Jonathan Maberry - SNAFU - An Anthology of Military Horror

He probably wanted to know more about what he was. And why he existed. The old one could have told him, but that was not what he planned this day.

What he planned was violence and carnage and blood and suffering, the things he fed on best.

And so he’d finished his simple spell and looked at the characters he had drawn in the dirt and then at the Apache charging into town. They had plans, too, and those plans were of blood and violence.

So the old one helped them along.

His hands had scooped up the colored sand and dirt and held the mixture out and blew it at the Apache as they rode past.

He did not hit all of them, but he’d hit enough.

He waited until they were engaged with their enemies and the bloodshed had begun before he said that words that made the spell awaken. And just that easily, the anger within the warriors was given a face and a form.

The old one settled down and watched and waited.

Soon enough he would feed.

Crowley shook his head as the cavalrymen turned away from him and from Slate alike. Slate stared at them with an expression that was either shock, outrage or both. Whatever the case, it made Crowley chuckle.

“You find this situation amusing, Mister Crowley?” Slate looked his way with an expression of disappointment.

“Not at all, Mister Slate. I find you amusing.”

“And why would that be?” Damned if Slate didn’t sound offended.

“Because you look so very annoyed that the men who want to hang you are no longer bothering with you.”

Slate blinked and a quick, embarrassed grin flashed on his face. “Yes, well, when you say it like that.”

“We should leave.”

“I agree.” Slate pointed at the men flowing out of the tent. “But there are men in our way.”

“This is a tent, Mister Slate. We can climb out from under it if we must.”

The bartender looked at them and shook his head. “Could just go out the flap at the other side, too.”

Crowley smiled and tossed the man a coin.

And as they were walking away from the soldiers, ignoring the screams and the gunshots, a deep roar shook through the air and the tone of the screams changed from anger and pain to deep, abiding terror.

And he knew before it happened of course. It was inevitable, really.

Someone out in the front of the tent let out a shriek and someone else called out, “Help me! Oh, Lord, help me!”

Crowley shook his head.

“You don’t have to, you know.” Slate’s voice, as soft as a whisper.

“Oh, but I do.” He shook his head again. “Can’t you feel it? Whatever is out there, it’s not natural.” He spoke as if he regretted what was going to come next, but still the smile pulled at the edges of his lips and his heart beat faster in his chest.

“Well then, shall we do this?”

Crowley spun hard and nearly ran for the men at the opposite end of the tent. Many of the soldiers were coming back in, their eyes wide and frightened. He could understand that. There were a lot of things out in the world to be afraid of.

Folsom had planned to come out with guns blazing and eliminate the threat before it could become something larger. He’d half expected to run across a few of the savages in town, but when he heard the horses, and the sound of Apache battle cries, he felt a cold knot of dread in his stomach.

Had he, perhaps, turned a blind eye to his men having their way with the squaws? Yes. Why? Because happy soldiers performed better. What he had not truly considered was what might occur when the red skinned brutes found out about what was happening with their women. That was the very first concern when he heard the sounds of his men screaming. It shouldn’t have been, but truth be told the guilt had been gnawing at him for a while.

The guilt went away the second he saw the monsters.

He’d pushed through the crowd of his men to assess the situation and was looking directly at the Indians when they changed. Not all of them, only a few, but it was enough. The man at the front of the charge was a stocky brute in leathers. He wore a canvas coat that had seen its best days a few years earlier and was coming apart at the seams, and his rage was a brutal thing to behold.

The coat tore itself apart, shredded right before the captain’s eyes, and the clothes beneath it did the same, peeling away even as the man continued charging forward on his horse. One pace and the fabric was splitting. Another step forward and the horse was knocking two soldiers aside. A third step and one of the soldiers fell to the ground while the other kept his balance. A fourth step and Folsom was drawing his weapon, intent on killing the fool horseman. A fifth step and everything changed all at once. The horse let out a shriek and lost its balance, falling forward and crashing to the ground. He was a horseman himself and knew instantly the beast had broken its neck. The rider fell forward and blurred as he caught himself on his palms. That was the only way he could think of it. The fabric on his body was torn apart and so was the flesh beneath it. Folsom looked and his eyes refused to see properly. Great flakes of flesh and hair split away from the shape of the man and when he moved forward, standing instead of sliding across the ground, which seemed an impossibility by itself, he was not a man anymore but something entirely different.

The thing still had two legs and two arms, yet beyond that he would have been hard pressed to say what might seem humanoid about it. The body was wrong. Too broad, and covered in wiry fur. The head seemed to grow directly from the torso, and while he knew the thing must surely see, the only features that made any sense were the teeth that filled a mouth far too large for the rest of the hellish shape.

The thing roared again and Folsom aimed and fired, and then fired twice more. His aim was true, and a hole blossomed in the center of the demon’s chest. It stepped back and then fell back and landed in the dirt, rolling and thrashing, slamming into the shuddering, dying horse, which once again let out a scream of panic and pain.

His men did their best to get away from both shapes, but even as they tried to escape, the other horsemen were coming and they, too, changed. While Folsom was busy trying to kill the first nightmare, a pack of equally-unsettling things dropped from their horses, snarling, bleating, screaming, and attacking the members of the Cavalry.

They were none of them the same. Each was a different form of nightmare; some thickset and low to the ground, others long-limbed and far too tall for a human. The horses fled, kicking and screaming up a hellish noise, crushing everything that got in their way as they made as much distance as they could from the hellish things.

The only thing they had in common was that each and every one of the nightmares was, indeed, as white as snow. They were ghostly, horrid things that scared him to the point he thought he’d piss himself.

The thing he’d shot got back up. It wasn’t completely white anymore. There was a lot of blood spilling from the wounds he’d put in it, but that didn’t seem to be enough to stop it. There was no face, just that damnable mouth full of fangs as it screeched and leapt at him.

And then the pale white man he’d been ready to lock in irons pushed past him and fired a shotgun blast into the open mouth of the thing. The barrel was just past Folsom’s face and he felt the detonation as much as he heard it. After that he wasn’t hearing much of anything. His ears seemed too stuffed with cotton to make sense of the words spoken.

Just the same, he understood the gesture when the albino swept him aside and fired the second barrel of his weapon. The thing he shot did not get up again. They were tough, but they were not indestructible.