SNAFU: Hunters

Nunnally was right beside me for part of the trip but he stopped after a hard fifteen yards and turned back to face the enemy. He was swinging his rifle around when they ended him. I saw him drop from the corner of my eye. I also saw his helmet move past me, bouncing and rolling, dented into a new shape and bloodied to boot.

I lived. For a while I thought I was the only one. I tried firing back, and I think I hit at least one of the krauts, but I’d be lying if I said I acted heroically. I ran, because against four tanks and what seemed like an ocean of soldiers, I could think of nothing else to do.

How far did I run? Far enough that my body shook with the exertion and my heart hammered madly against my ribs. Far enough that every breath in the cold, autumn air was a painful stitch in my side. Far enough that the Germans stopped chasing me.

I was huddled in the woods when I finally lost consciousness. I cried myself to sleep.

When the morning came around I was shivering violently in the cold.

I might have stayed in a deep sleep for a while but Crowley woke me with a boot to the side of my helmet. He didn’t kick me. He just gave me a nudge.

I almost screamed when I came to, but the look on his face stopped me.

We didn’t speak for a long time. Instead he simply handed me the dog tags from all of my squad and squatted nearby while I looked them over and considered the situation.

There were no more tears. I’d cried them all out.

“The last tank.” His words startled me. He’d been quiet for so long that I’d almost forgotten he was there.

“What?” I looked at him and sighed. “What about it?”

“It had the same mark we found in the cemetery. That means I’m going after it.”

“There are too many people.” I shook my head. “Too many tanks. You’ll never live through it.”

Crowley sighed. “Rules and regulations. That’s what there are too many of. The rules say I have to be asked for help. I can defend myself, but that’s all. If you ask for my help, I can do more than you might believe.”

“You want me to ask you for help?” Remember how I thought I was done with tears? My eyes gave off that same damned sting again and I shook my head. “What am I supposed to do here? Ask you to kill yourself?”

“Just ask for help. That’s all.”

I looked away from him for a moment and considered his words, wondering what would happen if I did nothing at all.

“Help me find the things they summoned. Help me kill them.”

Crowley’s smile was bright and chilling.

“Let’s go hunting.”

From that moment on my life became a series of exhausting maneuvers. Wherever the ones responsible had gone, they surely traveled by vehicles. We were on foot. I carried what I could, mostly extra ammunition and a few c-rations. Crowley hardly seemed bothered by the weight of what he carried, but I felt like I was sinking in the muck after an afternoon of rain washed the countryside. It was cold and I was miserable and all that mattered to me was not losing sight of Crowley as he moved along, looking at the ground and tracking his enemies even when I saw no indication there were tracks to follow.

We might have talked more, but he was too busy jogging along the roads and occasionally moving through fields.

When we stopped at last to rest I fairly collapsed. I was winded, dehydrated and dizzy.

“Still feeling good about following me?” Crowley’s voice was surprisingly soft.

I shook my head. There were no words left in me right then.

“So, the thing you asked about. How these things can exist.” Crowley shrugged. “There are other worlds all around ours. Most of them don’t know we are there any more than we know they are, but there are exceptions. Think of it like radio waves if that helps. Everything out there moves in its own way, and you, me, everything around us, it all moves the same way. Something moving in a different frequency might see us. We might see it. Hearne the Hunter, and his pack, that is a case where now and again we see something. It bleeds over. Hearne likes to chase down disasters. What he gets out of it I don’t know, but that’s what he does. The thing is, we can only really see him when the disasters are big enough to make him come close. He’s not a cause. He’s a symptom.”

Crowley didn’t look at me while he talked. He opened a C-Ration, looked at the dubious contents and then started eating.

“Thing is, there are ways to make things from other places more in tune to our world. Call it sorcery, because that’s what it is. You call these things and whether or not they want to come, they do. Sometimes the rules are specific and call for a particular demon or monster. Other times they just summon whatever is closest.”

“Where do all these worlds come from?”