Last Tour Before Midnight

It was supposed to be a fun detour—a midnight battlefield tour before heading home from their European backpacking trip. Mark, Lauren, and three other tourists signed up in a sleepy German village known for its fog, sausages, and war history. The battlefield, just beyond the Black Forest, was the site of a brutal, centuries-spanning conflict—from Roman conquests to World War II.

Their guide, Klaus, was a pale, stiff man in an outdated uniform. He didn’t smile. He didn’t joke. His voice was low, almost reverent, as he led them down narrow forest paths and pointed to crumbling stones and overgrown bunkers.

“This place,” Klaus said, eyes dark and unblinking, “has seen more death than peace. And not all soldiers left.”

The group chuckled nervously. Mist curled around their feet like smoke. The air grew colder the deeper they went.

Mark nudged Lauren. “Creepy, right? Bet he’s just trying to sell the scare.”

But when Klaus suddenly stopped and tilted his head, they fell silent. A distant drumbeat echoed—low, slow, rhythmic. Not from a speaker. Not from a phone.

From the earth.

Then came the voices. Muffled. Screaming. Gunfire. The ground beneath them trembled, though there was no wind, no storm.

A Roman legionnaire emerged from the tree line, his armor dulled by time, eyes vacant. Behind him, a Napoleonic soldier limped forward, half his face missing. A World War I trench rat dragged itself through the mud. Then, from every direction, more soldiers appeared—French, British, Roman, Nazi, Soviet. Torn uniforms. Bloody boots. And none of them saw the tourists.

They were fighting each other.

Bullets tore across the clearing. A cannonball rolled through the grass and disappeared in the mist. Two ghostly armies clashed with a thunderous roar that didn’t belong to this world.

“We have to go!” Lauren shouted.

But Klaus stood unmoving. “You were warned.”

“What?”

“The tour ends at midnight. You must leave before then, or they’ll see you.”

A ghostly bayonet swept inches past Mark’s face. One of the tourists screamed—then vanished into the fog. No one saw where he went. Or how.

Lauren grabbed Klaus’s sleeve. “Why are you doing this?”

He looked at her with sorrow. “Because I cannot leave. And neither will you… unless you run.”

The remaining tourists sprinted. The forest twisted, warping. Barbed wire fences erupted from the ground. Exploded helmets, ancient arrows, rusted tanks—all half-buried in the mud like forgotten bones.

Mark turned around. The battlefield was no longer behind them—it was everywhere. Time collapsed. Soldiers from every era fought in one eternal war, repeating their last moments.

Lauren tripped. A Civil War soldier reached for her, eyes pleading. “Help me… please…”

Mark pulled her away. “He’s not real!”

“He was crying!”

“He was.”

They burst out of the trees. The path reappeared, the moonlight glinting on wet grass. A crumbling stone marked the edge of the field. It read:

“In honor of all who died here—and all who never left.”

As the clock struck midnight, they crossed the boundary.

Everything behind them went still.

Silence.

Just Mark, Lauren, and two survivors.

Klaus was gone.

They returned to the village at dawn, clothes torn, skin bruised, breath stolen.

No one believed them.

The tour company didn’t exist. Klaus’s name wasn’t listed. The battlefield was marked “closed for renovation” for years. The locals just shook their heads. “That old legend?” they scoffed.

But that night, Mark opened his phone. In one of his tour selfies, standing in the background, blurry but visible, was Klaus.

And behind him?

Hundreds of ghostly figures. Marching.

Coming closer.