"Stalked and Stalker" Pt. 4 (Patreon)

I entered, and won, Dean Spencer's story contest for one of his pieces of art. I'm now completing it with weekly entries. This is part three.

Part One can be found here, Part Two here, and Part Three here.

Paying Patrons can instead go here, for a compiled, slightly more edited version of the story-to-date, along with my thoughts and author's notes about each section.

(Low res image. High res will be used for the final product. Art by Dean Spencer)

MacKenzie threw caution to the wind, and ran full speed toward the entrance to the stairwell. He took a slight curve in his path, to ensure he was well-wide of duSeverency’s field of fire. Mackenzie would have a LOT of questions for Alec once all danger was past—starting with ‘where the hell did you stash that thing in the weeks-long trip out here,’ and ‘was it not clear when I said no heavy weapons?,” likely with at least one “what hinky crap did you pull to keep a flipping machine rifle battle-ready in the arctic?!”

But the amount of vitriol he put into those questions was going to depend very much on how useful the weapon turned out to be right now.

Running from things totally alien to you that meant you harm, without glancing back to look at them, took a level of nerve not many possessed. MacKenzie did, and trusted that some member of the team would warn him before one of the bramble wolves reached him. He focused the entirety of his effort on reaching the questionable safety of the stairwell, but that didn’t make him blind or deaf.

He could hear the heavy 7.5x58mm cartridges from duSeverency’s machine rifle zip through the air and snow, and then the distinctive noise of them slamming into soft targets. Heavy slaps, rather than the twang of ricochets or the crack of rounds hitting stone or metal. From the corner of his eye he saw Alec duSeverency, firing from the hip and taking measured steps toward the stairwell while clearly firing for effect. The big man had no expression on his face, his gray eyes locked onto targets, the puffs of frost from his breathing even and calm.

Something behind MacKenzie howled again, this sound different from their first cries, just duSeverency began to swing his fire in a wide arc away from MacKenzie That suggesting the bramble wolves had changed course—hopefully in an effort to escape the merciless damage of the machine rifle. With a shockingly smooth motion, more like a gentlemanly hand gesture than battlefield movement, duSeverency popped the magazine from the top of his rifle, replaced it with a second magazine, pulled the charging handle, and resumed fire, the entire process taking less than two seconds.

Mackenzie had covered less than half the distance to the stairwell. There was now a flickering light somewhere behind MacKenzie. It felt like an oil light, and he guessed it was from the lantern he’d flung, though there was no hint if it had hit anything.

In the stairwell Professor Soloman had unzipped his parka and thrown back its hood. He was holding up the ornate wooden cross he always wore on a fine steel chain around his neck, and shouting something. Mackenzie couldn’t make out the cross’s details through the snow, but he knew from long association that the professor’s relic had the first word of each of 95 religious theses written on it in German, and had a single bright nail in the center of the cross. Soloman always pulled it out when facing the supernatural, and it almost never had any effect.

But… only ALMOST never.

Blaze Carson was standing beside, and a little in front of, the professor. She must have thrown herself recklessly down the stairs. She was no longer holding her compact revolver, and instead had a glass jar in one hand, into which she was pouring lighter fluid from a can in her other hand. Several pickled eggs lay broken at her feet, which told MacKenzie what the glass jar had originally held. He presumed Blaze had a specific plan for the lighter fluid… but he wasn’t sure of it. The woman liked fire.

Which, to be fair, was effective a good deal more often than the professor’s cross.

Mackenzie reached the entrance to the stairwell just as he heard duSeverency slap in a third clip of ammunition, leaving Mac REALLY annoyed that Alec never seemed to run out of things like bullets, lamp oil, or cognac. Soloman moved aside as MacKenzie stepped in front of him, and Mac passed his heavy supply pack to the professor.

“Take it!.” Mackenzie huffed, short on breath. “Halfway up the stairs and NO further!”

Soloman grabbed the pack and began hiking up the stairs, while MacKenzie turned to take stock of the situation. Two of the three bramble wolves were down, having been literally torn apart by the automatic rifle fire. But the third had closed the distance between itself and duSeverency, its long whiplike vines lashing out at the veteran and cutting his face and forearms in long, thin lines of red. Alec was continuing to shoot at it, but as Mac spotted them, the monstrosity surged forward, its huge forepaws slamming onto the big rifle, and forcing duSeverency down into the thick snow, onto his back. The rifle bent under the assault, but somehow duSeverency continued using it to block the creature’s massive claws, and its lunging bite, and even the lashing of its thorn vines.

But Mac did not see how Alec could keep that up for long.

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