Winter Nights

A cold wind blew with a silent whistle, as the two bipedal figures sneaked up along the snowy street surrounded by destroyed buildings either by some kind of explosions, fire or simply because of harsh weather. Both of them watched for any sight of danger, where one was looking at their 12 o'clock and the other at 6 o'clock.

Some buildings had old graffiti painted on the walls, other were scratched by bullet marks, fire and old dark stains, which could only be a blood. The street was littered by old cars with open doors, in some of them also were marks of terrible fate, which happened to their owners. One could imagine chaos and panic caused by something so bad that it made people to abandon their vehicles and ran.

One of the sneaking persons was much larger, than the other. They were moving from cover to cover, protecting each other with firearms, and carefully watching destroyed buildings around them. Their destination was close - an abandoned store with military equipment. They jumped into the burned bus around 80 meters away from the target, and both of them began to check their gear, when the shorter one spoke up…

"Are you sure, you want to do that?" a soft female voice asked the other person.

It was an average height woman of slender, yet seemingly strong body build. Her bright, green as a fresh grass in spring, eyes were hidden by a pair of simple sunglasses. Her long, ginger hair were tied in a ponytail and fell on her back. At first glance she seemed to be young, around her early twenties, but looks can be misleading...

She was dressed in white clothing combaning from a thick jacket with a hood, cargo pants on her legs secured with a black leather belt, a keffiyeh wrapped around her face, and neck and beanie hiding her ginger hair. A white tactical vest with armored insides protected her torso, and colored with white paint military boots covered her feets. She was carrying a medium sized military backpack in arctic camo, and her hands were covered in used, thin white gloves with cut off trigger finger.

Close to her chest she gripped her trusted SVD, which just like boots was painted in white color, and had thin, see-through white rags wrapped around the optics preventing it from shining in the sun. A small, fixed karambit blade was tied to her right thigh, and on the belt was placed canteen with frozen water. Tactical Five-seveN holstered under her left arm. The holster was attached to the vest, and in its pockets were some mags to her weapons... Less than half had bullets in it, there was only a half magazine to her sniper rifle, and 2 full magazines to the handgun.

"No... but someone have to go there, Firefly. Besides it's only 80 meters or so..." A deep, tired, lecture-like, male voice answered her.

It was a tall, and rather well-built man with deep blue eyes. If someone would look into them, it could be overcome by unusual calmness… or fear, depending on how he wanted it to be. His straight, dark brown hair were hanging halfway down his neck. He had a strong facial features, and a small beard along the jaw, and around his mouth. It made him look rather old, around his forties… maybe more.

Unlike Firefly, he was wearing a simple black beanie on top of his head. A standard polish military uniform with standard winter camo and two patches on his arm with a writing on one of them. The first one was an image of large eagle viewed from profile, with a lightning in its claws, and writing under it GROM. The second one however was a herb with black background, and white letter “P” combined with an anchor at the bottom. He had a gray,tactical vest with steel insert which protected his torso, on his backs was a much larger rucksack but with similar arctic camo. A white gloves, with also cut off index finger on his right hand. His lower parts were similar to hers expect the belt.

It has pinned additional pockets for magazines, which were mostly occupied by empty ones. All he had right now was a half full magazine to his HK416 with ACOG sight, and additional handle. And one full to his backup weapon -also Five-seveN- which was holstered on the right side of his hip. A machete was hidden in sheath under his bag, a canteen with frozen water in a side pocket of his backpack, and a simple combat bayonet below his handgun.

"Reaper, the last time you said that, we've ended up in the nest full of ‘Nightmares’..." Firefly said.

He checked his rifle, before answering "It was your fault, you choose to run left..."

"But-"

"Cover me." He announced, while jumping out of the window, not giving her a chances to explain. Not wasting their precious time he started sprinting in the direction of the store.

Firefly growled in frustration huffing a little white cloud through her mouth. Kneeling down, and relying her sniper rifle on the edge of broken window for better support she began to scan the area with it "I’ve hope something will bite you in the ass..." she muttered.

Noticing movement to his left Reaper stopped and took cover behind one of the cars - half way from his destination. He peeked his head from behind the cover, and saw a white furred, light blue eyed werewolf with scars over his muzzle and eye. A big one to that.

While an average werewolf would stand on his hind legs it would be around his size, while on all fours it would reach to his stomach, but this one... When it stood up on two legs it seemed to be taller than him by at least one and a half head.

The wolfish creature was scanning the area for some reason. It took a while, but eventually it stopped, and lowering it self on all fours ran off between the nearby buildings… or rather what was left from them. Waiting a few more minutes he start running again, and eventually, hitting against the wall, he reached to the gun store.

He took a look through the broken window and saw a rat - not normal rat, but a medium dog sized rat. With shiny yellow eyes, needle like fangs, and small, sharp claws. When there was only one it wasn't much of a challenge, but when there were more it could turn really nasty really fast. This “little” things in a large group can easily overwhelm, and tore an average man apart. This one was eating a bird of some kind, probably a crow since it’s one of the few animals, which hasn’t mutated.

Reaper quietly went inside. Carefully taking step by step, he watched the floor so he wouldn't crush the broken glass. Coming from behind the rat he slowly drew the machete from sheath, and when the rat smelled that something was creeping up on it, he made one quick slash. The blade easily dug into nape of an animal, and cut its head off. It could be heard how a short, quiet hiss of pressurized air and blood escaping out of its body while the dark red liquid spreads on the wooden floor. After eliminating the threat he began searching the store…

The gun shop itself was small, and dusty. It was built into the apartment block just like most of the stores in this city… Behind the wooden, and glass counter were double doors opening outward - probably leading to the storage room. A few heavy looking, and empty gun shelves were placed around, and nothing more.

"Damnit." he thought, and looked at the counter. He spotted ammo boxes behind bulletproof glass so he made his way there.

There wasn't much left, everything useful was already taken. The soldier had found a box with bullets of 5.56 ammunition to his HK416, and only 5 leftovers from box cal. 7.62 to Firefly's SVD. There were some other rounds, but nor he or the sniper had a gun to them. For him it was better than nothing, so thinking it can came in handy took everything and put it into his rucksack. He looked around a little more, and under the counter, he had found two black cases for weapons.

“Bingo.”

Good news where: they were heavy so something was there. The bad news were: both of them were padlocked, and required a key... He couldn’t just shoot it, things like this are possible only in movies. Besides the sound of the gunshot would attract unwanted attention plus they were getting low with ammunition itself and had to count every bullet they had. The bearded man quickly loaded his part of ammunition into an empty magazine making it full, and sighed. He walked up to the window, and waved to Firefly - gesturing her to come here. Then kneeled down and began to observe the area through his ACOG - covering the ginger haired sniper. The green eyed girl jumped out from behind her cover, and ran forward swiftly avoiding the obstacles. After a moment she entered the store.

Removing the scarf from her face, and breathing a little faster than normal she asked him "What’s up?"

He handed her, her part of ammunition to SVD, then silently gestured the boxes lying on the counter.

She grabbed it, and hid it in her pocket - later she would put them in the right place. Then she looked at the cases and throwing her SVD over her shoulder pulled out from one of her pockets a small black box with various tools in it. The girl kneeled down, and began doing her work... After few minutes of struggling with the padlock a soft, and satisfying click could be heard. Firefly smiled to herself, and opened the first box.

"Hm, I think it's something for you..." She handed the box to Reaper.

He in turn, slowly looked away from the view and making sure, that there wasn't any threat nearby looked at the content of the box. He raised his bushy eyebrows. Inside the box was Lupara - a short, double barreled shotgun- with eight shells, and leather holster.

"Why would you think that?" Reaper muttered as he closed the box.

“Well, you kinda look like a gangster… all you need is coat, suit and fedora.” she snickered quietly for some reason.

He eye rolled knowing what she was referring to - he used to be one for a short time in the past, one of the mistakes of his youth, but at the same time a mistake which made him learn a few handy things. He put the case into his backpack and went back to overwatch.

Meanwhile another click was heard as Firefly opened the second box, and started to grin widely seeing the content of it. Inside of it was a set of six throwing knives. She pulled one out, and examined it closely.

It was small, sharp and seemed to be made of high quality steel. She played a little with it in her hand noting that the weight and balance were good. A solid, and good piece of work from blacksmith. The girl ran her index and middle finger over the edge of it, than merrily began to place the knives on the belt of her pants: three on each side.

Reaper looked at them, then back at his teammate and shook his head slightly, but said nothing about her weird knife fetish… He preferred to go one on one with "Chimera", using only his combat knife than starting an arguments with Firefly about it. At least he had a chance to win with this damned thing.

She really was fascinated with knives, used to collect them in the past as well as other sharp things to the point where sometimes it seemed to be ridiculous... The only reason she hasn't had more with her was that, at the beginning of it all -when entire world start falling apart- she was pulled out of her bed, half naked, in the middle of the “night” by him. She was told that she had 5 minutes to pack herself on the mission...

And it was like over a year ago.

Now or at least so far, it's only the two of them and never ending winter.

“And monsters... And bandits…” he went on with thoughts of possible threats awaiting them.

"Hey! Frozen hell to Reaper..." She suddenly spoke up.

"Uh, what?" he asked blurt out snapping out back to reality.

"I said ‘it's getting late’ we should find a pl-.”

She cut in mid sentence, because of a crack coming from behind the doors and drew her handgun, pointing it at the double doors, from which the sound came. Without turning her head from them she looked at bearded man. He in turn already had his rifle in hands, and pointing it in the same direction nodded with his head once. They slowly made their way to them, and positioned themselves on both sides. They looked at each other with stone cold expressions in a way also knowingly and Firefly nodded again, then started counting down, with her three middle fingers…

Three…

Two…

One…

In a matter of seconds Firefly had opened the doors outward, and both of them pointed their weapons at whatever was inside. The soldiers found themselves face to face with a few dozens pairs of shining, yellowish eyes.

"Nope!" They shouted together, and slammed them shut. Reaper began to hold them with all his strength, while redheaded sniper got to the nearby gun shelf and tried to push it forward the doors. Rats were pounding at them, and slowly began to open them, snarling and hissing angrily the whole time…

"Hurry up with it!" he ordered and pressed harder trying to somehow prevent his legs from sliding on a wooden panels.

For Firefly it was hard to move this thing from place, even though she was no weakling and even in times like this regularly tried to train, it still was a pretty heavy shelf, and its legs dug into wooden floor. It took her a moment of struggle, but with a crack of wood she finally manage to push the stubborn thing forward. Meanwhile Reaper still had troubles with standing in place, his legs were sliding on the wooden floor, and the storage room doors opened enough for one rat to poke its head outside. Regaining his footing he pushed them harder squishing the creature, then with a sick crunch of flesh, and bone snapped the rat's neck and eventually cutting it off with a bayonet held in one hand - once again closing the doors. Finally Firefly managed to push the shelf under the door successfully blocking them...

A thudding noise was heard from other side giving them a signal that the “could be dangerous” moment was over.

...She let out a small breath of relief, and leaned against the counter. "As I was saying,” She began again “It's getting dark, and we should find some shelter." she looked out the window "Unless, you want to play with this things, that roam at night..."

"No." Reaper stated calmly, then pulled out a map from inside pocket of his uniform. On said map were marked quite a few places in different colors, and various words like: danger area, empty store or safe house.

The rambling from behind small barricade slightly rose.

They both looked at the doors "...Perhaps we should first get out of here." the man suggested.

"Agreed..." and with that they went toward the exit.

After walking out of the gun store, they yet again started sneaking from cover to cover, making their way forward the bus, once inside they start thinking about the plan…

"So..." Firefly started looking over the map, while placing her part of ammunition in half empty magazine "How about this Hotel here." She pointed at one of the buildings in the center of city "It's the closest untouched thing from our position, and it has multiple routes of escaping if something went wrong. Hm…” She frowned “But the only way to get there is through the old metro tunnels or what was left from Palace of Culture... And I think you know better of how dangerous are those tunnels." Reaper scowled at the unpleasant memory of dark and creepy tunnels, and stayed silent. "I thought so..." she said with a half smile, and began to watch the area, again. The blue eyed man rolled the map, and slide it back to his pocket, while sniper was busy standing on watch. "Uh, are you alright?" she asked still observing their surrounding.

"Hm? Oh, yes…” he closed and rubbed his eyes “Yes, just... tired.” then sighed heavily “Why do you ask?"

Noticing movement in the distant ruins she looked at it with a scope of her rifle "Because you called me in, when the building wasn't secured." she answered still looking at it.

"Sorry, I… I just need some rest." he rubbed his eyes again, and yawned quietly, out of good manners covering his mouths with his hand.

Not being able to see anything between the rubble, Firefly looked back at her friend without any specific expression "Alright." She said, while putting her keffiyeh back on her face "Let's move."

An hour passed since they left the gun store. They walked down the street in general direction of the Palace of Culture. The fresh snow was crunching under their boots as they stopped before a huge gap in the middle of the street… It was wide, and impossible for them to cross without a special gear. Reaper looked down in the hole and saw some cars buried into the snow at the bottom.

A grimace crossed his face "Crap... What now?" Reaper asked.

Firefly kneeling and watching their 6 o'clock suggested "We can take unexplored route or go to the metr-"

"Unexplored route." He blurted out, not letting her finish the sentence.

He couldn't see it, but her upper lip slightly rose up and her eyes narrowed from behind the sunglasses giving her an annoyed expression. He pulled out the map, then took out a red marker from his pocket. Pressing the map on his knee he noted the area of blocked street, and angrily wrote BLOCKED ROAD with a childish, angry face next to it.

"Hellhounds!" Firefly suddenly announced when she looked through her scope at the movement between cars on parking lot nearby.

Reaper looked over his shoulder, and saw a group of 10-15 huge dogs running from around them. Their terrifying, and terrible howls were ringing through the street... and they were running in their direction... fast.

"Fucking run!" he yelled. And they just did that. Reaper led the way through nearby rubbles, then took a sharp turn between some blocks into the ally with Firefly close behind. He looked at the map and yelled "Left!" They turned, and saw that the street was blocked with line of abandoned cars. Both soldiers climbed up on first vehicle and started running, and jumping from roof to roof with bloodthirsty dogs close behind... Too close.

"We can't out run them." green eyed girl said between her breaths.

"I know..." Reaper answered.

"Any ideas?" she asked.

"One..." he stopped abruptly, while pulling her shoulder to halt the sniper making her fall backwards on her knees spreading the snow from the roof of the vehicle in the air. He quickly shoved her the map in a free hand, and immediately after that turned back at the dogs. Taking on one knee he shakily aimed at the first dog "Run!" he shouted to her then trying to align his breath pulled the trigger…

The three ear-piercing gunshots echoed through the street drowning out the sounds of incoming dogs. Because the dead city was awfully quiet it was heard in a two kilometer radius and he knew that. He knew that it will draw more unwanted attention. The first bullet missed its target, and wounded another dog in the head. It stopped it, but hadn't killed the animal. The second hit its target in the chest, and the third in the eye. The dog went limp, and with momentum its lifeless body rolled from the roof of the car into the the tight space between the sides.

"But-" she wanted to argue, but he cut her off again. It really was getting frustrating for her but she had no time or care to show it.

"I’ve got this! Go! Now!" he commanded in a tone, which already told her he made the choice then fired two more bullets into another dog. Both hit the target and dropped it dead.

Firefly hesitated for a second, but obeyed him, and started running again. She already knew what her teammate was doing, and she knew he had a plan...

Another two gunshots rang behind her. She looked over her shoulder, only to see, how Reaper jumps off and runs into one of the buildings, and how most of the dogs chased after him. Unfortunately a few of them still decided to follow her.

"Fuck."

Seeing that there were no more cars before her, she jumped off...

Firefly was exhausted, in every second a white cloud of steam was coming out of her mouth, and her lungs felt as if they were on fire, but despite this she kept on running as fast and as far as her legs could carry her. The woman could hear the monsters behind her as she looked at the map. Turning into another street, and passing more destroyed buildings the redheaded girl looked over her shoulder, and saw that the most of the Hellhounds where about 30 meters away from her, while one was about 10 meters.

"Shit, shit, shit..." she muttered between breaths, and looking ahead spotted overturned truck. The front glass was intact, and the door were opened... Running up to it she threw her SVD on top of it, and began to climb on it's side. However the closest dog was faster than her and with furious bark bit into her leg.

She screamed in pain as her vision became blurred for a moment. The beast started to brutally jerking, and pulling her leg. She could feel the skin tearing away from her... Tears formed in her eyes and made their way down her cheeks only to be absorbed by the material of her scarf.

On pain scale from 1-10 the dog bite oscillates around 4-5 where 1 is something like mosquito bite and 10 is being burned alive. Now add to it saliva, which contains a toxin that immediately after contact increases the pain, then add to this jerking and pulling with terrible force... that's how much pain she felt right now.

It was so overwhelming, that she slowly started losing her strength. Then one thought come to her head "Fight back!"

Suddenly she felt a new rush of adrenaline, she remembered who she was - a hunter.

She was supposed to hunt animals, not being a prey.

And just like that a new feeling overwhelmed her: anger.

Whole this process from the moment of the bite to now took maybe a second or two. Angried Firefly as hard as she could began to kick, and smash the sole of her heavy shoe heel in the head of the damned beast. She succeed in hitting it right in the eye. The dog yelped in pain, and let go of her. The girl quickly pulled herself up on top of the vehicle, and slides herself inside of lorry's cabin landing her rump on the snowed side window.

Meanwhile the Hellhound recovered from the hit, and rest of the dogs caught up to it... The larger one of them jumped at the truck and stick it's head inside the cabin trying to kill it's prey, but instead was met with a barrel of the handgun.

"Fuck you.” she pulled the trigger on point blank range and the bullet painted part of the cabin with blood, as the body of the dog went limp blocking the enter inside…

Firefly was completely out of breath so she tried to recover, she felt the cold snow under herself, but she didn’t care... However what she cared about was the nasty and bleeding wound under her knee. The adrenaline began to wear off, and again she began to be overwhelmed by the pain. She quickly put a pressure there with one hand trying to stop the bleeding, then tried to move her leg -which she succeed- and yelped in pain.

The sharpshooter girl could see through the frosted windshield, how the dogs are circling the truck - growling, and barking at her. One of them tried to shatter front window with its body, but thankfully it was too hard to break.

The pain slowly started to grow, and began to spread through her leg. Firefly unable to bear it any longer quickly took from her backpack an aid kit, and began to search for bandages and painkillers. She had found a combat syringe with morphine and began to bandage the wound, then jabbed the syringe into her leg... Her body slowly was overcome by the drug, and reduced the pain to just a bearable, uncomfortable feeling.

She looked at the dogs again “Damn you...”

Reaper fired another two shots putting down another dog, then run in the closest -not destroyed- building. He ran up stairs with Hellhound close behind, he could hear their howls. Trying to find some shelter he tried to open the first doors "Closed." He run up to another doors. With a click he opened them, ran inside, shut them, and closed the door lock.

Suddenly he heard a low growl on his right.

He turned his head forward the sound only to see gigantic, white, light blue eyed werewolf with scars on it's face... The same werewolf from before.

"Bollocks..." was the only thing he could mutter before the beast jumped at him. He grabbed his rifle and tried to aim at it, but the wolfish creature was much faster than a human, and smashed its right claw at the gun and throwing it away, at the same time it took another strike with its left claw, and slashed it across his face.

Reaper tried to dodge, but claws dug into right side of his face leaving three deep bloody gashes, from under his eye down to his jaw. Soldier growled in pain, and anger while beast knocked him flat on the ground. Pinning his right arm, and opening its jaw it tried to rip his throat, but Reaper raised his left forearm to block the attack. The werewolf dug its teeth in to it with sickening crunch. Much like an animal himself he roared in pain. He couldn't move his arm and reach for the gun because his hand was placed too high, but he was able to pull out his knife and dug it between its ribs. The beast let go his arm yelping in pain, and jumped away... Now with his arm free he reached his for handgun then aimed, and crawling away start firing with each gunshot screaming words.

"You, like, that, you, piece of, shit!?" he shouted in his thunderous voice.

First bullet hit it in the arm, second, and third in the chest, fourth in the throat, the last one in the head, right between its eyes. It stood for a moment then collapsed on the wooden floor with a loud thud. Grunting in pain he holstered his weapon, got up, and clenching his injured arm walked up to his rifle. Blood quickly staind his sleeve and dripped on the floor.

Picking the gun up, he started examining it... Unlike him it looked like it was intact so he threw it over his shoulder.

The Hellhounds still could be heard from behind the door, which he came in. They tried to force their way in by scratching the floor under the doors, and slamming their bodies at them.

Again a muffled grunt escaped from his mouth "Pain… hello my old friend."

Reaper had to find something to patch up his injuries. He was bleeding, and was sure, that his forearm bones were at least cracked. And to top it all, he really wasn't feeling too well from lack of sleep. Searching his pockets he found nothing useful, holstering his handgun, and taking backpack off his shoulders he put it on the nearby table, and started searching it... Nothing.

"I forgot, that the last aid kit, which I had, I gave to Firefly..."

With growl of frustration, the blue eyed soldier began to explore the living room and kitchen... only a small needle and a little of sewing thread. He went into the bathroom. Searching through shelves he found a small basket with medicines, spirytus, and bandages but there weren’t any painkillers and nothing he could sew the wounds on his face. Sighing he took it out, and sitting on the floor he rolled up the bloodied sleeve hissing in pain. Reaper began to clean his wounds…

He poured some spirytus from the bottle, which he found. Gritting his teeth he yet again quietly hissed in pain, and scowled, as more blood flowed from the bite wound. Then carefully bandaged it, and made an improvised sling. Putting the rest of the contents of the basket inside his backpack he looked up into the mirror.

It was covered with thin layer of dust, so he wiped it off with a sleeve of his jacket, and got a closer look at his face. The nasty calw injury was still bleeding so he took care of it too. There will be a scar after it, that’s for sure. As he was disinfecting the soon-to-be-scar he hissed in pain, and took notice of his appearance. Well, he was a mess to say at least. The soldier had dark bags under his eyes meaning that he had not slept for a long time, his small beard was unkempt, and his face looked so grim, and lifeless, and tired of everything… Where is this always positive man with a charming, and encouraging smile, that he used to be?

“Probably died along with everybody else…” he answered to himself, and sighed heavily, with a little bit of sadness.

With a little shaky hand he took the sewing kit and looked at the injury again. His face took on an expression of anxiety. He did that before - sewing a skin without painkillers causes a lot of pain.

After some time Reaper walked out of the bathroom, and noticed iron doors that were dented in few places. He walked up to them, and tried to open them, but they were blocked with something on the other side. He pushed them as hard as he could successfully opening them slowly, but the accomplishment vanquished as something inside pushed them back.

"What the fuck?" he muttered, then start pushing again, and again something on other side started pushing back "Wait." He stopped pushing "It's impossible for wild animal to do something like that unless..."

"Hey! Is someone in there? I'm not going to hurt you!" Reaper yelled... There was no response.

He tried again "Can you hear me!? I'm friendly, and I want help you... Please at least reply!" again no response.

"This is pointless. I’m not getting in there, unless the person inside will open the door... I can escape through the window, but I can’t just leave the first -hopefully friendly- survivor, which I’ve met since months without making sure, that at least whoever is inside is okay... My damn conscience wouldn't give me peace, if I did."

Looking at the werewolf he thought for a moment, then did something he haven't done for a long time... He simply knocked lightly three times on the door.

The human waited a few minutes, but when nothing happened he knocked again, and patiently waited. However this time he heard some shuffling noise on the other side. The doors opened slowly, and revealed something he definitely did not expected.