Page 32 of No Man's Land

That provoked a brief smile. “No, I suppose we’re not. All right. Sykes is in drawer thirty-two.” Gesturing to the far end of the large room, he said, “I warn you, though, there’s a…pungent odour. Don’t keep the drawer open long.”

Grimacing, Josef said, “Yes, I’ve been warned about that.”

“Very well. I’ll leave you to your business and get to mine.”

Josef waited until the doctor had gone and then closed the door firmly behind him before walking around the desk and into the rest of the mortuary. There were drawers on either side of both long walls, a narrow window high up at the end—at street level, he supposed—and in the middle of the room sat two metal tables, each of which had a drain beneath.

A year ago, that might have turned Josef’s stomach, but he was inured to gore these days. At least the bodies on those tables would already be dead. It was far worse when they were screaming.

His footsteps echoed as he paced to the end of the mortuary, looking for drawer number thirty-two. Before he opened it, he pulled out his camera and adjusted the aperture for the light levels. He wanted that drawer open for as little time as possible and took the precaution of wrapping his scarf around his mouth and nose to keep out as much of the stink as possible.

Death no longer shocked Josef. He did not fear the sight of a man’s mortal remains—it was only so much meat, in the end—but opening that drawer and sliding out the shelf within had his pulse racing. Perhaps it was the fear of being caught, or the dread familiarity of the stench, or just the memory of last night’s attack. Whatever the reason, his heart hammered, breath harsh in the silence of the mortuary as he walked to the head of the body beneath its shroud.

Vi had told him that the man’s arm was chewed up, and there was no mistaking that stink. Worse, he could see a dark stain beneath the sheet, as if the rot had infected the white fabric even after the man’s death. Was that usual? He didn’t know, nor did he want to look. The very idea of pulling back that stained sheet filled him with horror.

Why, he couldn’t explain, but his skin crawled as he reached out to draw back the shroud, dismayed to see a tremor in his hands as he plucked the sheet back to reveal the man beneath.

The first shock was that the body was naked. Death, in Josef’s experience, always came uniformed. But here, the man’s clothes had been removed. His nakedness revealed a narrow-chested, spare-bodied youth, white and waxy in death. Livid bruises marred his alabaster skin, and Josef might have thought the fall into the sewer explained them had he not seen the unmistakable evidence of shrapnel injuries radiating across the boy’s torso. Not old wounds, either. Fresh lacerations. Inexplicably, it looked as if the lad had recently taken the brunt of a Rum Jar exploding at close range.

Which was impossible.

And then there was the black rot on the boy’s arm, extending down to his curled, misshapen fingers and up across his bony shoulder. The stink was intense, and Josef gagged, but he swallowed hard and pulled out his camera—the distance provided by looking through the lens helped him cope with anything. Beneath the bright electric light, and as much misty daylight as the high basement windows admitted, he began to photograph that terrible wound. He had a new film in his camera, so he had eight shots, and he planned to use each one wisely.

He was concentrating so hard on the lad’s rotting arm and the inexplicable shrapnel wounds that it wasn't until his fifth shot, when he stepped back to photograph the whole body, that he noticed the boy’s face.

Slowly, Josef lowered his camera.

A boy’s face with fine, mousy hair and cracked lips—sixteen or seventeen, perhaps. Josef’s skin prickled, lungs seizing as he froze in soundless shock. Impossibly, inexplicably,heknewthat face. Alone among all the dead men he’d seen, this one was burned into his memory. Because he’d stroked that fine hair back from his forehead, put his own canteen to those cracked, blue lips and offered what comfort he could as this boy breathed his last breath.

Unless he had a twin, this was the boy who’d died among the dead at a forward dressing station a mile behind the line in Flanders.

With his own eyes, he’d seen it, and now here he was, lacerated with shrapnel, having been discovered dead after apparently falling into a London sewer.

Distantly, he heard the echoing clang of a slamming door. The sound roused him, jolting him back to the moment and his mission. Bringing the camera back up, he photographed the boy’s body, then focused more fully on his face. He clicked once more, rolled the film on, lifted it again and—

Stumbled back, almost dropping the camera in shock.

The boy’s eyes were open, pale blue and ghastly. Breath rasped in Josef’s throat, loud in the silent mortuary, heart thumping wildly.

Had his eyes been open before? They must have been. Josef just hadn’t noticed, that was all. Only—how could he not have noticed? The eldritch light in those dead eyes was all he could look at.

The silence grew deeper, as if the room itself had stopped breathing. Every muscle in Josef’s body tensed, poised as if frozen in a nightmare. He edged back a step, feet scraping over the tiled floor, his gaze never leaving the corpse. It didn’t move.

Of course it didn’t fucking move!

Another step back, another rasp of his boots. His camera, clenched in both hands, bit into his palms. He didn’t care. He just wanted to run, to put time and distance between himself andthat terrible, impossible body. But he dared not look away, dared not turn his back. Scarcely dared move.

Afraid to wake the dead.

He took another hesitant step backward, and a hand touched his shoulder.

“Fuck!” Josef leaped out of his skin, camera clattering to the floor as he spun around to face—

Alexander Beaumont, tall and elegant with his unsmiling gaze fixed on Josef.

“Son of abitch!” Josef gasped, scrambling to pick up his camera. “What the fuck are you doing...?”

He trailed off as Alex’s gaze slid past him to the corpse. Still rattled—well, that was an understatement; he felt more like someone had plugged him into an electrical socket—Josef turned to look as well. He wouldn’t have been surprised to find the body sitting up, but it was still where he’d left it, staring up at the ceiling with its dead, uncanny gaze.

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