When I was done with my brief description he stood and very slowly, carefully, scanned the area around us. He took his time and his eyes got a far off look.
As he looked, Crowley spoke to me. He said, “The world is full of things you don’t want to know about and even more that you never want to see. It always has been and likely always will be.”
“So monsters are real?”
His smile was not a pleasant thing. “Oh, yes, and some of them are even of the inhuman variety.”
I was puzzling that out when the first sounds came to us. They were distant, but not as far away as I would have hoped. Deep, throaty, rumblings came to us. Crowley frowned and I joined him. There are certain noises that stay with you forever, I think. Some of them are natural and some are not. This was a sound that lived in my nightmares for years, decades after the fact. This was the sound of a manmade monster.
There are folks I know who can tell you everything you ever wanted to know about every possible type of armament. There are kids in my neighborhood who, even today, can give you exhaustive details about the sort of fuel used, the number of rounds per second fired, et cetera. Here’s what I can tell you: the Panzer IV tank was a terror to behold.
I can’t quote the dimensions of the great, thundering thing that came at us from down the road. All I can say is that it was larger than life and I wet myself when I saw it. One thing to see a tank go by in the distance, or to stand by one of the vehicles that is on your side in a war. Quite another to have a vehicle like that aiming for you.
There were four of them on the road, dwarfing the road, tearing the shit out of the sides of the road with their vast treads. The ground shook. The air shook. Our bodies shook as the damned things came our way.
I froze. I freely admit that. I took one look at what was coming our way and all thoughts left my head. They shouldn’t have, but they did.
All I wanted to do was hide. In addition to the tanks themselves, there were soldiers. So many, it seemed, that counting them all would be impossible. It was the perception, you understand. There were seven of us, including Crowley. Next to the tanks the soldiers seemed tiny, but they were there and we were grossly outnumbered.
We should have never stayed on the road. Around the same time we heard them, we could see them. More importantly, they could see us.
They did not check our credentials. They did not ask us to surrender. The Germans opened fire and a stream of bullets hit Januski and blew him into shreds.
That was enough to get the rest of us scattering. The tanks were scary as hell, but they also couldn’t turn and run as fast as we could. The weapons on them could do a fair impersonation, however, and they vomited lead and flames at a terrifying rate.
The ground shook. From time to time it exploded. Dirt and fire were everywhere and I had the fortune to manage not getting hit by anything as I ran for all I was worth.
Nunnally was right beside me for part of the trip but he stopped after a hard fifteen yards and turned back to face the enemy. He was swinging his rifle around when they ended him. I saw him drop from the corner of my eye. I also saw his helmet move past me, bouncing and rolling, dented into a new shape and bloodied to boot.
I lived. For a while I thought I was the only one. I tried firing back, and I think I hit at least one of the krauts, but I’d be lying if I said I acted heroically. I ran, because against four tanks and what seemed like an ocean of soldiers, I could think of nothing else to do.
How far did I run? Far enough that my body shook with the exertion and my heart hammered madly against my ribs. Far enough that every breath in the cold, autumn air was a painful stitch in my side. Far enough that the Germans stopped chasing me.
I was huddled in the woods when I finally lost consciousness. I cried myself to sleep.
When the morning came around I was shivering violently in the cold.
I might have stayed in a deep sleep for a while but Crowley woke me with a boot to the side of my helmet. He didn’t kick me. He just gave me a nudge.
I almost screamed when I came to, but the look on his face stopped me.
We didn’t speak for a long time. Instead he simply handed me the dog tags from all of my squad and squatted nearby while I looked them over and considered the situation.
There were no more tears. I’d cried them all out.
“The last tank.” His words startled me. He’d been quiet for so long that I’d almost forgotten he was there.
“What?” I looked at him and sighed. “What about it?”
“It had the same mark we found in the cemetery. That means I’m going after it.”
“There are too many people.” I shook my head. “Too many tanks. You’ll never live through it.”
Crowley sighed. “Rules and regulations. That’s what there are too many of. The rules say I have to be asked for help. I can defend myself, but that’s all. If you ask for my help, I can do more than you might believe.”
“You want me to ask you for help?” Remember how I thought I was done with tears? My eyes gave off that same damned sting again and I shook my head. “What am I supposed to do here? Ask you to kill yourself?”
“Just ask for help. That’s all.”
I looked away from him for a moment and considered his words, wondering what would happen if I did nothing at all.
“Help me find the things they summoned. Help me kill them.”
Crowley’s smile was bright and chilling.
“Let’s go hunting.”
From that moment on my life became a series of exhausting maneuvers. Wherever the ones responsible had gone, they surely traveled by vehicles. We were on foot. I carried what I could, mostly extra ammunition and a few c-rations. Crowley hardly seemed bothered by the weight of what he carried, but I felt like I was sinking in the muck after an afternoon of rain washed the countryside. It was cold and I was miserable and all that mattered to me was not losing sight of Crowley as he moved along, looking at the ground and tracking his enemies even when I saw no indication there were tracks to follow.
We might have talked more, but he was too busy jogging along the roads and occasionally moving through fields.
When we stopped at last to rest I fairly collapsed. I was winded, dehydrated and dizzy.
“Still feeling good about following me?” Crowley’s voice was surprisingly soft.
I shook my head. There were no words left in me right then.
“So, the thing you asked about. How these things can exist.” Crowley shrugged. “There are other worlds all around ours. Most of them don’t know we are there any more than we know they are, but there are exceptions. Think of it like radio waves if that helps. Everything out there moves in its own way, and you, me, everything around us, it all moves the same way. Something moving in a different frequency might see us. We might see it. Hearne the Hunter, and his pack, that is a case where now and again we see something. It bleeds over. Hearne likes to chase down disasters. What he gets out of it I don’t know, but that’s what he does. The thing is, we can only really see him when the disasters are big enough to make him come close. He’s not a cause. He’s a symptom.”
Crowley didn’t look at me while he talked. He opened a C-Ration, looked at the dubious contents and then started eating.
“Thing is, there are ways to make things from other places more in tune to our world. Call it sorcery, because that’s what it is. You call these things and whether or not they want to come, they do. Sometimes the rules are specific and call for a particular demon or monster. Other times they just summon whatever is closest.”