Room 275
Far Hammerhead Hall
2/19th SWG Barracks
2/19th Special Weapons Group Area
Secure Area, Alfenwehr
West Germany
28 October, 1987
0445

The door closed quietly and Stillwater stood there for a moment, wavering back and forth slightly like he couldn't keep his balance straight. I hugged myself tightly, willing the cold to retreat. Whatever that thing had been, it hadn't been the man it had appeared to be.

Outside the room there was still screams.

"Have you ever seen that before?" I asked him, my teeth chattering. Again, his thought process took long, measurable seconds, during which time the screams outside in the hallways kept going, although it sounded like there was less voices than before. Finally he shook his head. "Did you look at it?" Again, it took a long time for him to shake his head. They were still screaming, but I found myself unwilling to care. "Am I in danger because I saw it materialize?" After almost double the amount of time, he shrugged. "Yeah, thanks, ya big thug."

At least the screaming had stopped.

Part of me wondered how the mountain selected which victims became part of its arsenal and which ones were just victims. My eyes met with Stillwater's, that cold calculating intelligence staring at me from one red ruined eye, and I suddenly understood.

"Do you have any weapons in your room?" I asked him, more to break my own nervousness than anything else. After a moment he shrugged, not moving.

"You're a big help," I said, turning and going deeper into the room. The bloodsmear and pool of blood he had been lying in were frozen on the floor and I stepped carefully to avoid slipping on the blood. Without a doubt I'd end up lying on the floor unconscious and slowly freezing to death before I woke up.

There was a pair of bodies in the main room. Obviously the guys who had helped attack Stillwater. I had wondered how many had gone for him, since three had come back claiming to have killed him. One had died, one was probably well on his way by this time, but one of them had been unmarked and strutting around what a tough guy he was.

Moving over and bending down, ignoring the pain in my gut, I searched them quickly. Both had knives in their hands, which I pulled out of their frozen hands and pushed the blades between my boot and the sock, so I had two knife hilts sticking out of the tops of my boots. I checked their ID's real quick.

Missouri driver's licenses, military ID cards showing them to be Army Reservists, about sixty dollars between them, pictures of family members. I pulled their dogtags and shoved them into my pocket. I didn't matter that they had attacked Stillwater and done worse to me, before Alfenwehr warped them. Some people believed Alfenwehr simply brought out the darkness that was hidden inside of them, but I viewed it more as a kind of poison that slowly seeped in and warped someone.

On the wall there were six shadowboxes that had been broken into. I could tell by the frost on the red velvet that they had been broken open a long time before. Drawers were pulled open, silent testimony that someone had tossed the room. I checked the gap between the bottom inside of the dressers and the bottom outside. Two dressers, both empty. Not surprising, some of the officers had figured out that the space in the bottom was often used to hide contraband.

But Stillwater was crafty. I knew that he wasn't stupid enough just to hide things in the obvious locations. I pulled the drawers out, checking the back of the dressers. Checking the better hiding places like under the fridge, under the beds where the pull-out drawers would block someone from seeing easily, under the bottom of the three drawer chest where there was a six inch gap between the two thin particle-board bottoms.

One of them had 20 round boxes of 5.56mm and empty magazines that were disassembled, the second had the same for the M1911A1 .45 ACP, the last had something that made me glace back at Stillwater, who was still standing by the door and staring at nothing.

Plastique with det-cord, wire, detonators, and blasting caps. No Claymore, just C-4 and the stuff to detonate it. I carefully moved it out, hefting the blocks in my hand. Either he or Bomber had hidden 20 pounds of C-4 in the gap in the 3-drawer chest.

The wall lockers were missing their locks, and I searched them too. I pushed at the back of each wall locker, seeing if they had taken advantage of the gap between the wall lockers and the cinderblock wall. Nobody had checked them and behind both Stillwater and Bomber's civilian lockers I hit the jackpot.

A civilian Colt AR-15, more than likely modified, behind Bomber's and a 12 gauge Mossberg pump behind Stillwater's, extra Kevlar vests, and LBE's with .45 pistols on the belts. I turned and looked at him again, shaking my head before turning my attention back to the weapons. I pulled the weapons out and body slung them, then put the backs in place. I had to pop another chemlight, the one I had been using destroyed by the cold already.

Of course those two would have weapons hidden away. They'd almost gotten killed several times over the years, more than once because they didn't have weapons to fight back. From the looks of it, they'd decided since last year to avoid having it happen again.

I took each shadowbox down and checked between the back and the red velvet. Each of the missing pistols had a pair of magazines and boxed .45 rounds hidden back there. I took down the rest of the shadowboxes and checked them too. More .45 ammunition.

That was pretty much it, even though I swept the room twice more, being careful to put everything back when I was done. I did put the three bottles of alcohol in my thigh pockets. If nothing else they'd make good Molotov cocktails or disinfectant in a pinch. I made sure to wrap them in cravats I pulled out of the underwear drawer of the dresser to keep them from clinking together.

Once the lockers were closed and the room was back to looking like I hadn't been in it, I moved back up to the Stillwater.

"I was going to go to the Ready Room, but they keep watch on it, don't they?" I asked gently. After about 10 seconds he nodded.

"All right, let's get back to the preggo's," I said. "Is the hallway clear?" He nodded again, moving over and opening the door. He moved into the hallway and took a left, heading toward the far end of Hammerhead Hall and the Far Stairwell.

I glanced behind us.

At the Middle Stairwell there were the remains of three men, hacked apart, blood sprayed across the mid-way doors and the walls, already frozen in the ten or fifteen minutes it took me to toss Stillwater's room.

The fact that the shadow-boxes were empty meant that the members of 32nd FSB had swept through the building and gathered up all easily found weaponry. That meant knives, K-bars, and pistols. Most shadowboxes had a single magazine, usually empty, and maybe all nine bullets across the bottom, but usually there was no ammunition with the pistol. Ant and Bomber, of course, had hidden ammunition with the weapons.

If they had had weapons, last winter would have been a lot different when Lt Groves had them under guard in their room.

I was drifting again, the Percocets finally removing the pain from my guts, and I stood for a second, staring at the snow that had fallen in through the window. Second floor was ten feet above the ground and the snow was obviously well over the window. I'd heard people mention that the snow got as deep as sixty feet in the middle of the winter, but I'd never...

Dammit, I'm drifting again.

Stillwater was standing in the open door of the Far Stairwell, staring into the darkness. My chemlight was dying and I didn't have any more. I sighed and followed him into the stairwell, both of us heading up to the fifth floor a quietly as possible.

Our luck held all the way back to the room we'd hidden the preggos in. Standing in the office waiting for them to open the door I thought of something, and considered the idea for later. While Gordons closed the door and tied the cravat to keep it closed before moving a box of files in front of it as extra assurances.

The room was at least sixty degrees, making me sweat almost immediately. The preggos were all stripped down to their brown T-shirts, three of them leaning against bookcases and sleeping, the rest of them chatting. I glanced at Ant and saw him staring at the females, that cold red eye getting a gleam in it that made me nervous. He was tensing slightly and I quickly reached into my pocket to grab a handful of salt.

"If anything happens to me and Stillwater, pull the file boxes off the file cabinets, stack them in here, then move the file cabinets in front of the door, crawl over them back into this room, then stack the file boxes on top of the cabinets to hide the door's existence until help comes," I told them, using the salt out of my pocket to making a circle around Stillwater. As soon as the circle was completed he seemed to relax and I breathed a sigh of relief.

"He still dangerous?" one of the girls asked.

Groom laughed, a harsh bitter sound. "He's always dangerous, Sounding," the other woman looked startled and I remembered that Pvt Sounding was part of Headquarters Platoon and had probably never met Ant. "I've been his squad for over a year. Trust me."

Gordons looked like he wanted to argue, but Stillwater chose that moment to growl softly, putting his hand, palm outward, in front of him. His palm flattened like he was pressing it against a surface and Gordons suddenly shut up.

"Groom, here," I said, pulling the two weapons off of my shoulder.

Groom moved over to me, taking both weapons. I pulled off the two bandoleers of shotgun shells and handing them over too. She handed off the shotgun and the AR, then accepted the two LBE's with the .45's on them. Groom pulled one of the .45's out, dropping it in her right thigh pocket.

"I need more chemlights," I said, trading the last of the weapons for a chicken and rice MRE. Groom nodded and moved over to the box of chemlights, coming back to hand me some. I set the bottles of alcohol that I had stuffed in my thigh pockets down and  crammed them in my thigh pocket.

"How bad is it out there?" Groom asked, sitting down next to me.

"Pretty bad," I told her, stripping down to my T-shirt so I didn't end up with sweat soaked clothing in case I had to head out. It was hot as hell in the room, even though several of the preggos had wrapped themselves in wool blankets they had gotten from somewhere.

"Just the cold, or worse?" Groom asked me, tearing open the MRE for me and handing it to me.

"Worse," I admitted. I tore open the corner of the main meal and put the corner in my mouth. A quick squeeze and I had a mouthful of food. Bland and almost tasteless, but still food.

I looked over at movement and saw Stillwater drop down to one knee, pressing his fists against the floor, his head hanging down. He coughed and blood spattered on the floor. Black, clotted blood, and I knew that he was clearing his lungs.

"It's snowing outside, we'll lose the roads," Groom said, pulling my attention back to her, "How long do you think it'll be before we're declared overdue and they send someone?"

"At least two weeks," I told her, then squeezed more food into my mouth.

"Something's wrong with Stillwater," Harris asked, moving toward him. Part of my brain noted that her breasts had leaked milk, making the front of her T-shirt wet.

I swallowed, "He's fine," I told her, not looking, then went back to talking to Groom, "Then we'll have to wait till the road is clear. From what I've heard the air is too thin during the winter to get up here with a helicopter."

"He's coughing up more blood," Harris asked, then gave a squeal of shock.

I looked over and my blood went cold. She was standing there, her hand on Stillwater's shoulder as he stood up to his full height. She was at least eight months pregnant, and the front of her shirt was milk soaked.

Worse yet, she had scuffed her boot across the ring of salt, breaking the ring.

"Get back, Harris!" I snapped at the other woman. She backed up, going pale, as I jumped to my feet. Stillwater growled, a rumbling primal sound. "Groom, open the door," I snapped, moving quickly in between Stillwater and Harris. Groom scrambled up, yanking the door open as Stillwater stopped in front of me.

He looked back and forth, and I knew he was seeing all the pregnant women in the room.

...shit...

Stillwater stepped forward, forcing me to step back. He growled again, and I could see that his right eye was empty, while that bloody left eye was full of inhuman cold intellect. He stepped forward, knocking me to the side, and reached for Harris, who squealed in fear and stumbled back from him.

I moved behind him, thinking fast.

It was the lizard. Stillwater's body was critically injured, his cerebral wiring damaged. The lizard was in control, and goddamn Harris had broken the circle of salt and practically shoved milk swollen tits his face.

"STILLWATER!" I yelled, yanking my shirt and bra up in one motion, exposing my fat tits. The chemlight I'd shoved between them and forgotten about fell to the floor as the big man smoothly turned and faced me.

That red eye locked on my chest as I gave a slight shimmy. "Is this what you want?" I asked, trying my best to sound sexy. It wasn't something I had much experience with since I had never had a boyfriend, ever, only had two sex partners ever, and had willingly fucked a grand total of four times in my entire life.

Stillwater took a step toward me, growling low. It sounded more like an animal that anything a human being could make.

I jiggled again.

He reached for me, his hands open, and I knew it was to grab my boobs.

I knew what would happen then. He'd tear my clothing off of me and fuck me right there on the floor. When he was done with me, he'd move onto the other women, if he didn't kill the only two men in the room to eliminate competition.

That red ruined eye of him was hot, glowing in the dim light of the room, and the inhuman intellect looking out me was no longer cold blooded.

I backed out of the room and Stillwater followed. Slow, implacable steps that felt to me like they were shaking the entire world.

He opened and closed his hands, his knuckles making a crunching noise. The tendons stood out on the back of his hands. I knew the kind of power his grip had.

If he got a hold on me I'd never escape.

Another step, Stillwater followed, and Groom shut the door.

"You want these?" I asked, taking another step back. I took one more, making a little hop, and my fat tits bounced.

The lizard growled at me with Stillwater's throat.

"Then catch me!" I yelled, whirling around. The door was open, the dark and cold barracks beyond it. Nothing but ice, darkness, and evil.

I didn't have a choice. I had to get him away from the pregnant women.

He lunged at me. I barely dodged the lunge, and I was forced to twist away twice to avoid attempts at grabbing me. The movement took me out of the office, into the room. If he hadn't have been forced to bend over slightly when he coughed suddenly he'd have caught me when he grabbed at me a third time.

Stillwater crouched slightly in the doorway, his left eye glowing softly in the darkness as he growled again, blood running down his chin.

"COME GET ME!" I yelled.

He lunged.

I ran.