By the time we reached the outskirts of Mayston it was full dark, the SUV was making five miles per hour at best and I knew this was the end of the line, for tonight at least. But that was the least of our worries. We’d been told the job was at the research station, but through the horizontally blowing snow, we saw that the town was in trouble.
The first indication was the burned out, still smoking shell of what used to be a gas station. The second, on the other side of what passed for a central square in the small town, was the local supermarket; the lights were on but the big glass frontage windows were mostly lying in shards on the sidewalk. Two, very dead people lay amid the broken glass, their blood looking black in the harsh lights where it lay on the snow.
I took it very slowly almost in the middle of the road but there was no chance of us getting in the way of any traffic; we were the only thing moving.
“Pull over, Wiggo,” the cap said. “We’re not going to get much farther in this shite anyway so we may as well see what the story is here. There might be folks needing our help by the looks of it.”
I pulled over into the supermarket parking lot beside a pickup that sat with its door open and the engine still running. When I cut our engine, we heard the pickup’s radio over the sound of the wind, some soft-rock thing I didn’t recognise.
“All ashore who’s going ashore,” I said and pushed the button to open the rear of the SUV. The cap got out and kitted up first then watched our backs as we followed suit. Luckily we’d brought the right gear for the weather; our rifles, of course, along with thick parkas with fur-lined hoods, gloves and goggles being the order of the day. Our packs weren’t overly heavy on this trip; we weren’t carrying much in the way of food apart from the absolutely necessary stove, kettle and cups to brew up coffee and we had none of the camping gear. I’d used that fact to load up with extra ammo and I knew the privates had followed suit. We left some of the kit behind; even more ammo in the main, the body bags I always hoped we’d never need and some spare clothing, then the cap ordered a sweep of the area.
Looking at the carnage that had been wrought inside the supermarket I was thinking I’d made the right decision in bringing more ammo. The place looked like a tornado had swept through it, a bloody red one that had left spatter along the aisles, up the walls, even across the lights on the ceiling, lending everything a hellish pink glow. Cans, bottles, fruit and veg all lay strewn on the floor. The meat counter looked like a bomb had hit it, leaving only scraps and bone behind. The wind wasn’t doing much to dispel the stench of pish, shite, blood and death. Besides the two bodies on the sidewalk there were six more inside; four looked like shop workers, and two auld codgers who had got in the way of what looked to be a meat grinder, a faulty one that had thrown bits of flesh around like a chimp throwing shite. I’ve seen some heavy shit in my time but this bloody riot was close to turning my stomach. The cap didn’t help matters by bending down to one of the auld folks and asking me to join him for a closer look.
“What does this look like to you, Sarge?”
It looked like an unholy mess. The poor auld woman had been opened from groin to sternum. Most of her guts were on the outside, those that remained. Her ribs had been cracked open with some degree of force and it looked like she was missing a lung, her heart, and possibly her liver although she had been so badly torn up it was hard to tell.
“This is Grizzly country, isn’t it? Bear attack do you think?” I said.
“Possibly. And more than one of whatever they are, given the state of the place. What worries me though is the fact that they’re just lying here. Where’s the townsfolk? Where’s the law enforcement?”
Our new corporal was looking a bit green about the gills.
“If you’re going to spew, lad, do it outside. There might not be any cops here now, but this is still a crime scene.”
Jennings took a look at the body, dry-heaved and made for the fresh air. I motioned for Wilko to watch his back and turned back to the captain to ask for instructions. I didn’t get any, for just then the unmistakable sound of gunfire echoed from somewhere outside. At first I thought Jennings had walked into trouble, then I realised it was coming from farther away.
When we got to the sidewalk, Jennings was pointing into the blizzard off to his left.
“That way, Sarge,” he said. “I saw muzzle flashes.”
“Move out, double time,” the captain said.
We headed off into the snow at a run.
- 2 -
I took the lead so I was the one who nearly got his nuts shot off. I saw the flash, heard the clap of the rifle going off and tensed but by some miracle I was still standing. It can’t have missed me by much. I was about to raise my own weapon and return fire when the snow cleared and I saw a stocky figure backlit in a doorway ahead of me, rifle raised for another shot.
“For fuck’s sake don’t shoot,” I shouted. “We’re not from around here but we’re friendlies.”
The figure didn’t lower its weapon but at least there were no more shots.
“How many are you?” a woman’s voice shouted.
“Five, coming in from Edmonton,” the cap called out behind me.
“Come on in then, but don’t hang about. You’ve probably noticed it isn’t safe.”
I stepped up to the doorway, blinking against the sudden sharp light. It was the local fire station, a stoutly built, brick building with the only windows being high above. Inside there was a single pick-up truck parked in the rear of a space that was otherwise filled with cot-beds and thirty or so people of all ages sitting on them, all with the same frightened, bewildered look on their faces. The uniformed figure hurried us in and closed the door with a slam at our backs.
“I think I scared them off again,” she said. “But they’ll be back.”
She had a sheriff’s badge on her heavily padded jacket, and confirmed it when she stuck out a hand for me to shake.
“Sheriff Adams,” she said. “And I’m mightily glad to see you, whoever you are. We need the firepower.”
She was a tall, almost stout woman of about forty, with short cropped blond hair and eyes of blue steel that didn’t miss much.
“Did you see them?” she said to the cap.
“Nope. Just the result. What happened here? What are ‘they’?”
“You mean you’re not the cavalry?”
“Just infantry, ma’am,” the cap said. “And we were just passing through when we saw you were in trouble.”
She took in the guns and the gear and smiled thinly. “Just passing through, eh? I think you and I need to talk. The coffee’s this way.”
Davies spoke up before we made to follow.
“They’ve got some injured folks here, Sarge. I’ll see what I can do to help.”
“Good idea, lad. Jennings, Wilko, you’re with Davies. Go do some good.”
Jennings had that look of a skelped arse on his face again but all I had to do was give him a stare and he went meekly enough. I didn’t have time to worry about him anyway; the cap and sheriff were already across the floor heading for a kitchen area off to one side. I hurried to catch up.
I got there just in time to have a mug of steaming hot coffee put in my hand. It tasted just about as good as any I’d ever had and I immediately wanted a smoke to go with it, but even I was smart enough to realise a fire station during an emergency wasn’t the best place to be lighting up.