Black Mountain

THIRTY-NINE

Hammerson saw Alex turn his head slightly so he was staring towards him and his captor, but he seemed to be looking through them rather than at them. There came a thundering roar from behind Hammerson — the undeniable sound of a challenge — followed by a loud thump, and then blinding pain as he and his assailant were smashed to the ground.

The HAWC commander tried to roll over, but his arm wouldn’t work. His shoulder was much lower on his frame than it should have been. Lying in the snow, his face half-buried, he saw a colossus standing where he and the ski-masked soldier had been seconds ago. Hammerson’s eyes travelled upwards, but the creature seemed to go on forever. At last he caught sight of an enormous crested head framed by the moonlight.

Well, Chief, he thought wryly, looks like the Kearns kid was right — there is something up here, after all.

The white-clad man got to his feet, his super-charged physicality allowing him to recover much more quickly than Hammerson. He brought his gun up at the giant and fired. The bullet struck its leathery hide but elicited no more than a howl of annoyance.

The beast reached forward, seized the man by his gun arm and pulled him off his feet as easily as lifting a doll. In its grip, the man’s unnatural strength counted for little. The creature outweighed him by easily 1000 pounds, and its bunched simian muscles gave it more than enough power to deal with his smaller frame. It roared again, and brought its broad gargoyle-like face close to the man’s head, its enormous mouth opening wide to reveal long curved canines. It closed them around the soldier’s skull, the ski mask affording a perfect non-slip surface. The man rained blow after frantic blow on the creature’s broad face, but it ignored them.

Hammerson grimaced as the massive jaws shifted their grip with a grinding noise. For the first time, he heard the unnatural soldier react to pain — his screech made him sound all too human. There was a crunch and pop as his head burst, to splash thick fluid onto the snow at the creature’s feet.

The beast flung the body down the ravine. It disappeared into the trees fifty feet below. Hammerson lay still, hoping to be taken for dead. Years of watching Animal Planet had taught him that, to a carnivore, a dead animal was far less interesting than a live one.

‘Hey!’ a voice yelled. Alex’s.

Oh, shit no, thought Hammerson.

The silence stretched — the only sound the slight squeak of leather as Alex clenched the knife handle tighter, readying himself for the beast’s charge.

It came, fast and heavy, its arms opening wide. Alex knew what it intended: to crush him in an embrace, then tear him to pieces. But when it reached Alex, he was no longer there. He’d darted under one of its seven-foot-long arms and flicked his blade across the leathery torso, opening a gash that splashed crimson blood onto the snow.

The beast spun quickly, then paused and blinked. A huge hand came up to touch the wound. It snuffed and blew out its cheeks, then smashed fists the size of basketballs into the snow. It screamed in rage and pounded the ground again and again, its fury building.

Alex moved around to its side, judging his next point of attack or defence.

The creature came again, but, unbelievably, it feinted to one side. Alex was forced to step and then correct himself. He had underestimated its intelligence and ability to adapt. In the split second it took for him to change his balance, the mighty beast charged again.

Alex dived, but it threw out an arm in a backhanded motion that caught Alex’s hip and spun him in the air. When he got to his feet, he felt his hip joint grind beneath the skin.

Hammerson was limping towards them, at the creature’s rear. He had the gun up, but his injuries made it difficult for him to aim. The enormous beast glanced briefly at the approaching HAWC, then returned its attention to Alex, circling him. With a flash of speed incongruous for something so huge, it twisted and flew towards Hammerson, grabbing him by the shoulder and flinging him bodily at Alex.

Hammerson had no chance; he spun in the air, arms and legs loose. He crashed into Alex and both men went flying, skidding several feet through the snow.

Alex flung the older soldier’s body off him. He knew what was coming next — the creature had used Hammerson as a diversion. And it had worked. His knife was trapped beneath him and the thing was already on top of him. It leaped and landed across his body, pinning him beneath its bulk of muscle and stinking fur and bringing its open mouth close to Alex’s face. Its jaws were as wide as his entire skull, and its hot breath smelled of rotten meat and death.

Alex used both arms to hold the thing back from him, one hand on a throat that was as broad as his own waist, and another grasping a tree-trunk-sized arm. But even his unnatural strength struggled to contain the titan, and slowly the tusked jaws came closer. Eyes that held a cunning intelligence met his, and Alex was sure that the corners of its vile maw turned up in triumph.

Just as the teeth grazed Alex’s skin, he heard a scream from behind and a small figure landed on the creature’s back. Adira. She screamed again and stabbed a metal spike into each side of the beast’s neck.

It arched its torso and roared down into Alex’s face, the sound near deafening, the vile shitty stench even worse. Its jaws pulled back, but it still lay across his body, crushing him deeper into the snow.

Before the Israeli woman could leap out of the way, an enormous arm flew up to grab her. The beast pounded her body into the ground, then flung her roughly to the valley floor, where she landed hard with a grunt, seemingly dazed.

The creature tried to pull the spikes free from its neck, but they were too deeply embedded or too small for it to grip with its giant leathery fingers. It gave up and leaped furiously to its feet, the motion grinding Alex’s body further into the ground.

Alex felt rather than heard the cracking of multiple ribs being fractured in his chest as the beast’s 1000 pounds of pressure was magnified by its sudden movement. Immediately, breath was gone from his lungs and his heart ceased beating, making his vision swim and giving a sensation of falling into a dark pit. But like a car receiving a jump-start, his body refused to give in, and commenced to pump blood once again. Strange chemical combinations in his body rushed to repair the damage, as Adira’s sounds of pain acted like an electrical charge across his consciousness. Enough — finish it! His mind screamed to him.

The giant rose to its full height and gave a booming whoop that turned to an enraged roar. It rushed towards Adira and lifted a massive foot over her prone body. Adira weakly held up one hand, as if it were possible to ward off the crushing blow that was about to stamp the life from her.

As the foot came down, Alex struck the creature’s torso like a missile. This time, he buried his steel blade all the way to the hilt in the tough hide. As the creature reached to grab hold of him, he used the swinging momentum to twist his knife and open the wound even further.

A massive fist pounded him into the snow. He looked up to see the beast pulling the blade from its side. It flung it away into the dark, then, in a human-like gesture, felt its side, looked at its bloody hand and whined.

Alex rolled and shook his head to clear away a fog of pain and disorientation. Slowly, he moved his hands about in the snow, searching for something he knew should be there. As he stretched out to search a wider area, the beast came down hard on his back. Cartilage and ribs popped under the weight, and he felt the hot blast of its foul breath on his neck. He guessed the giant mouth was opening over the back of his head. His time was up… unless he could defend himself.

His hand closed on the object he sought and he rolled under the massive weight, coming around to jam the gun that had belonged to one of the masked soldiers into the creature’s open jaws. The blast of high-velocity projectiles blew out the top of its crested skull and it thumped flat across his body.