Past Tense- Part one, Chapter one

[skull_bearer]

Part One

Chapter 1

 

 

The dogs were howling.

They were huge dogs, almost wolves in the eyes of a terrified boy. Black as coal, with eyes that reflected red in the half-light, and jaws that shone red from the blood on their fangs. His mother’s blood. Her husband’s blood. His son’s blood. 
His blood.

The dogs left the carcasses they had been gnawing, the bodies that had once been living, breathing people. People he knew. People he’d grown up with. His family. The dogs circled, followed by their human counterparts. The men had faces like the dogs, hairless and hideous, their teeth bared in impossibly huge smiles. They were silent, but the death-heads on their caps were laughing, mocking him as he tried to crawl away, his hands slipping on the blood. The dogs smiled at him, two loping behind him to cut him off.

Charles screamed, one hand outstretched in a hopeless attempt to ward the dogs off. Once, long ago, it had worked. Once, long ago, the dogs had cowered and yelped, slinking back to the guards. Now they just laughed, their teeth gleaming. He screamed again, and the dogs screamed back, even the guards threw back their canine heads and howled mockery at his feeble defence.

The dog behind him leapt, catching him on the shoulder and knocking him flat on his stomach. He tried to push himself up, but his arms didn’t work, useless and shattered as the sticks of his legs. No, that wasn’t right, this had happened long ago, before the camps, before Erik. He wasn’t meant to be here like this.

The dogs laughed again, as though they could hear his thoughts. “No meat on you, boy.” The death-heads mocked. “What does it matter if you feed our dogs? You’ll be dead and gone next selection anyway.”

Charles screamed again, trying to back away but already surrounded. “Kill him.” The deaths-heads chanted. “Kill the boy. Tear his flesh and crush his bones and burn him to ashes.”

The guards howled, dropping onto all fours and creeping towards him. Wolves in SS uniform. They growled as they came closer, saliva dripping from their muzzles and mixing with the blood. Charles tried to scuttle away, but even that slight movement was denied to him and a huge paw came down in the middle of his back, pinning him to the floor. Charles screamed a last time as he felt the dog’s teeth, as tearing and sharp as razors, shear through his thin skin, shredding flesh and grinding against bone. The pain turned his stomach and tears poured down his cheeks. Teeth in his arms, crushing through the bones of his legs, stripping the skin off his back. His screams were answered with a moan, low and horribly human. First one, then another, and another of the dogs took up the cry, until Charles could feel their breath against his ear, and the largest SS-turned-wolf bent its head and fastened its teeth around his throat.

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The moans follow him into the waking world, but the teeth don’t. He can still feel hot breath on the back of his neck, but when he turns to look it is only Erik, his face slack in sleep.

Erik.

That first time he saw him, on the train to Auschwitz. Too blinded with tears for his murdered family to even pick out the features of the boy who had fallen over him, and who lay curled up where he fell, clutching at his twisted arms. He only heard later of how the Nazis who captured him had tied his hands behind his back and hung him from them until his shoulders dislocated; but at the time all he saw was someone who needed his help, and somehow that was enough to shock him out of his grief-stricken apathy.

Charles shakes the images away, wincing when even that movement grinds the sores covering his back against the rough cloth beneath him. He and Erik are lying on the canvas covered floor of an army truck, with a handful of the other survivors of the train, the ones dubbed too ill to wait for medical assistance. Charles isn’t sure if he should be pleased that Erik had been one of those chosen to be driven to the nearest red cross hospital, but he is glad that he had lied about who he is. Changing his name is a trivial price to pay to stay with Erik.

The had never separated before. Even before they had sworn never to leave, although then it had been simply out of fear. If you lost sight of someone, it was uncertain if you’d ever see them again, or if they’d still be breathing if you did. There were too many dangers. A mad Kapo. A bored guard. Or even a fellow prisoner, one willing to murder you for the coat on your back or the shoes on your feet. Even together, it wouldn’t make much difference if they were caught, but an extra pair of eyes were always useful to avoid danger.

Charles screws his eyes shut furiously, willing the images to stop. It is over. They are free. They are in allied hands, and the dangers only exist in his own mind.

What a pity then, that Charles knows all too well how dangerous those are.

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He was standing in the dappled shade beneath the shade of the trees, the ground was soft under his feet, like mud or quicksand, and the air was still save for his ragged breathing. He was standing on the edge of a long pit, jet black and yawning wide. And he was going to die.

It was a game, shooting cadavers into the pit, but Erik was alive. The bodies standing on either side of him weren’t. He should know, because he had seen them die. They had once been his family. They stood on the edge of the pit with him, staring blankly up ahead- at least his mother did. His father’s eyes had been eaten away long ago. He could see the maggots working away in the sockets. His mother’s brown hair had come out in clumps, and the skin was starting to peel away from the gaping gunshot wounds in her back. His sister stood on his father’s other side, her beautiful face aged and pickled like an old woman’s, the skin drawn back from her face until the bones tore through.

He wanted to cry out, to scream that he was alive, that he didn’t want to die and fall into the pit with the dead, but he couldn’t move. He was crying, his shoulders shaking in silent, helpless sobs as he heard the guns behind him click warningly. It was hopeless. He had to move, or they would open fire, and he would be like his parents, dead and rotting, target practise for his killers.

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Erik is still unconscious, but lying next to him, Charles can feel his heartbeat has slowed from the frantic fluttering he had felt in the train to a more steady rhythm. His breathing has also slowed, and Charles hopes this meant that whatever the medic had given him has worked. The image of what would happen if it didn’t work, or if the medic has deliberately poisoned his friend, stings Charles’ thoughts. He imagines watching his friend’s breathing slowing still further, then finally stopping entirely. What had he been thinking, letting anyone near Erik? Hadn’t he seen enough to understand what people could do, given half a chance?

The dogs that killed his family…

The guns that killed Erik’s…

The gas that killed many more than he could ever know…

The men who had hounded them, day after week after month after year, beating and starving and killing with the only intention to see them work until they died…

No. That was then. They are free now. They are safe now. What could anyone possibly gain in poisoning Erik? This is the real world, not the endless nightmare of the camps, people don’t kill others for fun in the real world. Besides, a sneaking voice whispers, they wouldn’t have to. Just wait another day or so and it would be over anyway. Erik has been getting steadily worse and he would have died soon. And they would have been nothing Charles could have done about it.

The look on Erik’s face in Belsen, the night before they were set to leave. That horrible smile that outdid the skull his face had become. Erik knew he wasn’t going to be able to get to the transport tomorrow, they both did. The typhus that had swept through the camp had robbed him of what strength he had left, and if he wasn’t able to get to the train, he would be shot.

Stop it.

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The guns fired, a dozen shots that split the quiet evening air to ribbons and nearly deafened him. A bullet shot past his ear, another passed terrifyingly close to his neck, and a third grazed his back but none of them hit. Erik had re-lived this scene so many times it was familiar, the strange feeling that the bullets couldn’t get near him, like magnets repelling each other.

The corpses beside him were not so lucky, putrefying flesh flew in all directions, along with thick, clotted black blood. One by one they toppled into the pit as the bullets hit them.

Erik swayed and felt the ground start to crumble and give way beneath him. Beside him, he felt his father’s bony hand close on his, the other taking hold of his daughter‘s. His mother rested an arm on his shoulders, an arm only attached to her body by a few rotting tendons, the whole limb thick with flies. He could feel the insects crawling on his face as his family jumped into the pit, pulling him in with them.

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Charles picks up the flask of water the medic left him. That, the coat the soldier left Erik and the clothes on their backs. That is all they have by the way of material possessions- if the rags they wear could be counted as clothing, which he doubts.

He can taste the water now as he drinks it, though the liquid still hurts his cracked lips. It’s warm and tastes of petrol and engine oil. The little food he managed to force down earlier threatens to come back up but he swallows bile and drinks anyway.

It was so much worse that time. It had been summer, but all that meant was trading unbearable cold for unendurable thirst. That had chewed snow during the winter, heedless of the stomach cramps, and in spring had stolen mouthfuls of water from a nearby stream when no one was looking. But the snow had melted and the stream dried up, so that night they crept out of the barrack window.

They hadn’t been able to eat and Charles could remember how that evening, he’d watched Erik lick blood from his cut fingers in an effort to quench his thirst. They couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t even speak- although by now they knew each other so well they hardly needed to.

The window had been small, but by now they were so thin that wasn’t really a problem. They had crept along the walls, keeping in the shadows and out of sight of the night guards and the dogs and the SS, and crawled through the half-open window of what passed as a washroom in Birkenau. The foul water from the taps had no taste then either, but it had felt like drinking acid, burning his cracked mouth and tongue mercilessly. They had drunk and drunk until they thought they’d drown, with each painful mouthful breathing life back into them. 

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The earth tasted of rot and decay when the first spadeful was thrown in, drizzling clods of earth and pebbles over his head. He struggled to his feet, his legs sinking into the soft earth up to his knees. He cried out, but the was no answer but another pile of earth emptied over his head. Erik struggled to the side of the pit, stumbling as the thick earth tried to drag his feet out from under him. Whether due to the earth being thrown in or not, the level of the ground was slowly rising, now up to his thighs. It seemed liquid, not so much mud as dark brown water, lapping hungrily at him as though longing to pull him under.

He scrabbled at the sides of the pit, trying to find purchase to pull himself free. His breath coming sharp and fast as his fingers slid uselessly through the mud.

A skeletal hand emerged from the loose earth closing on his wrist and pulling him away from the wall. Erik cried out as he felt himself being drawn further into the mud. Grains of earth struck his face, half blinding him to the sight of his mother’s dead face, twisted in a revolting parody of her sweet smile as she emerged from the earth. Her free hand- this one still clad in discoloured flesh- stroked his cheek before resting on his shoulder, pushing him down, the earth now lapping around his neck.

And now there were more. Not just his parents, Erik could recognise the bloated, rotting features of his family sliding from the mud. His sister, half her face blown off from these last shots. His little brother, who’s body they had never found, but who appeared beaten and broken. The twins, their remaining skin stretched tightly over their bones, a reminder of the typhus that had killed them. All of them, wordlessly smiling at their long-lost brother, their hands tightening their grip and drawing him down to drown and join them at long last.

Erik screamed.

 

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Charles looks up as Erik groans suddenly, his head flopping to one side. He is still uncomfortably hot to the touch, but the fever does seem to have gone down. He hopes that when Erik does wake up- and he would. He would. He had to- he wouldn’t be in the delirious state he had been in the last time. 

It had been frightening, hearing Erik rave and scream in Polish and being unable to do anything- or even understand what his friend was shouting about since his own command of the language was uncertain at best. Frightening, and only reinforcing how helpless he was to aid him.

Charles lowers himself onto his elbows next to his friend, ignoring the pain that shoots up his arms at the pressure and the way they tremble under his weight. He pours a little water from the flask into his cupped hand, dripping it carefully into Erik’s half-open mouth.

The last time he’d tried that, Erik had choked and nearly drowned, and it had been only by turning him on his side that Charles had avoided killing his friend with his own hands.

This time though, Erik swallows the small amount. A tongue slides out to lick off the few drops that had landed on his lips. Charles smiles and wipes his wet hand over his friend’s forehead before trying again.

 

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The earth that filled his mouth tasted of metal and oil, he tried to spit it out, but it was only replaced by more. Skeleton hands held his arms, his legs, clenched tight on the fabric of his clothes. Two were knotted into his hair, pulling his head back to drown him. He couldn’t fight, he was held too tightly, he tried to jerk his head out of the hands, but they were too strong. He couldn’t breath, the earth covered both his nose and mouth, and he could feel it start to trickle down his throat. The urge to cough was overwhelming, and his lungs were screaming for air. Sooner or later he would give in to one or other of those impulses, and let the earth fill his lungs.

With a final surge of strength, Erik pulled his face free of the muck, coughing out the mud from his mouth and emptying the stale air from his lungs for one last breath.

And at that moment, the dead hands came from the earth again and pulled him back under, a skeletal mouth closing over his in a twisted parody of the kiss of life.

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Erik’s eyes snap open. Everything is dark and his eyes don’t seem to be working normally, and all he can make out is a dark shape of someone leaning over him, silhouetted against a darker ceiling. He draws in a sharp breath, and chokes as he inhales water.

He flinches away as hands close on him again, but they hold him tightly, drawing him up as he starts to cough. His head spins and he clings to the person for support, feeling as though he might throw up. An arm slides around him, holding him upright, and one hand unclenches from his shoulder to stroke over the rough stubble covering his head.

Erik stops shaking and draws in a ragged breath. The world feels as thought it’s tilting very slightly off balance, but at least he knows who’s arms he’s in.

It was only a day after they had first met that he had been able to see Charles’ face properly for the first time. It was strange, he had built up an image of him in his mind that had been almost precisely accurate. The strong-boned face, the wide eyes looking too young for his years, lines of fear and dread.

“Charles-” Even that one word hurts his raw throat. So he leaves it to his friend to fill in what he would have said. Where are we? What’s going on? Are you alright?

When they’d met, the only language they had shared had been German, which Charles barely knew how to speak and which he most certainly didn’t want to speak. Later, in the camps, they had been able to talk in the crude mismatch of languages the inmates used. He’d had to learn English and Charles some Polish, but they’d been able to speak fairly well. Later, they knew each other so well they’d barely needed to talk at all.

The hand on his scalp slides down to support his shoulders, easing him back down to the hard floor. The rough fabric hurts his sore back and he winces and tried to turn over, to find a more comfortable position. The fog in front of his eyes clears a little so he can see Charles bending over him, see the relief in his eyes. “Hello Erik,” He’s still hoarse but better than the last time he heard him, and it’s comforting to hear a familiar voice. “Welcome back.”

It doesn’t feel like it. He feels so sick he can’t tell if it’s due to hunger or not. Probably. It feels as though they’re still in the train even though he’s pretty sure they aren’t moving. The world still seems as if it’s swaying, and the clattering of the wheels on the rails appears to have taken up residence in his head. He presses the side of his face against the floor, the rough cloth cool against his burning skin.

The unbearable heat of the bunk in Belsen. It was an unusually hot April, and the barrack was stifling. The stench from the dead and dying was indescribable, but to venture outside would be suicide for one in his condition, even assuming he could walk. The feeling of sliding slowly in delirium, the panic of never knowing where he was, the terror of awakening alone for the first time in three years until he almost wished he’d hurry up and die and get it over and done with.

It seems as thought he won’t be allowed any peace here either. Charles tilts his head back up and for a moment Erik is afraid he might be sick, before something wonderfully cold is pressed against his lips. He tastes metal for a moment, welcome and chill and familiar, then his head is tipped back further and water fills his mouth.

The taste is electric, like life pouring back into him. The water is as cold as the metal, and has the same flavour. He drinks greedily, forgetting his aching stomach, forgetting the thunder in his head, just drinking and swallowing and licking his lips for any stray drops and-

He pulls back. He may be ill, but he can see what Charles’ doing. It wouldn’t be the first time his friend cheated himself for Erik’s benefit, and he certainly won’t let him do it now, particularly with something as precious -delicious, wonderful, perfect- as water. However he got this flask, it’s anyone’s guess how long it’s going to have to last them. Charles might not have learnt anything from Auschwitz, but he has. And the most important lesson he learnt was that everything had to be shared, because if Charles died, then there wouldn’t be much point in going on.

He’d been thirsty then as well, so much that he was on the verge of pushing through the ranks and drinking down the whole barrel of the foul mixture they called tea by himself. Even the knowledge that doing so would get him nothing more than a bullet barely stopped him. His hands were bleeding from the sharp stones he’d carried, and as they lined up wearily he lifted them to his lips and licked the blood off, trying to quench his thirst on his own liquid. A short way behind him, Charles was silent, he hadn’t spoken for most of the day and his mouth hung open like that of one of the dogs he so hated. He looked like Erik felt, his mouth stripped raw and his blood thick, as if even that was drying up.

The tea was lukewarm at best, and when Erik got to the barrel it was stone cold, but he barely cared, swallowing half of it with a gulp, sighing in relief as the water entered his system. His thirst was by no means quenched, but at least he could think coherently. Which meant he was in full possession of his senses when he saw what happened next. One of the Kapos, a German who oversaw what passed as a hospital, and who was widely believed to be insane, had walked up and poured something into the barrel. Erik couldn’t see what it was, but judging by Charles’ expression, even he couldn’t be persuaded to drink it.

The rake-thin sixteen year old broke out of line and stood next to Erik, sending him a desperate, pleading look.

If it had been anyone else, Erik would have drunk the rest of his ration in front of them, savouring what he had that they didn’t. But with Charles…

Erik groaned, and passed the cup to his friend before temptation overtook him, and tried to ignore the sounds Charles made as he hungrily swallowed his share, and tried to bite back against the tightness that was quickly returning to his throat and mouth.

He licks his lips regretfully, and passes the flask back to Charles.

“Erik?”

He doesn’t trust his voice. Even if his tongue could form the words, his throat feels so dry that he fears it might crack if he tries to speak. Instead he narrows his eyes at his friend, willing him to take the hint and stop tempting him with things he knows they can’t afford to waste.

Charles smiles, and Erik knows he’s got the message -sometimes he thinks his friend can read minds- even if his response is a bit inappropriate. The smile looks odd on his gaunt face, as though it was painted on, or as if Charles were wearing a mask. And instead of putting the flask away, or having a drink himself, he offers it to Erik again. “It’s okay,” His voice is gentle, soothing despite the slight grate, familiar.

It had been three years ago, the first time he’d heard Charles’ voice. Soft, strangely comforting and thick with shed tears. But he was in no state to appreciate the attempted help, curled as he was on the hard floor of the transport train, his dislocated shoulders a spreading knot of wildfire and cold, grey, draining pain.

The hand on his face brings him back to the present, fingers tracing a well-worn pattern along his cheekbones. “It’s okay,” he repeats, “We’re safe, the British army stopped the train and we’re safe.” The last is spoken as if Charles wants to convince himself just as much as he wants to convince Erik. “We have more water, and we have food, you can drink as much as you want.”

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Erik looks at him, his expression confused in a way that would be entertaining; even sweet if he wasn’t so ill, and Charles so tired. The desperate burst of energy that has driven him through the last few hours has gone, and all he wants to do is curl up next to his friend and sleep for month after month until they feel better and the whole nightmare of the last three years is gone and forgotten.

Although it feels as thought it’ll never be over, with the images replaying over and over in his mind. The jaws of the dogs, the muzzle of the guns, the hunger and thirst and pain and the screams and the flames-

Stop.

He has won one victory though, Erik lifts his head obediently and swallows the last few mouthfuls of water from the flask. His eyes narrowed again in warning that if Charles is lying, he is going to get very angry, which would be more worrying if it wasn’t coming from someone half-dead from typhus. Instead Charles just smiles at him again, the expression feeling strange on his lips after so long, and lies down on his stomach next to his friend, crawling under the rough blanket and long army coat that serves them for bed covering.

The soldier that had brought them to the medic paused on his way out, then took off his long coat- too warm for the late spring weather- and draped it over Erik. It was thick and soft, and dusty with the road. The man had murmured something awkward about helping fellow countrymen, and hurried out.

Charles wonders if the man would still have done this if he knew that Erik wasn’t English, and stamps on the thought. Of course he would, not everyone behaves like a Nazi.

Erik can’t keep up the scowl, as Charles knew he couldn’t. He barely has the strength to lift his head, let alone stay awake for any length of time. Charles feels a chill when Erik’s eyes finally close again and he falls asleep; the fear that his friend might not wake up again slowly returning.

He faced that fear every day for the last few weeks, as Erik grew weaker and weaker and he had to leave him in the barracks to scavenge from the other prisoners, scraping together food to keep them alive even a little longer. The fear had been almost crippling then. Not knowing if he’d come back to find Erik dead from the typhus devouring him from the inside or murdered at the hands of another prisoner or dragged away by the SS in a surprise raid on their barrack.

It was well founded then, but it’s irrational now, he’s not so far gone that he doesn’t know that. But he’s seen so many people fall into that eternal sleep that the fear never quite leaves him. Charles presses one hand on Erik’s chest, feeling his heart beating, and the slow rise and fall of his chest. There’s enough room to lie apart on the floor, but old habits are hard to break and he stays close to his friend, his head resting on Erik’s shoulder. The hard planes of bone dig into his cheek, but it’s better than the cold floor.

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The hands close on him. They were gloves in real life but here they’re paws, thick and furry and clenching mercilessly on his shoulder, the claws tearing through his coat. He tries to cry out to his mother and brother, but no sound comes out. He can feel his lips shape the words; they’ve-caught-us-run- but he can’t hear them.

The French soldier doesn’t have a face, just a blank stretch of skin, and he knows it’s useless to say anything, because he wouldn’t listen even if he could hear. He tries anyway; please-don’t-hurt-us we-didn’t-mean to-we’re-sorry please-let-us-go.

The soldier holding him is merciless, twisting his arms behind his back as he pushes him forwards. In front of him, Kurt Marko is snarling at the SS. Charles knows what he is saying, the words have echoed in his skull for so long he knows them off by heart, but here they’re muted, a dull babble of sound. You-can’t-do-this you-can’t-keep-us-here you-have-no-right we-are-civilians. The SS in his dream ignore Marko as thoroughly as those in reality did, dragging the four of them into the room.

The part of Charles Xavier that know he’s dreaming knows what will happen next, but his dream-self is oblivious to the danger. Oblivious that is, until his stepfather and stepbrother stand up, facing the guards. He sees the scorn in Cain’s eyes when he looks at him, and sees his lips move, although again the words are blurred Get-up-you-faggot fight-you-stupid-coward. He doesn’t move, and can only stare as the two men lash out at the guards holding them. But the guards are no longer simply guards, and the fists sink into the open jaws of a snarling wolf’s-head. The jaws clamp down and the hands come off in it’s teeth.

Around them, the SS’s faces distend into hideous mockeries of that of dogs, hairless and blind, their muzzles fixed in eternal mocking grins that match the laughing death’s-heads on their caps.

And the dogs start to howl.