From somewhere inside Beckham, there came a sudden flare of anger, a feeling of pure rage. It consumed him, blinding him to the danger lurking in the darkness.
“Stop!” Caster yelled as Beckham rushed over to the first body. He swept the beam over the cheeseburger cheeks of Spinoza behind a broken faceplate. A human bone was lodged deep into the middle of his face, the impact area a bulge of broken skull and flesh.
The fury in Beckham grew.
This wasn’t supposed to happen. He’d never lost a man under his command before. They were all supposed to go home like they always did to celebrate another successful mission where the bad guys ended up in body bags, not the good guys.
Then he saw the next figure, his gaze falling on a helmet, or what was left of it. The visor was scorched, the glass melted onto the man’s face; his eyes and nose were erased into a clump of blackened flesh. If it weren’t for the .45 dangling from a gloved hand, he wouldn’t have even known it was Major Noble.
The sizzling sound suddenly made sense. Someone had sprayed a chemical into the poor doctor’s face. The mission had abruptly changed. This was no longer a recovery mission, it was a survival mission.
Beckham flinched when one of Noble’s eyeballs burst, the clear liquid peppering his faceplate. He scraped it away and continued to the next body, knowing it would be Tenor or Edwards.
Another voice called out from behind him. “Beckham! Regroup. We need to find that sample!” This time he was sure it was Major Caster. The fucking asshole had led them into a trap.
A second voice said, “We have contacts!” That was Horn, screaming from a corner.
“Cover me,” Beckham shouted. He crouched down at the next body. The sample didn’t matter if there wasn’t anyone left to extract it from the building. Tenor’s MP5 rested on the floor, spent bullet casings surrounding the weapon like a halo. But where were the bodies of the infected? Delta Force Operators didn’t miss.
He moved back to Tenor. The operator lay on his back, his scorched helmet on the ground next to him. Looking closer, Beckham saw a patch of darkened flesh where Tenor’s perfectly groomed Mohawk had once been.
There were boots crunching behind him. Several boots, and voices, none that Beckham could make out. He hunched over Tenor and swept the light over his face. “Tenor, can you hear me, man?”
Tenor’s eyes suddenly snapped open. He scrambled backwards, screaming, “Where is it? Where is it?”
“Boss, we have contacts heading your way!” Horn shouted again.
A high-pitched croak tore through the hallway, and Beckham spun to see two men in blood-drenched lab coats sprinting toward the team.
Gunfire erupted from Horn’s M27. The rounds lit up the passage with bright muzzle flashes. Just enough light to illuminate the blood-caked faces of both scientists and their swollen, sucker lips. The head of the leader exploded into mist, but the other man leapt into an open ceiling panel.
Impossible, Beckham thought. He was so fast.
He moved back to Tenor. He had his back against the wall, his eyes darting back and forth like a man possessed. “Where are they?” he kept repeating, his hands twisting in front of him.
“Snap out of it, Tenor!” Beckham yelled.
Tenor grew very silent. He looked toward Beckham, but not actually at him—it was like the man was looking through him. Flashing his light across Tenor’s face, Beckham realized his second in command was slipping into shock.
Beckham had scooped an arm around Tenor to pick him up when the man jolted forward and projectile vomited onto the floor. Scrambling away, Beckham steadied his beam on the ground. What he saw didn’t make any sense. The vomit was red and mixed with black, tarry granules from coagulated blood, but he had already scanned Tenor for injuries and hadn’t seen any sign of wounds besides the burns.
“Tenor, man, what the…” Beckham said.
“Stay away from him!” Caster yelled. “He’s infected.”
Beckham took a step back and held his flashlight on Tenor as the injured operator bent forward and hacked up another stream of the chunky fluid.
No, Beckham thought, shaking his head, it’s not possible. Tenor can’t be showing symptoms that fast. Can he? Even Beckham knew the incubation period for Ebola was days, or in some cases even a week. Certainly not minutes.
“Leave me,” the man choked. He wiped the blood from his mouth, forming a red goatee around his lips. Then he scooted his back to the wall and yelled, “They're everywhere!”
Another voice exploded in the passage. “Master Sergeant fucking Beckham! We need that goddamn sample before they come back!” Caster shouted.
“We need to get the fuck out of here, sir. While we still can. Tenor is still alive!” Beckham replied.
Ellis crouched down next to Tenor. “My God,” he said, gesturing for a flashlight. “Come on, someone give me a light.” Riley quickly handed his to the doctor.
He swept the light across Tenor’s face. Several red blotches and bruises were starting to appear. His eyes were crimson, and bloody tears trickled down his cheeks. A visible vibration suddenly rippled through the operator’s body.
“What the hell aren’t you telling us?” Ellis asked suddenly, looking over at Caster.
“Shut up, Doctor Ellis, and turn off that light,” the major said. He then very methodically raised his pistol and aimed it at Beckham’s helmet. “I’m going to make this very simple. We are going to retrieve that sample, and then we are going to leave. Without him,” he said, pointing with his free hand at Tenor.
Beckham gritted his teeth, his eyes darting to Riley and Horn, who had already aimed their weapons at Caster.
“Tell your men to stand down and get the sample,” Caster repeated, shaking his pistol. “Now!”
“The mission is fucked, sir!” Beckham replied. “We're leaving while we still can.” He went to pick up Tenor when he saw movement above Caster. Flipping on his night vision, he scanned the exposed ceiling. Metal pipes from the air filtration system snaked across the opening, and behind them were two crazed faces, their lips bulging in an O shape. Before he had a chance to warn Caster, a mass of limbs reached down and plucked the major into the opening. The officer kicked, screaming for help. Beckham reached for a leg, but in two beats the man was gone. The comm channel filled with the dying man’s agonized cries as he was pulled into the darkness.
Horn responded quickly, shouldering his M27 and unleashing a magazine into the tiles. A white mist burst from the pipes, shrouding the hallway with a cloud of gas.
“We need to get out of here!” Ellis screamed. He disappeared into the haze in a mad dash back the way they had come.
Riley lowered his shotgun and yelled, “Wait, Doctor!”
The hallway quickly filled with the chemical fog, and Beckham snapped into action. He scooped Tenor up under an arm and began dragging him. “Help me, Horn,” he shouted. “Riley, check Edwards.”
Together they pulled Tenor down the passage. Riley quickly caught up. “He’s gone, sir.”
Beckham’s heart skipped a beat again even though he’d already known the operator was dead. There was no time to mourn the fallen men. He had to focus on getting the rest of his men out. Horn had a wife and two young daughters waiting for him at Fort Bragg. Beckham wasn’t going to let those girls grow up without a father.
The team reached the decontamination pods in less than a minute. Dr. Ellis was waiting for them, his gloved hands shaking violently. “We have to get the fuck out of here!”
“Move!” Beckham yelled. With Horn’s assistance they dragged Tenor into the first cylinder. He moaned and muttered, “I see them. All of them.” His hands twisted and flicked the air like he was trying to shoo away a swarm of flies in front of his face.
“What the fuck, man! What’s wrong with you?” Horn asked.
“They’re everywhere,” Tenor choked. Then he screamed, “I see them!”
Before Beckham had a chance to react, Tenor jolted out of their grasp. He lunged
for Horn’s suit, his teeth snarling and his gloved hands mangled into claws.
Horn countered the attack quickly. With a strong shove, he sent Tenor flying back through the open doors to Level 3. The operator tumbled across the floor and slid to a stop. In one swift movement, he flipped from his back to his stomach and pushed himself up on all fours. Joints snapped and clicked as he twisted his body. Blood gurgling from his mouth, he lunged forward, bursting into a gallop like a wild animal.
A sudden gunshot behind Beckham made him flinch. This time it was from Riley’s tactical shotgun. The first round hit Tenor in his collar, above his right shoulder. A loud thunk sounded as flesh and bone fragments exploded out of the exit wound. It echoed through the sector, but the blast only slowed him down. He continued on his left arm, utilizing his back legs to propel him forward in one long leap toward Horn.
“I’m sorry,” Riley said over the comm.
Beckham resisted the urge to close his eyes. He had to watch, it was his responsibility. He had gambled with his men’s lives and now he had to pay the price.
A thunderous crack from Riley’s shotgun took off the top of Tenor’s skull. He dropped to his knees and then his stomach, skidding to a stop a few feet away from the team.
“No!” Horn cried out, shielding his faceplate with one hand and holding his empty M27 in the other.
Forcing himself to look, Beckham stared at Tenor’s faceless corpse. Like Spinoza, Edwards, and Noble, the man no longer looked human. Beckham’s skin crawled, his suit closing in around him. He took in a deep gasp of air and tried to focus. He had to focus. He couldn’t do anything for the dead, but he could still save the living.
The outlines of two figures in Level 2 snapped him back into motion.
“Move!” Beckham shouted. He pushed Horn into the next pod and followed him into Level 1. From there they sprinted for the exit. Beckham watched his men climb into the stairway before he stopped. He rotated in place, holding his breath. Standing in the lobby was a man wearing only trousers. Behind him, hiding in the shadows, was a female, still clothed in a blood-drenched lab coat. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought the man fit Dr. Medford’s profile.
For a moment they locked eyes, and he saw the true terror of the virus the scientist had created. Medford's face was covered in gore that looked like thick, chunky makeup. Cobwebs of bloody saliva webbed across his swollen lips. The man stared back with vertical pupils, and then tilted his chin toward the ceiling, releasing a deep, animalistic scream.
For the first time in his career Beckham ran from the enemy. And he didn’t look back.
-6-
The late morning sun glistened off the metal of the Blackhawk above them. What were the pilots waiting for? The chopper had hovered there for several minutes. Beckham took a deep breath, trying to suck in more air. Something was wrong with his respirator. He felt like he was sipping air through a broken straw.
Gasping, he moved to a higher position and waved frantically at the craft. His arms burned. Every moment sent an agonizing surge of pain through his oxygen-deprived body.
Finally Beckham saw the pilot yelling into his headset through the cockpit glass. Beckham knew then what was happening. The pilot was on an encrypted line with someone from Gibson’s staff at Fort Detrick—someone that was deciding the fate of Beckham’s team.
He craned his neck to see Dr. Ellis on his knees, pleading for rescue and yelling into the comm, “Get us out of here!”
Trash swirled around the doctor as the Blackhawk’s blades whooshed overhead. Behind them, Riley and Horn had taken up positions outside the front of the facility, waiting for the infected to emerge from the bowels of the lab.
Beckham stopped waving and collapsed to his knees, gasping for air. His breathing was beyond labored. He couldn’t get enough oxygen. The respirator had malfunctioned, and with every torturous breath he resisted the urge to rip off his helmet. He knew the ramifications of removing the protection of the CBRN would be much worse than passing out inside of it.
But all he could think of were his men, of their corpses, and suddenly dying didn’t seem like such an awful fate.
No, he thought, you don’t get to die yet; Horn and Riley still need you.
Static finally crackled into Beckham’s earpiece. The pilot spoke rapidly. “Beckham, HQ wants a SITREP. Do you have the sample? Is anyone infected?”
Beckham tried to respond, tried to speak, but the clunky words sounded slurred. “Negative. We …”
Fuzzy snowflake-shaped stars crawled before his eyes, transitioning into bright colors swimming across his vision. The thumping blades grew louder, and then he felt two strong arms under him, dragging him and lifting him onto a metal surface.
He tried to move but his hands wouldn’t respond. There was shouting over the comm channel, several voices. He made out a couple of the words.
“No sample…”
“Everyone else is dead…”
“Get us airborne!”
Then he felt the chopper lurch. Cracking an eye open, he saw the sandy ground below. He watched the facility become smaller and smaller as they pulled into the sky, but there was something else down there.
“Wait,” he mumbled.
Was it Caster? Had he made it out or was Beckham's oxygen-starved mind playing tricks on him?
Beckham forced his other eye open and saw a figure standing in the open front door of Building 8. He could swear the man was looking right at him. Then he heard a distant screech, faint but familiar against the whoosh of the blades. It was the same sub-human shriek they had heard below the surface.
“Hold on!” the pilot yelled. He jerked the bird hard to the right. Beckham slid across the metal surface. The wall stopped him as he smashed into it. A sharp pain raced through his chest.
The unmistakable rumble of F-22s rattled the Blackhawk as three of the jets zipped over them. Beckham struggled to keep his eyes open, the lack of oxygen finally taking hold of his body. He was completely immobile, his eyelids slowly shutting. His ribs felt like they were about to burst. He knew he only had a few seconds of consciousness left—just enough time to watch the scientist and San Nicholas Island disappear in a carpet of flames.
Doctor Allen’s raised voice startled Kate. He rushed into the lab, wearing a face creased with worry. “Something’s happening in Chicago.” He paused, his hazel eyes darting to the ground. “Preliminary reports claim symptoms of the Ebola virus.”
Kate gasped. “What? How is that possible?” She pulled her eye away from her microscope, a sudden wave of anxiety rushing through her body. Her brother, Javier, worked as a professor at the University of Chicago, directly in the heart of the city. She hadn’t seen him for weeks.
“I don’t know. I just got a call from Jed Frank. The CDC is hosting a conference call in an hour. I’ll stream it in my office.”
“What the hell is going on?” Kate asked. Had the outbreak somehow managed to cross the ocean? There were systematic procedures put in place to prevent anyone infected from carrying the virus aboard a flight. Still, she knew no matter what security measures were put in place, Mother Nature could find a way around them. The microscopic world of viruses didn’t play by the same rules as other national security threats.
“Jed said that…” Michael paused. He looked confused. And after only a few hours of sleep, Kate could understand why. Still, she pressed harder.
“Michael,” she said sternly. “Tell me what’s happening.”
The strategy worked. “Jed claims this is something worse than Ebola,” he said. “Something much, much worse.”
Beckham couldn’t move. His body wouldn’t respond. When he saw the clean white walls of the hospital room, he knew he had to be dreaming. Either that or he was dead.
“You’re so handsome,” his mom said.
She was coiled up in her hospital bed, wincing from the pain as the cancer ate her gaunt body, the dark brown eyes he had inherited from her staring back at him. They were distant now, the pupils
smaller. Her life force was fading. He was only seventeen, but he wasn’t stupid. He knew she didn’t have much time left.
He grabbed her hand. It was so thin, just bones covered in skin. For the first time he saw just how weak, how fragile she was, lying there curled up in a fetal position shaking from the pain.
The cancer had eaten her insides. Starting in her stomach, the disease had worked its way through her entire body. It was a horrible disease. Like an invading army with no rules, no conscience, only the insatiable need to kill and consume.
“Reed,” she said. “Please, promise me something.”
“What, Mom?” He already knew what she was going to say.
“Promise me that you won’t die on some battlefield in a far off land. Promise me you won’t throw away your life.”
He looked at her, tightening his grip on her hand. “I promise you I won’t throw away my life, Mom. But I want to make a change in the world. I want to help people. I want to fight evil.”
“There are plenty of ways to do that,” she choked. “Become a doctor, not a soldier. I’ve worked with so many that have saved countless lives.”
Reed looked at his feet. He knew he wasn’t smart enough to become a doctor, and even if he was, he didn’t want that life.
“Reed, promise me,” she said. “Don’t throw your life away, baby.”
When he looked up her eyes had glazed over. Her hand was limp in his own.
“Mom?” he said, shaking her wrist. The chirp from a machine she was connected to filled the room. His father and a doctor rushed inside, other medical staff swarming in behind them.
Reed backed away, a tear forming in his right eye. He wiped it away swiftly and kept walking until his back hit the wall. He stared at his mother’s bony frame. The cancer had taken everything from her and from their family. The disease was no different than any terrorist. It fought with no regard for the lives it afflicted.
It was then he knew he had to join the military. He had to fight evil. He would make good on half of his promise to his mom and not throw his life away. But he would also make good on his promise to make a change in the world—he was going to kill the enemy, no matter where they hid. His mom would understand when they met again.
Extinction Horizon (The Extinction Cycle Book 1) Page 8
