Read The Sixth Extinction (Book 4): The Ark Online

Authors: Glen Johnson

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The Sixth Extinction (Book 4): The Ark (2 page)

BOOK: The Sixth Extinction (Book 4): The Ark
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1

 

Noah, Red, Betty, Lennie, and the Squad

Dartmoor National Park

In the Husky Looking Down Over Princetown

Friday 5th January 2013

2:41 PM GMT

 

 


T
his can’t be happening,” Bull said as he slammed his palm against the steering wheel.

It’s right there. Safety and a cushy babysitting mission for the next twenty
years. Right on the other side of those walls,
Bull thought.
Sod’s-fucking-law!

The Captain just sat staring out through the windscreen at all the naked bodies running full pelt towards the large circular walls of the prison.
Unlike Bull, who was selfishly worried about his comfortable future, the Captain was more concerned with the questions:
What made them all come here? Is there a hive mind at work?

Coco could not believe his eyes. He stood in the back with Echo, looking down over the countryside, with the wide-open landscape marred by the running creatures.

We are so close. It is right there!
He reasoned.

Why didn’t I get on the
chopper;
Echo mused?
Oh well, it is not going to be as boring as I first thought.
She scanned the hills around the prison. The naked creatures were converging from every direction; like metal shavings drawn to a powerful magnet.

Noah tried to peer between the seats, but Red was asleep on his shoulder, recovering from a concussion.
He could see why they had stopped. However, he was wondering why there was a problem. Yes, there were thousands heading towards the prison, but it is built like a medieval fort, there was no way they would get in unless they were let in. If he was driving, he would put his foot down and drive through the lot of them.

Betty was aching all over. It felt like the blood in her veins had turned to acid. The pai
n was making her grit her teeth. She had to stop herself from screaming out. She was blinking so hard and fast, that her eyes were raw and bleeding.

Not long now,
she thought.
Just get us to the prison, and get Lennie inside, even if it means leaving me by the roadside.
Betty knew she was becoming delusional from the spores, because she could hear voices in her head. She pulled the blanket tighter around herself, and stifled a whimper.

The
Captain formulated a plan.

The m
ain prison entrance was an arch into a courtyard, with building’s housing the guardhouse and delivery point. The main gateway was double walled, and you had to drive through a squat building, leading into the prison, then out onto the main road that led straight into the main hub building that all the others fanned off from, like spokes from a wheel. The core hub building was where the main lift for large loads was situated for transporting materials down into The Ark.

“Head around to the far side. Get us to the museum,” the Captain
said.

Dartmoor prison is the only prison in the country with its own museum. Rooms full of documents, manacles, weapons,
memorabilia, clothing and uniforms, and information about famous prisoners, as well as photos and paintings of the prison going back to the year it was built, in 1806, to house the prisoners of the Napoleonic War and the thirty-two month war of 1812, between America and the British Empire.

“There is an old
tunnel from the prison’s rectory to a hidden entrance in the museum. Apparently, the prison’s chaplain was not a hundred percent convinced his congregation were fully repentant, and required an escape route just in case.

“We will use the tunnel to get us to the rectory
, and then we will be right next to the hub building,” the Captain stated.

A series of gun
shots announced a couple of creatures had ventured too close to the truck, and Echo or Coco had taken them down.

To Echo the infected seemed different, they were not so interested in feeding as reaching the prison. She only shot the three running by, in case their hunger kicked
in, and they swung around to attack. She realized it was a waste of ammo, because one of the creatures was not killed instantly, her shot hit the middle-aged woman in the neck, but rather than turning and attacking, she was still trying to crawl in the direction of the prison, smearing a long pool of blood along the road in her wake.

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Echo said
over the microphone on her mask.

No one answered, but they all knew what she meant.

Bull wedged the gear in place and pulled away from the grass embankment. He circled out wide to run over the crawling creature; there was no need for her to suffer, she had been someone’s daughter, wife, and sister once. He showed a little mercy as he drove the truck over her disfigured head.

Noah grimaced in the back, as the head audibly popped like a watermelon.

Betty gave a groan from under the blanket.

Noah presumed it was because she was sickened by the sound of the head po
pping. He did not realize it was because she was slowly changing into something they were all running from.

 

2

 

Doctor Lazaro and Doctor Hall

Dartmoor National Park

Princetown

Below Dartmoor Prison in The Ark

2:
46 PM GMT

 

 

M
elanie stood her ground, unmoving. Her hands were clenched at her sides.

“We have to get
back to the surface, so they can start to prepare the Adam and Eve finalists, and get them safely below ground,” Doctor Hall stated. He could not understand why Doctor Lazaro was not running for the exit.


You’re going to kill everyone you don’t deem fit to live down here?” Disbelief poured from her voice as it raised a few octaves. Her head slowly shook from side to side.

“There is only so much room.” He flapped his arms, as if in an exasperated manner. “You would have us take up precious room, on, on,” he stumbled
on his words, trying to describe his disdain for such a thought, “on, those unworthy?”

The technicians were no longer
around; they had run to the lifts as fast as they could.

“Unworthy!” She took a few steps closer to the skinny doctor. “You w
ill fill The Ark with perfection; with only those genetically, emotionally, and highly educated?” She took another step closer.

“Of course! Why would we make space for those who never applied themselves to a specific field of research – to the uneducated?”

“Because everything needs balance. You are filling this bunker up with mindless drones; people who will jump at your every order. There is no individuality. You have bred and beaten their humanity out of them.” Her arms flew up into the air.

“I sat with a helicopter full of these people – our so-called salvation. I felt no emotion
s emanating from them, nothing. They are simply produced for breeding – just mindless cattle. We cannot rebuild a world with people like that!” Her arms dropped back to her sides.

“Why aren’t you in the lift, Doctor Hall?” a voice boomed.

Melanie swung around. There was a large wall of monitors against the far side of the room. A man’s face filled them all.

“General Philips, we were just leaving, sir.” Doctor Hall seemed to shrink in size, as i
f the stare of the general sucked the life from him.

“Doctor Lazaro.” The head nodded in her direction, as if giving a courteous bow.

“Once you are topside bring Doctor Lazaro to the main control room.” The head turned, as if the connection was about to fadeout. However, as an afterthought, the head turned back and said, “Better hurry Doctor Hall, you don’t want to be trapped down there when the door seals shut.” The image started to fade, leaving a glimpse of a smile on the Generals lips. It then flicked off, leaving a bank of monitors showing only static for a second before turning off.

“What does he mean; you don’t want to be trapped?”

Doctor Hall held up his hand, displaying his nicotine covered fingers.

“Because of my
thirty-year habit; which I just can’t seem to quit.” His face showed regret for a few seconds. “As well as a few other things.” His hand rubbed down his face, in a show of quiet defeat. “I have been deemed unworthy of a place in The Ark.”

 

3

 

Noah, Red, Betty, Lennie, and the Squad

Dartmoor National Park

Princetown

Main Street

2:47 PM GMT

 

 

T
he town looked like a disaster site.

They drove
through the town along Two Bridges Road; a road hedged in by rows of housing, with small front gardens. There were smashed windows, with curtains blowing in the January breeze. Wet paper littered the streets and gardens, along with rubbish, abandoned vehicles, and dropped luggage.

The road gave way to a few cafes,
a handful of pubs, and a souvenir shop. Clapboard signs lay blown across into the road.

Bull slowly drove along passed the Railway Inn on the left, and then took a right at the Jubilee Memorial, and a huge
cream building that looked like a stately mansion, with its towering columns and balcony with two large wings, which is, in fact, the Princetown Visitors Centre, right next to the famous Plume of Feathers pub.

The left wing of the visitors centre had collapsed due to fire
, and the once cream coloured walls were cracked and covered in soot.

Bodies littered the wide pavement, in different states of decomposition.

Bull navigated around a body of a child and his mother.

Naked creatures were running down the main street, heading towards the prison.

The truck was ignored.

Then it hit
Echo;
none
of them are screaming. They are so quiet. Why?
There was
only the sound of their laboured breathing and the slapping of bare, bleeding feet on the wet tarmac.

Bull drove slowly down the main street, passed the shops with their smashed out windows.
There was a large green to the right, with another memorial.

The creatures ran straight past them, unconcerned with their presence
, as if they were driving along with a crowd of naked marathon runners.

There was a primary school on the right, with a large,
brightly coloured hopscotch snake painted on the ground, surrounded by congealed puddles of blood. There was the Prince of Wales’s pub on the left.

Bull gave it a quick glance. It was his local pub. He, along with a few others from his old unit, used to drink there. They told the locals that they
were stationed at the Merrivale Range, one of the three military training areas located on this side of the moorland. However, none of the locals cared where they came from, so long as they cause no trouble, and poured money into the area.

Princetown was a small community, with a gossip network that would impress the CIA. Rumours of army personnel staying at the prison ha
ve been circulating for decades. However, no one cared what they did up there; it was full of prisoners after all.

The road started to run up hill slightly, and pass a long row of identical houses on the right. Through the gaps in the houses, the prison started to rise up like a
medieval fortress.

Naked creatures climbed over hedgerows and through gardens, and ran along the road. They were clumping together now there
were so many of them close to the prison.

The houses
were becoming spaced out, with more trees and grassland scattered around, as they approached the main entrance to the prison. Then after a short stretch of just trees and long, low stonewalls, the area opened up as the front gate loomed into view.

There was a dark stonewall about fifteen feet high, with
a towering arch leading to the main gate. There was another wall, over twenty feet tall, with the principal gateway under a thirty-foot tower. The gap between the two walls is about thirty feet of flat concrete, kept clear of vehicles and people with concrete bollards and the latest surveillance CCTV cameras.

However, today it
was not clear; it was chockfull of naked creatures, all clawing at the walls and wooden gates; it was a mass of undulating, blood and grime covered, bodies.

 

4

 

Doctor Lazaro
and Doctor Hall

Dartmoor National Park

Princetown

Below
Dartmoor Prison in The Ark

2:51 PM GMT

 

 

M
elanie was shocked. “You have been here, working for over thirty years, and you don’t even get a space in The Ark?”

Doctor Hall seemed more embarrassed than upset. “I made my peace with that decision many years ago.” He looked down at his hands. “It’s not just the smoking habit; I also have
seronegative polyarthritis, an autoimmune disease where my own body’s immune system is attacking my own tissues.” He rolled his skinny shoulders, as if to say,
what can a man do; it is what it is?

“Anyway,” he said, squaring up his shoulders, as if recovering from a moment of weakness, “we best get topside.” He turned to head
for the exit, seemingly uncaring if Melanie decided to follow or not.

The shock of finding out that a man
, who had given the best part of his life for the project that would save his corner of the world’s species, was wearing off. Melanie’s loathing for the people responsible for the project was growing with every passing minute.

With one last look around the large data input room, she started to follow the thin doctor outside.

The view of the underground city still filled her with awe the second time she gazed upon it, from the entrance into the bio building. She noticed for the first time where the light originated. Above, covering the arch of the dome, were millions of triphospor lights, beaming down with the intensity of the sun, enabling the vegetation to grow.

“How is The Ark powered?”

Doctor Hall was just a few steps ahead of her. He turned.

“Nuclear, or course.
The reactor is four hundred feet below us. It has been upgraded numerous times, as technology perfects the process of gaining power via the use of sustained exothermic nuclear processes to generate heat and electricity.”

Melanie noticed that he was not looking at her while he talked; rather, he stared at a
thirty-foot tall weeping willow that was on the edge of the nearest park.

“I planted that tree thirty years ago. I ate my lunch next to it, then under it, everyday since.

He turned
without saying another word, and headed for the lift.

As
Melanie got closer to a different lift from the one they descended by, she noticed two soldiers stood by the open doors.

“We were taking too long, and General Philips is not a patient man,” Doctor Hall mumbled from the corner of his mouth.

The soldiers said nothing as they all climbed into the lift.

Melanie looked out the glass walls as they soared above the manufactured terrain. Buildings perched surrounded by manicured gardens and parks. Lakes glistened from the artificial light. Trees swayed in t
he air-conditioned wind.

Doctor Hall said she would be vetted for a chance to live the next twenty years down here. She wondered
if the feeling that it was all fake would fade with time.

She looked across to the doctor. He seemed to have shrunk in size within the last few minutes, as if the knowledge that he would not get to live in the underground city was
eventually sinking in.

He may realize that after thirty years of working down here, creating it, making it a possibility, that this could very well be the last time he ever sees it.

Then it dawned on her that just like Doctor Hall; this might be the last time she looks out across the city – a city that could cocoon her from the madness and death above.

BOOK: The Sixth Extinction (Book 4): The Ark
8.49Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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