by MacCraw
“Girls, girls; stop bickering”, Kirkley laughed.
“Piss off, man”, Pack scowled.
“Anyhow, why have we stopped?” Connor asked as he took off his crusty, sweaty shirt and applied additional antibiotics to some of his wounds.
“We ran out of gas”, sighed Kylie.
“Look what you did, man”, Kirkley grumbled as he lightly shoved Pack.
“Sorry, Kirkley, but luck ain’t something I have in spades.”
“Alright, boys; this poetic – no offense, Poet – exchange isn’t gonna fill up the car with gas”, Hannah declared. “I vote that we hoof it down the road in search of a gas station, and bring the empty cans with us so we can fill them up and return to the car.”
“Well wait a minute”, Kylie interrupted, “What about our wounded? You think they can make it?”
“Look, with the chopper that we briefly seized destroyed along with the brave man that saved our lives at the cost of his dead, and our primary mode of transportation through deep, dark woodland territory out of fuel, we need to bust our nuts and keep grinding onward”, Hannah insisted. “We’re down on firepower, and we’re going to need to stick together to ensure or at least prolong our survival.”
“But what of the dog soldiers?” Kylie protested.
“Well, look at it like this”, Kirkley stated, “We drove out of Glasgow, and we’ve been on the road for a couple of days. We’ve put a lot of distance between us and them.”
“But they’re still tracking us”, said Kylie. “With the wounds you, Poet, Pack and Connor sustained after bailing from the helicopter, the sharks are going to smell you out and go in for the kill.”
“Look, that’s it”, Hannah huffed as she grabbed her backpack, her satchel and her gun, “The more time we spend quarreling over the matter means the less time it’ll take the dog men to catch up to us. Now I’m going down the road, onward and upward, and you can come with me, or stay here.”
Poet grabbed her gear and chambered her beloved sniper rifle, signifying that she was ready to kick ass along with Hannah. One by one, everybody eventually caved in to Hannah’s strong logic, and within a few minutes the Typhoon had been completely looted; everybody’s gear on their backs, in their hands or on their hips.
“Hasta la vista, sick car”, Kylie sighed as her friends gently tugged her and informed her that it was time to move on.
…
The weather seemed rather cold, even for Scotland. As the six survivors weakly trudged through the brisk highlands, they were chilled to the bone. Their wounds painfully tingled, and their lips felt bloated and cracked. It was a rather agonizing experience for the bulk of the group, who were badly injured and ready to drop to the ground and accept their fates.
“Well, it’s frosty outside”, Kylie chattered as she shivered furiously.
“No sh-sh-sh-shit”, Pack replied as he dragged his legs along with him. “How much worse could this possibly get?”
“When you ask for trouble, do not be surprised when it finds you”, Kirkley commented, before a small white flake landed on his pale cheek. Looking up, Kirkley’s worst fears were concerned: it was snowing.
“Look what you did”, Kylie scoffed, her breath visible in a gigantic puff of warm, exhaled air that conflicted with the icy air of the Scottish wilderness.
“Well that’s just fucking fab”, said Hannah. “Maybe we’ll die of hypothermia before we get anywhere. Honestly, I’d rather be torn apart by the dogs over freezing to death.”
“She’s got some sound logic, but quite frankly I’d rather survive than have to take my pick of the two”, Kirkley added. “Keep moving, and you won’t have to worry about death.”
“C-c-c-can’t we at least build a campfire or something, to warm ourselves up with?” asked Pack as his teeth loudly clattered and clicked.
“We don’t have a proper woodcutting axe or any firewood, so that’s not an option, I’m afraid”, sighed Kirkley.
“So we keep marching onward, through all of this fuckin’ snow?” Hannah questioned.
“I’m afraid so, dear”, Kirkley said as he wiped snow off of her shoulders.
…
“Spotted something ahead; 200 yards”, Kylie announced after an hour of pushing through the fierce snow and subzero temperatures.
“Is it a being or a building?”
“The latter”, said Kylie, “Though it’s pretty small and- wait a second… those look like gas pumps! We did it, guys!”
To Kylie’s surprise, however, nobody cheered; likely because their energy was all but depleted. Still, a few members of the party showed their approval with a shaky thumbs-up.
“Well what are w-w-w-we waiting for?” Connor shivered, “Let’s g-g-g-get the f-f-f-fuck over there!”
600 feet later, the weary and semi-frozen survivors arrived at the gas station, which looked like it had been deserted for many, many years. The windows were stained and cracked, the gas pumps themselves were rusted and stuck in place, and there was snow blanketing the station and the area around it. Still, it was the only viable place to set up camp and get some rest.
“Everybody go inside, and check for any supplies; ideally some firewood”, said Kirkley.
“We gonna go caveman style on this one?” asked Kylie.
“If by caveman you mean the marvelous invention called the lighter, then yes”, Kirkley grinned as he pulled out his lighter and lit up a cigarette.
“Kirkley!” Connor shouted from inside the gas station, “I found some firewood!”
“Fantastic!” Kirkley exclaimed. “Bring out the wood, and we’ll get a little kindling going.”
The campfire was started indoors, but had ample measures taken to reduce the risk of a fire. It provided heat for the weary traveling warriors, and it allowed them to come out of their cold snap and heat up the parts of their body that felt number than the rest.
“Guys, I’m beginning to think that we should probably abandon the Typhoon”, Kirkley suggested.
“Dude, do you have any idea how much effort we put into building this motherfucker?” Kylie protested.
“Look, we nearly died of hypothermia just going to the goddamn gas station, which we didn’t even know was out here, and the pumps are probably frozen solid, so there’s no way to extract the fuel into the cans”, explained Kirkley. “And on top of that, the car’s probably a gigantic hunk of frozen metal that wouldn’t start up even if we put the gas in the tank. Add the possibility that the dog soldiers have probably been closing in on us, and that’s yet another reason why we mustn’t go back for the vehicle. It was a great car. You have no idea how much I hate to desert the vehicle that saved our lives and got our asses out of Glasgow, but I’d rather risk the life of a machine than the life of my friends, and brothers and sisters in arms.”
A low grumbling was heard, and it threw everybody on high alert, since they knew what was making that fear-inducing growl. Everybody nervously crouched down, praying that their canine predators would bypass them and move on towards greener pastures full of corpses. But things got real when the back door suddenly blew open and a dog soldier slowly eased into the room, staring down upon its human prey. Everybody with the exception of Kirkley was transfixed on their towering aggressor, and sitting and lying on the floor made the beast even more intimidating.
“It’s a touching reunion, but now it’s time for a commercial break”, Kirkley smirked as he took aim with his shotgun and fired at a jerry can to the left of the wolf man. Surprisingly enough, the can had some, or at least enough, gasoline left in it to explode in a violent chemical reaction that also burned the wolf’s ankles.
“RUN!” Pack shouted as he and Kirkley provided covering fire for the others. The situation was rather frantic, and nobody had time to pack their sleeping bags. Fortunately they hadn’t really taken much else out, but their sleeping backs were one of the most vital things that made the difference between life and death for a group of voyaging survivors out in the Scottish highl
ands.
Though they were by no means weak and helpless, Connor guided the girls out of the compromised gas station. His determined attitude and his shouting voice provided firm motivation in addition to the motivation of not wishing to be eaten. Poet in particular felt somewhat vulnerable, because close quarters fighting was by no means her strong suit, and the only thing that was keeping her from totally freezing up was Connor’s firm barking and that he was able to keep a cool head despite the immense pressure that everybody was under.
All of a sudden, the anxiety and mayhem was increased with the arrival of the white wolf, the alpha male that had repeatedly harassed Kirkley, Pack, Poet, and Samantha prior to her turn for the worse. He held a personal grudge against Kirkley and his original companions due to the immense agony that the flashbang grenades caused him, and his mind raced at the thought of finally destroying his foes. The white wolf had dropped down in front of Connor, which made things ever more difficult due to the risk of the girls not only hitting Connor in an attempt to shoot his attacker off, but because they had backed through the gas pumps, which essentially turned the gas station into the volatile and dangerous minefield that they had narrowly survived.
Connor snarled viciously as he threw a club swing utilizing every ounce of his might, and the ball of the club hit the nose of the dog, caving it in and causing the creature to angrily roar in pain, its eyes smoldering with rage. As Connor moved in to make another strike, the alpha male dodged his attack and angrily batted the battle club out of the man’s hands. The club landed with a soft plop into the snow, and Connor recognized that he had been disarmed. But he still had another trick up his sleeve.
After punching the wolf soldier in the wishbone, it bought Connor a precious few seconds to whip out his machete, which he angrily thrust into the chest of the creature. As the beast screeched and snarled in agonized fury, Connor attempted to force the blade down from its chest through to its stomach in the hopes of spilling or severing its internal organs, but the tremendously strong hide of the wolf man was far beyond the capabilities of the machete, and it loudly snapped in half. The splintered fragments towards the handle went flying towards Connor, and painfully scraped and scratched his face. The snow ran red with Connor’s blood, and the alpha wolf stood over his prey, continuing to gloat in triumph as he waited to deliver the killing blow.
Meanwhile, Kirkley and Pack had managed to drive out their attacker inside the gas station, and had hastily fled the station and doubled around the wall to rendezvous with the girls and Connor, who they didn’t realize was knocking on death’s door. Turning the corner, Kirkley was horrified to see their good friend and skilled melee combatant at the brink of death, and the two men came dangerously close to squeezing the trigger once they had their weapons trained on the large white alpha male wolf soldier, but at the strong urging of Hannah, who insisted that one wrong shot would detonate the gas station and obliterate all of them, they backed away and lowered their weapons.
Connor was in a horrible state, and it showed. The snow around him was a deathly crimson, as if it were Christmas in the realm of Sat, and thin, but pronounced trails of blood streamed down his scarred face.
“Hannah! Toss me the pistol!” Connor groaned, much to the shock of his friends.
“You trying to be a hero, Connor?!” Hannah shrieked.
“Tryin’ to kill some furballs, Hannah! Toss me the gun!”
With tears in her eyes, Hannah tossed Connor her pistol, which he caught in his hand, and as he took aim at the gas pump closest to the alpha male, Connor used a gun for the first and last time in his life.
The gas station exploded in a massive blast that crumbled the aging structure in a spectacular eruption. At first, it was the pump that Connor shot that detonated, which threw the alpha male against the pump parallel to that one. By means of proximity, the one that the white wolf was thrown against exploded and blew the ferocious monster to smithereens, but with two of its support pillars demolished, the roof of the gas pumps was unbalanced, and came toppling down towards Connor, who had accepted his fate; spending his last moment reflecting the fact that he had sacrificed his life for the lives of his friends. As the front end of the roof pulverized Connor, the rear end put great pressure on the remaining two pumps, and that pressure finally caused the pair of pumps to explode as well. Finally the flames had spread down into the fuel reservoir, and it was the coup de grace of the whole firestorm. A gigantic reservoir beneath the gas station exploded magnificently and completely eradicated the gas station and all of the wolves near it. Kirkley, Hannah, Poet, Pack and Kylie had narrowly managed to escape the titanic explosion, and as pieces of sizzling debris rained down from above them, Hannah began to cry, burying her face in Kirkley’s chest. Kirkley was also saddened, but he stood strong for Hannah, and gently caressed her hair.
“If I thought shit was bad before”, Pack huffed, “Then it’s been completely overridden by this.”
“So that’s just spectacular”, groaned Kirkley. “We lost our strongest warrior… and our dear friend.”
“And we’re next, I’m afraid”, said Kylie. “We have no sleeping bags, so we have nowhere warm to sleep. And on top of that, it’s a goddamn blizzard. And we’re miles and miles away from civilization.”
“Not entirely”, Kirkley replied, holding up the compass. “This little bugger’s been damaged, sure; but through the cracked glass I can still see the green needle pointing north, and the red one pointing south, so we follow the red line until X marks the spot.”
“Let’s get a-marching, while the sun somewhat shines”, Pack announced as he and the others resumed their agonizing march onwards toward London, not realizing that a certain brown-furred wolf soldier was watching them distantly with a look of seething fury in her eyes.
…
It was a very, very long march through a frozen wilderness. With icy hunks of metal in their hands, backpacks burdening them with the essentials of survival, and a sense of unrest following both the demise of Connor and the destruction of the sleeping bags, the five remaining survivors felt as if they were marching straight into Sat’s realm, known to man as “the Preserve”; the name referred to how this form of the afterlife was dedicated to being a game preserve, where the dog soldiers and their master could hunt the trapped souls of the sinful in an endless forest filled with traps and terror.. The strong, snowy winds got to the point where Kirkley couldn’t see his compass any more, and was reduced to a memory of which direction the compass pointed prior to the amplification of the blizzard.
“T-t-t-think the dogs are frozen into wolfsicles?” Pack joked.
“C-c-c-can it, P-P-P-Pack”, Kirkley shivered.
“My t-t-t-teeth are going like an n-n-n-nutcracker!” Kylie moaned as her teeth loudly banged.
“H-h-h-hold on”, Hannah urged as she shook around as though she were doing a strange foreign dance.
A strategically wise survival maneuver made by Kirkley, Pack, Poet, Hannah and Kylie was to stay in the tree line parallel to the road, so they weren’t getting as badly besieged by the subzero winds. That being said, it was still incredibly cold and hard to cope with. Kylie in particular was having an agonizing time dealing with the frosty cyclone due to having been born in the hot, humid Southern United States, and being in the middle of a freak Scottish blizzard was absolute torment for her.
“I c-c-c-can’t see f-f-f-for shit!” exclaimed Hannah.
“Follow the s-s-s-sound of my v-v-v-voice!” Pack shouted back.
“It’s awf-f-f-fully hard to ignore!” Hannah hollered in response.
“My p-p-p-point is that I c-c-c-can’t see-“
“H-H-H-Hannah?” Kirkley nervously asked. “Hannah?!”
“Kirkley, over h-h-h-here!” yelled Pack as he stood over an unconscious Hannah.
“Get her out of the sn-n-n-now; what the fuck are you w-w-w-waiting f-f-f-for?!”
“She’s out cold, man!”
“C-c-c-carry her over your motherf-f-f-fu
cking shoulder!”
“Fine, but you’re getting the f-f-f-fucking Bergen!”
Pack weakly groaned as he slung his MP5 and crouched over to carry Hannah. He wasn’t as weak as she was, prior to Hannah falling unconscious, but for a veteran soldier who had been living off of booze and welfare checks prior to the eternal eclipse of the sun; his strength wasn’t what it used to be. Still, with each comrade dying, his painful memories of Nuwari became more consistent, and his new friends meant just as much to him as the Six-Pack did, so he wasn’t about to let any more of them die. Once he had Hannah over his shoulder, he rejoined Kylie, Poet and Kirkley; all of whom he could scarcely see in the strong snowstorm.
Kirkley was somewhat saddened that he didn’t have the necessary might to carry his woman, but he trusted Pack, and believed in his strength. Kirkley stuck true to his side of the bargain, and strapped Hannah’s pack around his front, giving him the appearance of a heavily pregnant woman.
“W-w-w-when’s it due?” Pack chuckled, only to receive a bird from Kirkley.
…
After many agonizing hours of trudging through snow that went up to their knees, the group got an extremely positive signal of hope – a cottage, with lights on. The sight of such a magnificently fortunate thing tapped into a hidden reserve of energy within each member of the survivor party, and they all rushed towards the house, praying to Su that it wasn’t a mirage or delusional vision of some sort. As soon as Pack clumsily ran into the window and pathetically slid down, it was apparent that this was the real deal.
Following Pack’s embarrassing crash into the window, the owner of the cottage came to investigate, and she was rather surprised at the sight of five frostbitten apocalypse survivors at her window, looking like they were knocking on death’s door. The woman quickly opened the door and urged the weary men and women inside. Once in, the group dropped to the ground with a loud thud. With very little strength left, Kirkley and the others slowly dragged themselves towards the blazing fireplace. Once they had hauled themselves towards the warmth of the fire, they fell into a deep slumber.