A collective gorge rose as every pair of eyes took the next barrage. Gazes ricocheted from one corpse sprawled on the ground, to another a few yards away. Then two more over there. A pile of four dead bodies. Ten. Two dozen. Eyes widened as incredulous gazes followed the gruesome carnage, bulging when they took in piles of the dead, stacked up like felled timber.

All around him, Kennet heard men whispering “Oh my God” beneath a humming din of moans and cries, in what seemed a hundred different languages. Some of the scattered corpses stirred and came to life. They tried to rise on legs no bigger than pipestems. Others could only reach an emaciated arm. All were half-naked and crazed.

The wind shifted. Now it was real smoke bearing down on the GIs, bringing with it the scent of burning flesh.

“Hildur, what have you done,” Kennet said hoarsely.

He closed his eyes and vomited every meal he’d eaten in his life.

He’d never known such a violent, visceral reaction. Onto his shoes he upchucked every imagined feast. Into the dirt he heaved all the decadent banquets of his daydreams. Through the acidic waves, he heard hardened, battle-tested men scream in horror. More than a few keeled over. All up and down the column, soldiers were staggering off the tracks and staring open-mouthed, or falling to their knees, sobbing, banging their fists on the ground, puking right and left, ridding themselves of the notion they’d ever known fear, ever known misery or suffering, ever known true hunger.

I am not here, Kennet thought, retching the last of himself onto the ground. His past, forgotten. His future, canceled. In this raw, brutally present moment, every rule in the known world ceased to exist.

There is no more. There is nothing for it. Not now. Not ever.

He hurled his entire being inside out, bashing through the horror until it formed an exoskeleton, a protective and impermeable shell of armor.

He would never take it down.

No more.

Deep within his being, doors were slammed, switches thrown, wires ripped out, motors turned off, light chains pulled.

I am not.

I feel not.

This will not touch me.

Not this. Not anything.

Ever.

Again.

Shadows and Burrs

“Fisha,” the boy said.

“Yes, I know,” Kennet said. “Fish. That’s me.” He tapped the boy’s chest. “What’s your name?”

“Fisha.”

“Not me. You.”

“Fisha.”

“Goddammit. Where’s Maslov?”

Maslov was one of many second-generation American soldiers who could speak Russian, German, Yiddish or any of the Slavic tongues. They were in high demand, and long hours of interpreting the atrocities of the camp left all of them stunned and glassy-eyed.

Maslov trudged over, exhausted and grey. He spoke to the tattered, scrappy boy who seemed to be the spokesperson of a band of emaciated, threadbare ruffians.