Extinction Evolution (The Extinction Cycle Book 4)

by Nicholas Sansbury Smith

  Watching from the safety of the GW felt like betraying Fitz, Apollo, and all the men going back out there. Beckham had faith in Fitz, but no matter how good of a shot he was, the sheer number of Variants he would face made success unlikely.

  Beckham wasn’t the only nervous soldier in the room. Garcia was fiddling with his broken nose a few feet away, anxious and distraught. He looked a lot like a raccoon with the bruises around his eyes. If it weren’t for the situation, Beckham might have given him shit about it.

  The first officer at the radio equipment turned to Davis. “All strike teams have radioed in, ma’am. They’re in position and report no hostiles.”

  “Let’s go to Phase 2. Air assets are clear to drop.”

  Horn and Chow huddled next to Beckham and Garcia. Tank and Thomas hung back, their arms folded across their uniforms, tattooed crosses showing. Beckham saw there was still a space for another name. Now he knew why Garcia was anxious to see the feeds. The Marine still held onto hope that his man, Stevo, was alive out there.

  “I can’t see shit,” Horn said.

  “Good,” Chow whispered back. “This is going to be a fucking slaughter.”

  Beckham twisted to the side, crunching his brows together. “Keep positive or keep your mouth shut.”

  Chow brushed a strand of black hair that had fallen across his forehead. “You got it, Boss.”

  There was bitterness in his tone, but Beckham ignored it. He didn’t have time to discipline right now.

  The second radio operator said, “A squadron of F-16s just took off from Robbins AFB. They’re on their way to Atlanta, ma’am.”

  Davis nodded, and drew in a breath. There was more riding on this operation than promotions and respect. They likely wouldn’t get the opportunity to capture a juvenile Variant twice. And it showed in her strained features. Beckham understood her nerves. If the mission failed, it was on her.

  He reminded himself of his own advice to stay positive. One of the teams would surely succeed. Fitz and Apollo would succeed. This wasn’t Operation Liberty, a mission planned by a lunatic and where failure seemed to be a sure bet.

  A few minutes later the F-18 Super Hornets on the flight deck of the GW launched for New York. Beckham couldn’t see them, but he heard each one take off. It felt good knowing they were on their way to support Fitz and Apollo.

  Through the wall of sweaty bodies, Beckham finally glimpsed the monitors at the front of the room. The strike teams were all holed up in buildings surrounding Turner Field. It didn’t take long for the F-16s to reach the city. The feeds shook and static hissed from the speakers ten minutes later. On monitor one, a Marine centered his camera on the stadium. Four blips emerged on the horizon. The jets roared over the city, dropping their payloads just above Turner Field.

  An orange mushroom blossomed above the stadium, and a deafening explosion blared from the wall-mounted speakers in the CIC. The brilliant flash of light filled the monitors, and when it faded, Turner Field was nothing but a smoking crater. Smoldering debris rimmed the hole, small fires raging across the blast zone.

  If that didn’t get the Variants’ attention, Beckham wasn’t sure what would.

  Fitz held onto his helmet as fragments rained from the ceiling of the New York City Public Library. Thud after thud rocked the structure, but it wasn’t the library that was being hit. He looked out the second floor window just as the final F-18 Super Hornet swooped over Grand Central Station.

  A boom that rattled Fitz’s bones shook the library, and the metro station vanished in a cloud of smoke in the distance. Fiery orange tendrils reached out and licked the surrounding buildings.

  “Radio discipline from here on out. Let’s move,” Fitz said into his headset. He wasn’t going to wait around to see if the decoy drew the monsters from their lairs. If it worked, he would hear them coming anyway.

  Apollo ran ahead, his nose sniffing the stairs. The entire building reeked of death and smoke, but a thin layer of dust and ash on the floor told Fitz the Variants hadn’t been here for some time. His blades crunched over shattered glass. The front doors to the main entrance were wide open, charred and burnt from the firebombs that had been dropped during Operation Liberty. Chunks from the massive stone pillars littered the steps where high caliber rounds had chipped away at the historic structure.

  It smelled even worse outside. He took in a whiff of a mixture of barbecue, rot, and sour fruit. Hundreds of decaying Variant corpses were sprawled across Bryant Park. They reminded him of the images he’d seen of Pompeii, bodies burned and twisted. Horned claws reached in every direction like tree branches. Fitz considered putting on his gas mask, but opted for pulling his scarf up over his mouth and nose instead. He guided his team across the charred lawn, running between shattered trees and bodies piled on top of one another. 1st Platoon had put up one hell of a fight, but the masses of Variants had overwhelmed them.

  A blast rocked the remains of Grand Central Station. Fitz motioned his team into the street without hesitation. He shouldered his suppressed MK11 and took point. The rubber padding he had glued on the bottom of his blades cut down on any noise, as long as he wasn’t moving over glass, and the grips clung to the ash covering the concrete.

  He picked up his pace, his muzzle sweeping the road for contacts. Flakes of ash rained across his path like black snow. Above, the sun struggled to peek from the rolling cloud cover.

  Apollo was a few feet ahead, sniffing for the scent of Variants. Having the dog was a blessing, but Fitz feared he couldn’t protect him if shit hit the fan. He gritted his teeth and ran for an ambulance at the intersection of 5th and West 42nd Street. Knapp, Craig, and Cooper caught up a moment later. They hunched behind the vehicle and waited for Apollo to give them the all clear.

  Several seconds passed. Then a minute. The dog was staring down West 42nd, unmoving. He was so still he could have passed for a statue.

  Besides the intermittent explosions from Grand Central Station, the derelict city was silent. No shrieking monsters, no screams of frightened civilians. There wasn’t even a breeze. Sitting in the quiet of the massive city was surreal, like Fitz was alone in the vacuum of outer space.

  Apollo came running back to the ambulance with his tail down. Something had him spooked. Adrenaline rushed into Fitz’s system for the first time since they had landed. He got on his belly and crawled for a better view of West 42nd, doing his best not to drag his blades.

  Another blast rocked Grand Central Station, and a ball of fire ballooned into the air. A tormented howl that could have been from a dying animal sounded in the distance.

  The hair on Fitz’s neck prickled when he saw the pallid, skeletal figures squeezing from the sewer openings. The Variants darted into the streets on all fours, jointed appendages clicking as they raced across the concrete like an army of spiders. In seconds, hundreds of the monsters were exploring the streets.

  The decoy had worked.

  Fitz slowly crawled back to the other men. The snapping of joints echoed through the street, and he could see in the looks of the three Marines they knew what was coming. Pushing himself up, Fitz slowly made his way around the other side of the ambulance. The metro station entrance was halfway down West 42nd. Several abandoned vehicles littered the road along the way. They could use the cars and trucks for cover.

  Fitz signaled for his team to move. Knapp shook his head, wide and panicked eyes pleading for Fitz to reconsider. Craig’s face was a mask of sheer terror.

  For a moment Fitz wasn’t sure what to do. He couldn’t drag them down the street, and he couldn’t sit here either. There wasn’t time to give them a pep talk either. Instead, he pointed at the ground and then slowly dragged a finger across his neck. Next, he pointed at both men in turn as if to say Stay and you die.

  Cooper grinned at that. A few beats later, all three of the Marines were following Fitz and Apollo toward the Bryant Metro Station, an army of monsters hunting the streets behind them.

  “Only a few minutes, Dr. Lov
ato,” Captain Klinger said. “She needs her rest.” He finished washing his hands off with a towel and left the room.

  Ringgold struggled to open her eyes as Kate approached her bedside. She cracked a smile when she focused on Kate.

  “Hi,” Ringgold said, her voice hardly a whisper. “I didn’t think we were going to make it there for a second.”

  Kate smiled back and took a seat in the chair next to her bed. “I didn’t either. If it weren’t for Beckham, we wouldn’t have.”

  “He saved me again,” Ringgold said. Her voice was stronger now, and her eyes were fully open. Despite the white hospital gown, she still retained her professional poise.

  “I suppose I should assign Beckham to my security detail full-time,” Ringgold said with a chuckle.

  Kate faked a smile as she remembered what Beckham had said about Brett firing as a result of Beckham’s first shot. They would never know if his theory was right.

  “If it weren’t for Beckham, Brett would have shot me in the head,” Ringgold continued. She looked down at the patch covering her collarbone. “One thing’s certain—he had some reasoning ability left before he pulled the trigger, because he shifted his aim from you to me.”

  Kate shook her head. She had closed her eyes right before the gunshots.

  “Congratulations, Doctor,” Ringgold said.

  Kate caught her gaze, heart flipping in her chest. Had she talked Brett out of shooting her, only to have him shoot Ringgold?

  “I didn’t know you were pregnant,” Ringgold clarified. “I think that’s why Brett didn’t fire before Beckham came to our rescue.”

  Kate sucked in a long breath. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier.”

  Waving her good hand, Ringgold said, “I understand. Trust me, I respect your privacy.”

  “Thank you,” Kate replied. Her cheeks flushed from the heat of embarrassment.

  “Speaking of Beckham, where is he? I’d like to thank him. Again.”

  “In the CIC. The strike teams should be on the ground. Operation Condor is underway.”

  Ringgold’s smile vanished and she sighed. “So it’s begun? Part of me is glad I’m not up there to see what happens,” she said. There was an uncharacteristic hint of timidity in the words.

  Kate understood. She understood better than anyone. She had seen military failure after military failure since the outbreak. It was hard to imagine one of the teams would bring back a live specimen. She leaned back in her chair and looked at Ringgold, recalling the words the President had spoken just yesterday.

  “There’s always hope,” Kate said.

  Ringgold smiled and nodded. “Damn straight, Doctor.”

  Team Ghost and the Variant Hunters stood behind five other men and women in the CIC. Four screens hung from the bulkheads. Each display was divided into four boxes showing the feed from one of the soldiers. They were working their way through the sewers now, closing in on the lair of the White King that Garcia had identified during the briefing the night before. Beckham shivered. It wasn’t long ago that he’d been running through the tunnels beneath New York City. Chow and Horn watched attentively, flashbacks likely playing in their mind. Tank and Garcia had their arms crossed, and Thomas was massaging the sides of his mustache.

  Beckham felt their pain. Stevo was likely dead, but soldiers always held onto hope. It’s what made the grittiest part of war easier to stomach, believing that maybe a brother was still alive, or that a battle could be won.

  He turned back to the screens. As an observer, it was difficult to distinguish between shadows in the dark passages. Every time the light shifted, Beckham thought it was a Variant.

  “Echo, Romeo, Kilo, and Sierra are all approaching targets,” Davis said from the front of the room.

  Beckham kept an eye on the first monitor. On screen, Echo 1 trudged through ankle deep water. At the end of the passage, on the walls and ceiling, were the mangled bodies of human prisoners. All four members of Echo team stopped in the middle of the tunnel. They flipped on the UV lights attached to the ends of their weapons. The beams cut through the darkness and illuminated the cocoons.

  The chatter from the command staff silenced. No one in the room said a word. Everyone stared at the monitors. Most of them hadn’t seen the human prisoners before, but for Team Ghost and the Variant Hunters, this was nothing new.

  “Proceed to target, Echo 1,” Davis said into her headset.

  Echo 1 went forward, his rifle out in front. His team followed him, marching through the first passage of prisoners, muzzles up.

  A distorted face stared back at Echo 1, flayed flesh hanging from cheekbones and eyes frozen in shock. Limbs hung from the ceiling, hands curled from rigor mortis. Most of the cocoons were torn, exposing the skeletal remains of the prisoners. The Variants had already fed on these corpses. Most were chewed to the bone.

  The team pushed into the next tunnel, beams dancing from corpse to corpse. Beckham didn’t need a high-res image to see some of these poor souls were still alive.

  “Jesus,” Vice President Johnson said. He craned his neck and looked at Garcia. “How much farther to the lair?”

  In the second it took to ask the question, there was a flash of movement on all four screens. The light from Echo 1 captured a Variant hanging upside down from the ceiling. It tore a string of flesh from the prisoner it was feeding on, and rotated in their direction, pulling away tendons and muscle. Before it had a chance to escape, Echo 1 fired a torrent of well-aimed shots.

  The beast dropped from the ceiling, bringing the human prisoner down with it. The gluey residue stretched into a web as the two bodies fell. The Variant crashed to the ground, but the strings of glue held halfway down, suspending the prisoner in mid-air like an insect caught in a spider web.

  All four soldiers approached slowly, their guns sweeping for more contacts. After a few steps, they stopped, but Beckham didn’t see any other hostiles. Echo 1 lowered his cam on the corpse hanging from the ceiling.

  The body suddenly twitched, and the prisoner fought to look up. Somehow, he was still alive. His lips trembled, and his eyes widened in the glow of the beams. He said something that looked a lot like help me.

  Beckham flinched as Echo 1 took a step back and shot the man in the forehead with his suppressed M4. It was then Beckham realized the man had said kill me.

  The troops continued through the final passages without stopping until they came to a tunnel overlooking a massive chamber.

  Garcia nudged his way through the crowd for a better view.

  “That’s where the White King lives,” he said.

  Fitz pulled his shemagh scarf just below his eyes as he snuck into the stairwell of Bryant Street Metro Station. The stench here was unbearable, and he almost tossed his breakfast up like Knapp had in the chopper. Fitz paused on the second step with Apollo by his side, then motioned his team forward. They couldn’t halt here, not with the Variants prowling the streets above.

  He gagged as he carefully made his way down the steps. They were littered with corpses and the flies. The insects were everywhere. Fitz batted them away as he moved. Thousands of them buzzed around the four Marines. Some were the size of .38 rounds, bloated from feeding.

  At first it didn’t make any sense. The bodies should have decomposed weeks ago. The flies would have had their fill then, but now.... As soon as Fitz clicked on his UV light, he saw these weren’t the corpses of humans. These were the withered bodies of Variants.

  Fitz had led his team to the site of a battle.

  No. A massacre.

  The walls, ceiling, and floor were covered in a thick layer of sticky blood. Frail frames of starving Variants dotted the ground at the bottom of the stairs. Some were torn to pieces, jointed appendages scattered in every direction.

  What the hell happened here?

  Fitz had heard of rival packs attacking one another. But this? This was beyond barbaric. Whatever creatures had done this were the result of more than freak mutations—this was the w
ork of pure evil.

  Fitz was transported back to Iraq. His squad had discovered a building of dead Sunnis in the town of Samarra just days after the Al Askari Mosque bombing in 2006. Women, children, the elderly: the Iraqi extremists had spared no one. It had been a slaughterhouse, but even that paled in comparison to what Fitz was seeing now.

  He paused halfway down the steps. The platform was riddled with more corpses. He continued staring, still lost in the memory of Iraq.

  “Corp’ral Fitz,” Cooper whispered. “Yo, Fitz.”

  It wasn’t Cooper’s words that pulled Fitz from his trance; it was the rumble coming from the street above, like there was a sudden stampede of hundreds of bulls running through the city.

  He looked up into the sunlight streaming down the stairs just as an army of Variants raced by. The beasts blocked out the sun, covering the team in shadow. Fitz loped down the final stairs, the pads on his blades sticking to the coagulated blood.

  The other Marines were already on the move. They ran through the maze of bodies toward the edge of the platform. Apollo was already there, silent and unmoving. If it weren’t for a slight twitch of his tail, Fitz wouldn’t have even seen the dog. Apollo suddenly barred his teeth and turned toward the stairwell just as a voice hissed in Fitz’s earpiece.

  “Shepherd 1, Command. Are you in position?”

  “Negative, command, we are not in position. Moving to—” The high pitched wail of a Variant cut him off.

  Distorted shadows flickered across the top of the stairwell. Fitz motioned for his team to take cover behind several pillars. Cooper pointed to Fitz, held up four fingers, and looked at his gun.

  No, Fitz lipped.

  Cooper stared back defiantly. He wanted to light the Variants up; Fitz could see it in his wild eyes. Knapp was shaking his head from his location two pillars down, his gun trembling in his hands.

  They sent me out here with a sociopath and a coward.

  Apollo nudged up next to Fitz’s leg, growling.