by Chris Ward
‘Akane!’ he screamed again, but he had no chance, it was far too close. It would be on her before he could get anywhere near.
‘Akane!’
It didn’t look that difficult to drive, but the snowplow’s controls felt like iron bars set in concrete. As Forbes’s dead eyes watched her from where he had fallen in the snow, Karin enacted every parody of a bad woman driver in the handbook, jerking the gears, stalling the engine, and slamming the vehicle forwards into the wall of the Fort, before reversing backwards into a tree.
Eventually she got the blade free from where it had caught on the entrance wall and managed to turn the vehicle round—crushing Forbes’s body in the process—but driving it in the thick snow was difficult. Forbes had actually used the blade to clear a path from the back of the Fort around to the front door, but controlling it was yet another thing that she was unsure of, jerking it up and down, burying it in frozen soil and then lifting it too high to move the snow away.
Eventually she maneuvered the vehicle out on to the main road through the complex, and got the blade lowered to clear the snow. Wiping sweat off her brow that had formed despite the creeping cold as evening drew in, she turned down towards the courtyard where she hoped she might find the others.
She had gone no more than thirty feet when a figure stepped out from beneath the porch of the teahouse. It stepped out into the snow and began waving its arms over its head.
In the gloom it was difficult to see whether it was a man or a woman. With long black hair and wearing a white jacket, it could have been a girl, except the person’s shoulders seemed a little too square. She moved the plow forward a short distance until the figure came up alongside.
‘Karin! I’m so glad to see you!’
‘Bee?’
He gave her a wide grin, the gaps between each of his teeth showing. With his huge dark eyes his face looked like a skull. She shivered. She had never liked Bee; even before he donned the sinister makeup he had worn on stage he had freaked her out. It wasn’t just the odd way he looked, but what was behind his eyes. She was used to the way men looked at her. More often than not their eyes would run over her body like a digital scanner, and if they didn’t she would see a steel in them that suggested it was a battle of wills to concentrate on her face. But with Bee, it was different. He’d never had any interest in screwing her. He looked right through her looks, right inside. Into her mind, her soul.
And she hated it.
‘Quickly,’ he said. ‘Help me up.’
She started to reach out a hand, then pulled it back, something in his tone unnerving her. ‘Where have you been, Bee?’
‘Karin, I don’t have time for this. Quickly.’
‘Did you see any of the others?’
His eyes narrowed, his smile dropping away. With a reedy snarl that reminded her of Professor Crow, he grabbed a handle next to the steps up the cab and pulled himself up towards her, the other hand reaching out. She cried out and twisted away as his fingers closed over her hair, jerking her head around. He tried to slam her face into the dashboard, but she stuck out an elbow and caught him in the neck, knocking him sideways. He slipped on the icy footstep and fell back. Karin tried to kick out, but fingers made powerful from years of hitting a bass guitar closed over her ankle and gripped her tight. She aimed her heel at his face, but his grip was too strong.
‘You fucking bitch,’ he said. ‘Don’t you understand? I need your help. I need your help to tame him.’
‘Tame who?’
‘Lolo.’
She twisted her leg again, this time to the side, executing an old dance exercise. The sideways torsion made him lose his grip and she kicked out at his face, but he batted her leg away. Her ankle thumped against the metal frame of the cab and she winced in pain. Bee started to grab for her again when a growl came from behind him. He gasped, turning to look. A dark shape came bounding out of the gloom. Seeing he was distracted, Karin kicked out hard at the side of Bee’s face. Her shoe caught him flush and he fell off the plow, straight into the path of the oncoming bear.
She didn’t stay to watch. She pushed away and rolled out of the other side of the cab, sprinting away as fast as she could down the track she had cleared in the snow. Behind her came the sound of Bee’s screams and crunching bones.
The Fort rose up in front of her, its doorway welcoming. Even though Forbes had broken it in, she might be able to find somewhere inside to hide. If she had to she could go back down into the tunnels.
Then a shadow moved across the doorway and made her plan redundant.
She veered off the path, running as best as she could. The chilled evening air had begun to harden the surface of the snow, making every step feel like she was punching through ice. Her legs felt heavy with fatigue, but adrenalin drove her on. Terrified that the bear inside the Fort would see her, she headed around the outside of the building and then cut straight into the forest, hoping to find somewhere to hide.
(I don’t want to die)
She had barely reached the first trees when a roar came from behind her. She glanced back just long enough to see a shadowy bounding shape as it rushed across the snow. She stifled a scream and hurried forward, into the gloom under the trees. She could practically feel the breath that stank of Bee’s blood, hot and tickly on her neck, and she closed her eyes, not wanting to feel its teeth
(please be quick please be quick don’t make me suffer)
puncturing her skin and ripping through her body as it lacerated her muscles and crunched through her bones—
—then hands were pulling at her, and a girl’s voice was telling her
(hurry hurry)
as she was dragged sideways into a small opening. Her feet felt hard concrete beneath them and someone was pulling her down into a cold, dark corner.
‘We’re safe here, Karin,’ came Akane’s soothing voice.
The bear roared, and the concrete shook around them as it slammed against the opening Akane had pulled her through. She tried to speak, but all she could do was let out a desperate scream.
‘This is an old World War Two pillbox,’ Jun’s voice said, and she started, having not seen him in the dark crouching just inches away. ‘We’re stuck, but it can’t get in. The opening is too small.’
As Karin’s eyes adjusted to the gloom, she looked around her and saw Jun was right. They were in what resembled a giant egg made of concrete, with a slit less than two feet wide on one side for the entrance, a small sitting space inside and a long thin strip no more than six inches high through which to observe the forest. The pillbox walls were almost three feet thick, and as she watched the bear came around the front, one paw scrabbling at the outside of the slit, looking for a way in. Unable to fit its claws into the thin gap, it tried ramming its shoulder against the outside, but to no effect.
Karin felt Akane’s hands wrap around her. ‘We’re safe here,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry. We might freeze to death, but at least we won’t get eaten.’
After a few minutes the bear gave one last frustrated growl, slammed the side of the pillbox with its paw, and then wandered off into the forest. The gloom was so deep now that within seconds it became nothing more than a shadow, melting into the darkness beneath the trees.
Crouched in the corner of the pillbox, Karin was in the middle with Akane on one side and Jun pressed against her on the other. As the adrenaline rush began to subside, she realised it wasn’t just for comfort. The temperature was dropping quickly.
‘Thank you,’ she whispered.
‘We got out through the hole in the cave that the avalanche caused,’ Akane said. ‘What happened to you?’
‘The stairs I took came out inside the Fort,’ Karin said. ‘I found O-Remo dead … and I killed Rutherford.’
‘Killed him?’
She nodded. ‘He was trying to break down the Fort door with a snowplow. I told him to stop … I told him…’
The tears came rushing out, and once they started they wouldn’t stop. They
became more than just for what had happened to them, but for every failing in her life. From the moment she sold her soul for stardom, to the day she walked away from O-Remo and her dreams, to the first night she lay on her back beneath a sweaty English billionaire in an attempt to get it all back. She cried and cried until the tears began to freeze on her cheeks.
As Akane held her close, Karin couldn’t help feeling that it should be the other way round, that this brave young teenager should be finding comfort in her, the thirty-something former media starlet who had seen and done it all. As the tears finally began to subside, she told them about Forbes and then Bee, and in turn they told her what had happened down in the caves.
‘We can’t stay here,’ Jun said at last. ‘We might be safe from the bears but we’ll freeze to death in a couple of hours. We’re all soaking, and the temperatures are subzero already.’
‘The Fort is the nearest place,’ Karin said. ‘I saw a bear inside, though. Perhaps if we could avoid it long enough we could shelter in the basement. It wouldn’t be much warmer, but at least it would be dry, and we might be able to find some blankets or something.’
‘We have to find a way to kill those bears,’ Akane said. ‘It’s them or us. Sooner or later.’
‘How?’
‘You said Forbes had a snowplow?’
‘I abandoned it when Bee attacked me. It’s big enough to stop one, but it’s not very fast.’
‘It’s better than nothing,’ Akane said. ‘If we can get to it, at least we can try to find the others.’
‘The bears could be anywhere,’ Jun said. ‘We basically have no choice. If we can get to the back wall of the Fort, we can try to either get inside or get that snowplow.’
‘Split up,’ Akane said. She looked at both of them in turn, and though Karin couldn’t see her eyes, she could sense the desperation in her voice. ‘We can’t risk it getting two or more of us at once. We have to be brave, and we have to be prepared to sacrifice ourselves so the others can make it. We have to stop them. There’s nothing else that’s important right now.’
‘No—’ Jun started to say, but Akane put a hand over his mouth.
‘It’s the only way.’
He sighed. ‘Okay. If we have no other choice. Let’s get this over with.’
The Fort was just a grey smudge behind the dark stalks of the trees. Jun gave a slow count of three under his breath, then they broke from the pillbox one by one, running as quickly as they could through the snow towards the back of the Fort. Karin stared straight ahead, refusing to look at the shadows of Jun and Akane on either side of her, terrified of seeing a bear’s monstrous shape come looming out of the dark to drag one of them away. As the wall of the Fort came up in front of her and she pressed her hands against its cold stone, she gasped with relief as she saw the others make it.
Jun was ahead of her, Akane just behind. Staying low and close to the wall, they made their way around the Fort until they were on the front side of the building with the broken doors of the main entrance just in front of them.
‘There’s the plow,’ Jun whispered, as they crowded in behind him and ducked down behind a stand of snow-covered bushes. ‘What do you think? Go for it or head inside and try to find somewhere to hole up for the night?’
‘The plow,’ Akane said. ‘Let’s take the bastards on.’
Karin was about to reply when Jun put up a hand. ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘Can you hear that?’
‘What–’
‘Shh!’
They all fell silent. For a moment, all Karin could hear was the gentle sighing of the wind and the light pitter-patter of freshly falling snow, then she heard it, a low drone over the top of everything mixed with a tinkling sound, like the breaking of icicles over the hum of a distance engine.
‘What is it?’ she whispered.
‘I don’t believe it,’ Jun said. ‘It’s music.’
42
The final concerto
Like the Pied Piper, Ken had known how to make them come. Standing on top of his van with the guitar strapped on and a cable snaking down to the amp below, he played a series of finger-picking pieces to get their attention, to draw them in. On the ground below him he had set up Bee’s huge bass cabinet and plugged in the bassist’s favorite instrument, a heavy six-string that could play almost low enough to slip into sound waves only dogs could hear.
As the dark set in and the evening brought subzero temperatures with it, he tried not to let his teeth chatter as his arms shook with cold. His fingers routinely missed simple notes, and he prayed the bears would come while he still had the strength to play the bass strings. So far there had been no sign of them, although he had heard them roaring from time to time, further out across the complex or back in the forest. He had seen no one else alive.
The Grand Mansion was still burning. The flames had spread to the dining hall and to the rooms on the second floor of the west wing, which was now a raging inferno. While Ken felt a sense of sorrow at the building’s demise, he was grateful for the occasional gusts of warm air on his face.
A growl on the road leading out of the courtyard announced the arrival of the first of the bears. It snarled and snapped as it came through between the gateposts and circled around the van like a fighting dog looking for an opening.
He heard another roar as a second bear came through the space between the burning west wing and the first of the dormitories, completely heedless of the fire raging alongside it. It snarled as it reached the other, circling in the opposite direction as if they were pack animals trying to cut off his line of retreat.
‘Come on, where’s the others?’ he muttered, willing his freezing fingers to play on. He couldn’t wait too long. If they rushed him before he got a chance to take up the bass, his whole plan would fail.
A third bear came into view, appearing out of the dark below the courtyard. It was covered in snow as if it had been chasing something. It joined the others in their slow, wary circling of the van.
Six, Forbes had said. Jun had killed one with the flare, but where were the other two?
Something slammed into the van, knocking him forward. He slipped and fell off, lucky to land in a drift of snow which stopped the guitar from crushing his ribs. He pushed forwards and fell back out into the section he had cleared, just as the van shuddered again and a roar split the night. A moment later a fourth bear appeared around the side of the van, its maw bloody with gore as if it had just finished feeding.
The other three bears stopped their stalking and began to snarl. The spell was broken. The bass stood on its stand a few feet away, but Ken didn’t have time to reach it. If he let go of the guitar he would be dead.
As the first bear charged, he rolled on to his back, depressing the distortion pedal with his shoulder, stabbing at the strings at the same time.
A droning guitar roar burst out of his Marshall and the bear fell back, wailing. It knocked into a second, but the other two kept their distance, snapping and snarling, waiting for a chance to get closer. His fingers were aching as he hit the strings as best he could, but the guitar alone wasn’t enough. All he could do was hold them off. If only—
A low crunching hum came from further away, on the other side of the van. The twin beams of headlights illuminated the group of bears and then a massive snowplow rumbled into view. The three people in the partially crushed cab were just silhouettes, but as Ken watched a slender figure jumped out and ran across to him.
‘Akane!’
Close behind her came Jun. One of the bears darted forwards, but Ken smashed at the guitar and the creature jerked away as a thundering dropped C chord echoed across the courtyard.
‘The sound is messing with their radio signals!’ Ken shouted. ‘I just can’t make enough of it!’
‘I can play bass,’ Akane said, almost nonchalantly, grabbing up the instrument and hitting a heavy note as a bear lunged forward. She stared at the beast as it recoiled, a fearless gleam in her eyes. ‘It’s easy. Any clown ca
n do it.’
She started to pound out a droning rhythm, stretching to reach the heaviest fifth and sixth strings. The other bears whined and drew back. One of them snapped at Akane, but Karin revved the snowplow and the front blade slammed into it, knocking it over. Another turned on her, but its attack was slow and lethargic, as if it too was struggling to decide what course of action to take.
‘More sound!’ Ken screamed. ‘Jun, ever wanted to sing with your hero?’
Jun had already made that decision. He pulled a microphone out of the back of the van and plugged it into a spare input on Ken’s guitar effects pedal. He looked at Ken, and behind the desperation in Jun’s face there was a shimmer of excitement. He gave a small, half-frozen smile.
‘Play me something badass,’ he said. ‘I know them all.’
Whether it worked or not, Ken no longer cared. He wanted one last chance to rock out. He started playing the intro riff to his favorite song, One Against All, which, rather conveniently, was about the last man standing in a war. Akane began to play a simplified rendition of the bass riff, then Jun began to roar the words, holding the mike with both hands, his body arched over the way O-Remo would have done. It was fitting, Ken thought.
‘War, gimme more, come on here, I’ll fight you all;
Down to the soil, soles of my feet, you’ll have to cut me up, piece by piece;
One little man, on solid ground, against them all, I’m still standing tall;
One … Against … Alllllll!’
As a bear keeled over, Karin revved the snowplow and crunched the blade into its neck. Another was standing motionless, its head swaying from side to side. As Ken watched, its feet fell out from under it. It collapsed on its side in the snow, a low whimpering coming from its throat.
One of the others attempted a final charge, but as Ken broke into a blisteringly heavy solo on his guitar’s bass strings while Jun roared, it veered off course and slammed face first into the bus, keeling over on its side, smoke coming from a hole in its neck.
