Mark

Wind sighed through the dark pine trees, setting the needles scratching at each other. The tight-packed trunks and the thick undergrowth of the forest obscured the road they’d come from, blocking it from sight. Mark stood as close to it as he dared, crouched in the bushes, listening hard. Was that just the sound of air moaning through the canyon, or was it the engine of a car? No matter how he strained his ears, it was tough to be sure that no one else was crawling up the same rough road they had taken to get here. Somewhere in the distant woods an owl hooted, a forlorn and desolate call.

A week. They’d only been on the road for a week, dodging patrols, hiding in abandoned barns and bluffing their way through checkpoints, but it felt like a year. Tonight, their refuge would be an old logging road running up into this forest. He cast a critical eye over the cutoff from the road, pursing his lips. He’d cut bushes and jammed their trunks into the road, obscuring it somewhat, but they didn’t look quite right to him.

Not enough small plants, he realized. The ground around the base of the cut shrubs spread open, bereft of the weeds and tufts of grasses that grew elsewhere. It was a small thing, but he was nervous enough that he couldn’t leave it now that he’d noticed it. Going to one knee, he tore up handfuls of grass. Bunched at the bases of the cut shrubs he’d moved into place, they looked natural enough, improving the illusion that nothing had gone up this road in a very, very long time.

It would have to be good enough. He stood, listening again for any sign of people, but he didn’t hear anything out of the ordinary. Just creaking trees, animals in the night, and the constant low moan of wind in the canyon, so he turned and started back up the slope to the truck. Moonlight filtered down through the limbs of the trees, dappling the rutted track in pale silver shadows. The full moon offered plenty of light to see by. Plenty even to mark where their truck had passed, turning over rocks and smashing small plants that had taken root in the road. He picked his way over it, hunting for good footing, his boots crunching on the dry carpet of pine needles. Now and again he stopped, fixing some of the more egregious evidence of their path; it wouldn’t be enough to fool a determined tracker, but it would at least make them less obvious, if someone should happen along this way.

When he arrived in the clearing where they’d parked, he found Liliane bent over a set of maps laid out on the bed of the truck, deep in the shadows of the trees. She was using Mark’s flashlight to study them, her lips turned down in a frown as she worked her hand rhythmically to keep the light going. A twig snapped under his foot as he approached, and she glanced up sharply, her hand darting for the gun at her hip.

She relaxed visibly when she recognized him. “Any sign of pursuit?” she asked, her hand dropping back away.

He shook his head. “Nothing. And I hid the road, like you asked.” Somewhere along the way, she’d more or less taken control of this venture. Francois objected vehemently to everything Mark suggested, damn the man, and the Frenchman’s own ideas were stupid. It was just plain easier to let Liliane lead. She always knew what needed to be done, and she could talk sense to Francois, keeping them all pointed in the right direction.

She nodded. “How did you do it?”

“Cut a bunch of bushes and ‘planted’ them back in the road.”

“Very nice,” she said, giving him a broad grin. “Good thinking.”

He returned it, feeling a little foolish, but basking in the compliment all the same. “Is Francois back yet?” Stupid question. If he was, you’d have seen him.

Liliane shook her head. “Not yet.”

As if on cue, Mark saw a shadow moving in the trees over Liliane’s shoulder. Francois, back from scouting around like Liliane had asked him. He moved through the woods in near silence, picking his way through like a ghost. His rifle stuck up over his shoulder, but he wove through the low hanging branches without so much as grazing them. Mark felt his good mood evaporating as Francois glided towards them, his dark eyes glittering.

Liliane must have noticed the change on Mark’s face, or seen him looking. She turned, still smiling. How she could stand the man, family or not, Mark didn’t know.

“How’s it look?” she asked him.

“Good. The road is in about this condition all the way up, and should let us out a little further down the canyon.” Francois stepped around Mark, shouldering him aside to stand next to Liliane and the maps. “Right about here, I think.” He jabbed a long finger at the map.

Liliane nodded, tracing the path of the road. “Maybe we’ll be able to find some news of the train at this village here…” she said, but she sounded doubtful, and the smile slipped away from her face, replaced by worry. They’d lost the trail of the train carrying their comrades days ago; nobody in the small towns they’d stopped in knew anything of a train carrying prisoners. Forced as they were to crawl along back roads and sneak like thieves, the train was probably long miles ahead of them. Francois thought they’d lost their chance to catch up, and as much as Mark hated to admit it, the man was probably right. But if they could find some news of the train carrying their friends in the next few days, there might still be hope.

“Any sign that people have been up here recently?” Mark asked Francois.

“No,” Francois said, turning cool eyes on him. “Did you ensure we would not be followed?”

“Of course!” He gave the Frenchman the wickedest grin he could manage. “I laid that path with all the explosives we have. If someone tries to sneak up behind us, we’ll know.”

Francois snorted. “I would not put it past you, sadly.”

“Quiet,” Liliane said, breaking in over Mark’s retort. “Do you hear something?”

“That?” Mark turned his head to angle an ear in the direction she was looking. “It’s just wind through the canyon.” Though it was louder than it had been, taking on a low growling quality. Mark frowned, listening harder. Was he mistaken? If that was wind, then why were leaves in the trees silent?

It grew from a moan to a rumbling, roaring echo, so low that it was at the very edge of Mark’s hearing. Francois looked puzzled, glancing around the woods as the sound grew with every passing heartbeat. Mark felt it in his kidneys, in the soles of his feet.

“What in the bloody hell is-”

He didn’t manage to finish. There was an ear shattering, earth splitting crack, loud as a cannon. It was above them, around them, on every side. Mark would have thrown himself to the ground, but the blast did it for him, knocking him clean off his feet to sprawl in the brown needles. Was someone screaming?

He clutched at the tire of the truck, struggling to haul himself upright. Not screaming, it was his ears ringing. Francois was on his feet, old war instincts serving him well, the rifle raised. He shouted something, pointing with it past Mark into the sky.

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Mark spun to follow it, gaping. A fireball streaked through the night sky, bright orange and hot as the sun. He had a split second to notice that it lit the whole forest in a ruddy glow before it tore past them, tearing through the air overhead. Was it a comet, an asteroid? He had no way of knowing.

It’s going to smash right into the side of the mountain over us, he realized. But defying sense and physics both, it didn’t. Instead, it slowed, skewing hard in the air like a car drifting around a racetrack, sharper than he would have believed possible.

Not a big hunk of rock. A plane of some kind. A plane in flames, and still flying.

As it slowed, the fire enveloping it faded away, revealing the outline of…well, Mark wasn’t sure what it was. He’d never seen a plane like it before, with such stubby wings, and such a long, blocky body. It tipped sideways in the air, still slowing, slowing, as its pilot made a desperate, banking turn. Mark thought whoever was flying it might manage to pull up in time, might manage to dodge the mountain. Instead, the tight turn became a tumble as the thing seemed to trip in midair, flipping end over end. He caught a flash of some piece of it ripping away, whipping off into the darkness and out of sight before it hit the tree line. The plane crashed into the trees, and hundred-year-old pines and oaks splintered like kindling as the thing hit them with a sound like a house falling down.

It ended as suddenly as it began, the ringing in Mark’s ears fading to a deep silence. It was as though the whole world was holding its breath, even the wind cowed for a moment. As he watched, a final tree toppled slowly over, like a drunk man giving up the struggle against gravity.

“God above,” shispered Liliane, clutching at her chest with one hand. “What on earth was that…?”

“A plane of some kind, has to have been,” Mark answered automatically, but almost as soon as he said it, he knew he had to be wrong.

Francois was quick to pounce on his error. “A plane? A plane? You shit eating fool, what plane do you know of that can fly like that?” His eyes showed white around the edges, and he had the rifle to his shoulder, the barrel pointed at the ground, one finger just off the trigger.

It was a fair point, but “shit eating fool” was pushing it a bit far. “Alright then, genius,” Mark snapped back at him. “What do you suggest it was? It flew. That makes it a plane.”

They lapsed into a venomous silence, glaring daggers at one another. Mark would have liked nothing better than to knock the big Frenchman on his ass.

“Let’s go take a look,” Liliane said, staring up the mountainside.

Mark broke the stare to glance at Liliane. “Pardon?”

“Come on.” She started out towards the spot where the thing had crashed, straight out into the woods.

That seemed to Mark an extraordinarily bad idea. If there were anyone in the area, they’d likely have the same thought. He opened his mouth to tell her so.

“Not safe,” Francois said before he could get a word out. “Any German patrols in the area will doubtless be headed there right away.”

Mark clicked his mouth shut again, unwilling to agree with the Frenchman.

“We’ll beat them to it.” Liliane called back over her shoulder without slowing, forcing the two men to follow or else lose sight of her. “We’ve got to go look. Didn’t you see that thing?”

Francois seemed to waver, staring up the slope to where the thing had crashed. Seeing that Liliane wasn’t stopping, he cursed and rushed forward, pushing ahead of them both.

“Fine,” he said, frustrated. “But we don’t linger once we figure out what’s going on.” He took the lead, his rifle clutched in his hands.

Mark was happy enough to let Francois break the trail, falling behind to a rearguard position. There was no path, not even so much as a game trail, and between the slope and the thick bushes it proved tough going. The dry pine needles slid under his boots, slick as ice on the sharp incline of the mountainside. Francois led them to open areas where he could, but they still had to fight through spiny brambles in his wake.

Mark was beginning to wonder if siding with Francois would have been worse than the climb when the Frenchman threw his fist up, coming to an abrupt halt. Mark and Liliane stopped a few dozen paces back from him, watching as he dropped to his belly and slithered forward to a jagged chunk of bedrock jutting out of the slope. He peered around the side of it before turning and waving for them to come join him.

The needles stabbed at Mark’s chest through the thin cotton of his shirt as went to the ground and crawled forward on his elbows. He heard Liliane follow suit behind him, and the two of them wormed their way up alongside Francois. Mark peeked up over the top of the rock and stifled a gasp.

Francois had been right. Whatever this thing was, it was no plane. It had fetched up in a pile of rocks, one stubby wing pointed skyward. Not even a wing, really, and that was where the similarity to a plane ended. It had a blunt, wedge shaped nose, and was all smooth gray metal where it wasn’t dented and smashed. What in the world was it made of, to come out as intact as it had? Given the ruin it had left behind it, it didn’t look half-bad.

“Do you have any idea what it is?” Francois whispered. Mark detected more than a trace of unease in the other man’s voice. Normally, he’d have enjoyed that, but he was too busy fighting down the fear in his own gut.

“Not a clue,” he answered. “Maybe something the Yanks have whipped up?” It seemed unlikely, but he had no better guesses.

Francois grunted, though it didn’t sound like assent. “Do you smell that?”

Liliane sniffed the air. “Smells like a forge.”

She was right, Mark thought. It smelled like hot metal, like the farrier come round to shoe the horses on the farm. He eyed the plane where it lay on its side in the rocks. Heat waves shimmered off it, like fast-fading smoke. “If that thing had come to rest a few dozen feet further down, it would have set the whole forest on fire.” He said, his gaze wandering back up the way it had come, following the huge gouge it had torn from the mountain. A few spots smoldered fitfully in its wake, smoke curling up in the fresh turned earth it had left behind. That had been lucky, very lucky.

But what now? He’d been expecting to pick through scattered wreckage. Faced with this mostly intact thing, he wasn’t sure what to do next. He caught Francois casting a sidelong glance his way; the Frenchman didn’t seem to know either.

There was a loud pop and a hiss from the craft that sent the three of them ducking behind the rock. Mark held his breath, half expecting an explosion, but instead there was only a slow creaking sound. He peaked back over the rough boulder.

A hatch had appeared next to the stubby wing, hinging open straight into the air. A coughing and groaning sound came from within, the pilot mumbling to himself. He lived, Mark thought to himself, surprised. I wouldn’t have thought that possible to survive.

The back of a head appeared against the dark background of the forest beyond. Mark frowned; what was with that helmet? It was broad and flat, unlike any he’d ever seen before. Two thick, powerful hands gripped the edges of the hatch and levered the person up further, and Mark’s mouth dropped open, his chin hitting the rock. The pilot wasn’t wearing a helmet.

A monster reared out of the hatch, silhouetted in the moonlight. Huge, with a great scaly dome of a shell. It faced away from them, its reptilian head snaking from side to side as it scrutinized the forest around it. Mark fumbled for the stolen Walther at his belt, bringing it up in shaking hands. Francois caught it by the barrel and pushed it back down.

“Are you mad?” the Frenchman hissed through gritted teeth. “Do nothing.”

Liliane had his shoulder. “Mark, don’t. Listen to me, don’t shoot.”

That was sound advice, it really was, but then the beast cupped a clawed hand to its mouth and, in clear German, called out into the woods.

“Hello! Is there anyone there?”

Mark pulled the gun up, knocking Francois’ stunned hands aside, and fired.