Christian didn't yet peel himself off the wall. "Well, I think I just became a dog person."
Nikki lowered the weapon and turned to William. "Are you okay?"
He picked himself up and brushed the cinders off his pants, being careful not to touch the goo of where the thing had grabbed him. "Contained my ass. That thing they thawed out is alive."
"Was alive." Nikki stared at the smoking pile of grossness.
"I don't care. I'm gonna find Callaway and tell him I'm shutting him down and greasing all his pets before we get the hell out of here." He kicked off his sticky shoe and went to put on his boots.
"We'll come with you." Nikki put his gun in the pocket of her coat and put it on.
"What about that thing? What if it comes back to life?" Christian said, still standing on his bed.
William picked up a wooden post that had been used to stabilize one of the cots. "We'll lock it in. Or you can stay here and keep an eye on it."
The blonde shook his head and jumped down and ran into the hallway. Nikki and William followed him and shoved the wooden post up against the handle to keep it from being opened from the inside.
As they went down the hall of the other bedrooms, Nikki pointed out the open doors. "Look. They already know. I bet they went back to the lab to find Dax." William agreed and followed her back to the room where they had met the thing. "Dr. Callaway?" She turned to the open door and froze.
Her brother trotted up beside her and his mouth came open. He spoke flatly. "You've godda be fucking kidding."
William joined them and looked inside. He wrinkled his nose and brow. The stout man who had shown them their sleeping quarters was laying on his front in the floor. His left side, however, was deformed—a prominent gap where his hip should be with the waist of his pants sunken closer to his pelvis. His leg was awkwardly turned behind him. He lifted his head and sharp eyes met William's. The man's mouth slowly opened and an echoing guttural moan filled the lab room, edged with a monstrous growl.
Nikki's mouth was open in a silent gasp of having seen Mr. Pritchard alive no more than a few hours ago. And now…
William thrust his arm forth and doused the thing in flames. The figure became a silhouette in the fire, a black blob of beastly screams and prehistoric growls. They all watched on as this second thing burned in front of their eyes. Neither of the twins could blink until the fire alarm went off and sprinklers sprayed down on them. William turned around in the hallway. "We need to get everyone who is a person out of here. Nikki, go get your gun and gather everyone who you think might be human and you keep them all in your sight until Christian and I get there."
"What are you and C gonna do?"
He looked to the blonde.
The taller one's eyes bulged in their sockets. "No. No, no, no, no, forget that. Let's just get out of here. No splitting up, no going on an alien hunt—"
"If we don't kill these things, they'll infect other people."
"We're in the frigging Arctic!" Christian pleaded.
"And if we let these things live, how long before they're in America? The world? They're obviously smart enough to make it happen."
"Okay, then you and Nikki go hunt the rest of the freaky mighty morphin' monsters. I'll go round up the rest of the team and wait for you two to get back."
William stared at him. "Fine. You go wait in a room alone with a bunch of people who could turn into one of those things."
Christian blinked and looked at his sister. She stared back at him with an expression that closely paired with William's. He promptly shook his head. "On second thought, your idea wasn't that bad."
"I'll take them all to the lab where I can keep an eye on them." Nikki nodded to William before starting off back to the room to fetch her gun.
"Hey."
She stopped and looked to him, seemingly a little annoyed.
William dipped his chin slightly, keeping his eyes on her. "Be careful."
Nikki began trotting away again, looking over her shoulder. "You, too."
He watched her run back the way they had come then shut the door where the fire had started to swallow the rest of the room. William turned to Christian and spoke over the fire alarm and sprinklers. "If it doesn't look right, shoot it." He passed over his gun.
Christian took it and made sure the safety was turned off. "You don't have to tell me twice."
The men traveled through the hallways, William tossing doors open and Christian aiming inside to clear this area. They found no oddities in the bunk section of the compound. However their destination was the warehouses. One supposedly kept the creatures frozen in ice. The other was for storage. It wasn't nightfall yet, so they could go outside without their snow-gear on to get to them without suffering any frostbite. Though William did not look forward to the moments he would be standing outside at all. When Christian opened the door, it literally took their breath away. William plowed straight ahead through the biting wind. It didn't help that he was wet from the sprinklers.
"Boss!"
He turned around to face Christian. The blonde was pointing at the helicopter. The door to the cockpit was wide open. And there was no one inside. William shook his head. "Forget it. Let's go." He kept running to the warehouses.
"But where's the pilot?!"
The older man ignored him, trudging as fast as he could through the snow that had built up on the pathways to the other buildings. He reached the first door and tried to open it but of course it was locked. Not willing to stand another second of this frigid air, he raised his foot and kicked it in with a snap of the metal inside. Christian followed in behind him and shut the door back though it now hung loosely on its hinges. William shook his hair that had been wet moments ago but was now crystallized and frozen stiff in places. He shook his fingers through it to break it apart as he walked ahead down the narrow corridor that lead further into the warehouse. It was freezing in here, too. He wished he had been more preemptive and thought to at least bring his coat.
Christian jumped when he heard a sound up ahead. William only paused before continuing on with quieter steps. When they heard it again, he confirmed to himself that someone or something was definitely in here. And he wasn't in the mood to feel sorry for shooting anyone who might be human.
Upon reaching the main part of the warehouse, they discovered by all the stacked crates and chain link fence sections that this was in fact the storage unit, and not the warehouse where the other frozen things were being kept. William whispered back to Christian. "Keep your finger on the trigger." The blonde replied with a quick nod as they cleared corners together. William moved with great stealth and rolled his eyes every time he heard Christian's boots on the floor behind him. His own breath only rose in occasional little puffs from his nose while the younger one hissed clouds out one after the other like a train. The next noise came from their left, closer than before. The two men crept nearer and somewhere in this time Christian had either decided to be quiet or had run out of breath to breathe. When William had pinpointed where the sound had come from, he quickly turned into the corner of crates, ready to blast whatever was waiting there. But there was nothing.
Christian tapped his shoulder. He turned around. The blonde pointed with a petrified gesture to the floor. William followed his finger to a trail of pinkish goo mixed with dark blood was still wet and shining on the cold concrete. The smear went all the way to the next aisle.
William looked at him, and stood aside, pointing for him to follow.
Christian quickly shook his head.
The other irritably pointed at the gun in the blonde's hands then back to the aisle where the trail led.
The younger promptly handed over the weapon if it meant he didn't have to go first.
With a silent, perturbed sigh, William snatched the gun from him and followed the goo tracks. Aimed and ready, he turned into the aisle and saw that the trail stopped at a dead end of a tower of wooden pallets and crates. He stepped closer with Christian practically glued to his shoulder. Upon inspecting the end of the trail, he discovered that there were no more smears that led anywhere. William started peering through the pallets carefully for anywhere it might have crawled to for refuge.
"Chief."
William looked over his shoulder at Christian. He was staring straight up with a tight grip on William's sweater. The Commander followed his gaze.
From the rafters of the warehouse, the dim light that flooded in through the dusty and frosted windows glinted off of something wet. The highlights took the shape of muscles. Claws. Teeth. When something resembling a head extended down from an accordion-like neck, William spent no more time trying to distinguish what it looked like. He whipped his pistol up and fired up at the creature. The gunshots echoed loud throughout the warehouse but even still they were nearly drowned out by the blood-curdling din that was the monster's cries of either anger or agony. Christian didn't hesitate in thrusting his fist upward and dousing the thing in a barreling jet of flames. William could have swore he heard more than one organism yowling and growling above. In the light of the fire that swallowed the abomination he saw flailing insect-like legs strike out with other things that looked like tentacles, and maybe a human hand. He didn't really care. He just wanted it dead.
In a ball of fire the creature dropped from the rafters above. William tackled Christian into a stack of pallets to avoid being struck by its landing and the fire that covered it. They toppled over with their ankles flipping over their heads on the other side of the crashed pallets. Amazingly, the monster squealed and promptly raced on top of the pile of pallets under which they lay. Christian screamed and spouted fire like a volcano as the creature pressed the pallet down on him. William fired wildly into the body of the creature directly above him, aiming the barrel of his pistol between the wooden panels. On fire and having been shot countless times, the beast still weighed on them, crushing them with its weight. A clawed hand was trying desperately to rake its way through the panels at them. And just before William felt an unmistakable crack of a rib, his gun had run out of ammo and his next clip was in his back pocket. He growled in panic and frustration as he pressed against the pallet on him up against the monster, dodging its claws whenever they struck through. Christian had since become immobile as he was trapped under two crossing pallets and screaming in terror. This wasn't working. They were going to die here.
William felt another tug at the base of his skull and leaned back to avoid a finely toothed mouth that jutted through the panels to take a bite out of him. With a flaming fist he gripped the arm on which the mouth was mounted and yanked it back, separating it from the monster.
The thing shrieked and reeled backwards, spider-like legs twitching and scuffing the concrete as it bled. William shoved the pallet off of him and jumped to action. He ran straight for a tower of filled crates beside the monster. With a yell and a mighty toss of his weight, he threw his shoulder into the crate skyscraper with an explosion of flames and heat. He stepped back as the tower shook and shuddered before toppling over in slow motion, landing directly on top of the flaming monster with a deafening crash. Dust mixed with fire and clouded the air as wood and flesh burned and filled the warehouse with foul smelling smoke.
William rushed to Christian and tossed the pallets aside to dig him out. The blonde panted heavily and scrambled to his feet. "Gimme that damn gun," the younger rattled.
"Oh, now you want it." The older loaded the clip from his back pocket and handed the piece to him. Christian promptly aimed at the flaming heap under the pile of crates and splintered wood and fired five times. He paused before firing two more times. "Let's get out of here. Come on." William put a hand to his left side where he was certain he had broken a rib and made his way to the door they had come in. Christian followed closely behind.
Back out into the freezing cold they ventured, this time less concerned with its influence after their run in with one of the creatures. And they hadn't even checked the other warehouse yet. Christian assisted William in shimmying a gas barrel that was sitting out in front of the door he had busted to get inside. Yes, it was under a pile of debris inside with multiple gunshot wounds and bathed in fire. But neither of them trusted it was dead.
Luckily they found the next warehouse to be unlocked. They entered with more hesitation in spite of wishing to get back into the warmth. Upon closing the door, a voice down the hall yelled to them. A young girl. "Come quick! Hurry!"
Christian jumped ahead with the gun in hand. William followed behind, keeping a hand on his searing side. The main space of this warehouse was much more open than the other. There were no giant towers of crates and pallets, but simple cardboard boxes piled in corners and plenty of excavating equipment including a couple Snow Cats. In the middle of the room there was a young girl they remembered seeing in the cafeteria. Black hair cascaded out from under her hat over her warm winter coat and her dark skin contrasted with the white fluff of her collar. "Hey, are you all right?" The blonde approached her.
"Christian, no, we don't know." He flicked his chin up at the girl. "Can you prove you're human?"
She still looked panicked and on the verge of tears. "My dad is dead, it killed my dad!" she cried.
"I'm sorry. We're gonna get you home." Christian knelt in front of her and held her shoulders. "I promise. Okay?"
The girl nodded and sniffled, her tears nearly freezing to her cheeks from the moment they left her eyes.
"Not until we know if she's human or not. Kid, what you got. Come on, show us something."
"Jesus, Boss, how about a little sensitivity?" He sighed and looked back at her. "Do you have anything like tooth fillings?"
She sniffled again and shook her head. "No. But I have this." She pulled her purple glove off and put her hand forth. Christian took her hand and looked at the back where there was a washable tattoo print of a heart with stars around it.
He showed it to William who leaned forward to have a look before nodding.
Christian stood upright and kept a hand on the preteen's shoulder. Stick close to us. We'll get you out of here. I'm sorry about your dad." The girl sniffled and went on to tell him about how she found him while the three of them traveled back to where they expected to find Nikki with any of the other survivors.
Outside in the cold they trudged through the snow back to the main building. William took the lead as he remembered which trail led to where. However, the snow that now fell from the sky—or rather blew in from all sides—clouded his vision.
"You're hurt," said the girl over the howling wind.
"Yeah. Think I broke a rib. It's all right though." The man moved his hand from his side to pick up hers when the snow got too deep and he noticed she was struggling.
"Where's your coat?" She held his hand and picked up her knees to walk, leaving deep holes in the snow where her boots were.
"I left it inside like an idiot." William kept a hold of her hand and used his other arm to shield his eyes from the snow nicking his face with sharp little stabs. He glanced over his shoulder and noticed that Christian had bent over to pick up something out of the snow.
"You came with a lady. Are we going to go find her?"
"Yeah." The Commander braced her as they walked through the white desert to the gray blur ahead. "She's supposed to be in the lab with any other survivors. What's your name?"
"Tiana."
"Tiana. I'm sorry about what happened today. But we're gonna get you home safe."
"BOSS!"
William stopped in his tracks and turned around with Tiana.
The blonde had the gun aimed at the girl. "Get away from her!" He whipped up a hand that held something that made William squint his eyes to see through the blinding white and the flurry of snow between them. It was the used paper of a temporary tattoo, still wet.