Jonathan Maberry - SNAFU - An Anthology of Military Horror

And now, Aeron had a soldier crawling and pissing himself in terror at his feet, and another crying and raging against his helplessness, pinned to the chamber wall like a butterfly collector’s prize possession. He felt the pulsating power throbbing through his loins and into his blackened soul. Time to feast once more.

It had been too long. Far too long…

Aeron stood over Jones, examining his victim, savouring the rising smell of fear. He reached down and, clawing his fingers, forced them through the soft, yielding skin, sinking through flesh, pushing aside the other organs. They could be spread at the feet of the stones later for the ravens to dine upon.

He ignored the screaming, the frantic and futile grabs by his victim at his wrist as his hand sunk deeper into the man’s chest. He could feel the pulsating, throbbing heart, pumping furiously, as if it knew it was about to be torn from the warm safety of the body. The screams grew weaker, interspersed by choking gurgles as blood filled the man’s throat.

His fingers closed around the pump and slowly, agonisingly slowly, he tore out Jones’ beating heart and held it up, blood dripping between his fingers, paying no attention to the pathetic, blood-frothed gurgles as his victim died in agony, twitching and convulsing.

He licked the still warm heart slowly, letting the blood and fluid coat his tongue, savouring its deliciousness. It had been so very, very long since he had tasted such fear — the fear of a warrior in the throws of his agonising, prolonged death. He took a bite and swallowed, letting the hot lump of tissue slide down his throat, the coppery taste filling his mouth, giving him strength, vigour, power .

Then he crushed what was left of the organ between his fingers, amused by the sheer fragility of the soft muscle tissue as he turned what was the most precious of all organs into useless mush.

Jones died badly, a victim of his own horrific fantasy. Aeron feasted on his flesh, tearing at his throat and moaning with pleasure as the still-warm tissue slid down his throat.

Aeron stopped mid-gorge and turned his eyes towards the terrified form of Cox and smiled lazily, blood and flesh dripping from his teeth. He stood, and strolled across the chamber towards Cox, relishing the sensation of Jones’ warm blood swirling around his feet and mingling with the juices of decay that coated the floor. He stretched out a taloned hand towards Cox’s chest, hungering for the pounding heart caged behind the man’s ribs. It called to him. It sang to him. And the screams of the doomed man made the song so much sweeter…

Lucas Slate sat astride his dark horse and stared into the sprawling affair with little or no expression on his gaunt face. He looked upon the collection of hastily assembled buildings and well-used tents with eyes half-lidded. An unwary sort of soul might have thought he wasn’t paying attention, but he was.

“It occurs to me, Mister Crowley, that this place looks too much like other areas we’ve both seen in the past.”

The air had a hard bite to it. The wind was dry and cold and cutting. Winter was well and properly on its way and the people in the small town knew it. They were shilling their goods with a sort of cheerful desperation that said at least a few of them could think of better places to be. He wondered if any of them would succeed in finding those better places before the winter came properly.

Jonathan Crowley, who was riding his own horse and sitting only a few feet from Slate, allowed himself a small smile and shook his head. “And, what, exactly, is it that you think we’re going to find here, Mister Slate?”

Slate did not bother turning to the sound of Crowley’s voice. He knew what he would see. The same lean, plain features and brown hair, brown eyes. Same offensive smirk on the man’s longish face, though at the moment it was hidden behind almost a month’s worth of beard growth. They’d ridden across half the Arizona territory, riding past patrols of Cavalry and Indians alike, because something inside of Lucas Slate told him he had to be here, but he had no idea what that something was.

He just knew it chewed at him.

Only a short time ago he’d been quite a different man. His hair white, and his skin was as pale as snow, same as always. He was an albino, after all. But beyond that there was remarkably little that was the same.

When he’d lived in Carson’s Point, Colorado he’d stood at least eight inches shorter and he’d been told more than once that he had the face of a woman. True, a few of the folks who’d made that claim had been drunk and desperately lonely, but he knew that his face had been different, as surely as his body had changed.

Slate stood over six and a half feet now, and while he still sported the same hat he’d taken to wearing as the local undertaker — a fine old hat that served him well and looked somber enough for funerals — he could no longer fit in his old suits and had been forced to buy new shirts and new pants as well; rawhide in this case because the damnable cold would have sunk through anything less.

He had always been thin. Now he was gaunt, and his muscles were cords of leather under skin that had long since stopped being supple and soft. No one would ever mistake him for a woman these days. Instead they’d contemplate whether or not someone sharing his old profession should have buried him. He was not dead. He just looked the part.

He had always been soft spoken, but these days his voice was lower and seldom seemed to want to come out as much more than a whisper. The only thing that had not changed was the cultured southern drawl that moved through his words. “I’m intending to find answers, Mister Crowley.”

Crowley nudged his horse closer. Slate looked toward the man and considered the beard he was growing. Jonathan Crowley did not look like a man who should have a beard to him. It didn’t seem to fit his long face. “I am very fond of answers, Mister Slate. But I have to ask, what, exactly, is the question?”

He looked at Crowley. The man was dressed in fine clothes. A cotton shirt, a charcoal, pinstriped suit with a vest, and over that a great duster that kept the cold and wind from touching anything under it. He sported a gambler’s hat on the top of his head, and a heavy wool scarf of a dark, somber red hue.

Slate offered a thin-lipped smile of his own. “I believe the question is the very one you’ve been contemplating since we started riding together. What, exactly, am I becoming?”

Crowley nodded. “That is a question worth answering.”

“Indeed it is, sir.”

You could hardly call it a town, really. More a collection of shops and brothels all shoved together and becoming a town already called Silver Springs, Arizona. The place was an assortment of thieves and whores and criminals, as could be expected in a boomtown. The rumors of silver had driven herds of people into the area and the fortunate few who had struck solid claims guaranteed they’d stay. There were white folk, red folk and black folk, all of them in the same area. Crowley imagined if he looked around he’d even see a few Chinese as well. That seldom happened in places that were properly called civilized. There were too many who considered the other races as enemies for that. Here, where money was more important than opinions, there was less need of being selective.

Crowley rather liked that part of the situation. He’d never much cared for the need to believe one people were better than another. One on one, most of them seemed all right. It was only when you gathered any of them in groups they tended to be stupid.