AS THE SOLDIER ran, he barely raised his eyes from the battle-scarred earth, intent on watching one foot replace the other, propelling him from danger. The rattle of gunfire had slowly faded the greater the distance he put between himself and the trenches, and the occasional mortar explosion was merely a dull thud behind him. Even so, he dared not slow his pace, despite the growing ache in his limbs. The ground was not easy to traverse; sludge becoming quagmire, plain disappearing into crater, every movement was an effort to stay upright, and to keep his boots on his feet. He had to pick his way carefully through barbed wire, sprawl in the mud if he thought he heard whisper of the enemy (and just who was that, now that he had chosen not to belong to one side or the other?). Exhaustion threatened to overwhelm him; but one notion kept him going, reassuring him as he watched his legs driving him towards that goal: escape.

Private William Steadman did not want to die.

He supposed there was a little of the childish logic in the way he kept his head down as he ran, reasoning that what he could not see would not hurt him; and rather than stop to get his bearings, he put all his effort into the act of flight itself, pointing himself in one direction and seeing where it would take him, as if he were a schoolboy released for the summer holidays. It was difficult to deny that he felt as lost and scared as if he was twelve years old, shrunken and vulnerable in an adult's uniform. But that was hardly a unique phenomenon; he'd seen his fellow soldiers - men perhaps in a civilian context he would've considered unscrupulous scoundrels and brawlers - reduced to bawling infants. Their faces had been masks of incomprehension and fear; they knew how close they were to death, how their dreams for the future, their desire to see their families again, hinged on an order. To leave the comparative safety of the trench, cross no-man's-land and embrace the German guns was to strip a man of everything he had and was ever likely to have. And so Steadman, with his own tears icy on his cheeks, had had to listen to one of the most terrifying sounds he'd ever heard, far worse than the shriek of shrapnel cutting through the air: that of grown men crying with regret and loss. It was utterly alien and impossible to forget.

He slid his way down a bank and felt the dirt beneath him crumble. Trying to regain his balance, he increased his pace, but only succeeded in pushing himself forward and tumbling headfirst into the mud. He rolled onto his back, a part of his mind yelling at him to be back on his feet instantly, but a curious lethargy came over him, as if the earth were sapping him of strength; as if, once this close to it, it would suck him to its bosom - revenge for the damage that had been wrought on its surface. He imagined lying there, relaxing his grip on life and watching the sun and moon chase each other across the sky, his body slowly sinking into the ground, becoming part of the landscape like so many other corpses had. Every morning for the past sixteen months, he'd woken and looked out on carcasses littering the battlefield, human and animal seeding the soil. What would it be like, he wondered, to join that silent sea of the dead? To succumb to the exhaustion and close his eyes one final time? The idea stayed in his head longer than he anticipated, perversely attractive. In the last letter he'd written home, he'd said how he'd forgotten what it was like to be warm and clean, to eat and sleep in comfort, not to have the tight ball of dread lodged in his gut; those concerns would just fade away if he was to give up now, if he was to relinquish the struggle to survive...

Steadman clutched a handful of mud and brought it to his nose; it smelt rotten, diseased. It served to fuel his anger and clear his mind of any thoughts of surrender. He would not sacrifice himself for this war; it meant nothing to him. As was common with most of his comrades, he knew little of the history behind the conflict, the objectives of taking part in it, or indeed how the world will have changed once everything returned to normal. They had just been shipped over to this godforsaken hole, instructed to stand in a freezing field, point their guns in the direction of the Hun, and wait until they could be told they could go home. It was difficult to picture a more futile image than two sets of opposing forces facing each other down from opposite ends of a muddy stretch of earth, while somewhere - invisible, in another world - generals bluffed and blustered. It would be laughable, were it not for the thousands of men being thrown across the lines. Then, the stalemate became a massacre.

He held his commanders in absolute contempt. Their strategies were idiotic, their disregard for the troops who fought for them breathtaking; many was the time he had seen Allied shells landing on their own attacking battalions because the advance had been planned with so little forethought; or frightened, sobbing young lads barely out of puberty executed for refusing to go over the top, obviously incapable of holding a rifle without shaking let alone firing it. The injustice made him want to scream. He wanted to shout at the sky and pummel this sick, stinking earth. He was not some expendable, unthinking automaton they could put in front of the German bullets; as far as he was concerned, it did matter whether he lived or died. He thought of his parents raising him as a child, fretting when he was ill, glowing with pride when he returned from his first day at school, taking the time to show him the difference between right and wrong and the good teachings of the Lord, to be the best person he could be, and all that pain, all that effort, all that heartfelt love, blown away in an instant as he charged at the enemy and his brains splattered on the ground.

He clambered to his feet, taking deep breaths, steeling himself for the next stage of his journey. A mist was rolling in, the air chill and damp, and he assumed darkness would begin to fall within the next couple of hours. He had to find shelter if he was to last the night. He wished he'd remembered to get his watch repaired; the sky was sheathed in a thick blanket of cloud and gave nothing away, so he had little idea of the time. He didn't even know for how long he had been running; it seemed like most of the day, but he had a niggling suspicion that he hadn't covered as much ground as he hoped. The area was notoriously easy to get lost in, or to find oneself travelling in circles. He set off at a trot, intent on bedding down in the first shattered town building or abandoned farmhouse he came across.

But what exactly were his plans beyond that? He had no money, no contacts he could enlist to help him out of the country; his chance of escape seemed as slim as if he were back in the trench and awaiting that final whistle. The problem was that his desertion had been spur of the moment, a frantic bubbling of panic that eventually burst into full-blown terror. Although he had fixed bayonets in blank obedience and prepared to engage the enemy in combat, his gaze never straying to anyone on either side of him, the moment the signal came and the first soldiers went over and the shooting started, he had lost his nerve, dropped his rifle and faked injury. In the rush and confusion of men surging forward and then falling back as they were struck, he'd buried his head in his hands and played dead. As he'd willed himself to remain stationary, he could do nothing but listen to the thunderous, ear-splitting roar of the mortars, the high-pitched wail of injured men pleading for help and then cursing venomously when none arrived, and the rapid thunk-thunk-thunk of bullets meeting muscle and bone. When he'd opened his eyes, what was left of his regiment was several hundred yards away and he lay beneath a pile of bodies, butchered by machine-gun fire. Extricating himself slowly from the wretched heap, he'd crawled inch by inch in the opposite direction to the battle, praying silently that no one should see him and at the same time asking his Saviour to forgive his cowardice. Occasionally he would glance up, pulling corpses around him if he thought he heard anyone approaching, hating himself for his weakness. It was time consuming, arduous work, and he calmed himself through concentration, fixing his sight on some distant object, be it blasted tree or wire fence, and driving himself towards it. He was dimly aware that he was humming a hymn under his breath, a thin keening sound that suggested he was teetering on the brink of outright hysteria.

Indeed, this was insanity; he knew he had nowhere to go, knew he would be crossing dangerous terrain, knew he could give no excuse if he was discovered and was almost certainly facing court martial and the firing squad. But, he had reasoned, he had made his decision, however sudden, and should stick to the matter in hand, putting all his effort into finding a way out of this mess rather than questioning its wisdom. When he came to a secluded spot he vomited copiously, and some of the anxiety seemed to drain away with it; his mind was set, and every minute he stayed alive was a tiny triumph.

With that, he had wiped his mouth and started to run. Onward, Christian soldier, he had thought bitterly.

He had been fortunate, of that there was no doubt, that he had not been picked off by some lone sniper, and he was aware that his luck could not last for much longer. It occurred to him that maybe he had been seen by the enemy, but they had discerned in him no threat; they recognised a scared fellow human being fleeing for his life, someone who had opted out of the war, and who was not worth the trouble or the waste of ammunition. The thought gave him hope; he imagined others like him, from all sides of the conflict, congregating to wait out the hostilities. But such a haven amidst this hell, he realised, sounded fantastical.

Darkness was closing in far more quickly than he had guessed. Soon it would be pitch black, and he would be stranded out on the plain; it would be a choice of freezing to death during the night (a fire was out of the question if he was trying to avoid attention, even in the unlikely event of him finding dry tinder), or blundering on through the dark, and risk impaling himself on barbed wire or stumbling in on a German gun emplacement. Neither option appealed. He scanned the horizon for any kind of shelter, but saw nothing. He slowed his pace to a walk, his eyes roving the landscape, but the light was faltering with every step; he could barely see his hand in front of his face. Resignation and a little fear were just beginning to worry at him, to gnaw away at his resolve, when something tripped him up.

Despite himself, he yelped in alarm as he flopped to the ground and immediately swore; he knew instantly that it was a body his legs were hooked across, and more often than not where there was a body there were the remnants of an army. He glanced around quickly, certain his cry would've alerted somebody on watch, and sure enough, if he squinted, he could make out the thick seam of shadow that was a trench. But there was no sign of life. Steadman lay motionless for long minutes, waiting for anyone to emerge from the darkness, the razor-sharp wind chilling his skin and raising goosebumps. He resisted the urge to shiver, and breathed slowly, watching the thin, condensed streams dissipating in the air. But from the trench there was no movement.

Gradually, he began to edge forward, kicking his legs away from the corpse and lifting himself up onto his knees. If the trench was occupied, he thought, there had to be some kind of guard. But there was no light, no muted chatter or snores. The only explanation was that it had been overrun, the soldiers inside killed; but which side did it belong to? And could reinforcements be heading this way even as he sat here and deliberated?

Steadman turned back to the body, his hands outstretched in front of him like a blind man, feeling the contours of the uniform, his eyes aching as he concentrated in trying to see through the gloom. The design of the jacket was unfamiliar; the man seemed to have been an officer. Steadman's fingers grazed a holster and he gingerly removed the revolver, running his touch over it. It was of German issue. Clutching the gun in one hand, he lightly brushed the man's face, grimacing when his index finger disappeared into a penny-sized bullet hole in the man's forehead. It came away sticky.

At least they hadn't died by gas, he mused. It meant he wasn't in any immediate danger.

Wiping himself on the corpse's tunic, he looked back at the trench; it would be ideal to see out the night, hopefully providing him with some much-needed supplies, and it was unlikely British troops would be back this way if it had been disabled. The only problem he could foresee was a German regiment answering an injured radio operator's request for help just before he died and arriving here at daybreak. Then again, he could probably make use of one of the slain soldiers' uniforms and disguise himself amongst the dead once more.

He stood and moved to the lip of the trench, peering over cautiously; there was a dribble of light weakly spilling across the duckboards at the bottom. He returned to the German officer's body, took hold of both stiff arms and dragged it back with him, yanking it over the wire that circumscribed the trench's edge with as much strength as he could muster. The weight of the carcass made it bow in the middle, and he stepped across quickly, easing himself down into the earthwork. His eyes sought the light he had seen, and discovered it was buried beneath several corpses; faintly illuminated pale white faces stared up at him, the blood that criss-crossed their features appearing black in the darkness. He pulled them away dismissively, ignoring the lifeless thumps they made as they landed at his feet, and grasped the lamp - little more than a half-melted candle in a glass case - in his left hand before swinging it to either side of him.

"Sweet Jesus," he whispered.

It was an atrocity: the dead lay stacked like timber the length of the trench, one on top of the other. Each new sweep of the lamp brought a fresh horror, a new coupling, as soldier was piled upon soldier; they had been slaughtered like cattle in an abattoir. Steadman had thought he had witnessed every possible obscenity that man could perpetrate on his fellows, but this brought the bile rushing to his throat in an instant; there was something about the sheer scale of devastation here, all contained within the claustrophobic confines of the trench, that made him retch. That, and the noxious smell, which seemed to palpably clog the air; it was the sickly stench of matter breaking down and liquefying, yet these corpses looked as if they had only been dead several hours at the most. It wasn't as if the heat of day could have brought about such a change; it had rained steadily the past few weeks, the temperature barely a couple of degrees above zero.

He brought the back of his free right hand to cover his nose and realised he still held the gun. It seemed suddenly paltry and comically unnecessary in the face of such carnage, but he felt loath to let go of it. As he gripped it tighter, he sensed himself drawing strength from it, gaining courage. Slowly, he began to walk down the trench in search of the supplies centre, the dead pressed high to either side of him, threatening to topple over onto him at any moment and drown him in cold, white flesh. He felt a little of the wariness the Israelites must have experienced as they were led between those high, dark, roiling walls of the Red Sea with nothing but their faith to protect them.

Steadman tried to keep his eyes on the ground, using the lamp to guide himself past outstretched limbs that he would've otherwise stumbled over, but the lure to raise the light and gaze upon the ravaged soldiers' features was too great. A ghoulish curiosity, he supposed. The sight was appalling, but he kept returning to it, testing his endurance the way the tongue endlessly probes a painful tooth; agonising yet irresistible. Even so, when he did glance up, many of the dead no longer had recognisable features; their faces were indistinct, pulpy masses as if they'd been shot at close range. Others were eviscerated, evidently bayoneted repeatedly. He shook his head, ashamed to call himself human, refusing to align himself with a species that could commit such heinous acts of barbarism.

Why had they been so systematically slaughtered, and with such an obviously bloodthirsty callousness, he wondered. If this was the result of some mania, why then take the time to stack the bodies as if for a funeral pyre?

The smell was beginning to make him feel dizzy, and every time he closed his eyes gory images assailed him. His legs cried out for rest, and his throat for water. He was on the verge of collapse when the lamp illuminated the opening to some kind of officers' structure ahead, judging by the map table standing outside it. He sighed with relief and increased his pace towards it. There was a tarpaulin hanging across the entrance acting as a makeshift door, and Steadman hoped it would provide adequate shelter, not only to shield him from the cold but also remove from view, at least temporarily, the horrors of the trench: out of sight, if not mind. He covered the last few yards at speed and stumbled inside, pulling the sheeting closed behind him.

The first thing that caught his eye was the bed in the corner, half-hidden in shadow; he couldn't remember the last time he'd felt the caress of a pillow. He looked around the dark room quickly, taking in the large table, the surface of which was scattered with the remains of a meal, a couple of chairs, the stove, the walls plastered with maps and directives. He crossed to the table, placed the lamp and the revolver upon it, picked up a jug three quarters full of water, and took a long swig; it tasted rusty, but he drained it to the last drop. Then, he searched for scraps of food on the plates, shovelling hard pieces of bread into his mouth and chewing appreciatively before slumping exhaustedly into a chair.

Steadman sat unmoving for what seemed a very long time, too spent to think cohesively. Finally, he ran his hands over his face, his fingers rasping against his unshaven chin, and realised he was trembling. He felt hollow and scared; he would need a miracle to get out of this situation. He tried to reason through the consequences of today's actions and plan what he should do next, but his mind would not stay still for a moment; it fluttered, startled, from one scenario to another and would not allow him to concentrate. He assumed it was tiredness; his eyelids were beginning to droop as sleep crept up on him, and he was just considering whether to attempt to get the furnace going before burying himself beneath the bedclothes when he heard a soft mewling coming from the far corner.

He froze, unsure whether he had imagined it, deciding it could possibly be a combination of the wind and his fatigued senses. But then it came again, louder, undoubtedly human. It sounded like someone in considerable distress. He inched his hands across to the lamp and pistol and simultaneously rose to his feet, taking cautious steps around the table. There was a shape on the floor, silhouetted in the blackness. He shuffled closer and crouched down, lifting the lantern to see clearly.

Lying with his back to the wall was a British soldier, his familiar uniform soaked with blood. His eyes, rolling wide in their sockets like a beast aware of its impending death, squinted at the sudden light and tried to turn his head to face it. As he did so, Steadman saw the extent of the man's appalling injuries: a portion of the right side of his skull was missing, a cavernous red hole where his ear should have been, fragments of bone and clumps of hair standing at right angles. There was a vermilion halo sprayed on the wall behind him. Between his legs were three kerosene cans.

The soldier kept attempting to open his mouth to speak, but only made the soft, piteous cry that Steadman had heard. The man's eyes were moving wildly as if panic-stricken, his head shaking from side to side. Steadman got the impression that he was trying to communicate something, or maybe to warn him, but it wasn't until the man raised his right hand that had otherwise been hidden beneath his body and revealed the gun that was still clutched in it that he realised the horrific truth: the soldier had done this to himself. It had meant to be a suicide, but something had gone wrong, for it had left him mortally wounded and more than likely out of his mind in pain and shock. He pointed at the doorway and pulled the trigger repeatedly, grunting with each effort as the hammer slammed down on empty chambers. Presumably he'd tried to use the last bullet on himself.

"Can you hear me? Can you understand?" Steadman started to say, but faltered, realising it was pointless.

He muttered an oath under his breath, unable to comprehend. He felt dislocated, as if in his escape he had torn through a veil and discovered madness existing alongside him. He wanted to ask him what had happened here, what had terrified him to the point of trying to take his own life, but the soldier was obviously beyond rational thought; indeed, it was remarkable that he was still alive at all. But it left Steadman with a dilemma; he was loath to leave him in this state and prolong his suffering, but didn't know if he possessed the courage to finish what the man had started. The latter was the merciful option (there was nothing a medic could do for him now), but he wasn't sure he could reconcile that fact with his faith. In all his twenty-five years on the planet, he had never killed anything higher up the food chain than a bluebottle.

Odd, he mused, that with all the mass murder going on around him, thousands of men dying in seconds to capture a few feet of ground, he should balk at one act of kindness.

The soldier started to wail louder, and Steadman thought he caught the semblance of actual words beneath it; surprised, he moved closer, straining to hear.

"... they... they come..." he gurgled, waving the gun in front of him. "... they know you're here..."

"Who? The Germans?"

If the man heard the question, he gave no indication. "... burn... should've burned..." His voice descended into a groan.

Steadman was puzzled for a moment, then glanced down at the kerosene cans and flashed back to the corpses piled outside.

... as if for a funeral pyre...

... burn...

"Mother of God," he said quietly. Understanding gradually began to dawn, and with it came a tingle of fear; had this soldier been left here to destroy the remains? But to what end? To cover up a war crime? Or to make absolutely sure they were truly dead? For some reason he hadn't been able to go through with it - what had he seen that suicide was the only way out?

There was a scrabbling from beyond the doorway, a sound that turned Steadman's bowels to water. The dying soldier suddenly became animated, shaking and crying ever more violently. Steadman stood and backed away, his eyes fixed on the tarpaulin-covered entrance. He tried to reason that it could be rats scurrying amongst the bodies, but couldn't even convince himself. He felt his breaths becoming shorter, his scalp prickle with sweat despite the chill. The revolver was slippery in his hand.

A low moan echoed outside; and then the sheeting bulged as if something was pushing against it, looking for a way in. Steadman attempted to swallow, the inside of his mouth like sandpaper, and raised the gun. He sensed a breeze brush against his face, but had seen nothing come through the doorway; he moved nearer, peering into the gloom.

"Show yourself," he demanded, his voice cracking; then yelled in fright as something grabbed his leg. He staggered, glanced down and recoiled in disgust: the upper half of a German soldier's torso was crawling across the floor, one hand clutched around his ankle. In its wake, like a snail's trail, it left a glistening smear of blood, painted there by the entrails emerging from its rapidly evacuating stomach cavity. Its head was upturned, its eyes glazed, its mouth open and emitting a tiny wail from the back of its throat. Immobilised with shock, Steadman could do nothing but stare as the creature puts its lips to his trouser leg and attempt to bite through it.

Blinking himself out of his paralysis, he roared in revulsion, kicked out at it and managed to loosen its grip; he stepped away and without thinking fired the gun, catching it in the shoulder. The impact knocked it back, but it was clearly still alive; it struggled to right itself like a turtle flipped onto its shell. Steadman moved closer in horrified fascination, raising the revolver for a better shot, then caught himself before he could pull the trigger. He'd never killed anything before, either on two legs or four, and yet here he was prepared to act without pause; this creature, as his mind had fixedly called it, was still a man. He had survived horrendous injuries, either through enormous willpower or some quirk of physiology that enabled the heart to still beat even as the veins and arteries spurted into empty air, and, like the British soldier, could not be long for this world. Did that give him the right to help usher him towards death?

The German was crawling in his direction once more. Clearly, despite the pain he must be in, he was not going to give up on Steadman as his objective. Steadman allowed him to draw closer, and dropped to his haunches.

"I cannot help you," he enunciated, wishing he could recall what little of the language he knew. He shook his head, holding up his hands. "Nicht... gut..."

The man didn't seem to understand, or even to hear him. Still he approached, whimpering like a whipped dog, his insides rasping against the wooden floor. He grasped Steadman's boot and started gnawing on it as if it were a bone; Steadman could feel teeth attempting to penetrate the leather. Tears sprang in his eyes; he knew now that this was not one man desperately clinging onto life despite the ravages of his injuries. This was something else entirely, something beyond any kind of reasoning. He was no longer human, but the product of something... unholy. He shook himself free of the man's clutches, put the revolver to the back of his skull and squeezed his eyes shut at the same time as he squeezed the trigger. He winced at the bang, thinking: forgive me.

When he opened his eyes, the man was finally motionless, the contents of his head spread out in a parabola around him. Steadman shivered uncontrollably, the gun trembling before him. He could not stay in this charnel pit a moment longer; better he took his chances on the battlefield or in a military cell than spend the night amongst this horror.

He moved towards the doorway, glancing back at the British soldier when he heard him cry out. "I'm sorry," he said, turning his head away.

Steadman pulled back the tarpaulin and bit down on a scream: the trench was alive. Where there was once dead stacked upon dead, shadows now shifted and slithered, a familiar wail carrying on the wind. He saw arms and hands clawing themselves free like the freshly buried rising from their graves. Dark figures wobbled as they stood and grew accustomed to their newfound resurrection; some were missing appendages, some emptied viscera at their feet the moment they were upright, but it didn't take them long for their heads to turn in his direction. He could see them sense him, almost as if they were sniffing the air and hearing the beat of a warm, living heart. They began to shuffle forward, tripping over one another, the trench a tangle of grasping limbs.

Steadman did not hesitate. He rushed back to the soldier, grabbed the kerosene cans and began to splash fuel through the entranceway at the approaching creatures. When all three cans were empty, he flung the lantern into the throng.

Instantly, the dark confines of the trench became an explosion of light. The first of the figures were immediately immolated, man-sized candles awkwardly stumbling into those behind, the touch allowing the fire to spread. Thick black smoke began billowing into the air, and soon it was impossible to distinguish between the shapes being devoured by the wall of flame. For a moment, Steadman felt a small spark of hope; the inferno seemed to have halted them. But mere seconds later he saw that they were still coming, implacable and relentless, that ever-present moaning barely rising an octave. The ones at the front were shrivelled husks, turning to ash before his eyes, but they were replaced by others, unconcernedly treading on their fallen comrades as they surged forwards.

Steadman let loose a cry of frustration and fired at the nearest creature, blowing a puff of soot from its arm. There was no way out. He checked the chambers of the revolver and found he had three bullets left. That was at least some comfort.

He walked over to the British soldier and knelt beside him. He knew what Steadman intended and nodded slightly, his eyes pleading. Steadman embraced him and placed the gun barrel under his chin, offering a silent prayer before firing.

He sat down next to the body and surveyed the room, littered with the dead. His faith had instructed him that life was to be preserved at all costs - but that had been shattered. Death was preferable to the parody of life these creatures exhibited.

They were beginning to come through the doorway, shadows dancing on the walls as the flames flickered. They bumped into the table and chairs and bed, trying to find their way around, igniting fires as they did so.

He put the revolver in his mouth, tasting the oil. Funny: he had refused to be sacrificed to the war, made the choice of life over death, and yet here he was preparing to offer himself up to Purgatory. This seemed the lesser of two evils; whatever those things were - and the Army was aware of them, that was plainly evident - he guessed that if they took him, he would end up in a far, far worse place. Better this way; better a sinner than a victim of the Devil's works.

Steadman turned his head and looked up at a map of Europe on the wall, which was starting to smoulder and blacken as the creatures brushed past. Maybe this is the Apocalypse, he thought as his finger tightened on the trigger. Maybe this is the beginning of the end.

If they're the future... God help the living.