Chapter 26

Guest from the future

Disclaimer: All characters belong to Impossible Pictures, unless they're OC.

Chapter twenty-six

"I am feeling more and more as a third wheel," Sarah admitted to Jenny, as the two of them remained in the main camp (built a bit over to the side of the helicopter airport, in a rather fortified position), "or not as a third wheel, but still as irrelevant or not as important as-"

"Sarah, you're babbling," Jenny said wearily, "take a deep breath and a deep swig of Seltzer™. All will work out – today, at least."

"Today?"

"As of this very moment and until the sunset."

Sarah groaned. As Becker had pointed out to them, including Sarah, the attackers were probably nocturnal – personality-wise, the hidden traps were another matter – and thus hid during the day in a hide-out, waiting for the night-time, a much more convenient time for an active ambush.

Sarah had remembered all of the above – really – but this was a little consolation to what she was actually feeling as of right now. "I think you misunderstood me," she said quietly, "I do not feel afraid – well, yes, I do, but rather I feel displaced, useless; I would rather be-"

"I know how you feel – by now," Jenny admitted with a slight smile. "It was this shape of mind that caused me to leave our center, because Danny was doing my job so much better than I was."

"Well, no, no, you two are just different. Maybe after this is done and we're back in England, you two-"

"Sarah, thanks, but don't. Danny is a good man and a good leader, but I don't want any piece of him, or of the ARC, really," Jenny shook her head, her lips pursed. "I am doing this because I have to, not because I want to."

"Well, I don't want to do this either, but-" Sarah caught Jenny's decided non-amused look and sighed.

"Jenny, look. You told me to stop sucking up and feeling guilty, and by now I have. Yes, I probably underestimate the value of Nick in your life, but you're getting over the top and turning from genuinely bereaved to childishly temper tantrums. You're missing out on an interesting job, on a big piece of your life-"

"No, I am not. Sarah, didn't you hear me? I'm here because I have to, not because I want to, and once this is all over, it's over. Have I missed you people? Of course. Did I want you to call me? Naturally. Did I miss this job? Yes. But I never really wanted to go back – that page of my life is over."

Sarah slowly stared at Jenny, and a new look appeared on her face. "You're wrong," she said firmly, "you're one of us. You're just channelling Caroline, somewhat, who's a bit bitter and confused, but is also one of us- are you listening to me?"

Wordlessly, Jenny pointed out to the stationary (well, semi-stationary) time anomaly detector, which was clearly transmitting some sort of signal. Immediately, Sarah grabbed the walkie-talkie and went to contact Becker and others, interpersonal enmity forgotten.

* * *

"They're planning a pincer movement."

"Impressive."

"Especially since their numbers have been depleted, and not replenished yet."

"The replenishments will not arrive in time."

"No, no they won't – the other half may not arrive in time."

"The more experienced foes must be taken out first."

"And so they will be."

* * *

The route that Becker, Lazrev and Muirkirk had decided upon was simple, and rather perpendicular to the route of Culver's team: they planned to take a purposefully alternative route to the Mounties' force – right now, Culver worried them more than any potentially dangerous animals from past, present or future they were likely to meet, and the same went for traps.
As an added protection, they did leave the lesser half of their teams back in the camp, which was beginning to look at least somewhat fortified and not like an open camp site under the unfriendly skies, unlike the Mounties' previous version.

On the other hand, Becker would have to admit, Culver and his underlings knew how to walk through the woods, while they didn't, more suited for urban warfare, or not at all. The woods around them appeared even emptier and devoid of life, than the area around the airport and the small town – no squirrels were scurrying in the trees, no butterflies or bees were flying between them, no birds were flying in the air-

Becker frowned and exchanged looks with Lazrev and Ancona. "Are ravens supposed to be forming such large flocks or is it a local thing?" he asked his cohorts. "'Cause their behaviour reminds a bit of vultures, and that's not good."

"These aren't ravens," Ancona said slowly, after looking at the flocking birds through the bin-oculars. "These are crows."

"Say what? I've seen crows-"

"Our crows are a bit different from yours and look much more like ravens," Lazrev said apolo-getically. "But you're right – this isn't good." He paused. "Isn't that the direction in which Culver's people had gone, as well?"

There was a lull in the short conversation, as the trio just looked at each other in silent suspicion, and then, a loud growl in a low timbre startled them.

"People," Caroline Steele quietly walked over to them, "my dogs smell something, and it partially scares, and partially angers them. I do not know what can cause such a mixed reaction in them, and I do not like it."

"But can they lead us to its' source? We suspect that that flock of crows may be above it," Ancona said quickly.

Caroline paused, exchanged the ammo in her shotgun for something that definitely wasn't rock salt, grabbed Michael firmly close to the collar and nodded in agreement.

"Then let's go."

* * *

Few hours earlier...

A nose of a human, as opposed to the nose of a dog, isn't quite designed to be responsive to most natural smells, but this smell was too intense to be natural: it resembled a slaughterhouse, maybe, or the carnivores' domain in the zoo, a heavy, almost tangible smell of sweat, dirty fur, and blood.

"Well now, people," Culver's own grin resembled a snarl of a large predator, "I think we just have found something – if not our throat-ripping friend, then some more of those out-of-time creatures, in other words, a chance to show them what we are truly capable of! Let's move!"

And they did – slowly, carefully, with their weapons locked, and loaded, and with silencers on, they approached the source of the smell, moving carefully towards their goal, encircling it, ready to shoot. They were members of RCMP, some of quite high rank, many of them – professionals in such kind of situation... but unfortunately it was the wrong kind of situation: as they began to move in within the shooting range of their weapons, they were shot at.

And with a lethal accuracy: the first barrage of shots was highly successful, at least one third of Culver's force went down with heavy, or even mortal wounds, including the lieutenant-colonel himself, who had his brains blown out by a careful shot. What's force, this barrage was so suc-cessful and unexpected, that the survivors had hesitated and wasted away the critical minutes, and so the second mass shot laid low most of the survivors of the first... the people who remained on their feet alive didn't outlive their peers for too long, for their assailants decided to enter the melee, and the few, disorganized humans were no match for their teeth or fists.

* * *

Now...

A gruesome sight lay before the eyes of Becker, Lazrev, Muirkirk and others – dead people, stripped practically naked, lying in a woodpile like so much firewood was not a sight for sore eyes, and the crows, who were slowly landing onto the pile and beginning to taste the corpses, were not a very big improvement on the situation either.

Ancona – proving that unlike, say, Christine Johnson, she had some basic human values left – made a move towards the pile, apparently planning to start putting apart the pile and possibly calling for help and assistance for a civilized burial of those people, when Caroline Steele grabbed her by an arm.

"No, officer, not now. My dogs are nervous, and the birds are wary too – whatever or whoever had killed those people might still be around, we probably need a better strategy," she turned to Becker. "Any ideas?"

"Caroline? Discharge your gun into the flock overhead," Becker said slowly.

Shrugging, Caroline adjusted her weapon and did just that. Since her weapon was loaded with more than grapeshot of an average size, the result was rather horrific: the flock scattered in all the direction, with some of the birds falling onto the ground in many, many pieces instead.

"That," Caroline began but froze, as a chorus of deep, gravelly, insane-sounding laughter came from the woods, higher up the mountainside: whoever was in charge of this response clearly was not intimidated by Caroline's discharge. Yet Caroline wasn't through yet, or rather her dog, the big Brazilian mastiff called Michael, wasn't: abruptly the big dog released a rumbling cry, re-sembling a roar of a bear or a lion than a dog's bark, which started as a low rumbling sound, but eventually rose into higher notes – and crashed back into silence.

Absolute silence. The gravelly, mocking laughter had stopped, but the resulting silence was just as bad: Becker, for once, could practically feel the heavy glower full of bestial hatred, yet not quite bestial all the same.

"Officer," he turned to Muirkirk, "we're leaving now – but I promise," here he raised his voice, "that we'll be back to bury them by our custom!"

Still silence, and Becker, with Ancona grabbing his arm as if it was an anchor of some sorts – and maybe it was – began to leave the departure from the mountainside.

Halfway on their way to the camp, their walkie-talkies turned active: Jenny and Sarah wanted to talk.

* * *

The mood that afternoon at the camp was horrified: probably it was only the lack of helicopters - or other vehicles – that prevented many people from abandoning the camp then and there. Naturally, that didn't improve their spirits, and so many of them – especially the ROM laboratory workers – were seriously downcast.

Others, however, while no more upbeat, but, nonetheless, were busier under the management of Becker and Lazrev – and also Ancona, albeit to a lesser degree – setting up the fortifications in a hurried tempo, before the nightfall, when all the Hell would break loose.

Sarah found herself sitting next to Caroline, who was grooming the dogs and telling them some-thing reassuring – usually, Sarah would've found this highly disturbing, but after Becker's report, well...

"Um, Caroline?" she finally decided to speak up, "after... after tonight is over, can we talk about... about some people?"

Caroline turned and looked at the other woman, her eyes unexpectedly shiny and dry. "Sarah Page," she said coolly, "whenever we talk, we usually end up with some sort of unpleasantries, usually related to... more abstract themes, and tonight we just might bloody well die, and – and, let's wait till morning and see if we're both in the mood, okay?"

Sarah gulped and nodded – this was actually better than what she had expected from the other woman. Her business with Caroline done, she sat down – and was suddenly hugged by the latter, albeit briefly.

"It looked like you could use one," Caroline elaborated, as she went back to her dogs, and Sarah nodded in startled gratitude.

And overhead, the sun was sinking ever lower behind the mountains.

Night was coming.

To be continued...