This Is the End: The Post-Apocalyptic Box Set (7 Book Collection)

by Craig DiLouie

  From twenty-five thousand feet in the air, the Earth looked like scaled scenery that might have been used in an old movie. But Sean didn’t see the ground. None of the men did, not tonight. The tops of dull gray clouds flew by a few thousand feet below the plane. Once in a while, there was a break in the cloud cover and Sean saw glimpses of darkened Earth. Blackness left behind by a sun that set five hours ago, its charred remains stretching across the landscape.

  The SEALs made their jumps, one by one, in quick succession, with no hesitation, no fear, no bullshit. They were warriors in every sense of the word.

  SEALs were like that, thought Sean.

  He turned to his partner, Jules Hoover, and said, “We’re up.”

  Jules winked and headed for the platform.

  They had to move, and both men knew it. Waiting much longer would put them further away from the team they were attached to. The SEALs wouldn’t wait around long, if at all. Not in hostile territory. Not for a couple of Air Force Pararescuemen, otherwise known as PJs.

  In a flash, Jules took off down the ramp and dove head first, arms out, legs spread wide. When Sean reached the ledge, Jules had disappeared into the night sky.

  “These things we do, that others may live,” Sean said to himself. The PJ motto. He repeated it to himself at the start of every mission, every time he had to use deadly force against another human being, and every time he risked his life to save another.

  He reached into his top pocket, pulled out a photograph. He stared at the two smiling faces, both framed by long brown hair. He kissed the image of his wife, Kathy, did the same to the image of his daughter, Emma. He thought back to the words Emma whispered to him right before he left for this mission.

  Please stay safe, Daddy.

  Sean smiled. At four years old, his daughter had no idea what he did. She knew he was in the Air Force and that his job involved saving people. He figured that she picked up on some of Kathy’s anxiety of his missions, and that’s why she insisted that he stay safe.

  Knowing that his window to jump was closing, Sean took one last look at the photo, whispered, “I’ll be home soon, ladies,” and tucked the picture away in a spot he knew it would remain safe. From that point on, he had to focus on his job. He compartmentalized the two women in his life, tucked them away in a spot where he knew they were there, but his thoughts of them wouldn’t interfere with the job he had to do. It was something he learned to do long ago. It kept him, and those around him, alive.

  No matter how many times he’d jumped, he’d never managed to get rid of the anxious feelings that preceded plummeting to the Earth at terminal velocity. His stomach knotted, sweat dripped profusely, his chest tightened, his lungs constricted. But the panic and anxiety never stopped him. Not tonight. Not any night. Sean knew that extended periods of anxiety could cause hypoxia, so he allowed himself a panic window of fifteen seconds. Ten before the jump, five after.

  He traveled down the platform, his movements silent against the roar of the rushing wind. He propelled himself off the ledge, head first, arms out, feet wide. Then gravity took over and he repositioned himself to travel like a bullet.

  The first few moments of a jump were always terrifying. Questions raced through Sean’s mind. They were the same every time. What if I fail to maintain control of my body? What if atmospheric conditions blow me off course and into enemy hands? What if my chute doesn’t open? What if my backup fails to deploy in time? The questions passed through him like grains of sand through a child’s fingers. He continued toward the Earth, and the powerful upper level winds that Sean knifed through carried his doubts away, like dust in a sandstorm.

  With terminal velocity achieved, Sean let his training and instincts take over. By this point in his career, he had enough jumps to his credit that the process was as close to automatic as it could get. His only concerns were how far he’d have to travel to rejoin the group, and whether or not the journey would be wrought with danger. He knew that Jules would be close by and the man would wait for Sean to rendezvous with him before moving on. Together, they could take on a dozen regular men and half a dozen soldiers, so long as they didn’t have the same type of training.

  At twenty-five hundred feet, Sean pulled his ripcord. Nothing happened. The first twinges of panic surfaced and were subsequently beaten away by Sean’s extensive training and preparation. He deployed his reserve and prepared for the worst. His reserve parachute opened and he felt his body jerk to a crawl. At least that was how it felt after plummeting at a speed of over one hundred and twenty miles per hour.

  Floating through the air afforded Sean a chance to scan the area for other members of the team. Using a pair of night vision goggles, he located what he assumed was Jules’s parachute. A moment later, he saw the grainy dark green outline of his partner, and the first leg of his journey was confirmed. Sean kept his eyes on his partner’s location until he hit the ground. The landing wasn’t as rough as he had expected it to be. It wasn’t great, either, but he managed to get up and walk away, and for Sean, that constituted a successful jump.

  Adrenaline streamed through his body, pumping with every rapid beat of his heart. He gathered up his parachute then headed in the direction of Jules’s landing spot. He had to remind himself to proceed with extreme caution. No immediate danger had been expected, but he knew they wouldn’t be in the area if there wasn’t a damn good reason. Rarely did they get this far into a mission without details about where they were going and what they would do once they arrived. Yet, here they were, in the wilds of southern Nigeria, a few miles north of the snaking Niger River, and no one could tell him anything other than jump.

  Sean reached Jules’s landing spot and found his partner crouching low, facing the opposite direction. He dropped to his stomach, crawled toward Jules.

  “Something’s out there,” Jules said.

  “What?” Sean said.

  “Not sure. I heard it. Saw it for a second. It rushed in, then back out.”

  “Animal?”

  “Bi-pedal, man. It ran in on two feet, then took off.”

  “You don’t think it was Bates or Schmitty messing with you?”

  Jules shrugged and appeared to contemplate the question. On the half dozen or so missions they’d run with this platoon, Bates and Schmitty always came up with a way to screw with Jules. Last time they’d been attached, the two guys got Jules piss drunk on tequila. When he passed out, they stuck him in an emergency raft and dragged him a quarter mile out into the Caspian Sea. Sean got the call at daybreak and had to figure out how to get his partner back to land.

  “C’mon, forget about it” Sean said. “We need to catch up with them. I’ve got no idea where we’re heading.”

  “Me either,” Jules said. He hopped to his feet, started moving.

  Sean reequipped his night vision then caught up to his partner. They walked side by side, both of them scanning the area in front of them and to the sides, and occasionally behind. Their MP7s moved with their eyes, ready to eliminate any threats.

  “Did you see them land?” Sean asked in a hushed voice.

  “Yeah,” Jules replied. “They were a good half-mile away. Guess we took more wind shear than they did.”

  Sean felt like he’d managed to land pretty close to his target. Of course, an accurate gauge of distance was harder from five miles in the air, especially in the dark. His initial trajectory from the plane could have been off an inch or two and that would have made a big difference.

  Sean heard a scattering sound to his right. He twisted his head and stared into the thick vegetation. He looked up and down, left and right, focusing on one six-foot section at a time. The branches stood out, almost white, in the greenish hue of the goggles. The sound stopped almost as soon as it began. Sean decided to ignore it and continue on.

  Probably wildlife.

  “Think they’re waiting?” Jules said.

  “No,” Sean said. “Call ‘em and tell them to stop or at least slow down. I don’t want th
em to get too far ahead.”

  “Okay,” Jules said.

  Sean heard another sound, again to his right. Footsteps scurrying across the ground, close by, then retreating. He spun to his right, heard Jules do the same.

  “What the frig?” Jules said.

  Sean said nothing as he scanned the area, looking for any sign of what made the noise.

  “Did you see that, Sean?”

  “See what?”

  “That… thing?”

  “I didn’t see anything.”

  But was that the truth? Sean thought through the sequence of events. He’d heard the sound approach and turned as whatever had created the noise retreated into the brush. He had scanned a large area of bushes and trees. He’d seen it. A human figure had ducked in between two bushes.

  Jules approached the area, slowly and cautiously.

  “What’re you doing?” Sean said. He remained rooted to the same spot.

  “I want to know what that is,” Jules called back.

  “Screw it, man. It’s gone and we need to catch up to Turk and the others. Keep your eyes open and stay alert.”

  Jules stood in place, facing the thick vegetation. His elbows were tight to his side. His arms out, hidden from Sean’s view by Jules’s torso. He pivoted left to right. Sean saw the barrel of the man’s H&K MP7 poke out on the side.

  “Jules,” Sean said, maybe a notch too loud. “Let’s move.”

  “All right,” Jules said, turning. “Damn mind playing tricks on me. Swore I saw eyes reflecting from in there.”

  Sean chuckled, managing to find something humorous in the situation. He imagined them being stalked by a pack of feral cats.

  Ten pounds of pure terror.

  A scream that could rival that of a banshee erupted from within the bushes. Time slowed down. Sean saw Jules twist around. The man’s arms went up into a protective gesture. The weapon in his hands rose to a spot in front of his face to deflect a blow. Jules’s body bowed back at his knees. He looked like he was trying to win a limbo competition, only the bar was coming after him.

  Sean reacted before his mind could fully process the sight of a naked human, or humanoid, rushing toward him. Its mouth hung wide open, strands of saliva connected between upper and lower teeth. Its eyes seemed to glow. Sean lifted his pistol into the air. It was his only defense, as he hadn’t yet removed his MP7. He squeezed off three shots. Each one hit dead center. The man that approached jerked back at first, then staggered backward. It released another furious howl. Pain? Anger? Then it began another approach.

  “What the…?” Sean said. Unfortunately, his brain had caught up and was busy trying to make sense of what had happened. Even a man high on PCP would have had more of a reaction than this guy had after three 9mm bullets to the chest. He should be on the ground sucking in his dying breaths, yet here he was, standing and looking even more pissed off.

  Sean aimed, fired two more rounds. One hit the man in the stomach and the guy bowed forward. The other shot hit him in his shoulder, and the man jerked back to the left, his body twisting at the waist.

  Sean cursed himself for allowing his nerves to affect his aim. He dropped to one knee in an effort to steady himself. The man was now close enough that Sean had to make his next shot count, or it might be his last.

  The guy straightened, dropped his head back. He released a scream that drowned out the ambient sounds of the night. It started low and sounded guttural. Primal. Then it became high and shrill. The sound was deafening, and Sean wondered if maybe it was an attempt to call another person to his position.

  Sean lifted his weapon and took aim, but before he could squeeze the trigger, the man sprinted toward him, moving faster than he’d ever seen a human run. The next thing he knew, the guy was right in front of him, arms out and back at the elbows, fingers curled up like claws, mouth open and teeth glinting in the moonlight. The guy carried the smell of rotten and decaying flesh and human waste. Blood leaked from the bullet holes that riddled the man’s body. He breathed heavily, wheezing with each inhale and exhale.

  This was no man.

  The roar of three-burst semi-automatic gunfire erupted from behind the man. The bullets appeared to hit him in the mid to upper back, because the guy stopped and his stomach extended out while his shoulders pulled back. His open, vicious mouth contorted in a pained expression. Another burst of gunfire tore through the night and ripped through the man’s head, tearing a good chunk of the right side off. Blood and bone and brain hovered in the air, and then rained to the ground.

  Sean fell back and rolled out of the way. He lay flat on his stomach and aimed at the being, which still stood, though appeared lifeless. At last, it fell forward, the remains of its face hitting the packed earth, Jules standing a foot behind the space it had occupied.

  “What the fuck was that?” Sean yelled.

  Jules shook his head, said nothing.

  Sean got to his feet, walked around the body on the ground. He noticed Jules standing still, mouth open, eyes glassy and focused on the corpse on the ground.

  “Jules?” Sean said.

  His partner said nothing in return. He continued to stare at the body.

  Sean lifted his goggles and shone a light on the body on the ground. It was pale, almost blue. Half of its face was exposed. An open mouth revealed red gums and dirty, yellow-and-brown teeth. Deep-purple circles rimmed its eyes. Dark bruises littered its upper back and thighs. Sean wanted to see its stomach, but decided against touching the remains. The fear, he thought, was irrational, but he knew he had every right to trust his instincts.

  Sean’s radio clicked on, and through a faint trace of static, a deep voice spoke. “Ryder, Jules? Come in.” It was Turk, the SEAL team leader.

  “Ryder,” Sean said.

  “What are you two clowns doing back there? We heard gunfire.”

  “That was us. We’re okay,” Sean said.

  “Care to tell me what happened?” Turk asked.

  Sean looked at Jules, who appeared to have regained some sense. Jules shook his head and in a hushed tone said, “Don’t tell them.”

  Sean licked his lips and pressed the transmit button on his radio. “Wild boar or some shit.”

  “Wild boar?” Turk said. “That was a hell of a lot of gunfire for a friggin’ pig, Ryder.”

  “Yeah,” Sean said. “We thought there were more behind the bushes.”

  “Whatever,” Turk said. “You two need to hustle and get your asses over here. I’m serious, double time it. I got no idea who’s out here waiting for us, but I do know that you two numb nuts alerted them to our presence. Out.”

  Sean reattached his radio to his belt. “Not who,” he muttered. “What.” He bumped into Jules’s shoulder and began walking away from the lifeless body on the ground, hoping to forget about the encounter.

  “Turk’s right,” Jules said.

  Sean waited for him to continue, but when Jules said nothing else, Sean said, “How’s that?”

  Jules turned his head ninety degrees and looked at Sean. He, too, had removed his goggles. His dark brown eyes reflected the moon as tiny white circles. “He ain’t got no idea what’s out here. We’ve seen it, and we ain’t got a clue.”

  Sean said nothing. He started walking and picked up the pace once they were a few yards away. He wanted to put as much distance between himself and the body of that thing as he could. If they encountered another one, he didn’t want to be alone. And the SEALs wouldn’t wait all night.

  Chapter 2

  They moved quickly, quietly, deliberately. Their eyes scanned the territory in front of them and behind them, non-stop. Sean maintained radio silence, a precaution in the event that their gunfire had alerted someone of their presence.

  Sean couldn’t be sure, but he thought he heard howls that sounded more human than animal. Feral humans, he thought. Could that be what that thing was?

  It took fifteen minutes for Sean and Jules to reach the SEAL team, which indicated to Sean that the SE
ALs had held position after they heard the attack.

  Sean wanted to locate Turk so he could avoid him. He knew the man would again ask what happened. If Sean lied a second time, it would show on his face. Keeping Jules away from Turk was also a high priority because he appeared to still be on edge over the situation. Every couple hundred feet or so during their journey, Jules would mutter something to the effect of, “What the frig was that thing? Never seen no man take that kind of damage and keep moving.” Sean had to constantly remind his partner to keep quiet in case there were more of those things around.

  Jules’s question and observation were legit, as far as Sean was concerned. He’d completed PJ training over ten years ago. During that time, he’d been in some of the worst places imaginable. He’d seen people wounded in any of a hundred different ways. He’d had to use deadly force on a number of occasions in an effort to complete a mission.

  Through it all, he’d never seen someone handle a catastrophic injury and keep on coming. Perhaps, as he guessed, they weren’t dealing with a someone. But what, then? An alien? He chuckled at the thought.

  Jules turned his head. His thick eyebrows were furrowed over his dark eyes. “What the frig are you laughing about?”

  Sean shrugged, brushed off Jules’s question. Not because he wanted to ignore the man, though. He had locked eyes with Turk, and the SEAL was crossing camp, heading in their direction.

  Turk was one of the most intimidating men Sean had ever been around. It wasn’t only his physical traits. All SEALs were built and fast and tough. Turk had something else about him. The guy had close to twenty years in the Navy, almost all of them as a SEAL. Two of those years had been spent in a dirt hole four foot wide and ten foot deep, crisscrossed iron bars at the top, trapping him inside. One day, his captors made a mistake and forgot to lock down the gate atop the hole. According to Turk, he waited an hour or so for the sun to set, and then scaled the muddy walls. He said he left one of his captors alive, but only after removing the man’s genitals and forcing him to eat them. A warning, he said, that they should never fuck with SEALs. Turk was legendary within the SEAL community. Hell, he was legendary in the Special Forces community. It always gave Sean a sense of calm when Turk was in charge of a mission.