While Red used a stick to rake the fragments of glass from the sill, Noah pulled his handgun free and shot a child of about eight in the head.
“Noah!” Red screamed.
Noah turned to find Red already through the window, holding her hands out to him. He ran and dived through.
The tunnel joined the greenhouse with a large building. Ignoring the feeble sided polythene greenhouse, they sprinted along the tunnel towards the stone building.
Noah could hear the squad outside fighting for their lives. He felt bad for leaving them, but his priority was to protect Red. Also the alarm ringing, with the robotic countdown sounded ominous. In any movie he had ever seen, a countdown never ended in anything good.
At the end of the tunnel was a thick door. With Red’s help, he swung it open. The room on the other side held something they were not expecting.
79
Doctor Lazaro, Doctor Hall, Noah, and Red
Dartmoor National Park
Princetown
The Gathering Room
3:51 PM GMT
The lift did not go all the way down to The Ark, but stopped in the large Gathering Room, a chamber with a large lift that took all the provisions down to the bunker.
There was no one around. If someone was supposed to be operating the lift, they had obviously run away.
The chamber was cavernous, with walls of shelving holding stacks of pallets. Parked machinery was up against one wall – an industrial hedge trimmer, a large, motorized lawnmower, a mechanical lift for possibly reaching streetlights.
As Melanie followed Doctor Hall towards the large lift platform, a door swung open and two people raced through.
Noah and Red barged through the door. They skidded to a halt, while scanning the room.
Noah noticed two people and raised the handgun.
“We are unarmed,” Melanie shouted, which echoed around the chamber.
Doctor Hall raised the metal briefcase, possibly hoping it would deflect bullets.
It was a standoff for a few seconds until they all realized they were all uninfected.
Noah and Red ran towards the two strangers.
“I recognize you,” Noah stated, looking at Melanie. “You were up to your chest in water, resuscitating a soldier. You left in the helicopter.”
“Naked man!” Melanie said. “Where are the Captain and the others?” She knew this young man was with them when she was whisked away. If he was here, so should they be.
“They are outside, fighting the creatures. We had to run,” he said, embarrassed at leaving the others.
“We have to hurry,” Doctor Hall stated. He was standing next to a series of buttons on a raised dashboard.
“That’s far enough Doctor,” General Philips said, as he stepped from behind a set of shelving. The General held a gun pointed at the doctor’s chest.
80
Doctor Lazaro, Doctor Hall, Noah, Red, the Captain, Echo, Coco, and General Philips
Dartmoor National Park
Princetown
The Gathering Room
3:56 PM GMT
“Father! What are you doing?” Echo’s voice stabbed through the silence.
The Captain and Coco followed Echo into the chamber. They shot their way out of the alleyway, and then jumped through the window Noah smashed. They had to leave Bull’s body behind.
“T-minus ten minutes!”
“Glad you finally made it, daughter.” The Generals gun did not waver.
“What are you doing?” Echo repeated, taking a few steps closer.
“Lower your gun,” the Captain said.
“I do not take orders from underlings, Captain.”
“We are all on the same side,” Melanie stated. She was confused as to what was happening.
“Where is Heather?” the General asked.
“She didn’t make it,” Melanie replied.
“I was talking to Doctor Hall.” The Generals grip tightened on the gun. His left eye twitched.
“What do you mean; she didn’t make it? Where’s Aunty Heather?” Echo asked. “Uncle Hall?”
“He’s not your uncle, not anymore!” the General screamed.
“The Gathering Room is compromised. She was attacked and killed,” Melanie said softly.
The General coughed, and twisted his neck, making it click. “Pass the case to my daughter, please, Doctor Hall.”
The Captain nodded to Coco, who slowly started to drift over to the right.
“The case, Doctor Hall.” The Generals voice was cracking. Sweat started to pour down his face. He twisted his neck again.
“It’s over,” Doctor Hall stated. “The base is overrun. The Adam and Eve Finalist are all dead, or dying.” He let his words hang in the air.
“We can all survive this. In the briefcase is the antidote to the gas. We can all go underground. We can all live on.”
“Not you, Doctor!” The General took another step closer.
“Listen to him,” the Captain said. “Let’s inject ourselves and get underground.”
A smashing sound echoed down the tunnel.
“Too many have died today,” Echo muttered. “Please father.”
“He ruined your aunt’s life. He made her miserable.”
He has a screw loose; Melanie reasoned.
“My sister should be going down there, living on, not you!”
“Put the gun down, General,” the Captain said.
“I am tired of your demands,” the General muttered as he swung the gun around and fired a bullet into the Captains chest.
81
Dartmoor National Park
Princetown
Dartmoor Prison
3:57 PM GMT
The prison was completely overrun. Creatures swarmed every hallway and room. More churned through the breaches in the walls.
Bodies lay uneaten, as the horde of infected searched every part of the prison for anyone left alive.
Computers lay tipped over next to cooling corpses. Blood gathered into congealing pools.
The hive mind knew the humans were preparing to hide below ground. Every infected human’s memories were added to the collective knowledge of the hive. Every secret known.
However, what the humans failed to realize was, the pods did not contain the knowledge – only the spores, every single infected human did. Billions of minds connected. Each brain filled to capacity with information. Each mind capable of controlling every infected person. The only way to stop the sharing of information was to destroy every infected creature.
Once enough time had passed, to make sure as many people were infected as possible, the pods started to send out a frequency that tuned all the creatures into one directive, the eradication of all human life.
The spores would spread, consuming every human. Then once they were all infected, exploded, and the spores multiplied, it would mutate, infecting other species. The land and sky would be wiped clean. Mother Nature would recover from the human scourge, and in time, the world would heal, and the evolutionary chain would start all over again, when, given time, something else would crawl out from the sea, which has been the case, on the fertile third planet from the sun, since the dawn of time.
82
Doctor Lazaro, Doctor Hall, Noah, Red, the Captain, Echo, Coco, and General Philips
Dartmoor National Park
Princetown
The Gathering Room
4:01 PM GMT
“T-minus five minutes!”
Coco fired. The bullet spun the General around. The gun flew through the air. The Generals body hit the concrete with a loud slap.
“Dad! Echo shouted, while running over to his body. The bullet went clean through his shoulder.
The General rolled over.
The Captain slowly got to his feet. His armour stopped the projectile, but it still winded him.
“Calm down, it was just a warning shot. If I wanted the Captain dead, I would have shot him in the head.” Sweat dripped d
own the Generals face. Blood soaked his uniform around his shoulder.
“You, on the other hand,” the General said, as he reached for the gun on the floor with his left hand and pointed it at the doctor again.
“We only have five minutes to inject ourselves and get below ground!” Doctor Hall stated. “Please everyone, step forward.” The doctor knelt down and opened the bubble briefcase. Inside were rows of injection devices.
“Did I say you could move?” The General was coughing, with sweat soaking his uniform’s collar.
“T-minus four minutes!”
“Father please, we need to get underground,” Echo pleaded, while using her hand to staunch the flow of blood.
“I said, don’t move!” The gun went off again, this time hitting Doctor Hall in the chest. Unlike the Captain, the doctor had no body armour to stop the bullet.
Coco stepped forward and fired again.
“No!” Echo screamed as she rolled her father around. The bullet that was intended for him hit Echo in the neck.
“Echo!” Coco dropped his rifle and ran over.
Melanie leaned over the doctor. Blood bubbled on his lips.
“You’re going to be okay,” Melanie muttered, while cradling him in her arms. She jerked when she felt something stab her leg. She looked down and saw that with his last ounce of strength, the doctor had stabbed an injection into her leg.
“T-minus three minutes!”
Noah stood in front of Red, blocking her with his body. Everything was happening so fast. He was confused as to what was going on. However, in all the chaos, he realized the injections were important somehow. He grabbed Red’s hand and dragged her over to the two doctors.
Bare feet could be heard running down the tunnel. The creatures then poured into the chamber.
The Captain rattled off bullets.
“Coco! Coco! I need your help!”
Coco was cradling Echo, who had blood spurting from her neck wound.
“What have you done?” the General screamed.
The Captain fired at the door, cutting down the advancing creatures. He knew his bullets would soon run out, and in the time he needed to change the magazine, they would be upon them.
In all their stress and panic, and for losing Bull, they had forgotten to secure the door.
The Captain took a few steps backwards. He slapped his hand down on the button to start the lift.
“T-minus two minutes!”
Noah grabbed an injection from the case and forced it into Red’s arm. He stabbed himself in the leg with another. He then grabbed Red and pulled her down next to him. If he was about to die, he wanted to be holding onto Red.
Creatures were pouring through the door.
Echo let out her last rattling breath.
Coco seemed to wake up.
“You bastards!” he screamed as he picked up his rifle and walked towards the advancing creature’s firing into the mass of bodies.
The lift was descending fast.
Melanie held her hand over the wound in the doctors chest.
“It’s no use,” he muttered. His eyes rolled back a little. “A cigarette.”
Melanie pulled the packet from his pocket. She placed one in his mouth. The lighter was inside the carton. She lit it for him.
The cigarette rested limply on his dry lips. He did not have the strength to take a deep breath and inhale the smoke. His eyes rolled back as his last breath left his body.
Red and Noah embraced each other.
The General lay hugging his daughter as the lift dropped down below his line of site. Echo had stopped moving; even her blood had stopped squirting now her heart had stopped pumping.
“No! No! No!” the General muttered. “It wasn’t meant to end like this! It wasn’t meant to end like this,” he muttered like a Tibetan mantra.
“T-minus one minute!”
The lift was accelerating faster.
Noah could hear the gunfire far above. They must be at least fifty feet below the ground level, and still moving fast. As he looked up, the ceiling started to close, with large metal blast doors grinding together.
The Captain stood next to Coco; they both fired into the horde piling in through the doorway. Behind, the Captain could feel the thick metal doors grinding shut through the soles of his boots.
“T-minus thirty seconds!”
The Captain knew he could not join them on the lift. The creatures would simply pour over the side after them, allowing many to reach the lift before the doors closed. And even though most of them would die in the fall, it would still mean the spores would succeed in getting inside the bunker.
Coco was in a daze from shooting Echo. His face was contorted in rage as he fired. Then his rifle clicked. He had used all his bullets. He turned it around, hefting it like a club and ran at the closest creature.
The Captain continued firing; even though he knew in a few seconds they will all be incinerated. However, even with that in mind, he wanted to die knowing he had personally killed as many as he could with his own two hands.
“T-minus five... four... three... two...”
Noah could feel the lift shake as a loud boom shook the shaft.
Aboveground, the towering prison walls were flattened as the detonation sent out a sonic donut ring as the buildings were incinerated. The vast communication mast swayed, as the thick cables snapped, then slowly, as the metal melted under the heat, the pole tumbled down.
83
Noah, Red, and Doctor Lazaro
Dartmoor National Park
Princetown
The Ark
4:07 PM GMT
The lift descended, breaking free from the concrete tube, entering the widest of the glass shafts.
Noah and Red were gobsmacked. Below them was a vast city, with buildings dotting the landscape, with manicured lawns, lakes, and trees swaying in the artificial breeze.
“What is this place?” Red whispered while walking over to the edge, looking through the thick glass.
“It’s a secret bunker build by the British Government. It can hold two thousand people, with enough food, water, and power for them all for twenty years. The three of us can survive here for the rest of our natural lives.” She looked down at the body of Doctor Hall.
I will bury you under your weeping willow, she thought. So, in the end, you did get to stay down here. Tears dripped off her chin.
Melanie looked down over the city.
With over one hundred years of preparation, all the British have to continue our corner of the world is one male and two females!
Her leg was going numb under the doctor’s dead weight. She gently moved him to one side, and rested his hands over his chest, then closed his eyes.
I will spend every minute creating a cure, not a blocker, in case any of the pods have survived. I have a lab, the equipment, and all the time in the world. Humanity will never have to go through this again.
Red stared down over the calm, surreal city.
I do not deserve this; Red thought. My sister should be here, not me, not after what I have done. How can I ever be happy with Jasmine’s ghost holding onto my heart? She looked sideways at Noah, who had come to stand next to her.
I like you, but can I live the rest of my life with you, imprisoned in a fake world? She decided she had twenty or so years to find out.
Noah noticed Red looking sideways at him. He turned to look at her.
I know it was you in my reoccurring dreams. I dreamt of the colour red – your hair. It was a sign!
He gave her a smile. Then he looked over his shoulder and asked Melanie, “What’s the city called?”
However, it was Red who answered, as she reached for Noah’s hand. “We shall call it Home.”
* * *
Now we return three weeks to the beginning of the outbreak and see how each of the main characters survived up until the point when all their lives crossed paths.
* * *
NOAH’S STORY
Noah Edward Morgan
Twenty-one-year-old male
Flat 17b, Union Street
Newton Abbot
South Devon
England
Works at Asda Newton Abbot on the Provisions Aisle as a shelf stacker.
1
Saturday 15th December 2012
The Day of the Outbreak
The alarm jolted Noah from his dream. With a slam of his hand, the clock flew from the bedside cabinet.
Every night for months, the same bloody dream. He struggled to remember anything from the dream that made him toss and turn every night, and soak the sheets in sweat.
The colour red! It was all he could remember. What the colour symbolized he had no idea. He had Googled what the colour represents if it was in your dreams. One dream interpretation site stated: Red could represent courage, passion, and emotional relationships. Red also represents the colour for danger. Red signifies energy and vitality, action, fire, blood, anger, and dominant sexuality.
To get a better understanding of the mindset of the people who wrote the information, he entered the word sandwich. For some reason, to see a fish sandwich in your dream means you have a conflict between your spiritual beliefs and what is practical. He tried another random word. A hamster supposedly represents underdeveloped emotions. He decided to skip any more research.
Noah squinted his eyes at the clock.
6:35 AM.
Jesus! And it’s a Saturday!
He hated the early-morning shifts. He was not a morning person.
Asda was the only place hiring when he lost his job at Blockbuster. So maybe he did let off a few too many customers who brought the DVDs back late. But, he reasoned; it was a big company; they wouldn’t mind. Obviously, they did.
He had to take whatever was going, he needed the money. He had no savings and little education. Being an orphan, he did not have parents to send him to college, just a system that booted him out as soon as he was legally old enough to look after himself.
The Sixth Extinction & The First Three Weeks & The Squads First Three Weeks Omnibus [Books 1-10] Page 23
