The first night passes
“Lay down some fire over there to the left, hose it good, before we charge the house!”
“Lay down some fire over there to the left, hose it good, before we charge the house!”
“Lay down some fire over there to the left, hose it good, before we charge the house!”
“Lay down some fire over there to the left, hose it good, before we charge the house!”
“Lay down some fire over there to the left, hose it good, before we charge the house!”
Over and over in my dream I hear myself screaming that out, and staring around at the men all about me standing dumbfounded in shock at the changes in the London landscape. Everywhere in my dream, a nightmare in particular, everywhere there are corpses of people, animals, as well as other things strange and not within my understanding of biology at all.
I wake with a start, sweat running off my body, a terrible thirst consuming my throat, thick and dry as the heart of summer can get across the channel over in Northern Africa.
This is not one of the best rests I have had in the course of my entire life. Even at the height of the shelling in the great conflict, I slept better; mud, pain, wounds, dying friends, and the horror of sleeping in my mask; with all that I slept better than I just was.
“Men we should be home with our families and loved ones.”
The grunts and groans around me confirms what I suspected, no one was resting this night.
Time to walk about a little bit, check on the sentries, see what the night has held for the city, and if there is any news to be garnered in any fashion.
Rifle, revolver, helmet, mask with me, the rest of my kit can lie there for all the need I have for it with this task at hand. Outside the sky above was clouded, neither stars nor the moon is to be seen in the sky at all. I am not sure of what the phase of the moon should even be; it could be the dark period for all I know. Still there is a slight red glow, as from large fires, over towards the centre of the city. That is the direction we shall be heading in come the rise of the sun. So we should be able to get some information about what is causing it, likely to our detriment as well.
I walk around the short perimeter we have established. Ascertain that there were no breaches, no intrusions, nothing that would have warranted the sentries to disturb anyone’s rest. I think I shall stay up for a while, to see how slow it truly is here outside on the street. I instruct the men that I shall be wandering around for a while, to make sure they are certain of their target before opening fire, I would truly not wish to be a casualty due to a comrade’s skilful aim. They assure me that it shall not occur and I move out a ways from the building we are in.
I intend to survey a few streets, see if we did make the best choice, see if there is anything moving at night as I fear there is, or not at all. I feel in my heart and my gut that it will be safe enough; we had only the single real encounter, all the rest were Londoners. I am amazed that there is such little opposition. Perhaps the others in our force have drawn all the attention away, leaving my small band of irregulars comparatively safe. This I both hope is true and I dread that it is, I would not wish a death to any of my fellow countrymen.
The stars just are not making it past the clouds, and there is an acrid taste to the air, like the burning of gasoline and rubber tyres in a pyre, about bringing up my reflex to empty my poor stomach. After I don my mask, with hearing and sight obscured, the odour abates a great deal; the filters are working at the least to aid in this. But a new undertone of freshly spaded dirt, mixed with the reek of the compost pile is drawing me to a side street that it is emanating from.
The closer I get to the entrance, the more there is the smell of the slaughter that begins to override the other smells. It is a smell I am acquainted with, indeed the entire company; it is like the insides of a man or a pig. Both of which are disturbingly similar after death has claimed them both, and leading me to wonder if this is an invasion or a harvesting. Either way, we will do as we always have done, stand fast, hold the line, and endure with our dying breath. This is the heritage our history has shown to be the proper way for gentlemen.
As I inch my way into the alley or cross street I can feel the stones are disturbed, torn up from the street by some upheaval. Making for a most treacherous footing it is. Time is not now to fall flat on my face; I suspect it would make a widow of my distant wife. The rifle is ready, heavy and growing slick with moisture the farther towards the growing hideous stench ahead of me. With no light it is almost impossible to move much closer. I will not find out what lies at the heart of this mystery till morning breaks and I lead the men over here to scout this proper.
With regret I halt and move gently, slowly, backwards, never finding what I was searching for. An omen if I were a superstitious man, best not to tell some of the lads what I am feeling, they are a little queer about such thoughts and it could easily soften their resolve. But the farther back I move, the less the smell is there, decreasing faster than it had increased, and not a breeze to be felt on the small hairs of my neck in the slightest.
Back out of there I still keep an eye as I head down a few more streets before I will loops back about to the shelter, nothing to be heard, no signs of distant struggles and no distant echoes of the guns back at the line around the city. I just think we are too far in to hear the reports, and being separated from any other unit we are alone in sight, hearing, and mind.
Tags: Fiction Horror
