“Protect them!” she yelled as it pulled her toward the basilica.
Fitz pushed the scope back to his eye for a clear shot.
Come on, come on. I just need one clean…
A wing flashed across his sight and he squeezed off a round that punched through the armor, sending the creature sailing toward the steeple. It pulled up at the last second and flapped around the back of the basilica. Watching Mira vanish felt like a scab being ripped from his heart. She had done everything to save these kids.
Now it was his job to make sure she didn’t die in vain.
Team Ghost was lobbing grenades into the gardens and surrounding woods, trying to disorient the beasts long enough for the kids to reach the truck. Geysers of dirt and diseased flesh blew into the air. At this rate they’d run out of ammo soon. Reavers swooped down, one of them grabbing a boy and pulling him into the sky.
Fitz shot the monster in the spine, and it released the kid from its grip, dropping him back into the cluster of survivors. He couldn’t see if the boy was still alive.
“Keep moving!” Fitz yelled. They were fifty feet from the vehicle, but it could have been fifty miles.
He could see they weren’t going to make it.
A flicker of light suddenly peeked over the horizon, slowly spreading a wall of crimson over the French countryside. It was something Fitz hadn’t thought he would see again.
They had survived the night, but they were out of time.
Apollo nudged up against him, whining softly. The dog had a slash on his right leg. It wasn’t the first time he had bled with the dog, but this would be the last.
“I love you, boy,” Fitz said. They had endured much and succeeded against incredible odds, but Fitz knew that no matter how hard you fought, some battles couldn’t be won. All it takes is all you got…but sometimes you just didn’t have enough.
He hefted his gun back up with his injured arm and fired on a Reaver. There were three more of the winged monsters, but they abruptly changed direction. Fitz followed them to the west where a black dot had emerged over the horizon. Whatever it was, it was leading the monsters away. He pivoted back to the MATV and blew the head off a Variant that had climbed on top.
Over the gunfire and screams, there was a faint sound that made Fitz’s heart skip a beat.
Is that…?
Yes!
A transmission crackled in his ear.
“Ghost 1, do you copy?”
“This is Ghost 1!” Fitz shouted into the comms.
“I got you, brother! Hang on. One big-ass King Stallion, coming in hot over the city.”
Fitz started laughing in sheer relief. He recognized that voice. It was Tito, Timbo’s cousin, the chopper pilot who had saved their asses back in D.C. The massive chopper closed in on the church and unleashed a salvo of gunfire that cut the remaining Reavers from the air.
A second line of machine gun fire hit the wave of adult Variants. Tito made a quick pass over the group and then banked hard to the right to swing around for another run.
“Bradley’s going to have my head!” Tito said, laughing like a madman. “I swear to God, this is the last time I steal a chopper for Team Ghost.”
Rico ran ahead and jumped onto the hood of the MATV as the King Stallion swooped in with cables unfurled to connect to the truck. Gunfire came from all directions, holding back the monsters as they squawked, screeching in an evil discord that hurt Fitz’s ears. They fanned back out into the gardens, retreating to the shadows as the morning sun rose in the sky.
He looked down at Michel, who was curled up on his side at Fitz’s feet. Fitz wasn’t sure how to pick the kid up without getting acid all over himself too. He glanced around for something to wrap him in.
“Kid, hang on. We’re getting you out of here.”
Michel’s lips trembled and parted. He coughed, his lungs rattling. He rolled over, and Fitz’s heart sank. It was too late for the boy. He’d been hit worse than Fitz had thought, or else the toxins had simply spread like wildfire.
“Would my dad be proud?” Michel’s voice trailed off, barely more than a whisper. He coughed again.
Apollo licked the boy’s face. A tear fell from Fitz’s eye as he leaned down, grabbed the boy’s clammy hand and squeezed. “Your dad would be very proud.”
Michel’s hand went limp. He placed it gently on the boy’s chest and tucked his Superman cape around him like a shroud. Fitz squeezed his eyes shut, gasping for air as sobs tore from his throat. A pair of gloved hands clapped him on the shoulder. He looked up to see Rico. Behind her were the survivors of the battle, bloody and wide-eyed, clinging to one another. They were all staring at him, tears streaking down their filthy faces.
“Where is Maman?” a young girl asked.
“Everyone inside of the truck!” Stevenson shouted.
The kids filed into the troop hold as ordered. Dohi stumbled along, disoriented from his concussion. Rico got a shoulder under his arm with Tanaka on his other side. They half-carried the injured member of Ghost to the MATV just as the cables tightened. Fitz glanced down at Michel one last time, knowing he couldn’t bring the boy with them due to the toxins.
“Goodbye, kid,” Fitz said. He bent down to pick Apollo up and help him into the back of the truck. They were the last two in. Securely inside, Fitz let himself collapse on the smooth metal floor, his chest heaving.
“You did it, Fitzie, you got us out of there,” Rico said.
Not everyone…
He sat up and counted twelve filthy faces. Fitz had gotten Team Ghost out, but they had lost seven of the kids—and Mira.
“She had just saved one of the little ones,” he explained. “The Reaver came down, and then…Jesus, I’m so sorry. I only got off one shot. I just couldn’t save her.”
Rico stared at him, her swollen nose and eyes were red, the color clashing with her bubblegum pink hair. She sniffed and rubbed her hand over her cheeks, roughly wiping the tears away.
“It’s okay,” she said. “It wasn’t your fault.”
It is my fault.
Apollo laid down beside him, but he gestured for the dog to get up. He didn’t deserve to be comforted.
“Go see the kids, boy,” Fitz said. Apollo trotted over to the Ombres and sat on his hind legs in front of them. The young girl who had asked for Mira stroked his head. They were talking amongst themselves, and Fitz understood just enough French to know that they were scared and confused. More than one of them was still asking where Mira and Michel were.
“We’re taking you all somewhere safe,” Fitz said. One of the older kids, a girl with a vicious scratch running down the side of her face, translated his words into French for the others.
Fitz paused and took a deep breath. “Your Maman and Captain Michel aren’t coming with us. They had to stay behind to…to watch over the basilica.”
The Ombres looked back at Fitz—some of them old enough to know the truth, others believing him. He wiped the sweat and blood from his face.
“Better look out your window, Ghost,” Tito said over the channel.
Fitz turned to the window in the side of the MATV. At first he didn’t see anything but whiteness, like the ground was covered in a blanket of snow.
But snow didn’t move.
“My God,” Rico said. “There has to be thousands of them down there.”
The roar of jets broke in the distance.
“Operation Reach is underway,” Tito said. “Got you guys out right in time, too, because we’re about to sizzle those bastards.”
Fitz couldn’t pull his eyes away from the sea of mutated flesh below. This was the Variant army Mira had spoken about. The force they had fought at the basilica had just been a recon party.
He turned his back to the window and relaxed against the bulkhead as the sound of the jets grew louder. Team Ghost had completed their mission. They had given Nixon and Bradley the intel they needed to fight their way to Paris and carry out Operation Reach.
Fitz had done
his duty…so why did he feel like he’d utterly failed?
-23-
Piero finished tying a strip of his torn uniform around his wounded ankle. The makeshift tourniquet had stopped the bleeding, but he had to find something to clean it. He could only imagine what kind of infection he might get from a demon. He tightened it one last time, then tested his weight on the ankle. It hurt, but he could still walk.
“You ready to see the world again, Ringo?” Piero whispered to his pocket.
The mouse peeked out, then ducked back down.
The mouse was scared of the light. Not that Piero blamed him. They couldn’t hide in the sunlight. But he had made up his mind. He wasn’t returning to the tunnels. He wasn’t hiding anymore.
Piero unlocked the door leading into St. Peter’s Basilica and eased it open. The staircase led out into one of the many chapels. Light from the windows circling the central dome revealed a layer of dried blood covering the marble floor like a red carpet.
Piero shouldered his rifle and walked out into the Chapel of the Presentation of the Virgin. He took a step toward one of the pews and slowly raked the muzzle across the other chapels in a clockwise motion. Skeletons littered the Choir Chapel and the Clementine Chapel. He could not begin to count how many dead there were. All picked clean of flesh.
Another step forward. Something crunched under his boot.
He closed his eyes and cringed as the sound echoed through the basilica.
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
Piero forced his eyes open, expecting a Varianti to jump from the shadows and gallop toward him. But nothing moved. He looked down and saw not a bone, as he had feared, but a crumpled clear plastic cup. There were more cups fallen beneath the pews or dropped onto the aisles.
He held the cup to his nose and sniffed. Piero couldn’t be certain, but he thought he smelled wine. Something else too, bitter like rancid almonds.
Piero understood now what had happened here. This hadn’t been communion. These people had come here for a different purpose.
Suicides.
All of them.
The church was where people flocked when things got bad. People came to the opulent basilica to pray. And, it seemed, to die. Catholics didn’t believe in suicide, but he had no doubt that whoever had overseen these final moments had forgiven their sins. He looked around again, recalling that the massive space could hold sixty thousand people.
Piero wandered through the other chapels. Mangled bodies littered the marble floors. He roved his gun from left to right, overwhelmed by what he saw. The basilica was meant to be a place of wonder and awe, created by the finest artists like Michelangelo as a testament to God’s glory, but now it was a charnel house.
It was when Piero made his way toward the central dome that he realized the true feat accomplished by man. Crepuscular rays shot through the windows. The golden sunlight rained down around him like the light of heaven itself.
Surrounded by something he never thought he would see again, Piero wept.
Lifting his hand to shield his blurred eyes, he squinted into the light. There was something else up there, some sort of black chandeliers hanging from the curved ceiling. He didn’t remember those from the tour with his family over twenty years ago.
An object fell and clanked on the marble floor to his right.
“What the hell?” Piero whispered. The thing came to a stop at the foot of a nearby pew. He slowly walked over to check it out.
It was a bone, stripped of all flesh.
Black tar plummeted from the dome and splattered the floor, more of the white bones sticking out of the pile.
The ceiling wasn’t raining bones.
This was the excrement of something above him.
Piero watched in horror as one of the monsters woke up and spread its wings. The others moved restlessly. They were supposed to sleep during the day. They didn’t like the light.
Ringo buried himself in his pocket as Piero limped away. He moved as fast as he could while still making as little noise as possible. Up ahead, five portals led out of the basilica to the piazza beyond. The largest of them, a massive bronze gateway, stood ajar.
He ran the last few yards, heedless of the noise he was making or the pain in his leg.
A brilliant sun blinded him as he half-fell onto the landing overlooking the piazza. His vision cleared to show him a battlefield. Tanks and armored vehicles filled the central courtyard. There were bones here, too, bleached white by the sun. He wasn’t sure if he knew anyone in the units that had been deployed to defend the Vatican, but it didn’t matter now. They were dead now, like everyone else in the cursed world.
He looked out over the city he had loved deeply. To the east, a bridge stretched across the Tiber River. An ancient castle rose to the north. Everywhere he looked, he saw visions of the best and worst of humanity.
And somehow, he was the last human standing.
The thought took the air from his chest, forcing him to take raspy breaths. A wave of nausea passed over him. He might have thrown up if he’d had anything in his stomach. Instead, he sat on the stairs listening to the screech of the beasts swooping through the basilica. He was too exhausted, mentally and physically, to push on. The mouse jumped onto his shoulder and looked out with him over the ruins of Rome.
For a moment they rested there together, a man and his mouse. Piero scanned the battlefield, looking for bodies that he might recognize. But all he saw were bones. There was a rucksack a few steps away. There could be food or supplies inside, but he was too fatigued to care.
What did it matter?
Part of him had still believed there would be people out here. Piero had hoped he wouldn’t have to be alone anymore. He let out a long sigh, his weary heart pushing blood through his veins. Another screech from inside reminded him the clock was ticking.
“I’m sorry, Ringo. I...I can’t go on. But at least we got to see the sun again.”
Piero grabbed his rifle and positioned the muzzle under his chin. He squinted at the sun, basking in the rays one last time. Then he put his finger on the trigger and grabbed the mouse in his other hand.
“It’s okay. It will be fast,” Piero whispered to his friend. He tightened his grip around the mouse. He could feel its fragile ribs against his sweaty palm. It chirped and scratched at his fingers. Tiny black eyes centered on Piero, pleading for him to stop.
“It’s okay, Ringo. We don’t have to suffer anymore.”
The creature bit his finger.
Ringo didn’t want to die.
“Fuck,” Piero said, loosening his grip.
He couldn’t bring himself to kill his friend, even if it was out of mercy. Ringo jumped back to his shoulder and squeaked as if to say, You asshole!
It continued to talk in its high-pitched voice. Piero looked at the small creature, but the mouse was no longer looking at him. He followed Ringo’s gaze toward the sky overhead.
The winged monsters were flapping away from the basilica.
Piero furrowed his eyebrows and slowly rose to his feet.
They were definitely retreating, but what could frighten things like that?
He turned as a deep rumble sounded in the distance. On the horizon, a trio of black dots emerged in a V formation.
“It…it can’t be,” Piero whispered. His voice grew louder as he jumped into the air, pointing at the incoming planes. “They came for me! Look, Ringo, we’re not alone!”
A smile split Piero’s face. He felt like dancing.
“Down here! We’re down here!”
He waved his hands as Ringo clung to his shoulder. The jets burst through clouds and shot over the western side of the city. At the foot of the steps, the radio inside one of the tanks squawked to life. Piero ran toward it just in time to hear the transmission repeat.
“Broadcasting on revolving frequencies. If you can hear this message, get underground now. Operation Reach is underway.”
Piero grabbed the radio, but the voice on the other en
d of the comms was nothing more than a pre-recorded message.
He’d never heard of Operation Reach. He looked to the sky again, and his face fell when he saw the bombs dropping from the bellies of the jets.
“No,” he whispered.
The planes weren’t looking for survivors. They were here to kill the monsters—and him, if he didn’t move his ass.
Explosions bloomed in the distance, toxic flames bursting on the edge of the city as the bombs connected with their targets. The planes changed course. They were headed right in his direction.
Piero grabbed the rucksack on the stairs and stopped to pluck several magazines from the vest of a dead soldier. Then he turned and ran up the steps to the basilica, retreating back into the darkness, the sound of the jets growing ever louder.
Davis crawled through the mud with her M4 held across her arms. Salt water stung her eyes as the tide crashed against her body. She moved under the cover of the embankment on the west side of Fort Pickens. Black was on point, his Mohawk plastered to his skull like seaweed by the spray. Behind them came Diaz, Robbie, and Sanders. They had been moving like snails for an hour to get around the peninsula undetected. The second hardest part—swimming out to sea and then back again—was over, but the hardest part was still ahead. They still had to board the GW.
A wave hit the beach and slurped up under Davis. She closed her mouth and eyes as the water broke against the rocks around her. She pushed on. The routine was simple: wiggle, crawl a few feet, wiggle again, and keep crawling. It was painstakingly slow, but it gave her time to collect her thoughts.
The bloodlust from killing the ROT soldiers had faded. The anger hadn’t gone away, but it hadn’t gotten any worse, either. Mostly, she just felt numb.
Another wave crashed against her, pushing her over the sand and into a sharp rock. She winced but kept moving. They were almost to the other side of the peninsula. Davis was going to have a lot of bruises, but the aches were worth it when she saw her ship.
The Extinction Cycle (Book 6): Extinction Aftermath Page 31
