Snow!

   If anyone fancies a short coffee-break horror tale set in a snowbound trailer, here's a short story I wrote a few years back.  It got short-listed in a competition, but didn't win a prize in the end.  It's always been a favourite of mine, though.  Kind of inspired by the work of Stephen King and Annie Proulx. 

Hope you like!

*strong language (censored)*

*horror*

WINTERKILL

             The five of them used to meet at Abe Yance’s on Friday nights - in his old double-wide, pitched in the turn-around lot up top of the Seager Mountain Road.  Sometimes they’d still be there Sunday, depending on how well things were going.  George Traymon, Herm Childress and Corn Greet would drive the six miles up from Witcherd in Herm’s truck - shotgun up on a rack in back.  Tom Wolff, who lived on the other side of the mountain in Copake, always hiked it, taking the trail through the forest and around the south shore of Telescope Lake.  From there, he could drop down on Yance’s trailer from the back, mostly arriving just ahead of the others - seeing Herm’s headlights winding up through the trees across the other side of the valley like fireflies.  Close enough for Tom to have shot out the lights with his rifle if he’d a mind to, but still over a mile as the road turned.

          When they'd shucked off their jackets and boots and settled down with their beers, Yance would get out the cards and the session would begin.  House limit twenty dollars a head, using beer caps as chips at a quarter a piece.  Low stakes games.  But it was never so much about the cards anyway.  It was more about the five of them being there together, widowers and divorcees all - bar Tom, who'd always lived alone.  It was about the beer, too, and the smokes.  And Yance’s old battery wireless set in the background, tuned low to Midge Wheeler’s Night Line on WNEZ. 

          During the games, they wouldn't say much.  Just grunts and cusses about the run of the cards.  Sometimes a joke.  Afterwards, though, settling back in their chairs around the stove, with the beer doing its stuff, they’d let things run.  Older men’s talk, mainly – excepting Tom again, who wasn’t yet forty.  He'd less in common with the others in most ways.  They had a history he didn't share.  Their service days.  Vietnam.  They didn't go into it much, and Tom had more sense than to draw them on it.  He saw the look in their eyes sometimes, if the subject came up.  That war had taken his own father, and they knew that, too.  Maybe that was what drew them together.  The thing they acknowledged, but didn't discuss. 

            Mostly they stuck to the common stuff.  Local things.  The doings in town.  The prices crops were fetching.  Old hunting yarns.  The b*****d weather, if it had been a b*****d, and it usually had – too hot, too cold, too wet.  Too cold as it was that particular Friday, Abe saying how they’d forecast more snow for the weekend, Herm saying how he’d seen the clouds banking up in the north earlier, felt the twinge in his shrapnel wound.  It wasn’t far off.

          They sat and thought on that.  Six solid months of it.  Snow chains.  Trapped animals.  S**t everywhere.  And getting harder with each passing year.  George twisted up a piece of newspaper and poked it into the stove, then used it to light his cob pipe.  He blew out the smoke in a chuckle.

          “Rosie Nouds said her Stevie’s seed that sasquatch thing again, whatever it is.”

          Yance grunted.

          “Where to this time?”

          “Wanderin’ in the forest, he reckoned.”  His eyes creased with merriment.  “Up back of a certain lady’s, shall we say, rooming establishment.”

          Cackles of laughter bounced between the trailer’s tobacco-browned walls.  Corn washed a cough away with a round mouthful of whiskey.

          “Maybe it’s figured on tryin’ to get itself a nice piece of warm ol’ human a s s.”

          “Ol' bein’ the right word there, Corn,” said George.  “Way Stevie tells it, I shouldn’t guess even them ones is wide enough to ‘ccommodate whatever that thing’s packin’ between its hairy thighs.”

          Herm grabbed the bottle and poured a couple of fingers in his glass.  "That Stevie Nouds got a big enough a s s for it himself.  It's where his brain is.  He'll be on about friggin' space-ships next."

          They laughed again.  All except Tom.  Herm passed the bottle to him and he poured a shot and threw it back.  He'd been quiet all night.  He usually was - but more so.

          "Spill it, Tom," said Abe.  "Something been buggin' you from the get-go."

          Tom popped a Lucky between his lips and clicked his lighter to it.  He puffed for a moment as the others watched him.  The radio crackled and faded.  Abe slammed his hand down on it and it came back.  Johnny Cash was singing The Beast In Me, nice and low.

          "Funny, what you was sayin'.  I laughed myself when I first heard what ol' Stevie said he saw."  He puffed again, thoughtfully.  "But somethin' ain't right down in them woods, you know."

          The radio faded out again.  This time, Abe left it.

          "How'd you mean?" said Corn.

          Tom picked up his beer bottle and held it in front of him, staring down the neck like it was the barrel of a gun.

          "I was down in there yesterday, checking the trap lines for bobcats.  Found a couple, too.  Something else found 'em first, though.  Didn't leave much behind.  Just bits of fur an' blood."

          George put another twist of paper to his pipe.

          "Could've been a bear.  Even seen a lynx make a breakfast mess of a bobcat."

          Tom nodded.

          "That's true, it could've been.  Probably was."  He took a long swig of beer, emptying the bottle before putting it down.  "Thing is... comin' up here earlier, I found a bear in pretty much the same shape.  Enough damage around to see he'd put up some struggle.  Maybe he did some damage of his own, 'cuz there was a fair bit of him left.  Three-hunnerd pounder, I'd reckon.  Black one.  Not too long dead, neither."

          The others sat forward.  The lamplight glinted off Herm's spectacles.

          "Where was this?"

          "Just off the edge of the lake trail, 'bout two miles away."

          Abe's face straightened.

          "That's the darndest thing.  Thought I heard something off that direction earlier while I was out front sawing wood.  Just caught the end of it as the blade stopped.  Like a wolf, but... kinda gruffer.  Like some roar trailin' off in the distance."

          Corn took his cheroot from his mouth and picked tobacco from his lip.

          "So... what are we startin' to say here, boys?  Stevie Nouds may not be as dumb as the hog-s**t he seems?"

          "Sayin' nothin', Corn, 'cept what I seed myself," said Tom.  "Don't know much around these parts can make a meal of a healthy bear that size." 

          "You ain't seen me when I'm real drunk," George chuckled.  He was alone in that, though.

          Tom dropped his cigarette end in his empty bottle, where it sizzled like a bug on a fire. 

          Whether or not they all had something to add to the matter, nothing was said.  They just sat for a few moments, listening to the wind whistle around the stove pipe up top, thinking their thoughts, feeling the smoke and juice in their heads, sensing the rock of the trailer on its pilings - more than it was earlier with the wind getting up, but still not above the vibration you'd feel in a slow-moving train.

          Just then, the radio came back - loud - and they all jumped together.  Except Tom again.

          "What's up, fellahs?  Somethin' spooked y'all?" he said.

          Abe snorted something up the back of his nose, then hawked and spat in his handkerchief.  He checked it, then screwed it up and pushed it back in his pocket.

          "I'm thinking it's time for another bottle," he said.  "This conversation's 'bout run its course for me."

          He got up and went to the cupboard over the sink.  The fresh pint of Red Eye he took from it did the trick.

          "Who fancies the 'Coons for the Bowl next season?" said Corn.

          With that, all thought of bear-killing monsters passed by.

*

          Tom was the only one awake when the first sound came.  The floor was hard under his sleeping bag, and he couldn't get comfortable. The others' snoring and farting hadn't helped.  But something had been troubling his mind, and he hadn't settled down as quickly as they had.  He hadn't had so much to drink, either.  The room was dimly lit by the orange glow from the stove - enough for Tom to see their outlines.  Corn and George were both slumped in armchairs.  Herm was laid out along the couch, covered in gunny sacks.  Abe must've made it to his own bed.  No one else was stirring, leastways.  Tom sat up and looked at his watch.  A quarter of four.  A fierce wind had been howling for a couple of hours, but that wasn't what had made the sound.  A howl was what it was, though - just not like one he'd ever heard before, except in late-night movies.

          He still had his clothes on, so he slipped out of the bag and felt his way over to the window.  Lifting the blind a nitch, he peeked out on the next surprise: Abe left an outside security light on all night, and by its yellow gleam Tom could see snow.  A heap of it, and still coming down in thick flakes.  The turn-around was a carpet of white, and Herm's truck was a wedding cake - up to the wheel nuts already, like the tires were flat.  The nimbus of light was just wide enough to catch the rim of lodgepoles edging the mountain road.  Their trunks were etched black above the scree like giant legs.

          And there, between them... something moved.  It was too distant to make anything out for definite - just a dark shape, passing across the gaps.  Tom cupped his hands around his eyes and fixed on the place for a few moments, waiting.  But it was still now.  Just the snow, falling faster and thicker. 

          Herm mumbled something in his sleep, and the couch springs squeaked as he shifted his weight.  Then all was quiet again.  Tom began to think he'd imagined that movement out there - a combination of tiredness, the falling flakes, the drink.  And the images of that dead bear, which wouldn't shift.  He'd seen what they hadn't.  And he'd been trying to figure what might have been big and strong enough - ferocious enough - to do that damage.  A larger bear was all he could think of.  A brown, it had to be.  And a big b*****d.  Bigger than one he'd seen in those parts.  It might explain the Stevie Nouds story - though, dumb as he was, even Stevie knew a bear when he saw it.  And when he'd first mentioned it, a few weeks ago - over too many suds in The Winding Post Tavern - Tom saw the look in his eye.  He remembered that look.  It was another thing he wouldn't forget.

          He gave it a couple more minutes, then dropped the blind and went back to his corner.  He'd no sooner crawled back inside the bag, though, when the howl came again.  Louder now.  He couldn't tell from which direction, but could pretty much guess.  Long and deep - like Abe had said; like a wolf, but with a rougher, growling tone.  Not like a bear, either - leastways, no bear he'd ever heard.  Something between them.  Whatever it was, it turned him cold - colder than the bag was going to thaw.  He knew there was no chance of sleep now.  This was something that needed dealing with.  He got up again and crept out to the utility room.  He felt for his boots and hunting jacket and got into them.  He clamped his beaver cap down over his head and pulled up his hood.  Then he took up his rifle.  The snow billowed in like a burst pillow when he opened the trailer door, but the light was good enough to see by.  He pulled the door shut behind him again and shouldered his way into the lowering night.

 *

            Abe had been drifting along in sleep for a while, but was finally pulled out by the dream.  The whiskey usually stilled his mind, but tonight something was working in there.  The old stuff, coming on as it always did.  Shadowy images at first - strange dark shapes moving around, like wings flapping in the night.  Bats, maybe - their eyes lit as if by glowing coals inside their heads.  The eyes getting closer, becoming those of men - faceless in the darkness.  The sense was there, as always, that they were coming for him - that they would find him wherever he chose to hide.  He tried to turn away from them, but they were everywhere, encircling him and closing in.  He could hear them - the strange, nonsensical chatter.  And then - the thing that finally woke him - the cry.

            He sat upright.  The sound had seemed real enough, though he could never be sure in dreams.   He listened.  The wind rushing in the trees like a fast-moving river.  The faint ticking of the clock.  Other than that, the darkness was still and silent.  Like it was back then. The nights of waiting, when the least sound - a branch snapping - could be anything at all.

            He was taking a p**s in the can by the bed when the shots rang out.  Two of them in quick succession, then a few short seconds before two more.  The p**s streamed over the floor as he grabbed at the window blind, almost ripping it down.  It was snowing heavily, but he could make out a footprint trail leading over towards the trees - flickering in the background like shadows on a badly-tuned old TV set.  Some movement over there, maybe - he couldn't be sure.  Another shot sounded off - more muffled, like it was fired under a pile of sacks. 

            And then came the scream.  The most god-awful sound, like a hog having its guts ripped out.  It was there in Abe's head again, in a flash.  1968.  Huế.  The Tet Offensive.  The things he'd seen and heard.  The things he'd hoped he'd never see and hear again.  He knew then that this was no hog at the slaughter.

          "Sweet mother of mercy!"

          He pulled his jeans on and stumbled through into the other room.  The other three were awake now, too, gathered around the window.  He flicked on the light.

          "Kill it, Abe, fer Chrissakes!" George cried, waving his arm out.  "Forget yerself already?"

          Before he did, Abe noticed Tom's sleeping bag, rumpled up in its corner like an empty skin.

          "Is that Tom out there?  Was that him?"

          The others turned and looked, too.  Abe saw enough in their eyes to know the truth.  He threw the switch.  Then he joined them by the window, and the three of them peered into the scrim of night.

          "See anything?"

          "Nope.  No eyes in the gaps.  Just that s**t ever'where," said Corn. 

          Just that.  The trees were now engulfed by it - like millions of insects, swarming.  The truck, picked out by the light, was beginning to look like a gun nest already.

          "My shotgun's in there," said Herm.  "Gonna head on out and get that."

            Abe laid a hand firmly on his shoulder.

            "You stay right where you are.  No sense in taking any more risks."

            He saw the whites of their eyes as they looked up at him.  He guessed they saw his, too.  And maybe what was in them.  He felt his way around the table and over to the stove.

            "I've got something can maybe take care of this little platoon.  Close that blind again, Corn."

            Abe struck a match and lit a gas lantern.  Then he took a key from a hook by the door and used it to unlock the tall cupboard in the corner.  He took out the rifles one at a time and laid them down on the couch, ready.  There were magazines, too.  And boxes of cartridges. 

            Herm picked up one of the rifles. 

            "Oh Jeez, fellahs...  Look-it this here."

            An M16, service issue.  Fully-automatic.  ACOG optics.  Herm checked the switches, put it to his shoulder, eye at the sight, felt the resistance of the trigger against his finger.  Even in the dim light, he knew it.  It fitted like a glove.  Like it was yesterday.

            "Sonofabitch, you beauty!"

            There were two others, plus an M14, plus two M1911 pistols.  Corn and George joined in - like boys who'd woken to find their Christmas presents.  Like men who'd been given their orders.  Finally, Abe took out his own rifle and showed them.  A 416 Remington Magnum.  400 grain shot.  George's mouth dropped open. 

            "Christ, Abe.  Blow the a s s out an elephant with that sucker!"

            "Sounds like I may need to."

            They picked their weapons each, ran the checks, loaded up, released the catches.  Then they stood together, eyes gleaming in the light. 

          "Just like the old days eh, boys?" said Herm.

          Abe pulled a salute.  The others did the same. 

          "God bless the glorious Eight-Fifty-Seventh," said Abe.

          "Amen!" said all four.

          They slapped palms together in turn.

          Then Corn put out the lamp again and they took their positions.

          They turned their eyes back to the clamouring night. 

          They waited for whatever was in those trees, coming for them.

END

   If anyone fancies a short coffee-break horror tale set in a snowbound trailer, here's a short story I wrote a few years back.  It got short-listed in a competition, but didn't win a prize in the end.  It's always been a favourite of mine, though.  Kind of inspired by the work of Stephen King and Annie Proulx. 

Hope you like!

*strong language (censored)*

*horror*

WINTERKILL

             The five of them used to meet at Abe Yance’s on Friday nights - in his old double-wide, pitched in the turn-around lot up top of the Seager Mountain Road.  Sometimes they’d still be there Sunday, depending on how well things were going.  George Traymon, Herm Childress and Corn Greet would drive the six miles up from Witcherd in Herm’s truck - shotgun up on a rack in back.  Tom Wolff, who lived on the other side of the mountain in Copake, always hiked it, taking the trail through the forest and around the south shore of Telescope Lake.  From there, he could drop down on Yance’s trailer from the back, mostly arriving just ahead of the others - seeing Herm’s headlights winding up through the trees across the other side of the valley like fireflies.  Close enough for Tom to have shot out the lights with his rifle if he’d a mind to, but still over a mile as the road turned.

          When they'd shucked off their jackets and boots and settled down with their beers, Yance would get out the cards and the session would begin.  House limit twenty dollars a head, using beer caps as chips at a quarter a piece.  Low stakes games.  But it was never so much about the cards anyway.  It was more about the five of them being there together, widowers and divorcees all - bar Tom, who'd always lived alone.  It was about the beer, too, and the smokes.  And Yance’s old battery wireless set in the background, tuned low to Midge Wheeler’s Night Line on WNEZ. 

          During the games, they wouldn't say much.  Just grunts and cusses about the run of the cards.  Sometimes a joke.  Afterwards, though, settling back in their chairs around the stove, with the beer doing its stuff, they’d let things run.  Older men’s talk, mainly – excepting Tom again, who wasn’t yet forty.  He'd less in common with the others in most ways.  They had a history he didn't share.  Their service days.  Vietnam.  They didn't go into it much, and Tom had more sense than to draw them on it.  He saw the look in their eyes sometimes, if the subject came up.  That war had taken his own father, and they knew that, too.  Maybe that was what drew them together.  The thing they acknowledged, but didn't discuss. 

            Mostly they stuck to the common stuff.  Local things.  The doings in town.  The prices crops were fetching.  Old hunting yarns.  The b*****d weather, if it had been a b*****d, and it usually had – too hot, too cold, too wet.  Too cold as it was that particular Friday, Abe saying how they’d forecast more snow for the weekend, Herm saying how he’d seen the clouds banking up in the north earlier, felt the twinge in his shrapnel wound.  It wasn’t far off.

          They sat and thought on that.  Six solid months of it.  Snow chains.  Trapped animals.  S**t everywhere.  And getting harder with each passing year.  George twisted up a piece of newspaper and poked it into the stove, then used it to light his cob pipe.  He blew out the smoke in a chuckle.

          “Rosie Nouds said her Stevie’s seed that sasquatch thing again, whatever it is.”

          Yance grunted.

          “Where to this time?”

          “Wanderin’ in the forest, he reckoned.”  His eyes creased with merriment.  “Up back of a certain lady’s, shall we say, rooming establishment.”

          Cackles of laughter bounced between the trailer’s tobacco-browned walls.  Corn washed a cough away with a round mouthful of whiskey.

          “Maybe it’s figured on tryin’ to get itself a nice piece of warm ol’ human a s s.”

          “Ol' bein’ the right word there, Corn,” said George.  “Way Stevie tells it, I shouldn’t guess even them ones is wide enough to ‘ccommodate whatever that thing’s packin’ between its hairy thighs.”

          Herm grabbed the bottle and poured a couple of fingers in his glass.  "That Stevie Nouds got a big enough a s s for it himself.  It's where his brain is.  He'll be on about friggin' space-ships next."

          They laughed again.  All except Tom.  Herm passed the bottle to him and he poured a shot and threw it back.  He'd been quiet all night.  He usually was - but more so.

          "Spill it, Tom," said Abe.  "Something been buggin' you from the get-go."

          Tom popped a Lucky between his lips and clicked his lighter to it.  He puffed for a moment as the others watched him.  The radio crackled and faded.  Abe slammed his hand down on it and it came back.  Johnny Cash was singing The Beast In Me, nice and low.

          "Funny, what you was sayin'.  I laughed myself when I first heard what ol' Stevie said he saw."  He puffed again, thoughtfully.  "But somethin' ain't right down in them woods, you know."

          The radio faded out again.  This time, Abe left it.

          "How'd you mean?" said Corn.

          Tom picked up his beer bottle and held it in front of him, staring down the neck like it was the barrel of a gun.

          "I was down in there yesterday, checking the trap lines for bobcats.  Found a couple, too.  Something else found 'em first, though.  Didn't leave much behind.  Just bits of fur an' blood."

          George put another twist of paper to his pipe.

          "Could've been a bear.  Even seen a lynx make a breakfast mess of a bobcat."

          Tom nodded.

          "That's true, it could've been.  Probably was."  He took a long swig of beer, emptying the bottle before putting it down.  "Thing is... comin' up here earlier, I found a bear in pretty much the same shape.  Enough damage around to see he'd put up some struggle.  Maybe he did some damage of his own, 'cuz there was a fair bit of him left.  Three-hunnerd pounder, I'd reckon.  Black one.  Not too long dead, neither."

          The others sat forward.  The lamplight glinted off Herm's spectacles.

          "Where was this?"

          "Just off the edge of the lake trail, 'bout two miles away."

          Abe's face straightened.

          "That's the darndest thing.  Thought I heard something off that direction earlier while I was out front sawing wood.  Just caught the end of it as the blade stopped.  Like a wolf, but... kinda gruffer.  Like some roar trailin' off in the distance."

          Corn took his cheroot from his mouth and picked tobacco from his lip.

          "So... what are we startin' to say here, boys?  Stevie Nouds may not be as dumb as the hog-s**t he seems?"

          "Sayin' nothin', Corn, 'cept what I seed myself," said Tom.  "Don't know much around these parts can make a meal of a healthy bear that size." 

          "You ain't seen me when I'm real drunk," George chuckled.  He was alone in that, though.

          Tom dropped his cigarette end in his empty bottle, where it sizzled like a bug on a fire. 

          Whether or not they all had something to add to the matter, nothing was said.  They just sat for a few moments, listening to the wind whistle around the stove pipe up top, thinking their thoughts, feeling the smoke and juice in their heads, sensing the rock of the trailer on its pilings - more than it was earlier with the wind getting up, but still not above the vibration you'd feel in a slow-moving train.

          Just then, the radio came back - loud - and they all jumped together.  Except Tom again.

          "What's up, fellahs?  Somethin' spooked y'all?" he said.

          Abe snorted something up the back of his nose, then hawked and spat in his handkerchief.  He checked it, then screwed it up and pushed it back in his pocket.

          "I'm thinking it's time for another bottle," he said.  "This conversation's 'bout run its course for me."

          He got up and went to the cupboard over the sink.  The fresh pint of Red Eye he took from it did the trick.

          "Who fancies the 'Coons for the Bowl next season?" said Corn.

          With that, all thought of bear-killing monsters passed by.

*

          Tom was the only one awake when the first sound came.  The floor was hard under his sleeping bag, and he couldn't get comfortable. The others' snoring and farting hadn't helped.  But something had been troubling his mind, and he hadn't settled down as quickly as they had.  He hadn't had so much to drink, either.  The room was dimly lit by the orange glow from the stove - enough for Tom to see their outlines.  Corn and George were both slumped in armchairs.  Herm was laid out along the couch, covered in gunny sacks.  Abe must've made it to his own bed.  No one else was stirring, leastways.  Tom sat up and looked at his watch.  A quarter of four.  A fierce wind had been howling for a couple of hours, but that wasn't what had made the sound.  A howl was what it was, though - just not like one he'd ever heard before, except in late-night movies.

          He still had his clothes on, so he slipped out of the bag and felt his way over to the window.  Lifting the blind a nitch, he peeked out on the next surprise: Abe left an outside security light on all night, and by its yellow gleam Tom could see snow.  A heap of it, and still coming down in thick flakes.  The turn-around was a carpet of white, and Herm's truck was a wedding cake - up to the wheel nuts already, like the tires were flat.  The nimbus of light was just wide enough to catch the rim of lodgepoles edging the mountain road.  Their trunks were etched black above the scree like giant legs.

          And there, between them... something moved.  It was too distant to make anything out for definite - just a dark shape, passing across the gaps.  Tom cupped his hands around his eyes and fixed on the place for a few moments, waiting.  But it was still now.  Just the snow, falling faster and thicker. 

          Herm mumbled something in his sleep, and the couch springs squeaked as he shifted his weight.  Then all was quiet again.  Tom began to think he'd imagined that movement out there - a combination of tiredness, the falling flakes, the drink.  And the images of that dead bear, which wouldn't shift.  He'd seen what they hadn't.  And he'd been trying to figure what might have been big and strong enough - ferocious enough - to do that damage.  A larger bear was all he could think of.  A brown, it had to be.  And a big b*****d.  Bigger than one he'd seen in those parts.  It might explain the Stevie Nouds story - though, dumb as he was, even Stevie knew a bear when he saw it.  And when he'd first mentioned it, a few weeks ago - over too many suds in The Winding Post Tavern - Tom saw the look in his eye.  He remembered that look.  It was another thing he wouldn't forget.

          He gave it a couple more minutes, then dropped the blind and went back to his corner.  He'd no sooner crawled back inside the bag, though, when the howl came again.  Louder now.  He couldn't tell from which direction, but could pretty much guess.  Long and deep - like Abe had said; like a wolf, but with a rougher, growling tone.  Not like a bear, either - leastways, no bear he'd ever heard.  Something between them.  Whatever it was, it turned him cold - colder than the bag was going to thaw.  He knew there was no chance of sleep now.  This was something that needed dealing with.  He got up again and crept out to the utility room.  He felt for his boots and hunting jacket and got into them.  He clamped his beaver cap down over his head and pulled up his hood.  Then he took up his rifle.  The snow billowed in like a burst pillow when he opened the trailer door, but the light was good enough to see by.  He pulled the door shut behind him again and shouldered his way into the lowering night.

 *

            Abe had been drifting along in sleep for a while, but was finally pulled out by the dream.  The whiskey usually stilled his mind, but tonight something was working in there.  The old stuff, coming on as it always did.  Shadowy images at first - strange dark shapes moving around, like wings flapping in the night.  Bats, maybe - their eyes lit as if by glowing coals inside their heads.  The eyes getting closer, becoming those of men - faceless in the darkness.  The sense was there, as always, that they were coming for him - that they would find him wherever he chose to hide.  He tried to turn away from them, but they were everywhere, encircling him and closing in.  He could hear them - the strange, nonsensical chatter.  And then - the thing that finally woke him - the cry.

            He sat upright.  The sound had seemed real enough, though he could never be sure in dreams.   He listened.  The wind rushing in the trees like a fast-moving river.  The faint ticking of the clock.  Other than that, the darkness was still and silent.  Like it was back then. The nights of waiting, when the least sound - a branch snapping - could be anything at all.

            He was taking a p**s in the can by the bed when the shots rang out.  Two of them in quick succession, then a few short seconds before two more.  The p**s streamed over the floor as he grabbed at the window blind, almost ripping it down.  It was snowing heavily, but he could make out a footprint trail leading over towards the trees - flickering in the background like shadows on a badly-tuned old TV set.  Some movement over there, maybe - he couldn't be sure.  Another shot sounded off - more muffled, like it was fired under a pile of sacks. 

            And then came the scream.  The most god-awful sound, like a hog having its guts ripped out.  It was there in Abe's head again, in a flash.  1968.  Huế.  The Tet Offensive.  The things he'd seen and heard.  The things he'd hoped he'd never see and hear again.  He knew then that this was no hog at the slaughter.

          "Sweet mother of mercy!"

          He pulled his jeans on and stumbled through into the other room.  The other three were awake now, too, gathered around the window.  He flicked on the light.

          "Kill it, Abe, fer Chrissakes!" George cried, waving his arm out.  "Forget yerself already?"

          Before he did, Abe noticed Tom's sleeping bag, rumpled up in its corner like an empty skin.

          "Is that Tom out there?  Was that him?"

          The others turned and looked, too.  Abe saw enough in their eyes to know the truth.  He threw the switch.  Then he joined them by the window, and the three of them peered into the scrim of night.

          "See anything?"

          "Nope.  No eyes in the gaps.  Just that s**t ever'where," said Corn. 

          Just that.  The trees were now engulfed by it - like millions of insects, swarming.  The truck, picked out by the light, was beginning to look like a gun nest already.

          "My shotgun's in there," said Herm.  "Gonna head on out and get that."

            Abe laid a hand firmly on his shoulder.

            "You stay right where you are.  No sense in taking any more risks."

            He saw the whites of their eyes as they looked up at him.  He guessed they saw his, too.  And maybe what was in them.  He felt his way around the table and over to the stove.

            "I've got something can maybe take care of this little platoon.  Close that blind again, Corn."

            Abe struck a match and lit a gas lantern.  Then he took a key from a hook by the door and used it to unlock the tall cupboard in the corner.  He took out the rifles one at a time and laid them down on the couch, ready.  There were magazines, too.  And boxes of cartridges. 

            Herm picked up one of the rifles. 

            "Oh Jeez, fellahs...  Look-it this here."

            An M16, service issue.  Fully-automatic.  ACOG optics.  Herm checked the switches, put it to his shoulder, eye at the sight, felt the resistance of the trigger against his finger.  Even in the dim light, he knew it.  It fitted like a glove.  Like it was yesterday.

            "Sonofabitch, you beauty!"

            There were two others, plus an M14, plus two M1911 pistols.  Corn and George joined in - like boys who'd woken to find their Christmas presents.  Like men who'd been given their orders.  Finally, Abe took out his own rifle and showed them.  A 416 Remington Magnum.  400 grain shot.  George's mouth dropped open. 

            "Christ, Abe.  Blow the a s s out an elephant with that sucker!"

            "Sounds like I may need to."

            They picked their weapons each, ran the checks, loaded up, released the catches.  Then they stood together, eyes gleaming in the light. 

          "Just like the old days eh, boys?" said Herm.

          Abe pulled a salute.  The others did the same. 

          "God bless the glorious Eight-Fifty-Seventh," said Abe.

          "Amen!" said all four.

          They slapped palms together in turn.

          Then Corn put out the lamp again and they took their positions.

          They turned their eyes back to the clamouring night. 

          They waited for whatever was in those trees, coming for them.

END