The Sixth Extinction: An Apocalyptic Tale of Survival. (Part Three: Infested.)

by Johnson, Glen

  THE SIXTH EXTINCTION

  AN APOCALYPTIC TALE OF SURVIVAL

  Part Three: Infested

  By Glen Johnson

  www.sinuousmindbooks.com

  Published by Sinuous Mind Books

  www.sinuousmindbooks.com

  Also available as a paperback from Amazon

  Copyright © Glen Johnson 2013

  Cover image: Shutterstock

  Cover design by www.sinuousminddesigns.com

  Glen Johnson has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names and characters are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living, dead or undead is entirely coincidental.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not be, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form without Sinuous Mind Books or Glen Johnson’s prior consent. Except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles.

  Typeset: Caecilia LT Std/Italic

  Also by Glen Johnson from Sinuous Mind Books(Available in ebook or paperback from Amazon)

  Horror

  Lamb Chops and Chainsaws: Nine Disturbing Short Stories About the Darker Side of Human Nature.

  Lobsters and Landmines: Another Nine Disturbing Short Stories About the Darker Side of Human Nature.

  The Devils Harvest: The End of All Flesh.

  Horror/Occult/Supernatural

  War of the Gods: Part One – The Devils Tarots.

  Horror/Apocalyptic/Zombie

  The Sixth Extinction: An Apocalyptic Tale of Survival. Part One: Outbreak.

  The Sixth Extinction: An Apocalyptic Tale of Survival. Part Two: Ruin.

  Fantasy

  The Gateway: Close the World Enter the Next. World One of the Seven Worlds.

  The Spell of Binding: Part One.

  Children/Young Adult

  Parkingdom: You Can Be Small and Still Make a Big Difference.

  For my friends –

  Rachel Shapter & Sarah Shapter

  Acknowledgments

  I would like to thank my older brother, Gary Johnson who went over the raw manuscript with many read-throughs, editorial help, and suggestions. Also to Matthew Chilcott, Kate Pike, Anthony Pike, Victoria Tamkin, Sarah Shapter, Rachel Shapter, Christina Shapter, Sarah Kelly, and Pete and Jo Butchers.

  The locations in this book are a fusion of real and imagined, but the events and characters are merely a fabrication of my overactive imagination.Any mistakes are of my own making.

  In addition, I would like to thank everyone who has purchased Part One and Two, and who have found me on my Facebook page to show their appreciation.

  Glen Johnson

  “The more we get out of the world the less we leave, and in the long run we shall have to pay our debts at a time that may be very inconvenient for our own survival.”Norbert Wiener

  “The cell, over the billions of years of her life, has covered the earth many times with her substance, found ways to control herself and her environment, and insure her survival.”

  Albert Claude

  Prologue

  The Sixth Extinction is a period of time from present to around 10,000 BCE – where a large number of extinctions span numerous plants and animals, including birds, amphibians, arthropods, and mammals.

  The main reason for the hundreds of thousands of extinctions, which is speeding the sixth extinction along, is due to one mammal – the homosapien. Without intervention, the human race will cause the next mass extinction.

  However, it would seem that Mother Nature has a way of making sure that one species does not overpopulate and dominate her planet at the expense of everything else. Viruses and plagues are her way of culling and controlling.

  Part One: Outbreak

  Part One followed three people as they struggled to come to terms, and survive in the changing world. The outbreak started in a remote part of the Madagascan jungle. Within three weeks, it had spread across the globe, affecting people on every continent, and killing hundreds of millions of people, and in the process turning them into a spore filled delivery device to help spread the infection.

  Noah Morgan was just an ordinary twenty-one-year-old. He had no girlfriend, few friends, and a dead-end job. He was forced from his flat when a gang of yobs set light to the building next door. He took what he could carry and fled. He ended up hiding in a mortgage company’s breakroom, where he ran into Red.

  Red recognized Noah from school, and they came to an agreement to share the building.

  Noah left Red to go and locate some kind of masked filter in a paint store next door to protect her from the spores. While there, he ran into some stage three, infected eaters. As he tried to escape he made it out onto a fire escape, only to realize the alleyway was full of stage four bloated bodies, which were about to explode, releasing spores into the air.

  Red is a nineteen-year-old who ran away from home, using the outbreak as the excuse she needed to escape. However, she harbors a disturbing secret. She remained in the breakroom while Noah went scavenging. In his absence, some unknown person had just broken the door down.

  Doctor Melanie Lazaro is a biomedical scientist, who was drafted in by the military to work in Exeter University’s Biomedical Sciences Department, to try to find a cure. She identified the strain of the disease on the host’s genetic code that was turning humans into animalistic predators.

  The General in command of the South West of England arranged for Doctor Lazaro to be transported to the military medical research compound on Dartmoor. While waiting for the helicopter the doctor was shown around the bio-pods, where infected people with the four stages of the strain were being held. The university came under a coordinated attack by a horde of over a hundred stage three eaters, and Doctor Lazaro was caught in the middle.

  While unconscious the transportation arrived, and twenty soldiers fought their way through the mutated humans to find the doctor and a file containing her findings. During the fighting, the helicopter was damaged. While en route to the military research facility, located in Dartmoor prison, the helicopter crash-landed in Newton Abbot, about a quarter of a mile away from Noah and Red’s position.

  The sound of the crash brought eaters running to the site’s location.

  Part Two: Ruin

  Part Two finds Doctor Melanie Lazaro, and a group of nine soldiers barricaded inside a dentist’s surgery on the fringe of Courtney Park.

  The Squad, who was sent to collect the Doc and take her to the military base on Dartmoor, fights off a mass of eaters who attack the clinic after hearing three guns shots.

  Echo, a female soldier, (and daughter of General Philips) sets off a controlled explosion to defend their position, while they retreat to the top floor of the clinic.

  The soldiers gain entry to the house next door, where they climb out of a first-floor window onto the roof of a lorry, driven by Coco, another soldier, along with Franco and Trev.

  An eater knocks Spice and Rogers off the roof; the Captain had to shoot them to put them out of their misery.

  The lorry cuts across the park, while being chased by an animalistic horde of turned humans, it crashes into the large pond, sending everyone flying, and killing Franco and Trev. Jimmy was knocked unconscious and given CPR by Melanie.

  An old woman called Betty, and her special needs – giant of a grandson – Lennie, joins forces with Red and Noah.

  Together the
four of them run away from two eaters, which Lennie turns and fights off with a shopping trolley that he uses as a weapon. The four run into an empty house.

  Noah decided to leave Red with the old woman and her grandson while he goes in search of help, following the sound of gunfire to the park. When he arrives, he strips off his clothing to mingle in with the naked creatures, while he runs towards the soldiers. Echo sees him, and lines up her rifle and takes a shot.

  Meanwhile, Red, Betty, and Lennie are forced from the house when it comes under attack. Red turns on the gas in the kitchen, and while they all climb out onto the roof next door, the side of the house explodes. As the three run across to an old people’s housing complex, Red disturbs two poppers in a small bedroom, and she is found by Betty lying on the floor.

  1

  Noah

  Newton Abbot

  Courtney Park

  Friday January 5th 2013

  12:22 PM GMT

  Noah closed his eyes and waited for the inevitable bullet that would end his life. He could see the image of the soaking wet female soldier taking aim and firing, and he knew it would be the last image he ever registered.

  It’s not fair; his mind screamed as his bladder emptied from fear.

  There was so much he wanted to do and achieve during his life. Find his soul mate. Fall in love. Create a life. Grow old while watching his grandchildren play. He was too young to die, to have his body left among the twisted naked creatures, to rot, to be forgotten, and be picked at by scavenging birds.

  His mind did not flash thousands of past images in slow motion, as you hear some people state, when they have a near-death experience. His mind shot forward calculating all the things he would miss.

  However, the logical side of his brain screamed back, who are you to survive, when all around you lay dead or dying. You’re no-one special. You have no more right to live than all those who have already been changed by the spores and who have turned into animalistic hunters. You’re nobody – an orphan with no family or friends. You have no special gift that the world needs to save humanity. You’re a loner, who locked himself away in a small flat, closing the world outside. The world doesn’t need you – no-one does.

  I do want to live; he screamed back.

  Noah’s eyes were still closed tight. He could see images of Red – her smile, the way she flicked her hair back, her graceful movements. He was shocked when he realized that the grandchildren he visualized had flaming red hair. He had never believed in love at first sight, but he had only known her for about three hours, and already he was dreaming about a future with her in it.

  I should never have left her. Now I will never see her again.

  All these thoughts took mere seconds.

  The rain hammered against his cold, naked body. He could feel the mud beneath his numb toes. The wind against his goosebumps skin.

  Nothing happened. No bullet slammed into his head or chest.

  Noah opened his eyes and saw the female soldier firing repeatedly in his direction.

  Surely, she cannot be that bad a shot. Maybe the mask is affecting her aiming.

  Then realization dawned – as he felt the air of the passing bullets on his bare skin, and creatures toppled all around – she was protecting him.

  Noah scrambled forward, jumping over a twisted, deformed body, and dodging another as it slapped the earth facedown.

  “Down by the wall,” the female screamed as she concentrated on the charging mass, peppering them with bullets. Her hand slammed into the side of the SA80 rifle; the magazine fell away. In a swift, reflex move, she grabbed another from a pocket on her thigh and forced it in place. She pulled back on a lever, hit a section on the top, and continued firing.

  Noah ducked down below her line of sight and scampered along on hands and feet to the short wall; he forced his wet, naked body up against the freezing cold concrete surface.

  Gunfire echoed around him.

  Noah could hear another woman screaming, “Come on Jimmy, breathe, damn you!”

  As Noah turned back towards the park, he realized just how many creatures were heading towards the pond – it was no longer just a handful, there were hundreds.

  2

  Red, Betty, and Lennie

  Newton Abbot

  In an Old Peoples Flat

  12:23 PM GMT

  Betty headed into the flat over the sticky carpet and then onto floorboards, where Red’s arm lay protruding from the bedroom’s doorway. Betty scanned the room for danger. There was blood and guts everywhere, up the walls, and over the remains of the furniture. Part of the ceiling collapsed due to the blast, and the large double glazed window was blown out.

  Betty slowly lowered herself down on arthritic knees. Her hand went to a vein on Red’s neck. She still had a heartbeat.

  Red lay on her back, covered in blood and gore. Her hair was matted, and her clothes ripped and torn. However, she had no visible cuts or protruding bones from the exploding bodies. Her mask was still on, even though it had a fracture in the faceplate.

  Black spores danced around what was left of the ceiling as they were pulled up to the next floor and out the smashed window by the strong wind.

  “Lennie!” Betty called, sounding all muffled due to her top being pulled up over her mouth and nose.

  Lennie slowly lumbered in while rubbing his back below the backpack, where he had been tossed backwards onto it.

  “Pick her up Lennie,” Betty said. Betty stood back to give her grandson room to move.

  “Put her in the bath.”

  The small flat’s bathroom was cluttered with lots of pink frilly things. Pink mats upon the floor, with a pink cover over the toilet seat, and a pink shower curtain and toilet roll holder and towels. It strained the eyes. It seemed too ordinary after what had happened in the other room.

  “Lay her down softy, there’s a good boy.”

  Lennie slowly lowered Red into the bathtub. Before he left, Betty wiped the blood off his sleeves and hands the best she could.

  “Take off your overall and toss it down by the toilet,” she said.

  Lennie slowly removed the backpack and took off the sodden grey overall. He then moved into the small flat’s hallway in jeans and jumper. He then rummaged through his backpack, removed his spare overall, and pulled it on. He liked wearing overalls; it made him feel like a real worker, like Bob the Builder.

  Betty then went and wedged shut the front door, and pulled what was left of the bedroom door shut also. She closed the curtains in the front room, even though the window was smashed; it still stopped anything from looking in.

  “You sit on the floor there, Lennie, and look after Charlie.”

  Lennie slowly lowered himself down, blocking the front door from opening, with Charlie snuggled under his arm.

  Betty found some black bin bags in the kitchen then returned to the bathroom and shut the door behind her. The water still worked, as she turned the shower on and started to wash the blood and spores off Red’s body, clothing and out of her long red hair.

  Red did not respond to the sensation of the warm water washing over her.

  The bathtub filled with murky water, swirling around Red’s body and down the plughole, as Betty cleaned off the mess. She removed the tatty shirt and trousers with a pair of scissors from the medicine cabinet, leaving Red in her skimpy underwear. She cleaned off the blue trainers as best she could. She removed the filtration mask and cleaned it off only after she bagged up all the tatty clothes in a black bin bag. The bathroom seemed safe; the spores in the bedroom had drifted upstairs through the collapsed ceiling and out the smashed window.

  The bathroom did not have a window, but it did have a powerful fan in the ceiling, sucking everything up and away. The fan vibrated and was a little noisy, but she had no choice; the light would not work without the fan kicking in as well.

  Betty then wiped the bow and arrows clean that lay close to Red’s body when she found her. The golf club she had been holding in h
er hand was twisted by the blast, and the head had snapped off. She rested it next to the bow and arrows; it would still come in handy as a weapon.

  Betty looked into the medicine cabinet’s mirror. Her dandelion hair swirled around her head. The goggles made her eyes seem huge and bug-like. She pulled them down around her neck. She gave a long sigh. She could hear Lennie playing with the dog. The dog’s nails tapped on the floor as it rushed about.

  I’m eighty-six, and I’m stood in a stranger’s pink bathroom, surrounded by naked zombie type thingies, which either try to eat you or explode over you, and I’m washing blood and gore off a young woman’s unconscious body that I only met this morning. And just think I could be stuck in the old people’s home, crammed in a smelly rocking chair watching bloody Murder She Wrote reruns. All the while, the dimwitted care workers – who are telling me what to do when they are young enough to be my great grandchildren – meander around giggling at their phones like schoolchildren about something or other that’s been posted on Facebook.

  Betty ran a wrinkled hand through her white hair. She winked at herself in the mirror and smiled.

  This beats crappy daytime TV any day of the week.

  She then went to search for some new clothes for Red.

  The bedroom was a right off, and even if there were clothes in there; they would be shredded by the exploding bodies and drenched in blood.

  Betty asked Lennie to shift over so she could go down the hallway to check out some other flats. She did not like the idea of wandering from flat to flat, but she could not leave Red in just her underwear.