The Sharp End

The Sharp End - Part Two

A hand jutted out of the earth, the fingers locked around his ankle.

Even as he watched in horror the grip on his leg tightened as the arm shook back and forth, freeing more of its length.

He could see the hand clearly, could see the rotting flesh peeling back from the bones, could see the black lines of what had once been human veins pushing out against the decaying flesh as it reacted to the gas seeping down into the earth.

A gas the Germans called T–leiche.

Corpse gas.

Fuck!

The realization that the rumors were true brought a wave of terror so strong it threatened to drown him in its grip. Burke fought it off even as he began kicking savagely at the hand with his other foot.

Once.

Twice.

On the third blow, several of the fingers holding his ankle broke into pieces, allowing him to wrench his foot free. He scrambled backward just as the corpse attached to the mutilated hand forced itself up from the mud in which it lay and turned its rotting face to snarl at him in hunger. Burke knew he would never forgot the sight of the gaping hole in the side of its head even as he brought his foot back one more time and sent it slamming into the creature's decaying face.

The force of the blow snapped the bones of its neck and tore its head right off its body, sending it bouncing away from him into the mist.

The suddenly inanimate corpse crashed back down at his feet.

Burke scrambled away from it, hearing a high keening noise in his ears and only realizing after several seconds that he was the one making the sound.

He climbed to his feet as the ground around him began to shift and stir, the bodies of other dead soldiers reacting to the gas and pushing up against the weight of the earth that held them in its grip.

Run!

his mind shrieked at him and Burke obeyed, lurching forward as fast as his injured leg would carry him.

The gas was everywhere now, making it nearly impossible to see. Burke stumbled forward, hoping like hell that he was going in the right direction. He hadn't taken more than ten steps when he spotted something moving through the mist off to his left. Whatever it was must have spotted him as well, for it veered in his direction. He caught the flash of a drab–colored uniform before it was swallowed up again by the gas.

Could it be one of his men?

Burke wondered. Did they leave the safety of the trench only to become disoriented by the gas?

He continued moving forward, doing his best to move quickly while trying to watch his step and be careful of his injured leg all at the same time. He'd gone another couple of yards before he began to feel that tingling sensation one gets when being watched.

Burke glanced behind him, didn't see anything, and continued forward.

A heartbeat passed.

Two.

And then Burke swung back around, his sixth sense telling him there was something there after all. He paused, waiting for the gas to clear, and as it did so he found himself staring in horror at the thing lurching awkwardly along in his wake, its arms held out hungrily toward him.

It was Perkins.

For a second Burke thought perhaps he'd been mistaken, that Perkins hadn't actually been dead but merely unconscious, that he'd left a wounded comrade behind in his haste to save his own skin. But then his gaze fell upon the savage wound in the man's chest and travelled up to that pale, waxy face where an unholy fire burned in the creature's eyes and he knew he hadn't been wrong.