Extinction Cycle Dark Age (Book 3): Extinction Ashes

by Smith, Nicholas Sansbury

  His crocodile-like jaw cracked open as he breathed through long slitted nostrils and exhaled through thin sucker lips. Sunken eyes flitted up and down at the missile.

  The general whirled toward Nick and Pete, robe whipping behind him as he strode over.

  Nick lowered his eyes as it scrutinized him and Pete. Hot breath washed over them as the creature exhaled.

  “Look… at… me…” it hissed in a scratchy voice.

  Nick stared at the slotted yellow eyes that seemed to stare into his heart. Like all of the Alphas, this one could hardly speak without its voice crackling.

  “Our enemies are infiltrating the network…” the general said. “We must find out where they are doing this.”

  It took a moment for Nick to grasp those implications. How in the hell had their enemies gotten into the network?

  Pete nodded. “Yes, General, I’ll radio my team right away.”

  He pulled out his radio, but the creature gestured to the nuclear missile.

  “Prepare the weapon,” he said. “We must proceed with the last stages of our plan. The infiltration of these heretics won’t matter then.”

  Pete bowed. “It will be my honor, General.”

  The creature snorted at Nick. “You, take me to feed.”

  Pete exchanged a glance with Nick.

  “Take them to the prisoners,” Pete said. “I’ll prepare the missile.”

  “Right away,” Nick said. “Follow me.”

  He led them through the tunnels and toward the entrance to the chambers where they had fed their thrall armies in the past.

  When Nick stepped into the first chamber, he recalled Timothy, the young man they had brought here. New fresh meat was pinned on the walls, strung up by the few remaining thrall Variants roaming the foothills.

  “There,” Nick said.

  He pointed to three humans, their heads drooped, sleeping or unconscious.

  The general ducked into the chamber, but his men stayed back, holding guard.

  Nick felt the icy stab of fear as the Alpha descended toward the three prisoners. He wasn’t sure why, but being so close to such a remarkable monster was both terrifying and humbling.

  One of the prisoners, a female with long hair slick with blood, looked up and moaned. Her eyes cracked open in the moonlight.

  The Alpha ripped her neck with a slash of his claws before she could scream. Blood sloshed out onto the ground.

  It leaned down to feed, opening its long reptilian jaw. The lips bloomed open like flower petals, extending over her face and clamping down. The beast slurped and sucked off the flesh for a few long moments. When it was done, it pulled away, leaving glistening bone and muscle.

  A long tongue whipped out of the sucker lips to lick the blood off its face.

  Most people would have turned away in horror, but not Nick. He watched the beast that would help lead them to victory with a grim fascination.

  ***

  A voice pierced Fitz’s mind from a pool of blackness. It sounded like it was calling to end the attacks on all the outposts.

  Was that… Kate? he wondered dreamily.

  It couldn’t be Kate. Even in his dream state, he knew that wasn’t possible.

  An agonized scream snapped him awake.

  His eyelids flipped open, but the world around him was a crimson blur. A sickening odor of rotting fruit and putrid meat filled his raw nostrils.

  He reached instinctively for his rifle, but his hands were stuck.

  Memories crashed down around him like an avalanche.

  He recalled the Chimeras swarming him and Ace. He remembered their hunger-filled eyes. He had expected claws and teeth to sink into his flesh, but the monsters had taken him and Ace prisoner.

  The last thing he recalled was a Chimera slamming the butt of a rifle into his forehead in some sort of lab.

  Now questions broke through the haze of pain.

  Where was he?

  What were they going to do to him?

  And where was Ace?

  He tried to twist his head to get a better look at his surroundings, but something tugged against it. His legs and arms, too, were completely secured.

  He bent his head forward just enough to see he was cocooned in crimson webbing. That same webbing had punctured his fingers, squirming just beneath his skin.

  The more he blinked, the clearer his vision became until he could see a wide room the size of a basketball court with a ceiling nearly twenty feet high. Thick red webbing, throbbing and writhing, covered every surface including him and other prisoners.

  The scene reminded him of the cathedral in New Orleans and the theater in Minneapolis where they’d encountered the masterminds.

  But there didn’t seem to be a mastermind here. Just tables filled with laboratory equipment and a row of three huge silver cylinders. Fitz vaguely recalled Kate calling these machines bioreactors.

  He struggled to get free, but the webbing tightened with each thrash until he could hardly breath.

  Another yell wailed across the room.

  It sounded terrifyingly familiar.

  “Ace!” Fitz yelled.

  “Don’t…aaaargh!”

  Fitz tried to push his head against the webbing to look for the man. “Ace! Where are you?”

  “You want to see your friend?”

  The voice came from below, but Fitz couldn’t see the source.

  Suddenly the webbing lifted him like an octopus grabbing prey. It deposited him into the center of the room. A few tendrils remained wrapped around his torso and limbs, probing painfully at his nerves.

  Fitz saw the source of the voice—a bald man who looked to be in his sixties wearing a white lab coat. Acne scars pocked his upper cheeks, and a ragged beard hung under a pointed chin. He had one blue eye and one brown. Both were wild, like those of a crazy person.

  The scientist or doctor, appeared human, but his skin was almost translucent. Blood vessels pulsed and protruded against his flesh. Fitz guessed the man hadn’t seen daylight in years.

  The man walked to a lab station where he stopped at a computer that was connected to the webbing. With each stroke of the keyboard, vines rustled above Fitz until a writhing mass of vines lowered next to the scientist.

  “Ah, you’re awake,” the scientist said. “I’m Doctor Lloyd, welcome to my office…”

  Fitz said nothing.

  “Not quick to talk, are you?” Lloyd said. “Your friend hasn’t been very talkative either.”

  He typed again, and a few vines of webbing recoiled in the wall, revealing Ace. Dark bruises covered his face and arms. Blood streamed from his nostrils, dripping into his beard. One of his eyes was swollen shut.

  “Don’t…” Ace mumbled, his cracked, bleeding lips barely moving.

  “Let him go,” Fitz said.

  Lloyd glared at him with those wild eyes. Then he stepped over a vine of webbing on the floor. “You don’t come to the Land of the New Gods and give me orders. You’re weak, a slave.”

  “Weak?” Fitz asked. “Let me out of this webbing, and we’ll see how weak I am, you fucking coward.”

  “If that’s what you want…”

  Lloyd tapped on the keyboard, and the webbing loosened, whipping from his fingers. Fitz fell a few feet, crashing to the floor. He immediately tried to stand, but instead fell forward.

  He had no way to stand.

  The Chimeras had taken his prosthetics.

  All he could do was crawl toward the twisted scientist.

  Before Fitz made it two feet, Lloyd tapped on the keyboard and the webbing wrapped around his thighs and chest, pulling him upright in their putrid grasp.

  “Your friend Ace wouldn’t answer my questions,” Lloyd said. “If he won’t, maybe you will.”

  Fitz said nothing.

  “Let’s start with how you found this place.”

  Ace grumbled, drooling blood.

  Lloyd smiled a grin as yellow as a Variant’s eyes. “Is it just you and this man that cam
e to the Land of the New Gods? Or are there more out there?”

  Fitz looked at the ground.

  “Make this easy on yourself.”

  “We came alone,” Fitz replied.

  “I think you’re lying.” Lloyd raised a brow, his ugly face scrunching into a forest of wrinkles. “Are you?”

  Fitz spat but the spit didn’t make it far, and Lloyd simply grinned and retreated to the keyboard. “Have it your way, slave,” he said.

  “We ain’t going to tell you shit,” Ace mumbled.

  “I wasn’t asking you, old man,” Lloyd said.

  He tapped on the keyboard and the red vines around Ace twisted, pulling his arms behind his back. Ace clenched his jaw, trying to hold strong and fight, but eventually it was too much, and he let out a scream of agony.

  Anger ripped through Fitz as he watched his brother-in-arms writhing in pain.

  “Stop,” he shouted. “STOP!”

  Finally, at the tap of a key on the computer, the webbing loosened.

  Ace spat out a mouth full of blood, then gasped for air.

  “That… that… the best you got?” he grumbled.

  Lloyd shook his head, then turned away from the older operator.

  “Even if I believe you were dropped here alone, the Allied States’ military is much bigger than one old man and a crippled soldier. So tell me, how many soldiers does President Ringgold have?”

  “Enough to fuck you up,” Fitz said.

  The vines around his chest tightened until he couldn’t breathe. Seconds ticked by, his lungs burning worse. His vision swam with red as he neared unconsciousness.

  His captor finally tapped the laptop again, and the webbing loosened.

  Fitz sucked in a deep breath, his mind whirling.

  How the hell was he going to get out of this?

  All he could do was hope that Dohi was out there, planning, coordinating their rescue. If he could just buy more time…

  “I’ll ask you one more time, how many soldiers are left?” Lloyd asked.

  “I don’t know,” Fitz stammered.

  Lloyd hit the keyboard, and the vines squeezed again. Once more Fitz approached the edge of unconsciousness before the webbing released its hold.

  He tried to breathe but his lungs and ribs ached.

  “Last chance,” Lloyd said.

  Fitz tried to speak, but the words wouldn’t come out. He was too weak. All he could do was shake his head.

  For a third time, he suffocated under the strength of the vines.

  The man walked over, focusing his blue and brown eyes as he hunched down. “You really won’t like what happens next if you don’t answer.”

  Fitz decided the only way to survive was to prolong the interrogation.

  When the questions ran out, so would his usefulness. They would be discarded just like any other human. Probably strung up for the beasts to feed on.

  “I’m getting bored with this game,” Lloyd said. “But I’ve got other methods…”

  All it takes is all you got, Fitz thought.

  The motto helped ease some of the pain.

  Lloyd grinned again, a crazed look passing over his blue and brown eyes.

  He returned to his computer. Fitz stiffened, preparing for the vines to renew their assault. But this time they didn’t tighten.

  Ace wailed in agony. The webbing pulled at his arms and legs, stretching him like he was on a medieval rack torture device. Sweat coursed over his bruised face, and a sickening pop echoed from what was probably a dislocated shoulder.

  “Fuck you!” Ace yelled.

  Fitz tried to stay strong. He could take all the physical pain in the world, but watching his friend, his brother like this… A dislocated limb was painful, but not ultimately debilitating. But if the vines kept stretching, to the point of no return, it wouldn’t just be Fitz missing limbs.

  “Stop!” Fitz said. “I’ll tell you! Just stop, and I’ll tell you.”

  Lloyd tapped a button on the keyboard, and the vines let go of their iron grip.

  Ace panted, wincing. “Don’t tell him anything… brother… don’t…”

  Fitz ignored him. He had to prolong their lives.

  “Ringgold has about thirty thousand troops left,” Fitz lied. “All spread out between the Air Force, Navy, and Army.”

  Lloyd ran hand over his bald, pale head, seeming to mull the answer over.

  Ace looked at Fitz but hopefully he understood what Fitz was doing.

  Thirty-thousand was a gross overestimation. They had nowhere near those numbers, but if this man wanted answers, Fitz would provide them. They just wouldn’t be the truth.

  Lloyd didn’t seem entirely satisfied, but he moved on to other questions.

  The cycle repeated. Over and over. Fitz did his best to endure the interrogation. Ace was tortured, cursing and pleading with Fitz not to say another word.

  And Fitz gave the crazy scientist some answers, almost all lies and exaggerations, sprinkling just enough truth to make it sound believable without compromising the country he had sworn an oath to protect.

  He wasn’t sure how long he could keep doing this. How long before this hell-on-earth ended.

  Lloyd resumed torturing Fitz, the webbing yanking on his limbs, squeezing until he was certain he had a few cracked ribs.

  Please, Dohi, help.

  But nothing changed. No one broke in to stop the torture. No explosions brought down the facility, and Dohi didn’t show up with guns blazing.

  The pain finally stopped hours later when Lloyd yawned, cupping his mouth with a palm.

  “I’m not stupid enough to believe everything—or most—of what you told me, but we’ll have another chance to talk,” Lloyd said. “And if I find out you’re lying…well, I have plenty of mouths to feed around here.”

  Fitz said nothing, struggling merely to retain his consciousness.

  “I’ll get everything I want eventually,” the scientist said with a yellow grin. “In the meantime, I need to rest.”

  Ace tried to spit, but the bloody spittle ended up mostly on his hairy chest.

  That got a laugh out of Lloyd. “You’ve both seen the godly warriors we’ve created. Scions. Men with the power of the creatures you call Variants.”

  He strode toward Fitz, getting close enough that Fitz could smell his stinking breath.

  “I personally helped perfect the process of turning men into monsters, and if you’re lucky, you’ll both join our ranks like the other slaves I’ve captured,” Lloyd said. “If you’re not lucky, you’ll end up as food for my army.”

  He tapped Fitz on the chest. “Your choice, slave.”

  — 22 —

  Timothy and Ruckley hid behind a pile of rubble outside of an abandoned two-story building. Embers drifted lazily around them, singeing against their fatigues.

  They were crouched, waiting for a chance to get to the parking lot past the still-standing walls of a lobster shack with an interior that had been gutted by fire. At the parking lot was the truck the Irishman had traded for their sailboat.

  A pack of Variants prowled the street, hunting for survivors. The popping of their joints grew distant and Ruckley got up.

  “Okay,” she quietly. “Let’s go.”

  Timothy got up, but a high-pitched shriek forced him back down.

  Ruckley turned and pointed her rifle at a filthy Variant cresting the mound of rubble, her aim shaky due to her injured arm. With no other option, Timothy fired into the beast’s chest. It slumped, tumbling over its own limbs.

  Two more Variants skittered down the rubble, pouncing at Timothy. He didn’t have time to shoot and instead smashed one of the creatures in the sucker lips with the butt of the rifle, breaking out a mouthful of jagged teeth.

  The monster recoiled, giving him just enough time to blast a shot through its broken jaw. Then he turned to help Ruckley.

  The second ash-covered creature had wrestled her to the ground, making it difficult for Timothy to find a clear shot. It s
napped at her face, and sunk claws into her already injured arm. She let out an ear-splitting scream.

  Timothy let his rifle drop on its sling and pulled out his knife. He jammed the blade into its hairy flesh, tracing a deep crimson line over the black, diseased skin until it let Ruckley go.

  The Variant flopped to the side, wailing until he silenced it by slitting its throat.

  He reached down and helped Ruckley stand.

  “We have to move,” he said.

  She stood there dazed, holding her injured arm. Blood soaked over her bandages.

  “Come on,” he said.

  They staggered into the street, the shrieks of other Variants calling out.

  The truck was only about three hundred feet away, but they had to pass through the smoke drifting across the road.

  Timothy aimed his rifle at two more beasts that hung back in the cover.

  He waited for a clear shot, unsure of how much ammo he had left. One of the beasts went down on all fours and started toward him in a gallop. He fired a shot that hit it in the neck. The other creature took off to flank, but he took it down with a shot to the knee and then another to the back.

  Ruckley was struggling to walk and he went over to her to help.

  “Almost there,” he said.

  She put her arm around his shoulder, and he guided her the rest of the way to the truck, scanning for more hostiles in the curtain of smoke. With her safely inside, he closed the passenger door and then went to the rear bumper.

  Using his rifle butt, he smashed out the brake lights to better conceal their drive out of town. Another quick scan of the area was clear, and he got into the driver’s side, inserting the key and praying it would work.

  The truck fired right up.

  Finally, some good luck.

  He just hoped the rust-pocked Ford pickup was faster than it looked. The fabric seats were torn, and the dashboard was cracked. It had to be twenty years old.

  A glance at the full fuel gauge at least confirmed the Irishman hadn’t lied.

  “Go,” Ruckley groaned.

  Timothy pulled out of the lot and sped away from the burning outpost. Variants gave chase on the sidewalks. One creature leapt from a building at the truck, but Timothy turned sharply. It crashed against the asphalt, rolling over and over.