The man jerked sideways when the grip on his hand turned to a steel vice. "Ah!" He grabbed the girl's wrist with his other hand. She faced forward as her gloved hand crushed tighter and tighter around his, her brown eyes rolling in their sockets. Her head tilted back and her mouth came open as she moaned to the gray sky. Her voice mixed with a grisly gargling yell while stringy tentacle like appendages burst from her throat and lashed about above her.
William lit both fists on fire, using one of them to punch Tiana in the head as Christian blasted from the nine millimeter. The monster released him with a yowl and the Commander fell backwards into the snow. He quickly snapped up and sent forth an all-consuming wave of fire, completely concealing her in flames from their sight. He looked to Christian and yelled. "Save the ammo! Get to the lab!"
The blonde took off past the staggering flaming body of the girl, pumping his arms to try and run through the snow as fast as possible. William ran with him.
A throb in the back of his skull told him to move faster, but he was already moving at top speed. His left foot was jerked back out from under him, making him face-plant into the snow before he found himself being pulled backwards. "Aagh! Christian!" He tried to flip around to face the girl behind him who stood in the snowstorm, fire rising from her burning body with seven pink slimy tentacles projected from her mouth and wrapped around his ankle. William couldn't reach his foot to free himself due to his broken rib so he resided to trying to find something under the snow to grab onto helplessly as Christian bounded back for him with the gun drawn.
Bullets flew into her torso and head. But she wouldn't go down! Where was the stop button on this thing?! Christian dug his heels in and grabbed the man's arms to try and pull him back, but the thing was too strong.
"Get the things at my foot!" William growled when the monster and his lieutenant stretched his middle to agonizing lengths.
The blonde scrambled on top of him and grabbed his ankle. He lit his own hand on fire and blasted the tentacles that roped under William's shoe. As soon as the older felt them release his ankle, he withdrew his foot. Christian slid off of him and both men were back on their feet running for their lives because what else was there to do? The cold air William cycled through his lungs made his chest ache as he sprinted for the warehouse they had just come from. Having aborted the plan to make it to Nikki, their priority now was to toast any of these things that hadn't yet made it to the lab.
He and Christian stopped beside the wall of the warehouse where they found Tiana, temporarily protected from the wind. Both gasped for a breath and Christian doubled over with his hands on his knees. William panted clouds into the air and looked around the corner to watch the thing stagger around in the snow like a zombie, still blazing. "We've got to make sure all of them are dead."
"How?! You saw all that! You can't shoot them, you can't set them on fire! They're freaking unstoppable!"
William leaned his head back against the warehouse, searching every corner of his mind for an plan. He looked to the first warehouse with all the crates and pallets. Gas barrels were clustered under an awning, probably twenty of them. "Maybe not. Come on. I have an idea."
Christian helped the Commander pull the last barrel into the space between the two warehouses. The blonde nervously eyed the still smoldering, blackened corpse of the Tiana girl just a few feet from them. Both men flinched and looked to the first warehouse where the door shuddered behind the very first gas barrel and a deathly growl came from the other side. "It's alive. I knew it, I knew that thing wasn't dead!"
"Go hold the door, keep it in there." William finished making a trail of gasoline in the snow, making sure to sufficiently douse the barrel they had just placed.
Christian ran back to the door that shook in its frame and hesitantly pressed his back against the gas barrel that blocked the beast's escape. "Ah!" He pressed harder when the door gave and rattled him. "Boss! Hurry up!"
"I'm on it!" He loaded the last clip into his gun. He felt another tug at his brainstem and jumped back just in time to avoid a sticky, black, clawed hand grabbing his leg. What was left of Tiana was crawling towards him. "Jesus—"
"Boss, I can't hold it!" Christian cried as the monster jarred him with rams against the door. He desperately pushed with his heels and gritted his teeth. "BOSS!"
William kicked over the barrel in front of the charred monster. "Let it go!"
Christian's eyes bulged at him. "What?!"
"Let it go and run!" He backed up and aimed at the gas barrel.
When the blonde saw he meant "now" he rolled sideways from the door. It burst open and the barrel rolled through the snow as the first burned beast escaped and screeched his challenge at William, the first organism it spotted. Christian kicked up snow to run away from the buildings and the creatures, looking over his comrade who fired at the gas barrel. The first shot was unsuccessful. So was the second. The beast was closing in. "WILLIAM, COME ON!"
The Commander kept backing up as the things came for him, his aim still on the barrel as he fired two more shots. The fourth one ignited a boom so fierce the ground suffered a tremor before the barrel exploded in a brilliant fiery blast. Shrapnel from the barrel flew out in all directions. The monsters disappeared with short screams into the flames where their silhouettes disintegrated. The blast blew William off his feet and the heat stung his face as he flew backwards into a pile of snow where he quickly covered his head. The ground still shook under him as if it were all happening in slow motion. And that wasn't even the worst blast. He lifted his head when the explosion ended to see that the trail of gasoline in the snow had been ignited. The fire raced towards the warehouses in two separate lines, circling around the entire perimeter of each warehouse and grouping with the gas barrels they had lined against the walls. Yeah. This was not yet a safe distance. William jumped up and sprinted for Christian who had been knocked down by the blast, too. He grabbed his shirt to yank him up and pushed him forward to get him running as fast as he could away from the warehouses towards the safety of the lab. They wouldn't make it inside. But hopefully they were far enough away.
The pre-tremor took the ground out from under their feet, making them both miss a step. The heat from behind blew their hair forward and singed the backs of their necks. The noise rattled their skeletons in their bodies but neither of them stopped moving or stopped to look behind them. They ran as fast as their legs would carry them through the difficult terrain towards the lab.
The door burst open ahead of them and Nikki ran outside, apparently to see what had caused the windows to shake. All three of them skid to a stop. Christian whipped up his gun and aimed at her. Nikki did the same, her blue eyes flicking between the two men and her hair sticking to a cut on her forehead. They stood still in the snowstorm, everyone at gunpoint. William lifted his chin at her. "Show us."
"You first," she said without blinking, her finger still resting on the trigger of her weapon.
The Commander took a breath before slowly lifting a hand to his mouth. Nikki's gun was pointed at his face as she watched him hook a finger in his lip and pull, showing his porcelain tooth that was closest to the front. They wouldn't have known the difference if he hadn't just told them hours prior as it blended in well.
When she seemed satisfied with this, she pointed her gun at her brother. Christian kept one hand on his weapon while the other lifted up his sweater, revealing the stitches on his chest from Scarlet's dagger.
Nikki lowered her weapon and sighed out a cloud of her breath.
"Now you." Christian kept aiming at her head.
The dark-headed girl swished her tongue around in her mouth briefly before opening her jaw wide. The men crept closer with hesitation and caution to peer inside her mouth where they saw a silver cap sitting on her back molar.
Christian put William's gun down and wrapped her in a hug. She patted his back but her eyes were looking over their shoulders at the two warehouses that were burning with flames that stretched three stories into the snowy sky. "Are you all right?" He held her face to check the cut on her head.
"I'm fine. I guess I don't need to ask if you finished them off."
William returned his hand to his sore side. "Hopefully. Did you find anyone?"
She shook her head. "Dead."
Christian looked to the lab then back to the helicopter. "Did you find the pilot?"
"No. But I got the radio to work. Let's just get out of here. A-C will handle the rest."
William winced at the frigid, whistling wind in his damp hair. "Can you fly?"
"Sort of." She climbed into the cockpit.
"I'm not sure I'm okay with 'sort of.'"
"Then you can stay here. All your stuff is in here. Leave now or hang around and wait for A-C."
William watched Christian climb into the aircraft without hesitation. He sighed and followed, taking the blonde's hand to step on board. He sat down and promptly buckled himself in as Nikki put on the headset and flipped a series of switches, talking quietly to herself as if she were trying to remember all the things on the checklist of starting up a helicopter. "How does… your instructor feel about your flying skills?"
"I'm passing with flying colors, William. Don't worry about it." She looked up and pressed some buttons and the propellers began rotating.
"It's okay, Boss. We'll be out of here in no time. Get your rib taken care of." Christian slapped his shoulder.
The man sat back against the wall of the vehicle and closed his eyes. When the craft left the ground, he held onto everything around him for dear life with a white-knuckled grip, gritting his teeth behind his lips.
"How long do you suppose those things have been here?"
William swallowed and shook his head, not yet capable of voicing any response for fear of losing his lunch.
"Do you think we got all of them? I mean… what if there's another one somewhere else?"
The older panted. "A-C will take care of it."
"What if they can't find it? What if it ran off or something?"
William opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling of the helicopter. "Then we're screwed."
Nikki looked over her shoulder at the men conversing before returning her attention to the sky ahead of her, flying above the snowstorm.
A voice crackled through on her radio. "We've got a spot for you. Bring 'em on home. Over."
"Copy that. E-T-A: two hours and twenty-three minutes. Over."
"Copy that, Andrews. Over and out."
Nikki slid the microphone back up the side of her headset. She moved her tongue around in her mouth before sticking her finger and thumb in her lips. She looked down in her hand at the silver dental cap before hiding it in the pocket of her jeans. Her mouth barely curved with a smirk as she flew on.