Extinction Age (5 page)

“Hold on,” Valdez shouted. He took a left at Twelfth Avenue,
turning so hard the Humvee almost tipped on its side. The change in direction
gave Beckham a close up view of the Hudson River, its banks littered with the
dead, and the distorted shapes of Variants coming to join the chase.

The crimson glow of the sunrise flickered over the water and
flooded the city streets. The radiant light wasn’t stopping the Variants this
time. They were too focused on food.

Beckham narrowed his eyes on a single sailboat drifting
toward the shore. It disappeared behind the clogged vehicles on the opposite
side of the street, and Beckham shifted his gaze toward the sky, searching for
Echo 3.

“I’m out!” Timbo yelled. “Someone give me a rifle.” He
reached down and Ryan handed back one of the extra M16s he’d picked up.

“There has to be thousands of them!” Timbo yelled as he
pulled himself back into the turret. The crack from his rifle came a beat
later.

Beckham continued to scan the sky. There, through the
gleaming sunlight, he made the shape of a chopper. He imagined what the scene
would look like from above: a single vehicle moving at a breakneck speed
through the ashes of a burned-out city with an army of enraged monsters chasing
them. It was like something out of the movies.

He gripped one of Jinx’s limp hands, wishing desperately that
he could fire on the Variants that had killed his brother. Sitting there and
doing nothing felt like a betrayal.

The truck swerved to the left before taking a hard right.
When he looked up, they were on the pier. Both Bradleys and the other Humvees
were there, abandoned where 1
^st
Platoon had left them. Echo 3
hovered over the end of the platform. Valdez navigated around the vehicles and
raced toward the chopper.  

The high-pitched roar of the M240 machine gun sounded as soon
as their Humvee was clear. The door gunner unloaded a barrage of 7.62 mm rounds
that whizzed overhead. Beckham twisted and watched the projectiles pound the
concrete and slam into flesh. A geyser of limbs, rock, and bone exploded into
the air.

Beckham felt a moment of relief that quickly turned into
panic as he looked back to the windshield. They were heading full-speed toward
a concrete barrier. Valdez slammed the brakes, and the truck ground to a halt
just inches from the blocks. Beckham jolted forward, Jinx’s body nearly rolling
off of his lap.

“Everybody out!” Valdez shouted.

“Chow, Timbo. You carry Jinx. I’ll get Meg,” Beckham said as
he opened the door. “Valdez, Ryan, Jensen, you lay down covering fire.”

He staggered out onto the dock. The Variant horde streamed
down Twelfth in both directions. They were changing their tactics again. With
thousands joining the chase, the individual Variants seemed to know that the
chances of getting hit by a bullet were slim.

The army surged forward.

Beckham forced himself to look away. He bolted around the
side of the vehicle to help Meg out, nearly crashing into Valdez and Ryan. The
two men took knees and laid down covering fire. Jensen was already shooting
from the other side of the truck.

“Get out of here,” Valdez grumbled.

“Help me,” Chow said. He struggled to drag Jinx’s body to the
edge of the seat, and Timbo helped pull him from the vehicle.

“Beckham, you and Chow get Meg,” Timbo said, jerking his head
toward the woman. “I’ll carry Jinx.”

Beckham leaned down, and with Chow’s help they hoisted Meg to
her feet. She glanced up at Beckham, still clutching the blade he’d given her.

“We’re really leaving?” Meg said like she didn’t believe it.

“Yeah,” Chow said. “Come on, we have to move.”

They squeezed through the gap in the barriers and hustled
toward Echo 3. Meg muttered a response Beckham couldn’t make out. He tightened
his grip on her and focused on the bulky outline of the soldier behind the
M240. The man raked the weapon back and forth, battling for every inch of the
pier.

Whipping wind from the rotors hit them then, and Beckham
squinted to see Rodriguez and Peters jump from the chopper.

“Get inside!” Rodriguez yelled as he raced past.

The ground trembled from the hammering of thousands of feet.
The ethereal screeches from all those gaping mouths reverberated through the
city. Reality seemed distant, the fog of war setting in around Beckham’s
consciousness.

Meg went limp in his arms when they were one hundred feet
from the Blackhawk. The knife slipped from her hand, hitting the concrete with
a faint clank. Beckham put everything he had left into hoisting her up, his
injured shoulder blazing. Working with Chow, they carried her toward the bird.
Timbo beat them there. He placed Jinx inside and then grabbed Meg with his
massive hands.  

Beckham’s eyes flicked to the door gunner. He saw then it was
Horn, his features raw with pain in the flash of gunfire. It was the look that
only seeing a fallen brother could produce.

The whine of high caliber rounds intensified as Horn
channeled his rage into the assault. Beckham turned back to the battle and
cupped his hands over his mouth.

“Fall back!” he shouted. Despite Horn’s efforts, the pier was
already being overrun. Hundreds of Variants flowed onto the dock. Some spilled
over the side to avoid the gunfire, splashing into the Hudson River. Others
climbed onto the vehicles and lunged over the spray of bullets.

Waves ten thousand strong crashed down Twelfth Avenue,
fighting, clawing, and biting their way to the pier, hungry mouths starving for
human flesh. The army stretched across Beckham’s entire field of vision.

“Beckham, gun!” Chow shouted. He grabbed an M-16 from the
chopper and tossed it. Valdez and Ryan were already retreating by the time
Beckham loaded and shouldered the rifle. Peters and Rodriguez had taken up
position halfway between the bird and the concrete barriers. Jensen,
unyielding, was still firing from the side of the truck.  

“Fall back!” Beckham shouted. “FALL THE FUCK BACK!” His voice
cracked, the countless screams finally taking their toll.

Chow and Beckham joined Peters and Rodriguez. There was no
need to aim when they got there. Everywhere Beckham lined up the iron sights,
he found a target.

Jensen backpedaled with his rifle shouldered, squeezing off
burst after burst. Tracer rounds from the M240 whistled overhead, thumping into
the wall of Variants that had reached the abandoned Humvee. The rounds cut
through the creatures and peppered the vehicle with holes, punching through
metal. Air hissed out of the shredded tires.

“Move your asses!” Beckham screamed.

“Let’s move!” Chow shouted. He pulled Beckham away. “Come
on!”

A flash of motion behind the chopper stopped Beckham’s heart
mid-beat. The Variants that had jumped into the water had flanked the team.

“Behind you!” Beckham shouted.

A half dozen of the creatures pulled themselves onto the
dock, water dripping off their veiny, muscular flesh. The pilot lifted off just
as two of the Variants launched into the air. One of them crashed back to the
ground, but the other grabbed the landing skids. The chopper jerked to the
right, the creature swinging with it.

Jensen finally caught up and crouched next to Chow while
Beckham aimed for the Variant’s long arms. He held in a breath and squeezed off
four shots that cut through its wrists, leaving its hands still attached to the
skid while the rest of its body fell into the water.

The chopper rotated in a circle, giving Horn a clear shot at
the remaining Variants. He opened up again, his gunfire marked out a perimeter
around Beckham and the other men, the large-caliber bullets kicking concrete
into the air. The rounds punched through flesh and shattered bones, splattering
the dock with pink chunks of gore.

“Let’s go!” Horn yelled, waving them forward with one hand.

The chopper lowered again, and the three men piled inside
next to Timbo, who had been firing from the doorway next to Horn. Rodriguez and
Peters jumped in a moment later, but Ryan and Valdez were still retreating.

“Out of the way!” Beckham shouted. He pointed his rifle out
the door as soon as the men were clear and squeezed off covering fire for Ryan
and Valdez.

They were only fifty feet away from the chopper. So close it
seemed like Beckham could reach out and touch them. Five seconds. Maybe ten.
That’s all they needed. To most people, the fraction of time would go
unnoticed, but for Valdez and Ryan, this was a matter of life and death. Both
of them had abandoned firing and ran like madmen, their arms pumping and their
helmets bobbing up and down.

Beckham pulled a dry magazine from his M16 and reached to
Chow for another when he saw the Variants jumping from the water along the side
of the pier. They climbed onto the dock, lean muscles glistening from the
Hudson. The pilot saw them too, and he pulled up before Beckham could react,
knocking him against a wall.

“NO!” Beckham shouted. He watched helplessly as Ryan crashed
to the dock in a blur of motion, the monsters tackling him from two directions.
Beckham glimpsed the terror in his eyes and the bloody mist exploding from
arteries as they tore him apart. And then he was gone.

Beckham sucked in a long, stunned breath. He scrambled back
to the edge of the open chopper door. Horn was firing madly in an effort to
save Valdez, but it was too late. The rounds shredded the first wave, but
another pack that had emerged from the river circled the Marine. He spun with
his rifle blazing, dropping several of the monsters. The others reached out
with talons as long as knives. They cut into him, tearing gashing wounds across
his body. He spun as they slashed him, his eyes falling on the chopper, a
defiant look still on his face. The man was as tough as a bag of bricks. It
took five of them to finally bring him down.

Beckham forced himself to watch. Valdez had given his life
for his men. He’d fought valiantly to the end so that his brothers would live.
Looking away would dishonor him.

Halfway down the pier, the main mass of Variants surged over
the concrete barricades. Thousands of talons reached toward the sky. The creatures
climbed over one another in an effort to reach the feeding. What was left of
Ryan and Valdez was quickly consumed, buried in the heart of the diseased
flesh.

The pilots maneuvered over the river and pulled away from the
city. Beckham said a prayer, scanned the ruined New York skyline one more time,
and collapsed next to Jinx’s limp body. The nightmare that was Operation
Liberty was finally over. A handful of heroes were dead and New York was lost,
but he had a feeling the war had only just begun.

-5-

T
he monsters were gone, but signs of the nightmare
they had unleashed on Plum Island were everywhere. Blood stains from the
Marines who had tried to hold the Variants back crisscrossed the concrete.
Bullet casings littered the ground. A single helmet remained on the tarmac.

Kate stood at the front of a group of civilians, waiting
again for Team Ghost to return. A brilliant sun cast rays of morning light on
the skeleton of the Chinook a hundred yards away. It sat there like a brooding
beast, the darkened metal still steaming. Above it, the shape of a single
Blackhawk sparkled in the sunlight. Kate squeezed Jenny and Tasha’s hands as
they watched the helicopter approach.

“Clear a path!” someone shouted. Four medics in Medical Corps
uniforms pushed through the group. They broke off into pairs and hurried across
the tarmac carrying stretchers.

“What are they doing?” Tasha asked.

“They’re going to help the soldiers,” Kate replied.

“Is daddy hurt?” Jenny asked.

“No, honey.”

Tasha looked up with glossy eyes. “Is Reed?”

“He’s going to be just fine.”

Riley wheeled his chair to the front of the group and took
off after the medics. Fitz followed close behind, ignoring the orders from a
Medical Corps guard posted at the edge of the tarmac. Kate was still amazed at
how fast the young Marine sharpshooter could run on his prosthetic blades.

Kate watched anxiously as the chopper set down and disgorged
over a half dozen men. The medics rushed forward in a low run beneath the
blades. They pulled two people from the craft a moment later, a soldier and a
woman in a CBR suit. Team Ghost huddled around and helped the medics place the
injured onto the stretchers.

She scanned the group, counting the survivors. Relief came
flooding over her when the familiar faces came into view. Timbo, Peters, and
Rodriguez were the first. Next came Chow and Jensen. Horn and Beckham were at
the back of the group, jogging alongside the medics. A pale, limp hand hung
from the stretcher on the right. There was no question then that another life
had been lost.  

The woman on the other stretcher reached up slowly, and
Beckham grabbed her hand. Kate’s heart lurched at the compassionate gesture.
After everything he’d been through, the fact that the hardened soldier could
still be so gentle and kind was the thing she admired most about him.

Ellis stepped up beside Kate. She hadn’t heard him approach.
He scooped down to pick up Jenny and then held her so she could see the
approaching team.

“They found another survivor out there?” he asked.

“I…I don’t know,” Kate replied. “I overheard 1st Platoon had
a couple of survivors, but they were taken to one of the destroyers off the
coast.”

“Maybe Beckham’s team found someone else,” Ellis said.

“I guess so,” Kate said. She stepped back as the Medical
Corps soldier in front yelled, “Make room!”

Jensen was the first to reach the end of the tarmac. He
stopped to stare at the downed Chinook.

“He doesn’t know,” Kate whispered more to herself than
anyone.

The commander took off his helmet and ran a hand over his
head. Kate could only imagine what he was feeling. He’d returned from war to a
home that had been ravaged by the monsters.

Major Smith pushed through the crowd and met Jensen and the
others on the tarmac. Riley and Fitz were already there. The kid swiveled his
wheelchair to watch the medics continue past, his blue eyes locked on the
stretcher. He wheeled after it and then stopped, his hands falling to the sides
of his chair.

Kate’s heart shattered at the sight. She saw Jinx’s face
then—and the gaping wound that stretched across his neck. He was gone a moment
later, the medics rushing him and the woman away.

When she turned back to the tarmac, Beckham was staring right
at her. He stopped a few feet away, and she took him in with a quick scan.
Every inch of his uniform was covered in blood and grime. She could smell the
stench of raw sewage on him from where he stood.  

Kate didn’t care. Horn ran to his girls, and she ran to
Beckham. He wrapped his arms around her and squeezed her so hard she could
hardly breathe. When he finally let up, she tilted her head and searched his
eyes. They were still strong and confident, even now, after so much had been
lost.

“Are you okay?” they asked each other at the same time.

They shared a sad, companionable chuckle that lasted only a
fraction of a second. He pulled her in tight again and said, “What happened
here?”

“Horn didn’t tell you?”

Beckham looked toward the medics and said, “There wasn’t much
talking on the ride back.”

Kate wasn’t surprised. The last thing the men had needed to
hear when they were in New York was that their home was under fire.

“That Chinook,” Kate said, pointing. “It was carrying a load
of Variants for medical research. Eighteen of them. One of them got out. It
killed the crew and the chopper crashed. The creatures escaped…and murdered
over a third of the island’s population.”

“Christ,” Beckham said. “Riley, Fitz, you, and the
girls…you’re all okay?”

“We’re okay,” Kate said. “We have Fitz to thank for that. If
it weren’t for him, we wouldn’t be talking right now. None of us would be.”

Beckham’s features softened, his jawline relaxing. “Thank God
for that.” When he turned to the Chinook, all trace of emotion disappeared from
his features. He hardened back into an operator right in front of her eyes.

“How bad is it out there?” Kate asked in a voice shy of a
whisper.

Beckham bowed his head. “It’s gone, Kate.”

“What’s gone?”

He caught her gaze and said, “The whole damn world.”

Jensen walked into a quiet command
center wondering if he should have stayed behind instead of going to the front
with Team Ghost and 1st Platoon. There had to have been something he could have
done to prevent the massacre on Plum Island. Maybe if he had sat Operation
Liberty out, the Variants would never have escaped the Chinook. Maybe he would
have ordered the bird shot down before it made land.

No
,
you can’t think like that.

The domino effect of decisions could drive a man mad. If he
had stayed behind at Plum Island, then he’d be kicking himself over Jinx, Ryan,
Valdez, and the countless Marines who had died.

Regret was a part of war. Every single decision stayed with a
soldier for the rest of his life. There were no take-backs, no time machines.
You had to believe that everything went down the way it was supposed to, or
else you’d go crazy.

Jensen strolled over to the observation window. All of this
could have been avoided—the virus, the war. He couldn’t wrap his mind around
the numbers. Even if he tried, he couldn’t picture what a billion people looked
like, let alone six.

Major Smith walked into the room and looked Jensen up and
down twice. “Shit, sir. You look like you’ve been through the grinder.”

The major eased the door shut and stood there, twisting his
wedding ring around his finger. His eyes were ripe with exhaustion. Despite
that, he looked relatively alert.

“Talk to me. How bad is it?”

Smith stiffened and said, “Bad, sir. We lost sixty-five
people—eleven scientists, thirty-four soldiers, and twenty civilians.”

Jensen shook his head. “I thought we were safe here,” he said
grimly.

“And Colonel Gibson is dead,” Smith added.

Jensen clenched a fist. “How’d he die?”

“A Variant, sir. It breached the secure medical wing where
Gibson was being held. I was told there wasn’t much left when it got done with
him.”

“A fitting end,” Jensen replied in a dark voice that sounded
like it could have been from a stranger. He felt no trace of compassion for the
colonel. Dying of a heart attack would have been the easy way out, but Gibson
didn’t deserve the easy way. His fate seemed beyond fitting. It felt like some
sort of retribution.

 “Base is on lockdown, sir,” Smith said. “Guard posts
are set up at multiple locations. The towers are all manned, and I’ve
re-positioned the remaining guards to patrol the fences. Even if those things
can swim, they won’t make it past the beach.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Jensen said. An image of
Gibson’s mutilated body was replaced with those of the Variants back in the
Hudson. He could still see them swimming alongside the pier to flank Echo 3.
The last thing he was going to do now was underestimate the creatures.

“I want every available man on security detail,” he said.
“I’ll give the strike teams a few hours of bunk time to recover from Operation
Liberty. At 1500, I want them back on patrol.”

“Understood, sir. We have a call with Central at 0900.
General Kennor has requested to speak with Dr. Lovato.”

Jensen checked his watch, raising a sleeve smeared with a
combination of shit and blood. The stink assaulted his nostrils. He needed a
hot bath full of bleach.

“That gives us about five minutes,” Jensen said. “Where is
she?” He looked around the empty room. “Where the hell is everyone?”

“Dr. Lovato’s not coming, sir.”

 “What do you mean she isn’t coming?”

“She refuses to speak to the general. Said she has nothing to
say to him and that he won’t listen anyway.”

The words hung in the air for an uncomfortable second. Jensen
dug in his pocket for the tobacco he’d picked up from a Marine in New York. He
tucked a chunk into his mouth as he spoke, his words coming out muffled.
“Where’s Hickman and Benzing?”

Smith hesitated and shook his head.

Jensen swallowed hard. The juices burned his throat as they
trickled to his guts. “God damn son of a…”

“I’m sorry, sir,” Smith said, his features tight and his eyes
glassy. If Jensen didn’t know better, he would have thought the man was holding
back tears. He wasn’t used to seeing the major show any emotion.

“They were good soldiers,” Jensen said. “Loyal soldiers.”

Smith nodded and glanced at the radio equipment along the
wall.

Jensen decided against asking him how they died. All that
mattered now was moving forward. He would hold a proper service for those they
had lost, but for now he needed to work on salvaging what he could.

“Smith,” Jensen said sternly. “You need to get it together.
Lots of people are counting on us.”

“Yes, sir,” Smith replied and straightened his posture. “I
have a fill-in for now, but she’s not an experienced radio operator.”

“I’ll take whomever I can get. We need the intel now more
than ever,” Jensen said. He paused in an effort to manage his thoughts.
“Anything I should know before our call with General Kennor?”

Smith sat down at the war table and turned on the computer.
His hand shook as he moused over to the video feed.

“Smith, what aren’t you telling me?”

The major looked up. “I was going to let the general tell
you, sir.”

Jensen crossed his arms and waited.

Smith drew in a deep breath and let it out in a huff.
“General Kennor has issued a full retreat. We’ve lost the cities, sir. The
military is pulling back.”

The door creaked open, distracting Jensen from his sour
stomach. A woman with shoulder length gray hair and eyes as sharp as an eagles
stood in the doorway. She threw up a tight salute and said, “Corporal Hook,
reporting for duty, sir.”

Jensen returned the salute half-heartedly. Pointing at the
radio equipment, he said, “Put together a SITREP based on whatever you’re
hearing over the net. I want a report by 1600.”

“Yes, sir,” Hook said. She hurried over to the wall of
monitors, grabbed a headset, and took a seat without asking questions or making
small talk. He liked her already.

“Connecting to the call with Central,” Smith said from the
table.

Jensen tossed a wad of chew into the trash and took a seat
next to the major. “Anything else I should know?”

“We’re running low on supplies—both ammo and food,” Smith
said, shaking his head. “Just when you think shit can’t get worse.”

Jensen frowned. “Things can always get worse, Smith. At least
we’re still breathing. Supplies can be restocked…Humans can’t.”

 “Yes, sir. I’ll put in a request at the end of the
call.”

The computer beeped at them and a live feed of the ops room
at Central Command emerged on the screen. Insignias of the Army, Navy, Air
Force, and Marines were centered on the concrete wall of the command bunker. A
mahogany table with maps and papers draped across it sat empty.

Jensen heard a door open and shut. A man with white hair
strolled in and tossed a folder on the table. He took a seat and stared into
the camera with eyes accentuated by bags that looked a lot like bruises. At
first, Jensen could hardly believe it was Kennor. If it weren’t for his
wrinkled face, he would have thought the man sitting in front of them was a
boxer who had just taken multiple punches to the face. Jensen wished he could
add a bruise for not listening to Kate in the first place.