The Night Children

  The Night Children

  ALEXANDER GORDON SMITH

  illustration by STEVE ARGYLE

  Presenting a new Escape from Furnace story, “The Night Children,” by Alexander Gordon Smith.

  It is December 1944 and Europe is still gripped by war. In the densely forested mountains of Belgium one of the conflict’s most brutal battles is raging. Cut off from the front, a ragtag group of young British and American soldiers finds itself being hunted by a patrol of elite German Special Forces, including a newly commissioned officer called Kreuz—a teenage boy who will grow up to become Warden Cross (the fearsome prison director who will one day rule Furnace Penitentiary, the terrifying underground prison specially built for teen offenders).

  As both sides fight for their lives in the unforgiving terrain, however, they start to realize that there are worse things hiding in the snow than soldiers. There are creatures out there with gas masks and piggy eyes (ancestors of Furnace prison’s “wheezers”)—demonic entities that cannot be killed by guns and grenades, monsters who do not care what uniforms their victims are wearing so long as they bleed, and so long as they scream…

  The Ardennes, Belgium, 16 December 1944

  2103

  He had always thought that hell would be hot. But here they were, right inside the mouth of it, and it was freezing.

  Splintered trees littered the icy ground like loose teeth, branches embedded in blackened, gum-like craters. Overhead roiled a sky of smoke, as thick as rock, as if the whole world were being engulfed by a cavernous maw. The air carried the stench of death, of misted blood, of terror, a breath that seemed to rise right from the gullet of the underworld. And there was deafening laughter, too, a series of barked explosions that rocked the forest like some demonic chuckle.

  Corporal Donnie Brixton crouched in his foxhole, too numb to feel the cold anymore. Pressed up against him on one side was Eddie Argento, and on the other Michael Levy, the same tremor passing through all three men. They faced south, where fire blistered the trees a half-mile away. Another explosion detonated in the middle of the inferno, turning night into day, the shock wave forcing drifts of snow to rise up and dance around them.

  Donnie couldn’t remember the last time anybody had spoken, or moved. They could have been fixed here for years, for a lifetime, statues discarded in the forest. The only reminder of life was the clouds of breath squeezed from blue lips, which floated momentarily toward the distant chaos before rising abruptly, escaping. Donnie watched them go and felt that with each exhalation he was watching a little piece of his soul drift away.

  But that was okay, because surely here it was better not to have a soul.

  More explosions, three, four, the light so bright that Donnie had to squint. Something more than mortars. More than artillery. Tigers, maybe. Whatever it was, nothing could be left alive back there. Which meant the platoon was gone, which meant there was nothing between this foxhole and Bastogne but Germans.

  Footsteps, fast and hard, and then a shape skidded into the ditch, a welcome warmth against Donnie’s back.

  “Nothing,” hissed Henry Grady, his teeth chattering. “Can’t reach Hayling, can’t reach division neither.”

  Donnie swore, cold locking the word inside his mouth. He turned away from the inferno, sliding down the side of the foxhole and pulling his coat tight against his neck. The others hunkered down around him, their eyes wet with fear, their skin as white and as delicate as bone china. Four boys, and even if they pooled their years they’d be well short of a century. He was the oldest, at twenty-three. Eddie was the youngest, eighteen but looking half that as he pushed his helmet up from his nose and sneezed quietly into his sleeve.

  “What now?” said Mike, patting his pockets for a cigarette he didn’t have.

  “We’re cut off,” said Eddie, sniffing. “Right?”

  Donnie nodded. They’d left the front maybe thirty minutes ago. If they’d stayed for one more cup of joe then they’d never have left at all. Nobody had seen it coming. Not tanks, not here. The Germans were supposed to be exhausted, underequipped. For days now the platoon had been camped in the snow and the wind, and the most action they’d seen was a couple of firefights and a mortar attack that had fallen well wide of their foxholes.

  But now? Donnie screwed his eyes shut, trying not to think about his friends back on the line, the men who had been pummeled into the earth by a fist of fire and fury. Acid boiled up his throat and it was all he could do not to cry out. They weren’t your friends, he had to scream at himself. You don’t have friends out here, you can’t have them, it costs too much.

  “Donnie?” Eddie said. “What do we do?”

  “We carry on,” he said eventually. Thunder ripped through the trees, a blast that made the ground tremble. There was a crack and a shuddering groan as one of the ancient trees splintered and fell. “We’ve got a mission.”

  “What good’s finding Cuddy and his men gonna be now?” said Mike. “We should get back to the line, gonna need everyone they can get.”

  “You think the four of us can change what’s goin’ on back there?” Eddie said, his voice a shrill whine. “We’ll get burned up along with the rest of ’em.”

  “You’re yella, Argento,” said Mike. He turned to Donnie. “You, too, Corporal.” He spat out that word as if to say, We pretty much got the same rank, you and me, except for that extra chevron. “You’re yella, too, if you don’t take us back.”

  “We’ve got orders, Private,” Donnie said, meeting Mike’s dark eyes and holding them until the other man looked away. “We find Sergeant Cudden, we find his men.”

  “Yella,” muttered Mike in disgust. And it was true. Donnie was more scared than he had ever been, and wasn’t it better to march into the forest, into the cold, empty night with death at their backs, than to step further into the hellmouth, to give themselves up to the flames? He tightened his grip on his Garand, his fingers frozen to the metal. Shooting at tanks with this would be like throwing pebbles, especially when they had less than fifty rounds among them.

  He waited for the tremors of another detonation to fade, then peeked over the top of the foxhole. The forest was illuminated by golden light, every knot on every trunk picked out in perfect detail. There were no shapes in the flames, nothing human. But it wouldn’t be long before the German infantry moved in, rounding up the wounded and hunting down those who fled.

  “Come on,” Donnie said, clambering out, and offering a hand to Eddie. “Let’s move.”

  2217

  It was two days ago that Sergeant Bill Cudden had led a squad of seven men away from the front. Their mission was to head north, then cross over into enemy territory, to find a way into a small logging village where the Germans were camped, and to blow it to kingdom come. It was about as dangerous as assignments got, but all eight men had volunteered without so much as a pause for breath between them. Donnie knew because he’d been there, too, and when the call had come he’d kept his hands tucked into the warmth of his armpits and his eyes locked on his shoes.

  Because you’re yella, he told himself in Mike’s Jersey accent, and his shame was like a creature biting at the inside of his throat. But he’d seen death. He’d seen men punctured by bullets, their limbs blown off, their teeth shattered. He’d seen what men were made of, and how easy it was to turn them inside out—he’d done it himself with his rifle and his grenades. But worse, he’d seen what happened to their eyes as they writhed on the ground waiting for the medic, for morphine. He’d seen death in that blinking wetness. He’d seen the terrible, gaping oblivion that waited for all of them.

  “Donnie?”

  He realized Eddie was talking to him. The kid was by his side, so close that they could have been walking a three-legged race. The front was an hour or so behind them now, far enough that
the light from the fires had faded. But night still hadn’t been allowed to fall here, even though the stars occasionally peeked through the motionless canopy, even though the moon sat on the branches like a fat, silver-faced owl. Light seemed to radiate from the snow, unearthly, unreal, as if this forest and everything in it had been painted over a glowing bulb.

  He shivered as Eddie called his name again.

  “What is it, Private?” he said.

  “Got a girl at home?”

  Donnie frowned. They’d already had this conversation, sitting in a foxhole on the front drinking coffee and imagining themselves back on a stoop in San Fran or Chicago. He turned to remind Eddie, then saw the kid’s face, so drawn that it looked as if somebody had scooped out the meat from under his skin. His eyes were on the ground, watching for loose branches and stumps, which he hopped over like a rabbit, pushing his helmet back after every fumbling leap. The boy glanced up with a nervous smile and it seemed as though he’d lost another five years between the front and here, as if the forest were pickpocketing them from him every time his back was turned.

  Please, sir, his face said. Tell me again, because it’s too quiet here, just talk to me.

  “Yeah, sure I do,” Donnie said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a photo. “Betty, she’s a looker, right? And waiting for me.”

  The Ingrid Bergman double that stared back from the photo was called Betty, although she wasn’t his sweetheart. She was his next-door neighbor back in Lafayette and they’d been friends since before they could walk. But everyone needed somebody to take to the front with them, and when he’d asked her for a photo to show the boys she’d been more than happy to pose as his beloved. Betty. Sweet Betty Marmalade, he’d called her when they were growing up. He couldn’t remember why.

  “She’s real pretty,” Eddie said, his teeth chattering. “Wish I had a girl like that to keep me warm at night.”

  “Plenty of time,” Donnie said, clapping an arm down on the kid’s shoulder and feeling the icy air nudge its way into his coat. “You’ll be a hero when you get home, all the girls will want a piece of Eddie Argento. You’ll need to keep hold of your rifle to beat them back.”

  Eddie giggled, nudging his helmet up.

  “You think?”

  “I know, kiddo,” Donnie said. “I know.”

  “Much longer?” Eddie asked, and Donnie thought he was talking about the war until the kid nodded into the trees. Henry was up there, on point. He was a scout, and a good one. He’d been the guy to suggest going after Cuddy and his squad when they didn’t radio in on their first night. This time there hadn’t been a call for volunteers, their platoon sergeant had just picked the men who happened to be sitting in the same hole—Donnie, Eddie and Mike—to go with him.

  “Not sure,” Donnie said. “No way of telling how far they got.” They had been supposed to cut out and around, flank any Nazi lookout posts along the front, then sweep in when they got to the village. That meant moving pretty far north before heading east. “Henry’ll know, he’ll find them.”

  And right then he knew that he and Eddie were thinking exactly the same thing. They were hoping that they wouldn’t find them, because then they’d find out what happened to them. And when a squad didn’t radio in when it was supposed to, didn’t make contact for a whole twenty-four hours, that could only be bad news.

  They stumbled along, leaving a trail of ragged breaths behind them. And Christ was it quiet now, no wind to blow the pines, no creatures chattering, not even the distant thunder from the front. The forest was gripped by a profound, deafening silence—as if it were holding its breath, as if it were watching them go. How old is it here? Donnie wondered. How many centuries have these trees stood sentinel? He had never in his life felt so insubstantial, so fleeting, as here among these voiceless methuselahs, this ancient and unforgiving place. It would swallow them all whole as punishment for their trespass, without making a single sound—the way a shark swallows a fish whole in the deep, dark ocean. Nobody would ever know. Is that what happened to Cuddy’s squad? Not shot, not captured, just devoured in an instant as the snow and the dirt opened up beneath them then closed over their heads. Here one second, gone the next, and trapped for all eternity.

  The forest watched them walk. The lunatic moon grinned down at them. And it was all he could do not to scream.

  0011

  Donnie saw Henry signaling up ahead and instinctively ducked down, fumbling for the rifle looped over his shoulder. Eddie crashed to a heap beside him, swearing under his breath as he reached for his own weapon.

  Henry was a hundred yards away, crouched against a shallow bank, just a smudge of green against the dirty snow. His hand was raised, palm out, which meant he’d spotted something in front of him. Donnie checked his watch, blowing frost from the glass face to see that it was just after midnight. They’d been walking for nearly three hours now, which put them roughly nine miles off the front and still following Cuddy’s tracks.

  He glanced over his shoulder to see Mike crouched against a tree nursing his Garand, his jaw flexing relentlessly as he chowed down on some gum.

  “Hold here,” he whispered to Eddie. He bolted as quietly as possible to Henry, skidding down beside him in a storm of white powder. “What is it, Private?”

  “Hell if I know,” Henry said, pure Mississippi. “But somethin’s moving up there.”

  Donnie eased his head up over the bank to see the same forest—the same trees, the same snow, as if they were walking along an endless, changeless Möbius strip. There was no sign of movement. He could have been looking at a photograph, and the forest still possessed that same pregnant stillness, as if it was waiting with bated breath for his next move.

  Then he saw it, something fluttering behind the scrappy skirt of a large conifer—there for an instant, then devoured once again by stillness. He eased his rifle onto the tip of the bank, his heart drumming as if to make up for the silence. It might be a bird, a deer maybe. But it might just as easily be a German patrol scouting south or west, maybe even tracking them up from the front. He waited, counting his heartbeats—three for every second—suddenly sweating despite the cold. There it was again, a flicker of color darting out and back in again, like a head popping up from cover. It could have been their mirror image, and Donnie imagined the four of them running into themselves, their doppelgängers. It was insane, but this forest, definitely not sane, felt as if it could bend reality around in splintered circles.

  Donnie glanced back, waving the others forward. Then he turned to Henry. “Keep your gun on it, whatever it is, I’ll go around.”

  “Sir.” Henry nodded, lining up his weapon. Donnie waited for Mike and Eddie to scuffle down beside him; then he shrugged off his pack and crawled along the bank to his right, trying not to make a sound even though each chattering breath sounded, to him, like a Liberator taking off. The conifers were thick here, growing up on either side of him, their branches bowed with needles and snow. He felt safer in their shadows, and it was tempting to crawl into the darkness beneath their arms and just wait there for the war to end. But he pushed on, his hands numb, until the pines thinned.

  There was no bank here, just flat ground, and he edged out as slowly as he could. He located the tree they had been watching before, and from this angle he could see the shape there. It was a lump, maybe human-sized, and scraps of cloth fluttered from it in a breeze that Donnie couldn’t feel. The whole thing shifted, seeming to breathe in and out.

  He slid his rifle back over his shoulder and pulled his .45 from its holster. Moving this way was easier, and he slid through the forest without a sound. Glancing to his side he saw Mike moving parallel to him on the other flank, the Garand stock wedged against his shoulder. They walked in time, closing in on either side of the shape that shuddered and shook against the tree.

  When they were close enough, Donnie glanced at Mike, held up three fingers, then two, then one, and together they charged.

  “Don’t move!” Donnie yelled, almost tripping over his own feet as he ran around the tree. “Don’t you�
�”

  The gunshot almost deafened him, and this time he did lose his footing, dropping to his knees. Mike ran up, his rifle smoking, as the shape thrashed against the tree.

  “Christ,” said Donnie, hearing his pulse in the word. It was a parachute, ripped and torn and held in place by a satchel. He put his finger through the hole that Mike’s shot had made. “I think you killed it.”

  “Screw you,” Mike said. “It was moving. I thought it was going for a gun.”

  Eddie and Henry appeared, lowering their weapons when they realized there wasn’t any danger.

  “Weird,” said Eddie. “What’s that doing all the way out here?”

  “And is it one of ours?” Donnie said, and would have added more if he hadn’t felt the cold steel of a gun against the back of his neck and heard a whisper in his ear, the accent unmistakable:

  “No. It isn’t.”

  *

  “Drop the guns. I will not hesitate, boys, to blow your goddamned heads clean off.”

  Donnie did what he was told. He didn’t think he could hang on to his pistol even if he’d wanted to, the weight of it suddenly unbearable. It thudded into the snow, followed by two rifles. Mike held on to his, looking at whoever was behind Donnie with a sneer on his face.

  “Yeah?” he grunted. “I don’t think so.”

  The pressure on the back of Donnie’s neck increased.

  “I do,” said the voice, little more than a whisper.

  “Drop it,” Donnie ordered. Mike hesitated a moment longer, then let the gun slide from his fingers. “We’re not alone,” Donnie went on, hoping the lie wouldn’t show. “There’s a bunch more of us on the way.”

  “You Yanks,” said the voice, louder now and too high, too musical. “Always the same with your bravado and your shoot-first-ask-questions-later and your gum.” The weapon was lifted from Donnie’s neck, the skin there prickling. “I could hear you chewing from a mile away, and they must be able to smell Juicy Fruit all the way over in Berlin. Turn around, let’s take a look at you.”