They rode in silence the rest of the way.
* * *
Roland padded across the snow and watched the SUV as it moved. John was beside him the entire time, moving just as quietly. They made it to their stashed clothes long before the men in the vehicle had parked and sought help for Mark Loman.
Susan was still in the waiting room. He smiled for her and she returned the smile before standing up and coming into his arms. It had been a bad night and though she’d been worried about him being angry for taking Lassiter to this place, he was fine with it. She’d saved him the extra trip.
It wasn’t long before Eric Fulford joined them in the room. He sat by himself and waited to hear about the birth of Lassiter’s child. They all waited, though they had different reasons for wanting to know what happened.
Scott Lassiter came next, his pale face showing the strain of waiting. Allison Lassiter was fine. He shared that information with Fulford moments after he entered the room. Roland and his people sat at the far end of the waiting area and said nothing.
The baby might live. The baby might die. That was the way of things.
Fulford and Lassiter left the room after a few moments and were gone for close to half an hour. George Heatherly came in and sat down, holding a Styrofoam cup of coffee in his trembling hands. He didn’t look at them even once.
“They’ll ask, you know.” It was John who spoke, his voice soft and careful. This was, of course, the dangerous time. Whatever Roland said would be accepted, but the decision could well break apart his authority within the group.
Roland looked at his wife and then at his son-in-law and nodded. “If they ask, I’ll say yes.”
He was rather surprised when both nodded their approval.
It was Fulford who actually asked. Lassiter was still too stressed, apparently and didn’t trust himself not to lose his temper.
The man came up and asked to speak to Roland in the hallway. Roland nodded and instead of stopping there, walked outside into the cold.
Lassiter and Fulford both stood with him, but it was Fulford who finally posed the question. “Your kind heals quickly?”
“Yes.”
He spoke to the captain, but looked at the father-to-be.
“Scott’s son is very small, and very weak. His chances aren’t so good.” Roland simply nodded and waited again. “Is there anything that can be done to save him? By you and your people, I mean?”
He stared levelly at Scott Lassiter as he spoke. “We heal well. We tend to our own. Are you asking if he could be changed?”
“Well, yes.” Lassiter looked at the ground, probably afraid of what the answer might be.
Roland’s hand was gentle when he caught Lassiter’s chin and made him look into his eyes. “I can arrange for him to become like us. If he does, there will be a brief fever and then he will either live through it or he will die. If you are asking me to do this, I’ll do it. But you need to know the risks. What we become, what you have seen, is not a normal state for us. Unless he is trained, he’ll change at random times and become a very real danger to anyone around him. Those without the proper training… well, they are the things you hear about in legends.”
Lassiter nodded.
“Listen carefully to me Scott Lassiter. If I do this, he will have to stay here. You and your wife will have to stay here. You will be among friends, and you will be protected, but if you want your boy to have a normal life, it means staying with us and once you join, there is no way to quit.”
Lassiter looked to Fulford, who in turn could do nothing but shrug.
Roland finished. “Speak with your wife. Explain the risks. When you’ve made your decision, you can come back to me and let me know. I’ll either be here, or in the waiting room. I owe you at least that much.”
Lassiter nodded again and went inside to find his wife and the courage to explain what he planned.
Fulford looked up at Roland. “So that’s it?”
“Of course. You are free to go. You have been ever since I found out who killed my daughter.”
“Why didn’t you kill all of them?”
“That wasn’t my decision to make.” He looked the captain in the face, without any hesitation. “If it had been my choice, they’d all be dead now. John is the one who showed them compassion.”
“Aren’t you afraid they’ll tell about you? That I’ll tell my superiors in the military?”
“I can’t stop you, Captain. I think it would be a mistake on your part, but I certainly can’t stop you.”
“You could kill me.”
“I could. I won’t.”
The man was trying to stay calm, but Roland could smell his anger, his confusion. “I don’t understand you.”
“No, but I understand you, Captain. I know your type, as it were. We’re a lot alike.”
“How do you figure?”
“When you’re out in the field, you do what you are told, you follow your orders and you accept what your conscience will allow you to accept. You live by the rules of the military organization and you fight for what you believe is right. And I’d lay odds that if one of your men is killed in combat you go through all of the proper paperwork and you handle the phone calls to the soldier’s family yourself. Am I right?”
Fulford nodded.
“I do the same thing with my people. I care for them, I give them their orders and I handle whatever crisis comes my way.” He paced, restless again. His kind was always restless. “Here’s the thing you need to know, Captain Fulford. Even if you told your military superiors that you had the perfect recipe for soldiers that couldn’t be stopped, even if you told them and they believed you, it would never work.”
“Why?”
“Don’t you think I’ve done some checking? Would you go into a new combat zone without at least looking at a map? There’s nothing to differentiate us from perfectly normal human beings. There aren’t any traceable markers in our cells and you can’t grow a culture on a petri dish that will give up the secret to why we are.”
“So what is it then? Magic?”
“That or something science still can’t quantify. I really don’t know.”
“Let’s change subjects. What happened to Cheryl and Mark’s kids?”
“They’re safe and at another house. We didn’t want them anywhere around you and Lassiter’s families. You don’t have to worry about them.”
They sat in silence for a few moments before Roland asked a question. “What would you have done in my situation, Captain? What would you have done if it had been Sarah, or one of your children?”
Fulford looked at him and answered immediately. “I’ve been thinking a lot about that. I would have killed all three of them.”
The wind caught the side of the building and pushed at both of them with an arctic chill. They stood outside together and waited for Scott Lassiter to come back and give them his answer.
Editors’ Note
Dear Reader,
We hope you enjoyed SNAFU: Wolves at the Door. Thanks for taking the time to read it. If you are interested in checking out our other military horror anthologies, there are two more already published and another due out in June 2015.
SNAFU: An Anthology of Military Horror
Featuring Jonathan Maberry, Weston Ochse, James A Moore, and Greig Beck, along with eleven other fantastic writers.
SNAFU: Heroes
Featuring four hard-to-find reprint tales from Jonathan Maberry, Weston Ochse, James A Moore, and Joseph Nassise.
SNAFU: Survival of the Fittest (July 2015)
Featuring S.D. Perry, Weston Ochse, Bob Mayer, Jeremy Robinson & Kane Gilmour, and Joseph Nassise
If you enjoy any of this series, please consider leaving a review on Amazon or Goodreads. Amazon reviews are especially helpful, as their algorithms ensure that the more reviews there are, the more promotion the books get. The more people buy the SNAFU series, the more we can publish.
Geoff Brown and Amanda J Spedding – Ed
itors
SNAFU: An Anthology of Military Horror
Click Here to Purchase
SNAFU: Heroes
Click Here to Purchase
SNAFU: Survival of the Fittest
(June 2015)
SNAFU: Wolves at the Door: An Anthology of Military Horror Page 26
