So here's the thing about Lucas: He was an amazing sharpshooter. He was in the Swiss Alps fighting against the Axis during WWII. Just ran around in overalls and light shoes like a hillbilly. Sometimes just barefoot. He was nuts, like untouchable. But he came from a really poor family, they had no dental care, so he ended up losing all of his teeth before he was drafted into the military. And since his family was poor, he couldn't afford proper dentures, he could only get these really awkward looking, oversized ones that could easily have been repurposed fake teeth they use for comedy shows. The dentures fit so poorly and they were so uncomfortable, he would mostly only wear them when he needed to eat. Anyway...
So like I said, Lucas was stationed in the Swiss Alps, and there was a little village he would pass through now and again on purpose, just so he could catch a glimpse of the dairy farmer's daughter- Helga, Olga, or something. I always forget. But she was beautiful, he would always say. Although after he turned about 38 I think it was, he could never go on to describe her without getting really nasty and filthy about it. I mean, you know me, but he'd make me cringe with some of the things he'd say. I guess being cooped up in that nursing home and all the rules they had made him go a little nutty that way. He didn't want to be there, but he couldn't do anything about it. Also maybe it was the stroke. That made him be like that.
But I digress.
The farmer's daughter we were saying- let's call her Elke- Lucas loved her. But because of his teeth, and despite the numerous times he'd literally saved the entire village, she wanted nothing to do with him. Technically, you couldn't blame her too much for it, as he was not so easy to look at. But still... At any rate, Lucas was telling me how this one time, while he was patrolling, an SS officer happened through this part of the WOOD, terrified, screaming, and waving his hands in the air, begging for help. Normally, he would have just shot someone like that right off the bat because, Nazis. But this guy was not acting right, so he wanted to know what the fuck. So he laid low and let him run right in. He could see the officer was definitely torn to pieces and he had blood in a bunch of places which made him curioser. When the guy got to where he was hiding, he popped out and knocked the guy into the ground with his rifle butt. Staying low, he said, Lucas jumped on top and held the officer's mouth closed, all in case it was a ruse. The officer tried to keep quiet, Lucas said he was definitely a pro, but was so scared and hysterical he started to cry. Even got to pissing himself.
The guy did get himself together enough to make complete sentences though. And was quiet enough so Lucas let him up, thinking that by the pissing, it probably wasn't a trick. Cowering behind the tree, the guy explains in halting english how his camp was attacked by an animal. Something he had never seen before: like if a bear was stretched long. And it made blood-curdling crying noises, like howling. The officer started to babble and cry again and so Lucas shot him. I told him that was pretty cold-blooded, but he said he didn't have the patience for that shit from people like that and that I should shut the fuck up about shit I don't know and let him finish his story.
So he went on to tell me how as he went through the guy's pockets, he was thinking that he had no idea what the fucking kraut was talking about, since there were no bears or anything like that where they were. He would know, he said, since he was out wandering around all the time and would have seen something like that by now. So he left the corpse where it was to get back to patrol and forgot about it.
The rest of the trip, he says, wasn't worth mentioning. But on the return trip, he said, was different. It was late, and getting cold. He was out of the schnapps he had snatched from one of the farmers while they were sleeping; and on top of this, he was getting hungry. Whenever he got like that, he'd say, he'd start thinking down. Like he was depressed. Lucas did always say how the quality of his thinking was right on line with the feeling of his belly and his belly did not feel great. He was in this state, nearing the last stretch of trail, when he got to think about the creature the Nazi was jabbering about. The guy *was* slashed up pretty bad. And just considering it, he'd say to me, it got him a little creeped out and maybe jumpy. Every little sound set him off, he said. The idea of this Thing out there gobbling up a man took up more and more space in his head until he was just about at a full sprint to get back to the tree to inspect the body and make sure of what he saw.
Huffing and puffing, sweating bullets into his itchy thermals, he gets back to the tree finally and nearly convulses. He said it looked like the guy exploded, he says. A big bloody splot with guts all over the place. Now he's really getting freaked out, right? The body was there in one piece, he says, now it's everywhere? He's never seen anything like this before and his empty stomach heaves itself up and out of his mouth, but he gets a hold and swallows it down. He was good at that. Lucas was always about staying on top of himself in the moment no matter what. And he thought he'd let himself get too far in this particular situation, so he put a grip on it. Handy skill that turned out when the war came around, he'd say. Anyhow, there he was getting a hold of himself when he hears shrieking- Elke! He said his feet slipped in the guts when tried to leap up, but he jerked and flailed his body around to stay on top of them so he could make it to the rise towards the trail that led to the village.
As he comes around the bend, he says, the front edge of the village eased into view and Lucas said he could see his wanna-beloved running down the far side of the field towards the main thoroughfare- the same road he was headed to. He saw blood on her so he hit the gas and as he gets closer, he said, and could hear her screaming about the goats or something. But before he got to 50 yards from her, a tremendous roaring/screaming came from down the mountain to his right. He turned to see what it was and out of the brush comes this brown shaggy monster- exactly like the SS guy described. Lucas said how he froze a second, because he thought for sure it was some demon that had come out of the mountainside on account of the weird shit the Nazis were doing in there. But fortunately he didn't stop too much to think about it, because instincts took over, raised his rifle, and BAM (click cluck) BAM (click cluck) BAM (click cluck) and the thing hit the ground. But just for a second.
Whatever is was, he said, HOWLED, like nothing he'd ever heard before, and veered off away and into the woods. Away and never to be heard from again that day.
When he was sure the thing was gone and the perimeter safe, Lucas said he made his way over to Elka who was screaming bloody murder nonstop the entire time. She was screaming so crazy, he said, that she looked like "a plum ready to pop, ok".
He waited until she settled down and Lucas, thinking this was the time- finally- since he'd literally snatched her from the jaws of death this time- made his move to comfort her. But in all the confusion, he forgot that he had been wearing his shitty dentures. So when she came to, and realized gratefully what had happened, she looked up to him and saw the teeth all goofy and sticking out in weird places and suddenly burst into laughter. So did the other few townspeople who happened to gather around at the commotion.
"Fuck those people." he would always say. "Fuck those people. Should have shot them instead."
This is freaking great!
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