Extinction Cycle (Kindle Worlds Novella): From The Ashes

by Michael Patrick Hicks

  "Looks clear from here," Barlow said.

  Hedley reached the concrete column on the building's corner and took a knee, scoping the tenebrous interior. He could make out a huddled mass in the center of an open and airy lobby.

  As if it were a massive breathing organism, the lump shifted, slowly rising and lowering. One hump bulged, allowing Hedley to better discern the shape of the thing — or, more accurately, the things — before him.

  "I've got eyes-on," he said into the mic. "Counting six tangos directly ahead."

  "Target acquired," Barlow said.

  "I've got a clear shot lined up," Hanscomb confirmed.

  "Moving," Fulton said.

  Hedley took a quick look back and saw the green man-shaped CBRN sliding between cars in order to find a better vantage point. Fulton took up a position at the rear of a sedan, resting his SCAR on the blistered trunk and lined up a firing pattern through the vehicle's missing front and back windshields.

  "I see them," Fulton said.

  His attention back on the subjects inside the lobby, Hedley observed the rhythmic pulsing of the creatures, realizing what they were doing.

  "Looks like we made it in time for breakfast." He took a deep breath of recycled air as he settled the stock of his rifle in his shoulder. "Execute," he said, squeezing the trigger.

  Through the scope, he saw four skulls snap back nearly simultaneously.

  Two left.

  The remaining infected darted off in opposite directions of the lobby, surging toward the main entrance. A loud shriek pierced the sky overhead and Hedley looked up in time to see one of the infected creatures leap through the window frame. He dove to the side, narrowly missing the jumper as he brought his rifle around, in time to see the lower jaw blast away from creature's face. He turned to see Clemson striding forward and firing a series of controlled bursts into the monster's torso. The infected was dead before it hit the ground.

  The fifth infected lay dead in the door, a large crater where its face had been.

  "Good job, Clemson," he said.

  She nodded curtly, but he caught a hint of a wry smile through her face screen. "Sure thing, Sarge."

  The Rangers regrouped on Hedley, each of the five keeping up a vigilant observation of their surroundings as they proceeded to their waypoint. No doubt the gunfire would attract more infected their way, just as the noise of the Black Hawks had done.

  In the distance, he heard more gunfire raging, automatic weapons from the sounds of it. Cobo Center was a straight shot down Cass, but he couldn't see the facility from his location, not yet. Even without the visual confirmation, he strongly suspected that was where the gunfire was coming from. When it stopped only moments later, he feared the worst.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  A platoon of men and women enlisted in the 125th Infantry Regiment of the Michigan Army National Guard held the line in front of Cobo Center. Many of the soldiers of A Company were battle-hardened after operations in Afghanistan several years prior, where they had deployed as a security force assistance team to help their counterparts in the Afghan National Security Force become more self-sufficient and increase their operational capabilities, as well as teach rule of law classes and a focus on community-based policing. While they had seen more than their fair share of activity in places like Kunduz and Imām Ṣāhib, and bore witness to atrocities ranging from suicide bombings to honor killings, none of the twenty soldiers of A Company stationed at Cobo Center had seen anything remotely like the infected.

  Scores of monsters poured down the face of the building, racing toward the soldiers on the Congress side of the Cass Street perimeter. Their war cries were deeply unsettling, rattling each member of the platoon to their very core and igniting a primal fear that no amount of training could ever prepare one for.

  "Fire," Sergeant Lesley Cole ordered. His troops were quick to respond.

  The unit opened fire as one, raking the building with a hail of bullets. Glass exploded beneath the bodies of the infected as round after round punched through their bodies. Rather than slow them, or strike fear into the heart of these creatures, the monsters only grew more emboldened. The missing windows they were climbing toward posed no challenge, and the creatures simply leapt into the air, slamming into the ground before the soldiers. They moved with superhuman speed and agility, claws slicing through the air and opening up CBRN suits and the bodies within.

  Half a dozen creatures pounded their way toward a three-man fire squad, backing them up against the crumpled front end of the dislodged People Mover lying dead in the street. The squad managed to even their numbers, but even that victory was too little, and too late. Pinned against the front car and surrounded, the infected eviscerated them in a flash of claws and blood and teeth.

  "Fall back and find cover," Cole shouted.

  He laid down suppressing fire so the men on either side of him could push themselves over the small rise of sandbags, stepping backwards and never taking his eyes off the enemy before him. Once his men were safely in position, they laid down cover fire so that he could reach safety beside them. All down the perimeter, soldiers leapfrogged away from the mutant monsters, supporting one another with arms fire so their brothers and sisters could reach new cover.

  "Steele, sitrep?" he shouted into the mic. He received only static in response, and the questioning eyes of the soldier beside him. "Steele, what is your status?"

  Nothing.

  God damn it!

  Steele was the sergeant leading the Riverwalk side of the four-corner perimeter encompassing Cobo Center, and his lack of response or forewarning of the creatures' presence caused Cole's heartburn to flare up. The perimeter was more than merely compromised — it was completely FUBAR. In fact, everything about all of this, from the virus to the bombing of American cities from one end of the seaboard to the other, to their present situation, was all quite well past being merely fucked up beyond all recognition.

  Worse, it seemed like no matter how many of the infected they picked off, more fell in to take their place. The whole building was covered in monsters. Cole had a vivid memory from childhood of walking through his neighborhood and seeing a strange shape in the street. It had been black and writhing, and as he moved closer the mass had exploded into flight. What had seemed like hundreds of flies had briefly engulfed him, their buzzing loud in his ears as they swarmed past, and as the cloud of their bodies cleared he saw the corpse of a robin they had blanketed to sup upon. That memory flashed through his mind as he looked upon Cobo Center and the scores of infected scaling its walls in a race to kill him and his platoon.

  Elbows dug into the sandbags, he opened fire once more. Bodies fell before him.

  "Ellis, how are you doing?" he asked the man beside him.

  "Reloading!" Ellis yelled back. He ducked behind the bags and Cole covered him. When Ellis popped back up, Cole took his turn and ejected the spent magazine.

  Briefly, he wondered where all of the infected could possibly be coming from, until he took notice of the tattered and sodden remains of clothing clinging to their frames, of the wetness glistening from their skulls and limbs, and the steam rising from their hot bodies and into the cold air. They had come up from the river, had maybe even come across the border from Windsor in search of fresh prey.

  The infected weren't only flooding down the face of the building, but into the structure as well. He prayed to God the shelters were holding, that the civilians inside were safe, and that all of this was not for nothing.

  "Grenade," he shouted, pulling one loose from the equipment webbing wrapped around the exterior of his CBRN. He pulled the pin and tossed it into the shifting mass of infected, taking cover behind the sandbag once again. A dull whoompf! rocked the earth, and he resumed firing. More grenades were tossed all down the line, but the effect was unremarkable.

  The corpses of the infected made small hills across the front of the plaza, and soon the creatures were climbing over their de
ad and leaping into the air. Company A tracked them through the sky, firing in an arc overhead, most of them missing. The infected were simply too damn fast.

  Cole's CBRN suit shifted around the left side of his body as a creature zipped past him, and then he heard the screams of Ellis beside him. The monster had shoved its head through Ellis's face shield, its claws stabbing into the man's torso and shredding the protective suit to get at the meat beneath.

  "Weaver is KIA," a voice sounded in his ear.

  "Medic!" another shouted. "

  "Murdoch is KI—" one soldier began before being abruptly cut off.

  Company A began leapfrogging their way toward deeper cover, seceding more ground to the vicious mutants as they were pushed back further and further.

  Cole fired into the approaching mass, stepping back toward the hill of debris that had once been Ciccarelli's bar when his heel found shifting ground. His ankle turned painfully and a bolt of pain shot up his leg. All his weight came crashing down, his ankle refusing to support it, and he hit the ground hard, the back of his skull cracking savagely into something sharp and rough.

  "Fuck!" He kicked back with his good leg, spraying bullets into the thick crowd of infected before him. He could barely see straight, his head and one foot feeling like they were on fire, and his vision was rimmed in dark corners.

  Two of the creatures crouched low — the bullets he had meant for them slamming into the chest of an infected woman behind them, her body dropping lifelessly to the ground — and then sprang up and over him, onto the pile of rubble at his six. The horde continued to run toward him, while the two infected slid down the hill of debris and rushed up behind him. Cole was surrounded.

  Something grabbed onto the shoulder of his CBRN suit, and hauled him to the side. He spun sharply, felt dizzy. He caught the too-bright flash of muzzle fire as he looked up, grateful for his brother. All the while, voices came in through the mic, one on top of another, an ongoing tally of their dead and wounded. His ears were ringing, the voices tinny and far away. He wished like hell he could just go to sleep.

  Cole lost himself to the darkness, and for a brief moment he thought for sure he was dead, that one of the infected had gotten him and ended his life. But when he looked toward his feet, he saw daylight and rapid scurrying of infected all up and down the street. After a second he realized the truth of his situation – his brother, Lieutenant Evans, had dragged him into the entrance of a parking garage. Soon, he was swallowed up in darkness again.

  "Cole, you stay with me, you hear me?" Evans said.

  Cole drew a sharp breath of air and nodded. "I hear you, L.T. Loud and clear."

  Evans was positioned beside the rear wheel well of a Civic, his rifle supported by the vehicle's trunk. Cole realized what was left of Company A was in the garage with them, each of them using parked cars for cover to fire into the crowd of infected swamping Cass and Congress Streets. Evans had brought them into a position on the ground level of the garage where they had clear line of sight to Congress Street and Cobo Center on one side, and Cass Street and the remains of Ciccarelli's directly ahead of them.

  Having had time to clear his head, Cole took a knee and tried the handle on the driver's side door. Locked. He slammed the butt of his rifle into the window, shattering it, and swept away the webs of safety glass. All night car alarms had been blaring in the wake of the military's bombing runs, until they either shut off after a predetermined time period, or the battery died. Either way, he was relieved when no alarm sounded as he reached in to pop the door open. Positioning his rifle on the window ledge and using the door for cover, he shot out the opposite window and opened fire on the crowd amassing on Congress while Evans targeted hostiles on Cass.

  "Wayfinder One Eight Seven, this is Echo One Seven, we are in need of air support. Do you copy?"

  "I read you, Echo One Seven."

  "Congress is overrun with infected and we have sustained numerous losses."

  "What's your position, Echo One Seven?"

  "We have fallen back to a parking garage on the corner of Congress and Cass."

  "Roger that," Wayfinder One Eight Seven said.

  "Reloading," Evans shouted. Cole redirected his fire to Cass Street in time to see the infected running inside and heading toward them.

  "Fire in the hole," PFC Morris yelled.

  Cole saw the streak of a grenade fired from the launcher mounted on the underside of Morris's rifle. A moment later it exploded, sending a number of infected cartwheeling through the air and shaking dust loose from the concrete supports around them. The fuckers didn't even slow down.

  Once Evans had a fresh clip in, Cole redirected his focus back to Congress, strafing the lines of infected as they raced toward him.

  Orange streaks broke through the sky, shattering limbs and macadam, chunks of flesh and rock blasting through the air. Wayfinder One Eight Seven had arrived, the dual machine guns mowing down the enemy in the street as it passed over.

  Cole knew better than to breathe a sigh of relief, even as he cursed himself for his pessimism.

  A scream erupted behind him. He turned too late to prevent the infected beast hanging from the ceiling from grabbing onto Evans's helmet and ripping it away. Evans looked up just as the creature's clawed digits punched through his face, then ripped the flesh away from his skull. His head jerked and twisted into an unnatural angle. Evans's legs went rubbery, the man clearly dead.

  Cole swung his rifle up, firing at the abomination above. The creature was not alone. Dozens more were racing across the ceiling, the clicking of their joints echoing throughout the garage, their swollen lips snapping open and shut, hungry for blood.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Arvin sank onto his cot, Melissa sitting beside him. He tried to block out the noise of the arguments that had broken out all around them, but the shouting voices yelling over and atop one another presented too much black noise to ignore.

  "Y'all were gonna let us die out there!" Arvin recognized the voice, as well as the dog's barking and howling, as the big muscular guy that had been in the hallway with them. He'd learned the man's name was D'Andre, but it mattered little.

  "He was going to let you die," another man said, pointing to Dr. Rodinger.

  The doctor was laid out on a nearby cot. His face was a mask of blood, the skin beneath his eyes, nose, and mouth crusty with gore. His hands were secured behind his back by a sweatshirt whose sleeves had been wrapped around his wrists and knotted together.

  "He had the door barricaded, okay? It took us some time to move everything away from the door. We just saved your lives, man."

  "That's debatable," a young white woman said. Her voice was marred by scorn and worry.

  "What's that supposed to mean?" D'Andre said. Silence greeted him, and the woman suddenly seemed uncomfortable under the larger man's scrutiny.

  When she didn't reply, averting her eyes to the floor instead, an older Arab woman answered. "There's infected in here with us. One of the women and Dr. Rodinger — they're both hemorrhaging."

  "Where's the woman at?" Arvin said, the first words he had spoken since being readmitted into the refugee shelter.

  "Locked up in a broom closet."

  "If she becomes one of those things, that ain't gonna hold her," D'Andre said.

  Angry thuds echoed through the room as the infected in the corridor assaulted the steel door separating them from their prey. All around him, the voices resumed and became overlapping waves of nearly indistinguishable sound.

  "Can we stop her from changing, do you think?" Melissa said.

  "I don't see how." Arvin was exhausted, and the sense of defeat hung across his slumped shoulders him like a cold, wet wool blanket. "I don't know how any of this works. I think the only one here who really did is over there," he said, pointing to Rodinger, "and he's out of the game."

  "Inside, out there — it doesn't make any difference," the white woman across from them said. She hug
ged herself, squeezing her upper arms. "You're infected now, too. We all are. We're all going to end up just like that." She nodded toward the steel door, her eyes glazed over.

  Melissa squeezed Arvin's hand. "We have to do something."

  "What do we do?" he asked. "Kill them? How? With what?"

  His tone shook her and she leaned back. He regretted his words, but was thankful she still held onto him. He couldn't believe the series of events that had led to this. They had so narrowly escaped with their lives, only to find themselves trapped, threatened by the infected both inside and outside this room. Hell, maybe they were even infected, too. It would take time for symptoms to show, but he knew not everyone exposed to the Hemorrhage Virus caught it. The news had said transmission rates were high, as were fatality rates, but there was still that small, slim one-percent chance. Maybe, just maybe, they would get lucky. Lord knew they needed the luck right now.

  "I don't know," Melissa said, her voice quiet. "I didn't mean we should murder them, but..." She looked appalled with wherever her thoughts trailed off to. "I don't know."

  "We can't keep them inside here with us," D'Andre said. Arvin hadn't been aware the larger man was listening. D'Andre planted himself at the foot of Arvin's cot. He and Melissa shifted to make room for him, while his Labrador slipped between his feet, tongue lolling between open jaws.

  "And we can't just open the fucking door and toss them out," Arvin said.

  "The point is, we gotta do something, man."

  "What do you suggest?" Melissa leaned across Arvin to look squarely at the man. Sweat beaded her forehead and her eyes had taken on an unnatural wideness from fear, curiosity, and anxiety.

  "Well," D'Andre said, pinching the bridge of his nose, "I ain't exactly in favor of just letting them turn and being stuck in the same room with them. What about you?"