SNAFU: Heroes: An Anthology of Military Horror

My grandfather rose from his seat as he crushed out his last cigarette. He looked around the farm and smiled faintly. “It’s good to be here, Eddie. It’s good to have survived that whole damned war. I still have some memories I don’t like to think about, and now and then, when it’s dark outside, I still have moments when I’m almost sure that the people I killed are waiting for a chance to get back at me for stealing their lives. I did a few things I’m not so proud of, but I did them for the right reasons. I reckon maybe you did, too.”

He said his goodnight, and I saw that my mother had gone to sleep already when my eyes followed him into the house. I shouldn’t have been surprised. My watch let me know it was after midnight and life on the farm starts early.

We never spoke of the wars we’d endured again, but I pulled myself together after that. I’d survived, and I’d done things I was not proud of, but I was alive and that meant I had to get on with living.

My grandfather died three years later. He died in his sleep, and I hope he died with a good dream playing in his mind, but I suspect I’ll never know for certain.

At his funeral, I saw many an old man from around Summitville. They’d been his friends in some cases, and in others they were just paying their regards to another fallen soldier, one who had survived the war like they had. I saw one young man, too. He was of average height and lean, with brown hair and brown eyes.

When the funeral line was arranged and all of the visitors were saying their condolences to us, the stranger looked at my mother and took her hands gently in his own. He spoke softly and solemnly and said to my mother, “Ben Finch was a fine man. He was a fine soldier. They don’t make them like him any more. He will be missed.”

When he came to me, he spoke just as softly and his hands held mine in a strong grip until I looked him in the eye. “Your grandfather was strong, Eddie. Make sure you honor that. Do wrong by his memory, and we will not be friends.” He smiled when he was done talking and I was the only one that saw it.

He had a smile that looked like it belonged on a killer. He only flashed that smile once after that, when I was looking at him, and either he winked at me, or the wind blew something in his eye.

That night I looked through the register of names from those who’d attended my grandfather’s funeral, prepared to send thank you notes. I noticed the name Jonathan Crowley, but he left no address.

For just a few seconds I wondered if maybe the man I’d seen smiling was the same man who’s smiled at my grandfather so long ago in a château in France. But that just wasn’t possible. He’d have been older, certainly; old and gray and frail.

But I thought about that smile, and I thought about that wink, and I remain uncertain. Like my grandfather, I think if I never meet that smiling man again, it’ll be too soon.

Changeling Jonathan Maberry

A Joe Ledger Adventure

Author’s note: This story is set after the events in THE DRAGON FACTORY. You don’t have to have read that novel, but if you read this story first there are some spoilers.

-1-

The world keeps trying to kill me.

It’s taking some pretty serious shots and as the months and years pass, it hasn’t lost any of its enthusiasm. Or its deviousness.

I keep sucking air, though. Each time I somehow manage to pick myself up, and either slap off the dirt and stagger back to the fight, or someone medivacs me to an aid station or a trauma hospital and the doctors do their magic to ensure that I have another season to run.

You know that saying how a bone is stronger in the place where it broke? And the thing from Nietzsche everyone and his brother always quotes – about the things that don’t kill you making you stronger? A lot of that is true.

I’m stronger than I used to be. Less physically vulnerable. Not that I have super powers. Bullets don’t bounce off my skin the way they do with Superman, and I don’t have Iron Man’s armor. I don’t have spider sense or adamantium bones.

I’m stronger because each time I survive a fight, I learn from it. I become less trusting, less naïve.

Colder.

Harder.

It takes more to kill me because as time goes on it becomes easier for me to take the first shot, and to make sure that shot is the last one fired.

This is part of the cost of war. A warrior may take up his sword and shield because his ideals drive him to do it, and his love of family and flag may put steel into his arms and an unbreakable determination into his heart. I was like that.

That love, that passion, makes you dangerous at first, but it also bares your breast to arrows other than those fired by your enemy. The glow of idealism makes it easier for the sniper in the bushes to take aim.