Operation: Yukon Page 8

  -14-

  The cap wasn't kidding about the snow. By the time we all piled into the back of the truck it was coming down hard. We had the truck turned so that the wind wouldn't blow in when we opened the door but even then the cab rocked and rolled as the storm ramped up.

  Davies got out the wee black boxes and went back to work on getting them rigged for electroshock.

  "Quarter of an hour, no more," he said. "Then all four will be ready."

  The rest of us settled into a routine of coffee, smokes and three card-brag. The sheriff proved all my suspicions about her card playing skills right by rooking us for most of our fags while the storm ramped up and night fell. When the banter stopped the only sound was the whistle of the wind and the whisper of snow against the cab windows, beyond which there was nothing to see but snowflakes whirling in the blackness.

  The cap hadn't had his mind on the game and was the first to get cleared out. Now he sat by the door that was cracked open by quarter of an inch to let air in and smoke out as he chain-smoked in silence. I knew he was mulling over our situation; I'd been doing the same to little avail. After I lost the last of my fags, I shifted over to sit by him.

  "Any thoughts you want to share, Cap?"

  "I was thinking about Jennings," he said. "I should have done better by that lad."

  He had unwittingly echoed my own thoughts.

  "He showed balls at the end there," I said. "I didn't think he had it in him."

  "None of us did. And there's the problem. There will be another young corporal joining us when we get home. We, you and I, need to make sure this doesn't happen again. We're supposed to look after our own, not leave them lying in a hut in a body bag."

  I couldn't find anything to disagree with, joke about or deflect, so I merely nodded, took one of his smokes and joined him on the opposite side of the door in quiet reverie. It was only broken when the sheriff rose from the game.

  "I don't mean to be indelicate but you lads drink far too much coffee and this old dame needs to pay a visit to the ladies room. Watch my back."

  She hauled open the door, letting in a flurry of snow and stepped out, hunkering down to one side of the doorway. I stood above her, weapon raised, peering out into the storm and hoping nothing was there, just out of sight. I almost yelped when she shouted out.

  "Hey, get down here. There's something you need to see."

  I dropped down beside her while the cap took my place in the doorway. She was pointing at her feet. I had to switch on my gun light to see it properly, but it was obvious what it was--a footprint, more than a foot long, eight inches wide and with five toes clearly delineated, the big toe appearing to be almost as big as a clenched fist.

  "It was right here," she said. "The bastard thing was standing near the door, checking us out."

  "Sure looks that way," I said, and panned my light another couple of feet to the side, showing another print there and, in the gloom beyond, what looked like a third.

  They looked to be heading towards the cabin.

  "I'll go and have a look," I said, but the cap denied me.

  "Nope. We all go," he said. "Splitting us up just makes us more vulnerable to ambush, and I don't trust these things, not after Siberia."

  None of us were overly keen on leaving the relative comfort of the cab, but the sight of the footprints heading straight for the cabin quickly strengthened everybody's resolve and we headed at speed back to the steps; they were only a few yards away, yet invisible in the whirling storm. It was only when I reached the bottom step that I could see that the cabin door was open at the top and there were more of the huge footprints in the snow on the steps where the snow was disturbed, almost as if the thing had stood there and stomped around.

  I was first in, ready to shoot should there be even the slightest movement.

  The room was empty. The vault door was open, as we had left it, but the place sat eerily quiet, and the musky animal odor coming up from below didn't seem as intense as previously. I had a feeling I knew what I was going to see at the bottom as I headed down to the cells. My suspicions were confirmed; all three of the previously occupied cells were now empty, the cell doors either hanging loose on their settings or, in the case of the one where the pregnant female had been, lying flat on the floor. The only other sign there had been an occupant was a thin, watery, pool of blood at the cell entrance, and now that I was looking for it, droplets of spilled blood on the stairwell. The pregnant one was leaving a trail.

  I pointed it out to the cap.

  "Do we follow?"

  "In this storm? Risky."

  "But if we don't, the snow will have their tracks covered in half an hour," the sheriff said. "Trust me, I know this weather."

  As usual, it only took the cap seconds to make a decision, and once it was made, he put a hundred percent into it.

  "Okay. We follow, but we stick together, nobody moves out of touching range of anybody else, and if anything moves that isn't us, we take it down hard and fast. Move out. Wiggo, you're on point. If the trail disappears on us, we head back for the trucks pronto; I'm not about to have us floundering about out there in this weather."

  We did what we were told and moved out.

  I realized when I got back up top and out to the steps why the snow looked more disturbed; it had been a sign that all of the Alma had left this way, and two large spots of blood to the right of the bottom step confirmed that for me. The trail of blood continued to go right then turned behind the cabin. My heart sank when I realized where they must be headed and was proved right again when I was led directly to the hut where we'd stored the bodies of Jennings and Watkins. The hut doors had been forced inwards with brute strength, the bodies were gone and all I could think about was that the sheriff had been right earlier: we'd been using the wrong kind of bait.

  To make matters worse we lost the trail soon afterward; it led directly into the forest north of the station, into another deer trail then under the canopy where it was too dark and the snow too thick to allow us to follow.

  "Back to the truck," the cap said. "There's fuck all we can do here until daylight and better weather."

  Nothing attacked us as we retraced our steps, although the thought that the Alma might be too busy eating provided me with no comfort at all. I guessed that everyone was thinking the same thing but nobody mentioned it back in the truck. Wilko brewed up some coffee, I mooched some smokes back from the sheriff and nobody spoke for a while, all of us lost in our own thoughts while the storm continued outside.

  Cap was first to break the silence and he addressed the sheriff.

  "You know these woods," he said. "Where will the best place be to look for them once the storm abates a tad?"

  "I've been thinking about that myself," she said. "If they're primates like you say, and given what Wiggo told me about Siberia, they'll be after shelter. The nearest thing we have to a cave system round here is the old McMillan silver mine. That's up in the hills to the north; same direction as they were going when we lost the trail. Ain't been up there myself since I was a youngster but I've heard of hunters using them for shelter if caught in bad weather. There's our best chance, if I was to bet all the smokes I took off your lads here."

  "Is there a road up to the mine?"

  "Road, no. But there should be a track to follow if I can find the starting point. As you said though, that'll have to wait for daylight and better weather."

  "Hunker down, lads," the cap said, "I'll take first watch. Wiggo, you can spell me in three hours. Try to get some kip. Looks like we might have a climb and a fight waiting at the end of it for us in the morning."

  -15-

  The rigours of the past day finally caught up with me; I hadn't had any sleep since the flight from Glasgow and my body decided it had had enough. The three hours passed in blessed quiet darkness and if there were any dreams I didn't remember them when the cap shook me awake.

  "All quiet," he whispered. "Everybody else is getting some kip. Davies i
s up after you. It's still snowing hard but I think the wind's dropped a tad."

  "And no visitors?"

  "If there was, they're too quiet for my auld ears. Smoke them if you've got them."

  I laughed as I sat up.

  "Sheriff Sue's got all of mine. Did she leave you with any?"

  "I'm not daft," he said, smiling. "I always keep the backup pack away fae strange women."

  He produced a battered pack of Embassy Regal that had seen better days, but any port in a storm will do when you're gasping. I was already lighting up as the cap bedded down in a corner.

  My watch went by quietly. The only thing of note was the burnt taste of cheap tobacco in my mouth but that wasn't anything new. I wanted a coffee but didn't want to wake anybody so I sat, my nose getting cold from being too close to the cracked-open door, my ears straining for any weird noises outside.

  At one point, Sherriff Sue stirred and moaned but she didn't wake; bad dreams I guessed, and given what had happened to her town and her folk I couldn't really blame her. As my gaze shifted I saw that Davies had laid out four wee black boxes beside him, little more than duct tape and switches. If yon big wolf got close, we were going to give it the shock of its life.

  It's a pity the same couldn't be said of the Alma.

  I wasn't looking forward to the hunt in the morning.

  I was glad to get away from the open door when it came time to wake Davies. I bedded down in the spot where he had been but this time sleep wouldn't come. It wasn't bad dreams as such, it was my conscience bothering me about Jennings. I spent a long time going over all my actions and commands since bearding him back at base. Yes, he'd been a loudmouthed tosser right from the get go, but so was I when I first joined the squad. I'd learned the hard way that respect has to be earned, that the squad comes first in all matters and that friends are hard to come by and harder to lose. Jennings never got that chance and the wee voice of the devil on my shoulder reminded me of it for what was left of the night.

  When I noticed the thin light of dawn at the windows, I was more than happy to rise first and get the coffee pot on. While the brew was going, I spotted that there was blue sky and some fluffy scudding clouds outside; the snow had stopped and although it was windy it was nowt worse than a bank holiday Monday at Largs beach.

  Once we were all awake and had taken turns popping out for a welcome morning slash against the back tires of the truck, Davies handed out the wee black boxes.

  "Should work the same as the last time," he said. "One press of a button and the big dug does the boogie."

  "And if we all press the switch at once?" the cap asked.

  "I doubt if the effect is accumulative," Wilko interrupted.

  "But it's probably worth a try?"

  "Hell, yeah," Davies said. "Anything that gets yon big bastard dancing is worth a try."

  He'd handed out the boxes to the guys of the squad. Sheriff Sue raised an eyebrow.

  "Boys and their toys, eh?" She patted her rifle. "I'll stick to my own hardware if you don't mind."

  We all made sure we were fully loaded with ammo, zipped up our parkas and jumped down into what proved to be almost a foot of fresh fluffy snow. The cap addressed the sheriff.

  "It's your show for now, Sheriff. Lead on."

  She led us out, heading north to where the beasts had gone under the canopy the night before.

  As I said, the snow was the light fluffy stuff we rarely get in Scotland, and easy enough to plough through once I got my rhythm. All the tracks from the night before were obliterated under a virgin white carpet but the sheriff led us straight to the spot where the beasts had vanished, then instead of going under the canopy followed the treeline north. The climbing got steeper and I began to feel it in my calves. She stopped us when the trees crept round the hillside and blocked our path northward and upward apart from another deer trail through them that was no wider than the breadth of her shoulders.

  "We'll need to go single file from here," she said. "I'm happy to take the lead, but it might be best if somebody with more firepower is at the front?"

  The cap agreed, I volunteered--an old habit that promotion hadn't yet ironed out of me--and with a fresh smoke lit between my lips led us off into the wilds.

  It might have been fine for deer but it wasn't a walk I'd have taken by choice. The trees pressed in close around me, cold needles knitting icy patterns on my face as I pushed through. It was dim despite the blue sky far overhead and the snow was thicker and wetter under the canopy so that it was much more of a trudge than a walk. The only sound was the footsteps behind me and the rustle of the branches as I pushed them aside. We were still climbing, still getting steeper, and my every sense was tingling in anticipation of an attack.

  We went on that way for a good fifteen minutes, my smoke long since extinguished, my calves aching with the climb and my feet feeling like blocks of ice, a cold that was seeping up to my knees and heading for my bollocks. I hoped we got where we were going before that.

  There appeared to be more sunlight up ahead. I raised a hand to get the lads behind me to stop and moved forward more slowly. I had to get low to avoid giving myself away, and the cold did indeed creep to places it wasn't welcome, but I tuned it out; we had reached our destination; the track opened out in front of a rocky outcrop above a dark mine entrance shored up with old wood. The snow in front of the entrance was disturbed, stamped down by several pairs of large feet, and there was a distinct tinge of red among the white where blood had been spilled.

  I crept back slowly to make my report.

  "How do you want to handle it, Cap?"

  "I can't see any other way apart from going in and trying to flush them out," he said.

  "What about the wolf?" the sheriff asked.

  "One beastie at a time," I replied. "We've got the wee black boxes to deal with that."

  "Aye," the cap added, "what Wiggo said. Splitting our resources isn't going to work for us here. We go in, quietly, and we take them down hard and fast when we find them; we've run out of any other options."

  When we made our way out of the woods and over towards the mine entrance, I was once again in the lead.

  At least my balls weren't cold, although they felt like they were trying to retract back up into my body as we approached the dark mouth of the mine and the old primeval fears from my hindbrain rose up to remind me that this was a bad idea.

  -16-

  It was as dark and uninviting as you might expect, but at least it was a tad warmer than being out on the hill. It smelled, the same rank meaty odor that had come up out of the cells in the vault earlier, so we knew we were on the right track. The daylight only reached ten paces in so I had to switch on my gun light. It showed a dry, rocky floor underfoot below timber-lined walls and a ceiling festooned with hanging tendrils of cobweb and lichen. The only noise was the pad of our feet and the whisper of our breath. After another ten paces the tunnel began to descend into the hill.

  We went down.

  The smell got stronger with every step, thick and cloying now and a constant reminder that we weren't alone in here. The only good thing was the lack of side passages; the mine was a simple one, a single shaft cut deep into the hill. We'd long since passed the region where the walls were shored with timber. Now my light showed only bare rock on all sides, and we no longer had webs and lichen for company, just dry walls all the way down.

  I brought the squad to a halt as a new sound wafted up from somewhere below. It took me a second to recognise it but once I did it was unmistakable. We hadn't noted the instrument's absence from the cabin above the vault but the mournful air of a slow tune being played on a bone flute filled the air around us.

  We went down, even more carefully now.

  When it happened it happened quickly, a blur of action and mayhem I only partially sorted out in my mind later. As far as I can tell, it went down like this. The order of events might be off here and there, but the end result was the same.

  First off,
the sound of the flute cut off in mid-melody. I think I knew in that instant that trouble was on the way. I raised my light from where it shone at my feet to wash it down the shaft ahead. I was just in time to light up a view of a wide-open mouth of teeth and a pair of eyes that looked silver in the reflected beam. I got off two shots, don't know if I hit anything at all, then went down as what felt like a block of stone fell on me. I think my parka saved me; a taloned arm raked at my belly but got only the inner lining although I felt nails scrape on my flak jacket below that. Then I couldn't breathe due to a stinking carpet of warm hair covering my nose and mouth. I squeezed off two more shots, heard another two from somewhere distant. Above me the beast let out a roar of rage and pain then it went limp on me.

  It took both the cap and the sheriff to push the dead weight off me. I was covered chin to bollocks in warm blood that stank in the way only a slaughterhouse could and I still had the taste of it in my mouth; right then I thought I might be tasting it forever more.

  I didn't get time to thank the others. As I was getting to my feet, Wilko shouted out.

  "Incoming."

  The two other big males came up out of the tunnel, bellowing their rage. They didn't stand a chance. All five of us, lined up across the shaft, fired at the same time, the retort blasting at my eardrums like a cannon going off, the air in front of our lights filling with thin smoke, the shots blasting the things to the ground in a second that seemed like forever. They went down to join the other one with chests full of holes and heads that were mostly gone above the mouth.

  I gave them all a kick to make sure they were dead, just in case, but it was obvious there would be no big movie-ending comeback from any of them.

  "Is this what you mean by sanitised?" the sheriff asked, having to cover her mouth as the odor of fresh pish and shite rose from the bodies.

  "Not yet," the cap said grimly. "The worst is yet to come."

  He was right about that.

  The female was waiting for us on the floor of the lowermost part of the shaft. She was no longer pregnant but cradled two newborns, one at each massive teat. She looked at us in silence, huge eyes accusing us as we filed into the chamber. It took me a few seconds to spot that what was left of Watkins and Jennings lay in a pile of dismembered limbs, white bone and hollowed out skulls in a corner. The female didn't take her eyes off us.