James Moore - SNAFU - Hunters

“Rotenfeld told me a few things. He didn’t really want to, but I made him.”

“I thought you said he was dead.”

Crowley nodded. “There are ways to get answers.” I could tell he was serious. My skin crawled at the notion. “Rotenfeld told me there are others working with Hitler to use sorcery to do their work. I’m going to look into that. So, time for me to head out.”

Crowley left just that easily.

I never did hear what he did for Jacques and Madeline, the people who cared for me until they could notify an army squad heading by.

That’s the whole of the story, really. I never saw Crowley again. We didn’t exchange cards or any such nonsense.

He was right. I lost two toes on my left foot. I also lost a little of my strength in my arm. I wasn’t so worried about that. I got away a lot easier than a lot of the soldiers did.

And you know what? I even got Jenny in the end. We reconciled. We married. We had kids and they’ve had kids and now there are even a few great-grand kids that come to see me around the holidays. I miss her every day. I guess I always will.

It’s almost Christmas and the snow is falling. And that always makes me think of Crowley.

There’s a strange thing going on in town lately. Not sure what it is, exactly, I just know that a few people have vanished, been gone a few days and then been seen by other folks who swear they looked like they were sickly and desperate. No one ever sees them up close, but they see them, normally moving around the river.

Last week I woke up from a dream of Crowley and I had the phone in my hand. I’m old, but as I like to say, I ain’t stupid and I ain’t dead. I looked at the call history on my phone after I woke and it said I made a three minute call to an unlisted number.

You get old enough, you can accept a lot of things. I figured I dialed some numbers on the phone when I was sleeping.

I felt that way until I got the call from an unknown number and answered it.

It was a short conversation. Crowley asked me if I was sure I wanted his help. I didn’t even think about it. I just said yes and he said he’d see me soon.

That’s why I wrote this down. See, I don’t think Crowley will do me any harm, but I think l he’ll come and see me and I expect he’ll ask me a few questions. I expect I’ll have to invite him into my house. That seems like one of the rules to me. I have to ask him for help. I have to invite him past the threshold.

And I reckon I’ll have to beg him to leave my family out of whatever is happening.

My family. They’re the ones who told me about the missing people coming back. They’re the ones who keep me posted on the latest sightings of the folks that have been called “river people” by a lot of my neighbors.

So I’ll answer his questions. I’ll ask for his help and I’ll invite him in, because I owe him that for saving my life.

And then I’ll beg him not to meet my family or talk to them and I’ll hope he still thinks he owes me one for saving his bacon back in the day.

Thing is, I’ve heard from a lot of my family. Most of them. But I haven’t heard from Lincoln. He’s my second eldest grandson. He’s the one no one says bad things about, and who, sometimes, gets the strangest look on his face. He’s the one I told this story to a long while back when he was young enough to sit on my knee, and he’s the one who likes to haunt old bookstores.

Now and then Lincoln has shown me things he bought. When he was very young it was magic tricks and books on Houdini. Later it was an occasional necklace or ring he’d found. They always had the sort of images that weren’t shown in polite society when I was a kid and everyone went to the same church.

Eventually he graduated up to tattoos. I never got heavy into the research after meeting Crowley. I didn’t want to know, you see, but I read a bit. Here and there. Look carefully at my doors and windows and you’ll see some very carefully concealed symbols that are supposed to ward off evil. Just in case, you understand.

I know enough to see that Lincoln is maybe doing things he shouldn’t.

To hunt down something that he said was minor, Crowley cut down a lot of German soldiers. A whole lot.

I can’t help but wonder what he’d do to get to whatever Lincoln might have called.

I can’t help thinking maybe if I’d never told him all those war stories when he was just a kid…

Crowley should be here soon. He might be happy to see me. I know I won’t be happy to see him. His voice was too young. I think, God help me, that the man I see when he comes here will be unchanged. I know that sounds crazy, but I guess if a man can heal from getting broken and beaten until he should be dead, holding back the years is probably not beyond him.

I think he will be young. I think he will be friendly. I think he will be smiling that damned creepy smile of his as he asks me polite questions and considers whether or not I’m responsible for what Lincoln has done with the old stories I told him. I expect whatever answers he wants, I’ll give them to him. It’s been a lot of years and I still keep hearing his voice and seeing the distant, cold expression on his face when he said, “There are ways to get answers.”

I have never been that brave a man.

I pray he decides to forgive me.

The creature was just a few paces away, slinking in Nathan’s direction through the foliage. It looked like a ten-feet-tall praying mantis, only with smooth skin like a reptile, and a tiny, eyeless head. It moved slowly, hunting its prey.

Senses heightened by adrenaline, Nathan was acutely aware of his surroundings. The lapping of the nearby river; the buzzing of insects; a bead of sweat rolling down his temple. He felt the weight of the CAR-15 in his hands, the feel of his finger on the trigger.

Palm leaves quivered as the creature brushed past within arms-reach. He steadied the assault rifle; how did I get myself into this shit? Only a few days earlier he’d been safe on base, drinking with the rest of the team in their makeshift bar. There had been a lot of talk lately about casualties. Inside the repurposed army tent, Nathan listened to snippets of drunken chatter.

“Got him when we went to take a piss.”

“Found ‘em ripped to shreds.”

“Just like the others.”

“Disappeared in the trees. Not a goddamn trace.”

There were a few other SEALs at the table with Nathan: Leon, Simon, Buck Williams, and the ‘Professor’. They’d called him that since finding out he’d quit his PhD to join the squids. Bao, their translator, was also there. Nathan suspected Bao was the smartest man in the room.

“I heard it was alligators,” said Leon.

“You mean a crocodile,” said the Professor. “They don’t have ‘gators in Nam.”

“The fuck’s the difference?”

“It wasn’t a croc’,” Nathan said. “Prob’ly some VC guerillas. They know how to use the river and the trees.”

“What about the bodies? They’re all mangled like an animal got ‘em.”

“Sometimes the VC string men up to the trees,” Nathan said, “keep ‘em alive and pull their guts out.”

“The screams help draw in men for an ambush,” the Professor added.

An angry-looking marine walked up to the table. “It’s not like that,” he said. “We just find ‘em torn up, pieces missing.”

“God—” Simon shook his head. “Why?”

“My guess is intimidation,” Nathan said. “They’re trying to put us on edge.”

“Bastards,” Leon spat.

“They won’t get away with this,” Simon said through gritted teeth.

“That’s just the thing, though,” the marine said, bitterness edging into his voice. “We haven’t been able to get authorization to do anything about it, and we don’t have any actionable intel’. But we heard about you SEALs. Word is you might have the skill-set and operational freedom to track these guys down and take ‘em out.”