“Ma’am …” Lieutenant Anderson called to her from where he stood near Dustin’s sensor station. “We’re doing all we can.”
She knew he spoke the truth but that didn’t make the waiting any easier. There was a fragging colonel lost out there somewhere in the sea of ice surrounding Zulu Base and the man was her responsibility. Not to mention his unit. With every hour that ticked by, the odds of any of them surviving grew less and less. She paused in her pacing and looked at Lieutenant Anderson.
“I know we are,” Major Dixon told him. “What’s the estimated time of arrival for Alpha one?”
“Matt’s bird should be landing in the next five,” Lieutenant Anderson answered.
“I want Matt and his co-pilot to report to my office the second that they land. Is that clear?” Major Dixon asked.
“Crystal,” Lieutenant Anderson answered.
“I can’t shake the feeling that there’s something more going on out there than just the colonel’s plane crashing,” Major Dixon confessed. “Those camera outages you mentioned keep haunting me. There’s no way so many of them should have cut out like that all at once.”
“It could have been an earlier burst of this interference we are dealing with that knocked them out,” Lieutenant Anderson offered in way of an explanation. “If it were a short-term, low burst, we might not have noticed it at all yesterday.”
“That’s very possible, ma’am,” Dustin agreed.
Major Dixon shook her head. “And you two might be right but …”
She thought for a moment before asking, “Do we have recordings of the feed they were streaming before they went out?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Dustin assured her. “That’s normal protocol.”
“Good. I want them downloaded now and sent to the computer in my office,” Major Dixon ordered.
Dustin and Lieutenant Anderson exchanged a confused look. She noticed it. Let them think what they wanted. She had been in the service long enough to know that hunches were sometimes the difference between seeing another sunrise and coming home in a body bag.
“We’ll get data downloaded and sent over at once, ma’am,” Lieutenant Anderson said.
He was a good man and decent soldier despite all his flaws and his emotional attachment to her. Major Dixon knew he had hoped for a long while now that the two of them would be more than just fellow officers and friends, rank be damned. She didn’t feel the same and had expressed that to him on numerous occasions, but the man wasn’t the type to give up easily. And he didn’t openly press the issue or step over any lines that would have forced her to bring him up on charges. He was just a nice guy who happened to fall in love, or at least lust, with the wrong woman.
Major Dixon nodded at him. “If anything new develops or word comes in from Alpha two, notify me at once.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Lieutenant Anderson and Dustin chorused together.
Major Dixon left the command center, taking it slow as she strolled along the corridor to her office. Maybe she was worried for nothing. Maybe she was seeing things where there was nothing to be seen. The death of her father might be messing with her judgement, but she knew better than not to follow a gut feeling as strong as the one she had now about there being more going on today than just the crash. As she reached the door to her office, she ran her fingers through hair and sighed. Instead of heading to her desk, she moved to her office’s sole window. It was a small thing but she had demanded it be put in for her to use. There was no point in being in Antarctica if you couldn’t enjoy its beauty.
Outside, the snow was really coming down. It fell in sideways, blowing waves carried along by the wind. She had seen whiteouts before and this storm wasn’t that, but it was dang close. The sun had set and night had fallen, so it was by the exterior lights of Zulu Base that she was able to watch the snow. Major Dixon found memories of her father creeping into her thoughts again and chased them away. She didn’t have the time for personal feelings right now. There was work to be done. Tearing her eyes away from the falling snow, she turned and moved to her desk, plopping down into the chair behind it.
She opened her laptop and powered it up. A quick check told her that the lieutenant and Dustin had already forwarded over the data streams from the downed cameras she had ordered. She clicked open the feed of one of the cameras from Grid Eight. It made the most sense to start with those, as that was where the colonel’s plane had gone down and, according to Dustin, where the first of the camera failures had occurred. She pulled up and opened the camera’s footage. There was a ton of it to sort through but she didn’t need to see it all. All she needed was the end, the final moments before the camera had cut out. Major Dixon skipped to that section of the footage and stopped there to let it play at normal speed. At first, all she saw was the white of frozen snow and the blue of the sky above but then everything changed. She let out a startled gasp as the creature came into view on her laptop’s screen. Had it not been moving, she likely wouldn’t have noticed it at all. The white hair covering its body was the perfect camouflage for the environment around it. She paused the image so she could study the creature. Based on its relation to the camera, the thing was at least eight feet tall, maybe nine. Thick muscles bulged beneath the hair that covered its body. What in the holy Hades was it? It wasn’t a person and it wasn’t an ape, though the creature resembled both. The lips of its too-human face were parted in a snarl that showed the sharp teeth inside its mouth. Its eyes were a bright shade of yellow. The creature’s general shape was that of a man and it was walking on two feet, not four, though its posture was hunched in the frame she had paused the video feed on. Major Dixon stared at the creature, not wanting to believe she was actually seeing it. Her finger tapped her laptop to restart the playback of the camera’s data stream. She watched as the creature approached the camera. Its hand jostled the camera where it was placed in the frozen snow. The creature looked like it was studying the camera. Sniffing at it, the creature pulled away from the camera and roared. One of its hands swiped through the air at the camera’s lens. The last image was a close-up for the creature’s razor-like claws before the screen of her laptop went black.
Major Dixon rewatched the footage several more times before she closed her laptop and leaned back in her chair. Questions about the creature, where it had come from, what it was, flooded her mind. All she knew for sure was that it was out there and it was clearly violent. The thing looked like it could easily tear a man apart. She didn’t doubt for a second that it was a predator. From its teeth and claws to even just the manner in which it carried itself, they all screamed that the beast was dangerous. The greatest question of all was what did she do now, knowing that it was out there? She needed to talk to someone about her discovery. Someone she could trust until she was able to figure things out. Lieutenant Anderson was her second-in-command, but she dismissed him instantly. The man stunk at keeping secrets and she didn’t trust his ability to think clearly any more than she did her own right now. No, it had to be someone else, but who? In truth, everyone needed to know as soon as possible, but she wasn’t ready for that yet. She thought through the members of Zulu Base’s staff carefully and settled on Alex. The security chief and she didn’t often see eye to eye. They butted heads more often than not and sometimes over the most trivial of things, but she knew Alex was the right choice. He was cool-headed and, whether she liked to admit it or not, excelled at his job.
She activated the base’s comm. and paged for Alex to come to her office. Less than three minutes later, the security chief was knocking on her office door.
“Get in here and close the door behind you,” she ordered him.
Alex cocked an eyebrow at the edge in her tone. “I take it something else has gone wrong today.”
“You could say that,” Major Dixon said. “Take a seat. I’ve got something to show you.”
She turned on her laptop, called up the exact footage of the monster approaching and destroying the camera in Grid Eight, and
moved its screen around toward the security chief. Major Dixon studied him carefully as the footage played. She saw the same disbelief she had felt herself in his expression. When the footage had finished and the screen had gone dark, instead of asking her what the hell the thing was, Alex simply said, “Play that for me again.”
After he had watched the footage three more times, he was finally ready to talk.
“And you just discovered this?” Alex asked.
Major Dixon nodded. “I had a hunch something other than the strange interference we’re dealing with knocked out the cameras, and it appears I was right.”
“You sure were.” Alex leaned back in his chair. “Do you know what that thing is?”
“Not a clue,” Major Dixon said, sighing. “You?”
“Maybe …” Alex rubbed at his cheeks with the fingers of his left hand. “You ever heard of Bigfoot?”
Major Dixon almost laughed out loud, barely stopping herself from doing so at the last second. “Bigfoot?” she asked the security chief, trying to keep her voice level. “That the best you got?”
“Don’t play games,” Alex suddenly told her very sternly. “You saw that footage too. It’s the only thing fits. That thing … it was a monster.”
She certainly couldn’t argue that, but Bigfoot? She was far from sold on accepting that the thing in the video was a mythical Sasquatch. “I don’t think there are Sasquatch on Antarctica, Alex.”
“Fine,” Alex said. “If it makes you feel more comfortable, let’s call it a Yeti. There’s no other explanation for what the thing in the video is unless it’s an alien, and I am not willing to go that far.”
“You can accept that Sasquatch and Yetis exist but not aliens?” Major Dixon asked.
“There’s lots of evidence that both of those creatures do exist. Aliens, sure, the math is there, but not much else,” Alex explained. “Besides, my dad once saw a Sasquatch in Washington state. He was there hunting with some buddies and the thing just came up out of nowhere on them. Thankfully, it ran when it saw them instead of attacking. I’ve heard my dad tell that story a thousand times. Not a doubt in my mind that it really happened to him. He didn’t scare easy, but you could hear the fear in his voice every time he told that story.”
“Let’s pretend I’m willing to agree with you on what that creature is,” Major Dixon said cautiously. “What do we do about it?”
“Not it … them,” Alex corrected her. “I would wager if there’s one out there, there’s a lot more. Nothing lives in a vacuum.”
“Frag me.” Major Dixon leaned forward to place the flats of her hands on the top of her desk. “You really think there’s more than one of those things?”
“I’d say we can count on that,” Alex assured her. “As to what to do about them … I say we bring Zulu Base to full alert. We’ve been here for months and haven’t encountered a single one of those things, which means something has brought them out of wherever they’ve been hiding and they’re on the move. That means they could be a danger to this base. We need to be ready for them if they work up the nerve to make a move against it.”
“What makes you think they would do that?” Major Dixon pressed the security chief.
“Creatures like Sasquatch and Yetis are supposed to be very territorial. Regardless of what has brought them out of hiding, you can bet they know we’re here now. That means …” Alex let his words trail off.
“We’re target number one,” Major Dixon finished for him.
“Exactly,” Alex said. “And this base wasn’t set up to fend off an attack.”
Major Dixon shook her head. “This is crazy.”
Alex shrugged. “I suggest we arm everyone. On the upside, the cameras closest to the base are still functional. We can keep an eye out for the monsters and if we’re lucky, we’ll have warning that they’re coming. The bad thing is that everyone will think this is a joke. Even showing everyone here this footage … There are going to be those that simply refuse to believe.”
“What about the Hercules?” Major Dixon asked. “Do you think those things will go after it too?”
“It’s a safe bet that they already have,” Alex answered.
****
Colonel Dyvang had stayed behind aboard the Hercules. He had hand-picked Wiggins, Parker, and Jones to remain with him. Out of those that had survived the crash, Wiggins and Jones were his toughest men outside of Sergeant Lopez. And Parker was his best tech. If anyone could keep the plane’s internal heat going and maybe get the comm. working again, it was him.
The sun had set and the temp had dropped sharply. With the Hercules’ rear door gone, the plane’s heating system was being pushed to its limit and beyond. Colonel Dyvang knew the battery would fail sooner rather than later. While Parker struggled to overcome the interference affecting the plane’s comm. and get a signal out, the two Snow Beasts were out there somewhere on their separate paths to Zulu Base, increasing their odds of being found. Colonel Dyvang had fully expected to have been rescued already. He blamed the incompetence of Zulu Base’s CO for that not happening. When he arrived, Colonel Dyvang intended to bring Major Dixon up on charges.
Wiggins and Jones had both taken turns keeping watch at the rear of the plane in an effort to spot any rescue copters that might pass close to them. Colonel Dyvang knew the visibility of such birds would be limited by the darkness and the storm, and with the systems likely messed up by the same interference that was affecting the plane’s comms, such birds might fly directly over them and fail to notice they were there. The plane was partially buried in the snow and more was piling up on it from the storm with each passing hour. Having someone there to send up a flare could make all the difference in the world as to whether or not they were found. The problem was that Wiggins and Jones were both spooked. Each of the men swore that there were “ghosts” moving around out there in the storm. White shapes that blended into the snow and didn’t respond when called out to. Both of them were solid and professional soldiers. They weren’t prone to that kind of crap, and Colonel Dyvang didn’t know what to make of it. Whatever it was they thought they were seeing out there scared them and that was a hard thing to do for men who had spent time in the heat of the Sand Box.
Jones was currently on watch as the colonel and Wiggins sat near the pilot compartment making a much-needed meal out of some cold MREs. Colonel Dyvang flinched as he heard Jones’ open up with his M-16. Both he and Wiggins dropped their half-eaten pouches of food and scrambled to their feet, grabbing up their own weapons. Parker came running out of the pilot compartment.
“Get back in there!” Colonel Dyvang snapped at the tech. “We’ve got this.”
Colonel Dyvang and Wiggins sprinted to join Jones at the Hercules’ open rear door. Jones had stopped shooting, but the man was as pale as death. He looked at them with fear-filled, frantic eyes.
“There are monsters out there in the snow, sir,” Jones said.
“I find that unlikely,” Colonel Dyvang grumbled. “You’re relieved. Give your weapon to Wiggins.”
Jones stared at him wide-eyed. “No, sir. I’ll be holding onto my rifle.”
Raged flared inside of Colonel Dyvang. No one refused an order that he gave. He moved to make a grab at Jones’ weapon but the soldier stepped away from him and his hand passed through empty air.
“I’m telling the truth, sir!” Jones yelled. “There are monsters out there!”
“Sir …” Colonel Dyvang heard Wiggins say. There was fear in Wiggins’ voice.
Colonel Dyvang turned to look out in the snow. Out there in the storm, he saw the glow of yellow eyes staring back at him. Looking into them sent a chill running along his spine. He didn’t know what in the frag he was looking at, but he knew it needed to die. Colonel Dyvang jerked up his rifle, bracing it against his shoulder as he took aim at the monster the eyes belonged to. The white hair of its body made it hard to see, but it wasn’t completely invisible. His M-16 bucked in his hands and chattered as it spat a three-round b
urst at the thing in the snow. Colonel Dyvang couldn’t tell if he had hit his target or not. The glowing yellow eyes had vanished but that meant nothing. The creature could have avoided his shots and simply blended into the snow of the storm.
“Do you believe me now, sir?” Jones asked.
“I’ve seen things like that out there too, sir,” Wiggins added. “I just … I guess I thought it was my mind playing tricks on me given everything we’ve been through.”
“Parker really needs to get the blasted comm. working,” Jones commented.
“Enough!” Colonel Dyvang ordered. “From now on, we’re all going to stay right here and keep an eye out for whatever that thing was. If it shows itself again, I want it dead. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, sir,” Jones and Wiggins answered.
None of them saw the creature until was nearly on them. The colonel and Jones’ shots at it hadn’t driven it away but rather ticked it off. The beast leaped up inside the rear of the plane with them, knocking Wiggins aside as it entered. One of its white-haired hands sent Wiggins flying into the wall of the plane’s rear compartment with a loud thud. The beast roared like a lion as one of its clawed hands lashed out at Jones. Jones tried to dodge the blow but wasn’t able to. The creature’s claws opened up his chest in a shower of gore that splashed blood all over Colonel Dyvang. Jones collapsed to the floor of the plane, his chest a mess of mangled meat.
Colonel Dyvang leveled the barrel of his rifle at the monster and fired into it at point-blank range. His first burst tore holes in the monster’s guts. His second made them deeper. The monster reeled beneath the onslaught, its roar changing into a shriek of pain. The monster took two more stumbling steps and toppled over to land next to Jones’ corpse. It was still very much alive though. Colonel Dyvang leaped back away from it as one of its overly long arms swung outward through the air, the claws of its hand attempting to slash at his legs. Colonel Dyvang grunted as his back made contact with the wall of the plane behind him unexpectedly. He couldn’t retreat anymore from where the monster lay so he took aim at its head. His next burst tore into the monster’s forehead. The backside of the monster’s skull erupted in a shower of blood, bone fragments, and brain matter as the bullets he fired punched through it. The monster slumped over and laid still, a puddle of red forming around its ruptured skull.
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