Ghouls

you can’t wait to see his face.

the idea of murder doesn’t set well with you. though you’ve killed many men in war, you’ve never committed murder, but you won’t kill the colonel, no matter how much he deserves it. though you may well make him wish he was dead.

heading him off at the airport should be easy, but you must hurry, you walk faster, harder—soon you are trotting along the desolate road, your senses focus only on vengeance, and you are so swept by rancor that the prospect of being followed never crosses your mind, and why is that? how could you let one man make you forget all you’ve learned?

but you are being followed.

being stalked.

and when your stalker strikes, it is with such speed that you have no time to react.

a blur flutters behind you there is no sound suddenly you are jerked backward and pinned to the ground by a figure that is only vaguely human a cold slick hand presses your face as if to flatten your skull against the road between the fingers you glimpse the features of a monstrosity features made mercifully unclear by shock and darkness your pistol is in the Jeep you recall and you draw your knife but not before the thing’s other forklike hand is ripping at you with quickness beyond that of any man then the fingers sink popping into skin and begin to separate the flesh from your face like someone tearing strips of wallpaper you scream through a well of blood one eye seeing red and bury your knife hilt-deep into the thing’s furrowed abdomen.

its blood is black and pumps out in a rill of glistening ichor, but the man-animal’s hand holds fast to your face, still tearing, you thrust the knife again, deeper, twisting, then jerk the pin of your last grenade, the spoon flies, the thing’s jaws draw open impossibly wide—it howls its pain high into the night, and with the last trickling of your strength, you stuff the grenade canister into its maw.

you run faster than you’ve ever run. four to five seconds later the grenade goes off and engulfs the thing in a splattering burst of white phosphorus.

you stagger forward, delirious now from blood loss, you pull off your fatigue shirt and press it to your face in an effort to control the bleeding, your progress grinds to an off-balanced shuffle, you sense only faint, fragmentary things, the road beneath your feet, the sputtering heat behind you, and the necessity to keep moving, the vision in your good eye begins to melt, rimmed with black dots and spangles like shavings of steel, but through this you see twin spheres of intense white light which seem to be advancing toward you, swelling in size, a deafening roar-fills your head, and you must shield your eyes.

the twin spheres stop, they stare back at you, blazing; they hover like disembodied eyes, headlights? you stand before the glare and dumbly clutch the shirt to your face.

two sharp silhouettes emerge from the blaze, curious stick-men backed by light.

voices switch back and forth.

“check this shit out. is he one of ours?”

“looks like a jarine.”

“no, his belt is black, jarheads have tan belts, this guy’s army, from the support garrison.”

“look at him. he’s hurt.”

“probably fucked over by ‘rabs.”

“’rabs? this far out? this is no-man’s-land.”

“it’s those fuckin’ bedo tribes, goddamn animals, they’re always ripping our people off and cutting them up. come on, we’ve gotta get him back to the caz.”

timid, the figures move in. are they afraid of you, or just unsettled by all the blood? they lead you forward, into the light, one is an E-2, the other a tech sergeant, both are air force security police.

“hey, this grunt’s bleeding buckets, serious.”

“holy shit, it’s sanders.”

this voice you recognize, van holtz, the fourth man.

“you know this bullet-stopper?” the E-deuce says.

“he’s a friend, a good friend,” van holtz answers, “he won DSC and a bunch of other shit in Vietnam, i owe him bigtime.”

“the guy’s obviously into some deep shit.”

“I don sizost care, we’re gonna have to stand for him.”

“I ain’t covering for this grunt, he could be a dope mule for all i know, or running guns.”

van holtz is adamant, “you’ll cover, asshole, you’ll back up every word i say to the brass, unless you want to walk a pipeline in alaska for the next six years, understand?”

“yeah, i guess i fucking do.”

they help you into the Jeep, the E-deuce pulls a mad u-turn and barrels away down the rutted road, toward the caserne, van holtz breaks out his field kit.

“van,” you say.

“be quiet, don’t talk, play dumb when we get back, tell them you can’t remember anything, i’ll take care of the rest.”

“van,” you say. “it’s all true, it’s all true.”

he tells you to shut up as he prepares a gauze, the Jeep’s rocking lulls you. you’re safe, and that seems odd. you’re home free and alive, but in the back of your mind you can still see the narrow, doglike face of the ghala…

««—»»

Sanders’s eyes snapped open.

He lay stunned in bed, sheets twisted about his waist like writhing snakes. Darkness threatened to smother him, to squash him into the mattress. He sensed people, or things, in the room, killers, madmen, VC throat-runners hidden and grinning, their black blades poised. But then reality reformed, the edges slipped back into place, and he remembered the dream.

Those SP’s had saved his life, Van Holtz and the E-2; he probably would’ve bled to death without them. Van Holtz had bailed him out with a well-devised lie, and the E·2 had corroborated. Sanders had never seen Van Holtz again, had never had the chance to even thank him.

< font size='3'>He reached up and touched his face, very slowly, as if he weren’t sure it was there at all. The runneled network of scars reminded him of what the thing had done. He’d tried to blot it out, for years, but somehow the darkness of the motel room fostered a dozen suggestions of the ghala. Closing his eyes didn’t help; he could still see the stark, corded body; the jammed mouth full of protracting teeth; that hideous three-fingered hand reaching out to tear away more of his face.

The moment noosed him, hauled him back further. He remembered the two Marines who’d gone in with him. Kinnet and O’Brien—they’d been finished in seconds, jerked apart like clay dolls. At least they hadn’t suffered much.

Could’ve been me, Sanders thought. Maybe that would have been better.

It was very late, yet he felt no urge to sleep now. The dream had jolted him awake, as quickly as the touch of an electric prod. He slipped out of bed and moved through the room’s murk, toward the dim shape of the desk.

A breath froze in his throat when he turned on the lamp. Opened newspapers covered the desktop; he focused on the two articles, each circled in red, as though they were obituaries.

From the Metrosection of yesterday’s Washington Post:

BODY FOUND IN WOODS

TYLERSVILLE, MD—Prince George’s County Police officials today announced the discovery of the skeleton of an unidentified woman in a wooded area of privately owned land within Tylersville city limits. Security guard Glen Rodz, 26, told reporters that he found the skeleton near an out-of·service access lane at approximately 1 A.M. Rodz contacted authorities at once, after which the skeleton was transported to South County General Hospital for examination. Deputy medical examiner Ronald T. Greene stated that the skeleton was of a female in her early