Mapes knew there wasn’t anything he could do for Carol. Johns was dying too, his body jerking in the snow in the center of the street.
Boston was gone.
Dixon and Preston were chasing something to the north toward the foothills.
“Get back here!” Mapes yelled.
They vanished over a hill.
Cursing, Mapes checked for targets again, and then took a knee next to Carol. The corporal was choking on his own blood. The awful gurgling sound made Mapes cringe.
“It’s okay, man. You’re going to be okay,” he lied. It wasn’t the first time he had said that to a dying brother.
Carol’s eyes widened behind his goggles and flitted from Mapes to the sky.
In a swift motion, Mapes twisted with his shotgun and blasted a figure that was leaping off the roof of the shack.
A body slammed into the snow to Carol’s right, face down, arms and legs spread wide, and a gaping hole in the middle of their back.
Mapes stood and swept his gun from left to right and then back again. There was no sign of Boston, and Johns was as still as a board now. Preston and Dixon were gone.
By the time Mapes looked back down at Carol, the man was dead. His hands fell limply from his neck, revealing the blade that had torn through his flesh.
Mapes scanned for hostiles in the storm. Snow fluttered from the sky, caking his visor with flakes. He wiped them away and then reached down to close Carol’s eyes. No one deserved to die in this icy hell. Cold and alone.
“I’m sorry, brother,” he whispered.
Down two men, and separated from the other two, Sergeant Jackson Mapes limped away. For the second time in as many days, he had lost half his team.
“It had to be had to be a Reaver,” Dohi said. “That’s why I can’t find tracks. It must have swooped down and grabbed Stevenson when we were inside searching.”
Team Ghost had sought shelter from the storm under the awning of a house on the edge of town. The village was empty. Completely empty. Not a single body, nor any evidence of what happened to these people. No blood. No tracks. Not even a skeleton. The entire village gave him the creeps and with Stevenson missing, Fitz was losing his cool.
“Did you hear that?” Rico asked.
“What?” Fitz asked. He stepped out into the flurry of snow and looked northwest. Over the growl of the wind came the unmistakable crack of a shotgun.
“Gunfire,” Rico said.
Fitz glared at the frosted foothills. Waves of snow poured from the sky. Visibility was getting worse, but his ears told him what his eyes could not.
Fox Team was in trouble.
The shotgun blast had come from that direction. He stepped back to the protection of the building, pulled his bandana down, and pushed the mic back to his lips while Tanaka, Rico, and Dohi stared at him.
“Mapes,” Fitz snapped. “Mapes, do you fucking copy?”
For the second time there was no response.
Fitz cursed again.
All it takes is all you got, Marine. Fitz repeated the motto three times before he started to feel better.
“Is that Fox Team?” Tanaka said. “It’s got to be, right?”
“What are you orders, sir?” Rico asked.
Her firm and formal question got Fitz’s attention. They had seen a lot in the past week, but there was nothing like losing a teammate. He knew he had to make a decision, and make one quick. But first, he needed to get a read on Dohi.
The man was crouched and calm in the snow, staring at the storm with his M4 cradled across his chest.
“You can’t find a single trace of Stevenson?”
Dohi shook his head. “He’s gone, sir.”
“But why didn’t we hear a gunshot, or a scream? And where the hell is everyone else?” Rico asked. She chomped on her gum, her big eyes widening.
Apollo’s tail was still up, but for the first time, Fitz didn’t trust the dog’s senses. Maybe it was the cold, or perhaps it was something else, but Apollo hadn’t been able to detect a single Variant.
Fitz pulled his bandana back up. “We have to keep moving. Stevenson is gone. We have to accept that and focus on the mission—”
“Ghost 1, Ghost 1….” Crackle. “Fox 1, do you…”
Fitz reached up to cup his hand over his helmet.
“Roger, Fox 1… Mapes, what the hell is going on out there?”
“They got my team.” Static broke the next transmission.
Rico caught Fitz’s gaze.
“Come again, Fox 1.”
“Carol and Johns are dead. Boston’s gone. Fuck. I can’t find Preston or Dixon.”
“Calm down,” Fitz said. “Calm down and tell me what happened.”
There was another flurry of static, and then, “The locals, man. I think it’s the locals that took ‘em.”
Dohi stood, narrowed brows painted white with snow.
“Where are you, Mapes?” Fitz asked. “Tell me where you are, and stay put.”
“I’m heading for the rally point.”
Fitz shook his head. “Mapes, listen to me. You need to hunker down and wait for us. You’re not going to make it to the rally point.”
Another flurry of static broke over the line.
Fitz nearly ripped his earpiece from his ear. He took in a breath, exhaled, and focused. Team Ghost was down a man, and now, apparently both of the other fire-teams were KIA.
Tanaka, Rico, Dohi, and Apollo waited for orders as the wind swirled snow around the shack. Fitz hated leaving the village without Stevenson, but they had no choice.
Flashing a hand motion, Fitz ordered Team Ghost toward the foothills. It was the first time he had left a man behind since taking command, and he had a feeling it wouldn’t be the last. The burden ate at his marrow, but like Captain Reed Beckham had taught him, Fitz pushed on for the sake of his entire team.
-4-
Preston and Dixon were gone, and Mapes hadn’t found a single piece of them. He blinked away the stars before his vision and stopped to look at his leg. Blood oozed from the makeshift tourniquet and dotted the snow. He was leaving a trail of red, but for some reason the beasts that had picked off Fox Team back in the village hadn’t attacked him.
He raised his gun and continued his trek north toward the foothills. His boots sank ankle-deep into the snow drifts. The fresh powder was coming down fierce, stinging his exposed face, and working through his layers. He could hardly make out the outline of the trees in the surrounding forest. Skeletal branches groaned under the weight of the snow.
The deeper he ventured into the woods the harder it was to see. A crack, and then a snap like the pop of joints sounded to his right. He whirled with his shotgun toward the sound just as a branch snapped and crashed to the ground. Another crack came from his left, and he swung his gun toward another canopy strained by the weight of the snow.
“Preston, Dixon, do you copy?” he muttered into his headset, although he knew it wouldn’t do any good.
Static and the whistle of the wind was the only reply.
His team was gone.
Wiped out in minutes.
Mapes couldn’t believe his fucking luck. He had survived the apocalypse back home only to have Europe and now Greenland, shit on him.
He took another step, his boots sinking. The pain in his leg was getting worse, and the cold was numbing his senses.
Another step.
A voice came over the comm line and froze him mid-step.
“Sergeant Mapes… Do you… Help!”
Over the wind, Mapes thought he heard a scream that sounded like Preston. The voice seemed to blend with the wind making the storm sound alive.
“Preston, goddammit, report your location,” Mapes said into his mic. “Where the hell are you?”
This time only the screech of wind replied.