Safe within the tunnels beneath Fampoux, all night Sandrine had listened to the wolves stalking through the ruined village, searching for any prey who had managed to escape the trenches and attempted to find refuge amongst the ruins. The sounds had been dreadful. Only with the very first rays of light did the creatures and their savage and terrible howls recede and then vanish.
Sandrine pushed the flagstone of the tunnel mouth aside and peered out into the fresh light of a new day. She’d heard a wolf sniffing and scraping at the tunnel’s entrance last night but by morning there was no trace that they had come, save for the multitude of immense pad prints deep in the dewy dust of the road.
She pulled herself out into the thin light of the morning and tumbled from the tunnel like a rag doll, her limbs heavy, her footsteps clumsy and slow, as if she couldn’t walk through the village for fear of what she would see, what she might find. But she was unable to turn away from the task. She had to find Henry.
There was no debris left from the night time’s hunting in the street in which her ruined house stood but, turning into the main street which ran from it, Sandrine began to encounter the evidence of the dreadful feeding frenzy which had taken place in the village and the outlying lands last night. Trails of blood were everywhere, splashed across roads and up walls, splurged from bodies as they fell or from jaws as they shook the flesh from their victims’ bones. Bits of bodies, torn uniforms, broken weapons, detritus and mess lay across every street down which Sandrine walked. She expected to see a few numbed souls, soldiers staggering and faltering in the cool dawn, but the village was deserted, like a ghost town.
She wept, clawing at her chest and tearing at her clothes to witness such scenes, for she knew the ones she loved, her people, had been the architects of such devastation.
Sandrine reached the main square. She looked across the village hall, long ruined and broken from its once fine appearance. She looked across the square in the opposite direction to where the trenches lay and the worst of the onslaught had taken place. Sandrine forced herself in that direction, wandering slowly towards the butchery which awaited her. She didn’t even know what she’d discover, if she’d find the remains of Henry. All she knew was that she had to try. She owed him that.
“Is there anyone alive?” called a small voice from behind her. She immediately knew its owner without even turning to see. Tears of rage welled in her eyes. Why him? Why did he have to live when Henry and all the others had been taken?
“No.”
It was all she could bring herself to say to him.
Realising he had survived, Pewter’s eyes flashed evilly. His plans lay in tatters, his promotion gone. But he had survived. And there was still hope. He could go back to the support trenches, commandeer another unit, bring them to the village. It could call be done by lunchtime.
But what would HQ say when he returned alone, with none of his men? He’d be ridiculed, ruined, probably put on trial for desertion, cowardice. He knew his career was over. But not all was lost.
He leered at Sandrine and swallowed slowly.
“You and me then, again?” he said, licking his lips. “That’s good.” He said it with a light now coming to his voice, which made Sandrine feel wretched to the core.
“What’s that meant to mean?”
“My horse,” he mused sadly. “They killed my bloody horse!” The Major dragged a hand across his scalp and held it there, clutching tight to his skull.
“They killed your men,” Sandrine hissed. “Fuck your horse!”
She turned her back on him and stepped away. She could feel the Major’s eyes on her as she walked. She felt violated by his staring but she refused to turn back and look, to give him the satisfaction of turning around. At the lip of the trench, she stopped and peered into it, her hands on her mouth and across her stomach. She wandered along its upper bank, looking down, looking for anything which might identify Henry, but there was nothing to distinguish the remains of one body from the next. Everything was bloodied and spoiled. Not one single identifying element remained. A cold wind blew fluttering paper and waste across the barren landscape. The silence seemed almost utter. Even the crows had fallen silent.
A wretchedness grew in the pit of her stomach. The desolation was total, all life having been choked out of this stretch of earth. She imagined even the worms were dead.
She turned and walked back to the village, aware of a strangled choking sound, like weeping which failed to come. She realised the sound was coming from herself. She was relieved to see that the Major had vanished. She wished never to show him any sign of weakness. She hoped she’d never see him again. However, as she stepped up into the square, he appeared from the doors of the hall grinning. A cold shiver drew across her. Pewter had a small pack upon his back and a cigarette was smoking between his lips. He removed it and blew out a big cloud of smoke.
“Failed to find anything?” he asked, smirking.
Sandrine ignored him, and walked on by.
“It’s a mess down there,” Pewter called. “A bloody mess, quite literally. They did more than rip the bloody heart out of this unit. They ripped the bloody unit apart.” He sounded almost remorseful.
He watched Sandrine stride out of the square and turned to follow her, throwing his cigarette away. He was suddenly aware of being watched himself and looked up to see the boy with the china white teeth staring at him from the edge of the square. The boy was grinning, but there was no joy in the smile. It was a smile of immorality and licentiousness, like the leer of a gargoyle on a castle wall.
“What do you want?” the Major called to him, unsettled by the stare. “Thought you’d have died last night. More’s the pity. Thought I was the only one left. Is there anyone left?”
The boy stared at him.
“Come on, speak up! What’s the matter? Lost your tongue?”
“Les loups ont pris tous vos hommes!” the boy called
“No, that’s no good,” Pewter replied, stepping over to him. “You’ll have to speak English. Can’t be dealing with all this froggie nonsense.”
“Vous auriez du écouter ce que vous avez dit.”
“What is it?” asked the Major hotly. He rested the palm of his hand on the grip of his revolver. “Do you speak no English at all?”
“Maintenant vous devez vivre avec leur sang sur les mains.” The boy crossed his arms and for the first time the grin was replaced with a scowl.
“No need for that,” hissed Pewter. He looked to where Sandrine had walked and went to step after her. The child caught hold of his arm as he turned to go. Immediately the revolver was in the Major’s hand and a deafening bang bounced amongst the walls of the square. The child’s head rocked backwards and he slumped to the floor, a gaping hole in his temple. Slowly blood began to draw down his face, into his mouth and seep across his perfect white teeth.
Pewter felt sickened. He knew he was too important to have to do the dirty work of killing children in this war. He turned his mind and eyes back to the woman. He recalled the smoothness of her thighs and hurried in the direction she had gone.
No wind had reached the depths of the village, but the air was still cool, the sun only just beginning to rise above the horizon, casting long shadows. Sandrine’s brown skin prickled as she thought of those huddled in the cold and the damp of their underground lair the day before. She shivered. How cruel a fate that those she loved had taken someone who …
She shook her head and tried to chase any thoughts of Henry away.
Through the pale morning light, she stared at the imprint of a bloodied figure, dashed against a wall of the village, his final violent ending captured in crimson on the white stone of the building. Fampoux was a very different place to the one she had left a month ago. It was a very different place to the one she had returned to just a day or so ago. The silence was dreadful. Then a single sudden gunshot shattered the bubble of calm. Sandrine stopped dead in her tracks and looked behind her to where the noise came from. The square. She hoped the Major had done the decent thing and his brain had been the bullet’s final destination.
“Not leaving without saying goodbye I hope?” Major Pewter called to her from the end of the ruined street. Her heart sank.
He stepped over beams and mortar, which had fallen from the house on the corner, and made his way towards her.
She turned her back and ignored the officer, walking to the other end of the street before turning to face him. She was too tired for the attention, too sick for any confrontation. It was at these times she wished she had been short and ordinary.
“Leave me alone!” she hissed, squaring up to him. His cap was pushed back high up on his hair line, giving him a cowboyish appearance. “Don’t follow me. Go back to your men.”
“My men are all dead.”
“Then go back to your commanders,” she said, thrusting her arm towards Arras.
“Come on my darling, the war’s over for us. At least afford me the opportunity of a little taste of your company? You did once. You might be the last woman I ever get to feast my eyes on.” He made a move to put his hands upon her, but Sandrine pushed him away.
“Get away from me, you pig. You disgust me!”
“I didn’t disgust you once. You wanted me that time, didn’t you. I could feel it, the heat from your underwear. Come on, for old time’s sake? What do you say?”
“Keep away from me!”
“But like me, you have no one left. Lieutenant Frost is dead. They’re all dead.”
Sandrine shook her head, revolted. She turned on her heel and crossed over the road, her cheeks sodden with tears, her mind racked with pain and grief. She heard him following her and cursed. This had now gone too far.
She walked a little faster. She could hear him murmuring to himself, keeping step with her some ten or so paces behind. She quickened her pace again and noticed Major did the same. Sandrine’s heart beat a little faster. Her throat tightened and her mouth felt even more dry.
She slipped from the main street and turned into a narrow side alley. It was a different route to the one she usually would have taken to get home, a detour, a longer way around to tire out her pursuer. She was aware she might lose him in the depths of the village. At her home she knew there would be no hope of escape.
Ten paces later Pewter turned too. She could hear him say something wicked and obscene. The alley was deserted, high walled and windowless. Blackness hugged every inch of it. No more than six feet across, it was almost perfect for an unwitnessed and silent assault. Rats fled ahead of Sandrine over rubbish sacks. The ground was thick with their waste. The stale stench of rotted vegetables clung to her nostrils like a thick paste.
Pewter chuckled and felt a shimmer of excitement and anticipation ripple through him. “Did I ever tell you I like a nice hunt?” he called after her, pursing his sweaty lips.
He watched Sandrine turn right and hurried after her, a desire building in his heart and loins. He imagined the sweat on her chest, the tantalising taste of salt on her skin. He imagined her struggling in his grasp, at least until he finally squeezed her into submission. He swallowed and hardened his eyes on the route ahead.
Sandrine rushed forward, turning right again and then left almost immediately into a very narrow alleyway which ran behind the street in which she lived. She rested against the wall of the alley and listened, looking back to where she had come.
There was no longer any sign of him. She wondered if she’d lost him. For several moments she waited, listening for the slightest sound, the crunch of boot on gravel, the hurried snatch of breath. She was aware of her own – slow, measured, cautious. She was aware of a sudden tension gripping her. A tingling anticipation in her mouth.
A wretched voice croaked from behind her. “Not hiding from me, I hope?” asked Pewter, leaning against the wall and absently flicking at a trail of dust on his tattered lapel.
“What do you want?” cried Sandrine.
“What I should have had back in Arras.” He thrust himself forward, grabbing out with his hands. Sandrine battered him to the side and sent him down onto his knees, kicking him over and away with a foot. She ran out of the alleyway, Pewter laughing and watching her as she went. He liked the passionate ones, the ones who fought. He found they were always the most satisfying of buds to pluck.
He climbed to his feet and shot after her, crouched low like an ape as he ran, his arms and fingers spread wide. Up the street Sandrine was fumbling with the lock of her door. She spun around at the sound of Pewter’s invidious giggling as he drew near.
“Why have you followed me?” Sandrine asked quietly.
She swept back her hair and glared. The Major watched her out of the corner of his wicked eyes, a devilish look on his face. He swayed uneasily lightheadedly overtaken by a cocktail of fatigue and desire. And suddenly Pewter’s face hardened. “Boring!” he shouted. “Oh, don’t play games with me, woman! You might be the last chance I have to feel a woman. Lord knows what my fate will be back at HQ? Whole unit wiped out? Only one to survive? Don’t fancy my chances much in front of the panel.”
In the darkness of the street, the whites of the officer’s eyeballs made his pupils look like coals. “It’s entirely your choice my lovely. You can either indulge me here, or you can allow me inside. I’m not choosy but I’m sure we’ll be more comfortable inside. Either way,” the sandy haired officer said, forcing Sandrine to look at him again, “you’re going to indulge me.”
At this, the officer made a grab for her, taking her by the neck and pulling her face closer to his. “You can start by giving me a kiss.”
Sandrine pulled a little away from him. The officer felt the strength in her and placed a second hand around her head to stop her escaping from his grasp. She looked into his black coal eyes. Dead eyes. There was no warmth in them. They’d seen little joy but had witnessed much cruelty. She wondered how much their owner had inflicted himself.
“Not here,” Sandrine whispered, easing her fight within his grip.
“There’s a good girl,” Pewter soothed.
She reached back and turned the handle of the door. In his passionate state, Pewter never saw the light which had now appeared in Sandrine’s eye. Instead, as if the opening of the front door was taken as an invitation, Pewter bundled Sandrine inside, pushing her into the first room he could find, closing the door fast behind him with a trailing boot.
He looked at Sandrine hard. “Take off your dress,” he demanded, swallowing back his desire, his hand unconsciously falling to the stiffness at his crotch.
Sandrine reached to the buttons at the top of her dress and unfastened them. It fell away from her and she stepped out of it, placing it gently to one side. She knew one thing and that was she wouldn’t let her dress become ruined in what was about to unfurl.
She stood confidently before him in her white brassiere and panties. Pewter cooed. “Bloody hell,” he muttered, his breath short and hesitant with lust. Sandrine could hear the dry swallow in his neck. The sound revolted her.
“Let me draw the shutters,” she called, stepping across the room. Her hands shook as she did so.
“Of course, we want a little privacy,” the officer replied, barely able to suppress his excitement with a snigger. “Don’t know from whom, but I want to make sure you’re comfortably relaxed my love.”
The shutter clunked shut and, as darkness devoured the room, Sandrine began to change. She hung her head down between her shoulders, heaving heavily like a woman in labour, as the transformation began to take place. She’d endured this a hundred times in her lifetime and the pain of its demands on her body had never eased. She could feel the bones burn within her as they elongated, the skin shriek as it stretched about her body.
She heard Pewter saying something from behind her but the sound was muffled and faint, as if she were under water. Rage ripped through her. Her face contorted and she wrenched her head upwards, forcing herself forwards onto her hands and knees. She was aware of her head banging into the wall of her room as her muscles hardened and enlarged. She suddenly felt hot and drenched in sweat, as hair sprouted from every inch of her body. Her panties and brassiere split and fell away from her body as a raging and insatiable hunger coursed within her.
She leapt to her feet with only one urge, to feed and satisfy her desire for blood.
In front of her, Pewter stumbled backwards, moaning pathetically. He whimpered, holding his hands up in front of his face. She took a step forward and he screamed. She hated it when prey screamed, even though they always screamed when she came upon them.
Pewter bolted for the door. One swing decapitated him. She grabbed his body and drank greedily at the blood pumping out of the neck. She bit down into the chest with vast cruel jaws, snapping at the tender lungs and heart, and feeding greedily on organs and his warm cruor. The officer’s fluid flowed down into Sandrine’s belly, the smouldering fire in her eyes seeming to burn lower with every gulp she took.
“Sandrine?” came a shaky, unsteady voice from the door of the house.
The red of her eyes flared again and she turned, blood drenched and snarling. She cast the remains of Pewter’s body to one side and stalked towards the open door of the room, just as Henry appeared through it, bruised, bloodied but alive. She crouched low and leapt, talons raised, her jaws wide, ready to snap and feed once again.