EMP [Collateral Darkness] | Book 4

by Tony Mastrolacasa

  ◆◆◆

  “What was that all about?” Mars asked as he saw Ken close the front door again.

  “Easton said there’s a couple of guys on snow machines up the road.” Ken replied as he started pulling his boots on. “He said they pulled to a stop and shut their engines down. Now they’re just watching the place. Luke and Cam are already out there with him, but I’m thinking maybe I should head out there too. They might be a scouting party for that gang of assholes in the area.”

  “Yeah, I’ve been doing some thinking about that, Ken.” Mars said. “I think Cam might have already met that gang of assholes… Dom too.”

  “What? Shit… the wolves.” Ken said, the thought sending a chill down his spine. “Do they even do that sort of thing? Would they attack a family in their own home?”

  “Hell if I know, but it would explain the shotgun being left behind and the untouched cupboards.” Mars replied. “It also explains why we didn’t find any bodies.”

  “That’s fuckin’ horrible.” Ken said. “Well… I better get out there anyway.”

  “Good.” Mars said. “Just tell the guys to take it easy. I want those snow machines at the very least. Even if only for the gas and oil in them.”

  The moment Ken opened the front door to head outside, he heard the snowmobiles up the road being restarted.

  “Nobody shoots unless I give the order!” Ken shouted as he ran towards the men waiting by the edge of the driveway.

  Mars quickly threw his coat on and jammed on his boots as he watched from the front window. He doubted very much that two snowmobilers would give his guys much trouble, but he would remain dressed and ready at the front door nonetheless. In the unlikely event that his men couldn’t handle the situation on their own, he would step outside and handle it himself. They went down a man yesterday, in the most disturbing way imaginable no less. Mars had no intention of losing anymore of his crew, be it to the local wildlife or the idiot neighbours.

  The men continued to watch as the snowmobilers slowly approached. It was obvious to them all that these two riders had been having a difficult day out on the road. Both of them were covered head to toe in snow. Even their machines were coated in a sticky layer of frozen white powder. When they noticed the AR-15s slung over their backs, they began to realize that these two might not be quite the push overs they were expecting. Before anybody raised a rifle, though, they saw the lead rider reach forward and brush the snow from his windshield.

  Ken smiled and shouted, “Lower your weapons, guys! They’re with us.”

  The sleds came to a stop in front of them, the bright red paint covering Xander’s windshield now obvious to them all. Then the riders both raised their helmet visors revealing smiles of their own.

  “Fuck me… finally!” Xander said. “What’s for dinner, Kenny?”

  “Ha! You don’t want to know.”

  ◆◆◆

  After being informed of their man eating neighbours, Xander ordered them all inside the cottage and insisted that they take shifts watching the perimeter from the windows. Nobody was to set foot outside again until morning and even then they were to do it in pairs and with a gun in their hands. Xander found himself sitting up awake the entire night as well, staring continuously out his own window as he waited nervously for dawn.

  The story that Cam had told him was unsettling, but learning that the wolves had dragged Dom away had sent Xander into a panic. When Cam mentioned that he had seen more than a dozen of them, he knew they were in trouble. The shocking realization that this pack was probably responsible for dragging an entire family out of their own cottage, only cemented his concerns. They were dealing with a rogue pack, one that had not only lost their natural fear of humans, but had actually developed a taste for them. The sooner he got his men out of their hunting grounds, the better.

  Xander was as tough as they come, but even he had his limits. He could handle an armed gang of murderous low lifes without breaking a sweat, but being hunted by a pack of man eating timber wolves was far outside of his comfort zone. He knew what a large number of these animals were capable of, how completely undetectable they could be and it scared the living hell out of him.

  As a child, a chance encounter with a timber wolf had ignited a deep fascination within him. To Xander, the allure was in their incredible intelligence and supreme hunting skills. His research uncovered very little in the way of violent human interactions, but they weren’t entirely uncommon. His interest finally waned when he was old enough to watch some of the more graphic videos and he discovered how vicious the animals could truly be. When he began to uncover accounts of people being attacked and eaten, not far from his home in Sudbury, his infatuation with the ‘Canis lupus lycaon’ quickly ended. He would avoid contact with them at all costs and learn to live with the occasional nightmare those videos would bring.

  The next morning, while Xander, Mars and Tom kept a watchful eye on their surroundings, the others packed their belongings and dwindling food supplies onto the four sleighs. They also poured what little fuel remained in their jerrycans into their sleds’ fuel tanks. Knowing they would be cutting it close, Ken even took the time to syphon the fuel from Dom’s machine. With seven vintage snowmobiles taking turns pulling the sleighs through the deep snow, their fuel tanks would drain quickly. All of them understood that this journey north would be a one way trip unless they replenished their exhausted fuel supplies.

  Finding food was another issue that would soon become desperate, of course. Much like their fuel situation, they would have enough to get them there, but not nearly enough to get them back. When their ‘alternative’ food source was brought up, Xander had made it abundantly clear that wolf meat was literally off the table. If it wasn’t for the fact that they had moved an air tight chest freezer outside to store them in, he would have built a pyre and burned them all to a crisp last night. This morning, however, he had a completely different fate for them in mind, one that might help them slip away without any unwanted canine companionship.

  Before they started their snowmobiles and left, Xander took those three dead wolf carcases out of the freezer and strung them up the nearest tree. He left them dangling securely about a metre and a half from the ground. The wolves could have what remained of their three skinned and gutted pack members, one of which was already roasted and partially eaten. They would have to dedicate some time and energy to the task though. Xander would wisely use that time to get his crew as far away as possible.

  With Xander once again in the lead, they headed north in search of Bray and his crew. If Ken’s guess was correct, they would have at least 40 kilometres to travel before they got to the first moderately built up area around Lake Nipissing. In these conditions the trip would be extremely slow going, but as long as they continued to move out of the wolves’ territory any reasonable amount of speed was acceptable. They just had to keep moving… at all costs.

  Unbeknownst to any of them, every second of their hasty evacuation had be watched from the darkness of the treeline. Remaining absolutely motionless, even the most skillful human eyes would have failed to detect them. Once they saw, heard and smelled the loud men roar away, the long line of wolves stepped out of the trees and looked to their alphas for permission to intercept. Aside from the lingering smells of smoke and of men, a new smell began to waft past their noses, that of the hollowed out remains of their comrades.

  Only this intentional distraction prevented the alphas from bolting into action and leading their pack in the pursuit of another fresh meal. After investigating the tree and looking up, the unexpected offering was immediately accepted, the hunt forfeited. More humans would be along soon enough. They had now learned that food in human form was sometimes preceded by the loud sounds that they had just heard. The next time that sound echoed through their valley again the pack would be ready and waiting.

  ◆◆◆

  “What the hell is going on down there?” Xander asked as he looked out at the small community.<
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  “Damned if I know.” Mars replied. “If I had to guess, I’d say they’re holding a good old fashioned hootenanny.”

  “Sounds more like a shindig to me.” Ken said with a grin.

  “I missed your stupidity, Kenny.” Xander said.

  “You sure those are our trucks out front?” Mars asked.

  “They’ve got to be.” Xander replied. “I mean, there’s a ton of snow on them, but you can tell all three are exactly the same size and shape. You can even see a bit of yellow poking out on that one on the end there.”

  Tom and Cam came jogging back over to them and took a knee. As the youngest and most physically fit of the bunch, Xander hadn’t hesitated to assign them the task of reconnaissance. It was obvious, however, that even they had found the run down the hill to the barn and back challenging. Only the multitude of snowmobile tracks carving everywhere through the ridiculously deep snow made the journey possible on foot. Even following the tracks, though, the snow was deep enough to make the endeavor physically exhausting.

  “Those are our trucks… alright.” Tom said between gasps for air. “I brushed the snow off… one of the hoods… ‘Minecat,’ plain as day.”

  “Okay, good. We’re in the right place then.” Xander said. “Now we just need to find out where the hell Bray and his idiot cousin are.”

  “Any guards around, Cam?” Mars asked.

  “No… none that we saw.” Cam replied, also struggling for breath. “They must all be in that barn… stomping it up to those… banjoes and shit.”

  “Unbelievable.” Mars said. “Over confident sons of bitches.”

  “Good for us, bad for them.” Xander said. “Could you tell how many are in there, Cam?”

  “We couldn’t see inside, no.” Cam replied. “That barn’s made from concrete block… and the only windows are up top by the roofline. Even the doors are solid… Sounds like quite a crowd, though.”

  “Shouldn’t be a problem… if the seven of us rush in… and wave our guns around.” Tom added.

  “My man.” Xander said with a smile. “That’s exactly what we’re gunna do. I count at least eight cottages with smoke coming from their chimneys, so we have to be prepared for incoming reinforcements. Judging by the tracks all over the damn place, the sound of snow machines approaching won’t be anything unusual to them, so we’ll save ourselves the heart attacks and ride down there.”

  “That band is pretty loud.” Ken said. “They won’t hear shit until we’re almost on top of them anyway.”

  “Perfect.” Xander said. “Me, Mars and Tom will cover the front door. How many other exits?”

  “Two.” Tom replied. “One man door on the far side and a big sliding tractor door around back.”

  “The big door in the back looked like it was chained up from the outside though.” Cam added. “They haven’t even shovelled the snow at all back there.”

  “You guys sure there’s only two man doors?” Xander asked. “That’s an awfully large building to only have a few exits.”

  “We’re sure.” Tom replied. “We walked the entire perimeter.”

  “Alright, we’ll just ignore the back exit then.” Xander said. “I want Luke and Easton to cover the side door. Ken and Cam will stay out front and cover our asses, keep an eye out for anyone coming over from the cottages. As soon as they start into their next song, we start our sleds and get down there to our positions. When that song ends, we rush in both doors and do our thing.”

  “Sounds good, boss man.” Mars said.

  “Then we’ll see for ourselves if we’re dealing with a hootenanny or a shindig.” Xander said. “Hell, we could even be looking at a genuine hoedown here, boys.”

  A minute later, with all seven of them sitting on their sleds ready to go, the song ended to the fervent applause of their audience. Before the crowd had a chance to settle down, a fiddler suddenly went into a rapid series of saw-strokes as he led the band in another energetic folk song. Seven snowmobiles were immediately started and ridden off leaving only snow dust and a large cloud of grey-blue smoke behind.

  Pulling into the parking lot beside the Minecats, Xander raised his left hand while pressing the kill switch with his right. With their engines silent, the sleds coasted quickly to a stop. All seven of them hastily removed their helmets and ran off to their assignments.

  Xander stepped off to the handle side of the front door while Mars and Tom stood off to the hinge side. Then they watched as Luke and Easton ran past heading for the side door. Ken and Cam had decided that ducking down behind the Minecats would serve their purposes sufficiently. They would have a decent view of the front door and anybody approaching from the cottages, but not much else.

  After another couple of minutes of listening to that fiddler give ‘er hell, Xander started to get impatient, stating outright what all of them were thinking.

  “Damn it, does that guy ever…?”

  …The music abruptly stopped replaced immediately by men shouting and women screaming. Then… gunshots, lots and lots of gunshots.

  As Xander went for the door handle, Mars reached across the door and pulled him to their side. Whether he could hear the stampede coming towards that door or feel it, the result was the same. Mars had just saved Xander from a fairly decent trampling. The door slammed outwards an instant later, the steel slab catching Mars across the shoulder as the rush of terrified people began pouring out. Surprisingly, other than a few random old men still clutching their instruments, all of the panicked party goers were woman and children.

  When a woman stopped just outside the doorway to encourage the others to hurry along, Tom suddenly realized that their chance to find out what was going on was running right past them. The woman had her back to him, so he grabbed her by the shoulders. Before she knew what was happening, she was flying backwards through the air and being tossed roughly into the snow.

  Knowing they were never going to be able to communicate amongst all the gunfire and screams, Tom smiled down at her reassuringly and placed his index finger to his mouth. Even with his messed up hair and long unkempt beard, Tom’s natural good looks and charm shone through instantly calmed her down.

  Tom didn’t know it at the time, but it wasn’t his chiseled jawline that had settled her down. It was the simple fact that he wasn’t one of ‘them.’ This man could be many things, as the events of the past few months had proven, but he definitely wasn’t North Korean.

  Chapter 11

  Sydney and Nichelle stood out on the dock with George and his daughter and watched nervously as Terrell, Brody, Dion and Jenny worked away on something out on the lake. Even after George’s countless reassurances, Sydney and Nichelle were still rather uncomfortable with their younger family members being out on the frozen lake. The only reason they had permitted it at all this morning was because of the float jackets Stacey had brought back from one of her scavenging runs. Along with the self-rescue ice picks they carried and the ropes they all dragged behind them, everyone out on the lake would be perfectly capable of surviving an unlikely break in the ice.

  As comforting as these safety precautions were, it was George’s spontaneous stunt driving exhibition that had finally eased their concerns. As he laid out his plan, George had become increasingly frustrated with Sydney and Nichelle and their inability to listen to reason. It seemed no matter what he said, the ‘smothers’ would never be okay with the kids heading out onto the ice. He could have just walked out there himself, of course, but this fear of the ice thing had to be put to bed once and for all.

  Without warning or saying a word, he had grabbed his keys, hopped in the truck and driven it straight out onto the ice. Then, for the next several minutes, he began a series of donuts and power slides that had them all wishing they had climbed in the truck with him. When George returned to shore, he did so to the boisterous applause of everyone.

  Sydney and Nichelle had finally relented after that, but only on the condition that the truck be left on shore.

 
“Alright, that looks good, guys, come on back.” George shouted, waving them back in.

  “You sure about this, Dad?” Grace asked. “That rifle looks like it’s just gunna explode in your hands.”

  “I’ve already gone over this with your mother, Grace. It looks a little rough, but it’ll work.” George said, trying to convince himself as much as his daughter.

  Seeing Gwen heading over, Sydney said, “Looks like Gwen’s decided to join us after all.”

  “Fran’s staying in her camper with Emma.” Gwen said as she stepped onto the dock. “They’re the only ones sensible enough to not want to watch my idiot husband blow his face off.”

  “Second husband.” George said with a wink, correcting the woman he had symbolically remarried.

  “Yeah well, we all make mistakes.” Gwen said with a smile of her own.

  George had spent the entire day and most of the night working on the Barrett rifle. He was finally ready to test fire it, but it wasn’t pretty. George had shaved off the front upper portion of the receiver assembly from the front sight back. He had also needed to remove what little remained of the scope rail. On top of that, the only way George could remove the damaged muzzle brake was to saw off about 75mm of the rifle’s barrel. The muzzle brake was a threaded component at one time, but it was deformed so badly that unscrewing it was no longer an option. It was just as well because the portion of barrel under it was also damaged.

  After spending hours filing, sanding and thoroughly inspecting the barrel, George was confident that it was now straight and true. Once he had it all back together, George had inserted a loaded magazine and cycled the action repeatedly. He watched as one cartridge after another flew from the ejection port. Without fail, once the breech was clear and he released the charging handle, the action would push another cartridge from the magazine and feed it smoothly into the chamber. George was convinced that the weapon would function normally again, but the only way to know for sure was to actually fire it.