Harry twisted the rifle, pulled out the bayonet, and thrust it into the stormtrooper's torso again. Just like Sergeant Lewis had taught him during his four days of close-quarter combat training.
He stabbed the stormtrooper again and again, the bayonet making a wet squelching sound every time it entered the body. He didn't want to stop. He never wanted to stop. All the pent-up fury and frustration that had been building since this damned war began coming to the surface in one act of sustained savagery. Each time he drove in the bayonet there was less resistance, and eventually there wasn’t even enough skin and tissue left to hold in the intestines and organs, which spilled out into the mud in a steaming, foul-smelling heap as the stormtrooper writhed silently. The silence was one of the most disconcerting things of all. Any normal man would have been screaming in agony.
Harry pulled out the bayonet for the umpteenth time, his stomach twisting with disgust as he noticed a strand of pink entrails hanging off the end. He looked away for a split second, swallowing back the mouthful of hot bile that tried to rise in the back of his throat.
That was when the impossible, the unthinkable happened.
As Harry paused, the German reached up from the ground and swatted the bayoneted barrel away as if it were nothing more than a troublesome fly. The rifle fell from his grip, the bayonet blade burying itself in the ground. Off-balance and exhausted, Harry fell next to it.
The stormtrooper was moving again, trying to get up. His gloved hand found the Mauser.
How can this be?
He... It... should be dead. It should have been dead after the first shots. Now it’s innards were lying in a stinking pile in the mud, it’s body torn open from the abdomen to the gullet.
Knowing he had to be faster than his adversary, Harry scrambled to his feet and pulled his rifle out of the mud. He knew it was empty. Swaying on his feet as he desperately tried to keep his composure, he thrust a single bullet into the rifle's chamber and pointed it at the stormtrooper's temple. At point-blank range, he pulled the trigger.
There was a metallic clink! as the force of the bullet blew the stormtrooper's helmet and breathing apparatus clean off its head, revealing what was left of his face. The Enfield's rounds had certainly done their job. The lower jaw was completely destroyed, and the second point-blank hit had left an exit wound in the side of his head the size of a cricket ball. Chunks of light grey brain matter and ivory-white fragments of shattered skull littered the scene, and the air was filled with the coppery odour of fresh blood.
There was no more movement.
Harry felt sickened. Repulsed. Not just by what he had seen, but by his own actions. Until that moment he had no idea he was capable of such violence. This was a different level from simply pointing a gun at an invisible target and shooting blindly. What had be become? He felt drained, physically and emotionally washed out.
Then he saw the decapitated head of his friend Dewi lying half-submerged in a puddle next to the ruined body of the German stormtrooper, and a tiny spark of anger reignited within him. He stooped to pick up the head, briefly wondering what the correct protocol was in such situations. It seemed improper to just leave the head out here in no nan's land. It didn't belong here.
Should he leave it with Sarge for safekeeping? He was positive Sarge would look after it for him. Or should he bury it somewhere?
There was a comparatively nice spot a few yards away, where the bombs hadn't done quite so much damage. A few sparse blades of grass were still intact, and there even looked to be a couple of new shrubs poking their heads tentatively through the crust of the earth. It would have to do.
On the way past he couldn't resist giving the stormtrooper a final kick.
But before his boot could connect a gloved hand shot out, as quick as lightning, grabbed his foot, and twisted sharply, sending Harry crashing to the ground.
He screamed out loud. It was more a scream of terror and surprise than pain. How many times did he have to kill this man?
The answer suddenly became clear. The answer Harry had been subconsciously retreating from for quite some time.
This was no man he was dealing with.
It looked like a man. It walked and bled like a man, but beneath that flesh exterior was something else. Something vile, inhuman, and seemingly indestructible.
It was trying to climb on top of him now, making a wrenching, deep gurgling sound in its throat as it did so. This ruined shell of a human being, guts hanging out of its torn uniform, half its head blown away, lower jaw hanging off. Harry felt his skin crawl and prickle as tried to turn away from the thing that should not be. The next thing he knew, a pair of thick, meaty hands were tightening around his throat ready to squeeze the life out of him.
Somehow, the stormtrooper in its current incarnation wasn't the slow, lumbering fool of old. Now it was feline quick and as slippery as a snake, its clothing lubricated by it’s own blood. It started raining punches down on Harry, rocking his head from side to side and slamming it into the mud. He realized that he had lost his Brodie. When did that happen? During the fight with the Hell Hound? Or had he taken it off at some point and forgot to put it back on?
He didn’t even know. Under normal circumstances your helmet and your rifle were the two most valuable things in a soldier’s possession. You kept them with you at all times. But these circumstances were anything but normal.
He felt his nose shatter and suddenly he was choking on his own blood, drowning in it. His arms thrashed weakly, his fractured mind unable to fully comprehend all that was happening to him.
If he bleeds, he should be killable! So why doesn't he just die?
Because it's not a he, it's an it.
But there it was, still fighting. And here Harry was, still fighting back. But his will was being sapped, the strength was being beaten out of him strike by telling strike. He had his hands up around his face to defend himself, but another meaty blow found its way through his flailing guard and landed on Harry's forehead with enough force to make him see stars. It was clear the stormtrooper had no other intention than to smash the life out of Harry with its bare hands. For a moment the world around him swam out of focus.
This was it. He was dying.
Sorry mum, sorry dad...
There was just one thing he hadn't tried yet. His last resort.
The grenade.
Forget trying to put holes in the bastard. That wasn't working. Now it was time to blow him to pieces.
Harry reached down with shaking hands, found the grenade that was clipped to his belt, and pulled the pin.
Four seconds until detonation.
He was quite sure the stormtrooper hadn't seen him perform the action. One eye appeared to have been knocked out of kilter by one of the head shots and now pointed in another direction, while the other eye was fixed upon Harry's. And besides, he seemed far too preoccupied with pounding Harry's face into the mud.
Another blow landed flush on Harry's chin, the impact almost snapping his neck.
Three seconds.
For the first time Harry noted how similar the stormtrooper's eyes were to those of the Hell Hound he had dispatched earlier. Both blazed with rage and hatred, yet bristled with an unnatural kind of intelligence.
Were the Hell Hound's eyes similar to those of the soldier?
Or were the soldier's eyes similar to those of the Hell Hound?
Did it matter?
Two seconds.
With a burst of energy, Harry broke the stormtrooper's grip on him and rolled clear, leaving the grenade where he had lain moments before. He threw up his arms to cover his face and head, but even as he moved he was faced with the horrifying realization that he couldn’t get far enough away. There simply wasn't enough time. The grenade was designed to be unpinned and thrown as far as possible. You weren’t supposed to let it detonate a mere few feet away.
One second.
As he looked back over his shoulder, Harry caug
ht the briefest look of surprise on what was left of the German's face before it was engulfed in a blinding white flash. It was accompanied by an ominous whoosh!
Everything went black.
Chapter VIII:
Retribution
When Harry came around, he was lying flat on his back staring up at the clouds as they raced across the sky. His mind was foggy. It felt like something had broken inside. Snapped.
What just happened?
Where was he?
Then, he remembered. Everything came flooding back piece by terrible piece in a series of flickering mental images. Going out on the night patrol, finding Dewi's body, coming under attack, losing Sarge, the Hell Hound, the stormtrooper who wouldn’t die.
Finally, he remembered pulling the pin on the grenade.
The flash.
Was he dead?
He didn't think so. He was having coherent thoughts. But maybe this was what dead was. Maybe he was now a ghost, and this was his punishment, doomed to walk no man's land for all eternity.
He blinked. That must mean he was alive.
Could ghosts see?
Could they blink?
Surely not. The blast from the grenade must have thrown him clear. He didn't know how long he had been unconscious, but suspected it couldn’t have been long. The sun was yet to reach its highest point. He was nauseous, his throbbing head was spinning, and there was an intense buzzing in his ears. Pain emanated from a dozen or more places, making his whole body shake and spasm.
And he was cold. So cold.
Somewhere in his damaged mind, he had an idea his condition might be caused by shock, blood loss, or a combination of the two. But at least he was still alive, still breathing.
He was afraid to look down, deciding that for a while at least, the anguish of not knowing the extent of his injuries was preferable to finding out he had lost one or both of his legs. He had seen first-hand the carnage bombs and grenades could wreak upon the human body.
When he finally plucked up enough courage to look, he was relieved to find all his limbs appeared to be intact, though his clothes were scorched black in places and there were several fresh, bleeding wounds to his legs. The worst pain was in his arm, where the Mauser bullet had torn through it.
He looked around for the stormtrooper, but he couldn't see properly. Whether his eyes had been damaged in the blast or if they were swelled shut from the beating he took, he had no idea. He couldn't distinguish any colour or detail, only vague shapes and outlines.
There was a dark mass on the ground a few yards away.
The force of the explosion must have thrown Harry ten feet or more, and judging by the marks on the ground he had slid another few feet through the muck before coming to rest in a crumpled heap. The mud, so often the bane of his life, seemed to have actually came to his aid on this occasion, dousing his uniform before the flames from the blast could take hold. The mud, however, did nothing to stop the lethal pieces of flying shrapnel. The number five grenade had a thick metal shell, specifically designed to fragment upon detonation in order to spray the immediate area with lethal chunks of metal to cause maximum damage. When one of those suckers went off, you wanted to be as far away as possible.
Harry tried to stand up. On feeling the sharp, stabbing pain he instinctively knew that while his legs hadn't been completely blown off, they had been torn to shreds. He had lost a lot of blood. When he eventually succeeded in getting to his feet, his knees felt too weak to support his weight. Dizziness threatened to overcome him, and his balance seemed to be off. The sound of distant gunfire and artillery came to him in waves. The games had commenced once more.
He stumbled over to the still-smoking black mass on the ground, wincing as fresh waves of pain shot up and down his lacerated legs.
Only when he got within a couple of feet could Harry confirm that the grenade had wrought terrible damage on the stormtrooper. What remained was little more than a charred torso. Three limbs had been completely blown off, possibly even vaporized in the explosion. The still-bleeding stump of one muscled arm lay on the ground next to the trunk, as did one smoking Jack boot. Harry noted with disgust that there was still a foot inside. The other boot was nowhere to be seen.
The ruined head was still somehow attached to the body, and still mostly covered by the helmet and gas mask. What little of the face was exposed had been scorched black, the skin cracked and split. One thick arm was still attached to the torso, though most of the clothing and even some of the exposed skin and flesh had been burnt away, revealing the glistening, snow-white bone beneath.
Harry thought he would feel some measure of guilt or remorse. He was responsible for this. He had taken another man's life. Somebody's son, brother, maybe even father.
But instead, his stomach rolled in revulsion and his old friend anger made an unexpected encore appearance. He leaned in close to the stormtrooper and hissed, “How do you like them apples?”
He thought he saw a twitch, a semblance of recognition on the stormtrooper's burned face, and recoiled in terror.
It must be his imagination, surely. There couldn't be any life left in the stormtrooper after that run-in with the number five.
Still, there was one way to be sure. Harry's hand went to his trusty dagger, and stooping over the still-smoking body of the German, began cutting and sawing.
An eye for an eye...
It took longer than he thought it would to separate the stormtrooper's head from what was left of its body. Getting through the spinal column proved to be the most difficult part. Either by then the blade had been blunted, or Harry just didn't have the required strength. Eventually, he tired of using the blade and instead pounded at the bone with a sharp rock until it splintered. He was then able to use his hands to snap the last remaining tincture of spine.
Leaving the charred remains of the stormtrooper lying in the mud, Harry quickly located his Enfield and slung it over his shoulder with a pained grunt.
It took longer to find Dewi's head. It must have also been thrown clear by the explosion. He eventually found it half-submerged in a puddle. Fishing it out of the water, Harry realized he was too exhausted to bury it. And what would be the point, anyway? He just knew he didn't want to leave it out here. If he had been able, he would have gone back and recovered the rest of the body himself, but that would be suicide. He would probably never find it again, and even if he did, wouldn't be able to carry it back alone. Even without the extra weight, he didn't know how much longer he had left in his condition. If the Huns didn't get him, he would probably be dead from his wounds in a matter of hours.
Cradling his friend's severed head in the crook of his wounded arm, Harry picked up the oversized head of the stormtrooper and stopped to think about what to do with it. He thought about taking it back with him. But what good would that do? Whatever abomination it had been before, now it was just another rotting body part. In the end he decided to show it as much respect as it had shown Dewi, and let it drop from his hands to the muddy ground. Before it arrived there, he summoned up the last of his energy, and swung his leg at the falling skull. His boot connected with a meaty crack, and the severed head sailed off into the distance.
Then, ears still ringing against the perpetual backdrop of artillery fire, Harry turned and began limping toward his lines.
THE END
Also by C.M. Saunders:
Apartment 14F: An Oriental Ghost Story (Damnation Books)
Dead of Night (Damnation Books)
Devil's Island (Rainstorm Press)
X: A Collection of Horror (DeadPixel Publications)
X2: Another Collection of Horror (DeadPixel Publications)
Out of Time (DeadPixel Publications)
Sker House (DeadPixel Publications)
Feel free to connect on Twitter. I don’t bite:
@CMSaunders01
Or visit my website:
https://cmsaunders.wordpress.com/
Don't b
e afraid to stop by and say hi. Or you can just tell me to fuck off it it makes you happy. If you enjoyed this book, please consider leaving a review on Amazon. Thank you for reading. Peace out.
Sker House
"Sker House is a good, old fashioned ghost story that you'll enjoy from beginning to end."
- The Horror Cabin
Dale and Lucy are two students with a fascination in the supernatural. One weekend, they travel to Sker House, South Wales, a private residence with a macabre history which has recently been converted into a seaside inn. They plan to write an article for their university magazine about a supposed haunting, but when they arrive, they meet a landlord who seems to have a lot to hide. Soon, it becomes apparent that all is not well at Sker House. An air of oppression hangs over it, while misery, tragedy and ill-fortune are commonplace. Gradually, it becomes clear that the true depth of the mystery goes far beyond a mere historical haunting. This is a place where bad things happen, and evil lurks.
Little by little Dale and Lucy fall under Sker's dark spell, and as they begin to unravel the mysteries of the past, they realize that nothing stays buried forever.
Welcome to Sker House, a place where past and present collide.
Out now:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01C1NBFG6
www.deviantdolls.org
Created with Writer2ePub
by Luca Calcinai
No Man's Land Page 8
