Operation: Yukon

- 2 -

I took the lead so I was the one who nearly got his nuts shot off. I saw the flash, heard the clap of the rifle going off and tensed but by some miracle I was still standing. It can’t have missed me by much. I was about to raise my own weapon and return fire when the snow cleared and I saw a stocky figure backlit in a doorway ahead of me, rifle raised for another shot.

“For fuck’s sake don’t shoot,” I shouted. “We’re not from around here but we’re friendlies.”

The figure didn’t lower its weapon but at least there were no more shots.

“How many are you?” a woman’s voice shouted.

“Five, coming in from Edmonton,” the cap called out behind me.

“Come on in then, but don’t hang about. You’ve probably noticed it isn’t safe.”

I stepped up to the doorway, blinking against the sudden sharp light. It was the local fire station, a stoutly built, brick building with the only windows being high above. Inside there was a single pick-up truck parked in the rear of a space that was otherwise filled with cot-beds and thirty or so people of all ages sitting on them, all with the same frightened, bewildered look on their faces. The uniformed figure hurried us in and closed the door with a slam at our backs.

“I think I scared them off again,” she said. “But they’ll be back.”

She had a sheriff’s badge on her heavily padded jacket, and confirmed it when she stuck out a hand for me to shake.

“Sheriff Adams,” she said. “And I’m mightily glad to see you, whoever you are. We need the firepower.”

She was a tall, almost stout woman of about forty, with short cropped blond hair and eyes of blue steel that didn’t miss much.

“Did you see them?” she said to the cap.

“Nope. Just the result. What happened here? What are ‘they’?”

“You mean you’re not the cavalry?”

“Just infantry, ma’am,” the cap said. “And we were just passing through when we saw you were in trouble.”

She took in the guns and the gear and smiled thinly. “Just passing through, eh? I think you and I need to talk. The coffee’s this way.”

Davies spoke up before we made to follow.

“They’ve got some injured folks here, Sarge. I’ll see what I can do to help.”

“Good idea, lad. Jennings, Wilko, you’re with Davies. Go do some good.”

Jennings had that look of a skelped arse on his face again but all I had to do was give him a stare and he went meekly enough. I didn’t have time to worry about him anyway; the cap and sheriff were already across the floor heading for a kitchen area off to one side. I hurried to catch up.

I got there just in time to have a mug of steaming hot coffee put in my hand. It tasted just about as good as any I’d ever had and I immediately wanted a smoke to go with it, but even I was smart enough to realise a fire station during an emergency wasn’t the best place to be lighting up.

“What happened here?” the cap asked.

“Nope, you’re in my town, and you’ll play by my rules,” the sheriff replied. “You tell first. Who are you and why are you here?”

The cap was true to form and gave it to her straight, no bullshit.

“We’re British soldiers, answering a distress call from the research station just north of here,” he said.

“And they couldn’t send Canadian troops?”

“We’re kind of specialists.”

“Specialists in what?”

“You tell me,” the cap said. “What are we up against here? You’ve seen them, we haven’t.”

She looked the cap in the eye and appeared to, if not like, at least understand, his position. She sighed and took a long draft of coffee before answering.

“Have either of you ever seen a timber wolf?”

“Aye,” I answered, remembering Siberia. “And something a wee bit bigger than that too.”

“Not as big as these,” she said, and I saw that she was close to being in shock. The cap noticed too and put a hand on her shoulder.

“Tell me,” he said quietly, and that was enough to open the floodgates.

“They came this morning at first light,” she began, and her gaze took on a faraway stare as she remembered. “My first indication of trouble came as I was pouring a coffee in the station. First there was a scream, then shots were fired, over at the coffee shop. I left old Joe, my deputy, in charge. Oh, God, I left old Joe there…”

She stopped and brushed new tears from her eyes. When she looked up again she was all business.

“Sorry. It’s been a long day,” she said, and had more coffee before continuing. “I got across to the coffee shop too late. There were four dead in that first attack, and no sign of what had done it; I found Jean Proctor and her daughter in their pickup, or rather, out of their pickup and strewn in bits, what was left of them, in the forecourt. The main window of the coffee shop was out and Alice Kaminski and her dad Frank were inside, also in bits. There was no sign of what had killed them; Frank had a gun in his hand, recently fired, but if he’d hit anything, he hadn’t slowed it down much.

“By the time I backed out of the shop a crowd was already starting to gather. I called in to old Joe for him to get his ass over and do some crowd control. When I didn’t get an answer, I was off and running back to the office. And again, I was too late. Whatever had done it had come in the back door, caught Joe unawares, and he’d died reaching for his gun. His body was there, guts hanging over the table. There was no sign of his head.”

She stopped to wipe more tears away, angry at herself this time, then continued.

“I didn’t get time to see right by him; there were more screams outside and this time when I went out, I got my first sight of the beasts. Four of them, wolves but twice as big again as any I’ve ever seen, were chasing down Billy Franks on his motorbike. He was revving it hard, pushing the machine to its limit, yet here they came down the main drag, running him down like a wounded elk, gaining on him all the time. I didn’t have time to stop him; Billy went at full tilt right into the gas pumps and they went up as if a bomb went off.

“All was panic and shouting and running about for a while after that; but finally I got people on the move. All I could think of was to get them here, somewhere strong we might be able to defend. At least the explosion had sent the beasts scattering away.

“But they didn’t stay away for long.

“Fred Jacobs, the head fireman, became my temporary deputy. He was out on the north end of town gathering up folks last thing I know; I never saw how they got him, but heard his gun go off, twice, then heard no more. I couldn’t even go check, for by the time I got these folks here rounded up and inside, there were three more of the wolves prowling around just outside.”

She stopped, almost breathless with the telling of it.

“And that’s how it’s been all day. I’ve tried twice to go out, they’ve tried three times to get in; this last time I nearly took your man here for one of them, and he’s lucky he didn’t get his head blown off, for my hunting rifle is rigged for bear.”

“Are there more of you hiding somewhere in town?” the captain asked.

“You tell me,” she said, echoing his earlier words. “You’ve been out there, I haven’t.”

Again he gave it to her without any shit, telling of what we’d found in the supermarket. She went white at that, and then spoke calmly.

“If you’re right, there’s still a dozen or so unaccounted for,” she said. “I need to get out and look for them. I could use some backup.”