by J. F. Holmes
“You know, Top, someday they’re going to find out you actually care,” said Captain Miller when Thorson was out of earshot.
The dour hillbilly said, “I don’t, Sir. Just a pain in the ass training new men to deal with the Fae.”
“Uh huh,” answered Miller with a grin. “You just keep telling yourself that.”
McCoy put a pipe in his mouth and tried to light it, the sea spray putting out his match. He cursed and flung it over the side. “I did care, Captain. Till I saw shit that blasted my soul. Now I just hate.”
They banged against the side of the DE, a long, lethal-looking ship that rode low in the water. The Task Force troops, exhausted though they were, scrabbled and grunted their way up the cargo nets, grateful to be leaving the blood-stained beach far behind.
Chapter 4
“So how did I get this gig again?” asked Thorson.
“You were in the 1st Marine Parachute Regiment, right?” The NCO grunted, pulling a strap tight.
Thorson did the same, making sure the parachutes were secure. Then they started checking their equipment. “Yeah, and then we got folded into the 5th Division. I was in the last class outta Hadnot Point, just got to the unit when they closed up. Whole lotta pissed off guys. We were supposed to jump into Kavieng, but that got scrubbed, and then all of a sudden I get orders to catch a PBY back to Diego.”
“Who did you piss off?” asked Bodi with a knowing wink.
Thorson laughed, feeling welcome for the first time since he got there. “I might have punched some Army officer. I was a lance corporal, and, you know. We get back to Hawaii to train for the big push to Iwo, and well, here I am.”
“There was supposed to be a whole platoon of you guys. I guess manpower is kinda short. Plus, you know, it ain’t everyone who goes toe to toe with a giant and walks away without shitting himself.”
“To be honest, I don’t remember much. The jungle is kinda, I dunno, just a big green blur, you know? Just this hot, nasty, green hell. Jap snipers all around, fucking banzai charges, and maybe that giant thing was a demon or something. I kept telling myself it was just some big native that got mixed up in some shit, but after what I saw last night, I dunno.”
“Well, someone saw it and sent up a report about you, and here you are. Jumpin’ into France to save the doggies’ asses from a mean old troll.”
“Semper Fi, Corporal. Let’s do this.”
The C-47 sat waiting on the concrete runway, Marines lined up by the door. As each one reached it, two British soldiers almost lifted them into the plane. When Thorson’s turn came, he stopped. The fuselage was riddled with jagged tears, and the floor was still wet from getting hosed down. Little rivulets of pink-tinged water ran out of the corners of the door, and a team of mechanics were neck deep in the engine, cursing at it.
He froze. A sudden, irrational fear seized him, and it had nothing to do with combat. Thorson had the requisite five jumps in school, and another nine in training. He’d flown all the way from Hawaii to England, making multiple stops, going through rough weather, and never blinked. Now he just stopped in the door, both hands locked on the edges of the doorway, unable to move his muscles.
Gunny McCoy was standing in front of him, and Thorson expected him to hit him, but he still couldn’t move. Instead the NCO lit a cigarette, despite the no smoking signs inside the cockpit, and placed it in Thorson’s mouth. “Deep breath, kid, take it in.” The private did so, and slowly sagged forward into the fuselage. McCoy grabbed him by the harness and shoved him into a seat.
“Thanks, Gunny. That was really weird.”
“Seen it before, kid,” he growled. “Just don’t do it in the door on the way out, or I’m gonna kick you in the ass.”
The younger man looked around at the sunlight streaming through the shrapnel holes, and then at the blood stains on the canvas seats. Half the guys were already asleep, and he suddenly felt exhausted. As the engines warmed up and night fell, he slowly faded out.
****
“FIVE MINUTES!” yelled the jumpmaster, and Thorson awoke with a start. At the same time, there was a flash of light and a loud CRACK, making the engine cough and stutter. The jumpmaster put another piece of gum in his mouth and started chewing nervously, but then grinned and said, “THIS AIN’T SHIT COMPARED TO THE OTHER NIGHT! DAMN EIGHTY-EIGHT WILL KNOCK US RIGHT OUT THE SKY, THOUGH!”
The Marines helped each other stand up, while Captain Miller leaned out the door, trying to match the terrain on the ground with the map clutched in his hand, red penlight in his mouth. He put it away and motioned for Gunny McCoy, who was last in line. He waddled forward, they put their heads together to consult, and then both nodded.
Before the jumpmaster could say anything, Miller stepped out the door, and McCoy shouted over the roar of the engines, “GO! GO! GO!” The next jumper in line acted on reflex and pulled himself forward, vanishing into the night. Thorson, third in line, was shoved forward by the press of men, and fell more than stepped out. He had no time to freeze, no time to worry, just the cool night air, and then shock of the ‘chute opening. He glanced up to see the chute fill, and then, despite all his training, looked down at the ground.
Below him the countryside was bathed in moonlight, and it seemed like a million fireflies were sparkling on the ground. They were tracers and explosions, muzzle blasts and burning tanks. Hundreds of thousands of men were locked in combat, and he had a bird’s eye view of it all. It was beautiful, and it was Hell.
The experiences of the Army Airborne had taught them that having an equipment bag on a drop line was a sure way to lose it, and they’d been tossed in their own chutes. The ground rushed up on him and, as he always did, Thorson hit the ground like a sack of potatoes. He rolled and hit the chute release, hauled his Thompson around, and duck-walked toward the trees. Gunfire chattered in the distance, muted thumps of artillery, but around him the night insects chirped quietly. He waited for the red flashlight signal from Captain Miller, the first jumper, as he walked along the line of men, but nothing happened for what seemed like an eternity.
Thorson almost jumped out of his skin when a hand grabbed his foot, but he heard the hissed challenge, “SEMPER!” He responded with, “Fidelis,” and saw that it was Lance Corporal Giuliani. The wiry Italian machine gunner held his finger to his lips and pointed to the field in front of them.
“Undead!” he said quietly, and Thorson could see two ragged figures in the moonlight, one in the field grey of the Wehrmacht, the other with a distinctive American helmet tilted on his head. They shuffled along, wandering aimlessly, backs to the Marines. Without a word, Giuliani stood up, drew his pistol, ran forward, and fired into the back of the American’s skull. The dead man dropped, but the thing’s companion wheeled and charged. Calmly, Giuliani waited until it was mere feet away and fired once more, the gunshot sparking before Thorson’s eyes, a brief yellow strobe light that showed the bloody hole in the walking corpse’s side.
“God, but I hate the undead!” said Giuliani as he slid down next to Thorson. “Poor bastards!”
Chapter 5
Dawn found them two miles from the bridge, delayed by having to wait out a German patrol for three hours. Captain Miller cursed at the lost time, but then again, fighting the Fae was always better in the daylight. Problem was, though, that they were also racing the German reinforcements.
“Move it, Marines!” said Gunny McCoy, who was at the rear of the line and physically shoving anyone who started to slacken their pace. He didn’t have to; exhausted as they were, the men were starting to feel that particular adrenaline rush that came with the anticipation of combat. As they got closer, their excitement warred with the innate caution owned by veterans. Before they came around the bend that led to the bridge, Captain Miller called them to a halt, and they spread out. Two men struggled up the sides of the valley to pull flank security, and another two started moving out toward the village on the hill above. The last was a team equipped with a Boys Anti-Tank Rifle and a spottin
g scope, and the ten rounds they’d managed to scare up for it.
“Hey, Gunny, come with me,” said Miller, and the two slowly made their way around the bend. The bridge lay quiet and still, the nighttime mist still hovering about it. McCoy whistled and waved, and the squad came up, the security teams stopping and struggling back down the sides of the hill. Without being told to, one of the machine gun teams started setting up a Browning .30 on its tripod, facing back the way they had come.
Thorson stopped, sweat pouring off him. In addition to the weapon itself, he had twenty magazines, a half dozen grenades, and five blocks of C-3 explosive. Together with all the other gear, he carried almost eighty pounds, and the heat was beginning to rise as the sun came up.
“Hey, you,” said McCoy, “yeah, you, Thorson. Go down there and see what’s what.”
The private sighed and started grounding his gear. He didn’t need to ask why; he was the lowest ranking guy, and the newbie in a tight squad. Bodi handed him the small M-1 carbine and a bandolier of ammo almost regretfully. “Remember, it’s a troll. He’s big, but slow.”
“And you know this how?”
“Well, I’d tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.”
Thorson grimaced and said, “Thanks, buddy, I feel so much better!” then started down the hill.
Behind him Bodi hesitated, then picked up the BAR Thorson had put down. McCoy started to say something, but Captain Miller held up his hand. The corporal quickly caught up with Thorson, and together, they made their way forward across the bridge, covering each other as they moved, but swapping their weapons back out.
*****
“Jesus Christ, this was a slaughter,” said Bodi. Neither one was a stranger to combat or the dead, but what they saw now was almost more than they could take. Bones were splintered, huge bites taken out of corpses, and many had been mashed flat, the remnants of their uniforms the only thing that held them together. Brass was everywhere, and the stone bridge rails showed hundreds of pockmarks from bullets. Every weapon also looked like someone had put them in a grinder, and several had barrels bent and twisted. As they stepped through the gore, their leather boots made sticky sounds. It got worse as they reached the end of the bridge, both peering nervously over the edges, expecting something to erupt at any second and do the same thing that had befallen the others.
****
“OK, let’s go!” said Miller, watching the two men wave at him through binoculars. Both seemed fine, and there were no disturbances to be seen. The six remaining Marines jogged forward, Miller in the front, and McCoy in the rear. They reached the part of the road where it sat directly between the first two bridge abutments, and Miller had them kneel, waving for the two others to come back to him.
“Listen, Marines, here’s the deal. The Fae are very territorial, and from what the 82nd guy said, they were trying to blow the bridge. Once we set the charges, whatever that thing is, it’s going to come up at us. When it does, we’re going to run our asses off, and the machine gunners and anti-tank guys are going to blow it away. Thorson, you watch the water on the right, Corporal Bodi on the left, Gunny set up an overwatch for the Germans, make sure the MGs are in place. Got it?”
They nodded pulled demo blocks from backpacks and pockets. Under the direction of Sergeant Kasnic, the combat engineer, they stacked them over the weakest part of the bridge, making a pile. As he worked, the engineer whistled a tune he’d learned from his dad, who’d served in the Great War. It helped calm his nerves as he worked with enough explosive to make him disappear into little bits. “Need something to tamp this with!” he shouted, and Miller ordered three men to go back to get some heavy rocks from the shore.
Twenty minutes passed by with nothing happening while the engineer set his charges, and a tired and bored Thorson looked idly down at the water, thinking of how the hills and river valley reminded him of back home. Every now and then he glanced over his shoulder at where Gunny McCoy was directing the other men setting up the heavier weapons, and with a chill, he realized that they were all pointed in his general direction.
Another glance at Bodi, who was across from him and maybe ten feet closer to their end of the bridge, lighting a cigarette. A glance down the bridge at where the road approached from the south—dead bodies from a German roadblock, looked like. He looked down at the water, nothing, then heard a sound behind him, a strangled, cut-off, almost slapping SPLAT.
Thorson was a combat veteran and had spent many nights in the pitch-black darkness of the jungle in Guadalcanal, surrounded by all the terrors that an active imagination could generate. What climbed over the edge of the bridge, casually popping Bodi’s head into its mouth, was more than a nightmare. It was all of mankind’s fears in one huge, hulking package.
The iron tailings that had soaked into the troll over the last two centuries had driven it quite mad, and that light shone in its eyes, a bright red that glared out. Still, there was intelligence there, an animal cunning, or even more. To confirm it, the troll grinned as it pulled its bulk over the edge and stood up, tearing Bodi’s still quivering body in half.
“Holy, holy shi, shit!” stuttered Thorson, his mind numb, but his muscle memory didn’t fail him. He raised the Browning and pulled the trigger. The bolt slid forward, stripping a thirty-caliber round forward into the breach, and the firing pin struck the primer. He felt the recoil slam into his shoulder and held the trigger, watching the barrel rise, leaning into it. Engaging a man-sized target, he would have stopped after three rounds, letting the barrel drop. The troll, though, stood almost twenty feet tall, and he emptied the magazine, letting it start at the knees and rise up to the hideous face. The only effect he could see when the bolt clicked back empty was a series of pockmarks that started to close as he dropped the expended magazine. The troll leaned forward and started to cross the twenty feet between them, huge, bloody hands extended and yellowed teeth showing in a grin. There were pieces of gristle and meat stuck in the fangs. Its hot breath washed over him in a roar, and one huge arm smashed into him, knocking the Marine down with the sickening snap of a broken arm. The BAR went flying across the stones, and Thorson collapsed, his vision drawing down into a tunnel.
He fumbled at his Colt, and the troll placed its hand on his head, emitting a huge, thunderous laugh, and started to squeeze. There was a loud BANG and a whizzing sound, and the troll dropped the man, turning to face the end of the bridge. It roared in defiance as another anti-tank round slammed into it, and turned, picking up a huge broken piece of bridge rail.
As Thorson tried to catch his breath, feeling his stomach heave, he saw the troll throw the stone in a flat trajectory, several hundred pounds of granite whipping through the air and catching Sergeant Kasnic in the back, smashing him down. A second stone flew even farther, shattering in the midst of the machine gun crew as they started to fire. The creature ran forward, tearing off more stones and hurling them with supernatural accuracy, screaming with rage as it did so. A massive volley of gunfire ripped out toward the troll, and Thorson crawled behind a solid stone pillar as the rounds zipped all around him.
****
At the end of the bridge, the Task Force squad faced the hell that was the oncoming troll. Captain Miller swore as he emptied his M1 Garand into the thing; normally if you put enough firepower into a supernatural creature, it went down, even if it was just because it was shot to pieces and couldn’t move. This thing, though, seemed impervious to bullets, even with the extra firepower they’d brought with them. It even shrugged off his ace in the hole, the anti-tank rifle.
“Wish we had some steel-jacketed stuff!” grunted Miller as he ducked another thrown rock. The man behind him wasn’t so lucky, the huge stone catching his shoulder and sending him spinning to the ground.
“Shit in one hand, wish in another. We’ve gotta blow this bridge!” shouted McCoy, deafened by the gunfire. Miller thought about calling for one of the snipers to hit the plastic explosive, but the troll was between them and it, and they were buried
under the blocks of stone that shielded it.
Miller looked desperately around at his command, counting the men he had left. Five, including McCoy and himself. McCoy saw the look and said, “This is what you get the big bucks for, Captain!” He turned back, mind racing for some kind of plan, when the troll roared and charged, just as his sole remaining machine gun ran dry.
Chapter 6
Sven Thorson had grown up on a farm in Minnesota, spending the long winter nights listening to his grandfather tell tales in his native Norwegian, sagas going back to Viking times. He had loved listening to them, but Thorson had always been a practical person, and to him, those sagas were mere stories. He was sure more than half of them had been made up lies his grandfather had told to scare the shit out of him.
Now, long after his grandfather had passed on, one of those tales stood in front of him, a nightmare of splattered blood and scaly black- and rust-colored hide. His rational brain screamed at him that he was dreaming, knocked unconscious, dying on the beach in some godforsaken Pacific island jungle. Despite that, he felt a fierce joy well up in him, a berserker rage that wound its way through a thousand years and filled his soul.
With a shout, he ripped out the jungle machete he’d strapped to his back and ran forward, toward the back of the creature. “RASSRAGR!” he yelled at the top of his lungs, the insult his grandfather had used most often, and the troll stopped in its tracks. The Marine, unable to halt his headlong rush and slipping on the bloody flagstones, slid forward and crashed into the thing’s immovable leg.
As he did, he slashed as hard as he could with the two-foot-long blade. The case-hardened Collins Machete whipped across the back of the knee with a shriek and a shower of sparks, opening up the skin and biting deep into the muscle behind it.