Siberius (29 page)

He went to raise the pistol.

In a flash, claws and teeth came down upon him. Through no effort of his own, Lieutenant Vukarin screamed as the jaws of a prehistoric nightmare cracked his bald head like an eggshell.

Another shot whizzed past Radchek’s head, and he hit the snow again. Vague images and fluid shapes surrounded him, all rendered nebulous by the blizzard. It was like trying to see through a veil of cheesecloth, and yet somehow he still kept his calm.

In the chaos, Radchek thought he heard Vukarin scream.

“Lieutenant!” he called out.

No reply.

He pointed the luger but had no target. “Gavrila!” He watched as something came toward him, an indistinct white shadow close to the ground. Radchek didn’t wait for it to get closer; he pumped three shots into it. A screech split the blizzard, but the shadow kept coming, and Radchek soon saw that it had eyes. It roared and that was enough for him.

He turned and ran back toward the blockhouse.

              Jovaravich stood in the middle of the guard house, listened to the diminishing screams and gunshots. Pressing his hands against his ears, he tried to shut it all out, but it did no good. His imagination was painting a picture, and he didn’t like it.

He opened his eyes. Leaning against the wall before him, he saw his standard Soviet army issue Tokarev bolt-action rifle. A powerful weapon. An accurate weapon. Jovaravich stared at his threadbare gloves, wiggled his fingers. He had good hands.
Strong
hands. The tower swayed gently, the winds nudging him.

Kill the fuckers,
he thought, and picked up the Tokarev.

In the administration building, Ormskovo peered through the windows and thought he saw Captain Radchek shoot one of the white shapes. The storm let up for an instant as the shape spun toward the officer and Ormskovo saw, or thought he saw, what it was.

             
Lions?
              Perhaps, but not the lions from the zoo.

Not even close.

Slack jawed and in a sort of catatonic panic, he squinted to see. He ran to another window, tried to get a better look. He saw Captain Radchek run toward the cell block, then lost him in the blizzard. He saw, too, one of the lion-things chase after him.

Ormskovo ran to a third window. His heart pounded in his ears as he gasped for breath. He was hyperventilating. He always hyperventilated when he was excited. Cupping his hands over his mouth, he searched for signs of the other soldiers. He saw nothing, no dark shapes hidden in the flurries, no gunfire, no sign of life anywhere. What he could see was the halo of lights and the outline of the guard tower. Ormskovo moved away from the window and crossed his chest. He slumped down to the floor across from the card table, ashamed that he wasn’t helping in some way. But he couldn’t, he just couldn’t.

He was too afraid.

In the tower, Jovaravich screamed, a sort of primal challenge that pumped up his courage. Rifle in hand, he left the warmth of the little guardhouse.

The blizzard ripped into him, chilling him. Goosebumps sprung across his body. Taking a position on the snow-covered catwalk, he raised the rifle. Peered over the pipe railing. Blowing diagonally, the sheet of white broke up in sporadic fits. From his vantage point, he could see dark shapes scattered across the yard.

Bodies. Already, the blizzard was covering them over.

The wind screamed a high-pitched scream, then segued to a low moan, like a ghost. Jovaravich caught a glimpse of something, a non-descript shape in the snow. He aimed through the blizzard, the Tokarev rifle wavering in bursts of wind. The air was thick with streaky flakes. Seeing through it was difficult. Jovaravich didn’t care. He pulled the trigger.

              A puff erupted from the white mound.

A snowdrift
.

He pulled the bolt back, engaged another bullet, found a second target through the chaos. Not a snowdrift.
It’s moving
, he thought, then fired again. The mound squealed and spun around, and even through the storm Jovaravich could see what he had shot.

It was a monster, a great white monster, with tusks like a walrus, except this was no blubbery ocean-going animal with a mustache, and he wasn’t a harpooner on a whaler.

              “Fuck you!” he hollered.

The beast look up at him and roared, the black mouth clear through the blizzard. It was horrifying, a white ghost from a drunken nightmare. Jovaravich had to remind himself that he was sober. Uncharacteristically, uncommonly,
unfortunately
sober.

             
The tower leaned as a severe blast of wind broadsided the guard house, almost knocking Jovaravich from the catwalk. He grabbed the door jamb with one hand, maintaining a grip on the rifle with the other. Like a pendulum, the tower swayed back and forth, then steadied itself. When he looked over the railing again, the beasts was nowhere to be seen.

             
At a thousand pounds, the great cat slammed its body against the trestle work, shaking the timber structure with great violence. The tremor rocked Jovaravich. He tried to steady himself, but his boots slipped and he fell to the catwalk, his jaw smacking the railing on the way down. Stunned, he let the rifle slip from his grip, and it fell to the narrow walkway. Jovaravich shook off the blow. Blood seeped from his jaw.
They’ll pay for that
. He reached for the fallen rifle, grabbed onto the barrel and lifted it up.

The barrel was cold and icy and the gun slipped out of his hand. He should have taken his gloves off. The Tokarev bounced off the catwalk and fell to the snow below.

              Another smilodon bounded across the camp yard. Fifteen feet from the tower, it crouched and jumped, crushing into the wood superstructure.

The shockwave hit Jovaravich as he tried to stand, sending him back to the icy catwalk. He reached for the railing as he felt his body tumble over the side, and at the last possible instant grasped it. Holding on with one hand, he looked down and saw a monster snarl at him only a few feet away. It clawed the timbers, tried to raise its body higher. Jovaravich screamed and with all his strength, pulled himself up. Below him, he heard razor claws swiping at his boots.

              Jovaravich lay on the catwalk once more, looking down at the beasts as they gathered around the tower. The bigger ones began gnawing the wood supports, while the smaller ones circled, growled and stared at him. In no time, Jovaravich felt the tower shift. He plastered himself against the guardhouse wall and tried to steady his rapid heart. Alone and with his gun buried in the snow somewhere below, the private had but one recourse left.

             
“Help!”

              Huddled in a corner within the administration building, Ormskovo couldn’t move, couldn’t help, couldn’t do much of anything. He rubbed his fiery red hair with a gloved hand. Nothing to do but wait.
Except
-

             
The radio. He could call for help.

             
The sudden sniffing sound from under the door was loud and wet, and the cowering private darted a look in its direction. A shadow seeped in under the door.

             
The lion-thing.

A deep, rhythmic noise accompanied it, and Ormskovo found that he was listening to the cat’s
purring
. Even in the cold room, he dripped sweat, his complexion growing more pale by the second. He tried to breath shallow, but was too terrified.

Outside, the sniffing stopped, replaced by a deep growl.

It knows I’m here
, he thought.

He scanned the room for weapons. There was an empty rifle rack now used to store various keys, most of which were rusted beyond use. Ormskovo remembered that all the guns and ordinance had been put in storage in a second floor dry room. It was too far away.

His thoughts turned to escape. The private looked to the other side of the room, past the radio table, past dusty desks and rusted file cabinets, to a narrow doorway marked
tunyél’
.

The block house access tunnel.
Of course
.

Outside, the Smilodon reared back on its hind legs and slammed its paws against the door. Weak with rust, hinge screws popped out of decayed wood. Another blow shattered the door to pieces. At once, the blizzard found its way inside and the great fanged cat stalked through the ragged doorway. Nosing through the room, it sniffed the card table, then the radio, then the rusted keys on the rifle rack. Debris and loose papers swirled around, caught up in a cyclone of icy wind and snow.

Then it heard the faint click of a latch, and its black-tufted ears rotated in the direction of the tunnel door.

The tower leaned further and Jovaravich held on. Below, the cats worked the supports, grinding the old wood into soggy splinters. The private looked down at them with fear and contempt. The tower would soon fall, and he along with it. He hoped the fall would break his neck. He didn’t want to give the monsters the satisfaction of killing him. He cursed his clumsiness in dropping the rifle. It would be easy to pick them off from up here. They were sitting ducks.

A splintering crack and the tower lurched. He looked down to see the base of the wood supports chewed to a pulp.

If only he had a weapon.

The biggest of the cats craned its thick neck toward Jovaravich. It roared and plowed its muscular shoulders through the weakened support legs, devastating timber and snapping rusted bolts. The other cats scattered as the tower lurched one last time. Jovaravich thought for a moment that it would fall over the fence. He might be able to climb a tree to safety.

Instead, the tower leaned opposite the fence, toward the interior of the compound. And there was no tree there to climb.

Jovaravich scrambled to the guardhouse roof as the tower, with a final screeching death knell, gave in to structural weakness and wind. The last wood supports broke under the increased torque, and the Smilodons gathered round and watched as it plummeted to the ground.

             
Even caked with snow, Jovaravich’s gray hair blew back as he straddled the peak and rode the tower down. It fell toward the first blockhouse, and he saw the roof, covered in snow, coming toward him. He didn’t hesitate, launching his body through the air toward the structure.

Toward the roof. Toward sanctuary.

              He didn’t make it. Jovaravich missed the sloping edge by six feet, instead crashing through a second-story window. He was gone in a blur of snow and glass.

             
The guard house hit the ground, bursting into pieces. Snow and wood debris shot into the air, but the Smilodon’s lost interest in it right away.

             
Their intended victim had vanished into the night.

Radchek ran through the snow, the pistol gripped in his fist. He took the corner around the cellblock with surprising grace and speed.

              There was no room for error.

             
Behind, a pursuing Smilodon closed the gap. Radchek could hear the gasping breath of the heavy animal, its paws digging in and propelling it forward. He dared not look back as he turned another corner to the rear of the building. The beast took the change in direction too fast and spun out, cutting into the snow before righting itself again. It got up and continued the chase. Winded, Radchek came to a weathered door cracked with age. Struggling for breath in the freezing cold, he grabbed the handle and pulled. It wouldn’t budge. He spun and glanced over his shoulder and saw the Smilodon appear from around the corner. Radchek yelped, turned and dashed along the back of the building. He came to another door and pulled the handle. It wouldn’t budge either.

All the doors were locked from the inside.

              Radchek lifted his pistol and aimed it at the beast. The gun was laughable in the face of the monster. If he could just shoot it through the eye.

             
The cat roared and jumped, sailing through the air toward Radchek. At the same time, the captain thought the better of it, turned the pistol to the door and fired. A flick of sparks and the bullet passed through the corroded lock, breaking its hold. Radchek dove inside milliseconds before the great cat vaulted through the doorway with the entirety of its weight. Rotting wood disintegrated on impact as it smashed into a wall. Radchek fell hard against the concrete floor, but he had no time to register pain. He got up and ran down a corridor.

Disoriented from its impact with the wall, the Smilodon shook its shaggy head while its shifting eyes labored to focus. Its prey ran away, but it did nothing to continue the chase. Instead, it laid down panting, a thick pink tongue protruding between its saber-like canines. Dazed, it began to lick its wounds.