Strigoi

by John O'Brien

  I turn to find the next target, but there are only tall trunks rising from the jungle floor. At the bottom of the hill, the disturbed fog is coalescing back into a formless sea of gray. Along the small ridge, the remnants of black smoke drift upward and then vanish. A heavy silence settles in place of the pounding of running feet, the solid thumps of bullets hitting flesh and bone, the thunk of blades extending, and the click of magazines being slammed into receivers. The only thing to break the quiet is the panting of our breaths and slight rustle of boots as we search through the foliage.

  “Everyone okay?” I radio.

  In quick succession, everyone answers affirmatively. I look beside and behind for movement or the flash of heat. Circled together, we search, but find nothing. The only signs that a battle took place are the disturbed ground, trunks colored lighter in places where our rounds took chunks from the bark, the lingering odor of gunpowder, and the iron smell of blood.

  Somewhere in the depths of the surrounding jungle, a single cricket chirps. As if that were a cue, that one brave cricket daring to utter the first sound, more join in until we’re surrounded in chorus.

  “So, is that it, then?” Greg whispers.

  “It would appear so,” I answer. “For this group, anyway.”

  I’m having a difficult time realizing that we made it through. Although Red Team was prepared and knew what we were facing, it makes me a little sad that my other team was wiped out. These vampires can be beaten. Not easily, but it can be done. We did have several close calls and a few moments of luck saw us through. I’m also rethinking my signing of that damned contract. Enemy human combatants are so much easier to deal with. They have habitual patterns I can understand and, well, once shot, those holes don’t heal themselves.

  “Falcon,” I radio Lynn. “The bar is closed and I think we’re ready for a taxi.”

  “Your ride is on the way,” she replies.

  It isn’t long before we hear the thumping of rotor blades growing louder, the sound muted by the overhead cover. Still tense, we edge off the ravine to avoid being hit on the head by the anchors at the end of the ropes. The tops of the trees begin swaying furiously as the Blackhawk settles into a hover overhead. The crack of larger branches breaking is heard through the violent swishing as the ropes drop and hit the ground with heavy thumps. The waving branches calm as the helicopter rises to minimize the swaying and possible damage to our bodies as we’re lifted through. Attaching themselves to harnesses, four bodies rise through the canopy, leaving Gonzalez and me on the ground.

  “They’re not so tough,” Gonzalez comments.

  “I don’t know about that. They seem plenty tough to me. This was something I’d like to check off the box and call it good,” I reply. “I thought I had done that the last time I was here, but here I am having to repeat it.”

  “We’re still alive,” she says.

  “True enough. Still, I’m not a huge fan of luck having that much influence.”

  “It wasn’t luck, sir. We’re just better, that’s all,” Gonzalez responds. “Oh, and thanks for watching my six. I had no idea it was there until I heard your rounds hitting it.”

  “Don’t mention it. You’d have done the same,” I reply.

  “We have a good team here, sir. I’ve been with teams that were good and others that were, um, not so good. I mean, we just fought fucking vampires and we’re still here to talk about it,” Gonzalez states.

  “Why did you scrawl your name on the dotted line?” I ask.

  “Because we get to fight vampires. I mean, come on, that’s pretty cool.”

  I shake my head, wondering what exactly I’ve signed onto.

  “I’m just kidding, sir. I was with, well, one of those not-so-good teams. And, honestly, since…that happened…,” Gonzalez says, referring to her incident with creatures, “and my reporting of it, my career started spiraling down the drain. It wouldn’t have been long before I was swept out with the rest of the trash. And then what? Back to my hometown? No thanks. That’s nothing but a dead end. This is all I really know how to do. What about you, sir?”

  “A moment of insanity,” I reply.

  “Come on, sir. That’s my reason and you can’t have the same one.”

  “I don’t know. Adventure? Seeing the world? Adrenaline junkie? Test myself? I’m sure all that had something to do with it. I’ve pushed myself my entire life, so perhaps this was a way to push it even further. Plus, I’m sure in the background of the rocks rattling in my skull, I was hoping for the chance to do something about losing an entire team,” I answer.

  “I can understand that. Well, you just watch, sir. Like I said, we have a good team here.”

  The overhead cover begins to stir, the branches coming to life as the helicopter descends. A whirlwind of leaves spins throughout the open spaces of the jungle, followed by two thuds.

  “I believe our ride is here. Shall we?” I say.

  “Hooah, sir.”

  “Um, we don’t ‘hooah’ here.”

  “Hooah…sir,” Gonzalez says, smiling.

  I give her my best glare, but the expression on her face indicates that it’s not having the desired effect.

  I still carry the ghosts of my previous team with me. They were good men with family and loved ones. I lost them and I can’t help but feel responsible. The image of Red Team crouched along the ridge comes to mind, their determined looks. McCafferty, the deceptively frail looking woman, leaping to attack the vampire and then calmly turning to add her fire to the fray. Henderson and Denton going about their business as if contemplating what biscotti to have with their espressos. Gonzalez flipping the vampire over and falling on it with knife raised. The entire team halting in the flight to the building to support my withdrawal. And Greg. I’m sure he popped heads off by merely squeezing a hand around their necks.

  As we gather the harnesses, I look over at Gonzalez.

  “You’re right, we do have a good team. And, for the love of God, don’t answer with another ‘hooah,’” I state, pointing a finger.

  We lift toward the trees. Below, the mist encircles the ridge and the churned slopes are slowly covered with gently falling leaves. On that small spot in the middle of nowhere, where humans may or may not have ever trod before, and may not again, we became a team, something that I had hoped the mission to Afghanistan would accomplish. We’ve bonded now, becoming a single entity with multiple appendages. We’ll have trials and mistakes ahead, but on this ridge, Red Team was forged.

  My musing thoughts and emotions are interrupted by the rub and crash of limbs. Tucking my chin and using my arms and body to keep away from the limbs, I emerge into the clear. A few feet away, Gonzalez rises with me, two bodies lifted into the night air. The tops of the trees glow from the sliver of moonlight, the surrounding crests of the ridges dark silhouettes against a nighttime sky. Stars sparkle on a velvet background. To the north are lights from one of the blockades and farther away are the milky glows of larger cities.

  Downwash sweeps over me with the smell of jet exhaust; above sits the huge darkened outline of the Blackhawk, like a giant bumblebee hovering in the night. A helmeted head looks down from the open door, a gloved hand guiding the rope into the winch swung outward. Level with the door, I step onto the decking as the winch is brought in, the crewman unhitching my harness.

  In front, dim instruments glow from the faces of the two pilots, each wearing NVGs pulled over their eyes. In the cabin are the huddled figures of the others, Gonzalez plopping beside them as she’s unhooked. Each of them look upward with dirt-smeared expressions, sweat forming lines in the grit. Splashes of blood streak their faces. They all have cuts in their clothing along their sleeves or pant legs. Through one nasty tear on Greg’s sleeve, blood oozes down his arm.

  “It looks like they got you pretty good,” I say, pointing.

  Greg looks down and then shrugs. “It’s not as pretty as yours.”

  It’s a little odd hearing his usual gravelly voice come acro
ss softly. Sometimes I worry about him talking when we’re airborne, as I’m afraid his voice will shake the helicopter apart. His tone is almost gentle at times. It’s the same with his movements. Where I’d expect something akin to a rampaging elephant relying on strength alone, he moves like a fucking cat or ballerina. I chuckle at the thought of him wearing a tutu and flowing across a stage on his toes, his arms gracefully moving like an opening flower or some such.

  “What’s so funny? I didn’t say you were pretty,” Greg responds.

  “Yeah, okay, Baryshnikov,” I reply.

  “What the fuck does that even mean?” he asks.

  “Never mind. Falcon, we’re outbound. Are you still tracking the others?” I radio.

  “We had the three of them, but lost them all at nearly the same time up a ridge,” Lynn answers. “I think they went to ground.”

  “Copy that. Mark the spot. I think we’re done for the day. Keep an eye on that northern area as I’m not entirely sure we got them all,” I say, watching the eastern horizon begin to lighten.

  On the way back to our field, we replace spent magazines and drink water to slake the dryness of our mouths and throats. I’d like to head somewhere to get some decent rest and food, but I want to look over the field in the daylight. There may not be anything to find, but it might yield a clue to help us fight these things. At the worst, we can try and come up with a body count in order to guestimate how many we still face.

  Nearing the field, with the dim blue pre-dawn light cast across the valley, it’s easy to see that the pasture won’t yield us a thing. Dark, freshly turned soil mixes with clumps of grass. From amid several of the small craters pocketing the landscape, thin columns of smoke drift upward into the calm air. Parts of decimated cows can be seen protruding from clumps of soil. The nearby fenced rectangles of grass are nearly untouched, making the one look out of place as if it were a puzzle piece wrongly positioned.

  The Blackhawk races across the tops of the trees and drops down in an adjacent pasture. We’re pressed downward from the g’s as the nose flares high and the helicopter abruptly slows. The nose levels off and we drop a couple of feet to hover over the field. Shoving bags out of the door with the scream of the engines just over our heads, we dangle out of the doors and drop.

  Slinging packs onto our backs, we head over to the irrigation channel and follow it. Near where we holed up the previous two nights, we sit along the embankment, dangling our legs over the edge, and pull meals out of our packs. We eat in silence as the blue of pre-dawn flares to orange behind the profile of silhouetted hills. With the stress of the previous night and coming off the intense rush of adrenaline, I feel like just lying back and spending the day gazing at the sky.

  My skin feels drawn tight where the vampire’s talons raked my cheek. The scratches, gouges in some places, are mostly crusted with dried blood, but my finger still comes away wet. Below, the stream slowly moves along the channel, doing what it does regardless of what’s happening around it.

  The sun pokes above the crests, the warmth of the rays spreading across our faces. I stow my garbage and rise with an effort. Continuing along the embankment, we see the walls of the channel are chewed from the barrage Lynn placed behind our path. Deep holes, partially covered with clumps of sod or filled with dirty water near the stream, mar the embankment on both sides. Barely visible among the destruction are light gray ashes. Using imagination, the outlines of the ashes take on a fuzzy human shape. This is where we fought the four strigoi who came after us out of the smoke.

  Even though I know it’s of little use, we cross into the field and attempt to determine how many vampires fell to the gunship. A lingering smell of gunpowder and the torn carcasses of the cattle permeate the field. As we near the middle, I hear the buzzing of flies as they hover over exposed pieces of flesh and intestines. Nearing a cow’s head mostly buried in the soil, flies rise in a dark cloud. Continuing to where we blew the claymores on the far side, it’s much the same—just churned soil. We retrieve the remaining claymores and wire before starting back.

  “Falcon, there’s nothing to see in the field. Did you manage to get a count from the videos?”

  “Very little,” Lynn answers. “Anything I come up with would be purely conjecture.”

  “I’ll take what you have and we can compare it with what we observed,” I state.

  “Best guess is that there are eight or nine who fled back into the hills.”

  I copy the transmission.

  “If you’re finished there, I’ll send in the cleanup crew,” Lynn says.

  “That’s fine with me. We’re heading back to the house for some rest. We’ll need an open area identified near where the trackers were lost, and a ride for later this afternoon. I’d like to be there with a couple hours of daylight remaining.”

  “Copy that. I’ll scout a location and then head back. Give a call when you’re ready.”

  On the roof of the two-story house we’ve been using, I watch as a Chinook rolls in, the black dot growing in size until the twin rotors beating the air into submission come into clear view. Dangling below is a bulldozer, which is lowered to the ground and the lines released. Settling onto and adjacent the field, personnel exit the back. Some move across the ground with metal detectors, placing any shrapnel they come across into containers. Others remove the carcasses. Once they’re finished combing through the area, the bulldozer levels the field and any shredded fence posts are replaced, the wire restrung.

  A battlefield being cleaned up and restored is something to behold. Even though the grass will be gone upon the return of the residents, they won’t know why and it will be soon forgotten. If they returned to the sight of a destructive firefight, then stories would be told and retold until they became legend, then lore. Tired as I am, it strikes me as odd that we tear it apart and rebuild it, kind of like building a playground on top of a garbage dump.

  Once they’re finished, the bulldozer is attached and personnel loaded up. They depart leaving behind a field that looks freshly tilled.

  “So, how many do you think we’ll be facing?” Greg asks as I watch the Chinook fade to a tiny dot in the blue sky.

  The faces of the others turn, wanting to hear the answer. I know they’ve done the math as much as I have, the numbers cycling over and over.

  “Well, we started with what, twenty-nine? There are those four by the embankment and I swear I saw three flashes of orange when we blew the claymores. There were what, eight or nine last night on the ridge?”

  “Nine, sir,” Gonzalez interjects.

  “Okay, nine. And I saw several of those death flashes in the field, so figure four from the gunship, then that leaves us with nine remaining. Unless they managed to feed, they’re still weak. And I imagine they went to ground near where we lost the signal. So, given what we know about their priorities—number one being using their energy to heal, number two to feed—they’ll be looking to come out tonight and restore their blood supply. That means we need to be in place to intercept them before they’re able to. If they restore their energy, we’ll be back at the beginning, although with fewer to deal with. But, if we can hit them like the ones last night, we should be able take them down fairly easily,” I state.

  “Should?” Henderson questions, his brows rising.

  “Touché. We will be able to take them out fairly easily. A drop off location is being identified. I want to be on site by late afternoon, so let’s get some rest and make sure we’re ready.”

  A watch schedule is set, and we settle down to get some rest. It isn’t long before my eyes close, the warmth on my face as the sun arcs across the clear sky.

  * * * * * *

  Ridges rise high to both sides as we fly alongside a valley nestled between. Thick growth hugs the sides, ending where steep pinnacles of gray stone thrust upward to terminate in sharp crests. It’s not the most hospitable terrain, but an open area was identified near where we lost the three tracker signals. With luck, we’ll be able to
reach the area with a few hours of light remaining. If we find that the vampires found a cavern for a lair and there’s a suitable place to set up an ambush, we’ll stay. If my spider senses start tingling, then we’ll turn around to get picked up in the field and return with a different plan.

  Lynn had come back with her research regarding the use of Ebola or some other hemorrhagic virus to combat the strigoi. According to the infectious disease specialists she contacted, and given the hypothetical of the vampire physiologies, Ebola or some similar form may not affect them. As a virus, it has to multiply for a period of days before the system begins failing. If it’s detected early and flushed or filtered in its entirety, then it won’t be effective. With the physiology of the strigoi, they may lose some blood as the virus is flushed, but it won’t have the time to multiply and gain enough momentum to create the system-wide leakage I had hoped it might. Still, Vladmir’s hesitation when I asked about biological agents sits at the back of my mind, and I asked Lynn to continue researching.

  The Blackhawk flares over an open field of tall grass, the edges barely wide enough for the spinning blades. The five foot stalks bend outward in a radius around the chopper, the tops of those beyond the grass laid flat waving from the outward gusts. The six of us slide out of the door and to the ground. The grass rises like someone waking as the helicopter gains altitude, pivots in place, and flies back in the direction we flew in from. The tops of the stalks reach shoulder-height and we begin pushing forward, the swish of grass brushing against our clothing as the sound of the rotors fades into the distance.