SNAFU: Wolves at the Door

Hunched over in pain, and fearful of being spotted by another German patrol, he hugged the shadows and found his way home.

The building seemed unfamiliar and he had to check the address plate twice to make sure he had indeed reached his own home. His family’s airy apartment was one of four located on the fifth floor. The lights in the lobby were out, but there was moonlight filtering through the skylight above him.

He shuffled up the stairs, the preternatural quiet frightening. Soon he was on his own floor. In the near-darkness, he saw that his apartment door was ajar.

Inside, the foyer was dark. His heart beat rapidly and his wound throbbed. He resisted the urge to touch it.

“Franco?” he whispered hoarsely. “Franco, are you here? It’s your father.”

After checking the small bedroom off the foyer, he advanced down the corridor. Franco’s room was empty. The next room was the bedroom Giovanni shared with his wife, but it, too, was empty.

The last two rooms were a long narrow bath – empty – and the kitchen. Standing in the kitchen, he swore he could hear a small heart beating.

“Franco?” he called out in a whisper that threatened to become weeping. His heart throbbed in time with his wound.

A tiny whisper came from a cabinet below the sink.

“Papá?”

“Franco! Dio mio, is it you?” He ignored the pain in his chest and sank to his knees, crawling toward the sink.

A boy’s face peeked from behind Maria’s frilly curtain, Franco’s face. But his eyes had aged since Giovanni had last looked into them. It was still the same day, but a lifetime had passed. Apparently for Franco, too.

“Are you all right, my son?” He didn’t let him answer, but instead gathered the boy in his arms and they rocked together, tears flowing for a long time.

“I’m all right,” Franco said. “And Mamma?” His voice trembled.

“She’s fine, she’s fine! We’re in a shelter.”

“I thought you were dead! Killed by those… things.” Franco sighed, laying his head on his father’s shoulder. “I’ve seen– Hey, there’s a lot of blood! Papá, are you–”

“I’m fine! It’s the blood of some brave men who helped me, God rest their souls.” He slowly shifted Franco’s face so he could see him better. “What about your friend Pietro?”

The boy suddenly started to weep. “We were great, we took them on, we saw them turn to wolves, we saw them kill, and then we ran and ran, but – oh, it was terrible! It caught us by surprise and it took Pietro, then it did terrible things to him. I ran away, Papá. When I could have helped him, I ran away, I ran all the way home and I hid like a baby.”

“No, Franco,” he soothed, “you couldn’t have helped him. If you saw the wolves, you know you couldn’t have fought them.”

“But you did, didn’t you?”

“I had help,” he said. “I had lots of help.” He touched the dagger in his pocket.

His son’s eyes were wide with fear from the memory.

“Let’s go,” said Giovanni, and they stood. “We can be with your mother in a short while, if we’re careful.”

He retrieved his submachine gun from the floor, checked to make sure it was cocked, and then took Franco’s hand.

As they walked out of the building and into the dangerous night, Giovanni wondered why his wound hadn’t bothered him in a while.

After a tense but eventless trek back to the shelter, the family reunion was joyful, though tempered by the loss of two good men who had given their lives to bring it about.

The partisan brigade leader, Corrado, had flown into a rage when informed the mission had cost two of his best, most experienced men, but a sober look at the condition of Giovanni’s blood-splattered clothes caused him to pause. Plus, the fact that he had not lost the Vatican dagger redeemed the situation in a small way.

“I have seen the dagger’s power,” he told Corrado, as he held hands with his son and wife. “And I’d like to be its guardian.”

He didn’t tell anyone he had been wounded in his life and death struggle with the wolf. He didn’t have to. The wound had disappeared by the time he’d changed into a borrowed shirt and jacket.

He was afraid of what that meant.

7

Giovanni awoke and sat bolt upright. It was dark in their sanctuary, though in some distant corner he could see the flickering glow of burning lamps or candles. And he could hear the disembodied voices of partisans talking quietly.

He felt strange. Dizzy and hot and itchy, like he was lost in a fever dream.

Maybe the past few days had been a dream, or more precisely an incubo, a nightmare. All of it. That certainly seemed more likely than the existence of savage German wolf-men. But he’d seen the truth of it with his own eyes, hadn’t he?

Giovanni wondered what day it was. How long had he slept? He remembered finding Franco hiding in their apartment and bringing him to their new home. They had returned just before dawn, and now – though it was nearly always dark where the partisans hid underground, a tiny bit of daylight trickled down through their many secret routes to the streets – it was clearly after nightfall. Had he slept all day, or even longer? Two days? Three?