SNAFU: Wolves at the Door

He remembered then that the shelter they had been forced to inhabit was below ground. He wasn’t in his own comfortable bedroom, where the creamy stucco walls bore only a crucifix and a portrait of Mary. He almost smiled at the memory, but his head hurt too much. And he remembered the shelter was windowless.

He opened his eyes and leaped up, shocked to see that he had slept on a gently sloping hillside – in a clearing, trees cluttering his view all around. Over him the drooping branches of a weeping willow seemed to cascade like tears. The long, narrow leaves dotted his naked arms and chest. Where was his nightshirt? Giovanni always wore a thick layer of clothing to bed, but now he was naked and the leaves tickled his skin.

He hugged himself, trembling uncontrollably. Cold, wet dew numbed his toes. His penis had shrunk and sought shelter between his thighs, and small twigs made sticky knots in his pubic hair.

“Ma che cosa—?” What was going on?

He tore his right hand from under his left armpit, where he felt a semblance of warmth, and cupped his genitals to preserve some body heat.

It was dawn, the sky dappled with patches of light. A cool wind swept across the overgrown grass of the clearing. The slope meant he was back in the hills, but where? How far? And how had he gotten here? And why had he shed all his clothing? His feet squished in the wet grass as he started in one direction, stopped, then tried another.

It all looked the same. Every side of the clearing faced him with a thick stand of trees. Under the canopy of their leaves it was still dark. He didn’t know what had happened to him.

And yet…

He stooped to swipe off some leaves and twigs and recoiled to see that his feet weren’t only wet with dew – there were splashes of dark red. Was it…?

Giovanni’s breath caught in his throat.

Blood?

He checked his calves, thighs, and ankles thoroughly, but no, he saw or felt no new wounds.

He scraped at the blood stains. Dry, mostly dry. He looked at his fingers. Flecks of dark matter was crusted under his nails.

“Gesu’ e Santa Maria,” he said softly and crossed himself, forgetting his nakedness for a moment.

He sniffed his fingertips.

It was blood. He had smelled enough of it.

He sidled toward the clearing’s edge. The approaching sunrise might well cause him to be seen by people who awakened for field work or farm chores, or to attend mass or one of the meager markets. He had to find his way home.

Home?

Not home, but the partisans’ secret shelter that had become his home.

With a deep breath he abandoned any modesty that might have crippled him and sprinted through the dew toward the thinnest face of the forest.

Giovanni was still shivering, now with fear as well as cold.

The blood, the naked romp outside, and the lack of memory.

There was no accounting for this, none at all.

Unless…

Giovanni looked at his arm, which itched unbearably as if he had a rash or had dragged it through a patch of poison ivy. Below his right shoulder, where that monstrous creature he had fought had torn and ripped the skin with grotesque fangs or claws was throbbing painfully and itching madly.

Both arms tingled, and he thought he felt the tingle reach his shoulder and spread across his back. He scratched at the edges of where the wound had been, but it wasn’t enough to slake his need. In fact, the itch seemed to be spreading to the other arm now. He would have given anything for some immediate relief.

He licked at the tingling arm absent-mindedly, his nakedness momentarily forgotten.

Then Giovanni stopped in mid-lap. What the hell was he doing, lapping at his arm like a dog?

Porca Madonna!

He shook his head and scraped the area around his mouth with one hand. Dried bits of red flesh flaked off his skin, leaving bloody smears on his palm. Some of the bits were sharp, bone-like. He sniffed at the debris. Smelled like… like slaughtered meat. He’d seen enough farm slaughters in his youth. The smell overtook his senses and the sudden urge to vomit rose. When he forced himself to swallow and breathe deeply, the taste of raw meat and bone and rancid blood came alive inside his mouth.

His throat gurgled and hitched and a stream of bloody vomit spewed onto the ground, splashing his feet before he could side-step.

It looks like pieces of my lungs, Giovanni thought as he wiped his mouth. The bloody taste still on his tongue.

What is wrong with me? A strangled sob escaped from his lips.

He gagged again, but this time it overwhelmed him and more pieces of bloody flesh and bone came gurgling up his throat and through his lips in a disgusting stream.

After the spasm passed, he opened his eyes and beheld the grotesque contents of his stomach, now splattered onto the grass. He turned away, dizzy, trying to keep his gorge from rising again.

The shivers he felt had nothing to do with the chill in the air, and the madness was just beginning.