The retreat of the living

Corpses of skylarks and blackbirds fell from the grey sky, landing on barbed wire and in the dust of the wasteland.

As the thick yellow chlorine cloud began to thin, shape of dead oaks and discoloured scrub emerged in the distance, behind the shattered ruins of the Osowiec Fortress.

A wailing whistle broke the deathly silence of the barren battlefield before an army of pointed helmets and baggy gas masks rose from the trenches.

The slim figures marched ahead, muffled whispers threaded through the rattle of the rifles and the crack of the dead branches under their black leather boots.

As they advanced, they saw the littered bodies of the fallen - discoloured faces wrapped in bloody rags, skin blistered and burned by the poison gas.

From the carnage, a lieutenant staggered upright as he spat pieces of his lungs, stumbling ahead as blood leaked from his ears, leading the last bayonet charge of his men. More undead defenders rose, clutching rusty rifles, mounting the decaying bayonets.

Seeing the enemy's torn uniforms hanging on their slump shoulders and bloody masks revealing only their bloodshot, vacant eyes on their lolled heads, the attackers froze, then broke in terror.

Cries of fear and panic suppressed the stuttering clicking of the machine gun as the army of thousands turned and fled in blind hysteria - dropping their rifles, jostling each other and slashing themselves on their own barbed wire - as the undead charged at them, ready to die again.

As the noon sun blazed over Osowiec, the battlefield stood silent once more. The mist clung low over the empty trenches. No birds sang, no summer breeze stirred the yellow grass. Only faint, scattered coughs were heard...

                                                                              Szilágyi Ákos   XII. R