The Major had picked up the signal not too far outside old Toronto. There were eight of them, and trace readings of human life signs nearby. The Major knew that if he didn't floor it, whatever life signs were there would shortly be extinguished, and he would have to chalk another mark on the wall of the flyer.
The Major's flyer was old, a remnant of the War, and he often found himself screaming at the old bucket to stay in the air - the grav generator kept threatening to give out, and at times the Major almost feared that his mission - his sacred duty - would never be complete. Still he had never found it necessary to replace the grav batteries; their rarity made that a very good thing.
He gave a sigh as he sighted the Great Lakes - less than an hour, and he'd need to be ready for battle. He switched on the flyer's autopilot, and ducked out of the cockpit into the passenger compartment in the back. It had long ago been stripped of the comfortable couches and safety belts that were once a fixture of this kind of vehicle. Now the compartment stored the Major's equipment: numerous pieces of survival gear; boxes of ammo and explosives; his weapons. He ignored the arsenal for a moment and started to put on his combat gear - a sophisticated blend of body armor that also allowed for the Major's less predictable abilities. It helped (thought the Major on numerous occasions) that his armor didn't simply tear itself to shreds when he made the Change.
After adjusting the suit to his satisfaction, and surveying what options he had in terms of weapons, the Major ducked back into the cockpit and looked at the display panel. Twenty minutes. That gave him enough time to stuff his pockets full of clips and select the instruments of his wrath.
The whole procedure gave the Major a certain Zen-like calm on most attacks. It didn't help to get scared, or start doubting the logic of his mission. Sure, there were a lot of the buggers around, maybe more than the Major admitted on a conscious level; but tonight he found himself troubled. He'd had the strangest dreams of late, ones that made him wake up with a cold sweat on his brow, and his usual calm was disturbed by the images he saw in them.
//Ohgodohgodohgod....whathavetheydone...Charlene?...nogodpleasePLEASE!!!//
The Major swallowed a few times, and shook his head to rid himself of the images that came unbidden to him. He then picked up his trusted MA-75 automatic rifle/grenade launcher and two old Hyde precision shotguns. He strapped a ammo belt diagonally from his shoulder to his waist, and filled his with shells and clips. In his suit pockets, he secreted a number of stim-paks, in case the things were a little faster than the usual breed, and a rolled up medic patch that he knew that he'd need. A flashlight and a spring-launching grapple completed the package, and the Major knew he was as ready as he could reasonably expect to be.
He ducked back into the cockpit and resumed manual control. The flyer shuddered for a moment, and then the ride smoothed back out again. Good, the Major mused, nothing *awful*. He watched the tracker, and guided the flyer through the ruined, gutted buildings. He watched as the red blips on the tracker got closer to the green blips. Finally, it became clear to the Major where his foes were. There, ahead, was an old shopping complex. He quietly landed the flyer on the ground outside, and flipped open the hatch. Time to hunt.
The sounds of the place were getting on his nerves. He'd had two tangles with the fiends already, and he'd still not seen the sources of the human life signs. It was near maddening.
The Major had tracked them to an underground level on the shopping complex, and hadn't had any difficulties with the first two. He'd decided to attach the magnetic flashlight to the barrel of his rifle and he swept the corridor ahead of him looking for signs of the others' passing. Water dripped from the ceiling in places where pipes evidently had weakened, and rats scittered here and there as he proceeded. Since the last one, it had been almost ten minutes, almost an eternity to the frustrated Major.
Then came the screams, and he started running towards them. It was only a few seconds before a familar cold sweat started beading on his forehead.
//stoppleaseSTOP!...getawayfromher...ohnothebloodgodSAVEHER!!//
The screams grew closer, and the Major bit the inside of his cheek to focus himself on something other than those godawful dream images. His more supernatural talents gave him an edge in his tracking, and he quickly located the source of the screams.
Turning a bend in the corridor, there was a ragged hole in the wall. Evidently, this level ran adjacent to an old subway tunnel, and the creatures may have broken into the complex from here. Through the hole, the Major's heightened sight could pick out the six other creatures, circling a woman and her two children. He could also see the stripped bones of another human nearby, and cursed himself for not arriving sooner.
//Charlene..imsosorryicouldntsaveyou...//
He winced at the barrage of images, and made a snap judgement about the situation. With the people in the tunnel, the Major couldn't use a weapon with such a wide spread as the MA-75. He switched to his shotguns, and dove through the tunnel.
Immediately, it was apparent these creatures were better fed than their cousins he'd met earlier. They were about a foot taller, and moved with more upright stance. Slavering fangs, red eyes and razorsharp claws on wiry limbs created a picture that would make an ordinary man soil his pants; the Major was hardly an ordinary man by any measure. Two of them spotted him and hissed, and the battle was on.
The Major's shotguns took out two before they managed to even get close. One shot went wide, and he was tackled quickly before he could get another one off. The beast tried to slash his throat before he could react, but an inhuman strength rippled through the Major, allowing him to smash the skull of the creature on top of him...and also make the Change.
Instead of a man firing off shells into the guts of the creatures, there stood a seven-foot tall man-wolf, covered in muscle, fur and a stretched-out suit of body armor, sporting powerful jaws and equally powerful claws. Two of the creatures ran at him from where they were circling and jumped at him. The man-wolf caught them in mid-air, and slammed them into opposite walls of the tunnel. And there was one left.
This one was apparently the smart one of the pack, and fled the opposite direction down the tunnel when it saw its fellows had met an end. The man-wolf started to chase the fiend, but noticed something about the other beings. Almost instantly, the wolf was Changed into the man, and the Major looked at three corpses on the ground below him.
"God damn."
He bent down to look at the woman and the two unfortunate children, their throats cut, and he began to weep. And all the dream images began washing over him, and they wouldn't stop. He hit his fists on the floor, enough to make them bleed, and they still would not stop.
....to be continued....
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