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  “Run!” Ryan wailed, but it was too late. The lead monster had reached them. It came barreling into their ranks, using its makeshift shield like a battering ram. Gregory and Brooks were struck by it. Brooks grunted and then screamed as he found himself trapped between the monster’s shield and the wall of the corridor. He was squashed there like a drunken man lying in the path of a steamroller. Brooks’ innards smeared the corridor wall. Gregory was luckier but not by much. The shield merely knocked him sideways out of the monster’s way. Alex and Ryan managed to escape the monster’s wrath and retreated around the bend in the corridor that led to the center of the building and the command center.

  The monster flung down the piece of the corridor wall it had used as a shield. Its yellow eyes fell on Brooks who had recovered from the blow it had dealt him. Brooks fired an almost point-blank burst of fire into the monster. The monster shrieked as his bullets carved a trail of red across its chest. Grabbing out at him, the monster’s fingers closed on the barrel of his rifle and yanked it from his hands to fling against the corridor wall. The weapon shattered upon impact from the power behind the monster’s throw. Gregory wasn’t about to back down though. There was nowhere to run anyway. Another of the monsters had gotten by him and blocked the corridor between him and where Alex and Ryan had run to. Slipping a large knife from the top of his boot, Gregory assumed a defensive stance, waiting for the monster he was engaged with to make the next move.

  The blade of Gregory’s knife flashed through the air as the monster lashed out at him with its claws. One of the monster’s fingers was severed from its hand as the monster squealed in surprise and pain. Gregory allowed himself a smile as his knife dripped blood onto the floor. He dropped back into position and waited for the monster to come at him again. He didn’t have to wait long. But unfortunately, it wasn’t the monster that he had been ready for. The monster that had gotten past him had turned around to come at him from behind. He saw the white hair covering its arm as the monster’s arm snaked around his neck, pulling him tightly to its body like the move of a professional wrestler. The monster effortlessly nudged its arm upward beneath his chin, snapping his neck.

  “Gregory!” Ryan yelled but there was nothing he could do to save his friend’s life. Gregory was already dead.

  “We’ve got to hold them here,” Alex told Ryan, but the younger man wasn’t listening to him. Ryan’s rage at Gregory’s death blinded him and he ran forward at the monster with his M-16 blazing away at it. The monster stood its ground and let him come, taking the shots he poured into it so that it could allow him to get close. When Ryan was within arm’s reach of it, the monster lunged forward and swept Ryan up from the floor. Its claws sunk into the flesh of his body as the monster roared and tore him apart along his middle. Ryan’s torso flew in the opposite direction that his legs went in. Somehow, he was still alive as his upper body crashed against the corridor’s wall and bounced onto the floor. He had lost his M-16. His arms flailed about wildly in his shock. He tasted the coppery iron of his own blood rising up into his mouth to slick his tongue and leak out over his lips. Alex could see that Ryan was trying to say something but no words were coming out through the blood that bubbled from his mouth. The monster that had torn him in half continued on toward Alex but those following it fell onto what was left of Ryan, clawing away handfuls of meat from his blood-soaked torso to shove into their mouths. The sight of the monsters eating Ryan while he was still alive was almost too much for Alex, but he managed to tear his eyes away from the gory scene in time to engage the monster coming directly at him.

  Alex fired at the monster. His first shot blew out the joint of its right shoulder as he pumped another round ready. The monster growled as it picked up the pace of its run toward him. Alex didn’t give it the chance to get any closer though. His second shot slammed into its left eye, exiting the back of the monster’s skull in an explosion of gore. The other monsters looked up from the meal they had been making of Ryan’s corpse, their yellow eyes turning in his direction. Alex knew he was alone now. The only people left in Zulu Base were those in its command center. Even if they were watching what was happening through the base’s security cameras, Major Dixon would be a fool to try to come to his aid. Alex couldn’t help but wonder if the monsters had attacked the generator building too. If they had, he hoped that Matt and the others there had fared better than they had against the creatures.

  Whirling about, Alex ran as he shoved fresh shells into his shotgun. His smartest move was to lure the monsters away from the base’s command center to give Major Dixon and those there all the time he could to get ready for them. There weren’t many places he could run to in the small building though. Alex decided to head for the armory. He had already looted most of the weapons there to arm Zulu Base’s staff with, but he knew the armory had one of the most armored doors in the base. If he could make it there and lock himself in, maybe, just maybe, the monsters would leave him alone until he could come up with a better plan of action.

  As he rounded the bend in the corridor that led to the armory, Alex risked a glance over his shoulder at the monsters chasing after him. Their sheer size prevented them from moving at their full speed inside the base or he would have been dead already. Even so, they were right on his heels. Alex skidded to a halt as he came to armory’s door. He had left it unlocked and threw it open. The monsters were too close for him to get it closed behind him though. A white-haired hand caught the door as he tried to close it. Fighting against the monster’s near-supernatural strength was useless, so Alex let go of the door and moved deeper into the armory as the monster swung it fully open again.

  Alex stared at the monster he was facing and saw the others behind it in the corridor. There was nowhere to run to and no means of fighting them all. He turned the barrel of his shotgun toward himself, pressing its cold metal against the underside of his chin. God forgive me, Alex prayed in the moment before he squeezed the shotgun’s trigger. The heavy slug it fired shot upward through his chin and the ceiling of his mouth, ripping its way into his brain. The top of his skull blew open as the slug left his body in an explosion of brain matter and bone fragments.

  ****

  Major Dixon, Clay, and Dustin had watched it all through the base’s security cameras. Neither Dustin or Clay had pressed her to go help Alex. Clay had kept quiet through it all, staring at the feed from the cameras in pure horror. Dustin rocked back and forth in his chair, his fingers fiddling with the cross he wore on a chain about his neck. Major Dixon didn’t think them cowards though. She had known they were all dead from the moment the attack had begun. Through the base’s exterior cameras, she had seen just how many of the monsters there were. There were dozens of the beasts. She guessed their number had to be close to fifty all total. Most of them had come at the command building they were in but several of them had headed off in the direction of the other two buildings as well. The strange EM interference kept them from sending out a distress call to the U.S.S. Kennedy off the coast. Even if they had been able to, not even the carrier’s fastest copters would have made it to the base in time to be of any help to them. With Alex and the others dead, the monsters roamed the corridors of Zulu Base searching for more prey. Major Dixon didn’t know exactly how the monsters hunted, but it hadn’t taken them long to figure out that the three of them were still alive inside the command center. The pounding of their white-haired fists had begun against the command center’s door within minutes of Alex’s suicide. The door was holding so far but only just.

  “I don’t want to die,” Dustin wept openly.

  “Then get it together, soldier, and fight!” Major Dixon snarled at him, picking up the M-16 near him and shoving it into his hands.

  Clay was already on his feet at the comm. station, his own M-16 readied for action and aimed at the command center’s door. Sweat born of fear slicked his skin and seeped through his clothes, and his hands were trembling, but at least he was ready to fight.

  Major Dixon hel
d the Desert Eagle Alex had given her. The powerful pistol comforted her but she knew that there were just too many of the monsters for it to make any real difference once they got inside the command center with them.

  Clay nearly jumped out of his skin as a voice came over the comm. at his station behind him.

  “Zulu Base! This is Snow Beast Alpha! Do you read me?”

  Clay stared at the comm. console in disbelief and shock.

  “Answer him, damn it!” Major Dixon snapped at Clay. “And warn him if he’s headed to us!”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Clay replied, regaining his composure. He turned to the comm. console and responded. “This is Zulu Base. We are under heavy attack by creatures of unknown origin. I repeat, we are under heavy attack.”

  The pounding on the command center’s door grew louder as it shook inside its frame.

  “Roger that,” whoever was speaking for Snow Beast Alpha answered. “Be advised that help is on the way. We are in route to your location. ETA, five minutes.”

  Major Dixon shook her head in frustration. “Tell that idiot not to come here. He must not have heard you the first time!”

  “Snow Beast Alpha,” Clay said over the comm. through the crackling interference, still intense despite the short range of the exchanged transmissions, “I say again, do not proceed to our location. We are under heavy attack and have been overrun.”

  Before Snow Beast Alpha could send a reply, the power suddenly went out. The command center went completely dark for a brief moment before the red glow of the emergency backup lighting kicked on.

  “Frag it!” Major Dixon shouted. All she could do was hope that the idiot Clay had been talking to had listened to them and turned around. If Snow Beast Alpha came here, everyone aboard it would likely be just as dead as they were about to be.

  The heavy door of the command center came crashing inward, one of the monsters following in its wake. Its yellow eyes glowed like miniature suns in the dimness of the emergency lights. Major Dixon could see its red-slicked lips drenched with the blood of her men as it bounded toward Dustin. The tech was closest to the door and directly in the monster’s path. To his credit, Dustin managed to get off a burst at the approaching monster before it reached him. The bullets he had fired left holes leaking red in the monster’s chest but didn’t even slow it down. Dustin looked to be paralyzed by sheer terror as the monster’s claws took away half of his face in a single swipe, splattering blood over the console where he sat.

  As Dustin’s body toppled from the chair to the floor, Major Dixon took a shot of her own at the monster. Her Desert Eagle thundered, bucking in the two-handed grip she held it in. The round it fired hit the monster with enough force to blow apart the monster’s jaw and leave its face a mangled mass of red pulp. Major Dixon aimed at the next monster to come raging through the door. Her shot punched a hole in its guts. The monster grunted and curled over, strands of intestines bursting out of its abdomen. It was trying to shove the purple, blood-slicked cords back inside of itself as her next shot sent it to Hell.

  Clay had opened fire at the other monsters as they surged into the command center in an unstoppable wave of white-haired bodies. His M-16 lacked the punch of her Desert Eagle though and his fire wasn’t even slowing the monsters. They began to spread out, some of them going at Clay and others coming in her direction. Major Dixon felt bad for the comm. officer, but there was nothing she could do to save his life. She couldn’t even save her own. Her Desert Eagle thundered again, opening up the forehead of a monster as it came barreling at her. Clay screamed as one of the monsters grabbed him by the arm, snapping the bone inside of it like a twig. It bent the arm downward from Clay’s body as his rifle fell from his grip to clatter onto the floor. Clay was still screaming as the beast shoved its other hand directly into his mouth, unhinging his jaw in the process. As the beast jerked it back out, Clay’s tongue came with it, blood splashing outward into the air. Clay’s screams became a horrid, sickening sound like something akin to air leaving a punctured lung. The monster wasn’t done with him though. The claws of its right hand caught his groin, sinking into the soft flesh of his genitals and then ripped upward along the length of his body to the bottom of his ribs. Clay’s guts came spilling out of him in a shower of twisting, purple cords.

  Major Dixon didn’t see him die. She was too busy trying to stay alive herself. Her Desert Eagle boomed in rapid succession as she fired at one monster and then another. Both of the creatures fell but their doing so didn’t stop those that surged forward behind them. The fastest of the monsters closing on her grabbed Major Dixon by her right arm and with a terrible yank, tore it free from her body. Her Desert Eagle went with it as the monster flung her arm aside. Stumbling backward, Major Dixon ducked the razor-sharp claws that came at her face. Doing so tripped her up though and she fell to the floor. The hulking monsters were on her in a heartbeat like swarming piranha. Their teeth tore away chunks of her flesh as their claws ravaged the rest of her body. Major Dixon kept right on screaming until one of the monsters bit into her throat and finally silenced her shrieks of terror and pain.

  ****

  The Snow Beast bounced over the ice and snow, its engine roaring. Lee was eager to reach Zulu Base and they were almost there. Whitiker sat in the rear of the heavy vehicle, still propped up against its wall. Though he had lost an arm in the crash and broken a leg as well, the man was not only holding on but seemed to be getting stronger with each passing hour as his body adjusted to his wounds. Sergeant Lopez had gotten it together enough to shoot Whitiker up with pain meds and finally change the man’s bandages. The painkillers were likely part of the reason for Whitiker’s growing strength as they got into his system.

  Lee wasn’t convinced that Sergeant Lopez had pulled out of the darkness that threatened to push the veteran soldier over the edge, but at least he was active again instead of just sitting in the Snow Beast’s passenger seat, staring into the falling snow through the forward window and muttering to himself. The sergeant’s encounter with the monster had shaken the man to his core. Lee couldn’t blame him for that. Things like that creature shouldn’t exist in the real world. And watching it kill Jim … Lee couldn’t even imagine the guilt the sergeant had to feel for that. Sergeant Lopez had been the one who insisted that they check things out and dragged the medic out of the Snow Beast with him.

  When Lee had finally been able to get a transmission through to Zulu Base …The answer they had gotten back sure wasn’t what he had expected or was hoping for. The base was under attack by monsters like the one they had encountered. According to the base’s communications officer or whoever he had spoken with, Zulu Base had been overrun by the monsters. Lee knew that there was only a skeleton crew at the base awaiting the arrival of Colonel Dyvang’s unit and that the construction team had long left for the states, but it was hard to imagine that the monsters could stand up to the amount of firepower Zulu Base surely had at its disposal. He supposed it all depended on just how many of the monsters there were out there, but could there really be that many? If there were, where had the monsters been hiding all the time while Zulu Base had been being built? Lee decided to leave that sort of thinking to someone smarter than he was. The monsters had shown themselves, and he didn’t think they were going back to wherever they had come from until everyone in Zulu Base was dead.

  The base’s comm. officer had told him not to approach the base, but Lee kept the Snow Beast’s course straight for it. No matter what the officer said, there was no place else to go. The comms were still too scrambled to call for help from the U.S.S. Kennedy and going back to the downed Hercules was pointless. If he could even find it again, they would just be waiting there to die, and with the monsters on the move, searching for any invaders on their turf, death would likely come sooner rather than later. The Snow Beast didn’t have unlimited fuel. The heavy vehicle’s tanks were already running low. When its fuel ran out, he, Whitiker, and the sergeant would freeze to death in a matter of hours. Sure,
there were other bases on Antarctica but none anywhere near reachable with their limited fuel and lack of a proper nav. system due to the strange interference that continued to scramble several of the heavy vehicle’s systems. No, Zulu Base was the only place they could head for, and they were almost there.

  “You ready for this?” Sergeant Lopez asked from the passenger seat.

  Lee jumped at the sound of the sergeant’s voice. He hadn’t gotten used to the man being back in the game yet.

  “I think a better question is, are you, sir?” Lee stole a glance at the sergeant.

  “Don’t you worry about me, kid.” Sergeant Lopez shook his automatic shotgun at Lee. “I got my head back on straight on now and those fraggers are going to pay for what happened to Jim. I’m going to see to that.”

  “How about you, Whitiker? How are you holding up?” Lee yelled toward the rear of the Snow Beast.

  “I’m just peachy,” Whitiker said with a snort. “Get me some crutches and I’ll kick those monsters’ butt to Hades and back.”

  Lee smiled. He was glad to hear Whitiker’s bravado. Some men would have just shut down or given up losing a hand like he had. His broken leg only added insult to injury, keeping him from being able to walk on his own, but Whitiker really sounded like he was ready for a fight. For all his boasting though, Whitiker had to realize that he wasn’t going to be a part of the coming battle unless the monsters got inside the Snow Beast. If that happened, they were likely all dead anyway.

  “Glad to hear it,” Lee said. “I think it’s best you stay in the Snow Beast though. Somebody is going to need to look after her.”