The Extinction Diaries - Short Stories Volume 1

by Clark, W. E.

  Javier backed up all the way to the wall at the edge of the roof for the building. The woman was now ten feet away. Javier reached into his pocket and groaned from the pain as he removed a switchblade. He clicked the button and the blade shot out.

  As the woman got closer, he prepared himself. The woman had a foul smell about her, and Javier nearly gagged. As she went in for her attack, Javier grunted and shoved the knife with all his power into her ribs, sinking it all the way to the handle. The woman barely noticed as she continued forward and bit into his neck with a viselike grip.

  Javier gasped for breath as the woman ripped a large piece of meat from his neck. Javier tried to place his hands over the wound and the woman took a big chunk of fleshy meat out of his forearm. He let out a scream as the woman attacked him again, not letting the warm urine running down his leg bother her. The world around Javier was beginning to get hazy as the woman’s head exploded sending blood and brain matter all over his face.

  An older man with a rifle walked over to Javier. He pulled the switchblade out of the woman’s side. He twirled the knife, inspecting all the blood and then wiped it off on her nightgown.

  “Next time go for the head, young man.” He looked down at Javier and gave a disapproving face upon seeing his injuries. “She passed the devil to you.” He smiled a toothless grin at Javier.

  “Help me!” Javier could barely form the words as slick blood continued to coat his hands.

  “I will, son,” the man crooned as he bent down and struggled to lay Javier on the wall.

  Javier tried to control his breathing and was coughing up blood. “Are you a doctor?”

  The man looked at Javier and smiled as he spoke. “Devil, be gone. We have no need of you in this home!”

  The man buried the knife deep into the side of Javier’s skull as he let out one last shocked breath.

  ***

  “Peter! Peter!” Anna shouted. She turned to José. “Get me Peter back, and get that satellite link up.”

  One of the young reporters stuck his head into the office. “The Internet just went offline. All the phone lines are dead, too.”

  “Go find Fred,” Anna snapped back, still distracted by losing the call with Peter.

  “Fred left. Went home about an hour ago,” the young man replied.

  “Goddammit. Shit goes a little haywire and the computer nerds go home.” Anna turned to the young man.

  “Well congratulations…umm…”

  “It’s Jake, ma’am.”

  “Jake, that’s right. Congratulations, Jake, you are now our Head of IT.” Anna shot him a quick smile, quickly followed by a frown. “Now get the fucking internet working, and get those phone lines back up or you’re fired!”

  Jake gave her a blank, shocked look.

  “Go!” Anna yelled dismissively as Jake turned and left the office.

  The power flickered and the emergency lighting in the building came on.

  Screeching tires followed by a loud crash sent José and Anna to the window that overlooked the street. A large, black SUV had crashed through the front of the building. A rapidly growing crowd was gathering below.

  Anna and José watched as the first members of the crowd pulled a woman from the passenger’s seat and pinned her to the vehicle. Anna opened the window just in time to hear the woman cry out in agony as the mass of humanity engulfed her. A man tried to escape from the driver’s side but was tackled by members of the crowd and howled in pain as his assailants began ripping at him. They watched with wide eyes as the crowd began to feed on the man and the woman, ripping away flesh and limbs. Anna tried to reconcile reality with what she was seeing on the street below as multiple loud gunshots from the bottom floor broke her trance. They were immediately followed by screams of pain. After a few heart pounding seconds the screams were followed by silence.

  Anna and José looked at each other in the darkened office. José quickly retrieved his cell phone from his pocket and opened the flashlight app.

  As they exited Anna’s office, the elevator at the end of the hall dinged and then opened up. Through the haze of green light offered by the emergency lighting, and the dim light from the José’s cell phone, they could see two dark figures that appeared to be grappling with each other.

  Jake was down by the elevator and stepped in to try and break up the fight. He grabbed one man’s shoulder and violently spun him around. The man growled and sunk his teeth into the flesh around Jake’s nose. Jake screamed in pain as blood poured from the hole where his nose used to be. An intern—Anna couldn’t remember her name—ran towards Jake and tried to cradle him as he cried out in pain. A third man exited the elevator, sinking his teeth into the young woman’s arm and ripping a large piece of meat away. The intern screamed and fell to the ground, resting up against a desk and trying to place pressure on her bloody limb. The attacker launched himself on top of her, slamming her head into the desk with a vicious crack.

  Anna had seen enough. The situation was spiraling out of control. She turned and sprinted towards the back exit and the employee parking garage. Anna heard more screams, ignoring them as she opened the door to the stairwell.

  She stopped and turned around as José screamed her name.

  Anna turned around to see José on the ground trying to hold off the attack of a large woman. His dress shirt was torn and slowly turning crimson on his left shoulder. She watched as José tried to hold the woman off by extending his arms and squeezing her throat. The woman was in a frenzy and clawed at José’s face, ripping two large gashes out of his right cheek. José cried out in pain as the woman grabbed the right side of his face again and ripped out his eyeball along with the surrounding tissue with a sickening pop.

  Anna turned away from José and fled. She made sure that the door back to the office closed behind her. She began her descent down the darkened stairwell to the employee parking garage. It was pitch black, and feeling for each and every step was time consuming. Every noise in the darkness caused her to hold her breath and tense up.

  As she reached the landing between the first and second floors, Anna removed the keys to her metallic gray Mercedes Benz GL63 SUV. She clicked the button and the car roared to life, illuminating the parking garage when the headlights automatically came on. After taking a moment to adjust to the newfound source of light, she began a sprint to her car. Ten feet from her goal, a hand shot out from under a Honda CR-V, tripping her. The momentum sent her spilling to the ground.

  Anna sat up in a daze as a rabid Robert Sexton bit into her exposed left calf. She screamed in pain, squirming to try to get her leg free. He only dug deeper with his teeth as she struggled. Anna cocked back her right leg and began kicking at his face in order to try and free herself.

  Robert let out a primal growl as he stared at Anna with blank, soulless eyes. She kicked one last time with her right leg and sunk her stiletto heel deep into his left eye socket, causing his grip to slacken as he exhaled a whimper. She pushed the stiletto further into the eye socket and he released his grip, slumping to the ground.

  She collapsed back on the cold concrete floor and closed her eyes, trying to wish all this away as just a bad dream. A scream and growl from the second floor of the garage jarred her back into reality. Anna inspected the wound on her leg and spit on Robert’s body in rage after assessing the damage.

  She tried to regain her composure and used the CR-V’s bumper to pull herself back to her feet. Anna limped the remaining few feet to her Mercedes and gingerly got into the car and behind the wheel. She felt woozy and nauseous. She had no plan and nowhere to go. She knew she just needed to get out of the city as a hand smacked the driver’s side window.

  Michael Goldstein

  Michael Goldstein stood at the electronic time clock, dropped in his time card into the slot, and waited for the automated stamp. The machine buzzed as it printed the time and spit the card back out. Strictly out of habit he re-filed his card in the slot pre-printed with his name. He had never tested it
out, but he was fairly certain he could find the slot for his card blindfolded.

  Michael started his way to the break room. Coffee, more specifically caffeine, was his best chance of beating this hangover. His mood grew considerably better as the scent of coffee percolated through the last stretch of the hallway before the break room. He opened the swinging door and entered the room bringing an instant smile to his face.

  Michael took a deep breath, yawned, and stretched out his arms as high as they would go. The stretching felt good and he momentarily forgot about his pounding headache. He poured himself a large cup of coffee and added the normal spoonful of creamer. The relative early morning solitude that he was enjoying was not meant to last.

  “Hey, Goldie! What’s up, my man?” Mitch Nicholson blared as he entered the room.

  Michael let out an involuntary squeal and took a step back.

  He scolded Mitch, a little embarrassed that he was so jumpy. “Jesus, Mitch! You scared the crap out of me.” No one called him Goldie, except Mitch. “And cut that Goldie crap out. No one calls me that but you.”

  Mitch turned up his hands, shrugged his shoulders and let out a huge grin. “Sorry, dude I’m a little amped up this morning. Just had a triple espresso. What were you up to last night? I texted but never heard back.”

  Michael watched as Mitch poured himself a cup of coffee into a large mug with CAFFEINATED written in large letters on the side.

  “How much caffeine are you going to drink this morning? A triple espresso, and now another cup of coffee?”

  “What are you, the coffee police? I’m young. My heart can take it.” He never stopped talking as he made his coffee.

  “Don’t avoid the question. Where were you last night?”

  “Yeah, sorry about that. I was down at the pub. Drank too many ciders. Cindy just kept pouring them. I have no willpower. Besides, who am I to turn down free beer?”

  Michael spoke as he massaged his temples and took a long gulp of the hot coffee. “Got any Advil or anything? I have major headache this morning.”

  Mitch ignored Michael’s request. “Cindy. Man, she is hot.”

  Mitch stared off into the distance, his mind racing with thoughts of Cindy. He cracked a smile. “You gotta remember that you aren’t as young as you used to be, buddy. What are you? Pushing thirty-five now?” Mitch said.

  “Fuck you, man. I’m twenty-nine, asshole.”

  Michael smiled as he turned to the window overlooking the parking lot. “Hey isn’t that Michelle? What the hell happened to her?” Michael pointed towards their co-worker in the parking lot.

  Michelle was walking along slowly towards the main entrance to the building and adjusting a huge bandage wrapped in gauze on her left forearm.

  “I don’t know, man. That is a lot of gauze though,” Mitch answered.

  They both gawked out the window at their co-worker as she made her way through the parking lot and closer to the entrance, adjusting her bandage along the way.

  “What do you think you are doing!?” Chris Spears yelled as he grabbed Michael and Mitch’s shoulders. They both jumped and turned around to face Chris.

  “You should have seen your faces! Ah-May-Zing!” Chris laughed a deep belly laugh.

  Mitch playfully punched him in the arm.

  “Don’t do that, asshole. I almost had a heart attack!”

  Chris grinned. He was a good fifteen years older than either of them but had a very juvenile sense of humor. “It was too good to pass up. What are you guys looking at anyways?”

  “Michelle has some huge bandage on her left arm. What do you think happened? We were just getting ready to speculate and start unsubstantiated rumors,” Michael spoke in between long gulps of coffee.

  “Yeah, Goldie thinks her old man is beating her again!” Mitch asked.

  “What? I never said that, and stop calling me Goldie.” Michael paused and looked over to Chris. “Do you think her old man is beating her again?”

  “No, he isn’t, you assholes. Besides, I would beat his ass if he ever touched me,” Michelle spat at them as she entered the break room through the swinging door. All three men stood up straight and began to stammer.

  “I…I…I really didn’t think that…” Michael began.

  “If you must know, some meth head jerk attacked and bit me when I stopped to get gas on the way to work this morning. He got me good, too. Of course there were no cops around at all. I only had this thing of gauze in the car. Since we work at a fucking medical facility, I was pretty sure that we would have some Band-Aids somewhere around here,” Michelle spoke through gritted teeth, obviously in pain. She shook her arm and grimaced before continuing.

  “Is Brian in yet? He keeps all that stuff under lock and key. Like a Band-Aid is going to cause this company to go bankrupt.”

  “Haven’t seen him yet,” Chris responded.

  “Want me to take a look at it? I was a field medic in the army.”

  “During the Civil War maybe! Modern medicine is a little different now,” Mitch dug at Chris.

  Chris grinned. “We refer to it as the War Between the States. But whatever. So I know how to work an abacus and penicillin is a miracle drug. You want me to look at it or not, Michelle?”

  Michelle seemed apprehensive about the offer before shaking her arm again and agreeing.

  “Sure. Why not?” Michelle responded as she began to unravel the gauze.

  All three gathered around Michelle as the gauze was removed exposing a glowing crimson Kleenex.

  “That is a lot of blood, Michelle. Maybe you want to see a doctor or something,” Chris said while eying the Kleenex.

  “I thought you said you were a doctor?” Michelle asked.

  “Field medic. Actually…assistant to the field medic,” Chris added nervously.

  “Fucking great,” Michelle sighed as all the gauze was removed.

  She took a deep breath and turned away as Chris gently removed the Kleenex exposing the wound.

  “How bad is it?” she asked and turned back towards the group. All three had white faces and had taken a giant step back. Michelle looked down at her arm with wide eyes and spoke rapidly. “What’s that? Oh, Jesus, what is that? What did that jerk give me?”

  Chris grabbed her shoulders and made direct eye contact with her. “Relax. Freaking out is not going to help anything.”

  “Fuck that! Look at her arm, man!” Mitch shouted as he took another step back.

  Michael punched Mitch in the side and shot him a sideways look. “It isn’t that bad. Let’s find Brian and see what he wants to do?” Michael tried to speak calmly.

  Chris nodded at Michael and then Michelle. “Great idea. Let’s go find Brian. But let’s clean it up a little first.”

  “Okay,” Michelle responded. She was slowly coming back from her mini freak-out.

  As Chris delicately cleaned the wound all Michelle could think about was her arm. Why was the wound still bleeding? What was all the black pus around the wound? Do I have HIV or Herpes now? She felt herself slipping back into panic attack mode as Chris announced that he was done.

  “Let’s go find Brian,” Chris spoke to Michelle and then turned to Mitch and Michael. “You guys better get to work. Those boxes aren’t going to unpack themselves.” He winked at them and gave them the middle finger behind his back as he walked away.

  “Real mature, dickwad,” Mitch shot at him.

  ***

  “Dude, what was with her arm?” Mitch asked as he unpacked the box filled with dialysis patients’ blood samples.

  “Good Lord, not again. This is all you talked about this morning. It’s not bad enough having a hangover, but we only get one subject for conversation?” Michael spoke as he turned and gently added his rack of blood specimens to those already on a rolling cart.

  Mitch stopped unpacking his box. “Just trying to make small talk, man. Besides, that black shit was gross. I don’t even know what that could even be.”

  Michael looked up at Mitch.
“I have no idea what it was. Probably some sort of infection or allergic reaction. I mean, if you think about it, how often do homeless people brush their teeth? Dental hygiene is not high on their list of daily priorities.”

  “Dude, that is foul.” Mitch feigned gagging.

  “It was pretty gross though. Looked like that black oil from the X-Files,” Michael said.

  “Dude! That is exactly what it looked like! You are a geniu—”

  “Can’t you two just work without talking. The idiotic things that you two talk about for hours on end,” Cassandra Jones spoke as she entered the room. She walked slowly towards the cart full of blood samples ready to be processed.

  “I realize that our conversations may be a little too advanced for your small intellect, Cassandra. We can dumb it down if you would like,” Michael deadpanned as he carefully added one last rack of blood samples to the cart for testing.

  “I doubt it can dumbed down any further. I mean, really…any further down and you two will be making grunting noises and trying to eat bugs off the floor,” Cassandra said as she smiled at Michael. “And that might ruin my opinion of you, Michael.”

  “I actually stopped Mitch from eating a ladybug just last week,” Michael shot back at Cassandra.

  “It’s true. He is a real hero…to that ladybug anyway,” Mitch added with a grin.

  Cassandra laughed. “My hero. Well when you put it that way, we still on for Friday night?” she asked Michael.

  Mitch turned to Michael with a telling look. “Finally growing a pair. Do you need a chaperone? Have you had “the talk” with your mommy?”

  “We are still on.” Michael smiled at Cassandra, ignoring Mitch.

  “Cool. See you idiots later. You can get back to your nerd sci-fi talk now.” Cassandra turned and started rolling the cart back towards the main lab.

  There was a loud crash in the hallway as Chris, wild-eyed, came sprinting into the room.

  “Chris? What was that?” Michael asked.

  Chris ran right into the cart with the blood samples, sending the samples crashing to the floor as Cassandra hopped out of the way. She looked on incredulously as broken glass and blood littered the floor in front of the cart. The blood slowly crept out in a dark semi-circle.