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This publication is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events portrayed in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

Published by Kevin J. Hallock. (www.kevinjhallock.com)

Edited by Arlene Prunkl, 2011 Finalist for the Tom Fairley Award for Editorial Excellence (www.penultimateword.com)

Cover Art by Steven Novak (novakillustration.com)

ISBN: 978-0-9857855-0-5

To my wife Sushma: Now and Forever

Murmuring memories roused Cecil from his dugout cubbyhole. Like a needle and thread piercing fabric, a phantasm of bloody fingers grasping a photograph of an unfamiliar child passed through Cecil’s waking mind, leaving a bit of itself behind.

Everything around him was dull white and sandy. Visions of Germans swarming over the tops of the trenches as they fired and charged overwhelmed him. Groggily, he reached for the rifle he sometimes coddled like the teddy bear he’d had as a kid, but his hands found only air. He flopped around to find it—to the right, to the left—but the gun was gone, and so was the ankle-deep muck he’d stood in while digging his hole. He grabbed for his pistol but that was gone too. They could be here any second. He strained to hear wires being cut or artillery screaming through the air, but instead a roaring wind brought a whiff of caustic smoke mixed with burned flesh and sand.

Cecil tried to unsheathe his bayonet from his hip, but his hip wasn’t there. He swung for his legs and missed. He wanted to rub his eyes, but empty space had replaced his chest and head. He couldn’t touch anything. The white sandy wind overwhelmed him with a blast of cries from the dying.

It’s got to be gas. “Gas,” he hissed to his left and his right.

He couldn’t feel the mask-carrying bag that dangled around his neck. He tipped upside down, hoping something would drop out. He jiggled around in case it was stuck, but his mask was gone too.

Nobody echoed his gas warning. Was everyone dead? Couldn’t be. Gas didn’t act that fast.

Am I dead? Cecil pushed that thought out of his mind, and it was replaced with the momentary pain of a sheared-off arm. Instinctively, he flinched to protect his limb, but the sensation passed and his arm still wasn’t there.

“Horace,” he said, as loud he thought was safe. No response. “Horace.” Louder this time, panic cracking his voice. He listened for anything—even artillery arcing overhead would be welcomed. But whining wind continued to fill his ears and sharp sand shredded his skin. He was filled with a teeth-chattering sort of terror, but he shook it off.

Horace can’t be far.

Cecil moved a couple of yards down the trench in the direction of where his best friend should have been. No muck squished around his feet, which no longer ached from trench foot. It didn’t feel as though he was walking on anything. One small step after another so that if he stumbled into barbed wire, he could back out, while the wind smothered any sounds he made.

“Anybody!” he yelled.

“A suicide.” Horace’s voice blew in from behind him.

“Horace! Thank god!” Cecil whispered as he turned. “Where have you been?”

Again no response.

“Horace?” Cecil raised his voice so Horace, and the Germans if they were around, could hear him. He crouched down just in case the other side started firing blindly. They certainly couldn’t see any better than him, but clear vision wasn’t necessary—machine guns mowed down everything in front of them. Wind-whipped sand mixed with the blurred vision of a man holding one of his own severed legs.

Nuts!

He should have put on his mask before sleeping, but it made breathing so difficult—and there wasn’t supposed to be any gas.

I don’t think any of the gases bring on such vivid hallucinations. He mentally scrolled through the symptoms and nothing like this was on his list. A mutter in the back of his head hinted at the worst again, but Cecil shook his head until it quieted.

His pain had subsided and nothing ached. The biting breeze ebbed and flowed. Cecil walked slower and slower until he finally stopped, exhausted. Nobody was around. Nothing was around but wind and sand. Sensations of things he’d never experienced ravaged him. He could hardly keep the swelling panic at bay. His mind raced as he searched his days in basic training for some kind of answer. His thoughts reared and stopped when they reached his basic medical training for head wounds.

I must have been clobbered on the head. It’s the only thing that makes sense.