“That freaking thing is near frozen solid,” Kenny whispered as he spun his weapon around so the butt was facing the creature. “Weird that we haven’t seen any for a while. Want me to put it out of its misery?”
I shook my head. “Eden tribe probably whacked them all. We’ll leave it. Remember … noise discipline. We’re close to the objective.”
“Then let’s get going,” Mel said, her tone matching Kenny’s. “Only 800 meters more.”
So we pressed on, feeling a little bit edgy about having run into a creep. Still, if there were any others lurking about, they’d be frozen solid, or well on their way to becoming popsicles.
We could see the objective ahead. Mel double-checked her map a final time and gestured for Kenny and me to follow. She quickened her pace, plowing across the open country with her weapon at the ready. In no time, we’d made it to the perimeter woods. We skirted into the bush line and dropped onto our bellies, locking our feet together in an all-around defense. Mel handed me her map and I aimed the tiny beam of light onto our location to confirm we’d arrived where we were supposed to. Bless Melanie Dixon and her freaking awesome navigation skills – she was only off by 20m from the line she’d traced on the map. It was time for me to take over. After about five minutes of creeping through the thick wood, I found a boulder the size of a small truck that jutted out of the ground like a headstone.
I made a circular motion with my hand as I pointed at the rock and whispered, “ORV.”
Kenny immediately dropped down into the prone position and put his carbine to his shoulder. “I’m good, Dave. Be careful out there,” he said grimly.
“Same password as back at the hide,” I whispered. “If we’re not back within an hour, head for the hide.”
He nodded. I patted him on the shoulder and motioned for Mel to follow.
And so we headed into the coulee. I had a sick feeling, all of a sudden. This was as close as we’d ever been to doing something that old-school military officers would have described as “fraught with peril”. We were deep inside occupied territory and we faced a well-armed, probably well-defended enemy somewhere in front of us. If we screwed up, Mel and I would be dead, no questions asked.
So I decided we couldn’t screw up. We just couldn’t.
The forward slope of the coulee was difficult ground. Every few feet, large rocks threatened to trip us as we crept forward. I made mental notes of prominent natural features inside the wood.
We weren’t planning on going down to the bottom – just to find a spot with a clear view for Mel and I to lie down prone and observe. Seeing as how Sunray was mechanized, like we were, I decided he’d be near the bridge over the Red Deer River. He owned this territory, and the road heading east and west crossed that bridge. I didn’t have to wait long to find out if I was right. We skirted around a snow-covered hoodoo when we heard the sound of a generator humming away below us. We leopard-crawled forward, brushing the snow away from our faces, until we were hidden neatly behind a clump of frozen dead wood.
The first thing we noticed was the sharp smell of wood smoke. I reached for the night vision scope, pressed the toggle switch and peered out into the darkness. The snow-covered landscape was at once bathed in unnatural green light. To our left was the main highway, snaking down the steep walls of the coulee to an iron bridge that I guessed to be about 800m below our position. Six-foot pickets had been pounded into the ground about ten feet from each other, forming a razor-wire fence that stretched out across the bridge’s western edge. They’d fashioned a gate with a roll of double concertina razor wire, and there was a lone sentry pacing across the deck of the bridge.
I panned over to the right, and saw a roadway on the other side of the bridge, skirting the edge of the river. It led to a small parking compound where a pair of Cougars was parked, their guns pointing toward the highway leading in and out of the coulee. I spotted a flickering area of whitish-green light to the right of the tanks; a large bonfire blazed away, making my night vision goggles useless, so I handed them to Mel in exchange for a set of binoculars.
“Keep watch on the bridge,” I whispered. “Make a note of everything you see.”
Mel nodded as I flipped off the lens covers on my binos and began to scope out the area near the bonfire.
Five men were standing around, smoking cigarettes and warming themselves as the fire blazed furiously in the darkness. To their right was another small parking compound, containing two eight-wheeled Mini-Coyote LARVS –light armored reconnaissance vehicles, armed with 25mm chain guns and pairs of light machine guns. I shuddered. Between the Coyotes and the Cougars, our two obsolete APC’s were massively outgunned.
I continued scanning the eastern edge of the river, following the roadway to a large fenced compound. It stretched north of the riverbank up to the tree line, with three modular tents surrounding it. I decided the tents must be some kind of makeshift staff quarters, but, for the life of me, I couldn’t understand why they’d built a compound in the first place.
And then I saw them. A small group of men and women, dressed in civilian clothes. They sat huddled over a small fire inside the compound, while a lone sentry paced the perimeter of the razor wire fence, armed with a shotgun. But that wasn’t what sent a chill down my spine. It was the trio of lumbering creeps, each chained by the ankle to a post driven into the ground on the compound’s south western corner. Several oil drums filled with wood blazed away on the outside of the fence. I suspected they’d been put there to provide just enough heat to stop the creeps freezing solid as the temperature dropped.
Civilians locked inside a fenced compound – with chained-up creeps?
I adjusted the focus on my binoculars, and stared hard at the creatures as they shuffled and stumbled around the post, occasionally lunging at the group of civilians. To my horror, I saw human remains scattered across the blood soaked snow within arm’s reach of the monsters.
“Jesus!” I gasped, nudging Mel in the ribs and handing her the binoculars. “Look over there.”
She gave me the night scope, and peered down the forward edge of the coulee until she saw it.
“That is some seriously disturbed shit,” she whispered. “What do you think it means?”
”From the bodies surrounding the creeps, I’d have to say that …”
“Jesus, Dave … they’re feeding people to the living dead? That’s freaking sick.”
“I can’t think of anything else, Mel,” I said grimly. “Maybe Sunray is using this compound as a way to deal with anyone who causes problems for his new utopia. It’s like … it’s like a micro death camp. Only they’re not gassing people. They’re leaving them to the creeps.”
“I can spot only one way into the coulee, and one way out,” she whispered. “These guys are armed to the teeth.”
I nodded. “And we have to save those people,” I said angrily, unable to divert my eyes away from the wired compound. “We need to end this – whatever
this
is.”
She nodded. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
“Agreed,” I whispered, slinging the night vision goggles over my shoulder. We retraced our steps and in minutes we were back at the ORV.
“Easy,” I whispered, as I dropped to one knee.
Kenny had his carbine aimed straight at me. “Viper,” he replied. “What did you see?”
“Enough,” I said as I checked my watch. “It’s four thirty-five – there’s still well over an hour and a half of darkness. We’ll double back at the high port and then Mel and I will give everyone a full debrief once we get back.”
He grimaced. “That bad?”
I nodded. “That bad, Kenny. Let’s go.”
***
We made it back to our hide undetected, trudging up to the sentry post at five minutes past six, where Doug Manybears was pleased to see us. I sent Mel and Kenny back to the carriers and told them I’d join them in a few minutes. I needed to talk with Doug. I dropped down onto my belly alongside the gangly Sarcee, and he handed me a granola bar to munch on.
“How’s it look out there?” he whispered.
“Ugly – why aren’t you back there getting some sleep?” I said quietly as I peeled back the wrapper and took a bite.
“I decided to let Cruze get some extra rest – she’s really looking wiped out, man. Sid did his turn and then I’m out here doing Cruze’s shift.”
I swallowed a mouthful, and stuffed the remainder into my pocket.
“How’s Sid’s headspace?” I asked. “He’s taking Dawson’s death pretty hard.”
“Sid is Sid,” he answered. “He’s got major issues with that new chick, but Cruze is keeping him in line.”
“And Dawn-Marie? Do you think we can trust her?”
Doug gave a small shrug. “Beats the hell out of me, brother. I stay out of that shit, you know? I mean, if what she’s saying is true, that she’s as good as dead if this Sunray dude finds her, well, I guess she has to realize her best shot is with us.”
“Do
you
trust her, Doug?” I asked, scanning his face.
“Nope … but I don’t
not
trust her, either. I think that if she was going to cause problems it would have happened while we were at half strength – when you guys were out on patrol. And anyway, Jo seems to like her.”
That was a positive sign. Jo had an amazing ability to read people. I slapped Doug on the shoulder. “Thanks for that, bud. I don’t think I’ve spent enough time asking you for your opinion … sorry about that.”
Doug nodded, his eyes fixed on the horizon. “We drivers are very spiritual people, Dave. We keep our traps shut and observe. I’ll look forward to the debriefing after my shift. Later, man.”
“Later, Doug,” I said as I turned on my heel and headed to the carriers. When I got back, I was pleased – no – downright floored by the fact that the team had pitched the ten-man tent from the toboggan. It was nestled snugly in a depression, surrounded by thick poplar and blue spruce trees. Everyone’s kit was lined up along the front guide lines, and I noticed a faint glow filtering through the fabric. A hollow sounding hiss from the Coleman lantern was all I could hear, outside of Sid’s snoring, so I slipped off my web gear and put it in front of the guide line with my weapon. I reached out for the zipper on the front flap and said, “Light.”
The Coleman lantern stopped hissing and the warm ambient glow disappeared. I unzipped the flat and crawled inside.
“Welcome back,” said Cruze as I zipped up the flap. She turned on the lantern again, filling the interior of the tent with a soft orange glow. A pot of water was simmering on the stove, and she handed me a steaming mug of hot chocolate.
“Thanks.” I gazed around the inside of the tent – it looked like a picture from the winter warfare training manual. The sleeping bags were arranged in a semi-circle around the tent pole, and the ground was covered with pine boughs. Combat glove liners and mukluk booties were hanging from the tent liner to dry, fixed firmly in place by safety pins. A garbage bag was taped to the tent pole – it was half full of empty ration wrapping and napkins. Kenny and Mel were seated on their valises. Each was sipping at a mug of hot chocolate and had stripped off their parkas and mukluks.
“Nice job, Cruze,” I said, as I squatted down and took a seat on my valise next to a snoring Jo. “We could have crashed in the carriers – you guys didn’t have to do this and anyway, Sid should have set this up. Doug told me he took your sentry shift.”
“He did and I owe him,” said Cruze. “It’s been snowing like crazy out there – probably six inches since you guys left.”
“And freaking insanely cold,” Mel said blowing into her hands. “The winter has decided to come early. It would have been nice to get acclimatized.”
“It’s the prairie,” said Kenny, as he gulped back a mouthful of hot chocolate. “Snow today and maybe 20 degrees tomorrow – you never know.”
Cruze took a seat next to the stove and eyed me closely for a moment. “What did you see, Dave?” she asked. “What’s down in that coulee?”
I glanced uneasily at Mel, who threw me a quick nod. “We spotted a pair of Cougars and two Coyotes with machine guns. There’s a hell of a lot of razor wire surrounding the bridge, and we saw a compound of some kind – like a pen.”
Cruze’s eyes narrowed. “A compound? What’s inside?”
I blew on my mug of hot chocolate to cool it down. “Civilians,” I said ominously. “And three creeps chained to a post. I think it’s some kind of execution thing … I don’t know what the hell to call it. All I know is there were human remains around those creeps and five civvies hunched over a fire.”
Cruze kicked at the tent floor with the heel of her mukluk. “I’d like to say we could head north and cross over near Three Hills, but we won’t have enough fuel for that.”
I shook my head. “Nope, not enough fuel by a long shot. What we saw down in that coulee, it’s freaking sick, Cruze.”
“It’s a death camp,”
Mel interrupted. “You don’t lock breathers in with chained-up creeps unless you have one intention – to make people think they might wind up there if they don’t toe the line.”
Cruze gave me a wary look and I could tell she knew what I was thinking. We had zero options at this point – we needed to push eastward, and the coulee was the only way we could go. And we couldn’t just barrel down that highway with all guns blazing, because there were two light tanks that could take us out without the gunner even breaking a sweat.
And it
was
a death camp.
I couldn’t imagine what kinds of crimes the five civilians in that pen could have committed, but nobody deserved to be torn apart by creeps. If Sunray truly wanted to make people disappear, he could simply shoot them dead. This was something else entirely. It told me that Major J.T. Martins was a madman and anyone who willingly followed him didn’t deserve to live.
Our plan of making it to Sanctuary Base and starting over was looking more and more like a pipe dream, and I think Cruze knew it too. What started out as a mission to escape hell on earth had turned into a different kind of hell, where survivors were forced to live in a makeshift police state and the threat of death guaranteed a warped kind of order.
We had to get those people out of that pen, and that meant only one option, although I shuddered when I thought about the risk.
The last of the King’s Own would go on a fighting patrol and save those civilians.