2/19th Special Weapons Group Area
Secure Area, Alfenwehr
West Germany
29 October, 1987
1930 Hours

Blood sprayed from the man's throat, turning into frost in mid-air and whipping away in the wind. He stumbled as I pushed him forward into the snow, watching as he went face forward into the packed snow and shuddering.

Moving. Moving. Moving. I was running with snowshoes on, never easy, heading for the outcropping of rocks. It was too dark for good vision, too cold for NVG use, but between the needle-bright stars and the wedge of the moon vomited up by Fenrir reflected on the white snow, and high levels of visual purple in my eyes, I could see pretty well.

Behind me the flashlights were shining around, and bullets hammered off to my right. No idea what they were seeing, what they were shooting at, but as long as the bullets weren't hitting me or too close to me, I wasn't that worried.

The wind was picking up, which was a good thing, since it kept the banding from occurring, but also a bad thing, since it increased the wind chill to the point where I knew that exposed flesh would be frostbitten and necrotic within 60 seconds.

Those idiots had decided to chase me after I'd spotted a group of them and tossed a frag grenade into the middle of them. I hadn't spotted the others, and the chase was on.

Survivors from the massacre at the Chow Hall.

And they. were. pissed.

My knee brace was making noises again, that weird "pop sproing ging" every time I flexed my knee, and I knew if it wasn't for the heavy home-made brace my knee would have dumped me face first into the snow already. I was gambling on the wind muting the sound from the brace so they couldn't track me by the sound.

Maybe I was giving them too much credit. Lord knows that the Atlas Crew and more than a handful of guys in 2/19th could track someone by the noises they made, but that doesn't mean some Army Reserve unit who hadn't picked up a rifle in a decade could track me.

But there was the chance that some of these guys were hunters, woodsmen, or that Alfenwehr had changed them slightly, or even more like it had changed something in me.

That ice cold chunk in my shoulder throbbed as another burst of rifle fire sounded out. It wasn't panic fire, just they were seeing shadows.

So I needed to keep moving.

The air was goddamn thin, and I'd left the rubberized nozzle in my mouth, the valve open slightly, so that I was getting a constant trickle of O2 into my mouth so I could inhale it as I ran and panted. I had two more O2 bottles in my ruck, and holding out on myself now would mean I could pass out pretty easily. The mouth strap of my cold weather mask was closed, which made it harder to breathe, but kept the air from slicing my lungs to hamburger.

The outcropped of rock passed by on my right and I arced around it, coming to a stop and leaning against the ice and snow spattered rock. I kicked my snowshoes against the back of my ankle one at a time to knock the built up snow off of them. It wasn't much, but it would still make them heavier.

I pulled around the rifle, looking back over the snowy landscape in front of me.

That's when I saw it.

To the north the mirror smoothness of the clouds was erupting into upsweeping mushroom heads as something in the air changed.

A low pressure front was moving in from the north. When it slid over the top of the high pressure system that the clouds were forming the ceiling of, the cloud was suddenly erupting into the low pressure system like a goddamn atomic bomb.

...crap..

"That isn't good, Ant," Westlin said, kneeling next to me in her full battle rattle. Her Kevlar vest was open and blood was dripping from her punctured shirt onto the snow.

I shook my head. "No, it ain't," I panted.

It was already bad out here. If that low pressure was too far, anyone without O2 outside was going to get killed. It wasn't as bad as NEO, you wouldn't vomit up your lungs, but the low pressure would lead to all kinds of nasty things. I'd heard of a couple of Ranger guys who got nitrogen poisoning, and we'd all heard about that French Special Forces dude who had suffered an embolism from getting caught out in a severe banding.

It was coming fast, too. Well, fast for weather fronts moving. Probably twenty or thirty miles and hour.

I saw lightning flash in the upthrusting cloud section and swore softly to myself.

...we gotta get out of here before the mountain slaughters us...

"Heads up, Ant," Westlin burbled.

A quick sweep of the terrain in front of me showed that their search party was getting closer, following the disturbed snow from where I had ran through it. The wind was picking up, and everyone needed to get the fuck indoors before we all ended up dead.

Westlin laughed at that thought.

It took a moment for me to get the old M-14 set properly against my shoulder, the padding of the weather gear messing me up slightly. The wooden stock gleamed softly in the moonlight, the oil I'd rubbed into the wood to keep it weatherized sparkling in the moonlight. I'd used rank enamel on the front and rear sight, which made it easier to line up the target at the rear of their little pack.

They had chemlights, were about two hundred yards out, and the lead four had flashlights.

The trigger went back smoothly, the rifle rode up, and dropped back down.

They hadn't noticed that the guy at the back had gone down in a heap. They knew I was shooting at him, but thought I was missing.

Two more shots, two more down, before they realized that I was actually hitting them. That froze them up, as they were already wading mid-thigh deep in snow, so none of them wanted to go down prone. Two were shooting off to my right, two were looking around, but one had his M-16 up to his shoulder and looking in my direction.

He was looking for me so he could return fire effectively.

I showed him where I was by shooting him in the face.

Goddamn it felt good to have a real rifle in my hands. The M-16 had always annoyed the living shit out of me. I'd hunted since I was twelve, could routinely hit a running rabbit with a .22 for a hundred paces out, and was a patient hunter.

With an M-16 I couldn't shoot my own goddamn foot off.

They were down to four of them. Jesus, it was a goddamn slaughter. They were all dumb as hell. It was like hunting turkeys.

...stop waxing philisophical and kill the enemy, you goddamn brain damaged Washington State hill billy sheep fucking donkey licking retard...

Chief Henley's voice snapped me out of my drifting. I was sighted in on another guy who was made shapeless by his cold weather gear.

So I shot him through the stomach.

One let loose with an entire magazine, spraying it off to my right. Another threw his rifle to the side and turned around, slogging through the snow back toward the Chow Hall. The last one ran toward me, but off to my right, and I could hear his screams carrying thinly through the low pressure air.

...push them into the snow...

Yeah, but the difference was, I was engaging the enemy. I had no idea who he was attacking.

I shot the guy who was running away. He went down into the snow.

Christ, a fucking turkey shoot wasn't this bad.

I remembered blowing on the turkey call and watching like four of them lift their heads up from behind the fallen tree and just popping their heads off one by one with a .22. Each time I shot, they ducked. When I blew on the turkey call, the survivors would look up, and I'd repeat.

Still reminiscing, I shot the guy trying to reload his rifle and let him drop.

The last one was still running kind of toward me.

"You're very detached, Ant, are you all right?" Westlin asked me. I glanced over at her, seeing she was leaning against the cliff face with her arms cross under her breasts. She was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, chewing gum. The scrape on her cheek was leaking a slow trickle of blood down the side of her face.

"I'm fine," I told her, returning my gaze to the running guy. He was slowing down, tiring, as he was slogging through the snow. My thigh twinged out of sympathy for his legs.

"You gonna shoot him?" Westlin asked.

"I probably should," I answered.

Beyond him a solid wall of cloud was heading toward us. I could see lightning flash within the cloud, and knew that when it got here, I'd have to completely alter my movement methods.

"Yeah, you definitely should," Westlin said.

The guy was getting closer, but he would still end up about twenty feet to my right. He would be passing between tree tops.

"Trees will probably kill him," I told her.

She nodded. "Yeah, weird that trees are made to do that. I mean, meat eating trees?"

"Alfenwehr and everything that survives on it are all predators filled with hate," I told her, completely unaware of the irony of saying that.

Westlin laughed, her blood filled lung gurgling.

Between one step and the next the guy suddenly vanished as the snow packed on top of the branches gave way to drop him into the cleared areas of the tree. I heard his scream break up twice before it went silent and knew he'd hit at least two branches.

"Well, you save a bullet," Westlin chuckled.

I just nodded, carefully taking off my ruck. The O2 bottle had quit hissing into the corner of my mouth. I'd get light headed soon. I moved slowly, but steadily.

...haste kills...

I put the old O2 bottle into my ruck and swapped in the new one. I had to turn down the valve a little, the pressure higher on the new bottle.

"All set?" Westlin asked me as I shrugged back into the straps of my ruck.

"Yeah," I told her, getting up and starting to move. I re-orientated myself and headed back toward the motor pool.

"You know, he might not die right away," Westlin said, walking next to me in a flower-print dress with a red sash around her waist.

I just shrugged, "Not my problem."

She just shook her head. "Remember the book The Jungle by Drake?" she asked me.

I just nodded.

"Think at the bottom of the tree, in the dark, it's like the plants in that book?" She shivered. "That book creeped me the fuck out."

I just shrugged as I kept moving.

...step shake... ...step pop sproing ging shake ...step shake... ...step pop sproing ging shake ...step shake...

"You sound ridiculous," She snorted.

"Shut up," I said without much heat.

The motor pool was drawing closer. With the way I'd moved to lure the 'hunters' into me, the massive Group area was nearly a mile away.

In the summer I could run that mile in roughly five minutes.

Now, that mile was a good thirty minute journey.

...step shake... ...step pop sproing ging shake ...step shake... ...step pop sproing ging shake ...step shake...

Each step was less than two feet forward. I had to brace myself against the wind, the gusts strong enough that if it wasn't for the snowshoes I'd be knocked off my feet. Take a step forward, carefully setting my foot down. Eventually that becomes habit. Lift my foot to step and wobble the snowshoe to shake the loose snow off of the shoe to reduce the weight and keep the integrity of the weight spreading system.

It was tiring, exhausting, even with my endurance. Add in combat, and drained even more of my reserves. My gear was heavy, but I needed all of it. My body was demanding more fuel, and I knew I'd need to eat soon. Carbohydrates, protein, calories, sugars. I'd need all of that. I'd passed my Arctic Survival Course with ease, having to walk five miles with snow shoes, but that was almost at sea level. More oxygen, less effort to pull in life giving air.

The motor pool was coming up close and I kept checking my land marks closely.

There. I went down on one knee, unstrapped my snow shoes, and dropping my ruck. It dropped about a foot into the snow. I pulled out my entrenching tool and started digging. Five landmarks, and I knew that below me, about five to ten feet down, was a guard tower at the edge of the motorpool fence. Even if the snow suddenly melted, they'd find my ruck, snow shoes, and other gear.

It took me long minutes to dig until I hit the high peaked roof of the guard tower, and a couple more minutes to dig down so I could slide down into the tower itself. Being out of the wind made me feel warmer, but I knew it was a false warmth.

I dropped the ruck, put my snowshoes against the chest high wall of the guard tower, and took the time to prep my new shelter I was building in the most south-west guard tower. I used the entrenching tool to break into the emergency box so I could take stock of the supplies in the tower.

That was Chief Poleg's doing. First aid supplies, warming supplies, blankets, stuff like that in the big two feet deep, four foot long, two foot wide chest. No weapon, but I didn't much care. Once I took inventory, the warmth from my torso spreading back out, I took care of my gear.

Check the snowshoes for damage. Check the rifle, oil exposed metal, then wrap it carefully in cloth. Set up everything in case I came back seriously injured and with almost completely depleted endurance.

proper preparation prevents piss poor performance

Once I was done I climbed back out of the hole I'd made and used the entrenching tool to fill back in the hole, then pushed the entrenching tool into the snow. The end of the handle of the entrenching tool stuck out, about two inches. Each to find, easy to grab, if I lined up the land marks.

Primitive man, who had left behind a lot of neural wiring in my brain, had been able to travel for days at a time running down prey and easily return to camp. That wiring was in everyone's skull, but the Army brought it back online with Land Navigation courses, and the lizard made sure that the wiring in my skull stayed live and powered.

Everything devoted to survival of the most adaptable in the wiring of my skull was at the lizard's disposal.

The cold weather poncho, reversed, was dark on one side, which kept my from being spotted easily. The motor pool drew closer as I moved through the snow.

No guards. I knew where the tunnel access was, and like the chow hall, the roof was cleared. There were three ways I could enter the motor pool building.

1) I could use one of their tunnels, use one of their cleared entrances.
     A) They might have set guards
     B) I might run into a patrol
2) I could breach the roof with explosives and rappel in
     A) I might as well fire off flares
     B) I would attract all the bullets
     C) That was dumb as shit.
3) I could use the side entrance

The lizard threw my options up as a decision tree. Option two was almost immediately grayed out. Option one was accompanied with endurance loss, ammunition loss, and the problems of being chased out before I could complete recon, getting killed in the tunnels, as well as the oxygen levels in the tunnels compared to the exhalation CO2 levels.

Decision three looked the best. It was thirty feet up, and we'd used it back during the dust-up with the Spetsnaz...

...Aine giggling as she danced across the snow. I stepped out and sunk waist deep and she laughed peels of silver laughter...

The lizard liked the side entrance.

But it was probably under twenty to thirty feet of snow.

I glanced to the north and saw that wall of cloud cover sweeping toward me.

The lizard tossed up that I had less than ten minutes to find shelter or I'd be caught out in the low pressure system.

I had no desire to spend the last minutes of my life coughing up blood as my lungs ruptured from low pressure and almost microscopic ice crystals.

That rules out option three and the lizard tossed up the nearest entrance I'd spotted.

Twenty meters.

I hustled it, slogging through the snow, cursing at it slowing me down.

I made it into the tunnel entrance right as the low pressure system was only a mile or so away. I moved carefully, hefting the ice/climbing axe in my fist. I popped a chemlight, choosing to use white, which lit it up faintly.

The tunnels were walled and floored with ice, and the further I followed it, the warmer it got. The walls and ceiling were dripping water as I moved steadily downward, following the tunnel. After a few minutes I could smell burnt bacon and roasted pork and ignored what I was actually smelling.

The lizard slapped a button, cutting off my nauseous feelings, bypassing his desire to toss up approximations of what I would find in the cavernous refit and repair bays of the main motorpool building.

It was getting warmer, so I swept back the poncho and undid the wooden "buttons" on the front of my parka. They had the heat on, and holy shit was it hot.

When the lower side door, the one we'd used so often to get inside the motor pool, loomed out of the darkness, I was surprised to see there wasn't a single guard on it.

Suspecting a trap, I moved up carefully to it and tested the handle. No resistance.

Shaking my head at my luck, fully expecting it to turn on me, I took the chemlight out from the elastic band around my helmet and tucked it in a pocket to mute the light, then opened the door and slid inside, closing the door behind me in one smooth movement.

My eyes adjusted to the light. It was gloomy, fires in the mechanic's pits that allowed the mechanics to work on the chassis of the vehicle while standing up, barrels around the bay full of dancing and flickering. The massive heaters suspended from the cavernous roof were running at full tilt, two of them with bad bearings that were screaming. Water was steadily dripping from the roof, which was lost in the darkness.

None of that was what had my attention.

Chains were hanging down from the rafters, from the heavy beams that sometimes the mechanics used to pull engines, from the massive mechanical lifts that were twenty feet off the floor. Chains were everywhere. From towing chains to standard chain.

All hanging from beams.

It was what was on the chains that had my attention.

Thunder boomed outside, muted by the thick layer of snow, making droplets shower down from the hidden ceiling. Making the chains sway. Making what was on the chains sway.

Bodies.

Gutted bodies.

Gutted human bodies.

...oh shit...