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 crack 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 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 as 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 shied 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.