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  No response.

  Jerry shouted over his shoulder to Tyler, "Do something to help me! We’ve got to get the hell out of here!” Bending down, he grabbed Matt’s legs and tried to drag his friend off of the air mattress, but he was too heavy. Jerry knew if he tried to roll Matt off the mattress, he'd end up rolling the unconscious man directly into the fire, much like he’d been worried about Nick doing to himself about a half a lifetime ago, or so it seemed.

  Looking back, he saw Tyler now sitting upright in his chair, elbows on his knees, grinding the palms of his hands into his eyes as he simultaneously tried to wake up and sober up. Jerry stumbled back around the fire and yanked Tyler’s hands away from his eyes. Kneeling in the snow, he placed his face directly in front of his friend’s and tried to speak in as calm a voice as he could manage, but it still came out all at once, in one quick breath like some sort of scream-speak. “There is a gigantic monster over there, and it’s eaten Nick! And you and me and Matt are going to be next unless we get our collective asses out of this frozen hell!”

  From behind Jerry and Tyler, on the other side of the campfire, a dry, thirsty voice said, “What have you been doing, bro? My side here is as sore as shit! And I think you might have busted one of my freaking ribs!”

  Jerry turned, a smile rising on his face when he saw Matt finally awake and communicative. His friend was propped up on one elbow, glaring across the fire at him. But Jerry’s half-baked smile quickly deflated as a massive, gore-covered paw shot out from the tall brush over Matt’s head.

  Four sabre-like claws gleamed in the firelight, each one easily a half-metre in length. Matt looked up at this claw-tipped paw, still half-stoned. “Man, that must have been some potent shit!”

  At the sound of Matt’s voice, the taloned appendage paused, hovering over him, as if unsure what to make of these strange noises coming from its prey. It suddenly slammed down onto Matt’s prone body with an ear-ringing pop that ruptured both the man on top and the air mattress beneath. Jerry winced as Matt’s arms and legs shot out to both sides as he was crushed, a final, breathless, “Gak!” escaping from beneath the grotesque, bloody paw. With frightening speed, the gargantuan limb yanked back into the bushes, clawing its prizes of Matt’s body and the now claret-soaked air mattress along with it.

  “Holy shit!” Tyler yelled in disbelief. He jumped up, pushing away from Jerry’s grasping hands and ran toward the tent, stumbling and sliding in the ice-slicked snow, then slipped inside.

  Stunned, Jerry said, “Tyler! Where are you going? What are you doing?” He was left standing alone near the crackling fire, the fog and smoke swirling like phantoms around him.

  “Just hang on a sec!” Tyler hollered from inside the tent. Moments later he came tearing back out and stumbled to a halt next to Jerry in the ice-covered snow. “Bring it on, motherfucker!” Tyler shouted defiantly. Clenched in his right hand was one of the biggest handguns Jerry had ever seen.

  Using his left hand, Tyler firmly pushed Jerry back behind him by a couple of feet while he pointed the pistol into the fog, saying, “Stand aside, brother!”

  Jerry backed up a bit more, a hysterical giggle building in his throat as he wondered if Tyler was going to inform the monster that he was holding one of the most powerful handguns in the world and that it was capable of blowing its head clean off? Perhaps also asking if it was feeling lucky? No, he doubted that very much.

  Tyler aimed at the brush where Matt had been dragged and started shooting, emptying the entire clip from the .44 Automag into the thicket.

  The sound of the gun was enormous. Jerry felt like he’d lost the hearing in both ears from the concussive blasts of Tyler’s hand-cannon. He watched the bullets shred the fog as they travelled to their mark, slamming into the thick brush, a shrapnel of twigs and small branches flying in every direction.

  “Son of a bitch!” Tyler whooped, still pulling the trigger on the now-empty magnum. He looked over at Jerry, “Do you think I got it?”

  “I think you can volunteer to go and take a look for yourself since you’re the one holding the howitzer there,” Jerry said, looking at Tyler’s handgun.

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right.” Tyler reached into his pocket and pulled out another magazine of ammunition. He ejected the spent one and slammed the fresh clip home in a single, fluid motion. “You can back me up.” Tyler moved toward the bushes once more.

  “Whaa…? With what? Harsh language?” Jerry asked incredulously as he fished around in his jacket pockets for something to use as a weapon. He pulled out the only thing he could find, his GPS unit. He turned the screen on, pointed the device toward the bushes and said in a quavery voice, “You want me to tag its location for you or something? It’s right the hell over there!”

  Holding his left hand up toward Jerry asking for silence, Tyler edged toward the thick brush, hunched slightly forward, the knuckles of his right hand growing white from the death-grip he held on the pistol. Ty now cupped the bottom of the gun with his left hand and angled his right foot slightly back and to the side across from the other. Jerry thought it was called the ‘Weaver Stance’. He didn’t know why that particular bit of information would pop into his head right now, but he was pretty sure Ty didn’t need him riddling him with shooting stance questions at the moment.

  Tyler moved slowly forward. A metre from where Matt had been dragged off, he stopped, froze and shouted, “Whatever the fuck you are, if you’re not dead yet, you’re going to be soon!” He stepped through the break in the brush and disappeared into the swirling smoke-filled mist.

  “Tyler! Where are you going? Don’t go in there!”

  “I’m fine,” Tyler called back. “I think I got it or maybe scared it off!”

  “That would be great,” Jerry said, relief flooding his voice.

  “Shit, I don’t see Nick or Matt’s body,” Tyler said, then added after a pause, “Holy Christ! What the fuck did that thing do to them? Oh my God! The blood! There’s so much goddamned blood!” Tyler retched hard, sounding overwhelmed by the signs of the slaughter.

  Jerry started to move toward the bushes when Tyler suddenly popped out of a gap directly in front of him. He leapt backward, saying, “Christ! Don’t do that!”

  “Sorry, Jer, but I think it’s gone,” Tyler said, wiping the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand. “I saw what looked like tracks heading the other way in the snow. I must have scared it away, thanks to this baby.” He patted the gun lightly as he held it in his hands as if it were a good little guard dog that had done its job.

  “Thank God! Then let’s just get the hell out of here and call the RCMP or the marines or something. Speaking of which…” Jerry pulled out his iPhone. The signal strength bars were still at zero. “Shit!”

  “Well,” Tyler said, nodding toward Jerry’s phone, “first of all, we’re at least fifteen klicks from civilisation in the middle of the fucking nowhere. And second of all, like you pointed out, there aren’t any cell repeater towers anywhere nearby for a signal. So, unless you’ve suddenly found a satellite phone, good luck with that, brother.”

  “Can’t hurt to check,” Jerry said with a shrug.

  Taking charge once more, Tyler said, “Okay! let’s get the fu...” His words were cut off in mid-sentence by the sound of something slicing through the air at his back. His eyes went wide, and he fell to his knees, the magnum dropping onto the slush in front of him. Tyler began shrieking in agony, slumping forward into the snow, his hands spasming in tight knots of anguish.

  Jerry gagged when he saw the four ragged furrows that had been carved diagonally across Tyler’s wounded back. Each one welled with blood, long strips of mangled white flesh dangled from the wounds like pieces of overcooked lasagne. He had been eviscerated from behind, and most of his skin, clothing and internal organs now lay in a spreading crimson bloom on the frozen ground at his back. As Tyler bled out, he did the only thing he was capable of doing now, and he screamed, and screamed, and screamed.

  Je
rry held his hands up to his ears to block out the blood-curdling sound of his friend's anguish. “Ty! Oh shit! Oh my God!” He couldn’t move and felt his mind begin to slip, losing its traction from the unreality of the situation before him.

  With a crack of snapping branches, the beast burst through the fog-shrouded bushes in front of Jerry and dropped down onto Tyler’s writhing body. The huge, grey creature tore into the squirming, screaming man, as Jerry staggered back in horror. Right in front of his eyes, his best friend was being devoured by this monster from hell, and he could do nothing to stop it because Tyler had fallen on top of his pistol. As Jerry backed away through the smoke and fog, he caught a glimpse of sword-like claws, crimson-covered fangs and great gouts of steaming blood spraying everywhere into the misty darkness.

  “Jesus Christ, holy shit, sweet mother…” Jerry backed up toward where the snowmobiles were parked, never taking his eyes off of the spot in the fog where the beast was ravaging Tyler. Almost falling over the closest machine as he stumbled backward into it, Jerry spun around and jumped on board without looking — Tyler’s ride, it turned out, but the keys were missing.

  “Son of a bitch!” he muttered. There was no way in hell he was going back now to look for the keys in Tyler’s pockets and threw himself toward the next sled only to find the same result, no keys in the ignition.

  “Shit! Jerry rasped. Sprinting toward the next sled, he was delighted to see it was his blinding yellow Wasp-mobile, and apparently, he’d left his keys in the ignition. “Yes!” He hopped on board and turned the engine over. The machine roared to life, and Jerry twisted the throttle so hard he thought he might snap it off. Looking back over his shoulder, he regretted it almost at once.

  The giant predator ploughed through the bonfire, red-hot embers and burning logs exploding into the darkness like flaming matchsticks as it raged toward him.

  Jerry gunned the engine. The snowmobile rocketed into the grey void of fog as he attempted to put as much distance between himself and the beast as he could. He followed the trail that they had forged through the snow on their way into camp that afternoon. There were hazards up ahead, but he knew he couldn’t slow down, or he’d risk having the beast catch up to him. Still, he knew he was pushing his luck.

  Glancing down at the glowing speedometer, Jerry saw he was ripping along doing almost eighty kilometres an hour in the darkness, surrounded by ice fog on an unfamiliar trail in the middle of nowhere. A sense of self-preservation kicked in, and Jerry made himself back the throttle off just a little bit. He didn’t want to miss a turn and have a rollover, or god-forbid hit a tree. If that happened, then he’d be royally screwed.

  The fog seemed to coagulate around him. He gradually slowed his speed and felt his sense of panic increase. The farther he got from camp, the thicker the fog became. Soon, he couldn’t see his hand in front of his face, let alone the trail from the edge of a precipice. He finally stopped, feeling stymied as to what he should do next. Blue light bathed his face as he turned on his cell phone, checking for a signal once more. “Shit! Still no bars!” he complained.

  Perhaps sensing a change in the air pressure around him, Jerry wasn’t sure, but he glanced to his right just as something whisked through the mist with the speed of a locomotive toward his head. “Jesus Chr…” Jerry ducked down and leaned forward into the windshield of the snowmobile as some of the longest and sharpest looking claws he wished never to see again sliced through the space his head had been occupying only milliseconds before.

  Still hunched down and leaning so far forward he thought he might break his nose on the windshield, Jerry Benson aimed the snowmobile for the centre of the trail and twisted the throttle to the max. He shot blindly forward into the freezing fog, praying that the nightmare was now behind him.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Wiping his hands on a rag, Austin Murphy stood back, folded his arms, and contemplated the lethal weapon before him. He stroked his salt and pepper beard for a moment, then moved to one side for a better view.

  The 105mm howitzer gun gleamed dully in the weak daylight of the foggy January morning that filtered through the workshop windows. It was a couple of minutes before eight o’clock, and Austin had just finished doing the final safety check and lubrication of the olive drab cannon. He’d arrived early at the shop today to make sure the gun was ready for business as soon as the fog departed, whenever that may be. Over the last ten years or so, the build-up of the winter snowpack high in the mountains had been increasingly hard to bring down thanks to fluctuating weather patterns. With the air cannon they’d used for decades now ailing and in need of replacement, the howitzer had been decided upon by the city as a more effective solution for triggering controlled avalanches in the area.

  As the head of road and highway maintenance for the city of Lawless, BC, Austin Murphy was also the liaison for the region with the Provincial Highways Department. Making sure the local roads were safe for everyone 365 days a year, 24/7 was his job, and it was one that he took it quite seriously. It kept him more than busy each winter and practically every other season as well.

  In keeping with the changing climate pattern in the area, this year had been foggy and soggy with minimal new snow. Most of the precipitation so far this winter had fallen as rain, at least down at the valley bottom. Up in the local mountains, however, it had been a different story — just cold enough to allow numerous layers of heavy, wet snow to build up to dangerous levels. Every few weeks, a high-pressure system seemed to come through to break up the monotony of the fog, giving them a few days of clearing but also freezing everything solid in the process. Then, yet another warm front off the Pacific would push over the coastal mountains and dump even more wet snow onto the local hills. It was a pattern that repeated most of the winter, making the entire snowpack very unstable and putting the Golden Mile Pass leading into the valley at risk on a regular basis.

  There was only one way to access Lawless, and that was through the pass. If it weren’t for the constant vigilance of the Lawless Public Works Department’s throughout the winter, the town would be completely cut off from the rest of the world for over four months of the year. Not only would that affect food and supplies coming into the town, but also the tourist trade as well seeing as Lawless was currently home to one of the busiest little casinos in the interior of the province, The Golden Nugget Casino and Resort.

  Up until the turn of the millennium, the population of Lawless ballooned every winter, as skiers, snowboarders and snowmobilers made the local mountains their winter playground, and Lawless had been more than happy to welcome them. But thanks to the warming trend over several decades, the winter fogs and mild temperatures had forced the closure of the ski hill. It was a sad day for the town, causing severe revenue loss to many of the businesses and residents in the area who relied on the tourist trade.

  With the help of a pair of local entrepreneurs, the resort reopened after a major renovation and now operated as a casino and buffet restaurant, making it a major draw for tourists to the area once more. For the more adventurous, the mountains surrounding the Kootenay Glacier still provided more than adequate conditions for some quality winter recreation. World-class cross-country skiing and snowshoeing were also still possible at the higher alpine elevations, including snowmobiling, or sledding, as the locals liked to call it. Heli-skiing, popular in other areas of the province, was not possible around Lawless due to the almost constant cloud layer that smothered the valley in wintertime.

  Last week, the weapon in front of Austin had garnered quite a few stares from passersby when he’d towed into town behind the Lawless Public Works truck. Once verifying everything was operational at the shop, they’d needed to run a couple of tests of the new ‘snow-blower-upper’ and Austin decided to take it out to the local quarry for that purpose.

  ‘Snow-blower-upper’ was the name that Austin’s son, Alex, had given the gun the first time he’d seen it. When asked if he’d like to join his father and Trip at the local rock qua
rry to test fire the gun, the boy had almost passed out from excitement at the thought. The gun worked exceedingly well, punching huge holes into the side of the gravel quarry. It left all three of them literally vibrating, not only from excitement but also from the concussive blasts of the cannon.

  Towing the large-wheeled gun behind the Works truck also had a positive impact on people’s driving habits, Austin discovered. Due to the height of the Chevy Silverado’s trailer hitch, the gun barrel of the howitzer pointed almost directly at eye-level into the windshield of whoever was behind him. Once most drivers realised what they were following, they decided to keep a very long and very safe following distance.

  “Tailgaters beware,” he said with a smile, still gazing at the gun. He picked up an empty shell casing that he’d placed near the gun and marvelled at it. At ten centimetres in diameter, the howitzer shells were huge. He hefted it in his hands, feeling the weight of the projectile. It was one serious looking piece of hardware that would surely make any snowpack quiver in fear, or so he hoped. Without propellant or explosive charge loaded, the casing still weighed almost ten kilograms, not something he’d want to drop onto his snow-booted foot. He looked forward to using one of them for real in the next few days, if the fog let up a bit.