“Come on!” shouted Ringgold. She waved from the open door of the chopper before two guards pulled her back.
Beckham patted Horn on the shoulder and they took off running toward Marine 1. When they were fifty feet from the troop hold, a group of armored Variants burst from the bushes.
The choppers started to lift from the ground.
Horn fired at the pack of juveniles.
“Big Horn, let’s go!” Beckham shouted. He grabbed him and pulled him toward the bird. One of the young beasts made it past the hail of rounds, losing half an armored limb in the process, but charging the two men anyway.
A shot to the head from the chopper took it down. Lemke was watching out from the open door, directing his agents to cover Beckham and Horn.
They reached to help Beckham and Horn into the chopper as it hovered just a few feet off the lawn. They crawled in just as a pack of Variants filled the open field.
Gunfire cracked all around. The Marines and Secret Service agents fired at the armored beasts reaching up with clawed hands as the chopper pulled away.
Panting, Beckham rose up on his knees.
“Thanks,” he said to Lemke.
Horn lay on his back, his chest heaving. “Man, that was too close.”
“Way too close,” Beckham said.
This must have been it. The start of the invasion. If the attack on the White House was any indication, the Variants and their collaborators weren’t pulling any punches.
A Marine shut the door and Beckham stood with the others to look out the windows.
All hell had broken loose across the former Greenbrier resort. Muzzle flashes cut through the night like miniature lightning strikes, and orange blasts bloomed from explosions.
“Barnes will hold them,” Lemke said. “We won’t lose the White House again.”
Beckham had faith in the men and women down there, but it was going to be a tough and bloody fight. He didn’t like abandoning them, but his family came first.
“Where are we headed?” yelled one of the pilots.
“Peaks Island!” Ringgold shouted back.
“Thank you,” Beckham said.
“Yes, thanks,” Horn added.
Beckham took a seat, trying to catch his breath and calm his thumping heart. Horn sat next to him, his big arms brushing up against Beckham.
“Everything’s going to be okay, boss,” he said. “We’ll get through this.”
Beckham wanted to believe that, but an update from one of the pilots shattered his hope.
“I’m hearing a ton of radio chatter,” said one of the pilots. “Sounds like the Variants are pounding the outposts.”
The reports continued to stream in over the seven-hour long flight to the island. By the time they were narrowing in on the location, outposts around the target cities were drowning in the masses of Variants descending on them.
“Change of plans,” said one of the pilots. “The science team and families have been evacuated from Peaks Island and are meeting us at Outpost Portland. So far the Variants are still being held back further west.”
Horn’s leg went back to rocking and Beckham closed his eyes, in an attempt to focus his mind and keep calm.
When they touched down, a group had gathered in the landing zone. Daylight had flooded over the outpost. Dozens of people waited outside, many of them children. Even more were trying to get through a wall of Marines that held them back.
Beckham could tell they weren’t going to be able to extract all of these people. Beckham and Horn jumped out into the cool morning air, navigating the thronging people as they hurried toward Sergeant Ruckley and a team of Marines surrounding the medical staff.
Army soldiers unloaded crates and boxes from several trucks. They carried them into the troop holds of other choppers that General Souza had sent. Several Black Hawks and even an Osprey had touched down.
“Javier! Kate!” Beckham yelled.
“Tasha! Jenny!” Horn shouted.
“Dad!” the girls called out, slipping between people.
Ginger and Spark barked and ran to Horn, their tails beating the air, oblivious to the threats closing in.
Beckham saw Javier next. His boy ran and wrapped his arms around him. Kate was talking to a Marine and pointing at the crates. When she finished giving orders, she hurried over and embraced Beckham and Javier.
Civilians began boarding the other birds, but combined with the equipment from Kate’s lab, they were already filling up. Marines fanned out to help hold back the growing crowd pressing against those already holding onto the perimeter.
Beckham looked for Timothy, Bo, and Donna. He spotted them in a group on the other side of the Marines.
“Take Javier to the chopper,” Beckham said. “I’ll be right back.”
“Where are you going?” Kate asked.
She followed his gaze to the crowd.
“I’ll see if I can get them on one of the choppers,” Beckham said.
Kate nodded and pulled Javier away while Beckham ran to the Marines running security. The crowd was shouting now, pushing at the Marines even more fervently.
In the background, he heard another shout. A glance over his shoulder confirmed it was Horn arguing with a Marine about allowing Ginger and Spark on the bird.
“They are coming with!” Horn yelled. He picked up Ginger under one arm and Spark under the other. “We’ll hold them to save space!”
The dogs barked, clearly distraught. They weren’t the only ones. Tasha and Jenny both cried even as the Marine gestured them all into the belly of the chopper.
Beckham continued to the gathering group of civilians the soldiers and Marines were fighting to keep at bay.
“Timothy, Bo, Donna!” he shouted.
They squeezed their way over to the other side of the crowd.
“They won’t let us through!” Donna said.
“Get back!” yelled a Marine.
“Let them through,” Beckham said. “They’re with me!”
Two of the Marines looked back at him, but they shook their heads.
“Sorry, Captain,” one said. “We have strict orders.”
An engine fired behind him, and rotors beat the air. He had just seconds to get on the bird himself. Donna stared at him, fear in her gaze.
“Please, Reed!” she cried. “We need to get out of here!”
“It’s going to be okay. This outpost is safe…” his words trailed off because he knew that was a lie.
No outpost was safe anymore.
“There will be another chopper,” Beckham said. “I’m so sorry.”
His heart kicked as he back peddled away, Donna, Bo, and Timothy all staring at him as he retreated.
“I’ll be back for you, I promise!” he shouted.
The guilt burned deep in his chest. He felt like he was abandoning them and running to hide like a coward as he turned to run toward the chopper.
The rotor wash whipped against his body. He looked over his shoulder one last time at the growing crowd of screaming civilians. Then he climbed inside and the crew chief shut the door, blocking the view of the friends he was leaving behind.
Beckham found his wife and son, and Horn and his girls. The dogs were squirming in their grips, but putting them down wasn’t an option in the tightly packed chopper.
“Timothy,” Tasha cried. “We can’t leave him!”
She grabbed Horn’s sleeve. “Dad, we can’t go without Timothy and the others.”
“Why can’t the others come?” Javier asked.
“There isn’t room in this load,” Beckham said.
Tasha wiped a tear from her eyes and turned away to get a view out the windows.
“We’ll go back for them, I promise,” Beckham said.
“Are they going to be okay, Dad?” Javier asked.
“Yes, sweetie,” Kate said. She looked at Beckham, but he couldn’t hold her gaze and he didn’t know what to say to his son. Instead of responding, he turned to the window as the chop
per moved over the ocean and into the morning sky.
While they flew to safety, the country was collapsing. He could almost see the flames of burning outposts in the distance.
The monsters had emerged from the shadows in the Allied States with their new ranks, overwhelming and destroying what humanity had worked so hard to rebuild.
Spreading like an inferno.
This time, Beckham feared the human race wouldn’t be able to stop them. That they had only delayed the inevitable eight years ago.
One thing was for certain—humanity had entered another dark age of extinction.
o—o—o
EXTINCTION INFERNO
For all that serve or have served in the United States Military, thank you for the sacrifices you have made to protect our freedoms. We are forever grateful.
“The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender, or submission.”
John F. Kennedy
— 1 —
The Black Hawk circled low over Scott Air Force Base (AFB) ten miles east of the apocalyptic ruins of St. Louis. A crew chief opened the side door, revealing the sight of Variants darting down the streets toward the walls of the forward operating base (FOB).
“Jesus, they’re everywhere!” the crew chief yelled.
Master Sergeant Joe “Fitz” Fitzpatrick leaned out, one hand on a rail, his prosthetic carbon-fiber blades creaking. The rest of Team Ghost sat impatiently behind him.
Sunlight pierced the sporadic clouds, illuminating the horrifying tableau spreading toward the Air Force base. The armored flesh of juveniles glowed in the light. The monsters galloped on all fours like a pride of starving lions.
Some of the beasts had already made it to the base’s perimeter where they slammed into the chain-link fences tracing the border. HESCO bastions and guard towers provided another layer of defense. But the first line had already fallen.
Columns of smoke rose from fresh craters in the ground left by mines and other explosives. Hunks of shredded meat and bone smoldered in the dirt. Injured beasts crawled through the fields, some missing legs, others missing arms. None giving up on their pursuit.
Machine gun nests blasted sweeping waves of fire, and explosions bloomed across Fitz’s view.
Specialist Justin Mendez crossed his chest in prayer. Sergeant Yas Dohi stared like a statue, his rifle cradled over his armor.
“How the hell are we supposed to stop that many?” Sergeant First Class Jenny Rico yelled.
Corporal Bobby Ace pulled at the bottom of his gray beard, looking over at Fitz for an answer.
“Doctor Lovato is gonna have to come up with another bioweapon,” Ace said. “Might be the only cure for this outbreak of freaks.”
“I got the cure right here!” Mendez shouted, patting his rifle.
Fitz had served with the Hispanic man long enough to know his brave words and Ace’s dark humor masked the pain they carried and the fear seeping into their bones.
As much as Fitz didn’t want to admit it, they couldn’t wait on another miracle from Kate and her science team. The only way to stop these things was to kill them the old-fashioned way with bullets and blades.
Or at least slow them down… he thought.
The fresh ammunition and grenades the crew chief had distributed to Team Ghost would help.
“This mission is for Lincoln!” Fitz yelled.
Mendez crossed his chest again. The rest of the team simply uttered quiet acknowledgments as they looked out the open door at what they were about to face. They all had bags under their eyes and blood smeared on their clothing and flesh.
Only a few hours had passed since their extraction from Minneapolis, and they hadn’t had a chance to recover mentally or physically.
On the deck behind them was the covered body of their deceased brother-in-arms, Specialist Will Lincoln. The chopper had changed course after he had bled out. Instead of heading home, they had flown straight to Scott AFB to help save it from the Variant attack.
There was no time to grieve, no time to put Lincoln to rest, and no time for the team to rest.
It was straight back into the fray.
“Ghost,” the primary pilot of the Black Hawk said over the comm channel. “I’m going to get you over the parking lot outside HQ.”
Fitz identified the command building in the center of the base. The square structure stood out among the others around it with a white roof and a huge parking lot filled with Humvees and troop transports.
Speaking to his team, Fitz said, “We’re assisting with the defense of Scott’s command building. We got VIPs galore down there, civilian and military. They’re organizing the evac.”
Fitz gestured further out. Buses and transport vehicles rushed toward the runways where aircraft waited to take off.
“Our mission is two-fold. First, we ensure as many people get out of here as possible. We’ll drop in between the evac lines and the Variants, buddy up and provide covering fire,” Fitz said. “Second, we keep this base from falling under Variant control. Questions?”
Mendez lifted his hand. “If the whole point is preventing Scott from falling, why are we evacuating people like it’s already lost?”
“Because the brass already thinks Scott is lost,” Fitz said. “We’re going to prove them wrong.”
“All it takes is all we got!” Rico shouted.
The motto from their fallen brother Sergeant Jose Garcia continued to motivate the team through tough missions, and those words never felt so true.
The chopper lowered toward the parking lot, and the crew chief gave the signal for Ghost to jump out the open door.
Fitz looked one last time at Lincoln’s body and the jacket over his face.
I’m sorry I couldn’t save you, brother.
“Go, go, go!” yelled the crew chief, waving the team out.
Dohi went first, followed by Rico. They hopped out and took off in a crouch, heading for a row of Humvees and personnel vehicles. Just as Fitz went to jump out, the chopper jerked and pulled up. He lost his balance and crashed to the deck.
“What the hell!” he shouted.
Ace helped him up and Mendez shouted, “Tunnel!”
The chopper pulled up from a bulge in the parking lot. Asphalt broke away from an opening. From a cloud of dust and debris, emerged a huge beast with sinewy arms and bat-like ears. Long ropey tendrils jutted out of its back. It surveyed the surroundings with milky white eyes as it let out a high-pitched, clicking shriek that pierced the whoosh of the chopper rotors.
“Alpha!” Ace yelled.
Dohi and Rico took shelter behind a car, firing into the Alpha’s flank. More Variants churned up from the fresh hole in the ground, spilling from one of the many tunnels the monsters must have used to invade the base.
“Get us back down there!” Fitz shouted.
“Hold on!” yelled one of the pilots.
The chopper lowered over a cluster of abandoned cars. Fitz jumped out, his blades hitting the roof of a van. Mendez and Ace leapt out after.
Fitz opened fire on the Variants climbing out of the tunnel, but had lost sight of the Alpha.
Tendrils of the red webbing stuck up from the tunnel like shredded blood vessels in a wound. Those bloody-looking vines were transmitting signals to the beasts now attacking Scott. Team Ghost had killed one of the masterminds in Minneapolis, but there were more.
Another Variant climbed those red ropes and stuck its ugly, wart-covered head out of the hole, tongue whipping against wormy lips.
Fitz squeezed the trigger and blasted its face off.
A horrifying shriek ripped through the air next to him. The Alpha suddenly slammed into the side of the van, knocking Fitz off. He crashed onto a car and hit the pavement hard.
Fitz rolled to his back and fired as the Alpha leapt to the van above him. The heavy beast crunched the roof of the van inward. Rounds lanced into its chest, punching through gray flesh.<
br />
It let out a series of clicks and jumped to the ground. Fitz emptied his magazine into the Alpha. Blood sprayed from the monster’s wounds as it stumbled forward and reached toward him.
A shotgun blast boomed.
Part of the Alpha’s shoulder blew off, painting Fitz with gore.
“Move it!” Ace yelled.
Fitz didn’t waste time. He turned and scurried between the vehicles for cover. Another blast thundered behind him. When he finally got his legs under him and spun to face the Alpha, it had collapsed.
“Thanks!” Fitz yelled.
Ace pulled hunks of gore off his beard. Then they both ran back to find the others. The Variants continued to pop out of the tunnel. Another beast’s reptilian eyes caught Fitz’s, and its lips curled back into a snarl, revealing a maw full of jagged teeth.
“Fire in the hole!” Mendez yelled.
He lobbed a grenade into the hole as the creature dragged itself out. It didn’t make it far. The ground lifted up behind it, dirt and rock exploding. The blast blew the abomination in half.
Another rumble shook through the ground, and the asphalt around the tunnel cracked, dropping into the hole.
Dust billowed up as part of the tunnel collapsed in on itself.
“Hell yeah, boyyyyyy!” Mendez yelled.
The remaining Variants dropped from concerted fire as Team Ghost formed up.
More choppers descended toward the command building. Soldiers and Marines hopped out, quickly running for the front entrance.
Fitz gave the signal for his team to fall back to command as well. Setting off in combat intervals, they moved cautiously around the holes between them.
Closer to the building, another razor wire-topped fence surrounded command. Machine gun nests had been set up to cover zones of fire around the entrance.
On the roof, snipers perched, their barrels flashing with calculated shots. Beside them crouched men with AT-4s, concentrating their shots on the strongest of the monsters.
A .50 caliber machine gun blazed to life from a third-floor window.
Over the gunfire came a message on the comms.
Fitz strained to listen.
Extinction Cycle: Dark Age Box Set | Books 1-4 Page 32
