Jon Merz - Prey

The explosion sounded like an atom bomb. Julia groaned inside. So much for the peace and solitude of this place. Man and his guns had forever scarred it now.

The round burst into the snow two inches from the soda can. Mick nodded. “Off a bit.” He looked at Nung. “There should be a small tool in that case. Looks almost like a bit toothpick.”

“Got it.” Nung handed it to Mick who then used it to ratchet the rear sights on the M16.

He stood again and aimed. This time the bullet tore into the soda can and made it jump into the air. It came down with a clank.

Mick let the rifle down. “Okay. Let’s get to work.” He glanced at Julia. “How do you want to divide up the jobs?”

“We’ll all clean and zero the weapons.”

Mick nodded. “Okay.”

For the next hour they worked until they had twelve M16s and twelve Beretta pistols cleaned and in working order. They checked the ammo and then loaded up the Snowcats.

“There’s a lot of gear here,” said Wilkins. “We’ll have to watch the gas tanks and make sure we’re not pulling too heavy. If we are, it’ll cut down on our mileage and we’ll be screwed.”

“Good point,” said Julia. “When we get to the mountains, I want us together as much as possible. If that thing is living there, we’ll want to be together so it can’t get one of us alone and…”

Wilkins nodded. “Yeah. I got it, boss.”

Nung came over with his laptop. “Bad news, chief.”

Julia frowned. “I’m not in the mood for more bad news, Nung.”

“Wish I didn’t have to deliver it, but here it is: we got another storm coming down on us.”

“How big?”

“Big enough to make our lives pretty hellish.”

Julia looked out toward the horizon. She could just see the gray fringe of clouds. They looked dark. Ominous.

Scary.

“How long until it hits?”

“An hour. Maybe less.”

“It didn’t show up on the weather report earlier?”

“Nope.”

She shook her head. “I don’t like this.”

Wilkins sighed. “There’s worse news.”

Julia looked at him. “Are you kidding me?”

“Nope. Right now, that storm is coming straight at us from the direction we just came from — the station. We try to go back and we’ll be driving right into the middle of it. Best we could hope for then is to get stuck and spend one helluva uncomfortable night in the Cats.”

“And the worst,” said Julia, “is that we go off course, get lost, possibly crash, and die.”

“Yeah.”

“What are our options?”

Mick cleared his throat. “The mountains.”

She looked at him. “Go to the mountains?”

“It’s the only place we might find any type of shelter in the area. We get moving right now, it’ll take us about forty minutes to reach the base of them.”

“That only leaves twenty minutes to find something we can batten down under before we get walloped.” Julia sighed. “Not a lot of time.”

“Well, we’re dead if we go back,” said Wilkins. “The mountains might be the only place we can stand a chance of surviving.”

Mick hefted his rifle. “At the very least, we’re armed now. If that thing is in the mountains, we can at least hold our own against it.”

“Unless it’s impervious to bullets,” said Kendall.

Everyone turned. Kendall shrugged. “Well, you never know.”

“I’ll take my chances with it,” said Mick.

“All right,” said Julia. “It doesn’t seem like we have much of a choice. Let’s get going.”

They climbed back aboard the Snowcats and trundled off. Julia kept peering in the rearview mirror. The gray clouds had advanced some. How fast were they traveling? It seemed like they could easily overtake the two Cats.

What was it about the weather that seemed to be permanently against them?

She shook her head. That was her imagination. After all, they were down near the South Pole. Down here, the weather wasn’t against anyone.

It simply was.

And the equally simple fact was that if you forgot that for one second, you would die.

She glanced down at the rifle between her legs. The barrel stared up at her, ready to disgorge an ungodly amount of firepower at whomever she aimed the thing at.

Could she kill?

If she needed to?

The creature presumably had. And Julia wondered how she would feel if she suddenly came face-to-face with it in the darkened recesses of some rocky cave.

Could she bring the weapon to bear in time?

What if other lives depended on her doing that?

They did.

The team was counting on her as much as she was counting on them.

She’d have to kill in order to preserve the team. If it came to that.

Next to her, Mick’s face had resumed its hard look. He, too, kept studying the rearview mirror. Does he find the weather strange, too? Julia smirked. Maybe he was upset he couldn’t control it as easily as he seemed able to control everything else.

His hands seemed relaxed around the barrel of his own rifle. Of course, he’s relaxed, she thought, Mick’s been around guns a lot. He was in the military, after all. He’s probably been in situations like this a hundred times. He probably thinks I’m ill-suited to be leading this venture now.

Maybe he’s right.

No.

This was her mission. Not Mick’s. She’d use what talent he possessed to get them through whatever perils lay ahead.

But once that was done, they’d be back on schedule.

And back to Julia being in command.

She gripped the rifle a little tighter.

I could kill, she decided. If I had to.

By the time they reached the base of the mountains, the gray bloated clouds had overtaken them. Howling winds drew a fist of cold across the plain and slammed into each of them as they got out of the Snowcats and dragged out the survival kits with them. Julia glanced at Mick and the others and shuddered thinking about what would have happened if they’d tried to go back to the station.

Mick’s shouts could barely be heard over the gales. “We’ve got to hurry!”

He aimed them at the base of the nearest slope. Mick slung his rifle over his right shoulder and started clambering up.

Wilkins appeared at Julia’s ear. “Does he know where he’s going?”

Julia shook her head. “I don’t know. No one is supposed to have explored these mountains before, but he seems comfortable enough.”

And he was.

After climbing up twenty feet, Mick suddenly turned and waved the rest of them up. “There’s a cave up here.”

Julia glanced at Wilkins and thought she saw a frown come over her number two’s face. She couldn’t blame him. Mick suddenly seemed a lot more comfortable with things than made sense.

Still, they couldn’t very well sit out the encroaching storm front outside. And if Mick had found them a cave, that would be a lot better for their survival. Julia made her way to the wall of the mountain.

Havel had already started up. Nung was positioned to follow him. Julia got in line.

She glanced around and up at the sheer magnitude of the mountain range. She’d never been in so much awe as she was just then. The craggy peaks jutted toward the dark sky, scratching the very heavens.

And it’s all unexplored, she thought. Briefly, she experienced a sense of excitement. This might be a blessing in disguise, she thought. A chance to explore the mountains anyway.

But then she realized that the fact they were armed would presumably discourage any real exploration attempts beyond hunting the creature down.

And Julia wasn’t so sure she wanted to do that.

Nung’s feet disappeared in front of her and Julia slung her own rifle over her shoulder. She grabbed a slippery handhold and found purchase, making her way up in the same way the others had.