by A. W. Exley
I might despise the man, but I would battle to free him. Digging my heels into the ground, I hauled backwards on his feet and hoped his shoes didn't pop off. The creature snarled and lunged, as if to drop Phelps and try for me. I shot backwards and nearly overbalanced. Sheer willpower helped me to rock on my heels and stay upright. I didn't want to be flat on my back with that thing looking for a meal.
This was one of the worst I had seen, vermin a more apt description than human. Its clothes hung in dirty tatters. Matted hair pulled away from its scalp and showed dull bone. The flesh rotted from its fingers and made its nails into long talons.
Phelps rolled to one side as it clawed at the air. It might have once been an older man. Ignoring the state of decay, the rough structure looked vaguely familiar and I had a faint memory of having seen him tossing and turning in the Serenity House ballroom back in October.
As I backed away from it, my toe kicked something and I glanced down. A fallen branch. Perfect. I picked up the limb and held it over one shoulder, like the Americans did with a baseball bat. Its blank gaze locked onto me and I vaguely wondered how they saw from their milky eyes. A question to ask Ella. Later.
It lunged, or lurched, quickly. Arms reached for me as I swung the branch. A loud smack echoed around the trees and rotten skin tore as its head knocked back. It now hung at an odd angle to its neck and body. Before I thought too hard about what I was doing, I whacked again as hard as I could muster. The few bones holding one piece to the other separated and the head flew into the undergrowth.
My thought at that moment had nothing to do with saving Phelps. I acted so Ella wouldn't carry her burden alone. Dispatching this one would mean one less mark she would carry branded into her soul.
It staggered for a few feet, the arms searching for me. I jumped out of the way and watched. Luckily the head had landed against a tree, face to the trunk. Otherwise it might have directed the body to me in a gruesome game of blind man's bluff.
Phelps stood and tried to brush the leaves and mud from his coat. As he pulled his collar back around his neck, I saw a flash of red.
I pointed and then tapped the side of my own neck. He raised a hand and wiped at his skin; it came away with blood. A tiny amount, nothing serious. News reports flashed through my mind, men and women who died after being attacked. But surely there was a difference between having chunks of flesh chewed off your body and a teeny scratch?
"Bloody thing scratched me." Phelps looked at his fingertips and then wiped them on his trousers.
Was it wrong that I took a small amount of pleasure in hearing the quiver in his voice? That was when I noticed it. The sharp tang at odds with the musty scent of leaves.
He had soiled his trousers. Guess he won't be using that against me anymore.
16
February 1919 and work never stopped, despite the solid ground that showed no sign of spring. An unexpected cold snap saw a light snowfall blanket the ground. It meant we either bundled up and continued on regardless, or undertook one of the endless inside jobs.
Due to the weather, I decided to clean tack and dragged a chair to the end of the barn aisle. With the doors open to the frigid air, I sat with a pile of bridles in a box next to me. On my other side, a bucket of warm water and a cloth for working in the saddle soap and cleaning off sweat and dirt.
The horses were quiet in their stalls and a sense of peace suffused the world. As though the drop in temperature had frozen time itself and allowed us all a chance to draw a deep breath and recover from events of the last few weeks.
I should be cleaning the leather, but my mind couldn't concentrate in the quiet. I picked at my worries, pushed to the front by the voice that whispered from the back of my skull. Muttering about sins and atonement. I dropped the bridle to my lap and reached into my jacket.
I turned the battered notebook over between my fingers. It had been bright green leather the day Ella and Alice gave it to me when I left. They told me to draw them pictures of the war so they knew what it was like, but the notebook became my record of horrors. Time itself along with mud, sweat, and rain had worn away the colour from the cover and now it was muted and blotched. Like the back of a camouflaged toad.
My thumb brushed the edges of the pages. Strange that such a small thing could weigh more than the blacksmith's anvil. It dragged at me and seemed to weight my pocket to one side, as though I were on a boat with a starboard list. Perhaps every page carried the soul of a fallen man.
Ella emerged from the house and headed for the open doors. She pulled over an upturned box and sat next to me. Neither of us spoke but our breath frosted on the air and formed silent word clouds.
"What's going on, Henry? You haven't been to see Hazel for weeks."
My chest heaved in a big sigh. How could I explain that it was better I stayed away? Each page in the notebook was another reason why Hazel was better off without me.
Ella let me torment the book for several minutes and then reached out and took it from me. As she leafed through the pages, I watched snowflakes drift to the cobbles outside. Eddies swirled and danced in a private show before a light wind blew them off stage.
"I don't blame you, you know. Terrible things happened during the Great War and father was one of millions of casualties." Ella had the book open in her hands. A finger rested on her father, captured in quick pencil strokes.
I snorted. If only it were as easy to absolve myself as seeking her forgiveness. Could I ever forgive myself? Would Sir Jeffrey, if he could speak?
"Why did you draw these images, Henry? Why do you keep the notebook? Are you keeping count so you can work some sort of penance?" A sad smile graced her lips.
Perhaps that was exactly why the tiny book weighed so much. Each page was a moment I failed somebody, somehow. Each page was an instant that I must account for when I stood before St Peter. I imagined the heavenly figure nodding his head as I tried to explain the background and intent to every drawing. He would listen to me with a solemn expression on his face and then boot me off the cloud to plummet through the earth to the bowels of Hell.
I flipped the book to the very back, and on one spare corner scribbled, you make your own list.
I wasn't the only one recording the dark moments of my life. Ella worked at night, writing names, dates, and locations into a larger journal. Her gruesome record of who died in our village, who returned, and where she dispatched them.
"We all do things others might not be able to imagine, or we carry burdens that others might buckle under. We are not cowards because there are days we struggle under the weight pressing on us. We are brave because we know it hurts and continue on regardless." Her voice was quiet and serious.
We weren't talking about the war any more. Ella carried a burden for the entire village. Each time the shrill bell of the telephone rang and Ella rode out, she blackened her soul further. She took another step along the road to Hell.
Did I walk alongside her? I must since I had removed the head of the creature that attacked Phelps. At least we would have each other for company in eternal damnation.
"Humour me for a moment, Henry." She took the sketchbook back and slowed at the page that showed her father leaping to push me out of the way of the incoming shell. With the faintest sigh, she turned to the aftermath. Sir Jeffrey prone in the mud and the crater where the shell exploded.
With a fingernail she outline the scar in the earth. "Father pushed you away, yes?"
A nod. Yes.
She stared at the sketch for a minute before asking her next question. "Assume he hadn't. Imagine if father held his position. Where would he have been standing when the shell landed?"
I tapped on the crater, where he had been seconds beforehand. He had run at me, barrelled into me and sent me flying when the high-pitched scream had filled the air. Sir Jeffrey heard it coming and saw me frozen in place, unable to move. Shrapnel hit him running in my direction.
"What happened to the men on the other side to your position?
" Her finger moved around the edge of the crater. Sir Jeffrey and I lay on one side. Bodies and pieces were strewn on the other. The shell must have angled as it hit the ground and the majority of shrapnel and the explosive force went the other way.
I didn't need to answer her question. The sketch answered her in the scattered remnants of humanity.
Her finger stroked the prone figure and her voice was low when she spoke. "You saved father."
Certainly didn't feel like saving him when the man was trapped inside his own body. Assuming he even had an awareness of his surroundings or predicament. We hoped the poor fellow didn't know that someone needed to change him like an enormous baby. If he could speak I doubt he would thank me.
When I didn't answer, Ella closed the book and held it tight in her hands. "Or perhaps we should blame father entirely."
I frowned at her. How could it be his fault? It's not like he was shelling his own men.
That sad little smile crept back over her lips. "You had barely turned fifteen, Henry, when you signed up. It wasn't legal. Father knew your true age, and he should have pulled you from the recruitment line and drove you home. But he didn't. If he had chased you off and told you to wait until you were eighteen then none of this would have happened."
Why did women have to go and use logic to win arguments? It just wasn't cricket. Or perhaps her words were too close to the splintered nightmares that broke my sleep. I ran down endless fractured pathways, trying to undo my choices and make events unfold differently.
Had to do my bit. She wouldn't understand. Girls didn't have the same response to war as boys. I couldn't stand and wave as the other men marched off to war. And I wasn’t the only young soldier; every lad from ten to seventeen thought about it, and many gave it a go. Underage soldiers were common knowledge; officers turned a blind eye so long as a lad was fit, able, and willing.
"You were too young," she whispered. "You should have stayed with us for another year or two, and then things would have been different."
We had been such fools. As much as I tried to relive events every night, nothing changed. Every morning dawned the same and I stayed trapped in the unrelenting dark.
I scrawled on the corner again. If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.
A soft laugh escaped from her throat. "We do ride, Henry. At least Lady Jeffrey hasn't taken that from us yet."
She leaned against me and elbowed my side. How did she do it and keep her sense of humour while that horrid woman pushed her down into the gutter? As Sir Jeffrey's child, Ella should have been running the farm while he lay sick. Instead that woman cast her down as a servant. Ella never treated us any different before the war; we all laughed and worked together, despite the differences in our positions.
Still, wasn't right what Lady Jeffrey did. Almost like she stole what was rightfully Ella's.
"Come back to us, Henry. You can't change how events unfolded. None of us can go back in time and take a different path. We must figure out how to move forward."
There was such sadness in her eyes with their strange mix of grey to hazel. A lump welled up in my throat. What I would give to turn back time, for both of us to be those carefree children who used to cause such chaos and mischief around the farm. Where had they gone? If we looked hard enough, could we ever find them again?
"Do you remember the men Tim Matthews attacked? The three of them died." She changed the topic to another gruesome subject.
I remembered. Tim had chewed one fellow's nose off and clawed and scratched the others. Then they all sickened with the same flu like symptoms as the original pandemic victims.
Her eyes misted with unshed tears and her voice sunk to a low whisper. "They came back, Henry. I had to dispatch two of them today. We're still waiting for the third to show up. His grave is empty."
The world kept on spinning but it seemed to spiral further into the never-ending nightmare. Every day when you wondered how it could ever get worse, life dealt us another blow.
"They are like vermin. With every bite and scratch they pass on their disease and infect others. Remember, if you encounter one, don't let it mark you." She reached out and took my hand, shaking it to make sure I heeded her words.
I thought of Phelps and the small scratch on his neck.
Phelps? I scribbled on my notebook. His encounter with a vermin marked him. But how much damage did they have to do?
Ella let out a sigh. "For such a tiny scratch, he sickened and died rather quickly. He was buried this morning."
Bugger. Just when you thought you had vanquished your nemesis, the fates went and made it undead and threw it back at you.
17
March 22nd, 1919 was an important date in my mental diary. Things happened on this day far more than the signs of new life pushing up through frigid ground as the earth threw off winter and embraced spring. It was Hazel's eighteenth birthday. Not even the threat of Mr Morris tearing me limb from limb could make me miss her birthday.
Sadness and regret formed a swamp in my gut. That day she would leave her tower forever, having agreed to stay only until she reached this milestone. This would most likely be our last day together. I had promised to take her to the village, where she would be safe from roving vermin, until she decided on her course of action.
It was early afternoon by the time I had finished my chores and then penned a note to Magda asking for hot water to wash. All the while, Ella and Alice twittered and laughed. Honestly, what was wrong with a fellow wanting to wash the sweat and dirt off before he visited a girl on her birthday?
As I rode out, the other women stood by the kitchen door, grinning. As if I didn't have enough problems, life burdened me with those two sticking their noses into every corner of my life. They meant well, but at times I wished they would leave me be.
My gut seemed to contain lead fishing weights that rolled around as Cossimo trotted across the paddocks. I hadn't seen Hazel since Christmas. Three months had passed while the countryside slumbered through winter and early spring, and I hid. The glimpse of something I could never have nor deserve tormented me.
The horse snorted as I dismounted in our usual spot and I left him chewing lush new tips of spring grass. That would put a bounce in his step for later. Then I stood amongst the budding tress and watched. The window was thrown open to the fresh breeze. I leaned against a birch and waited, but there was no sign of her and certainly no ladder to help me ascend the formidable structure.
I had limited options, and knocking on the door was definitely out. Clambering over the wall was a possibility, but I’d be booted back over like a drop kicked football if I mistimed it and landed on Mr Morris on the other side.
Would she remember that I promised to come and free her today? My hand toyed with the small wrapped object in my pocket. I wasn't empty handed, but I could afford very little. Ella and Alice helped me pick the present and assured me a young woman would be delighted. I wish I could give her an ocean liner cruise to an exotic destination. What I could afford seemed so lacking.
As I was about to give up hope and the sun dropped on the horizon, she appeared at the window. The ladder unfurled and dangled against the side of the grey stone. Our time had come. Like going over the top of the trenches and charging across the desolate expanse. All I needed was to hear the whistles blowing as we made the final push toward victory and freedom.
Onward, I said in a voiceless whisper.
I climbed up the ladder and over the ledge and dropped into a strange world of paper snow. Hazel sat on the floor. Letters and postcards spiralled out and around her. Paper of different sizes and consistencies, some stained by the trials of their weeks-long journey through mud and rain. Some were folded into neat little squares, other hastily crumpled to fit an envelope. Letters penned in a shaky hand and the regulation issue postcards with their bland lines.
She looked up and met my gaze. "You came."
I nodded. Of course I'd come—I made her a promise. I frowned and pointed to the sc
attered letters.
A sad smile graced her lips as she looked around her. "As you can see, I found your letters."
Where? I hoped she saw my question.
She picked up a postcard where in a thick scrawl I had crossed out various words to form a regulation-approved sentence. She fanned herself with it and the lines waved back and forth. "In the root cellar. We have used all the winter stores and I went looking what we had left at the very back, to last us until the spring plantings are ready. They were in flour sacks and looked like potatoes and onions."
Four years of my life spread out in concentric circles. If I started from the outside and spiralled in, could I go back to the beginning? Could I start anew?
"I thought you had forgotten me, but you didn't. You took me with you." She dropped the postcard and picked up a letter and shook out the creases. I wasn't much of a writer and there were scant words on the page. I laboured long over the sketches, though. Every single drawing showed an aspect of where I was and had Hazel on an adventure. The one in her hand was sent from Egypt. A grinning Hazel rode a camel as she headed across the desert sand toward the pyramids.
"Just like the Christmas adventure you drew for me, but no puppy," she whispered.
She picked up another letter from further out. This one had Hazel high in a tree, watching soldiers march underneath as they headed over a hill. Their packs on their backs, bottles and supplies clanking against each other as they moved.
"You drew me a different version of war than the one reported in the newspapers. You made it fun and exciting in these letters, but the cold reality is in your notebook." She pointed to my chest and the small book that held my darker sketches.
Light must have dark. My letters to her were buoyant; my pocket contained the heavy anchor.
"I was trapped here, but you added me to your travels so I could imagine being free. But mother and father stole that from me." Unshed tears glistened in her eyes.
Her letters didn't seem to have survived along with mine. How I longed to know what she wrote to me. If they hid my correspondence, maybe hers were buried elsewhere? Perhaps they lingered and slept with the dahlia tubers interred in sawdust?