He pushed open the door of their old apartment and was overwhelmed by the stench of rotted meat and dried blood. Franco stood in the doorway, breathing through his mouth to avoid being sick.
“Papá?” His voice was soft and tentative and echoed in the high-ceilinged space. “Sono io, Franco.”
He heard a shuffling from the kitchen, and stepped into the long corridor that led there. He was reminded of that night, when his father had found him hiding here. A strange reversal. He pushed the memory aside.
“Papá, I’ve come to bring you back home with me. Our new home.”
He held his nostrils. He remembered this same smell in butcher shops down the street. He entered the kitchen. The lights didn’t work, but there was enough light from the balcony door to see the form in the shadows at the far end of the massive room.
It was his father, his clothes ragged and his hair growing wild.
“Papá!” he said, startled by his father’s appearance.
“Hello, my son,” Giovanni said and then his voice broke and he was sobbing. “I knew you would come back to me. I felt it. And your mother…?”
“She’s safe on Uncle Vittorio’s farm, but she sends her love.”
“Dio mio, what a terrible time it has been.”
“Yes, Papá, it has been.”
Giovanni stepped farther out of the shadows. Franco gasped when he saw the bloody smears around his father’s mouth, crusted in the stubble. Giovanni blinked rapidly, as if this was too much light for him.
“I’ve been hiding here for weeks, hoping you would return. I– I’ve changed, Franco, I’m not the way I was. I get these urges; I become hungry as you’ve never known hunger. I become another person altogether, a creature. I try to control this hunger, this cursed hunger, but the moon brings it out in me. Sometimes I think I can control it, but then I cannot, and I do terrible things.” He put his head down and wept.
“Papá,” Franco whispered. “It’s all right.”
“I prayed, you know. I prayed that it would go away and leave me alone. I prayed that I could go back to that day when you were playing with your friend and I was trying to earn some money for food, and if we had both just… just come home. If we hadn’t… But it’s the past now and we can’t change it, can we?”
“No, Papá.” Tears squeezed from Franco’s eyes.
Giovanni came closer to his son. He reached out and touched Franco’s face.
“Don’t cry,” he said. “Things will be better now.”
“Yes,” Franco whispered.
“I hear the Germans are finally on their way out of the city. The Allies are only a few days’ march away. The war is almost over for us.” He spread his arms. “We can be together again, a family. We’ll go and fetch your mother.”
Franco stepped into his father’s embrace. It felt good for a few moments, like it always had. He laid his head on his father’s chest. Felt his father’s heartbeat.
Giovanni kissed his son’s cheek and caressed his face with rough hands.
“My son–” Giovanni’s body stiffened and he began to pull away. “What…? Franco, I feel… Franco?” His voice rose as the fear took him. “My son, what have you done?”
The heat must have become suddenly obvious. Franco held his father close, his strength surprising the older man, while his hand had reached behind his back where he’d tucked the dagger stolen from the priest. As soon as the blade was free of the wooden scabbard, Giovanni had sensed the heat of the silver dagger.
Franco brought it around quickly, before his father could free himself of the embrace and flee.
But Giovanni didn’t attempt to flee.
Franco buried the dagger in his father’s chest, hitting the heart on the first try.
Giovanni screamed and the wound caught fire, as did his clothing around it, and the boy plunged the blade in and out several times, the reek of scorched flesh and blood enveloping them as they embraced one last time.
The creature within Giovanni began to manifest, the hair lengthening and his face beginning to change, his mouth becoming a snout, and Franco thought his father would take him along to hell. He twisted the knife cruelly within each new wound, each twist and each stab piercing vital organs and liquefying them in a flash of silvery heat.
Franco watched as his father’s form flickered from human to wolf and back again, his eyes bulging and finally exploding in a shower of blood and gore, and his hands – which were now claws and could still have raked Franco’s face and head – spreading in helpless surrender.
The boy stepped back and his father collapsed in a burning, smoking heap onto the marble floor.
“My son,” he cried in a sickly whisper through charred lips. “Grazie…” Thank you.
And then Giovanni Lupo’s body once again resembled that of a human, no breath left in him.
Franco left him in the ruins of their old home. He walked out with a new need in the pit of his stomach, his hand gripping the dagger with a renewed sense of purpose.
He had wolves to hunt.
Jester
Jennifer R. Povey
It was a pretty ordinary sortie right up until Caveman bought it. Things went downhill from there, and the diminished squadron fled back towards the White Cliffs at full speed, pursued by a couple of Germans. Half-heartedly, because the Germans had no wish to tangle with British air defences during daylight hours.
Jester’s engine stuttered, its sound rough as it began to fail. It struggled back into life then faded out. He tugged the ejection handle, the canopy breaking away in a rush of wind, the chute threatening to pull his shoulders from their sockets as it tore him free. He knew he was going to come down closer to France than England, and hoping to come down very close - better to risk capture by the Germans than to drown. Prisoners of war could escape. Yes, that was his thought as he fluttered down into the shallow water. He cut the parachute free, leaving it to float in the still ocean, and scrambled ashore, making sure his sidearm was in his pocket.
His best chance was to find somebody connected to the resistance, some fisherman who could maybe smuggle him across the Channel. It had happened to others. A long shot. Especially once he looked around.
Jester had got lucky in terms of almost hitting on land, but not lucky in terms of the bit of land. No general would choose this place to land troops for the rumoured invasion. The beach was a thin strip of beautiful golden sand... but that was all before the vertical cliffs started. Or nearly vertical. After a moment, his eyes found a narrow trail leading upwards. He wasn’t sure if it was man-made. Looked more likely to have been created by sheep. Or maybe mountain goats. Staying on the beach, though... well, perhaps somebody would sail past. He contemplated the matter at some length; the tide was close to high, so the beach wasn’t going anywhere. At the same time, there wasn’t any food.
More critically, there was no fresh water. He checked himself for injuries, found nothing but bruises, and headed towards that horribly narrow upward trail where golden wild flowers dotted the slope above.
He could almost imagine there wasn’t a war on. Almost. He heard a buzzing overhead that was probably... yes... those German fighters returning to base. He tracked them, knowing they might see him and report his position. Or not. Either way, he probably didn’t want to be in this position much longer. With a sigh, he hiked the rest of the way to the top of the cliffs.
At the top, no fence blocked his way, but he saw a field full of cows to one side and a German pill box to the other. He didn’t voice the swear word, but ducked and ran for the cows, hoping to use them as cover if whoever was on watch spotted him. He was almost certainly going to be caught, but why make it easy for them?
He refused to sit out the war in a POW camp with a bunch of idiots who couldn’t come up with a good way to escape, and frankly, Jester’s luck lately pointed to that being right where he would end up: in the worst camp with the worst fellow inmates.
Shaking his head, he darted towards a copse of trees
, but no gunfire came from the pill box. Perhaps they didn’t want to hit the cows. Perhaps the occupiers had some understanding, here, with the occupied.
That understanding scared him. Rumours of what might or might not be happening somewhere in Germany or eastern Europe scared him. He wouldn’t be telling any jokes until he was back at base, back where he belonged. If that happened, this would be a bad dream, but he wasn’t able to wake up just yet.
On the far side of the woods sat a farmhouse. Jester crouched at the treeline, watching. Soon, a little girl in a floral dress came wandering out. She looked healthier than the British kids... at least the city kids. A farm. No rationing to thin her lines. He’d rather have the rationing than the Nazis, though. Had they already measured her Aryanness?
The girl suddenly yelped then ran back into the house. Once more, he didn’t voice the swear word. She had certainly seen him. He didn’t want to run, though.
The scent of fish stew drifted into his nostrils, causing his stomach to rumble. He never ate much before sorties. Hunger held him in place longer than good sense should have.
He wanted that stew so badly it was all he could do to keep actual control over himself. Did he want it badly enough to risk being captured? As he had that thought, a burly farmer emerged from the door.
“I know you’re out there,” the man called in French, a language Jester struggled with fluency. “Come and get some stew.”
He hesitated then sighed. Living off the land, oh, he could, but sooner or later he would be caught, and sooner or later worse might happen. Slowly, he stood, hands where the farmer could see them, and walked towards the farmhouse.
“Quickly!” the farmer urged.
He sped up, and ducked into the building.
“Got shot down, did you?” the farmer added, sympathetically, once Jester was inside.
Jester nodded. “Yeah. Look, don’t want to get you in trouble with the Huns. Or anyone else.”
“Eh. Wouldn’t mind trouble with the Huns, if it wasn’t for Francine.”
That had to be the little girl. “For her sake, don’t court it.”
“They’ll never know you were here. Have some stew.”
Hesitating, looking around, he followed the man into the kitchen, hunger overcoming fear for now. There was no sign of a wife. Perhaps she was dead. Perhaps she had left him. Neither option being pleasant, Jester didn’t ask, but he did think of a certain young woman. And this was why they couldn’t be together right now. He didn’t want to have her worry about him getting shot down, killed, caught. He didn’t want to be caught, but he knew his luck.
“I’ll take the stew,” he finally said, his stomach growling.
The man nodded, filling three bowls. Francine came bouncing in to claim hers, youthful energy radiating from her. “Truth is, I don’t like the Germans much either, and if I could get Francine out of here…”
The girl, no doubt a pitcher with big ears, just watched them then started to eat. Jester tucked in himself.
It was good stew – the kind of fisherman’s stew that was made with whatever came out of the sea fresh that morning and the garden that afternoon. Jester didn’t ask or care what was in it. It filled his stomach; didn’t seem to be drugged or poisoned. There was nothing more he could ask for. Well, except for a way back across the Channel before he was caught.
They insisted, nonetheless, that he stay the night. He refused a bed. Instead, he made up a bedroll on the floor. He’d slept rough before; he’d practiced doing so at some level for exactly this situation. The floor of a farmhouse was nothing compared to a tent in the woods, but in the morning, he would go.
He was woken before dawn by hushed yet urgent voices in French, a woman’s voice among them. He thought he might have heard a door opening or closing.
Hope rose within him. The absent wife, perhaps; not a ghost or a hole in their life, but a spy working for the resistance, working with the allies.
If it wasn’t for Francine... Perhaps the pretence was that she had left, and perhaps he had a hidden radio, had called her back.
“He’s just some British airman. We’ll toss him on a boat tomorrow.”
The woman’s response. “And if he saw something he shouldn’t?”
“He’s British. You really think he’ll care as long as it hurts the Germans?”
It would have been rude to keep listening at that point. He rolled to his feet and stepped outside. “I don’t care as long as it helps us win the war.
“See?” the farmer said.
The woman? Her stance was that of a predator, her head held high with a pride he’d never seen in a woman before. He wanted to run from her. Or run towards her. Something about her drew and repelled all at the same time; yet was oddly familiar.
“Airman,” she said, turning to face him. For a moment, her eyes flickered yellow.
Quiet, but knowing that if anyone else could hear they were likely already in real trouble. “Spy.”
“Indeed.” Her lips curled. “So. We put you on a boat back to England. Unless, of course, you can be... useful. Or, perhaps...” Her head tilted to one side. “Oh, yes, I could make use of you.”
His hackles rose. “I’m not a very good spy.” A pause. “I’d be more useful back with my squadron, trust me.”
“I don’t know about that, Airman.”
“He’s not yours!” the farmer snapped. “He’s not yours any more than Francine is.”
“Maybe we can just make you even more useful to your squadron. Come with me.”
He tried not to follow, but that gold came into her eyes again. It drew him, and he found himself walking out into the dawn. “What do you want with me?”
“I want you to help us kill Germans. That’s all.”
“I can do it better from my fighter.” He kept his eyes on her, and kept them up. Her arse was worth looking at, but he knew if he started thinking like that he’d lose what remained of his self-control. Or he could run. He wanted to run.
“But I can make it so you can do it better yet. Besides, I don’t plan on giving you the choice. Come.”
She led him into the woods, and he was pretty sure she was walking to show off her mesmerising attributes, just for extra persuasion. Do it better yet? She was sure as heck no flight trainer.
Can’t have Francine.
Was this Francine’s mother? This beautiful, terrible being who... Yes, he knew what she reminded him of – the Regents Park wolf pack, before the war. They’d taken them somewhere out of the city now, safe from the blitz. He wasn’t sure where. It didn’t matter. But this woman. “You’re a wolf.”
She turned, smiled, fangs glinting in the dawn light. “Of course I am.”
He wanted to run. Then he didn’t. “Loup-garou.” He knew the word. The werewolf resistance? It was a ridiculous idea. “Brakes on, lady. There’s no such thing as a werewolf, and if there was, well... I don’t want to turn into a wolf every time the moon is full, even for somebody as hot as you.”
“And you don’t want to be stronger? Faster? Better reflexes? Better night vision? That’s what I offer, even in human form. And besides, I hate the Germans.”
“Let me guess. They’re experimenting on werewolves.”
Her lips twisted into something half smile, half grimace. “That and keeping us as pets.”
There was a rumour Hitler was obsessed with wolves. “Only German werewolves, no doubt.”
She laughed, a sharp, harsh sound with little humour in it, then turned to face him. “You will do what it takes to hurt them. So will I. I will show you... and then you can decide.”
“And if I say no?”
“Then we’ll send you back to your squadron.” This time it was a smile, almost a nice one. “As much as I want to keep you, we won’t remove an asset.”
“Then send me back now. I don’t need to see what you want to show me, I don’t need your recruiting...”
Gunfire. Ahead of him.
The woman swore in what he thought
was actually Italian. Then... she became a wolf. It was a melting, a blurring. It wasn’t something he enjoyed watching or something he ever wanted to see again. But she became a wolf. And set off towards the sound of the shots, not waiting for him, not looking to see if he followed.
He thrust a hand into his pocket, where it rested on his gun then set off after her, or more accurately after the sound. No way he could keep up with a wolf, were or otherwise, or even a dog that size. He knew that, but still he ran. Her alarm... was the rest of her pack in trouble?
The rest of her pack… He sped up, pulling the gun from his pocket but not clicking the safety off just yet. Just six shots in the Enfield; he had to make them count. The revolver had never been issued for pitched battles.
Which this was, by the sounds, and he slowed his approach, ducking behind a tree. He saw the fight now... the darting forms of the wolves and a half-dozen German soldiers. Make that five – one man went down, his throat ripped out. Jester took aim and fired, feeling the kick of the gun in his hand. He had never fired a sidearm in anger, only on the range. It was an odd feeling as his target staggered, a kill somehow more intimate than anything in the air. If, that was, he had actually killed him. He wasn’t sure, but at least the man was out of the fight.
He readied another shot. No matter what the woman might have intended for him, he definitely hated the Germans more. They weren’t trying to kill the wolves... no, definitely not, two of them had now thrown a net over one member of the pack, who snarled and then subsided, as if some enchantment on it had stilled it.
Jester fired again. Missed. The bullet slammed into an innocent tree, sending chips of wood flying. One of the Germans turned, sending a round flying past Jester who fired again. Nailed him this time.
Three bullets left. Have to make them count. He ducked behind the tree; there were more Germans than bullets, but they were trying to retreat with their catch rather than take out the rest of the pack. More Germans than bullets, yes, but there were also the wolves, with their teeth and claws – their natural weapons. They had to get close, though. One of them was hit. Yelping, it fell to the ground. A frown formed on his lips - didn’t you need to use silver bullets?
SNAFU: Wolves at the Door: An Anthology of Military Horror Page 16
