by Steve Libbey
~*~*~*~
The mortar shells fell like the first tentative drops of a thunderstorm. Pirroni had been nervous at first, since Talerico lacked a compass, but he uttered directions into the radio with confidence.
“We won’t get hit. He knows what he’s doing.” Adriatico nevertheless huddled beneath a smashed window as a shell hit a home three doors down. “They’re feeling it out.”
Pirroni grunted. He hated mortar fire, from the enemy or his own side. A man should be able to see his target – and his target should have a chance to look his murderer in the face. This war is nothing but a series of road trips staged to justify mass homicide. The Americans didn’t want to be here, risking their lives – their country only entered the war because of the urging of their metahumans. Many Americans tacitly supported the Nazis until then, some going so far as to send money and host charity events. Having just come out of their own depression, they understood the frustration the Germans felt after the Great War.
The Americans held a special interest for him. Before the Fascists had banned it, he had taught English at a small college. The land populated by immigrants seemed futuristic, a world of potential, unlike the strictly regulated country he had grown up in. He was a man of letters, a man who could temper his wild desires and behaviors, so why did he need so many laws restricting him? Were Italians so weak that they could not be trusted without a firm hand to guide them?
But Pirroni kept such thoughts to himself, and complained not at all when the word came that his department had been eliminated. He accepted the Dean’s offer of a tedious administrative position and life went on.
A colossal explosion jolted him out of his thoughts and back to the matter at hand.
“Jesu joy of man, look at that! Limbs flying like birds.” Adriatico stood gawking at the havoc wrought by the direct hit on what used to be a two family house filled with American soldiers. In the fading light, he saw the limbs that excited his Sergente: arms and legs, still wrapped in olive drab fabric, scattered amongst the rubble from the collapsed facade. Acrid smoke stung Pirroni’s nostrils. The screams of the Americans reached his ears, and he felt a wave of guilt, even though he knew their forces outnumbered his own.
Something whizzed past his head like an angry wasp.
“Down!” He seized Adriatico by the shoulder and threw him to the ground. The surviving Americans wanted revenge; they peppered the building with rifle fire. A Browning M2 in a machine gun nest ripped pieces out of the brickwork – soon their cover would be nothing but a perforated remnant of a wall.
“At least a dozen casualties,” Adriatico gloated. “Should we advance, Capitano?”
“And here I thought you wanted to surrender.”
“I do! But I want to be able to look them in the eye like a man.”
Pirroni barked at Talerico to request further shelling on the same coordinates. The spotter repeated the order, shouting to be heard over the gunfire.
“Oh, for one grenade.” Adriatico mimed arming and throwing one through the rapidly growing hole in the wall. “You know what’s funny? We ran out weeks ago.”
“Place an order with the past.” Pirroni crawled to the corner and aimed his carbine at an exposed shoulder near the nest. His bullet tore a hole in the sandbag that he and his men had originally erected for their own use. Adriatico dove into the next room to get a better angle.
Soon night would fall and only muzzle flashes would light their targets. If they were to capitalize on the mortar hits, the time was now.
He called across the room to Talerico. “Radio Colonnello Posca... no, make that Abrognini. Tell him we have an opening. We need a dozen men.”
Talerico nodded and bent to his radio. Pirroni began to turn away, but a movement caught his eye and jump-started his heart. A black shape swooped in towards the radio man.
In the blink of an eye, a shadow enveloped Talerico. The man shrieked – an ululation of fear, not pain – and then, as Pirroni brought the barrel of his rifle around, the shape leapt past him and out the window. The rank smell of blood followed in its wake.
Pirroni struggled to track the shape as it flashed from shelter to shelter in the darkening street. At last it settled for a moment on the body of a wounded American. Momentarily still, its form became clearer: a man in a black cloak.
For an instant, it looked over its shoulder at him, and demonic round white eyes flashed at him.
Time stood still. Blood dripped from the ghoulish creature’s claws. It threw a piece of the soldier’s shoulder aside like a clod of dirt...
...and then the man raised his head and heaved himself back into the building with two good arms.
Pirroni pressed against the wall, trying to make himself so small that he would fit into a mouse hole. The creature might come back for him.
“Talerico,” he whispered. “Speak to me. Are you injured?”
The radio man gurgled once in response and was silent. His body twitched. Blood spurted from the stump where his arm had been.