SNAFU: An Anthology of Military Horror

by Jonathan Maberry

  “What would make a man leave his wife and child for twelve years? He clearly loves them.”

  Nancy put a pencil behind his ear. “An assignment?”

  “Have to be. How old is Rachel Nakamura?” Ms. Magill was turning out to be the most important lead we’ve had.

  “Twenty Five. If she’s been here twelve years that would put her in seventh grade when she came to America.”

  “He’s her controller. What’s his name?” I picked up the file and read it. “Mr. Vitoli Ryabkin. He was sent as her contact and her control. We have to get a man on him now.” Shit was about to get serious. I looked around the room. I saw several of my agents, but I also saw Jakes. “I thought you were with Harvey.”

  He shook his head. “Why would I do that?”

  “I told him to call you.”

  He shrugged. “Never called.”

  Son-of-a-bitch. I hated it when my men went off alone, which was why I enforced partnering.

  A phone rang. We have phones ringing all the time, but this time it rang in dead later-afternoon silence. I turned to Doris who was answering it. I felt a pit open in my stomach. I knew what it was before Doris turned to me, before I read it on her face, before she started to cry and mouthed the words it’s Harvey… he’s dead.

  SAN FRANCISCO

  ALLEY OFF 18TH STREET

  JULY 19, 1969. EVENING

  My men have died in Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. They’d been shot, gutted, blown apart, run over, pungi staked, and on one occasion been laid low by the flu. But never have any of my men died on American soil. After all, we’re not supposed to be fighting a war here. We’re the home of the free and the land of the brave. We haven’t had a war on our own soil since we were stupid enough to fight ourselves in the Civil War. At least that’s what Mr. and Ms. Middle America think as they eat Salisbury steak and watch Walter Cronkite on the nightly news dispensing facts and reports that go well with dinner. They didn’t want to know the truth. They wouldn’t understand. Even if they did, they’d be terrified. To think that anyone – their next door neighbor, the girl at the grocery, the guy who picks up their dry cleaning, the kid who mows their lawn, the scout leader, their bowling partners – could be anything more than human would rock their fucking world. Then to try and understand that these creatures have aligned themselves against America and are working for the great Soviet Union would freak them the hell out.

  After all, we’re America and this is American soil and no one can touch us here.

  Tell that to Harvey.

  Tell that to my man lying amidst the trash and empty booze bottles in an alley in the Castro.

  Tell that to my man with no fucking head.

  They call this a Cold War. I’ve never understood what that meant. Wars don’t rely on temperatures. They don’t rely on metaphors. Wars rely on one person hating the other enough to step over that line of civility which all of us were taught never to cross way back in the days when we had to work together or be eaten by all the savage animals on the planet.

  This isn’t a Cold War.

  This isn’t a Hot War.

  This is just a war and Harvey Isiah Goldsmith is just its latest fucking victim.

  Both ends of the alley had been closed by SFPD. They had several officers scouring the alley for evidence. All of my agents except for Jakes, who’d gone for the Box Man, were helping as well, some going door-to-door, some assisting the officers, and the rest searching for Rachel Nakamura. Although there wasn’t any direct evidence linking her with the murder, the coincidence was impossible to ignore. Plus, my gut said that it was her and my gut is hardly ever wrong.

  Nancy came up to me and waited silently.

  I shot a glance in his direction and nodded.

  “No sign of his… head.” He said it in such a way I could tell he was taking it personally. “No evidence at all. Or if there is, it’s mixed up with everything else.”

  I knelt beside Harvey. His head hadn’t been cut off, but ripped off. What could have that sort of strength? I examined the neck near the jagged edges. Then I saw it. I waved Nancy over.

  “What do you see here?”

  “Looks like a needle went in there.”

  Placing my hand on it, I offered an alternative. “Could it have been a fang?”

  His eyes widened slightly. “Possibly. But then the wound’s twin would have been on the other side of the tear.”

  “There are vampires who are strong enough to do this.”

  Nancy stood. “Not the young ones, but the older ones can.”

  “Old as in Countess Mizuki?”

  “Yeah.” Nancy smiled grimly. “Old like that.”

  “What do we know about Japanese vampires?”

  “There are no vampires endemic to Japanese mythology. We have demons and ghosts, but no strictly vampires. Malaysia has the Penanggalan. It’s the result of a woman who obtained beauty through black magic, or a deal with a demon, who then is cursed to feed on blood to sustain it, typically from pregnant or ovulating women. They’re easily identified because their heads leave their bodies.”

  “Jesus. Do the heads fly?”

  Nancy shrugged. “I’ve never seen one.”

  “What about others?”

  “The Balinese have the Leyek. Indonesians have the Kuntilanak, the Pontianak, and the Matianak. All are variations of the flying head female vampire. Then there’s the Aswang and the Mananangall from the Philippines which are vampire succubi with wings.”

  Jakes stepped out of a van, went to the back, and pulled out the Box Man. The police let them in, staring fearfully at the hunched figure with the metal box on its head. I’m sure they wondered what it was. They didn’t want to know.

  Jakes had been crying. His nose was red, his eyes were still a little wet.

  I held out a glass jar.

  He took it and peered inside. “A Black Widow. How fitting.”

  I knocked on the side of the box. “Get ready, Boxie. This one’s important.”

  “Spidles and spidles. Idles and oodles. Marvey it’s Harvey.”

  “That’s right, Boxie. We need to talk to Harvey.” I glanced at Jakes. “Did you tell him who it was?”

  “He wanted to know where Harvey was.”

  I nodded. Harvey had been the Keeper of the Box Man for more than a year now. I’m sure they’d formed a bond.

  Jakes shook the spider free inside the box, then closed the door.

  We stood back and waited.

  A full minute passed but the Box Man hadn’t even moved. Not even a twitch.

  “Come on Boxie,” I urged.

  “Don’t wanna,” came the low whisper of a child’s voice. “Me want Harvey.”

  “Me want Harvey, too, Boxie, but he’s gone. Someone killed him. We need you to help us discover who it was.”

  “Marvey Harvey Spiddle Diddle Marvey Harvey.”

  “That’s right, Boxie. Marvey Harvey.”

  The Box Man’s shoulders shook gently as he began to sob. A low moan resonated from the metal box. Then suddenly he moved, throwing himself against an alley wall. He staggered, then spun, then threw himself against the wall once more. He rebounded, listed like a drunken sailor, then fell hard to the ground, beside Harvey’s body.

  “Spiddle. Fucker. Spiddle. Fucker.”

  His flailing hands fell upon Harvey. At first, he recoiled, but then he paused, jerked, twitched, shuddered, then smacked his lips together. He sighed as he laid back. His hand fell against one of Harvey’s and he gripped it.

  “Harvey, speak to me. Is that you, Harvey?”

  A low husky voice said, “Marvelous.”

  “Who is that?” Jakes asked.

  “It was a female black widow. They attach themselves somehow to the ghost. It’s going to be confusing because we’re going to have to figure out which is Harvey and which is the spider.”

  “That’s just weird,” Jakes said.

  I didn’t point out that the weirdness should have started when we
fetched a man with a metal box on his head that we kept in a special warehouse, but I was more intent on the mission at hand.

  “Harvey Isaiah Goldsmith, talk to me.”

  “Minding my own business and harvesting my babies when this happened. Can you believe it? Can you believe the luck?”

  That was the spider. Harvey had been right. They were so melodramatic. But I had to play along. “Such bad luck. What was your luck, Harvey?”

  “I waited and waited and waited. So many morsels. So many and now it’s over.”

  “Such a tragedy.”

  “It’ll be sad not to see them born.”

  “Maybe the ghost isn’t there,” Jakes whispered.

  I was getting ready to believe it, when the Box Man jerked and another voice joined the spiders as they took turns telling their stories.

  “Following, following, following, following, being followed, got to get to a place where I can – never see how beautiful my children would have been, each of them impeccable and – strong, so strong, but how can she be – my mother was beautiful like me she – hit me, too hard, too hard, broken inside, I try and run, but it –strikes me funny that thing should end with the beautiful flash of light then – a moment of impossible pain then I’m gone – and then darkness, where I waited, and wondered, then was trapped, so trapped, so trapped. Tragic.”

  The voices stopped. After a moment, I stood. “Yep. Tragic.”

  Jakes stared at me, his forehead wrinkled. “Did you get any of that? So jumbled.”

  I’d gotten enough. I now know that he was being followed. He’d either picked it up during his meeting at Lawrence Livermore or in Gilroy. Whoever it had been, it was a woman, and she was impossibly strong. And the light? It could have been anything, but then again it could have been something as well.

  I headed out the alley.

  “Where are we going?” Jakes asked.

  “To get a massage. Bring Boxie and put him in the Van. I need you there with me.”

  SAN FRANCISCO

  MASSAGE PARLOR. BALBOA STREET

  JULY 19, 1969. NIGHT

  I conferred with Evans and Marshall. They’d made a log of the comings and goings of the various people, mostly men. They’d also used one of our SX-69 Polaroid Land Cameras and had forty pictures. They would have had more, Evans had explained, but they’d run out of film.

  Nancy picked four pictures out of the lineup. One belonged to Countess Mizuki. She’d left at 3:13 PM and returned at 7:32 PM. One seemed to match the passport photo of one Vitoli Ryabkin. He’d entered with another man. Although I didn’t recognize him, I noted in the picture he was smoking a gold-filtered black cigarette. They’d gone inside an hour ago and hadn’t left. The last was Rachel Nakamura. She seemed upset in the picture, the snap catching her as she looked fearfully over her shoulder. She was inside as well.

  My guess is that once they discovered that Harvey had gone to Gilroy, they panicked. They’d been so successful hiding her presence. If it hadn’t been for her failing to tell us about the other scientists, we never would have discovered any of this. That all of my targets were now under the same roof gave me hope. Maybe there was a god and maybe he was on our side. I hoped so, but I wasn’t holding my breath.

  Nancy brought a suitcase and opened it on the trunk of the car. Inside were various bullets, knives, swords, machetes, hatchets, and even a wood saw. All of them were made from silver. According to our records, it was the only thing that could consistently kill a vampire. It didn’t work all the time, but it was the best weapon we had. Sunlight only affected a small percentage of them. Garlic had absolutely no effect and mirrors were something from pure fiction.

  I loaded my .45 with silver bullets, then grabbed two magazines. I took a machete, which I strapped to my belt. Then I grabbed two hand grenades. Made from silver, they’d also been emptied and filled with silver fragments.

  “What about holy water and crosses?” Jakes asked, holding up a silver cavalry sword.

  Nancy sniffed, as he loaded his .38 Police Special. “Never heard of it working.”

  I was itching to get inside. “Everyone locked and loaded?”

  “Seven men around back, led by Brahm. Five in front, including Evans, Marshall, Jakes, you and myself.”

  “Do we have backup?”

  “SFPD is waiting with SWAT two blocks away, but per SOP, have been asked to wait until called.”

  “Doris standing by to make the call?”

  Nancy nodded toward the house across the street and down the block. “The nice residents have agreed to let her watch. If things go south, she’ll call in the cavalry.”

  I’d emptied out the office and even with all of my men, we probably didn’t have enough. A vampire hive was about the deadliest thing I’d ever encountered during my tenure with the unit. My arm still ached from where it had been broken in three places by a sweet young woman when I’d been the first one in the Berkley sorority house.

  Twelve of us were arrayed against it. We had the best weapons modern technology could offer. But even with that, I knew it wasn’t enough. Some of us would die this night. It might even be me. I’d told the men that earlier. I’d always believed it was important to go into a mission with the belief that you would die. That way it relieved you from the fear of the unknown. The fear of death was a strong enemy and I slaughtered it at every opportunity.

  I checked my watch and glanced at the sky. I wondered what Neil, Buzz, and Michael were doing now. Were they on the moon yet or had they overshot and were now careening through space. A moon landing would be a great win for America against the Soviet machine.

  Like them, I had my own dangerous victory to achieve. Not only that, but I had a life I needed payment for… check that. Remembering the scientists, I had four lives that needed payment. I drew my machete and hefted it in my right hand. I held my pistol in my left.

  I nodded.

  Jakes went first, followed by me, Marshall, Evans with Nancy taking the rear. The home was a two story California craftsman. City blueprints showed four bedrooms upstairs and one downstairs. The door opened into a living room with a dining room to the right, and a kitchen in back. The place seemed too small for what was going on there, so we were prepared that the basement, for which we had no blueprints, might be extensive.

  Jakes’s bull shoulders struck the door at a run. It burst open as he roared, splinters from where the metal lock tore free from the jamb shooting forward. He lurched into the room, then paused. The only person in the living room was a beautiful young Japanese girl who was completely naked. She sat perfectly still on a four-cushion sofa, a small smile on her face.

  “Move.” I pushed him, but he wouldn’t budge.

  “She’s… she’s…”

  “A fucking vampire,” I said, shooting her three times in the chest with my .45.

  That broke the spell. Jakes took a step inside, then shots rang out from the dining room. He spun towards them, but only managed to catch two more bullets in the chest.

  I dove into the room, so the men behind me could get inside. As I landed, I turned and saw the unknown Russian standing in the shadows of the dining room, holding a smoking Walther PPK. I slid too far, a chair spoiling my sight line.

  “In the dining room. Gun.”

  Marshall heard me and entered firing.

  I couldn’t see if he got the guy.

  I started to stand, when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I spun. The girl used my shoulder to pull herself upright. I pushed her away. She fell hard to the couch. He body slumped over, but her head remained where it was, trailing a length of spine like a tail. I raised my machete at the same time it began floating higher in the air.

  I sliced at it, missing the first time, but catching it the second time.

  The head screamed a high keening. The open mouth revealed a row of fangs which were more like a shark’s teeth than a vampire’s. My blade was caught in the skull but the thing wasn’t yet dead. I pumped two rounds straight into the fa
ce and felt delight as life left its eyes. I had to use my foot to press against the head so I could pry my blade free.

  My other men breached the back door. I pointed to the ceiling and they headed upstairs. I immediately heard gunshots, punctuated by several screams.

  I headed towards the dining room, but stopped when Nancy stepped out, blood on the samurai sword in his hands. I peeked into the room and saw the pants and shoes of a man, a pack of Sobrainies littering the ground. I shoved them in my pocket.

  Both Evans and Marshall reported the floor clear.

  Nancy was attending to Jakes, who’d taken two to the chest. He needed medical attention now. I directed Evans to take him outside where I knew Doris would see him and call an ambulance.

  Now it was time to go down.

  I went first, wiping the blood off my machete on a sofa cushion as I passed, then sheathing it. The door to the stairs was in the kitchen on the other side of the refrigerator.

  “This isn’t going to be pretty.”

  Nancy tried to push past me, but I held fast.

  “I’ll lead. You follow.”

  He grumbled, but wasn’t about to disobey an order.

  The knob turned easily. I mime-counted to three, then flung open the door. Two heads hovered a foot from me. Marshall opened up with his .45s, catching both of the heads in the face. Bits of bone and skin blew out the backs of their heads which fell to the stairs and bumped down them like oddly-shaped bowling balls.