SNAFU: Hunters

by James A. Moore

  Ten ghouls ran through the woods ahead.

  They were thin, wiry creatures with gray, leathery skin totally devoid of hair. Running in a forward crouch like apes, each would stand a little over meter and a half tall if fully erect. Long, bony arms almost reaching the ground ended in gnarled hands with curved, black claws. Bipedal, they had clawed, three-toed feet. Narrow heads had pointed ears, slits for nostrils, and slanted yellow eyes smoldering with ravenous hunger. They bared slavering fangs and long, blue, forked tongues flicked out.

  Even weak daylight impaired their vision so they did not see the soldiers immediately.

  A yellow flare was sent up to alert the other teams that ghouls had been spotted. Then the echoing crack of Okhchen’s rifle broke the silence. A ghoul staggered as a 147-grain 7.62 millimeter bullet punched through its left eye, blasting out the back of its head in a spray of black ichor. It toppled backwards.

  The other ghouls looked around angrily for the source as a second and then a third were killed in rapid succession by headshots, until finally they spotted the humans. With a bedlam of bloodcurdling howls, they charged. One threw back its head and let out a long, wavering shriek that echoed across the forest and sent chills up the spines of the soldiers.

  “Fire!” shouted Zakharov.

  The ghouls were fast and agile. The soldiers stood their ground and opened fire – the quick, harsh chatter of their submachine guns punctuated by the slower rattle of the DP-28 above and behind them.

  The creatures rushed into a storm of lead. They stumbled and fell, riddled by scores of slugs, their ichor sizzling as it splashed on the ground, instantly melting any snow it touched. A pair veered left, trying to outflank the team, but to no avail. This move had been anticipated and they too were shot down, the last collapsing dead just meters from the soldiers.

  The team ceased fire and reloaded, adrenalin slowly ebbing from their veins. Zakharov noticed Kravchenko calmly bandaging a wrist.

  “Wounded?” he asked.

  “A drop of their blood splashed on me,” said Kravchenko. “Burns like acid.”

  The ghoul carcasses began smoldering and disintegrating. Within minutes all that would remain would be heaps of ashes and a foul reek lingering in the crisp air. No bones. And nothing would ever grow in these spots again. This accelerated decomposition had made it impossible to obtain specimens for scientific study, so details of ghoul anatomy were unknown.

  Zakharov collected a little bit of the ash, sealing it in an envelope. He had standing orders to take samples when conditions permitted.

  Attempts to capture ghouls alive had proved unsuccessful. They could not be subdued and were totally resistant to tranquilizers. All anyone had to go on were eyewitness accounts, blurry photographs, plaster casts of footprints, and laboratory analysis of ash residue. Ghouls did not appear to have any type of social structure or leadership. Nothing resembling offspring were ever seen and their method of reproduction was unknown. They all looked alike and there was no visible gender differentiation.

  The team hurried back to their horses and rode off to intercept the other pack.

  The woods thickened, forcing them to slow as they followed tracks down a slope to a frozen, meandering stream cloaked in shadow, the treetops etched against the orange sky.

  Okhchen abruptly reined in and motioned for the others to stop. His eyes darted around suspiciously.

  The breeze shifted. The horses whinnied sharply.

  “Ambush!” shouted Okhchen.

  Screeches filled the air as ghouls suddenly leaped from behind the rocks and scrub brush on the opposite bank where they had been hiding.

  One private was decapitated by a single slash of a claw and his headless body, spurting bright-red blood, rode along for a ways like a horrid rag doll before finally tumbling from the saddle. Another was dragged off his mount; his submachine gun and arm were torn away and the top of his head was sheared off. The neighing horse of a third man reared and hurled him to the ground, breaking his leg. A ghoul immediately disemboweled him and bit his throat out.

  One sprang into a tree above Zakharov, but before it could pounce on him he peppered it with a burst from his PPSh-41. Several branches broke as the ghoul fell heavily to the ground.

  The soldiers recovered quickly from their initial surprise and urged their steeds forward. They managed to ride clear of the ambush and then swung around to open a relentless fire from horseback. The pack was quickly eliminated.

  Zakharov jumped down and rushed over to his fallen men along with the team’s medic.

  Two were already dead. The third, the one missing an arm and the top of his skull, was incredibly, horribly, still alive and conscious. With the usual stoicism of Russian soldiers he did not cry out. But he was beyond aid and there was nothing the medic could do except administer morphine to ease his last moments, cradling him in his arms until he mercifully expired.

  Zakharov had a green flare fired to signal that all the ghouls seen had been destroyed. Then he grimly collected the identification booklets of his slain men for safekeeping. The bodies were stripped of weapons and equipment and loose stones were piled over each to erect a crude cairn. The iron-hard permafrost made grave digging a herculean task they had no time for. They paused for a somber moment of silence, then mounted up and rode on, taking the extra horses with them.

  Because of the classified nature of these operations the government did not award a campaign medal for participation. Zakharov would not even be allowed to write consolation letters to the families. He could recommend deserving men for posthumous decorations, but the citations would themselves be classified. Relatives would never be told the circumstances of their loved ones’ deaths, only that each had died “fighting gallantly in defense of his beloved Motherland.”

  They returned to the original trail. Night descended, the gloom faintly illuminated by the cold gleam of the stars. The temperature dropped still further, down to fifty degrees below zero. The trail was clear enough for the team to continue following it by starlight for several hours before finally stopping to camp.

  A sentry was posted and trip wires for flares were strung around the camp perimeter. Everyone would take his turn standing watch while the rest slept. Zakharov determined their location again using a sextant sighting of Polaris.

  First priority, as always for mounted troops, was the horses, which were picketed, groomed, checked for injuries, and allowed to graze. Finally a tent was erected and the team sat inside to eat, huddled around the oasis of warmth provided by a little iron field stove.

  Zakharov saw to it that his men were taken care of first before wolfing down his own meal of black rye bread, buckwheat porridge, and hard sausage washed down with hot tea. He made a point of refusing officer’s rations and eating the same food as enlisted men. An allotment of vodka was also authorized under regulations, but he strictly forbade it. Back at base the men could drink and carouse as they pleased, but on a mission he needed everyone sober and sharp.

  Afterwards they cleaned weapons, oiled them with cold-weather lubricants to keep the mechanisms from freezing, and reloaded magazines. They talked and joked and enjoyed the luxury of a smoke, rolling strong, coarse tobacco in newsprint to make crude cigarettes.

  The glint of metal betrayed a little Christian cross one private wore around his neck and kept hidden under his jacket. Zakharov, as usual, pretended not to notice.

  He had seen too many good men die needlessly – and far too young – to entertain any belief in God. But like his soldiers he was the son of a peasant and understood their ways – their rough humor, their towering profanity, their taboos and superstitions – and he indulged them whenever possible. He also ignored their occasional grumblings about the regime. Zakharov was a pragmatic Communist. So long as his men fought that was all that mattered.

  * * *

  Zakharov snapped awake amid the frantic neighing and stomping of the horses. Even as he and the others in the tent fumbled for weapons the harsh, white
glow of a trip flare suddenly lit up the camp and two bursts of automatic fire shattered the stillness.

  Zakharov darted outside. Kaminsky was on sentry duty, smoke curling from his machine gun’s muzzle.

  “Over there,” he said, nodding in the direction. “Two of them. Got both when the flare blinded them.”

  The team scrambled to defensive positions around the camp as the flare fizzled out and darkness returned. They waited in tense silence as their night vision recovered. The dark woods seemed fraught with menace, a gibbous moon glowering above. But nothing happened, and at length the horses settled down and became quiet again.

  “I don’t think there are any more of them,” said Okhchen.

  The team relaxed. Zakharov went over to Kravchenko, who was squatting beside one of the ghoul ash piles, deep in thought.

  “We were lucky,” said Zakharov. “There were only two and the horses smelled them before they got too close.”

  Kravchenko grunted. “That’s what worries me.”

  “Why?”

  “Ghouls don’t appear to be intelligent, Comrade Lieutenant, not in our sense of the word, but they’re not stupid either. They’re cunning like any predator. They’ve been shrieking back and forth all day, communicating. Communicating about us and the other teams. Our flares pinpoint our locations.”

  “Unfortunately we can’t help it. We have no radios.”

  “For sure the ghouls know all about us – what we are, where we are, how many of us there are. So why are they attacking us just a few at a time or in small packs? If there aren’t that many of them, then why not avoid us entirely and hunt for easier prey?”

  “I don’t know. When you put it that way, it doesn’t make sense.”

  Kravchenko stood. “No, it doesn’t.”

  * * *

  The rest of the night passed uneventfully, but the team slept fitfully and rose before dawn. After a quick breakfast they resumed the hunt by moonlight. The trail turned due north.

  As the first feeble rays of sunlight filtered through the trees Okhchen spotted something away from the trail and rode over to take a closer look. He got off his horse and examined the ground. Zakharov went to see what he was looking at. Okhchen brushed away snow to uncover yellowed, splintered bones, scraps of khaki fabric, a few black buttons, and the slashed remnants of boots and accouterments.

  “Another ghoul victim?” asked Zakharov, dismounting.

  “Yes, Comrade Lieutenant, but this fellow died a long time ago.” Okhchen bent and plucked from a frayed pocket an identification booklet, its red cloth cover stained and faded. He was illiterate so he showed it to Zakharov.

  Zakharov grunted with interest. “NKVD.”

  A rusted Nagant revolver lay nearby and he picked it up. Flicking down the loading gate, he rotated the cylinder to check the chambers. All seven rounds were spent. “He didn’t go down without a fight.” He glanced over the remains and noticed a skull fragment with a small, round hole in it. “Looks like he saved the last bullet for himself.”

  “He was carrying this,” said Okhchen, holding up a map case of brown leather, battered and cracked by the elements but otherwise intact. He peered inside. “It’s filled with old papers.”

  Zakharov took the case and the identification and put both in his saddlebag. “I’ll look at them later. We need to move on.”

  They hurried on. Far to the west a yellow flare arced like a comet above the forest. Shortly thereafter they heard faint gunfire. The flurry of shots intensified.

  “One of the other teams has found ghouls too,” said Kravchenko, reining in.

  The shooting tapered off and ceased. A green flare went up.

  “And they eliminated them,” said Zakharov. “Let’s go.”

  At length Okhchen halted again, studying the ground. Zakharov saw tracks branching off in the trampled snow. Ahead, beyond this divergence, the trail became wider and heavier with more spoor than before.

  “The ghouls split up here,” said Okhchen. “Those tracks going west are probably from the pack the other team ran into.”

  Zakharov nodded. “That means we’re following the main trail. Good.”

  Ahead lay a great swath of taiga devastated by wildfire, likely sparked by lightning last spring or summer and destroying thousands of hectares before finally burning itself out. Isolated tree trunks scorched by flame stood stark and black in a landscape of utter desolation. Hooves crackled and snapped on burned timber buried under the snow crust. They stopped to camp.

  After eating, Zakharov examined the papers of the dead NKVD man. He flipped open the identification booklet. The photograph of a stern young man was inside along with the identification number, issue date, issuing authority, his rank and position, and so forth.

  “So who was he, Comrade Lieutenant?” asked Kravchenko, rolling a cigarette.

  “Junior Lieutenant of State Security Boris Stepanovich Sukhishvili, 13th Rifle Regiment, NKVD Internal Troops.”

  “Those were the ones massacred on the Tunguska six years ago. Far away from where we are. No survivors. What was he doing way out here?”

  Zakharov turned his attention to the map case. Inside was a bundle of loose pages tied together that comprised an old file, the paper yellowed with age and stained from moisture. He untied it and began reading, starting with a hastily-scribbled note on top.

  “He was trying to get back to his base,” he said. “He was a courier from Vladimir Orlov, the regimental commander. When the ghouls attacked, Orlov realized he was doomed and tried to save this file by sending it off with Sukhishvili.”

  “What’s so special about it?”

  “Orlov wasn’t just leading a search-and-destroy operation,” said Zakharov. “According to this he was also tasked with a mission by Gleb Bokii, a senior NKVD official conducting research into paranormal phenomenon. Code-named Operation Hades, it was an investigation into the origins of the ghouls.” He flicked to the next page. “In the village of Turukhansk Orlov discovered this file. It’s the testimony of a White officer named Grishin, who was captured and interrogated by Red partisans in March 1920.”

  Kravchenko exhaled smoke, contemplating the glowing tip of his cigarette. “That’s shortly after the first reports of ghoul attacks.”

  Zakharov carefully leafed through the file itself. The original testimony had been taken down in longhand and then a summary typed up. Some sections were so faded and stained they were illegible, but he was still able to read enough to piece together the essential facts.

  At length he said, “Grishin was an aristocrat who belonged to the reactionary Black Hundreds before the Revolution so during the Civil War he joined the White counter-revolutionaries, serving on Admiral Kolchak’s staff. In November 1919, after Omsk fell and Kolchak’s White Army was forced to retreat, Grishin was dispatched on a secret mission.”

  The men listened in rapt attention as the wind moaned outside like a lost soul. Despite the warmth inside the tent they unconsciously shivered.

  Zakharov continued, his gaze scouring the pages. “An admitted occultist, Grishin claimed his assignment had been to perform black magic rituals in the arctic to summon the ghouls, the idea being that the Whites would use them against the Bolsheviks. Kolchak had supposedly discovered evidence of the creatures’ existence during the two polar expeditions he participated in before the First World War.”

  “Well, if that’s true it sure backfired,” said Kravchenko. “Ghouls can’t be controlled and they slaughter everybody regardless of their politics. But if this crazy officer summoned them, why didn’t he unsummon them after he realized his mistake?”

  “He said he wasn’t able to undo what he’d done. Even if he could, he was executed after his interrogation. Kolchak had been captured at Irkutsk a month earlier, but during his interrogation he was never asked about the ghouls, which no one suspected the Whites had anything to do with. Kolchak, of course, was executed too. And for some reason this file was never forwarded to Moscow. It was forgotten an
d ended up collecting dust in Turukhansk until Orlov found it.”

  “What about Operation Hades? There was no follow-up by Bokii?”

  “He was liquidated during the purges. Paranormal investigation fell into disfavor.”

  Kravchenko shook his head in disgust and tossed his cigarette stub into the stove. “They shot everybody who could tell us anything.”

  Zakharov carefully slid the file back into the case. “Well, for sure our bosses will want to read this.”

  They went to sleep, but Zakharov only allowed his men a few precious hours of rest. Beyond the burned area the forest resumed, but then gradually thinned out. Soon the taiga ended entirely and gave way to barren plains of tundra, in the twilight an empty blue-white expanse stretching to the horizon. Only moss and lichen and grass grew here so nothing blocked the whining, bitter wind that whipped the team.

  They encountered a man in a long parka riding a wooden sledge pulled by two reindeer, which he guided with a long pole. He was a Nenets, one of the native tribes living in the arctic. In recent years the government had tried forcing them to give up their traditional nomadic lifestyle, so the man was wary when he saw the soldiers.

  Okhchen was an Evenki, another reindeer-herding people, and he rode forward in greeting. Okhchen spoke the man’s language and at one point the Nenets gestured towards a distant blue ridgeline with his pole. Finally the man moved on, and Okhchen reported to Zakharov.

  “He’s from a clan fleeing the ghouls, Comrade Lieutenant. Says their hole is on the other side of those hills.”

  Zakharov nodded. “That’s where the trail is headed.”

  Dusk came. The northern lights appeared, shimmering green ribbons writhing across the black sky casting an alien glow bright enough to read by. The ground became rugged as it sloped up to the ridge. Zakharov could not see any footprints on the bare rock, but Okhchen still discerned faint traces – dislodged stones, chipped ice, bruised moss – and they followed it up to the crest. The opposite side dropped off sharply in an escarpment, the trail plunging down a narrow draw.