SNAFU: Hunters

And then it threw me. I said before that Crowley got thrown. I did too and I think I went further. I saw the tanks go by while I was tumbling through the air and screaming my fool head off.

I hit the snow hard and fast and sank into it. To this day I don’t know what I hit. I just know it broke my arm in three places.

I have to guess I screamed. I don’t clearly recall.

I got up. I don’t know how, except that maybe it was adrenaline. I looked toward the area I’d come from and had no idea how I could have gone that far and lived. I know I was in shock. I also know the pain that was howling through my arm and my body probably helped keep me going.

I looked for Crowley, and I found him.

I can’t say if the damage I saw was done by me or by something else, but the tanks were in horrible shape. The damage to a couple of them was definitely my doing. The other two? I don’t believe so. The very first tank, the lead vehicle, it was on its side and billowing black smoke from every conceivable opening.  The treads were broken, the underbelly of the thing bled oil and fuel and even as I watched it caught ablaze. I expected an explosion, but instead it just burned and the people inside of it screamed.

They screamed and I shivered.

The tank that Crowley had started for in the first place was a different case. It was still intact, but the hatch at the top was open and while I could not see what was inside the vessel, I could see odd lights. The sort of lights I had never seen inside a tank before, flickering and offering colors from every possible part of the spectrum.

In front of that I saw Crowley arguing with a man in a black SS uniform. The man held an ancient knife. I have to guess that it was ancient, because the blade was made form some sort of black stone and the handle was covered in old, cracked leather and dangled several more stone trinkets under it.

Crowley stared at that blade like it was a cross and he was a vampire. He didn’t seem capable of looking at it for long without flinching. A man I had seen charge across a half a football field’s distance in a hail of bullets. A man I had seen take on a monster made of rotting bodies and headstones and worse things. He looked at that knife with genuine fear in his eyes. And he looked at the man holding the knife with hatred. I would not want to face Crowley under the best of circumstances, but the anger he aimed at the Nazi should have burned him to the ground.

The Nazi was a thin man, even more gaunt than Crowley. He was pale and his skin was sweating. It was snowing. The air that came from my mouth with every breath was a fog, but the man was sweating. Dark circles rimmed his eyes and I had to think he was sick, like pneumonia sick.

As if to make my point, he coughed and then doubled over in a coughing fit. The only part of him that didn’t move was the hand holding that knife out like it was a ward to fend off Crowley.

Crowley didn’t move on him.

I did. I’d like to say I ran across the field and tackled the sick bastard that had killed those poor souls back at the inn, but the truth was I started slogging his way and cursing the lack of any real weapons on my body.

Not that there were many I could have used. My arm throbbed with every heartbeat and I had to take in hard, deep breaths to keep moving.

The good news was that the man in black kept trying to cough out his lungs.

Crowley looked at the man and seemed intent on trying to reach him, but he never moved forward. He just glared.

No gun, no knife. Not even a rock. I only had one arm to use, so I just pushed through the snow until I finally flopped onto the road I did my best to catch myself with my one decent arm, but the other one, the useless one, flapped around a bit, and every movement made me want to vomit or pass out or both.

I couldn’t tell you how I managed to get to my feet. All I know is that I went for the SS officer and I slammed into him with all my mass. He was thin and feverish and coughing his fool head off until he was almost purple in the face and his eyes were bulging.

I wouldn’t say I hit him all that hard, but it was enough. Down he went into the snow near the last remaining tank and he let go of his knife to catch himself.  He let out a scream and coughed again and I reached down with my one good hand and grabbed his little knife and held it in my hand.

And while he was still coughing, I backed up.

And then Crowley smiled again.

By the time I’d made ten paces back, Crowley was on him. He hauled the coughing man off the ground by his jacket and screamed questions at him in German.

The man laughed and coughed at the same time, shaking his head. I don’t think he could respond in any other way. I thought then and I think now that he was already dying from whatever sickness he’d taken into his body.

Crowley might well have shaken the wreck to death, but then the red thing came back.