The razor-sharp blade whistled through the air and sliced through the robed man’s arm almost severing it from his body. The man let go of Link and quickly withdrew his badly bleeding limb back out of the window.
She swung a second time and almost caught Link’s face when he turned towards her as he fought with the remaining intruder who had jerked backwards at seeing his companion injured.
“HEY!” Link yelled.
“Sorry! MOVE!”
The other robed man had taken advantage of the momentary lapse when Link had turned towards her and was now thrusting a wicked-looking hunting knife towards him. Jamie-Lyn saw this and charged forwards using the staff like a lance, driving the tip into the man’s chest both impaling him and driving him back out into the night.
“Thanks,” Link gasped as he stared at her with respect and a little bit of fear.
“How many are there?” she asked, her voice exhausted as she stared out of the broken window at the momentary break in the action.
“Too bloody many,” he replied, pointing as he spotted multiple white-robed figures emerging from the tree line but for now not marching down the slope towards the building.
She looked him over and saw that he was doing the same to her. They were both covered in numerous cuts and bruises that told a tale of a fight for survival.
“I’m okay,” they both said in unison.
“Help!” Jesus wailed, and they both rushed to his aid as he tumbled backwards with a woman clutching him seemingly in a lover’s embrace.
As they reached him, they saw with disgust that the woman on his chest was biting down deeply into his neck. Link snatched up the heavy copper saucepan that he’d been using and cracked the woman across the back of the head, but she refused to loosen her toothy grip.
“Oh, come on!” Link exclaimed.
Jamie-Lyn snatched the pan out of his hand and hit the woman much harder, her patience having run dry, and this time, when she dropped the woman, she didn’t much care if she was alive or not.
“We need to get out of here,” she said to the others.
“They’re still out there, God knows how many,” Jesus gasped, clutching a hand to his neck to stem the trickle of blood. “Bitch probably gave me sodding rabies!”
“Well we’ve got to do something,” Jamie-Lyn pressed. “We can’t handle another assault like that. Where’s CJ?”
They all turned and looked around the room. All of the windows were broken and there was damage all along the front line showing signs of the struggle to keep the invaders out. The wind was blowing through and chilling them all to the bone now that they were stood still, and the sweat was starting to cool on their bodies.
“There.” Link pointed with disgust.
Jamie-Lyn turned to see CJ cowering under a dining table, his large frame jammed in underneath and out of sight.
“Seriously?” Jamie-Lyn exclaimed as she marched over to him and bent down. “This is where you've been while we’ve been fighting for our lives?” she barked at him, her own mix of emotions making a rage cocktail. “You’re cowering under here? Where’s the hero, huh? Where’s the great bloody superhero when we actually need him?”
“I’m sorry,” he whispered back.
“Sod your apologies. You can stick them right up your bloody arse!”
“My powers failed. I… I don’t know why,” CJ whispered.
“Oh well then, that’s okay.”
“Really?”
“NO, YOU FUCKING COWARD!” she screamed as the stench of death and her own part in it filled her lungs and made her want to puke.
“Take it easy,” Link said as he placed a gentle hand on her shoulder.
“No,” she snapped back, shaking his hand off. “No, I won’t take it easy. He’s just lying under a table like a child?” she raged, the sight of Lilly’s face filling her mind.
“He was scared,” Link said as he tore a strip from a tablecloth.
He fashioned a bandage and wet it with some of the snow that was blowing in through the nonexistent windows before crossing back to Jesus and tying it around his neck wound.
“We’re all bloody scared!” Jamie-Lyn yelled back. “Personally, I’m fucking terrified.”
“I don’t have my powers,” CJ said again.
Jamie-Lyn took a deep breath. “Tell me something, CJ. Do you see anyone in this room with superpowers? You always told me that you wanted to be a hero. Well being a hero is stepping in front of a bullet when you’re not bulletproof.”
“Something’s moving out there,” Jesus shouted as he limped back towards the openings and stared out into the night.
Jamie-Lyn and Link joined him. They all stared out as Crimson ran into view.
“Alright, Crimson!” Link yelled with relief.
“Wait, where’s he going?” Jesus asked as Crimson kept on running past the opening.
They all watched on as the man ran past them, their heads moving from left to right in perfect unison watching him go.
“That son of a bitch,” Link said, shaking his head. “He’s doing a runner!”
“Where’s he going?” Jamie-Lyn asked as they all leaned out to see.
They all watched as Crimson ran past the broken windows, past the front door and to the snowmobiles.
“Oh, come on!” Jamie-Lyn exclaimed. “He’s leaving us? After all this?”
To her shock, there was no sudden sound of a snowmobile firing into life and then being driven away. Instead, there was the sudden sound of him running back towards them.
A dark object was suddenly hurled through the opening and a heavy bag thudded down at their feet before a second one joined it, which was then followed by Crimson himself climbing in.
Link stared down at the weapon bags before bending down and unzipping them as if to check what he was seeing was actually real.
“You came back. Again,” Jamie-Lyn said towards the returnee.
“You thought I wouldn’t?” Crimson asked.
“I for one never doubted you,” Link said earnestly as he withdrew a submachine gun from the bag and checked it over.
“The thought crossed my mind,” Jamie-Lyn admitted.
“Why didn’t you?” Jesus asked.
“Nowhere to go.” Crimson shrugged. “There’s a second wave coming from all sides, a lot more people than the first assault. Looks like a whole bloody town full. At least now…,” he said as he kicked a bag.
“You really think we stand a chance?” Jamie-Lyn asked hopefully.
“Nope, but at least we get to take a whole lot of them with us,” Crimson responded, with a small cold but eager smile.
chapter 36
THE ENEMY OF MY ENEMY IS PROBABLY STILL MY ENEMY
They barricaded the rear of the building again, reinforcing those barriers already erected with as much heavy furniture as they could find.
Once they were all satisfied with their work, they returned to the front of the building and began to stack anything they could find to create a chest-high wall of assorted chairs, tables and lab equipment.
“Some of this stuff looks expensive,” Link observed as he helped to lift a section of metal desk laden with dead LED lights and a multitude of switches.
“Good,” grunted Crimson as he held the other end. “The more it costs, the better it’s made. Now help me with them,” he said as he pointed towards the litter of bodies lying on the inside of the buildings.
“You can’t be serious?” Link replied, aghast.
“Come on, sweetheart. On the battlefield you make use of every resource.”
Together they started to hoist the bodies into the barricade for added protection, albeit a grotesque one.
Once the wall was constructed, an assortment of firepower was handed out and they all crouched against the makeshift barrier aiming over the top of it… everyone except CJ, that was.
The alien had helped, albeit halfheartedly. His powers had still not returned and he now struggled to lift anything heavy. Ev
en the wounded Jesus was offering more assistance.
Crimson now offered CJ a SIG Sauer P226 semiautomatic pistol, but the alien refused.
“Take it,” Crimson pressed, shoving the weapon towards him.
“I abhor firearms.”
“Well you’re not much bloody use without it!”
“CJ, please,” Jamie-Lyn called over from her position as she held a matching weapon. “We need you.”
“I have nothing to offer,” CJ replied morosely.
“That’s not true,” Jamie-Lyn called back.
“It isn’t supposed to be this way,” CJ said quietly. “I’m not supposed to be this way.”
“Oh for Christ’s sake, just take the bloody thing!” Crimson said as he thrust the pistol into CJ’s midriff.
CJ took hold of the pistol distastefully by the barrel with two fingers before he laid it down on the bench next to him.
“I cannot,” CJ said haughtily.
“Then get out of the way,” Crimson snarled, shoving the alien backwards. “If you’re not going to fight, then stand at the back and keep an eye on the rear. You can do that much at least!”
“It’s not that I don’t want to fight, it’s that I can’t. Don’t you understand that? Look at me,” CJ said, holding his hands up.
His hands barely gave off a purple glow now, the green skin only slightly pulsing beneath. Where there was once great power, there was now a child’s night light.
“Who is doing this to me?” CJ asked, to no one in particular as he turned his hands over.
“Does it matter?” Link called out.
“It rather matters to me,” CJ answered.
“Well no offence, big guy, but right now, it’s not a puzzle we can afford the time to solve,” Link replied. “If you’ve still got a finger, then you can pull a trigger, and right now that’s good enough.”
“What are they doing?” Jamie-Lyn asked aloud as she stared out into the darkness.
“Waiting,” Crimson replied.
“For what?”
“For whatever.” Crimson shrugged. “What am I, psychic? How the hell am I supposed to know what they’re doing out there?”
“How many you think?” Link asked.
“Too sodding many,” came the depressing reply.
“Who are they?” Jesus asked. “I mean, they don’t look like SOUL,” he said as he leaned out of the window and stared down at a body.
“Did you hear all that religious stuff that one guy was spouting?” Link asked.
“He was also talking about Erik, Astrid and some other woman I think,” Jamie-Lyn offered.
“Freja,” CJ announced. “He mentioned a Freja.”
“Oh, so you were paying attention,” Crimson sneered. “At least you’re good for something!”
“Well who the hell are they?” Link exclaimed.
“Locals, I think,” Jamie-Lyn replied.
“Why do you say that?” Link asked.
“The girl Lilly, from the motel. She… she was… here,” Jamie-Lyn finished awkwardly as she remembered killing the girl. “She’s over there.” She pointed towards one of the bodies in the wall.
“Locals?” Link exclaimed. “What the hell did we do to any of them?”
All eyes couldn’t help but instinctively turn towards Crimson.
“Hey, don’t look at me,” he said quickly with his hands up. “It’s not my fault. Maybe they just don’t like alien freaks like him,” he said, jabbing a finger towards CJ.
Jamie-Lyn braced herself for CJ’s angry retort but one never came and that was worrying.
CJ had always been the most balanced and level-headed member of the team. She had rarely seen him annoyed, let alone angry. Crimson had always had the super ability of getting under the alien’s skin, but now CJ looked defeated.
She knew that she would never understand just how impotent it must feel to go from the most powerful being on the planet to just another poor helpless face on the front line. But they needed him, powers or not. They were now just five bodies trapped in an arctic wasteland with no hope of rescue and seemingly no chance of survival.
He went back and sat down on the bench, staring down at his hands with a crestfallen expression. She hated seeing him like that, but her sympathy was mixed with anger too.
Jesus was just a man and an injured one at that.
Link may have been a soldier with all the training that came with it, but he was innocent of their war and he had no reason to be in Cynthia’s sights, yet he had chosen to stay and fight.
Crimson, for all of his faults and there were many, had twice returned to them now when he could have easily saved his own neck and slipped away.
And as for her? Well, she was a journalist-turned-news anchor who had been deemed too old for TV. Even back in the day, her weapon of choice had been a press release. She had not been a soldier in the war, and yet here she was with a finger on a trigger and blood on her hands. Yet there CJ stood on the far side of the room, his head bowed and shoulders slumped, unable or, more likely, unwilling to fight.
She tucked the pistol into her waistband and crossed over to him, snatching up the matching weapon from the bench where CJ had laid it down and slammed it hard into his chest.
“Take it,” she snapped.
“I… I can’t.”
“TAKE IT!” she yelled in his face.
“Jamie-Lyn, take it easy,” Link called over.
“Shit on that,” she fired back. “Shit all over that! I’m here, you’re here, Jesus is here. Hell, even he stuck around,” she shouted, jabbing a thumb towards Crimson who smiled and saluted back. “Bull’s dead, so is Marshall and Doc too, and what? CJ doesn’t want to get his precious hands dirty?”
“You don’t understand,” CJ mumbled back.
“No, you’re wrong,” Jamie-Lyn replied in a low voice. “I don’t care. Now take… the… fucking… gun.”
She held it against his chest until he took it. She then pulled out her own matching weapon and demonstrated how to snap the safety off and cock it.
“You point and shoot,” she ordered him. “It’s that simple.”
“Okay.” He breathed slowly. “I can do that.”
“Good. You do as Crimson says. You watch the rear, and anything that comes in, you shoot. Okay?”
CJ nodded slowly and Jamie-Lyn felt a sudden rush of guilt.
“I’m sorry,” she said with her own heavy sigh.
“No, I’m the one that should be saying that. I’m not being of much help now, am I?”
“You’re just scared.”
“Is that what it is?”
“Being scared? Oh yes, my old friend. This is what fear feels like. It’s what we feel all the time.”
“Even Crimson?”
“Well…, it’s what us humans feel. I’m not sure he qualifies,” she joked, and CJ cracked a small smile back. “But we all feel scared. For some of us it’s occasionally; for the rest, it can be all the time. The world is a scary place, CJ, it always has been, and the world that we all chose to live in, well, it’s scarier than the rest.”
“Do you think that they feel scared?” he asked, nodding out into the darkness. “People like them, like Cynthia, do they get scared?”
“Maybe, or maybe they’re just too damn crazy to be scared. It’s what separates us from them, but it means that we’re still human. Having emotions is why we’re different from them, and that’s something that we can’t ever afford to lose.”
“I don’t like it. I don’t like feeling this way.”
“You’re not supposed to,” she said gently. “But that doesn’t mean that you give in.”
“I always wanted to be a hero, you know? Like those comic book stories that I read back when I first arrived. I wanted to be a superman, to fight the good fight, to protect people, to help them.”
“You did. You did all of that, CJ. You saved lives. I was there, I saw you do it.”
“But look at me now. It’s like you said, Ja
mie-Lyn, I was never a real hero. Having powers, being stronger, being indestructible… how is that being brave? How is that being a hero?”
“So be one now, CJ,” she said as she took hold of his arm. “Be one now.”
----------
The small Swedish fishing town of Blasvik had been left almost emptied by the time that the darkness fell. It was as if an invisible signal had been sent out on the winds that made every able-bodied man, woman and child suddenly halt in their tracks and sniff the air before dropping whatever they were doing and start to head home.
Once there, they had all taken their long, hooded white robes from their closets, cupboards or hooks and pulled them on. Weapons were selected from their storage places and carried out into the night.
Some of the more special residents carried the long-handled blades, a weapon of the chosen. Others carried hunting rifles while others selected axes or hatchets along with an assortment of other domestic or outdoor blunt or bladed tools.
When dressed and suitably armed, they had started the long hike out of town in a long trailing single file, trudging through the thick snow. There was no sound from the human caravan, no discussion of where they were going or what they were doing, only the occasional grunt of effort during the tough walk.
Old and young walked on in silence. The only requirement was that they were able-bodied, fit and healthy, and capable of the long walk and the ability to fight.
These were strong-backed men and women, born into the cold and able to survive and thrive in the harshest of conditions.
There had been two signals in total: one to call the first wave, and then a second to call in reinforcements.
Albin and his wife Ebba’s cabin resort on the edge of town fell outside of the signal’s call, but Lilly had been in town that night seeing Torbin, the boy that her parents had forbidden her from seeing, but what teenager ever listened to their parents’ dating advice?
When the signal had called its siren song, both Lilly and Torbin had instantly forgotten about their raging teenage hormones. They’d stood up from his bed, readjusted their open clothing and silently pulled on two hooded robes that Torbin took from his wardrobe.
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