If I had bones, I figure they’d be aching. The muscles in my tendrils are sore. I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck. My brain buzzes, erratic, uncontrolled thoughts flitting by like leaves in the wind.

  “Mr. Wolfgang?”

  “Huh?”

  I snap to and look at Roger. Over the next few seconds, I realize he’s been trying to get my attention for a while.

  “You are tired, Mr. Wolfgang.”

  “So?”

  “You need to rest.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “No. You are not.”

  “Let’s just keep going, Roger. We’ve gotten a lot done.”

  “These screws you made have crooked threads. These wires are too short. These bolts are bent.”

  “Alright, alright. I see your point.”

  “We can get a lot more done when you have completed a rest cycle.”

  “Sure. Sure. I’ll take a nap. You’d better wake me in fifteen minutes, though.”

  “You need more rest than that, Mr. Wolfgang.”

  “No. Fifteen minutes. Any more, and I’ll be too tired to get back to work,” I say as I stretch out and close my eyes. “Maybe I should make an alarm clock before I…”

  I drift off into the embrace of dreams before I can finish the thought. What a wild embrace it is.

  [ MEMORIES ARE MERCIES ]

  Kgh-BOOM!

  An artillery shell rattles the earth. Dust falls from the cave ceiling, a makeshift bunker that we’ve taken from the Jerries. I white knuckle the M1 Garand in my…

  Hands. My hands!

  I drop the rifle in my lap and stare at my sweaty palms. Dirt has filled the creases, making little brown roads going nowhere in particular. Tears well in my eyes and run down to my chin like fresh juice pouring from a bite of ripe melon.

  It’s only a dream, isn’t it? I’m just asleep. Just a memory. Nothing more.

  But … this is so real. The sweat on my skin. The dirt on my face, neck, and hands. The grime on my back and loins. And the smell. It’s awful, but it’s real. It’s all so real.

  My fingers tremble.

  Salerno. This is the cave in Salerno, Italy.

  I look up. There’s a girl in a green house robe staring at me. Her blonde hair is a wild, tangled mess. Her eyes are sad and quiet. The last time I saw her, she was laughing, but I didn’t get the joke.

  I turn my head to the left and look at the cave’s opening. Green sunlight pours in.

  Green. That’s strange. Of course things are strange; this is a dream after all.

  Two privates from my squad pull security near the narrow opening. One points his M1. The other points a Browning Automatic Rifle.

  What were their names?

  “Someone’s out there,” says the private holding an M1.

  Chester. That’s Chester.

  “Where?” asks the one with a Browning.

  And Lancaster.

  “I don’t know,” says Chester. He’s a blonde man from West Texas. A boy, really, but the war’s made a man of him. Or, it will have if it lets us keep him. “I can just tell. We’re being watched.”

  Another artillery shell shakes the earth. My bones rattle in the hellish roar. Consciously, I couldn’t care less about the bombardment. I got used to the rounds long ago.

  I take another look at the girl.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask.

  “You don’t remember me?”

  “I remember you. I remember you from somewhere else. But not here, though. Why are you here?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What are you muttering about back there, Sarge?” asks Lancaster.

  “I think he’s snapped,” says another. “I’m about to join him. We’ve been in here too long.”

  That’s Alvin, my corporal. He’s in the middle of the cave, between me and the entrance where the two privates pull security.

  “Keep it down. Someone’s definitely out there,” says Chester.

  “Oh, don’t worry. Something tells me they can’t hear us.”

  Another shell. The cave shakes. Dust falls again.

  That one was closer.

  “Your name … it’s Clara.”

  “Yes.”

  “What the hell is that?” yells Lancaster.

  “What?” asks Alvin, scrambling forward on his belly.

  “In the trees! There!” Lancaster points with his finger.

  “Go back and get some rest,” says Alvin. “There’s nothing there. I’ll take over. You’re getting froggy.”

  I look back at Clara.

  “Did you make it, or am I talking to your ghost?” I ask.

  “I made it.”

  “Wolf’s talking to ghosts back here,” says Lancaster. “You think I’m froggy? I think the shells are really rattling him.”

  “Shut up and close your eyes for a second,” hisses Alvin.

  “Thank God,” I say.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  “What about you?” asks Clara.

  “I…” I take a moment to reflect on everything that’s happened: lost out amongst the stars, wandering through a strange forest, finding Sam beaten to a bloody pulp, getting shot by the mob in a hail of bullets, finding a robot, meeting a monster at the bottom of the lake, Dave, going inside my own mind, and eventually meeting that same monster again inside my own head. And those are just the study notes. “I have no idea.”

  “You don’t look like a ghost to me.”

  “How many have you seen?”

  “None. There’s no such thing. Not really.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I have no idea.”

  She almost makes me laugh. I crack a smile, and the kid cracks one back, and there in that cave in the middle of a war in the middle of a galaxy of horrors where dream and memory have met for a moment, I realize there’s no need to feel quite so alone. If nothing else, I have a person I can call a friend.

  “It’s not easy, is it?” I ask. “Being thankful to be alive after what happened.”

  “No … it’s not.”

  “I understand that.” I reach into my jacket pocket and pull out a crumpled pack of smokes and a lighter. “How much do you remember?” I ask with a cigarette hanging from my lips while I spark the lighter over and over again.

  “Everything.”

  Damned thing’s out of fluid.

  “What’s happened to you since?” I ask.

  It’s fine. I need to quit anyway.

  “I was, or I am, in a mental health hospital.”

  “I would be, too.”

  I stare at the lighter and try to use my magic tricks to will a flame into existence.

  “Two detectives came to speak to me today. Now, I’m here talking to you.”

  “Not much time has passed, then.”

  Still no flame.

  “Not for me. For you? I see it’s been ages.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Give me a flame, damn it!

  “I don’t know entirely, but … things are different for you. You’re different.”

  I throw the useless lighter into the darkest part of the cave. It tinks off the rocky wall. I wonder if it broke.

  “You bet your sweet can of cream I’m different. I’m a monster now. I suppose I’ve just become what I’ve always really been, though.”

  “Here,” says Clara. She’s holding out a lighter for me to take, an orange-yellow flame dancing in the wretched, musty, sweat-rank air.

  I accept her gift without a second thought.

  “Thanks,” I say just before holding the flame to the crooked end of my cigarette and drawing in a deep breath.

  “A monster wouldn’t have risked his life for me.”

  “I just didn’t know what I was getting into.”

  I close the lighter and take a look at it.

  J.W.

  My initials.

  “You still did it.”

  “How did you…?” I finally begin to ask.

  “We’re in a dream.”

  “Yeah. I guess a lighter’s the least of my concerns.”

  “Time’s running out.”

  “Time’s a mean hussy. She’s always running out.”

  “No, you need to hurry, Jack.”

  “Tell me why. Maybe I’ll care then.”

  I take a long drag from my cigarette.

  “If you don’t, you’ll never find what you’re looking for.”

  “And what’s that exactly?”

  Crak-crak-crak!

  Three rounds burst from the Browning.

  I snap my head over to see.

  Crak-crak-crak!

  “Ignore them, Jack.”

  “Those are my boys.”

  “Enemy! Fifty yards! Eleven o’clock!” yells Alvin.

  “They’re not real,” she tells me.

  I don’t know if she means Alvin, Chester, and Lancaster or the enemy. I don’t care. The fight is on. My men need me. I’m there.

  The mouth of the cave is narrow, too narrow for four men. While Alvin and Chester lie prone behind the sandbags left for us by the Germans, Lancaster leans in against the left wall, kneeling between Alvin’s legs, and I lie on top of Chester, looking for movement and giving him targets.

  “It’s a dream, Jack.”

  “It sure is!” I say. “To the left there, Chester.”

  Bang!

  The German ducks his head.

  I point to another.

  Chester fires again.

  Alvin and Lancaster fire beside us.

  With just three guns, we achieve superiority.

  Something’s strange.

  “They’re not shooting back,” says Alvin.

  “They’re not real,” says Clara.

  I stand up and march over to her. The cave is bigger than I remember.

  “What are they then? What are you on about?”

  I turn around. My men are staring at me.

  “Look away!” I tell them.

  Their heads snap back to looking out of the cave.

  “You’re in a dream. You’re fighting the dream.”

  “But I remember this! It’s not just a dream! It’s a memory! It was real!”

  “Now, it’s not.”

  “Then why do I feel everything? Why can I smell the gunpowder burning? Why do I feel the carbine’s kick through Chester’s body?”

  “Just because something isn’t real now doesn’t mean it never was. The past made its marks. It left its scars. It’s gone now.”

  “Is that what they told you in therapy? Let it go? Get over it? Forget about everyone you watched die? How can you forget a scar when every day it reminds you it’s there, screaming, howling out in pain?!”

  “Let it heal, Jack.”

  “That’s just what I need right now: a little girl telling me to move on!”

  “I’m not telling you to move on. I’m telling you to heal.”

  “You tell me the difference then. You tell me how to heal, until then, I’m not leaving. I’m not abandoning these men. I’m not abandoning this fight.”

  “Ghosts aren’t real.”

  My blood boils like stew forgotten on the stove. I turn back to my men. They’re lying on the ground as still as dolls. Quiet. Waiting.

  “You okay, Sarge?” asks Alvin.

  “What’s happening out there?” I ask, ignoring the question, returning to the strange mix of dream, memory, and reality.

  “Listen,” says Alvin. “The Germans are screaming.”

  Like a whisper caught in the wind, I hear it. It isn’t German.

  Out of the woods shambles a soldier. His faded, green uniform is darkened with gallons of blood. His arms hang, barely holding his rifle.

  Bang!

  Chester wastes no time sending a round through the man’s chest. The shot knocks the man back, yet, wavering, he refuses to fall. He keeps shambling.

  “What the hell?” asks Chester.

  Crak-crak-crak!

  Alvin looses a burst from the Browning. At least two of the shots land. The bloody green soldier keeps marching.

  That’s not a man.

  “That one’s real,” says Clara. She’s sitting beside me now, her legs folded like a lady while she leans on her hand. “It’s just not what you think.”

  More German infantrymen, just as bloody as their brother, rise in the woodline and begin marching toward us.

  “What’s going on?” I ask. “What are those? Ghouls? The living dead?”

  “What happens to a wound that’s left untended?” she asks.

  “Answer me first!”

  “I’m trying. Have you ever seen flies buzz around an open sore?”

  She really does belong in that asylum.

  “Give me the Browning,” I tell Alvin. “And any cartridges for it.”

  “Roger, Sarge.”

  I step out of the cave. Dozens of Germans look at me, but they don’t seem to see me. Their rifles hang at their waists, and that’s when I see the bayonets fixed to the ends of the barrels.

  I let my boiling blood cool to a simmer. I stand. I aim.

  Crak-crak-crak!

  I fire.

  Crak-crak-crak!

  Again.

  Crak-crak-crak!

  And again.

  “Christ have mercy,” says Lancaster. “What on earth’s going on?”

  The Germans merely waver from the Browning’s impact. They never stop. They never fall. Instead, they point their bayonets toward me.

  “You can’t heal wounds with bullets,” says Clara.

  “I can sure as hell try!”

  Crak-crak-crak!

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