Free Descendant by Graham Masterton

proved that the
strigoi
did exist (like, I had never knowingly
met
one) but I had a wealth of anecdotal evidence that they
might
. I ended up my paper by saying “on balance, it appears highly likely that the
strigoi
did once haunt the remoter regions of Transylvania and Wallachia, and a few may do so even today.”
    And I was right. Which was why Lieutenant Colonel Bulsover and Major Harvey came knocking at my door to tell me that the joke was on me.

My Training
    I flew to Washington, DC, on August 11th, 1943. It was the first time I had ever flown, and I saw mountains with scatterings of snow on them and fields of wheat that seemed to stretch forever, with cloud shadows moving over them slow and lazy, as if whales were swimming through the sky. Somewhere I still have the blue American Airways timetable with “Buy More War Bonds!” printed on the front.
    I was met at Washington National Airport by a skeletally thin man in a flappy gray double-breasted suit and tiny dark glasses. He raised his hat to me and asked me to call him Mr. Corogeanu. He drove me to a large ivy-covered house on the outskirts of Rockville and it was there, during the next three months, that I was given my basic training in
strigoi
hunting.
    Since I already knew a whole lot more about the
strigoi
than almost anybody else, what they were really giving me was military training. I was taught to fire a gun, and to read a map, and to climb over a ten-foot wall. I was also introduced to a laconic animal-trainer with no front teeth who had been specially recruited from Barnum & Bailey’s Circus. He gave me daily instruction in wieldinga bullwhip, which is a darn sight more difficult than it looks. I spent whole afternoons lashing my own calves until they looked like corned beef.
    Meantime, the
strigoi
-hunting Kit was gradually being assembled, mostly according to the details I had provided in my college paper, although it was Mr. Corogeanu who suggested the black and white paint. According to him,
strigoi
are repelled by the sight of a dog with an extra pair of eyes painted above its real eyes.
    It was during my training sessions that we started calling the
strigoi
“Screechers.” The word
strigoi
comes from the Romanian word
striga
meaning “witch,” and this in turn comes from the Latin cognate
strega
, which has its origins in
strix
, the word for a screech owl. Besides that, my side-arms instructor always used to say, “If you want to immobilize those creatures, you have to hit ’em dead center,” and the way he slurred his words always made it sound like “tho’ Screechers.”
    I wish I knew where they acquired the nails from the crucifixion. I asked Lieutenant Colonel Bulsover several times but he always refused to tell me. All he said was, “It was a case of you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.” I always wondered if this meant that—in return for these priceless relics—the United States had agreed to support the creation of an independent State of Israel, but maybe I was reading too much into it.
    Six weeks before D-Day, I was introduced to Corporal Little and Frank, so that Frank could get used to my smell and Corporal Little could be briefed on what he was supposed to be doing. Three weeks before D-Day, we were embarked from New York on the USS
New Hampshire
to sail to England. We were taken over to Normandy a weekafter the first landings on Omaha Beach. We were all seasick, even Frank. The rest I’ve already told you.
    Except that it didn’t end there. Nothing ends, when you get yourself involved with the
strigoi
. The
strigoi
are immortal, and their sense of grievance is immortal. That’s why, when two US Army officers drew up outside my house in New Milford, Connecticut, in July 1957, I almost felt a sense of relief, because I had always known in my heart of hearts that this was coming.

New Milford, 1957
    My wife Louise answered the door. The two officers stood on the veranda with their caps tucked under their arms,