by Alan Baxter
Fitz and Apollo followed her to the corner to a small alley that separated the building from the adjacent structure. Snow swirled into the narrow passage, masking his view momentarily. When it cleared he saw a back door to the café. From the sidewalk, he checked the rest of his team before entering.
Stevenson crouched on the sidewalk and nodded to Fitz.
Across the street, Dohi and Tanaka had already entered the hardware store.
With a breath, Fitz followed Rico into the alley. She stopped at the door, grabbed the handle, and put her shoulder into it after Fitz gave her the okay. Ice fell away from the frame and it creaked open.
Rico stepped back and shouldered her rifle.
Apollo stood next to Fitz, waiting for orders.
“Execute,” Fitz said.
Rico kicked the door, and Fitz strode inside, sweeping his rifle back and forth over an empty kitchen.
Pots, pans, and glasses littered the floor.
Apollo sniffed the ground, wagged his tail, and sat on his haunches.
“Clear,” Fitz said. He exchanged a glance with Rico. Side by side, they pointed their muzzles toward an open door that led to the main dining area. They slowly walked into the room furnished with booths and tables, clearing opposite sides.
Fitz lowered his rifle and let out an icy plume of breath that quickly faded away. The surface of every table and chair was covered in a layer of snow.
“Not even a single body,” Rico said.
She stepped over to a booth and wiped off the snow with her glove, revealing dinner plates and mugs. A bowl of frozen soup sat in the center of the table.
“It’s like they got up and left in the middle of dinner,” Fitz whispered. He scanned the room, then jerked his chin toward the exit.
They returned to the sidewalk just as Dohi and Tanaka exited the building across the street.
Both men shook their head.
Fitz mimicked their action and turned to wave Stevenson over, but the big man was gone.
Fitz whirled to his left, then his right.
“Stevenson?” Fitz said. “Yo, Stevenson.” He kept his voice low, trying not to draw attention, but the only answer was the whistling wind.
Dohi and Tanaka crossed the street, battling gusts of snow and grit.
“Where the fuck did Stevenson go?” Rico asked.
Fitz ran to the position he had last seen the man. He slowed as he spotted a wad of black material resting in the fresh powder. Stevenson’s crumpled skull mask bandana.
-3-
Sergeant Mapes couldn’t believe his luck. Just when things were rolling forward with Operation Reach in Europe, he was sent to Greenland. Fucking Greenland. What the hell did the United States care about Greenland? He shook his head and continued the march through the western edge of a fishing village with a name he couldn’t even pronounce.
The worst part wasn’t getting shipped off to this oversized hunk of ice though. It was not knowing if he could trust the new members of his team. He had lost four on the landing in France. Four new faces, four new names, and four new Marines he had to babysit surrounded him in the flurries. The only Marine he trusted was Corporal Mark Carol.
Mapes tucked the butt of his M4 tactical shotgun in the sweet spot in his armpit and continued walking. Carol was on point with his SAW slowly moving back and forth for contacts.
Lance Corporal Dixon and Lance Corporal Preston were working the road to the right. Both men were young, just seventeen and eighteen years old. A little younger than Mapes had been when he joined the Corps. It seemed like a hell of a long time ago in some ways, but in others he could still remember the first time he got an ass whooping for failing to polish his boots properly.
Oorah.
The good old days when they were fighting men, not monsters.
He looked to the other two members of his team, Private First Class Johns and Lance Corporal… Shit, Mapes had forgotten the name of the other man. His last name was a big city. He could remember that much.
Boston. You idiot.
Lance Corporal Boston and PFC Johns owned the road to the left. They were young bloods as well. Mapes hadn’t had the chance to get to know any of the new men, and he was still grieving the loss of those that had come before them. But this was war, and he knew by the time it was over there would be more fresh faces on Fox Team. One of them might end up replacing his own.
He continued through the snowstorm toward a cluster of shacks. Lumpy, white foothills rose like toes on a frozen foot in the distance. The road curved through the small fishing community nestled at the edge. Lines hung from poles in the yards where the owners had thrown up fresh catches to dry out. This was where the locals had lived, in poverty, without any form of electricity from what Mapes could tell.
He sniffled and swallowed a hunk of mucus. It caught in his throat, and he hocked it up, and spat it into the snow. On top of everything, he was catching a damn cold. He hated the fucking cold, hated the cold more than anything. If he ever did make it out of this mess and had the luxury of retiring he was going to do it somewhere warm, like Florida, or perhaps Mexico.
Damn you, Master Sergeant Fitz.
Mapes didn’t care how many Alphas and Variants Fitz had brought down. Trekking through the village was stupid and a waste of time. They should have dropped in outside the target and infiltrated the facility right away.
Carol balled his hand into a fist as he reached the first house. Then he directed his SAW at a single-room structure to his left.
Mapes jogged to catch up.
“What you got, Carol?”
He pointed toward a mound of white fur sticking out behind the right side of the house. It was the first sign of anything, alive or dead, that Mapes had seen since they began the trek thirty minutes ago.
He motioned for Dixon and Preston to clear the adjacent house. The men dipped their helmets and took off through the snow. Mapes left Johns and Boston to hold security on the side of the road, then jerked his chin for Carol to follow.
Together, the veteran Marines slowly approached what looked like a wolf pelt. Mapes had heard of the furry Variants discovered in climates just like this. The thought sent a shiver up his back. He had killed all sorts of monsters in the past seven months, but there was no denying an abominable snowman Variant with sucker lips was at the top of his list for the most horrifying things he could meet.
Jesus Christ. Is this real life?
Mapes knew Jesus wasn’t going to save him from anything. He flicked the safety off his shotgun. The only thing that had his back was the 12-gauge he was holding.
The wind howled in the distance. A gust scraped a chunk of snow off the shack’s roof, and it punched through the fresh powder. He eyed the foot-long icicles hanging from the awning as he hugged the wall. The last way he wanted to die in the apocalypse was from a spear of ice driven through his skull.
Mapes could already hear what they would say about him back on the European front lines.
You hear what happened to Mapes? The dummy got hit in the dome by a spear of ice.
He shook his head and focused on the white fur that was ruffling in the wind. With his left side close to the shack, he inched forward, Carol on his right flank.
They exchanged a nod, and Carol burst around the corner with his SAW at eye level. Mapes moved his finger from the trigger guard to the trigger. Static crackled in his ear as he directed his shotgun on a corpse partially buried by a snowdrift. The white fur wasn’t the hide of some animal, it sprouted from the hide of a creature that had once been human.
They do exist. The furry fucking Variants are real.
“Fox 1, Ghost 1, do you copy, over?”
Mapes ignored the transmission and crouched to check the body. Master Sergeant Fitzpatrick would have to wait.
Carol held his SAW at the ready while Mapes us
ed a shaking hand to brush off a layer of snow from the cold flesh of a beast he had only heard stories about. The fur was long and tangled from the back to the head like a mane on a lion.
Was this one of the Inuit locals?
Mapes pulled his hand away and used the muzzle of his shotgun to roll the corpse over for a better look. As soon as he poked the flesh, a scream rose over the whistling wind.
Twisting, he watched Johns stumbling in the middle of the street with something sticking out of his stomach.
“Johns!” Carol yelled.
Another scream. This time it was Boston, but Mapes couldn’t see the young Marine.
PFC Johns staggered another foot, turned, and fell to his knees, a spear through his midsection.
Mapes pulled his shotgun away from the corpse and stood, his mind trying to grasp what he was seeing.
Carol was already running back to the street, and Dixon and Preston had stepped out of the other building.
“On me!” Mapes yelled. He moved to join them but something caught his leg. He looked back down at the corpse. This person wasn’t dead after all.
Time slowed as his view shifted to a woman with wild white fur stared up at him with two different colored eyes. The left was the yellow slotted iris of a Variant, but the other was brown like his own. Her lips curled into a snarl. They were not the bulging sucker lips of a monster, but jagged, yellow teeth that clanked together from her bloodied gums.
She was some sort of Variant, but human at the same time – a hybrid.
He snapped alert as she swiped at him with a knife. The blade slashed through his left calf before he could move. He stumbled back a few feet and swung his shotgun around, but her knife was already on its way. This time he moved quickly enough to avoid the blade, and it sailed over his shoulder.
A screech. Then a choking sound.
Mapes didn’t have a chance to turn to see what the hell was making it.
“You piece of—” He took aim but the woman dashed behind the wall of the shack.
Jesus, she’s fast.
Mapes gritted his teeth from the pain racing up his leg, and the anger from the ambush. Adrenaline emptied into his system, prompting a wave of energy.
When he turned to find a target, Carol was on the ground gripping his neck. Blood oozed from between his gloved fingers. The knife the hybrid woman had thrown had hit him right in the jugular.
Mapes knew there wasn’t anything he could do for Carol. Johns was dying too, his body jerking in the snow in the center of the street.
Boston was gone.
Dixon and Preston were chasing something to the north toward the foothills.
“Get back here!” Mapes yelled.
They vanished over a hill.
Cursing, Mapes checked for targets again, and then took a knee next to Carol. The corporal was choking on his own blood. The awful gurgling sound made Mapes cringe.
“It’s okay, man. You’re going to be okay,” he lied. It wasn’t the first time he had said that to a dying brother.
Carol’s eyes widened behind his goggles and flitted from Mapes to the sky.
In a swift motion, Mapes twisted with his shotgun and blasted a figure that was leaping off the roof of the shack.
A body slammed into the snow to Carol’s right, face down, arms and legs spread wide, and a gaping hole in the middle of their back.
Mapes stood and swept his gun from left to right and then back again. There was no sign of Boston, and Johns was as still as a board now. Preston and Dixon were gone.
By the time Mapes looked back down at Carol, the man was dead. His hands fell limply from his neck, revealing the blade that had torn through his flesh.
Mapes scanned for hostiles in the storm. Snow fluttered from the sky, caking his visor with flakes. He wiped them away and then reached down to close Carol’s eyes. No one deserved to die in this icy hell. Cold and alone.
“I’m sorry, brother,” he whispered.
Down two men, and separated from the other two, Sergeant Jackson Mapes limped away. For the second time in as many days, he had lost half his team.
* * *
“It had to be had to be a Reaver,” Dohi said. “That’s why I can’t find tracks. It must have swooped down and grabbed Stevenson when we were inside searching.”
Team Ghost had sought shelter from the storm under the awning of a house on the edge of town. The village was empty. Completely empty. Not a single body, nor any evidence of what happened to these people. No blood. No tracks. Not even a skeleton. The entire village gave him the creeps and with Stevenson missing, Fitz was losing his cool.
“Did you hear that?” Rico asked.
“What?” Fitz asked. He stepped out into the flurry of snow and looked northwest. Over the growl of the wind came the unmistakable crack of a shotgun.
“Gunfire,” Rico said.
Fitz glared at the frosted foothills. Waves of snow poured from the sky. Visibility was getting worse, but his ears told him what his eyes could not.
Fox Team was in trouble.
The shotgun blast had come from that direction. He stepped back to the protection of the building, pulled his bandana down, and pushed the mic back to his lips while Tanaka, Rico, and Dohi stared at him.
“Mapes,” Fitz snapped. “Mapes, do you fucking copy?”
For the second time there was no response.
Fitz cursed again.
All it takes is all you got, Marine. Fitz repeated the motto three times before he started to feel better.
“Is that Fox Team?” Tanaka said. “It’s got to be, right?”
“What are you orders, sir?” Rico asked.
Her firm and formal question got Fitz’s attention. They had seen a lot in the past week, but there was nothing like losing a teammate. He knew he had to make a decision, and make one quick. But first, he needed to get a read on Dohi.
The man was crouched and calm in the snow, staring at the storm with his M4 cradled across his chest.
“You can’t find a single trace of Stevenson?”
Dohi shook his head. “He’s gone, sir.”
“But why didn’t we hear a gunshot, or a scream? And where the hell is everyone else?” Rico asked. She chomped on her gum, her big eyes widening.
Apollo’s tail was still up, but for the first time, Fitz didn’t trust the dog’s senses. Maybe it was the cold, or perhaps it was something else, but Apollo hadn’t been able to detect a single Variant.
Fitz pulled his bandana back up. “We have to keep moving. Stevenson is gone. We have to accept that and focus on the mission—”
“Ghost 1, Ghost 1….” Crackle. “Fox 1, do you…”
Fitz reached up to cup his hand over his helmet.
“Roger, Fox 1... Mapes, what the hell is going on out there?”
“They got my team.” Static broke the next transmission.
Rico caught Fitz’s gaze.
“Come again, Fox 1.”
“Carol and Johns are dead. Boston’s gone. Fuck. I can’t find Preston or Dixon.”
“Calm down,” Fitz said. “Calm down and tell me what happened.”
There was another flurry of static, and then, “The locals, man. I think it’s the locals that took ‘em.”
Dohi stood, narrowed brows painted white with snow.
“Where are you, Mapes?” Fitz asked. “Tell me where you are, and stay put.”
“I’m heading for the rally point.”
Fitz shook his head. “Mapes, listen to me. You need to hunker down and wait for us. You’re not going to make it to the rally point.”
Another flurry of static broke over the line.
Fitz nearly ripped his earpiece from his ear. He took in a breath, exhaled, and focused. Team Ghost was down a man, and now, apparently both of the other fire-team
s were KIA.
Tanaka, Rico, Dohi, and Apollo waited for orders as the wind swirled snow around the shack. Fitz hated leaving the village without Stevenson, but they had no choice.
Flashing a hand motion, Fitz ordered Team Ghost toward the foothills. It was the first time he had left a man behind since taking command, and he had a feeling it wouldn’t be the last. The burden ate at his marrow, but like Captain Reed Beckham had taught him, Fitz pushed on for the sake of his entire team.
-4-
Preston and Dixon were gone, and Mapes hadn’t found a single piece of them. He blinked away the stars before his vision and stopped to look at his leg. Blood oozed from the makeshift tourniquet and dotted the snow. He was leaving a trail of red, but for some reason the beasts that had picked off Fox Team back in the village hadn’t attacked him.
He raised his gun and continued his trek north toward the foothills. His boots sank ankle-deep into the snow drifts. The fresh powder was coming down fierce, stinging his exposed face, and working through his layers. He could hardly make out the outline of the trees in the surrounding forest. Skeletal branches groaned under the weight of the snow.
The deeper he ventured into the woods the harder it was to see. A crack, and then a snap like the pop of joints sounded to his right. He whirled with his shotgun toward the sound just as a branch snapped and crashed to the ground. Another crack came from his left, and he swung his gun toward another canopy strained by the weight of the snow.
“Preston, Dixon, do you copy?” he muttered into his headset, although he knew it wouldn’t do any good.
Static and the whistle of the wind was the only reply.
His team was gone.
Wiped out in minutes.
Mapes couldn’t believe his fucking luck. He had survived the apocalypse back home only to have Europe and now Greenland, shit on him.
He took another step, his boots sinking. The pain in his leg was getting worse, and the cold was numbing his senses.
Another step.
A voice came over the comm line and froze him mid-step.
“Sergeant Mapes… Do you… Help!”
