SNAFU: Hunters

God, how it screamed. Even as it came for me again. I had only one move, really. It never let go of my jacket even when it backed away. All it did was haul me forward and so I stabbed again and again, and I think I was doing a fair bit of screaming myself until I realized it was down and I was standing over it, my arm warm from the blood of the damned thing that was bleeding out in front of my eyes.

You ever try to pull up a rifle while you’re holding a knife? I don’t know how I managed it to this day. Somehow the knife went back into the sheath and the rifle was lifted on its sling and I fired into the snow wherever I saw movement.

I couldn’t give you details if I had to. I just know I burned through my remaining bullets, firing at anything that looked like it might consider moving in my direction. When I was done with that it was back to throwing grenades until I was out of them. I nailed that first tank another time and something inside it finally had the decency to explode in return. The shockwave knocked me on my ass again, but when I stood, there weren’t any things coming for me.

The German at my feet looked human again, just dead as could be. Whatever had changed it must have left the body when he died. He was a kid, same as me and I’d ruined his face with my blade. Enemy or no, his family never did a thing to me, and I’d taken him away and mutilated him besides.

Of course, when he came for me, he was something else. I focused on that part and moved on. Sometimes you have to do that, I guess. The details of your life can eat you alive if you let them. Best to temper them with a little logic now and then.

I turned toward the tanks. I had taken on a mission to help Jonathan Crowley fight the bastard that had sacrificed people in the middle of nowhere, France. I intended to see it through.

In the distance I could hear the rumble of the tank engines, gunshots, screams. I could just make out the tanks through the shroud of snow.  Much closer, I saw the red figure I’d seen before.

It was a thin shape. I cannot say if it was male or female. Despite standing on two legs the shape was too far removed from anything I could easily recognize. A long ribcage, broad shoulders muscled with thin, sinewy strands. The face was something between a skull and a horse, and had a thick head of hair that was darker but no less red.

It looked at me for a moment and then it came for me, moving over the snow, barely touching the frozen surface. It hissed at me as it came, and it reached out with one long-fingered hand that seemed to have too many joints on each finger.

I didn’t try to escape. I was too busy being horrified.

Everything about the beast was red, from its long-toed feet to its eyes, to its straggly hair.

That had draped over its face as I started to pull back.

After that all I saw was red.

* * *

Jenny was next to me in the meadow.

It was that perfect type of summer day, when the wind blew softly and washed away the possibility of sweat. Before I left for the war she and I parked ourselves under a big old oak on the family property and we had a picnic. When it was done we talked about how we would be together when it was over, how it was necessary to fight against the kinds of savages that would attack our shores, how much we would miss each other. The list was endless.

While we talked we wound up laying together under that tree. She was nestled against me and resting her head on my shoulder and I couldn’t see her face, but I could smell her sweet scent and I could feel a few wisps of her hair tickling along my jaw line and nose. I knew then I’d marry her.

It was like that again, only sweeter this time. She was comfortable and so was I. I wanted it to last forever.

So of course, it only lasted a few seconds. But I remember it so clearly, so intensively, that even after all of these years it felt more real than all the time I spent in the war.

* * *

I was lying somewhere. Jenny was gone and so was the homestead. It was a forest, but it didn’t seem like the same one I’d been walking in and freezing my ass off in.

The trees around me were vast things, massive in a way I had never seen before. The ground beneath me was a soft, thick loam. Far above, almost lost in the thickness of the forest, I could see a blue slash of sky.

As I looked around I noticed two things at the same time. First, the red thing I’d seen before was there in front of me, perched on a fallen tree that had long since begun to rot away. Second, I was dressed in my birthday suit and nothing more.

I pushed myself backward across the ground, my bare feet digging deep and shoving my body away from the thing.

It was wet with red; it dropped the stuff from its eyes and even from the pores of its skin. The air around that beast fairly seethed with disease. Just looking at it made me feel like I was sucking in every kind of hellish infection that ever existed.