The Second Winter by Craig Larsen

could see a few crates, a bundle of blankets. Otherwise, the truck was empty.
    “There,” Axel said, winking at Oskar. “Danger’s passed.”
    “Bastards,” Fredrik muttered. He was starting forward again when the truck slowed to a sudden stop. Its tires screeched on the asphalt. Its engine stalled, then rumbled back to life. Oskar glanced backward at his father, and Fredrik read his worry.
    “They’re going to question us,” Axel said. He adjusted his sweater, hiked up his trousers. One of his shoelaces had come undone, but he ignored it. These boots were too small for his feet anyway. The shoe wouldn’t come loose.
    The truck’s transmission squealed as the driver found reverse. The tires began to roll backward, and plumes of diesel exhaust spewed from the pipes. Oskar took a step off the shoulder into the mud. He was measuring the distance to the woods — not more than one hundred yards to their right. He could reach cover before the truck could backtrack the distance to them on the road.
    “Stay where you are,” Fredrik instructed him. “No reason to panic.”
    The three men stood their ground as the truck closed the gap. Fredrik slipped a pill into his mouth. One of Oskar’s legs began to shake. Otherwise, no one moved. The thick, ossified rubber of the truck’s tires chirped on the asphalt as the brakes ground the heavy vehicle to a halt. The engine settled into an idle. The passenger door swung open. A wool-clad leg emerged, booted in rich leather, followed by the thick robe of a long coat.
    The soldier who dropped from the truck was a kid, barely older than Oskar. His hair was blond, his eyes brown. A scardisfigured his chin. His front teeth were prominent, separated by a gap. The soldier who stepped onto the asphalt behind him wore a sergeant’s cap. He was taller, older. Maybe thirty, Fredrik thought. He spit onto the road, and his mucus was thick with tobacco residue. Ten feet away, Oskar imagined that he could smell it. The sergeant’s eyes narrowed. “Do you speak German?” he asked.
    Oskar didn’t move. Axel shook his head. “No,” Fredrik said.
    The sergeant fiddled with his breast pocket, found a loose cigarette, shoved it into his mouth. His lips were cracked. He shifted his belt, lifted his pistol, located what he was looking for in his hip pocket. A lighter, made in America. He flipped back the lid with a clever flick of his wrist, dragged his thumb over the flint, lit his smoke, then dropped the lighter back into his pocket. When he took the cigarette from his mouth, he held it between his finger and thumb, cupped in a hand almost as large as one of Fredrik’s. His fingertips were stained yellow with resin. The cigarette’s ember glowed on his palm. “Which way are you heading?” he asked. Smoke streamed through blackened teeth. The tip of a purple tongue, coarse with veins, wetted his lips.
    Oskar looked backward at his father. Axel shrugged. “Aalborg,” Fredrik said.
    “You have your papers?”
    “My son is only eighteen,” Fredrik said.
    “Yours, then.” The sergeant spit another wad of mucus into the mud.
    Fredrik reached into his coat for his identification. His hand grazed the butt of his pistol. The soft suitcase under his arm shifted, and its contents tinkled. Oskar realized that he had been listening to this same music since they had left the shore. This, though, was the first time that he had actually heard it.
    “What have you got in the bag?” the sergeant asked.
    Fredrik’s fingers tightened on the papers in his breast pocket.
    The sergeant inhaled another breath of smoke, let it stream out through his nostrils. “Open it,” he said.
    Fredrik withdrew his documents. “Here are my papers,” he said.
    “Open the suitcase,” the sergeant repeated.
    When Fredrik shoved his documents back into his pocket, his hand was shaking. He wasn’t afraid. It was the lack of sleep. His nerves were shot. He wrapped his fingers into a fist, squeezed. His nails dug