Jonathan Maberry - SNAFU - An Anthology of Military Horror

This book is a collection of stories from writers all over the world. For authenticity and voice, we have kept the style of English native to each author’s location, so some stories will be in UK English, and others in US English.

War is hell.

Nothing puts people closer to their base state than a threat to their life. Nothing reveals their animal nature more than the desire for survival at any cost. People trained for war have to deal with these extremes time after time, surviving for a greater purpose. Or, at least, one hopes so. Because survival in a personal fight can be selfish, but survival in war might mean the fate of nations, or even species. And pretty much every permutation of that kind of fight for survival is explored in the stories you’re about to read.

Don’t be fooled into thinking an anthology of military horror is just a book full of Platoon or Aliens knock-offs. In these pages, the variety of story you’ll find is staggering.

Historical and imagined, science-fictional and contemporary. Mythos, the Wild West and Special Forces. Great wars, small wars and the American Civil War. Shapeshifters and ghosts and extraterrestrial parasites. Japanese demons and supernatural special agents. Monsters large and small. Battles fought with raging gunfire and earth-shattering explosions and battles fought cold, with paper trails and subterfuge. Battles won and lost in moments and battles that stretch across aeons.

There’s great variety in story style and length too. From very short stories to novella length yarns with lots of meat ready to be stripped off their bones. This book is a fine achievement and a great example of a theme superbly explored.

You’ll enjoy all the approaches here, and the great writing from both established names and emerging talents. But no matter the variety, one thing that doesn’t change from tale to tale is the underlying truth evident in every one. Lives are at risk, great stakes are being played but throughout every page we’re never allowed to forget that regardless of the nature of the enemy, the real horror is war itself.

Fisher’s Cove was drowning in the fog. It pressed against the dead eyes of dark windows, laced its fingers through rotting fences, and poured itself down alley mouths. The white ghost of the Pacific possessed the seaside town until even the monotonous heartbeat of the reef’s warning buoys could barely be heard. In places, a gabled roof or weather vane broke the surface, clawing at the sky.

“And thus I came to a place where dreams and death lay down to sleep,” Frost whispered.

“Jesus Christ, you got to do that now?” Carmichael muttered.

“Might not have a chance later.” Frost readjusted his rifle sight and took another long, slow scan across what they could see of the little town.

“Giving me the fucking heebeegeebees,” Carmichael said, running one hand back over his dark, shaved scalp.

“I can’t give you anything for that,” Hernandez said. “Now if Frost gave you the clap, then I could maybe do something.”

“Cut the static,” Leo said, voice cracking like a teamster’s whip. They went silent, even CB who hadn’t said anything. “Frost, movements?”

“Impossible to say for certain,” Frost answered, fiddling with his sight again. “Fog isn’t staying steady; we’ve got a west wind pushing at it. All the buildings are dark, no movement. Visibility’s maybe ten yards once you get into the bank.”

“CB, report.”

“No chatter,” the rangy redhead said, lifting his face from his scanner’s shadowed blackout screen. “No cell or sat signals going in or out. Last confirmed contact was a big rig on the interstate testing the air waves two hours ago. No one in the town replied, no indication they knew he was there, or vice versa.”

Leo nodded. His men watched the darkness, hands on their weapons and minds on the job. Each one of them knew his role, and they knew they were not part of a democracy. If Leo said they waited, they waited. If he said they went in, they went in. If any one of them had a problem then he should have mentioned it before lacing up and gearing out. Leo unslung his weapon, and popped the long clip out of the cut-down M4. The others did the same, flicking safeties and racking slides, offering up one last prayer to the assault-rifle gods that their sights were straight and the brass didn’t jam.

“Frost, take point,” Leo said. “Carmichael, Hernandez, myself, then CB. Previous intel says the gathering’s going to be at the church, so we get in and get out quick, clean, and quiet. This place is full of sectarian nut jobs, and they may not take kindly to us stealing one of their flock. They give her to us, we walk away. They put up a fight, show them the error of their ways with strict prejudice. You get me?”

“We get you,” they said. No one called Leo sir. Those days were behind them, and they didn’t pretend otherwise. Leo slid an indigo balaclava over his head. The others did the same.

It was like a child’s game. Leo pointed, and tapped Frost on the shoulder. Frost ran bent over, his low profile a caricature of some inbred beast loping through the shadows. He slid behind cover, swept the area, and signaled the all clear. Then the next man went, and the next, and the next. Rear covered fore, then fore covered rear, all of it in total silence. Leo chose the next spot, and the whole cycle began again.

They ducked behind rusted-out cars sitting on busted rims, and slipped silently past hedges grown long and wild in the sea air. They crouched near rotting doorways with peeling paint, breathing through their mouths and squinting into the swirling night. Pot holes and cracked curbs tried to trip them up. Busted doors creaked in the night breeze, wailing and whining on rusted hinges. The place reeked of swollen, rotting wood, and when they breathed too deep a slimy, fishy scent coated their tongues. The ocean rumbled as the surf rolled in, and shushed when it went out; the snoring of some invisible giant whose dreams the shadow men had no interest in.

The town felt wrong. None of them said anything, but they all felt it. Frost stroked his finger along the outside of the trigger guard like his personal worry stone. Hernandez crossed himself every time a loud noise turned out to be the wind in the eaves rather than an alarm bell. CB blinked away thick droplets of sweat from the bridge of his nose — uncharacteristic for a cold, autumn night. Carmichael hummed show tunes under his breath.

“Mute your chute, Jukebox,” Leo hissed, glaring over his shoulder at Carmichael. The big man went silent and shifted his grip on the street sweeper he’d insisted on toting. Leo shifted his gaze to the others. “Put it on ice, all of you. You can puke your guts and shit yourselves on your own time.”

They made the last dash for the church as a whole, every man watching and running with his weapon socked to his shoulder; a hair-trigger phalanx with no safety just begging for a target. Nothing shambled out of the fog, slick and wet from the sea floor. No one shot at them either. They pounded up the stone steps, Leo taking up position to the right of the iron-bound double doors and Carmichael taking the left. Hernandez and CB took a knee at the base of the stairs and watched back the way they’d come. Frost stood calm and easy, halfway up with his suppressed barrel pointing at the sky.