SNAFU: Wolves at the Door

“Yes.”

He spoke to the captain, but looked at the father-to-be.

“Scott’s son is very small, and very weak. His chances aren’t so good.” Roland simply nodded and waited again. “Is there anything that can be done to save him? By you and your people, I mean?”

He stared levelly at Scott Lassiter as he spoke. “We heal well. We tend to our own. Are you asking if he could be changed?”

“Well, yes.” Lassiter looked at the ground, probably afraid of what the answer might be.

Roland’s hand was gentle when he caught Lassiter’s chin and made him look into his eyes. “I can arrange for him to become like us. If he does, there will be a brief fever and then he will either live through it or he will die. If you are asking me to do this, I’ll do it. But you need to know the risks. What we become, what you have seen, is not a normal state for us. Unless he is trained, he’ll change at random times and become a very real danger to anyone around him. Those without the proper training… well, they are the things you hear about in legends.”

Lassiter nodded.

“Listen carefully to me Scott Lassiter. If I do this, he will have to stay here. You and your wife will have to stay here. You will be among friends, and you will be protected, but if you want your boy to have a normal life, it means staying with us and once you join, there is no way to quit.”

Lassiter looked to Fulford, who in turn could do nothing but shrug.

Roland finished. “Speak with your wife. Explain the risks. When you’ve made your decision, you can come back to me and let me know. I’ll either be here, or in the waiting room. I owe you at least that much.”

Lassiter nodded again and went inside to find his wife and the courage to explain what he planned.

Fulford looked up at Roland. “So that’s it?”

“Of course. You are free to go. You have been ever since I found out who killed my daughter.”

“Why didn’t you kill all of them?”

“That wasn’t my decision to make.” He looked the captain in the face, without any hesitation. “If it had been my choice, they’d all be dead now. John is the one who showed them compassion.”

“Aren’t you afraid they’ll tell about you? That I’ll tell my superiors in the military?”

“I can’t stop you, Captain. I think it would be a mistake on your part, but I certainly can’t stop you.”

“You could kill me.”

“I could. I won’t.”

The man was trying to stay calm, but Roland could smell his anger, his confusion. “I don’t understand you.”

“No, but I understand you, Captain. I know your type, as it were. We’re a lot alike.”

“How do you figure?”

“When you’re out in the field, you do what you are told, you follow your orders and you accept what your conscience will allow you to accept. You live by the rules of the military organization and you fight for what you believe is right. And I’d lay odds that if one of your men is killed in combat you go through all of the proper paperwork and you handle the phone calls to the soldier’s family yourself. Am I right?”

Fulford nodded.

“I do the same thing with my people. I care for them, I give them their orders and I handle whatever crisis comes my way.” He paced, restless again. His kind was always restless. “Here’s the thing you need to know, Captain Fulford. Even if you told your military superiors that you had the perfect recipe for soldiers that couldn’t be stopped, even if you told them and they believed you, it would never work.”

“Why?”

“Don’t you think I’ve done some checking? Would you go into a new combat zone without at least looking at a map? There’s nothing to differentiate us from perfectly normal human beings. There aren’t any traceable markers in our cells and you can’t grow a culture on a petri dish that will give up the secret to why we are.”

“So what is it then? Magic?”

“That or something science still can’t quantify. I really don’t know.”

“Let’s change subjects. What happened to Cheryl and Mark’s kids?”

“They’re safe and at another house. We didn’t want them anywhere around you and Lassiter’s families. You don’t have to worry about them.”

They sat in silence for a few moments before Roland asked a question. “What would you have done in my situation, Captain? What would you have done if it had been Sarah, or one of your children?”

Fulford looked at him and answered immediately. “I’ve been thinking a lot about that. I would have killed all three of them.”

The wind caught the side of the building and pushed at both of them with an arctic chill. They stood outside together and waited for Scott Lassiter to come back and give them his answer.

Editors’ Note

Dear Reader,

We hope you enjoyed SNAFU: Wolves at the Door. Thanks for taking the time to read it. If you are interested in checking out our other military horror anthologies, there are two more already published and another due out in June 2015.

SNAFU: An Anthology of Military Horror

Featuring Jonathan Maberry, Weston Ochse, James A Moore, and Greig Beck, along with eleven other fantastic writers.

SNAFU: Heroes