Between a Bear and a Hard Place(35)

With the force of a medicine ball crashing straight into her sternum, Jill let out a breathless grunt, Jacques a shout of surprise. Her vision was flickering, black and gold and white and prickly, as the air in her lungs burned.

Jill opened her eyes just in time to see a pair of ghastly yellow ones staring at her, and a second later, she saw the monster’s teeth.

Instinct took over. She swung an elbow upward, into the side of the creature’s head. It yelped, she gained her feet and immediately fired.

A jet of spark blinded her momentarily, a spurt of flame burst from the end of the .38, and a second later the wolf’s hissing stopped, and the wound’s hissing continued as the body singed and fizzled. The familiar smell of burning fur, burning wolf, met her nose, but not before she heard Jacques fire, and then scream, “Suck silver, you son of a bitch!”

“Good one,” she said. “Rambo would be proud.”

Jacques chuckled under his breath. “I could really use a bunch of bears right about now. I’m a little tired of fighting these days..”

“Don’t see we have much choice.”

“Never do, when it comes to it,” Jacques added sagely, before the next round of action exploded all around the pair.

The forest came to life, all at once. From the east and west, teeth and claws and fangs descended with such ferocity and terrible fury that they managed to attack each other before they got to Jill and her pilot. The wolves tore into one another, yelping, screeching, and crying out in the night. Jill fired again, claiming another lupine, and Jacques blasted two of them, but there were so many that if they ever managed to get themselves organized, there would be absolutely no hope of escape.

“Help...”

The cry came to both Jacques and Jill and the same time. It was distant, weak.

“Help...”

“Tell me you heard that,” Jill snarled, kicking a hissing wolf just to make sure he was dead. “Please tell me you heard that.”

“Loud and clear. Well, not loud, but clear.” Jacques put his foot on a lupine and pulled his knife free with a sizzle. The corpse let out a popping sound as soon as the blade was free. “You think it was our girl?”

“But why would the bears leave her alone? Makes no sense.”

Both of them were breathing heavy, both covered in a thin film of sweat, despite the chill in the air. Neither wanted to face the reality that perhaps something had happened to the bears, something had captured, hurt, or...

“This way,” Jill called. “She’s over here. I think.”

For the moment, the wolves had stopped howling, they’d stopped swarming. For the moment there was peace. She knew that when a few of their numbers were culled, Lupines normally calmed for a time. There was something different about these though. She remembered that they hadn’t howled, they hadn’t swarmed. Something seemed to have driven them wild again. Like one of those strange, fungal parasites that makes ants climb up into the tops of a tree before a spire bursts out of their skull.

“Help... me...”

The voice was getting weaker. It was a woman’s voice, high pitched though exhausted and apparently in some kind of pain or terror. Probably both. Something about the voice ticked a box in the back of Jill’s head that wasn’t entirely alien.

She sounds like I did about six months ago.

“Jacques?” she called out. “You stay here, keep this thing going. Got it?”

“What? No! You’re fuckin’ nuts!”

The two of them were shouting over the helicopter blades. Jill dug in her feet, and the pilot was well aware of the uselessness of trying to argue with her when she dug in her feet and made up her mind.

“I’m telling you,” Jill hissed, trying to calm him down. “I know what’s happening. I’ve been here before, been through this not too long ago. Something’s happening with the bears, and there’s a terrified girl out there who probably got dropped on the ground because GlasCorp doesn’t want her. I know it sounds crazy, but—”

Jacques, despite the darkness, put his aviators back on, and smiled. “Don’t sound crazy to me, mon ami, sounds like you know what you’re doing. I’ll keep trying to jigger this radar, keep trying to fiddle the heat sensor until it’s back online. But you stay safe, and bring that girl back. And Jill?”

She turned back to him, eyes steely with resolve. “Yeah?”

“Get them bears,” he said. “I kinda miss goin’ out drinkin’ wit’ Rogue.”

Jill cocked a half smile. “I’m not gonna leave any of them out there alone. Toss me the radio, I assume it still works?”