Jack and Louis: warzone - No. 17 - No. 4
The thing with the millimeter thick skin didn't respond to names, the same way it occupied muscle, bone, and gristle, but had none of them either. It could fill a body with a certain kind of light, but it was beyond monikers. If it ever had one, no one knew it now, not even the thing itself.
It was so much less than it had been once, but it could still enjoy the moment when the downpour cleared and they sat up, stood, and began to move. "Allies? There are no soldiers here," it said, matter-of factly, as they ran for the line. No one would have known just how many teeth Louis had until that moment - distinct, white, numerous and not perfectly even, all on display.
How could a battlefield be encapsulated in a pumphouse, little better than a barn? Well, how could a god fit in a living shell? What did it matter? It was, or it wasn't, and while the thing knew that its sight was colored by the body it inhabited, it didn't mind. It liked a bit of a mindfuck now and again - such a rare sensation when one's vision saw through all things.
There were no soldiers behind the barbed wire, but as they drew closer, it slowed to a stop, pressing a hand against Jack's chest.
"Now now," it said. "Let's not rush. We're sought."
Heads began to appear over the ridge, behind the barbed wire, and flashlights strung back and forth, sparking light on the wet walls behind them. The figures were dressed as policemen from another era, a hundred years gone. They had dogs on tight leashes, straining. "Won't do," it said. "This won't." It grinned, still. It didn't seem to mind a thing. "Did you ever practice holding your breath, as a boy?"
Around their feet, in the trench, at the edges of the walls, the rainwater slowly seeped away, toward the back. The rain was gone, but the water was streaming uphill, a reverse current. The officers looked down at the water running over their feet, starting asking one another questions. French, apparently. Qu'est-ce que c'est? Then an officer at the edge of the search party spotted the pair past the lines. He pointed, and another of their number dropped to his knees, producing a massive pair of clippers, snipping at the barbed wire. They would make a hole in just a moment, but it was surreal, almost comical. Then officers stared at the two men without addressing them, apparently unsure of protocol, or perhaps just keen to get this, whatever it was, over with.
"Hope so," the thing said. "Back, now. Back!"
At the back of the room, a swell was gathering out of the streaming water. Higher, higher still, cresting like a tsunami hurled up from below. The policemen didn't see it behind them, and when it crashed down on their heads - when it washed them all in the direction of the door - there was nowhere for the searchers to go but into the barbed wire, dashed into the metal teeth.
The current picked up the muddy pair of egg hunters and spun them toward the door. Water was filling the pumphouse, right to the eaves, swamping the machinery and crashing through glass windowpanes. It, the thing, wrapped a spindly hand around Jack's wrist, and then the water washed them tumbling out the open door.