Natural Consequences by Elliott Kay Page A

could cause all sorts of potential problems among armed, jumpy men,” he added with a chuckle.
    “Laugh it up, ye fookin’ cunt,” Alex heard someone mutter bitterly. He blinked, turned his head this way and that—and found the people on either side staring at him.
    The girl to his left leaned in across the empty seat between them. “Hey,” she smiled, “are you Irish?”
    Alex looked back to the screen. He saw more devastation, of course. This had all started out with photos of parades and men in dress uniforms—just like the war itself, he remembered, though the photos lacked the full color of memory.
    Chelsea fawned over how he looked in his uniform before he shipped out. She said all he needed were some medals.
    Alex rubbed his eyes. Who the hell was Chelsea? An image flitted through his mind, but it was of a photograph, not the memory of a face. He saw Chelsea’s wedding picture by the light of an overhead flare, lying in some mud. He smelled dead flesh.
    The lecturer droned on. Alex raised his head to try to follow. Disjointed as his thoughts were, he couldn’t tell what might be real and what might be imagined.
    Then he recognized the shattered hillside, the broken and dead remnants of a forest, and the ruined walls of a house that inexplicably stood while everything else had been blasted away by artillery.
    Soft light swept into the auditorium as a door opened in the back. He cringed out of reflex, almost ducking behind the seat in front of him. Then the door fell shut with a loud slam, and reflex took over. He squatted down in front of his seat and threw his hands over his head.
    “Woah,” said the girl to his left.
    “Hey, what the hell?” hissed the guy on his right.
    Alex looked up. No one else ducked. There were just people sitting around his trench without helmets or guns, all looking at him like he was mad.
    No. Not a trench. An auditorium, at the UW.
    Oh shit , Alex finally realized. He looked to the screen to see a landscape of mud and craters filled with water. He felt himself drowning.
    He had to go. This had been a mistake. Just like signing up with the BEF. Just like transferring to the infantry after Hooge chateau. Just like the whole stupid war.
    Alex stumbled through the crowd—rudely, but if the fools didn’t know by now to keep their heads down, it was their own stupid fault. Served them right if a sniper took them out. Several protested, a couple even shoved back at him, but he had to get out.
    His body shook with fear. He had to get out.
    “Stay here, ye daft bastard!”
    “Sergeant, it’s a mess out there,” Alex grunted.
    “Man, get the fuck off me!”
    “Help me! Someone help me!”
    “Ow! Watch it, asshole!”
    “My leg… I need help…”
    “I can’t move. Don’t leave me here!”
    “Don’t even think about it, Shanahan!”
    Alex broke free into the aisle, stumbling to his hands and knees in the darkness. Everything was wet from the rain, but at least he could move. He hustled to his feet and ran.
    Sergeant Tinney called after him, telling him to get back under cover, but he’d never liked Tinney, anyway. He stayed low as he rushed out of the auditorium. He didn’t ask where the door came from. He just pushed his way through it.
    Neither the bright lights nor open, welcoming space of the lobby registered in his mind. He saw only darkness and mud, felt only the rain on his skin and the weary ache of his muscles, and heard the silence shattered by an artillery shell as the door behind him slammed shut again.
    He flung himself to the ground and covered up. It was just a single shell. He waited, heard nothing more, and rose into a crouching position to continue toward the voices.
    Everything was mud and darkness and more mud. There was precious little light to see by, as the flares never stayed in the air long. Back in ’14, all this artillery would have left more than a few things burning. Three years later, there was nothing left to burn.
    Aidan crept and crawled