Pick-pick-pick.

Exactly as his bubbeh had said…it sounded exactly as she’d said…and for some reason that made it all the more frightful…

His breath vanished and he felt in his heart the burning hole. In a corner of the barracks, the darkness moved. A Thing, a towering gaunt figure peeled off from the inky depths and glided over his sleeping comrades.

Pick-pick-pick.

Sardu. Or a Thing that once had been him. Its skin was shriveled and dark, blending with the fold of its dark, loose robes. Much like an animated blotch of ink. The Thing moved effortlessly, a weightless phantom gliding across the floor. Its talonlike toenails scraped the wood ever so softly.

But—it couldn’t be. The world was real—evil was real, and surrounding him all the time—but this could not be real. This was a bubbeh meiseh. A bubbeh—

Pick-pick-pick…

In a matter of seconds, the long-dead Thing reached the bunk across from Setrakian. Abraham could smell it now: dried leaves and earth and mold. He could see hints of its blackened face as it emerged from the bundled darkness of the body—and leaned forward, smelling the neck of Zadawski, a young Pole, a hard worker. The Thing stood the height of the barracks, its head among the beams above, breathing hard and hollowly, excited, hungry. It moved along to the next bunk, where its face was briefly outlined by the light of a nearby window.

The darkened skin became translucent, like a sliver of dry meat against the light. It was all dry and matte—except for its eyes: two gleaming spheres that seemed to glow intermittently, like lumps of burning coal catching a reanimating breath. Its dry lips drew back to reveal mottled gums and two rows of small, yellowed teeth, impossibly sharp.

It paused above the frail form of Ladizlav Zajak, an old man from Grodno, a late arrival sickened with tuberculosis. Setrakian had supported Zajak since his arrival, showing him the ropes and shielding him from scrutiny. His disease alone was reason enough for instant execution—but Setrakian claimed him as his assistant, and kept him away from the SS overseers and Ukrainian guards at critical times. But Zajak was gone now. His lungs were giving out, and, more important, he had lost the will to live: shutting down, seldom speaking, constantly crying in silence. He had become a liability to Setrakian’s survival, but his entreaties no longer inspired the old man—Setrakian hearing him shudder with silent coughing spasms and quietly sobbing until dawn.

But now, towering above him, the Thing observed Zajak. The arrhythmic breathing of the old man seemed to please it. Like the angel of death, it extended its darkness over the man’s frail body and clucked its dry palate eagerly.

What the Thing did then…Setrakian could not see. There was noise, but his ears refused to hear it. This great, gloating Thing bent over the old man’s head and neck. Something about its posture indicated…a feeding. Zajak’s old body twitched and spasmed ever so lightly, but, remarkably, the old man never awoke.