Attack of the Yetis, page 8
“It’s the evac. copters!” Quinn blurted out before she could finish. “They’re inbound!”
Shoving passed Leah and Colonel Brannon, Quinn ran ahead of the others.
“Quinn!” Colonel Brannon shouted at the young tech in warning. They were approaching the spot in the corridor where one of the creatures Dobson had taken out tore its way into the building. The temperature seemed to drop with each step forward, a freezing wind blowing in through the hole in the smashed wall.
Dobson watched Quinn come skidding to a halt as the young tech saw the bodies of Wallace and Bennet. Quinn dropped to his knees and threw up all over the corridor floor in front of him. The two of them were a gruesome sight for even combat soldiers much less a rear echelon tech like Quinn. Dobson didn’t think any less of him for his reaction but time was against them, so he moved to yank the young tech to his feet.
“Get it together, Quinn,” Dobson said as calmly as he could. “We’ve got to keep moving.”
Quinn, who had finished emptying his guts, wiped at the corners of his mouth with the backside of his hand. “Sorry, man,” he muttered, sounding like he was still in shock from the sight of Bennet and Wallace’s mangled corpses.
Leah had slipped by them and stood looking out the hole in the wall. “I can see the copters!” she yelled. “They’re almost here!”
“Let’s move,” Colonel Brannon ordered, stepping out into the snow surrounding the building. As soon as he was through it, he stopped dead in his tracks despite the sight of the inbound copters. From all around the building came a series of inhuman howls and shrieks. As he looked about, he saw dozens of pairs of yellow eyes burning as they stared back at him. Had it not been for those yellow eyes, he might not have seen the creatures at all. The white hair covering their bodies blended so perfectly with the snow that they were all but invisible.
The two copters came in for a landing in the distance. They touched down on the snow as a group of armed marines sprang from the closest one. Colonel Brannon felt his stomach turn as the creatures charged them. The marines, not knowing anything about the creatures they had been told to expect, were thrown into shock by the sight of dozens of eight to ten feet tall monsters coming at them. They were professionals though and opened up on the monsters. Their M27s boomed, hammering the creatures with a barrage of automatic fire. Several of the creatures roared their fury as some of their number stumbled or were fully brought down by the marines’ blanket of fire. It wasn’t enough to stop all the creatures though and they tore into the marines’ ranks, changing the fight into a very close up and personal one. Colonel Brannon saw a creature take one marine’s head nearly off his shoulders with a punch so powerful that it dented in his skull, splattering blood and brain matter over the white snow that covered the ground. Another marine died as a creature lifted him from the ground even as the marine kept firing his weapon into the thing’s chest and shoulders. The marine died in an explosion of gore as the creature literally pulled his body apart at his waist. Purple, blood-slicked strands of intestines dangled from both pieces of the marine’s body as the monster cast them aside. A marine brought the barrel of his M27 around to fire directly into the face of a monster as it came at him. The point-blank fire shattered the bones of the creature’s lower skull and jaws as they tore through its flesh. The creature carried forward by its momentum continued on to plow into the marine, knocking him from his feet. The marine grunted as the creature’s heavy form toppled onto him. The marine struggled against the weight of the creature, trying in vain to heave it to one side or the other and worm free of it. It was just too much though. Another creature reached him and slammed a wide foot down onto his head, squashing it into a steaming mass of red pulp. In a minute or less, the creatures had taken out half of the six-man squad of marines.
“Keep her safe,” Dobson ordered Quinn as he and Colonel Brannon ran to come to the aid of the remaining marines. They came at the creatures from behind. Colonel Brannon’s automatic shotgun sprayed hellfire. It was loaded with white phosphorous rounds and he emptied half of them into the monsters in a single burst. The colonel only had one magazine of the rounds, but they did their job well. Two of the creatures howled as their backs were set ablaze. They shrieked high-pitched cries of pain as their flesh burned. Dobson finished them, firing a round that opened up one’s side and another that punched through the other’s ribs.
Several of the creatures engaging the marines spun about to charge at Colonel Brannon and Dobson. Colonel Brannon finished emptying his round of white phosphorous rounds, setting three more of the creatures on fire. One of them dropped to the snow, rolling about, trying to put out the fire burning it in vain. Another sprinted away from the battle entirely, raging at the hellish pain it had to be in. The last of the three burning creatures kept its course though, coming straight at Colonel Brannon. He cursed, ejecting his automatic shotgun’s spent magazine, and yanking a fresh one out of his the pocket of his heavy parka. Unable to get it loaded into the weapon before the monster reached him, Colonel Brannon flung himself sideways out of the monster’s path at the last moment as it reached him. The monster charged on passed him as he flopped into the snow and shoved the new magazine of heavy, standard slugs into his shotgun. Relief washed over him as the magazine clicked home and brought the shotgun’s barrel up towards the staggering, burning monster. It had managed to turn and was stumbling towards him. How the thing was even standing as badly as it was burnt and still burning, Colonel Brannon didn’t have a clue. He put a carefully controlled three-round burst into its chest, smashing its ribs inward. The monster staggered a step backwards from the impact of the rounds and then tumbled over, unmoving in the snow with tendrils of black smoke drifting skyward from its burning corpse.
Dobson stood his ground as two of the monsters that had broken off from the marines focused their rage on him. He fired his shotgun at the faster of the two of them, aiming for its knee as it sprinted in his direction. It took two shots, but he blew its kneecap apart. Green blood soaked into the snow where it collapsed, clutching at its shattered leg. There was no time for Dobson to end the howling creature as its companion was almost on him. Dobson swung his shotgun around, pumping another round into its chamber, and fired at the creature’s forehead. The heavy slug from the blast hammered into the bone of its skull, bringing the monster to a halt. Dobson didn’t give it a chance to even attempt to recover. He pumped another round, running straight for the creature, firing as he went. His second shot struck the side of the monster’s throat. Green blood sprayed from the mangled mess of flesh the slug left in its wake, but still the thing refused to fall. Dobson emptied his shotgun’s final round into the monster’s guts, punching a hole in its stomach. That third shot was enough to end it. The monster slumped to its knees, rivers of green flowing down over its eyes and cheeks from the dent his first shot had put in its forehead and then fell face forward into the snow.
There were only two marines left now, but they were doing their best to put up a good fight at the overwhelming number of monsters surrounding them. One of them carrying a standard issue M27 like most of their squad had been packing hosed a creature with a continuous stream of automatic fire. The creature squealed beneath the barrage that peppered its body with holes and tried to turn to run before finally collapsing. The snow around its corpse was slicked green from the amount of blood it had lost from its numerous wounds. The other marine was carrying a flamethrower unit strapped to his back. A geyser of fire spat outwards from its nozzle, hosing down one monster after another with blue hot fire. The creatures in front of the marine with the flamethrower drew back away from him as they realized that approaching him meant death. A more cunning one of the monsters came at the man from behind though, moving in too quickly for the marine to bring his flamethrower to bear on it. It picked the marine up in a bear hug, apparently intending to crush the life out of him. It ruptured the tank of the flamethrower in the process. The marine, the creature that had grabbed him, and two more that were close by all vanished in a blossoming explosion of flames.
“Frag!” Colonel Brannon yelled as the shockwave of the blast him as he was getting to his feet, knocking back onto the snow. His automatic shotgun bounced from his hands and rolled his body after it, trying to retrieve the weapon. Colonel Brannon’s hand snatched up the shotgun as another monster came bounding in his direction. With no time to aim, he emptied the remainder of his magazine into the front of the creature’s body. Heavy slugs blew away chunks of muscle and meat from its chest and arms, flinging the monster backwards and stopping its advance. Green blood dripping from its numerous wounds, it was struggling to stay on its feet as it looked towards him with eyes no longer able to focus. Colonel Brannon took advantage of the creature’s pain and the time it bought him exchanging his empty magazine for a new one. The creature started for him again, but this time its movements were slow and each of its steps labored as it was barely clinging to life. Dobson stepped into Colonel Brannon’s line of sight between him and the creature, firing a point-blank shotgun blast directly into the thing’s hanging jaws. Chunks of meat blew outward from the backside of the creature’s head as Dobson’s heavy slug ripped through it.
“Colonel!” Dobson shouted, pointing at something beyond their position in the direction of the copters.
Colonel Brannon whipped his head around to see Quinn and Leah running for the more distant of the two birds. For a fraction of a second, his mind couldn’t figure out why they hadn’t just made straight for the closer of the copters … then what he was seeing fully registered in his brain. The copter that had landed closer to the base was on fire. One of the creatures must have gotten inside it through its open side door because the corpse of a dead marine lay directly outside it, as if he had been flung there from inside the helicopter as the thing had entered it. God only knew what kind of damage the monster had done inside the helicopter to set it ablaze, but it was only a matter of time until the either the bird’s ordnance or fuel tank went up.
Dobson reached down to yank him to his feet as Colonel Brannon tried to get himself together. Quinn and Leah had made it to the second copter and were already inside it. The pilot was already lifting off in an effort to escape not only the ensuing explosion of the other copter but the monsters that were now coming for it. They’d ripped apart the last surviving marine and several of the monsters squatted about his corpse, stuffing their mouths with handfuls of the flesh from his bones and his entrails.
“We’re not going to make it,” Dobson yelled.
“We’ll make it,” Colonel Brannon barked at him as the two of them ran after the already airborne copter in the hope that the pilot would swing about for them and let them leap onto it somehow.
The pilot did exactly that, circling about in the air to make a run over their position. Both of them leaped upwards, clawing at the bird’s flattened-out landing apparatus. Dobson made it, letting go of his shotgun to cling to the bird’s left pad and dangled there as the bird rose skyward again. Colonel Brannon’s hands made contact with the bird’s pad but slipped off of it. He thudded hard down onto the frozen sea of white, the breath knocked from his lungs. Colonel Brannon lay where he landed for a moment, watching the copter streak across the sky back the way it had come from, headed in the direction of the Hobart. The growls and roars of the monsters around him snapped into motion though as he heard them drawing closer to him. He had lost his automatic shotgun as he made his leap for the helicopter. Yanking his pistol from the holster on his belt, he saw why the creatures hadn’t already gotten their hands on him. A set of tracks in the snow led outward away from the base’s own copter which sat partially covered by the fresher snow the recent storm had dumped on it. They belonged to Dr. Seeley who had come bursting out of the helicopter in a mad final minute dash towards the bird that had just taken off, distracting the monsters with his desperate cries at the departing bird not to leave him behind. All of the surviving white-haired beasts had converged on Dr. Seeley and were now fighting over the bits of pieces of his body that had ripped apart in their struggle to each get a part of him. Several of their heads snapped around as they took notice of him and realized he was still there as Colonel Brannon stared at them in pure terror. His pistol lacked the firepower to stop even one of them without a good bit of luck on his side, much less as many of the creatures as he was left alone with. Not wanting to be alive when the creatures got their claws into his skin, Colonel Brannon took the only sure fire means of escape that remained to him. He raised the barrel of the pistol into his mouth and pulled the trigger. His body toppled sideways onto the snow, the top of his head blown outward by the bullet that punched through it.
****
The pilot and co-pilot were the only ones left alive on the copter as Quinn and Leah had reached it. The two of them had been scrambling to get the bird into the air as they had come onboard. As the copter had risen from the snow, Leah had darted into the forward compartment with the pilots.
“We’ve got people down there,” Leah told them. “You can’t just leave them!”
“Ranger 1 is going to blow, lady, and when it does, we have to be clear of it!” the co-pilot shouted at her.
“Then get us clear and go back damn it,” Leah ordered.
“We don’t take orders from you,” the co-pilot snarled.
The pilot overrode him. “We’ll go sweep around, but it’ll be up to them to make it onboard. All I can do is put us in their reach as we go by.”
The co-pilot was muttering curses as the pilot brought the bird around and went in low over where Colonel Brannon and Dobson were running after it. Quinn had watched it all from the edge of the copter’s open side door, trying to remain in a position where he could help them get aboard. Only Dobson had made it.
Quinn had managed to drag Dobson up and the rest of the way inside, helping to get him into a seat in the copter’s rear. Dobson was soaked with sweat despite the cold and slicked with the green blood of the monsters he had been fighting.
“Thanks,” Dobson croaked at Quinn was who grinning like a lunatic at him.
“I’m just glad you made it,” Quinn said sincerely.
“Colonel Brannon?” Leah asked as she entered the copter’s rear.
Their silent frowns told her all she needed to know about the colonel’s fate.
“What in the hell were those things?” the pilot shouted at them from his seat. “Were we really just under attack by a pack of Yetis?”
“Aliens,” Leah answered coldly. “They were aliens, not Yetis.”
“Could have fooled me,” the co-pilot yelled over the sound of the copter’s blades as it streaked across the sky in route to where the Hobart was waiting for them just off the coast.
“Frag me,” Dobson laughed loudly. “They did look like freaking Yetis, didn’t they?”
“Does it matter?” Quinn shook his head. “We made it out of there. That’s the important thing.”
Leah looked thoughtful, keeping quiet on the subject.
Dobson made a mischievous face at her. “Don’t tell me you’re wondering if there’s a connection to the legends about Yetis and those things back there?”
“Unlike you Dobson, I do get paid to think about things,” she said smiling at him, the tension of the nightmare they had been trapped in broken.
Even Quinn snorted at her response as he strapped into one of the seats in the copter’s rear next to Dobson. “They did look an awful lot like what Yetis are supposed to.”
“Drop it,” Dobson suddenly ordered, taking control of the situation, as if he had realized something that the two of them hadn’t.
“What’s your name?” he shouted at the pilot as he picked up a radio headset and slid it on so that the two of them could talk more easily.
“Lieutenant Clark, sir,” The pilot shouted back at him.
“Lieutenant,” Dobson asked, this time in a more normal voice over the radio. “Where is the Hobart now?”
“She’s where we left her, sir,” Lieutenant Clark answered, “In the ice, just off the coast. Captain Shoyer was mobilizing her as we were dispatched to pick you up.”
“She’s in the ice?” Dobson asked pointedly, making sure he had heard the pilot correctly. “And don’t call me sir. Dobson will do just fine.”
“Don’t worry, sir … Dobson,” the pilot corrected, catching himself. “It’s nothing she can’t cut through quickly.”
“Oh holy crap,” Quinn muttered as he appeared to realize what Dobson was getting at. “You don’t think …”
“I do,” Dobson said. “All those other creatures that were coming at the base and then just took off had to have something else they were heading for.”
“Wait,” Leah interrupted. “What are you talking about?”
“We were in the base’s comm. room at the sensor station when everything back there started,” Quinn answered. “The creatures that hit the base weren’t even a fourth of what we originally picked up headed for it. The others just turned around and headed for somewhere right as the power went out and the sensors went offline.”
“Dear God,” Leah’s eyes went wide. “Are you saying they—?”
Dobson nodded before she could even finish. “Yeah, I am. They had to have found something else they considered a bigger threat or target or they would have all just kept coming our way. The only thing else out here anywhere near close by is the Hobart.”
“And if the ice is thick enough around it …” Quinn added.
“Lieutenant!” Dobson snapped at the pilot. “Patch me through to Captain Shoyer right now!”
****
“What?” Captain Shoyer rasped, trying to take understand the insanity that Dobson was spewing at him over the closed comm. channel. Aliens? Yetis? An entire squad of his marines dead and a copter lost? And now Dobson was telling him that his ship was on the threat of imminent attack too.
