Kane Gilmour - Ragnarok

“I’ll be fine.” The Crescent gently set down on the surface of the bridge and Knight hopped out of the open door, pulling the giant Browning with him. He set it down in the middle of the bridge on its tripod, just behind an effective barrier of dire wolf corpses. Then he went back to the open doorway and pulled out a couple of boxes of belt-fed. 50 caliber ammunition.

“Pull back to a safe distance. I’ll call when I need you.” The Crescent pulled up and moved away toward St. Thomas’s Hospital on the south side of the bridge.

Knight set one of the boxes of ammunition next to the Browning and loaded a belt. The weapon had an effective range of around 2000 yards, so he’d be able to hit the dire wolves pretty far down the bridge. He was only about 500 feet from the portal, so he would have to be careful not to strafe the buildings on either side of the road as the monsters ran at him. He felt certain that while Britain would be grateful for US assistance in putting down the dire wolf incursion, they might look less fondly on him turning Big Ben into a Swiss cheese building full of eight-inch holes.

Knight opened fire on the end of the bridge with the huge gun, simply rotating it on its tripod to mow down an entire line of dire wolves that were heading his way. The gun’s violent recoil shook his arms as he fired an arc of. 50 caliber death back across the bridge again, ripping through a second wave of dire wolves. All that remained were the creatures still emerging from the portal. He waited for them to make the left turn and come at him.

Just like birds. Or bats. Bishop said they couldn’t see well in the rain. Maybe they do have some flocking instinct and don’t know what to do when the leader is confused. Or dead.

The thought of Bishop, and the knowledge that he had a second or two before he needed to fire again, made him look to his right along the river, toward the London Eye. He looked at the exact moment that the wheel crashed down vertically on its lower rim. A quarter of the wheel was gone. The tie rods flailed in the middle like a broken bicycle wheel. The entire wheel was off the support-because the top third of the cantilevered struts were just missing. Vanished. Like the portal.

Oh shit. Bishop was still on the top of the wheel. Knight could just barely see him clinging to the top, as the remaining structure toppled slowly forward into the river, mashing the small pier that ran parallel to the river’s shore, where the wheel had sat. The steel buckled and flopped as it came crashing into the river, and Knight followed Bishop with his eye, the man riding the falling pile of metal like a bucking bronco, until the splash from the impact with the water sent up such a plume of murky brown water that the tiny figure was obscured.

Knight was about to call out to Bishop over the microphone in his helmet when he felt something slam into him. He wasn’t hurt at all-the armor absorbed the impact perfectly, but he was startled to find himself several feet in the air, being carried over the shoulder of a dire wolf. The Browning was already far behind them.

The collapse of the Eye had distracted him, when a wave of dire wolves had been headed his way. Stupid! The creature carrying him ran fast. Knight tried to grab at the creature’s face with a hand, but it batted his arm away with a swipe of claws. Knight could see the tears in the armor from the beast’s claws and knew if he wasn’t wearing it, he’d likely be dead already. Up close and over the monster’s shoulder like a burlap sack, all Knight could easily see was the creature’s broad back. The muscles rippled and tensed under the see-through skin. Knight tried to push back away from the dire wolf, but it suddenly turned at the end of the bridge and began sprinting back the way it had come. The force of the high-speed turn threw its balance off and allowed Knight a look around. The other dire wolves were already heading back toward the portal from which they had come. Knight reached for the low-slung holster on his left leg, pulling out his Glock, but again, the creature swept claws at him and the gun was knocked from his hand. He watched helplessly as the gun sailed over the edge of the bridge and into the river.

Next, Knight twisted his torso, lunging his head and knocking the dire wolf in the back of its head with his armored helmet. The creature loosened its grip for just a second. Enough for Knight to slide his right hand up to his sheathed knife on his chest. The dire wolf tightened its crushing grip again and Knight’s hand was trapped against his chest on the handle of the knife.

Bastard.

He struggled and peered around again to see that they were nearly at the portal, and many of the other dire wolves had retreated into it. He began frantically kicking his knee toward the dire wolf’s chest and once again, the creature loosened its grasp for just a second. But this time Knight was ready for the short respite. He ripped his arm outward, pulling the knife and driving it deeply into the back of the creature’s neck. He was surprised that the beast didn’t drop from the blow, so he tore the blade out and began stabbing at the creature’s back repeatedly, aiming for the heart-if it was where a human heart would be-and the back of the head and neck as much as he could.

The creature faltered and slowed. He could feel the descent in velocity as the dire wolf staggered. Then it began to fall forward, pulling Knight’s body with it. Knight pulled his legs up hoping to spring off the creature before the weight of it pinned him to the ground, but he was too late.

The dire wolf collapsed right through the wall of the glowing energy portal, and just as it hit the ground, the energy portal closed with a sucking sound and a strong gust of wind. The portal left a crater in its wake.

And a pair of feet.

The dire wolf’s.

There was no sign of Knight.

Gleipnir Facility, Fenris Kystby, Norway

Asya screamed as she fell.

She had made her way to the lower level of the lab and stared up at the giant cage of metal that dominated the space before exploring the doors and tunnels that led off from the cavernous room. Many of the doors were locked, but she found old crumbling tunnels that burrowed into the earth, leading off each wall of the giant room. She had ventured into one just a few feet past the point where the lights from the main room offered any illumination.

She was about to turn back when she heard a tiny sound from deeper in the tunnel. It might have been a pebble scraping along the stone floor. Or maybe a small animal. It was impossible to tell. The tunnel, which was wide but low, was pitch dark. Asya felt along the brick walls with her hands and moved deeper into the space. She smelled dust and something wet, which surprised her, because thus far everything in the lab had been very dry.

It was when, for the second time, she was about to give up exploring and go back to look for a flashlight that she stepped forward into nothing and toppled over in the gloom. She screamed as she fell, the sounds of her voice echoing through the tunnel. She landed on something that was soft mixed with tiny sharp pokey spines. She felt the surface under her in the dark and the sensation on her fingertips was like spongy rubber with toothpicks sticking out of it. She touched one of the sharp things and applied a gentle pressure to its side. The thing snapped, just like a toothpick would. She ran her fingers over the break and felt the tiny barbs, but they were more jagged than the fibers from a snapped toothpick-more solid too.

“Bozhe moi. What is this?” She whispered in the dark, afraid suddenly of what else might be in this pit with her. She struggled to find footing on the squishy surface and instead walked on her knees with one hand on the mushy uneven ground for balance and the other reaching out in the dark for a wall. She felt the barbs poking her knees as she moved forward, but her splayed out fingertips soon grazed brick. She ran her hand over the bricks and they felt similar to the ones that formed the tunnel up above-smaller than normal bricks today. She ran her hand left and right along the wall looking for anything different than a flat wall surface. A door or a ladder. Or a light switch.