Collision of Worlds - Chapter 18

Jayson and Bret sprinted back through the cavernous garage toward the entrance where they had first come in. They had a head start against the monster chasing them, but he could feel it closing the distance.

He glanced over his shoulder and saw an enormous creature, at least forty meters long and ten meters high, bursting out of the floor of the garage. Its screech filled the entire room, echoing off of the walls.

It landed with a thud and came after them, gliding across the ground like a huge snake. It was white and covered in scales, a larger version of the one they had killed.

“I think you killed one of its kids,” Bret shouted.

“I realized that.”

“What do we do now?”

Jayson ignored him and kept running. He knew the pistol he was carrying was still loaded, but he also knew it wouldn’t do them a lot of good against something that huge. The bullets would barely even hurt it.

They needed something bigger.

The ground shook as the creature slid after them, and it moved with speed and grace despite its size. They reached the divide in the tunnel.

“This way,” Jayson shouted, taking the tunnel where Richard and Tricia had gone earlier.

He doubted they would be able to do anything to help, but strength in numbers seemed like a good idea right about now. With any luck, they would find an armory and some larger weapons they might use against the Wyrm.

It was only about thirty meters behind them now and closing fast, but the tunnel was narrowing and the creature was having a harder time sliding through. This tunnel went up and into the facility, entering into another section that looked entirely different.

The tunnel emptied into an expansive courtyard that was completely enclosed by the dome above. It was full of dead trees and flowers that were covered in a layer of permafrost and looked like it hadn’t been occupied in centuries.

Sunlight filtered in from the dome up above through the glass panels, showing them a gruesome sight: some thirty bodies were stacked in the corner of the room, riddled with bullet holes and forgotten.

“Where?” Bret shouted.

Jayson glanced around and saw two pairs of boot prints leading off to the left. These looked newer, fresh, and doubtless belonged to their companions.

The creature screeched behind them, close now. Jayson glanced back and saw jagged lines of teeth only a few meters away. These teeth were huge, each bigger than his legs, and he could feel intense heat radiating from the creature.

“This way,” he said, turning and sprinting after the footprints. They led to an entrance into the facility-proper, a massive structure built up against the side of the dome along the northern side.

The entrance was huge and connected to a lot of other passageways. Long corridors led into separate chambers and offices.

This section of the building had a high ceiling, and only a small amount of light from the roof made it into here. Jayson knew that the creature would have no trouble following them, which meant they needed to find a tighter passageway to get away from it.

“Hurry!” Bret said, pointing ahead toward one of the hallways. “It can’t fit there!”

They sprinted, ground shaking, and stumbled into the hallway a few steps ahead of the creature. It tried to follow but got stuck a few meters into the corridor, completely blocking the exit. The light disappeared, blocked by the creature’s body, but they still had their flashlights.

Bret stopped a few meters farther in and turned to look at the Wyrm, panting.

“It can’t fit in here,” he said, wiping off his brow. “Good.”

The maw opened and the creature made a screeching sound, straining to push closer to them. It tried to contract its body, but it was simply too big to force its way through.

“We’re safe,” Bret said. “Thank God.”

Jayson glanced at him just as the creature pulled back out of the hallway. He saw two tubes protrude from the sides of its mouth, just under the teeth. It opened the mouth wider, aiming those tubes at them.

“Uh oh,” he said, turning and grabbing Bret.

“What?”

Jayson didn’t reply except to drag Bret farther down the hall and away from the creature. A few seconds later, he heard a splashing sound behind them, followed by a burning hiss.

When he looked back, he saw the hallway walls melting. The creature was spraying something—maybe acid—onto them, and where the liquid touched, it burned right through it.

After a few seconds, the creature started moving again, tearing through the softened section of wall and sliding forward to them.

When Jayson turned and looked at his friend, he saw that Bret was pale and terrified.

“Oh,” Bret said, turning and running.

Jayson followed, and they raced farther down the hall to stay ahead of the creature. He heard it spraying more, and he wondered how much of that fluid it could store up before it would need to make more. With luck, it would run out soon and need to rest before trying to pursue them.

2

They rushed down the corridor, passing by old offices. Many of the doors were broken open and there were halls in the walls the farther in they went. It looked like a large number of smaller creatures had traveled through here and created their own passageways.

They heard the enormous monster screeching behind them, trying to push through the walls and give chase. It made the entire structure shake, but the sounds diminished the farther into the facility they went.

They turned down a series of corridors before finally finding their way into an old laboratory. Broken equipment and glass beakers were covered in a layer of frost. There were at least thirty workstations in the room, and they were covered in broken old equipment. It looked like much of it had been destroyed years ago, but some of it seemed like it might still work after being thawed out.

Off to the right was an empty chamber with a ring painted in the center of the floor with different colored wedges in the center.

“What is that?”

“Probably for experimenting,” Jayson replied. “Help me check around. We need weapons.”

They tore through the room, looking for anything they might use against the creature chasing them. He didn’t think they would get lucky enough to find a gun, but right now, he would take anything.

He found an old cabinet loaded with supplies. There were some in there he could use to create a bomb, he knew, but right now everything was either frozen or the bottles would need to be thawed out before he could risk using them.

“Here,” Bret called behind him.

He turned and saw Bret opening an emergency box with an axe inside. However, when it swung open, he saw that the box was empty.

“Probably Richard and Tricia,” Jayson said. It was a good sign, meaning they were probably still on the trail of their friends.

“I don’t think there’s anything else we can use.”

“Probably not. Come on, we need to keep moving.”

They wove around the tables, feeling the ground shake as the creature tore its way toward them. Luckily, it didn’t seem to be able to burrow very fast through the heavier materials of the facility.

“How the hell do we kill that thing?” Bret asked.

“No clue.”

“Where did Richard and Tricia go?”

Jayson only shook his head in response, looking around for an exit to the lab. There was a door leading farther into the facility as well as a staircase leading up. He wished he had a map of the layout so he knew which direction might be best.

“We need to figure out how we can hurt it,” Bret said.

“I know.”

“Which way?”

Jayson hesitated, wondering which way Richard and Tricia might have gone, and then gestured toward the stairs. “Up.”

They rushed up the stairs, heading into another section of laboratories and testing areas. This one was full of half-finished experiments and larger equipment designed to filter out DNA and chemicals. There were also several bodies in here.

“Look out!” Bret shouted, pointing to the right side of the room.

Jayson glanced over and started to raise his pistol. Another of the smaller Wyrms was in the corner of the room. However, on closer inspection, he realized that it wasn’t moving and its lower half was covered in a thick brown ichor.

Still holding the pistol ready, he moved across the floor toward it. Once he got closer, he realized it was dead: deep wounds riddled its side.

“Looks like Tricia got the better of this one.”

“They have to be close.”

Jayson moved over to the creature, grabbing a large pair of tongs from one of the work stations. He used it to push open the creature’s mouth.

“See if you can find a knife,” he said.

Bret scurried around for a second and then came over to Jayson carrying what looked like a large pocketknife. He flicked open the blade, held open the mouth, and started digging around where the protruding section had been in the larger Wyrm.

“What are you looking for?”

“To see if they can spit acidic bile, too.”

“And?”

Jayson shook his head, letting the mouth close once more. “Doesn’t look like it. That must be something they develop later in life.”

“Reassuring,” Bret said. “Do you hear it anymore?”

He stepped back and listened. The complex was quiet, and he couldn’t hear the larger creature tearing through the walls anymore.

“No. I don’t hear it.”

“Do you think it gave up? Maybe we lost it.”

“I don’t know, but I doubt it. It might be able to track us.”

“I hope not,” Bret said.

“Me too,” Jayson said. “But we need to expect the worst. It probably never comes up here, but I think we might have given it a reason to.”

Jayson felt adrenaline coursing through his veins and knew he would crash before too long.

“We need to get moving and find the others before it finds us.”

They moved out the laboratories and into living quarters. The floor in this section of the complex was carpeted, though everything was covered in a layer of frost. Numbered doors led out of the main hallway into small apartments, no bigger than one bedroom apiece.

Many of them had been broken into, and recently. It looked like Tricia and Richard were using their axe as a key and searching door to door. Jayson thought to call ahead and see if they were nearby, but he was worried that there might be other things in the area.

Bodies littered this section in various states of decomposition, many of them covered in frost or snow. More light came in through the ceiling, but they were still using their flashlights to see things clearly.

It looked like the militants had made it to this area first; many of the scientists here had been executed, some in the hallway and others in their apartments. They looked wholly unprepared to defend themselves.

“There have to be hundreds,” Jayson said, moving down the hallway in awe. “Thousands maybe.”

“All dead,” Bret agreed. “Scientists and biologists. These weren’t soldiers. They didn’t deserve this.”

“They were dealing with genetic engineering. It’s illegal.”

“Not all of them, and even then they didn’t deserve this.”

Jayson didn’t argue, not really having a good answer. He personally felt that genetic engineering was wrong, but he couldn’t have given a good explanation of why. There was something unnatural about it that raised the hairs on his arms.

Still, murdering people in cold blood…

They continued walking down the hallway, turning a corner and moving deeper into the living quarters. They traveled for another couple of minutes before they started to hear some weird noises from up ahead.

“What is that?”

“I don’t know,” Jayson said. “It sounds like…is that someone singing?”

They glanced at each other, and both said, “Richard.”

As they grew closer, they started to relax, realizing it was their friend belting out the lyrics of a song. They found him and Tricia rummaging in one of the side rooms. Tricia was carrying the axe and watching the hallway, and Richard was haphazardly tossing things.

Tricia nodded at them as they approached, acting as though nothing was amiss.

“What are you guys doing?” Jayson asked.

Richard stopped singing and turned toward them. He picked a rifle up off the bed, but relaxed when he saw it was them.

“Searching,” Richard said.

“And singing?”

“Passes the time.”

Jayson glanced at Tricia, who was frowning. “I couldn’t get him to stop.”

“You guys didn’t hear that back there?”

“Hear what?”

Jayson and Bret exchanged a glance. “We need to find weapons.”

“We found some,” Richard said. “One of the militants was swarmed by scientists and taken down, and we found a rifle and pistol.”

Jayson looked skeptically at the gun Tricia was holding.

“Bigger ones.”

3

“What do you mean? We found one in those rooms a while back, and they aren’t too bad.”

“Those are the babies,” Jayson explained.

Richard hesitated. “Scale?”

“Maybe one-twentieth full size.”

“You saw one?”

He nodded. “Pretty sure we pissed it off.”

“Why’d you do that?”

Jayson ignored him. “We’re going to need something huge to get rid of it.”

“How huge?”

“A cannon, maybe.”

“It can’t get in here,” Tricia interrupted, looking at the hallway behind them. “If it’s as big as you say, then it won’t be able to fit down the hallway.”

“It can burrow,” Jayson explained. “It shoots out jets of acid that can burn through the walls.”

Richard blanched. “No kidding?”

“I wish I was,” Jayson said.

“Only the one?” Tricia asked.

Jayson nodded. “That, and a handful of small ones, probably.”

“We saw a vehicle parked outside,” Tricia said, “when we were first checking these rooms out. It looks to have been abandoned by the militants outside the dome when they came in, but it’s still in good shape. It’s laying on its side, but it looks to have a heavy gun mounted on it.”

“Show it to us,” Jayson said.

“All right, we saw it back this way—”

Just then, there was an enormous crashing sound in the hallway behind them. Jayson rushed past Tricia and saw the Wyrm burrowing through the floor from the level below. The screeching sound filled the hallway, hurting his ears, and he winced.

“Guess that means it can track us,” he mumbled.

He glanced back and saw terrified expressions on the faces of Tricia and Richard.

“What the hell…?” Richard muttered.

“Where is the vehicle?” Jayson asked. “We need to get to it.”

“Back that way,” Tricia said, pointing past the Wyrm. It made a screeching sound as it pulled up to their level, and Jayson saw the acid spitters protruding from its maw.

“Get back,” he said, pulling them farther into the room.

He heard a spraying sound and saw the acid hitting the floor and walls in the hallway outside the room. It ate everything it touched, melting the floor in front of their eyes.

“What do we do?” Richard asked.

Tricia picked up the rifle and leaned into the hallway, firing a few rounds back at the Wyrm. She ducked back as another spray of acid landed around her.

“Anything?”

“I hit it,” she said. “But I don’t think it did much damage.”

“I told you, we need something bigger. Do you think we can get to the vehicle?” Jayson asked.

“If we can get outside the dome,” Tricia said. “But I didn’t see any exits.”

“What about this stuff?” Richard asked, gesturing his arm toward the acid.

The ground started shaking as the Wyrm dragged itself up into the hallway, tearing the entire structure apart around it. The walls crumpled and the floor shook under its weight. They were all knocked off balance as it moved slowly toward them, letting out another shriek.

4

“We need to go down,” Jayson said. The acid was eating through the floor, creating small holes, but not fast enough. He couldn’t risk getting any on his skin and clothes. He glanced back in the scientists’ room and saw a large dresser resting along one wall.

“Help me,” he said to Richard, grabbing one side of it and trying to get a good grip.

“What are we doing with it?”

Richard grabbed the other side, lifting it up. Jayson guided him, and they carried it to the doorway.

“Throwing it. When I say now, push it out as far as you can and let it fall onto the floor. Got it?”

“Got it.”

Jayson lined it up, getting his body out of the way as much as possible. He swung the dresser to gain some momentum and then shouted, “Now!”

Richard shoved the dresser out as Jayson side-stepped out of the way. It felt into the hallway and smashed into the floor. It was weakened by the acid, and the dresser crashed through, falling down to the level below with an enormous thudding sound as it broke apart. The next level was about ten meters below them.

“Let’s go.”

Jayson didn’t waste any time before jumping down after it. He was careful to land on the broken wood and not to touch any of the side walls or flooring with his clothing or skin. He landed lightly on the floor and dove into a roll, coming to his feet a few meters away.

The rest jumped down after him, Tricia and Bret landing gracefully and Richard hitting with a resounding thud, falling onto his side a short distance away.

“Ah!” he shouted, staggering to his feet and ripping his coat off. He’d brushed it against something and Jayson could see it sizzling where the acid burned through.

“Stop messing around,” Jayson admonished, surveying the area around them.

They were in a storage area full of boxes and crates that were full of frozen foodstuffs and supplies forgotten years earlier. On the far side of the room was an exit door leading out of the facility.

The problem was, it was a good hundred meters away across empty space. There was nothing to slow the Wyrm down, and it moved quite a bit faster than they did across open ground.

Off to his right he could see the bottom half of the Wyrm slithering across piles of broken and discarded boxes. It hadn’t managed to lift its entire body up to the next floor and was currently trying to slide backward to the level below.

To his left he saw what looked like maintenance rooms. Huge pipes and equipment sat quietly against the walls. That was only ten or so meters away, but it wouldn’t get them any closer to their objective.

He didn’t have a lot of time to decide on the best course of action: They needed to get to the vehicle, but not while the Wyrm was chasing them. They needed a distraction.

 “Give me the gun,” he said, turning to Tricia. “Get outside and get the vehicle ready. I’ll get its attention.”

She handed him the rifle and nodded. She turned toward the door on the far side of the dome leading outside and started sprinting. Bret ran after her, but Richard hesitated.

“Are you going to be all right?”

“I’ll be fine,” he said, having no clue if that was true. “Now go.”

Richard turned and rushed off, chasing after the other two.

Jayson turned toward the Wyrm, which had almost wriggled loose of the ceiling, and raised the rifle. He doubted he could do more than sting or annoy it, but at least he could keep it focused on him.

He fired, hitting it in the soft underbelly. Ichor spewed out, but it didn’t burn where it touched like the acid. The creature screeched in pain and writhed around angrily. Jayson took off running back into the facility, heading for the maintenance rooms. He heard it smash into the ground, shattering boxes behind him as it gave chase, sliding across the floor.

He ducked around a pile of crates and looked for an open door he could use. There was a loading ramp up ahead, but the sliding door looked to have been sealed up years earlier. He doubted he could break it open before the creature was on him.

He turned instead toward a storage room off to his left. He glanced back before heading inside and saw that Tricia and the rest had made it out of the facility. The creature didn’t seem to care about them at all and was entirely focused on him.

He fired off another round into the creature, but this one didn’t seem to do as much damage. When he pulled the trigger again, though, it just clicked. He tossed the gun to the floor and ran toward the facility.

Jayson rushed into the room and saw rows and rows of pods. They looked like they were designed to hold humans, but they were quite a bit bigger than he would have thought necessary. He could have fit three of himself in each one and still had room to spare.

They had glass openings on the top where the face would be where someone could look inside. As he ran down one of the rows toward the far side of the room, he glanced in those windows: most of them were empty, but every once in a while he saw a child’s face in them.

They all looked to be dead, or maybe they were only incubating. He doubted any of them had survived considering the power in the facility was out.

They all looked so young and tiny in the chambers. This must be where they were engineering the soldiers, Jayson realized. The thought horrified him, realizing this was basically just a little factory full of child soldiers.

Behind him, he heard the Wyrm thud into the wall, trying to break through. It screeched, burrowing through the cement, and he saw part of its maw come through the wall.

Jayson turned and fired back at it with his pistol, landing two solid shots that didn’t seem to have any effect. He turned and sprinted, heading for a maintenance hatch leading up out of the room with a ladder.

He reached the door just as the creature broke through. The hatch wasn’t locked, but it was frozen. He climbed up the ladder and jarred it with his shoulder. It took him three hits—and a sore shoulder—to get it open, and he pushed his way up just as the creature slid into the room behind him.

He heard a spray of acid fly out of the creature’s mouth: It hit the wall behind him, scorching it, and a little hit the side of his coat. He scurried up the ladder to the next floor into another room. It was pitch black inside, so he couldn’t see anything around him.

But he could hear a hissing sound that wasn’t very encouraging. There was something in the room he couldn’t see, and he was fairly confident he’d just woken it up.

He quickly jerked his coat off, careful not to touch the acid with his skin, and tossed it on the floor. Being free of it gave him more mobility, but he knew it wouldn’t be a good thing to go too long without it; it was too cold and frostbite would set in after only minutes if he wasn’t careful.

Not that he would worry about that now. His eyes adjusted a little bit, and he scanned the new room he was in and saw that it was some sort of engineering room. Equipment dotted the walls, and the ladder led up to another landing.

In the center of the room was a pile of white snakes, probably the large Wyrm’s babies. They were curled in with each other, hissing at him.

“Oh, hell no,” Jayson said. “Not more of you guys.”

As if in response, they started sliding across the floor at him, baring little teeth. He turned and started climbing up the rungs once more, heading higher. This was a service ladder connecting maintenance rooms, so it kept going up after the second floor, then the third, and finally up to the roof.

He heard the creature below bashing its way up through the floor beneath him in pursuit. He glanced down and saw the little snakes climbing up the ladder as well, twining their way up toward him much faster than should have been possible.

“God, I hate snakes,” he said, turning back toward the exit hatch leading to the roof. The tube he was in felt tight and suffocating, and he bit back his panic to focus on the task at hand. He tested the latch.

This one was locked. He fished his gun out, leaned back and closed his eyes, and pulled the trigger.

It clicked.

“Son of a…”

He heard the hissing as the snakes came near him and tried to ignore it. He flipped the gun in his hand and started bashing the grip into the lock, trying to snap it. It was solid, but ice had weakened it, and on the fourth hit it shattered.

Sunlight poured in, and he heard the creatures hissing below. He dragged himself up into the light and rolled out onto the roof. The wind whipped at his clothing and skin, freezing his sweat in seconds.

He staggered back to his feet and rushed across the slippery dome. He ran back the way where Tricia and the rest of them were at, out beside the dome. With any luck, they’d had enough time to get the vehicle and gun working.

The dome sloped at a gentle angle near the center. It was built from alternating solar panels and glass to let light into the facility below. There was a layer of ice on it that made it slick and hard to move across. He skated across the dome, moving as fast as he could. He heard the creature bursting through the floors behind him, climbing up to the roof.

It sounded pissed.

The angle of the dome gradually grew steeper until he was forced to sit down and slide forward slowly. He could see a vehicle in the distance below as well as little figures moving around it.

They had managed to get the vehicle standing up, and it looked like Bret was messing with the controls on the gun. They were in trouble if he couldn’t get it working.

“Is it working?” he shouted down.

They glanced up at him, surprised to see him on the roof.

“What are you doing up there?” Richard shouted, cupping his hands around his mouth.

 “Is the damn gun working?”

“Bret’s fixing it,” Richard shouted up.

“What the hell does that mean?”

“It means we’re working on it,” Tricia shouted. “Where’s it at?”

As if in response, the Wyrm burst through the roof behind him, sliding onto the slippery surface and screeching at him. Jayson glanced behind him and saw the creature sliding gracefully across the roof. The glass panels crunched underneath it, but they didn’t give out.

He couldn’t stay up here, which meant his only option was to go down. The roof was domed, but at a steep angle, and the layer of ice ran down the entire side. Once he started moving, he wouldn’t be able to control his descent or his speed.

Still, he didn’t have a lot of options. He looked around and saw a large sheet of metal broken off of an enormous exhaust duct. He ran over and picked it up, breaking the ice off of it. It was sturdy enough to hold him.

“This is going to suck,” he mumbled, setting the sheet of metal down and sitting on top of it. He could hear the Wyrm behind him, only about thirty meters.

He curled the edges enough to hold onto and hoped they couldn’t cut into his hand, and then he pushed himself forward.

5

He expected a gentle increase in acceleration once he got moving, but that wasn’t what happened. The ice was slick and wet, offering no resistance at all. It felt like he was instantly flying down the side of the dome, slipping across the icy surface with almost no friction. He felt the speed building up, wind whipping across his face as he sped toward the bottom.

It was freezing without his coat, and he felt the icy air whipping his undershirt. He couldn’t hear anything, but he had no doubt that the creature was still chasing him.

His fear was realized a moment later when he saw a huge blob of acid splash against the roof in front of him, burning the ice and sending up clouds of steam.

He leaned on his makeshift toboggan, sliding around the acid and continuing down the dome. He saw his three companions below, readying the gun and shouting something at him. The words were muffled, though, and there was no way to tell what they were trying to say.

He slid off the dome and onto the ground at an odd angle. The tip of his metal sled caught on the snow and tipped forward, not sliding cleanly in. It threw him like a catapult, and he hit the snow about eight meters away, bouncing into an embankment and rolling farther.

It knocked the wind out of him, and he saw stars as he tried to get his bearings. He’d never been so cold in his entire life, and he could feel his body starting to shut down.

He reoriented himself and climbed to his feet, trying to move toward his friends. He glanced behind him. It looked like the Wyrm wasn’t having much luck with the roof either, sliding and bouncing its way down the surface after him. He could see it scrabbling for purchase, but it couldn’t get a good enough grip to stop its momentum.

Jayson turned and worked through the snow away from the complex, putting as much separation as possible between himself and the creature. The vehicle was maybe ten meters away. Bret was done messing with it and Richard had taken up position as gunner, aiming back at the Wyrm.

“Will it shoot?” he asked, holding his chest and gasping.

Richard grinned at him. “Let’s find out.”

Richard pulled the trigger and the sound of gunfire filled the air. The gun laid down a heavy line of fire with high-caliber rounds, tearing into the Wyrm as it slid down the dome. Many rounds missed and ripped into the building beyond, shattering glass panels and doing untold other damage. Those rounds would do a lot of damage before stopping, he knew.

Richard continued firing for a full thirty seconds before the gun started clicking, out of rounds. But by then, he didn’t need to shoot anymore. The rounds were explosive, and they ripped the Wyrm to shreds, tearing out massive chunks.

It lay on the ground, twitching with blood and gore oozing out. They watched it writhing in its death throes, making gasping noises. It took a full thirty seconds for it to finish dying.

“Easy peasy,” Richard said, stepping back from the gun. He was still grinning.

“Easy for you to say,” Jayson mumbled.

“Let’s hope that was the only one,” Bret said.

Richard climbed down from the gunner position. “I want one of these.”

Jayson ignored them both, watching the creature die and trying to catch his breath. He was freezing and he felt miserable, but it was also exhilarating. This was by far the most dangerous position he’d ever been in, and he had to admit that he loved the thrill of it.

He staggered forward and Bret caught him, helping him toward the vehicle.

 “I couldn’t get the damn thing to start, but I think I can rewire it and at least get the heat on.”

Jayson nodded, collapsing into the seat. Richard and Tricia piled in next to him, and Bret worked near the front, fiddling with the mechanical equipment. After a few minutes, they heard a loud banging sound from the engine, followed by a hum.

Bret climbed into the front seat and closed the door. Heat started pouring in, and it didn’t take long for Jayson to start feeling his fingers and muscles once again. His body ached from the cold and getting tossed like a ragdoll.

But he also felt pretty good. The creature was dead; he’d won (sort of) and it was a great feeling. After only a few minutes, the adrenaline wore out and exhaustion crept in. Before he realized what was happening, Jayson was asleep.

6

By the time he woke up, it was nightfall, and he was alone in the vehicle. His body was aching and he felt terrible with a raging headache. It was quiet, and it took him a moment to realize that the sound of the engine was gone. He had a blanket tossed over him, but it was starting to get cold.

He pulled the blanket up higher and glanced around the vehicle, looking for any sign of where his friends might have gone. The facility looked quiet and empty, like a hulking behemoth in the snow. He could vaguely see the body of the Wyrm out in the snow, but it looked smaller now. Deflated and definitely dead.

After a few minutes of waiting, he saw a shape come out of the facility and start walking toward him. He felt around and found his pistol lying on the seat next to him. He quickly saw that he wouldn’t need it, though, when he realized the form was Richard.

His friend climbed into the car, rubbing his hands together. “Super cold now,” he said.

“Clearing the place out?”

“About halfway done,” Richard explained. “Just wanted to come check on you. Make sure nothing ate you while you were sleeping.”

“That’s reassuring.”

“We found about ten more of those little Wyrms so far and some ugly little baby ones. There were two nests full of them we wiped out.”

“Nothing else?”

“Looks like anything else that wandered close was turned into food. We also found an armory. Fully stocked.”

Jayson nodded.

“How are you feeling?” Richard asked.

“Like I just got beat up.”

“You’ll be fine. Tricia and Bret should be back in a couple of minutes, and we’ll get the hell out of here.”

They sat in the quiet car, listening to the sound of the wind whipping around the car. It was another fifteen minutes before Bret and Tricia returned, carrying supplies and weapons.

Tricia climbed into the vehicle next to Richard, and Bret dug through the supplies until he found a flare gun. He offered it to Jayson.

“Do you want to do the honors? I’m pretty sure we’d all be dead if it wasn’t for you.”

Jayson shrugged. “Sure.”

He accepted the offered flare gun and fired off two rounds into the sky. They flew up, signaling their position, and slowly dissipated.

“Now what?” Richard asked.

“We wait,” Jayson said.

Only a few minutes later, they heard enormous aerial vehicles flying in. Massive armored helicopters dropped in around them, unloading troops. Armored soldiers poured out, hundreds of them, and headed into the facility.

They completely ignored the four sitting in the Humvee. After the soldiers had finished unloading, they saw Alexander and Maven step out of one of the helicopters and start walking toward them.

Alexander seemed pleased when he saw that they were all alive. With Maven, however, it was impossible to tell under her breathing mask and hood. She folded her arms, watching them.

“We survived,” Richard offered, breaking the silence.

“Never doubted you,” Alexander said.

“What happens now?” Jayson asked.

“Now,” Maven interrupted, “we bring down the Republic.”