The Soldier on the Night Watch

I pulled a lot of overnight guard shifts at an old installation that had been in use since before either of my grandfathers was born. Most of the buildings were newer, but the perimeter road ran past a row of original barracks that nobody used anymore.

Around two one morning I saw a figure walking the fence line ahead of me, moving slow and steady the way you do when you have walked a route a thousand times. His uniform was wrong — heavy, old-fashioned, a cut I had only seen in museum photographs. I called out the challenge, the way you are trained to, twice. He did not slow and he did not answer.

I followed at a distance, my heart going hard. He walked the entire length of the old barracks and turned the corner. When I reached the corner maybe four seconds behind him, the road was empty in both directions. There was frost on the ground, a clean sheet of it, and mine were the only bootprints on it.