SNAFU: Hunters

by James A. Moore

  I watched it with a slack jaw. I couldn’t quite accept it. Or maybe shock was finally getting the better of me.

  The German coughed and laughed and said something in his own tongue that I couldn’t understand. He looked worse than before, but he was smiling.

  Crowley stopped short as the tank stood up on two legs. There was no symmetry to the outside of the thing. It looked nothing like the red monster I’d seen before.

  This thin was metal, and it was as lumpy and unfinished as the grave golem had been. There was a head. There was a rudimentary face. There were tank treads wrapped into the arms and head and chest of the monster. Gears that had been squashed like pumpkins were pressed into the thing. The arms didn’t end in hands, but in clubs of more twisted metal.

  It tried to hit Crowley. Like any sensible man, he tried to get the hell away from it. When that fist hit the snowy ground, the earth shook. I mean that. I remember when I was a kid there was a farm hand that was heavy enough you could almost feel a tremor when he walked past in a hurry. His name was Earl and he died of a massive heart attack while he was trying to get an old generator to work again.

  I didn’t think maybe the ground shook. I saw the snow ripple away from where the monster hit and I saw Crowley lose his balance and scramble back to his feet as the thing came for him.

  The German said something else, his voice hoarse and crackling from whatever was broken inside of him. I looked away from the fight for a second and stared at that smiling face, and I lost my temper. Two steps brought me close enough to raise my heel over that bastard’s head and to stomp down with all I had in me. He stopped laughing and his temple got a dent in it.

  I don’t know what to say about Crowley. I guess part of me doesn’t think he was human. All I know was he took a punch from that thing. He blocked it with his arm and instead of being crushed into a pulp, he actually deflected the blow. He got knocked back a dozen feet, and he landed on his backside again, but he took that blow and wasn’t crushed. Hell, I’d stomped on the Nazi’s head and likely killed him, and by all rights Crowley should have died when he caught that punch.

  He got right back up, that smile of his wide and nasty, and his eyes as glassy and feverish as the man I’d just killed.

  And he roared words at the tank-monster and it flinched back from him like he’d aimed a flamethrower at it.

  Crowley walked closer to it, taking his time as the thing stumbled back, that rough, unfinished face screwing into a different shape and a noise coming from it that was like a thousand tortured cats screaming at the same time.

  It came for him again, stomping down the snowy road and making that horrible noise as the metal of its body started to heat up. At first it steamed the air, and then it started glowing. Crowley stood his ground as it rumbled his way, and kept speaking, saying things that hurt my mind as much as the damned thing I was looking at did.

  It tried to grab him, but Crowley danced past, taking a glancing blow from an arm that was red again, but not wet. No, it smoked and steamed and burned and as Crowley spun away I could see the fabric of his jacket catch fire from the intensity of the heat.

  The blow was enough to throw Crowley again, but he didn’t stop. He kept speaking and pulled off his jacket and dodged again as it turned to find him and then stumbled in his direction.

  It might have hit him too, but by that point the entire shape was losing cohesion. It was melting and dripping and falling into fiery drops that burned right through the snow.

  Crowley walked backward as it kept coming. It fell to the ground on its rough knees and then slumped forward, its arms still reaching for him.

  Crowley kept talking, even as it collapsed completely, sloshing into a pool of white hot metal that faded under the level of the snow.

  It finally stopped screaming.

  I thanked God and trembled.

  And then I passed out.

  * * *

  When I woke up again I was in a house. It was a small affair, but it was warm and it was dry and I was on a bed.

  I guess I must have gone back to sleep for a while, but when I came to again Crowley was sitting on a chair near my bed. He was clean and dressed in fresh clothes. I was clean too, and dressed in a pair of worn but comfortable long johns.

  “How did we get here?”

  Crowley didn’t smile. “I carried you. Not really that hard to figure out, really.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You saved my life. I figured I owed you.”

  “I figured the other way around. You did something to me. Put a spell on me or something, but that red thing couldn’t even touch me.”

  “Wicht. Or wight.”

  “’Scuse me?”

  “It was a wicht in German, or a wight in old English.”

  “I have no idea what that means.” I hurt everywhere and I was feeling a bit cranky, but I was also feeling mighty grateful. I outweighed Crowley by a good bit, but he got me away from all of that craziness. I had no idea how far he’d carried me. All I really knew was that I was safe, I was warm and clean and someone had even splinted up my arm nice and tight.

  “It’s a kind of minor demon.”

  “Minor?” I sounded dubious, but only because I was.

  He nodded and then reached to an end table on his side of my bed and offered me a cup of warm broth. Chicken soup never smelled or tasted so good. It was just the right temperature, too. I could drink it without burning the sin out of my mouth. “You keep that down, there’s bread and cheese.”

  “Where are we?”

  “Allied side of France. I have a few friends here. One of them is helping us, because I helped her once upon a time.”

  “You said that thing was a minor demon?”

  “Ralf Rotenfeld was the man who summoned it. He’s the fella you kicked in the head.”

  “What was he trying to do?”

  “Win the war, I guess. Not the first time and not the last some jackass will try. Instead of summoning a major demon from the pantheons of hell, he got an inconvenience.”

  I know I must have stared like a fool. Crowley grinned at it. “’Inconvenience?’”

  “You should try keeping up. Repeating myself is annoying.” The words were said without malice. “That thing was a minor demon. He couldn’t control it, because he couldn’t figure out what its name was. Sometimes names have power. Not always.”

  “How did he even summon it?”

  “That knife of his, I don’t know where he found it, but that was… that was old and powerful.”

  “I dropped it.”

  “I found it. It’s safe.” He waved the notion aside. “In any event, it’s gone now. Banished.”

  “What happens now?”

  “You go back to the army and tell them that you encountered Nazis and lost your entire group.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Maybe you didn’t notice, but I wasn’t a part of your squad. I was just along for the ride.”

  “I sort of got that when you had your talk with the sarge.”

  He nodded. “Nice enough guy for a moron.”

  There was a long silence while I considered his words.

  I was almost ready to drift to sleep when Crowley spoke again. “Unless you’re looking to get a section eight, I wouldn’t mention the wight or me. It won’t go well if you do.”

  “I have to report what happened.”

  “Nazis happened. It’s enough. You have an arm with three breaks to it, and you have a bad infection in the other arm. Your feet don’t look so good and if I had to guess you’re going to lose a few toes to the frostbite.” He was very direct. I listened on with a growing sense of horror. “Likely you’re done with the war. You leave the right way, you go home a hero. You leave the wrong way and no one believes you, but they’ll all say what a shame it was you came out broken.” He stood. From my perspective he was very tall. “Your choice.”

  Crowley cut me a chunk of bread and a thick cut of cheese and I nodded m
y gratitude. While I was eating it he looked my way again and said, “I don’t like to mention these things, but I have to. Don’t go thinking about doing what Rotenfeld did. It won’t go well. No matter who tries to win that way, it ends badly. Keep yourself clean is what I’m saying. I owed you. Maybe I still owe you, but don’t push it.”

  He grabbed his supplies then. A small sack. Not remotely military issue. Then again, neither were his clothes.

  “Where are you going?” I hated that I asked. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.

  “Rotenfeld told me a few things. He didn’t really want to, but I made him.”

  “I thought you said he was dead.”

  Crowley nodded. “There are ways to get answers.” I could tell he was serious. My skin crawled at the notion. “Rotenfeld told me there are others working with Hitler to use sorcery to do their work. I’m going to look into that. So, time for me to head out.”

  Crowley left just that easily.

  I never did hear what he did for Jacques and Madeline, the people who cared for me until they could notify an army squad heading by.

  That’s the whole of the story, really. I never saw Crowley again. We didn’t exchange cards or any such nonsense.

  He was right. I lost two toes on my left foot. I also lost a little of my strength in my arm. I wasn’t so worried about that. I got away a lot easier than a lot of the soldiers did.

  And you know what? I even got Jenny in the end. We reconciled. We married. We had kids and they’ve had kids and now there are even a few great-grand kids that come to see me around the holidays. I miss her every day. I guess I always will.

  It’s almost Christmas and the snow is falling. And that always makes me think of Crowley.

  There’s a strange thing going on in town lately. Not sure what it is, exactly, I just know that a few people have vanished, been gone a few days and then been seen by other folks who swear they looked like they were sickly and desperate. No one ever sees them up close, but they see them, normally moving around the river.

  Last week I woke up from a dream of Crowley and I had the phone in my hand. I’m old, but as I like to say, I ain’t stupid and I ain’t dead. I looked at the call history on my phone after I woke and it said I made a three minute call to an unlisted number.

  You get old enough, you can accept a lot of things. I figured I dialed some numbers on the phone when I was sleeping.

  I felt that way until I got the call from an unknown number and answered it.

  It was a short conversation. Crowley asked me if I was sure I wanted his help. I didn’t even think about it. I just said yes and he said he’d see me soon.

  That’s why I wrote this down. See, I don’t think Crowley will do me any harm, but I think l he’ll come and see me and I expect he’ll ask me a few questions. I expect I’ll have to invite him into my house. That seems like one of the rules to me. I have to ask him for help. I have to invite him past the threshold.

  And I reckon I’ll have to beg him to leave my family out of whatever is happening.

  My family. They’re the ones who told me about the missing people coming back. They’re the ones who keep me posted on the latest sightings of the folks that have been called “river people” by a lot of my neighbors.

  So I’ll answer his questions. I’ll ask for his help and I’ll invite him in, because I owe him that for saving my life.

  And then I’ll beg him not to meet my family or talk to them and I’ll hope he still thinks he owes me one for saving his bacon back in the day.

  Thing is, I’ve heard from a lot of my family. Most of them. But I haven’t heard from Lincoln. He’s my second eldest grandson. He’s the one no one says bad things about, and who, sometimes, gets the strangest look on his face. He’s the one I told this story to a long while back when he was young enough to sit on my knee, and he’s the one who likes to haunt old bookstores.

  Now and then Lincoln has shown me things he bought. When he was very young it was magic tricks and books on Houdini. Later it was an occasional necklace or ring he’d found. They always had the sort of images that weren’t shown in polite society when I was a kid and everyone went to the same church.

  Eventually he graduated up to tattoos. I never got heavy into the research after meeting Crowley. I didn’t want to know, you see, but I read a bit. Here and there. Look carefully at my doors and windows and you’ll see some very carefully concealed symbols that are supposed to ward off evil. Just in case, you understand.

  I know enough to see that Lincoln is maybe doing things he shouldn’t.

  To hunt down something that he said was minor, Crowley cut down a lot of German soldiers. A whole lot.

  I can’t help but wonder what he’d do to get to whatever Lincoln might have called.

  I can’t help thinking maybe if I’d never told him all those war stories when he was just a kid…

  Crowley should be here soon. He might be happy to see me. I know I won’t be happy to see him. His voice was too young. I think, God help me, that the man I see when he comes here will be unchanged. I know that sounds crazy, but I guess if a man can heal from getting broken and beaten until he should be dead, holding back the years is probably not beyond him.

  I think he will be young. I think he will be friendly. I think he will be smiling that damned creepy smile of his as he asks me polite questions and considers whether or not I’m responsible for what Lincoln has done with the old stories I told him. I expect whatever answers he wants, I’ll give them to him. It’s been a lot of years and I still keep hearing his voice and seeing the distant, cold expression on his face when he said, “There are ways to get answers.”

  I have never been that brave a man.

  I pray he decides to forgive me.

  Ngu’Tinh

  D.F. Shultz

  The creature was just a few paces away, slinking in Nathan’s direction through the foliage. It looked like a ten-feet-tall praying mantis, only with smooth skin like a reptile, and a tiny, eyeless head. It moved slowly, hunting its prey.

  Senses heightened by adrenaline, Nathan was acutely aware of his surroundings. The lapping of the nearby river; the buzzing of insects; a bead of sweat rolling down his temple. He felt the weight of the CAR-15 in his hands, the feel of his finger on the trigger.

  Palm leaves quivered as the creature brushed past within arms-reach. He steadied the assault rifle; how did I get myself into this shit? Only a few days earlier he’d been safe on base, drinking with the rest of the team in their makeshift bar. There had been a lot of talk lately about casualties. Inside the repurposed army tent, Nathan listened to snippets of drunken chatter.

  “Got him when we went to take a piss.”

  “Found ‘em ripped to shreds.”

  “Just like the others.”

  “Disappeared in the trees. Not a goddamn trace.”

  There were a few other SEALs at the table with Nathan: Leon, Simon, Buck Williams, and the ‘Professor’. They’d called him that since finding out he’d quit his PhD to join the squids. Bao, their translator, was also there. Nathan suspected Bao was the smartest man in the room.

  “I heard it was alligators,” said Leon.

  “You mean a crocodile,” said the Professor. “They don’t have ‘gators in Nam.”

  “The fuck’s the difference?”

  “It wasn’t a croc’,” Nathan said. “Prob’ly some VC guerillas. They know how to use the river and the trees.”

  “What about the bodies? They’re all mangled like an animal got ‘em.”

  “Sometimes the VC string men up to the trees,” Nathan said, “keep ‘em alive and pull their guts out.”

  “The screams help draw in men for an ambush,” the Professor added.

  An angry-looking marine walked up to the table. “It’s not like that,” he said. “We just find ‘em torn up, pieces missing.”

  “God—” Simon shook his head. “Why?”

  “My guess is intimidation,” Nathan said. “They’re tryin
g to put us on edge.”

  “Bastards,” Leon spat.

  “They won’t get away with this,” Simon said through gritted teeth.

  “That’s just the thing, though,” the marine said, bitterness edging into his voice. “We haven’t been able to get authorization to do anything about it, and we don’t have any actionable intel’. But we heard about you SEALs. Word is you might have the skill-set and operational freedom to track these guys down and take ‘em out.”

  “Well if you’re looking for a hunter,” Simon said, “Nathan’s your man.”

  “You know, it’s funny.” Nathan set down his beer. “I never was a big fan of hunting.”

  “I find that hard to believe,” Simon said with a laugh.

  “It’s true,” Nathan said, leaning back in his chair. “I remember the first time I took down a deer. My dad was there, congratulating me, patting me on the back. I knew how I was supposed to feel, but it’s not how I felt.”

  “Sad you took out Bambi or something?” Leon asked, and the rest of the SEALs laughed. “You got a soft spot we don’t know about?”

  “Nah,” Nathan lied, because that was part of it. “That deer was too easy to track, too easy to shoot. I never liked hunting animals. It just felt like cheating.”

  Leon laughed. “That’s one way to brag. You should teach classes in that shit.”

  The SEALs looked back at the marine, who stood silent and unblinking beside their table.

  “You want somethin’?” Leon asked.

  “The name’s Chris Donaldson,” he said, and the others introduced themselves. “I never wanted to come to Nam, but I signed up when my little brother got drafted. Thought maybe I could keep him safe. His name was Bradley.”

  Bradley Donaldson. Nathan remembered the name. A young kid, 18-year-old marine. Two weeks ago they’d found his body by the river. What was left of it anyway.