SNAFU: Heroes: An Anthology of Military Horror

“Jonathan Crowley, slick-sleeved soldier in the US Army, looked at me and set his rifle down next to me. He grinned like a kid at Christmas, and said to me, ‘You’re a good man, Ben Finch. Don’t let them take that away from you.’ Then, before I could even say a word, he was running. He moved like lightning down the hallway, and I thought for sure he was abandoning me to get my ass killed by a bunch of pissed off Nazis. I didn’t see as I had much choice, so I picked off the next one.

“By the time the second one hit the ground, trying to scream through the hole I’d made in his throat, the rest of them were calling out in German and one or two of them were pointing at me. The ones that had guns started shooting. I ducked for cover, and watched as two of them made for the stairwell, ready, I’m sure, to meet me head on and put a few hundred rounds into my sorry ass. I’d ask if you ever had bullets coming at you, Eddie, but I already know the answer. It was all I could do to look up from time to time from my prone position. I just knew I was a goner as soon as those soldiers made it to the top of the stairwell. I’d be a sitting duck, and there wasn’t a damned thing I could do about it.

“I was thinking about that and how full my bladder felt, when I saw the two guards who’d come up the stairs go right back down again. I could tell by the way they fell that they were dead. You can’t move like that and be alive. Next thing I saw was Jonathan Crowley walking down those steps and looking around the room. Everyone was so busy looking for me that they never even saw him come into their little torture chamber.

“It didn’t take him long to rectify that situation. He strutted right on up to the first of them and lashed out with a foot that moved so fast I barely saw it. The Kraut dropped just as sure as if I’d shot him, his mouth bleeding and teeth flying. I shot the next one over, and then I saw most of them turn toward Crowley. He should have been terrified, I know I was scared for him, but he was smiling again, looking happier than any man has a right to look during a war.

“One of them shot him from fifteen feet away, and missed. I was watching, you understand? I was watching that man shoot, and I was calling out a warning, and Crowley managed not to be there when the bullet left the muzzle of that pistol. I don’t think he actually dodged the bullet, I don’t think that’s possible, but I know he wasn’t where he had been by the time the bullet met that spot. Instead, he was right next to the man with the gun. And the man with the gun was screaming because his shot had missed and more than that, it had hit one of his comrades.

“Crowley slipped his arm around the man’s neck like he was gonna say something confidential to him, then he twisted his body and the man fell dead. Even from where I was, even over the shouting and the gunfire, I heard that man’s neck snap like a twig. Before the soldier hit the ground, Crowley used him like a springboard and leapt high into the air. He landed on another Nazi a few feet away and I reckon he killed him as soon as he hit, but just about then I looked in another direction. I looked at the green man them Germans had made. I looked that way because someone else was shouting a command in German, and that fella turned at the sound of the voice and then turned to face Crowley.”

My grandfather looked away then, rubbing his grizzled chin with one hand and staring into the darkened field where the cows grazed. He kept talking, and I kept my mouth shut. “I know I sound crazy but I swear that thing had grown bigger while I was watching Crowley. Not just the flesh on its body, but the metal as well. It looked to be almost seven feet in height. It moved right at Crowley like it was a freight train and he was a piece of rail it meant to run over. Every last one of them Krauts jumped out of its way, too. Like they knew it would be a bad idea to be between that monster and its target.

“I took the opportunity to shoot the thing in the head, opening up and squeezing four rounds into the green scalp. I saw the holes they punched into that thing, and I saw the way its head was knocked sideways by the impacts, but it never even slowed. It just moved at Crowley.

“Crowley saw it too. He saw that thing coming at him, and he looked away long enough to stare me in the eyes. His smile was as broad and wild as it could be and he winked at me and said, ‘I’ve got him, Ben. Get the soldiers.’

“Well, I figured he was a nut case, but I was also riding on a combat high right then. I did what he said, and I promised myself I’d see he got a proper funeral stateside. I took down three more Nazis then I dropped my rifle and grabbed for Crowley’s, because the third man I shot at should have died and instead he just stood there. My weapon was out of bullets.