Extinction Cycle (Kindle Worlds Novella): From The Ashes

by Michael Patrick Hicks

  He tasted metal in his mouth, his teeth slick with it as blood leaked from his gums. The collar of his button-down shirt was wet and tacky against his neck and shoulders as his ears bled profusely.

  His eyes rolled up, and he crashed to the ground, slamming into the boxes stacked against the door.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  "We should get back inside," Arvin said.

  The cool air and Melissa's warm hand were an intoxicating combination, and he wished he could stay outside with her for longer. The creatures' shrill cries and the sound of gunfire had set him on edge, and he was eager to get back inside. Standing on the steps outside Cobo, he felt too exposed, too much of a target.

  She nodded, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "You're probably right." Turning to re-enter the building, she looked to the sky, tracking the helicopter's movement overhead and asked, "What do you think it means?"

  He shrugged, but his words carried a defeated tone. "It means those monsters are still out there."

  Clearly, it was not the answer she had hoped for, but the conflict was plain on her face. What else could it have been?

  "So, what did you do before all this?" he asked. It felt strange wandering this otherwise deserted building holding hands with a woman he knew so little about.

  "I worked in the concierge center, right over there," she said, pointing.

  "Ah, so that's how you were one of the first ones here."

  She laughed, but it was humorless. "I was one of the last few people still showing up for work. The whole building was dead." She blushed, clearly embarrassed at her poor choice of words. "I'd say not literally, but I guess it might have been literally, huh?"

  "Yeah. I guess so."

  The building felt so large when it was this empty. Although the entire Center had been turned into a refugee shelter of sorts, most everyone was still inside the exhibit halls or in the underground shelter that Arvin and Melissa had stayed in. Aside from a handful of evacuees, nobody had ventured out into this brave new world, and the complex felt so quiet and devoid of life. Cobo Center had recently undergone massive renovations, as well as an expansion that, if not for the virus, would have been completed in June.

  Arvin was again struck by an "end of the world" sensation, as if he were wandering through an ancient tomb. He wondered if this was how survivors of the Great Fire of 1805 that leveled the city had felt. Detroit rebuilt after that disaster, and became something better. Just as Father Gabriel Richard had written in the aftermath of all that destruction, the city had indeed arisen from the ashes, fueled by the hope for better things. That same hope had sustained Detroit in the centuries following, despite numerous setbacks to the city.

  Passing by a bronze statue of the boxer Joe Louis, the "Brown Bomber" himself, the greatest heavyweight of all time, he was struck by the weight of history and the accomplishments of mankind. This building alone was proof enough of how far humanity had come, having been home for so long to the annual North American International Auto Show. Every U.S. President since 1960 had visited the Center, and a number of concerts had been held in the Arena from The Doors to Anthrax, from Madonna to Seger, Duran Duran and Springsteen, The Who. Martin Luther King, Jr. had even delivered his famous "I Have A Dream" speech to a packed house following a civil rights march.

  Dead escalators outside Hall B led upward, a sign directing visitors, "FOR PEOPLE MOVER USE ESCALATOR HERE."

  Hand in hand, they walked along the river-side hallway to the Center's three-story atrium. Surprisingly, most of the windows on this side of the buildings were intact, a few sporting nothing more than a long network of cracks. On the street-side, the concussive blast of explosions had shattered all of the windows. In the atrium, the Italian tiling, glass frontage, and skylights let in what light shone through the dull gray sky. Past the walking trail alongside the river was only ice, the banks frozen over. National Guardsmen patrolled the Riverwalk, guns at the ready, wary for any signs of the infected. He watched the soldiers for a while, until Melissa's voice drew him back into their conversation.

  "What about you?" she asked. "What did you do?"

  "I did paperwork at the university. Processed applications for graduate degrees, shuffled paperwork, stuff like that. I was on my lunch break, taking a walk along the river, right outside here. My phone lit up with an emergency alert telling me to take shelter, so I came in here. Then the evacuation orders came in, but where I was gonna go? I didn't have a car, and the People Mover and buses were flooded with everyone trying to leave the city. You know how traffic was. I decided to stay. This city's my home, you know?"

  "You did the right thing," she said.

  They stared out at the water. He couldn't recall ever seeing so little activity out there, even in the deepest parts of winter. It was all so lifeless and empty. On the other side of the Detroit River, the skyline of Windsor jutted from the ground like broken teeth, guttering flames broiling between the gaps, the gray sky smudged with inky coils of blackness. He was struggling to decide if T.S. Eliot had been wrong or sadly prescient.

  "This is the way the world ends," he began, then stopped. He chuckled, feeling ridiculous. Who the hell quotes apocalyptic poetry to a cute girl?

  "The Hollow Men," she said, surprising him. "I liked The Wasteland better. Maybe April really is the cruelest month."

  He couldn't help but smile, which she shyly returned. "I was a lit major," she said.

  "History," he said, absently. He was busy enjoying the view. Her hair was messy, and she was plainly exhausted and on edge, dark bags underscoring her eyes. Looking at his ghostly reflection in the cold glass, it was evident he wasn't much better off. His face was gaunt and tired-looking, and his red eyes burned from the dryness in the air. Despite all they'd been through, and regardless of how ragged they had been run over the last twenty-four hours, emotionally and physically, Melissa was still pretty. Gorgeous, even.

  Their eyes met, and a sudden urge washed over him. He had to kiss this girl. Had to. If he didn't do it now, or if — for whatever reason — he never had another chance to, he would regret it for however long he lived. She must have sensed his desire and felt the same, too. She tilted her head up and leaned toward him, their mouths lining up, lips parting. His heart was racing with a teenager's nervousness, his mouth suddenly dry and tongue feeling like sandpaper. Always a skeptic of love at first sight. Arvin was a new believer.

  A shadow fell over them, large and enveloping. A flash of movement on the periphery drew their attention away from one another, just as gunfire erupted outside. Melissa's scream pierced his ears and his need to kiss her evaporated.

  Hanging across from them on the other side of the glass was the upside-down face of a monster. Fat sucker lips were pressed against the glass, peeled back to show pointed teeth and a swollen tongue. Sharp talons scratched at the window — skreet, skreet, skreet — sending shivers down his spine and bunching the muscles in his shoulders.

  The National Guard troops were under attack, a score of infected rising from the icy river, their thin, pale skin a rubbery blue color. Their movements defied any signs of freezing, though, as they launched themselves over the banks and clambered onto the Riverwalk pathway. The guards opened fire, but they were too slow and the infected were much too fast. Some of the bullets found their marks, but there was no contest. Not really. They were overwhelmed, almost instantly.

  Arvin grabbed onto Melissa's hand tighter as he turned to run, pulling her with him. The atrium had grown darker, and looking up he saw why. Dozens of infected crawled across the skylights, bright yellow eyes following their every step.

  "We need to get back to the shelter!"

  Melissa nodded, too frightened to speak. She urged her short legs to go faster, forcing herself to keep pace with the much-taller man nearly dragging her across the tiling.

  Behind them, segments of skylight exploded, glass raining down. The sharp, piercing cries of the monsters filled the space as the
y dove inside, thudding heavily to the ground. Tiles cracked beneath the force of their weight, the creatures seemingly undamaged and quick to spring into action.

  The infected moved with unnatural rapidity, their joints clicking loudly as they bounded after their prey. A clawed hand reached for Melissa, sharp nails raking through the ends of her hair, tickling her scalp.

  "Hurry," Arvin urged, charging up the shallow rise of three steps that took them out of the atrium and into the main corridor of Cobo Center.

  Chasing after them on all fours, one of the infected broke away from the pack and came up alongside Arvin. It leapt sideways, tackling the man to the ground. He nearly pulled Melissa off her feet, her scream audible even over the cacophony of the infected.

  Crashing into the ground, the weight of the infected atop him stole his breath away, his ribs aching beneath the pressure the beast was applying. He threw a weak punch, clocking the infected along the side of his head, but the mutated man barely acknowledged the blow. His thick, swollen lips parted as clawed hands gripped Arvin's wrists and slammed his arms into the ground. Too weak to fight, Arvin felt only the dueling emotions of fright and sadness. He had hoped to get to know Melissa better, thinking they'd had such a wonderful, and woefully brief, connection.

  The creature's breath was hot and fetid, a rotting meat stink that penetrated his nostrils. His lips reflexively curled in disgust as the infected man leaned in closer, ready to sink his teeth into Arvin's neck.

  A fast-moving blur collided with the creature's face, knocking him astride. Arvin scrambled quickly, his mind slow to catch up to the fact that Melissa had kicked that son of a bitch right in the head. Before he knew it, her hand was back in his, helping to pull him to his feet and into a run.

  Overhead, the weakened glass creaked beneath the weight of all the creatures still outside.

  "Hurry," Melissa shouted, echoing Arvin's earlier encouragements.

  The creature that had attacked him was already back on its feet and pouncing after them both. More of the infected were hot on their heels, scaling the walls like spiders and chasing after them, their clawed hands and feet punching into the wall for purchase. As they drew much too close for comfort, Arvin saw that was not entirely true — they weren't clawing into the walls, but clinging to them by hair-like spikes that covered their translucent, blue-vein marbled skin.

  Streaking past the Atwater Lounge, they saw even more infected on the other side of the glass, fists pounding against the window panes. A handful of refugees were screaming, their cups of steaming coffee forgotten and left to tumble to the floor. They made easy targets for the monsters, and Arvin and Melissa barely slowed as they passed. One of the creatures slammed its face into the window, the glass cracking. It head-butted the window again, creating a hole. Glass shattered as its face pushed through, the pointed shards tearing open long, deep gouges in its skin and shoulders as it emerged into the room. Its thin, clawed arms wrapped around the closest refugee, hugging her body close. The woman screamed, but was quickly cut off as the creature ripped out the side of her neck, a flap of skin zippering apart to reveal the gory works of her throat and collarbone. More of the windowpanes erupted, and the creatures flooded inside. Soon, the large open space was overrun with the infected. Like the Guardsmen along the Riverwalk, the refugees gathered there stood no chance at all.

  "Fuck," Arvin screamed. His sides ached, a stitch forming all along the left side of his torso from his armpit down to the bottom of his ribcage, and his lungs burned. He didn't know how much longer he could keep this pace up.

  "We're almost there," Melissa said.

  "We can make it," he added, more for his own mental encouragement than hers. "We can do this."

  But could they? The infected were fast...superhuman fast, like something out of a comic book or horror movie. So why weren't they gaining on them? Arvin himself had seen how speedily they could move when they wanted to.

  Which meant they didn't want to move fast. They were being toyed with, he realized. Taking a quick glance over his shoulder, he saw a sea of infected behind them, chasing after him.

  No, he decided. Not chasing them.

  Herding them. But to where? To the shelter?

  Oh, Jesus...

  They flew past the three Michigan Hall exhibitor rooms, the smell of food turning his stomach sour. After what he'd witnessed, the stink of bacon and eggs was severely unwelcome. His gut burned hotter as he thought about all the people inside as handfuls of the infected rammed through the doors and were greeted by screams of surprise, and then screams of pain. He and Melissa continued barreling down the corridor, to a metal door at the end of the hallway that took them into a stairwell. They turned quickly, practically leaping down the steps to the emergency shelter.

  Infected poured in behind them, screaming their peculiar, ear-shattering war cries as their bones cracked and snapped and their frames twisted in impossible ways to snake through the tight warren of steps and into the underground hallway.

  Several dogs barking could be faintly heard over the creature's screams, and as Arvin and Melissa drew nearer, he heard people shouting, pounding at the door

  "Let us in, god damn it!"

  A tall man, thickly built and corded with muscle, slammed the flat of his palm into the door over and over. "Let us in," he shouted again, his banging growing louder and more urgent.

  Arvin saw the young mother and her wailing baby standing nearby, and an older couple with a second dog that was barking its head off and nearly frothing at the mouth. Haunches raised, both of the animals were pointed toward Arvin and Melissa, but he knew they were barking at something else entirely.

  "They're coming! You gotta let us in! C'mon, man, hurry!" Now he was putting his shoulder into the door, throwing his whole body against it. The door rattled in its frame.

  "God damn it!" he screamed. He took a step back, then delivered a hard kick above the doorknob. The door held, and he swore again.

  The infected were nearly on top of them. One of the dogs, a noisy Pomeranian, yanked its leash out of its elderly owner's hands, nearly taking the old woman with it, and darted into the thick of things, teeth bared. Arvin wished he could erase from his brain the noise of its yelp, the snap of bone, and the meaty crunch that followed. The woman was sobbing, and everyone was screaming, panicked and afraid as the infected stalked toward them, the hallway crowded with their thick, cloying stink.

  The muscular brute reared back for another kick when the door finally opened. The refugees darted inside, the sudden movement enough to spur the infected on. The man who had been pounding on the door was the first one in, followed by his black Labrador, and then the woman and her baby.

  An infected scrambled up the side of the opposite wall, leaping over Arvin and pouncing on the old, crying woman. He paid them as little attention as possible as he shoved Melissa through the entry, following her inside and slamming the door shut. He saw the old man standing stock still in the hallway as his wife was mauled to death, an infected leering at him face-to-face. Arvin closed off the sounds of the old man's pain and prayed for forgiveness, even as he knew he could never forgive himself.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Hedley was sweating profusely under the hood of his CBRN, the red curls of his hair glued to his forehead.

  The good news was, the Black Hawk had dropped them off in a fairly empty parking lot in an area of the city that was little more than parking lots. The immediate area of Cass and Montcalm was an empty expanse divvied up by fenced-in macadam. He recalled the satellite photos indicating a bar and grill and a trade school, but little else. Those few buildings had been destroyed, and the Rangers were looking at a mostly flat, level terrain. They'd see any infected well before the creatures were on top of them.

  The bad news was, once they passed Michigan Avenue, they'd be in much denser quarters as they moved into the heart of downtown. All along Cass, the cindered remains of vehicles and their burnt passengers clogged th
e way in bumper-to-bumper traffic, a failed effort to make it to the freeway.

  The Rangers pushed their way through along the sidewalk in a tight single-file formation, clinging to the shadows of a crenellated brick tavern. The windows had been blasted apart, and inside the darkened recess of the Republic restaurant, Hedley could make out scorched tables and burnt remains of a row of window-side sofas, the fabric blackened and torn to expose the foam padding stuffed inside.

  Ahead and on the opposite side of the street, ruined cars occupied a triangular cut of land. Beyond that were the sharp angles and curved canopies of the Rosa Parks Transit Center. Hedley was in the lead and, as they approach the transit center, he slowed. There would have been a lot of people in this building waiting on Department of Transit buses to evacuate, which gave rise to the possibility that mutated abominations were lurking nearby. They had to proceed cautiously.

  Although the transit center had been on the target list, much of the facility was untouched. Half of the canopies had been destroyed in the bombing runs, but less than half of the building had been destroyed. The entire street was littered in glass from the Rosa Parks building and the AT&T building across the street.

  Hedley hugged the corner of the AT&T building as he scoped the transit center. A still-burning bus sat outside one of the passenger loading bays. The building's interior was dark, and he saw no signs of movement within. He waved Barlow, Fulton, and Hanscomb to the triangular slice of parking lot, while Clemson covered his six. The three men double-timed it across the broken street, taking cover behind the metal skeletons of the cars parked there.

  "Clemson, on me," he said.

  Hedley walked in a crouch, cutting across the street toward the transit center at an angle, sweeping the area with his gun, wary of any infected inside.

  Cass Street was a straight line from their insertion point to their primary target, Cobo Center, where the street dead-ended at the building, along with the city itself, which terminated at the Detroit River. If any other survivors were located in between, they would offer them protection and escort them to the armed perimeter established by the National Guard outside Cobo, and prepare for exfiltration from the city.