Lovely War(58)

He dangled in time. The sounds of sleeping soldiers all around him pulled him back to earth like a tether, while the horrid vertigo of wrenching from dreaming to consciousness made his head spin.

He’d heard something. It must have been a dream.

No, he’d heard something. And now he didn’t hear anything. Something was wrong.

He lay there, waiting for up and down to stabilize.

What was missing?

He leaned an arm over the edge of his bunk and groped at the floor. There were his boots. He sat up, almost whacking his head on Joey’s bunk.

Joey.

He reached upward and poked at the coils underneath Joey’s bunk. The mattress bounced easily. Joey wasn’t in his bed.

His boots weren’t on the floor.

Aubrey rubbed his eyes and climbed out from the under the blankets. Must be he’d only been asleep a couple of minutes, and Joey was still using the latrine. Sleep was misleading. A little could feel like a lot, and a lot could feel like a little.

Aubrey pushed his feet back into his boots and edged toward the door. His brain seemed to slosh in his skull. The night had the crawling-through-molasses unreality of a hallucination.

He was outside. All about him was darkness and trodden snow. The stars overhead felt sterile now. He followed his nose toward the latrine.

What little light there was painted the ground a deep shade of blue. The outhouse rose up before him like a foul-smelling mountain.

“Joey?” he called softly. “Joey, man, where are you?”

But there was no sound except the distant bark of a village dog.

He knocked on the door. No one answered. He pulled the door open.

A figure came out. Fell out. Toppled into Aubrey’s arms.

His foot slipped out from beneath him, and he landed in the snow with the other man on top of him. Warm, and still, and dripping something wet onto Aubrey’s cheek.

“Joey?” Aubrey said. “Joey?”





HADES


     Torchlight—February 11, 1918





AUBREY PELTED THROUGH the snow. His arms windmilled. His feet slipped. He reached the door to Lieutenant Europe’s quarters and pounded.

A voice inside muttered. Let Jim curse him to the skies, but he had to come, now.

The door opened. An electric torch blasted his face.

“Aubrey?” Jim Europe’s voice was thick with sleep. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“You gotta come, Jim,” Aubrey said. “It’s Joey.”

“What’s the matter with him?” Lieutenant Europe fumbled in the pocket of his robe for his spectacles. “Shouldn’t you call Captain Fish?”

Aubrey seized Europe’s wrist. “You gotta come, Jim,” he begged. “Please!”

“Is Joey hurt?” Europe demanded. “What’s happened?”

“Shh!”

Europe grabbed his coat. “C’mon. Show me.”

Lieutenant Europe’s torchlight swung wildly across the ice as they ran. Until it found Joey lying in the snow.

“Oh no.”

Europe’s light searched Joey from head to toe. He’d been—maybe—please, God—sick? Drunk? A little roughed up?

But that was blood on the snow.

His head. His face. His bloated, blackened face.

Aubrey fell to his knees. His body jackknifed, and he vomited.

Europe knelt beside Joey. He felt his wrist and then his neck.

“Bastards strangled him.” His voice was deep with grief. “Beat his face in with their rifles. You almost wouldn’t know it’s him.”

Hope.

“Maybe it isn’t,” Aubrey said. “Maybe it’s somebody else!”

“Aubrey. Don’t do this.”

False hope.

“This is my fault,” Aubrey told the night. “This is all my fault.”

“We’ve got to get him out of here,” Europe said. “Clean this up. Leave no trace.”

“My fault,” Aubrey repeated. “I’m the one who did it.”

Jim Europe shone his torch directly at Aubrey’s face. He squinted.

“Are you telling me, son, that you strangled Joey, then clubbed him with your rifle butt?”

Joey. Joey. Knucklehead Joe.

“Are you?”

Aubrey had already forgotten the question.

“If I hadn’t gone out, Joey wouldn’t have . . . It was me they were following. . . .”

The crack of a large leather hand across his cheek jolted him awake.

“Pull yourself together, soldier,” Europe barked. “That’s an order.”

Europe did what he could for Joey. Wiped the blood off his face. Gently closed his gaping lower lip to hide the horribly broken jaw.

“‘Death, where is thy sting?’” Bitter irony laced itself through Jim Europe’s recitation. “‘Grave, where is thy victory?’ Right here. That’s where.”

He waved his torch at Aubrey. “Grab his feet. We’ll get him back to my quarters.” Aubrey nodded dumbly. They’d just been talking. Only just. Messing around like usual. To carry his feet and touch that hardening, chilling thing that used to be Joey Rice? How?

“Look, kid, we’re in danger too, all right? Grab his feet and let’s get outta here.”