Extinction Aftermath (Extinction Cycle Book 6)

by Nicholas Sansbury Smith

  Fitz looked back at the Ombres. He no longer saw children carrying weapons too big for them or kids in filthy clothing. He saw survivors who had been forced to grow up too early. Their parents had probably told them the same thing Fitz’s parents had told him when he was young: monsters weren’t real. But these kids knew the truth.

  Whatever doubts he’d had before, Fitz knew that when the time came, Michel would be right.

  The Ombres would fight.

  “All of the barricades are secured, and the escape route outside to the MATV is ready if we need it,” Dohi whispered.

  Fitz nodded. They were all set, but he wasn’t exactly confident in his plan. He wasn’t even sure he was doing the right thing.

  What would Beckham do?

  It was the third time Fitz had asked himself that question today. But Beckham wasn’t here. All the choices were up to Fitz, and there weren’t any good ones. If Fitz made a run for the MATV now, he risked losing everything. Then again, if the Variants found them down here, they wouldn’t stand a chance. In the end, Fitz had decided to hunker down and wait, like Bradley had ordered, hoping the monsters passed over the basilica and that Command would send evac before Operation Reach started.

  All around them, the walls groaned like a hungry stomach. Now he knew what Jonah felt like when the whale swallowed him.

  Some of the children whimpered as dust fell from the ceiling. Mira shushed them with a finger to her mouth.

  “Can those things get through stone?” Rico asked.

  Michel nodded. “Mira said that’s how they got my dad and his men. He was at Versailles. They broke right through the walls.”

  “They might pass us by,” she whispered. “We need to keep quiet.”

  Tanaka didn’t look convinced. He shouldered his rifle and pointed the muzzle at the barricade. It was pretty impressive for such a makeshift structure, built with pews, bookshelves, and tables made of heavy wood. But it wouldn’t hold the monsters for long.

  Stevenson and Dohi flanked the barricade, weapons raised. Rico lifted her shotgun with deliberate care, but the stock banged against her ammo pouch. The sudden breach of silence made Fitz cringe.

  Creaking rafters overhead seemed to answer the sound. More dust rained down. Apollo stood, hackles raised and a low growl rumbling in his throat. Fitz put a hand on the dog’s flank, and Apollo settled back onto his haunches.

  Silence reigned again. Fitz’s mind drifted to Plum Island. He had promised he would be back in time to see Kate and Beckham’s child born, but now it looked like it would be a miracle if he made it home at all.

  Don’t think like that, Marine.

  Fitz had survived worse odds back in New York when it was just him and Apollo. He had Team Ghost and the Ombres with him this time.

  Dohi shifted his rifle toward the ceiling as yet more dust rained down. The barricade creaked behind them, and he whipped his gun toward the sound.

  Silence filled the space again.

  Fitz moved a sweaty finger to the trigger of his rifle and balled his other hand into a fist. His eyes flitted from face to face. The candle flames were the only motion in the entire room, swaying back and forth in an unseen breeze.

  Apollo stood abruptly, and his tail dropped between his legs. That was his tell, a warning of what was about to happen.

  The Variants were coming.

  Cracks webbed across the center of the ceiling. A crunching came from the opposite side of the room near the altar. The ground broke open, chunks of ancient stone pushing up. One of the flames went out, and darkness shifted across the room.

  A guttural thud echoed through the basilica above. Something massive was at the main entrance. The sounds of splintering and snapping wood followed as the monster broke through.

  A sound like a cross between a snake and an insect rose into a piercing wail. Several of the kids dropped their weapons and cupped their hands over their ears. The blonde girl from the tower took off running for the corner, only to trip over a crack in the ground. She fell to her knees, but Michel ran to pick her up. He moved quickly like a football player weaving between obstacles to get to her. Her knee was bleeding, and tears traced tracks down her dirty cheeks.

  Something inside Fitz snapped at the sight. He took in everything like a machine, processing it quickly and efficiently. The fear of failure vanished, replaced by the confidence Beckham had worked to instill in him as they trained and fought together.

  “Ghost, watch your zones of fire!” Fitz roared. “Mira, get the kids out of here!” He flashed signals to his team. Stevenson, Tanaka, and Dohi remained at the barricade while Fitz, Apollo, and Rico ran toward the altar.

  A three-foot-wide section of stone floor broke apart. Dirt exploded out of the opening, and with it came something that made Fitz slow his pace. Tentacles wormed their way up through the earth, reaching blindly for their prey.

  Rico shouted at the kids who had run in that direction to get back.

  Fitz grabbed a boy wearing a scarf around his face and pointed at the staircase across the room. “Follow Mira!”

  The kid might not have understood the English command, but he got the gist of it. He took off running, guided only by the light of the two remaining candles. By the time Fitz had turned back to the altar, the monster squirming in the dirt was almost free.

  The tentacles worked to heave the creature free of the earth. Its arms and legs were shriveled, almost vestigial, and hung limp from its soft, pale underbelly. Armored fins lined its back, and two horns protruded from the beast’s forehead. A pair of sunken, ghostly white eyes gazed around the room, blinking rapidly as if even the dim candlelight hurt them.

  It was difficult to imagine that this creature had once been a man, but a glance between its legs showed that the thing was male.

  One of the tentacles attached to the torso reached out for Fitz, and he finally shook off his shock and opened fire. Gunshots broke out all around him, joining the fray. Stone cracked, and whole blocks fell from the ceiling. The chorus of destruction was joined by the frightened screams of the children and Apollo’s frantic barking.

  In the sacred crypts beneath the Basilica of St. Thérèse, all hell was breaking loose.

  The final candles went out, plunging them in darkness.

  Fitz flipped his NVGs into position, then shot the Wormer with a three-round burst. Blood poured from the wounds, but it didn’t die. It moved toward them like an octopus, pulling itself along with its tentacles.

  Rico fired into its open mouth, blowing away spiky teeth and sending the thing flipping from side to side on the ground, screeching in agony.

  Apollo snapped at one of the tentacles as the dying monster flailed in his direction. Fitz whirled to fire on a second Wormer that had punched through the floor behind him. Tanaka sliced through the whipping tentacles with his long sword. One of them wrapped around his blade and pulled it out of Tanaka’s grip, but he stabbed at the tentacle repeatedly with his shorter blade until it let go.

  Across the room, Mira and the kids had stopped. She had herded them toward the staircase, but a Wormer had broken through the ground in front of their exit, cutting them off. She fired her AK-47 at it, shouting French words that Fitz only half understood.

  Michel and two of the other kids fired their rifles, and dozens of rounds punched through the monster’s flesh. It slumped to the ground, half its body still inside its tunnel.

  The Wormers were surprisingly easy to kill compared to other Variants, but if they’d compromised the foundation of the basilica, they could bring the entire building down. Especially with the weight of the beast thundering about in the main worship area above them. Fitz could hear the thing’s feet hitting the tiles, the thud-thud even louder than the gunfire.

  Muzzle bursts lit the room with their brilliant flashes, giving Fitz a glimpse of the battle. Six Wormers had broken through the floor,
and another was working its way through the wall above the altar. A kid in his teens had crumpled to the floor, blood pooling around him from multiple gunshot wounds.

  Shit, shit, shit. Was that us? It couldn’t have been us.

  He looked around the room at the other kids. Michel and the two kids with him were firing in disciplined bursts, but some others were shooting in random directions. A bullet whipped past Fitz’s helmet.

  “Watch your fire! Dammit!”

  “We have to get out of here!” Rico shouted.

  “Get to the exit!” Fitz yelled back. “And watch your fucking zones of fire!”

  Mira was already helping the children climb over the dead Wormer to get to the staircase. In the back of the room near the barricade, Stevenson and Dohi were firing at three more monsters that had burst through the ground, pinning them in a corner.

  The pounding footsteps above them suddenly changed direction. Fitz raised his rifle at the ceiling as another network of cracks spread across the ceiling near the trapped members of Team Ghost.

  “Get away from the barricade!” Fitz yelled.

  The men either couldn’t hear him or were too busy to answer. They continued cutting down Wormers as more broke through the walls and floor.

  Fitz put a burst into the wrinkled face of a monster that was wriggling through an opening to his right. The stone floor rose to his left, and the fins of another Wormer broke through like a shark under the surface. He fired the rest of his magazine at the raised dirt. The floor stopped moving.

  An impact like a battering ram shook the barricade. One of the pews fell away.

  That was the only warning they got.

  Stevenson and Dohi were still turning around when the beast smashed into the doors with a force unlike any Fitz had witnessed before. The barricade blew apart, sending the heavy wooden furniture flying. A pew hit Stevenson in the side, knocking him to the ground. He pushed himself to his feet and raised his SAW. Dohi flanked him, while Tanaka continued to slice through the Wormers.

  “Move, Ghost!” Fitz shouted. “To the MATV!” He searched for a target, but his men were in the way. Gunfire lanced into the door as the beast smashed its way through. A piercing hiss answered the shots.

  Fitz cut down another Wormer emerging from the floor, then ran toward his men. Apollo and Rico were right behind him, and at the exit, Mira and Michel were ushering the last of the kids into the stairwell.

  A high-pitched scream pierced the air. Fitz turned just in time to see a Wormer wrap its tentacles around the girl with the blonde braid.

  Michel grabbed her other arm, but the creature was stronger and he lost his grip. She vanished inside the cavernous tunnel, her shoe falling off her foot and hitting the floor as she struggled in vain to get free.

  “No!” Michel yelled. “Leila!”

  Fitz gritted his teeth and turned to Rico. “Make sure they get to the MATV. Apollo, go with Rico.”

  The dog hesitated and then ran back to the Ombres on Rico’s heels. Fitz changed magazines as he hustled toward the destroyed barricade. Tanaka, Stevenson, and Dohi were holding their own against the Wormers, but the monstrous creatures weren’t the only threat.

  The Black Beetle tore away the last of the barricade. It moved like a sumo wrestler, low to the ground and deceptively fast. The sheer size of it was intimidating enough, but Fitz had no doubt the serrated mandibles framing its jaw, as well as the jagged spikes lining its limbs, would tear Team Ghost apart in seconds.

  Fitz fired half his magazine into the monster. The rounds pecked at the creature’s armored shell but didn’t draw blood. It turned slowly, its bulbous, multi-faceted eyes flitting back and forth to see where the shots had come from.

  “Retreat!” Fitz yelled. “Fucking retreat!”

  The Beetle let out a guttural hiss that was followed by a loud crunch. The sound made Fitz turn to see the beast biting the head off an emaciated Variant that must have come through one of the Wormer tunnels. The snack kept it distracted long enough for Tanaka, Stevenson, and Dohi to escape. With a final swipe of his sword, Tanaka took down the last of the Wormers and the trio ran for the stairs with Fitz.

  For a moment, he thought they were all going to make it, but that fleeting second of hope was ripped away by a loud crack and a human scream.

  The Beetle had finished feeding. It picked up one of the fallen pews and threw it at Dohi. The wood hit him in the back and he tumbled into a mound of broken stone around one of the Wormer holes.

  “Dohi!” Fitz yelled.

  Stevenson fired his SAW into the Beetle’s face, making it crouch down and retract its beady head into the cover of its shell.

  Fitz ran toward Dohi’s limp body. He was curled up in a fetal position. Halfway there, a pair of talons gripped the lip of stone surrounding the Wormer tunnel, and a Variant peeked through the opening into the room. Fitz squeezed off a shot that hit the monster between its reptilian eyes.

  “Cover us!” Fitz yelled to Stevenson and Tanaka. They opened up on the Beetle again while Fitz checked Dohi’s pulse. It was strong, but he was unconscious, and he had a head and back injury.

  “Get Dohi out of here,” Fitz yelled.

  Stevenson let his SAW hang on its sling and bent down to scoop Dohi up. With a grunt, Stevenson hefted his comrade over his shoulders. Fitz grabbed Dohi’s M4 and loaded the grenade launcher.

  The Wormer holes continued to disgorge starving Variants. They scattered and came together to attack the Beetle, but the frail adults were no match for the beast. It tore through the Variants with spiky arms and claws.

  “Tanaka, Stevenson, get Dohi to the truck!” Fitz shouted.

  “What about you, sir?” Tanaka yelled back. He fired off a burst that hit the Beetle in the head. It swung at the air with a skeletal arm and bellowed in anger, but the beast still didn’t go down.

  “I got this!” Fitz screamed. “Make sure the kids get into the MATV safely!”

  Stevenson carried Dohi up the staircase, and Tanaka followed after a second of hesitation. A streak of black and tan fur raced down the stairs in the wrong direction, and a moment later Apollo bounded to Fitz’s side.

  “Get out of here, boy,” Fitz said. The dog bared his teeth at the monsters and growled, clearly determined to fight by Fitz’s side. If they got out of this, he and the German Shepherd were going to have a long talk about obeying orders.

  Fitz shouldered Dohi’s rifle and aimed the launcher at the beast. It shook a Variant off its shell and ripped the head off another monster. Holding a breath in his chest, Fitz waited for the right moment. He couldn’t let the creatures follow them outside, or they would never make it to the truck.

  The Beetle barreled into another pack of Variants, crushing them flat with its massive shell. The smaller monsters fanned out across the room in retreat, leaving Fitz and Apollo to face the abomination.

  Tilting its head from side to side, it scanned the room and then locked onto Fitz with its compound eyes. Instead of shooting the Beetle directly, Fitz fired a grenade into a Wormer hole in the center of the room. Earth, stone, and splinters of wood mushroomed in front of the Beetle, pelting its face and shell. The creature swatted at the debris raining down around it.

  Fitz reloaded and aimed just above the creature’s head.

  “Die, you ugly piece of shit!” He pulled the trigger and turned away from the monster.

  The explosion thumped behind him, heavy and loud, and Fitz ran for the exit, dragging Apollo with him by the collar. At the bottom of the stairs, he turned to watch the ceiling cave in on top of the Beetle, the stones crushing its shell and splattering the ground with green blood.

  Fitz and Apollo loped up the steps, emerging through a door at the side of the Basilica of St. Thérèse.

  The Ombres and Team Ghost were huddled in the gardens not two hundred feet from the MATV. They had their weapons out,
but they weren’t firing. Dozens of Black Beetles and Wormers, full-grown juveniles, and ravening adult Variants were waiting for them. Reavers circled overhead like vultures waiting for a meal. The army of mutated monsters closed in, and Fitz felt the last tendrils of hope trailing away like smoke into the night.

  -21-

  President Ringgold had taken one hell of a risk coming to Plum Island, but leaders were only as smart as the men and women they chose to surround themselves with. She had chosen refuge with some of the most brilliant minds and courageous hearts left in the world.

  She sat beside Kate at a kitchen table covered in bullets and stacks of magazines, listening to Nelson and Soprano argue with Beckham and Horn about the best way to protect her.

  In the other room, Tasha, Jenny, and Bo were playing quietly with a few toys in front of the fireplace. Ellis and Donna sat on the couch supervising the children. Every few minutes, Ellis looked up as if to check on what was being said in the kitchen.

  Sick of listening to their endless argument, Ringgold spoke up. “Enough. How did it even come to this? I’m the President of the United States, and I’m on the run.”

  Kate put her hand over Ringgold’s and offered a warm smile. “You came to the right place.”

  “We’ll protect you,” Beckham said. His tone was confident and reassuring. “That’s what we do, ma’am.”

  She trusted his word, knowing he would never dishonor himself by breaking it. But still, something tugged at her insides. She couldn’t ignore her fear that her precarious rebuilding efforts would all come crashing down around them.

  Then Beckham said something that made her pulse quicken.

  “But we can only protect you if we disappear. I don’t trust Walker or Rayburn. We can’t go to them for anything. If word leaks that you’re on Plum Island, Wood will kill everyone here. Rayburn and Walker have to know that. I’m not willing to risk them selling you out, so we have to get out of here.”

  “He’s right. They’ll try to use you as a bargaining chip,” Nelson said.