David Golemon - Primeval

Ryan stopped and turned. He saw that it was Sarah and then he visibly relaxed.

"Good, it's you; I don't think I could take one more bullshit explanation about what's happening here from either that very strange girl or her whacked-out grandmother."

Sarah smiled and walked down the wooden steps. She looked down at her shoes and then looked up at Ryan. His face was framed by the most brilliant veil of stars Sarah had ever seen. Even with the rising of the three-quarter moon, the stars shone as they never could have down below the border.

"You know, Jack never does anything blindly."

Ryan didn't say anything, but he did stop his pacing.

"Oh, this time he really didn't have a plan, because he really didn't expect his sister to be in the bind she is in. But Jack knows what he's doing. We have to be patient and wait."

"Wait for what, Sarah? For their bodies to come floating down the damn river?" Ryan didn't flinch away from Sarah's look.

"Look, Jason, all I know is—"

That was as far as Sarah's explanation went as a line of bullets thumped into the rocky soil just to their front. Then another line stitched the storefront, shattering the window glass in the doors and the lone surviving plate-glass window next to them. Sarah dove and hit the ground, bloodying her lips as her face hit the rocks. Ryan removed the M-16 from his shoulder and then reached for Sarah as more bullets struck around him, one clipping his sleeve as he reached down.

"Get into the store!" Ryan shouted as the silenced rounds continued striking the ground, the store and the surrounding trees. They both realized this was a murder raid; the Russians had finally returned to see what had happened to their pilots, an argument Ryan now wished he had used to leave the camp earlier rather than later.

Suddenly, shotgun blasts started flaring from the upper windows of the store. Either Marla or Helena had begun to give Ryan and Sarah covering fire to get into the store. Ryan seized the chance and pulled Sarah up the stairs. He got as far as the top step and then he felt something bite his right calf, he stumbled but stayed upright, and it was Sarah who was now pulling him up the stairs.

As they reached the door, a small hand reached out and pulled them inside. Marla slammed the front door closed and then hit the floor as more bullets streamed inside, striking canned goods and a line of fishing poles on a rack on the wall. Wood chips flew everywhere.

"Well, I guess we have to do exactly what Jack said not to do," Sarah shouted. "Let's get to the damn helicopter!"

Ryan placed a hand to his calf and felt from front to back, realizing that the bullet that had hit him went through the muscle without hitting anything vital and then exiting the other side.

"I'm for that!" he said as he rose up and let loose a ten-round burst through the smashed window, knowing he wouldn't strike anything but sky.

"Get to the back door, I have to get my grandmother," Marla said as she crawled on hands and knees to the middle of the floor. She hit the stairs running just as two more shotgun blasts sounded from upstairs. More automatic-weapons fire hit the store, sending wood and plaster in all directions. It seemed the attackers were now concentrating their fire on the upper floor.

"Well, what are we waiting for?" Sarah yelled. "I don't think these assholes will accept us waving a white flag here!"

"Get to the back door. I have to get the girl and the old lady!" he shouted over the din of the one way gun battle.

Sarah flinched as more rounds struck around them. She saw that Ryan would no more leave anyone behind than he would run away from anything. She nodded and started using her hands and knees to crawl toward the back.

As Ryan limped toward the stairs, he stumbled and fell onto the first step. He was attempting to stand when Marla's small hands took his arm.

"Come on, I hope you can still fly with that leg."

"Wait, wait!" Ryan said as he hopped around on his good leg. "What about your grandmother?"

Marla pulled at Ryan as they made their way toward the back door.

"She's dead, and it won't do any good for me to fall apart about it now. I have no intention of dying here. Now come on!" she shouted with tears spilling from her eyes. Ryan quickly got over the shock of what he had just heard about Helena, and then grabbed the girl's arm.

As they made it to the door, the shooting stopped and silence filled the night.

The first of the two-man teams of Russians to show themselves had arrived only minutes before Sarah had stepped out onto the porch. They had been sent out early that morning by Sagli to discover the problem with communicating with their air support. They had made good time coming down the river at full throttle and made it to the camp just before the sun had set. They didn't hesitate when they came upon the two Americans standing in front of the camp store. Now the first two started forward as they received no more fire from the inside. The second team made their way around the back of the store and icehouse.

As the first man knelt by a tree and waited for the second to cover the ground ahead, he saw a flash of movement and then the man he had been watching vanished in a split second of brutal motion. His eyes widened as a darkness, unlike anything he had ever seen before came from the surrounding trees and struck his partner, lifting him like a child and running back the way it had come. The wind had come up and that was when he was hit with a fine mist. The Spetsnaz swiped at his face and was shocked to see that his hand was covered with blood. Whatever had struck the man had done it so hard that blood had been forced out of the man's body.

The commando was so shocked that by the time he realized what was happening, he was late in raising his AK-47. He tried to fire, but the blur of motion was gone. And that was when the screaming started. He stood and ran toward where the man and his giant abductor vanished and went headlong into the brush of the tree line.

The soldier that had been taken sounded as if he was being torn limb from limb. The second Spetsnaz was quickly losing his nerve, and just as soon as the thought struck that he should return for the other two-man team, he ran into a dark object that stopped him cold. He rebounded with a bloody nose and lips, and fell and struck the ground. He shook his head to try and clear it, thinking he had stupidly struck a tree in the darkness of the forest, and then he saw the animal standing over him. The man's eyes widened in terror as the features of the beast became apparent in the three-quarter moon glow filtering though the trees. The face was like that of a man, but far hairier. The lips were wide and thick, the brows were large, and the eyes glowed a fierce yellowish-green that was brighter than anything the man had ever seen before. The beast growled from deep within its massive chest. The man saw the giant's left hand flexing at its side, and in the right he saw a club that had to weigh at least fifty pounds. As the trained Spetsnaz fought to bring up the AK-47, the beast easily lifted its left foot and brought it down on the weapon, slamming it into the man's leg, snapping the thigh bone in two.

The commando screamed in agony hearing the loud snap of his own leg. He reached for his leg, crying out in Russian. "Please, please," the soldier whimpered, trying to say the words and at the same moment trying to catch his hitching breath. The beast tilted its large head as if it was listening to the smaller man's plea. It grunted and then raised its head to the night sky and roared. It raised the club and struck its chest, a blow that would have caved a normal man's ribs in. It struck its chest three times and then roared again, this time even louder. It then looked down and fixed the man with its burning eyes. The thick brows arched and then it growled that low, menacing, and bone-chilling sound. The soldier could see the teeth that were flanked by the six-inch canines. The animal roared again, raising its head back to the sky, spreading the sound about the forest in triumph. Suddenly, the beast stopped and looked for a final time down at the struggling human before it. Then it raised the club and ended the man's pain with a sudden and vicious blow, burying the head and the yell for help a foot into the ground, so the only thing left twitching in the moonlight were the man's torso and legs.