he approached for help might turn him over to the King’s men. But half the houses he passed proved to be freshly abandoned, as though news of the battle had flown ahead of him. The Long Islanders must be rushing across the Sound to Connecticut, abandoning their property. Seeing this, he grew more convinced that he must hide himself, for only Loyalists would stay behind to welcome the troops.

  That night he kept on despite cruel thickets and drenching August rains, though exhaustion and the blows
he’d taken on his skull kept dragging him down to sleep. When morning came he was still struggling forward, though at a much slower pace. His toes showed through his shoes; his breeches were little more than rags; he’d long ago lost his coat and hat. Now, half-naked, he took more care than ever to avoid being sighted. He gorged on berries, drank from streams, tried to forget about sleep. But by the time he collapsed in the graveyard, another night approaching, he knew that he could go no farther without rest.

  Just a bit more, he told himself. Get to the bottom of this hill, crawl under a holly bush if you have to, and maybe you can sleep an hour or two—but no more.

  He had hardly begun the last concerted effort to drag himself forward, when he heard a low chuckle from the trees behind him. Looking over his shoulder, he saw three men, two in red coats and one in German blue, coming quickly toward him.

  “Well, now, who’s this?” said the first, his face as red as his coat.

  “Looks like a rebel to me, captain,” said the second Englishmen, shorter and stouter than the first.

  “Either that or a gravedigger,” the captain said.

  “Why not a rebel gravedigger?”

  “Aye. There’s plenty of need for rebel graves, that’s certain.”

  The German was tall and bearded, with long blond hair streaming down from his three-cornered hat. He stared at Charlie with none of the false good humor of the others. He carried a carbine rifle in one hand and a pickax in the other; in fact, all three men were armed with picks along with their guns. The captain buried the tip of his pick in the earth and came up to Charlie.

  “Get up,” he said.

  Wearily, Charlie rose. The captain lifted his musket and laid the end of the barrel against Charlie’s brow.

  “Where’d you get that wound?” he asked, nudging an infected gash with the gun barrel. Charlie winced and started to brush the gun away, then realized that the captain must have wanted him to do something of the sort. He let his hands fall.

  “Ah, wise lad. You must have learned something in the flatlands, eh? There’s nothing like a good beating to drive a lesson into a boy.”

  The German seemed irritated by the proceedings. Hefting his pick over his shoulder, he started past Charlie.

  “Where’s he going?” the captain said.

  “Wolfgang!” said the other. “Listen to the captain, man.”

  “God damn it,” said the captain. “I’ve had enough of this one. I knew there was no good reason for him to have left his troops. He’s probably a deserter.”

  “Then why would he join us, sir?” asked the short man. Again he called after the German. “You’ll have to learn to take orders from Englishmen, you know.”

  “Here, I’ll give him an order he understands.”

  The captain aimed his musket at the German’s legs. As the man’s finger started to squeeze the trigger, something stirred up in Charlie. He let out a cry and his hand shot out to knock the barrel aside. When the gun discharged, it was pointing at the sky. The captain let out a snarl and spun on Charlie, clubbing him with the gunstock. Charlie dropped on the damp, sticky grass, holding his head, blinded. He felt a sharp pricking of his throat and opened his eyes to find the captain standing over him, scowling. His sword was drawn, its point somewhere out of sight below Charlie’s vision. When he swallowed, he felt it piercing deeper into his neck.

  “Nein.” said a gruff voice. Charlie looked to one side and saw that the German had his carbine trained on the captain.

  All blood drained from the officer’s ruddy face. For a moment, no one moved. Then the German drew back the lock with an audible click. A few seconds later, the captain’s sword wavered and finally swept free of Charlie’s neck.

  “Get up,” he said.

  Charlie rose, supporting himself on a tombstone.

  “You’re a prisoner of war now,” the captain went on without another look at the German, as though nothing had happened. “That doesn’t mean you’re going to lie about in a comfortable cell, eating our bread and wasting our water. We have work for you. You’ve come at a fortunate time.”

  He turned around for the pick, uprooted it, and thrust it at Charlie, who caught it in numb fingers. His exhaustion was largely forgotten, unfelt. The captain gestured toward the graveyard, indicating that they should proceed. The German lowered his carbine and strode on. Puffing slightly, the stout little Englishman hurried after him.

  “Go on,” said the captain. “Get to work.”

  The woods were full of headstones, many of them fallen and thus hidden in the tall grass. Charlie stumbled several times, the pick’s weight unbalancing him; finally he landed heavily on his knees and knelt there with his head bowed, unmoving.

  “Up,” the captain said. “Up or I’ll blow your head off.”

  Charlie thrust one foot ahead of him, leaning his full weight on the pick handle. He couldn’t rise. A moment later, a strong arm encircled his shoulders and lifted him to his feet. The German had come to his aid.

  “Thank you,” Charlie whispered.

  “He’s not fit for work, captain,” said the small man.

  “He’ll help us build ovens or be baked in them,” the captain said. “And there’s where he’ll start.”

  Charlie followed the captain’s finger to a row of grey granite crypts, each of them nearly the height of a man.

  “We can’t carry those, captain. We’d best send for a wagon.”

  “We’re not going to carry them, Parkes. We’ll build them right where they stand. Easier to transport supplies here than carry a quarry back to camp. We’ll send for the cooks, that’s all. Now get to work.”

  “Aye, captain. You heard him, Wolfgang; you too, boy. Get to work. Haul up those stones.”

  “But. . .but those are gravestones,” Charlie said. “You can’t disturb the dead.”

  “Rebel dead,” the captain said. “We’ll put those stones to some good use, building ovens to feed the living.”

  “Go on, boy,” said Parkes. “It’s your bread we’ll be baking. You look hungry.”

  “But they weren’t reb—Patriots,” Charlie argued. “They were here before this trouble, before the taxes or any of it.”

  “Patriots, is it?” the captain snarled. “I’ve heard enough out of you to last me a lifetime, boy. How’d you like to lie down here forever with these dear friends of yours?”

  Charlie walked to the first of the crypts, where Wolfgang had already begun to dig at the base of one stone. The German’s pick grated against the granite, leaving bright bone-white streaks in the lichen-mottled surface. Charlie circled around to the other side of the tomb, aware of the captain’s gaze. Parkes stood loading a pipe with tobacco, his own pick propped against his leg.

  “Should I take a run back to camp, captain?” he asked.

  “Fetch the cooks?”

  “A run?” the captain said sarcastically. “On your fat stumps? No, I think we’ll wait till we’ve assembled a few ovens— give the cooks something to do when they get here. You could put yourself to better use digging up stones.”

  “Right away, sir. Just as soon as I finish this bowl.”

  “Bowl be damned, Parkes. Do it now.”

  With a sigh, the portly Parkes strolled over to stand behind Charlie, as if he would supervise the progress of the work.

  “Hold your pick a moment, boy,” he said. “Let’s have a look at whose sleep we’re disturbing, shall we?”

  Charlie stood back and Parkes came up to the stone. He stood on his toes, craned his neck sideways at an awkward angle, and mumbled a few syllables, reading to himself. When he moved back from the stone, his face had gone white.

  “Captain,” he muttered, hurrying away.

  “What is it, Parkes? Another excuse to keep you from your duties?”

  “No, sir. I think it’s a Mason, sir.”

  “A Mason? What are you talking about?”

  “Come look for yourself, sir. There’s signs and sigils of the sort the colonel warned us
away from.”

  “Masonic signs?”

  “I don’t know, sir, not being a Mason myself. But the colonel was very particular about not disturbing any Masons, as you must surely recall, sir. Those were his direct orders to you, sir.”

  “I remember his orders, damn you. Let me see.”

  The captain accompanied Parkes back to the stone. The German meanwhile kept digging, his pick striking the granite with a grating sound that turned Charlie’s stomach. While the captain leaned over the crypt, Charlie tried to imagine what might be lying within. He had seen plenty of death in recent weeks, but it was all of the fresh, bloody kind. Whatever those stones contained would be at best shrivelled and dry, if not mere dust. Still, he did not like the thought of disturbing it. He hoped the soul that slumbered here could see and understand his predicament, and that if it were inclined toward any form of ghostly revenge, it would show him mercy.

  But he had seen too many of his comrades, alive and shouting one moment, fall down in battle and never rise again, to believe that something so long dead could ever manage to stir against its enemies, no matter how just the cause.

  The captain leaned across the stone, tracing the carved figures there with his fingers, then he shook his head. “I don’t know what these are, but they’re not Masonic.”

  “Rosicrucian, then?”

  “Take my word for it, Parkes, these are nothing to do with the colonel. And he won’t know a thing about it anyway, because when we build the ovens we’ll turn the inscriptions inward. Blank stone, that’s all he’ll see. Now stop putting off your labor.”

  “But sir, it’s almost night. We should be getting back to camp.”

  “We’ll camp here if we must. Now there’s an idea. Why don’t you go gather some firewood? Be useful for once.”

  Seeming mildly offended, Parkes strolled into the trees. The captain followed him a short distance, as if to ensure that he went about his task properly, and Charlie took the opportunity to look at the inscriptions on the surface of the stone. The dusk had deepened to such an extent that very little should have been visible, but the lines and designs must have been incised very deeply. Each one looked like a thin edge of night, infinitely deep instead of mere fractions of an inch. He almost thought he saw stars glimmering down inside them, though that must have been flecks of the silvery mica that always dwells in granite. The letters of the deceased’s name were very queer indeed, written in a script that bore only a superficial resemblance to any Charlie had ever seen. Of course, he couldn’t read. Apart from the letters, the stone was covered with a wealth of intricate symbols, star-shapes and triangles, all growing like leaves from a carved vine that almost completely covered the crypt’s topmost slab.