by Clark, W. E.
The Extinction Diaries:
Short Stories Volume 1
W.E. Clark
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Copyright 2015 W.E. Clark
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Edited by TW Brown
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Dedications:
To Erica, I love you and thank you for putting up with me these “projects”.
Special thanks to everyone who has offered any encouragement along the way. You will never know how much I appreciate all of the kind (and critical) words!
T.W. Brown has done another fantastic job editing this book. Any grammatical or formatting errors are entirely my own.
Extra special thanks to The Ramones.
You know that life really takes its toll
And a poet's gut reaction is to search his very soul
So much damn confusion before my eyes,
But nothing seems to phase me and this one still survives.
I just want to walk right out of this world,
'Cause everybody has a poison heart.
I just want to walk right out of this world,
'Cause everybody has a poison heart,
Well, I just want to walk right out of this world,
'Cause everybody has a poison heart.
Newsroom
“What do you mean the northwest part of the city has gone dark?” Anna Thompson asked.
“Dark. There is a large scale power outage. Well, that and the government has made it a no-fly zone. They are invoking the Patriot Act. Word on the street is that they are considering martial law for the city,” José Calderon replied.
“Martial law? In San Francisco? Never going to—” Anna was interrupted by José, who was becoming more animated.
“Anna, the riots are spreading. People have families. Can’t we send non-essential person...” his voice faded as Anna looked at José with a raised eyebrow.
“Send them where? Home? Is that what you were going to say, José?” her voice rising with anger. “Is that what you are beating around the bush to ask?”
“Anna—” José started before being interrupted.
“This is the god-damned story of the year, possibly of our lifetime, and you want to send people home? NO!”
She scanned the busy newsroom that had all at once stopped working and collectively turned their heads towards her. Anna let out a slight smile as she poked José in the chest with her perfectly manicured nail. He reflexively took a step back at the contact as she continued speaking, just loud enough that everyone in the room could hear her.
“Here is the deal, José.” She jabbed his chest again, more forcefully this time. “We are covering this story. I need all hands on deck. If someone wants to go home, that is fine. You need to tell them that if they leave, take all their personal belongings and to not bother coming back. You also want to let them know that I will make it my personal mission that they never get a job in this business again. I will fucking bury them. They can count on it.”
Anna scowled and scanned the room slowly. When no one made eye contact she knew that her threat was going to have the intended effect.
As José opened his mouth to respond, Anna turned and went into her office.
“Bring me Robert Sexton, I need to speak to him,” Anna shot over her shoulder to José and then slammed the door.
Slowly, José turned and faced the newsroom. Every eye was now on him.
“You heard her. Get back to work, people. We have work to do. Where is Robert?”
***
Robert Sexton stared down Anna.
“Listen, I don’t care. The FAA has declared the whole city a no-fly zone. I am not going to get my license revoked or go to jail just because you want a damned reporter in the air. Find somebody else.”
“You are doing this,” Anna said as she leaned back in her chair.
“No, I’m not.” Robert shot back defiantly.
Anna gritted her teeth. “Fine. You’re fired.” She turned to José, who had been doing his best to blend into the wall and make himself invisible during the current conversation. “Find me another pilot.”
José looked at Robert and then to Anna. “There are no other pilots.”
“You can’t fire me because I refuse to break the law. This is horseshit.”
Anna steamed as she was beginning to lose patience with the exercise. “José, kindly call security and have this EX-employee removed from the premises.”
“Whatever. You don’t have to get your fucking lackey to escort me out. I can find my way.” Robert shot José an angry glance and then turned to Anna. “You will be hearing from my lawyer. What a damned zoo this place is.” Robert turned and walked out of the room bumping his shoulder hard into José as he passed him.
Reluctantly José cleared his throat and began to speak. “Anna…we…we have another....another issue.”
“Jesus Christ! Spit it out already,” Anna snarled as she spoke.
José lowered his head, breaking eye contact with Anna. “Even if we find a pilot, all the reporters are refusing the assignment.”
“Refusing? This is not a choice. Who gave them a choice? Did you give them a choice José?”
“W-w-well, I m-mean…” José stuttered.
“Stop it, José. If you have something to say, fucking say it.”
As José opened his mouth to speak Anna interrupted. “Bring me Peter Stone. NOW! And find me a pilot!” She dismissively waved José out of her office.
José sulked out of the room and went to find Peter Stone. Anna walked over to the bar in her office and poured herself a double brandy. She looked at the dark liquid and then raised her glass.
“To the goddamned story of the decade!”
She gulped the brandy down as Peter Stone walked into the room closing the door behind him.
“Peter!” Anna shot him a contrived smile.
“You wanted to see me, Anna? What is this about?”
“Yes.” Anna paused, looked deep in thought for a second and then continued. “Peter, I understand that José asked you to go out on an assignment and you refused. Is that correct?”
“If by assignment you are referring to breaking the government issued no-fly zone and reporting from a restricted military area, then yes. I wouldn’t say I refused. I just don’t want to end up dead or in Guantanamo,” Peter said
“Peter,” Anna threw on the charm, “how long have we worked together now?”
“Seven or eight years. Something like that. Anna, I am not doing this. Besides—”
“Tsk, tsk, tsk,” Anna interrupted, wagging her finger in a mocking manner. “Peter, Peter, Peter.” Anna smiled again. This was the smile of a predator that had led its prey into a trap that was just about to be sprung. “You are going to do this, and let me tell you why.”
Peter smirked as he sat back in his chair and crossed his arms across his chest. “Tell me, please. This ought to be good.”
Anna reached in her drawer and pulled out a manila folder with Peter’s name on it. She opened the folder and slowly slid the black and white photographs across the desk towards Peter.
He looked down at the pictures and a wave of horror washed over his face.
“Where did you get these? How
…”
“You are a very sick man, Peter. These are children. Do you know what they do to guys like you in prison?”
She paused so the last sentence could burn into Peter before continuing, venom lacing her tone. “You perverted little fuck, you listen to me. You are going on this assignment. I don’t give a fuck if you have to fight General Patton personally. You either go on this assignment or this is the top news story on CNN tomorrow morning.”
Peter looked up from the photos and tried to present a false sense of bravado. “You wouldn’t!”
“I wouldn’t? How would your wife, the one with all the Hearst money, feel about being married to a pedophile? Don’t try me, Peter. I will make your life a living hell.”
Anna cracked a smile as Peter sat down, placed his head in his hands and began to sob. She had broken him and took great satisfaction in it. She walked to the edge of her desk and tossed him a box of Kleenex.
“Get it together. You leave as soon as I can find a pilot. We’re done here.” As Peter wiped his eyes and got up to leave the room Anna called his name. “Peter.”
He turned and looked over his shoulder. “Yes?”
“This is business. Nothing personal.” Anna cracked a devious smile.
“Fuck you!” Peter retorted, stomped out of the office and slammed the door.
***
“Let me ask you one more time. Have you ever flown a helicopter before?” Anna asked slowly, enunciating each word.
“Well…sort of…I mean, yes and no,” Rod Greene answered, shuffling his feet and staring at the ground.
Anna threw her arms up in the air in disgust and turned to José. “What does that even mean, José? Can you translate that for me?”
“Rod, tell her what you told me. Go ahead,” José said.
“I was in the US Army for a hot minute. I was going to be a helicopter pilot. I went through all the simulations and was at the top of my class…” His voice trailed off.
Anna was losing her patience. “And?”
“Well, I only had one more live training flight until graduation before I was…umm…asked to leave.”
Rod stared at the floor again, this time, his face red with embarrassment.
“Asked to leave?” Exasperated, she turned to José, the displeasure in her voice apparent. “Where the fuck do you find these people, José? Why was he asked to leave the army?”
José turned to Rod and then back to Anna.
“Spit it out, José,” Anna seethed.
José looked at the ground. “Meth,” he whispered.
“You brought me a meth head as a helicopter pilot?” Anna was slowly developing a migraine. “Jesus Christ, José. This keeps getting better and better. Un-Fucking-Believable.”
“Ma’am,” Rod said as he made eye contact with Anna. “That was a long time ago.”
Anna stood and stared at Rod. She knew from his personnel file that he was in his mid-thirties. The man standing in front of her looked to be in his late fifties, maybe early sixties, and in need of some serious dental work.
Anna sat down and began through rummaging the desk drawer for a bottle of ibuprofen. “How long have you been clean? The truth!” She looked up with a raised eyebrow when Rod didn’t answer right away. “Well?” she asked and tried to stare through him.
“Five…no…four days.” Rod smiled a crooked grin.
Anna found the ibuprofen. “Whatever. You leave in fifteen minutes.” She slumped back in her chair and rubbed her face in frustration. “José, tell Peter to stop bawling and to get ready.”
***
“Have you ever flown before?” Peter asked as he felt his lunch moving towards the top of his throat.
“Yeah, a while ago,” Rod responded over the headset as he tried to keep the helicopter level. Instruments flashed red warning lights and alarms were going off as he tried to keep above the tall buildings of the darkened San Francisco skyline.
The camera man, Javier Guillen, turned to Peter with a look of dread.
“I’m sure he is kidding, Javier,” Peter offered. “Keep filming.”
Rod clicked on the spotlight at the front of the helicopter illuminating the city streets below. “Sweet mother of Mary!” Rod said as the spotlight lit up the mobs below.
Peter turned and squinted to see the people on the streets below. He slapped Javier on his shoulder to get his attention. “Keep filming. Do not turn that camera off!”
“Got it,” Javier yelled as he gave Peter a thumbs-up.
Peter worked his way to the front of the helicopter. “Patch me through to Anna!” he shouted over the noise.
Rod gave him a thumbs-up and started pressing buttons. In about ten seconds, Anna voice was speaking in Peter’s ear.
“What do we have, Peter?” she asked.
“There is something really off about these rioters. There are a ton of them. We have the spotlight on them now. Whoa! Rod, look at that one on the far left! Are you getting this, José?”
Peter angled himself to see the camera focused on the crowd and José nodding his head without the camera moving.
”What is going on, Peter?” Anna asked.
“I think one of the protesters is eating a dead animal. Wait…is that a person?”
“I need a status update now!” Anna screeched into Peter’s ear piece.
“Anna, you are not going to believe this. Hold on…what? …..Yeah, I see it, Rod. Are those flashes of light over there gunfire?”
Peter was trying to have two conversations and doing a miserable job at it. Anna was slowly losing her patience. “Peter! Focus! What is going on?”
Peter heard José yelling something to Anna in the background, but couldn’t make out what he was saying. Javier waved his arms to get Peter’s attention.
“Give me a second, Javier!” Peter shouted so loudly that Anna pulled the receiver from her ear.
“Peter, the satellite link is almost up,” Anna said.
“Anna!” Peter shouted again. “The protesters are eating other people! This is brutal. How long before we can go live? I could win an Emmy for this!”
“What? Are you sure? Twenty seconds, Peter.” Anna counted down, “15 seconds…”
There was a loud buzz through the headset and then silence.
“Anna? You there, Anna?” Peter played with his headset and smacked the ear pieces.
“Get me Anna back!” Peter shouted at Rod. “We need that satellite uplink.”
Rod and Peter were blinded by a spotlight as more alarms went off and red gauges lit up.
They heard a loud voice boom behind the spotlight, “This is a restricted area by order of the United States Military. Please turn your craft around immediately. You are to proceed to the following coordinates…37.7556 degrees north and 122.4050 degrees west. You have ten seconds to comply.”
“They sound like they mean business.” Rod sounded nervous as he struggled to keep the helicopter hovering over the crowd.
“We are a network news helicopter. We’re fine. What are they going to do? Shoot us down?” Peter demanded. “Javier, you still getting all of this?”
Again Javier shook his head in the affirmative without moving the camera. He gave himself the sign of the Catholic cross. Peter was impressed when the camera still didn’t move.
After ten seconds the military helicopter offered its final warning.
“This is your final warning. Proceed to 37.7556 degrees north and 122.4050 degrees west. If you fail to comply, we will be forced to take aggressive action under orders directly from the President of the United States of America.”
“Don’t even think about moving from this spot!” Peter yelled at Rod. Peter’s eyes caught some kids on a balcony across the street. Two young women and a young man. He made a mental note of the approximate address to do follow up interviews with them after this was all over.
“Come on, man. I don’t want to have to shoot you down,” the other helicopter blared.
“I don’t like thi
s,” Rod spoke nervously, hearing the trepidation of the other pilot’s voice. “Maybe we should—”
“Shut the fuck up, you stupid meth head. Just worry about flying the helicop—”
The M134 Gatling gun spun to life and the spotlight shot to the left as the Blackhawk banked when the door gunner opened fire. Bullets ripped into the hull of the news helicopter and found targets. Rod was killed by the initial volley of fire and fell against the control stick, sending the damaged vehicle hurtling towards the streets below. Peter was badly wounded and slumped in the co-pilot’s seat, bleeding from multiple wounds. The helicopter burst into flames as Javier was thrown out the side door onto a rooftop below breaking both his legs upon impact. He watched as the burning ball of fire crashed at the corner of Scott and Jefferson streets. He noticed another person on the rooftop, a woman in her nightgown, and yelled at her for help.
“Hey, lady! Help! I think I broke my legs.”
She turned and faced him. Her face was covered in dirt, and she walked slowly towards him with a noticeable limp. He turned on the light for the camera, shone it on the woman and sucked in a deep, shocked breath.
“Sweet Jesus!” Javier shouted as he crossed himself again.
The woman ambled closer as Javier tried to drag himself backwards. Her face was not caked with dirt as he had initially thought. Instead, a mixture of blood and a black, pus-like substance dripped from her face in globs. She was walking slowly due to her left femur protruding from her leg. He could hear the bone crack a little more with every step that she took. She let out a low moan that quickened Javier’s pulse.
“Back off, lady!” Javier warned, still trying to back up.
He threw his camera at her broken leg knocking her over, and screamed in pain as he tried to bring himself up to assume a defensive posture. The woman slowly rose back up; empty, infected eyes never leaving his, and moaned again as she continued her advance.
