Read more

1. Reader Survey

2. Horror Story Compilations

3. Download Full Beam

4. Read Online

Reader Survey

I’m running a quick one-question poll to better understand my readers and help me reach more people who enjoy my books.

FREE Horror Story Compilations

If you want more nightmares, you can also find my work, and others’, here:

Summertime Screams: 45 FREE horror titles, including ‘The Blighted Child’, ‘Waves of Madness’, ‘Respect’, ‘The Doll House Killer’ and ‘What Came Down’.

The Dark Fiction Summer Sale: 32 horror titles, including ‘Tales of the Macabre, Vol. 1’, ‘Tales of the Macabre, Vol. 2’, ‘Tales of the Macabre, Vol. 3,’ ‘Tales of the Macabre, Vol. 4’ and ‘Tales of the Macabre: Books 1-4’.

Download ePub / PDF

The ePub file should work with most e-readers. For Kindle, use Send to Kindle and upload the ePub file here:

UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/sendtokindle
US: https://www.amazon.com/sendtokindle

Full Beam

The A41, Hertfordshire, 14 December 1994

A plummy voice on the local radio started talking about a police incident near Watford. Tutting, Suze popped a tape in and turned the volume up. The tinny speakers in her Mercedes did their best to boom out Buddy Holly’s ‘Peggy Sue’ as Suze hurtled down the bypass. In just half an hour, she’d be surrounded by family with a glass of red in her hand. She watched the trees on the verge whizz by through the weak yellow glow of the headlamps. Rain crawled across the windscreen.

A panel van approached her, closing rapidly and maintaining a position right behind her. Suze glowered at him in her rear-view mirror as he flashed his headlights at full beam. Moving to the inside lane, she waited for him to overtake.

He flashed his lights at her again.

Suze flashed her hazard lights at him to hint that he should overtake.

He didn’t take the hint and flashed his lights again.

She tightened both hands around the steering wheel as the van seemed to fill the road in her rear-view mirror.

It was an old Ford Transit. It could have been dark blue or black in the rain, and its grille was stained with rust. When she went round the corner, she gained a bit on the van and glimpsed the driver. He sat high behind the wheel. He looked older, but she couldn’t get a good look at him.

He flashed his lights again, and the Mercedes’s interior exploded with white glare.

Suze flinched, and the car swerved for a moment. “Get stuffed!” She pressed her foot down. “What’s your problem?” The engine complained as it sped up to 75, then 80 miles an hour. The Mercedes began to shake. It was a good car, but, like her, it was getting on a bit.

The Transit stayed behind her.

Suze reached for the mirror and tilted it down. The glare had already stubbornly imprinted itself across her vision.

Something creaked behind her.

She looked towards the passenger seat.

Her handbag rested where she had left it, wedged beside a Waitrose carrier bag containing a bottle of wine, a bottle of bath bubbles for each of the adults, and a £10 note for each of the kids.

Another sound came from the back seat. It was the faint squeak of vinyl.

Suze glanced over her shoulder.

Her bright red winter coat lay in a heap across the seat. She had thrown it there after leaving the office. Beneath it were two carrier bags full of clothes bought from the ‘little shops’. She refused to admit to going to charity shops. There was also a rolled umbrella and the daily paper.

The Transit sounded its horn in one long blast.

Suze faced forward again, her grip tightening. “Get lost! Just go around me.”

Enough of this madness.

She eased towards the edge of the road and slowed.

The Transit slowed with her. Its headlights fixed on her Mercedes.

Indignation had turned to anger. Suze was 58 years old. She’d outlived two husbands. She’d gone drinking in the East End in the sixties, attended concerts in pubs where the carpets stuck to her shoes, and once spent an entire weekend in Brighton with four women from the typing pool.

Suze wasn’t easily frightened, and she wouldn’t take this kind of nonsense from a van driver.

Ahead, the road curved between dripping trees. Beyond them stood the curly-wurly bridge, a pedestrian crossing that loomed over the road like a noose. There were no houses and no other cars.

Well, if he isn’t going to overtake.

Suze pressed the accelerator again. She was fifteen minutes from the family home now. Overcooked turkey and dry potatoes, but a wellspring of love and wine.

The Transit surged after her. Its full beams came on. This time they remained blazing. The inside of the Mercedes became painfully bright, and she cursed. Suze saw the passenger seat, the carrier bags, and her own angry eyes reflected in the windscreen.

For the briefest instant, she thought she saw something else.

A pale shape behind her shoulder.

Then the lights dipped, and the car was dark again.

Suze twisted around.

Her coat had slid partly onto the floor. She stared at it, the Mercedes drifting towards the centre of the road.

A horn screamed behind her.

Suze grabbed the wheel and swerved back into her lane. The Transit came close enough for her to hear the rumble of its engine.

“Fine.”

The coat must have moved when she took the bend. That was all. She had piled too much rubbish on the back seat, and it had shifted. She’d seen her own reflection in the glass.

A metallic click sounded behind her.

Suze looked into the lowered mirror. She could see only the back window and the Transit’s headlights.

She reached up and adjusted the mirror.

At that moment, the Transit flashed, then accelerated. Its bumper struck the back of her Mercedes.

The impact threw Suze forward against her seat belt.

“You prick!” Suze pressed her hand against the horn and held it there, feeling an unfamiliar sense of fear that was rapidly building towards terror.

A sign appeared for Bourne End Services. She indicated automatically. It was a ridiculous act of courtesy, considering the circumstances, but one born of habit.

The Transit followed. Suze’s heart sank.

Her coat rustled behind her. The sound came from directly beside her right ear. She could smell something: damp sweat, old grease, and stale ale.

She hated service stations, especially ones out in the sticks.

The sensation of being watched became a physical pressure against the back of her neck.

The slip road dropped away from the A41. Suze took the roundabout too quickly, swung right, overcorrecting as she raced onto the BP forecourt. Its green-and-yellow shield glowed above the road. Eight petrol pumps stood beneath a canopy, surrounded by pools of orange light.

A pimply kid sat inside the kiosk, reading a copy of Smash Hits.

She screeched to a half in front of the kiosk. Opening the door, she leapt out. Thankfully, she always wore flats when driving. The Transit slowed, parking behind her.

The attendant looked at her as she ran towards the kiosk, panic on his face.

The door was locked. A handwritten notice told customers to pay through the night window after eleven.

Suze hammered on the glass. “Let me in, I’m being followed.”

The attendant looked round for help he knew wasn’t there. “We’re window service now, miss.”

Suze banged on the glass with her fist. “Let me in at once. That man rammed my car.”

“Miss, if you don’t stop that, I’ll have to call the police.”

For a moment, Suze paused, looking at him incredulously. Then she pounded on the glass with both fists, using all her might.

The van driver emerged, holding a tyre iron in one hand.

“Miss, I’m calling the police right now. Stop it.” The kid held up the phone receiver, looking visibly shaken by the mad woman. He spoke into the handset and then put it to one side, the call still open. “You’ve done it now. The police are on their way. They’ll be here in minutes.”

“Good, now let me in!”

“No chance, love. You’re proper mental. Go, wait in your car.”

The van driver approached the window. The kid looked at him. “Oh, fuck.” He ran to the door with a set of keys. Suze followed him. He fumbled with the first key, without success.

“Slow and steady wins the bloody race,” Suze hissed.

“Miss, please.”

“Wait!” the van driver called out.

The third key worked, and Suze ran inside. The attendant locked the door behind her as the van driver thudded his shoulder against it. Pulling down the metal shutters, the kid locked them.

“You’re in danger!” the driver yelled from outside. His voice sounded muted as the night window closed.

“The police will be here any moment, miss.” The attendant returned to his seat. “Have a tea or something from the machine. I’ll have to charge you.”

“It’s Mrs!” Feeling safer now behind the iron shutters, Suze walked over to the vending machine, adjusting her dyed black bouffant. She selected the button for tea and waited as it filled a polystyrene cup.

She looked around as the machine gurgled. The attendant steadfastly refused to make eye contact, fidgeting in the corner.

Fat lot of good he is.

When the tea finished brewing, she took a sip. It was lukewarm, and the tea was an anaemic puddle of milky white water that tasted of piss.

Ironically, there was a fire extinguisher next to the machine.

Abandoning the tea, she looked round the service station, her heart rate steadying despite the rhythmic thud of the man outside pounding on the glass.

Then she froze, her eyes narrowing at the back door. “Young man, does that door lead anywhere?”

“Er.” He sat still, looking at it dumbfounded.

Faced with someone with a torpid mentality, she raised her voice to compensate. “Does it lead to a tradesman’s exit?”

“Yeah.” He stood and moved over to it. “It’s the stockroom, but Davvers always locks the back door before he leaves.”

“Check it.” She stepped away from the exit. “Don’t trust this Davros. There’s a psychopath outside.”

“It’s Davvers.” The kid reluctantly approached the door. “Yeah, we can hear him. He’s out there, not at the back.” He walked through the storeroom door. “Damn it, Davvers. Okay, so…”

There was a wet gurgling sound as his voice cut out.

“Young man?”

Silence.

The door creaked open.

Suze raced over to the vending machine and grabbed the fire extinguisher. A gangling man with lank, greasy white hair slid through the gap, holding a bloody Stanley knife.

“Stay away from me,” Suze thundered.

The man shook his head, a smile sliding across his face.

Suze pressed down on the fire extinguisher, covering him with a choking white cloud. He flailed under its unrelenting assault as she approached him. “I don’t know who you are, but if you’re with that ghastly van man, then you’ve made a poor life choice.” As the stream of suppressant weakened, she raised the extinguisher and smashed it hard into his head. Raising it again, she went to repeat the strike when a long, emaciated arm lashed out, knocking it aside.

His body slammed into her, and she fell hard onto the floor, her head striking the cheap tiles.

She grunted as her vision blurred. She could feel him crawling up her body, his face looming above her. Hot, fetid breath washed over her as she saw his wild eyes and yellowed teeth leering at her.

He raised the Stanley knife, clicking the blade out farther.

Her breath caught as fear rolled through her. Her earlier rage dissipated into paralysing terror.

Thunk.

The man’s eyes rolled back in his head and he slumped over her body.

A thick, meaty arm grabbed the back of his shirt and dragged him off her.

The van driver loomed over her. “You hurt, love?”

“No.” Suze looked up at her rescuer. He was heavily built and swarthy, looking like someone born south of the river. “Thank you.”

“Then what the hell were you playing at, you daft bint?” The man scowled at her. “I’ve been trying to warn you since I saw someone in the back seat.”

“What?” She struggled into a seated position, automatically adjusting her bouffant as police sirens sounded.

“I thought he was a passenger until I saw the knife. Every time I flashed my headlights at full beam, he ducked down and hid. I checked your car outside when I parked, but couldn’t see him.” He shrugged. “I hoped he’d done a runner.”

Suze stared at the driver, struggling to fit his words together through the pounding in her skull.

“Well then, for God’s sake man, hit him again. He might get up.”

THE END

Tales of the Macabre

You can find my stories on Amazon, as Kindle Unlimited, eBook, Paperback or Hardback.

This collection of stories is designed for quick reads, whether over a coffee or during a commute. Either way, they promise to deliver exquisitely disturbing nightmares that gaze without flinching into the abyss—and linger in the mind long after.

FREE on Kindle Unlimited

Available to order on AMAZON.

Welcome to the complete collected works of Newton Webb. Tales of the Macabre, Vol. 1-4 are intended for mature audiences.

Read a collection of free short stories or listen to free audiobooks by Newton Webb on his website.

Visit my website

Get more from Newton Webb in the Substack app

Available for iOS and Android

Get the app

Read more

Get more from Newton Webb in the Substack app

Available for iOS and Android

Get the app

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Newt's Nightmares

1. News

2. Free Subscriber Content

3. Horror Story Promotions

4. Recommended Horror Books

Greetings, my wicked darlings!

What happened in July? The sun boiled my brain. That’s what happened.

I think I confused everyone by releasing a remake of my dark fantasy story, Shadow of the Wolf, with the same title and a suspiciously similar cover.

Was that a stupid idea? Absolutely. Will I learn from it? Deeply unlikely.

Let’s try again, this time with coffee:

Shadow of the Wolf: Dark Fantasy Edition

The original version. Lighter, more comedic, with a Templar based on a friend’s D&D character, which was itself inspired by The Tick.

Shadow of the Wolf: Medieval Horror Edition

The completely rewritten version. Grim, violent, and set during the Anarchy, when the forces of Empress Matilda battled Stephen of Blois. No, I can’t pronounce Blois either. I assume it is pronounced something like ‘blah’, being French. In the audio version, I will employ professional cowardice to avoid that word.

If you are still with me after all that bumf, then I applaud your tenacity and am grateful for your fortitude.

I also released two other stories, both novellas: Outpost U-819 Must DIE! (Read Online | Download ePub / PDF) and A Bunker Too Far (Read Online | Download ePub / PDF). Thank you to everyone who read them. They received a very warm welcome, you sick puppies.

Coming in August

• Full Beam. A classic urban legend retold, involving a lonely road, a Mercedes, a van, and some aggressive use of headlights.

• The Last of the Kings. Another uplifting tale in which members of the financial sector suffer entirely proportionate and regrettable consequences.

• I have two particularly unpleasant contenders for the final slot. I have not yet decided which one you deserve, my wonderful little toads.

September’s newsletter will reveal the complete lineup for Tales of the Macabre, Vol. 5.

Thank you for reading the stories and telling me which ones you liked and which ones you didn’t. I select the anthology primarily by comparing the number of likes each story receives per hundred views, so every reaction genuinely affects the final lineup.

Sweet screams,

Newt xx

Missed July’s releases? You can read or download all three below.

A Bunker Too Far

(Read Online | Download ePub / PDF)

A World War II Horror Novella

A doomed mission. A Nazi bunker. A monstrous secret.

Deep in the forests outside Arnhem, Operation Market Garden is collapsing.

When Private Mike Taylor and the remnants of his section are cut off behind enemy lines, they discover a German bunker with a radio mast and no visible defenders.

With German armour moving towards the British flank and sunrise only hours away, the surviving soldiers must warn the British airborne force.

But the bunker has secrets of its own, and something buried beneath the concrete is far more dangerous than the enemy outside.

Outpost U-819 Must DIE!

(Read Online | Download ePub / PDF)

A Pulp Sci-fi Horror Novella

On the freezing, desolate world of Rokus IV, Outpost U-819 is a miserable assignment. Brilliant, bitter, and heavily medicated, Professor Isambelle Hawke has spent four years cataloguing space-lichen and despising every colleague unfortunate enough to share her oxygen.

When the outpost’s hyper-competitive scientists make the discovery of a lifetime, they lie, scheme, and betray one another to claim the credit.

As paranoia spreads and the base goes into lockdown, Isambelle is trapped in its claustrophobic corridors with a nightmare that learns, adapts, and kills.

Her only hope is the outpost’s uncompromising ex-marine security chief, a woman she cannot stand and may not be able to trust.

One thing is certain.

Outpost U-819 MUST DIE!

Shadow of the Wolf: Medieval Horror Edition

(Read Online | Download ePub / PDF)

A Medieval Horror Short Story

A starving village. A forbidden sacrifice. A savage monster.

Deep in the Welsh Marches, a desperate settlement hides behind a rotting palisade and bars its gate after sunset.

When Brother Angel, a fearsome Templar knight, arrives with Barnabus, a reluctant penitent spared from the gallows, they discover a village gripped by terror and bound to something ancient in the woods.

Now, with the moon rising and an old debt coming due, Barnabus and Angel must break the pact before the shadow of the wolf claims them all.

How to Use Your Downloads

The ePub file should work with most e-readers. For Kindle, use Send to Kindle and upload the ePub file here:

UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/sendtokindle

US: https://www.amazon.com/sendtokindle

Horror Story Promotions

Summertime Screams: 45 FREE horror titles, including ‘The Blighted Child’, ‘Waves of Madness’, ‘Respect’, ‘The Doll House Killer’ and ‘What Came Down’.

The Dark Fiction Summer Sale: 32 horror titles, including ‘Tales of the Macabre, Vol. 1’, ‘Tales of the Macabre, Vol. 2’, ‘Tales of the Macabre, Vol. 3,’ ‘Tales of the Macabre, Vol. 4’ and ‘Tales of the Macabre: Books 1-4’.

Recommended Horror Books

I read three books in July. It’s been a busy month, and I haven’t had nearly enough time to read:

• Devil of the Pines by James Kaine: This is brilliant and easily worth five stars. I’ve been on a James Kaine binge recently. Devil of the Pines follows a curse across three interwoven timelines. It’s an absolute masterclass.

• Pursuit by James Kaine: There is a wonderful grindcore energy to James Kaine’s work, and Pursuit captures it perfectly. It’s an old school pulp story brought to a modern audience.

• Mischief Night by James Kaine: This is a refreshing take on an old premise. A family under siege, with psychos loosed from the asylum. In the author’s notes, James says it was inspired by something he’d always wondered. What happened to the other mental patients who escaped in the film Halloween?

Tales of the Macabre

You can find my stories on Amazon, available through Kindle Unlimited and in eBook, Paperback or Hardback editions.

This collection of stories is designed for quick reads, whether over a coffee or during a commute. Either way, they promise to deliver exquisitely disturbing nightmares that gaze without flinching into the abyss, and linger in the mind long after.

INCLUDED with Kindle Unlimited

Available to order on AMAZON.

Welcome to the collected Tales of the Macabre, Vols. 1–4.

Read a collection of free short stories or listen to free audiobooks by Newton Webb on his website.

Visit my website

Read more

Read more

1. Introduction

2. Download The Last of the Kings

3. Read Online

4. Horror Story Compilations

Read more

1. Reader Survey

2. Horror Story Compilations

3. Download Shadow of the Wolf

4. Read Online

Reader Survey

I’m running a quick one-question poll to better understand my readers and help me reach more people who enjoy my books.

FREE Horror Story Compilations

If you want more nightmares, you can also find my work, and others’, here:

Summertime Terrors: 35 FREE horror stories, including: ‘The Enigmatic Skeleton’, ‘The Doll House Killer’, ‘The Road Revenant’, ‘The Spinster’ and ‘Gomorrah’.

The Dark Fiction Summer Sale: 54 horror stories, including ‘Tales of the Macabre, Vol. 1’, ‘Tales of the Macabre, Vol. 2’, ‘Tales of the Macabre, Vol. 3,’ ‘Tales of the Macabre, Vol. 4.’ and ‘Tales of the Macabre: Books 1-4’.

Download ePub / PDF

The ePub file should work with most e-readers. For Kindle, use Send to Kindle and upload the ePub file here:

UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/sendtokindle
US: https://www.amazon.com/sendtokindle

Shadow of the Wolf

By Newton Webb

Chapter One

Archenfield, Welsh Marches, 1182

“I thought Templars had horses.” Barnabus trudged along the dirt track Angel had graciously described as a road.

Rain slid down his hood and found the back of his neck. The path beneath his feet was scored by cartwheels and churned by hooves. The rain had turned it into a sucking slurry that his pudgy legs had to battle against. Beyond the ditches, the oppressive forest canopy pressed close, its branches netting the grey sky.

“We do. Granted to brothers of the Temple when they swear to the Rule.” Angel was unaffected by the mud, crossing the ruts with a relentless stride. The leather-covered shield on his back made his already massive frame look larger.

“Then why are we walking?”

“I sold Justice.”

Barnabus stopped. “Sold?” he squeaked.

Angel didn’t stop. He never seemed to stop. His white mantle hung dark with rain over his mail. The red cross upon it looked almost black in the wet.

“I paid the restitution owed, and the bishop’s clerk persuaded the sheriff to accept penance in place of rope.”

Barnabus stared at the broad back ahead of him. “That was ill considered.”

Angel looked over his shoulder. He was a huge man, scarred across one cheek, with close cropped hair. His eyes held the terrible peace of a man who had never doubted himself. “The blessed virgin whispered to me in my dreams. She said I would find a fallen man who would become my right hand in the battle against sin.” He motioned for them to continue walking. “I paid your debt to the sheriff. God be praised.”

Barnabus winced. Just hours before, a large Saxon mercenary called Alfric had been hanged.

You got the wrong convict.

“This endless walking could be seen as worse torture than the rope.” Barnabus watched as Angel strode through a broad puddle and shook his head, walking around it.

Angel sounded almost happy. “It is good for your soul.” The grim faced brother found pleasure in the most hateful of activities.

Barnabus resumed his miserable trudge. His legs ached. The mud sucked at his shoes with every step. His cloak was good wool, but no wool, even when treated with tallow, stayed good after a day under English rain. “I do think I could do more good in a monastery. I’m a clerk, not a soldier.”

“When the Lord calls, we obey.”

Barnabus sighed. “See, are you sure that is what your dream meant? I’ve had a few dreams about virgins and if I were to…”

“It was a vision.” Angel’s voice dropped to a growl. “Do you doubt my faith?”

Barnabus touched the sword at his belt. It was the length of his forearm, plain, single edged, but mostly heavy. It bruised his leg where it bashed against his thigh. Angel had given it to him at the prison gate, along with a dagger and a cloak.

They were travelling west under letters from the bishop’s men into the borderland of Archenfield. Another of Angel’s blessed visions had sent them west, cold, wet and hungry, away from civilisation and into the depths of the forest.

A wolf howled somewhere beyond the trees. Barnabus reached for the hilt of his sword. “They don’t come near the king’s road, do they?”

“Only if starving.”

“Wonderful.” Barnabus looked down at his own soft belly beneath the soaked wool. “Then I hope they are eating better than I am.”

The road bent between two banks of thorn hedge. The land dipped, and through the rain Barnabus saw a handful of lights below. A wooden church tower stood black against the evening sky. Around it crouched a scattering of timber houses, byres, and thatched roofs. A stream ran beyond them, swollen by rain, and beside it stood the broken wheel of a mill.

The village was enclosed by a moss covered palisade of rotting stakes.

Pottage, let there be pottage.

“Praise God,” Barnabus muttered.

Angel glanced back. “That’s the spirit.”

For shelter, not in general.

Chapter Two

They reached the gate as dusk thickened into dark.

“No entry after sunset,” a voice called from behind the palisade.

Angel walked to the gate and stopped close enough for the men behind it to step back.

“I am Brother Angel of the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon. This man is Barnabus, a penitent under ecclesiastical correction. We travel under the bishop’s seal. Open.”

Penitent? Thanks for that.

Barnabus raised his hand. “Hello.”

Two guards stood beyond the gate with spears. One wore a rusted iron cap, the other relied on the dubious protection of boiled leather. The first guard had a hare’s foot tied beneath the sleeve of his tunic. Barnabus could sympathise. They looked wet, cold, and utterly miserable.

“No entry,” said the guard with the hare’s foot. “Not while the moon is full.”

Brother Angel looked at the charm on the man’s wrist. “You deny shelter to Christian travellers while wearing heathen charms.”

“It’s for luck.” The guard looked at his comrade, who shrugged back at him.

“There is no luck, only the light of the Lord.”

The two guards edged closer to each other. The second one spoke up. “Brother, you should pass on. This village isn’t for you.”

Angel stepped closer. “Our Lady herself guided me to this village. God’s law surpasses the rule of man. Open the gate, or I will open it for you.”

Silence met the threat. Barnabus wished one of the guards would speak up. He had ambitions involving a hearth, a bench, and a bowl of hot food.

Angel’s voice dropped. “I won’t repeat myself.”

The man with the hare’s foot looked towards the village. Nobody came to help them.

“I wouldn’t want to be the person who had to fix the gate after my friend here smashed his way through.” Barnabus gave them an apologetic look.

They looked at each other and lifted the bar, opening the gate.

The village smelled of smoke, pig dung, and wet straw. Nobody was outside in the street. A woman pulled a child away from a shutter. A dog barked somewhere in the dark.

The alehouse stood near the churchyard wall. Its sign showed half a boar. Rain and age had gnawed away most of the paint. Brother Angel struck the door with his fist.

A bolt scraped and the host opened the door a crack.

Angel nodded to him and walked straight into the common room, which promptly fell silent.

Barnabus stepped inside behind him and nearly sagged with relief. Heat struck his face and smoke curled under the beams. At that moment, he didn’t care about the men and women staring at the red cross on Angel’s mantle, wooden cups in their hands.

Then they stared at his sword, strapped to his belt.

Barnabus didn’t care. His eyes had already found a large cauldron simmering over the hearth.

Angel chose a table near it. Barnabus, for once in complete agreement, sat with him.

“Pottage,” Angel called to the host, motioning to the table. “Bread. Ale. Water for the penitent.”

“Perhaps you could address me as Barnabus, or preferably, your clerk,” Barnabus muttered.

“Be proud of your title. You are redeeming your soul.”

Angel placed coins on the table.

The host’s expression softened at the sight of coins. “I’ll bring it over for you.”

Barnabus shut his eyes.

Maybe the Blessed Virgin was looking over them.

In the corner, a drunken priest with red eyes sat with both hands around a cup of ale. His dark robe was patched at the elbows, his tonsure a stubbly mess, and he was struggling to keep his head up.

Brother Angel studied him. “What fear shuts a village gate when Christians call?”

The priest lifted his head. “These people don’t fear anything. Not the King. Not God.”

The host stiffened. “Father Osric has had too much ale.”

Father Osric laughed. “Father Osric wants much more ale.”

Brother Angel crossed the room and sat opposite him. The bench groaned beneath his weight.

“It is your job to guide your flock to the light of the Lord.”

The priest looked at the red cross on Angel’s mantle. “My flock?”

Angel’s jaw tightened. “Priest, you speak as someone who has turned from the light.”

“I do my bit.” The priest looked around the room. Several villagers looked away. “But it isn’t the Lord they pray to.”

The host slammed a cup down. “Enough.”

“Ask Leofric where they kneel,” Father Osric said.

A young woman with stained sleeves brought over steaming bowls of pottage, ale for Angel, and water for Barnabus.

Barnabus lifted his spoon, smiling gratefully at her. The pottage was thick with beans and barley. There was even a scrap of mutton floating near the edge.

“What does he mean?” Angel had lost all interest in food. “You speak of heresy, Father.”

A thickset man rose from a table near the wall. His beard was grey, his face was weathered, and a reeve’s staff leaned against his bench.

“He means nothing,” the man said. “Just a drunk, babbling priest.”

Father Osric pointed at him. “Leofric has led them to the stone since his father died.”

“We feed you as an act of charity.” The reeve’s face darkened. “Hold your tongue, priest.”

Angel stood. “By warrant of the bishop, and by the duty of every Christian soul in this room, you will answer.”

Leofric took his staff. Benches scraped across the floor as men shifted their hands towards knives, axes, and belt knives.

Barnabus dipped his spoon into the stew and blew on it while the alehouse erupted.

Angel looked at the reeve. “I asked a question and I will get an answer. What stone?”

Leofric spat into the rushes. “You’ve no authority here.”

Angel’s hand rested on the cross shaped hilt at his belt. “I won’t ask again.”

“Who are you to lecture us? Where was your Temple when the foresters took our pigs? Where was your bishop when the sheriff’s men fined us for deadwood? Where was Christ when my brother lost his hand for a snared deer while his children starved?” Leofric stared at him.

Angel was completely still.

Behind Leofric, a villager bit his tongue, clawing at his arms. He looked at Leofric, then at Angel.

The barmaid watched him. “Jakob… Come back with me, I’ll pour you a jug of ale.”

He looked at the barmaid, then, when Leofric reached for him, he broke ranks and ran behind Angel. The shouting jolted Barnabus’s hand, and his pottage slopped across the table.

“Get back here, Jakob!” The reeve’s face reddened with rage, and he drew his dagger.

Angel’s blade sang out, gleaming in the firelight, and he set himself between Jakob and the room. “Perhaps you will tell me, Jakob.”

Barnabus refilled his spoon and blew harder on it. He stared at the food, trying to ignore the rapidly collapsing situation.

“I drew the devil’s straw!” Jakob’s voice broke. “They took my baby, my little Ethrel, to the stone.”

“How long ago?” Angel growled.

“Just before nightfall, but the beast won’t come until the moon is at its height.”

“Then the child may yet live.” Angel turned to Jakob. “Take me to this stone. I would see what manner of beast compels a village to lose its faith.”

Jakob nodded.

Father Osric began to weep into his cup.

“We move to retrieve your child. Barnabus, with me.”

Barnabus took one lingering look at the pottage and then swallowed the spoonful, stepping up regretfully.

Leofric lowered the dagger. He whispered to another villager, who disappeared out the back of the alehouse. Then he smiled at Angel. “Be careful, Templar, the woods are very dark.”

Angel’s eyes gleamed as he stared at the reeve. “My faith shines brighter.”

Barnabus slid past Angel with Jakob through the door, as the Templar remained facing the villagers.

“Quick, I can show you the old mill path.” Jakob paused. “Thank you, Templar. I prayed, I did, but I never expected a knight to answer.”

Angel backed out after them. He removed the leather cover from his shield, tossing it to Barnabus to carry. “Fear not, Jakob. I now know why my dreams brought me here.”

Barnabus looked back through the open door. The villagers watched them in silence. Not one of them looked ashamed.

Barnabus remained silent as he turned away from them.

He’d burnt his tongue on the pottage.

Chapter Three

An owl hooted as they descended into the night. The moon glimmered down upon them as Jakob led them past the churchyard. The church itself was a mean little building of rotting timbers, with a small bell hanging beneath a squat shelter. Its door was marked with a cross. Beneath the cross, someone had nailed a strip of wolf skin.

Angel stopped before it.

Father Osric had followed them from the alehouse. Now he made the sign of the cross with shaking fingers.

“I tore that down twice,” the priest said. “It always returns by morning.”

Angel ripped the strip from the door and threw it into the mud. “Ring the bell. Let the people know that God’s law has returned to the village.”

“They won’t come.”

Angel narrowed his eyes. “Shepherd your flock, priest. I will do the rest.”

Jakob took them through the dense forest. They passed the broken mill. Its wheel had collapsed into the swollen stream. Beyond it, a narrow path cut through the trees.

They could hear chanting in the distance.

“Go back to the church, Jakob.” Angel drew his sword and raised his shield. “We’ll find your child.”

“I can help.” The man’s voice shook as he spoke.

“Help the priest. Help him find his faith and join him in prayer.”

Barnabus drew his sword and held it forward. “Don’t worry, Angel. I’ll escort him to the church. He’ll be safe with me.”

“A noble thought, but you’ll be needed to hold the child if I have to wield my sword.”

Damn.

Jakob looked relieved. “Follow this path to the split ash, then west by the ditch. You’ll see the stone in the clearing.”

Behind them, a bell tolled.

For a moment, Angel smiled. “The priest has found his courage.”

Rain pattered through the branches, and thorns caught Barnabus’s cloak. The path was barely a badger track between questing roots and thick brambles. The moon appeared in pale fragments through the moving cloud.

The path bent around a black pool clogged with reeds. Something moved beneath the surface.

The split ash appeared ahead, its trunk cleft by lightning and black down the middle.

Angel turned west.

“Wait,” Barnabus whispered.

Angel stopped.

Barnabus crouched, wincing as his knees protested. He touched the mud. “Look at all the footprints.”

“Yes, a good many men trod this path recently.” Angel gave a grim nod. “Your clerk’s eye is improving. We shall be doing the Lord’s work tonight.”

That wasn’t supposed to be encouragement.

Music reached them through the trees. A discordant hymn in the old tongue. Barnabus recognised enough Welsh to understand the blasphemy. The rhythm was a holy metre he’d chanted a thousand times in the scriptorium, but the Latin had been replaced, subverting the mercy of the Lamb of God and turning it into the justice of the Wolf in the Wood.

Barnabus felt his stomach twist. He didn’t translate for Angel. He could already feel the knight’s anger in the silence beside him. Since Angel had taken him as a penitent, his duties had mostly involved traipsing around the country, dreaming of food and warm beds.

His throat felt dry.

There will be death tonight.

Angel drew his sword. In the dense woods, the sound of steel leaving leather seemed louder than it should.

“Stay behind me.”

“I was planning on it.”

An arrow hissed out of the dark.

Angel seized Barnabus by the cloak and hurled him sideways.

Barnabus crashed into nettles. Pain flared across his face and hands. He gasped, rolled, and came up spitting leaves.

His bladder almost failed him as he saw an arrow quiver in a tree where his chest had been.

Angel was already moving. A man lunged from the brush with a spear. Angel knocked the point aside, stepped in, and opened him from belly to breast. Another arrow was caught on Angel’s shield. Stabbing his sword into the earth, Angel flicked his hand forwards, and his dagger struck the archer in the throat even as he drew his third arrow.

The bodies fell to the ground with wet, heavy sounds.

“They set guards.” Angel pulled his dagger free and wiped it on the dead man’s cloak.

Barnabus looked for dock leaves to salve his stinging face. His hands shook. “You make it sound like a good thing.”

“It is. It means they wanted us dead.”

And that’s good?

When Barnabus didn’t reply, Angel explained anyway. “It confirms their guilt.”

The trees opened into a clearing.

A smoky fire burned in the centre, fed high with dry wood despite the drizzle. A cross burned in the centre of the fire, causing Angel to growl. Around it stood villagers with their hoods pulled low, faces smeared with ash. Some carried church candles. Another, wearing a wolf’s skull as a mask, held Father Osric’s brass aspergillum, a perforated metal ball on a chain.

At the far side of the clearing stood an old stone. Someone had carved a crude cross into it, but older marks showed beneath. At its base lay bones, ribbons, crusts of bread, animal skulls, and a bowl of blood.

On the stone lay a wicker basket.

The basket moved. From it sounded a baby’s cry, lusty and indignant.

Brother Angel stepped into the firelight. His white mantle shone red, gold, and black. He lifted his sword. “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, give me the child.”

The singing stopped, and the villagers turned.

The man with the wolf’s skull mask stepped forward. “You should have stayed by the hearth, Templar.”

“I know your voice. You should have stayed in the inn.”

Leofric pulled away his mask and shook his head at Angel. “You’ve seen our village. What choice do you think we had?”

“You chose to surrender your children, your souls, for... what?”

Barnabus watched the villagers spread around them. “Angel, they are...”

“Protection,” the reeve said. “From the King’s men. We follow the wolfshead.”

“An outlaw?” Angel sneered at them.

A bitter laugh moved through the villagers.

“Before the Great Wolf, we starved. The king took,” Leofric said. “The sheriff took. The abbey took. The Wolf protects us.”

“Your Wolf takes children.” Angel stepped forward, his voice booming in the night. “You sacrifice innocents!”

Leofric’s face twisted. “The Wolf takes one child a year. Before him, winter took dozens.”

Angel lowered the sword point towards him. “It ends tonight.”

The reeve looked past Angel to Barnabus. “And you, clerk? Will you die for a child? Or would you like to stand with us?”

Barnabus opened his mouth. No answer came.

“You think my brother would turn against Christ for you?” Angel chuckled, a dark and angry sound. “We are destined to die against a far greater foe than the likes of you.”

Barnabus looked at the basket. The baby cried again. He gripped his sword handle tightly as he made his choice.

No one moved for a heartbeat, the only sound being the constant hissing of the rain as it hit the fire.

Then Leofric shouted, and the villagers charged, a ring closing around the Templar. Angel didn’t give an inch. He split their frantic charge with the disciplined savagery of his blade. A billhook rang against his mail. He broke the wielder’s arm with his pommel. A wood axe bit into his shoulder and stuck in the rings. He cut the man down before the axe fell free. Someone thrust a spear. Angel turned it aside and drove his blade into the man’s chest.

Barnabus stepped back.

A hooded figure slammed into him.

They hit the grass together, and Barnabus lost his sword in the fall. A knife flashed above his face. Barnabus caught the wrist with both hands. The blade shook closer. The breath above him smelled of onions and sour ale.

“Please,” Barnabus gasped.

The figure kneed him in the belly. Air burst from his lungs. The knife point touched his cheek. Barnabus twisted, and they rolled together. Mud filled his mouth. He clawed for his sword, finding instead a stone. Plucking it from the sucking earth, he smashed it against the side of the figure’s head. It crunched with a wet sound. Reaching for his belt, he found his dagger and thrust it into his foe’s stomach.

The body jerked as he stabbed again, then again.

The weight collapsed onto him.

Barnabus shoved it aside and crawled backwards, panting, his clothes soaked in blood and gore, and matted with soil. His sword was gone. His dagger remained in the body.

The hood slipped back. Firelight touched the face beneath, and he saw the serving girl who had smiled at him over the pottage.

Barnabus stopped.

Her mouth opened. Blood ran over her lower lip. Her eyes fixed on him with a look of surprise.

“No,” Barnabus whispered. “I’m sorry.”

Her hand twitched.

Panic took him, and the clearing spun.

He vomited on the ground.

This didn’t feel like justice. He’d been spared the gallows to become something worse than a thief.

The dead woman’s knife lay in the grass beside her hand. Barnabus snatched it up, trying not to look at her face.

A howl sounded from the treeline.

The villagers attacking Angel broke away from him and fled from the altar. He turned to face the new threat as the baby on the altar continued to scream.

The foliage at the far edge of the clearing bent aside.

The Wolf came through, walking on two legs.

It was taller than any man, taller even than Angel. Its body hunched beneath a pelt black as wet earth. Its arms were too long. Its claws trailed through the grass. Its head was lupine, vast and scarred, with yellow eyes that held a very human look of rage.

Around its neck hung an iron collar.

The creature looked at the dead villagers, then at Angel.

Angel made the sign of the cross with his sword. “You who were once man,” he said. “Now beast. I will send you to your judgement.”

The Wolf growled, a low, deep sound that Barnabus could feel in his bones, then charged.

“Saint Michael, defend us.” Angel raised his blade in a salute. “Christ, receive us.”

He raced to meet the monstrous creature.

A sudden, shameful warmth flooded down Barnabus’s leg as he stared at the beast. His lungs tightened. He couldn’t draw breath as the massive thing advanced.

The Wolf struck with one clawed hand. Angel took the blow on his blade and slid back through mud. The second blow smashed into his shield and split it from rim to boss. Angel cast the broken shield aside and cut deep into the creature’s thigh.

Black blood steamed on the grass, and the Wolf howled.

Barnabus stood and watched, frozen to the spot. He wished the rope had taken him.

The Wolf’s claws tore across Angel’s mail and opened it. Blood darkened the white mantle.

Angel drove his sword into the beast’s ribs.

The Wolf cuffed him, sending him sprawling to the ground, the blade still stuck in its body.

For the first time since Barnabus had met him, Angel didn’t rise.

Barnabus looked at the basket and heard the baby’s torment.

The Wolf took a step towards it.

Dammit.

He took a step towards the Wolf, raising the dead woman’s knife high. Its hilt was slick with her blood.

The Wolf turned its head to regard him through its yellow eyes. Then it turned away, dismissing him.

Barnabus screamed a war cry, mostly for his own sake. It was high pitched, cracked, and ugly. But it gave him the strength to charge towards the creature.

The Wolf turned and raised a claw, swinging it at Barnabus.

Barnabus tripped over a corpse, and the claw passed above him.

He struck the ground face first, slid through mud and blood, and collided skull first with the old stone beneath the basket.

Light burst behind his eyes.

The last thing he heard was Angel roaring the name of Christ.

Then the world went black.

Chapter Four

Rain woke Barnabus. He opened one eye and immediately regretted it as the pale morning sun shone down on him. Pain filled his skull, his tongue felt swollen, and his side was bruised. Mud and blood were black beneath his fingernails.

He remembered the serving girl.

Then he remembered the Wolf. He sat bolt upright, too fast, turned to one side, and vomited into the grass.

Angel sat on the old stone. His left arm was bound tight against his chest. His mail was torn. “You live.” His face had been opened from brow to jaw and stitched together with black thread. When he smiled at Barnabus, the attempt at warmth looked grotesque. “Good. Our Lord still has work for you.”

Barnabus flinched.

Morning had come grey and cold. The fire was ash. Bodies lay across the clearing, some covered with cloaks, most not. Father Osric knelt beside the dead, murmuring prayers in a broken voice.

The Wolf’s head stood on a spear at the edge of the clearing, its yellow eyes dull. Stripped of its malice, the thing had shrunk into a pitiful thing, just the grey snout of a mangled hound on a spike.

“What happened?” Barnabus croaked.

“You saved the child.”

Barnabus stared at him. “Me?”

“I’ve never seen anything so heroic. When the child was vulnerable, you charged the beast with no armour and nothing but a knife.”

“I did what?”

“Then it knocked you out, of course, but that doesn’t detract from your courage.” Angel looked up at the pale morning sky. “The Blessed Lady chose well when she guided me to you. You bought me time to retrieve my sword from its belly. I couldn’t have defeated it without you.” He stroked his ruined face. “Though not without cost.”

Dammit.

A thin cry rose from beside the stone.

Barnabus turned his head.

The wicker basket rested near Angel’s feet. Inside, wrapped in a torn cloak, the baby squirmed and wailed.

“Where is Jakob?” Barnabus looked around. “His child needs him.”

“He didn’t make it back to the church.” Angel’s hand curled into a fist. “They hanged him in the trees.”

“The child’s mother?” Barnabus asked.

“Dead. Father Osric says she died in childbirth.”

Barnabus stared at the child. “I am not carrying a baby.”

“Of course not. Father Osric brought a shovel. My arm is wounded. I need you to dig graves.” Angel pointed at the shovel. “Then you can carry the baby. We can’t return to the village, and there is no one left here I would trust with him.”

Dammit.

A long silence hung between them. “I killed a woman last night.” Barnabus turned to the priest. “Father, what was her name?”

“Don’t answer that, priest. Barnabus, you did a good thing last night.” Angel gave him a look that teetered on the verge of being sympathetic. “The burden of Justice weighs heavy, but it is up to strong men to fight for it.”

Wasn’t Justice the horse you sold?

“Kneel when you can.” Angel rose with difficulty and came to his side. “You can confess when Father Osric has finished with the dead.”

Barnabus’s throat tightened. “I don’t want this life.”

“Once you were a thief doomed to Hell.” Angel patted him on the shoulder. “Now, each day you are a step closer to redemption.”

Barnabus closed his eyes.

And if I prefer Hell, you’ll send me there yourself.

Father Osric’s prayers drifted across the clearing.

“Father, you should leave with us, it isn’t safe for you here any more.” Barnabus retrieved the priest’s shovel from the earth with a wrenching sound.

“I’m needed.” His eyes were hooded with sorrow. “The villagers have nothing left now.”

Angel nodded at the priest with agreement.

As the rain came down harder, Ethrel cried louder.

His last thought as he started digging was of the pottage, less than a mile away, beside the hearth of the Wild Boar, in a village that he could never return to.

And the fact that somehow, he now had a baby.

THE END

Tales of the Macabre

You can find my stories on Amazon, as Kindle Unlimited, eBook, Paperback or Hardback.

This collection of stories is designed for quick reads, whether over a coffee or during a commute. Either way, they promise to deliver exquisitely disturbing nightmares that gaze without flinching into the abyss—and linger in the mind long after.

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Available to order on AMAZON.

Welcome to the complete collected works of Newton Webb. Tales of the Macabre, Vol. 1-4 are intended for mature audiences.

Read a collection of free short stories or listen to free audiobooks by Newton Webb on his website.

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1. Introduction

2. Download Clarent

3. Read Online

4. Horror Story Compilations

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Pam Brown on Tales of the Macabre, Vol. 2

“Stories to keep you up at night.”

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/189857063-tales-of-the-macabre-vol-2

Stephanie W on Tales of the Macabre: Books 1–4

“Bone-chilling, spooky.”

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/246412904-tales-of-the-macabre

Cat B. on Tales of the Macabre: Books 1–4

“Creepy, terrifying, shiver inducing.”

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/246412904-tales-of-the-macabre

The Book Ssirren on Tales of the Macabre: Books 1–4

“Edge of your seat.”

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/246412904-tales-of-the-macabre

Terry M on Tales of the Macabre: Books 1–4

“Different, concise and engaging.”

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/246412904-tales-of-the-macabre

Doreen Fernandes on Tales of the Macabre: Books 1–4

“A treat for horror buffs.”

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/246412904-tales-of-the-macabre

Rebel on Tales of the Macabre, Vol. 4

“Laughing, cringing, and outright clutching my armrest.”

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/241062756-tales-of-the-macabre-vol-4

L.K-B review of Festival of the Damned

“Brilliant up and coming author”

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Festival-Damned-Newtons-Macabre-Tales/dp/B0B5KQKZHB

Pride Month Interview

Newton Webb discusses horror, identity, personal experience and confronting darkness through fiction with the Horror Writers Association.

https://horror.org/pride-month-2025-an-interview-with-newton-webb/

The Arts Show, Wycombe Sound

Newton Webb joins author and broadcaster Dane Cobain to discuss horror fiction and the nature of creeping horror.

https://podcastrepublic.net/podcast/1521036279

Three Reviews from Readers’ Favorite

Tales of the Macabre, Vol. 1 was praised as “imaginative and well-written” and “a masterclass in horror” by three Readers’ Favorite reviewers.

https://readersfavorite.com/book-review/tales-of-the-macabre-vol-1

Book Review of The Black Fog

The Black Fog was praised by Readers Favorite.

https://readersfavorite.com/book-review/the-black-fog

H.M.S. Brown review of The Black Fog

Brown describes Newton’s work as an English author who writes:

“Deliciously creepy tales.”

https://www.hmsbrown.com/2022/08/review-black-fog.html

Author Roundtable: Why Do We Read Horror?

Newton Webb joins eleven other authors and game designers to discuss why people read and what makes a compelling story.

Barbarian Grunge

Why Do You Read? What Makes a Good Story? Q&A With Twelve Authors (Part Two)

What makes a great character…

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3 years ago · 6 likes · 1 comment

November Book Releases 2024 by British Authors

Featuring Tales of the Macabre, Vol. 3.

https://britishauthors.co.uk/new-releases/november-book-releases-british-authors/

Featured by Top in Fiction

“Mindgames” and “The Hunger” were selected for Top in Fiction’s weekly fiction roundups.

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a year ago · 41 likes · 12 comments · The TiF Team

1. Reader Survey

2. Horror Story Compilations

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If you want more nightmares, you can also find my work, and others’, here:

Summertime Terrors: 35 FREE horror stories, including: ‘The Enigmatic Skeleton’, ‘The Doll House Killer’, ‘The Road Revenant’, ‘The Spinster’ and ‘Gomorrah’.

The Dark Fiction Summer Sale: 54 horror stories, including ‘Tales of the Macabre, Vol. 1’, ‘Tales of the Macabre, Vol. 2’, ‘Tales of the Macabre, Vol. 3,’ ‘Tales of the Macabre, Vol. 4.’ and ‘Tales of the Macabre: Books 1-4’.

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A Bunker Too Far

By Newton Webb

Chapter One

Mud flew into the air.

Private Mike Taylor threw himself down. His Lee Enfield slammed against his chest knocking the breath from him. Wet earth filled his mouth. Somewhere ahead, a German machine gun hammered through the ancient pines, each burst tearing the forest apart in savage, ripping lines.

Branches cracked overhead. Splinters rained down through the mist. One struck the back of Mike’s hand hard enough to sting. He pressed his face into the muck and tried to make himself smaller.

Fletcher tried to crawl towards the ditch. The machine gun found him halfway there. His body jerked then collapsed into the mud.

Sergeant Davis’s steady voice cut through the racket. “Heads down, boys.” He sounded like he was on the parade ground.

Mike tried to move towards it.

Another burst chewed through the fallen oak ahead of him. Bark exploded outward. He flinched and froze, clutching his rifle so tightly that his knuckles hurt.

He moved back, running his numb fingers over his webbing, he felt the bronze cartridges in their stripper clips. He had two clips left.

Ten rounds.

Corporal Brown slid into cover near Davis, landing in the filth with a grunt. Even now, with soil streaked across his face and caught between his teeth, Brown managed to grin.

“Bit rough out here today, Sarge.”

A bit rough?

Mike didn’t understand how anyone could joke while bullets were hunting them through the trees.

“Still better than Belgium.” Davis’s face darkened. “Where are the others?”

There were ten of us when we jumped.

Evans had fallen past Mike, his chute never opened.

Clarke had broken his back across a tree branch. Mike had tried to drag him to cover until Brown shoved him aside and put a bullet through Clarke’s head, pocketed his identity disc, and dragged Mike back before the Germans reached him.

Now there were seven.

“Right behind me.”

Heavy footsteps pounded through the mud behind Brown. Private Tony Smith came crashing over a decaying log, huge and awkward, his broad frame hitting the ground with a thud. Tony curled against the wood, too large to hide properly behind it.

“Move over, Tony,” Brown said.

“Where to?” Tony replied. “This is the only cover.”

“Just breathe, Tony,” Davis said. “Move to that tree. We can’t afford to bunch up.”

Mike tried to move again. His boots slipped in the wet leaves. His helmet had twisted sideways, half blinding him. He pushed it back with one shaking hand and scrambled towards the ditch.

A hand seized the back of his webbing and dragged him the rest of the way.

Reed hauled him behind the fallen oak as bullets chewed across the top of the log. Mike landed hard on his side. Reed gave him a thumbs-up and managed half a smile before incoming fire forced him to turn away.

Jones put a steady hand on Mike’s shoulder. “Come on, lad. The Lord didn’t send you here to die.”

Mike nodded, though the one thing he was sure of was that the Lord was nowhere near Arnhem.

Davis pointed towards the right flank. “Cover us there.”

Mike raised his rifle. The barrel trembled. He forced it still and lifted his chin, mentally copying his father, the toughest man he knew. The forest ahead was a filthy smear of trunks, smoke, rain, and motion.

“Wait for the order,” Davis said.

Lance Corporal Williams crawled in last, dragging the wireless set by its thick canvas strap. The metal casing scraped over buried stones with a horrible grinding sound. Williams collapsed beside Davis, rolled onto his back, and patted the box.

“Bad news, Sergeant. Jerry shot the valves out. Just a twenty-pound brick now.”

The machine gun stopped.

The silence that followed was worse. Mike could feel his heart thudding in his chest. He had to force himself to breathe.

Reed was somewhere to Mike’s left, swearing as he tried to clear mud from his rifle bolt.

Mike heard his own breath, thin and wet. He heard rain ticking on leaves. He heard distant artillery somewhere beyond the trees.

Then two dark shapes sailed through the air.

Grenades.

One of the grenades landed beside Reed.

Mike ducked, curled around his rifle, and clamped his eyes shut. The explosions punched the world flat. Soil and rotten leaves slapped across his helmet and neck. The blast shoved air from his lungs.

For a moment, everything became a high, whining ring.

He forced his eyes open and found dark red blood coating the ground, his sleeves, and his webbing. Reed was no longer behind the oak. What was left of him was spread over the blast site.

Mike screamed, his voice shrill in the forest gloom.

“Prepare for incoming assault.” Davis looked at what was left of Reed. His jaw tightened. His hand instinctively went to his breast pocket, his thumb stroking it before he turned back to the trees.

Davis had his Sten braced over the log. Brown was beside him with the Thompson ready. Tony shifted the Bren into position. Jones raised his rifle, calm despite the chaos.

Mike was still staring at Reed.

Something landed on his helmet.

“Focus, boy.”

Mike yelped and twisted round. Brown was glaring at him. Mike’s arms were clutched to his chest, his rifle forgotten in the mud.

“Aim your rifle at Jerry,” Brown snarled. “We all fight, or we all die.”

Heart pounding, Mike grabbed his rifle and took aim. The barrel would not stay still.

Dark green uniforms flickered between the trees.

Germans.

They charged through the gloom at a run.

“Open fire.” Davis’s Sten chattered sharply. Brown’s Thompson joined in with a heavier thunder. Tony’s Bren thumped beside them, loud enough to shake Mike’s ribs. Jones fired once, worked the bolt, and fired again.

Mike aimed at a shape between two pines.

The front sight wavered across a German’s chest, shoulder, and face, then vanished into fog.

He pulled the trigger.

The rifle kicked into him. He didn’t know if he’d hit anything.

A German spun and fell, but it could have been shot by Davis, Brown, Jones, anyone. Mike worked the bolt, aiming at the next silhouette. His fingers felt thick and stupid.

Another German fell backwards with a dark hole where one eye had been.

The attack broke.

The surviving Germans disappeared into the trees.

Mike kept aiming long after there was nothing left to aim at. His shoulder ached. His mouth tasted of metal and mud. He waited for them to come back. He was certain they would.

“Report,” Davis said.

Mike lowered his rifle only when the others did.

Brown checked his Thompson. “Half a mag here. Two spares.”

“Eight rounds,” Mike said.

He hated the sound of his own voice. It shook like a boy’s.

“I’ve ten,” Jones said.

Tony patted the Bren. “One full box. That’s all.”

That’s thirty rounds.

Mike looked at the men around him. Their uniforms were soaked through with rain and sweat. Their faces were grey with mud.

Operation Market Garden had been chaos. The rendezvous point had been overrun and the Germans were between them and the rest of the British airborne force. Their wireless was dead.

And Mike had eight rounds in the rifle.

“We need to link back up with the main force,” Brown said. He checked the chamber on his Thompson. “I say we push north. Try to flank them. Catch them off guard.”

Davis shook his head. “We don’t know where the main force is. We’re blind out here.”

“And deaf,” Williams said. He kicked the broken wireless. “Unless someone has a spare set of valves in his pocket.”

Mike looked through the trees, hoping to see British uniforms, anything familiar. There was only mist thickening between the trunks.

Davis stood slowly and scanned the canopy.

Mike followed his gaze.

At first, he saw nothing but branches and grey sky. Then the mist shifted.

Metal angles jutted above the trees.

“Look up there,” Davis said.

Brown squinted. “A radio mast.”

“Camouflaged netting over the base,” Davis said. “German bunker. Looks like a forward observation post.”

Mike’s stomach tightened.

Williams dragged himself up and peered through the wet foliage. “If it’s a command post, they’ll have a working transmitter. I could rip the parts out. Fix our set.”

“Or we use theirs to broadcast.” Brown clapped Williams on the shoulder. “What do you say, Williams?”

Williams wiped mud from his cheek. “Not so keen on storming a bunker. They probably have a lot more bullets than we do.”

Mike wanted Davis to say no. He wanted the sergeant to order them away from it, back through the forest, anywhere except towards that hard shape in the fog.

Davis looked at each of them.

When his eyes reached Mike, Mike straightened.

“We have to take it,” Davis said. “German armour is moving towards the flank. Our boys are walking into an ambush. We get that radio working. We send a warning. It’s our duty.”

Mike gripped his rifle tighter. “Just the six of us?”

He wished the words back as soon as he said them.

Brown glanced at him.

“Just the six of us.” Davis put a firm hand on his shoulder. “You stick close to Smith. Jones, watch the rear. Brown, you and I take point.”

Mike nodded. He didn’t trust himself to speak.

Brown checked his gear one last time. His eyes gleamed as he grimaced at the bunker. “Right then.” Brown raised his Thompson. “Let’s go give Jerry a proper greeting.”

Jones crossed himself.

“Just make sure your sights are level,” Williams muttered, unslinging his rifle.

Tony forced himself up. He rolled his massive shoulders. His face had gone tight. “I’m ready, Sergeant.”

Mike was close enough to hear the lie in it. He felt the same.

Davis checked the action on his Sten and stepped out from behind the safety of the oak.

Tony clapped Mike on the back. “Don’t worry, mate. You and me, we’ll stick together.” When he remained stock-still Tony gave him a nudge. “Come on, before Sarge sees you.”

Mike’s legs were stiff as he followed his brothers. He could hear Tony behind him, close enough to touch the back of his webbing. Mud sucked at him and roots caught his toes as he limped, terrified, through the trees.

Artillery had torn the forest into a jagged ruin. Craters opened between the trees, their bottoms filled with brown water. Splintered trunks bristled against the sky. Mist clung to the ground and swirled around their legs.

Twigs snapped like rifle shots.

Stumps loomed in the mist like crouching Germans.

Mike kept his weapon raised and tried not to think about the eight rounds in the rifle.

Brown moved to Davis’s right, fast and eager, a grim smile fixed to his face. Jones stayed behind them, checking the rear. Williams kept looking up at the radio mast as it vanished and reappeared in the shifting fog.

They reached the edge of a huge blast crater. Water pooled at the bottom, slick with oil and floating leaves. The air smelled of wet soil, burning rubber, and smoke.

“Around the edge,” Davis whispered. “Keep your footing.”

Mike stepped where Tony had stepped.

The mud gave way.

His boot slid out from under him and he lurched down the slope. Panic flashed hot through his chest. He clawed at the mud with one hand, his rifle clutched uselessly in the other.

Tony caught him by the collar and hauled him back up as if Mike weighed nothing.

“Careful, Mike,” Tony muttered. “You break your neck and you’ll put Jerry out of a job.”

Mike grabbed for his rifle. Its wooden stock felt reassuringly firm in his hands.

“Thanks mate.” Mike scrubbed the muck from his face, his cheeks burning.

They continued through the devastated forest. The bunker slowly emerged from the fog.

At first, it was only a darker shape among dark trees. Then Mike saw the concrete dome, low and ugly beneath tattered camouflage netting. Coils of barbed wire wrapped around the perimeter. Two firing slits faced the woods. Machine gun barrels poked out from the blackness inside them.

Mike stopped breathing.

“Stay low.” Davis dropped into a crouch and crept closer.

A German soldier lay tangled in the wire ahead.

Mike saw the boots first. Then the uniform. Then the chest, marked by a neat bullet hole.

God in heaven.

The man had no head.

His stomach lurched. Mike looked away, then looked back because he could not stop himself. The corpse hung in the barbs as if the wire had caught him trying to escape the bunker.

Crows scattered from the body and burst into the air, screaming.

Davis froze and raised a closed fist, looking at the bunker through his binoculars.

Mike stopped dead. His whole body locked.

Davis lowered his fist.

Mike breathed again, silently at first, then in one shaking sip of air.

They crawled forward. The sour stench of death grew stronger near the wire.

Williams pulled heavy wire cutters from his webbing. He snapped the bottom strand. The released wire gave a soft ping that made Mike flinch. Williams cut another, then another, and pulled the barbs back to make a narrow gap.

“I don’t like this, Sarge,” Williams whispered. “Where are the sentries? You’d think they’d have heard the firefight.”

Mike looked at the firing slits.

Nothing moved behind them.

“Steady, lad,” Davis whispered. “Our boys are giving it to them all over Arnhem. Plenty of noise to distract them.”

Davis went first, sliding through the gap on his belly. Brown followed. Then Tony crouched and forced himself through, the wire scraping across his pack.

Mike went after him.

A barb caught his sleeve. Jones reached in, eased the cloth free, and gave him a gentle shove.

Inside the wire, the bunker seemed larger. Colder. Its concrete wall rose from the mud. The firing slits stared over the forest, black and empty.

Davis pressed his back against the bunker wall.

Mike crouched behind Tony and tried to listen past the ringing in his ears.

At first, he heard only distant artillery.

Then something else.

Music.

It came from below them, thin, crackling, and beautiful.

Mike knew it was opera because his mother had taken him once before the war. He had not been able to see anything from the back of the cheap seats, but he recognised the music.

Brown stood close behind Davis, Thompson tight to his chest, eyes wide and bright.

Davis raised his fist. He reached for a grenade.

Mike tried to swallow, but his mouth was too dry.

Davis slipped his finger through the metal ring, pulled the pin, and hurled the grenade through the firing slit. “Down.”

Mike dropped flat against the wet soil.

The grenade exploded inside the bunker with a brutal crack. Dust coughed from the firing slit. The wall trembled against Mike’s shoulder.

When his ears stopped ringing, he could still hear the opera playing.

It was louder now.

Chapter Two

Davis opened his fist.

Brown was up at once, moving along the wall with his Thompson tight against his shoulder, boots slipping in the muck. Davis followed, Sten ready.

Tony grabbed Mike by the back of his webbing and hauled him upright. “Move.”

They rounded the bunker wall in a low rush. The entrance was recessed behind a slab of concrete and half covered by torn camouflage netting. Sandbags lay scattered outside it, many split open and spilling wet grey sand into the mud. A German helmet rested upside down near the doorway. Rainwater had gathered inside it.

Brown went through first, fast and low, his Thompson sweeping the area.

Mike stumbled after Tony into smoke and dust. Concrete steps led down, the air was thick with the coppery scent of blood. He gagged at the foul scent.

Tony stopped on the step ahead of him. His huge shoulders tightened.

“You all right?” Mike whispered.

Tony didn’t answer. Instead, he pressed on, following the others down the stairs until they reached the bottom. As they descended, the music grew louder.

The corridor ran left and right at the bottom of the stairs. Painted arrows on the wall pointed left and right, each labelled in German.

Williams pointed at one of the arrows pointing right. “Sarge, I’m fairly certain that Funkraum is Kraut for radio.”

Davis nodded and led them down the right-hand passage, towards the music.

A low concrete corridor stretched beneath the bunker lit by yellow bulbs. Most still worked. Some hung dead in their fittings, leaving pockets of shadow.

Germans lay everywhere.

One had been torn open from throat to belly, the ribs snapped outward. Another hung halfway through a doorway, his boots scraping the floor. A third sat propped against the wall with both arms missing. The heads had not been cut away cleanly. Ragged cords of flesh hung from the necks, as if something had twisted until the bones gave. Their heads had been thrown aside. They stared from the base of the wall with open mouths and dead eyes.

Mike had seen men die that morning. Friends, even. Fletcher. Reed. Clarke. But this was different. He bent and vomited onto the floor.

Jones stepped past him and covered the corridor, rifle steady. “Get it out, lad. Then stand up.”

Tony put one hand on his back, but his own eyes were fixed on the corridor.

“Christ.” Brown’s grin was gone.

Jones crossed himself.

Davis moved slowly and silently down the corridor, weapon raised.

Blood had dried in long smears down the walls. Some dragged low, as if men had crawled through it. Others were higher, at shoulder height, hand height, and head height. One door had been ripped clean from its hinges and thrown across the corridor. The steel was buckled inward.

“No one fires unless I give the word.” Davis’s eyes narrowed. “Watch the doorways.” His gaze moved to the heads along the wall. “Close ranks.”

Brown kept his Thompson raised. “Easy lads, Jerry are bastards. Bloodthirsty bastards. That’s all. You’ve heard the rumours.”

Jones started to cross himself again, then stopped halfway through. “Sarge, these men should have words said over them.”

“Later.” Davis’s voice was strained, his jaw tight.

Williams crouched beside the door. “No bullet strikes or blast marks.” He ran his fingers over the torn hinge, then looked at the concrete wall beside the frame. “Grenades didn’t do this.”

Tony touched one of the gouges with his finger. “Too deep for bayonets.”

Davis moved on.

Mike followed Tony through the corridor, stepping around German bodies, loose equipment, and smears of drying blood. His boots stuck to the floor in places. Each soft pull of leather from concrete made his stomach tighten.

A door stood open on the left. A label above it said, ‘Versuchsraum.’

White tiles showed beyond it. A medical room, perhaps, or a laboratory.

Davis raised his fist.

Everyone stopped.

Brown leaned towards the opening, Thompson ready. His easy grin had long since disappeared. “Sergeant…”

Davis stepped to the doorway.

Mike could not help looking past him.

The cold room was long and narrow, lit by buzzing incandescent bulbs that flickered with a sickly yellow light. The walls were tiled white from floor to ceiling. Dark blood had sprayed across them in wild fans, drying into black-red arcs. It reeked of sharp formaldehyde, metallic blood, and the sweet, heavy rot of open bowels.

The room was dominated by more than twenty gurneys in two rows.

Every one of them had a man strapped to it.

They were naked. Their wrists and ankles had been bound to the frames with leather straps. Some had twisted hard enough to tear the skin beneath the buckles. Some had pulled until their joints sat wrong. Some lay still with their fingers locked tight, frozen halfway into a fist. Despite the temperature, flies had found their way to the corpses and clustered around their soft tissue and injured flesh.

None of them had heads. The heads weren’t scattered nearby. They were just… gone.

Davis looked down the rows of gurneys. His mouth moved once, but no order came.

The sound of the soprano climbed somewhere further down the corridor, absurdly beautiful above the stink of blood.

These bodies were different from the ones in the corridor. These had been laid out with precision and the heads had been removed cleanly.

Yet the surgical trays had been overturned. Scalpels, clamps, needles, and broken glass lay scattered across the floor. A German in full medical scrubs was dead in the corner, his head torn free like the rest of his garrison.

Jones stepped into the room, then stopped. His lips moved in a silent litany.

Williams went to the nearest gurney. Flies erupted into the air, buzzing angrily at the intrusion. He held his rifle in one hand and pulled a torch from his webbing with the other. The beam shook once before he steadied it.

“There’s writing on them,” he said.

Davis came closer. “Where?”

Williams pointed.

Mike forced himself to look.

On the left upper chest of the nearest body, just below the collarbone, numbers had been tattooed into the skin in black ink.

The bodies had been marked with serial numbers.

“This isn’t a field hospital.” Williams moved the torch from body to body. “They’ve all been labelled, Sarge. Every single one has a serial number.”

Brown spat on the tiles. “Bastards.”

The word sounded too small for the desecration of the bodies.

Davis walked between the gurneys, slow and careful. His Sten stayed raised, but his eyes kept dropping to the bodies. Mike saw the sergeant’s jaw tighten. “We can’t stay here. We have to move on.”

Mike stared at the tattooed numbers.

He thought of Clarke’s identity disc in Brown’s pocket. Fletcher and Reed’s identity discs in Davis’s pocket.

Eight rounds left.

Six men left.

Twenty bodies.

He was breathing too fast. A leather strap creaked.

Mike jerked his rifle up and fired, the round punched into the wall.

The room erupted into motion as the soldiers spun, searching for the attack.

“Sorry. Sorry,” Mike muttered.

Brown marched over, grabbed the front of Mike’s smock, and hauled him close. “Pull yourself together, Private.”

“Enough.” Davis gripped Brown’s shoulder and forced him back. His eyes stayed on Mike. “Breathe. Rifle down. We find the radio, warn the regiment, then get out.”

Brown glared at Mike. “Waste another round and you lose some teeth.”

Seven rounds.

“Why cut off the heads?” Williams was backing up against the wall. “Were they experimenting on them?”

Tony looked at the raw stumps where the heads should have been and shrugged. “Someone doesn’t want them getting back up.”

No one answered.

Davis looked away first. “We move.”

“Good. Enough of this.” Brown walked towards the door. “Let’s get moving, ladies.”

Williams didn’t follow. He stood beside the numbered cupboards, one hand still on the handle of the lock he had forced open.

“Williams,” Davis snapped. “Radio room.”

Williams turned. All the colour had gone from his face. “But Sarge.”

“I found the heads.”

Chapter Three

From somewhere deeper in the bunker, the opera continued to crackle through the concrete. The voice rose, strident and mournful.

Williams opened the cupboard doors.

Row upon row of heads stared out from jars of embalming fluid. Each label had been written in the same neat cursive hand.

Why?

Davis’s eyes widened. He shook his head. “Leave them.” His gaze lingered a moment, disobeying his own order, before he followed Brown.

Mike followed the others into the corridor. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and realised he was crying. He rubbed the tears away before Brown could see.

A noise came from somewhere ahead.

Everyone froze.

Davis motioned for them to continue and together they moved deeper into the bunker, the opera growing louder with each step.

It came from ahead, from behind a sealed door at the end of a short side passage. The door was heavier than the others, dark green steel set into a reinforced concrete frame.

Brown tried the door.

Locked.

He pressed his ear close. “Music’s behind here.”

Davis stepped to the viewing hatch and lifted it.

Mike saw only a sliver past his shoulder. A desk. A lamp. A wall map. Smoke lingering in the air. The shining horn of a gramophone, looming over a turning disc, beside the desk.

Then Davis went rigid. “German officer,” he whispered. “Alive.”

Brown’s grin came back, but it was thin and ugly. “Then let’s ‘ave him.”

Davis lowered the hatch. “Brown, the lock.”

Brown shot the lock with a short burst from his Thompson. Then he kicked the door. On the third kick, the chair wedged beneath the handle shattered and the door burst inward. He surged through with Davis.

“Hands up!” Davis shouted.

Mike followed Tony into the room, rifle raised.

The office was immaculate.

After the gore-slicked tiles of the medical room, the commander’s perfectly stacked files and softly glowing banker’s lamp made Mike’s skin crawl. Files sat stacked on shelves and maps covered the walls. A green banker’s lamp glowed on the desk. The gramophone played beside it, needle scratching over the record.

A German commander sat behind the desk.

He wore a field-grey tunic with the collar open. His face was pale, unshaven, and slick with sweat. One eye twitched. His trembling left hand rested on an open, leather-bound journal, his thumb compulsively stroking the edge of a silver-framed photograph of a blonde woman and a young boy. A half-empty crystal glass of schnapps sat at his elbow. His right hand held a Luger to his temple.

Everyone stopped. For one second, nobody spoke.

The German looked at them, his red-rimmed eyes were dull behind circular glasses.

Davis stepped forward. “Don’t.”

The commander managed an apologetic smile before he pulled the trigger.

The shot cracked through the office.

Mike flinched so hard his rifle jerked upward.

The German collapsed sideways in his chair. Blood struck the wall map behind him and ran down across the paper roads and rivers of Holland.

Brown swore and crossed the room. “Coward.” He kicked the Luger away from the commander’s hanging hand.

Davis moved to the desk. He didn’t touch the body. His eyes instead went to the journal.

Mike came closer despite himself, peering at the book.

The handwriting inside was dense, jagged, and hurried. Lines had been scratched out so hard the nib had torn the paper. Several pages were stained with old fingerprints. Brown marks. Rust-coloured.

Williams lifted the gramophone needle. The opera died with a soft scrape.

The silence that followed seemed enormous.

Mike heard his own breathing again. Tony’s too. Somewhere water dripped through concrete.

Davis turned a page of the journal with the muzzle of his Sten.

Mike saw one word repeated again and again among the German script.

‘Waffe.’

Mike swallowed. “Sarge, it says weapon.”

Davis looked from Mike to the dead commander. “What weapon?”

Brown turned on him. “And since when do you speak Kraut?”

Mike realised they were all looking at him. “I only know bits.”

“Yeah, but German bits?” Brown asked.

“My father runs an engineering firm.” Mike swallowed. “He made me learn it. I didn’t get very far though. Said German was the language of engineers.”

“Well, he’s bloody wrong.” Brown stared at him for another second. “British engineering is the best in the world, everyone knows that.”

Davis pulled a set of keys from the commander’s belt.

From behind them, somewhere back along the passage, a man began sobbing in German.

They followed the sound back into the corridor. The sobbing came from a storage room with its door hanging open by one hinge.

Davis raised two fingers and pointed to it.

Brown moved left. Tony raised the Bren. Jones took the rear. Williams crouched beside a wall smeared with old blood.

Someone was curled inside the storage room, whispering through broken sobs.

Davis stepped into the doorway. “Hands up.”

A man screamed.

Brown surged in and dragged him out by the collar. The young German came with him, thin, filthy, and shaking. He wore the field grey uniform of an enlisted soldier, but the jacket was torn open and dark with dried blood. A bandage, black at the edges, had been wrapped around his left forearm.

He hit the floor and scrambled backwards until his shoulders struck the wall.

“Bitte,” he gasped. “Bitte nicht. Nicht dorthin. Nicht zu ihr.”

Brown aimed the Thompson at the German’s chest. “What’s he saying?”

The German’s eyes were sunk deep in his face. His lips were cracked. He smelled of stale sweat and urine. He looked past all of them, towards the deeper corridor.

“Das Mädchen,” he whispered. “Das Mädchen ist hungrig.”

“The girl is hungry,” Mike translated.

The German grabbed at Davis’s trouser leg. “Nicht öffnen. Bitte. Sie ist kein Kind.”

Davis looked down at him. “Taylor?”

“He says ‘Don’t open it.’” Mike looked along the corridor, towards the music and the blood. “He says she’s no child.”

Brown snorted. “He’s hiding something.”

Williams knelt beside the German. “Name?”

The German licked his split lips. “Adler. Fritz Adler. Gefreiter.”

“Private,” Mike said.

Adler began shaking his head. “Das Mädchen ist hungrig!”

“How many more Germans?” Davis spoke slowly.

Adler only shook his head. “Das Mädchen. Das Mädchen.”

Davis’s face hardened. “Bind him.”

Brown pulled out a length of cord.

Adler started crying. “Nein!” He scrabbled backwards.

Brown booted him in the ribs. “Hands!”

Davis turned. His voice went cold. “Corporal.”

“Hände!” Mike flinched at the brutality.

Brown showed his teeth, then grabbed Adler’s wrists and bound them tight. “I’m pretty sure he understood me, Mike. That’s the same bloody word.” He glowered at the German. “Isn’t that right, Jerry?”

They left Adler tied beside the storage room. He sobbed as they moved away from him.

The corridor ended at a reinforced steel door set deeper into the concrete than the others. It had bolts across the outside and a square viewing hatch at eye level. The metal around the frame was scarred with long gouges.

Davis stepped forward and opened the hatch.

Inside the cell, sitting neatly on a narrow cot with her hands folded in her lap, was a girl. She couldn’t have been more than eleven. Her hair was dark and matted. Her dress was filthy. A yellow star had been stitched to the torn fabric at her chest. She sat barefoot, her skin waxy and faintly yellow in the weak electric light.

“So this is the monster the Kraut was babbling about?” Williams regarded her cynically.

Her eyes lifted.

“Hallo.”

Chapter Four

The girl sat on the narrow cot beyond the hatch, hands folded in her lap. Her dark eyes looked up at Mike. Her bare feet hung above the floor, small and pale beneath the hem of her filthy dress. The yellow star on her chest had been sewn on with small, careful stitches.

Mike stared at it.

He had heard rumours from the other soldiers. He knew what the star meant, but knowing did not prepare him for seeing it on a child in a locked German cell.

She was eleven, perhaps twelve, but hunger made it hard to tell, leaving her with gawky, thin arms and hollow cheeks. Her hair was clumped against her face. Her skin was pale beneath the yellow electric light. Her eyes were large and dark.

She was watching him watch her.

“Hallo.” Her voice was soft, polite even as she repeated herself.

Davis kept one eye on the hatch. “Can you understand me?”

The girl blinked.

“That’s not right.” Brown stood behind him with the Thompson held across his chest. “I can’t believe even Jerry would lock up a little girl.”

Jones lowered his rifle and raised his hands. “Poor thing. This is ungodly.” He lowered himself into a crouch, palms open. “Easy now. No one here will hurt you.” He reached into his webbing and pulled out a chocolate bar. “Here, girl. Look what I’ve got.”

“She’s a girl, not a dog, you idiot.” Brown pulled out a photo from his jacket. “You’re safe here, love. Look, here’s me with my little girl. We’re English, we don’t hurt little ’uns.”

She looked at the photo, expressionless.

“She’s traumatised, poor little mite.” Brown took the chocolate bar from Jones. “Nobody is going to hurt you.” He offered her the bar. She shook her head. “Taylor, you prat. Tell her we won’t hurt her.”

Mike bit his lip. “Sprechen Sie Englisch?”

She shook her head.

He tried again. “Wir sind deine Freunde. Wir sind sehr gut. Die Deutschen sind tot.”

She tilted her head, her brow furrowing.

“I only know some German. I’m not fluent.”

Brown shook his head at Mike. “Wonderful, so you could be speaking absolute gibberish.”

“Wie heißt du? Ich bin Mike.” Mike pointed at his chest.

“Ich heiße Anka.” The girl’s gaze flicked downwards.

“Her name is Anka,” Mike translated.

“She’s frightened,” Jones said.

“I gathered all of that, you plums.” Brown turned his head. “Thank you for your valuable input, I don’t know how the British Army survived before you joined us.”

“That’s enough, Brown.” Davis tapped Jones on the shoulder. “For now, Jones, you guard Anka’s cell. The rest of you, close up. We haven’t cleared the bunker yet.”

“Sarge? Shouldn’t we let her out?” Jones asked.

“This is the British Army, son. We aren’t nannies.” Brown sneered. “Follow your orders.”

Davis led the squad back out into the corridor. He stopped outside the commander’s office. “Williams, radio room.”

Williams nodded towards the sign they had passed earlier. “This way.”

The Funkraum lay beyond a narrow junction, behind a half-open door scarred by bullets. Inside, the air smelled of dust, blood, and burned wiring. A German wireless set occupied most of one wall, built into a heavy desk with dials, switches, headphones, and a black microphone mounted on a curved stand. Maps had been pinned beside it. A frequency chart hung crookedly from one nail.

The operator’s body sat under the table. His head lay in the corner, beside a snapped pencil.

Tony turned sideways to enter. His shoulders brushed the frame. His breathing quickened.

Mike saw him glance back towards the stairs.

“You all right, Tony?” Mike asked.

Tony nodded too quickly. “Don’t mind the bodies, just wish it wasn’t so cramped.”

Williams went straight to the wireless set, forgetting his fear. He leaned over the equipment, fingers moving across switches, cables, and cracked casing. He opened panels with a screwdriver. He sniffed the inside of one box, grimaced, and pulled out a blackened valve. “Good news.”

Brown looked at the dead operator. “There’s good news?”

“Set’s broken, but probably fixable.” Williams pointed to a cracked glass valve and a bundle of cut wiring. “Somebody damaged this in a hurry. Accident, I’d say.”

“If I can cannibalise our set and find a few spares in here, we should be okay.” Williams looked at a gauge on the wall. “Power’s still live. Assuming the mast connection is intact, it’s looking hopeful.”

Williams crouched and began pulling tools from his webbing. “I’ll need a few hours at least if God loves us. More if he’s indifferent. If he’s in one of his Old Testament moods, then we’re right royally buggered.”

Jones scowled at him.

Brown looked at the corridor. “Doubt Jerry is going to give us hours, mate.”

“We work with what we have.” Davis patted Williams on the shoulder. “Do your best. Tony, guard the bunker entrance. I want eyes on the woods.”

Tony nodded. “Yes, Sergeant.”

“You see movement, you call down. Do not engage unless they’re on top of you,” Davis warned.

Tony nodded and moved towards the stairs with the Bren held tight.

Davis looked at Mike. “Taylor, stay close.”

The barracks were the next room along the left-hand corridor.

Davis booted open the door and stood back. Brown stormed the room with Jones.

The smell came out first.

Mike gagged before he saw anything. Rotting food, blood, sweat, and latrines.

The barracks had once held twenty or thirty men. Metal bunks lined the walls in two high rows. Boots stood neatly beneath some beds. Uniform jackets hung from hooks. Playing cards lay scattered across a small table. A tin mug had rolled onto its side staining the floor beneath it.

The men themselves were everywhere.

One lay folded beneath a bunk, legs sticking out at an impossible angle. Another had been shoved headfirst into a locker. Several were piled near the far door, as if they had tried to get out at once and had died blocking one another’s escape. Sheets hung in strips from the bed frames. Blood had soaked into mattresses and pooled beneath them.

A bare foot twitched gently in a draft. Mike stabbed at the body with his rifle. When it stayed dead, he moved on.

There was one untouched bed near the corner. Its blanket was neatly folded, its pillow square, and a pair of polished boots carefully aligned beneath it. Mike stared at them.

“We have weapons.” Brown pulled open a weapons locker, his voice gleeful. “Kraut crap, but they still shoot bullets in roughly the right direction. Plenty of ammo.”

Kar98ks.

“Grenades too.” Brown opened boxes lined with straw at the bottom of the locker, revealing rows of stick grenades.

The last room to clear was the canteen. It lay beyond a pair of double doors near the centre of the bunker.

It was a long room with three metal tables bolted to the floor, benches on either side, a serving counter, shelves, a stove, a sink, and a row of cupboards. A pipe rattled somewhere overhead. The lights flickered but held.

Two dead Germans lay near the serving counter. One had been thrown against the stove hard enough to dent the metal. The other was slumped by the sink with his head missing and one hand still gripping the tap. Water dripped steadily over his dead fingers.

Davis looked at the two doors, the bolted tables, and the serving counter. “This’ll do.”

Brown grinned. “Civilisation.”

“This room has bodies in it,” Mike muttered.

Davis tossed the commanders key’s to him. “So it does. Right, you lot toss them into the barracks, then I’ll get a brew on. Mike, tell Jones to bring the girl here. Bunker’s clear enough for now. I’m not leaving a child in a Nazi cell. Put the German in there instead. Then take one of the German rifles and three stripper clips to Jones and Smith while you’re at it.”

Brown slapped his hands together. “A proper brew. I could murder a stiff cuppa.” Brown slung the Thompson and grabbed the first corpse by the collar. “Taylor. Help me.”

Mike slung his rifle and took the dead man’s boots. They dragged him across the floor, leaving a dark smear behind.

He tried not to look at the missing head.

They carried both bodies into the barracks. When they returned, Davis had already checked the cupboards.

“Don’t think much of the German rations, so we’ll stick to our own for now. Tea’s on, though, and I’ve washed up some mugs.” He held up a dented tin cup. “Wash your hands, you savages, and then come and join me.” A black kettle was steaming on a gas burner.

Brown wiped his hands on his smock. “Finally, someone let me into The Ritz.”

Mike looked wistfully at the kettle before returning to the barracks to sling three rifles over his shoulder and gathered a stack of ammo.

He found Jones outside the cell, one hand resting on the bolt and the other closed around the chocolate bar Anka had refused.

“Bunker is secure. Sarge says she can come with us now.” Mike handed him a rifle, pulling three clips out of his webbing. “Kar98k.”

“The Lord provides!” Jones looked over the rifle, loading it and pulling the first round into the breech. “Thank you, Taylor.” He grinned through the hatch at the girl. “Good news, girl. You are free!”

“Nee!” She scrabbled back to the corner of the room.

“Nee?” Mike looked confused. “She’s got an odd accent. Es ist okay, Anka. We aren’t going to hurt you.”

“Nee,” she whispered. Then louder. “Nee, nee, nee.”

The girl shrank back against the concrete, pulling her knees tight to her chest, her breathing quick and shallow.

“She thinks we’re going to hurt her,” Mike said.

“We aren’t going to hurt you.” Jones held out his hands to placate her. “But, I’m sorry my dear, orders are orders.” He unlocked the door using the commander’s key. “Please, you must come with us. It isn’t safe for you to be alone down here.”

Anka curled up in the corner, her arms around her knees.

“Anka…” Jones looked torn. “Anka!”

“Bitte, Anka.” Mike reached for her. “Komm mit.”

With tears in her eyes, she reluctantly took his hand. He lifted her up. She was heavier than she looked. Far heavier. Mike had to brace one boot against the frame before he could lift her clear.

“I’ll get the Kraut, put him in the cell.” Jones held the door for Mike.

Williams stayed with the radio. Smith guarded the entrance. The rest of the squad settled in the canteen, exhausted.

As Mike entered, Davis pointed. “She sits there. Away from the door, where we can watch her.”

Mike put her down delicately on a bench.

Anka curled her legs underneath herself. Her eyes followed the dark smear the German bodies had left across the floor.

Mike felt like he could sleep for a month. The bulbs flickered above them. Mike looked up nervously. Then smiled gratefully as Brown passed him a tin mug.

“Milk’s gone off, so you get to drink it black, like a proper soldier.” Brown sipped at his tea, smacking his lips with satisfaction. “Go on then, Mike, what age were you when you enlisted?”

Mike paused, then said, “Nineteen, Corporal.”

Brown nodded sagely. “And how many years have you been nineteen?”

Chatter died down and the squad looked at him curiously.

Mike considered lying, but then quietly confessed, “Two and a bit, Corporal.”

“You should be in the Home Guard, son.” Davis leaned forward. “Why lie and put yourself in danger?”

“I’ve got family, Sarge.” Mike paused. “I couldn’t protect them by guarding orchards back at home, could I?” He looked down.

“Well, well, well.” Brown was looking at him. “I’d say we have a problem here.”

“Corporal?”

Is he really going to report me? In the middle of Arnhem?

“Sarge, don’t know if you’ve noticed, but little Mike over there is covered in Jerry.” Brown looked at him pointedly.

Mike looked around. Most of the squad had bloodstains on their uniforms. “I’m sorry, I don’t have a spare uniform, none of us do.”

Brown continued to look at him.

“Sarge?”

Davis tapped his mug thoughtfully.

“Sorry, I… Sorry.” Mike tried to think of a suitable response. “I could wash my smock, I guess, but what if we get attacked? It would be sodden.”

“The answer to this is obvious to any man with military experience, even someone who is a bit younger than his paperwork would suggest.” Brown nodded at Davis. “Wouldn’t you say, Sarge?”

Davis nodded. “Quite right, Corporal. Perhaps you’d like to fill in young Private Taylor with the correct procedure for maintaining your uniform during combat operations?”

“With pleasure, Sarge. When one finds himself covered in Nazi, he is required to wash off that NAZI filth and then…” Brown took a deep breath, then sang in his South London accent. “We’re gonna hang out the washing on the Siegfried Line.”

The squad erupted into laughter. Once Mike realised he’d been teased, he joined in. The explosive release of tension felt cathartic. “Whether the weather may be wet or fine, we’ll just rub along without a care!” He pointedly avoided looking at the blood stains in the room.

Anka watched them sing with frightened confusion, as if she had been locked in a room with madmen.

The squad had just started on the second verse when Tony’s Bren opened up at the top of the stairs. The sound tore through the canteen and killed the laughter at once. Tin mugs clattered against the table. Brown’s hand went to his Thompson. Davis was already on his feet.

The Germans had found the bunker.

Chapter Five

“Don’t crowd the entrance,” Davis yelled. “Brown, join Smith up top. Jones, with him. The rest of us stay in reserve.”

Brown charged up the corridor, Thompson tight against his shoulder. Jones followed with the German rifle Mike had given him, his face pale but steady.

Anka sat rigid on the bench, hands folded in her lap. The tea in front of her hadn’t been touched. Her dark eyes watched the soldiers leave her as they raced up the corridor.

“It’s going to be okay!” Mike shouted, grabbing his Lee Enfield and stumbling after Davis.

From deeper in the bunker, Adler shouted from the cell, but his words were lost in the violence of the assault.

Mike followed the rest of the squad, his boots slipping on the damp concrete. The bunker echoed with the Bren’s heavy thumping. Above it came Brown’s Thompson in short, savage bursts, then Jones’s rifle cracking.

“Report,” Davis called up.

At the top of the stairs, Tony was pressed against the entrance wall with the Bren braced across the concrete slit. Brown fired past him through the smoke. Jones crouched lower on the steps, working the bolt of his rifle with careful hands.

“They’ve found us, Sarge,” Brown shouted down. “Full squad, at least.”

A bullet struck the concrete lip of the stairwell and snapped chips into the air. Mike flinched as one struck his cheek.

“More will be on the way,” Davis said.

Outside, German voices rose through the rain. Boots splashed in mud. Someone barked orders. Then a machine gun answered Tony’s Bren, stitching fire across the bunker entrance. Chips jumped from the concrete in puffs of dust. Torn camouflage netting snapped and danced.

Tony fired again. The Bren bucked in his hands. “They’re trying to get round the wire,” he shouted. “Left side.”

Brown fired until the Thompson clicked empty. “Bugger. Last mag.” He tossed it aside and snatched up one of the German rifles stacked near the foot of the stairs. He slapped a stripper clip into it with practised violence.

“Kraut rubbish,” he growled, working the bolt.

Jones fired from beside him. A German screamed outside.

Mike raised his own rifle towards the smoky rectangle of daylight above the stairs, but there was nothing to see. Only muzzle flashes and gun smoke.

“Taylor,” Davis said.

Mike turned.

“Go to the barracks. Get the explosives.”

Mike stared at him.

Davis’s eyes did not move from the stairs. “Move.”

Mike ran.

He raced back through the corridor, away from the gunfire and into the slaughterhouse dark of the bunker. He passed the canteen door and saw Anka still sitting on the bench, watching him with those dark, still eyes.

The barracks stank worse than before. The dead Germans lay where the squad had left them, dragged into piles beside the bunks. A bare foot stuck out into the aisle. Mike stepped over it and nearly fell.

He found the crates near the bottom shelf of the weapons locker, squat wooden boxes labelled Sprengstoff in black paint.

Explosives.

Mike hooked both arms around it and lifted. He hoisted the heavy weight onto his shoulder and staggered towards Davis.

By the time he reached the stairwell, his throat tasted of blood.

Brown was down the stairs, teeth bared, one hand clamped over his thigh. Blood poured between his fingers and ran black down his trouser leg.

“I’m fine, Sarge,” Brown’s voice shook with rage. “It’s a bloody chicken scratch. Bind it up and let me back there.”

Davis took the crate from Mike and set it down by the lower steps. “Williams, here!”

Williams appeared from the radio room with a screwdriver still in one hand. His face changed when he saw the crate.

“Oh, hell.”

“Help me rig the charges.”

Williams looked at the stairwell, then at the entrance above it. Smoke thickened in the upper passage. The Bren fired again, shorter this time.

“Are you sure, Sarge?” Williams worked quickly, laying out the charges.

Davis was reeling out the detonation cord. “Do it!”

Tony shouted something Mike could not make out. A German grenade bounced off the entrance wall and dropped outside. It exploded in the mud with a flat, vicious thump that filled the stairwell with smoke and grit.

Davis looked at Brown’s bleeding leg. Then at the empty Thompson. Then at Mike.

For the first time since Mike had met him, the sergeant looked old.

Davis knelt beside the crate and pulled out a wrapped charge. “New plan, Corporal. We’re going to have ourselves an extended stay.”

Brown stared at him. “Don’t do it, Sarge. Better to die fighting than be stuck in a tomb with dead Nazis.”

“We can’t warn the army if we are dead, Corporal.”

Williams crouched beside the stairwell and began working fast. His hands moved across the charges, fuse, and detonators.

“Taylor,” Davis said. “Remaining boxes.”

Mike ran again.

This time the bunker seemed longer, as his aching arms pumped.

In the barracks, Mike dragged the second crate free and carried it against his chest. His legs burned as he carried it towards the sound of combat.

Behind him, somewhere above and ahead, the German machine gun hammered.

When he returned, smoke had crept halfway down the stairs. Brown sat against the wall while Davis bound his thigh with a field dressing pulled tight enough to make him hiss. Williams had placed charges along the lower stair supports and around a cracked concrete seam near the ceiling.

“Don’t be shy with your ammo, boys,” Davis shouted up the stairs. “This is it.”

Tony’s Bren answered in short bursts.

Brown looked at Mike as he set the second crate down. His face was grey.

“Don’t stand there gawping. Third box.”

Mike nodded and ran.

As he reached the weapons locker, someone shouted from the stairwell.

“Smoke!”

Another voice, Tony’s this time. “They’re coming in!”

Grenades exploded in rapid succession. Mike grabbed the final crate, heaved it up, and staggered into the corridor.

As he staggered towards the squad, he saw Smith and Jones run down the stairway towards him. Mike saw Davis hold up the detonator. Davis looked into Mike’s eyes, then brought his hand down on the plunger.

The explosion smashed the bunker apart.

The corridor bucked beneath Mike. Heat flashed over his face. Choking grey dust blanketed everything, coating their eyelashes and filling their throats. For a while, nobody moved. Mike stood over the crate of explosives. His ears emitted a high, ceaseless whine. His teeth ached from the shockwave. Every breath tasted of pulverised concrete.

Davis tapped his arm, pointed at the crate, then motioned for him to put it down.

Mike’s mouth was full of grit.

Dust filled the corridor, turning the surviving bulbs into a dim, amber smudge. Men staggered through it. Jones crawled on his knees. Williams coughed into his sleeve. Tony stood motionless in the middle of the passage, swaying as he stared towards where the stairwell had been.

There was only rubble.

Concrete blocks, twisted steel, broken sandbags, shattered timber, and grey dust filled the passage from floor to ceiling.

Mike’s hearing slowly returned through the ringing.

Davis straightened slowly.

No one spoke.

Mike looked at Brown and tried to smile. “Corporal?” His own voice sounded far away and wrong. “Do you need the Siegfried Line?”

Brown stared at him, then pushed past. “Not now, kid.”

From the cell, Adler began screaming again.

They were trapped.

Chapter Six

Mike stood over the crate of explosives. His ears rang. His teeth hurt. His mouth was full of grit. Every breath felt like he was swallowing glass.

The stairwell was gone.

Where daylight had been, there was only rubble. Concrete blocks, twisted steel, snapped timber, torn sandbags, and pulverised earth filled the passage from floor to ceiling. Dust seeped from the cracks. Pebbles clicked and tumbled down the face of the obstruction.

Somewhere behind them, Adler was weeping.

He’s lost his mind.

Davis wiped dust from his face with the back of one hand. Blood ran from a cut above his eyebrow and vanished into the grey powder on his cheek. “Roll call.”

No one answered at first.

Davis barked it properly this time. “Roll call!”

“Brown.” The corporal sat with his back against the wall, one leg stretched out before him. The field dressing around his thigh was already dark.

“Jones.” Jones was on his knees near the opposite wall, one hand braced against the concrete.

“Williams.” Williams bent double, spitting grey phlegm onto the floor, then straightened with a grimace.

“Smith.” Tony’s voice quavered.

Mike looked at him.

Tony stood in the middle of the corridor with the Bren hanging loose in his hands. His eyes were fixed on the rubble where the stairwell had been. His chest rose and fell quickly.

“Smith?” Davis said again.

Tony blinked. “Here, Sergeant.” His voice was stronger.

“Taylor?”

Mike realised he had not spoken. “Here. Sorry, Sarge.”

Davis nodded once. “Don’t be sorry. Anyone badly hit?”

Brown gave a sharp laugh. “No.”

“Anyone besides the corporal?” Davis crouched beside Brown. “Let me see.”

“Yes, Mother.”

Davis glared at him. “Don’t be a fool. You have a hole in your leg.”

“Yes, but best not make a fuss. Eh, Sarge?”

Davis peeled back the edge of the dressing. Brown hissed and slapped a hand against the wall. Fresh blood welled beneath the bandage.

Jones crossed the corridor, pulling the medical pouch from his webbing.

“Good man.” Davis took it and searched through the contents. “Taylor, hold his leg still.”

Mike knelt beside Brown.

Brown looked at him. “I really don’t think the child can hold down my leg.”

“Do you want my belt to bite down on?” Davis waited.

“Not a chance. I’m happy as a pig in mud, Sarge.”

“Taylor, are you ready?”

“Yes, Sarge.” Mike gripped Brown’s knee and ankle while Davis packed the wound. Brown’s jaw bunched. Sweat broke through the dust on his forehead. He breathed hard through his nose, grunting as Davis worked, refusing to cry out.

Davis tightened the dressing. Brown thumped the back of his head lightly against the concrete, then exhaled through his teeth.

“Can you stand?” Davis asked.

“Of course I can stand.” Brown glared at him, then tried to push himself up. His injured leg trembled before it took his weight. For a moment, he managed it. Then the colour drained from his face and he sat down hard. “Bugger.”

“That’s it, Corporal. It’s light duties for you,” Davis said.

Tony made a sound in his throat.

Mike looked round.

Tony had moved closer to the rubble. He had put one hand on the concrete blocks. When the voices died down, they heard the faint sound of tools, and beneath it the harsh, guttural sound of German voices.

Williams moved beside him and swept his torch across the collapse. The beam caught drifting dust and vanished into cracks no wider than Mike’s fingers.

Brown closed his eyes. “Well, at least we can die fighting.”

“It’ll take them time to get through all that.” Davis gave Brown a stern look, then turned to Smith. “Air?”

Tony flinched at the word. He sat with his arms around his knees.

“Smith!”

Tony forced himself to breathe through his nose. He rose stiffly, moving away from the rubble, down the corridor towards the canteen. He stopped beneath a small metal grille set high in the wall. He licked a finger, spat out the dust, then held it up to the grille. A relieved smile crossed his face. “Fresh air coming through there.”

Davis nodded. “Good. We have air and we have power. Jones, get a brew going.”

“Yes, Sarge.”

“We have power for now.” Williams shook his head. “But if the generator’s outside, it’s a matter of time until Jerry takes it away.”

“That’s a problem for later,” Davis said. “Get on the wireless.”

Mike passed the canteen. Anka still sat on the bench where Davis had ordered her to sit. Dust had settled on her hair and shoulders. The tea in front of her was covered with a grimy film of it. She was still sitting impassively.

Until Brown was helped by Davis into the room. Then her eyes tracked the wounded soldier.

No.

Not Brown. She was looking at the soldier’s leg.

They had settled down with black tea when Davis called from the radio room. “Taylor.”

The rest of the squad left Brown behind and went to see what news the sergeant had from the radio room.

Jones hesitated. Brown waved him off. “Go on. I can watch one little girl.”

Williams was already bent over the German wireless set. He had the panels open and the insides exposed. Copper wire, glass valves, cracked insulation, and blackened metal filled the belly of the machine. Their own broken wireless lay beside it, stripped half to pieces.

At some point, the operator’s body had been dragged to the barracks.

Davis stood behind him. “Can it send?”

“Two shakes of a lamb’s tail, Sarge.” Williams twisted two wires together and tightened a screw with his screwdriver.

Jones and Smith stood outside, watching the corridor.

Williams replaced a valve, slapped the casing once, then turned a dial.

The wireless crackled.

Everyone went still.

Static filled the room.

Williams adjusted another knob. The static sharpened, rose, broke apart, then steadied into a rough hiss.

A grin twitched at the corner of his mouth. “There you are.”

Davis stepped closer. “Send the warning.”

Williams lifted the microphone. “This is Able Three to any British airborne unit receiving. German armour moving on your flank. Repeat, German armour moving on your flank. Enemy strength unknown. Immediate danger of encirclement. Do you read?”

Static.

Williams waited.

Nothing.

He tried again.

“This is Able Three to any British airborne unit receiving. German armour moving on your flank. Enemy armour moving through the woods east of our position. Do you read?”

Static hissed back at them.

Williams adjusted the frequency. The set crackled, spat, and whined.

“Come on,” he whispered. “Come on, you ugly German bastard.”

He tried again. Nothing answered.

Davis stared at the wireless. “Keep trying.”

Williams changed the frequency. He checked the valves, then traced the cable from the back of the set to the wall. He opened another panel and followed the line into a conduit that vanished up through the concrete.

Then he stopped, his shoulders sinking.

Davis saw it. “Williams.”

“I’m sorry, Sarge.” Williams kept looking at the conduit. “The radio works, but the antenna doesn’t. Signal can’t get out.”

Davis said nothing.

“The mast line’s dead,” Williams said. “More likely Jerry cut it outside. Signal can’t get past the concrete.”

Davis looked at the maps pinned beside the wireless set. For a moment, his face emptied. “Then the 1st British Airborne will be overrun.”

As if answering him, the lights went out.

Darkness swallowed the room, and the wireless hiss died.

“Jerry found the generator, then,” Smith muttered.

For a few seconds, the dark was absolute.

Then Williams’s torch snapped on.

The beam played across the radio room, catching Davis’s bloodied brow.

“Nobody panic.” Davis took the torch from Williams and shone it into the corridor. “One torch at a time. We need to preserve the batteries.”

Before anyone could reply, Brown roared from the canteen.

The sound immediately cut off.

Chapter Seven

As they raced back to the canteen, Adler was screaming in German from his cell.

The room was pitch black.

Davis’s torch cut across the benches, the tables, the cold mugs of tea, and stopped on the empty place where Brown had been slumped.

Anka was weeping somewhere in the dark.

“Spread out,” Davis said.

Weapons raised, the squad waited as Davis swept the room. Then the beam found Brown.

He lay in the corner with both hands clamped around his throat. Blood pulsed between his fingers and ran in thick, dark lines down his wrists. His rifle lay across his lap, unfired. His eyes found Davis, wild and pleading.

For one terrible second, Mike thought Brown was trying to speak.

Davis dropped beside him and pressed both hands over the wound. “Stay with me, Corporal. Don’t let me down now.”

Brown’s lips moved beneath the blood. Mike thought he saw the shape of a word.

Sarge.

Davis pressed harder. “That’s an order, Brown.”

Brown looked at him for one more second. Then his eyes emptied and his body sagged beneath Davis’s hands.

“No.” Davis staggered back. He roared with rage, turning to his squad. “Sod the batteries, torches on.”

Beams clicked on around the room.

Davis’s torch flashed back to Anka. She sat curled in the far corner, arms wrapped around her knees. Blood marked her mouth and chin. Tears ran through it in thin pink tracks. “You! What happened?”

“Sarge, she can’t—” Mike started.

She looked up, eyes puffy with tears. “I didn’t want to hurt him. He was nice to me.”

Mike froze.

That’s not her voice.

Her European accent had gone. She sounded as if she had been born in South London.

Davis heard it too. He drew his pistol. “You’ve been able to speak English all this time?” He pressed the barrel to her forehead.

The corporal was from South London.

She looked forlornly at him, ignoring the presence of the gun.

Jones stepped between them and closed his hand around the barrel. His palm trembled against the metal. “She’s just a girl, Sarge.”

“Move.”

“No.”

“Then I’ll shoot through it.” Davis’s eyes didn’t leave Anka. “Tell me how he died. Now.”

Anka sniffed. “I warned you not to let me out.”

“In bloody German!”

“Dutch. I didn’t know English then.”

Davis shoved Jones aside with his shoulder. “No more games.”

“I haven’t been human for a very long time.” Anka curled up, arms around her knees. “I never wanted to hurt people.”

Mike stepped forward and put a hand against Davis’s chest. “Sarge, please.”

Davis did not look at him.

Mike’s voice shook, but he forced the words out. “You said we weren’t leaving a child in a Nazi cell. You said that. It was the right thing to do.”

“He didn’t tear out his own throat, did he?”

“No, but do you really think a little girl could?” Mike asked.

The pistol remained against Anka’s forehead.

Mike did not move his hand.

Davis shuddered as he breathed hard through his nose. Mike felt it through his palm. “The corporal is dead, boy.”

The girl sadly shook her head. “He isn’t dead.”

Davis lowered the pistol, but didn’t holster it. “No.” His composure returned, cold and brittle. “No, I’m not having this.”

“Sarge...” Mike said.

Davis took a deep breath. “Something else is down here. Close up, we clear the bunker again, something must have—”

Smith made a small, startled sound.

Then came the wet sound of flesh tearing.

Torchlight swung across the room.

Brown’s hands gripped Smith’s massive shoulders. Brown’s mouth was buried in the side of his neck, drinking hard while Smith beat at the corporal with both fists.

The corporal’s ruined throat was completely healed.

Chapter Eight

Smith was still on his feet somehow, both hands locked around Brown’s shoulders. He tried to push Brown away, but even his great hands could not move him. His face turned grey, his mouth opened and closed, trying to form words. Then Brown wrenched his head aside and drank harder. He drank until Smith’s fists stopped beating against his back.

Mike stared in horror, fumbling to raise his rifle and hold his torch at the same time.

“Corporal, stand down!” Davis’s pistol whipped free of his holster, and he aimed it at his former second in command.

“Jesus preserve us.” As the rest of the squad raised their weapons, Jones pulled his crucifix from around his neck and held it in front of him, chanting with a wavering voice. “St Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our protection—”

Brown saw the crucifix and stopped. For one heartbeat, hope entered Jones’s face, a new strength entering his voice.

“Still praying, Bob?” Brown grinned, his blood filled mouth dripping.

Jones held the crucifix higher.

Brown hurled Smith’s corpse at Davis, flattening him to the ground. He disappeared from the torchlight before the sound of rending flesh drew Mike’s torch to Jones. Brown had torn his head clear from Jone’s body and was drinking hungrily from the stump of his neck. The crucifix lay on the floor beside his open hand, its chain snapped.

Two bullets thudded into his forehead from Davis’s pistol.

The holes spat them out, the wounds closing in front of their eyes.

Brown turned to growl at Davis. He tossed Jones’s body to one side. Beams of torchlight whipped wildly across the ceiling and walls as the room erupted with gunfire.

Seven.

Mike aimed centre mass, not trusting his accuracy as tears obscured his view.

Six.

The .303 round thudded into Brown. Bullets from Williams and Davis joined in the attack.

Five, Four.

Brown staggered back, fury blazing in his eyes.

Three.

Mike stepped forward.

Two. One.

Brown locked eyes with Mike and bunched his muscles to leap.

“We all die together, then!” Brown paused when he saw Williams, who was holding a pair of grenades in his hands. “Or do you want to see if you can heal from these?”

“Let’s make it an even four.” Davis pulled out a pair of grenades from his webbing. “No one walks out.” His face was stone. “I’d rather die by my own hands than yours, old friend.”

Mike watched, his breath caught as his torch went from person to person.

Brown sprang over the nearest table and vanished through the canteen door, leaving Smith and Jones dead behind him. Mike’s torch caught him for one last instant. The image of his blood-blackened mouth, bright eyes, and bloody grin lingered.

Then he was gone.

Mike was still staring at the doorway when the sound of a pistol firing caused him to spin.

Davis had his gun pointed directly at her face.

In the chaos, no one had seen her move. Smith’s head had been torn free. Anka sat beside his body with it cradled in her lap. The bullet had hit her temple dead centre. She continued to sit quietly stroking the hair on Smith’s head, watching the soldiers as the wound healed.

“Sarge, if she’s like the corporal, that won’t hurt her.” Williams laid his hand over Davis’s pistol. “I think we need some answers.”

Davis was glaring at Anka, hate in his eyes.

From the direction of the cell, Adler screamed.

“Sarge! He could return any minute,” Williams continued.

Davis was shaking with rage. “Put down Smith’s head, now!”

Anka put it down next to her. “You have to remove the heads.” She tried to place it upright, but it rolled off the bench onto the floor. “Otherwise, we come back.”

“What?” Davis was visibly trying to regain control. “What do you mean, come back?”

“Our teeth make monsters.” She looked down at Smith’s head. “He didn’t finish this one.”

“So, if I removed your head, you’d die?” Davis’s voice went flat.

Anka nodded. “Yes.”

“Sarge.” Mike stepped between them before he could think better of it. Davis glared at him.

Mike’s legs weakened, but he did not move until Williams touched his arm and pulled him back.

“Come on, son,” Williams muttered.

“Bayonets out,” Davis ordered.

When nobody moved, he pointed at the doorway. “I gave you both an order. Now, bayonets out!”

Mike continued watching him, but numbly dropped his rifle and pulled out his bayonet.

“You can’t kill him,” Anka said.

“You said we just had to remove his head!” Davis snapped.

Anka nodded. “Yes. But I don’t think you can.”

“Then we’ll die as British soldiers. Not Nazi monsters.” Davis pulled out his bayonet. “And you’ll die before us, for what you did to my men.”

Anka extended her neck, tilting her head to one side.

“Unless.” Davis paused. He looked at her.

“You can help us stop him.”

Chapter Nine

“Sarge?” Williams’s voice sounded from behind the kitchen counter. He raised a cleaver. “Might work a bit better than a bayonet.”

Davis accepted the cleaver with a grim expression. “There’s a fire axe in the hallway. I’ll take point. Retrieve it when you can. Mike, hold the rear, here.” He tossed him his revolver.

“Yes, Sarge.” He looked down at the Enfield No. 2, his thumb brushing across the wooden grip, then the cold steel.

A tiny cold hand slipped into his spare hand. “I don’t think you’ll need that.”

He looked down to see Anka. “Stay behind with me.”

“No.” She gave him a wan smile. “I have to go first.”

Davis watched quietly. He didn’t comment.

“He’ll kill you,” Mike whispered.

“I don’t think he will.” Anka let go of Mike’s hand. “He’s very young.” She skipped to the corridor entrance.

Mike held the revolver ready. It made him feel better. He broke it open, counted six rounds, then snapped it shut.

“Ready, Private?”

Mike jerked. Looking up, he saw Davis watching him. His eyes were cold and calculating. “Yes, Sarge.” He raised the revolver. “Ready when you are.”

Davis let Anka lead them into the corridor.

They heard wet, greedy sounds from the direction of the cells. Mike thought of Adler tied and helpless in the dark.

“Brown! Fall in,” Davis called out, his cleaver outstretched. Behind him, Williams took the fire axe down from the wall.

Brown walked into the corridor. Smirking, he performed a perfect parade ground salute. “Corporal Brown, reporting as requested.” He looked down at the cleaver. “Is that cheap piece of Kraut tin for me, Sarge?”

“Corporal. The correct response is ‘Reporting for duty.’” Davis stopped, the two sides facing off in the corridor.

“Is it?” Brown shrugged. “Do you know what that is yet?” He nodded at Anka.

“I’ve a fair idea.” Davis held the cleaver in a combat stance. “Can’t say I like it much.”

The corridor was too narrow for a clean shot. Davis and Anka were in the way, Williams’s axe glinted in the torchlight, but Mike still held the revolver upright, his grip shaking. His spare hand pointed a torch at Brown.

“We don’t have to fight, Sarge.” Brown’s words lacked conviction. His eyes were looking hungry as he flexed his shoulders. “Come on mate, after all we went through in Africa, after all that bloody business, I’d hate for you to die buried in a hole.”

“It wasn’t you that I served with in Africa. It was a loyal British soldier.” Davis took a step forward.

“Sarge, the radio failed. Your warning never got out. Our boys are walking into an ambush. Because you’re buried down here with me.” Brown cricked his neck. “You know that any moment now, Jerry is going to dig through. I can hear them getting closer and closer.” Brown flexed his fingers. “Turn me loose, Sarge. I’ll butcher the bloody kraut’s before they knew what’s happened. We can still save our brothers.”

Davis was quiet.

“I could make you strong enough to finish the job.” Brown grinned. “What do you say, Sarge? Want to be a hero?”

“Something like that.” Davis licked his lips. “But see, Corporal, you killed my men.”

For a moment, everyone was silent. For one sick second, Mike thought Davis was considering the offer.

Then Davis’s eyes narrowed at Brown. “Now.”

One moment Anka was beside Mike. The next, she blurred forwards, striking Brown with a flat, awful crack. They hit the wall together hard enough to shake dust from the ceiling. Behind them, the wall cracked. Their limbs moved in a blur,

Mike couldn’t keep track of the fight, he registered the impacts more, the bunker shaking as they tore into each other.

Anka hit the wall feet first, crawled across the ceiling for half a second, then dropped back onto Brown.

Davis watched them intently, only his jaw moved, clenching and unclenching. He barely seemed to blink as he hefted the cleaver in his hand.

What do I do?

Mike gnawed on his lip. Trying to keep the torch focused on the battle.

Crump.

Brown’s body crashed onto the floor, his skull cracking on the impact. His hands held Anka’s tiny wrists tight as she slowly pushed her hands closer to his skull, his thick arms forced back by her strength.

Davis strode forwards. His cleaver ready to finish the job.

Anka was suddenly grabbed from behind and hurled down the corridor.

For the briefest moment, Adler was caught in the torchlight. The ropes still hung from one wrist, snapped and dangling. Then he vanished into the dark.

Davis and Williams ran charged towards Brown as his skull knitted together.

Mike was only a second behind them.

Williams brought the axe down, thudding into Brown’s head, the German steel fracturing Brown’s skull.

Davis fell to one knee and hacked at Brown’s neck. The first blow was deep, but it took seven blows to hack through gristle, muscle, bone, and completely sever the head. Panting, he stared down at Brown with something like regret. “At ease, Corporal.” He closed the eye lids on the disembodied head and retrieved Brown’s identity discs. “I’ll make sure your family is looked after.”

Footsteps padded in the dark. Mike raised his revolver with both hands.

Chapter Ten

Anka walked towards them. In the torchlight, her eyes glimmered red.

“Is he…” Williams left the sentence hanging.

“No. I left him alive before because he was the only nice man when they woke me.” She looked down. “Now he sleeps forever.”

Davis kept his cleaver up. “And you? Are you hungry?”

“Always.” Anka looked at them impassively. “I can control the thirst for a while, but eventually, I will feed on you all.”

The soldiers kept their weapons raised as she came closer.

“But I want you to send me to sleep first.” She smiled. “I want to see my family again.”

“What if we locked you up in the cell?” Williams lowered his axe. “I don’t want to kill a little girl.”

Anka shook her head. “No, someone would open the cell eventually and use me to make monsters, like the bad men. You have to remove my head.”

“Is that the only way?” Davis studied her.

“Sunlight also ends us. That’s how my parents died in Hordaland, when the men of the Cross found us. They didn’t want to kill a girl, so they buried me. I don’t know how long for.” A shadow seemed to cross her face. “I don’t want to go out that way.”

Hordaland.

Mike didn’t know the name, but he knew it was not Dutch.

Davis cautiously lowered his cleaver. “You hear the people digging back there? When they come in, they’ll kill us all. Thousands of our brothers are relying on us to get a message to them.” He tried to smile. It came out like a grimace. “Can you help us?”

“I’m already hungry. I barely fed from him.” She looked at Corporal Brown’s body. “No, I’m sorry. I can’t help.”

Williams looked at Mike. “Sarge, if it comes to it, we can’t let the Nazis take us alive.”

Davis went silent, looking at the rubble, listening to the sound of trenching tools.

“We could shoot each other. Last one alive sets off a grenade?” Mike’s voice was stronger than he expected. He heard himself say it, yet felt nothing.

“Sunshine or decapitation,” Davis muttered. “Brown tore through us like shell fire. He could have destroyed the SS regiment outside.”

“Sarge…” Williams looked at him warily. “That’s Brown talking through your mouth.”

“Don’t you dare compare me to Brown! He was robbed of his choice. Listen, it’s sunrise in a few hours.” Davis continued. “We could wait for them to dig through, then we’d have maybe an hour before sunrise? Maybe less, to kill as many Germans as possible before sunlight takes us. Think of the time we would buy for our boys!”

“I’m not becoming a monster.” Mike backed away from Davis.

“And I won’t make any more monsters.” Anka’s face hardened. For the first time, Mike saw age behind her eyes. “That is what the bad men wanted,” she said. “That’s what they always want.”

Davis began to pace. “All of us, or none of us. Anyone left human becomes food. That’s never happening again.”

“I said, ‘No’.” Anka looked up at Davis’s face.

“We have a decision to make. We can die here, by our own hands.” Davis looked at both of them. “Our boys are cut off at Arnhem. German armour is moving on their flank. If we can buy them even an hour, that’s more time for the rest of the army to relieve them.”

Mike looked at Davis and understood, with a cold twist in his stomach, that the sergeant might be right.

Can I die knowing I could have saved my regiment, but chose not to?

“Are you really going to say that you fulfilled your oath, to do your duty to King and Country, by shooting yourself in a hole while your brothers died?” Davis’s voice was quiet and intense as he pulled from his pocket a fistful of identity discs. “Are you telling me that they died for nothing?”

“I won’t do it!” Anka approached Davis. “How do you intend to make me?”

“Trade.”

Chapter Eleven

Anka looked at Davis. “I want your word.”

Davis stood like stone, eyes locked onto her. “You have my word as a soldier of the British Army and as an Englishman.”

“That’s not enough.” She ignored the anger that flashed across his face. She reached into his pocket and pulled out the identity discs he’d managed to recover. Six of them, Evan’s was lost in the trees, looped together on a blood-darkened cord. “Swear on these.”

Davis hesitated.

He looked first at the discs, then at her. Slowly, he placed his hand over them.

“I swear on my honour, on these discs, and on the names of Corporal Brown, Privates Jones, Smith, Evans, Clarke, Reed, and Fletcher.” His voice strengthened with every name. “When we have warned the regiment, we will accept death by sunlight before we spill innocent blood.”

“And you will behead me when I have cursed you?”

David nodded. “I swear, I will grant you a clean death.

A ghost of a smile touched Anka’s face. Then it returned to the impassive expression they’d gotten used to. She took Davis’s hand, and bit into the wrist. It was a small bite, the blood trickled down his arm and she gently covered the wound with his other hand. “Kneel down and hold it tight.”

She repeated the process with Mike and Williams. Then walked behind them. “The bite is not enough, but I’ll make it quick.”

Mike heard a crack. He turned his head to see what had happened, but before he could make sense of it, small hands had gripped his skull. He saw the floor in front of him, the scuffed concrete covered in dust and stained with blood, then the world snapped.

Mike woke some time after. He opened his eyes, to find the colours had bled from the world, leaving the bunker in stark, luminous shades of silver and ash. The sounds were maddening. He could hear the scuff of a boot against a pebble fifty yards away. He could hear the erratic, thumping drumbeats of the Germans’ hearts behind the rubble. He drew a breath, and his mind was flooded with the sour tang of their adrenaline, the grease on their rifles, and beneath it all, the intoxicating, heavy perfume of blood. His gums throbbed, a brutal ache radiating through his jaw as his mouth flooded with saliva.

“You killed us!” Davis was on his feet in a heartbeat.

Mike moved faster than he’d ever moved before, in a blink, he was between Davis and Anka.

“No, I only stopped your hearts,” Anka said. “But, you will kill me. You promised.”

The three newborns turned to look at the buried stairwell, the German’s were still working to clear it.

“I’m so hungry,” Williams muttered. “You should have waited, the German’s haven’t broken through yet.”

“You’ll clear the wreckage faster than they ever could, and you are running out of night.” Anka gently motioned to Mike to move to one side. “Let him go, Taylor, please.” He obliged. “I would like you to use the axe, Davis, please. It has to be you.” She knelt down and extended her neck.

“Are you sure?” Davis took the axe from where Williams had dropped.

Anka turned and snarled. “Don’t break your oath now.”

Davis’s face darkened, without any more words, he raised the axe.

Mike struggled to find the words. “Anka, I just want to say—”

The axe fell, her head rolled to the side and came to rest against the wall. She was still smiling.

Davis stood over her, axe hanging from his hand. He sucked at his teeth. Then dropped the axe.

I’m sorry for what you had to go through.

Mike looked at her head with regret.

Then the pack of soldiers turned as one to the rubble, they could hear the heartbeats of the German’s as they laboured behind it. They fell on the dirt and chunks of cement with nails stronger than steel, hurling it behind them with ‌ungodly strength.

Chapter Twelve

His mouth watered as the gap widened. Torchlight flashed through the dust from outside. A German voice barked something. Another answered.

Mike could smell sweat, leather, cigarette smoke, and the tang of adrenaline on their bodies.

The first sliver of night appeared through the broken entrance as the German tools scraped closer. The constant rain stopped outside, leaving the forest shining black beneath the last stars of the night. Mike could see each bead of water clinging to the torn wire.

A German helmet appeared through the gap.

Davis reached through the opening, seized the man by the throat, and pulled him into the bunker so hard that his skull struck the concrete edge with a wet crack. Mike seized the German’s wrist and bit down before he could stop himself. They drank together while the other Germans cried out.

As he fed, the German voices grew in clarity. He could understand their language far beyond the schoolboy German he’d learned as a child.

“If you bite, take the head.” Williams gripped the helmet and jaw and twisted until the neck came apart before the corpse could rise. “No more monsters.”

“No more monsters,” Mike and Davis echoed.

They tore through the last of the rubble. The Germans had fled to the bunker entrance.

The night air rushed in as Mike sprang after them.

The first German had only begun to raise his rifle when Mike hit him. They went down together in the mud beyond the ruined entrance. Mike heard the man’s heartbeat hammering inches from his face. He smelled the blood under his jaw. The hunger roared up so fiercely that the forest tilted.

Don’t bite. No time to take their heads.

Mike smashed the German’s head against a stone instead. Despite the helmet, the man went limp, his skull fracturing under the impact.

Mike rolled away from him, shaking.

Davis moved with murderous efficiency, breaking necks, tearing rifles from hands, moving on before the bodies fell.

A rifle fired. The bullet punched through Mike’s shoulder with a sharp, distant pop, leaving nothing but a dull itch. He didn’t slow. Instead, he seized the shooter by the face and drove him backwards into the barbed wire, tearing his back into ribbons.

Williams laughed once. Mike felt the same exhilaration as hunger and power flowed through his body, but it was coupled with a deep and unabating shame. He knew he had changed, and not just physically.

He pushed down his worries and threw himself at two Germans near the sandbags. One managed to strike Mike with the butt of a rifle.

Williams caught the weapon, ripped it free, and broke the man’s arm with a twist. He hurled the German into the concrete wall and stepped away from the body, panting.

More Germans waited in the trees. They had come expecting wounded men trapped underground.

Not monsters.
“Push through. We have to get to the armoured column,” Davis ordered. “If even one company is still holding, then we can buy them time.”
They closed around him instinctively, weaving through the trees. The forest opened around them in silver and black. Mike could see everything. Craters, wire, broken branches, boot prints in the mud, steam rising from warm blood. He could smell where soldiers had been and where they had gone, tracking the invisible wake of their sweat and fear through the trees.
A German fired from behind a pine.
Mike heard the trigger before the rifle cracked. He stepped aside, the bullet missing him. He closed the gap in seconds, snapping the man’s neck and rejoining the others. Weapons were an inconvenience for him now. His hands were deadlier than any rifle. Another reminder that he was no longer a soldier.
Davis and Williams crashed through the German line ahead of him. Men shouted. Rifles fired. They broke them apart, cutting and smashing, wading through mud, blood, and shattered bone, driving them back through the trees.
Williams found the machine gun nest first.
The crew tried to swing it towards him. Williams leapt over the barrel, landed on the nearest man, and drove him down into the mud. The second gunner reached for a stick grenade tucked into his belt.
“Williams!” Mike shouted.
Too late. The German pulled the cord.
Williams saw it. He clamped one hand over the German’s wrist and the other around his throat.
Then the stick grenade went off between them. The blast tore the night open.
Mike was thrown backwards against a tree. Splinters rained around him. Smoke rolled low across the mud. His ears rang, but beneath the ringing, he could still hear heartbeats. He looked up. The blast had completely severed Williams’s head and torn his upper chest apart.
“Williams?” Mike pushed himself upright. “Williams!” The words came out correctly, but the grief that should have torn at him never came.
Williams’s torso twitched once in the mud. His head lay several feet from the rest of him, eyes open. Then the body stilled.
Davis stood over him. For a second, the sergeant looked down at what remained of Lance Corporal Williams. His lips peeled back from his teeth.
Then he bent, pulled the identity discs from Williams’s neck, and added them to the others. “We’re not done.”
Mike stared at him. “Sarge.”
“Move, Private.”
German engines growled somewhere beyond the trees.
Davis turned towards the sound.
The armoured column was closer than Mike had realised. He smelled the petrol and engine fumes.
Davis’s lips drew back from his teeth. “Found them.”
They ran.
The forest thinned near a muddy track churned to black soup by wheels and treads. German vehicles stretched along it in the last darkness before dawn. Half-tracks, lorries, armoured cars, and two heavier shapes lumbering down the track, a Panther tank and a squat StuG tank destroyer. They were driving towards the British line ahead of them.
“Our boys can handle the soldiers.” Davis sprang towards the Panther, calling behind him. “Stop the armour. Anything that rifles can’t touch.”
They had almost reached the British lines, but beyond the trees, the eastern sky had begun to pale.

Mike crossed the track in a blur and hit the first vehicle from the side. The machine gunner at the rear turned his head, confused by a sound he would never understand. Mike pulled him from the mount and threw him into the road. The driver opened the door and Mike dropped down to drag him out through the gap.
Davis was on the Panther before the commander saw him. He ripped the hatch wide, dropped a grenade into the dark, and leapt clear.
Mike ran for the nearest lorry. A German saw him coming and raised a pistol. Mike ducked under the shot, seized the man by the tunic, and slammed him against the bonnet. His bones shattered under the impact. Mike could scent his blood, he thirsted for it.
Bullets stitched up his spine as he fell to the ground. He panted as he felt the wounds closing, the bullets popping out one by one as the Germans approached him from behind. Then he sprang over the lorry and ran round the side, eviscerating the two men. As his wounds healed, his hunger tore at him.
Ahead, Davis had reached the StuG. Bullets tore through his coat as he climbed onto the hull. He grabbed the hatch handle and wrenched it open. Someone inside fired up at him. Davis dived down into the opening. The screams inside the tank suddenly cut off.
The Germans were fleeing.
Men ran in every direction. Some of the Germans fired at shadows, some fired at each other. Engines revved in panic. A lorry reversed into a ditch.
Davis stood on top of the StuG, grinning at the victory, his coat riddled with holes. The column had been stopped. The road was blocked by burning steel.
Mike stood shaking, his hands red and his stomach burning with hunger. He caught himself licking his fingers and forced himself to stop.
Beyond the road, past the burning vehicles and the screaming Germans, Mike could hear another battle.

Lee Enfield rifles, Bren guns. Men shouting orders in English, crying for stretcher-bearers. The sounds came thinly through the trees, scattered and desperate. Men holding hedges, ruins, ditches, and shattered houses.

Davis heard it too. For a moment, his grin faded, then he was running towards the British lines.
“Sarge?” Mike ran after him. “The mission is complete!”
He glanced east. The darkness between the trees was thinning. The paling sky made his skin itch.
Dawn.
Davis continued to run.
Mike followed him through the woods as the world around them turned grey. “Sarge! We won. Stop!” But it didn’t look like victory, the corpses of British soldiers littered the area.
The scent of dead blood made him feel lightheaded.
Davis moved ahead of him, fast, with a predatory grace.
A thin line of gold appeared behind the trees.

Smoke curled from the back of Mike’s hand, where the first rays of sunlight lashed his skin.
Mike heard their voices before he reached the bunker.
The bunker had been German once, he saw the bodies of the British who had paid for every inch taking it. Now dead German machine-gunners lay outside the entrance, and British helmets showed behind the firing slit. As he got closer, he saw his brother’s muddy faces, torn uniforms, filthy bandages, and hands blackened.

“Give it a rest, Jack, the matches are damp,” someone muttered in a thick Brummie accent.

“I just want one drag, mate. I’ve earned it,” another replied.

When Davis sprinted into the light, Jack dropped his cigarette, scrambling frantically for the bolt of his Lee Enfield. “Oi! Identify yourselves!” his voice cracked with exhaustion.

Mike heard their hearts inside the bunker, British heartbeats fast and frightened.
Davis opened his mouth to speak as he ran.

One of the paratroopers fired, then they all did.

The first bullet tore through Davis’s cheek. The second struck his throat, robbing him of speech. His eyes narrowed, but the wounds didn’t slow him. He closed the distance as they began to heal.

“No!” Mike screamed as Davis entered the bunker.

Chapter Thirteen

Mike could smell the freshly spilled blood. He heard the heartbeats die one by one. When the final heart stilled, Mike slowed.

His flesh crackled under the sunlight as he hesitated outside the bunker.

His mind screamed at him not to enter.

He stepped inside.

Davis was slumped in one corner with a radio handset in his bloodied hand. “This is Able Three to any British airborne unit receiving. German armour confirmed east of your position. I repeat. German armour confirmed east of your position. Column halted. Infantry scattered. Expect renewed assault.”

He looked up as Mike entered.

Four British soldiers lay around him, heads torn from their shattered necks, rifles still clutched in dead hands. Mike recognised one from training. Another had shared cigarettes with him on watch.

A voice crackled through the handset. “Message received, Able Three. Armour east of our position. Holding line. God help you.”

The handset dropped from Davis’s hand.

Mike was looking at the dead soldiers. “What did you do?”

Davis didn’t answer.

“Sarge, we have to stop.” Mike cautiously stepped towards him.

Davis looked up, rage filling his eyes. “Why did they shoot me? I tried to save them.”

“We aren’t like them any more, Sarge.” He knelt down. “I’m sorry. I wish we were human, but we aren’t.”

“I’m a British soldier, Private. I swore an oath to defend Crown and country, and I meant every bloody word of it.” Davis rose, flexing his hands. “Jerry massacred our boys. We have to avenge them.”

Mike held up his hands. “I’m not going to fight you, Sarge.”

“You can’t fight me.” anHe paced the back wall in the shade. “We wait until night. Then we attack. We could fight our way to Berlin. Kill Hitler, maybe. End the war.”

“Sarge, we swore another oath.”

Davis spun, his finger an inch from Mike’s face. “Don’t you dare lecture me on duty. I was at Dunkirk. Brown was by my side from Libya onwards.” He snarled at Mike. “I’m doing this to honour our fallen comrades.”

No, you aren’t. This is guilt.

“If we move away from the British lines, then this won’t happen again.” Davis glanced at the dead paratroopers for a fraction of a second before turning away.

“You sent the warning, Sarge. We completed the mission.”

Davis snorted. “The war is still raging, son.”

“Not for us, Sarge, we swore on our squad.” Mike reached down and took one of the dead paratrooper’s discs. “You can’t help the dead, but you can help me.”

“Help you?” Davis looked confused.

“I don’t think I’m strong enough to walk out into the sun.” Mike looked down. “I can’t complete the mission.”

Davis regarded him for a long while. His jaw worked, then he exhaled. For a moment, the unnatural strength seemed to leave him and his face looked old. Very old. He reached over and took the identity discs from Mike. He moved from body to body, taking the murdered paratroopers’ discs. Then he placed them in his pocket with the rest of the squad’s.

His shoulders slumped. He patted the pocket containing the identity discs, then straightened, his eyes narrowed, and once again he found his strength. “Attention.”

Mike snapped to attention.

“Look at the state of you, Private,” Davis barked, his old mannerisms returning. “I’ve never seen such a sorry excuse for a soldier.”

“Yes, Sarge. Sorry, Sarge.”

For the briefest of moments, Davis smiled at Mike. Then he turned to face the bunker entrance, brilliant sunlight streaming through it. “Squad will assemble for morning inspection. Move.”

Mike pivoted. They removed their helmets and pulled on their red berets. A blood red tear ran down his cheek.

Then the last of the section marched into the sun.

THE END

Tales of the Macabre

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Outpost U-819 Must Die!

By Newton Webb

Chapter One

Professor Isambelle Hawke

“A bio-suit, Roger? Really?” Professor Isambelle sneered, her harsh nasal tones cutting the air. “We’ve been dredging dirt on this rock for nearly four years now and found nothing more hazardous than your breath.”

She sat up in bed, instantly regretting the action. Isambelle rubbed her forehead to ward off the lingering remnants of her hangover. Her hips ached, more from early onset arthritis aggravated by the recycled air than from Roger’s exertions last night. She looked at him lumbering around the bedroom, looking for his suit with all the grace and style of a peasant gardener. His papery white skin stretched over a frame of gawky bones.

The smile faded.

Ah!

Her hands found it. Injecting her homemade cocktail of pain suppressants and stimulants into her neck, she breathed a sigh of relief as they entered her system.

“You should drink less. You are a mean drunk,” Roger said. He moved over to the mirror and adjusted his uniform. “The work we do here is important for humanity.”

Isambelle levelled her gaze at him, her ice blue eyes radiating contempt. “Quite. I can see why I, a multi award winning scientist, am needed to catalogue the meagre scrapings of vegetation spread across this dust bowl.” She rummaged for her flask. Gin. She needed gin. With a contented sigh, she took a deep gulp.

Roger shuffled over to look at her. “We found a new one yesterday.”

“Was it lichen? I bet it was lichen. They are all lichen.” Isambelle sat up and threw the sheets off.

“If it wasn’t important, then the military wouldn’t have funded it, would they?” He talked over Isambelle’s contemptuous retort. “I won’t talk to you when you are like this. Sometimes, I don’t even know why I put up with you. This. Us.” Roger shambled over, finding his bio-suit and crowing in triumph.

“There are four scientists on this base, including us. Two of them are a combination of married and old, so they’d never let you into their bed.” Isambelle stuck out a stick like leg to test the air temperature. Satisfied, she tossed back the sheets, stood up with a groan, cracked her back, and moved to the mirror. “And I am the third.”

Isambelle squinted at the mirror, teasing her fingers through her raven black bob cut, ignoring the streaks of grey. She could dye them black, pretend that she wasn’t getting old like Roger did with his ridiculous abdominal implants. That would mean caring, though. The only maintenance she performed was enough to keep her mind and, she took another swig of gin, her liver functioning at peak performance. Isambelle’s body was just a flesh suit for her brain.

“I’ve had enough,” Roger muttered. “This is over. We are over.”

“Oh no, our daily break-up. I’m devastated. Don’t forget your bio-suit, Roger. God forbid something interesting happens to you outside.” Isambelle chuckled, looking at the man with disdain. “I’ll be seeing you back in a minute, then!”

“Some of us have a work ethic, Izzy,” Roger called out as the door closed behind him.

“And some of us have read that there is a category four snowstorm in effect, blunderbrain.” Isambelle tapped at her wrist comp. Stepping into the hygiene unit, she started a cleanse cycle and let her mind wander as the water played over her body.

Three months. Just three months until she was off this rock and could start looking for something to rebuild her career.

Isambelle stepped out, the scent of sour sweat scoured from her body. She found a vaguely clean ship suit and got dressed. Turning on her computer, she found a hundred and thirty eight unread emails. “This is why I drink,” she muttered. She marked them all as read and then wandered towards the canteen to find some food.

Breakfast was the most interesting event on Rokus IV.

As she shook her head to clear the last of the cobwebs from her mind, she felt, more than saw, the ox like form of Dot jog by.

Dot got angry whenever someone asked her about her parentage, but she was clearly lab grown. Six foot six and with muscles upon muscles, she was a giant. Her iron grey hair was permanently bound into a bun and her coal black eyes could turn water to ice. Isambelle kept meaning to test some of her genetic material, to find out what exactly they had edited her with. But she was always distracted, sometimes by Roger, mostly by gin.

She had wanted a chef unit in her room, but these far out colonial bases encouraged centralised eating to combat cabin fever. So, with her requests denied, she had to traipse to the “social dome” to meet the idiots who flailed incomprehensibly at their tedious data streams.

Forcing a woman of Isambelle’s position to eat with the chattel of the station was demeaning. Thankfully, checking her implant, she saw that the rest of the scientists were performing their duties.

An empty canteen.

Marvellous.

What good little drones they were.

As she stood in front of the chef unit, it flickered into life. Mr Chef, was a small animated chef with an oversized hat and a comedy moustache. “Bon Appetit.”

“Sod off,” she snarled.

“Unknown recipe. Would you like me to surprise you?” the ebullient chef mused.

“No, I want a two egg omelette with spring onions, wilted spinach, and two slices of buttered granary toast. Black coffee, triple shot.”

A picture of her requested meal appeared on the screen, along with a five second countdown to give her the opportunity to change her mind. She waited impatiently while the machine whirred. The very suggestion that someone of her intellect would make the wrong choice was not even laughable. It was downright insulting.

The slot opened and a plate appeared with her steaming food. “About time.”

“You are welcome,” Mr Chef trilled happily.

“I said, ‘About time’, not ‘Thank you’, you utter imbecile.”

“You are welcome,” Mr Chef repeated. His enthusiasm remained undimmed.

“This isn’t over,” Isambelle muttered. She looked at the animated character with malice gleaming in her eyes.

Maybe I could reprogramme it without the base commander noticing?

Walking to a table, she forked the food into her mouth. She topped her coffee up with her flask. She didn’t bother asking Mr Chef for alcohol. No alcohol until sixteen hundred hours colony time was the rule. She didn’t want to give it the satisfaction of denying her. It always looked so smug about it.

The Kowalski couple entered to her disappointment. They sat whispering over matching dippy eggs and grapefruit. Occasionally, they would glance her way.

She loathed them.

Isambelle had won the Venusian Botany Prize by the age of fourteen. They had appointed her chief biochemist to Haylans Pharmaceutical by twenty one. They had appointed her Royal Botanist to the British Science Council before she was even in her mid twenties.

They were each nearing two hundred years old, age extended by gene splicing and spite. With all that time, they had achieved nothing in their miserable lives. Yet they dared to look down on her, to judge her as if they were her peers.

I hope they drown in their dippy eggs.

She finished her drink. The gin had a bitter aftertaste today. The sooner her penance was over and she fled this rock, the better. She missed basking in the limelight to which she was rightfully entitled.

Academia in United Earth was full of either entitled nobles or overly cautious academics, she’d gone corporate to try and avoid them.

In the corporations, greed is God.

And God is everywhere.

Chapter Two

Doctor Roger Griffith

Roger marched down the connecting tube towards the hangar. The floor was smoothed rockcrete. The outpost had only existed for five years, and already it was showing its age.

You’d think the military would have accounted for the harsh conditions and built something sturdier.

The hangar was deserted, apart from the two Mule shuttles waiting on the deck. A category four snowstorm flashed amber across the warning display.

Roger sucked on his teeth, then making a snap decision, he hopped into the closest Mule, Shuttle Two, and powered up the engines, feeling the ageing vessel shudder underneath him. He plotted a course for the next site on his rota. Having examined the closer sites, he was getting more travel time, which suited him just fine as they moved further out.

The pre mission checklist came up with the usual nanny state questions. “Do you have your bio-suit and has it been correctly sealed?”, “Do you have a minimum of two crew?”, “Have you logged your flight plan with the central server?”

He’d been on the barely habitable rock for over two years. He logged the flight plan, but he was damned if he was going to start a fight by telling them that Isambelle was refusing to do fieldwork. So, he ticked ‘Yes’ to all the options.

Flicking through the playlist, he selected some smooth Arkellian jazz. As the shuttle left the bay, he gave the autopilot its destination and, getting a cup of tea from Mr Chef unit, started a game of chess. Scrolling through a list of avatars, he chose an AI representation of his opponent and sat back in his seat, blowing on his hot drink.

It shouldn’t, but as he mulled over his next move, he noted that the angry sounds of the snowstorm complemented the jazz quite well. His smile dropped as the shuttle was suddenly buffeted when the engines fought to compensate for a strong gust, then he settled back into his game as it stabilised.

Roger looked forward to his brief moments of sanity, eight hours of joyous isolation before returning to the cramped living quarters back in U-819.

The shuttle bucked hard enough to spill tea across Roger’s console. “Fiddlesticks.” He reached for a tissue to absorb the mess. Isambelle had picked a perfect day to refuse to go out on an expedition.

I should have stayed back and done admin.

He pursed his lips and tapped his finger on the console frame.

But that means going back to Isambelle.

He envisioned her smug, superior face and shuddered. Closing his eyes, he asked himself once more why he put up with her.

Am I in love with her?

He prayed that he wasn’t.

It’s fine.

The autopilot was trying to land.

It’s not fine.

The stupid computer had decided that waiting out the storm was safer than continuing on its route. If it did that, the shuttle would be buried in snow and he’d have to endure the ignominy of being dug out by another team, delaying the whole expedition.

Roger swore and told it to continue flying, then when it refused, he seized the controls, switching them to manual. A red light had lit up on the main board, and a siren was interrupting the drum solo on his music.

It had been over thirty years since Roger had passed his pilot’s licence and, in a galaxy where autopilot was everywhere, his skills had atrophied.

The maps had identified a cave complex nearby. He steered the small craft towards the rocky outcrop. He could wait out the storm there.

Damn you, Isambelle.

He wouldn’t be here if she hadn’t goaded him. His relaxed flight was forgotten. Another red light appeared on the console as one of the baffle plates on the port thrusters was sheared off.

His breathing increased as he realised that the previously inconvenient snowstorm had risen in intensity to category five and he could be in real danger.

“This is Doctor Roger Griffith in Shuttle Two. Reporting engine failure. Performing a controlled...” He increased the speed as the port engine started to stutter. “Very controlled landing. Require engineering... Oh villainy!”

The port engine died. Thrusters whined as they attempted to compensate, but the shuttle was losing altitude. Rocks loomed up ahead. He was going too fast, but too slow would mean getting buried. He increased power to the starboard engine and redlined the port thrusters. He was so close.

Too close.

As he tried to slow the shuttle, one of the forward thrusters malfunctioned and he found himself approaching the rock face too fast. He set the air brakes to maximum. The inertial dampeners turned the deceleration thick and sluggish.

He’d made it to the outcrop.

The shuttle smashed into the cave entrance, wedging itself tight. Roger was thrown against his harness. He felt two of his ribs pop, despite the suit and the dampeners. A warm feeling spread through his body as his suit automatically released painkillers.

Isambelle is going to love this.

With that thought, he blacked out.

The mingled sound of jazz trumpets and alert sirens brought him round. Wincing, he blinked slowly before looking at the crumpled forward section of the shuttle.

Darnations.

Yes, he’d crashed a shuttle. He looked down at the console. He still had power and the cockpit was warm, at least. He gingerly poked his ribs. Pain lanced through him, but as long as he didn’t breathe in too much and left them alone, the painkillers were doing their job.

There was an amber icon on the dashboard.

Of course.

He ran diagnostics on the communications. The rig must have been damaged in the storm. The older models of the Mule class from his navy days were far more resilient.

He checked the doors. The side hatch was buckled, but the rear access hatch opened smoothly. Flicking on his helmet lights, he took a look at the Mule.

It might be fixable?

Not by him, though. The engineers would need to tow it back to base and do a complete refurb. It was a mess.

Commander Tolworth was going to tear him a new one.

He walked around the exterior. The rock face had been broken, and debris covered the mid section of the shuttle.

Roger checked the time on his wrist comp. Base would soon send out the other shuttle to investigate. Until then, he should sit tight.

I recognise this cave.

He’d investigated it before. It was one of the closer locations of interest to the base. That would speed up the rescue efforts.

The inviting sound of jazz wafted out from the shuttle, but something had caught Roger’s eye. Something shiny. He walked over to the side of the shuttle. Where the rock face had broken under the impact, there was something... yes, definitely metal. He ran his glove over the smooth surface. It was warm to the touch.

Something’s buried here. Could it be powered?

His stomach tightened, his ribs protesting, as his abdominal muscles swelled with excitement.

This could be the making of me.

Retrieving his tool kit from the shuttle, he looked at the metal. Levering away the snow, ice, and loose scree, he was able to uncover about a metre of it. It didn’t look like anything from the expedition.

He and Isambelle had missed this. It had been buried underneath the rock the whole time while they messed around cataloguing lichen.

He grinned.

Isambelle will be livid.

But first, he had to make sure it wasn’t just a buried crate or lost piece of metal.

Tempted as he was to laser through the metal and see what was under it, he doggedly worked on removing the rocks from around it with a crowbar and his trowel. As he cleared another section, he found some glyphs, text from a language he didn’t recognise. He ran it through his wrist computer, but it still returned nothing.

Scratching at his helmet, he looked at it. Maybe it was a logo instead of text. Something surrealist.

He rammed his crowbar into the rock to clear more of it and shoved at it, wincing as his ribs protested. The rock slid slowly from under the scree and he could see a few more symbols as, finally, it rolled free.

His glee was short lived as the rocks above crumbled and collapsed down. He jerked back, dropping his crowbar, but not before his glove was trapped, pinched in the debris.

Hissing, he yanked at his glove. Thankfully, the material had stiffened on impact to protect his fingers.

Looking up, his breath hitched. The rockfall had exposed a large section of metal. Whatever was hidden under the rock was big. It could be some kind of structure. There were loads of glyphs revealed. Hopefully enough for the computer to begin work on translation.

Roger looked around for the crowbar to free his hand. Leaning back, it was just out of reach. He strained, but his hand was stubbornly held fast. Looking back up at the text and his wrist comp, he gritted his teeth with frustration.

He wanted this to be his discovery. The others were no doubt on their way to rescue Roger and laugh at his screw up. The expedition had found nothing on this planet of note, nothing in five years to justify the bio-suits except the freezing cold.

No, I’m not sharing the credit for this. I found it. Not Isambelle.

With his other hand, he disabled the locks on his trapped glove and pulled his hand clear. He immediately felt the icy cold on his exposed skin, but it was tolerable in the short term. The arm of his suit shrank around his wrist to compensate, sealing the rest of his body. It was definitely powered. Several of the glyphs glowed as he watched them.

Eagerly, he scanned the text, taking photos and annotating it. Using his tool kit, he took all the readings he could. His trapped glove serving as a warning, he couldn’t risk excavating any more, in case more rock was dislodged. But he saved his initial findings and sent them to the message buffer.

Done it.

He was officially the first person to report on this artefact.

Touch it.

He blinked.

Touch it.

Behind him, he heard the whine of a shuttle making a perfect landing. He narrowed his eyes as he prepared himself for a lecture about flying during a snowstorm.

He looked back at the metal.

A previous expedition? Debris from a crashed exploration drone? A dropped shipping crate?

It looked old. Despite the shine from the exposed metal, the rock around it looked mature.

Touch it.

He reached out with his hand and stroked the warm metal. It felt comforting to his touch. A sharp prick caused him to jerk back his hand. He couldn’t see a cut. It must have been static electricity or a micro fissure of some kind.

The ice holding everything together was starting to melt. There was even lichen growing on the rock over it. That hadn’t grown overnight.

A decade old?

A hundred years old?

Either way, Roger had found it. That meant he got a percentage of the salvage rights.

And Isambelle had refused to come and join the expedition.

It was a good day.

Chapter Three

Dot

That’s a write-off.

The shuttle settled onto the ice with a hydraulic groan. Through the cockpit glass, Dot saw Griffith waving his bare hand like an imbecile. Contamination protocol meant nothing to scientists until their skin started sloughing off.

Flicking on the speakers, she boomed, “Get into the cargo hold.”

Her voice, honed from years as a sergeant in the Royal Marines, caused the neurotic man to jump. He started pointing at the wrecked shuttle.

She pressed the button again. “Get into the cargo hold.”

He stood glaring at the shuttle. She returned his look until he complied, shaking his head. He walked up to the cockpit. She didn’t open the bridge hatch, instead pointing again back to the cargo hold.

Scientists.

Protecting them, even on a planet with very few natural threats, sometimes felt like herding cats.

Watching the security cameras, she saw him clamber into the hold and take a seat, rubbing his exposed hand as it acclimatised to the internal heating.

Idiot.

Dot had sent out a warning to all base members that a storm was approaching. That should have been enough. Now they only had one shuttle, which meant no flights unless there was an emergency. No expeditions could be launched without a backup shuttle for rescue purposes, just like the one she’d just had to embark.

Her eyes flashed to the camera. Doctor Griffith was looking at his hand.

So he should. That exposed hand had just won him twenty-four hours in quarantine and a hefty cocktail of antibacterial, antifungal, and antiviral medicine.

The communicator chirped. Dot answered, “Dot, Shuttle One.”

“Have you berated him yet?” Isambelle’s nasal tones filtered through the commlink.

“Isambelle, this channel is for mission-specific comms only.”

“I can’t think of anything more mission-specific than sassing the idiot responsible for—“

Dot closed the communication, then rejected the next three calls from Isambelle.

Scientists.

Tapping on her wrist comp, she logged the infraction as a misuse of mission comms.

The commlink trilled again, and she was on the verge of rejecting it when she saw the handle of Commander Tolworth and accepted it. “Dot, Shuttle One.”

“Dot, is Shuttle Two salvageable?”

Dot narrowed her eyes. “Unlikely. That is a question for the engineers.”

“We received Roger’s last communications about an artefact of some kind. Can you forward your sensor logs so we can take a better look?”

“Sending logs.” Dot closed the connection. She knew he was going to ask her to retrieve the black box from Shuttle Two, but that would have to be done via utility vehicle. The shuttle would need to be reserved until a replacement arrived.

She flicked on her computer. The next resupply was in three weeks. Commander Tolworth wouldn’t be happy. She clenched her jaw. Dot would have to remind the commander of the protocol. As security officer, base security fell under her authority, not Tolworth’s.

The last time she’d allowed a lieutenant to ignore protocol, it had cost half her squad their lives, her career as a Royal Marine, and her ability to sleep through a whole night.

Chapter Four

Professor Isambelle Hawke

Isambelle stared at the console.

It had taken hours for the storm to break enough for Dot to fly the idiot back to base, and another hour of agonizing decontamination protocols before Roger was finally locked in the medbay.

How dare he!

She gnawed on her lower lip. Roger had only gone and made the most significant discovery since Darwin.

Her expression hardened. That imbecile had stolen her glory out of spite. She should have been on that shuttle with him. She might even have given him credit. Minor credit. A fetch-and-carry role. Shuttle pilot, perhaps.

She looked at the sensor data package, with its signature, his signature: RGRIFFITH-9182.

Picking up her martini glass, she hurled it against the wall. It shattered, the liquor dripping down.

She stalked up and down her quarters.

Now, how can I turn this to my advantage?

She turned back to her console, reached for the now shattered glass, and, finding it gone, took a swig from the gin bottle.

Watching Roger on the med bay monitors, she tapped the commlink. “Call Minion One.”

It replied, “Calling Doctor Roger Griffith.”

“Izzy! You have to get me out of here.” She saw Roger sit bolt upright on his cot. “I’ve been showered, disinfected, and injected with a whole battery of decontamination meds. If you could speak to them, get me clearance, then together we...”

“I’m going to stop you right there, Roger dear.” Isambelle took another swig of gin. “I’m afraid, my darling, that due to the seriousness of your potential contamination breach, I am going to have to concur with Doctor Albright, he is the base medic after all, and recommend that you spend twenty four hours in quarantine.”

“What?”

“Don’t worry. I only need temporary access to your notes. I’ll type them up for you. It’s the least I can do.”

“Don’t you take this away from me, Izzy!” Roger was standing now, yelling into his commlink. “This is my discovery. My find.”

Isambelle smirked. “I’m only thinking of the safety of the outpost. Who knows what perfidious lichen you might have touched? It could contain some kind of...”

“Isambelle!”

“Rest up, Roger dear. I must go.”

“Isambelle! Don’t!”

“Toodlepip.” She tapped end call. Her commlink immediately lit up with him calling her back, and she twirled her finger over the console before hitting mute.

Isambelle sped through the results, hissing as she did so. Isotopic analysis of mineral accretions around the metal suggested it had been buried for over four hundred thousand years. It was older than humanity, and certainly older than humanity’s journey into space, which could only mean one thing.

Her hand found the bottle before the thought finished forming.

Alien life.

Her tablet computer vibrated as she built up a summary of the findings, eliminating those not worthy of her attention and consolidating the others. The base computer was supposed to do this for the scientists, but Isambelle didn’t trust it. It always missed something, some vital salient fact.

When her commlink chirped, she considered ignoring it, but it was the commander. He who pays the bills must be spared a moment of her precious time.

“Yes?”

“Professor, I need you to drop your investigation of the local flora...”

Done.

“...and focus on establishing if we can release Doctor Griffith from quarantine. He is your top priority.”

The hell he is.

Isambelle took a deep breath. “I’m afraid I am very busy here, you see...”

“You have your orders.” Then the commander signed off, leaving an aghast Isambelle staring at her commlink, fizzing with rage.

She messaged the commander. “Preliminary concern regarding Griffith’s exposed hand. Full contamination assessment required. Recommend quarantine for the full twenty four hours. Will advise if extension becomes necessary.”

That’s Roger dear locked up for now.

She followed it up with a second message. “I would like to advise the commander to prioritise the retrieval of the shuttle’s black box. It may have extra data that could be of use.”

Waiting to see if he replied, she stared at her wrist comm for a few seconds, then returned to her terminal. The second she looked away from the wrist comm, it chirped.

“Kowalski is to lead the glyph analysis. You are to focus on Roger first, then support Kowalski by researching historical ship movements that might be related.”

For a second, she forgot to breathe. Isambelle bit her tongue, glaring with hatred at the screen.

Historical ship movements?

The commander genuinely thinks that somehow human tech ended up buried in rock that hadn’t moved in four hundred thousand years?

She refused to reply to the message. She would rather the entire base died of disease than support Kowalski getting recognition for the greatest find in human history.

They didn’t know she had Roger’s records, and she had no intention of telling them that she had secured herself full admin access to the base computer a long time ago.

Although? Displacement technology, perhaps. Spatial transfer. Some kind of matter-phase event.

She continued to pore over the data before returning to the unknown symbols. There wasn’t enough commonality in the glyphs yet to establish a dictionary. She needed more.

Leaning back in her chair, she contemplated messaging Dot, encouraging her to retrieve the black box, but instead decided on a softer approach. She used the base computer to find her and accessed Dot’s wrist comm history.

Dot was dragging her heels, refusing to take the shuttle out to get the black box, instead going out on a utility vehicle. Wheeled!

It would be days until she returned.

Growling to herself, Isambelle pushed the gin to one side. She was getting through it too quickly and didn’t want to dull her intellect.

Time for a soft drink.

She retrieved a bottle of wine and filled herself a beaker. As she ran the glyphs she did have through her custom cryptography software, she analysed the rest of the results. The metal had heat signatures, but no EM signature of any discernible kind. Either there was no local power source, or it was heavily shielded.

She needed to go and visit it, excavate it fully. There wasn’t enough data. Somehow, she had to figure out why Commander Tolworth had come to the idiotic conclusion that she was the wrong person to head up the investigation and then correct him. Eventually, she was going to run out of hard data to process.

The translation software froze. She struck the side of the console with her palm.

TOUCH IT.

She blinked. The words vanished, the progress bar remaining at four percent.

Her eyes narrowed suspiciously.

Chapter Five

Doctor Roger Griffith

Roger sat on the bio-bed, seething. They were taking his discovery from him. It wasn’t enough that Isambelle had been lauded for her scientific achievements for decades. She had to rob him of the one major achievement he’d made in his career.

For the sixth time, he loaded up the chess app on his wrist comp. Then, after three moves, he closed it down.

He paced up and down the medical room. His mind kept yelling at him to get out, to take back his discovery, but he couldn’t see a way out. Roger pounded the wall with his fist.

“Roger?”

He took a breath and turned slowly to see the Kowalskis outside his door.

“Yes?”

They looked at each other and then, putting on expressions of false sympathy, leaned closer to the glass.

“We were so sorry,” Professor Mary Kowalski started.

“So very sorry,” Professor Ivan Kowalski reiterated.

“To hear that you had to be quarantined. Especially as your bio signs look so healthy.” Ivan frowned as he regarded the console by the door. “Well, apart from a slightly elevated temperature and heart rate.”

“That’s called stress, Ivan. It is what happens when your dearly beloved steals your life.” Roger stopped pacing and faced them with his arms crossed. “Actually, it’s anger, not stress. I am livid.”

“Spot of good news there.” Mary looked at Ivan for encouragement. “We have been put in charge of analysing your data by Commander Tolworth. Not Professor Isambelle.”

Roger snorted.

“The problem is, your data is encrypted and we don’t want to wait for Dot to drive back with the black box. That’ll take a couple of days.” They looked at Roger expectantly. “So it would be really useful if you could decrypt your data, please.”

Roger regarded them. “Right now, Isambelle will have decrypted the data and will be all over it.”

“No, she has actually been told not to,” Mary interrupted.

“Right, so as stated, she will have decrypted the data.” He stood up straight. “However, if you let me out, I’ll decrypt the data and we can co-author the paper, the three of us. It will have to note that I discovered the artefact first, though.”

“Roger, that isn’t how this works. You do have to help us. Commander Tolworth gave the order himself.”

Roger turned away from them.

“Roger, please, we can’t let you out,” Mary said. “You are in quarantine.”

He stood motionless, waiting. When they didn’t capitulate, he exhaled. “Fine.” Roger sounded deflated. “You win. Pass me your terminal and I’ll give you my access codes.”

Mary exhaled. “That’s more sensible. Thank you. We really appreciate this.”

She pulled on a surgical glove, unlocked the service hatch, and passed through the tablet.

Roger took it and added his user account to it. He held it out to the service hatch.

Mary reached through to grasp it. It was just out of reach, so she leaned forward.

As she gripped the tablet, Roger reached past the glove and gripped her exposed

wrist. “Promise me that you’ll share the credit.”

Mary cried out, “Roger, let go!”

Ivan hovered, powerless to do anything.

Roger released her. “I’m sorry. I’m just frustrated. This should be the greatest moment of my career, but instead I’m stuck here.”

They both scowled at him.

“We understand. But Roger, lashing out won’t achieve anything.” Mary shook her head as Ivan sprayed her wrist with cleanser.

“As I said, I’m really sorry.” He stepped back from the door. “I hope this doesn’t change anything.”

“We’re professionals, aren’t we, Ivan?” Mary looked to her husband, who nodded. “We promise that you will get credit with us.”

As they left, Roger lay down on the bed, his forehead beading with sweat.

He smiled.

Chapter Six

Dot

Dot drove the utility vehicle across the frozen escarpment as the storm weakened to category one. Its wheels crunched across wind-scoured ice, its suspension shuddering whenever hidden ridges caught them beneath the snow. The HUD showed the most efficient, and safest path across the escarpment.

Every now and then the snow would stop falling and the dead, white landscape would open up in front of her.

Her commlink bleeped. “Dot.”

“Dot.” Commander Tolworth sounded stressed. “Command is breathing down my neck, Dot. I think you should come back and take the shuttle. The UES Hummingbird has been reprioritised and is heading to resupply us. We’ll have a new shuttle in under three days.”

“Negative, not unless there is risk of loss of life. If something happens to the second shuttle, then we are without aerial transport.”

“Well, that—“

Dot’s eyes narrowed. “Why is a military frigate this far out? We are nearly a hundred light years away from the closest colony.”

“I’m not privy to the Admiralty’s motives when it comes to fleet deployment and neither are you.” Tolworth paused. He sounded tired. “But, given the significance of the discovery, the faster we obtain the black box, the better.”

“I’m nine hours’ drive from the drop site. If I turn back, it’ll take me four hours.” She gritted her teeth. “No. It is my assessment that the security situation doesn’t warrant breaching protocol.”

“Your obsession with protocol is strangling the investigation. This is a scientific outpost, not a military installation.”

“False.” Dot ended the call.

She had seven messages on her wrist comp. She read the summaries of six of them, archiving them. However, she scrolled through Albright’s message. He was extending quarantine for Roger after noting a mild inflammatory response and a slight fever. She frowned. Infectious illness outbreaks were almost unheard of this far from civilisation.

Decades of military experience told her she was missing something.

She accessed the civilian transponder net, looking for the Hummingbird. It had been routinely pinging its location at Cygnus III until an hour ago, when it had gone dark. She ran a few calculations.

Either it was closer than reported, or it was red lining its engines to get to their location in time.

Why would a naval frigate burn fuel and engine life at full speed for a routine resupply?

And why would it turn off its transponder during peacetime? Fleet vessels didn’t disable their transponders without authorisation from Naval Intelligence.

Dot gunned the utility vehicle’s engines and coaxed extra speed out of it. The rear wheels fishtailed as the vehicle surged forward. She overrode the route planner and cut across less stable terrain. The onboard computer protested immediately, but she’d driven in far worse conditions.

Her grip tightened on the wheel.

Something’s very wrong.

Chapter Seven

Professor Isambelle Hawke

Needs more data.

Isambelle hummed as she took a stimulant. It had been twelve hours now, and she was furious at her lack of progress. They needed a full expedition to the target site. She’d exhausted the data from Roger’s miserable little field notes. As thorough as he’d been, he had still been limited by the tools he’d carried with him.

For all she knew, the glyphs were an alien serial number. Or graffiti. Though being physically engraved into the metal implied they meant something.

There were too many glyphs for a serial number and too few repetitions for a useful linguistic model.

Roger will be out soon.

She gnawed her lip in frustration, feeling the discovery slipping away from her.

Flicking one of her screens to the medbay, she saw Roger lying asleep. Checking his medical results, she saw he’d been sleeping for over ten hours now.

Isambelle couldn’t remember the last time she’d had eight hours’ sleep, let alone ten.

His temperature and blood pressure had lowered. In fact, his resting heart rate and blood pressure were better than they’d ever been recorded.

Her eyes narrowed.

This was not the behaviour of a man who was trying to steal Isambelle’s discovery. This was a man in the kind of harmonious peace that would fill a Buddhist monk with envy.

He knows something.

She left his camera on the screen while she returned to the glyphs. The gin bottle was left half drunk, abandoned, as she focused entirely on solving the problem in front of her.

TOUCH IT.

Isambelle’s eyebrow rose.

Where did that come from?

That was the second time she had seen or thought that phrase. Was someone messing with her?

She played back the recording of her display to check for subliminal messages, then ran the audio recording from her room through her computer to check for audio influences.

Nothing.

If it had been anyone else, she would have put it down to mental instability, or the subconscious. But Isambelle was the smartest woman alive. She growled. An outside influence was trying to manipulate her. Her.

Did Roger put something into her meds? She took a sample of each of her pharmaceutical cocktails and ran them through the sequencer.

Flawless.

She leaned back.

Her commlink chirped. It was Dot. She answered, “Yes?”

“Isambelle, I’ve retrieved the black box and am on my way back, but something has happened to the area here. The ice has melted away...”

“Show me!” Isambelle’s breath hitched.

There was a pause as she waited for the muscle-bound buffoon to operate her wrist comm and stream footage of the metal.

“That’s unlikely,” Isambelle hissed.

“It’s not unlikely. I am watching it now. There must be some sort of heat source that has been activated.”

Isambelle shook her head. “No, you boob. The glyphs. They have changed.”

“Are you sure?”

“Don’t question me, you ox.” Isambelle feverishly forwarded the updated glyphs through her algorithms. “Those glyphs were engraved.”

“And?”

“Engraved things don’t rearrange themselves.”

“It could be a different section of metal.”

The metal looked wet for a moment. Then the glyphs shifted.

TOUCH IT.

TOUCH IT.

TOUCH IT.

The phrase multiplied across the exposed surface until every line said the same thing.

“Isambelle…”

“Yes, yes. I see it too.” Isambelle scratched her temple. “That’s mighty quick to learn our language.”

“Could it be responding to us?”

“Stop it. Just stop trying to contribute.” Isambelle tapped at her keyboard, then blew out her breath. “Maybe, if it is psychic, but it would be the first registered genuine case.”

Chapter Eight

Mary Kowalski

Mary scowled at the screen. The glyphs made no sense to her. “If we don’t translate these before Isambelle, she’ll never let us hear the end of it.” She rubbed at her forehead. It was burning hot.

Sweat dripped down into her eyes.

“Whatever bug Roger has, I must have picked it up at the same time.” She went over to the refrigeration unit and took out an antiviral shot. “I could use a break anyway.”

She pressed the autoinjector to her shoulder, flexing the stiffening tissue.

“Ivan?”

He lurched upright with a snort.

“Ivan! You fell asleep?”

Ivan had the decency to look sheepish. “I’m sorry, my love, we’ve been working on this for nearly fourteen hours now. My eyes are losing focus and I’m pretty sure I’m hearing voices.”

“Come on, my sweet, you’re just tired. Alien life, Ivan. Not moss. Not lichen. Not another tedious protein chain. Alien life. We can retire on this.“ She sighed. “If we don’t solve this, who knows how many other expeditions we’ll be allowed on before we are put out to pasture.”

Ivan came over and hugged her. “We have achieved so much in our lives. Don’t speak like that, my love.”

“Nothing like this though, Ivan. I guess I’m just feeling the pressure.” She gave him a wan smile, then kissed his cheek. “You feel hot too. Perhaps you should give yourself a shot?”

“I’ll make us a pot of tea. Everything feels better after tea.” Ivan put a flask of water onto a burner unit. “Then I’ll give myself a shot, we’ll solve the problem, and celebrate with a little vodka.”

Mary snorted. “When was the last time we drank vodka? You can keep the vodka to yourself. I’m happy with tea.” The break had clearly done her some good. As she looked at the glyphs, they started to make sense in her mind. “Ivan…”

“I see it, Mary.” He started scribbling on a notepad. “Does your translation match mine?”

“Yes, yes.” She wrote a summary of the translation to Commander Tolworth. “Oh, Ivan, Isambelle will be livid.” She chuckled. “Peer review?”

He held up his notepad and grinned at her. “Word for word. We’ve done it. We’ve translated it.”

She hit send as she rubbed at her temple. “I hate antiviral shots. Sometimes I think the side effects are worse than the virus.”

Ivan retrieved two mugs from the cupboard and made two mugs of tea, the long-life milk was an acceptable compromise compared to a trip to the canteen. “Here you are, my dear.” He handed her a painkiller, which she washed down with a glug of milky tea.

“I feel like I should go to Roger.” She stood up, cracking her back. “He is the person responsible for this after all. He needs to know.”

“They all do, dear.” Ivan smiled. “You should see Doctor Albright at the same time.” Ivan passed her a wrench. “While you do that, I’ll go to the command centre and see the Commander.”

“Thank you, darling. That is a great idea.” She passed him an autoinjector. “I’ll see you soon.”

Mary walked down the corridor, wiping the sweat from her forehead as she did. The colours seemed unusually bright, especially given the dismal nature of Outpost U-819.

The medical centre’s doors hissed open.

Doctor Albright was looking weary. They were all looking weary on the base.

“Mary, you arrive with flawless timing. I’ve just been looking at Roger’s results and they’re fascinating. I swear I hadn’t seen anything in his bloodwork until now, but look at—Mary?”

The wrench came down on the side of his head with a metallic clunk. He slumped down onto his desk.

Mary checked his pulse. It was weak but steady. “Now, where did you keep the utility tape, dear?”

She rummaged through the cabinets until finding it with a whoop.

Securing his wrists and ankles, she looked down at him, confirming that he was secure. Then, leaning in, she licked his face from his chin up to his eye.

Chapter Nine

Ivan Kowalski

The corridor was especially vibrant today. Ivan winced at the bright lights as he walked, with a spring in his step, towards the command centre. His shirt clung damply to his back.

He nodded along to the music in his head. He couldn’t recognise the song, but it had a lilting rhythm that reminded him a little bit of Mozart.

The doors hissed open.

Commander Tolworth stood over the main console, the outpost map glowing behind him. Dot’s vehicle was parked by the artefact. Above it, the UES Hummingbird’s projected arrival time was counting down.

“What’s the meaning of this drivel, Ivan?” Commander Tolworth pointed at one of the terminals. Ivan came over and peered at his screen.

“Ah, the translation. We’ve finished it.”

“Finished it?” He raised his eyebrows.

“Yes, sir.” He smiled. “Which part has you confused?”

Tolworth’s face darkened. “Don’t take that tone with me.” He pointed at the screen. The translation window was filled with the same two words, repeated line after line.

TOUCH IT.

TOUCH IT.

TOUCH IT.

He stabbed Ivan in the chest with his finger. “I gave this to you because you were supposed to be the sensible option. Isambelle would have killed for access, and you send me this?”

Ivan reached up to cup Tolworth’s cheek with his sweaty palm before being shoved back.

“What is wrong with you?” Tolworth smeared the sweat from his face onto the cuffs of his naval issue blazer. Moving to the side of the command centre, he pumped antibacterial gel and tried to clean his face.

“You don’t look well. I am ordering you to sickbay for a full physical and psych eval.”

Ivan looked concerned. “Well, I can’t do that, I’m afraid, sir. I’m far too busy.”

“Yes, well, we’ll see about that.” Tolworth took Ivan by the arm and escorted him towards the exit.

Ivan’s free hand pressed the autoinjector against Tolworth’s sleeve. Mary’s little gift hissed through the fabric.

Tolworth grunted and looked down before slumping onto his knees. He tapped his wrist comp and started to slur before Ivan tapped end call.

“No, no. Don’t be silly now. You need more time, but hopefully not too much.” He patted Tolworth on the head as he collapsed. Tolworth’s hand made it halfway to his pulse pistol before his face hit the carpeted floor and he passed out.

Ivan picked up the pistol. “We have so much to do and so little time.”

Chapter Ten

Professor Isambelle Hawke

Isambelle watched the security feed in silence as Mary’s tongue dragged up Dr Albright’s face. The tension made her forget to blink.

“You kinky trollop.” Her voice was subdued. “Dot, you need to get back here.”

“I’m driving as fast as I can.”

“Yes, I’m aware of that, you gigantic pill.” Isambelle’s heart beat rapidly in her chest. “But Mary has lost it and assaulted Dr Albright.” She clicked a few buttons, then saw the medical bay.

The bio-bed was empty.

“And Dot. Roger’s gone.”

Before she could forward the video to Dot, her lab door sealed and the base went into lockdown.

That’s great, Dot. Trap me in a building full of infected people.

Isambelle grabbed the gin and was disgusted to find there were only a few gulps left. She threw the useless bottle at the wall to join the fate of her martini glass.

Dot’s voice boomed over the station speakers. “Outpost U-819 has been sealed due to an ongoing security situation. All employees are instructed to remain where they are until otherwise authorised.”

Isambelle saw an incoming call from Dot. “Download all the medical data you can from the server. I have attempted to send a message to the UES Hummingbird, but they are unresponsive.” Dot ended the call before Isambelle could respond.

And I’m the rude one…

Rewinding the footage of the medbay, she watched Roger being half carried out by Mary. His face mottled with black veins.

He’d been infected. It had to be the metallic object.

Isambelle reopened the channel while she decrypted and downloaded Roger’s medical files. “You didn’t touch the metal artefact, did you?”

“I’m not an idiot, Isambelle.”

She laughed, the nervous tension exaggerating it. “Ah, thank you, Dot. I think we both needed that. That was healing.” She ran through the latest scans. “This isn’t good. The microfractures in Roger’s ribs showed early osteogenic activity.” She paused. “That means he’s healing faster than expected. So why did he need help walking out? And why didn’t the sensors pick up on the bloodwork before? It’s behaving like a fungal infection. Roger’s bloodwork showed hyphal structures threaded through the plasma.”

When Mary had entered the room, she’d been scanned by the medbay computers. Isambelle smirked as she checked the readings. “Well, it’s not all bad news. Mary is infected as well. I dare say we’ll find her dear husband infected too.”

“Can you cure them?” Dot ignored Isambelle’s snide remarks.

“Cure them? Roger was treated with the most potent antifungal medicine known to man. I…” She browsed through the lichen data in her organics library. The native lichen had survived beside the buried metal for centuries. If anything on Rokus IV had adapted to suppress the organism, it would be there. Perhaps both the cause and the solution to her problems were on this ice ball of a world. “Roger? No. Not if these neurological markers are accurate.”

Isambelle checked Mary’s scan. “Mary neither. I might be able to flush any recently infected patients, or prevent infection for a limited period. I have some ideas.”

“Do it. I’m heading back to...” The communication cut off.

“What? Are whole sentences beyond you?” Isambelle looked at her commlink. Its connection had been severed.

She was alone.

Turning to the security monitors, she ran a search until she found Ivan Kowalski locked in the command centre. Commander Tolworth was slumped in his chair. The comms array console had been opened and stripped, cable bundles exposed and hanging from it.

Isambelle was running low on allies. The engineers, Ginger Joe and Kim, were secured in their apartments. They were safe for now, at least.

She went back to reviewing the command centre. Ivan was now dragging Tolworth towards the botanical library.

Temperature and humidity controlled. A perfect breeding ground for fungal organisms.

And where she needed to go.

Isambelle looked over at the door. It was sealed by the security lockdown, but she would be able to override it.

A stab of fear ran through her gut.

Perhaps she should hide out until Dot arrived at the base. Then together they could retrieve the lichen samples and Isambelle could manufacture a cure, or at least an antifungal agent to prevent infection.

No. If the Kowalskis were loose in the base, it wouldn’t be hard for them to find weapons, or tools to get through the door, and Dot was hours away.

Ivan was already dragging Tolworth into the botanical library. If she waited, the samples would be contaminated, destroyed, or worse, used.

She looked around for any weapons.

Then, looking at her equipment cabinet, she smiled.

She would have to make some.

There were two things that Isambelle hated. Bio suits and physical exercise. So, lurching through the base corridors while trying to avoid homicidal colleagues, she was having a decidedly unpleasant time.

It wasn’t far to the botanical library, but the twisted corridors and the confines of her suit inhibited her visibility and hearing.

Worse, by opening her quarters, she had broken the seal and exposed the room to the base air. If the infection was airborne, it meant her personal sanctuary was now compromised.

Her wrist comp had a list of the prospective lichen samples that she had previously mapped out as having antifungal properties. She’d intended to sell them on when her tenure had ended, but now had a more immediate need for them.

She lurched to a stop in front of the botanical library.

Standing in front of the door was Mary. Thick black veins spread across her exposed face and hands, and she held a wrench in one hand.

“Ah, Mary. Don’t suppose you fancy letting me by?”

“Take off the helmet, Professor.”

Isambelle reached for her belt. “Oh no, that doesn’t work for me.”

Her head was clear. No rogue compulsions or intrusive commands.

Gin, stimulants, pain suppressants. One of the cheekies in her bloodstream was meddling with the signal.

Isambelle started to smile, then stopped as she realised that Mary had continued to approach her. She leapt back to avoid the descending wrench. Mary overbalanced as it struck the wall where Isambelle’s head had been, denting the panel.

Her hand snapped out with a scalpel, the blade sinking deep into Mary’s throat. Isambelle pulled it free and stepped back with a wolfish grin.

“Can’t say I didn’t enjoy that.”

The grin faded as the slit in Mary’s throat puckered, black threads knitting through the blood. Mary’s free hand clamped around Isambelle’s forearm. The suit hardened under the pressure.

The hell!

Panicking, she pulled one of her improvised flasks of industrial tissue solvent from her belt, unstopped it, and hurled the contents at Mary. “In your face!”

Mary staggered, her flesh blistering and sloughing away, exposing the bone beneath. Her eyes collapsed into steaming fluid. One hand still searched silently for Isambelle’s helmet.

‘SEAL INTEGRITY: 91%’ flashed across Isambelle’s visor as vapour licked over the suit seals.

Isambelle shoved past Mary, pausing to give her a swift kick in the gut, then, feeling significantly better, ran into the main botanical library, adrenaline pumping through her veins.

Warm mist rolled between the specimen racks. Glass cylinders glowed green and amber in the light. Condensation crawled down the glass like sweat. Consulting the list on her wrist comp, she quickly found the first two samples she had an interest in before grinding to a halt, her eyes widening at the sight of Roger.

Roger lay in the centre of the specimen racks, naked, black veins branching across his ribs. Fine white filaments stitched him to the floor grating. A vibrantly coloured fungal bloom had erupted from his chest and covered half of his body. His face was peaceful. Infuriatingly peaceful. She had never seen him look so content. In a way, it was almost smug.

TOUCH IT.

Her gloved hand twitched towards Roger.

Not that again.

She reached to her wrist comp, triggering her suit’s medical system, and chose one of her favourite medical pick me ups. The stimulant hit like a white flare behind her eyes. For half a second, the room fractured into colour. Then the voice vanished. Her suit warned her that her blood pressure had entered the red zone. She needed a better way to inhibit the voice.

Is Dot hearing it too? Or was distance enough?

Her gaze lingered on Roger for a while longer. He didn’t deserve this.

She clicked her tongue, shaking her head with regret, then headed back to the racks to find the remaining samples.

As she hurried to the room’s only exit, she found Dr Albright and Commander Tolworth. They stood patiently, their bodies obstructing her departure. Mary stood between them. Her blistered face had no eyes now, only fungal orbs raised on white stalks.

“Take off the helmet, Professor,” they said in unison.

“Only one more and you can be a barbershop quartet,” she squeaked. She hated that she squeaked.

Arms full of samples and outnumbered, Isambelle once again regretted not swapping places with that overmuscled protocol fetishist, Dot.

Isambelle stood watching them. They glowered back at her. After about two minutes, they repeated their order for her to remove her helmet.

They are waiting it out. Waiting for the drugs to wear off.

She checked her heart rate on her wrist comp. It would have been high enough with all the running, fighting and sassing, but the stimulants were raising it even higher.

New plan.

Marching to the botanical library console, she smirked. She reduced the humidity to zero and increased the heat to maximum.

She heard movement. Turning, she saw the infected station crew lumbering towards her, their earlier coordination lost. Roger was no longer still. His body fused to the plating. One leg was no longer recognisably a leg, only a rootlike column fused into the grating. He was limited to flailing his arms.

Isambelle approached them. They looked like drunkards leaving a cheap pub, their arms outstretched towards her, a silent scream in their mouths. The fungal growths seemed to darken. When they got closer, Isambelle sprinted at them. Dodging to one side, she used the racks to her advantage and slipped down the side before emerging by the exit.

I’m free! Suck on that, darlings!

She reached the four-way junction outside the botanical library, the precious samples held tight awkwardly in her arms. Heat flashed across her thigh. For one awful second, she smelled cooked polymer inside the helmet. She stumbled, almost dropping her cargo, before correcting her gait. She risked a look to see Ivan stood at the far junction, calmly holstering Tolworth’s pulse pistol.

“You fetid whelk!” She puffed, sliding round the corner of the corridor, then kept running, until she collapsed, leaning on a wall and breathing heavily. Decades of desk work had left her utterly unsuited to desperate escapes.

She continued running until she was back in her lab, locking the door behind her.

It was as she panted that she saw the flashing alert in her helmet visor.

‘SEAL INTEGRITY: 0%’

The pulse had burned through the outer seal, she felt base air whispered across her exposed skin.

Swiping her arm across her desk she sent glass instruments crashing to the floor. “No! Not me, not me!“ She glared at the empty surface of the desk, rage blotting out her ability to think.

Isambelle was infected.

Chapter Eleven

Dot

The base was quiet as Dot approached in the utility vehicle. She felt wired, as combat drugs flooded her system. Every sensation felt sharper, her jaw was clenched tight and she could feel the old rage building up within her.

It had been eight hours since she’d last communicated with anyone. Parking outside the closest entrance to Isambelle’s lab, the vehicle crunched to a halt on the icy, snow strewn rock. The exterior lights were powered down, and the automatic doors remained closed. She checked the security feed. Most of the internal cameras were down. The few that remained showed only fogged lenses and streaks of condensation. Visually, she couldn’t spot movement behind the exterior glass but the condensation running down inside of the glass made it hard to see.

Isambelle’s last message replayed in her mind.

‘Listen closely, meathead. I’ve rerouted comms to send this message, but it’s impossible to know how long I’ll be able to communicate. As far as I’m aware, everyone in the base is infected by now. Including me.’

Dot opened the armoury rack.

‘The infected rapidly become hosts to some kind of fungal organism. It controls both the body and mind. They will try to infect you by physical force or via some kind of neurological or psionic compulsion. I’m not labelling it until I have had time to research it more thoroughly.’

She took the combat shotgun first. She had replaced the crowd-suppression rounds with her own supply of tungsten shot shells. Her pulse pistol was holstered at her hip. Three stun grenades on her belt. The utility axe across her back had been with her since the academy.

‘I don’t yet know how it works, but I’ve been able to block it with some of my chemical darlings. Your best hope is to flood your system with maximum dose pain suppressors and those combat drugs you claim are for amateurs and people who skip leg day.’

Dot pumped the shotgun, loading the first shell into the chamber.

‘I think I have a suppressive agent, but it’ll take time to synthesise. I’ll need longer for an actual cure. My suit was compromised, so I’ve placed my sweet, sweet body into an emergency preservation pod until the agent is ready. You’ll need to get into my laboratory and wake me when you get back.’

Of course she’d got herself infected.

‘The pod will respond only to your security override. Do not open it unless the synthesis cycle reads complete. The second it opens, the organism will continue spreading through my system. It must not, under any circumstances, reach my superior brain.’

External communications were still down, and the Hummingbird still hadn’t responded to her previous attempts to contact it. She was having to rely on a civilian, a civilian to help her.

Dot snarled, raised her shotgun, then used her security override on the airlock. She activated her night vision and stepped into darkness.

The cramped corridors were warm, the rockcrete walls dripping with condensation from the humidity. Dot wished she had her old Legionnaire battle armour from the marines. Her suit was working overtime to keep her visor clear. The lights flickered. Someone was redirecting the base’s power.

Turning the corner, she ducked back as a pulse pistol blast exploded past where her head had been.

Missed.

She growled. Reaching down to her belt, she pulled out a stun grenade and tossed it down the corridor. It blew. The blast hammered the corridor. Even shielded by her suit, Dot’s ears rang.

She stepped out and fired.

The first shell removed most of Ivan’s torso. The second took his head. Next to him, Ginger Joe and Kim, the maintenance engineers, were working on the door, the plasma torch almost completely through the containment seals.

Good. They haven’t got to Isambelle yet.

Kim reached for Ivan’s pistol.

Dot’s shotgun boomed again, this time relying on a single headshot. As Kim collapsed, Ginger Joe put down the plasma torch and mindlessly reached for the pistol, joining his wife in her fate.

That’s new.

Ivan’s body was stitching itself together, black strands of fibrous material moving to replace the destroyed tissue, a giant round fungal bloom replacing his head.

Grimacing, Dot pulled her axe clear. She rubbed her thumb down the scratched and worn metal shaft before dismembering the bodies and throwing the limbs as far away from each other as she could in the cramped confines.

The door was ruined. Even with a security override, there was no way in without completing the engineers’ work with the plasma torch. Reloading her shotgun, she put it within easy reach. She picked up Ivan’s pulse pistol and attached it to her belt. Behind her, wet fibres clicked against the floor. She looked back warily as tissue started to grow from the separated limbs, then got to work. The searing scent of molten metal and medical-grade sealant stung her nose as she burnt through the final seal.

With the seals broken and a large rectangular hole cut through the door’s thick body, Dot kicked the centre and watched the heavy metal crash onto a workbench. She reached down, threw it to one side, and clambered through the small hole, her visor flaring warning signs as the hot edges threatened to damage her suit. The hole had been designed for a scrawny civilian, not the massive form of Dot. She cracked her back as she made her way through, looking back to see that the body parts of Ginger Joe, Kim, and Ivan had formed a giant black web of material, which was now contracting towards itself.

No head.

Dot ground her teeth. What she wouldn’t give for a thermal grenade.

Grabbing the ruined door, she leant it against the hole as a partial barricade, then, with a grunt, pushed over one of Isambelle’s workbenches to hold it in place. It wouldn’t hold for long, but would at least stop anything creeping in.

Dot looked around the laboratory for the synthesiser. It was whirring, and a series of vials had been filled. As she watched, another one clicked into the rack. Three racks were full. Two chambers were still cycling. The display showed compound chains, temperature curves, but no percentage progress bar.

She tapped her armoured boot against the floor. It was clearly still doing something, but how would she know if it had completed one or more of the suppressive agents?

Dammit Isambelle, leave a note telling me what completed looks like.

The workbench scraped behind her. There was a thump, followed by a gigantic crash as if something had smashed against it.

Hissing, she made a judgement call and tapped her security code into the preservation pod. There was a loud hum, then the lid opened, and Isambelle reached up to remove the tube from her throat. She started coughing as her throat cleared. She stumbled out, blinking in the low illumination from the emergency lights.

“Gargh,” she said in greeting to Dot, then reached out to the table next to her and grabbed a bottle, taking a long pull from it, her throat convulsing as the liquid poured straight down. Then she took a small autoinjector with six needles and pressed it down on her neck. It emptied itself into her spine, and she cooed with pleasure.

“Is that hex?” Dot picked up the spent device.

Isambelle rubbed her neck. “Sure, excellent plan. Arrest me. I had to do something, the voice in my head was deafening.”

Dot scowled at her. “We have at least three hostiles outside. I’ve destroyed their heads and dismembered them, but they don’t seem to be dying. They seem to be changing into something else.”

“I should have stayed asleep.” Isambelle went over to the synthesiser, removed several vials, and loaded them into autoinjectors. She injected herself with two of them, then handed the first vial to Dot, who looking at the barricade, hastily clicked the first one into her suit’s medical bracer. A sense of euphoria rose within her, and she resisted the urge to smile.

“That’ll suppress the infection?”

Isambelle shook her head, handing over the second one. “No. This one will.”

“So, what was in the first vial?”

“Hmmm? Oh, that was to stop you being grumpy.”

Dot reached out and grabbed Isambelle by the throat.

“Gawk.”

Dot tightened her grip.

Isambelle slapped at her wrist until Dot released her.

“Never drug me without my consent again.”

Isambelle rubbed at her bruised throat. “What I was trying to say before you rudely assaulted me was that it will also block the entity’s compulsions.” She looked up and down the furious giant. “Looks like you need a stronger dose.”

“Suppressant?” Dot grumbled, as Isambelle handed her the second vial.

Isambelle nodded.

Dot released it into her system, then spun with her shotgun raised as the workbench was smashed back into the room, she glanced at the ammunition display, eight shells left.

Chapter Twelve

Professor Isambelle Hawke

Isambelle peered into the corridor.

“Merge with us. Gain hundreds of millennia of knowledge.” Ivan’s head was raised on a stalk and wavering.

Isambelle shuddered. Fear ran down her spine. “Merge with you?“ She went to her cabinet and began pulling out components. “Why would I water down my genius with your stupidity?”

She held up a fat, ugly cylinder made from solvent canisters, magnesium ribbon, and tape. “Open the door, meathead.”

“Is that a fuse?” Swearing, Dot pulled aside the barricade.

“Yes.”

“Is it reliable?”

Isambelle lit the fuse and then hurled her creation down the corridor. “I refuse to justify that with an answer.”

Dot pushed the barricade back into place as the corridor turned white, a ferocious heat exploding from the corridor. In the back of their minds, even through the chemical haze blocking the compulsion, they heard a muted scream. “I was just thinking, a thermite grenade would do the job.”

“Claiming credit for my invention? Unbelievable.” Isambelle frantically worked on her bench. “Besides, that wasn’t a weapon. Weapons are for idiots. That was a grossly irresponsible sterilisation event.”

Lifting the barricade slightly, Dot peered into the corridor. “It’s burning out.”

“Good. By the way, you’re welcome.” Isambelle smirked at Dot.

“What?”

“Violence is supposed to be your job.”

Dot’s jaw tightened.

Isambelle moved the remaining incendiaries closer to the door. “We just have to hold out until the Hummingbird arrives. Then we can escape this ghastly place.”

Dot snorted.

“What? You don’t think you can hold off the remaining crew? I made you sterilisation devices.”

“The Hummingbird isn’t coming to save us.”

Isambelle froze.

“I said…”

“My ears work perfectly well, you wart. I am just trying to understand why exactly you think we are being abandoned.”

Dot took up position and watched down the corridor. “Standard quarantine breach protocol. Retrieve a sealed sample. Burn the site. No survivors. I’ve run extraction missions before.”

Isambelle’s heart pounded. “They want to steal my discovery?”

Dot turned to look her in the eye. “Focus on the fact that they are going to glass the site with us in it.”

“Steal my discovery!” Isambelle shook with rage. “Mine!”

“If we get to the shuttle, we might be able to escape, break line of sight behind the planet, hide in a valley, but…”

“I’ll rig the fusion reactor.” Isambelle began clawing at the barricade. “If I can’t have the credit, then I’ll make sure that nobody does.”

Dot gripped it and pulled it to one side. “You can do that? I thought the whole point of fusion reactors was that they couldn’t blow up?”

“I can make anything blow up. That’s why I’m a professor.” Isambelle grabbed one of the incendiary devices and passed a rack of the suppressant to Dot, before stomping through the ashes of the three infected crew.

“Wait. Slow down. I’ll take point.” Dot jogged past her. “This is a hostile environment.”

“Go get ’em, thug.” Isambelle followed behind her. “Lead us to the generator room. I can do it from there.”

Thin black strands stretched along the corridor walls, like mycelial webs.

“That’s too much mass to be fed by just a few infected bodies. They’ve found a new food source,” Isambelle puffed, keeping up with Dot as she checked her corners and led them at pace through the small compound.

“Wait.” Isambelle pointed down the corridor. “The threads are leading down there.”

“So? The objective is just down here.”

“That’s the primary biomass source.” Isambelle started running down towards the canteen. “I want to see it.”

Dot grabbed her. “No, you don’t.”

“It’s Mr Chef, I know it! He’s been infected.”

“Who cares? Stick to the objective.”

Isambelle elbowed Dot, bruising her elbow for no perceived effect. “The strands are converging there. If that’s their biomass source, burning it will hurt it bad.” She paused. “Also, I need to bomb that smug little machine.”

“So now it’s a bomb.” Dot released Isambelle, who brushed herself down. “Fine, but I take point.”

“Bombs are justified when dealing with judgemental computers.” Isambelle gestured for Dot to overtake. “By all means.”

The canteen was home to a huge, pulsing organism. Fungal ropes had climbed into the feed hoppers, pumping slurry through the chef unit’s cracked mouth. The air smelled of yeast and rotten flesh. Even through the chemical haze that fogged her mind, Isambelle heard the voice.

TOUCH IT.

Condensation dripped from the ceiling. The animated chef was still smiling despite a cracked display. Its voice sounded distorted. Moisture had got into the speakers. “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.”

“Oh, chew on this.” Isambelle threw her device. The suit’s stiff shoulder joint ruined her aim. It skidded a few metres across the floor and stopped near the entrance, fuse spitting.

Dot ran forward, scooped it up, and threw it into the centre of the throbbing mass. “Leave the weapons to me, Professor.”

“Sterilisation devices,” Isambelle snapped, as Dot grabbed her, half carrying her as they sprinted out of the canteen and round the corner. There was a loud ‘whump’ sound, and Isambelle rubbed her temple as a shriek cut through the drugs. She tapped on her wrist comp, releasing a stimulant. Her heart rate increased, sweat breaking out across her skin, and not because of the flaming inferno behind her.

“We need to move faster.” Dot grabbed her by the shoulder and drove her towards the generator room.

Chapter Thirteen

Professor Isambelle Hawke

The generator room was no longer the industrial heart of the base. Tendrils were weaving in and out of the panels. Mary’s head was mounted on the console.

Isambelle ran to it, batting the head off the panel. “Didn’t I murder you already?”

Mary’s head lay inert until the threads worming across the floor found her skull. “Join us and become eternal.”

Dot stamped on the head. It crumpled under her boot as she took up a position next to Isambelle. “How long do you need?”

Something moved in the steam behind the coolant tanks.

“A few minutes. You can speed up the process by clearing away the threads connecting to the console. They are trying to stop me.” Isambelle was typing furiously. “I can’t just force a meltdown, or it’ll aerosolise the infection. It must be a controlled explosion.”

A crack sounded, and Dot fell against the console. She grunted, then her shotgun boomed.

“Wonderful. More pressure.” Isambelle refused to be distracted as the sounds of combat erupted behind her. Her wrist comp flashed, showing her heart rate as being in the red zone.

“Professor…” Dot said warily. The sounds of shotgun fire ended, replaced by the snap hiss of pulse pistol fire.

“I know, I know.” Isambelle continued working as the emergency lights triggered and the sirens sounded. “I did it! Now, sever the—“

Dot was on the floor. Blood spilled from two burned holes in her side. Her pistol wavered as it aimed at the entrance, where three bodies were slowly rebuilding themselves. Isambelle triggered the medical suite on Dot’s suit. The holes sealed, Isambelle hissed at the sight of the spilled blood. Dot’s pistol fell to the floor.

“You idiot. You’ve got yourself killed.” She looked up at the red lights and sirens. “And we have less than five minutes to get out of the blast zone.”

“Not dead yet,” Dot grunted.

She dragged a maintenance trolley over with one hand and hooked both arms under Dot’s shoulders. “Argh, you fat cow.”

“I still have a gun.” Dot’s eyes remained closed as she murmured.

Isambelle strained to lift the musclebound security chief, cursing as she levered her onto a trolley.

“She lives!”

Dot slid back into unconsciousness.

“Not for much longer, though.” Isambelle gave a worried glance at the corpses knitting back together, then back to Dot, sprawled over the trolley bed. She took the last incendiary, grabbed the handle, pushed the trolley over the bodies, then tossed the incendiary behind her and set off at a jog.

She was thrown forward by the blast. Gripping the rail, she steadied herself and then continued jogging towards the shuttle. Her vision blurred as a deadly combination of drugs and exercise wreaked havoc on her body.

Isambelle pushed herself harder as the hangar bay loomed in front of her.

I’m never doing cardio again.

Over the base speakers, she heard Roger’s voice. He sounded peaceful, serene. “Stay with us, Izzy. We offer happiness. We offer recognition.”

Isambelle pushed the trolley up the ramp to the shuttle. “Go suck on vacuum, Roger dear,” she yelled into the air.

Then she hammered at the open hatch button.

QUARANTINE LOCKOUT: LAUNCH DENIED.

“Of course it is.” She dragged Dot’s limp wrist over the console and pressed her security seal to the reader. “Don’t mind me.” The ramp slowly descended and hit the ground with a clunk.

With a last effort, she pushed Dot into the back of the Mule.

Running to the cockpit, she set up the autopilot to take them to the far side of the planet. Weather warning icons flashed at her, but she overrode the complaints and sped through the setup.

As the shuttle flew into the air, she returned to see what she could do with Dot’s injuries.

“Don’t die.” Dot’s face was pale as Isambelle sealed the burns. “I need someone to fetch and carry.”

The shuttle lurched.

Behind them, Outpost U-819 became a second sun.

Chapter Fourteen

Professor Isambelle Hawke

The shuttle dropped behind the curve of Rokus IV on autopilot.

Dot lay strapped into the rear crash couch, pale beneath the smear of blood drying across her jaw. Her suit had sealed the wounds, but the medical display was a mess of blood loss warnings, cardiac stress alerts, and internal trauma estimates.

“If you see the light, try to avoid walking towards it.” Isambelle had the shuttle’s medical kit out and was administering plasma. “I’ve had a very trying day, and I won’t let you ruin it.”

Dot did not answer.

The Mule skimmed low over a frozen valley, its engines whining as the autopilot fought the crosswinds. Behind them, where Outpost U-819 had been, the horizon glowed orange white. The explosion had punched a false dawn into the storm.

The console chirped.

ACTIVE SENSOR SWEEP DETECTED.

Isambelle froze.

“Oh, wonderful.”

Above the planet, the UES Hummingbird had arrived.

The frigate slid across the tactical display as a pale blue icon, vast, elegant, and murderous. It came in cold, running dark until the last possible moment.

Dot had been right.

That was becoming an irritating habit.

The Hummingbird passed over the remains of the outpost. For a few seconds, nothing happened. Isambelle leaned forward, watching the sensor feed, her fingers hovering uselessly over the controls.

Then the sky opened and mass driver rounds rained from orbit.

The first strike hit the crater where the outpost had been. The second obliterated the ridge where the relic waited. The rock vapourised, and ice flashed into steam. Fire rolled across the dead landscape as missiles continued to tear into the artefact site.

The Mule bucked as the shockwave caught them.

Isambelle grabbed the edge of the console, swore, and overrode the autopilot before it could climb.

“No, no, no. Stay low, you stupid little box.”

More strikes fell behind them. Every trace of the artefact. The organism. Every trace of Roger, Mary, Ivan, Albright, Tolworth, Ginger Joe, Kim, and whatever else had been born inside those walls.

Every trace of Isambelle’s greatest discovery.

She felt a sharp, irrational pang of grief.

Then rage burned it away.

A priority broadcast cut across every open channel.

The screen lit with the seal of United Earth Security Command.

A woman in naval dress uniform appeared, her face smooth, composed, and professionally sorrowful. Behind her hung the blue and white banner of United Earth.

“Citizens of United Earth, we interrupt all colonial bands for an urgent security announcement.”

Isambelle stared.

“At 04:17 colony time, Outpost U-819 on Rokus IV was destroyed in an act of treasonous sabotage. Preliminary investigation confirms that former Royal Marine Sergeant Dorothy Black, acting in concert with disgraced corporate scientist Professor Isambelle Hawke, sabotaged the outpost’s fusion core following the deaths of senior scientific and command personnel.”

Dot’s eyes flickered.

Isambelle turned slowly towards her. “Did you hear that? They called me disgraced.”

Dot’s lips moved, but no sound came out.

“They put their statement together fast. Too fast. They prepared it in advance.”

Isambelle stopped talking and listened.

“Recovered transmission fragments suggest Black and Hawke intended to sell restricted biological material to hostile corporate interests.”

Isambelle’s breathing slowed.

“I mean, obviously, I was going to sell it.”

Dot, barely conscious, muttered, “You are the worst.”

On the screen, the officer lowered her gaze with practised solemnity.

“We mourn the innocent lives lost at Outpost U-819. The brave civilian staff stationed on Rokus IV died in service to humanity’s frontier.”

Isambelle smirked. “Innocent?”

The broadcast shifted. Two images appeared beside the officer.

Dot’s service portrait and Isambelle’s academic record photo.

“Both suspects are presumed dead in the fusion core detonation. United Earth Security Command nevertheless asks citizens to report any sightings, communications, or associated materials.”

Her suit hit her with another stimulant. Dot’s eyes opened properly this time.

Isambelle glanced back at the orbital display. The Hummingbird had begun a widening bombardment pattern. It was burning the surrounding valley, the crash site, the caves, and the artefact.

Her artefact.

“Can you fly?” Dot asked.

“How hard can it be?” Isambelle snapped. “But the shuttle thinks it can, so I don’t need to.”

“Land in the valley network. They’ll be deploying a shell of sensor drones in orbit, with the Hummingbird on high alert. If they find us, they’ll destroy us.”

“Yes, thank you, Captain Corpse. I had deduced that being shot by a warship would be inconvenient.”

Isambelle’s thigh burned under the sealed patch, and she injected another dose of the suppressant.

I need a proper lab to make a full cure.

The shuttle plunged into a thermal canyon. Steam boiled across the glass.

Dot exhaled and slipped back into unconsciousness.

The shuttle landed with a thud.

For the first time in years, Isambelle had no institution, no title, no laboratory, and no career.

What she did have was one wounded marine, three vials of suppressant, and a battered shuttle.

“Right.” Her eyes narrowed. “First, I make a cure, then we utterly ruin them.”

THE END

Tales of the Macabre

You can find my stories on Amazon, as Kindle Unlimited, eBook, Paperback or Hardback.

This collection of stories is designed for quick reads, whether over a coffee or during a commute. Either way, they promise to deliver exquisitely disturbing nightmares that gaze without flinching into the abyss—and linger in the mind long after.

FREE on Kindle Unlimited

Available to order on AMAZON.

Welcome to the complete collected works of Newton Webb. Tales of the Macabre, Vol. 1-4 are intended for mature audiences.

Read a collection of free short stories or listen to free audiobooks by Newton Webb on his website.

Visit my website

Newt's Nightmares

1. News

2. Tales of the Macabre, Vol. 1 £0.99 UK deal

3. June / July Free Stories

4. FREE Horror Story Compilations

5. Recommended Horror Books

Greetings, my wicked darlings!

London Pride was an absolute scream. Thank you to everyone who came along. It was a ball, and while my liver, self-respect, and dignity were thoroughly destroyed on the dance floor, it was a truly memorable event.

To commemorate it, I released two queer horror stories as free downloads last month: Invasion of the Hipster Beards and The Coconut Killer.

I also released four more stories, which I’ve listed in more detail below: Til Death Do Us Part, A Civic Duty, A Taste of Sin and The Cold Dead Sea.

This month, I’ve got some chonky novellas for you. One is set during the Second World War. The other takes place in the far future. I’m really looking forward to seeing what you think of them.

Next month is the final month before the deadline for Tales of the Macabre, Vol. 5. That means three more stories, and then I’ll be using my new recording setup to produce free audiobooks, which I’ll mix in with my short stories and novellas.

I can’t wait to choose the stories for TotM 5.

Sweet screams,

Newt xx

Amazon is currently offering Tales of the Macabre, Vol. 1 for just £0.99 in the UK.

Sadly, the deal is UK-only. I don’t know if Jeff Bezos is still punishing Americans for that whole tea party business, but apparently the discount stops at the border.

Given the choice, I’d offer it to everyone.

A Taste of Sin

A Contemporary Urban Fantasy Horror Short Story

Eat the soul, steal the skin. Maeve thought she was the only fetch in London until a chance encounter revealed the truth.

Til Death Do Us Part

A Renaissance Folk Horror Short Story

On the eve of her wedding, Elizabeth, a terrified bride-to-be, accepts a devilish bargain to have a mysterious stranger marry her loathsome groom.

A Civic Duty

A Contemporary Psychological Horror Short Story

In a picturesque English village, Lenny, a portly semi-retired private detective, must face his past.

The Cold Dead Sea

A World War 2 Occult Horror Short Story

Ignatius Barnes, a downed RAF pilot in WWII, discovers a secret Nazi U-boat pen, only to find there are far worse things than Germans.

Using your Downloads

The ePub file should work with most e-readers. For Kindle, use Send to Kindle and upload the ePub file here:

UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/sendtokindle

US: https://www.amazon.com/sendtokindle

Horror Story Promotions

Summertime Terrors: 35 FREE horror stories, including: ‘The Enigmatic Skeleton’, ‘The Doll House Killer’, ‘The Road Revenant’, ‘The Spinster’ and ‘Gomorrah’.

The Dark Fiction Summer Sale: 54 horror stories, including ‘Tales of the Macabre, Vol. 1’, ‘Tales of the Macabre, Vol. 2’, ‘Tales of the Macabre, Vol. 3,’ ‘Tales of the Macabre, Vol. 4.’ and ‘Tales of the Macabre: Books 1-4’.

Recommended Horror Books

I read eight books in June. It’s been an excellent month, but really, the highlights were once again, mostly Ash Ericmore (six Ash books this month!):

• Rideshare by James Kaine and Timothy King: I’ve been a huge Timothy King fan since Seven Rabbits. Rideshare is a superb collection of four interwoven stories. It had me so hooked that not only did I hoover it up, but since then, I’ve started on a full blown James Kaine binge, reading Devil of the Pines (truly magnificent!) and Mischief Night which is also exceptional already.

• Kitten Club Monstrosity / Cure What Ails: A Double Feature of Horror Fiction by Ash Ericmore: Well, that’s a mouthful of a title. A novella double bill, with the first story being my favourite, but both were excellent. I have been working my way through the Double Feature series of Absolute Horror and am up to volume six now. I read five of them in June.

• Candlegloom / The Moth Eater: A Double Feature of Horror Fiction: It’s hard to pick favourites from the six I’ve read so far, but I restricted myself to three, so them’s the breaks grumbles. The Moth Eater was superb and had a wonderful Ragman feel to it. While I really loved Candlegloom, The Moth Eater had a wonderful pulp noir feel to it that really stayed with me.

Tales of the Macabre

You can find my stories on Amazon, available in Kindle Unlimited, eBook, Paperback or Hardback.

This collection of stories is designed for quick reads, whether over a coffee or during a commute. Either way, they promise to deliver exquisitely disturbing nightmares that gaze without flinching into the abyss, and linger in the mind long after.

FREE on Kindle Unlimited

Available to order on AMAZON.

Welcome to the complete collected works of Newton Webb. Tales of the Macabre, Vols. 1-4 are intended for mature audiences.

Read a collection of free short stories or listen to free audiobooks by Newton Webb on his website.

Visit my website

Contents

1. Scream for Pride

2. Horror Story Compilations

3. Invasion of the Hipster Beards / The Coconut Killer

Happy Pride, my wicked darlings!

As a notorious homosexual, Pride has always been important to me. Before I was published as Newton Webb, the easiest way to find me in print was to look for the Name and Shame column in the Soho Tribune.

London Pride began in 1972 as protest, defiance, and glorious public misbehaviour, so naturally I consider it part of my professional heritage.

I’m heading into London today to continue in this proud tradition, but for those of you unable to enjoy the parade, I’ve included two of my most popular queer stories: Invasion of the Hipster Beards and The Coconut Killer.

Below are two photos from previous years: one from my brief reign as TfL’s poster child for Pride, and one from the parade itself.

Sweet Screams,

Newt

FREE Horror Story Compilations

If you want more nightmares, you can also find my work, and others’, here:

Summertime Terrors: 35 FREE horror stories, including: ‘The Enigmatic Skeleton’, ‘The Doll House Killer’, ‘The Road Revenant’, ‘The Spinster’ and ‘Gomorrah’.

The Dark Fiction Summer Sale: 54 horror stories, including ‘Tales of the Macabre, Vol. 1’, ‘Tales of the Macabre, Vol. 2’, ‘Tales of the Macabre, Vol. 3,’ ‘Tales of the Macabre, Vol. 4.’ and ‘Tales of the Macabre: Books 1-4’.

Download Invasion of the Hipster Beards

Download The Coconut Killer

The ePub file should work with most e-readers. For Kindle, use Send to Kindle and upload the ePub file here:

UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/sendtokindle
US: https://www.amazon.com/sendtokindle

Tales of the Macabre

You can find my stories on Amazon, as Kindle Unlimited, eBook, Paperback or Hardback.

This collection of stories is designed for quick reads, whether over a coffee or during a commute. Either way, they promise to deliver exquisitely disturbing nightmares that gaze without flinching into the abyss—and linger in the mind long after.

FREE on Kindle Unlimited

Available to order on AMAZON.

Welcome to the complete collected works of Newton Webb. Tales of the Macabre, Vol. 1-4 are intended for mature audiences.

Read a collection of free short stories or listen to free audiobooks by Newton Webb on his website.

Visit my website

1. Introduction

2. Download Shadow of the Wolf

3. Read Online

4. Horror Story Compilations

Read more

Contents

1. Horror Story Compilations

2. Til Death Do Us Part

Reader Survey

I’m running a quick one-question poll to better understand my readers and help me reach more people who enjoy my books.

Premium subscribers get early access to new stories, but those stories will always make their way to free subscribers later. Feedback from all readers is vitally important to me, especially when deciding which stories should be included in future collections.

FREE Horror Story Compilations

Summer Screams: 47 FREE horror stories, including: ‘The Enigmatic Skeleton’, ‘The Doll House Killer’, ‘The Spinster’, ‘The Leprechaun’ and ‘Ain’t Nothin’ But The Blues’.

The Dark Fiction Summer Sale: 41 horror stories, including ‘Tales of the Macabre, Vol. 1’, ‘Tales of the Macabre, Vol. 2’, ‘Tales of the Macabre, Vol. 3,’ ‘Tales of the Macabre, Vol. 4.’ and ‘Tales of the Macabre: Books 1-4’.

Til Death Do Us Part

By Newton Webb

Download ePub / PDF

14 May 1598, Suffolk, England

The last of the sun faded, and with it any hope that the wedding would be called off. Elizabeth sat on the edge of her bed, wearing her best dress, a blue gown inherited from her mother and taken in to fit her slighter frame.

Her aunts had been buzzing around her all day, adjusting her gown, plying her with broth and small beer to keep her strength up. The male members of the family were sleeping at her uncle’s tonight. Only women remained in the house. She had not been alone once.

The door opened without knocking.

Nobody was knocking today.

“Eliza?” Her mother, Joan, sat down next to her on the edge of the bed. She did not make eye contact.

“Yes, mother?”

“You are to be a wife. You know what is required.” Her mother spoke in a clipped, awkward tone.

“I am to obey.”

Her mother coughed. “You will lie with him and give him children. God wills it.”

“I understand.”

“No, you do not. No girl does.” She paused. “The first time will hurt. It will sting, and you will be sore. It is so for all wives. It does not last. Do not lie still as stone. Let him know you are a maiden. He must see you are untouched.”

Tears pricked at Elizabeth’s eyes. “Mumma, I do not want to marry Edward.”

Her mother slapped her cheek. She locked eyes with Elizabeth for the first time, her face hardening. “You selfish child.” She looked down at the floor as her daughter wept. “This is about your family. Our sheep and their looms will raise the family from our shame.”

“I am sorry.” Elizabeth sniffed.

“If you would have a child, go to him after your courses. You are clean then. Strong alcohol or ale will help him. When he is done, lie still. Raise your hips. Keep his seed in you.”

She felt sick at the thought of him over her, taking her. He had had his eye on her for as long as she could remember, but her family had waited until she was fourteen to arrange the marriage.

“You must rest. Nobody will trouble you further tonight.” Her mother rose and left the room.

Elizabeth knew she would not sleep. When the door closed, the tears began again.

It was still dark, the candles guttering in the early breeze. Eliza had not moved from her position on the bed.

“Penny for your thoughts?”

She jerked upright and stifled a scream.

A man in a fine red coat with a neatly trimmed beard sat in the corner watching her. A fiddle rested against the chair. He pulled out a pipe and tamped down the tobacco.

“You must leave. Nobody can know you were here.”

Pulling out a taper, he lit it from a candle and drew on his pipe until a plume of smoke emerged.

“They will smell it and know!” Elizabeth hissed.

“Most would ask, ‘Who are you?’ first. But let me reassure you. Nobody will know I have been here. Nobody will smell the smoke. All are in such a sleep that cattle could pass through the house and not wake them.” He inhaled a deep draw of smoke and then released it, blowing a perfect smoke ring.

Elizabeth ran to the door. It was stuck.

“So many doubts. Come then, why do you not shout for your mother and see what happens?”

“Mother, please. Mother!” Elizabeth screamed.

“Joan, oh Joan! I am disturbing the sanctity of your daughter!” the man shouted. “Joan, hurry, I think she takes kindly to it.”

They were greeted by silence.

“Then we are agreed. Now the question. What would you do to escape marrying dear old Eddy?”

Elizabeth turned, her back to the door, and looked at the man.

“Who are you?”

“There we go!” The man smiled. “I am Nick. I come where I am called.”

“I did not call you.”

“Not with your voice, you did not.” He raised his fiddle.

“You must not. The fiddle is forbidden.”

Nick smiled. “So many things are, but have you ever asked why? Will the world descend into hell if you play an instrument?” He started with a cheery tune, drawing the bow across the strings, standing to dance. “Will the rivers rise if you wear fur? Will the earth break if you cast dice?”

Stopping, he winced and looked around. “I might be wrong, but the world seems to be fine.” He continued, the music filling the room.

Elizabeth smiled despite herself, watching the strange, cavorting man. It was the first smile she had experienced in weeks.

“Here is another question. If the rivers flooded and the ground erupted, would it be worse than wedding our dear Eddie?” He raised his eyebrows and shifted his hips in a foolish dance.

She looked down, the smile fading.

“My family needs this.”

The music stopped abruptly.

“It does rather, does it not? A knot indeed.” Nick placed the fiddle down, leaning it against the chair. “What to do, what to do.” He tapped his cheek, took a deep breath, and then turned to Elizabeth, beaming. “I have it. I shall marry him in your stead.”

She stared at him. “You jest.”

“What? Am I not as fair as you, my dear?” He struck a dramatic pose.

“You are a man.”

“Why, thank you.”

“You are a man,” she repeated, louder.

“Repetitive, but yes. Thank you again.”

Elizabeth shook her head. “You cannot say such things.”

“I just did. Should I say it again?” He pulled out a scroll of parchment. “Let us make a bargain. You shall not suffer as his wife. You shall have your freedom, and Edward shall have his marriage, and his heir. Ask not how. I heard Joan try to explain earlier, and she is a deeply confused woman.”

“You are moonstruck.”

“Hmm, possibly. But do let me continue. Lend me your flesh for ten years, and all that is Edward’s shall be yours.” He winked at her, then showed her the parchment.

She read the parchment. “I dare not hope.”

Nick shrugged. “What is there without hope? What do you really have to lose?” He looked out at the sky. “Dawn approaches, and you have a wedding to consummate. All I need is your mark.”

She looked into his eyes.

He gave a warm smile and took her hand into his.

“Lord preserve me, I will do it.”

She gasped as a sharp pain lanced through her thumb. He pricked her thumb with a quill and slipped it back into his coat.

“Now, press your thumb against the parchment.”

Her heart pounding in her chest, she left her mark on the page.

15 May 1598, Suffolk, England

Elizabeth woke feeling more refreshed than she had in weeks. The sun filtered through the slats as she lay tucked beneath the covers.

Her mother stood over her with a small jug of small beer, bread, and some cheese. “You did well, child. I could not sleep the day of my wedding.”

With that, the realisation returned that she was to be wed. A thick cloud of despair weighed down upon her. The dream that had seemed so real last night faded away.

“Eat up. I waited as long as I could to let you rest. But we must prepare now for the church.”

Her stomach clenching, Elizabeth took a sip of small beer and pushed aside the plate.

Her mother nodded. Her face was dispassionate, but Elizabeth thought she could see a glimmer of understanding behind the stony expression.

The church was austere, with whitewashed walls and wrought iron candlesticks for light. The narrow window slits let in precious little natural light.

Elizabeth stood. Her family sat nearby, waiting for the groom. Her heart sank. She heard him before she saw him. He was laughing with his friends and witnesses before a hacking cough interrupted him.

Disgusted, she tried to keep the tears from her eyes. She would not shame herself in front of her family.

The vicar, having extolled the virtues of marriage as being ordained by God, a bulwark against sin, a means of procreation, and the very foundation of household order, proceeded to guide them through the vows.

Edward’s eyes roamed hungrily over her as he promised to love, to cherish, and to keep. When she promised to love, to cherish, and to obey, his mouth stretched open into a grin.

Her father passed her hand into Edward’s sweaty palm, and he gripped her tight as if fearing she would flee. He gave his vow, winking at her as he said, “I will.”

The vicar took a deep breath. “Wilt thou have this man to thy wedded husband?”

“I will,” said Elizabeth. “I, Elizabeth, take thee, Edward, to my wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love, cherish, and to obey, till death us do part, according to God’s holy ordinance, and thereto I give thee my troth.”

The room spun.

Edward’s damp hand tightened around hers.

A ringing began deep inside her skull. At first, she thought it was the church bells, but the sound grew sharper, thinner, until it drowned the vicar’s voice entirely. The whitewashed walls seemed suddenly far away, as though she stood at the end of a long tunnel.

The words reached her, strangely stretched and warped.

Edward leaned closer, his grin wavering. “You look pale, wife.”

Wife.

Elizabeth tried to answer, but her tongue felt thick.

For one impossible instant, she felt her heart beating somewhere higher in her chest, heavier and slower than before.

Her vision doubled.

The church split into two overlapping images. Candles burned beside themselves. Faces drifted apart and rejoined.

The smell hit next.

Sweat.

Wet wool.

Ale.

Rotting teeth.

Elizabeth coughed violently as pain lanced through her chest. Her limbs grew heavy.

Gasps erupted through the congregation.

The ringing vanished all at once as sound crashed back into the church. Hands took her by the arms and raised her. Her arms were broader, coarser with a sleeve of dark cloth, she recognised Edward’s coat. A silver ring gleamed upon a thickened hand dusted with dark hair.

There was movement before her.

Her breath caught.

No, no, no.

The world tilted sickeningly. A young woman was weeping nearby.

The sound froze her blood, it was her own voice.

“My poor husband.”

Elizabeth looked up.

A girl in a blue gown knelt before her.

That’s my gown.

She wore Elizabeth’s face, and tears fell from her eyes.

The figure wearing her flesh pressed a hand against her own mouth in false concern. The thing wearing her face turned towards the vicar with perfect composure.

“My husband requires rest. I shall tend him at home.”

The vicar nodded uncertainly.

“Yes. Yes, of course.”

It was not a dream.

Elizabeth tried to speak, but what emerged was a ragged male cough.

Blood flecked the lips she now wore.

Panic surged through her. She staggered backwards as unfamiliar weight shifted beneath her. Her legs felt wrong.

The church seemed smaller somehow.

Because she was taller.

The congregation had gathered in frightened clusters now. Her mother stood frozen near the pews, white-faced and clutching her prayer book.

Edward’s friends moved towards her.

Towards Edward.

Hands grabbed beneath her shoulders. Elizabeth recoiled instinctively, but the movement sent another burst of agony through her chest. A hacking cough bent her double.

Elizabeth stared at herself. Delicate hands folded neatly at the waist. Smooth, unblemished skin.

Her own face smiled back at her.

Then she crossed the distance between them and took Edward’s trembling hand inside her own. The fingers tightening around hers did not belong to a frightened girl.

They belonged to Nick.

He leaned close enough for only her to hear. “Careful now,” he murmured in her own sweet voice. “All eyes are upon us.”

Elizabeth tried to wrench away.

Another coughing fit seized her before she could move.

The church spun around her.

The congregation blurred into pale smears.

Nick turned to the others.

“Help me bring my husband to the carriage.”

The carriage lurched forward, wheels grinding against the muddy road.

Elizabeth sat pressed against the cushions, though each breath rattled thickly in his ruined lungs. Heat burned beneath her ribs while her fingers remained cold and numb.

Across from her sat herself.

The blue wedding gown spread neatly across the seat. Small, pale hands rested in her lap. Nick had even adopted her posture, knees pressed modestly together, chin lowered as though painted into a prayer book.

Outside, rain began softly tapping against the carriage roof.

Elizabeth swallowed against the foul taste coating Edward’s mouth. “Give it back.”

Her own voice answered gently. “Hush, husband. You shall worsen your cough.”

“What did you do to my husband?” A violent spasm seized her lungs. She bent double, hacking wetly into her sleeve.

Blood spotted the dark cloth.

Nick watched with open fascination. “Nothing.” He tilted Elizabeth’s head slightly. “Consumption is the term you mortals use for it.”

Elizabeth stared at him in horror.

Nick noticed and smiled faintly. “Oh, do not look so wounded. There is always a price.”

“You lied.”

“No.” Golden candlelight from the carriage lantern illuminated Elizabeth’s stolen face. Anger marred it. “I never lie. Never. I said you would not suffer as Edward’s wife.”

He leaned forward slightly. “And you shall not.”

“You devil.”

“Such an ugly name, and woefully incorrect.” He brushed imaginary dust from the skirts of the gown. “I prefer Nick.”

The carriage rocked through a rut.

Elizabeth squeezed her eyes shut as dizziness swept through her again. Edward’s heartbeat stumbled arrhythmically beneath her ribs.

When she opened her eyes, Nick was watching her with a sickly tenderness. “You need not be frightened.”

“You have damned me.”

Nick considered that. “No, Elizabeth.” He smiled sadly. “You were damned from birth. Edward had inclinations that you would not have survived. He mistook cruelty for appetite.”

The carriage slowed. Outside, Edward’s manor emerged through the rain and mist. Great dark beams. Narrow windows glowing amber against the dusk.

“If you can endure ten years. Then all this becomes yours.”

FREE Horror Story Compilations

Summer Screams: 47 FREE horror stories, including: ‘The Enigmatic Skeleton’, ‘The Doll House Killer’, ‘The Spinster’, ‘The Leprechaun’ and ‘Ain’t Nothin’ But The Blues’.

The Dark Fiction Summer Sale: 41 horror stories, including ‘Tales of the Macabre, Vol. 1’, ‘Tales of the Macabre, Vol. 2’, ‘Tales of the Macabre, Vol. 3,’ ‘Tales of the Macabre, Vol. 4.’ and ‘Tales of the Macabre: Books 1-4’.

Tales of the Macabre

You can find my stories on Amazon, as Kindle Unlimited, eBook, Paperback or Hardback.

This collection of stories is designed for quick reads, whether over a coffee or during a commute. Either way, they promise to deliver exquisitely disturbing nightmares that gaze without flinching into the abyss—and linger in the mind long after.

FREE on Kindle Unlimited

Available to order on AMAZON.

Welcome to the complete collected works of Newton Webb. Tales of the Macabre, Vol. 1-4 are intended for mature audiences.

Read a collection of free short stories or listen to free audiobooks by Newton Webb on his website.

Visit my website

1. Introduction

2. Download A Bunker Too Far

3. Read Online

4. Horror Story Compilations

Good morning, my wicked darlings,

Today’s paid subscriber story is A Bunker Too Far, a WW2 horror novella set during the truly tragic events of Operation Market Garden, where British paratroopers are cut off from the main army and find that Nazis aren’t the only threat in th…

Read more