The Horror Megapack_ 25 Classic and Modern Horror Stories ( PDFDrive )

sat there with me. One of them moaned a little. I could smell blood and urine.
“Hello?” I whispered. “Lou?”
“Shh,” the man next to me said softly in my ear. “The guards will give you a
thrashing if they hear.” He had a British accent. “We’re all R.A.F.,” he added.
“No other yanks here, old boy.”
“Thanks,” I whispered.
“Smithers,” he said softly, and we shook hands.
“Tuck,” I told him.
He nodded and that was the end of it. I sank back a little.
Lou wasn’t here. He might have gotten away.
It was a small comfort.
It was dawn when the truck started. By the thin gray morning light, I could see
my five fellow prisoners clearly for the first time. They looked as bleary-eyed
and miserable as I felt. Smithers was a corporal, I saw. Nobody said anything;
we just rode in a sullen, helpless silence under the watchful eyes of our two
guards.
After an hour or so, we came to a stop. Through the back of the truck I could
see what looked like a small rail yard. Dense forest came down near the tracks
about a hundred yards away. The guards lowered the clapboard and motioned us
out. Stretching stiff muscles, we complied.
Several boxcars were parked on the tracks waiting for an engine, I saw. The
guards lined us up while they opened one, then loaded us into it like cattle. Dirty
straw lined the floor, I saw when I stepped in. It smelled faintly of mold.
“What about a doctor?” Smithers called to the captain outside. “Can you get us
a doctor? One of our chaps has a broken arm! You there—”
The guards rolled the boxcar’s door shut with a firm thump and I heard a bar
being lowered into place. Luckily it wasn’t dark inside. Blades of light slanted
between the thick wooden slats of the walls.
“Hey!” Smithers yelled.
I heard boots walking away. We were alone.
“Bastards,” Smithers swore. He kicked the door for a little while, but it did no
good.
Everyone else was settling down on the straw. I hadn’t realized how drained I
was; when I lay down, I fell asleep almost at once, but not easily and not deeply.
Twice that day the guards opened the door, once to serve a kind of lunch—a
thin greasy stew and stale bread—and once to replace the latrine bucket in the