James Moore - SNAFU - Hunters

He was the one that stopped me moving and pointed them out.

Them.

The ghost dogs and their ghost master.

Since then I’ve heard they’re called the Wild Hunt, or Wotan’s Hunt, or la Chasse d’Artu, depending on where you are. I guess that last one was the best because it was the French countryside. Whatever name you want to call them, they were terrifying.

So what’s so scary about a bunch of dogs? I had a friend of mine ask me that when I was a few beers too many into my night and my tongue was looser than usual.

I looked at him for a long time before I could answer. It’s hard to find the words.

The dogs themselves were the sort most sane people would be wary around. They were big animals, lean and hard and hungry. You could almost feel how hungry they were. They were hunting for fresh kill, and they intended to have it. I have seen men look at women that way and known they were trouble. I have seen addicts looking for their next fix with that same sort of starving desperation. Now and then, in moments of weakness, I still look at a shot of whiskey that way. I haven’t had a drink since, well, since I got drunk enough to swing at my wife if I’m being honest. I can never forgive myself for being that angry and that weak. But I also knew a big part of both those feelings came from the bottle and I made myself stop. Jenny forgave me. I know that. I have never forgiven myself. Every time I’ve ever had that thirst for the bottle I remember the fear in her eyes when I cocked back my fist, and the rest is easy.

But I was talking about the dogs. They had that sort of hunger and there was nothing like mercy in the snarls drawn across their muzzles. I couldn’t say what sort of dogs they were. They were black and they were shaggy and they leaped and heaved their way through the air and above the trees.

And behind them came their master, riding on a massive beast of a horse. I was raised around horses. I know them well enough and I’ve ridden them all my life. Never in the whole of my existence have I seen the like of that steed. It was as black as the night and carried the man on its back with ease. The hooves of the thing ran across the sky, but each time they struck where ground should have been, I swear I saw a tiny flash of lightning and I heard a ghostly rumble of thunder. The breaths that snorted from that stallion’s muzzle were storm clouds waiting to be born, and the winds that moved in the animal’s wake were sure to let those seeds grow. I could feel the menace that came from the thing and knew that the passing of its form would lead to disaster.

The rider himself was worse. He crouched low over the neck of his mount, his face thrust forward as if he, like his hounds, scented the air for fresh trails to hunt. One hand held to the mane of his horse, the other held a great hunting bow that rattled against his side with each stride of the charger beneath him.

How long did I stare? I couldn’t say. It felt like hours. I’m guessing about six seconds in reality. Sometimes it feels like that after the fact. When you’re in it, everything happens so quickly, too quickly to think if you want to survive. When it’s done, you can look at what happened and you can examine it a thousand times and your mind makes it bigger I think. Except with the Wild Hunt. I don’t think my mind could ever make that bigger than it was. When the hunt had run past, both me and Lester stared after it and then stared at each other with wide, wet eyes.

Not a word was spoken. We agreed not to talk to anyone else about it, but I can say this, we were more alert after the passing of that spectral huntsman.

Looking back, I think that night was the first time I ever saw Crowley smile. Crowley was a plain man. That’s the only way I can put it. He was as average as any one I have ever seen in my life. If you put him in a crowd of a hundred people, he’d fade from view. I believe that, because mostly I can’t remember much about him. Brown hair, brown eyes, lean build and average height. There was nothing at all about him that stood out.

Except when he smiled. I can barely remember his face, I already said that, but, oh, my, I can remember that smile. His mouth didn’t grin. His lips peeled back into a feral wolf’s snarl that tried to hide inside a smile. His smile was bright and sunny and promised a hundred painful ways to die. I was still reeling from the vision of a hunting pack running across the sky, but I remember his smile standing out even then. I can look back and remember the bloodied shores of Normandy beach and the bodies that floated in the water as we tried to make our way first to shore and then, somehow, to safety, and I am chilled. I can remember the night I saw the Wild Hunt and I am humbled. I remember Crowley’s smile and I shiver. I guess that’s all I can say about that.

I almost asked him if he had seen the hunt too, but I didn’t. In the end that damned smile of his scared me too much.

There wasn’t much to say after that. We just walked on, moving as quietly as a dozen men can when walking down the road in the darkness of the night.

The lights turned out to be an inn at the edge of a crossroads. I’d like to say we came upon a quiet scene but that would have been a lie.

We came upon a scene of violence.

Seems to me that one of the biggest problem with that war was the bullies. I don’t care what country they came from there were some folks just seemed to need to show how much in control they were, how much they could do and what they could get away with. Me? I was raised to believe we were supposed to help people, not hurt them.

There was a gathering of people standing around the small inn at the crossroads where we’d seen lights. It was a small place, the sort that I guess has been around for just about forever. The road wasn’t much and the fields were ruined, but once upon a time there must have been crops and I reckon the inn had been new. I couldn’t tell you the name. I never did learn French when I was over there. Hell, according to most of my teachers I never even really learned English, but I suppose I caught enough of that one to get by.

In any case, the inn was lit up by lanterns and there was a small gathering of people outside it, looking at what had been done. They shivered and I think it was more than the cold that chilled them.

There were four bodies. They were situated together, their heads close enough that, if they’d been alive, they could have whispered to each other. Each pointed in a different direction on the compass, and each was naked. Someone had taken the time to carve their bodies with hundreds of runes. By the blood on the ground it had happened there and I’m guessing they were alive when it happened.

All of us looked. Most of us stared and more than a couple of the guys crossed themselves. What was done to them was blasphemous.

Crowley shook his head and said, “Flayed. They were still alive when it happened.” At odd intervals along their corpses strips of flesh had been peeled back, twisted over themselves several times, and then stuck back into the flesh of the people they’d been peeled from. I was grateful for the darkness. We couldn’t see the worst of the damage for the shadows.

Crowley turned to one of the locals and started firing off questions in French. Not a one of us knew he spoke the language, because, of course, he never volunteered that knowledge.

We all listened in, though I suspect most of them were as ignorant as me as to what was said.

Crowley’s face was an open book. He was angry. He was disgusted.

When he’d finished his interrogation he looked directly at the captain and shook his head. “Nazis. They came here yesterday morning and took over the inn. When the sun rose this morning they started working on the people here. The Innkeeper, his wife, his son and a girl who nobody here seems to know.” He gestured to the smallest of the corpses. I guess she was maybe eight or nine years of age. His voice was harsh, his expression was worse.