"Ambulance incoming!"

Baker looked up, wiping the blood from his hands onto his already soiled smock.  The air soon filled with the agonized groans of the wounded as they were brought in on stretchers.  Another shelling, this new batch.  Not much he could do for any of them. 

Wayman appeared beside Baker, a hand against his unshaven chin.  "Most of ‘em ain’t even good for spare parts."

Baker swallowed hard.  He never liked the idea of looking at a human body in terms of "spare parts." 

"No cutting.  Not while they’re still alive," he replied quietly. 

Wayman shook his head.  "Heh.  If you call that ‘alive.’"

A team of soldiers hauling another stretcher entered the tent, stomping across the blood-soaked straw which covered the ground.  One of them accidentally made eye contact with Baker, and quickly turned away, like he thought the man’s gaze might turn him into stone. 

Wayman rubbed his hands together, smiling darkly.  "Let’s get back to work, shall we?  The Somme waits for no one."

Baker sighed.  "Yes."

Wayman bent down and picked up a corpse from a row of them laid out by the edge of the tent, and dumped it on the rough metal table.  The man had died en route to the field hospital of blood loss from a shredded femoral artery, but the rest of him was reasonably intact.  He was even still warm.

"Cut him open, start taking him apart," Baker said.  "I’ll need skin for grafts, so be careful with him.  Don’t make a mess."

Wayman rolled his eyes, tearing the man’s shirt back to expose his chest.  He raked his fingernail along the dead man’s skin, splitting him open from throat to navel. 

Two men picked up a stretcher and brought it over to where Wayman was working.

"This one’s beyond," one said.  "Fix him."

The small man on the stretcher groaned in pain as they set him down, runny blood trickling from his nose and mouth.  Baker set to work on the most serious of the man’s injuries, digging his hands beneath his skin, trying to push shredded muscle and organs back together.  He removed what was beyond saving, patching the man with tissue taken from the body being dissected by Wayman.

Baker sighed, glancing at the patch on the sleeve of Wayman’s jacket, thinking of the one he wore as well.  It was in the shape of a blood drop with a block letter N inside of it.  Royal Army Medical Corps, Special Division, the letter code detailing his particular talent.

Necromancer.

Wayman grinned as his patient screamed.  He wrenched the man’s shredded arm back and pushed it in, realigning it with his torso.

"Oh, be glad you can scream, you bloody wanker."  He looked at Baker.  "That’s the last one."  He took a crumpled pack of cigarettes from his pocket with one bloodied hand.  "I’m stepping out to put another nail in the coffin.  Wanna join me?"

Baker shook his head.  "No."

"Suit yourself," he said with a shrug, and ducked out of the tent. 

He watched a boy in a rumpled uniform pleading with one of the regular doctors.  He was shouting about something that didn’t make much sense.  Broken bodies were something Baker could fix.  Broken minds were another story entirely.  Another case of shell shock.  It wasn’t the first, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last. 

He approached the boy, walking slowly, covering the patch on his jacket with his hand.  "Is there a problem?"  he said quietly, addressing the doctor, but looking at the boy.

The doctor sneered, putting up his hands.  "You’re all daft.  I have work to do," he said, then turned and left.

Baker looked over his shoulder.  "What was that all about."

"You have red eyes.  Not blue, green, or brown, but red.  You take the dead and put them back together."

He turned and stared at the boy, who was staring right back at him, apparently unphased by the fact that he was standing toe to toe with a real, live necromancer.

"What?  Well, not exactly," he replied.  The last known necromancer powerful enough to raise the dead had died two hundred years ago.  Baker himself was little more than a glorified surgeon.  "Are you okay?  Who are you?"

"It’s not who I am, it’s what I do.  The wires are in my brain and I can’t pull them out because they hold me together so I can kill.  Don’t send me back to Ludlowe."

Ludlowe.  Baker recognized the name.  One of the staff officers for the area, who, in true staff officer fashion, had made it his sworn, sacred duty to make everyone else’s life as miserable as his own.  Baker realized it probably wasn’t the shelling that had driven the boy mad.

"They’re all dead and it’s all my fault," he continued, a vacant look in his eyes.  His face looked like a doll’s, like it had been painted on.  "I killed them so I came to see if they were okay but all I see is pieces.  I haven’t eaten all day and I feel sick."

A tall, knobby man with wind-burnt skin and a riding crop in his hand appeared in the entrance to the tent.  Ludlowe stomped forward and seized the boy by the scruff of his neck.  "Thought you could run off, Larkin," he hissed.  "Not while I have work for you to do."  He glared at Baker.  "You got a problem, you bloody damnable freak?"

"No problem," he said, feeling his hand twitch into a fist.  He knew he could literally rip the man open if he felt so inclined, and this bit of knowledge had a calming effect on his mind.  Unless he was well armed, there was little Ludlowe could do to hurt him. 

But there was plenty he could do to hurt Ludlowe. 

"That’s right," he said.  "You best mind your own business, or you’ll regret it."  With that, he turned on a flourish and stalked out of the tent, dragging Larkin along behind him. 

Baker frowned.  "I need a cigarette."

***

"Took you long enough," Wayman said.  He was leaning against a short telegraph pole posted outside the medical tent.  He tossed the pack of cigarettes to Baker, who took one for himself. 

"They’re getting worse," he said, striking a match against the pole.  "I don’t know how any of them have survived it for so long."

Wayman grinned.  "Plenty of spare parts.  Just like servicing a car, only a little more organic."

Baker ignored the comment.  "Do you know a boy named Larkin?"

"He got a first name?"

"I’m sure he does, but I don’t know it.  I just want to know if you’ve seen him before.  He’s small, very pale."

The faintest hint of interest crossed Wayman’s face, then disappeared just as fast.  "Why do you care?"

"He’s working for Ludlowe.  I think he’s lost it.  He was just in the tent, ranting about how he’d killed people."

"Good for him.  One less Jerry to worry about."

"I don’t think he was talking about the Germans, Wayman," he said, then added after some hesitation: "And that’s what worries me."

***

Baker saw Larkin again a few days later.  The boy was sitting atop a stack of sandbags, swinging his feet back and forth, staring at the ground.  Baker approached him slowly.  "Your name is Larkin?"

He looked at Baker, and nodded.  His face was milk white beneath the grime.

"How old are you?"

"I’m not old.  You’re old."

"I’m thirty-seven.  I guess out here that does make me an old man." He forced himself to smile.

"The Huns got some powerful ones.  Scary people, like you.  They call them Blutdämonen."

"Listen," he said, putting up his hands.  "I want to talk to you.  When I saw you before, in the medical tent, you were saying that you killed all those men."

"I did.  It’s my fault they’re dead.  The Huns wanted to shell me and they hit everyone else.  Daisy cutters snip you off at the knees."  He made a motion with his hand like he was holding a pair of scissors.  "They found me in my foxhole, and I wasn’t dead."

Not guilty of murder, just survivor guilt.  Baker thought, feeling relieved, but not too relieved.  He pressed the boy again.  "Why did they want to kill you?"

He leaned in very close.  "Because I know things they don’t.  I know that the end is coming."

"Why is it coming?"

Larkin put a finger to his lips.  "Ssh.  I can’t tell you.  We have to wait," he whispered.

He climbed down off the sandbags and walked away.

***

Baker had some time, and Ludlowe was nowhere to be seen.  He decided not to let Larkin go again.  It wasn’t the boy that interested him so much; it had more to do with Ludlowe than anything else.  He’d seen that man personally destroy dozens of soldiers, boys as young as Larkin.  He’d just keep after them until they cracked, then move on to the next victim.  Something was going on with Larkin beyond a simple case of trench madness, and Baker wanted to know just what it was. 

He followed Larkin, keeping a safe distance.  The boy seemed harmless enough, but Baker really didn’t know him, or know what he was capable of.

He followed Larkin for over a mile, into a part of the encampment where he’d never been before.  They were approaching the end of the British main lines, the safest part of the front, the place where the officers congregated.  Baker saw him duck into a nearby tent.  He walked around the back and peered through a hole in the oiled canvas to see what was going on. 

He could see Ludlowe in there, with about a half dozen other soldiers. 

"There you are!" Ludlowe barked, staring at Larkin.  "Where the bloody hell have you been?"

"I’m hungry," Larkin said. 

He rolled his eyes.  "Nevermind."  He handed a battered coffee tin to Larkin, who eagerly accepted it and trotted out of the tent.  "Bloody troublemaker . . ."

Baker edged away from the tent, resuming his chase, but he had lost Larkin’s trail.  The boy was nowhere to be found.  He started his walk back to the medical tent, staring at the ground. 

He walked into something soft, and stumbled back, landing square on his behind.  He looked up to see a young man similarly seated a couple feet in front of him.

"Oh, sorry," he said.

The young man looked him right in the eye, unnerving him.  "You’ve got red eyes," he said, pushing himself to his feet. 

Baker frowned.  Something about the young man’s face was unnervingly familiar.  "Do I know you?"

"I don’t think so.  I don’t know anyone with red eyes."

"Are you sure?"

"I’d know it if I knew it," he replied, looking slightly irritated.  "Now I’ve got work to do or Ludlowe will be angry."  He turned and left, leaving Baker alone. 

***

Baker returned to his tent, sitting down on the edge of his cot.  He cupped his hands over his face, exhaling slowly. 

"Where were you all this time?"

He looked up.  Wayman was stretched out in his own cot nearby, a burning cigarette clamped between his teeth.  "I said where were you?"

"I followed Larkin today."

Wayman propped himself up on one elbow.  "What?  Why?"

Baker slowly shook his head.  "I don’t know why."  He reached beneath his cot, pulling out a stained wooden ammunition box.  He lifted the lid and removed a bundle of photographs tied with string.  "If I ever go mad, I want you to kill me, Wayman.  I couldn’t live like that."  He untied the bundle and started leafing through them.

Wayman laughed.  "Will do."

"Something is wrong here.  Something is going on and I don’t like it at all.  I ran into a young man while I was following Larkin.  He looked familiar.  I know I’ve seen him somewhere before."  He found what he was looking for in the stack, and felt the color drain from his face.  "There’s something we need to do."

Wayman twisted around, sitting up.  "What do you mean ‘we'?"

"This is a lot worse than a case of shell shock."

"Do you want me to put you out of your misery now, or wait until after you’ve finished your rant."  He smiled. 

Baker said nothing.  He just handed a photograph to Wayman.  "I saw him today, walking around in the officers’ area.  The middle one."

The smile slipped off of Wayman’s face.  "Alright, you’ve got yourself a partner.  Wouldn’t mind causing a little trouble around here, anyway."

Baker cracked a tired grin.  "I was afraid you would say that.  No cutting."

Wayman flopped back onto his cot with a grunt.  "I knew you’d say that . . ."

***

Baker and Wayman waited until the early hours of the morning to begin their hike towards where Baker had last seen Larkin.  If Baker was correct, then a new enemy had come to the Somme Valley. 

They walked slowly, sticking to the shadows, avoiding the guards walking on night patrol.  They approached Ludlowe’s tent, sneaking in around the back.  Baker crawled inside beneath an unsecured flap and hid himself behind a desk.  Wayman followed.  Ludlowe was there, his sleeves rolled up, looking over a table with something on it Baker couldn’t see.  Larkin was sitting on the floor.  There was blood at the corner of his mouth, like someone had punched him.  A few other soldiers, including the one Baker had run into earlier, were milling about. 

"I’m hungry!"  Larkin whined. 

"Shut up," Ludlowe growled.  He turned to the boy.  "I gave you this life and I can take it away just as fast.  Go back and lie in the ditch I found you in for all I care."

Larkin stood up and leaned over the table.  He touched something on it before Ludlowe swatted him away.  "Don’t touch him, I’m working."  There was blood on Larkin’s palm.  Baker watched in horror as he proceeded to calmly lick his hand clean. 

Wayman turned to him and mouthed the words, "You were right."

"This is bad," Baker whispered.  He quietly slid out of the tent. 

Wayman ducked out and looked him in the eye.  "Damned bloody zombies," he said.  "Where the hell did they all come from?"

"I don’t know.  What do you want to do?"

"What can we do?"

"If we don’t do something, then how long do you think it will be before one of those men gets loose and decides to take a bite out of somebody."

"Oh, they won’t.  At least, not until I tell them to."

Baker looked around.  He was surrounded by all the men who had been inside the tent.  Ludlowe took a step forward, his arms crossed smugly across his chest. 

"What the hell are you?"  Wayman spat. 

"I think that’s obvious.  I’m just like you, except I’m better at it."  He laughed.  "And I don’t wear that damned patch.  Oh, they tried to find me, tried to hunt me down and toss me into the medical corps, but I was too smart for that.  See my eyes?  They came from a man passed out drunk on the streets of London.  I took what I needed and threw him in the Thames.  Not the prettiest things, but I never much cared about looks."

Baker looked him in the eye.  "What’s the point of all this?"

"You must be tired of being a bloody slave, used and abused in the name of King and Country, patching together the Devil’s own rejects with bits of their fallen comrades.  Call me a hopeless romantic, but I miss the old days.  I miss the days when we were respected, when we were feared.  I want a piece of that life, and here I can get it.  I’ll win this war for them, but I’ll do it with my own army."

The other men laughed.  All except for Larkin, who just stood there with a blank look on his face.

"You’ve already met Larkin.  He was the first, my prototype.  Out of a hundred tries I finally got it right."  He frowned petulantly.  "Well, sort of, but since then it’s been easy.  I can turn whomever I want.  I’ve got over a hundred beyond what you see here.  Loyal exclusively to Phillip Ludlowe."

Wayman smiled.  "Bloody idiot.  Don’t know your history, do you?  The second the brass hats find out about you, they’ll burn you at the stake."

"To the contrary," Ludlowe replied.  "I am a student of history, and I’m not going to make the same mistakes my ancestors did.  After every battle, I make a few more.  Not just Britons.  Frenchmen and Huns, too.  They wait for my command.  By the time anyone notices, there will be too many of us to stop."

"I’m hungry," Larkin said.

Ludlowe rolled his eyes.  "Oh, shut it," he said, then suddenly smiled.  He shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it aside.  "I know, you can have what’s left when I finish with these two."  The other men started to close in.

Shit.  Baker thought.  The first one lunged.  He ducked away, his arm exposed.  The man went for the outstretched limb and was surprised when Wayman caught him in the throat, tearing through it with his hand. 

"Get him!"  Wayman shouted, flinging another from his back, sending him crashing into a tent pole.  Baker flew towards Ludlowe, tackling him, pushing his hand through Ludlowe’s chest and grabbing him by the heart. 

"I squeeze, you die," he heaved.  "Call them off."

Ludlowe smiled, his teeth stained with blood.  "I die, you die."

Baker felt pressure in his own chest and tasted blood at the back of his throat.  He looked down.  Ludlowe’s outstretched hand vanished beneath his ribcage.

"Not a thing you can do.  Now be a dear and let go."

Wayman screamed as one of the men sunk his teeth into his throat.  He went down hard and they piled on top of him.

Ludlowe suddenly let out a shriek, retracting his arm in reflex.  Baker saw his chance and clenched his fist.  Blood spurted from Ludlowe’s nose and mouth.  He went limp, his head falling to one side. 

The dead men froze, their faces blank like Larkin’s.  They were waiting for orders that would never come.  Baker slowly rose to his feet, dusting himself off.

Wayman staggered forward, running his hands over his face and neck, sealing the bite marks one by one.  "Next time I agree to one of your little adventures, I want you to punch me."

Baker sighed, smiling tiredly.  "Will do." He looked around.  Larkin was sitting on the ground beside Ludlowe’s bloodied leg.  The boy had literally taken a bite out of him.  He wiped his mouth on his dirty sleeve.

"What?  I told him I was hungry."