“Winston!” William shouted.
“Don’t bother,” the soldier said, his voice high pitched and insane, and he fired his rifle along the trench at Winston.
William took one step to tackle him, and then something else happened. He felt it first, a vibration more frequent and intense than the regular thud of explosive Shockwaves. This was machines churning underground, or something rolling over. He paused and looked along the trench . . . and the knee-high water began to swill and flow, down into several holes that had opened beneath their feet.
William leapt at the trench wall and grabbed hold of something hanging down from above. He looked up into the blank eyes of a dead soldier, his extended arm William’s lifeline, his hand cold and hard. Looking back down he saw Sterling disappear underground with a squelch, and Winston drifting to one of the holes and remaining there, half in, half out, filthy water flowing by him.
In seconds, the trench had emptied of water. Six inches of mud was all that remained; that and humped bodies here and there, rotting, disintegrating already. There were also the pits, each of them steaming and spitting sprays of water into the illuminated night.
He recalled the hole they had seen in the decimated village . . . and the smell that had come from it.
This tunnel was made from beneath, Sterling had said. Well, now the Sergeant knew just where they led.
William hauled himself out of the trench before he could see what emerged from the holes.
Once on top, he lay flat out and searched for the soldier who’d fallen in moments before. But the madman was already dodging his way into the murk of no-man’s land, rifle thrown away, arms held wide as if craving a liberating spray of bullets across his chest.
William thought to call after him but knew it would do no good. He was mad. Everyone was mad. Maybe there was a poem there somewhere, but who would be left to read it? Madmen? He laughed, and the sound of his own lunatic giggle perturbed him greatly.
More men came from behind, scrambling over the trench, some of them falling in and never reappearing. There were noises from down there now, shouts and shots and the sound of flesh finding its doom.
Ahead of him, certain death under a hail of enemy fire.
Behind him, dead friends and dying men, dying in ways he could not properly describe or even imagine. From the sounds drifting from the trench . . . the terrible screams suddenly cut off, the crunching of bones being snapped and pulled apart . . . his choice had already been made.
It was war, after all.
William stood and ran into a storm of lead.
Liggett was following him. His various dismembered parts skipped and dodged shattered tree trunks and fallen bodies. One remaining arm hauled his torso through the mud, and his head moved by rolling itself forward. Its mouth was wide open, trying to scream, but it had no neck or throat.
“Help me!” Liggett croaked nonetheless.
William slowed to a halt. Bullets whipped the air around him, slamming into bodies and sending them toppling down to add to the muck. He was in what had once been a forest. Now it was merely another part of the mud, with strangely contorted stumps seeking their lost heads.
“Help!” Liggett rasped as the first of his parts dashed past William.
Dreaming. He had to be dreaming. He could smell home here, not war and death. He could taste honey on the air, not cordite and blood and smoke.
He looked back from where Liggett had fled.
Dreaming.
Strange shapes lumbered from the smoke, slopping through the mud but unhindered by it. Indeed, these things seemed to flow with the filth, not struggle against it. They looked like the stretcher-bearers he had seen earlier, but as they approached he saw that there was no likeness there. None at all.
Dreaming . . . please God, let me be dreaming.
The demons had yellow eyes.
William came to in a flooded shell hole. At first he though he was alone, but then he saw the dead men keeping his night company. He lay in a horrible mire of flesh and blood.
He shuddered, a tortured sigh escaping his cracked lips. The battle continued around him, but now the fighting was more scattered. In the midst of the tumult, he could hear the steady tac-tac-tac of the German machine guns, spreading death precisely and methodically. William reflected on how the emotions of the man behind the weapon never hindered its evil effects. The machine gun was new to this world, yet it could have been created and directed by some ancient, scheming spirit of destruction.
Grabbing a rifle from the clutches of a corpse, he peered cautiously over the edge of the crater. The dream lingered with him, the glint from the creatures’ yellow eyes as they lumbered toward him like misshapen men . . .
He was in the middle of no-man’s land.
And something was charging his position.
Screaming, William pulled the trigger and was greeted with an empty click.
The thing drew closer, its harsh and ragged breath echoing in the darkness. Ducking back down William flailed in the water, searching wildly for another weapon. His hand closed on something round and he brought it up to the surface – he had to, he could not help himself – and an eyeball stared back at him from his glistening palm.
He screamed again.
The shriek was answered from above.
The thing towered over the shell hole, darkness enshrouding its body like a blanket. William scuttled backward like a crab as a guttural laugh mocked him. The thing cocked its head, surveying him calmly.
It’s a man . . . it’s a man . . . it’s got to be a man . . . !
A flare popped half a mile away, throwing a sheen of sickly light over the scene.
Its body was pale and bloated, the skin mottled like melted cheese or wax. The creature bent at the knees and leapt, landing in the hole but not sinking into the mud. It snarled at him. Its fetid breath fogged the air between them.
It was not a German. It was not a man. Men didn’t have yellow eyes.
Or tusks.
Scampering up the slope, William fled across the field with the howls of the creature nipping at his heels. He risked a glance to see if it was gaining. Blessed relief washed over him when he noticed that the thing hadn’t left the hole.
He heard the ripping sounds, and the chewing. It was feeding.
He turned and ran into the night. The air exploded and burned around him as he dashed across the field and back into the labyrinthine trenches. Leaping over a sandbagged parapet, he saw hunched forms moving in the darkness below. He jumped another trench, missing his mark and clawing wildly at barbed wire as he slid down.
A cluster of German and French troops struggled against one another, not in battle, but in flight. Even as he watched the mud erupted before them, spewing earth and water skyward. William turned and ran before he could see what had caused it.
The earth was giving up its secrets.
The trench crossed another, then another, and soon he was lost in the intersections. The Argonne battlefield was a cacophony of hellish sound now, gunfire and explosions punctuated by cries of agony and other, less human exhortations.
Above him, out in front of the barbed wire, a man was being torn apart. The attacker ripped the victim’s arm from its socket. Brandishing the bloody trophy like a club, he began to beat the other man mercilessly. He sank into the mud, raised his remaining arm in a feeble attempt to ward off the blows.