Chapter Text
The chaos of San Sebastien raged around him; muskets beat their heavy, atonal music into the air, smoke billowed from licking fires, and the haunting groans of the infected filled the air in whorls. Voices screeched and hollered, never overcoming the arid wind, but sometimes seeming to challenge it.
There was a dirt-streaked man darting between ruins, weaving through the stinking dead and fallen wooden beams and horse-drawn carts, hoisting survivors up and carrying them to safety. This man was Barry. A grotesque colony of Shamblers followed, peering at him from the merciful darkness of midnight and shadowed pillars.
He was a hare in his swiftness and accuracy, whirling around and shooting a zombie that was on his heels. Its head snapped back, and it crumpled. The noise swiveled heads, and the gunflash lay bright and branded on their dark retinas, fading only reluctantly. The smell of expended powder was hot and savage in this buried place.
The second Runner scrambled over debris, gnashing teeth slick with froth and blood.
It leapt straight at him. He braced the rifle against the floor, and the beast’s chest slammed into it. Jarring shock thrummed through Barry’s fingers, as if he’d been stabbed in both palms.
The zombie ricocheted back, rotten, greasy guts slapping against the cobblestone.
In the same moment, a third came on, fast, but this time reaching out in front of it. Barry tried to move the rifle out of its reach, but it caught the bayonet and yanked it sharply out of his grasp. It swung the musket around in an arc, and Barry had to duck and roll away to avoid being skewered.
It wielded the musket wildly, thankfully having lost the wits to shoot it, and unluckily, still having the dexterity to use it as a club. In one powerful swing, it slammed the butt of the rifle into Barry’s sternum.
Crack went something in his chest and stab went another bolt of pain through his whole body.
Breathless, he forced himself back to his feet and grabbed a chunk of wood, jabbing at the zombie with the makeshift “stake” to push it away. It dropped the musket and reached; Barry ducked under its sweeping arms and retrieved his gun.
This time he tilted the musket up and stabbed it violently into the zombie’s open mouth. The bayonet lodged in and stuck. The zombie’s claws scrabbled along the shaft of the musket and tried to yank it out, but it was wedged in tightly.
Barry shook the musket from side to side, and the beast’s head wobbled along with it.
And emerging from the corner, unbeknownst to Barry, was a bomber. It was a heavy-set, naked and bestial cannibal, lusting for its own death as it dawdled about on two stumpy legs. It carried a torch and barrel full of combustive material, back concave like a bass drum player.
And as it approached Barry, the torch-bearing arm rose—ready to give its final, mighty boom for a finishing play.
Barry noticed it too late. The creature let out a bellow from deep in its chest, the kind of sound that made you want to run, and exploded in a great show of gore and fire. It was like nothing Barry had ever seen or imagined.
It was like the earth turned inside out, collapsing and shooting a vast, billowing cloud of flaming smoke into the air, which rose to the height of a hundred men and then fell, sending all that fire and rock and ash and death charging forth toward them faster than any man could run.
A second later, heat blasted Barry’s skin as if he’d fallen into lava. A stab of blazing agony went through both eyes, and he closed them with a howl of pain. The pain flared all along his body and he opened his mouth to scream again, but it hurt too much.
And then everything, everything—the pain, the worry, the zombies, his fellow men—everything faded away, and Barry dropped into darkness as black as night.
Antiseptic and damp wood.
His button nose twitched, taking another shallow whiff of that smell. Antiseptic and damp wood, with a hint of decay. It reeked of the wet and the dark.
Where was he?
He ached in a fierce, raw way, like he’d been scraped with fire pokers inside and out.
It was silent save for quiet footsteps and the pop of tiny stove coils.
Was he home?
A whisper of a memory chillingly slipped in his mind with a chink of light, right between the dark nooks in his brain folds.
The lace curtain flapped in the kitchen window. The breeze today was the kind you opened the shutters for, the kind that carried away old sin and flakes of sadness. The sun streamed through the window, blooming light through a jar of amber honey on the sill. Mum dipped her fingers into the cool sack of flour, sprinkled a handful across the board, and began to roll out the dough. His sisters Rachel and Helen were coming for tea soon. They would be thrilled to have their favorite doughnuts with rose petal jam. Father would eat the leftovers for breakfast.
Something stirred by the sideboard.
“I see you, Barry.” She laughed. She was a beautiful haze. If only I remembered her face better, my mum could always be with me. The little boy peeked out from behind the cabinet. “What are you sneaking around for?” she asked.
What had he been sneaking around for…?
He groaned softly, pinching his eyebrows together, trying to remember.
For a moment, he was afraid that he was still in the battlefield and had foolishly fallen to fatigue, and all of this was one big fever dream. He stopped and sat up suddenly. It made his head buzz and for a moment his whole body seemed to float. He was in a small dwelling, a kitchen to be more specific, and he was on the dirty floorboards. He’d been made reasonably comfortable, a pillow under his head and his body swaddled in linen blankets.
A lantern perched upon a box near his head burned with a greasy, flat light, and it burned slow. The isinglass sides were cloudy with congealed oil, casting frightening dancing shadows.
Barry thought of the carts outside of…wherever he was now. They towered with the belongings of refugees. Trunks, suitcases, and furniture. There was even a sewing machine like Mum’s.
“Why aren’t you making any dresses?” Barry remembered asking Mum from his sunny perch in their kitchen. Mum turned to him from her sewing machine. “Can you keep a secret?”
He nodded eagerly and moved toward her. She put her hands on her wide belly and smiled. “I think it’s a boy. I just know it’s a boy.”
She hugged him close, her warm lips against his forehead. “And you know what? You’re going to be the best big brother, Barry.”
And now he sat in a freezing house, alone, so far from home. People in San Sebastiá had time to pack. Barry wasn’t able to pack, and had left his entire life chewed to pieces. Who was using Mum’s sewing machine now?
Lazily, he crumpled back to the pillows, his head a bowling ball held up by toothpicks. Speaking of his head, it hurt like hell. Gingerly, he grazed his fingers where it hurt most, his forehead, and was met with wet bandages.
Someone must’ve patched him up.
Then he saw a dark smudge trot daintily from the oven to shelves and to his makeshift cot. It was pretty, like a flash of water.
Barry’s head, which had been fixed straight forward, jerked to the right. Two thin, womanly legs, and they didn’t belong to a cannibal. She surveyed the soldier without fear. The little of her face visible between scarf and hair seemed unmarked by the rot, and her eyes, while a bit wild, seemed sane.
"You...you’re not infected, are you? Good heavens, I thought...I thought it was all over!" he exclaimed breathlessly. He raised a trembling hand to touch the bandages again and winced. "...Took quite the knock, didn’t I? Feels like someone’s been using my skull for target practice."
His words were light and carried exhaustion, but he managed to find humor even now. He looked at the woman again, his lips curving into a weak, grateful smile.
"You saved me—carried me here? I must’ve been out cold. Thank you—thank you, truly. You didn’t have to, but...You did."
He looked to the stove where the kettle lay.
"You’ve even got tea on the go. What a saint you are... Can’t promise I’ll stay awake long enough to enjoy it, though."
Clack, clack, clack her shoes went as she forwarded. Up close, he saw that her brown hair was pulled behind her ears. Her face was kind. She looked a few years older than Barry. Pretty. Naturally pretty, the type that’s still attractive when she’s filthy. The nurse girl would have turned his head back in England.
She dipped to her knees beside Barry and cradled his mottled cheek. The woman moved in close. “Where does it hurt?” she whispered. “I have medical training.”
She spoke in English, but with an accent. The man cocked his head slightly. The accent had given her away.
“German?” he asked.
She said nothing. She pulled a roasted potato from her coat pocket and handed it to Barry.
A potato for silence.
Barry cradled the vegetable to his chest and swallowed hard as he tried to formulate a response. "My head, it hurts," Barry mumbled, already feeling himself drifting off. Yet he was reluctant to sleep. Could he trust this German? She was allied with the French… Though, looking out a cloudy window and seeing the orange glow of flame and gray smog, he supposed that was the least of their worries. The war had been disregarded in the face of this common enemy.
He let out a shaky breath, settling back onto the thin pillow. His eyelids felt heavy, and he struggled to keep them open, wanting to prolong the moment with his mysterious rescuer.
"It's kind of you to look after me like this," he murmured, his words slurring slightly as sleep crept over him. The woman nodded mutely. Maybe she didn’t understand English well, or she was shy. Maybe both.
“There’s some dried meat,” the woman said. She got up to fetch it, her knees popping slightly. She made a fine straight figure. The apocalypse had not yet sapped her. Her arms were thin, but the skin, although dirty, had not dried and cracked.
She’s got juice, Barry thought. Traitorous too, or she would have taken my gun and shot me right where I lay. Or perhaps the woman simply hadn’t thought of it.
She came back with a pile of dried jerky on what looked like a sunscoured cutting board. The meat was tough, stringy, and salty enough to make the cankered lining of the man’s mouth sing. He ate until he felt logy, and then settled back. The woman ate only a little, picking at the dark strands with an odd delicacy. She ate slowly, neatly, placing small bites in her mouth, patient despite her hunger. She was highborn.
Barry regarded her, and the woman looked back at him candidly enough. “What’s your name?” he asked finally.
“Elka.”
The man frowned. Definitely German. How come she had taken in an enemy? A better question, why was he still caught up on it?
“You must rest,” she said, brushing the thin ropes of orange hair from his sweat-damp face and tucking it behind his ear. It was matted from blood and dirt, expected after weeks of no proper washing or grooming. As her cold fingers raked across his scalp like ice spires, he let out a soft, unconscious sigh of contentment, instinctively leaning into her touch.
How long has it been since someone touched him like this?
“Rest...yes, I suppose that's a good idea,” Barry's eyes fluttered shut, and his breathing began to even out. But just as he teetered on the brink of unconsciousness, he whispered one last thing: "Wake me when the tea's ready. I'm looking forward to it."
With that, Barry succumbed to his exhaustion, his head lolling to the side. It was almost frightening how sleep snatched him so, like he’d been chased by a pack of wild dogs this entire time and they finally caught up to him.
Elka kept stroking his hair.
Even in his exhausted state, Barry looked boyishly handsome, his freckled cheeks and straight, aquiline nose giving him a youthful, innocent appearance. Up close, she could make out the healing scratches and scars he had sustained during his ordeal.
His face looked vulnerable and trusting as he slept, but at the same time, his muscles were coiled; ready to bolt at the slightest provocation of danger, like a horse asleep standing up. It was clear he had lived a hard life, yet somehow managed to retain an air of gentle, old-fashioned gallantry.
He radiated a quiet dignity, a steadfast resolve that hinted he would recover from this.
"So strong," Elka whispered. "aber nicht sehr schlau..."
She gingerly unfurled his fingers around the potato and stuffed it inside his coat pocket for safe keeping.
Barry remained oblivious to the world, lost in a secondary realm where the lines between reality and fantasy were blurred. Occasionally, he would murmur a softly whispered phrase, something that sounded almost like gratitude.
The room was still save for the gentle creak of the floorboards and crinkle of the blanket and Barry's soft breaths. To keep herself busy, she cooked vegetable soup. The savory aroma of broth began to fill the small room as it heated and the flavors melded together. Soft wisps of steam rise from the pot, carrying the scent beyond the home. At the same interval, the kettle sang it’s hissing high note.
Just as Elka was pouring raspberry tea into a worn tea cup, an authoritative yet frenzied staccato of knocks pummeled her door. Barry stirred frightfully. Quickly, she ran upstairs and grabbed her bow and quiver from the bedroom, then peeked out the window.
There was a rotten jack-o'-lantern greenness below her, red eyes pulsating faintly. She became aware of odor—faint, unpleasant, wet. The greenness was a face—what might be called a face by one charitable. Above the flattened nose was an insectile node of eyes, peering at her expressionlessly.
The nurse felt an atavistic crawl in her intestines and privates. There were three of them, all huddled together, bullying each other for who’d get to feast first. One of the forms broke free and shambled toward the door, clawing at it. The face was that of a starving idiot. The sallow naked body had been transformed into a knotted mess.
She drew her arrow and fired expertly into the head of one cannibal; he thumped into the street, dead. its eyes swamp-fire glow fading, eclipsed twin moons. The two others received the same, and fell just as quietly.
Elka holstered her bow and snuck downstairs to find Barry, somehow still asleep. She smiled a little at the sight, realizing the extent of his exhaustion that not even three zombies trying to break down the door would wake him. The room held the scent of fragrant soup. The smell of the fires had overlaid it.
She ladled soup into a porcelain bowl and took the tea cup, carrying both to the sleeping man. Elka dipped her head down and rested her soft lips upon his forehead, then took him by the shoulder and firmly shook him awake.
"Wake up," she said, "Food."
He took a shuddering breath, his eyes blinking open groggily. Barry's gaze, still hazy and disoriented, slowly focused on Elka’s face hovering over him. He swallowed hard, his throat dry and craving the promised drink. Barry wetted his chapped lips as he regained a measure of lucidity.
"Soup and tea... that's a welcome sight." his voice was hoarse, but filled with a newfound gratefulness.
Barry placed a hand on the floor to try and haul himself upright, wincing slightly at the discomfort in his sore muscles and the ache in his head. With great effort, he managed to lean up against the wall, the pillow used as a makeshift headrest.
As he settled into a semi-reclining position, Barry looked at the steaming bowl of soup and the cup of fragrant tea that Elka had set down in front of him. His stomach gurgled loudly in anticipation.
Liquid and solid alike vanished as Barry made quick work of the provided rations. The warmth of the soup seemed to seep into his bones, chasing away the lingering chill of his ordeal, and the tea was sweet; dancing on his tongue. His appetite was quite remarkable, especially considering the circumstances.
"Good?" Elka asked, already knowing the answer.
“Oh yes, that was marvelous,” he grinned, revealing his crooked teeth, only for his lips to drop shyly, self conscious. Elka brushed tendrils of hair from his face, an act of endearment he’d grown to like from her.
She seemed to be observing him more intently, however, which admittedly made him nervous. Then she reached over, grabbing the lantern and swinging it in front of his face, carving out his most pronounced features in saffron whorls of light. Is she trying to hypnotize me? he thought.
"What’re you looking for?" he asked. Barry held Elka’s gaze steadily.
“Checking your eyes…” she said. His eyes were just fine, shimmering with a growing fondness that Barry couldn't quite hide. She set the lantern down and nodded. “No concussion. Good health.”
He blinked a few times to adjust his vision. "Good... that's a relief. Didn't fancy being stuck with a head injury on top of everything else." he laughed, before a thoughtful expression settled over his features. "You know your stuff, have you done this before?"
"I told you, I'm a doctor,"
“Blimey, I forgot… Maybe that knock to my head did more than just bring me a pretty nurse.”
Elka smiled, flattered, and shook her head. “You need rest, der gnädiger Herr…”
DING…DING…DING
The city bell tolled. He sat bolt upright in the dark, panic strangling him like a collar, making the woman stagger back in fright.
“I need to get back to my men!” Barry blurted, “There’s a boat, we have to catch it before it’s too late,”
“Wie meinst du das?” she said. He could hear the shrill terror in her voice and hated it.
“I-I don’t know what that means, but you have to follow me,” he bolted upward, ignoring the yawing sensation that slipped into his head when he did, and grabbed her by the wrist, bursting out of the safehouse.
They legged it down the cobblestone path, splattered with blood and filth, the alleyways stuffed with the euthanized cannibals and victims of crossfire, roaring with flames. Buildings crumbled and nearly crushed them, a flaming wooden log toppling over and catching the woman’s dress, which tore up to her calves in her fight to release herself.
They reached the platform, being lowered and pulled back up via a pulley system by one brave man. The two hopped onto the boat, shockingly empty, followed by ten other soldiers. Dear Lord, there were forty of them when they arrived!
The black water lapped against the side of the boat. Snow drifted down around them. In the quiet dark, Elka began telling Barry of things, but it was all in German. It was probably about her family, her regrets, because she knew they would all likely die here.
“One more.”
That’s what the sailor had said. Barry watched as the man at the pulley system went to make his way down, only to be pounced on by two runners, frightening the sailor into motion. Barry watched as the man was mauled to death, screaming and flailing, and Barry wanted his mother. He wanted to go home, to go far, far away from this dreadful place. Elka squeezed his hand, just as scared as him.
They floated in the blackness, bobbing along the waves. There was no more splashing in the water from drowning zombies overzealously and dumbly launching themselves at the boat from the shore, only the quiet echoes of crying.
They sat, snow falling from an infinite sky.
They waited.
They drifted.
And they were going home.
“We, the survivors, are not the true witnesses. The true witnesses, those in possession of the unspeakable truth, are the drowned, the dead, and the disappeared.” —Primo Levi