Beneath a Winter Moon (25 page)

Alan backed away quickly, surprised.

“Hey!” Seffert exclaimed. “Give me that!”

Jaffey ignored him at first, and then pointed the radio at Seffert. “Those are your men out there…your friends! One of them has just told you that they are under attack by some animal and that one of them might be dead by now.” He grimaced at the young corporal. “And you are doing nothing but spitting out crap about light and weather conditions? Damned useless
boy
.” He spit that last word at Seffert.

Alan stood, astonished as Jaffey turned and ran to the door, stopping long enough to grab a rifle. Alan ran to catch up.

“We can’t talk with Elmert because his talk-button is on,” Jaffey said as they ran to the helicopter. “But, what we can do is get our helicopter up and over where we think they are and hook up with their transponders. The pilots can find them.”

Seffert had a hurt, puzzled look on his face as he ran after them, but he did not try to stop Jaffey. “You’re right,” he called out as he caught up to them. “We can get our helicopter up and looking now.”

The three men had reached the cockpit when they heard a burst of gunfire over the hand-held radio. The men froze. Jaffey turned to hold the radio out so that they could all hear. After the gunfire there was a moment of silence, and then a horrible scream. The scream was piercing and final and they didn’t have to be experts or professionals to know what the sound really was. It was a cry of death.

“Lord in heaven,” Jaffey said, swallowing hard as new sounds came through the speaker. At first, there was a gurgling noise and static, but then they heard the attacker howl. The howl was fierce and guttural and something was so unnatural about it that all three men felt the prickles dance on their arms and necks.

“What was it?” Seffert asked but really didn’t want to know.

Now, there came a strange, crunching sound over the radio and then nothing, indicating either the radio no longer functioned or that the button was freed from its locked position.

“Let’s get the crew up and ready to move,” Jaffey said.

The three-man crew was supposed to be in the helicopter, waiting to fly out on a moment’s notice. They couldn’t see them in the cockpit, so Jaffey figured that they were probably all asleep in the passenger cabin.

 Seffert slapped hard on the closed cabin door on the starboard side. “Hey, you guys! We need you to look for the constable.”

Likewise, Jaffey had gone around to the port-side door and banged. Alan peered into the passenger-cargo section through the slightly open door. No one was there.

“Guys,” Alan said. “No one’s here.”

“Yeah,” Jaffey said. “No one’s in the cockpit, either.”

“Where did they go?” asked Seffert.

“Well,” Jaffey said as he walked around the front to stand by Seffert, “that is the question, isn’t it?”

“I didn’t see them go into the cabin. I guess we might have missed them when we were listening to the radio calls.” Alan said.

“They didn’t go in the cabin,” Jaffey replied. “No way.” His face was twisted in anger. “Damnit to hell! We need to get out there!”

All three men looked toward the forensic tent outside the cabin. Of course…the crew had decided to get an hour of shuteye in the tent.

“Oh
booooys
,” Jaffey said loudly as he moved toward the tent, “We have a job for you.”

He threw back the door of the huge tent. It was empty.

“Where the fuck,” Jaffey said, his frustration reaching a crescendo.

Seffert leaped up on the porch and ran into the cabin to double check for the crew. Alan and Jaffey waited, but within half a minute the corporal was back in the doorway, shrugging his shoulders.

“Seffert, you see if they ever got the base station set up. If they did, come and get me and Alan. We are going to check out the barn.”

“Me?” Alan stammered. “I’m going to the barn?”

“Yes, you,” he replied, then nodded to Seffert. “Come to the barn either way. If that base-station is operational, I want to be the one who makes the call.” Jaffey was pointing a thumb at his own chest.

“Why would they go in the barn?” Alan asked.

“How the hell should I know? They aren’t in the helicopter, the tent, or the cabin…and that leaves the barn or the forest…and I doubt they went into the forest.”

“This isn’t right,” Alan protested. “They wouldn’t go in that barn.”

“Maybe they wanted to see the freak show left by the bears.”

“No way,” Alan said. He decided to ignore the
bears
comment. It hadn’t been a bear and after Elmert’s call, they
all
knew it.

The area between the helicopter and the barn was pitch dark. “Don’t you think they’d use flashlights if they were in the barn? It’s totally dark in there, Jaffey.” Alan said. “We’d see their lights if they were in there.”

Jaffey stopped, suddenly agreeing with Alan. “You are right….and I don’t like it.” He pulled a pistol from a holster on the back of his belt and held it out to Alan. “The constable shouldn’t have kept you out here. Take this…but keep it out of reach so that Seffert doesn’t see it. He’ll go ape shit.” Jaffey swung the rifle down from his shoulder.

“Tell me we aren’t going into the barn, Jaffey?”

“We aren’t. We are going back to the tent and use the base station to call out everyone…the RCP, the Navy, Marines…everyone. I’ve had enough of this.”

Alan sighed with relief. At last, someone was going to take a step that made perfect sense. Besides, the pilots must be in the tent, where Seffert went to check…but then why had the corporal not called out to them?

The two men were happy to get back into some light. The lamps set up inside the smaller radio tent were glowing brightly and for Alan the lamps were a great comfort in what was becoming one hell of a scary night. The tent fluttered near the back, pushing outward and rolling as if someone were backed against the tent wall.

“See,” Jaffey said. “They are in there, working on the radio.” A cloud of steam puffed in front of his face as he let out a heavy breath. “Man, I was starting to get spooked. Now, it’s time to call in some real help before we fly out.”

The motion of the tent canopy bothered Alan, who stopped just short of the front entrance. The fluttering seemed strange to him. The jostling of the tent was fast-paced and low to the ground…and an image popped into Alan’s mind…an image of a dog he had when he was a kid. The dog loved to dig up the back yard, always burying bones. The fluttering was like those paws digging back and forth in the soft dirt of his backyard. He wanted to tell Jaffey to be careful, but he didn’t, and he berated himself again for being paranoid.

Jaffey swung open the tent door, which was a large flap with snaps on either side, and began the laborious effort to snap it so that it would remain open. He took the upper right corner of the flap, drew it to the left side of the tent, and looked for the corresponding snap on the opposite side. “I’m calling everyone in on this, you guys. I want our helicopter up and looking, but I am calling in Air Rescue and everyone…”

He stopped trying to force snaps together. Something inside the tent had growled. The sound was frightening and yet it was very low—oddly subtle in all its cold ferocity.

Jaffey didn’t look. He let the tent flap drop back and began to slide his rifle down his shoulder. Alan barely heard the strange growl, but he did see the look of fear on Jaffey’s face. He started slowly backing away, bringing up the pistol at the same time.

Jaffey had his rifle held at his hip, the safety off. He knew he should open that flap again and move in to defend whoever was inside. He’d seen Seffert head for the tent but had not seen him go inside. Maybe the young corporal, for whatever reason, had decided not to. No…Seffert would have come to Jaffey and Alan. Could it be that the pilots and the crewman were inside with that thing…and Seffert to? Jaffey’s grip on his rifle tightened. He had backed about five paces away from the tent.

He stopped backing up but Alan did not. Jaffey turned toward Alan to order him to find safety in the cabin, but the words never came from his lips. Jaffey felt the roar of the animal at the same moment that his mind registered the sound. The nylon ripped and tore as the animal had burst through the tent and then there was the strange crunch of the packed snow as feet and claws propelled the animal quickly forward—a step necessary to begin its leap into the air. Jaffey heard the distinct ‘whooshing’ sound as the thing leapt, followed a millisecond later by a furious roar that bounced off the walls of Jaffey’s mind as it attempted to cope with what the
thing
was. He heard a second roar just as the air was forced from his lungs by the impact of his body onto the ground, the snow failing to cushion his fall. Jaffey could not scream or cry out. Without any precious oxygen in his lungs, he could not make a sound. Jaffey knew that death itself was on him, now and in his mind he still tried to picture a bear.

All he could do was flail his arms and dig his fists into the coarse, stinking fur of the animal as he felt jaws and teeth find their way through the soft flesh of his neck and shoulder. In that instant, Jaffey gave up, knowing that it was over. There was no reason to resist. There was no reason to be afraid. This was nature, was it not? He was prey to a larger, stronger predator and now his life would end. Strangely, he felt little pain. He could taste the sickening stench of the thing, and could feel its hot breath as it ripped through skin, sinew, and bone. He felt his own warm blood as it flushed over his face.

And while every instinct Jaffey still maintained screamed for him to keep his eyes locked shut against the horrible thing that tore at him…the person that Jaffey was—the scientist—the explorer of new things—wanted to see this creature that was taking his life.

He opened his eyes as the thing lifted its head back. Jaffey tried to scream once more…and something did come out…but it was more of a wet, gurgling noise. The nightmarish creature on him was not a bear. No, it was not a thing of nature at all. It was a demon that must be spawned from hell as there was no place on Earth for this monster. The werewolf looked right into Jaffey’s eyes and he could have sworn its snarl suddenly lifted into a beastly smile as it opened its jaws again and moved downward toward his face.

Jaffey had needed to look and the very moment he saw his attacker was the moment that his pain came back to life. Excruciating, exhausting, overpowering pain assaulted him, once more.
If I’d only kept my eyes closed
…

As the Other…the werewolf… threw its head side-to-side, shaking the now-limp human body in its teeth, it felt invigorated. Its physical appetite was satiated, having gorged itself on the other humans inside the tent…but it was aware that there was another human close by, which appealed once more to the inner-hunger—the need to kill and destroy—especially the weak humans. The Other opened its horrid jaws and dropped the body to the snow, then sniffed the air for the scent of the last, stray human.

Alan had frozen at first. Nothing on his body or in his mind would respond for what seemed an eternity. He forgot about the pistol in his hand as it slipped from his grip and fell to the ground. The werewolf, for it was a werewolf had launched itself onto Jaffey so quickly that, had it not roared, Alan might have reached the cabin without seeing what was happening. Two massive bites from the massive jaws and Jaffey was dead.

The werewolf was grotesque in every way imaginable, but it was also obviously incredibly powerful. It was animal, but not. Alan now knew Elmert had been right all along. For a split second, however, he calculated the time from the radio-call in which they heard the Elmert being attacked to now as they were being attacked…and the time didn’t add up. The creature would have needed wings to get back here so incredibly fast. In fact, it could not have, super powers or not. Elmert had been at least seven kilometers away just minutes ago. And this werewolf had been here long enough to have already killed the helicopter crew, Seffert, Jaffey…and was now it was after him.
Could there be more than one
?