“Alex,” Masters said, his tone making it clear that he was giving an order.
“Right.”
Norton went to work, forcibly turning the first person, a woman, over and flashing a light in her face. He stared for a moment, then checked her pulse and forced open her mouth. One of the others civs started to protest, but the cold steel of a rifle to his head settled him down.
Norton stepped back, then looked over the others a little more briefly. After a long moment he looked up and shook his head.
“All right, step back, and let ’em up,” Masters ordered.
“Who are you fuckers?” the man who’d tried to object earlier ground out as he was yanked to his knees.
“Shut up,” Masters snapped. “I talk, you listen. I ask, you answer. I don’t have time for anything else, so you don’t have time for anything else. What’s your name?”
“Fuck you!”
Masters wanted to slam the idiot into the ground and move on to the next one. He didn’t have time for this bullshit, but the fact that he was dealing with an American citizen on American soil ground him up inside. He stepped closer and leaned in to the man, face to face.
“This is me being polite. Don’t think I won’t become very impolite if you keep fucking with my timetable,” he told the man, resting the barrel of his Beowulf rifle on the man’s shoulder. “Name.”
The man swallowed, then finally spoke up again.
“Brad Coulson.”
“Very good, Brad. Now, what the fuck happened here?”
“Why don’t you tell us?” Brad snarled, eyes flaring again.
Masters sighed.
This is getting us nowhere.
He unzipped his coat and peeled it back enough to show the emblem that was attached to his BDUs with Velcro. The man’s eyes widened as he recognized it.
“You’re with the navy?”
“That’s right, and we’re here to find out what the fuck happened to the guard unit and the state troopers who were deployed up here.”
Brad shook his head, looking around, and everyone else seemed just as lost.
“We didn’t see them, I swear!” His words were spewing out rapidly now as Masters closed up his coat. “We locked ourselves in here after the…the…”
He trailed off, lost for a moment, his eyes seeming to look beyond his immediate reality. Masters snapped his fingers in front of the man’s face, startling him back to the present moment.
“What happened?”
“I don’t know. People just…went nuts,” Brad said, shaking his head. “The first thing I remember was that there was an explosion southwest of town, down by the oil rigs. We were grabbing everything we could to get down there and help out when another fire started right in town.”
He frowned, thinking hard as he spoke. “Everyone showed up to try to put the fire out or just see what was going on, but before we could do anything, some people just…snapped.”
“It was horrible.”
They all turned to see a pale Inuit woman, who was shaking as she spoke.
“What was?” Alex asked softly.
“People I…we knew our whole lives…I watched them tear their neighbors’ throats out with their teeth. It was like they were taken by the Tupilaq, but…in such numbers, it didn’t make any sense. I don’t understand.…”
Masters mouthed the word “Tupilaq” to Alex, but the man answered him with a shake of his head.
“What did they look like, the ones who were attacking?” Alex asked her.
“Like the dead. They had dried skin and some even looked rotten,” she answered. “I don’t…it was so wrong.”
“Were they strong? Fast?” He pressed, his expression confused.
“Very.” Brad spoke up again. “I watched one of them drag a man twice his size with no difficulty.”
Alex straightened up, obviously troubled as he turned away from the people and nudged Masters. Hawk followed him over to the broken door, stepping out into the cold air behind him.
“What is it?”
“It doesn’t make sense,” Alex said. “The creatures they’re describing shouldn’t be here.”
“Damn it, don’t you start talking in riddles. What the hell are these things?”
“Vampires,” Alex answered, his expression unfocused. “Hawk, they’re describing vampires.”
Eddie Rankin, who had followed them, shrugged. “So? We all know there are things out there we’d rather not have exist.”
“I know they exist,” Alex snapped. “But they don’t exist here.”
“Why not? Didn’t they make a movie about vampires north of the arctic circle?” Eddie asked. “No daylight, right? Vampire heaven.”
“Actually, that movie was set here,” Hawk said, feeling edgy as he looked around, “in Barrow.”
“Stop talking for a minute and listen,” Alex growled. “They’re undead.”
“Yeah, so?”
“No body heat? Do you know how long a vampire would last in the open out here once the sun has gone down?” Alex asked. “Maybe ten minutes. After that you’d have nothing but a vampsicle. The only reason they’d still be mobile now is that the weather is unseasonably warm. The undead don’t last long in cold regions — they prefer equatorial places, even if they can’t survive sunlight.”
“All right, fine,” Masters said. “So what else could these things be?”
“Nothing. The only things that meet their description are the undead, and very few of the undead could take this kind of cold. Even the Draugr aren’t hardy enough to take an Alaskan winter. It’s just impossible. How would a vampire even get up here?”
“What about that Tupy thing the woman was jawing about?” Eddie asked.
“No, that’s a summoned creature.” Alex shook his head. “Nasty, but not a pack animal.”
“Fine,” Masters said. “So we need more info.”
“Yeah,” Alex confirmed.
Masters nodded and stepped back into the building. “I want you to stay in here,” he said to the civilians. “Bar the door and windows this time — put whatever you can up against them. We have to go check out the town.”
“Wait! What…I mean…” Brad surged forward, his tone desperate. “We’re being evacuated, right?”
“Not yet. We’re a scout team,” Masters told him stonily. “Until we know what the hell happened up here, no one else is coming in.”
The man sank to the ground, face slack as he processed that information, but Masters didn’t have time for him.
“Come on. We’re moving out.”
His men nodded at him, following as he walked away. Captain Andrews paused for a short time, her expression lost as she looked at the desperate people around them, but she finally shook herself and chased after the team.
“What the hell is going on up here?” she asked, looking stunned as she caught up to Masters.
“That’s what we’re here to find out, ma’am.”
“Where to now?” Rankin asked as they made their way toward the main part of the town.
“Give me a second,” Masters said, keying open his throat mic. “Djinn.”
“Go for Djinn,” Nathan Hale responded.
“Has there been any movement?”
“Nada, boss man.”
“Not even around the Herc?”
“Negative. That bird is cold and dead.”
“Roger that. Out,” Masters said, frowning. He really wanted a peek inside the Herky Bird, but it was also the first place an intelligent enemy would stake out an ambush.
“Derek, you have point. Eddie, take drag. We’re going to work our way into town to look for evidence. Stay out of sight; move quickly but quietly.”
They nodded and started to move east into the town of Barrow.
CHAPTER 9