SNAFU: Wolves at the Door

Three bullets left. Have to make them count. He ducked behind the tree; there were more Germans than bullets, but they were trying to retreat with their catch rather than take out the rest of the pack. More Germans than bullets, yes, but there were also the wolves, with their teeth and claws – their natural weapons. They had to get close, though. One of them was hit. Yelping, it fell to the ground. A frown formed on his lips - didn’t you need to use silver bullets?

He shot the Germans holding the netted wolf. First one, then the other. One went down. The other didn’t, but he dropped the net, turned, made himself vulnerable.

Then a burning pain struck Jester in the chest. It was suddenly no longer possible to merely stay on his feet. The last bullet flew, but he wasn’t sure if it hit anything, and then the world tunnelled down to a narrow place, and then to darkness.

He woke up flat on his back on the forest floor, looking up at a canopy of trees. Feeling fine. Not feeling as if he had been shot. No, no feeling of that. “What…?”

“You were dying. We had no choice.”

He actually did snarl. That was how it came out. They had had a choice. They could have let him die as a man, not live with all of this energy flowing through his veins. He could smell them. He could smell, too, the dead. He hoped only German dead. “Your...”

“She lived. They sought to take her alive.” It was the woman, kneeling next to him. “You should stay.”

“My squadron still needs me.” He found it in himself to move, to roll to a kneeling position, to face her. “It’s my duty.”

Could he, though? Or would he turn into a wolf in the cockpit. Would he lose control... Would he? But he felt more in control than he ever had; felt the beating of his own heart. Smelled her, wanted her, desired her and knew it was returned. “Tomorrow.”

She smiled. “Tomorrow.”

The Wild Hunt James A. Moore

The snow was coming down in frenzy; not drifting lazily to the ground, but hammering the earth and everything it touched. Cars were merely shapes under the thick blanket of frozen white and while the houses hadn’t disappeared yet, it seemed a real possibility.

Mark Loman was just fine with that. He hadn’t wanted to go into work today anyway, and now all he had to do with his time was watch a few movies and put up with his wife and kids. Lou and Ellen were good kids; they were easy to deal with. Donna, his wife, was another story entirely. Ever since she’d gone back to work, she’d become a shrew of epic scale.

He looked to where she sat with her little laptop, chain-smoking her damned cigarettes and managed not to sneer. When they’d married she would have been best described as ‘handsome’. With a thin build and her auburn hair, her easy going smile and her sense of humor, she was always fun to be around, but she’d never quite made it to beautiful. Now, after almost twenty years of tanning herself whenever she got a chance and eating enough food to keep a sparrow underweight, she was all bones and leathery skin. She looked more like one of the stuffed hunting trophies in his den than like the woman he’d fallen in love with.

She looked up at him and smiled, and her face was closer to what he liked to see than to the pinched, hard expression he had grown used to of late. She was back to handsome, at least and that was a step in the right direction.

Did he love her anymore? He really didn’t know, but he was certainly comfortable with her and just too damned lazy to change. He looked away after throwing her a quick smile of his own in return and looked at the two kids on the floor, watching the Wizard of Oz. Lou and Ellen were good, sweet kids. He was proud of them despite their occasional shortcomings — Lou liked to go out and party too much and Ellen was happiest when she was being a drama queen like her mother — and he loved them with all of his heart.

If he didn’t, he’d probably have left Donna instead of just finding some action on the side.

The wind picked up outside just as flying monkeys were attacking the scarecrow in the movie, and both of the kids jumped a little as the hard breeze slammed into the house with enough force to shake the windows. Mark smiled and stood. “Gonna make some popcorn, guys. Who wants some?”

Lou and Ellen were both crying “I do!” around the same time the front door exploded inward.

The house was built to withstand the sort of weather going on outside and Mark stared hard at the fractured wood sliding across the hardwood floor and running down the short foyer leading into the living room without any real idea of what the hell had just happened. His kids didn’t know either but they let out ear shattering screams just the same. Donna let out a squeal of her own and judging by the ache in his throat that hadn’t been there a second ago, he must have let out a good one, too. He didn’t remember screaming but that didn’t mean it didn’t happen.