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!”
Over the wind, Mapes thought he heard a scream that sounded like Preston. The voice seemed to blend with the wind making the storm sound alive.
“Preston, goddammit, report your location,” Mapes said into his mic. “Where the hell are you?”
This time only the screech of wind replied.
His heart caught in his throat when he saw a cloak of white dart between the bases of two trees. Mapes raised his gun and moved his finger from the outside to the inside of the trigger guard.
“Come on, you bastards… show yourselves…”
He jerked the muzzle to the west, then the east. Over the wind came a guttural, animalistic panting and the creaking of joints. There were at least two of them out there, hunting him. Whatever these things were – hybrid, monster, or human – they didn’t care if he heard them.
They were taunting him.
He tracked another flash of white to the east and pulled the trigger. The shotgun blast spread out and punched into the base of a tree behind the camouflaged creature. The shot echoed through the forest, and when it was gone, the sounds of the beasts had faded as well. He knew they were still out there, but he’d bought himself some time.
He limped ahead, the blood loss starting to make him light headed.
Stay with it you old bastard. You are not dying on this turd of ice.
He blinked again and again until his vision cleared enough to make out the fort of trees lining the bottom of the foothills. He was almost to the target.
Mapes waited a few minutes to make sure he was alone and then walked to the safety of a massive tree. Another gust of wind slammed through the woods. Limbs caked with snow swung and creaked above him.
He raked his gun over the terrain just to make sure it wasn’t one of the creatures sneaking up with him. After a second pass, he crouched uncomfortably and pulled his map and compass.
The village was a half-mile behind him now and he was a quarter mile to the base of the facility. He double-checked his math, and then tucked both items back in his vest.
“Preston, Dixon, do you copy?” The wasted words trailed off to static. He checked his leg again and then reloaded his shotgun.
Almost there… Just keep moving.
A chill shot up his back as he stood. In his peripheral, a figure to the north. Something was watching him. He slowly turned and raised his gun at a naked man standing between two trees. Shoulder-length black hair hung over his face; gray fur slid over his shoulders, and blue veins webbed across exposed skin the color of snow.
The man rolled his head back and flexed lean muscles across his furry frame as he let out a guttural roar. Mapes centered his shotgun on the man’s chest, but before he could pull the trigger, dozens of figures leapt from piles of snow in the forest. Male, female, some clothed, some naked, all came running.
The sight of so many creatures sucked the freezing air from Mapes’s lungs. He fired off a blast that hit the black-haired man in the chest. Fresh blood coated the white like a bucket of paint had been kicked over.
Mapes snapped into survival mode. Firing to his left then his right, he back peddled through the powder. Spent shells ejected as he fired. The hybrid beasts were fast. Several dropped to all fours and galloped toward him while others leapt to the trees. More came from the direction of the Nazi facility that Mapes was starting to think he was never going to see.
“Fox 1… Can you hear me? This is Ghost 1. Do you copy?”
“I’m under attack!” Mapes yelled back.
“Where?” Fitz replied. “Where the fuck are you?”
“In the forest! Not far from the target!”
Mapes ignored the next transmission, squeezing off another shot that took the top off the head of a thick male with a mane of black hair. The monster dropped to his knees, brain sloshing out his broken head.
“Fox 1, what the hell is going on out there?”
Mapes didn’t have time to reply. He continued firing, hitting a female in the stomach. Her guts splattered on the snow. Mapes wondered if part of Fox Team was inside the steaming pile.
The boom of his shotgun echoed through the forest with screech of the monsters. They fanned out in all directions, making it nearly impossible to kill them. He counted fourteen, but more seemed to be emerging from the sheets of snow in the distance.
“Come on!” Mapes yelled. He jerked the gun up to fire on a smaller beast that had climbed a tree behind him. The blast hit the creature in the side, blowing out a hunk of flesh and exposing the ribcage.
Mapes whirled to shoot a female on all fours skittering over the powder with a knife gripped beneath her yellow teeth.
What the hell were these things?
He centered his muzzle on the beast as she leapt to two feet, knife now in hand.
Click. Click.
Mapes cursed, dropped the shotgun, and went to pull his M9 as the creature tossed the blade at him. He flinched to the left at the last second. The knife was meant for his neck, but sheared off a piece of his trap muscle instead. Warm blood trickled through his layers.
The beast squawked in anger and Mapes screamed in pain. It dropped back to all fours and barreled toward him. He pulled his M9 from the cold holster and fired three shots that punched through her throat, chest, and stomach. He side-stepped out of the way and she somersaulted and came to a rest in the snow. Blood gushed from the wounds as she bled out next to him.
She sucked in frozen breaths and stared up at him, one of her hands twitching as if she was trying to raise it. He walked past her, saving his bullets for the dozen other creatures prowling and forming a circle around him. Several of them stood on all fours and peaked out from behind the safety of the trees to growl at him.
These were not adult Variants, and they weren’t human. He had never seen any of the monsters carry weapons. Why would they need them? They were weapons in themselves, and yet two of the females he had killed carried knives.
Mapes raked his M9 from target to target but held his fire. They s
hied from the gun now like they understood it could kill them. Variants didn’t usually do that. These things had more reasoning, like the Juveniles.
He plucked a grenade from his vest in case they decided to rush him. Blowing himself up sounded better than getting torn to shreds.
The grenade seemed to scare the monsters even more. Several of them darted into the curtain of snow and back into the forest, vanishing into the mist of white.
“You want some?” he said, pointing the gun and grenade at a half naked male that remained. It snarled back then ducked behind a tree.
“How about you?” He directed the weapons at a smaller creature with a carpet of hair sprouting from its back. It was crouched in a cat-like hunch, waiting to strike. As soon as he moved his trigger finger from the M9 to the pin on the grenade it backed away.
One by one, the beasts slowly retreated back into the storm.
Mapes kept his finger wrapped around the pin and scanned the terrain, struggling to catch his breath. Blood leaked down his chest, but he didn’t dare take his eyes off the forest.
He had found the missing villagers, and if he was going to die he was going to bring them with him. If he pulled the pin it would blow him to pieces and detonate the C4 in his rucksack. There was enough in there to blow up half the forest.
“Yeah, that’s fucking right. Run. Run or take you all with me!”
He glimpsed a flash of motion that came so fast he couldn’t react. His yell was followed by a guttural oompf! A tree branch hit him in the dead center of his chest with such force it lifted him into the air. He was thrown backward several feet; his arms and legs spread-eagled as he sailed through the air and hit something that felt like a wall. The most intense pain he had ever experienced shot through his entire body. Stars broke before his eyes, and then, darkness.
Mapes blinked, struggling to stay conscious. Through tunnel vision, a new figure lumbered through the gusting wind on two feet. Unlike the other beasts, this one was far larger with barreled chest muscles and bulging biceps. Its flesh was covered in tangled, gray fur. Instead of clothes, it wore ridged armor plates on its arms, legs, and chest. Now Mapes knew what had killed the juvenile back in the shed at the church near their LZ.
“What the fuck,” Mapes choked. He could hardly speak. Hell, he couldn’t even move. It took every inch of energy to even crane his head.
The creature strode forward, stopping when it was ten feet away to tilt a head that looked oddly human aside from the overgrown fur on its face. Something hung from its beard…
Mapes squinted at the dried body parts; a shriveled eye tied to the hair, an ear, and…
The creature’s yellow-slotted eye on the left and blue eye on the right focused on Mapes. He squirmed and tried to raise his M9, but he couldn’t move anything below his neck. He dropped his head and saw the gun was gone. That’s when he realized the tree limb that had hit him was not a limb at all.
The long handle of a spear protruded from his chest. The blade had pinned him and his rucksack full of C4 to the tree like a thumbtack pinning a butterfly to a wall. If he had to guess, the tip had sheared his spine below his ribcage.
Mapes choked on blood and coughed. The pain was gone now, replaced by something he hadn’t felt in a long time.
Fear was an odd thing. It could be more paralyzing than any other emotion. But Mapes wasn’t afraid of dying. He was afraid of being left out here in this godforsaken ice jungle.
The beast crouched to study him, sniffing the air. Its bi-colored eyes flitted from him to the ground near his boots. He followed its gaze to the grenade in the snow.
In a swift motion, the beast turned and darted away, leaving Mapes to die, alone, and paralyzed in the frozen forest.
* * *
Fitz led Team Ghost toward a fence of trees. The shotgun blasts had come from somewhere inside over thirty minutes ago. He stopped to listen, but heard nothing over the screaming wind.
Sheets of thick snowflakes fell from the sky, air-brushing everything with white. The soft powder stuck to Fitz’s carbon fiber blades. A hundred things were running through his mind and none of them were good. But there was a mission to complete and he still held onto a seed of hope that Stevenson was alive.
If he was, he was somewhere through the forest ahead. Fitz had a feeling they would find Stevenson eventually, perhaps in the lab facility.
Fitz directed Dohi to take point and then gestured for Apollo to go with him. Together, the two trackers set off into the forest. Fitz led Rico and Tanaka after them.
The tips of the trees rose toward the sky of white, branches swaying and shifting. Cracks and groans came from all directions like they were on a wood boat in violent seas.
They were moving quickly, as one, keeping close instead of combat intervals. Whatever was out here was cunning enough to fool both Dohi and Apollo, and they had already slaughtered Fox Team. Judging by the lack of gunshots, Mapes was dead now too.
Fitz focused on Dohi’s outline through the snow. Apollo trotted alongside, sniffing, wagging his tail, then sniffing some more. For a moment, the sight reminded Fitz of Beckham. Fitz loved the dog, and the Shepherd loved him, but Apollo was Beckham’s dog, and Fitz felt guilty for bringing him all this way.
Just make sure you bring him home in one piece, Beckham had said.
Fitz exhaled and whispered, “I’ll bring him home, brother. Soon.”
The thought of seeing his friends again gave Fitz the boost of energy he needed. He walked a bit faster, knowing they were closing in on the target. Get in, find the weapon, blow the place up, and get out. That was all they had to do now. Well that, and survive. And find Stevenson.
Fitz worked his fingers in his gloves to keep the blood flowing. He needed to be ready to fire at a second’s notice, and the cold had already penetrated every layer. He raised his M4 when Dohi froze ahead. The tracker balled his hand and crouched next to Apollo. The dog trotted a few feet forward, his muzzle going to work before stopping at a mound that looked like a red snow cone.
Flashing a hand signal, Fitz ordered his team to toward the gore. As he approached he prepared himself to find a body, but instead, there was only a flattened area covered in fresh blood.
Dohi plucked something out of the snow and held it up. He tossed away a shotgun shell and looked up when Fitz arrived.
“Looks like a battlefield,” Dohi whispered. He stood and jerked his chin toward the north where bloodstains littered the snow.
Fitz wiped the snow from his goggles.
“But where are all the bodies?” Rico asked.
“On me,” Fitz said. He led the team through the site of a battle, searching for evidence of whatever had happened. Every few feet he spotted a shotgun shell and blood, but there was no sign of a corpse.
Fitz stopped mid-stride when he felt eyes on him. Dohi had already stopped.
“What?” Rico whispered. “Why are we stopped?”
Another voice came in the respite of the whistling wind. It was faint, and sounded strangled. Fitz followed Dohi’s gaze to the northeast. Through the gusting snow, he saw a figure against a tree.
Fitz flashed a set of motions for Ghost to spread out. With their weapons shouldered, they slowly approached the contact.
Squinting to see the man’s face, Fitz hoped to God it wasn’t Stevenson, The man’s head was slumped against his chest, and a wood pole had him pinned to the tree. Blood blossomed around his white uniform and vest, leaking down his stomach and legs. As Fitz approached he saw exposed, pale skin.
It was one of Fox Team, but there was no way the man could still be alive.
Fitz directed Rico and Tanaka to watch their six and then approached the tree with Dohi and Apollo. They stopped a few feet away, and Fitz reached out to lift the man’s head to see Sergeant Mapes. His lips were blue, and ice hung from his nose.
“Damn,” Fitz whispered. He slowly pulled his fingers from Mapes’s chin to set his head back on his chest
and looked to Dohi.
“Help…”
Fitz’s heart leapt and he redirected his gaze toward Mapes.
“He’s alive,” Dohi whispered.
Purple, lips trembling, Mapes tried to talk.
“Water,” he mumbled. “Need. Water.”
Dohi pulled his water bottle, and Mapes craned his neck, wincing in pain, and tonguing the water.
“Hypothermia. Makes the body hot,” Dohi whispered. “We got to get him down from the tree.”
Fitz nodded, but Mapes shook his head and coughed.
“No,” he said. “I can’t move anything below my neck. Do me a solid, Master Sergeant. Put one in my head.”
Dohi and Fitz exchanged a look.
Fitz had killed out of mercy before, but shooting out here would tell whatever was out there where they were. They would have to knife him instead, but Fitz wasn’t sure he could do that.
“Tell us what you saw. Tell us what did this,” Dohi said.
Mapes swallowed. “Some sort of…” He coughed and his eyes rolled up into his head.
Fitz grabbed Mapes’s cheeks in his gloves and said, “Tell us what you saw, Mapes. We have to know.”
Redirecting his eyes, Mapes focused on Fitz.
A branch snapped in the distance, and a pile of snow fell to the ground.
Mapes choked again. “I saw demons. Not Variant. Not human. Something in between.”
Fitz glanced down at the spear shaft protruding from Mapes’s chest. Whatever had thrown it had done so with such force that it had torn through flesh, bone, and a rucksack. He slowly let go of Mapes’s face and took a step back.
“After you complete your mission, come back for my body. Don’t leave me out here,” Mapes mumbled. “Promise me, Fitz.”
Fitz turned toward another snapping tree branch that brought a mound of snow down. When he looked back at Mapes, the man was gone. His head slumped against his chest.
“I promise, brother.”
— 5 —
The lab entrance was easier to find than Fitz had thought. All he had to do was find the poles with Variant and human corpses flung up on display outside a bluff covered in snow and trees.
Extinction Lost Page 4
