Extinction End (Extinction Cycle Book 5)

by Nicholas Sansbury Smith

  A section of armor covering Lucy’s clavicle cracked off and slid to the floor, exposing a patch of bubbling flesh. The same brown eggs Kate had seen earlier were exploding like miniature grenades. Sludge splattered Yokoyama’s helmet. His eyes suddenly bulged and his face twisted into a mask of pain as the goo ate through his visor.

  “Hurry!” Ellis shouted.

  Kate grunted, pushing with all of her strength. The knife felt lighter, like the tip had melted, and before she could react, the blade broke off. She stumbled away, still holding the handle, heart beating so hard she thought it would burst.

  Time seemed to slow around Kate as she stared incredulously at the scene unfolding in front of her. Smoke radiated off Yokoyama’s helmet. He pawed at his visor with his good hand the same moment his trapped hand at last popped free. Covered in brown sludge, Yokoyama’s limb was almost unrecognizable. He pulled it away from Lucy, screaming in horror, and Kate finally saw why. His hand was gone. All that was left was a stump of frayed flesh and a white nub of melting bone.

  Kate dropped the handle of the knife and backed away. Overhead, the sprinklers suddenly fired, sheets of rain and disinfectant cascading over the lab.

  Ellis retreated from the table as Lucy melted like a block of cheese in an oven. A siren screamed from the wall-mounted speakers. Yokoyama collapsed to his back, his boots twitching and an awful gurgling sound coming from his throat. His lips puckered as he struggled for air.

  “Stay back!” Kate shouted as Ronnie moved toward Yokoyama. The right side of Yokoyama’s helmet suddenly caved in, and one of his eyeballs plopped out onto the floor.

  Ellis, covered in blood, backed up against Kate. Looking down, she saw her suit was covered in a sticky layer of red, too. Her heart continued to fire out of control, but her mind quickly reassured her that whatever was happening to Lucy and Yokoyama hadn’t spilled over to them.

  At least not yet.

  Her stomach churned as she stood there, terrified. Ellis and the technicians weren’t the only ones inside the lab exposed to the toxin that killed Yokoyama—Kate, and the child she carried, had been exposed too.

  -12-

  Fitz tried to get a look at Meg before two soldiers whisked her away. She was in bad shape, but she was alive. Lieutenant Davis had managed to do what Fitz couldn’t—she had saved Meg from the monsters.

  For now.

  “Go with them!” Davis shouted.

  Fitz shook his head. “I’m still in this fight.”

  Instead of arguing, Davis turned to her squad. “Let’s move!” She jammed several shells in her shotgun and pushed her face guard back over her mouth.

  “You’re heavier than you look, little man,” Tank griped.

  Fitz used the larger Marine as a crutch as they worked their way back down the staircase. Dead Variants riddled with bullet holes clogged the narrow passage. The bloody staircase stank of rotting fruit and sewage. Fitz grabbed onto Tank as his remaining blade slipped on the blood. Somewhere, a floor below, the crack of a shotgun rang out. The intermittent pop of small arms fire had echoed through the building ever since Davis showed up with the reinforcements.

  “Where are the others?” she shouted.

  “Twenty-eighth floor,” Garcia said. He ran in front of her at a dangerous pace. All around Fitz, soldiers wearing the same black armor hurried down the stairs, boots pounding the sticky floor. They carried Benelli M1014 twelve gauge semi-automatic shotguns, and had M4s with modified magazines slung over their backs.

  These were the new weapons of the war against the evolving Variants. With a broken blade and both weapons low on ammo, Fitz felt grossly unprepared to face the monsters again. He went back to searching for the broken piece of his blade as Tank helped him down the stairs.

  A human scream cut through the gunfire. The soldiers ahead of Fitz increased their pace, loping down the stairs, weapons clanking on the backs of their armor.

  “You gonna be okay,” Tank grumbled.

  Fitz wasn’t sure if Tank was telling him or asking him, so he simply nodded. He stopped searching the carnage-filled stairwell for his blade after they passed the first landing. It was gone, lost in the debris of flesh and bone.

  You are still whole. You can still fight. With a little help, Fitz thought.

  He tightened his grip around Tank’s back and aimed his MK11 toward the stairs with his other hand. The weapon was heavy, almost impossible to hold steady, and even more difficult to aim with his tired arms.

  He barely had time to move the gun as a claw punched out from under a pile of bodies to swipe at Tank’s boot. In a swift motion, Fitz pulled away from Tank, planted his back against the wall, centered his gun on the corpses, and fired into the mass. The monster screeched and withdrew its talons before it could tear through Tank’s flesh. Fitz squeezed off two more shots into the stack, just to be sure.

  Several of Davis’s soldiers turned with their shotguns.

  “Clear,” Fitz said.

  “Keep an eye on these bodies,” one of the soldiers shouted.

  Tank reached out to help Fitz, and offered his thanks with a dip of his helmet. They continued down the next flight of stairs at a hurried pace. Normally the strike team would have taken on a stealth position, hunched and quiet, careful not to draw attention, but the Variants knew they were here. Fitz just hoped it wasn’t too late to save the civilians they had left locked in the apartment below.

  At least Meg was alive, but he couldn’t get the image of her covered in blood out of his mind. Humans were capable of surviving massive amounts of blood loss if they got help quickly, but they were far from help.

  Another gunshot reverberated through the guts of the building. A flurry of pops followed in rapid succession. That was good. It meant Huff and the others were still fighting.

  Garcia reached the door to the room first. He grabbed the handle and pushed, but it was locked. More gunshots rang out on the other side.

  “Out of the way,” Davis said.

  She strode forward, reaching into a cargo pocket. Davis pulled a small square of C4 and a short coil of det cord with a blasting cap on the end. She pushed the cap into the white block of explosive and stuck it on the door. Everyone retreated to the landing and the stairwell above.

  Davis winked at Fitz as she pulled the detonator. There was a muffled explosion. The team was moving before the door crashed to the ground. Smoke swirled outside the entrance, masking the stink of raw sewage, but not the sour scent of the Variants.

  Ears pounding, Fitz’s world slowed to battle time. He wanted to close his eyes and protect himself from the bloodbath he feared they were walking into. He knew damn well that if the Variants had gotten inside the room, Huff and the others wouldn’t have been able to hold them off for long.

  Tank pulled him through a swirling curtain of smoke. A wall of sunlight hit Fitz. He squinted into the glow, scanning the space for hostiles. Bodies were sprawled across the far end of the room under the windows. Piles of them.

  The boards were gone, allowing blinding rays inside. Fitz shielded his eyes from the sunlight. At one of the windows, a figure splattered in crimson pointed a shotgun toward the street. A blast sounded, and the gun discharged a shell.

  The screech of a Variant plummeting to its death followed in the ringing echo.

  As his eyes adjusted, Fitz saw most of the bodies on the floor were monsters. There were only three humans. One of them still moving, hand clutched over their gut.

  “Over here!” someone shouted.

  Davis led a team of three soldiers toward a group of survivors hiding behind the couches. “Get them out of here!” she shouted.

  Tank and Garcia hurried over to the windows. Huff turned to glare at them, his eyes wide from the adrenaline rush and sight of reinforcements.

  “Thanks for coming back!” he shouted, “I didn’t think we were going to make it.” A grin touched the side of his lips. Fitz could see something change in the hardened soldier’s eyes. It was the flicker of hope th
at he was finally leaving this place.

  Huff lowered his shotgun and took a step away from the window when a pair of claws grabbed the frame behind him.

  “Behind you!” Tank shouted. He let go of Fitz as the bulbous lips and yellow eyes of a Variant’s face emerged over the bottom boards still strung across the window. Strands of thin hair clung to the bald, veiny skin on the beast’s forehead. It sniffed with a pointy nose that made its ropy lips jiggle.

  It was one of the ugliest Variants Fitz had ever seen.

  The attack happened so fast he didn’t have time to react. But not fast enough that he missed the hope vanishing from Huff’s face. His eyes widened even further, realization gripping him. He tried to move as the beast peeled back the boards, tossed them aside, and latched onto his shoulder. The wood sailed into the sunlight and the creature dug its claws into flesh.

  Tank grabbed Huff’s left hand, but Fitz crashed to the floor as he reached for his right. He quickly pushed himself up and clutched Huff’s leg.

  Garcia rushed over to get a shot just as the beast pulled Huff back to the window, turning him into a human shield. Blood spurted from the soldier’s back. He wailed in pain and fell backward, pulling Fitz and Tank with him. He hit the window frame with a thud, and grabbed on to the side with his right hand while Tank pulled on his left. Garcia roved from side to side, still trying to find an angle to shoot the creature.

  Hanging outside the window, the monster lost its grip on Huff’s shoulder. Talons ripped through flesh as it fought desperately for something to hold onto.

  The scream that followed echoed through the apartment.

  “Shoot it!” Tank shouted. “Shoot it, goddammit!”

  “I can’t get a shot,” Garcia yelled back.

  From the floor, Fitz could see the monster pulling itself up using Huff’s back as a ladder. Garcia moved again, but still couldn’t find a shot. He finally gave up and grabbed the front of Huff’s shirt.

  Together, all three Marines tugged on him, but the beast was stronger than it looked. A second set of claws wrapped around the right side of the window frame. Fitz’s face was inches away, and he could see the yellowed jagged nails digging into flesh.

  “There’s another one!” he shouted.

  In the blink of an eye, the left side of Huff’s uniform tore clean off. Tank and Garcia lost their grips and Huff was yanked backward. Fitz held onto his boot, the force dragging him to the wall under the window. The second beast peeked over the side, staring Fitz right in the face. Hot, rancid breath that smelled like scorched flesh and dead fish hit his face.

  A gunshot rang out right next to his ear. He clenched his jaw in pain, the echo ringing deep inside his skull. He jerked his head away just as an explosion of warm liquid hit the right side of his face.

  Blinking, he caught a glimpse of the Variant as it fell, a bullet hole in the center of its head spewing blood mixed with brain matter.

  Tank grabbed Huff’s right boot and pulled.

  “Hold on!” Fitz shouted.

  With his face pressed against the wall, Fitz slowly inched his head up and looked over the side. The Variant Garcia had shot in the head smashed against the road below, bursting like a tomato thrown against a tree. The other beast was still clinging to Huff’s back.

  Movement below revealed half a dozen creatures climbing the building. Upside down, with his back and head hanging outside the window, Huff could see them too. He screamed while Garcia fired at them. The shots knocked several of them away. They spun backward, flailing for something to hold onto before crashing to the pavement.

  Working with Fitz, Tank pulled Huff halfway back into the room, but the Variant was pulling too. It let go with one hand, swung back, and then used upward momentum to clamp the free claw around Huff’s neck.

  “Pull me up!” Huff yelled, his voice cracking. “Pull me—” Blood exploded from his mouth and his eyes bulged as the beast tightened talons around his neck, cutting through his jugular vein.

  Garcia angled his rifle to shoot the beast just as Huff’s boot slipped from Fitz’s hands. Fitz fell backward, his eyes flitting toward the sun. Tank let out a grunt and pulled harder.

  As Fitz pushed himself back up, the monster climbed up Huff’s chest and then his waist. It swiped with a free claw at Tank. The talon ripped across the Marine’s face.

  A shot sounded as Tank let go of Huff’s boot and stumbled away, clutching his right eye with both hands. The huge man crashed to the floor, screaming in pain.

  “Huff!” Garcia shouted. He rushed forward, but it was too late. The soldier was gone. His body hit the sidewalk a moment later. He didn’t make a single noise as he fell, but Fitz wasn’t sure if that was because the beast had slit his neck or because Huff was too proud to cry out.

  Fitz closed his eyes for a second. When they snapped open, he saw a new face staring at him a few feet away. It was Pedro, the engineer, and he was gripping his stomach with a glistening hand. In his other, he held his homemade detonator. His face twitched, and he sucked in labored breaths that crackled in his chest.

  “Better get moving,” he said, squinting in pain. “Not sure how long I can hang on.”

  “You’re coming with,” Fitz said. He reached out, but Pedro shook his head.

  “No.” He pulled his hand up to reveal his exposed guts. Fitz could smell the fatal wound.

  “My eye! I can’t fucking see,” Tank shouted.

  Garcia was still at the window, firing on the remaining Variants below. He backpedaled and turned to check Tank.

  “Hold on, brother,” Garcia said. He turned to hand a pistol down at Pedro. “Just in case they get to you before you can detonate that thing.”

  Pedro took the gun with his sticky hand. “I got you. Now get out of here.”

  In Fitz’s mind, there were two types of people at the end of the world. Those like Red, who bravely stood and protected their families and fought to the end, or those like the human collaborators who did anything to save their own skin. Pedro was somewhere in the middle, but he was one of the good ones. Fitz threw up a quick salute to a man who wasn’t even a soldier.

  Pedro cracked a smile and returned the gesture. He looked away, straightened his back against the wall and tightened his grip on the detonator.

  Fitz knew he had no choice but to leave him there. He pushed himself up and did a quick scan of the room. Davis’s team was already leading the other civilians into the stairwell. She stood in the open doorway, shouting, “Move it, Marines!”

  Reaching down, Fitz grabbed Tank under an armpit with one hand and used his rifle as a crutch with the other.

  “Hang in there big guy, you’re not as heavy as you look,” Fitz said.

  Tank grunted.

  “You’re going to be okay,” Fitz reassured him. This time it was definitely a statement, not a question. He made sure of that and strengthened his grip around Tank’s shoulder. They were both getting the fuck out of here, together, even if they weren’t leaving in one piece.

  Davis remained behind her team, sticking close to Fitz, Garcia, and Tank. She checked on them every few steps as they worked their way up the flights. The moment the first rays of sunlight hit Fitz, he felt a wave of guilt. Once again he was going home—once again, he had survived when brave men like Huff had died.

  The whoosh of chopper blades should have been music to his ears, but instead it only amplified the guilt tearing through him. He searched for Meg, and started hopping quickly to the bird when he found her.

  “Slow down,” Tank said.

  By the time they got to the Blackhawk, she had vanished behind a sea of civilians. Two soldiers in the open door turned and waved the Marines to the second Blackhawk.

  “No room, get to the other bird!”

  Fitz tried to glimpse Meg through the fort of bodies, but he only saw a sliver of her bloody shirt and the axe she still gripped in her right hand. Behind the bird, another wave of Variants climbed onto the roof. The door gunners unleashed a barrage o
f 7.62 mm rounds in their direction, sending the beasts tumbling backward.

  Garcia screamed over the chop of the blades. “Keep moving!”

  Fitz helped Tank over to the other chopper. As soon as they had piled inside, he loosened his grip under Tank’s armpit and they crashed to the floor.

  Tank growled, hand still covering his eye, blood weeping through the fingers. He was hurt, and hurt bad. Fitz couldn’t see the wound, but the amount of blood told him Tank was going to lose the eye.

  Garcia knelt next to them and put his hand on Tank’s shoulder. “Let me see it, man.”

  Fitz couldn’t understand Tank’s response, but Garcia nodded and sat cross-legged on the floor, shoulders sagging, M4 draped across his chest.

  Fitz didn’t need to be a mind-reader to guess what Garcia was thinking. Three Marines left.

  As the choppers ascended into the sky, Fitz looked down. The rooftop was dotted with corpses. There were a few human bodies speckled among the graveyard, but most were the oddly jointed, pallid creatures, strewn about like crabs washed up on a beach.

  The building dwindled until it was just another tinsel tower on the skyline. They were two minutes out when a blast wrapped out around the third floor. Fire burst out the windows. The fourth floor went up a beat later, and in one massive detonation, the entire first third of the building imploded.

  Fitz flinched, thinking of Pedro and wondering what had happened in the man’s final moments. An image of Huff falling to his death replaced the thought. He tried to shake away the memory, but it was glued there. Tattooed forever in Fitz’s mind, along with all the other people he had watched die.

  In the distance, the top floors of the building plummeted, tendrils of fire and smoke reaching into the sky. Somewhere inside the ruins, Fitz had lost a part of himself. But it wasn’t the carbon fiber of his blade; it was another piece of his soul. He hadn’t been able to save Huff or Pedro, just like he hadn’t saved Riley. And if it weren’t for Lieutenant Davis, Meg would be dead too.