by Evan Currie
Nelson scowled as he tried to juggle all the explosives along with his Colt, finally getting it stashed in his gear. “All right. Remember, run and gun.”
“We got it, we got it,” Keyz grumbled. “I wish they’d hurry it up — I’m feeling bare-assed here without my kit.”
At precisely that moment, it seemed, the figures above them began to move.
“Oh, you just had to say it!” Mack snarled.
“Light ’em up!” Nelson ordered when the first of the figures stepped down over the lip of the bank. “And move your butts!”
* * *
The roar of the Heckler and Koch carbines tore Judith’s world apart, her own weapon stuttering back into her shoulder. She could feel herself being pushed along by the men behind her. Shadowy figures were stumbling down the bank toward them, some tumbling as the rain of bullets from the team’s weapons tore through them.
They were running now, and she had to run near as fast as she could manage because if she slowed for even an instant, she knew that one of the men behind her would literally pick her up by the back of her vest and carry her until she met the pace again.
It was humiliating, and there was no chance in hell she’d give them the satisfaction of seeing her fail.
So she ran.
“Blow through them!” Nelson ordered from over her shoulder. “Don’t stop!”
They honed their fire on the figures in front of them, but soon something very bad became very clear.
“They’re not going down fast enough!” Mack growled.
Judith could see that he was right. While some were indeed falling, it was clear that many were taking two, three, even more rounds from the 7.62-millimeter 417s before going down, if they went down at all.
“I think I see why the boss and the master chief carried those damned Beowulfs!” Derek growled.
This is why he requisitioned all those massive-caliber weapons? she wondered, unable to believe it. How could he know? Nothing takes this much to kill! nothing.
“We should have picked out a few for ourselves,” Mack snapped. “Never seen anything a battle rifle couldn’t put down for good.”
The others commiserated with him — even after all that they’d seen, they still hadn’t believed that trading up to the monster Beowulf rifles would be worth the loss in ammo. Place your shots right and everything went down. Sure, stopping power mattered, but a line had to be drawn somewhere, right?
Judith wasn’t a handgun kind of person, so it wasn’t a question she could answer. She’d come up through the ranks in the blue-water navy, then transferred off her last ship to do some time in administration before putting her name in for a command of her own. She preferred her guns to be measured in centimeters, not millimeters.
I’d love to drop a TOT barrage on these fucks!
Yep, a time-on-target strike from a destroyer group would certainly be just what the doctor ordered, she decided as she ran.
“We’re losing our window!” Derek Hayes yelled.
“Go! Go! Go!” Nelson shouted. “I’ve got this! Just run!”
“Are you fucking kidding?” Mack snapped. “They’ll eat you alive!”
“That was an order, SEAL! Move!” Nelson snarled. “Get yourselves and the captain to the cutter! I’ve got you covered! Go!”
Turner and Hayes exchanged a glance, a subtle signal passing between them, and then they bodily picked up the flagging captain by her arms, breaking into a flat sprint across the slush-ridden beach. Robbie Keyz was close on their trail, his 417 still roaring into the night as he burned through the last of his rounds.
Judith kicked at the ground as they went, vocally informing the men that she could move on her own, and if they knew what was good for them, they’d put her down. Neither of them listened, so after a moment she slackened, not wanting to endanger them all, and just watched the scene unfold.
Nelson slowed down as he palmed the first of the six fragmentation grenades that were now in his possession, his own three having been added to the little pack of wonders handed to him by Keyz. He jerked the pin clear, holding the spoon down until he chose his target. There was a certain vindictiveness to his actions when he fastballed the baseball-sized explosive right between the eyes of his target, dropping both the grenade and the target to the ground right in the middle of a decent-sized group.
When it went off, it tore the small group apart. The beings were murky shadows, and the best glimpse Judith got of them was in the brief flash of the grenade going off, as it threw the human-shaped figures to the ground with a hammer blow punctuated by a thousand tiny knives.
Her heart stopped in her chest when three of those figures struggled back to their feet and continued to close on the lieutenant.
She wanted to order him to run — it was clear now that he wasn’t just fighting a rear-guard action — but two things stopped her from saying anything. First, she knew deep down that he wasn’t going to obey, and then, more frightening to her, was the fact that she couldn’t seem to make her voice work at that moment.
Deep down, Judith wondered if it was because she didn’t have the guts to face the fate for which the lieutenant was clearly readying himself.
His 1911 roared twice, dropping two of the closest figures in their tracks, and another explosion tore through the ghoulish mob’s ranks while she watched desperately over her shoulder. It was getting more and more difficult to make out the lieutenant from the rest of the shadowy bodies that were closing in on him.
Just before the darkness swallowed them all, Judith watched while the figure she believed to be the lieutenant’s was tackled and dragged down by the mob surrounding him. As bodies crouched down over him, another explosion lit the space up just in time for her to see one of the beings yank its head back, a flash of liquid red spraying the shoreline as she heard, or thought she heard, a yell of pain.…But then even that was gone as she turned her head away and closed her eyes.
When she opened them again, they were on the causeway with the Beaufort on one side of them and the lagoon on the other.
“They’re not following,” Petty Officer Turner said as he and Hayes set her down. “I don’t know why, but they’re not following.”
Her voice croaked when she spoke. “We have to get to the Coast Guard cutter.”
“Hoorah, ma’am.”
* * *
Lieutenant Jack Nelson had always expected to go out in just this way, especially since he’d crossed that damned line between reality and myth that those in the know called the veil. He knew that monsters existed, and if he had to go out at all, dying in battle against beings that had haunted people’s nightmares for centuries wasn’t a horrible way to go.
That didn’t mean he intended to go quietly into the night.
When he was finally swarmed and tackled, he managed to shoot one of them in the head with his 1911, dropping it hard. The next hit him and drove him to the ground, tearing a grunt from his throat as he wrapped his hands around the thing’s throat. Even as he squeezed with all his strength, it just kept snapping its teeth at him, right up until a crackling pop sounded in the thing’s neck. It went limp the moment he popped its spinal column, slumping on him like a sack of wet sand, yet even then it kept snapping its jaws.
He called it a “thing” and “it,” because while it may once have been a person, Nelson couldn’t see a hint of humanity in it. The poor bastard’s eyes were fogged with the mist of death, and the stench of rot came off it just as strongly as if he’d walked into the scene of a firefight a day later.
He heaved it clear of him so that its damned jaws couldn’t get at him, but while he was focused on that task, another three of the bastards swarmed him. One locked onto his shoulder, the strength of its jaws crushing bone, but thankfully not penetrating his BDUs and vest. He got his fist around the back of the second one’s head and managed to score a clump of hair that was holding strong, but the third one unfortunately went for his upper arm.
Nelson couldn’t st
ifle his scream and, frankly, didn’t see the point. He let it out, his voice rising over the eerie voiceless groaning and scratching of the things that surrounded him. He used his voice to power his motion as he twisted away from the jaws that were locked on his arm. He felt the vampire, if that was what it was, fall away, but a rush of warmth down his arm told him that it had come at a cost.
He kept rolling, coming over onto his back in the cold water of the Beaufort, one of the bastard’s scalps still gripped tightly in his fist.
“Time to say bye-bye,” he hissed through clenched teeth, his free hand gripping Robbie Keyz’s little “gift.” He slapped it onto the side of the thing’s head, the material laced with plastic explosives wrapping around its skull, the Velcro catching as it slapped closed.
Nelson braced his feet between himself and the vampire and heaved with all his strength as he yanked the trigger catch on the explosive.
The vampire flew back, a dim red light blinking to life as it pitched into a group of its comrades. The shadowy figures were bowled over like ten pins by the force of the impact. Nelson struggled to his feet, turning as he slogged through the cold water of the northern sea. He didn’t know how big the boom was going to be, but knowing Keyz’s reputation, he didn’t want to be too close.
The impromptu headband that he’d wrapped around the skull of his last attacker detonated as it was struggling back to its feet. The ball bearings Keyz had embedded in the plastic exploded inward, turning its skull to paste before exiting the other side and continuing on its warpath through everything around it.
As Nelson tried to slog farther away, he felt a crushing blow land on the back of his right calf. He pitched forward into the lapping waves of the Beaufort as the darkness finally reached out and swallowed him.
CHAPTER 12
“Son of a bitch.”
Masters didn’t have anything to add to Rankin’s statement as he looked around the interior of the C-130 aircraft. Bodies lined up like cordwood. If the blood trails were any indication, someone had taken the time to drag them on board the plane before closing up the hatches and leaving them to rot.
Or not, as the case may be.
“Alex.”
“On it.” Norton nodded, drawing a blade from his hip as he moved to the closest body to check the injuries.
“Watch the door, Eddie,” Masters ordered. “I’m going to check the radio.”
“Got it,” Rankin said, pushing his Beowulf around on its straps so that it was hanging behind his back. He picked up one of the many M4 carbines lying around and went over to stand by the plane hatch, where he could look out over the airfield.
Masters made his way to the front of the plane, grimacing as he stepped over bloodied bodies on his way to the communications post. He removed the body of the guardsman that was still sitting there, lowering it to the ground relatively gently as he slipped into the chair, purposefully ignoring the bloodstains.
The radio was on the National Guard’s channel, so he flipped it over to a secure navy channel instead.
“Navy SOCOM, this is Thirteen,” he said, using the agreed-upon codename. “I say again, Thirteen.”
“Thirteen, your transmission is not encrypted. Please correct.”
Masters rolled his eyes but pulled out a navy encrypt unit from a pouch on his vest and connected it to the radio. “Encrypted, SOCOM.”
“Confirmed. What is your status?”
“Site is confirmed hot,” he said. “I say again, site is hot.”
“Do you need backup?”
“I need to be in Florida, on a nice beach, away from all this insanity,” Masters muttered, “but that’s not going to happen, and backup would never arrive in time.”
“What are you advising, Thirteen?”
“Hold until I make contact again,” Masters said. “If I don’t…advise air strike.”
There was a long silence from the SOCOM side of the conversation.
“Say again, Thirteen.”
“Air strike. I say again, an air strike is my primary advice.”
Another long pause went by before anyone spoke.
“Thirteen, Admiral Karson demands to know what your secondary advice is.”
“My secondary advice,” Masters hesitated, “is to do nothing.”
“Say again?”
“I say again, do nothing,” Masters said. “Wait for a cold snap to move in and freeze this whole damned place solid. Don’t send anyone up here until then. Thirteen out.”
“Thirteen! Thirteen, come back! Thirteen!”
Masters pulled the encryption module and shut the radio off. He headed back to join the others, his eyes catching Norton’s as the man stood still in the middle of the plane, doing nothing.
“Alex?”
“This whole damned plane is going to crawl in maybe two hours,” he said. “Probably less. A whole lot less.”
Masters felt a chill. “How much less?”
“I’d like to suggest we move now.…”
“That soon, huh?” Masters went for the armory lockers and grabbed every box of twelve-gauge they had, tossing them into an available duffel. “You armed, Eddie?”
“All they’ve got are these old M4s,” Rankin complained, “but I’m packing, and I’ve got mags to spare. Just so you know, we’ve got movement headed this way.”
“Alex?” Masters glanced over at Norton.
“There’s nothing here for me.”
“All right, let’s get moving.” Masters nodded as he kicked open another locker and pulled out several canvas satchels. He pulled strips out of each, tossing them around the bay of the aircraft. “I do believe we’ve outstayed our welcome here.”
“We have now,” Rankin said dryly as he eyed the pile of satchels.
The three beat a hasty retreat from the Hercules, hitting the ground running in the opposite direction, heading south as the figures approaching them went straight for the C-130. The trio didn’t look back — they hung left, heading southwest.
Behind them, shadowy figures gathered around the Hercules. Some entered it; others milled about. They all vanished in a ball of flame when the satchel charges Masters had tossed around the interior went off and several thousand gallons of jet fuel went up with them.
* * *
Slogging through the Alaskan wilderness in temperatures that were barely above freezing reminded Masters of SERE training in more ways than one, but he thanked every favor he’d ever been granted that this time he was only being hunted by zombies, vampires, or whatever the hell these things were.
Better those things than a group of SEAL trainers.
He doubted he’d be able to lose SEAL trainers, especially given the lack of cover they had at their disposal.
“I think we lost them,” said Rankin, who had been watching their back trail. He paused, eyeing the look on Masters’s face with confusion. “Why are you grinning like a loon?”
“Just thinking about how happy I am that we’re being chased by zombies and not Master Chief Brunnig and his team.”
“They’re not zombies, damn it!”
Both men ignored Norton as he ranted about vampires, zombies, and Hollywood.
“Yeah, tell me about it. Brunnig would already have nailed us out here — we’ve got shit for cover, and there’d be no way to evade his team in this tundra bullshit,” Rankin said.
“No, he’d play with us before he caught us.”
Rankin scowled. “He would, wouldn’t he?”
“If you two are quite done.” Norton rolled his eyes. “We need to get to shelter before we freeze to death.”
The other two laughed.
“We’re not going to freeze to death out here, Alex,” Masters said. “Not unless it gets a whole helluva lot colder than this.”
“Uh huh. Well, I want a hot cup of tea, and unless I’ve missed my guess,” Norton said, nodding to the east, “the water is boiling in that direction.”
“You heard the man,” Masters said as he got up and got
himself pointed in the right direction. “Onward, for tea and country, right?”
“You don’t have to make it sound so British, boss.” Rankin grinned as he too got moving. “Makes me feel dirty, you know?”
“Idiots,” Norton said, ignoring their chuckles as he started to move.
The trio headed east of town, away from the burning airfield and crawling streets of Barrow.
“So,” Rankin said as they walked, “what are these ass-hat dudes like anyway?”
Norton shot him a glare, and then smiled nastily. “The Asatru have a great sense of humor, so be sure you tell them that joke.”
* * *
“That’s a lodge?” Rankin asked as he looked down over the slight hill to the waterfront building they were now approaching.
If not for the lights visible through the slotted windows on the side of the building, they would have missed it in the eternal twilight. The building conformed to the environment — with its sod roof, it looked like just another hill rising out of the tundra. The only thing that gave it away, aside from the light in the windows, were the two towers rising from either side.
“It’s a modern-day Viking longhouse,” Norton said as they approached.
“Who are these people?”
“The Asatru…” Norton hesitated for a moment. “Look, the best way I can describe them for now is that they’re kind of like bikers.”
“Excuse me?” Masters shot him an odd look.
“Most bikers are lawyers, doctors, and respectable professionals, right?” Norton asked rhetorically before going on. “Well, so are most of the Asatru. But it’s the one-percenters who really matter, for our purposes.”
“And the one-percenters here?” Masters asked, understanding.
In the motorcycle community, the one percent were more popularly known as the outlaw bikers. Gang members, smugglers, and generally the bad sort. He was hoping that Norton hadn’t led them into anything like that.
“They’re members of the community.”
Ah. That could be useful, Masters had to admit.
“Follow my lead,” Norton ordered as they got closer. “Don’t piss them off, Eddie.”