Derek pulled hard on the throttle, keeping up the pace for as long as he could. He was tempted to look over his shoulder but told himself that he didn't need to because Cassie was the eyes in the back of his skull.
Cassie panted Derek on the back, urging him, "Keep driving, Derek, stop for nothing."
Derek eventually comes to a point where he has to slow the snowmobile down so he can get his bearings. He pulls up the side of the mountain and waves for the Priest to slow down his snowmobile. With both vehicles halted, Cassie took the time to reload her pistol.
"Did you hear that scream?" The Priest asked.
Bethany nodded behind him. "They got Alec."
Cassie sighed and covered her eyes. "Son of a bitch." She rubbed her forehead with the back of her hand. "We lost Tyler and Alec already? Son of a bitch."
Derek turned around and grabbed her shoulder. "We can't afford to mourn them; we need to get to Noah's Ark immediately."
Cassie looked at him. "Your friends are dead and that's all you have to say?"
Derek felt his throat clog with a lump. "Tyler and Alec said we can't get emotional on a battlefield and as long as there are wolves out there… we'll be on a battlefield." He turned away. "We couldn't collect any of their dog tags…" his voice cracked, "my mother's teammates… all of them dead."
His face turned red and tears started rolling down his cheeks. Cassie wrapped her arms around his waist and kissed him on the back of the neck. "I'm sorry."
Derek grabbed her hand, which was positioned on his stomach. "Thank you."
Bethany looked over her shoulder in the direction they left Alec, the reality of what happened sinking in like a knife. She felt sick and felt herself gag at the thought of him being torn apart. She covers her mouth and forces herself to swallow vomit when it erupts in her mouth. She spits some bile out in the snow before catching something in the corner of her eye.
One of the adolescent wolves caught up to them and was charging for them.
"Wolf!" Bethany called out.
Cassie turned and shot the wolf in the mouth. "Get us out of here!"
Derek revved up the vehicle and throttled it, the Priest following after.
Haha, Cassie laughed in her head, I was running down the hill to get away from an avalanche and now I'm climbing up the hill to avoid getting devoured by a giant wolf.
More wolves started chasing after them, picking up speed as they went.
Luckily, I know it takes only one shot to the inside of your mouth to kill you. Cassie cocks her pistol. I'm going to save a lot of ammo.
Cassie fires at the wolves that open their mouths, not an easy task with Derek being in control of the snowmobile. Derek was gracious enough to let the Priest and Bethany get ahead of them while Cassie was at the front line in the far back of the wolf attack.
She fires off several more rounds, killing several more wolves. When she felt her gun jam, she quickly removed the shell casing trapped in the chamber before continuing to fire.
"For the love of God, how many wolves are there?!"
A wolf ran across an elevated small hill before leaping for the snowmobile.
"Go right!" Cassie shouted at Derek.
Without hesitating, he jerks the snowmobile to the right and narrowly avoids the adolescent wolf from crushing him.
Derek spotted the wolf in the corner of his eyes and thanked the girl. "You're the eyes in the back of my head."
"Yeah, let's hope those wolves don't claw them out."
When Cassie ran dry on the bullets in her pistol, she opted to unholster her M4 carbine and use it on the wolves. After a short while of running and gunning, the wolf numbers started to cut down from twenty to five as they got higher and higher up the mountain.
Cassie shot the first two wolves but the other three broke off and ran in different directions, disappearing behind rocks.
"What happened?" Derek asked, not risking to look over his shoulder. "Are they all dead?"
"They ran off in different directions." Cassie took this time to reload her weapons. "Keep an eye out."
The three wolves cut off the snowmobiles by jumping in front of their paths.
The first wolf jumped for the Priest, mouth wide open to take a bite, but Cassie shot it in the mouth. The wolf's body still landed on the Priest and knocked both him and Bethany off the snowmobile.
The second wolf dived for Derek, and then he put his forehead to the throttle of the snowmobile to give Cassie a clear shot at shooting the wolf in the mouth. The body of the dead wolf still knocked them off the vehicle.
The wolf's body landed on top of Derek, trapping him underneath while Cassie landed on her shoulder, nearly breaking the bones inside.
The third wolf eyed both groups of downed snowmobilers eagerly, trying to decide which prey to take a bite into first.
The Priest guy and his niece or the two young adventurers, Cassie rolled her eyes with sarcasm. She aimed her rifle at the wolf before it backed away and disappeared behind a small hill.
Cassie quickly pulled the wolf's body off of Derek's leg as she ran for the Priest and Bethany, keeping her gun trained on the last place the wolf appeared.
"Are you guys okay?" Cassie asked.
"This is why I never liked riding bikes," the Priest complained, "I hate the feeling of falling off."
Cassie helped him up. "Then pray to god to make you un-fallable." She turned to Bethany. "What about you?"
Bethany picked herself up, shivering. "That...was..."
Cassie tilted her head.
"Awesome!"
The others narrowed their eyes.
"I felt like I was in an action movie; that was so cool!" She remembered Tyler and Alec. "But... I'm grateful to be alive."
Cassie patted her back. "We're all grateful to be alive."
"Excuse me, are we ignoring the obvious?" Derek spoke. "Where the hell did that last wolf go?"
Cassie shrugged. "It just disappeared. We've been sitting here for at least two minutes and it still hasn't pounced us."
"You think it's smart enough to recognize that it's been beaten?"
"If it's smart enough to realize that then we should consider ourselves lucky."
"I don't get it," Bethany suddenly said, "how are wolves that big able to exist? Back then, the reason animals were so big was because of the high levels of oxygen. Over time, those oxygen levels decreased so a creature the size of Fenrir could not exist as there is not enough oxygen to support their massive size."
Cassie nodded. "You're a smart girl. I believe the reason these wolves are able to exist this size is that they have adapted to take in low levels of oxygen and transfer it into life energy. Essentially, these wolves aren't running on oxygen but their own life energy." She shrugged. "That's the best theory I can come up with."
"Where did these animals come from in the first place?" the Priest asked in exasperation.
Derek already had an explanation. "Noah's Ark itself. Back then, the ark housed a male and female of every species but the bible was written by human hands at a time where only animals like lions, tigers, bears, oh my, and other modern-day animals existed. The bible never took into account animals that could've been hidden from the entire world and these giant wolves are animals that were lost when the ark was washed away from the earth."
The Priest rubbed his arms to make himself feel warm. "Why don't these wolves leave the mountain?" He thought for a moment until an idea came to him. "Unless Noah is keeping them here to protect the ark." A horrifying thought crossed. "It has been said that if Noah's Ark is found before Judgement Day then the apocalypse will be brought about prematurely. If these wolves are protecting Noah's Ark then it must mean that some aspect of that story is true." His eyes went wide with terror. "Does that mean if we find Noah's Ark..."
Bethany grabbed her uncle's hand. "But Noah hypnotized Cassie into finding the ark. If Noah is doing it then it must mean that the apocalypse won't come about because Noah is allowing to let the ark be found."
The Priest continued to shiver. "But... what if Noah wants to end the world?"
Bethany continued to shake her head. "If that's the case, why not call off the wolves and compel other people to look for the ark? Why is Cassie the only one with exclusive knowledge about the ark? If anything, Noah wants the ark to be found for some reason."
Find Noah's Ark. Find Noah's Ark. Find Noah's Ark.
Cassie put a hand to her temple. "Yeah, Noah is telling me to find Noah's Ark. Let's get back on our snowmobiles and put this thing to bed."
"Amen," Bethany and the Priest preached.
"Cassie, we have been snowmobiling in this snow for two hours, it's cold as hell," Derek complained.
Cassie couldn't argue with him, especially with her hands feeling numb, despite wearing gloves.
"It's almost like Hell is freezing over," The Priest jokes.
"Haha, I get it," Bethany said, still clutching onto her uncle's back.
"Just a couple hundred more meters and we will get there," Derek told himself.
"Hey Cassie, when we find Noah's Ark, what then?" The Priest asked. "Do we just look for its location or do we go inside cause I'm eager to see inside the ark."
"Well, I don't know, ask me again when we get there," Cassie answered.
The Priest nodded.
"Hey Cassie, I think I see something up ahead," Bethany shouted. She pointed upwards and Cassie looked.
The top of the mountain; they made it and when Cassie realized it, her breath escaped her mouth. She quickly climbed off the snowmobile and ran for the top of the mountain. Just as she was fifty feet from the peak, she holds a hand up and looks forward to a rock wall in front of her.
"The entrance to Noah's Ark..." she paused before pointing at the rock wall, "is here."
The others followed her gaze to look at the rock wall.
"I don't see anything," Derek said.
"Me either," the Priest added. Bethany shook her head.
Cassie took off her backpack and removed the treasure box from it. She took out the two wooden pieces before holding them up to the wall. Instinctively, she implanted them within a gap in the rock wall before backing away.
"The pieces of Noah's Ark have been returned to their proper place."
She holds her hands up and urges the others to get back.
Just behind them, snow started to shift. They turned and backed out of the way in time as the snow paved way for a surface made of wood to appear and a wall with a door to appear to their right. Cassie looked at the door and remembered seeing a similar door in her visions.
"I think we found Noah's Ark," Derek told Cassie. "Is this Noah's Ark according to your visions?"
Cassie nodded wordlessly.
"The entrance to Noah's Ark is right there. From there, we climb down."
"Down?" The Priest questioned.
"When the ark was washed aground, it was vertically rather than horizontally. We'll be going down then we'll be setting on horizontal ground."
"I can't believe this," Bethany gasped, "for Noah's Ark to exist right-side-up instead of flat on its bottom would mean this mountain is hollow at the top, especially at the center. That means, if we fall, we'll fall almost seventeen thousand feet to the ground."
"It's like falling into Hell," the Priest muttered. "I still can't believe it. We found it, we found the actual Noah's Ark from the Book of Genesis!" He jumped off the ground, dancing excitedly.
He couldn't help but hug Bethany and Derek as hard as possible. At the sight, the Priest actually began thanking the Lord in Hebrew.
Cassie smiled to herself. "My mission is complete... we have found... Noah's Ark."
A/N: We finally made it to the ark. Shout out to jollyjackclewline for the reviews, I really appreciate it. Also, I'm opening a Q&A for Overlord specifically. If you have any questions about Overlord the organization, I'd be more than happy to answer. Be warned: I will make a conscious habit to avoid spoilers for possible future installments so some answers may be vague. Only five chapters left.