The two men and their war dog jumped out. Once they had cleared the Seahawk’s downwash, it lifted gracefully from the tower’s roof. The pilot aimed the craft off to the south where the Freedom floated at the Long Beach Terminal harbor. It would wait there for Carver’s call that their mission had been completed. The littoral ship was going to stay close until the Variants had been eliminated, providing whatever support it could. Today, its helicopter had given Carver, Lucas Reedy, and his dog a ride to the top of Los Angeles’s tallest helicopter pad.
They were just a few blocks from City Hall, where the vast majority of Variant activity had been occurring. The entrance to the city’s subterranean tunnel system was in the middle of a plaza, just outside the building. It was where the remaining Variant horde was hiding.
They pulled out a jar of a fetid, greasy mixture. The stench from the custom concoction masked their odor from the Variants. After applying the stinky substance to each other, the two-man fireteam jogged down a nearby metal staircase and entered an elevator lobby that sat under the circular landing pad. They found the building’s staircase and lined up at the emergency exit door.
Their mission was simple. Clear the building. It was going to be an integral part of the coming mission to kill off the remaining horde. With over seventy floors, including six parking levels, it was going to be a daunting task.
Rex stood by the stairwell entrance and sat down after a few moments sniffing under the threshold. It was his “all clear” sign that they could proceed.
The door opened stiffly. It hadn’t been used in years. The crack and creaking protests from the rust-encrusted hinges echoed down the long vertical shaft.
They flipped their night vision scopes over their eyes and turned on the IR intensifiers. The invisible spotlights shone green in their NV monoculars, lighting up the dark stairwell. They stood at the top landing for several minutes, waiting for any indication that they’d been heard. The answering silence was welcome.
“That sucked,” Lucas whispered. “And it’s going to be like that on every floor.”
“Probably. Let’s see if we can do something about that.”
Carver produced a large spray can of penetrating oil from his backpack and a handful of rubber door stoppers.
“Let’s go down five flights. We’ll jam the doors and apply the lubricant. Then come back up and take each floor one at a time.”
They silently descended into the inky blackness. Carver jammed a rubber stopper under the next floor’s emergency door, preventing anything from coming through. It effectively protected them from being attacked from above as they walked down to the next levels. Carver gave the hinges a healthy spray, and they moved down one more floor.
Within a few minutes, they’d sealed off the first five levels. They moved back up to the first door they’d treated and removed the stopper from under the door’s jam. After getting approval from the war dog, Carver opened the emergency door with no more than a snap. The hinges swung freely, and they slid into the hallway beyond.
The darkness was complete. The war dog moved through smell and its sensitive whiskers; Rex’s nose was almost stuck to the mildewing carpet as they traversed the length of the hallway. The tower was a large cylinder, so their progress eventually brought them back to the emergency door they’d used to first enter the floor. They only searched the offices that had open doors, bypassing the ones that were closed to the hallway.
“What do we do about all the suites we bypassed?” Lucas asked.
“If they haven’t been opened in five years, there’s nothing living inside,” Carver replied. “Remember, the damn things can’t use a knob.”
“Thank you, Lord,” he sighed. “I thought we’d be here for days searching every room.”
“The only reason to check out every room would be to look for supplies. A building like this is ninety percent lawyers and bankers. There’s nothing worth salvaging here.”
They progressed quickly. Each floor was nearly identical, with abandoned rooms and empty hallways. At the twenty-seventh floor, they found their first sign of violence. Three skeletons lay akimbo on the floor of an office that had been leased to a large group of attorneys. A Rolex watch lay on the floor near one of the piles of bones.
“Looks like they got one of the lawyers.” Carver grinned. “You want a Rolex?”
“You’re sick,” Lucas replied.
“You think that’s sick?” Carver shot back. “How about this? Why’d the zombie lose his lawsuit?”
“Are you kidding?” Lucas said, picking up the watch.
“Because he didn’t have a leg to stand on,” Carver said, smiling.
A small snort escaped as Lucas turned away and tried to hold back a laugh. “That was bad.”
“I’m a dad now. I need to try out my bad dad jokes. You’re the lucky one who gets to hear them.”
“God help me,” Lucas said. “I thought the worst part of the mission was going to be the Variants.”
“Hey. I never told you that,” Carver said, grinning. “Now, let’s go finish this.”
They continued down the stairwell, each floor revealing an increase in Variant activity. Fortunately, the killings had occurred long ago, bones the only remnant of the corpses surrounded by the accumulated dust of many years.
That all changed when they got to the lobby. The emergency door had been knocked off its hinges, giving the two warriors a long view of the circular space.
The floor-to-ceiling windows that had looked out onto the building’s front plaza had been shattered. The signs of Variant activity were fresh, with footprints and blood stains that had yet to decay with time.
There were several skeletons splayed on the lobby floor. The sunlight filtering from outside was bright enough for the men to retract their monoculars and see the devastation without electronic aid. They tactically advanced into the space, the dog leading the way toward the recent kill.
“Geez. They’re Variants,” Lucas said when he and Rex got to the bodies.
After doing a visual sweep of the space, Carver looked down and agreed with the young man’s assessment.
The elongated fingers and disjointed limbs were more than enough evidence that the creatures had once been part of the horde. The skulls only confirmed the fact. The teeth, once human, were now reminiscent of a shark. Razor sharp fangs had replaced the human molars and incisors.
“They’re eating each other,” Lucas whispered.
“Looks like it,” Carver replied. “That would explain why there are fewer of them. It’s also why they’re hunting so far out from the city.”
Lucas scanned the lobby, then looked back at Carver. “I want to get out of here. Let’s finish this.”
“Lead the way. I go where the dog goes,” Carver said.
They walked back to the emergency stairs and reengaged their night vision. The silent shaft echoed with a chirp, then a bark, from below.
“Variants,” Carver whispered.
Lucas tapped him and pointed to Rex. The dog was quivering, its body frozen as it pointed below.
Carver hesitated. There were over seventy floors to climb to get back to their pick-up spot. If there was a horde below, they’d never make it to the top. On the other hand, they needed to clear the building before they could proceed with their planned mission.
“Go back into the lobby,” Carver ordered.
Once inside the first-floor space, Carver radioed the Seahawk and confirmed that they could land on the four-lane road outside. The city’s central library was across the street. It was a short building compared to the skyscrapers nearby. That meant the helicopter could come in low over the art deco structure without trying to thread its way vertically between tall buildings. There would be less wind buffeting the craft, both from its own downwash and the tunnel-like winds that often rushed between adjacent city high-rises. The helicopter would be dispatched and hover nearby, waiting for his call to either recover them from the top floor or rescue them on the stree
t.
The two men and dog stood silently in the lobby. Ten minutes went by before they got a radio call confirming that the Seahawk was on station and ready to pick them up.
“Take us down,” Carver said.
Lucas led the dog to the lobby’s stairwell double doors. He and Rex moved onto the large first-floor landing. The dog stiffened at the top of the stairs. The two levels down were quiet, but it could smell something somewhere below. They took the steps one at a time, slowly descending into the darkness.
Each landing led to a parking deck. Most of the doors were closed, minimizing the chances that there were any living Variants behind them, but that didn’t preclude the need to clear those levels. With their IR intensifiers on, they moved swiftly into each deck. Gratefully, they found most of the parking structure empty of vehicles. The virus had happened on a weekend, so most of the spaces were vacant.
The bottom two floors were different. Both doors had been manhandled off their hinges and stood open.
Carver could hear Lucas’s breathing as they descended, and Rex pulled tightly against its leash. The cool, musty air smelled of rot and decay. Both the dog and the smell were a sure sign of Variant activity.
Carver patted Lucas on the shoulder and directed him back into the stairwell.
“We have to go slowly,” he whispered. “Shorten up Rex’s leash. You need to take over point.”
Until now, Rex was at the tip of the spear, dragging the two operators along with him. Now that they knew there were Variants nearby, it was up to a human warrior to lead from this point forward.
Another chirp echoed, sending a shiver up Lucas’s back. He shook it off and nodded to Carver. “I’m ready,” he said quietly.
“Let’s go.” Carver grasped the young man’s right shoulder with his left hand.
Lucas led them down to the next level. They stopped at the open door, straining their ears for more sounds. After two minutes of silence, they moved into the garage. Their invisible IR headlamps cast a green spotlight almost thirty yards. They slid along the massive garage’s inner wall. Like the other parking floors, this one was practically empty.
Lucas wound around the deck and suddenly stopped. Carver’s adrenaline shot through his bloodstream, sending the SEAL into battle mode. He spun around, searching for threats but found none.
“What the hell?” Carver hissed. “What is it?”
“Look,” Lucas said quietly, pointing with his rifle at a parked car.
At first, Carver’s only concern was whether there was a Variant inside. Then, it registered why the young man stopped so suddenly. It was a Ferrari California, two-door convertible.
“Seriously?” Carver hissed before smacking the young man on the shoulder.
“I’ll bet it’s red,” Lucas replied. “God, is that sexy.”
“You scare me like that again and I’ll make sure you’ll never have sex again. Got it? Now, let’s finish clearing this place so we can go home.”
With most of the level clear, they turned to the ramps where vehicles would move up and down between decks. The up ramp was clear, but the down ramp was a different story. It explained the smell. It was an empty Variant nest.
Discarded rubbish was piled up between an abandoned car and the ramp’s wall. A pile of animal, human, and Variant bones lay scattered nearby. It looked like a rat’s nest, only human sized.
They carefully made their way forward and inspected the area. A few bones looked fresh, mostly small rodents and a possible Variant long bone. The rest looked years old.
They moved down the ramp to the bottom level. There were several service vehicles parked at the far end of the empty space. Their shoes echoed off the concrete as they slid along. Even Rex’s paws clicked on the bare concrete.
It was empty.
“There’s nothing,” Lucas said. “I could have sworn I heard some clicking.”
“Me too. It must have been our imagination. Let’s head back to the ramp and check out the nest one more time. Then we’ve got a hell of a climb.”
The two soldiers moved back to the ramp and strode up the incline. In the corner of that bottom floor space, where the emergency stairwell exited onto the floor, were two doors. Neither soldier noticed them. One open door led up the stairwell where Carver and Lucas had just descended. The other went horizontally toward the center of town. It carried a sweet, rotting smell that drifted into the underground parking garage.
Had they descended through the stairwell and not the car ramp, they would have found the subterranean connection to City Hall. Not a hundred yards from that spot was an uncountable number of Variants. They all stood in a trance, swaying side-to-side, waiting for the call to their next meal. An occasional chirp or click escaped their sleeping bodies as they dreamt of human flesh.
The war dog team got to the top of the building almost twenty minutes later then crawled into the waiting Seahawk. In Carver’s assessment, it had been a successful mission. He was satisfied that the building was clear and the mission to wipe out the Variant horde could now go forward.
— 21 —
This is the end, Beautiful friend
This is the end, my only friend, the end
Of our elaborate plans
The end
Of everything that stands
“The End”
— The Doors
Lost Valley
Hope walked into their bedroom just as Carver finished toweling himself off. She’d finished loading ground coffee onto the percolator before setting it on the gas grill.
It was early, even for Carver. The sun wouldn’t be rising for another few hours, but there were plans to review, as well as all the final preparations that went into a successful military operation.
Today, with any luck, they’d be rid of the Variant threat.
Hope watched her husband gear up. As he dressed, it reminded her of a religious ceremony. His Type II Navy Working Uniform, tactical belt, and steel-toed boots went on in a precise order. His long-sleeved combat shirt with padded elbows was tucked into his old desert digital camouflage uniform pants. She watched him snake his heavy tactical belt through the pant loops and buckle it on the third hole, the same one he’d been using since they were married. He hadn’t gained a pound in all those years.
He grabbed his nylon battle belt from the bedside chair and wrapped it around the outside of his waist. He snapped it into place. Its drop holster dangled down his right leg, and he clipped together its two elastic straps, tightening the Kydex to his thigh. He shoved his M9 handgun into the retention holster, an audible click announcing that the firearm was firmly in place.
Carver threw on his tactical vest after retrieving it from the back of the bedroom door. It hung from a thick nylon loop that was sewn into its rear collar. Hope thought it was a nice touch that the manufacturer had put something like that on the vest so it could be hung for storage. Carver never told her that its real purpose was to have a harness that other soldiers could grab to pull you to safety if you were on the ground, shot, or otherwise incapacitated.
He slung his suppressed 300 Blackout AR-15 over his neck and shoulder, then let it drop to his side.
“We’ve done this too many times,” he said, referring to yet another mission. “I’m sorry.”
Hope slid up to her husband and wrapped her arms around his waist. The nylon gear had many sharp edges to it, especially where his spare magazines had been stuffed into the vest’s pouches. She’d done this so many times that the discomfort didn’t even register. Besides, she was too afraid to notice.
John hadn’t given her the specifics of the mission. Only that they hoped to be rid of the Variants once and for all. It seemed like an impossible task, given the history they’d had with the infected creatures, but John seemed confident.
He gave her the briefest of explanations the night before, just enough information to make her feel good about the mission.
“We figure there’s a thousand, maybe less remaining,” John
said. “The drone’s been over their lair for weeks. We haven’t seen more than a few dozen at a time. Sometimes we don’t see anything for days.”
“Those are still not the best odds,” Hope said.
Carver went on to explain how their armored vehicles were impenetrable to the infected and the tanks alone could wipe out hundreds. What he didn’t tell her was how underestimating the enemy had led to the loss of an entire Marine battalion during the Battle of Los Angeles. She didn’t need to know that the Naval intel people had assured the fleet that there were less than fifty thousand Variants remaining in the city, when there were actually millions still alive when the operation kicked off.
Most of the colonies believed there were just a thousand or so left. Mostly, because they wanted to believe it. It was called confirmation bias, and Carver wasn’t going to make that mistake.
He knew there were at least a thousand, and probably many more, in those eleven miles of tunnels that crisscrossed under downtown Los Angeles. The loss of Mettler and its four hundred residents was proof of that. There was little chance that a small horde could have so completely overwhelmed the population.
The smell of coffee called them both into the kitchen. Hope poured a mug for her husband and handed it to him. Carver took a sip, checked his watch, and then snuck into his son’s room.
J.K. was sleeping, with Shrek lying on the floor in front of the bed. Carver quietly gave his son a kiss and straightened out his hair. The Mal lifted his head and rose from the ground when he saw Carver in his battle gear.
The old dog limped out of their son’s bedroom and went to the door. His eyes, beginning to cloud from age, looked expectantly at Carver. The old warrior was begging to go out with his handler. It broke both their hearts to see the dog, ravaged by time and injury, begging for another chance to fight.
Carver walked over to his faithful battle buddy and squatted down. “Not today, my friend. I need you to guard Hope and J.K.”
Extinction Survival Series | Book 4 | Warrior's Fate Page 22
