“Please Nathan, I’m asking you to forgive me,” Allison said. Keep his attention. “Can you do that? We’ll do things your way from now on. I promise.”
Nathan roared, a sound that was purely animalistic and Allison realised that there was no trace of the man that used to be Nathan left in him. Allison stared at the lift shaft, vainly hoping that Daniel might come back in time to save her, but in reality she knew that not enough time had passed for him to shimmy up the rope, grab a gun and then climb down again.
She glanced back at the icy water behind her, wondering whether the shock of the cold water would kill her. But the bullet went clean through her brain. She was dead before her body plunged into the freezing water.
CHAPTER 44
Ellen woke up, disoriented, confused for a few minutes about where she was. She was lying amongst blankets in the fuselage of the wrecked plane, her head on Jake’s chest. She blinked the sleep from her eyes and sat up, checking her watch. It was just after six in the morning, and she had been asleep for over seven hours.
The fire had reduced to glowing embers. She tore pages off the book on the top of the pile, adding it to the fire and stoking it with a metal rod.
She stuffed some snow into the saucepan and balanced it on the fire to create some hot water. Behind her, Jake groaned as he woke up. She turned to smile at him. “Good morning.”
“Morning.” Jake sat up and ran a hand through his short hair. “So what’s for breakfast?”
“Er, energy bars and hot water.”
“ Mmm, tasty,” said Jake without enthusiasm.
“That’s all we’ve got. We should probably eat something before we set off again.”
“Wise thinking.” Jake stood up. “Excuse me for a minute while I go and melt some snow.” He moved past her, stepping out of the broken fuselage into the bleak landscape outside.”
“Times like these I envy men,” Ellen said. “I wish I could go as well.”
“Why can’t you?”
“What am I going to do, hold my bare backside over the snow? No thanks. I have a very well-trained bladder. I can hold it until we get back to the base.”
Jake shrugged. “Suit yourself.” He moved out of sight. Ellen made a point of not peeking. People had a right to privacy with some things, no matter what the circumstances. She concentrated on the melting snow in the pan.
A moment later Jake called out, “Ellen.” The tone of his voice sent a tentacle of fear crawling down Ellen’s spine. She got to her feet and stepped cautiously over the jagged edge of the wrecked plane.
He stood stock still a few feet away, his back towards her. He was staring fixedly at the horizon. Ellen stood next to him and followed his line of sight, and then she saw it.
There was an army on the horizon.
They were a long way away, but even at this distance she could tell they were huge creatures, grey skinned, carrying what looked like spears and axes. They moved on long strong legs, steadily gaining ground with every step. There were at least a dozen of them, possibly more.
“What the hell are they?” said Ellen. “They don’t look like zombies.”
“I say we don’t hang around to find out.” Jake moved abruptly back towards the plane.
“We can’t possibly outrun them.”
Jake pointed. “They’re to the east, moving west. We have to go north. If we move it, we might even get to the base before they reach us. You put out the fire and get your stuff. I’ll get the containers. Move. Quickly.”
Ellen nodded, hurrying back to the fire. She threw snow on it to extinguish it and stomped on the embers for good measure. She grabbed her backpack and hurried back outside to join Jake, who was already moving, the containers of hydraulic fluid safely stowed in his own backpack.
They moved as quickly as they could through the snow, falling into a brisk but careful rhythm. They did not speak, not wanting to waste breath and energy on such a trivial thing as conversation. Ellen occasionally risked a glance to her right to check on the creatures’ progress. They were getting ever closer. Still out of attack range, but at the rate they were moving, they would be onto Ellen and Jake before they reached the base.
They finally saw the crest of the hill ahead of them. They walked faster. If they could just get over the crest, they would be able to see the base. Ellen looked to her right. The approaching creatures were now only fifty feet away. She could see them clearly enough to make out their features. “They’re Frost Giants,” she said. “Loki’s army of Frost Giants.”
A spear sailed through the air. It came down in a wide arc and took a chunk out of Ellen’s right calf before embedding itself in the snow. Her leg cramped in pain and gave out underneath her. She collapsed, blood from her leg staining the snow. The Frost Giants bellowed and charged.
“Fire,” Ellen yelled. “They’re vulnerable to fire. At least they are in the stories.”
Jake pulled the rocket launcher from his backpack. He lit the fuse and aimed the rocket. It sailed towards the Frost Giants in an arc of fire, landing in the snow in front of the army. It exploded in a huge ball of ice and fire. Pieces of Frost Giants rained down. But more charged.
Jake yanked a grenade from his belt, pulled the pin, and lobbed it into the fray. Another explosion sent chunks of ice into the air across a bigger area. He hurried over to Ellen and pulled her to her feet. “We’re nearly at the base. If we can get to the top of the ridge we can make it.”
Ellen hobbled on as quickly as she could, supported by Jake, trying to ignore the fire in her injured leg. She didn’t dare look back at the Frost Giants. The grenade might delay them, but she knew they were still coming. The ground shook from the rhythmic thud of the Frost Giants’ steps, pieces of ice and snow dancing up in the air as they were dislodged.
Another spear sailed overhead, this time landing in the snow less than a foot in front of them. Jake dodged past it, pulling Ellen along.
And then they were at the top of the ridge, the base visible below them. The shouts and footsteps of the Frost Giants loud and getting louder.
“Do you trust me?” Jake said to Ellen.
She blinked at him. “Yes, of course.”
“Good,” he said, and gave her an almighty shove from behind.
Ellen screamed as she toppled forward, landing in the snow on her belly. She slid, gaining momentum as she soared down the hill. She stretched her arms forward, trying to steer herself towards the base as she slid rapidly down the hill: a human sledge, churning up the snow in her wake.
CHAPTER 45
It was all Ellen could do to try and aim for the entrance to the base and keep snow out of her face.
She expected to slow down as she reached the bottom of the hill, but she’d built up too much speed. She overshot the trap door that led down to the tunnel, screaming as she went sailing past, digging her feet into the snow in attempt to slow herself. She twisted her body and went into an awkward roll.
She had turned herself around completely and was looking back at the hill. Jake had also rolled down and had managed to stop himself just by the trap door. The Frost Giants had not yet breached the top of the hill, but a volley of spears came sailing down. Two of them landed close to Jake.
Jake was shouting at her but the wind whipped his words away. Ellen scrambled to her feet and hobbled back to the trap door, pain shooting through her injured leg. Jake struggled with the trap door, just managing to remove it as she reached him. He yelled at her to get down the shoot. She threw herself down the hole feet first, sliding down the ladder on her hands, her feet failing to find the rungs. At the bottom of the ladder the ground abruptly halted her progress and a jolt of pain sliced through her wounded leg.
Above her, Jake paused at the top of the ladder to pull the trap door back into place. He jumped from the top of the ladder and landed on his feet then hauled her up and with him. “Come on, let’s go.”
They hustled down the south corridor. Chunks of concrete and ice littered the ground. Ell
en ducked as a chunk of concrete sailed down from the ceiling, narrowly missing hitting her on the head.
“The base is collapsing. We need to get out of here!” Jake bellowed. He grabbed Ellen’s hand and near-dragged her along behind him as he charged down the corridor and towards the lift shaft.
It seemed eerily silent and a prickle of fear twitched at the base of Ellen’s neck. In the distance, she was sure she could hear the rhythmic sound of the Frost Giants marching towards the base. More ice and concrete rained down on them from the ceiling, kicking up a cloud of concrete dust.
As they passed the laboratory, Jake suddenly stopped. Zombies lurched out of the dust up ahead. “The seals blocking the corridors,” she said. “They’re breaking open.”
Ellen moved instinctively to the right side of the corridor as Jake moved to the left, each of them pressing into the wall as far as possible and readying their weapons. Ellen only had a pistol. She fired blindly into the dust, her hands shaking so much she dropped cartridges every time she paused to reload the gun.
Jake fired the sub-machine gun, each round felling several zombies as well as gouging chunks of concrete and ice out of the walls. All around them pieces of the ceiling continued to rain down, and the rhythmic vibration under their feet indicated the army of Frost Giants was moving ever closer.
There must have been twenty zombies crowding out of the corridor and heading towards them. Steadfast shooting succeeded in taking them all out, until a pile of bodies littered the corridor, blocking the way between Ellen and Jake and the lift shaft. Jake got to his feet and moved out into the corridor, looking back at Ellen. “Watch out,” he said, grabbing Ellen and throwing her forward onto the festering pile of bodies, just as the ceiling collapsed onto the spot where she had been moments before.
Jake looked at the pile of ice and concrete that now blocked the way they had come. “Only one way to go now,” he said. “Get down the lift shaft. Now.” He pushed Ellen forward as she tried to scramble over the pile of bodies, her hands and knees covered in stinky black ichor from the rotting bodies of the zombies. Her leg throbbed from the spear wound, but she managed to crawl over the pile of bodies and with relief grabbed the rope that led the way down the lift shaft. The rhythmic marching sound was loud now, chunks of the floor breaking away as the army marched. Then there was an almighty crash from the south end of the base. The floor gave way under Jake’s feet and he flung himself onto the rope, pressing himself up against Ellen and yelling, “Go!”
With her feet no longer holding the rope, gravity took hold and Ellen slid down using just her hands for purchase. The friction burned through the mittens she wore. By the time she landed in a heap on the floor of the lift car, Jake landing inelegantly on top of her, her hands smoked.
Jake scrambled to his feet, grabbing Ellen’s hands and still clutching the sub-machine gun. He half-dragged Ellen along behind him as he raced into the hangar
He stopped dead in the middle of the hangar. Daniel stood over the bodies of Allison and Nathan, a gun in his hand. Jake pointed the machine gun at Daniel.
Daniel put his hands in the air, though he didn’t let go of the gun. “It’s not what it looks like,” he said. “Nathan went into the ritual room and got infected. He had a gun. The three of us were down here, but we didn’t have weapons. Allison distracted him, so I could make a run upstairs. He got her before I could get to him.” He stared down at Allison. Her skin was blue, her hair and clothes soaked. Ellen noticed a sheen of ice was forming over the body, freezing it to the ground. “She fell in the water,” Daniel said, tears falling down his cheeks. “I pulled her out.”
“So you’re the only one left?” Jake said.
Daniel nodded, his hands still above his head.
Jake lowered the gun. “We’ve got bigger problems. We need to get out of here. Time to fix the plane.” He ran towards the DO 42, shrugging his pack off his back as he went.
“What do you mean, we’ve got bigger problems?” Daniel stared at Ellen’s leg, noticing the blood on it for the first time. “You’re wounded.”
The rhythmic marching sound from the ground level was getting louder, and the ground under their feet vibrated. A chunk of ice nearly three feet long fell from the ceiling of the hangar and smashed into pieces as it hit the ground.
“There are more than just zombies out there,” Ellen said. “Remember those Frost Giants you said the Nazis were summoning?”
Daniel stared at her. “You ran into one?”
“We ran into a whole army of them. They’ve breached the base. That’s why it’s collapsing.”
Jake had reached the plane and had the engine cover open. In the distance, a deafening bang shook the base, sending chunks of ice falling down from the walls.
“You two need to hold them off while I get this plane functioning,” Jake said. “Then we need to get the fuck out of here.” He tossed the sub-machine gun to Ellen and started rolling a barrel of kerosene over to the fuel tank.
Daniel nodded, wide-eyed, and hurried to the storage bunker on the east side of the hangar, returning with a pile of grenades.
Ellen and Daniel took up position either side of the hangar, where they could see the lift shaft and the stairs. The stairs were collapsed and effectively blocked, but with the west corridor blocked as well and the base collapsing, they had no idea which way the army would come in from.
The Frost Giants burst in through the hole that used to be the staircase, sending ice and concrete flying. They tossed the lift car aside like a cardboard box. Frost Giants tumbled in through the remains of the lift shaft. Ellen raised the sub-machine gun and let out a spray of fire. Daniel lobbed a grenade at the giants coming in through the stairway. The blast collapsed a corner of the hangar, concrete piling up as the ceiling sloped.
Frost Giants fell, but more came in to take their place, clambering in over their fallen colleagues. Ellen let off another spray of machine gun fire and took another one down, but Daniel, realising the hazards of letting off grenades in an enclosed space tossed them aside and went for the pistol instead. As he aimed the weapon, a Frost Giant clambering in over the pile of concrete, threw a spear which embedded itself in Daniel’s thigh. He fell over backwards, losing his grip on the gun.
“Are you OK?” Ellen called over to Daniel. She risked a quick glance over at him.
He pulled the spear out of his leg with a grimace and tossed it aside, then reached to retrieve the gun. “Don’t worry about me. You keep an eye on those giants.”
Two more spears sailed through the hangar, embedding themselves harmlessly in the floor. The giants that had thrown them were still coming, though. The points of entry were too narrow, too piled up with obstructions for them to do anything but move in single file, but there were at least two more that Ellen could see behind the lead giant, coming down the lift shaft. She let off a volley of machine gun fire at the leading giant, and it went down.
But there were a lot of giants, and they moved faster than the zombies. Two more giants appeared in the hole where the stairwell had been, clambering over fallen giants to get at Ellen and Daniel. One brandished a hand axe and it went after Daniel; the other lobbed spears at Ellen. She ducked and managed to avoid the spears, but it meant her shots went wide, the ammunition from the machine gun gouging the floor.
Daniel fired the pistol at the giant looming towards him. The shot got the giant in the shoulder, but it was not enough to stop it. With a terrible roar, the giant lunged forward and embedded the axe into Daniel’s chest. Daniel screamed.
Ellen brought up the machine gun and let off a volley of ammunition at the giant that had attacked Daniel, and it went down.
She stood up and scurried across the hangar, firing at the next giant who was clambering over the pile of concrete. The giant fell and there were no others immediately behind him, though the rhythmic footsteps from the level above indicated that there were more approaching fast.
Ellen hurried to Daniel. He struggled to sit up, face g
rey. The axe was embedded in the centre of his chest and his laboured wheezing suggested it had damaged a lung.
Ellen began to speak, but the roar of the plane’s engines coming to life drowned out her words. Daniel said something, and she leaned in, putting her ear to his mouth so she could hear.
“You have to leave me,” Daniel said. “Save yourself.”
“Don’t say that.” Ellen stared at the axe in Daniel’s chest, not wanting to admit that the wound was fatal. “If we can get you to the regeneration machine, like we healed your leg –”
“No time for that.” Daniel struggled to raise himself into a sitting position. “You and Jake get out of here. I’ll take out as many as I can.”
“I can’t leave you!”
Another Frost Giant appeared in the lift shaft, roaring and brandishing an axe. Ellen opened fire with the machine gun, taking out the Frost Giant with such force it fell backwards, knocking off its feet another giant who was coming up behind it.
“There’s no time to argue,” Daniel said. “Get out of here. Go with Jake. The two of you can save yourselves. Leave me the machine gun, and I’ll take out as many as I can.”
Ellen blinked back tears and kissed Daniel on the cheek. “It’s been a privilege working with you, Dan.” She handed over the machine gun.
Daniel managed a weak smile. “Likewise, Ellen. Now go.” He turned his attention back to the collapsed lift shaft, where the next Frost Giant had disentangled itself from its fallen comrade and was closing in fast, another one close behind it. He took aim.
Clutching the revolver, Ellen ran towards the plane. She heard the volley of machine gun fire as Daniel fired at the Frost Giants, but she didn’t stop to look back.
CHAPTER 46
Thick exhaust fumes obscured the DO 42. Ellen slid to a stop beneath the body of the plane. The hatch was open. Beyond the plane were the two large doors embedded in the cliff face. Ellen hauled herself through the hatch as another barrage of gunfire echoed through the hangar, followed by an angry roar.
Outpost H311 Page 20
