Jonathan Maberry - SNAFU - An Anthology of Military Horror

“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.

I stepped inside, checking the ceiling for any floating heads before I descended a few steps. The stairwell was walled, so whoever was downstairs couldn’t see me as I descended. What they could see, however, were the two destroyed vampire heads. I hoped they hadn’t been fond of those two.

I pulled free one of my hand grenades. If I threw it right, I could bank it off the wall on the landing, and send it left into the room. I pulled the pin, let the spoon fly free, then tossed it. My aim was sure. It hit the wall, and bounced out of sight. A second later a tremendous explosion rattled the rafters. Dust rained. Lights blinked off and on. Silence ensued.

I pulled a flashlight from my jacket and snapped it on. I skipped down the stairs, leading with my.45. Marshall and Nancy were tight behind me. When I got to the bottom, I peered around the corner and was pleased to see three dead bodies and a wounded man, lying in the middle of what had once been a parlor. Several hallways ran off of it, clearly a greater space than the home’s footprint should have allowed.

“Boss!” Marshall pointed to a retreating figure of a woman. He ran after.

I wanted to shout for him to stop, but I spied the satori the same time as Nancy. I took one step, then felt a terrible pain in the back of my neck. I spun into the face of Rachel Nakamura. No longer was she the demure public affairs liaison for Lawrence Livermore Labs. Her face had transformed into everything evil and terrible one would image in a demonic vampire. Blood dripped from her razor teeth. My blood.

I raised my pistol but she easily slapped it away. The weapon went flying into the flashing darkness leaving me with only my flashlight. I raised it to hit her, but felt my hand catch as another vampire gripped it. I had one free hand and could grab my machete from my waist, but then I wouldn’t be able to defend myself from Rachel.

I spared a glance at the terrible thing behind me just as Rachel lunged. My free hand caught her around the neck and there I was… fucked. Then I remembered a move I’d seen Nancy do once when he was trying to teach us Judo. I pulled against the hand that grasped my wrist and received a hard pull in return. Instead of fighting against it, I let it pull me and Rachel towards it. When my hip touched the other vampire’s body, I knew I had but one chance to use my leverage. My success depended entirely on the speed of Rachel and the element of surprise.

I let go of Rachel and dropped to a knee. She kept coming, but lunged where I had been, instead of at me. I shot my free arm between the legs of the vampire who was behind me, and tossed it into Rachel’s face. It had no choice but to let go of my wrist in order to defend itself from Rachel.

I rolled away and managed to pull free the machete without cutting myself. I immediately began hacking at the body nearest me. It turned out to be the other vampire. My blade sunk into an arm, then a leg, then its chest. It fell to the floor, but not before the head disengaged the body.

Fuck me to hell, but I’d never get used to seeing that.

Rachel screamed as she lunged at me, her teeth biting deeply into my right calf. I tried kicking her away with my other leg as I swung the machete in the air as if the head was a bloodsucking piñata. My foot finally caught her in the face.

I glanced up at the hovering head in time to see it jerk back as bullets slammed into it — one, two, three times.

Marshall had returned and fired once more into the head, sending it careening to the ground.

I took advantage of the moment, and lunged for Rachel. I used my weight and pushed her back and down. I held both of her arms. But where she’d been ugly and demonic before, now she was the same girl-next-door pretty Japanese girl I’d first met in my office.

I breathed heavily but managed to ask “Why?”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“Why help the Russians? We’re the good guys.”

She sneered. “Where do you get off calling yourselves good?”

I didn’t know how to answer that. How do you explain the obvious?

She hissed like a cat, then spoke tremulously. “Tell that to all of my people you put in camps. Tell that to my grandmother who froze to death in North Dakota in a winter so cold even the kerosene froze. She was third generation. Sansei. She was more American than most of them who locked her up. You Americans always think you’re so good, but that’s because your memories are so bad.”

“But that was a mistake. A reaction to Pearl Harbor.”

“Tell that to my Grandmother. Tell that to yourselves when you point at Russia and say that they have Gulags.”

While she’d been talking her head had been moving free of the body I had under control. It suddenly shot upwards. Marshall fired at it, but wasn’t able to hit it.

I stood, searching for my.45.

“Where’d it go?” he asked.

“More important, where’s Nancy?” I saw my pistol beneath a chair and snatched it. Now armed with machete and pistol, I headed down the hall where I’d seen the satori. “Follow me.”

I stumbled down the hall. Four doors opened on either side. We ignored them. We should have opened them, but Nancy was alone back here somewhere with a creature whose powers I couldn’t discern. The hall ended in a T. Marshall went right, I went left. I came to a door. I went to open it, but it was locked. I raised my foot and kicked it open. Light flooded the hallway. I’d entered an arcane library, which included many instruments of pain, including an iron maiden. The room also held Madame Mizuki and a short Russian I recognized as Vitoli Ryabkin. They stood in front of a Queen Anne sofa colored with violets and yellows, and swirls of black wood. The satori, standing behind the sofa, appraised me as if I were its pet insect. The grotesque hair of its face moved gently to a private wind. Its eyes, broken colors much like a cat’s-eye stone, held me cold for a moment. I now understood what the Russian had meant.

I raised my pistol at the old madame, the one who probably killed Harvey. “Stop!”

Madame Mizuki wore a long silk-embroidered robe with an ermine fox collar. Half-Russian and half-Japanese, she had the small mouth and cheek bones of the Japanese, but the angular face, eyes, and nose of a Russian. She wasn’t beautiful or ugly. I’d call her incongruous. Regardless, her look was so distinct it was hard not to stare.

She pointed a long red-lacquered nail at me. “No, you stop!”

“This is over. You’re captured. Tell me where my man is and I’ll go easy on you.”

She smiled the sort of smile that could give a man nightmares. “What man?”

Marshall ran up behind me. “Other room is clear.”

“Any sign of Nancy?”

“None.”

I took a step forward. My movement triggered everyone else.

Madame Mizuki grabbed the Russian and pushed him towards me.

The satori backed into the corner of the room, his movements swift and choppy, like he was in a silent film.

Ryabkin jammed his hand into his pocket and began to remove something.

I shot him in the chest and entered the room.

Marshall worked his way to the right.

I worked my way to the left and moved to the far side of the sofa. I saw a set of shoes and slid closer, following them to the pants, then the torso, then… Nancy. He’d been hidden by the sofa the entire time. His face was… oh my god the satori had done something to his face. Circular marks pocked his face, raised purple and pulsing. Nancy’s eyes were open but I wasn’t sure if he was alive.