End of Winter (Rewrite & Expansions into Book Four)

Willing to Believe

Adrenaline spiked into my system, combat chemicals pushed through as my heart-rate spiked, the knife suddenly coming alive in my hand, an extension of myself as my eyes adjusted to the shifting light.

"What?" Carmichael started to say.

I was already moving on what was in front of me.

Five foot eight, one-sixty when they were alive, dressed in a Russian uniform, left arm torn away, lower jaw missing, bullet holes chopped into the front of the uniform. The creatures tongue was gray and black and hung down to mid-chest, writhing like a brain-shot snake. Cracked and broken teeth on the sides to the upper jaw, the middle of it missing and merging with the sinus cavity to form one big cavernous space encrusted with greenish icicles of frozen mucus. The eyes were black pits of malice.

The long Russian bayonet gleamed in the dimness, the edge a promise of cold razored death.

Part of me, behind the lizard, behind what I was slowly coming to embrace was the real me, started screaming in terror. Gibbering in absolute primal fear by the abomination standing in front of me.

The lizard threw a dozen plans for immediate engagement up on the monitors, evaluated them, selected one, and slapped the button on it in less than a eyeblink.

Reflexes stuttered and engaged.

"I AM!" I started roaring out.

Half step, partial turn, lash out with the foot.

"The?" Carmichael was saying.

It didn't matter if the muscle and bone were frozen, if tendon and ligament were like frozen iron, engineering was engineering and physics was still the law of the land.

The sole of my foot slammed into the knee, hyperextending it backwards with the crack of a frozen branch breaking. Ice cold ripped up my leg, cold agony that would have taken my breath away only a few weeks before.

"THE ATLAS!" I kept roaring.

"Fuck?" Carmichael finished saying.

I leaned back and drove my foot into its chest as the knee went out and it went down, slamming it against the dryer as it screeched in rage. Cold up that leg and my left thigh started to ache.

Carmichael was on his own. I had to finish this thing and finish it fast. If it got its feet under it, if it seized the initiative, I was dead fucking meat.

"ANT AND I!" I keep roaring.

Half step back, ignoring the sounds of struggle behind me, half-pivot, and drive the heel of my boot with everything I had into the center of what was left of the face.

"REFUSE!"

Once.

"TO!"

Twice.

"FUCKING!"

Three times.

"DIE!"

It crumpled into snow on the second kick. I roared the rest at it before taking a step forward and kicking the snow pile, spraying it all over the wall.

The bayonet fell and shattered into chunks of ice.

I turned around in time to see Carmichael slam it face down against the edge of the sink, the thick concrete edged with steel against the dead man's throat. With a shout he slammed his forearm against the back of the dead man's head.

It crumpled into snow.

"What the fuck?" He asked again, jumping back.

"We gotta go," I told him, moving by him, grabbing his arm.