SNAFU: Wolves at the Door: An Anthology of Military Horror

by James A. Moore

  “Bastard, shoot him now!”

  Manfredo snapped out of his trance and placed the pistol mere centimeters from the back of the wolf’s head. The crash of the gunshot deafened Giovanni. Manfredo fired again and again, hot brass splattering from the breech. The slugs tore through the wolf’s skull and exploded through Turco’s head.

  The wolf snarled and turned its blood-spattered muzzle toward Manfredo. It lunged and clamped its jaws on his gun-hand. Manfredo screamed as the wolf shook its head and tossed the severed hand and the pistol into the darkness.

  Manfredo scrambled away, trying uselessly to stem the bleeding from the jagged stump. But before he could get clear, the wolf leaped off Turco’s body and its jaws closed on the giant’s unprotected groin. The demonic monster began shaking the shrieking partisan violently, blood gushing into its mouth and scattering like scarlet raindrops.

  Operating now on instinct tinged with fear and rage, Giovanni scooped the dagger from the ground near Turco’s body and slid it out of its wooden sheath.

  In the darkness, the blade seemed to glow with a moonlit sheen.

  He drew the wolf’s attention from Manfredo, but before pulling away, the beast ripped into the wounded giant’s groin once more. Giovanni knew enough anatomy to figure the jetting blood meant an artery has been torn.

  Manfredo would bleed out if Giovanni didn’t kill the wolf.

  6

  The monstrous wolf’s eyes burned with supernatural intelligence.

  What did Giovanni have?

  A damned dagger from the Vatican and a drunken Jesuit’s crazy story…

  And a mission: he had a son to find.

  The wolf advanced, snarling. Its bloody muzzle seemed to smile as Giovanni backed up slowly. Before he could refine his plan the monster was in the air.

  Giovanni had feinted left and sold it well enough that the wolf went for him. While the wolf was committed to its attack, Giovanni sidestepped to the right. At the last second, while their bodies were in brushing contact, he brought the silver blade up and jabbed it deep into the monster’s side before sawing with heart-clenching fury.

  The wolf shrieked in pain; an unholy sound that hurt Giovanni’s ears.

  The blade furrowed the beast’s fur and skin with ease, parting its flesh as if he were made of dough.

  The stench of burning flesh and fur rose in a plume of disgusting smoke.

  The wolf fell in a heap and flipped, attempting to lick his blackening wound closed, but its side was split and its organs and intestines were spilling out in a bloody jumble. The smoke continued to pour from the widening gash as if its innards had caught fire.

  Holy fire?

  Could it be true?

  Pressing his advantage, Giovanni plunged the blade through the beast’s right eye, into its brain. It died as soon as he slid the blade out, collapsing in a heap that now appeared to be burning from the inside out.

  Body quivering, the wolf seemed to blur and Giovanni fell back and watched in wonder as it changed from animal to human and back again until it finally took the form of a naked man.

  Gasping and wheezing, Giovanni stumbled as he tried to get farther away from the horror.

  He checked Manfredo, but the partisan had died in a pool of his own blood. He stood for a moment, crying dry tears for the two heroic partisans who had given their lives to help him find his son, then he did as they had done with others’ bodies.

  Giovanni found the scabbard he had dropped and bent to retrieve it.

  He gasped. Suddenly his right upper chest felt as if it had been split open and he straightened and bent over again so quickly he almost fainted. Slowly, he patted his destroyed blood-drenched clothing and realized that some of the blood had to be his own. He scrabbled through the ruined shirt and hissed in pain as he found the source, a series of deep gashes and a ragged wound.

  Gesu’ e Maria, he mumbled, I’m wounded.

  Fangs or claws?

  Did it matter?

  His skin was bruised and rippled around the wounds, the flesh beneath blackening into a series of plum-colored circles. The bleeding appeared to have stopped – a blackened crust of blood was already hardening around each laceration.

  He hastily rearranged the torn clothing to cover the hideous wound, hissing at the excruciating pain he felt as the fabric dragged across his flayed skin.

  Gently he bent again, wincing, and retrieved the scabbard. Then he sheathed the dagger.

  Did it hum in his grip?

  He gathered his wits, found his bearings, and realized he was only a couple buildings away from his own. He retrieved the Beretta submachine gun and slung it painfully over his shoulder. One of his comrades’ pistols went into a pocket. The dagger remained in his hand, comforting.

  Hunched over in pain, and fearful of being spotted by another German patrol, he hugged the shadows and found his way home.

  The building seemed unfamiliar and he had to check the address plate twice to make sure he had indeed reached his own home. His family’s airy apartment was one of four located on the fifth floor. The lights in the lobby were out, but there was moonlight filtering through the skylight above him.

  He shuffled up the stairs, the preternatural quiet frightening. Soon he was on his own floor. In the near-darkness, he saw that his apartment door was ajar.

  Inside, the foyer was dark. His heart beat rapidly and his wound throbbed. He resisted the urge to touch it.

  “Franco?” he whispered hoarsely. “Franco, are you here? It’s your father.”

  After checking the small bedroom off the foyer, he advanced down the corridor. Franco’s room was empty. The next room was the bedroom Giovanni shared with his wife, but it, too, was empty.

  The last two rooms were a long narrow bath – empty – and the kitchen. Standing in the kitchen, he swore he could hear a small heart beating.

  “Franco?” he called out in a whisper that threatened to become weeping. His heart throbbed in time with his wound.

  A tiny whisper came from a cabinet below the sink.

  “Papá?”

  “Franco! Dio mio, is it you?” He ignored the pain in his chest and sank to his knees, crawling toward the sink.

  A boy’s face peeked from behind Maria’s frilly curtain, Franco’s face. But his eyes had aged since Giovanni had last looked into them. It was still the same day, but a lifetime had passed. Apparently for Franco, too.

  “Are you all right, my son?” He didn’t let him answer, but instead gathered the boy in his arms and they rocked together, tears flowing for a long time.

  “I’m all right,” Franco said. “And Mamma?” His voice trembled.

  “She’s fine, she’s fine! We’re in a shelter.”

  “I thought you were dead! Killed by those… things.” Franco sighed, laying his head on his father’s shoulder. “I’ve seen– Hey, there’s a lot of blood! Papá, are you–”

  “I’m fine! It’s the blood of some brave men who helped me, God rest their souls.” He slowly shifted Franco’s face so he could see him better. “What about your friend Pietro?”

  The boy suddenly started to weep. “We were great, we took them on, we saw them turn to wolves, we saw them kill, and then we ran and ran, but – oh, it was terrible! It caught us by surprise and it took Pietro, then it did terrible things to him. I ran away, Papá. When I could have helped him, I ran away, I ran all the way home and I hid like a baby.”

  “No, Franco,” he soothed, “you couldn’t have helped him. If you saw the wolves, you know you couldn’t have fought them.”

  “But you did, didn’t you?”

  “I had help,” he said. “I had lots of help.” He touched the dagger in his pocket.

  His son’s eyes were wide with fear from the memory.

  “Let’s go,” said Giovanni, and they stood. “We can be with your mother in a short while, if we’re careful.”

  He retrieved his submachine gun from the floor, checked to make sure it was cocked, and then took Franco’s
hand.

  As they walked out of the building and into the dangerous night, Giovanni wondered why his wound hadn’t bothered him in a while.

  After a tense but eventless trek back to the shelter, the family reunion was joyful, though tempered by the loss of two good men who had given their lives to bring it about.

  The partisan brigade leader, Corrado, had flown into a rage when informed the mission had cost two of his best, most experienced men, but a sober look at the condition of Giovanni’s blood-splattered clothes caused him to pause. Plus, the fact that he had not lost the Vatican dagger redeemed the situation in a small way.

  “I have seen the dagger’s power,” he told Corrado, as he held hands with his son and wife. “And I’d like to be its guardian.”

  He didn’t tell anyone he had been wounded in his life and death struggle with the wolf. He didn’t have to. The wound had disappeared by the time he’d changed into a borrowed shirt and jacket.

  He was afraid of what that meant.

  7

  Giovanni awoke and sat bolt upright. It was dark in their sanctuary, though in some distant corner he could see the flickering glow of burning lamps or candles. And he could hear the disembodied voices of partisans talking quietly.

  He felt strange. Dizzy and hot and itchy, like he was lost in a fever dream.

  Maybe the past few days had been a dream, or more precisely an incubo, a nightmare. All of it. That certainly seemed more likely than the existence of savage German wolf-men. But he’d seen the truth of it with his own eyes, hadn’t he?

  Giovanni wondered what day it was. How long had he slept? He remembered finding Franco hiding in their apartment and bringing him to their new home. They had returned just before dawn, and now – though it was nearly always dark where the partisans hid underground, a tiny bit of daylight trickled down through their many secret routes to the streets – it was clearly after nightfall. Had he slept all day, or even longer? Two days? Three?

  Giovanni’s skin tingled where the wolf had wounded him. He reached up and touched it. The injury had somehow miraculously healed before he and his son had returned to the Sanctuary. He wondered if he had been mistaken, and what he had at first thought a wound was in fact Turco and Manfredo’s blood. Or if he had seen anything at all.

  He wiped a sheen of sweat from his forehead with his shirt sleeve. More flowed from his pores.

  Behind him, on a mattress tossed on the ground that had become their new bed, Maria and Franco lay sleeping peacefully.

  Giovanni rose and swayed unsteadily. His head swam, from nausea or hunger, he couldn’t tell. More like starvation. And he was so damned hot. Without thinking of anything but relief from the sudden oppressive heat and itchiness of his clothes Giovanni stripped down, leaving every stitch in a pile beside the mattress. Then he moved quietly, shambling to the nearest exit – a set of uneven stone stairs that led to a hidden exit that opened onto the ruins of the city above. He needed some fresh air.

  The stairs felt cool and damp under his bare feet, and the chilly night air felt good on his burning skin. In fact, it felt invigorating. It was the air and something else… the moonlight.

  He could see it shining in through the cracks at the top of the stairwell, cool white light. It seemed to be calling to him much as it pulled the ocean tides. It drew him in, tugging at the small hairs on his naked arms and legs. It felt like it was causing his hairs to grow, pulling them as it summoned him to bask beneath its mesmerizing glow. As it did, he thought he saw a forest whipping past his vision as if he were running, running, ducking the shadows of trees in order to playfully catch the silvery moonbeams. These images playing across his mind’s eye suddenly seemed frightening, but he couldn’t deny them.

  When he reached the top step he looked out over the decimated neighborhood’s crumbling walls. The piles of debris from the bombed out building looked oddly beautiful bathed in the full moon’s light. Nearby, a young partisan sat guarding the hidden stairway entrance. Giovanni recognized him. His name was Vincent. Rags that were once his Sunday clothes served as his uniform. He had a Beretta submachine gun resting on his knee and a hand-rolled cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth. He looked out at the street’s ruined structures, unaware of Giovanni approaching him from behind.

  Giovanni opened his mouth to whisper a greeting, but what emanated from his throat startled him and young Vincent both.

  Instead of whispering or even speaking, Giovanni growled.

  The young guard whirled, abject horror engulfing his features. The cigarette dropped from his mouth as he leveled his submachine gun at a confused Giovanni.

  Suddenly having no control of his own actions, Giovanni leaped forward – an incredibly far, impossible distance – and pounced on the terrified guard. And to his panic and amazement what he thought were his hands had somehow become a massive set of lupine paws.

  Horrified at what he was doing, he sank his teeth – but they were fangs, weren’t they? – into poor Vincent’s neck and tore away a huge chuck of warm flesh. He swallowed and went back for more.

  Vincent fell backwards. All that was left of his throat was the vertebrae of his neck surrounded by a few thin strips of grisly meat. His life jetted from the ruined artery in a fountain-like gush.

  The beast that Giovanni had become stood in the growing pool of hot blood, which he lapped up greedily.

  He fought to control himself, to stop the horror of what he tasted, but despite every bit of his will he couldn’t even bring himself to step back from the slaughter. It was as if he were a passive observer – watching through a window, or a mirror, as a monster fed on the still-jerking remains of a human being – but it was obvious he was the monster, even though he wasn’t controlling the muscles or the claws, or the jaws.

  Something else had taken control.

  The Devil.

  It had to be the Devil, taking him for the evil he had done.

  And as punishment, he couldn’t even look away or close his eyes to the horror before him. He had to live through every moment of it, watching through the window that was a mirror to his actions.

  Showing its incredible intelligence, the beast Giovanni had become dragged the partisan’s warm corpse away from his sentry position and – once hidden in the shelter of a crumbling building – tore into Vincent’s belly and feasted on the soft, bloody innards. Within the body of the wolf-monster, what was left of Giovanni-the-human prayed to wake from this terrible nightmare as he tasted the flesh, chewing and swallowing like a machine. The fresh meat invigorated his body even as his mind screamed in revulsion and disgust.

  But the beast wasn’t sated.

  No, there was a deep-belly hunger the likes of which Giovanni had never experienced, and he knew the monster in front of his eyes wasn’t finished, not yet.

  After finishing the choicest parts of the sentry (his name had been Vincent, and hadn’t he offered Giovanni’s family his mattress?), the beast he’d become began to prowl, looking for more food.

  The creature moved effortlessly and without a sound through the rubble, the new and expanded palette of scents and sounds suddenly exploding in Giovanni’s brain. Even though he couldn’t make sense of the jumble of olfactory and auditory sensations, the beast took it all in and used it to hunt new prey while avoiding potential adversaries.

  Ahead there was movement and the beast closed in as stealthy as a shadow in the dark.

  Within the skull of the wolf-monster, Giovanni screamed when the creature spotted its newest quarry – a woman escorting two young children through the ghost of the city.

  Straining with everything he had, Giovanni fought to stop the beast, or at least distract it. But it was futile. He knew now he was inside the monster – part of him at least was completely aware of it – but it didn’t seem as though he could influence its behavior.

  The beast trailed behind the woman and her children, stalking them through the desolate, detritus-strewn streets.

  Was it toying with the
m?

  The woman glanced over her shoulder repeatedly while herding her babies, seeming to intuitively sense the presence of danger. And through the creature’s senses, Giovanni smelled the woman’s fear, her nervous sweat, and heard the heart pounding in her chest, her quickened breaths.

  And despite his horror, Giovanni felt excited.

  Sexually excited.

  When the woman spotted the monster, her eyes grew wide with fear. She turned on her heel and pushed her young ones ahead of her. “Correte!” she said with a hiss. Run!

  But the wolf was in no hurry. The prey couldn’t outrun it. He loped behind them, gathering speed, easily avoiding the scattered bricks and broken glass that littered the street, which the humans had no choice but to navigate carefully.

  They were too frightened by now.

  The woman stumbled over a mound of broken bricks and Giovanni could only look on in horror through the wolf’s eyes as it decided to end the game.

  “Presto! Correte piu’ presto!” the woman yelled. Faster, run faster! She shoved her children even as the wolf pounced on her back, knocking her violently to the ground.

  What was left of Giovanni cried out in torment as the wolf’s jaws – his jaws – sank into the back of the woman’s neck, snapping the bone as if it were a pencil.

  The younger of the two boys stopped and turned back, his eyes and mouth gaping as he watched his mother’s terrifying fate. The child’s older brother grabbed his hand and jerked him away. “Vieni! Corri!”

  The monster didn’t care. They would be easy enough to track. He gave a powerful twist of his neck and tore the woman’s head from her shoulders, enjoying the crimson gout that poured out of her and puddled on the paving stones. He licked at it, enjoying the freshness and the unknown element that made the blood of a frightened human so much tastier.

  He then rose to pursue the two smaller male humans.

  He could smell them – the sweat oozing from their pores, the urine staining their undergarments… and their sweet, salty blood.