~The previous night had been a bad one. Quentin was used to sleeping underground. That hadn’t been the problem; it had been the dream and what he’d woken up to. In the dream, he’d been in the house that his in-laws owned and he had heard a baby crying. As he’d gone through the house Quentin had seen several quarantine signs pasted to the doors. He hadn’t found the baby and had woken up to a sound of squeaking. Although he’d been bleary eyed and half asleep at some unknown hour, Quentin had been able to make out a rat the size of a small house cat sitting on the foot of his bed, chewing on the sheets, beads of blood on its whiskers. The rat was clubbed to death with his rifle.
 In the late morning, Quentin Lane age 16, married to Miss Polly Blythe for less than a year after getting her pregnant, was in a trench in East France. It was mid June, 1918, and he hadn’t been home since May, 1917; the letter that Polly sent him about the birth of their son hadn’t reached him.
 Quentin sighed to himself. As his head slid along the mud wall, Quentin could hear what sounded to be radio static. He pressed his ear to the wall and heard what sounded like a portly British man.
 “We shall fight him by the sea-----by the air-----God’s help we’ll rid the Earth of his shadow!”
 By air? What’s this man talking about? He heard the radio change frequencies to an angry German.
What are the krauts going on about now? Quentin picked at the wall a bit and dug a little hole before pressing his ear back. As he listened to the German, a strange garlic smell invaded his nostrils. Mustard gas had crept into the tunnel in long creeping tendrils that licked the solders’ faces and greedily burrowed into their skin.
 Quentin was blissfully unaware of the gas attack but found that he was no longer able to hear the German man. Wonder what that chap was carrying on about. He sounded a bit angry; a bit of whiskey would do him good. The smell drifted back to Quentin, who coughed hard several times.
 One of Quentin’s friends, a young man from Scotland, was on his knees, struggling to breathe. The Scot could feel his skin burning and covered his mouth as he continued to hack and sputter. My throat….I can feel it closing. Oh, God I don’t want to die please don’t let me die! His eyes had swollen shut by this time, and he could feel his skin peeling off. This isn’t fair! He was supposed to die like this, not me!

 Several days passed after the gas attack, but Quentin was more interested in listening to the garbled radio signals coming from behind the walls.
 “Due to the surprise attack by the Empire----these United-----will be formally announcing----the Second World War----“
 Quentin sprung away from the wall at the mention of the “Second World War”; his face was covered in a thin film of sweat. Second World War? What’s he talking about? What would that make this the First World War? That’s impossible! This is supposed to be the war to end all wars! He shoved his ear against the wall and ignored the Lieutenant who was staring at him.
 “Don’t go nuts on me now, boy. We just lost 100 of our guys, and I need to keep the rest sane for now.”
 “What are you talking about, Lieutenant?  How did 100 of our guys just die?”
 “There was a mustard gas attack. How did you not know that?”
 Quentin looked down to inspect of a bit of mud on his boot. “Really?” He felt slightly dazed.
 That night, Quentin was in a dead sleep when he felt something drip onto his face. Do we have a leak? His eyes cracked open and he looked up to see the Scot leering down at him.
“What are you doing here?” It felt like the bottom of his stomach had dropped out. “Didn’t you die in the gas attack?”
 The Scot raised his swollen face to Quentin; his mouth cracked open to reveal a puffy tongue that lolled out of his mouth. His eyes were swollen shut and covered in a thin crust, and he leaned closer to Quentin. “You were supposed to be there not me. You were supposed to die, but now you get to go home to your pretty little wife and your new baby.” His voice rose to a rumbling howl. “That’s not fair! Why do you get to get out when I have to stay here?!”
 Quentin opened and closed his mouth several times, like a fish and blinked almost as many times, wishing the hideous vision of the Scot would disappear. “You can’t be here….you’re dead.” He felt bits of burned flesh drip onto his face as bile rose in the back of his throat.
 The Scot tipped back a bit on his heels before springing down and getting so close to Quentin that their noses were nearly touching. “Just remember. I’m watching you. And I’m going to make sure you never get out of here. You’ll spend an eternity here with me!”
 Quentin saw the Scot beginning to venture out of the sleeping quarters when, without thinking he called out to his former friend. “Do you know anything about a Second World War?”
 The Scot, balanced on his toes, leaned back at Quentin with a Cheshire Cat smile on his burnt and disfigured face. “Oh, yes, there will be one. Isn’t it wonderful?” With a last look at the horrified expression on Quentin’s face, the Scot rolled himself upright again and pranced out like a puppet with loose strings; all the while, a shrill cackle rebounded off the earthen trench walls.
 Over the rest of June and into late July, Quentin lost nearly twenty pounds and hardly slept at all. His face became waxy, his uniform hung off his thin frame and made him look like a scarecrow, and he had only one thought. If I find that German from the radio and kill him, there will be no Second World War! If I could only find him and kill him, nobody else will have to suffer through this hell!
 From across No Man’s Land into the German trenches, Quentin had seen a boy about his age with an angelic face and a deadpan expression. In Quentin’s mind, the boy’s youthful almost feminine, appearance, wavy golden blond hair, and clear blue eyes made him a prime target for his rage. It’s always people like that who start things. The innocent appearance will draw followers to them and the next thing you know a war is started because that cream puff wanted to show how big and bad he was.
 The German boy could see Quentin from across the trenches but thought nothing of him. He gave Quentin a quick glance over his shoulder before descending down into the earth to rejoin his comrades.
 As the date of July 15, 1918 inched closer, Quentin was seeing more and more of the Scot and less of his fellow soldiers. Early one morning in early July, Quentin was on guard duty when he heard a voice coming from No Man’s’ Land. Peering over the lip of the trench, he saw a girl who looked vaguely like Polly, but instead of having her hair in pigtails like Polly, the girl’s wavy black hair was loose and flowing over her shoulders, and she was nude. “Hey, what are you doing here, girl? You can’t be here!” Quentin could smell lavender as it washed over his face and he rubbed his eyes several times.
 The Scot had reappeared and had his arms around the girl’s waist. “This is what’s going to happen if you could get home, Lane! You won’t be able to keep your woman’s attention because you’re going to lose your mind, and no girl finds that attractive.”
 THE GIRL turned her face to Quentin, but instead of Polly’s dimpled smile, he saw skin stretched tightly over her cheekbones, her eyes were melted away, and her teeth were black and rotting. “Don’t you still love me, Quentin? What are about our baby?” Her voice shifted to something deep and almost demonic. “Don’t you love me and our baby?”
 Quentin could feel himself becoming light-headed, and he gasped several times for air before sinking down into the trench as he nearly fainted the shrill, cackling laughter of the Scot and THE GIRL ringing in his ears.
 Finally, the day of July 15, 1918 came and brought with it the Second Battle of the Marne. Quentin had managed to convince the Lieutenant that he was feeling healthy enough to participate.
 Like his fellows, Quentin sprung up over the top of the trench as soon as the order was given, and he followed as they crawled through the jungle of barbed wire, dodging mines and German fire. From the corner of his eye, Quentin saw the German boy and felt the blood lust begin to creep through him. I’m going to take him out today. I don’t know when I’ll get the next chance so I need to do it now! Launching himself away from the rest of the group Quentin stood up a couple feet from the German and raised his rifle so the bullet would go between the boy’s eyes. It almost felt like time had stopped for Quentin; he couldn’t hear the gun shots and exploding bombs anymore. It was just him and the German. As sweat pearled on his forehead and rolled down his cheeks, Quentin’s parched lips twisted into a grim smile of victory, and he pulled the trigger, but to his horror, there was only a clicking sound. You can’t be serious….work….come on fire damn it! He pulled the trigger several more times, but only heard the clicking. Quentin’s eyes began to ache as they nearly bulged out of his head; his hands slipped several times as he struggled to un-jam his rifle.
 The German boy, on the other hand, raised his Mauser and fired once. He watched Quentin crumple to the ground before slowly walking back to rejoin the other Germans.
 On some date in someplace during 1918, a boy with a card above his head that read Infantryman Lane, Q, age 16, was waking up. Looking around with his glassy eyes, Lane, Q saw a man talking to a young woman. The Germans have me! Oh, dear God no! I have to get out of here! Only German words began to fill his ears as Quentin saw them advancing on him armed only with scalpels and syringes.
 Both the doctor and nurse who had to hold Quentin down were British. He’d been in an underground hospital for months without knowing it. 
 As the boy felt the sedative begin to take effect, he could only see the warped; laughing faces of the Scot and THE GIRL, and behind them, the expressionless German boy with the angelic face.

 This is a small section of a report taken May 3, 1919 to document the total fatalities of the Spanish Flu outbreak in Great Britain. Mrs. Hannah Blythe aged 42, Mrs. Polly Lane, aged 17, and Mr. Reece Blythe, aged 13. Surviving members of the Blythe family include Mr. Haul Blythe, aged 45, Miss Wynne Blythe, aged 15, and infant, Hugh Blythe, aged one.
 To be added to the record at a later date, concerning patient progress for Infantryman Lane, Q, Mr. Lane was found deceased from an unknown cause late this afternoon on September 3, 1919.
 
Years later in 1934 a young boy was crawling up into his attic. Hugh Blythe had faked being sick that in order to investigate something at his house without being bothered by his Aunt. He had tried asking his Aunt Wynne about his parents several times before, but to no avail. Pushing the trap door open Hugh pulled himself up into the dusty attic and coughed several times to clear his throat of cobwebs.
As he walked along the creaking wooden floor Hugh smelt a very strange mixture of lavender and garlic. Ignoring the odor Hugh walked over to a packing case that looked promising and got down on his knees to rip the tape off the top. Rooting through the old box the boy found an old photograph of a young man and a young woman. Upon inspecting the picture a bit closer Hugh noticed that neither of the figures in the photo had a face.  By this time Hugh was having a difficult time breathing from the odd mixture of lavender and garlic which caused him to cough several more times.
A shiver went down his spine when he heard a high pitched borderline maniacal giggle. Setting the picture back on the packing case Hugh got up and walked over to a corner of the attic; the smell becoming over powering and made his eyes water. He saw a cap on the floor and crouched down again to pick it up. Examining the cap he recognized it as part of a Scottish uniform from the Great War and cocked his head to the side feeling the rough fabric in his fingers went he touched something damp. Bringing the cloth to his face Hugh saw that the faded plaid on the cap was stained with blood. The boy threw the cap down when he noticed that the smell was wafting from it.
The giggles had become louder and higher pitched.
Hugh felt something drip down onto his cheek and looked up through his dark hair to see the leering face of the Scot smiling down at him.