SNAFU: Hunters

Kravchenko shook his head. “It’ll be dark before anyone can get here. We’re too far apart. Then the ghouls will have the advantage since they can see at night.”

“Then we’d better attack now while it’s still daylight and the packs are separated. Eliminate the ones behind us then destroy the rest.”

Kravchenko grinned, revealing a gold eye tooth. “We’ll catch them by surprise.”

The team wheeled about and cantered back the way they had come. Soon the horses neighed. They had a keen sense of smell and ghouls exuded a disagreeable odor.

Swerving behind a rise, the soldiers dismounted. Three held the horses. Okhchen and Kaminsky crawled up to the crest to over-watch positions while the others, led by Zakharov, spread out in a skirmish line in front of the rise.

Ten ghouls ran through the woods ahead.

They were thin, wiry creatures with gray, leathery skin totally devoid of hair. Running in a forward crouch like apes, each would stand a little over meter and a half tall if fully erect. Long, bony arms almost reaching the ground ended in gnarled hands with curved, black claws. Bipedal, they had clawed, three-toed feet. Narrow heads had pointed ears, slits for nostrils, and slanted yellow eyes smoldering with ravenous hunger. They bared slavering fangs and long, blue, forked tongues flicked out.

Even weak daylight impaired their vision so they did not see the soldiers immediately.

A yellow flare was sent up to alert the other teams that ghouls had been spotted. Then the echoing crack of Okhchen’s rifle broke the silence. A ghoul staggered as a 147-grain 7.62 millimeter bullet punched through its left eye, blasting out the back of its head in a spray of black ichor. It toppled backwards.

The other ghouls looked around angrily for the source as a second and then a third were killed in rapid succession by headshots, until finally they spotted the humans. With a bedlam of bloodcurdling howls, they charged. One threw back its head and let out a long, wavering shriek that echoed across the forest and sent chills up the spines of the soldiers.

“Fire!” shouted Zakharov.

The ghouls were fast and agile. The soldiers stood their ground and opened fire – the quick, harsh chatter of their submachine guns punctuated by the slower rattle of the DP-28 above and behind them.

The creatures rushed into a storm of lead. They stumbled and fell, riddled by scores of slugs, their ichor sizzling as it splashed on the ground, instantly melting any snow it touched. A pair veered left, trying to outflank the team, but to no avail. This move had been anticipated and they too were shot down, the last collapsing dead just meters from the soldiers.

The team ceased fire and reloaded, adrenalin slowly ebbing from their veins. Zakharov noticed Kravchenko calmly bandaging a wrist.

“Wounded?” he asked.

“A drop of their blood splashed on me,” said Kravchenko. “Burns like acid.”

The ghoul carcasses began smoldering and disintegrating. Within minutes all that would remain would be heaps of ashes and a foul reek lingering in the crisp air. No bones. And nothing would ever grow in these spots again. This accelerated decomposition had made it impossible to obtain specimens for scientific study, so details of ghoul anatomy were unknown.

Zakharov collected a little bit of the ash, sealing it in an envelope. He had standing orders to take samples when conditions permitted.

Attempts to capture ghouls alive had proved unsuccessful. They could not be subdued and were totally resistant to tranquilizers. All anyone had to go on were eyewitness accounts, blurry photographs, plaster casts of footprints, and laboratory analysis of ash residue. Ghouls did not appear to have any type of social structure or leadership. Nothing resembling offspring were ever seen and their method of reproduction was unknown. They all looked alike and there was no visible gender differentiation.

The team hurried back to their horses and rode off to intercept the other pack.

The woods thickened, forcing them to slow as they followed tracks down a slope to a frozen, meandering stream cloaked in shadow, the treetops etched against the orange sky.

Okhchen abruptly reined in and motioned for the others to stop. His eyes darted around suspiciously.

The breeze shifted. The horses whinnied sharply.

“Ambush!” shouted Okhchen.

Screeches filled the air as ghouls suddenly leaped from behind the rocks and scrub brush on the opposite bank where they had been hiding.

One private was decapitated by a single slash of a claw and his headless body, spurting bright-red blood, rode along for a ways like a horrid rag doll before finally tumbling from the saddle. Another was dragged off his mount; his submachine gun and arm were torn away and the top of his head was sheared off. The neighing horse of a third man reared and hurled him to the ground, breaking his leg. A ghoul immediately disemboweled him and bit his throat out.