The Pawn
Scarf-muffled screams pierced the thumping propeller and banshee winds, “Milton! Get the bombs ready! Lewis! Provide cover!”
Brilliant-flashes lit up the night sky, raining upon those Alps trenches.
Milton screamed back, “Bombs’ ready Konrad!”
“Drop ‘em now!”
Brilliance met those Austrians, with a mighty snow-muddled flash.
“Lewis, continue fire! Don’t let up! We’re going home boys!”
Turning the kite around, the right wing felt heavy—too heavy to be snow. I couldn’t see why, only heard some huffing and gurgling—it wasn’t the machine nor man. I continued the turn waiting for the moonlight to illuminate the wing. When the moonlight blessed us; in the aileron It stood. Its features were masked by the moon, but its form–Its form: hung, as leather draped upon its gaunt frame. A frame that operated in defiance of anatomy, as each movement scrapped and splintered bones. Its starving torso winded and twirled groping for a non-existent spine, constantly swaying and stabilizing with its musket-sized arms curled out, as its cigar-fingers drags behind as it talons shears the kite’s flaps. And its face, well, that was the only thing the moonlight touched. It was just rotten flesh plastered upon its skull that was like a man’s but squashed while its mouth protruded. It flashed its ever changing fangs, with no hot air related from his breath. Its nose and penny-sized eyes were vacant, yet from that void I felt that ‘joy of the hunt’ stare.
I let my revolver bark, firing at that—that Thing! It just stood there! I watched the bullets meet demonic flesh! And yet it didn’t move, flinch, nor stop smiling!
I felt a fist on the back of my head, “God Damn, Konrad! What the fuck are you doing! Fly!”
“Milton, you don’t see that bastard!?”
“The only bastard I see is you! Now fly this damn kite!”
I looked back at that abomination, it still stood there but approached, leaving a huge gash in the wing. I began to lose control of the kite. It was only a matter of time before we crashed, I had to steer near a pile of snow for them.
“Hold on Boys! We’re going to crash! Get ready to jump!”
I tried to aim for the Austrians as they fired at us. I got lower enough that the guys jumped first. Once I lined up the crash, I jumped.
I awoke in a coffin of snow, surfacing amongst darkness—darkness that harbinges dawn. Milton nor Lewis weren’t in sight, but I had to move. Must get away from the Austrians trenches before dawn, hoping the Macaronis won’t fire.
I kept making my way through the No Man’s Land, passing frosted flesh and cooled corpses. Looming above all those former men, The Demon; hinging over letting its talons worm its way into their rotting skulls, puppeteering their mouths, lipping in morse code: “You next You next You next You next You next You next You next You next. . .”. Repeating this show with every corpse I looked at, tens of dozens of time—no matter how decrepitly rotten. I still haven’t seen my men, not walking nor puppeted.
It played with one puppet more than the rest. He was an Italian, young, quite young, about fifteen or so—couldn’t even grow a stubble. An eager kid willing to fight for his country is now preserved meat for ravens. His eyes, nose, and ears are missing along with the adjacent meat. But the lead in the boy's gut gave the ravens a fine feast. In day he’s feasted upon ravens, by night marionetted by a Demon. Doomed to damned a fellow soldier. But this time, the boy’s arm raised like a lame elephant’s trunk. His rigor mortis hand froze in a subtle extension of the index, pointing behind me.
It's a ploy! To delay me, right? Snow crunched behind me. I turned around spotting men with sooten faces armed with improved weapons. There were three of them, all coated in blood, they were preparing to strike, lunging at me in silence. I threw my hands up, trying to dodge while whispering “American!” in my best Macaroni-Brooklynite accent. They paused, eyeing me up and down, seeing my pilot uniform, as I pointed to the “U.S.” pin on my collar—but must’ve been too dark to read.
After a moment, they lowered the weapons and signaled for me to follow. As we left I looked back at the boy, only to see him regress back into the snow, undisturbed. Not even a print from the Demon.
They took me back to their trench, and brought me to their superior, who was woken up, surprised to see the night raiders returned alive and brought someone. They spoke a bit. He looked at him, held up a finger then started rummaging around his quarters, plucking a pipe in his teeth, we had a small chat, he spoke a little English. He asked about the bombing raid and the crash. I told him that we were instructed to bomb the Austrians at night, and we lost control of the kite, so I decided to send the kite crashing down to the Austrian, and how there was two others apart of my crew missing. He started mumbling in Italian while twiddling his ashy trapezoid stash. “Si, First Captain Alan Konrad, you are trapped here. Snow fall trapped us, we are trying to dig it out. So you’ll fight with us”.
