by Crae, Edward
Fucking science.
A flash of movement crossed the middle monitor, causing him to stop and look up. Max must have seen it, too, as he spun around to plant his feet on the floor and leaned forward.
“Did you see that?” Jake asked.
“I saw that,” Max replied.
Grace leaned in, too, and Jake could tell she was freaked out. They all watched the monitors, frozen in place. Nothing was there but the drifting snow, quickly blowing across their view as if driven by heavy winds. The wind was picking up, Jake realized, and that meant it would be even colder outside. If anyone was out there, they had to be fucking crazy.
Another dark shape popped up in the corner for a brief second. Max stood, frozen in a “spidey-sense-tingling” pose, his mouth hanging open.
“Shit,” Grace said.
Jake jumped up, immediately going to the store room. “Cliff,” he whispered. “There are people outside.”
“What the fuck?” Cliff said, grabbing his rifle. “Are you sure?”
Jake led him back to the main room, where Cliff knelt down to watch the monitor. Drew had gotten up by then, and had wandered over. Jake pointed to the screen, and Drew gawked like everyone else, waiting for something to happen.
Another dark shape moved across the bottom of the screen. It was clearly man-shaped, and dressed in heavy outdoor gear, and old fashioned goggles to protect their eyes from the wind. They looked like Antarctic explorers.
“Holy shit,” Drew said. “They’re not even armed.”
Another shadow appeared among them. He carried what looked like an ax. He raised the weapon above his head and began rushing toward the building, disappearing from the camera’s view. A sudden impact on the wooden barrier startled them.
“They’re trying to chop their way in,” Grace said. Her voice was trembling and she stood and hid behind the couch, nudging Travis out of his coma.
“What the hell, man?” he asked as he sat up.
Jake turned and put a finger to his lips to shush him. Cliff went to grab his coat and boots. Drew joined him.
“Don’t let them get in,” Cliff whispered. “We’ll go out and take care of it.”
Jake nodded, holding up his machete. “Nobody’s getting’ in.”
When Cliff and Drew were dressed, they went to the back door, opening it slowly and peeking out. Then, they stepped out, gently closing the door behind them. Jake returned to the monitor just as the chopping began again.
“Fuckers,” he said, going to the wooden barricades.
He leaned against the door, listening to the people outside. He could hear muffled voices, all men, whispering harshly over the bitter wind. Max moved to the opposite end of the barricade, staring at Jake as he too listened.
One of the boards began to splinter as it was chopped again, and Jake could feel the rush of cold air coming in. He peeked through the tiny gap, seeing movement, but no details. He leaned back as the ax came chopping down again. Then, when he peeked, he saw a head lean in from the outside. He immediately stuck his machete in the gap, thrusting it through with all the force he could give it.
He felt the impact of the blade’s tip hit something, and heard someone cry out in pain. He chuckled, looking at Max, who was wide-eyed.
“That’ll learn ‘im,” Jake said.
Cliff and Drew snuck through the path between sheds toward the gate. They went slowly, so as not to crunch the ice. Though the wind was almost deafening, they weren’t taking any chances.
“The gate’s squeaky,” Drew reminded him.
Shit, Cliff thought. He stopped near it, trying to think of another way through.
“Maybe we can climb over it,” Drew said.
“If that were possible, they would have done it.”
“Wait,” Drew said, shouldering his rifle. “I got an idea.”
He waved Cliff after him and ran to the shed closest to the building, looking up. “Give me a boost,” he said.
Cliff clasped his hands together, kneeling down so Drew could climb up. Drew was heavy, but Cliff managed to raise him up far enough for him to reach the shed’s roof. When he was clear, he reached down. Cliff grabbed his hand and struggled to walk up the side with Drew’s help.
“Jesus Christ you’re fucking heavy,” Drew said, straining against his weight.
“That’s all muscle, baby,” Cliff said, pulling himself over the edge.
They mounted the slope and went over, carefully sliding down the other side and jumping onto the metal roof of the office building. It was slippery, but they managed to reach the peak. Cliff raised his IR scope up to his eye and swept the area all around the camp. There were no heat signatures around, expect for what looked like a vehicle parked down the road.
“Truck,” Cliff said. “Empty.”
Drew went over first, laying face down toward the other side. Cliff followed, and they carefully crawled down toward the gutter. The snow was thick on the roof, and they had to be careful not to knock any over the edge.
“If we slip, we’re fucking screwed,” Drew said.
There were shouts below, and they could hear someone crying out in pain. They looked at each other, then continued sliding down as slowly as they could. Then, one of the intruders began running toward their truck. Cliff raised his rifle and followed him with the scope.
“He must be going to get a weapon or something,” Drew said.
“I’ll get him,” Cliff said.
He followed the man until he was well out of the sight of the others. He judged the man’s speed and direction, adjusted for the heavy wind, and centered on that ghostly, imaginary reticle that snipers had in their mind’s eye.
He fired.
The clank of the bolt was covered by the sound of the wind, and the silenced round hit its mark. The man tumbled forward and slid to a stop near the front of the truck.
“Did you get him?” Drew asked.
“Spot on,” Cliff said, turning his sights to the area in front of them. “Let me know if you can see them.”
A few bright spots occasionally appeared in his view, as if the men were backing away from the building just far enough and long enough for the tops of their heads to appear. He curled his fingers in anticipation, and despite the fact that they were about frozen solid, they still obeyed his commands.
He suddenly had a flashback. He remembered being in this same situation; lying on top of a roof, waiting for a target to appear over the edge. It was the exact same situation, except during a sand storm. No matter. He wouldn’t freak out over it. This was what he lived for. This was what he trained for.
A bright spot.
Pew!
Another shout as one of their own was dropped like a sack of shit.
“Jesus, man,” Drew said. “I guess they know we’re here now.”
Cliff adjusted his weight to get a better angle. The men below were beginning to panic, and were shouting in some unknown language. It sounded familiar to Cliff, as if he had heard it during a sortie in Iraq.
Arabic maybe? No. Couldn’t be.
Suddenly, Cliff began sliding. He felt Drew grab his leg, but his grip slipped and Cliff went sledding down the roof like a kid on Christmas morning. He lost his grip on the rifle as he hit the gutter, and he could see it tumble through the air as he flipped over the edge.
He impacted roughly behind the group of men, slamming down into the hard-packed snow. He immediately hopped to his feet to search for his rifle, but it was nowhere to be found. The men rushed him, their strange goggles and clothing reminding him of an attacking horde of Sandpeople on Tattoine.
He reached around to the small of his back to grab his machete. It was gone. The first attacker reached him on his right, swinging an ax horizontally. Cliff ducked and charged him, impacting him in the ribs and throwing him backward. Cliff turned just as another blade swept down at him. He dodged it, retrieving the ax that the other man had dropped.
He heard Drew fire from above, and another man fell bleeding
to the snow. Cliff swung the ax over his head, chopping into another man’s shoulder. His victim cried out in agony as the ax split him in two.
There were four more left.
Cliff ran toward the windmill to draw them out into the open. They gave chase, none of them realizing that they were putting themselves in harm’s way. One fell to Drew’s bullets, and the other three closed in on Cliff. He tripped over something as he backed away, falling into the snow. One more attacker fell to Drew’s bullets.
The other two pounced. Cliff rolled out of the way, avoiding one, but the other grabbed him, pinning him down and wrapping his surprisingly strong hands around his neck.
Fuck, Cliff thought. This is it. Strangled to death by some freak in the snow.
He heard gunfire again, and felt the other attacker fall next to him. Cliff’s strangler glanced over, relaxing his grip as he realized he was probably next. Cliff wound up and gave him a haymaker right in the jaw. A bullet to the shoulder followed, and the man rolled off, struggling to get to his feet and flee.
Cliff grabbed his leg and pulled him down. He climbed onto the man’s back, pinning him down and pummeling the back of his head with his fists. He growled and grunted like a beast, pounding the skull over and over and over again until the man was still.
Breathless he stood, found his rifle, and put a bullet in the man’s head for good measure. Drew dropped down off of the roof, landing roughly but rolling to his feet. Cliff bent down to roll the man over. He grabbed the strange goggles and pulled them off, tossing them to the side. He pulled down the facemask, and the two of them stared at the dead face.
“What the fuck is that?” Drew said.
Cliff shook his head. The man’s face was scarred and withered, but still human. He did not appear to be a mutant or a fungal creature. He was just disfigured and appeared rabid. Even his teeth were rotten and broken, covered by dry, wrinkled lips.
“Is this a man?” Cliff said. “Or some kind of monster?”
“Well,” Drew said. “I’d hate to say it, but maybe Travis should take a look at him. I’ll go check the others and get Jake to open the door.”
Cliff nodded, still staring at the man’s face. He had never seen anything like it. He appeared to have some sort of disease. Was it related to the plague, or was it just something normal. Were the others like this?
“Dude,” Drew said, standing over one of the other bodies. “Same shit.”
Cliff went over and looked at the other man’s face. He too was withered and scarred. His teeth were missing entirely, and his eyes were sunken and yellow.
“Holy Mary, mother of Jesus,” Cliff said. “What the fuck is going on?”
“I don’t know, man,” Drew said. “But let’s hope Travis or Grace can figure it out.”
Chapter Twelve
Maynard stood still outside of the stables, waiting for the screaming thing to appear again. He had heard it earlier, and had come up with a plan to kill it. He would calculate when and where it would appear, and be ready to chop its head off when it did.
So far, he had noticed that the strange monster appeared and disappeared in a pattern. Though he wasn’t sure exactly what that pattern was, it resembled a daisy orbit formation; an elliptical orbit that also rotated around a center point, creating a daisy-like pattern.
He had seen such patterns in fractal images, and in TV documentaries, and concluded that there was some physics-related reason the creature followed it. This led him to believe that the creature wasn’t truly in the physical world, but only appeared so for a second or two, as the two universes rotated around each other in that familiar daisy pattern.
It was as good a theory as any.
“Come on, you little bitch,” he whispered.
He was freezing his ass off, as the winds were picking up something fierce. It was already cold to begin with, but the wind just made it worse. He was wrapped in several layers of clothing, including a giant, thick, trench coat lined with fur and polyester insulation. But still, his nuts were like ice cubes.
“Get it over with,” he said. “So I can get back inside and take this shit off.”
He listened intently, hearing nothing but the wind, the cracking of the trees, and the sniffing and moaning of the shamblers in the stable. But then, off in the distance, he heard the screams. He turned around quickly, seeing nothing but what looked like lights in the distance.
“Fuck you,” he said, turning around again and preparing for the screamer’s appearance.
The snow to his left exploded toward him, showering him with its freezing bulk. He backed away as he saw the thing appear then disappear again.
“One,” he said, turning around to face her predicted location.
She appeared somewhat off, instantly raising her wicked little arms and releasing that banshee-like keening before disappearing again.
“Two,” he said. “Off a little.”
He turned to her next predicted location, and when she appeared, she was exactly where he thought she would be. Her ghostly, demonic image disappeared again. This time, Maynard ran to where she would appear next, poising his machete. The snow exploded behind him, shoving him forward stumbling. Her scream split his eardrums, causing him to drop his machete.
“Goddamnit!” he hissed. “Fucking bitch.”
He retrieved his machete and recalculated his strategy. She had been off this time, or maybe he was off. Why did she not appear where he thought she would? Why was he right only half the time?
The pattern must be off.
“Show me your pretty face again,” he whispered.
The screamer appeared again, this time right where Maynard thought she would. He ran back to the center of her orbit, facing the place where she would appear next. He adjusted his facing to the right just a little, taking into account the Earth’s rotation.
He had no idea why.
The thing blinked into existence in that exact spot, rushing toward him like a hellish comet. Maynard dodged out of the way as she passed. He could feel the heat come off of her. She was ablaze with some kind of ethereal fire.
“What the fuck?” Maynard whispered.
He returned to his spot just as she appeared again right where he predicted. He swung the machete as hard as he could. Before she screamed and disappeared, he felt the blade’s tip catch something… something soft.
Breathless and excited, he looked at the blade. Its tip was coated in some black substance. “Ichor,” he said. “Demonic essence.”
He licked the fluid. It was bitter but delicious.
“Mmmm,” he said with pleasure. “That’s tasty.”
He reared back his machete again, waiting for the exact moment for her to appear. “Let’s go sweetheart,” he hissed. “Time to go nighty night.”
As soon as he felt the woosh of heat, he swung. She appeared right there in the machete’s path, demonic and grimacing like something from Hell. But this time, the blade severed her ugly head, and he was jolted with hellfire. Maynard screamed as his hand was burned, and fell back in shock.
As he lay there, he heard a loud, shimmering cry. He lifted his head to look, seeing the headless body twist and disintegrate. The head itself had fallen into the deep snow, and steam rose from the hole it left. The smell of roasted pork filled the air. Maynard laughed out loud.
“I got you, you little cunt,” he shouted.
Then, a deafening crack sounded near his house. He rolled over to look, watching in horror as a tree was finally broken in the wind and was falling toward his house.
“No,” he whispered. “No no no no.”
He leaped to his feet, running at full speed toward home. The tree fell slowly, but purposely, right toward the back area of his cabin. It crushed through the roof with a deafening boom, buckling the steel roof and shattering the wooden trusses. The largest of the tree’s branches was pointed straight down, and Maynard knew it would crush the floor, sending the tree down through to the cellar where his pets were kept.
/> But Toby…
“Toby,” he whispered, his heart aching. “Oh, Toby.”
He ran at full speed, finally reaching the house as its side wall crumbled. The floor in his living area was crushed, and as he predicted, the top of the tree continued through. His specimens would be crushed; useless. His shamblers would be killed, and the demon…
“Oh no!”
As the tree settled into place, and its broken branches fell off into the snow, Maynard approached the opening. He could see down into the cellar, the cages were crushed and shattered, their contents smashed and mutilated. The curtain on the far wall was ripped down, and the demon…
The creature stirred. Maynard had thought it was dead, but now it was waking. His heart nearly exploded in terror. He had captured the most terrifying and dangerous mutant there was and kept it in his cellar. It wouldn’t be happy.
Panicked and breathless, Maynard prayed to God that it, too, would die.
Toby was nearly crushed by the falling tree as it shattered the wall near the fireplace. He was immediately blasted with the freezing wind, and fled to the corner of the cabin trembling with terror. The wind was deafening, and the cold that it brought threatened to freeze him solid.
He scrunched himself up as tightly as he could to keep warm, pulling his blanket around him. From underneath, he saw the flames leap out of the hearth, driven by the hard wind, and catching the rubble on fire. He screamed at the top of his lungs, but the sound was drowned out by the howling, arctic wind.
Through the storm, Toby could hear the shouts of a familiar voice in the distance. It sounded like Maynard! He peeked out from under the blanket, looking through the crumbled wall for the source of the voice. He could see the shadowy form of a cloaked man stumbling through the rubble.
“Maynard!” he cried out.
“Toby!” the voice shouted back.
Toby threw off the blanket so Maynard could see him. The strange man raced toward him, tripping over rubble, covering his face with his hands. He probably couldn’t see Toby through the smoke that billowed outward as the flames spread. Toby stood, waving his arms to get Maynard’s attention.
