Minds of Men

by Kacey Ezell

  * * *

  The trees where Hans had tied the prisoners sat at the edge of the small camp clearing. The Amis were faced in toward the camp but away from each other so they couldn’t communicate. They each had a rag shoved into their mouths and tied around their heads as a further barrier to speech. They looked exactly like what they were: battered, pathetic, beaten men. Even if they didn’t know it yet.

  In order to stave off boredom and complacency, Hans had developed a routine in watching these two. He’d sit for about ten minutes staring at the younger one, then get up and look closely at the older...the officer. Of the two of them, the officer was in worse shape, but that bothered Hans not at all. He deserved it. They both did, for who knew how many innocents were dead because of their bombs?

  After looking closely at the two of them, Hans would circle slowly around the pair of trees to which they were tied, checking their bindings to ensure that they hadn’t been able to work loose. Not that he expected they would. Hans had tied the knots himself, and he knew what he was about.

  Once that was finished, usually either Werner or Horst would be passing nearby on their own perimeter circuits. So, he would usually look up and exchange the professional nod that indicated all was well.

  Only this time, there was no one to return his nod.

  Hans frowned and looked back over his shoulder. He could just see Willi heading for the command tent, obviously in response to a summons from within. Kristof was nowhere in sight. Hans looked down at his prisoners again. They appeared to be dozing against their bonds, their heads hanging limply forward.

  For fun, he kicked them each awake.

  “No sleeping,” he barked in heavily-accented English. The officer cleared his throat and spat a disgusting pink-tinged wad in Hans’ general direction. Hans grinned and slapped the man, hard, with the back of his hand. The lieutenant’s head jerked back and bounced against the rough bark of the tree.

  “No spitting,” Hans added and then straightened, looking once more into the gloom under the nearby trees. The light from the campfire was making it difficult to see, so he stepped away from the prisoners, under the darkened forest canopy.

  He was still blinking, trying to bring his dark vision into play when something fell down from above him and knocked him to the ground. Hans suddenly felt his face being smashed into the leaves and dirt of the forest floor. He heaved his body, trying to roll over, and something grabbed him and flipped him to his back while he spat the dirt from his mouth.

  A hand grabbed his hair, yanked his head back. A face he didn’t recognize leaned down close to his ear. Something cold pricked the skin just below the hinge of his jaw.

  “No spitting,” the voice was a low growl, and it spoke in American-accented English. Hans writhed and tried to shout, but to no avail. The pinprick had become a tearing pain as the mysterious assailant opened his throat from ear to ear.

  * * *

  Evelyn screamed, but no one heard.

  As before, the moment the hood covered her face, her mind erupted into a violent, whirling cyclone of psychic energy. Her thoughts doubled back over and over again, drowning her with their vehemence. All of her sensations echoed and re-echoed through her mind at once, until they blended together into a terrifyingly synesthetic blur of agony. She was lost, trapped, caught in perpetual motion and unceasing pain that sickened and never slowed. Nothing was still, all was that horrid, cycling movement...

  Except there.

  Right there. One tiny speck of calm in the drowning, lashing sea of her own mind. Evelyn fastened on to that speck as if it were a lifeline, clinging to it as if her sanity depended upon it, because it did.

  Too late, she realized her mistake. Just as she fastened her consciousness to this improbable lifeline drifting in the feedback storm, a sense of triumph not her own rocked through her, and she realized that she’d fallen into the German girl’s trap.

  Despair joined the rain of emotions that drove against her mental being. The German girl’s mind was slick and unfamiliar, and she couldn’t find purchase without fully opening herself up. If she did that, though, the girl would know everything she knew, see everything she’d seen. That couldn’t happen, but she couldn’t face casting herself back out into the storm to drown in her own amplified pain and fear...

  Wait. Something...

  Like a crack in a cliff face that opens onto a cave system, Evelyn discovered a psychic channel leading...somewhere. With no other choice, she flung her awareness headlong down that channel, not caring where or with whom she ended up...

  She blinked and saw her own body lying curled on the floor, the ugly hood contraption draped over her head, down to her shoulders. She knelt beside some kind of bed, her hand gripping tightly to someone’s...Lina’s?

  She was Wolffs, who loved Lina, the German girl. She was Evelyn, hiding from the violence of her own mind, somehow inhabiting Wolffs’ thoughts. Somehow, in the connection between the hood and Lina and Wolffs, Evelyn had found her way into the Nazi leader’s head.

  Quickly, without thinking about what she did, Evelyn acted before Wolffs could detect her presence. It helped he was so tightly focused on his ladylove. It allowed Evelyn to reach out her consciousness and take hold of the picture in front of him...

  And twist it. Lina became Evelyn, lying on the floor, curled in pain. Evelyn became Lina, hands warm and free.

  Evelyn felt Wolffs lurch to his feet, stumble backward, disbelieving. On the bed, Evelyn-Lina opened her eyes, her expression questioning.

  She overpowered Lina! Evelyn shouted into Wolffs’ head. Do not let her escape! Grab her!

  Wolffs lunged forward reached out and wrapped his hands around the seeming American’s slender neck. “No...Josef! What are you...” she gasped.

  Save Lina! Evelyn countered, throwing the considerable weight of her power behind the thought. Somewhere behind her, the maelstrom howled, clawing at her, but she had found an improbable way out, and she had no intention of going back. Evelyn-Lina’s fists began to frantically pound on Wolffs’ arms. She tried to scream down their psychic link, but the real Evelyn was already there. She shunted Evelyn-Lina’s cry back into the maelstrom of the hood’s feedback loop and silently urged Wolffs to squeeze harder.

  He flexed his hands, shaking her as her blows weakened. She began to claw at his fingers, trying to get him to loosen, to listen to her. Nothing worked, for in his head, Evelyn subtly ramped up his anger and aggression, until Evelyn-Lina’s eyes began to bulge from her sockets, and her lips turned blue.

  Somewhere, the maelstrom slackened, the winds calmed as the will that keep the feedback loop going slipped into unconsciousness. Outside, a commotion sounded. Wolffs panted softly from his exertions as he dropped the limp girl back down on the bed. Someone fumbled at the tent flap.

  One of the German soldiers stepped through, then froze. He gaped in horror at the girl on the bed with the livid bruises ringing her throat and then at his commander, who stood in the tent with a look of vicious satisfaction on his face. Wolffs glanced at his subordinate and then did a double take as Evelyn layered the features of Lieutenant Abram Portman over the German’s face and body.

  Wolffs stumbled backward, fumbling for the Luger pistol he carried holstered on his belt. Shoot him, Evelyn whispered into his mind. The American killers are trying to escape!

  Hands shaking, Wolffs finally got his pistol free and raised it. The German soldier looked at him with disbelief in his eyes. A tiny corner of Evelyn’s mind whispered he was the youngest one, hardly more than a baby. The rest of her mind didn’t listen. It was too focused on remembering the way that “baby” had beaten and kicked Sean and Abram. She held Abram’s features steady and pushed at Wolffs again.

  “Stab...” the German started to say. He never finished because Wolffs pulled the trigger. The Luger’s report blasted through the air, making Wolffs’ ears hurt. Voices shouted outside.

  “Stabsfeldwebel! Willi! Are you all right?” a voice shouted. Evelyn re
cognized it from the forest. It was the voice of the soldier who had captured her and Abram. Wolffs’ mind supplied a name: Kristof. Kristof burst into the tent, flinging the tent flap aside, letting the late afternoon sunlight come pouring in. Wolffs (and perforce, Evelyn) was momentarily blinded, and blinked rapidly.

  “Horst and Werner have completely disappeared!” Kristof said in German. “We found Hans with his throat cut, and the two Amis gone...Oh my god!” He stared down at the body at his feet. “You shot him!”

  “Yes,” Wolffs said, still blinking. His mind fought Evelyn as she tried to superimpose Sean’s features onto those of this Kristof. Wolffs knew Kristof’s voice. But then, why would Kristof be reaching for his own weapon? Why would he be so aghast at the sight of the dead American?

  Kill him! Evelyn pushed, hard. With Lina unconscious, the feedback loop had quieted, and Evelyn was able to put quite a bit of power behind the demand. Once again, Wolffs raised his weapon and fired. Sean-Kristof staggered backward as a red stain began to spread over his belly. He tripped over the dead soldier’s leg and fell. His own pistol fell to the ground as he clutched at his gut.

  “Josef,” he whispered. “Why?” The agony and betrayal in that one question undid Evelyn’s illusion. Wolffs’ mind righted itself as what he knew to be true took precedence over her whispers. Sean’s face faded away, and he beheld the face of his best friend and second in command.

  “Kristof?” Wolffs asked. Evelyn felt the nausea that rippled through the stabsfeldwebel. He dropped to his knees as Kristof coughed. Blood sprayed from Kristof’s mouth in a tiny fountain. Willi’s body lay twisted, the top half of his head gone. Wolffs turned his head and saw Lina laying half on and half off the camp bed.

  “What have I done?” he whispered. For just a moment, Evelyn reveled in his pain. The knowledge he’d strangled the woman he loved felt like a noose around his own neck. That was bad enough, but the knowledge he’d shot his own men rocked through him like heat and nausea and cold, icy despair all at once. He couldn’t breathe; a part of his brain started to scream long, howling keens of grief and guilt. He couldn’t feel his legs and feet, and he tasted blood in his mouth. With shaking hands, he raised the Luger one more time and put the barrel between his lips.

  No! Evelyn shouted, as his intention stiffened into a crystalline resolve. She threw every bit of her power at him. Not to save him, but to set her free. Even without Lina conscious to run it, the sensory deprivation hood still kept her head-blind and vulnerable. She needed Wolffs. Too late, Evelyn realized what he was going to do...what she’d done to him.

  He pulled the trigger, and Evelyn instantly found herself trapped inside her own head. Like before, she couldn’t stretch her consciousness out beyond her own head. The storm had quieted. That was all.

  Or not quite all. Evelyn became suddenly aware of the scent of blood and foul things. Like an outhouse...or a slaughterhouse. She could smell, and just like that, she could feel and hear.

  Like that sound? That was the sound of a pistol being cocked.

  “American girl,” she heard. It was Kristof’s voice, though it was weak and ragged with pain. “I do not know if you can hear me, but if you can, know that I am still alive. If you move, I will shoot you in the head. Understand that.”

  Evelyn’s breath accelerated as she froze.

  “Oberhelfer!” Kristof called. “Oberhelfer! I know you live, I saw your hair fluttering over your mouth when you exhaled. Please, Lina...Wake up!”

  Evelyn’s mind raced. She had to do something before Lina awoke and brought back the storm...or just killed her outright. But what? If only she could reach out to her men. Kristof had said that they escaped. Maybe they weren’t far...

  Of course, the splinter that still lay in her hand. The focus. With a focus, and with the hood weakened by Lina’s unconsciousness, maybe she was strong enough to break through...

  With excruciating care, Evelyn slowly moved her fingers until the sharp end of the wooden splinter stuck out. Then she placed that point against the tender flesh on the inside of her forearm and pressed down. She prayed to whoever might be listening that Kristof was too busy trying to wake Lina to notice her slight movements, and she began to scratch an “S” into her skin.

  Slowly, agonizingly slowly, Evelyn etched the letters of Sean’s and Abram’s names in her skin. Every stroke of every letter burned like fire, but that was all to the good. It made it that much easier to focus on the shape of the sounds that made up their names.

  About midway through, she realized Kristof had fallen silent. Dead, unconscious, or resting she didn’t know. Later, perhaps, she would care, but right now, her every effort zeroed in on forming the names of her crewmates.

  When she’d finished, she drew in a slow breath, and tried to force her mind to calm. She could almost feel the German’s pistol trained on the back of her head, but she shunted that image to the back of her consciousness. From deep within, she focused on the affection, the trust, the love she had for these men. They’d flown through hell time and again together, and they had made it out. This was just another type of hell...but they would make it through this, too. When her mind was as calm as it was going to get, Evelyn focused all of that emotion, all of that love, and fueled it with every bit of her considerable power. She had yet to meet a psychic who could best her, because there was no one. She was the most powerful psychic in the U.S. Army, and she channeled all of this power into the focus of her men’s names.

  There was a momentary resistance, like trying to walk through water up to the waist, and then Evelyn’s consciousness exploded through the hood’s feedback inducing mechanism. She smelled acridly sweet smoke, but it didn’t matter. For her mind was free, and it flew like a bullet from a gun straight into the minds of Sean and Abram.

  Sean lay hidden in the deepening shadows beneath the trees not far away. He carried a knife in one hand and a German rifle in the other. Every part of him hurt, but a fierce satisfaction rode over all of the aching pain. He blinked, astonished, as the link sprang into being, and his mind filled with the delicious silkiness of her consciousness.

  Abram, too, lay hidden. Someone had wrapped a bandage around his arm. He, too, ached all over, but the stabbing pain in his midsection told her he’d taken a worse beating than Sean had. Still, he looked up at the touch of her mind. “Evie?” he whispered out loud.

  “Evie’s here?” someone asked. Evelyn recognized the voice. Abram looked up and smiled at the mud-streaked face of their bombardier, Paul Rutherford.

  Instantly, Evie reached out again, skipping from Abram’s mind to Paul’s, and just like that, the net sprang into being.

  Come get me! she wailed to them. Get this thing off me before she wakes up!

  Where are you, Evie? Paul asked. We didn’t know. We would have come...

  In a tent. The door flap is open. The one with the bodies, she added, with a touch of hysterical giggle to her thought. Two, maybe three bodies. I don’t know if Kristof is dead. He wasn’t; he said he’d shoot me in the head if I moved. But we shot him in the gut, and he stopped calling her, trying to get her to wake up...But if she wakes up, she’ll bring the storm back, and I don’t know if I can survive that again...

  We’re coming, Evie, Sean said. His mind tasted of steely determination. We know where you are now. We can feel the bond pulling at us...Just stay with us, Evie-girl and don’t move until we know that asshole’s dead. A pause. Then. Sorry, Evie, he added, as if he couldn’t help it.

  The hysterical laughter built in her mind, spilled over, and flooded down the lines of the connection. On the floor of the tent, she clenched her body tight to keep the giggles from pouring out of her and ricocheting through her body. She couldn’t move. Not until they knew the asshole was dead. Sorry, Evie.

  The sun had set, but Evelyn could feel the three of them running over the dark, snow-covered ground. They ducked from tree to tree toward the camp and remained out of sight as long as possible. She could feel Abram doing a mental
calculation as he ran. Of the Germans they’d seen so far, they could account for all of them. Paul had gotten two of them earlier, then killed their sentry when he set them free. Evie had said that there were three bodies in her tent, plus the German psychic. Abram hadn’t seen any more than that, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t out there.

  Paul had been out there. The Germans had never known. Abram’s mind reeled at the implications of this, so much so that he stumbled as they sprinted toward the cluster of tents. He’d been out there, had evaded capture, and as far as they knew, detection, and had apparently begun to stalk and eliminate the German soldiers one by one. Abram couldn’t help but glance over at his buddy, his bunkmate, his best friend throughout this whole godforsaken war. He realized, best friend or not, he hadn’t really known Paul Rutherford, or of what terror and bravery he was capable.

  But hell, had anyone? Had Paul? Had Evie?

  Evie.

  Hurryhurryhurry, her mind sing-songed at them as she felt Abram’s every footfall. She felt the sweat and the stinging cold in his lungs as they burned. She felt the sharp, piercing pain that stabbed into the navigator’s side with every step. Something was broken, or at the very least, badly bruised. He shouldn’t be running. She shouldn’t be urging him to run, but she couldn’t help it. Terror raced through her thoughts, edging everything in white. Hurry, she urged them. Hurry. Hurry, hurry, please hurry!

  We’re coming, Evie. That was Sean, dogged and tough, and scared through. You just hang on. We’re almost there, I can see your tent...