Gunz

by William Stacey

  "Go, go, go!" Clara yelled.

  The MRAP went right through the fire, trailing flames over the windshield then grinding and bumping over the rough ground as it sped into the trees.

  "Brakes are gone!" the driver yelled.

  A single large tree rushed at the windshield.

  As the MRAP struck the tree, Elizabeth flew forward again, this time smashing her shoulder against something. Bright lights danced in her vision.

  "We're on fire!" someone yelled.

  Panic gripped her.

  "Get out! Get out!" Clara screamed.

  Once again, Clara grabbed Elizabeth and picked her up and dragged her to the rear of the vehicle. The rear door was open, revealing fires burning wildly behind them. The heat and smoke seared her lungs, but when Elizabeth tried to scurry back inside the vehicle, Clara shoved her through the open hatch to fall onto the ground behind the MRAP. She dragged herself to her knees and scurried away toward the nearby trees, pausing only to see Clara and the others throwing rifles and small backpacks—bug-out bags with emergency supplies and ammo—onto the ground behind the open hatch. Clara came out last, an M-72 LAW anti-tank missile tube under her arm.

  "What are you doing?" Elizabeth screamed. "Hurry!"

  When she heard the dragon roar, a bone-chilling shriek that froze her limbs, she looked up to see it circling around again. Behind them, the entire base burned, the fires reflecting orange on the surface of the lake-like reservoir.

  "Get into the woods, Liz!" Clara screamed as she extended the LAW into its firing position and placed it atop her shoulder.

  "Clara, no!" Elizabeth shrieked, staring in horror as Clara set her stance wide and faced off against the oncoming dragon as it banked to come about again.

  "Get her out of here!" Clara yelled.

  Two of the soldiers began firing their rifles at the dragon. The gunner grabbed Elizabeth's arm and dragged her away. She screamed and tried to pull free, but the soldier tightened his grip and dragged her into the woods. She stumbled and fell, tears running down her face, and he let go of her, thrusting a rifle and one of the bug-out bags into her hands.

  "Get into the woods," he ordered. "Hide."

  He turned and ran back, leaving her alone. She knelt there, hiding behind a tree, clutching both the bag and rifle against her chest. The dragon was almost on the others. A bright flash lit up the night as Clara's missile flew into the air. Her aim was true, and the missile struck the dragon in the center of its red-and-gold chest, exploding in a bright flash and thick black smoke. The dragon flew through the smoke without even slowing. It opened its serpentine jaws and breathed blue fire onto Clara and the others, leaving nothing in its wake but an inferno of flames as it swept overhead.

  Elizabeth screamed and bolted into the woods.

  10

  At 5:27 a.m. when the first call came over the radio reporting a home fire in the small community of Charlie Lake, about five kilometers northwest of Fort St. John, Constable Corinna Trotter had already finished her shift and was on her way back to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police detachment building. This early in the morning, there were only two other on-duty patrol cars in the small city, and both immediately responded to the call, announcing they were heading north along the Alaskan Highway and would be on site to assist the fire rescue division in minutes. Corinna activated her siren and lights, did a U-turn, and sped northwest to assist. On duty or not, there was no way she wasn't going to help.

  This early in the morning, there were few vehicles on the highway, and those pulled over to let her pass. The sun was rising, but shadows still stretched across the landscape. Within minutes, she heard the sirens of one of the city's fire trucks reacting to the call. Summer fires were always a concern this far north, where forest fires could jump highways and threaten entire communities. Sarah, the RCMP dispatcher, came back on the air, announcing three more fires—all in Charlie Lake.

  "Hot damn," muttered Corinna, her concern spiking. Three fires? Did a gas line go up? This early, most people will still be in bed, asleep.

  Charlie Lake, the actual lake, not the community named for it, was thirteen kilometers long and provided all of the drinking water for the city of Fort St. John, and while a home fire wouldn't put that water supply at risk, a large-enough forest fire might. She heard multiple sirens behind her now and saw flashing lights in her rearview mirror. The entire Fort St. John's Fire Rescue Service must have been reacting. No doubt, the off-duty fire fighters and volunteers would be getting calls right now. Shit, shit, shit, this can't be good.

  She sped up, driving at an unsafe speed, but she was already out of the city's limits, with few vehicles on the highway, minutes from Charlie Lake. Sarah's now-panicked voice came over the radio again. "All units, all units, multiple gunshots in the vicinity of Charlie Lake. Residents are calling in about … about animal attacks."

  Corinna's fear spiked, and she had to wrench the steering wheel before she ran off the road. A year ago, Corinna had been the first officer on the scene at another "animal attack"—a giant eight-legged dragon-like creature that had been attacking a school bus filled with children. And although Corinna had saved the children that day by driving the bus to safety, a fellow officer and friend as well as two volunteer firefighters had been killed, devoured by the monster the press had dubbed the "Basilisk." The creature had somehow escaped—despite the fact it was as large as an elephant—and days later attacked the Fort St. John hospital, killing dozens more before disappearing again. Corinna had seen a confidential coroner's report stating that the skin of some of the dead had been … petrified, literally turned to stone. Since then, the media as well as dozens of big-game hunters and scientists had trailed the monster, all in vain. It hadn't been seen in the year since.

  Please, God, not that thing again.

  Just ahead, at the intersection of the Alaskan highway and Road 271, she saw the flashing lights of the two on-duty patrol vehicles that had responded first. Both police cars blocked the two northbound lanes to Charlie Lake, which was still about a kilometer farther down the forested road. Thick plumes of black smoke rose into the air from Charlie Lake. Given the reports of gunfire and animal attacks, the two constables had clearly decided to set up a roadblock rather then enter the community, which was little more than cottages, an RV park, and local sporting businesses. That must have been a hard choice, she mused, to wait for backup. But it was also the new protocol following last year's basilisk attack on the hospital. Then the responding officers had rushed onto the scene armed with nothing more than their service pistols. The basilisk had killed all four of them. Now, the new standard operating instructions for strange animal attacks called for a cordon and the use of high-powered weapons.

  On the left side of the highway was a large industrial park containing a trucking and welding business, deserted at this hour. Her tires squealed as she stomped on the brakes, coming to a stop behind the other patrol cars. The two constables—John Babcock, a heavyset, balding, middle-aged RCMP veteran, and Tommy Lew, a thirty-year-old Asian-Canadian marathon runner—stood behind the engine blocks of their vehicles, each holding a long weapon. John carried a heavy Remington 870 twelve-gauge shotgun that would put down an elephant, while Tommy cradled a Colt Canada C-8 carbine, a Canadian variant of the US Army's venerable M-16 rifle.

  Corinna jumped out of her vehicle and ran to the trunk to get her own carbine. Despite her nerves, her training kicked in, and she entered the code to her trunk then opened it and unzipped the duffel bag containing her weapon and pre-loaded magazines of thirty-round 5.56 ammunition, twelve magazines in total. Enough to fight a war. She stuffed her vest and pockets with magazines then inserted one into her carbine, chambering a round before joining Tommy and John.

  She leaned against the hood of a patrol car, holding her rifle in both hands as she stared down the highway ahead of them. "What do we know?"

  John, the senior officer present, was in charge. "Nothing," he said, a tremor in his voice. "We only just
got here. Pulled over when we heard animal attacks on the radio."

  Tommy glanced at her, his face pale and sweating. "Do you think …"

  "I don't know," she said. "This is how it started last year, an animal attack."

  "We heard shots just before you got here," said John. "Sounded like hunting rifles, big caliber."

  "Oh, balls," she said softly when they heard more gunshots shattering the dawn calm. "This feels bad."

  This was the north, hunters' paradise, especially near Charlie Lake. Most of the cottages would contain a rifle of some type—large-caliber gun sales had skyrocketed following the basilisk attacks. A volley of gunshots rolled over them from Charlie Lake—too many.

  "Do we … do we go in?" Tommy asked. "We should help, right?"

  "We can't," said Corinna.

  "We hold the highway," said John. "That's all we can do until the others get here. We go in heavy or not at all."

  "Goddamn it," said Tommy. "We're supposed to help people."

  "We stay put," said John simply.

  Corinna stared down the sights of her weapon, which trembled in her hands. Get a grip, Corinna. Be professional.

  The two other RCMP officers had chosen a good site to block the highway. From here, open fields to their front on either side of the Alaskan Highway provided a clear field of fire. If this were the basilisk again, they'd have ample warning and an unobstructed field of fire on it.

  When she heard an animal screech above them, her blood ran cold. When she scanned the sky, there was nothing there.

  "You guys heard that, too… right?" asked Tommy.

  Then they heard howling, like wolves, coming from the woods in the direction of Charlie Lake. Smoke poured over the trees.

  "Vehicles!" snapped Tommy. "Civilian vehicles."

  Two vehicles raced toward them, fleeing Charlie Lake, an old yellow pickup truck and a small blue SUV.

  "Hold fire!" John yelled. "They're filled with people."

  The pickup truck screeched to a halt as it came alongside the RCMP vehicles, swerving around them in the other lane. The SUV swept around the pickup truck and kept going in the direction of Fort St. John. At least eight people, most in their underwear, filled the bed of the pickup truck, all of them terrified, especially a pair of children--a boy and a girl of toddler age. A man in his seventies lay with his head in the lap of one of the women in the bed of the truck, a deep gash in his chest. Dark arterial blood spurted from the wound. The driver of the truck, a bearded man in a white T-shirt and underwear, leaned out his window. "They're killing people. Eating people!"

  "Who is? Tell us what's going on!" John said.

  "Monsters. Monsters everywhere! Fire-breathing devil dogs and other … things."

  Corinna ran to the truck's bed and pointed to the wounded man. "You have to put pressure on the wound," she told the woman, "or he'll bleed out."

  The woman who held the man's head simply stared at her, her lips trembling.

  "We need to give him first aid," Corinna said to the driver. "Pull over."

  "Hell with that," the man said. He stepped on the gas, and the truck roared away, swerving to avoid the first of the fire trucks pulling up behind the police vehicles.

  "Something's coming!" Tommy screamed.

  Corinna spun about and stared down the highway. A pack of wolflike creatures appeared, running in a group down the highway, at least a half dozen of them. The fires were spreading, and the thick black smoke obscured the dogs but did nothing to stop them. They were coming fast, Corinna realized, too fast for any dog she had ever seen.

  "Open fire!" John yelled.

  Tommy began firing his carbine, taking individual aimed shots that shattered the dawn. Shell casings flew through the morning air. Corinna leaned atop the hood of the vehicle, aiming through her iron sights, putting them on the mass of now-running doglike creatures. They were still hundreds of meters away, but since they were bunched together in a pack, she didn't think she'd miss. She opened fire as well, forcing herself to breathe, to take aimed shots. In moments, her ears were ringing from the gunfire. John, with his shorter-range shotgun, waited as Tommy and Corinna fired round after round. Her weapon clicked on empty twice before she realized she needed to reload. Four of the beasts were down, either dead or wounded, but two were still coming, now less than a hundred meters away and closing fast. She fumbled to eject her spent magazine and load another, jumping in surprise as John's shotgun thundered from nearby, startling her so badly she dropped the magazine she had been trying to load. The last of the animals, as large as a small pony and trailing flames from its jaws, had now closed to within twenty feet and was coming straight for her. She still had the patrol car between her and it, but a creature that large could jump over it.

  Too fast! It's too fast.

  She dropped the empty carbine onto the patrol car's hood, pulled her service automatic from her holster, and began firing round after round, as fast as she could. The creature, an obscene cross between a wolf and a hyena, slid forward, collapsing onto its belly just on the other side of the car. John shot it with his Remington, shredding its head. Her pistol's action was all the way to the rear, empty. She had fired her entire clip.

  Gun smoke and the acrid stench of blood wafted through the air, but the morning was silent again. All the monsters were down. She holstered her pistol, retrieved her carbine, and loaded a new magazine into it. "Oh my God," she whispered to herself and to the other two police officers. "What's going on?" Her ears were still ringing, and she could barely hear herself. Dozens of spent casings lay on the asphalt behind them.

  They had fought a battle here.

  John chambered another slug in his shotgun, moved around the side of the patrol car, and shot another of the dying creatures, finishing it off. The firefighters, piling out of their vehicles, stood behind the three RCMP officers, staring in wide-eyed disbelief at the carnage on the highway.

  "There." Tommy pointed with the barrel of his carbine at the woods across the field. "People coming out of the woods."

  She stared, not quite sure of what she was looking at. Someone was moving out of the smoky woods, but she wasn't sure they were … people. Even from this far away, something looked wrong about them. They kept coming. Dozens—no, hundreds—of shapes moved through the smoke, coming out of the woods and forming a long line, massing in ranks. "Jesus, it's an army," she whispered.

  "Those … those aren't ... What are those things?" asked Tommy.

  As they began to move forward in ranks, she could see them more clearly. Their heads were too large, bulbous, with dish-shaped, fishlike eyes, and they had four arms—two oversized ones, like gorillas, and two much smaller arms growing out of their torsos, reminding her of the tiny arms on dinosaurs. They wore medieval armor, leather and chain-mail shirts, and black spiked helmets, and carried swords, axes, and long spears. Towering over them was a horned monstrosity, walking upright like a man but easily twice the size of a bull. The creature screamed in animal rage, brandishing a massive double-bladed ax above it with both monstrously large hands.

  Troll, her feverish mind whispered. It's a real troll!

  "What the hell…" muttered John, shaking his head in disbelief. "Aliens?"

  More of the fire-breathing wolf-dog creatures ran out ahead of the strange warriors, while others darted out into the field to their left, threatening to come around the side of the police officers. And still more of the four-armed warriors stepped out of the woods in what seemed like a never-ending force. John stared at them then at the firefighters behind Corinna.

  She looked at him, her panic welling. "What do we…"

  He took her carbine from her trembling fingers and handed her his shotgun. "Give me whatever mags you have, Corinna—fast! Then get out of here." He faced the firefighters. "The rest of you, get going! There's nothing you can do here."

  She handed him her magazines. "But I can't just leave. What—"

  He threw the magazines onto the car's trunk then spun her
about and shoved her toward her patrol vehicle. "I'm not brave, Corinna. I'm not. But I am old fashioned. Go warn the others."

  "John…" She stood frozen as he moved next to Tommy.

  "Go on, Corinna," he said, turning away and leaning over the vehicle, aiming down the sights of the carbine.

  Tommy, terror in his eyes, looked at the advancing alien warriors, Corinna, then John. "I … What do we…"

  "Been a pleasure, Tommy," John said.

  Tommy gasped, nearly panting, and nodded. He took aim himself.

  "John!" Corinna repeated, her voice shrill.

  He ignored her and began firing. Tommy opened up as well. At this range, with the enemy in massed ranks, each shot hit one of the four-armed warriors. But as they fell, others stepped in and took their place. The early-morning sunlight glinted from the tips of their spears as they marched closer. The wolf-dogs dashed forward again, impossibly fast, flames coming from their open jaws.

  "What do we do?" one of the firefighters asked her.

  She choked back a sob, wiping her forearm across her eyes. "Get the hell out of here, now! If you've weapons at home, go get them. We'll make a stand at the northwest edge of town, near the Costco, and hold them as long as we can."

  As the firefighters scrambled back into their trucks, Corinna threw herself inside her patrol car, put it into reverse, and backed up, turning about. Her gaze darted to John and Tommy, their backs to her, firing their weapons, then she stepped on the gas. Her tires screeched as she sped after the departing fire trucks.

  She died a little bit on the inside.

  She keyed her radio. "Sarah, patch me through to the detachment commander. Then get on the phone with the province. We're going to need help."

  "Acknowledged," Sarah answered. "How much help?"

  "All of it. This isn't like the basilisk attack. It's an invasion!"

  As she sped down the highway, the gunfire abruptly ceased.

  11