by C. E. Murphy
“A demon,” he said so easy I almost believed him. “It’s been suckering guys in some of the other platoons, and they’re going home in body bags, so don’t listen to it. Not ever.”
“Right.” I stared at him a minute, then shuddered. “What’s it like out there, all alone?”
Danny said, “Hell,” reflexively, an’ we both laughed. He said, “Confusing,” under the laughter, though, and I wasn’t surprised to hear it. It couldn’t be easy spin’ on your parents’ people, but it wasn’t something to talk about in a mess hall with a buncha officers nearby, either. So he said, “Where are you from, Muldoon?” instead, and we got to talking about the west coast and places we’d like to visit. “Assuming we make it out of here,” he said, and I shrugged it off.
“You gotta assume that, Danny. All of us are gonna make it out except,” and I raised my voice, “except you, Dandy, right? You’re gonna end up married to three Korean wives and never go back to Milwaukee.”
There was two Andies in the unit, my old pal Alabama Andy, and the newcomer Dandy Andy, who was maybe the best-looking guy I’d ever seen. Even Annie’d paused when she’d seen him the first time, and only smiled when I asked her about it, so I knew he was good-looking. He was like some kinda Viking with yellow hair and good shoulders, and a face that coulda starred in the movies. Instead he’d worked his way into and outta a lot of hearts back home, and seemed to be doing the same thing here. I guessed handsome was handsome, whether a girl was American or Korean. He said, “Three?” deadpan. “I was hoping for five or six, but I should leave some for the rest of you, huh?”
“Not for Muldoon,” Alabama Andy said. “He’s got Annie waiting for him.” A bunch of good-natured bickering went up, but Danny leaned over toward Dandy and said, “Be careful out there. My mother and father used to tell me stories about the Korean demons who wouldn’t approve of your easy way with the girls. You don’t want to make them angry.”
Dandy Andy grinned wide. “Yeah? How do I know if I’ve got one’s attention?”
“You just keep an eye out for a woman so beautiful even you don’t think you stand a chance, and stay away from her.”
Dandy kicked back, arms folded behind his head and leaning on a wall that wasn’t there. “Now that’s a problem, see, ‘cause there’s no such thing as a girl too pretty for me.”
I said, “You oughta listen to him, Dandy,” without knowing quite why I said it, except that voice at the back of my head wanted to warn him, and sounded sad about it. But he didn’t hear me, ‘cause somebody else was saying, “Hey, you’re a poet and don’t know it,” and another guy was finishing it up with “His feet do, they’re Longfellows.”
Then we got called up to fight, and for a few weeks there wasn’t any joking except the gallows humor that kept us sane. Danny was with us that whole stretch, always muttering warnings that nobody took seriously ‘til another one of the guys, Reckless Rick, got himself drowned when there was no water for miles from where we were. Then Dandy found the one pretty girl on the war front, and came back to the camp to die the next morning. Me and Danny stood over his body awhile, counting the bite marks, all small and perfectly round, like vampire leeches had fastened onto him. I counted more than a hundred, and finally said, “What did that to him?” to Danny.
He shrugged and said somethin’ in Korean, a word I couldn’t say back. “An avenger of women wronged. Like a banshee, except they suck a guy dry like a vampire. They lure men in by offering to suck, um.” He trailed off, looking uncomfortable. “You probably don’t want to look at his Johnson, if you know what I mean.”
I hadn’t wanted to in the first place, but Danny walked away an’ curiosity just about killed this cat. I took a look down Dandy Andy’s shorts.
Danny was right. I hadn’t wanted to. Pale an’ sick, I staggered off to throw up, and every damned one of us in the unit listened hard to Danny’s warnings after that. I wrote letters to Annie where I told her about the strange things in the night, an’ then I tore ‘em up and wrote new ones not mentioning it. I hated to think she might be doing the same thing at home, picking and choosing what to tell me so I wouldn’t worry, but she’d had enough heartbreak with her daddy in the institution. I didn’t want to add to it.
It musta been around Christmas when Danny came out from behind the lines again and shook me awake one night. Didn’t say a word, just knelt there with a hand over my mouth and a finger to his lips, waiting for my eyes to get less round and my heart to stop pounding so hard before he let me go and put his mouth next to my ear. “I need help, Muldoon. There’s something out there I can’t handle and you were the first one to believe me about the demons, so I’ve got to ask your help.”
The sky was ink black beyond his head, a sliver of moon over on the horizon but not a single star shining through, though the cold said it had ta be clear. “This something I’m gonna get kicked outta the Army for?”
He sat up far enough ta flash me a grin. “Only if you get caught AWOL. No, I can cover for you. Come on. No guns. Too loud.”
I rolled outta my blankets and onto my feet, leavin’ the duty weapon behind and collecting a couple knives instead. My pack was only inches away, so I grabbed it too, figuring we’d get some use out of the rations if we were gonna be up all night. Danny slipped through the other sleeping soldiers like they weren’t even there, an’ I tried not to kick anybody hard enough to wake ‘em up as I followed him.
There wasn’t much distance between camp and cold raw wilderness. I looked up again, tryin’ to orient myself by the stars, but I still couldn’t see ‘em. Once we were well outta camp I stopped to take a better look, then exhaled a steamy breath into cold air. “Danny, where’re the stars?”
“That’s what I need you for.”
“To bring the stars back?”
“To kill the demon that’s hiding them.”
“Dan, there ain’t—there ain’t no such thing as demons.” I stuttered halfway through ‘cause I was thinkin’ of Dandy Andy and all of a sudden wasn’t so sure of myself. “What kinda demon?”
“It’s called—” He looked at me and sighed. “Never mind, you couldn’t say it anyway. A sky demon. It wants to eat the stars, and it starts by trying to make people forget them. It hides them under a blanket of its hair. Once they’re hidden, once people begin to forget, the smallest stars become vulnerable, and—”
“Stars are giant gas balls in the sky, Dan. You can’t eat ‘em.”
“Yeah? Can you not hide them in a clear night sky, either?”
I said a word my Ma didn’t think I should know and rubbed my eyes, hoping I’d see stars again when I was done. But I knew I wouldn’t, and I was right. “Sure, buddy. How do we kill a sky demon that eats stars?”
“Cut off its head so the stars can fly back out.”
“I shoulda guessed.”
Dan looked surprised and I muttered, “I was joking, Danny. That was a joke. All right, how do we find this thing?”
He switched on a flashlight. “Like this.”
Seemed like the whole world lit up, compared to the darkness of a starless night. I reared back, squinting. “Damn, that’s bright.”
“It has to be to make it think it’s a star to eat.”
I s’posed he had a point. We huddled together, back to back, waiting in the cold night air. When I got tired of counting the breaths I could see, I said, “Why me?”
“Because you didn’t go out after the crying demon, and because you listened when I told Dandy Andy to watch himself. And your eyes are grey.”
“What’s that gotta do with it?”
“Silver eyes see ghosts.”
“Oh, yeah, sure, a’course. Forgot about that. What the hell, Danny.”
I felt him shrug. “It’s what my mother used to say. I don’t know if it’s a Korean superstition or if it was just her own because her grandfather had silver eyes. But it can’t hurt to have silver eyes along with me on this.”
“There can’t be a lotta folks
in Korea with grey eyes.”
“There aren’t. Now shut up. The demon is attracted to light, not noise.”
I shut up, then swung my pack around to dig out some rations, and pulled them and a flashlight out of the bag. “Hungry? Hell, I got a flashlight in here too. Should I turn it on?”
“Starving,” Danny hissed, “but look. Slowly.”
Just like that, I wasn’t hungry anymore. My skin got cold, not from nerves and not from the air being freezing, but more like a warning of something creepy going on. I peered over Danny’s shoulder.
For a second I thought hell, if that was a demon, I was all right with letting her do what she wanted. She was maybe five feet tall and Korean, ‘cept her skin was white as starlight. Her lips were blood red and her eyes were black as raven wings. Her hair was amazing, black as her eyes and dancing with a life of its own, rising up toward the sky until I couldn’t see what was hair and what was sky. Hiding the stars in a blanket of hair, Danny’d said, an’ I didn’t know how she was doing it but that’s what was going on. She was wearing a midnight blue high-collared robe with sleeves so long they trailed on the ground without leaving any kind of marks. It was wrapped around her torso by black ribbon that sparkled with starlight. In that first moment of looking at her, she was the most perfectly beautiful thing I’d ever seen, like some kinda living sculpture.
‘least she was until she focused on the flashlight, and her mouth opened wide enough to be bigger than her face an’ to show off a bottomless pit of stars an’ gleaming razor teeth. Danny yelled and threw the flashlight to one side. The demon rushed it, swallowed it down, an’ just as fast spat it out again. It hit the ground with another thud, an’ back-lit the demon as she spun toward us with rage pulling her already-stretched features even further outta place.
Way at the back of my mind, that voice I was getting kinda used to said I don’t remember this. That was it, nothing more, and hell if I knew how it was supposed to remember what I was only just now doing, but I had my pick of worrying about that or worrying about the black-eyed beauty who was gonna gobble us up along with the stars. I decided on her, an’ the voice got quiet again.
The demon dropped to all fours and bounded at us like some kinda big cat, clawing up the ground. Danny an’ I scattered, both of us grabbin’ for the knives we shoulda had out and waiting. I switched my flashlight on and she swung toward me, which was kinda what I expected if I’d been thinking it through, but not much what I wanted once I did think it through. I hit the deck and flung the light away. She leaped over me and jumped on it, but she wasn’t fooled enough to try eating it this time. Still, I had time to get the knife out and roll to my feet before she turned back on me.
She pounced and Danny tackled her just before she hit me. His knife cut into her ribs, slicing the ribbon apart, an’ when he pulled it away, she bled starlight. Thick shining waves of it, and drops that hung in the air instead of falling like normal blood would. She screamed a staticky sound, not like a woman’s scream at all. It hissed and rushed an’ made the hairs on my arms stand on end, and it did something worse to Danny, who was even closer. He looked like he was coming apart, like the sound was melting him from the outside in. I snatched up my flashlight as I ran at them, and shoved the thing down her gullet when I reached her. She hacked and spat it back up, but at least the screamin’ stopped and Danny stopped looking like he was melting.
The demon skittered back. She looked less human and a lot less gorgeous, her hair tangled up and the starlight still bleedin’ from her side. It was the mouth, though, that really made her a monster, ‘cause it was hanging open to show all of the ugly teeth and the guts that were made up of magic instead of humanity. Danny scrambled up an’ all three of us started circling each other, me and Danny working two against one.
I guessed she chose Danny ‘cause he was the littler guy. I guessed she figured if she could get rid of him she could focus on me. I saw her planning it before she moved, some kinda little give-away in the way she was leaning played up by the flashlights. She went after him, but I was on her heels, not losing any time to surprise. She landed on Dan with all fours, an’ I grabbed a handful of black hair that was cold as ice, hauled her head back, and slashed her throat.
Starlight exploded out, splashing toward the sky. I got knocked off my feet an’ lay there watching as her hair drifted outta the sky and a million stars she’d eaten went back to their rightful places. When it finally ended, I sat up an’ found out I was covered in strands of hair, ‘cept they’d gone silver and brittle. They broke into snowflakes when I brushed ‘em off. Danny did the same, and we got up with somethin’ like snow angels on the ground behind us.
Him and me, we didn’t say a word going back to camp. Didn’t say a word about it later, either, and after a few years I even started wondering if Danny had been there at all, or if it’d just been me and the starlight demon alone in the Korean night.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Three times in four years wasn’t enough to see your girl in. I kept thinking how much worse it was for the fellas who had wives and kids, kids who maybe didn’t know them at all, and counted myself lucky even when I was counting down the days. Annie came to meet the ship when I came home from Korea, and did it sneaky, too: I didn’t know she was coming until I saw her on the docks, one of a hundred pretty girls waiting for their men to come home.
I stopped stock still an’ stared a while before she’d even seen me, just looking at the way her blond hair had gotten longer an’ her blue eyes were still the same. Fashions had changed too, and I guessed I knew that, but it was different seeing her in a fitted skirt an’ suit jacket insteada the full skirts an’ blousy tops she’d been wearing when I left. She looked grown-up an’ professional, an’ my heart knocked around inside of me like it was tryin’ ta get out. I hadn’t been nervous about coming home, not ‘til I saw her, but I couldn’t get my feet moving now that I had.
She finally saw me and her smile lit up bright as day at the same time she put her hand over her stomach in the same nervous way she had when I’d asked her to marry me. That made me feel enough better that I got my feet unstuck, and met her halfway when she came running. All around us guys were scooping up their girls and spinning ‘em around like they couldn’t contain themselves, and neither could I. Annie shrieked into my shoulder and kicked her feet, both of us laughing when I staggered to a stop and put her down again without quite letting go. “You didn’t say you were coming, darlin’.”
“I wanted to surprise you. A good surprise? Oh, Gary, look at you. I thought you were handsome before, but you’re all grown up now. I hardly recognized you.”
“You and me both, sweetheart. Nurse Annie.” I grinned ‘til I was fit to pop. “Congratulations, darlin’. Wish I’d been at your graduation, but at least I’ll get to see you in one of those saucy little hats.”
Annie laughed an’ ducked her face against my chest, hiding a blush. I put my arm around her shoulders, holding her close and lowering my head to breathe in the scent of her hair. “Your letters always smelled like you. Like daisies. Didn’t even know they had enough scent to linger, doll.”
“I had to look a long time to find a perfume that smelled like them. I like it better than the more cultivated flower scents.”
“Guess that’s why you like me, too.”
She rocked back so she could smile up at me. “You can’t fool me. You’re hiding cultivation under a rough exterior. I remember some of the poetry you’ve quoted me.”
“Aw, shucks, sweetheart, everybody’s gotta pass English Lit if they wanna stay on the football team. ‘sides,” I said, solemn as I could, “what kinda guy can’t call his girl the star to his wandering bark an’ still call himself worth stepping out with?”
“Most of them,” Annie said dryly, then laughed again and tucked herself up against me. “Come on. The car is waiting. I thought we could drive up the coast and I could meet your parents while you’re on leave.”
“Just the two of us?
T’gether?”
“Well, I’m certainly not inviting Andy along. I like him fine, but I don’t propose to share a hotel room with him!”
I got kinda dizzy. “You proposin’ to share one with me?”
She dimpled, an’ I spent the next couple weeks in the best kinda haze I’d ever known. I hated to go away from her again, but it was better than the first time, in some ways, ‘cause the war was over. I saw some of the world, even a few places I wanted to bring Annie back to, and the day my service ended, I walked away without ever looking back.
Walked right into a big church, an’ waited there with Danny and Andy and a handful of the other guys from my unit standing up for me, while Annie came through the open doors at the end of the aisle in a burst of sunlight that dazzled tears into my eyes. By the time I could see clear again she was just about at my side, her daddy walking her down the aisle like she’d hoped he could. She was soft an’ pretty and perfect, an’ her Pop looked like another weight was lifting off his shoulders. He never had explained what he’d said the first time we’d met, but I meant to take care of his girl the rest of my life, so I figured it didn’t matter.
I didn’t hear a damned word of the ceremony, nothing except the parts where I was s’posed to say I do an’ I will. I got those parts out, and the rest of it I was just looking at my Annie and feelin’ fit to burst. She was always beautiful, but I didn’t think even Princess Grace could hold a candle to her right then. I said so on the way outta the church an’ she said she’d believe me ‘cause I was better-looking than Prince Rainier III, which happened to be true, so to my way of thinking, we were starting out a fairy tale.
Trouble is, fairy tales got monsters in ‘em.
I was at home studyin’ for the last college final when she called me from work. I’d been out of the Army and married for two years, an’ in all that time I’d never heard her sound so strained or upset. I had my shoes on before I knew what was wrong, an’ in the end all she could say that made any sense was, “Please hurry.”