Descendant

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 wielding a 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 week after 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.