Blackbone

by George Simpson

  Kirst was fascinated by what came out of him, only vaguely recalling learning all of this, realizing it must have been buried somewhere in his mind and the imp had unlocked it.

  Across the mess hall, he glimpsed Steuben watching him sternly. Kirst tried to warn the imp to shut up, but it was having too much fun. It kept him chattering like a magpie. On his right, von Lechterhoeven ladled himself a second helping of lentil soup, then picked up a salt cellar and began liberally shaking its contents into his bowl.

  Kirst’s flow of words instantly stopped. He froze in his seat as the imp retreated into the farthest corner of his body, away from this maniac with his salt shaker. This was all lost on Kirst, who was only conscious of two things: one, a thick dark ache in his foot where the imp had gone, and two, he was once again in control of himself.

  In surprise, Kirst dropped his bread. It splashed into his soup. Von Lechterhoeven glanced at him. They all looked at him, Gebhard intently. Kirst felt a sudden, tremendous, wonderful exhilaration, as if an incredible weight had been lifted from his shoulders, as if the cloud that had muddled his thinking for days had suddenly vanished and left him with a clarity he had never experienced before, as if all at once he knew the secret of the universe, that life was grand and wonderful and the greatest gift of all—

  He opened his mouth to proclaim his freedom in his own voice, but before he could form the words, the ache in his foot tore up the length of his leg and shot into his crotch. He turned pale. Blackness spread upward and robbed him of his great discovery, as the imp took him back. It lifted his arm and worked his hand and made him fish the bread out of his soup and drop it on a napkin. Then it made him look at the officers around him sheepishly. It made him apologize.

  And he heard himself tell them, “Seizures. I get them now and then. Not very painful, but... momentary blackouts.”

  A few of the officers nodded. They had heard of such things.

  “How did you get into submarines with that?” Gebhard asked coldly.

  The imp locked gazes with Gebhard. “I only began to get them during this last patrol,” it said through Kirst.

  The men were getting up around them, taking their plates to the washtubs outside the kitchen. Kirst ignored them. The imp had him take another slice of bread and work on that while everyone else cleared out.

  Gebhard was the last to leave.

  Chapter 12

  A thick, low-hanging fog obscured Blackbone Mountain and covered the roofs of the huts. Gebhard walked the fence perimeter with Steuben and voiced his suspicions of Kirst.

  “Most of the time you can hardly get two words out of him but, when he does talk, he sounds like a walking textbook. He’s soulless.”

  “That’s not enough to condemn a man,” said Steuben.

  “Did you see him at dinner? Seizures indeed. Every time it gets a little hot, he pulls a stunt.”

  Steuben pursed his lips. “There’s a story going around that you attacked him in the shower.”

  Gebhard laughed bitterly. “I asked him to explain how he survived at sea for two days, and he ran like he’d seen a ghost. A few minutes later, I heard he had sprouted a bone in front of twenty of our men. Are the two things connected? I think so, but not the way he led everyone to believe. He’s trying to discredit me—make me out to be a pervert, when he’s—”

  “What?”

  “Major, he was blown off a U-boat. He’s supposed to have survived two days’ exposure to freezing water and air temperatures before he was rescued. But that’s just not possible!”

  “No?”

  “Not in the Atlantic. Not at this time of year. I’m a submariner! He knows damned well I wouldn’t believe that story! That I’d question it and eventually voice my doubts to the others. So he undercut me. He plays the victim, and I’m the goat!”

  “If he didn’t survive that ordeal, then how do you account for the fact that he’s here?”

  “Because he was never there! He was never rescued at sea! He’s a spy!”

  “A spy?”

  “Planted by the Americans.”

  Steuben lapsed into silence. Gebhard stared into space and continued walking, mentally writing the scenario of Kirst’s recruitment by the Americans to go to Blackbone and play ferret among his countrymen.

  “Suppose he is a spy,” said Steuben. “Then what?”

  “Then we should do something.”

  “What?”

  Gebhard was no cold-blooded bully, no heartless Gestapo. He couldn’t simply say, Kill him. Submariners did not view themselves as killers. Unlike the army types, they were never involved in hand-to-hand combat. Their action was almost entirely impersonal. Torpedoes did the killing; images in the lens of a periscope did the dying.

  “You see,” said Steuben, “I don’t find him quite so sinister. He’s strange, he’s quiet, hasn’t much spirit, keeps to himself, and has an unfortunate habit of babbling unpleasant truths. But a spy?” Steuben shrugged.

  “You don’t think he’s capable of it?”

  “I don’t know. He bears watching. But look at it this way—perhaps he doesn’t trust you. Maybe he thinks you’re a spy trying to pump him. Maybe he doesn’t trust any of us.” “You think I’m imagining things.”

  “So far, he’s guilty of only one crime—being indiscreet.”

  “Hah!”

  “I mean about discussing the war. He seems to seize every opportunity to depress us with his bleak view of the situation. I warned him not to, but it appears he has no control over the impulse.”

  “What are you going to do about that, Major?”

  Steuben stopped near the westernmost perimeter tower. He could feel the sentry’s eyes on his back and knew the man was resisting a terrible temptation to plonk a German major and go home a hero. Gebhard stood near his left shoulder, hands in his pockets, waiting for an answer.

  “You’re the one who wants to do something, Leutnant Gebhard. Make a suggestion.”

  “Move him out of my hut.”

  “No.”

  “At least out of my room.”

  “No. If you’re concerned that he should be watched, then you watch him. And report everything to me.”

  Gebhard frowned angrily then reconsidered. “All right,” he said finally. “I’ll watch him.”

  “Good.”

  Gebhard saluted. Steuben returned it and watched the little submariner stroll off toward the huts. Steuben grunted to himself. Psychology worked every time. In this camp, all any man wanted was something to relieve the boredom. Give him a task, the slightest chore, and he was in seventh heaven. Give him something remotely smacking of importance and he would tackle it like the search for the Grail. Steuben smiled: he had just turned Gebhard into the very thing he believed Kirst to be—a spy.

  Cold seeped up through cracks in the floorboards in Hut 7, but the presence of eight sleeping bodies in one small room kept the cold at floor level. Kirst was sunk into a deep sleep and lay on his back, snoring.

  The djinn stirred inside him, flowed into his brain, and sealed off all awareness, plunging him into a trancelike state that bordered on coma. Kirst was becoming easier to manage. The djinn had familiarized itself completely with his memory and his behavioral impulses. Soon Kirst could be made to function with more natural demeanor. Soon even Gebhard would lose his suspicions. But by then it might be too late. With as much energy as the djinn required to rebuild itself, Kirst would be drained long before he became truly controlled and of optimum use.

  The djinn gathered itself now for the tremendous effort ahead. From all parts of Kirst’s body, it summoned its substance and rose up in the throat to sample the air....

  A moment later, an oily black smoke seeped from Kirst’s open mouth and cascaded to the cold floor. The nightform spread over the boards in a murky pool. When it was all out, lying there like a detached shadow, it began to move across the floor, to drift higher, to extend tendrils of soft, wispy blackness....

  Exploring Eckmann and the photograph
of Eckmann’s wife, Frieda... hesitating over Gebhard... a tendril touching Gebhard’s face and creeping around his temples, looking for the emotions that lay close to the surface in sleep... moving over the other men in the same way, as if making their acquaintance...

  The tendrils collected back on the floor. An undulating blob of black, the nightform seeped under the door. It flowed along the corridor, past closed doors at which it hesitated only briefly, searching for the energy it couldn’t get from Kirst, energy needed for growth, energy derived from the terror and even death of other victims. From Kirst it gained sustenance—from others, growth and power.

  It spilled out of the hut and down the steps and rolled across the compound, clinging to the ground like a swirling black fog. Swept by spotlights from the guard towers, it went undiscovered.

  A burly American sergeant named Vinge tramped through the blackness and took it for nothing more than a shadow. As soon as Vinge had passed, the nightform settled around the base of a tree to wait and watch.

  Vinge was on patrol, playing his flashlight under the huts to see if any Germans were trying to tunnel out, or if they were hiding to jump him later. He found nothing but looking reassured him.

  As Vinge stooped to inspect beneath Hut 7, a distant wolf howl sent a shiver up his back. Vinge hated wild animals. In his dreams they lurked beneath the huts, hid behind trees, crouched in the branches. He saw them everywhere in his mind, but at Blackbone he had encountered nothing more ferocious than a bunny. He knew they were around, the vicious ones. And he knew that someday something awful would chew through the fence and get into the camp and be waiting for him....

  At Hut 9 he hunkered down and peered into the crawl space. His light picked out stones, dead leaves, foundation blocks, and weeds—

  And a pair of eyes gleaming in the shadows.

  Vinge froze. He held his light on the eyes but could see nothing more in the blackness; He switched the light off and on.

  The eyes were gone. Vinge edged back. He heard something thumping along the ground, coming toward him. He tried to turn and run, but it bounded out from beneath the hut and shot right past him. Vinge was bowled over by his own fear. He saw it bounding away... a snow-white jackrabbit....

  Vinge lay on the ground, his heart beating frantically. Then he cursed aloud. “Shit! Fuck! Piss! Goddamn all animals everywhere!”

  He got to his feet and glanced about, then moved on.

  Rabbit stew. Rabbit drumsticks.

  He would make short goddamned work of that rabbit if it crossed his path again.

  The nightform flowed away from the tree and rolled quickly after the rabbit.

  Stopping to devour a tempting bit of garbage outside the mess hut, the rabbit never noticed the shadow creeping up behind him. The nightform swirled under the rabbit’s feet and in an instant had him completely enveloped in black and rooted helplessly to the ground. Dark tendrils probed his white fur, found his ears, and seeped into his head.

  The rabbit was conscious of a ravenous burning inside his brain. He erupted in terror, disrupting the nightform’s hold. He sprang straight up into the air and kicked his hind legs wildly, tearing at the wispy black stuff, which whipped off in several directions then regrouped.

  The rabbit bounded free, zigzagged madly across the compound and took refuge beneath another hut. There it curled up and hid, quivering, its heart shuddering in terror as the nightform found it and enveloped it in blackness. It fought and shook and whipped around but couldn’t escape. The nightform rushed into its ears and nose and mouth and filled its body with an icy presence that fed on its rising panic, devoured its frantic emotions—

  Until finally the rabbit convulsed and lay still.

  The nightform left it Mid moved away from the hut.

  It drifted uphill toward the fence, crossing the long distance from the huts to the perimeter in less time than it would take a man to walk it. It drifted right up to the wire and extended tendrils to touch it—

  And recoiled violently.

  The entire nightform bucked and weaved in pain. It sprang out in rage, then tucked back in on itself, undulating in spasms of movement. Finally, it rose up in a sheet of black shadow and defiantly faced the fence as if a show of power would be enough to rip the imprisoning walls from the ground.

  The sentry’s spotlight played slowly across the chain links and barbed wire. As it approached, the nightform settled and spread out on the ground. Light stirred black tendrils but passed too quickly to cause pain. The nightform hovered briefly as the djinn extended its sensory capacity and tried to determine a way to thwart the fence. Rage would not provide a solution, only natural cunning could help now. The djinn recalled the five walls of Ur-Tawaq and the maddening hunger that had driven it to do the sorcerer’s bidding, on the promise that after the feeding inside the city was depleted, the djinn would be allowed out in the only way it could get out, inside a host. And once out, the sorcerer had promised it could feed on the armies of Nebuchadnezzar.... But the sorcerer had cheated him, had slit the throat of the host, compelling the djinn to abandon the body and hide inside the flask....

  But now it was out. It had a new host and enough men to feed on. And though there were still the walls, the magic circle, the pentagon, keeping it confined, at least this time there was no sorcerer.

  And the djinn had had eons in which to reflect on past mistakes.

  Now it rolled away from the fence and searched the confusing jumble of emotions it had robbed from the rabbit, looking for something a rabbit might fear, another animal indigenous to this area. In seconds, it had the image.

  The nightform found a dark corner under one of the huts, drew itself together, and, as it had done with Strann on the train, turned itself into a being of seemingly solid substance. Its blackness balled up into a thick mass and convulsed into form, sprouting black fur and sharp claws. The eyes opened. It padded away from the hut.

  Seeing Hopkins enter the compound with a pair of huge MPs, Gilman slammed on the brakes and backed the jeep up to the gate. He had been about to start an inspection drive around the outside perimeter, but now his suspicions were alerted. He signaled the gate sentry and shifted again—the jeep’s gears were grinding in protest—then he drove through.

  Just past the gate, Gilman swerved to miss something in his path. He slowed and watched it slink off into darkness. A black wildcat.

  Wondering where it had come from and resolving to check the fence for broken spots or holes, Gilman stabbed his foot back on the gas and went banging down the slope after Hopkins. He squealed to a stop and pulled the brake. Hopkins flicked a cigarette away and turned to meet him.

  “What’s up?” Gilman said.

  “Thought it might be a good idea to question Kirst about that incident on the train, sir.”

  Gilman stared at the MPs. He knew the type—soulless enforcers. They would be big-city cops if they had the brains to go with the brawn. Just the sort Hopkins would rely on in a pinch.

  “There’s nothing to question,” Gilman said. “He slept through the whole thing.”

  “Beg pardon, sir, but that may not be the truth, if you know what I mean.” Hopkins winked.

  “I know exactly what you mean. What are you planning? A little midnight third degree? You and the two dwarfs there?”

  “Major—”

  “Get out, Hopkins. If I want you in this compound at night, I’ll order you in.”

  Hopkins’ jaw dropped. Gilman threw the jeep back into gear, cursed the grinding protest, then wheeled it around and back up the hill. The sentry had the gate open before he got there. He charged through.

  Hopkins swallowed his anger and tramped back up the hill. The MPs followed obediently, wearing tiny smiles that Hopkins never saw.

  The lights were out all through the camp when Sergeant Vinge tramped up the steps into the prison shower hut. Humming to himself, he went to the back urinal and unzipped his fly. A great peace came over him as he relieved himself in a steady stream. He
stared at the wall and thought of the cigarettes he had forgotten to bring. Oh, well, he was coming off duty in twenty minutes. Plenty of time for a smoke before hitting the sack.

  The cat strolled into the gloomy shower hut. It rubbed against the dooijamb and peered hard at the overhead pipes. One of the shower heads was leaking. Water dripped from the rusted spout and pooled on the concrete. A small river ran from the pool toward the single drain.

  The cat’s gaze shifted to the long sink and the mirror over it. It shrank back slightly and nosed the air. Its ears pricked up as it caught the hissing sound coming from the rear of the hut. It peered into the darkness and saw Vinge shaking himself, then hitching up his pants, starting to whistle. The cat’s gaze fixed on Vinge then shifted to the mirror again. Its eyes hardened.

  Vinge moved away from the urinal and, still whistling, went down the hut to the sink. He ran a little water and rinsed his hands, studying his reflection in the mirror. He spotted a pimple on his upper lip and frowned. Goddamned skin problem had never gone away. He stopped whistling and leaned closer to study it. He pinched it between two fingers and squeezed.

  In that moment of silence, Vinge heard something breathing.

  He held very still and ran his eyes across the mirror, which afforded him a view of the entire hut. Nothing moved. But he still heard breathing. There were dark spots, of course, corners back in the potty stalls where he couldn’t see, but who could be... ?

  Vinge lowered his hands and resumed whistling. Trying to appear casual, he backed from the mirror and turned and rolled his head on his shoulders, so it would look like he was exercising tired muscles, but he was really doing it to get a good glimpse into those shadows. Nothing moved.

  Wup. Something by the door—

  Vinge whipped around. Blackness obscured his view and, in the same instant, the mirror exploded behind him. Shattered fragments blew outward, some striking his back, most crashing to the concrete floor and littering it with shards and gleaming bits. Vinge let out an instinctive, frightened yell. Out of the corner of his eye, he glimpsed a figure standing at the door—a German prisoner. It turned and was gone. Vinge shouted after it.