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

by James A. Moore

  George looked at the man and trembled, not from fear if Scott had to guess, but from shame. That was all it took to convince Scott that the werewolves were right.

  Their leader turned around and walked away from George, effectively dismissing him.

  “And there you have the story. It took me two days to get better. By then all of you were long gone, of course, but I took the time to memorize your scents, and then I started tracking. It took a long time. Longer than I want to think about, but it was worth it.”

  “Look, this is all crazy!” Mark was pacing, upset and nervous. Even Scott could smell his fear. “You already killed Donna! You’ve had your fucking revenge. Just, just call this done and let us go!”

  “We already discussed that, Loman. You killed your wife. Not me and not any of my friends. You did that by lying to me.”

  “You fucking animal!” Mark had his fists clenched, his face set in a scowl, but Scott could see the tears threatening to fall from his eyes.

  The man smiled at him. “Yes, actually, I am an animal. But because I don’t act like a rabid one, I’ve decided to give you a chance to survive the sadistic murder of my only daughter.” He moved from Mark to George and finally to Cullie as he spoke. “So here’s the deal, gentlemen; we’re going to blindfold you and take you out into the woods. Once we’re where we want you, we’re going to take off your blindfolds and give you a map. That map will show you a ten-mile long course. Once you are on your way, you’ll have one hour to get a head start, and then we are going to start hunting you.” His lips pressed into a thin, angry smile. “And if we catch you, we kill you. It’s that simple.”

  “Wait a minute.” Eric spoke up, and shocked damned near everyone. “Wait one minute. That’s hardly what I’d call a fair fight, even with the head start.”

  “True enough.” The big man looked Eric over and shrugged. “But it’s better than just ripping their throats out.”

  “Give them a fighting chance at least.”

  “Why? Have you ever given a deer a fighting chance?”

  “Hell yeah. Normally I’m too drunk to shoot and smart enough to know it.”

  The leader looked at him for a moment and then laughed. “I like you. Fine. They can each have one knife.”

  “Still not very fair, you’ll all have teeth and claws.”

  “They’ll have teeth, Captain. They may not be as sharp as ours, but they’ll have teeth. And as for claws, that’s why I’m allowing them each a hunting knife.”

  “What about my kids?” Mark was sweating, but his eyes looked less panicked.

  “What about them? You fulfilled your part of the agreement. They’re safe and they’ll remain that way, regardless of what happens in the woods.”

  “How can I be sure?”

  “You can’t. I’m not going to call and let you hear their voices. You’ll just have to accept that. In the meantime, I hope you brought good coats. It’s supposed to snow tonight.”

  Eric looked like he wanted to say something; he was even opening and closing his mouth.

  “Was there something else you wanted to ask, Captain?”

  “I want to go with them.”

  “Excuse me?” The man stared at Eric for several heartbeats. “Why would you want to go with them?”

  “Because they’re my friends and the odds are stacked against them.”

  “The odds were stacked against my daughter, too.”

  “I know the risks…”

  “Then think about your wife and your children! Don’t be a fool! If you go out with them, you’ll be as hunted as your friends. There will be no quarter given. Do you understand me?”

  That shut Eric up, which was good, because if the man who’d set everything up didn’t stop him, Scott would have.

  “Say goodbye to your friends, gentlemen, and wait here. Order something to eat if you’d like. My treat. One way or another, we’ll be back here in a few hours.” Having said those words, the leader turned to his men and all six of the strangers pressed in closer to George and Cullie and Mark.

  A moment later, they were out the door and heading into the night. Eric and Scott sat down. The same woman who’d served them earlier came back and gave them menus while two older men bussed the tables all around them.

  Scott resisted the urge to laugh. It was a little too surreal.

  “They’re gonna die, you know that, right?” It was Eric speaking, but he sounded completely wrong. His voice sounded… hollow.

  Scott sat still for a moment and thought about what they had done, how they had gotten into their present situation, and nodded. Much as he wanted to, he couldn’t bring himself to care. He was too busy worrying about Allison.

  * * *

  The three of them were shoved into the back of a police van, with benches built into the sides of the interior. Before they could do much by way of protesting, they were on their way, moving first down smooth asphalt and then after a series of turns that had them feeling rather seasick, they could feel the bounce and jostle that marked their change over from paved road to dirt trail.

  None of them wanted to talk about it, so they sat in silence for most of the trip.

  It was George who broke the silence. “I’m sorry about Donna.”

  Mark nodded and then looked at the steel plates of the floorboards.

  Cullie started crying. George thought about trying to comfort him, but couldn’t bring himself to do it. As much as he loved the men with him like they were brothers, he wouldn’t have been in the current situation if they’d listened to him.

  He closed his eyes and remembered the damned night that he’d tried so hard to forget.

  They’d all been wearing their street clothes, having traded out of their hunting gear when they left the campsite. It’d been a good time, even if only two of them had caught anything. Besides, Scott promised to send him a leg from the deer, and that was more than enough venison to keep him happy for a while.

  He was thinking about the meat and how he’d roast it, what he’d use to marinate it, when they hit the wolf. She’d come out of nowhere, and he could remember the way the wheels lifted and dropped, lifted and dropped on the right hand side of the car even now.

  He didn’t want to remember the rest. He didn’t want to think about the creature shuddering in the middle of the road in a thick smear of blood, or the way it snapped and whined as it lay dying. George wasn’t really much of a hunter. In all the years they’d been doing their annual trips, he’d never bagged a deer. He just couldn’t bring himself to pull the trigger at the right moment.

  And had Cullie gotten pissed when he tried to call the authorities? Oh, hell yes! Cullie’d thrown an absolute fit, because he was the one driving and the smell of beer was still strong enough to be an issue.

  With his eyes closed against the flood of memories, George shook his head and grimaced, angry with himself now. Yes, he had told them to stop, had tried to speak reasonably, but in the long run, the asshole who’d taken Cheryl and beaten him down was absolutely right. He’d let Cullie and Mark do their thing, even knowing that it was wrong, because he always let them win the arguments. It was easier than trying to keep his cool.

  And deep inside, down where he tried to hide the worst memories, he could remember the sounds that came from behind him as he chain-smoked a dozen cigarettes. If forced to admit the truth, yes, he heard the sounds of a woman screaming. No animal he’d ever encountered could have imitated that sound, and sure as shit, none of them could have begged for mercy.

  So yes, he knew inside that he was at least partly to blame for the situation. He’d been afraid of cutting loose, of letting his temper get the best of him. He’d spent years in therapy for his anger management issues and it was hard to break that sort of training.

  Still, he wouldn’t have given Cullie comfort in a million years.

  * * *

  The van finally came to a halt, and all of them leaned forward to counter the sudden change in speed. For a few moments lo
nger, there was silence, but before any of them could grow bored with it, the doors were opened. Four men stood outside and waited for them to climb out.

  Eventually, they did, but none of them were in much of a hurry.

  The largest of the men, the one who was the obvious leader, stepped toward them and handed them each a hunting knife. The sheaths were well worn and tended to, obviously not new.

  “It’s a last minute thing, gentlemen. Take them, use them.”

  Cullie had managed to stop crying, but his nose still felt damp and his eyes were hot with irritation.

  He looked at the big man and swallowed hard as he took the blade.

  “Why don’t you let them go? Just take me. I’m the one that started it.” He said the words before he could lose his courage.

  The man looked at him and shook his head. “You might have started it, but you didn’t finish it alone.”

  The words hurt, but Cullie shook his head. “Then let George go. He didn’t do any of the cuttings. He tried to talk us out of it.”

  “I’ve already made my decision, Landers. George had his part to play in all of this.”

  Cullie nodded. The answers were exactly what he’d expected, but he at least had to try.

  It was Mark that asked the next question. “What are the rules of this little game?”

  “As I said before, there’s a spot ten miles down through the woods. If you reach that spot before we can kill you, you’re free. If we get to you first, you’re dead.” He made a point of looking at each of them, but Cullie felt the eyes on him for the longest span.

  “John has a map. It’s accurate.” He nodded and the freak they’d watched change earlier handed the map to George. “There are five possible trails you can take, gentlemen, each has its own risks and advantages.” He shrugged. “You can decide amongst yourselves how you want to handle all of this.” The man looked at his thick left wrist and tapped his watch. “You have one hour, starting…now.”

  Without another word, the strangers all climbed back into the van and drove away.

  Cullie watched the taillights as they faded.

  “Get over here, Cullie. We need to get to work.” George didn’t even look at him as he spoke. He just unfolded the map and started looking it over. When Cullie got a look at it, he groaned: it was a topographer’s map, clearly showing the elevation for the surrounding area. There was a small red arrow marked on one of the roads, and another red mark, shaped like a cross, almost a foot away.

  They each looked at the map and studied it as carefully as they could, painfully aware of the time that was passing.

  While the other two were looking at distances and topography, Cullie made up his mind. “Okay. I’m going this way. You guys do your own thing.”

  Mark looked at him sharply. George shook his head and got an I-knew-it look on his face.

  “What the hell are you talking about, Cullie?” Mark stared hard at him.

  “I mean it’s better if we split up. At least one of us might make it that way. Good luck.”

  Before either of them could try to talk him out of it, he started moving. Cullie had been hunting with his father since he was a child, and he knew how to move through the woods. Part of his reason for separating from them was exactly the reason he claimed. The other part was simply that he knew he could move faster without them.

  Neither of them tried to stop him as he left. Part of him wished they would have.

  * * *

  The rain started about five minutes after Cullie left. By then George and Mark were both on their way. Much as they hated to agree with Cullie, it seemed best to break up. Mark said it best. “Either they’re going to kill us or they aren’t. Not really a lot we can do to defend ourselves with or without each other as back up. If we split up, maybe they will too.”

  He wished George the best of luck and then ran, sliding down into the lower woods on the side of the road and heading for the most direct path through the forest. He knew there were risks. The path showed the least obstacles and the most direct route, but he had to hope that meant he could get more of the ten miles covered faster. He was athletic enough that he thought he could make the full distance if he concentrated and kept a steady pace.

  The path that was marked on the map was fairly easy to see, right up until the time the rain started coming down. It wasn’t exactly a torrential downpour, but it was fast and heavy enough to run into his eyes and blur everything ahead of him.

  The chill seeped into his clothing, ran through the layers of fabric in no time and then into his skin. Mark did his best to ignore the sensations as he started to run, breathing in through his nose and out through his mouth, just like Coach Walker had taught him back when he was a runner.

  In a very short time he’d developed a good rhythm and a better pace. All he had to do now was make sure he didn’t fall and break his fool neck as he moved through the woods. Even with a path, there were a lot of obstacles.

  Off behind him and to the right, he heard the sound of George jogging along. Like Mark, he’d apparently decided the best way to live was to cover some serious distance. Unlike Mark, he was wearing a thinner coat that was waterproof. “Lucky bastard.”

  It happened sooner than he expected. In what seemed like only minutes, he heard the howl of the things in hot pursuit. When Mark looked back he realized the road was long gone from his view, hidden by the trees and the shape of the land, but he knew where the howls came from.

  They were long and low and mournful, the sounds he’d heard far more often in movies than he ever had in real life, and they froze him in his tracks.

  It was beginning now and he had no point of reference, no idea how far he’d run. He could only pray it was far enough.

  * * *

  His name was Roland Weilland, and he was a werewolf. Roland had led the local pack for a long time, both in light of his command abilities and because he was still the fastest and meanest of them.

  He folded his clothes neatly, placing them inside the police wagon. When he was completely stripped, he placed his books on the clothes to weigh them down. The air was just above freezing and getting colder by the second as the storm moved deeper into the area, but he barely noticed it as he stood and looked down at the woods below.

  John was looking at him, his face set in lines of anger. John still wasn’t thrilled with the decision to make this a hunt instead of merely killing the humans that had done in his wife. He didn’t understand the reasons for it, and in all fairness, Roland hadn’t shared them.

  He wanted a hunt because he could feel his younger charges growing restless. They had everything they needed, including secrecy, and several of the men folk had started taking up new hobbies to stop themselves from going mad with boredom.

  Settling down had seemed like a good idea at the time, but now he wasn’t so sure. Maybe they weren’t meant to sit still and get jobs; it was the human way, not the way of werewolves. But damn it, it had made sense. It was harder to hide yourself when the world around you kept changing.

  He let the beast free and reveled in the sudden pain of transformation. His form didn’t grow slowly, but in a sudden explosion of cellular activity. Bones shifted and muscles stretched to accommodate a new position; his teeth swelled inside a growing mouth and his nails thickened even as his hands took on a new shape.

  When he yelled to release the pain, his voice had changed and the sound quickly became a roar. Dead skin fell away from his body as he shrugged and his fur pushed out from beneath. In a matter of seconds, Roland and his charges were all in their truest form, breathing in the cold night air and shaking away the freezing precipitation that pelted their hides.

  They did not need words to understand him. Their eyes could see the expressions he made, the simply gestures he used were easily recognized. “We hunt,” he said. “Pick your prey.”

  John did exactly as he expected, and chased after the lingering scent of the human called Cullie Landers. He chose the trail that Mark Lo
man had taken. John wanted the man who had started the desecration of his wife. Roland wanted the man who had ensured her complete death by hacking through his daughter’s neck until her head fell away.

  The rest left to go after George Heatherly.

  As he moved, he called out for the hunt to begin. The others responded, their voices mingling with his and echoing off the trees around them.

  He followed the scent of fear Mark Loman had left behind, taking his time. The man was running, and would probably get careless. More importantly, the man was scared.

  He had every reason to be afraid. Roland intended to kill him, and to date no one had ever escaped from the leader of the group when he went on a hunt.

  * * *

  Eric Fulford stood up and walked toward the restrooms, his eyes shifting constantly to see who was near him and whether or not he could make a break for the door.

  He was not being hunted, true enough, but he also didn’t know if he trusted the man who’d said they would be safe. Want to know what will make a soldier paranoid? When every single person left in the diner looks at him as if he were potentially a meal.

  He wasn’t sure, but he thought it was very possible that every single person left in the place was a werewolf.

  Instead of going for the bathroom doors, Eric made a sharp right turn and pushed through the front exit of the building. No one came after him, despite his fear.

  The air had grown a lot colder and the road outside was starting to turn white under a layer of ice. For a moment he thought about running for his car and driving off to find his family, but one look around stopped him. The biggest problem was simply that he had no idea where his family was being kept.

  The door opened a moment later and Scott coughed into his hand rather than trying to touch him.

  “You all right, Eric?”

  “No.” He shrugged. “How can I be all right? I want my family back.” He looked back at Scott and saw the same desire in his friend’s eyes.

  “Listen, I figure if that guy wanted us dead, we’d be in the middle of the woods right now.” He paused a moment and they both heard the sound of distant howls carried by the wind. They couldn’t have proved a damned thing, but Eric knew they were both thinking the hunt might have just begun. “I want to help them too, Eric. But you have Sarah and the kids to think about and I have Allison.”