Уильям Мейкл - Operation - Yukon

I got there just in time to have a mug of steaming hot coffee put in my hand. It tasted just about as good as any I’d ever had and I immediately wanted a smoke to go with it, but even I was smart enough to realise a fire station during an emergency wasn’t the best place to be lighting up.

“What happened here?” the cap asked.

“Nope, you’re in my town, and you’ll play by my rules,” the sheriff replied. “You tell first. Who are you and why are you here?”

The cap was true to form and gave it to her straight, no bullshit.

“We’re British soldiers, answering a distress call from the research station just north of here,” he said.

“And they couldn’t send Canadian troops?”

“We’re kind of specialists.”

“Specialists in what?”

“You tell me,” the cap said. “What are we up against here? You’ve seen them, we haven’t.”

She looked the cap in the eye and appeared to, if not like, at least understand, his position. She sighed and took a long draft of coffee before answering.

“Have either of you ever seen a timber wolf?”

“Aye,” I answered, remembering Siberia. “And something a wee bit bigger than that too.”

“Not as big as these,” she said, and I saw that she was close to being in shock. The cap noticed too and put a hand on her shoulder.

“Tell me,” he said quietly, and that was enough to open the floodgates.

“They came this morning at first light,” she began, and her gaze took on a faraway stare as she remembered. “My first indication of trouble came as I was pouring a coffee in the station. First there was a scream, then shots were fired, over at the coffee shop. I left old Joe, my deputy, in charge. Oh, God, I left old Joe there…”

She stopped and brushed new tears from her eyes. When she looked up again she was all business.

“Sorry. It’s been a long day,” she said, and had more coffee before continuing. “I got across to the coffee shop too late. There were four dead in that first attack, and no sign of what had done it; I found Jean Proctor and her daughter in their pickup, or rather, out of their pickup and strewn in bits, what was left of them, in the forecourt. The main window of the coffee shop was out and Alice Kaminski and her dad Frank were inside, also in bits. There was no sign of what had killed them; Frank had a gun in his hand, recently fired, but if he’d hit anything, he hadn’t slowed it down much.

“By the time I backed out of the shop a crowd was already starting to gather. I called in to old Joe for him to get his ass over and do some crowd control. When I didn’t get an answer, I was off and running back to the office. And again, I was too late. Whatever had done it had come in the back door, caught Joe unawares, and he’d died reaching for his gun. His body was there, guts hanging over the table. There was no sign of his head.”

She stopped to wipe more tears away, angry at herself this time, then continued.

“I didn’t get time to see right by him; there were more screams outside and this time when I went out, I got my first sight of the beasts. Four of them, wolves but twice as big again as any I’ve ever seen, were chasing down Billy Franks on his motorbike. He was revving it hard, pushing the machine to its limit, yet here they came down the main drag, running him down like a wounded elk, gaining on him all the time. I didn’t have time to stop him; Billy went at full tilt right into the gas pumps and they went up as if a bomb went off.

“All was panic and shouting and running about for a while after that; but finally I got people on the move. All I could think of was to get them here, somewhere strong we might be able to defend. At least the explosion had sent the beasts scattering away.

“But they didn’t stay away for long.

“Fred Jacobs, the head fireman, became my temporary deputy. He was out on the north end of town gathering up folks last thing I know; I never saw how they got him, but heard his gun go off, twice, then heard no more. I couldn’t even go check, for by the time I got these folks here rounded up and inside, there were three more of the wolves prowling around just outside.”

She stopped, almost breathless with the telling of it.

“And that’s how it’s been all day. I’ve tried twice to go out, they’ve tried three times to get in; this last time I nearly took your man here for one of them, and he’s lucky he didn’t get his head blown off, for my hunting rifle is rigged for bear.”

“Are there more of you hiding somewhere in town?” the captain asked.

“You tell me,” she said, echoing his earlier words. “You’ve been out there, I haven’t.”

Again he gave it to her without any shit, telling of what we’d found in the supermarket. She went white at that, and then spoke calmly.

“If you’re right, there’s still a dozen or so unaccounted for,” she said. “I need to get out and look for them. I could use some backup.”

Five minutes later I was by her side in the doorway ready to move out.

“Take the new lad and Wilko,” the cap said. “I’ll stay here and watch over the flock, give Davies a hand where I can.”

She hadn’t asked for volunteers from her charges; not that any of them were armed in any case. But between the four of us, our army issue weapons and her hunting rifle, I figured we were tooled up enough to face almost anything that might be waiting for us.

I turned to the sheriff as she reached for the door.

“We’re following your lead, ma’am,” I said. “As you said, it’s your town.”

She nodded.

“And you can cut the ‘ma’am’ shit,” she said. “I’m Sheriff if you’re offering to buy me a coffee, Sue if you want to buy me a beer.”

“Sue it is then. Lead on.”

She led us out into the teeth of what was now a full blown storm. I was glad she was leading for I had no fucking clue of even which direction we were facing, never mind where we were going. I got surprised a few minutes later when the shape of our black SUV loomed up out of the snow ahead of us; I thought we were going the other way. The snow was already piling up around the wheel arches; the vehicle wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

I thought the sheriff might want a look at the bodies in the supermarket but it appeared that the living were more to the fore in her mind for we passed the smashed windows with barely a glance. I tried to peer across the road at the ruin of the gas station but the snow blocked my view completely and we walked on, heads down against the wind, snow pattering like grapeshot against the hood of my parka.

Ten paces or so past the supermarket she took us on a sharp right turn into a narrow alleyway. All at once we were in a pocket of calm air out of the storm. She turned, addressing me.

“There’s ten houses out through the back here. If there’s anyone left, they’ll probably be hunkered down in one of them. We’re going to search them all, attic to basement. Capiche?”

I capiched and followed her as she moved out again.

The houses were all set apart from each other in their own patches of land and snow was piled up in the pathways, around garage doors and along the road verges. We had to wade through a two-foot deep, six-foot wide drift and there were no other footsteps but our own on the approach to the first dwelling. The sheriff didn’t stand on ceremony. She strode up to the door, rapped three times and when there was no answer, she put her shoulder to it hard. It fell in easily and we all piled in behind her into a dark hallway that suddenly became too bright when she flicked a switch by the door.

“Come on out if you’re here. It’s the sheriff,” she shouted.