Return of Souls

by Andy Remic

  Jones felt his mouth go dry as movement flashed beneath the concealing branches of the woodland canopy. Without further thought, he grasped his rifle and jogged down the tower steps, out into the courtyard, gathered his coat and ammunition, then approached the black gates and stood several feet before them, wondering how to get out.

  He moved forward and pressed. The iron gates seemed to shimmer under his fingers, opening and yet not opening, and he found himself on the bridge, blinking in confusion. The corpse of the creature from the day of his arrival had gone, but there were stains still marking the timbers.

  Jones moved forward, entering the woods with care, keeping from the path and weaving between the trees with his rifle at the ready. Another scream sang between the trees, to Jones’s right. There came a distant scuffling and high-pitched laughter, like that of a child.

  He gritted his teeth, forcing himself to keep a steady pace. Through the distant trees he saw a flash of white. Heard heavy footfalls. Boots thudding. More laughter, closer now.

  Sweat dripped from his brow and nose. He was suddenly aware of sweat soaking his shirt and trousers, despite the cold crispness of the woods.

  Wiping his sweating hand on his trousers, he crept forward, keeping low. Finally, he dropped to his belly and with infinite patience eased himself towards the source of the sound.

  There was a small clearing in the trees. Gathered together, stood—Jones counted—sixteen of the creatures which had regularly haunted his dreams and the battlefields of Europe. Grey eyes were hard, black claws flexing, long yellow fangs steaming in the cold breeze.

  Jones swallowed, and wiped sweat from his eyes. The creatures spread out, heavy overcoats dragging against woodland debris, crouching down on claws almost as if they were bowing. Another walrider entered the clearing. It dragged with it a figure—a woman!—and Jones’s breath hissed sharply between his clenched teeth. She was dazed, half-stumbling, blood trickling from her split lip and twisted nose. The creature had not been kind.

  Jones brought his rifle before him and licked his lips as muscles clenched along his jaw. There were too many of them, he knew. They would be on him, ripping him apart before he could pick off three or four . . . but he couldn’t just lie there and watch them kill the woman. He couldn’t squat whilst other, weaker people suffered!

  And then he remembered the Mills bombs.

  “Too risky,” he muttered. But were they? At least they would cause confusion and panic, disrupt the gathering enough to let him get the woman away from the group. And then they’d have to run for it . . .

  He would have to risk it and hope the creatures took the full force of the blast. He pulled two Mills bombs from his pouch and looked at their dark iron cases. He gripped the lever, pulled the pin, and waited . . . for the right moment.

  Arm coming back, he aimed as far away from the woman as possible . . . and launched the bomb.

  He counted, head down, and the sudden booming explosion sounded louder than a thousand bombs in that quiet stretch of woodland. Walriders were tossed through the woods, slamming into tree trunks, bending, breaking, arms and legs snapping, blood gushing from shrapnel wounds in faces, chests, and thighs. Smoke drifted. Reverberations sang. Silence fell. Then screams suddenly ejected and blood poured into the woodland soil from smashed, wounded enemies.

  Jones lifted his rifle, sighted on the creature still holding the woman, its face twisted in confusion, fangs dripping thick saliva—and he fired, bolt action, fired, bolt action, fired . . . The creature was punched backwards, chest and head exploding in showers of blood. The woman, released, slumped to the ground, mouth open, eyes wide in confusion and horror . . . blood trickling from a small, fresh wound on her cheek caused by shrapnel. It had been close . . .

  Jones was up, running, lungs burning. Eight of the walriders were on the ground, tossed aside, some silent, opened meat, some writhing in agony and tearing at hot metal in their flesh. As Jones ran, so his rifle roared, spitting fire, and another creature was blown backwards, clutching its torn-open throat as blood poured between its scrabbling claws.

  Jones reached the woman, who lifted her hands protectively before her face in terror; he grabbed her hands, dragged her to her feet gesturing frantically, and turned just in time to pump a bullet into a walrider’s mouth, watching the back of its head merged with its iron helmet explode outwards, upwards, in a shower of skull shards and bloody brain pulp.

  Jones ran, lungs on fire, pulling the sobbing woman behind him. He stopped suddenly, sliding on pine needles and crackling leaves. He pulled another pin and threw the Mills bomb. The bomb bounced from a tree and disappeared into the thick undergrowth . . . The remaining walriders came howling from the trees, and the sudden explosion and whirlwind of smoke and churned splinters of wood was enough to halt them in their tracks, drooling, grey eyes shining now, filled with metal fear . . .

  Jones dragged the woman along behind him, ignoring her cries and struggles, the castle his goal, a singular focus . . . He could hear footfalls and turned, fired blindly, again and again, and then they were approaching the bridge, and the woman screamed with such horror that Jones whirled and lifted his rifle.

  Four remaining walriders were charging, black claws clenched into fists, razor points gleaming, and Jones fired and the lead creature stumbled and fell on its face where it lay, whimpering, claws tearing at the earth, muzzle pressing into the soil and grey eyes spilling tears of molten platinum.

  The others focused on Jones, muzzles hissing, eyes full of hate, and Jones pulled the trigger—on nothing. The magazine was empty.

  No time, no time . . . He pulled out his final Mills bomb, pulled the pin, and threw, in one smooth, practised movement . . . The creatures looked down at the black pineapple, then up at Jones as he dragged the woman to the ground and covered her with his own body. Understanding registered in their eyes a split second too late, as they were slammed backwards and spread across the forest carpet in pieces.

  Jones was up and running, refusing to turn and look. He pounded across the bridge with the woman, his lungs wheezing, mind on fire, and they passed like a dream into the relative sanctuary of the courtyard.

  Jones knelt on the cobbles, struggling to breathe, and his SMLE slipped from shaking fingers. He could hear the woman sobbing to his right. He coughed, choked, and vomited on the cobbles. Sweat washed his face like a sheet of ice. His mind was spinning. Nausea swamped him.

  Too weak, too weak, too weak . . .

  His exhausted limbs connected with the cobbles, his head cracked the ground, and the woman’s sobbing blended and faded like drifting birdsong into the sound of the wind sighing through distant, whispering treetops.

  Castle Shell. “Orana.” 26th. October 1917.

  JONES WAS WARM. COMFORTABLE. But then he opened his eyes and with the light came pain, his ever-present pain, and he groaned and tried to turn over . . . lungs burned, his hands burned, his face felt hot with fever . . . and then he could hear music, no . . . not music but song, a woman’s voice singing a gentle ballad in words he did not understand.

  Something cool touched the burns on his face, and the pain was gone. The same cool honey touched his hands and all pain fled to the distant corners of his scarred memory.

  He opened his eyes, witnessed the young woman kneeling before him, her head bent, stirring some kind of paste in a small, hand-carved wooden bowl.

  Jones watched her for some time, listening to her voice, admiring her fine, long brown hair which glinted in the flame-light. She glanced up, met his gaze, and her song faltered.

  “Please . . . don’t . . . don’t stop,” he managed.

  She began to sing once more, continually stirring the contents of the bowl. Jones watched her, noting her strong young face, her smooth features, her pale skin marred by the recent cut to her cheek. Her lip was swollen and nose bruised, her nostrils filled with dried blood. And yet, despite the wounds, and despite her plain features, Jones found her incredibly beautiful, an angel seated
before him, singing to him on his bed of agony.

  Her song finished. Her grey eyes sparkled.

  “Drell ana.”

  She offered the bowl to Jones and he took it, noticing for the first time that the backs of his hands were smeared in a dark crimson . . . he looked into the bowl, panicked for a second because the thick liquid was deep red and looked so much like blood . . . He lifted it to his lips and could smell the strong smell of berries. He sipped the liquid. It was warm, and as he swallowed, it soothed his mouth and throat more than he could have believed possible. He drank all the contents of the wooden bowl, his eyes matching the gaze of the woman. And he realised she was younger than he had first thought . . . possibly as young as seventeen or eighteen.

  He handed back the bowl, and she smiled.

  She moved away, disappeared from Jones’s vision. He sat up in order to watch her and remembered the cool sensation on his skin. He reached up to his face and felt the same healing paste there, cooling and soothing his mustard-gas burns.

  The woman sat beside the fire, her back to Jones, and again began to sing. She had a small pile of berries beside her, and these she placed in a bowl which she’d found in an outbuilding, and began to crush with a small stone pestle.

  Jones listened to her song but could not understand the words. He crawled to his knees, removed his blanket, and looked around for his rifle, finally locating it beside the fire, beside the woman.

  Jones got shakily to his feet and moved to the fire, where he sat down across from her. She had put the bowl to one side and was singing, her fingers twining her hair, and gazing into the flames. Jones looked into her grey eyes, but she looked away shyly.

  “What is your name?” he asked, his voice gentle, emerging for the first time as something other than a croak. The woman tilted her head, looked at him, her song drifting away like a whisper of leaves.

  “Name?” she asked, showing confusion.

  Jones nodded. “Your name? What do they call you?” He placed his hand flat on his chest.

  Suddenly, the woman’s eyes went bright, her face uncreased with realisation, and she pulled tight her short cloak and thought for a moment, fingers still twining her hair.

  And in English, she said with a thick accent, “You . . . you speak in the old tongue. Yes?”

  Jones nodded, unsure of what she meant.

  The woman pointed at Jones’s face, and he realised she was pointing at his burns. “What . . . happened to your face? They are terrible wounds.”

  Jones shook his head, and said, “There was a war.”

  “There is always war,” sighed the woman, and looked away, towards the castle gates. Jones realised that she was still frightened, afraid of the creatures and worried they might still enter the castle. She turned back. “What cause the burn?”

  “Gas. The Hun used a burning agent. Mustard gas. It has no colour or smell and yet burns your skin, your eyes, and your lungs on contact. I am recovering. Slowly. I still find it hard to breathe.”

  The woman nodded. “Where are we?”

  “I was hoping you could tell me,” said Jones, with a smile. “I am lost. I found this castle. I was hunted by those creatures, just like you. That is why I could not stand by and watch them take you.”

  The woman picked up the wooden bowl and showed it to Jones. “Berries. They have healing properties. They take away the pain.”

  “Yes . . . I can feel.”

  She offered him the bowl. “Drink again. It will help your throat, your—lungs? You breathe in the, the smell? The fumes! It heal all burns. Very special berries.”

  Jones took the bowl and finished off the healing liquor. Handing it back, he asked, “Where did you find them?”

  The woman pointed to the trees by the castle wall. “Beneath the trees, there is a garden. Special bushes were grown there.”

  They sat in silence for a while, and the woman sang her song. Jones listened, and closed his eyes, allowed the sounds to soothe him, to carry him away from nightmare. When he finally opened them again, he studied the woman. She wore low boots of grey leather, thick trousers, and a black dyed shirt laced up the front. Her cloak, now torn from her encounter with the creatures, was brown and fur-lined. She hugged it tightly about her body.

  Suddenly, she stopped her song and met Jones’s gaze. “My name is Orana Katella,” she said, and Jones nodded, smiling, feeling foolish with the berry paste smeared across his face.

  “I am Robert. Robert Jones.”

  “You have come from a different land,” said Orana, and Jones was unsure whether it was a question or a statement of fact.

  He nodded. “Yes.”

  “You were brought here,” she said.

  Jones frowned. “I . . .” And he remembered trees and leaves and thorns, and powerful fingers covered in bark, gleaming claws of polished oak . . . “I don’t remember.”

  “Yes,” she said. “And now I have found you.” Getting to her feet, she added more wood to the fire. Jones watched her movements, dreamlike, as if she moved through honey smoke, and closing his eyes, he leant back against the stable wall, and floating, devoid of pain, he fell instantly asleep.

  Diary of Robert Jones. 3rd Battalion Royal Welsh Fusiliers. 28th. October 1917.

  My hands have healed. I can write without pain. My face feels much better. Every twelve hours, or thereabouts, Orana puts berry paste on my burns and it soothes the pain away, softens the skin, heals the flesh.

  I am confused. I rescued this woman who says her name is Orana. She will answer no more questions. She claims she has “found” me, as if she has been looking for me. But how can she have been looking for me? I have never met her before in my life. Although I wish I had.

  I find her strangely attractive. She fires my blood—there is something deeply primeval and sexual in the way she talks, the way she sings, the way she moves. She is very athletic, almost a warrior by her economy of movement. I am embarrassed though, for she has seen my stares, seen my eyes admiring her figure. But she says nothing. She does not reprimand me. Although I certainly deserve it . . .

  I find Orana very strange indeed. She speaks English well, and yet calls it the “old tongue”. Her accent is neither German nor Austrian. It is vaguely Eastern, possibly Russian, but when she speaks in her other language, I am most certain the words are not.

  I have tried to question her, but she just smiles and continues to sing. Yet, over the last two days, she has questioned me as we sit in the darkness beside the fire. She has asked about my life, about my rifle, and ultimately her talk leads back to the war. She has questioned me about Germany, Austro-Hungary, France, and Belgium . . . I tell her everything I know. I tell her about infantry and guns and artillery and tanks. It is probably wrong of me to do so, but if she is a spy, then she is a very good one.

  And that leads me to wonder—where the bugger am I? I cannot be far from France . . . from the front lines. And yet all indicators point to the fact I am. And of course, there are the creatures out in the woods, the walriders. They defy the horror of imagination. What are they? Where did they come from? Why do they hunt me?

  Questions, questions. All questions, no answers.

  After the rescue in the woods, I am left with no bombs and only twenty-eight bullets. And our main problem now is that we are running out of food. I have been here for more than a week, and with Orana here—well, there is only so far a few patches of mushrooms and wild potatoes can stretch.

  Soon we will be forced to leave this castle. And then we will be open game for the creatures in the woods.

  Maybe this is all a dream.

  A madness.

  You tell me, God? You tell me.

  Castle Shell. “The War.” 30th. October 1917.

  SUNLIGHT SPARKLED IN SHAFTS through a sky the colour of hammered steel, glinting from damp cobbles and warming the earth. Jones laboured with the fire, which had gone out during the night, kneeling and blowing gently onto the embers as he crisscrossed narrow sticks in a sear
ch for new flames.

  Orana moaned as she came awake, and turned under the blankets, her arms stretching out, eyes squeezed tight shut.

  Jones watched her painfully feminine movements, and looked quickly away as her eyes came open. He caught her smile and laughed at himself as the fire suddenly blazed into life.

  He sat patiently, feeding the flames, aware of her eyes on his back. They had spent the night curled in one another’s arms under the blanket, for warmth more than comfort, although Jones had achieved a great sense of inner calm, a feeling of peace like nothing he had experienced in years.

  Orana was young and wild, and Jones had felt himself dwelling on her more and more as every hour passed. And when he awoke to the early morning light, noted the extinguished fire, enjoyed the wild smell of berries and earth and woodsmoke in his nostrils from her hair and her skin, he had caught himself becoming aroused . . . He had looked down into her young face and discovered real beauty there, not glamour like the actresses in the cinema reels . . . but a beauty of innocence, a beauty of strength, a beauty of earth, a beauty of nature.

  And he had lain there, arm beneath her soft hair, the smell of her skin in his face, her lips soft and smiling subtly in sleep . . . He’d been desperate to kiss her, desperate to seize her in his arms and taste her warmth. But he did not. Could not. How could he? They were from different worlds . . . and he had become a monster.

  Now he crouched by the fire and shook his head, lips pursing. He had seen his reflection, in water, in an old brass mirror in one of the towers. His face was scarred from the burns of the mustard gas. He knew with an inner anguish he was never going to be handsome again. He feared no woman would ever find him attractive. But more—he feared he would never find his true soul mate.

  Jones felt a hand on his shoulder, and Orana crouched beside him and held out her hand to the flames. She shivered. Her hair brushed his shoulder. He felt himself growing excited, heart pounding, and so he stood up and went to get water from the well.