Operation: Yukon

- 13 -

“What does he think he’s doing?” the sheriff said at my back.

“He’s found a sense of duty. He thinks he’s doing the right thing,” I replied. “Come on. He’s trying to buy us some time. We’d best use it.”

At least we made it back to the main building without incident but that was about the only thing that went to plan in the long minutes that followed. As I made for a truck to drive it into position, I could hear the high whine of the Skidoo in the trees, like an over-revved lawn mower. Exciting barking rose to join the sound and I had a sinking feeling in my gut as I realised that the hunt was already on.

Either Jennings was shite at counting time or the wolves hadn’t given him the amount he expected. Either way, the Skidoo came clattering and whining back into the forecourt before we’d got the trucks lined up opposite each other in front of the building. I was in the cab of one of them, the cap in the cab of the other, and Wilko, Davies and the sheriff stood, exposed, on the forecourt, four or five paces in front of the main complex doors. Half a dozen wolves were only yards behind the Skidoo.

I didn’t have time to think; my move was all reaction and adrenaline. I floored the pedal, turned the wheel and got the vehicle between Jennings and the pack just a second before two of them hit my driver’s door with an impact that brought a starburst crack to the window. I heard gunfire out in the forecourt but my view was only of the side of the other truck; I had no idea what was going down outside.

I tried to get my rifle up but it had got caught up in the seat belt, and I had to lower my gaze to find the problem. When I looked up again there was a wolf sitting on the hood directly outside the window staring in at me. The bloody thing was salivating. It began a frenzied, scrabbling attack at the window, as if the sight of me had enraged it. The truck’s engine was still running. I threw it into reverse, barrelling backward across the forecourt and swinging to straighten up at the same time. The wolf on the hood slid aside, still scrabbling, and fell away.

For the first time I got a clear view of the front of the main complex.

It wasn’t going well.

The cap was leaning out of the window of the other truck, firing volleys into a snarling group of wolves that were mostly ignoring him, focussing instead on the squad and the sheriff who were trying to make a retreat for the door of the main complex. Two dead wolves lay between me and them, but somebody among the defenders was down, either Wilko or Jennings; I couldn’t make out who but I saw the blood clearly enough, too much red on the snow. And by turning the truck round, I was now in their direct line of fire and saw that the sheriff had paused for fear of hitting me. That gave the wolves a chance to creep closer; the defensive position was going to be overrun in seconds.

I blasted the truck’s horn, twice. The wolves, five of them I could see now, didn’t even flinch, but I hadn’t intended it for them. The sheriff looked up and we made eye contact as I put my foot to the floor again and aimed straight for the doorway. I got lucky for once. The defenders leapt aside, I plowed forward, ran over two wolves with a lurch and a crunch of wheel on bone—the wheels won, then I hit the building, still accelerating. I heard the back cabin door open and another line from a movie ran unbidden in my head—Marines, we are leaving. The door slammed shut again; I had to assume they were safely aboard as I shifted into reverse and backed out fast. Something metallic squealed and complained below me then we were free and reversing away across the forecourt. I saw the cap reverse his truck out to follow me. Back at what was left of the doorway there were now half a dozen dead wolves on the ground, one of which was trying to drag itself away despite the fact that its rear end was mashed almost to a pulp.

There was no other sign of movement.

I stopped right on the edge of the forecourt, the cap swung round in front of me and when he headed back up towards the cabin with the vault, I followed him.

When we pulled up at the steps the cap was out of his cab and opening the back door of my truck before I even got down out of the driving position. Wilko and Davies jumped out, but Jennings wasn’t going to be jumping anywhere. He lay on the floor of the cab, his head cradled in the sheriff’s lap, dead eyes staring right at me.

“The bite got his femoral artery,” Davies said, “and he bled out before I could get time to get a tourniquet on him. The wolves were…”

I put a hand on the lad’s shoulder.

“There’s no fault here for you,” I said.

The sheriff looked up at me, tears in her eyes.

“How many more?” she said. I thought she was talking about Jennings, but the cap got her gist better than me.

“There’s still a big one out there somewhere, the one Wiggo saw. Apart from that? I think, I hope, we’ve got the bastards. Here, let me take the lad.”

I interrupted.

“No, Cap, this one’s on me. It’s my shout.”

Cap herded the others into the cabin, I fetched a body bag from the back of the truck and tried to say my goodbyes to a lad I’d never known, but now owed a debt.

“I should have done better by you, lad,” I whispered as I zipped him up. His dead eyes seemed to agree with me. I put him away with Watkins—out of sight out of mind—and stood on the doorstep. I smoked two fags before I felt fit enough to be seen in company, then went inside to join the others.

A discussion was in progress. Davies was advocating the ‘nuke the site from orbit’ argument but the sheriff was having none of it.

“I’ve got a load of townsfolk expecting to come home to a safe place,” she said. “I’m not leaving here until that can happen.”

The cap spoke softly.

“I understand that. And we can certainly deal with the things down below us here, however unpleasant that might be. But there’s still, at least, a big wolf and one of the primates out there. They’ve been smart enough to stay out of our way thus far. I don’t think bait is going to work on them.”

A howl rose from somewhere out in the forest. It had none of the choral quality now, just a single high wail, and although there was still beauty in it, it sounded more like pain and loss than anything affirming. It got an answer from the cells below us, the high cries of the Alma rising in counterpoint to the wolf, harsh and angry. I knew that tone, had used it myself in my youth in the south-side gangs.

Come and try it if you’ve got the balls.

“Maybe we’ve just been using the wrong type of bait,” the sheriff said.

Wilko spoke from the doorway.

“Whatever we’re planning I think we need to get to it soon. The weather’s closing in again.”

I went over to have a look. The sky had darkened from the north, heavy, lowering clouds, and the wind was now much fresher in my face. I suspected we were in for more snow, and plenty of it, and the sheriff confirmed my suspicions.

“We’ve got to leave right now if we want to get back to town tonight,” she said.

“What’s the alternative?” Davies asked.

“The alternative is we stay here, in a possible whiteout, with an unknown number of, as Wiggo here calls them, big fucking howling things snapping at our asses for the duration, which might be a few days.”

“We’re staying until we can figure out what to do,” the cap said in a tone that didn’t allow for any argument. “We can hunker down in the rear cab of one of the trucks; they’ve got bloody huge batteries we can run the heating on for a while and the one I was in at least had a full tank of gas so we won’t freeze. Wiggo, I need an inventory of what we’ve got in terms of both food and ammo.”

The Alma below us continued to bellow.

“What about them?” the sheriff asked.

“Fuck ’em,” the cap replied. “Let’s get ourselves sorted out first before the weather starts making our decisions for us.”

My inventory didn’t take long. We had plenty of ammo, and not much in the way of food. We each had a pack of hard biscuits and water, we had some coffee and the wee camp stove, there was more water in the trucks, and somebody’s stash of chocolate in the dashboard hideaway.

“There might be something we missed in the main complex,” I said. “There’s a wee mess down there and…”

“We’ll leave the scavenger run until it’s really necessary,” the cap replied. “Let’s get into the truck. Here comes the snow.”