It is a terrible thing to die. And not as romantic as Dumas fils suggested. I know. My mother died of consumption when I was a child. No delicate cough with one’s handkerchief pressed to one’s lips and a camelia clutched in the pale free hand. No, more like an internal eruption with gouts of blood spewing as from Vesuvius. For the blood is the life.

I had crept into her sickroom while the servants were otherwise occupied. I only wanted to wish her a good night and show her the sketch I had made. A childish scrawl, in retrospect, but I thought it might cheer her. I was rarely allowed in her presence since her illness.

And I think it did cheer her a bit, for the eye she turned upon me was soft and full of love, and the white hand she rested on my head surpassing gentle. And then the spasm seized her, and I wore her blood as though swimming in it.

A servant snatched me away and all was hushed whispers and a flurry of steps up and down the stairs and a door slammed as someone ran for the doctor. I wept, for my drawing was quite soaked with blood and ruined, as were my nightclothes. I did not fully comprehend what had happened.

My nurse peeled away my sticky clothes and scrubbed my face and hair with cold water, not wanting to waste time by heating it. I am sure I protested and perhaps cried, but I don’t recall that specifically. But I do know that the next time I saw my mother, she was lying in a box, clutching a bunch of lilies. And then they put her in the ground and I found myself an orphan.

Well, one grows up, I suppose.

My schooling was unremarkable, my university days cut short by a youthful indiscretion with a married woman. In response to the scandal, my uncle, who had assumed a parental role after the death of my mother, purchased a commission for me and hustled me off to the Army. I soon found myself with hundreds of others—many eager for glory, others lamenting the comforts they left behind—packed on a ship bound for the Crimea.

I found Istanbul endlessly fascinating, in spite of endless beggars and dirt. The hashish was abundant and the women comely. Unfortunately, my time for dalliance was limited as orders came to embark for Sevastopol.

I cannot say I enjoyed Army life. Our English troops, though courageous, lacked experience and organization. The officers, including myself, were mostly idle. Boredom was excruciating.

And then the cholera came.

How can I describe it? The French sailors were stricken first, and they pitched their shrouded dead into the sea. But once the bodies began to decay, they bobbed to the surface like ungainly waterfowl and the tides brought them to shore. Oh, the stench!

Soon the disease attacked our troops. A man might be healthy in the morning and dead by nightfall, dropping far more of us than Russian shot or shell. I drew the unenviable duty of leading a squad of soldiers on burial detail. The corpses were hastily shrouded in thin white linen and the graves dug with no ceremony. I held a handkerchief to my nose while the soldiers and Turkish laborers toiled and truthfully, my mind was pondering the dark, compelling eyes of a woman I had glimpsed yester evening.

I was therefore startled when a soldier approached.

“Begging the Lieutenant’s pardon,” he said.

“What is it?”

His shirt, rolled to the elbows, was wet with sweat and he shifted restlessly from foot to foot. “We dropped one, sir,” he said. “He rolled down the hill.”

“Well fetch him back,” I said.

“He came unwrapped, sir.”

Irritated, I snapped, “Then wrap him back up.”

“Yes, sir. Only . . .”

“Only what?”

“Mahmoud is having hysterics about it.” Mahmoud was one of our Turks. Usually, a steady sort and most agreeable in obtaining hashish for me.

“Also . . .”

“Also, what?”

“I don’t think this one died of cholera, sir.”

There was nothing for it but to see for myself.

The corpse, for a wonder, did not stink. At least no more than a side of beef hanging in the butcher’s shop. It had been opened from throat to groin, but all the guts were missing. Now, it is true that the surgeon could have done it, but why? Surely, he was too busy with amputations and equally unpleasant treatments for bloody flux and syphilis among our heroic band.

Mahmoud’s eyes were wild, and he wrung my hand most piteously. “Lieutenant Renfield, sir—this is bad. Very bad. They will not listen, sir. You must heed or more will die. Many more.”

“Men die in war,” I said. What the devil was he going on about? Some nonsense about bad luck in dropping a corpse, perhaps. I was only half listening, wishing this noisome duty were done and I could retire to my tent and pipe. “Calm yourself, man.”

“We have to take the head,” he said.

“What?” He finally had my attention.

“The head, sir. It must come off. Or this one will rise.”

As indifferent a soldier as I was, there was something totally repellant about even the suggestion of defiling our English dead in such a fashion. I pulled my hand free. “Are you mad? We shall do no such thing.” And I ordered the burials to resume.

Sleep eluded me, so after an hour of tossing and turning in my narrow cot, I rose and ducked out of my tent. The night was brutally cold after the heat of the day. The stars were bright as cut crystal but curiously winked out only to reappear. My hashish-fed brain finally realized that the stars had not flicked out like a candle flame in a sudden draught; rather, something large had flown overhead, obscuring the sky. Something soundless and dark, darker than the night itself. A bird, perhaps an owl—but what owl was so large?

With no clear design, I walked the encampment and at length found myself near the grave of the eviscerated soldier. Movement caught my eye, and I pulled my revolver. Graverobbers were not unheard of—they would steal the very winding sheets from a corpse.

Moonlight flashed on something shiny.

Making no sound, I crept forward and pressed the muzzle of the revolver into the back of someone’s neck. “Explain yourself,” I said.

The man drew in a sharp breath. “Don’t shoot,” he said. I recognized the voice. Mahmoud. He crouched, frozen as a grave marker, a curved blade gripped in both hands.

“What the devil are you playing at?” I removed the weapon from his neck but held it at the ready in case he had lost his mind and sprang to attack.

“Waiting for the dead to rise, Lieutenant.”

“What, is it Judgement Day, already?” I holstered the revolver. Mad, he may be, but no threat.

“When my life is written in the Book of Deeds, let it say I ended the Mhachkay before it could harm anyone.”

I would have berated him for his nonsense, but he was so serious it would have felt akin to kicking a puppy. Instead, I said, “I will wait with you, and you will see. The dead do not rise.”

We waited perhaps another half hour and the whimsical fates decided to prove me wrong.

The noise was slight, at first. A sort of rustling. And then a scrabbling and the loose grave soil bulged, fell away. A grimy hand thrust from the dirt, followed by the head and torso of the so recently buried soldier. Mahmoud bounded forward and struck off the head before the corpse could completely climb out of the ground. Then Mahmoud pulled a stout stick from his robes and drove it into the body, pinning it to the earth.

My hands shook a bit as I pulled my flask and swallowed a goodly swig of rum. Mahmoud reburied the body, flipping it so it lay on its belly. He retrieved the head and dug a hole for it quite some distance from the original grave.

I offered him the flask, but he shook his head. “Why did you turn the corpse?” I asked, taking another drink.

“If it wakes again, it will dig deeper into the earth and not rise.”

“What the hell is it?”

“Mhachkay. It devours the blood and insides of its victims. And those victims rise. We must still find the original Mhachkay before it creates others.”

“You’re mad,” I said, though clearly based on the evidence of my own eyes, he was not.

My dreams were troubled and my spirits low, a condition not improved by twenty-four hours of cold November rain. Morning dawned with fog so dense in the valley I could not see six paces in front of me. The rain prevented a fire being kindled, which meant no breakfast.

I was damning my fate when the sound of distant musketry rang through the mist and the regiment scrambled to arms.

How to describe the ball-shriveling terror of being under fire? Especially when the enemy is unseen? Shot, shell, cannonade, the din muffled weirdly by the spectral fog. Men falling, screaming in rage or agony. Limbs torn away, bodies three deep, footing uncertain, the stench of powder and opened bowels.

I have said I am an indifferent soldier. I did not want to die. Not here. Not now. Not ever, if I am honest. Hour after hour we fought, alternately giving ground and surging forward.

Smoke mixed with fog lit the sky with continual flashes like a catastrophic storm. Men shouted they were out of ammunition. Somewhere an officer replied, “Have you no bayonet?” It was a bloody business.

Somehow, I managed not to run. Not from any native courage, but because where would I go? Blunder blindly into the Russians and be hacked to death? Stumble into the firing of my own men? Or be found out and summarily shot for cowardice? No, there was nothing for it but to endure and perhaps pray.

The regiment struggled for hours. I do not know what time I was hit—found myself arse over tip in the cold mud. Lights flashed beneath my eyelids like fireworks on Bonfire Night. And then nothingness.

My head when I woke felt like the entire Light Brigade had charged through it. I struggled to rise, but a great unseen weight pressed upon me. I am blind!

I freed one arm and scrubbed my face to find blood had crusted my eyes shut. Sight restored, I wriggled free of a pile of corpses in a macabre second birth. The guns without had fallen silent, but inside my head a field of eighteen pounders made endless cannonade. I probed my head gingerly and my hand came away wet with blood or worse.

The field stretched away, strewn with men in the scarlet coats of my fellow soldiers and the grey greatcoats of countless Russians. I retched, though nothing came up but caustic bile. I seized a Lee-Enfield from a dead hand and used the rifle to climb to my feet. I picked my way through the dead, leaning heavily on the rifle, for the ground tilted and my strength threatened to fly from me entire.

I wandered, not certain if I was heading back to my own lines or toward the enemy. I longed for my pipe and cot. Hashish would still the din inside my head, or an aid station might provide a tot of rum.

My vision dimmed and for a panicked moment I thought I was going blind in truth, but it was only dusk creeping like a sneakthief. Distant lights flickered, ground stars on a cloudless night. Campfires. Thank God.

I trudged from the field of battle toward the homely fires. Exertion had brought sweat upon me in spite of the chill air. My skin was clammy beneath my uniform, my grip upon the rifle slick.

A curious thwump, followed by a strangled cry and a strange noise I can only describe as wet pierced the pounding in my head. Thinking some Russian survivor was out despoiling corpses, I remembered I was a soldier and hefted the Lee-Enfield. Its bayonet gleamed in a sudden shaft of moonlight.

And then I saw the thing. The Mhachkay. It had fastened upon some unfortunate. The wet noise was the sound of it drinking. It drew its claws down the front of its victim, butchering him. Noisily, it devoured the steaming entrails.

No courage bestirred me; rather, it was self-preservation. I charged with the bayonet, impaling the creature with such force that victim, monster, and I toppled. I put all my weight on the butt of the rifle, forcing the bayonet through the creature and into the ground. Blood drenched me, some even splattering into my mouth, all salt and foulness and something I lack the words to describe.

The Mhachkay wriggled like a bug on a pin. I pulled his victim free to discover it was poor Mahmoud. “Well, you found the Mhachkay, did you not, my friend?” I said when I had breath. Discarded in the mud I found his sword and beheaded the Mhachkay before it could work free of the bayonet. And then I served Mahmoud the same. I lacked the strength to bury them as per Mahmoud’s instructions, so flung the heads as far away as I could manage. In all the carnage, I reasoned bodies and heads would never be reunited.

They say I raved. They say the wound to my head has scrambled my wits. They say with rest I may recover. All I know is that I am freshly bandaged and lying in hospital in Istanbul. Soon I will be sent back to England. The lice are itching damnably. But they are fat. So juicy when I crunch them between my teeth.