“Yes, I think it’ll work. I’ll need some time to sync the two devices, but once that’s done, yes – I can upload the virus into the New United Nations’ mainframe.”
Mac placed a hand on Bear’s shoulder for support as he felt his knees wanting to buckle underneath him.
“How long, Khalid? How long do you need?”
Khalid looked up at Mac.
“I should be ready to upload within the hour, Mac.”
Mac Walker grunted softly and nodded his head.
“Good, I think I can keep breathing for at least that long. I want to hear confirmation this thing works. Before I die, I want to know we didn’t make this trip for nothing.”
Cooper Wyse slowly rose to his feet from where he had been cradling Brando on the church floor, and walked slowly to the window the seeker had broken through during its attack on Mac and the priest. His keen eyes narrowed as he looked out across the landscape and saw movement no more than a few hundred yards from the church entrance.
The remaining seekers were moving quickly, the sound of their shrieks signaling hungry and deadly intent.
LIII.
Cooper demanded to the others that he be the one to go outside and meet the seekers before they reached the church. Khalid needed more time to sync the system, and Cooper wanted to be the one to provide that time. He had six bullets remaining, three in each of his two revolvers. The Russian threw the rancher the shotgun as well, which housed just one more shell.
Reese had quickly done the math, and didn’t care for the odds.
“You don’t have enough ammo, Coop. You can’t kill them all.”
Cooper held up Mac’s knife that Bear had just handed him, and then slid the large blade in between his belt.
“There, now I’m good. Get out of my way Reese. I’m goin’ out there.”
Reese put his right hand firmly against the rancher’s chest, pushing back against him just enough to halt Cooper’s forward motion.
“We can all help, Coop. Why do you want to go out there by yourself?”
Cooper Wyse looked up from under the brim of his hat, his lip curling into a snarl as he hissed back at Reese between clenched teeth.
“If they get past me, it’s up to you to give Khalid the time he needs to upload the virus. Plus…they killed my dog. This is personal, Reese. I want to do this alone.”
Mac’s hand dropped onto Reese’s shoulder, pulling the younger man to the side and allowing Cooper access to the door.
“Let him go, Reese.”
Cooper pushed past Reese then paused as his hand rested on the door handle. The rancher looked back at the body of Brando, his eyes closing tightly for a brief moment before he opened the door and looked out across the landscape at the quickly approaching seekers.
His face betrayed no emotion, but the rancher’s eyes shouted in thunder.
With the shotgun clasped tightly in his hands, Cooper Wyse jumped down from the steps of the church and began running directly toward the seekers. The distance between them and him was no more than a hundred yards. The rancher’s mind quickly noted there were nine of the creatures left.
Three seekers ran ahead of the others, their clawed hands and feet digging into the dirt beneath them, propelling them forward as they howled in anticipation of the impending kill. Cooper quickly dropped to his left knee, took a deep breath, and pointed the shotgun at the seeker who ran between the other two. He knew the timing was critical, needing to allow a great enough distance that the shotgun blast would hit all three seekers, while also close enough to ensure they were hit with enough force to actually kill them.
Cooper took another breath, estimated the distance to be no more than thirty yards, and fired.
The middle seeker crumpled to the ground, rolling end over end before stopping completely. The creature on the right cried out as its right shoulder exploded in a shower of bone and blood, causing it to slow considerably. The last seeker on the left appeared unharmed, its mouth opening wider as it bore down on the still kneeling Cooper Wyse.
The rancher gripped the barrel of the shotgun and swung it around him like a baseball bat, smashing the butt of the gun into the forehead of the seeker, crunching fragments of skull that imbedded into the creature’s brain. The seeker’s momentum still carried the beast into Cooper, causing him to fall onto his back as the seeker’s body covered his chest.
Cooper’s right leg screamed in pain as another seeker’s mouth bit into it. The rancher fired one of his revolvers, shooting a large hole through the creature’s neck, causing the beast to bleed out in seconds. Cooper rolled to his side and onto his knees, his eyes scanning where the next attack would come from, both hands gripping his beloved Colt revolvers.
Another seeker hit the rancher from behind, its jaws clamping down onto his right shoulder blade, its teeth scraping against bone. Cooper Wyse made no sound as he rose to his feet with the seeker still biting into his back, the thing’s clawed hands and feet wrapping around him, digging into his flesh.
Two more seekers approached from the front, certain the rancher was now defeated. Cooper took aim, a revolver pointed at each of them, and simultaneously fired off two rounds. Both shots found their mark, ripping through the right eyes of both seekers, killing them instantly.
That left two seekers remaining – the one still clamped onto Cooper’s back, and the other with the injured shoulder that had survived the shotgun blast.
Cooper aimed both revolvers over his shoulder and fired. The gun in his left hand shot wide past the seeker’s body. The other revolver’s bullet skimmed the back of the seeker’s skull, leaving a quarter inch groove along its path. Despite the wound, the seeker maintained its bite on Cooper’s shoulder, its claws digging even deeper into the rancher’s body. Cooper could feel himself losing consciousness.
“You killed my dog!”
Cooper Wyse screamed the words as he fired two more shots over his shoulder. Both bullets ripped into the seeker’s body, tearing flesh, ripping through a lung, and severing the spine. The creature fell from the rancher’s back, leaving Cooper staring into the eyes of the final seeker. It was especially large, and unknown to Cooper, had been the first of the seekers to arrive at his ranch when the journey to Churchill had just begun.
The creature’s injured shoulder caused its right arm to drag slightly behind its body as it slowly crept toward the rancher. Cooper, sensing his body rapidly weakening from the multiple wounds the other seekers had already inflicted on him, fought to keep his focus on the remaining seeker, though his vision began to fade as he struggled to hold both revolvers out in front of him.
“Come on then, you ugly bastard, let’s see what you got.”
The seeker issued a low, whining growl at Cooper, its head lifting up as it sniffed the air. Cooper noted how the creature acted more intelligent than the others of its kind, perhaps sensing he still held loaded weapons in his hands, while also possibly sensing how close to passing out Cooper Wyse was.
The seeker, wary of being shot again, intended to wait it out, circling slowly around the human. The seeker’s patience was soon rewarded as Cooper fell to his knees, and then tipped over onto his left side, his hands releasing their grip on the revolvers.
“Sorry, Brando, didn’t quite finish the job for you buddy.”
With the side of his head compressed against the cold Manitoba ground, Cooper could see the bottom half of the seeker making its way slowly toward him, still showing caution, but growing more excited second by second as it became convinced its prey was now helpless. Finally it let out a triumphant shriek as it bounded into the air, its jaws spread wide in preparation of clamping down onto Cooper Wyse’s face.
God, just make it fast – and don’t give that thing the satisfaction of hearing me scream.
Cooper smiled as he thought of seeing his wife Arlene and their children again. Sometimes, back at the ranch, he would feel Arlene’s presence as he rode Licorice across the vast fields of the property. Some days it was a particularly warm and comforting breeze, while other days it might be a whisper from just behind his saddle. During those moments he would simply smile and send her a thought that he would be with her again soon.
It appeared that time had now arrived for Cooper Wyse.
LIV.
The bear’s massive clawed paw pummeled the seeker as it attempted to leap at Cooper. Just twenty minutes earlier, the seekers had come upon the mother polar bear’s young cub, a cub that had become separated from its mother as she foraged several hundred yards away for food along the shores of Hudson Bay. The seekers, already starving from their journey across the former Canadian provinces, cornered the bear cub and attacked it, hoping to make it an easy meal.
The cub’s panicked cries reached the ears of its mothers, sending her bounding across the frozen ground with an incredible amount of speed for something so large. The bear came upon the seekers as several of the creatures were biting into her bear cub, attempting to rip it apart.
The mother bear dove into the group of seekers, her jaws clamping down over the head of one as her claws ripped apart another. The seekers scattered momentarily, but soon regrouped as the largest among them howled and hissed back at the bear. From a distance, the shrieking call of the seeker that was then preparing to plunge through the church window reached the ears of its fellow seekers, causing the group to turn and run in the direction of the call.
The polar bear cub had been gravely injured, its white fur covered in its own blood. Its mother nudged its dying body, licking the many wounds and crying for her child to begin breathing again. The cub lay motionless on the icy ground, as the mother bear inhaled the smell of the seekers that covered the bear cub. Her sadness quickly turned to fury as she raised her great head and unleashed an enraged roar into the sky above her, before turning to follow the trail of the departed seekers.
It was that mother bear that now grasped the body of the last remaining seeker between her massive jaws and threw the monster into the air, then plunged herself forward to land on top of it, pinning the creature’s body underneath her incredibly powerful front paws.
Still the seeker fought back, grasping underneath the great bear’s neck, attempting to dig its talons into its flesh. The polar bear’s head lunged forward, its jaws snapping over the front of the seeker’s face, ripping the flesh from its forehead.
Cooper Wyse watched the battle in stunned amazement, knowing that his life had just been saved by a bear that might likely kill him as soon as it finished with the seeker.
Maybe you should get moving then, cowboy.
Cooper grinned when he heard the familiar voice – the voice of Arlene.
Stop grinning like an idiot. Get up, Cooper. Get up and move - NOW.
Cooper Wyse rolled onto his stomach and attempted to push himself up onto his knees. His arms buckled beneath him, sending his face crashing back onto the ground.
Cooper, I don’t want to see you yet. You have a lot more to do in this life. People you haven’t even met before are going to need you very much, a whole lot of people, so you stand up and walk. If you ever loved me, Cooper Wyse, you’ll get up right now.
The rancher wasn’t sure how it happened, but one moment he was lying on the ground, and his next memory was of him standing on his feet and looking back at the polar bear as it continued to rip apart the seeker. Cooper began to walk slowly toward the church, concentrating on simply moving one foot in front of the other.
He saw Yakov running toward him, but then the Russian suddenly stopped and was shouting at Cooper to stop moving, a request Cooper found odd. Why in the hell would he want me to stop moving? If he did that, he might just find himself on the ground again without the strength to get back up.