Extinction Age (2 page)

As the team worked forward, the trickle intensified into a
steady stream. Falls cascaded in the distance. The shades of green folded into
darkness, the end of the tunnel transforming into a black portal of a cavern.
Beckham slowed as he approached a waterfall of sewage spilling over the edge
into the massive room.

He formed a fist with his hand and then pointed to his eyes
and then at the drop off. Jensen and Timbo acknowledged with nods and eased
into a stealthy formation on the left platform.

“Let me bandage you up,” Chow whispered. He squeezed by
Beckham and crouched in front of him. “How you feeling, man?”

 “Dizzy,” Beckham replied. A random star floated across
his vision.

 “You’ve lost some blood,” Chow said. He reached into
his pack and pulled out a small medical box. Then he leaned in and flipped his
NVGs, using what little light the tunnel behind them provided for a better
view.

“Looks deep,” Chow said.

“Feels…” Beckham shook his head. He caught a glimpse of Timbo
walking closer to the ledge.

Chow cut away a piece of Beckham’s shirt and dressed the
wound with antiseptic. The cold gel burned its way into his shoulder, and
Beckham gritted his teeth. He closed his eyes and waited for the agony to pass.
Chow applied a bandage over the injury.

“Should stop the bleeding,” Chow said. “But we need—”

Timbo’s voice flickered over the comm, cutting Chow off.

“Holy… Holy FUCK!”

Beckham’s eyes flipped open. The Ranger was crouched at the
end of the left platform, peering over the side. In a blink of an eye, he
stumbled away and fell on his ass, scrambling backward with his beefy arms.

 “Contacts?” Beckham said, his heart kicking. He pulled
away from Chow and walked slowly to the edge of the tunnel.

Timbo didn’t immediately reply. His gasping breaths crackled
across the comm channel as he scrambled away.

“What the fuck did you see?” Beckham asked.

“I…I…” The shock in Timbo’s voice gave Beckham pause. He’d
never heard the man so terrified.

Beckham inched closer to the ledge with Chow as a shadow.
Together they crouched and looked over the side. A moment passed, a second
frozen in time. The image his eyes relayed to his brain went unprocessed. It
had to be a trick of the light, a mirage. An illusion fired off by his
over-tired brain. Or at least, that’s what he wanted it to be.

But this was no illusion.

This was real.

A half dozen other tunnels dumped into a central chamber,
feeding a pool of sewage below. The walls and ceiling of the massive room were
covered with hundreds of human prisoners, their bodies plastered to the walls
with thick vines of webbing that crisscrossed their flesh like bloated veins.
Some were mutilated beyond recognition. Others were missing limbs.

Variants crawled across the walls, their backs hunched,
clinging to the bricks with talons and the hair-like fibers Kate’s team had
discovered. One of them clawed its way through the sticky film covering an
unconscious man. His eyes shot open when the creature clamped down on his
stomach and ripped into his flesh. He screamed, but his voice was quickly lost
in the roar of the waterfall.

“Let’s go,” Chow whispered.

Beckham swallowed, unable to formulate a response. He backed
away from the ledge only to see a woman attached to the wall on his right. Her
eyes met his and she reached out with a trembling hand.

“Please. Please help me,” she whispered, her lips trembling.

Beckham brought a finger to his mouth, but it was already too
late. Their whispers had attracted the nearest creature. It let out a
high-pitched roar that made Beckham’s heart kick. The clicking of joints and
the scratching of claws followed as the sleeping Variants stirred and searched
the darkness.

“We need to move,” Chow said. “Now, man.”

Footsteps pounded the platforms as the team retreated, but
Beckham hesitated. His eyes shifted from the prisoner to the Variants racing
across the ceiling.

“Please,” the woman cried. “Please don’t leave me.”

Beckham threw a glance over his shoulder. The other men were
halfway down the hall. Only Chow remained.

“Come on,” he said, waving frantically.

“No,” Beckham said. “Help me.” He wasn’t going to leave
someone behind. Not when she was in arm’s reach.

Chow hustled over without further hesitation. “You’re fucking
crazy.”

“Hold my belt,” Beckham said. He drew his knife and crouched,
using the blade to cut away the sticky vines across the woman’s feet and legs.
When those were free, he slit through the webbing across her stomach and chest.
Her body sagged forward, but Chow grabbed her before she plummeted into the
water below. He pulled her to safety and she collapsed to the ground in a CBR
suit. Beckham bent down to help her when he saw the deep gashes on her legs
beneath the torn suit.

“You’re going to be okay,” Beckham assured her, hoping it
wasn’t a lie. He caught a glimpse of the pack charging across the ceiling and
walls. They were close now. Seconds away.

“Beckham, Chow, where the hell are you?” Jensen said over the
comm.

“On our way,” Beckham replied. He grabbed the two grenades
off Chow’s vest and considered what he was about to do. The decision only took
a split second. If he couldn’t save the mutilated captives, he was going to
make sure they didn’t suffer any longer.

“Get her out of here,” Beckham said. “I’m right behind you.”

Chow looked at him and nodded. The woman moaned in agony as
he bent down and scooped her up.

Beckham cradled the grenades in one arm and fired off a
flurry of well-aimed shots with the .45 to buy him a few seconds. When the
Variants scattered, he jammed the pistol into his belt and plucked the pin off
one of the grenades with his teeth. He launched it into the air with his good
arm and watched it stick to the webbing of a prisoner. Then he pulled the pin
off the second grenade and tossed it over his shoulder as he ran, like so many
times before, away from the monsters.  

Steam surrounded Dr. Kate Lovato in
the shower stall.

“It’s hot,” Jenny whimpered in the adjacent stall.

“Do you girls need help?” Kate asked.

“No,” Tasha, Jenny’s protective older sister, said. “We’re
okay.”

Kate took in a breath and stepped under the showerhead.
Bringing a hand to her face, she wiped away the sticky blood caked on her skin.
For a moment the water turned scarlet at her feet as it swirled around the
shower drain.

The horror of the past three weeks surfaced under the warm
flow of water. Everything she’d lost. Every
one
she’d lost. It all came
crashing down. Guilt ate at her as she stood there, numb—yet deep down, also
relieved. She was still breathing, still alive. And a part of her believed
Beckham was still alive, too.

Kate had to believe it. Hope was the only thing that would
keep her working. The survivors of Plum Island thought she was a miracle
worker, but Kate knew better, especially now. After an hour of listening to
radio transmissions trickling in from around the world, she knew nothing short
of a real miracle would save the human race.

Her first bioweapon had eradicated all but a small percentage
of those infected with the Hemorrhage virus. Convinced that the surviving
Variants couldn’t be treated, her focus was now on designing another weapon
that would exterminate them all before it was too late. Millions more would
surely die before it was all over. In the end, she could only hope that humans
came out on top.

Kate twisted the faucet off, grabbed a towel and stepped out
of the shower. Tasha and Jenny were already sitting on a bench, wrapped in
towels. She reached for the duffel bag she’d retrieved from her quarters. Kate
pulled out a clean set of clothes for each of them and turned away to slip on
her own clothes.

“We need to hurry,” she said once she was dressed. “Your dad
is on his way back.”

Both girls’ eyes lit up at that. Even after all the horrors
they’d seen, there was still light there. Like Kate, they still had hope.

She grabbed the girls by the hand and led them into the
hallway. The stink of fresh death hung in the air. Crimson stains covered the
carpet where so many of her colleagues had died. Kate froze, remembering her
fellow researcher Cindy’s final moments. They had never liked each other much,
and in the end Cindy had chosen to hide instead of coming with Kate and the
others. The decision had cost the woman her life.

Kate swallowed and continued on, navigating around a pair of
bloody shoes and a small pile of bullet casings.

“Just keep walking,” she said to the girls. “Don’t look down,
okay?”

“Doctor,” said a Medical Corps guard waiting for her at the
end of the hallway. For a moment his youthful features reminded her of Jackson,
the Marine who had saved their lives just a few hours ago—and lost his in the
process.

“Wait up!” said another voice from behind them.

Ellis hurried down the corridor, his jet-black hair slicked
back and glistening under the LEDs. “You weren’t going to leave without me,
were you?”

Kate shook her head. “No, but we need to hurry.”

“Let’s go,” the soldier said. He opened the door with one
hand and raised his rifle with the other, sliding the muzzle into moonlight.
“Stay close,” he ordered.

“I thought the island was cleared,” Kate said, gripping the
girls’ hands a bit tighter.

“It was, ma’am, but Major Smith isn’t taking any chances.”

Silhouetted guards manned a heavy caliber machine gun, and an
industrial spotlight was set up behind a wall of sandbags in the center of the
hexagon-shaped base. The beam swept across the path and then arched over the
horizon, illuminating plumes of smoke rising from the smoldering wreckage of
the Chinook helicopter on the tarmac. Kate stared at the flayed metal carcass
as they walked, wondering exactly how the Variants it had been carrying had
escaped. She’d been against bringing live test subjects to the island, but she
took no pleasure in being proved right.

For weeks Plum Island had been spared from the horrors
surging across the globe. Now the base looked like a warzone. Overhead, two
blinking red dots worked across the darkness, and Kate heard the distant thump
of helicopter blades.

Static broke from the radio on the vest of their soldier
escort. “Echo 2 and 3 incoming. All medical crews report to tarmac,” said a
female operator.

The guard continued on as if he hadn’t heard the transmission
at all, but Kate paused. She crouched in front of the girls and pointed at the
sky.

“You ready to see your dad?” she asked.

“Is Daddy in one of those?” Jenny said, her voice hardly a
whisper.

“Yup, he’s coming home.”

“Is Reed coming home, too?” Tasha asked.

Kate fought the growing dread rising inside of her and said,
“Not yet, honey. Not yet.”

-2-

G
eneral Richard Kennor hustled through an
underground tunnel on his way to Central Command. The sun wouldn’t rise for
hours, but most of his staff was already awake. Judging by their exhausted
looks, some of them hadn’t slept at all. He fell into the same category, and it
showed. His movements were sluggish and his eyes were swollen with fatigue. The
caffeine had worn off hours ago, and he was operating on pure adrenaline. Sleep
during wartime was like the first months of having a child: it came in short
intervals, if at all.

An entourage trailed the four-star general as he continued
down the crowded hallway. The bunker, buried deep beneath Offutt Air Force
Base, was the same location former President George W. Bush had been taken
after the September 11 attacks. Now it was the temporary home of more than two
hundred people from every corner of the nation, ranging from congressmen to
Navy Seals. There was even an anchor from CNN who had managed to sneak in with
a senator’s political staff. When the evacuations began weeks ago, chaos and
pure luck had ensured that these few had lived.

Kennor watched the flow of human traffic as he walked. In
most cases these were important people—people the government had believed
should survive an apocalyptic event. Kennor, however, could have done without
two-thirds of them. He needed military personnel, men and women who knew how to
fight a war. Fortunately, President Mitchell had given him a blank check to
wage the war against the Variants as soon as he had been sworn into office.

He didn’t like the new POTUS, and not just because of his
political affiliation. The former President pro tempore of the Senate was weak.
That was the biggest flaw in a leader, to Kennor’s mind. The chaotic first few
weeks of the outbreak had proven Mitchell’s time in congress hadn’t qualified
him to lead a country, especially during a time of war. His only redeeming
quality was the fact he stayed inside his bunker at Cheyenne Mountain and kept
his mouth shut while Kennor handled the heavy lifting.

“Sir,” came a voice that distracted Kennor from his thoughts.

A pair of guards opened the double doors to the command
center, and Kennor hurried inside. He took the first left into a small
conference room. His personal staff—his three closest confidantes—were already
inside. They rose from their seats around the war table and stood at attention
as he entered. Their grave looks served as a powerful reminder that the human
race was losing the war. Operation Liberty had failed on a massive level.

“At ease,” Kennor said as he took a seat. Most of them had
been with him the better part of a decade fighting the war on terror. To his
left was Colonel Harris, a man with slicked-back white hair and a mustache to
match. Across the table sat Marsha Kramer, a middle-aged lieutenant colonel
with crimson hair and a pair of dimples that rarely got any use. Kennor’s
oldest friend, General George Johnson, was on the right, his bald head shining
under the bank of lights overhead.

His hand shook as he reached for the folder marked
Confidential
.
Breaking the seal, he pulled out a briefing and took a moment to scan his
staff.

“Let’s get started. Harris,” Kennor said.

The colonel stood and stiffened. “In front of you, General,
is the initial report from Operation Liberty. We suffered heavy losses in every
major city. The Variants overran almost every single FOB established. New York
is lost. So is Chicago. Minneapolis. St. Louis. Nashville. Atlanta. It’s a
mess, sir.”

Kennor shook his head. He’d been caught with his pants down.
Thousands of soldiers from every branch of the military were dead because he
had ignored the advice of Lieutenant Colonel Jensen and Dr. Kate Lovato. The
cities he had so desperately wanted to protect were now in ruins because he’d
made the wrong call.

“The good news is that the Air Force pounded the Variants
hard with firebombs. The troops drew them out of their holes, and the flyboys
turned them to ash. Preliminary reports indicate we killed a significant
number.”

“Do we have any idea how many are left?”

“Several recon teams have been deployed, and satellite
imagery is being monitored as we speak,” Harris said.

“I want numbers,” Kennor snapped. “
Solid
numbers.”

“Yes, sir,” Harris said and made a note on his pad.

“How about survivors? Do we know how many people are left out
there?” Kramer asked.

Harris’s slight hesitation was all Kennor needed to know it
wasn’t good.

“I’m afraid we don’t have solid numbers there either,” Harris
said.

“Then give me some soft numbers,” Kennor replied. 

Harris raised a brow and in a matter-of-fact tone said,
“Extinction, sir. We’re looking at the near annihilation of the human race if
we don’t stop the Variants in the next month.”

“You mean to tell me the Variants have killed the majority of
the world’s population in less than a month?” Kennor said.

“That’s precisely what he’s saying,” Kramer said. “With all
due respect, sir, those things aren’t mindless zombies. We have underestimated
them every step of the way. If we are going to win this war, we need to change
our tactics.”

Kennor shook his head. “NYC proves these things can be
killed. Draw them out and bomb them to kingdom come.”

“Draw them out with what, sir? More Marines?” Kramer said.
There was anger in her challenge. Under normal circumstances, he’d have called
her out for insubordination, but things had changed.

As the Pit Bull of the American Military—a nickname he’d
always hated—he had overseen countless missions during the war on terror. The
Variants had proved much harder to kill. Now the jihadists were fighting the
same enemy he was, and the irony was hard to swallow. The world had changed
practically overnight. And like so many times before, circumstance had turned
enemies into allies.

A moment of tension lingered and then passed. Kennor wasn’t
ready to admit defeat or retreat, but he was toeing a fine line. The
frustration of his staff went beyond fatigue. They were all losing their
confidence in his ability to lead. He’d seen other commanders fall victim to
the same thing, but he was not going to be one of them. He’d made mistakes, but
it wasn’t too late to turn this war around.

Kennor looked to an uncharacteristically quiet Johnson. The
man had always been a voice of reason. He needed that voice now more than ever.

“What do you think, General?” Kennor asked.

Johnson exchanged a glance with Kramer and Harris. After a
pause he said, “I think we need to carefully consider our next moves. With so
much hanging in the balance, we can’t afford another Operation Liberty.”

Johnson cleared his throat as if he wanted to say more.
Kennor scrutinized him, knowing Johnson wasn’t finished. He could see the
wheels turning in the general’s head by his mannerisms. First he crossed his
thick arms across his chest, then he twisted his mustache to one side, and
finally he tightened his jaw. Kennor wasn’t prepared for what came next.

“It’s time to retreat,” Johnson said sternly. “We need to
pull our troops out of the cities completely. Leave only a few recon teams
behind.”

“I agree,” Kramer added. “It’s time to give science another
chance. Perhaps we need to give Dr. Lovato and her team another opportunity to
destroy the Variants.”

Kennor massaged his wrinkled forehead. “Retreat,” he
muttered. “I never thought I would hear anyone on my team say that word.”

“Sir, our military isn’t just fractured. It’s been
shattered,” Harris said. “We’re strained in every area. I’m not sure—”

A rap on the door interrupted him. The door swung open and a
young corporal named Van strode into the room. A bead of sweat trickled from
his receding hairline.

“General Kennor, sir. We just received some urgent news,” he
said. Van hesitated, looking at the general’s staff.

“Go ahead, son,” Kennor said.

“Raven Rock Mountain Complex.” The corporal paused for a
blink and then said, “It’s… it’s been overrun.”

Kennor shifted in his chair to give Van a better look. “What
do you mean, overrun? That’s one of the most secure locations in the country.
Hell, it’s the alternate joint command and backup for the Pentagon. There are a
couple hundred people hunkered down there, including the UN ambassador and the
Secretary of State.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” Van said. “The Variants found a way into
the tunnel system and overwhelmed the forces there.”

“My God,” Kramer gasped.

Silence crowded the small briefing room. The loss of Raven
Rock was more than another nail in the coffin; it proved that no location on
the planet was safe. Kennor scanned his team. Fatigued and strained, they wore
identical looks of defeat.

“Van, I want you to arrange a search and rescue mission. If
anyone is alive in there, get them the hell out.”

Van nodded. “Yes, sir.”

Kennor stood, pushed his chair under the table, and looked to
Harris. He suddenly felt as weak as President Mitchell, but at least Kennor
wasn’t as stupid. His staff had convinced him there was only one option left on
the table, and the fall of Raven Rock proved they were right.

 “I want a coordinated tactical withdrawal,” Kennor
said.

“Are you telling us to retreat?” Harris asked.

Kennor paused, the words burning in his throat. “Yes. Order a
full retreat from every city,” he said. “Get our men and women out of there and
bring them home.”

With nothing else to say, he turned away from his staff and
hurried out of the room. In a sudden fit of rage he slammed the door behind him
as he retreated for the first time in his career.

Beckham had just enough time to dart
around the next corner before the second grenade went off. The deafening
explosion rattled the tunnel, and fragments of rock sprinkled from the ceiling.
He closed his eyes and ran through the storm of debris, saying a mental prayer
for the innocent lives that had been lost in the lair. In his heart he knew
he’d done the right thing. No one should have to suffer like that.

At least they had saved someone. In a time where every life
counted, he considered it a victory. Chow carried the woman around the next corner
and disappeared from sight. Beckham halted and turned to check the entrance to
the tomb. A thick cloud of smoke lingered where the grenade had gone off.
Chunks of stone filled the tunnel. He raised his .45 and waited for the smoke
to clear.

Beyond the perpetual ringing, he heard a howl. As the haze
dissipated, he saw the source—a single clawed hand protruded from the pile. It
curled and went limp after a final twitch. 

Beckham waited another second, just to make sure, and then
ran. His team was waiting at a T-intersection. Timbo was bent over, his hands
on his knees, panting heavily. Jinx stood guard in the middle of the corridor.
He moved his Beretta M9 in a slow sweep as he searched the other tunnels for
hostiles.

“Valdez, you hold security with Jinx,” Beckham said. “The
rest of you, take five.” He crouched next to Chow, who was busy dressing the
injuries on the woman’s legs.

“How is she?” Beckham asked.

“Weak. But she’ll live.”

He applied another bandage and looked up. “What are we doing,
man? We can’t just run around down here forever.”

Before Beckham could respond, the woman let out a long moan.

“It’s okay,” Chow said. “You’re going to be all right.”

She blinked, trying to focus on Chow and then Beckham.

“Where am…” she began to say when her eyes widened with
realization. She scrambled away from the two operators, dragging her legs
across the platform until her back hit the wall.

“Don’t be scared,” Chow said. “We’re here to help.”

 “What’s your name?” Beckham asked.

The woman reached for the curtain of hair covering her filthy
face and pulled it to the side.

“Meg,” she whispered.

“I’m Master Sergeant Beckham, and this is Staff Sergeant
Chow. We’re Delta Force, and our team is going to get you out of here.”

She glanced over at the other men. “How many are you?”

“Seven,” Beckham replied.

Meg let out a sad laugh. “You can’t save me. We’ll never make
it out of the city.”

Beckham exchanged a glance with Chow. Both of them knew she
was probably right, but they were soldiers and admitting defeat wasn’t in their
nature. Surrendering was death. They had to keep fighting.

“We need to get back up top,” Beckham said as Jensen
approached. “If we can find that Marine convoy we passed on West Fiftieth and
Seventh Avenue, we can load up on ammo and pile into one of the Humvees.”

Jensen nodded. “I was thinking the same thing, but I have no
idea where the hell we are. Could be blocks away or could be miles.”

“Any plan is better than running around in this maze,” Chow
said.