"I didn't get time to see right by him; there were more screams outside and this time when I went out, I got my first sight of the beasts. Four of them, wolves but twice as big again as any I've ever seen, were chasing down Billy Franks on his motorbike. He was revving it hard, pushing the machine to its limit, yet here they came down the main drag, running him down like a wounded elk, gaining on him all the time. I didn't have time to stop him; Billy went at full tilt right into the gas pumps and they went up as if a bomb went off.
"All was panic and shouting and running about for a while after that; but finally I got people on the move. All I could think of was to get them here, somewhere strong we might be able to defend. At least the explosion had sent the beasts scattering away.
"But they didn't stay away for long.
"Fred Jacobs, the head fireman, became my temporary deputy. He was out on the north end of town gathering up folks last thing I know; I never saw how they got him, but heard his gun go off, twice, then heard no more. I couldn't even go check, for by the time I got these folks here rounded up and inside, there were three more of the wolves prowling around just outside."
She stopped, almost breathless with the telling of it.
"And that's how it's been all day. I've tried twice to go out, they've tried three times to get in; this last time I nearly took your man here for one of them, and he's lucky he didn't get his head blown off, for my hunting rifle is rigged for bear."
"Are there more of you hiding somewhere in town?" the captain asked.
"You tell me," she said, echoing his earlier words. "You've been out there, I haven't."
Again he gave it to her without any shit, telling of what we'd found in the supermarket. She went white at that, and then spoke calmly.
"If you're right, there's still a dozen or so unaccounted for," she said. "I need to get out and look for them. I could use some backup."
-3-
Five minutes later I was by her side in the doorway ready to move out.
"Take the new lad and Wilko," the cap said. "I'll stay here and watch over the flock, give Davies a hand where I can."
She hadn't asked for volunteers from her charges; not that any of them were armed in any case. But between the four of us, our army issue weapons and her hunting rifle, I figured we were tooled up enough to face almost anything that might be waiting for us.
I turned to the sheriff as she reached for the door.
"We're following your lead, ma'am," I said. "As you said, it's your town."
She nodded.
"And you can cut the 'ma'am' shit," she said. "I'm Sheriff if you're offering to buy me a coffee, Sue if you want to buy me a beer."
"Sue it is then. Lead on."
She led us out into the teeth of what was now a full blown storm. I was glad she was leading for I had no fucking clue of even which direction we were facing, never mind where we were going. I got surprised a few minutes later when the shape of our black SUV loomed up out of the snow ahead of us; I thought we were going the other way. The snow was already piling up around the wheel arches; the vehicle wasn't going anywhere anytime soon.
I thought the sheriff might want a look at the bodies in the supermarket but it appeared that the living were more to the fore in her mind for we passed the smashed windows with barely a glance. I tried to peer across the road at the ruin of the gas station but the snow blocked my view completely and we walked on, heads down against the wind, snow pattering like grapeshot against the hood of my parka.
Ten paces or so past the supermarket she took us on a sharp right turn into a narrow alleyway. All at once we were in a pocket of calm air out of the storm. She turned, addressing me.
"There's ten houses out through the back here. If there's anyone left, they'll probably be hunkered down in one of them. We're going to search them all, attic to basement. Capiche?"
I capiched and followed her as she moved out again.
The houses were all set apart from each other in their own patches of land and snow was piled up in the pathways, around garage doors and along the road verges. We had to wade through a two-foot deep, six-foot wide drift and there were no other footsteps but our own on the approach to the first dwelling. The sheriff didn't stand on ceremony. She strode up to the door, rapped three times and when there was no answer, she put her shoulder to it hard. It fell in easily and we all piled in behind her into a dark hallway that suddenly became too bright when she flicked a switch by the door.
"Come on out if you're here. It's the sheriff," she shouted.
As we entered, I noticed that the wind that blew around us wasn't coming from our backs, but was in our faces, coming from the rear of the house. The sheriff spotted it too, and moved quickly ahead of me through the hall into a kitchen that looked like a set from a horror movie. Blood spatter had been thrown everywhere across floors, surfaces and ceiling. There was no sign of any bodies but the back door was hanging open off its hinges and a foot-wide red smear led out onto a wide wooden deck. That's where we found the bodies, what was left of them. Something hadn't just killed the man and woman that lay there; they had been feasted upon, and violently at that. Even in the howling wind and biting snow the smell seemed to hang over everything, pish and shite and blood all mingled, threatening to bring up the coffee that lay cold in my stomach.
The sheriff looked down at the carnage, spat into the wind and turned on her heels without a word. Jennings had gone pale again and I thought I might have to wait for him to spill his guts but he followed readily enough when I motioned that we should hurry after the woman.
"What the fuck is going on here, Sarge?" Jennings said as we went back through the hall.
"As usual, we'll ken when we ken. Welcome to the squad, lad. Buckle up. Things are likely to get hairy."
We searched four more houses, expecting to find more bloody slaughter in each but finding nothing of note. That didn't relax the sheriff any, and she was visibly shaken when we climbed over a small rise and looked down to the next house, or rather, where it had been, for like the gas station in town this was only a burned out shell. That wasn't the most notable thing though; the area between us and the house was a charnel pit of dead people and four dead wolves all mingled together, some of both burned, others torn to bits, and several of the wolves showing signs that they'd been blasted at close range by high velocity rounds.
The sheriff made for one particular body, a big man whose head had almost been torn from his neck. She turned him over; he was already mostly frozen to the ground. I saw tears glisten in her eyes as she dropped the body and turned back to me.
"That's Fred Jacobs. Looks like he got everybody here to make a stand," she said, having to shout to make herself heard in the wind.
"At least he took some of them with him," Jennings replied.
"Yeah," she replied, not hiding the sarcasm. "That's a big comfort to me."
I wasn't speaking; I'd got a close look at one of the dead wolves and it was like looking into my memory; the same gray mane, the same steely eyes and the long muscular flanks. I had seen this thing's brother, a few years and a few thousand miles away in Siberia.
If Jennings asked me his question now, I was beginning to think I'd be able to give him an answer.
It didn't take us long to go through the last few houses which was fine by me for the storm had ramped up another few notches and it was getting hard to make headway against the wind. The sheriff seemed to be right in her appraisal; her fireman friend had gathered everybody he could in one place but it hadn't been enough to save them. If my own reading of the scene was right and this was a pack of the things I'd faced in Siberia, I wasn't sure even the four of us with our weapons would have helped overmuch.
I was starting to feel exposed out here in the night at the edge of town but it was still the sheriff's call to make. I can't say I wasn't a wee bit relieved when she motioned that we should start to make our way back to the fire station.
And the way back was made easier by the fact
that the wind was now at our backs. We were making good time despite the fact that the snow was now nearly up to our knees so I was surprised when the sheriff stopped us again, back in the same alley that led to the main drag. She leaned in close and shouted in my ear.
"Do you hear it?"
At first, all I heard was the wind whistling in the street beyond the alley, then I heard it; a high whine of an engine being run at high speed.
"Motorbike?"
"Skidoo," she answered. "Somebody's still alive."
The sound got louder as we stepped out into the street. Then we saw the single headlight, coming in from the north end at speed with a hunched figure in the seat swaddled in heavy layers of what looked like bed-sheets. It was almost on us before we noticed the three huge wolves loping along behind, snapping at the rear of the vehicle as if trying to hobble it.
The sheriff had her weapon up taking aim before I could even give an order.
"Take them down, lads," I shouted, then there was no time to think.
Gunfire roared in my ears as I took aim. The sheriff took a shot and raised a gouge along the flank of one of the beasts. My own burst of three rounds almost took the head off the one next to it. A second shot from the sheriff took out the one she was after.
Jennings and Wilko were after the last one but the corporal was in Wilko’s line of fire, and his own shots were too hurried and went somewhere far and wide. The beast barrelled towards them. I was still swinging my weapon round when Wilko roughly shoved Jennings to one side, toppling him into the snow. The wolf came on but Wilko stood his ground and as I had done with the other, put three almost down its throat. The beast was dead and down before it knew what had hit it.
Wilko turned and put out a hand to help Jennings to his feet.
"Not bad for a wee poof, eh?" he said. "And you're welcome by the way."
The skidoo had come to a halt sometime during the action and toppled over, pinning its rider beneath it. I motioned for Jennings and Wilko to take watch and went to help the sheriff right it. It was a heavy bugger and took both of us to get it shifted. The driver was a man, pale face showing white even against the snow, and he was out cold.
"This is blown," the sheriff said, kicking the skidoo. "We'll have to carry him."
And before I could agree she'd thrust her rifle at me, bent and lifted the man over her shoulder in a fireman's lift that looked practised.
"Watch my back," she shouted. "I'm a bit busy here."
We made our way up the street. There was no sign of any more of the beasts and the sheriff carried the man all the way back to the station, in heavy snow, and didn't once ask for help.
I was starting to develop more than a wee bit of respect for Sheriff Sue.
-4-
The cap met us at the door of the station as if he'd been watching for our return.
"We heard the shots," he said. "Everything under control?"
I nodded to the man that the sheriff was putting down on a cot.
"He came in from the north. Maybe from the research station? And there's something else…"
He stopped me.
"When we're alone," he said. "First things first."
He called over to the other side of the room.
"Davies, we've got someone you need to have a look at."
The private looked up from where he was tending to an elderly lady, gave a thumbs up, and two minutes later was beside the cap, the sheriff and me as we stood around the cot.
"Do you know him?" I asked the sheriff.
"Nope. They keep themselves to themselves if he's from where I think he is."
"The research station?"
She nodded.
"They have their own supplies brought in by truck and they never come to town, not even for liquor or a meal. He's the first one we've seen."
Davies was peeling away the swaddling layers of cloth; I'd been right earlier, they were bedclothes. And the more Davies peeled away, the more blood we saw, caked and frozen stiff against the material.
Davies turned back to us.
"He's hurt. I'm going to be a wee while at this. Go and talk among yourselves for a bit. I'll update you on his prognosis when I can."
All of us, even the cap, did as we'd been told; the unwritten rule was that in matters of health of both the squad and civilians the medics were the ones to make the call and that applied even when the medic was a private. I followed the sheriff and the cap over to the coffee area.
"Can I smoke?" I asked the sheriff. "I'm gasping here."
She gave me a thin smile.
"I don't think anybody's going to make you take it outside," she said. "Just stay over this side of the room. And don't set off the smoke alarm; we've got sprinklers in here, and getting wet in a storm isn't my idea of a good time."
She made to move off but the cap called her back.
"The sarge here has something to tell me. I think you'll need to hear it," he said.
I passed a smoke to the cap and lit us both up before starting.
"Yon thing in Siberia," I said. "You remember the big dogs?"
"Dire wolves, is that not what the wee Russian called them?"
"Aye. Dire they were...or rather are. Unless I'm mistaken, that's what we're dealing with here. Same big fucking eyes, big fucking ears, big fucking teeth. Same big fuckers. Pardon my French," I said, turning to the sheriff.
"I hear worse every Friday night when the bar closes," she said. "But back up. Siberia?"
I let the cap take that one. He filled her in on some of the sorry tale; a Russian billionaire, a zoo of ice-age animals and shady doings with genetics and hormones, the whole shitty shebang. To her credit she didn't laugh in our faces.
She nodded towards the man in the cot.
"And you think they've been doing something similar?"
"At least with the wolves, aye," the cap replied.
That had me thinking about the other things we'd encountered back then but I pushed it away; there was enough to worry about here and now without speculating about even worse.
"If that's true, we need to get out there," the sheriff said.
"Aye. And sooner rather than later. Can we make it in this storm?"
"Captain," she said, "if this keeps up we'd be lucky to reach the end of the street tonight. Our best hope is that it blows itself out and lets us make a try for it in the morning."
"Big fucking howling things permitting," I added, and got a thin smile from both of them. "Can we call for evac?"
This was addressed to the cap.
"I tried the sat-phone earlier. Couldn't get a call through. I'll keep trying."
Davies called us over to the cot ten minutes later.
"He's been bit, by something big," he said, looking at the sheriff. "But I think you'd guessed that already. I've pumped him full of penicillin and given him a tetanus shot. He's out cold. It's anybody's guess for how long."
"Did he say anything?" the cap asked.
"Nope. I thought he was coming round when I was stitching the wound but it was just a wee flicker of the eyelids then he was under again. I'll keep an eye on him, but I need a coffee and a smoke first, if that's okay, Sarge?"
"Aye, away you go, lad. I'll sit with him for a bit."
The cap went with the sheriff as she did a round of the locals in the room. The rafters rattled as a fresh gust of wind howled above and the man on the cot moaned. I leaned forward, but he had gone quiet again almost as quickly. The adrenalin from the gunplay was wearing off now and my ears had stopped ringing but the memory of the gray beast launching itself at Jennings and Wilko was mixed up in my mind with the nightmares of Siberia. I've got a wee trick I use to keep stuff at bay when the quiet threatens to dredge it up. When Davies came back ten minutes later, I was singing Presley's 'Don't be Cruel' in my head; I'd have gone on to 'Teddy Bear' if he hadn't turned up and still been back at the age of seven performing for my auld aunties, my happy place if you like. Don't mock it if you haven't tried it.
> Davies checked on his patient.
"He's more sleeping than unconscious I think," he said. "I'll take a spell, Sarge. I'll give you a shout if he wakes up."
As if replying to Davies' voice, the man on the cot groaned and shifted. He opened his eyes and I could tell just by looking at him that there was a scream forming that would pierce the air if it came. I put a hand on his shoulder.
"It's okay, you're with friends," I said.
It took him a wee while to focus on me.
"You're English?" he said.
"Well, maybe more allies than friends then," I replied, trying to keep things light. "We're Scottish, but we're here to help you anyway."
He tried to sit up but pain hit him hard at the attempt, bringing sweat to his brow and an unhealthy pallor to his cheeks.
"I need to speak to someone in charge," he said. "We're in terrible danger."
I placed his accent somewhere to the south and west of London. He was a long way from home, but then again, so was I.
"If you mean the wolves, we got them, at least the ones that were after you."
"How many?"
"Three."
"Only three? Then I'll say again, we're in terrible danger. I need to speak to someone in charge."
This time he did manage to sit up, although it cost him a yelp of pain that was loud enough to catch the sheriff's attention. She strode over with the cap beside her.
"Are you in charge?" the man asked.
"Yes, I'm the sheriff here."
"Sheriff? I thought the military were here?"
"We are," the cap added. "But this is her town. She's in charge."
"Has she signed the Official Secrets Act?"
The cap laughed.
"She's right here. Why don't you ask her?"
The man had got Sheriff Sue's back up; I'd only known her for a few hours and I already knew that. Unfortunately, the man in the cot didn't and he kept digging his own grave.
"I can't talk to you," he said, "I'm bound to the Act."
"That's fine by me, sir," she said. "I carried you in here. I'll just carry you out again and put you back where I found you."
Operation: Yukon Page 2
