Crows burst from the trees to the east, filling the late afternoon with their caws. The men all aimed their rifles in that direction.
Timothy moved his finger to the trigger. After blinking away the sting of sweat in his eyes, he searched the carpet of leaves littering the forest floor for movement and then the phalanx of trees around them.
He saw nothing out there but skeletal branches shedding more leaves.
The crows flapped away, silhouetted against the blue sky, their cries fading.
Silence again shrouded the group.
They remained frozen for what felt like an hour. One of the men tried to keep his rifle up, but it wobbled in his grip, the weight too much for his old muscles to support.
Stephen took a few steps, his boots making a faint crunch over the leaves.
He gave the advance signal toward where the birds had taken off. Timothy fell in next to him. They walked slowly toward a cluster of massive trees that towered into the sky. The older man with glasses turned to wait.
A flash of movement in the branches far above the man’s head caught Timothy’s attention. The few remaining leaves rustled on one particularly large branch. This one looked different than the others, like it had something clinging to it.
Two reptilian eyes suddenly focused on him. Before he could raise his shotgun, the camouflaged Variant let go of the branch and pounced.
The beast slammed into the guy with the glasses. Leaves and dirt exploded into the air. Timothy aimed his shotgun, but before he could get a clean shot the beast dragged the man around a tree.
“Help me!” he wailed.
A second militia soldier slammed into the ground with a thud, a Variant standing atop his chest. He fired off a burst, but the rounds hit the dirt.
All at once, a dozen beasts poured from between the tree trunks. They had all taken on the colors of the forest. Timothy fired on the beast straddling the second downed soldier just as it slashed the guy’s throat open.
The shotgun pellets hit the creature in the chest, punching into vital organs.
The crack of automatic gunfire came from both sides as Stephen and the two remaining militia soldiers fired on the encroaching monsters. Timothy pumped his shotgun and fired at the creatures.
Stephen dropped several beasts with headshots. Timothy’s aim wasn’t as good. His shots harmlessly hit trees and dirt. In less than a minute, he was out of shells. He back pedaled as he struggled to pull more from his sweatshirt and load them into the shotgun.
He dropped one in the grass, fingers trembling, but managed to load the next two.
“Run!” Stephen yelled over the gunfire.
Timothy took off with the other two soldiers. Stephen led them, turning every few moments to shoot off a burst or two.
Turning, Timothy did the same, firing the two shells.
“I’m out!” Stephen said, grabbing a new magazine.
Timothy was out, too. He reached into his sweatshirt pocket. There were no more shells there. He threw his shotgun away and snatched his pistol from his holster. He twisted to fire wildly behind him while Stephen reloaded.
In the seconds it took to fire, Timothy glimpsed at least a dozen of the sinewy beasts moving between the trees. They were on all fours, but they were slinking in and out of cover rather than running straight into the gunfire at full speed.
A hidden Variant lunged and took down the soldier running behind Timothy and Stephen. The talons slashed his face off. His screams faded as the beast dragged him away.
“Come on!” Stephen yelled.
Timothy bolted after him. The man paused and fired until his bolt locked back, and he was forced to replace the magazine.
They ran like that for almost ten minutes, covering each other to hold the beasts at bay. The Variants grew more desperate, their screeches closing in.
Stephen and Timothy let loose a flurry of gunfire. The rounds dropped some of the creatures still pursuing them.
“Move it, kid!” Stephen shouted.
They couldn’t be far from the road now. Timothy spotted two hills he thought he recognized. The road was just on the other side.
Stephen stopped again to lay down more covering fire before leading them down the first of the two hills. Timothy kept his balance, but Stephen tripped and fell. He got right back up and kept running.
Timothy charged ahead, trying not to slide, and then ran across a creek, his boots splashing up muddy water. He bolted up the next slope with Stephen close behind. Halfway up, a shriek sounded from the crest of the first bluff.
“Keep going!” Stephen shouted. He turned to fire, giving Timothy time to get to the top. When he reached the crest, Timothy turned with his pistol, aiming at a pack of Variants loping down toward the creek. Three of the creatures jumped into the water with a splash.
Stephen stood his ground, firing bursts with his rifle. Timothy squeezed his trigger as fast as he could. Most of the wild shots missed, but a few made their mark.
The creatures that were brought down were replaced by more barreling down the hill. They were no longer held back by caution now that it was only Timothy and Stephen left.
Stephen turned and locked eyes with Timothy just as the beasts swarmed him.
“Run!” he screamed. “RUN, KID!”
The beasts pulled him to the ground, ripping through his clothing and flesh with their claws. Timothy took a step backward, nearly frozen by fear. It wasn’t until one of the beast’s locked eyes with him that he snapped out of it.
Turning, he ran onto the road, looking left and then right. The truck was still there.
“Help!” he shouted.
Waving his hands, he ran toward it.
A Variant screeched behind him, bursting onto the road. It dropped to all fours and bounded toward him. There was no way he would make it to the truck in time.
Halting, he closed one eye and then fired at the beast.
The first two shots missed, but the third and fourth clipped the monster in the upper chest. The fifth shot punched into the skull, finishing it off. It crashed to the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust.
Timothy ran, not stopping until he got to the passenger side of the pickup. He opened the door and jumped into the cab.
It was empty. The driver was gone.
Blood soiled the driver’s seat. The window was broken, pebbles of safety glass spread over the floor. Timothy climbed into the driver’s seat and reached down to start the engine, but the key was missing.
He looked up as two Variants skittered onto the road in front of the truck.
Heart pounding, Timothy ejected the magazine of his pistol and slapped another one home. It was his last. Not nearly enough for the rest of the Variants that would be on him shortly.
Without the keys, he was going to die.
He thought he wasn’t afraid of death, but the icy grip of fear washed over his muscles as the Variants charged.
Timothy raised the gun in a shaky hand and pulled the trigger.
— 5 —
The USS George Johnson sailed farther away from the 1st Fleet, putting distance between President Ringgold and the majority of their remaining Navy. Everything she had worked so hard to achieve had become an inferno back on the mainland, and this time she feared she couldn’t put out the flames.
She sat in her new office that doubled as what would be her quarters for the foreseeable future. The small space had belonged to a dead officer, and the evidence of his life still haunted every corner. An empty picture frame that read, Dad, was adhered to the bulkhead, and a Bible with dog-eared pages rested in one of the drawers.
It hadn’t felt right to remove those little memorials to the man’s life.
The dimly lit, cold room felt more like a prison cell than home, but it still beat being underground.
You’re safe here, she thought.
Repeating those words didn’t relieve her anxiety. In fact, the more she reminded herself of her own safety, the more guilty she felt. Hundreds, if not thousands of people
had perished over the past twenty-four hours, and she had fled just like she had done during the first war.
The country—and the world—had already lost so much to the monsters. Almost an entire generation wiped out, and the youngest generation of adults that had survived the first war now faced another.
She dreaded the thought of sending youth out there to fight the monsters or to eradicate American history by destroying what was left of their cities with bombs.
But now she wasn’t sure she had any other options.
One thing was certain…
We have to fight.
She took a moment to look at herself in the mirror before setting off for her next strategy meeting. Her dark skin had more wrinkles than she remembered, and deep bags hung under her eyes. It wasn’t exactly a surprise. She had only slept a few hours.
A splash of water on her face helped snap her alert. She repeated something she had said to Doctor Kate Lovato near the end of the first war.
“There is always hope…”
She drew in a deep breath, straightened her back, and pushed open the hatch. Marines posted outside threw up salutes. She returned the salutes and hurried through the passages to the Combat Information Center (CIC). Most of her staff and the officers were already there. Some looked like they had been there since the night before.
They all rose from their chairs and stations to salute and greet her.
“Good morning, President Ringgold; I hope you got a few hours of sleep,” Vice President Lemke said.
“Madam President,” said General Souza.
Judging by the glassiness in his eyes, he hadn’t slept in days. His LNO, Lieutenant Festa, also looked equally exhausted.
“Lay it on me,” she said.
“The good news is that we haven’t lost any more outposts,” Souza said. “Even the ones around Minneapolis, Chicago, Lincoln, Kansas City, Indianapolis, and Columbus survived last night.”
He passed her a briefing folder.
“Casualties at those outposts, however, are very high. In some cases, over half the defense forces were wiped out,” Festa said.
Cortez crossed her chest in silent prayer, and Soprano looked at the deck.
“We’re in the process of evacuating people by air and pulling them to more protected places, including locations where it will be more difficult for the Variants to tunnel under our defenses,” Souza said. “I have a list of outposts for you to review later.”
Festa handed a second folder across the table. She took it but didn’t want to look right now; she was having a hard enough time keeping it together.
This all felt like a bad dream.
“Do we know enemy numbers yet?” she asked.
“Early estimates project somewhere in the hundreds of thousands with the addition of the juveniles,” Festa said. “We gave them a good pounding last night, but most returned to their hives before we could get accurate estimates.”
“That could make sending in any teams to find the remaining masterminds a suicide mission,” Souza said, clenching his square jaw. “But we did it before, and we can do it again. We have teams on standby, waiting for your orders.”
She glanced at Lemke. “What do you think, Dan?”
“We’re trying to come up with other ways to find the mastermind Variants,” he replied. “I’m hoping Dr. Lovato and Dr. Carr will eventually help us locate them through the webbing in all those tunnels, but so far they haven’t come up with anything we can use.”
Souza cleared his throat. “All due respect to Dr. Lovato and her team, but we’re running out of time for science. And something tells me we haven’t even seen the full power of the Variant army yet. Last night was merely the vanguard to what I expect will be a more powerful assault than we’ve seen before.”
The implications chilled Ringgold to her core. She couldn’t shake the fact they hadn’t seen this coming over the past eight years. While she partially blamed her advisors and generals, she also felt the heavy burden of failure herself.
“How did we miss this?” she said, exasperated. “We monitored all six target cities and sent missions into Variant territory. We didn’t see any evidence of juveniles or the masterminds.”
No one had an answer.
“I’m sorry,” General Souza said. “If you would like my resignation, I have already drafted it.”
She thought on it, but shook her head. “We can’t dwell on failure; we have to focus on saving our people.”
“We’re already fortifying all of our outposts,” Souza said. “We’re withdrawing from those around the target cities to concentrate our forces. That will also give you the option of nuking them if you so choose. And finally, we’re requesting armed support from Europe.”
“They aren’t experiencing attacks like this?” she asked.
“Not yet,” Nelson said. “All our requests for support have been received lukewarm at best. They fear helping us will leave them vulnerable.”
“Has anyone promised anything?”
“The French, Russians, and Brits have sent us a few aircraft,” Nelson said.
“How many?”
The National Security Advisor tightened his red tie.
“How many, Nelson?” Ringgold repeated.
“A total of ten planes, Madam President…” He swallowed. “Not fighter jets, these are jumbo jets to help evacuate people.”
She sighed. “I’ll talk to my counterparts directly today. You keep pressing your contacts.”
“Yes, Ma’am. I will.”
Ringgold didn’t expect much but they needed more than ten extra planes to repel this invasion. She had opened the doors to refugees from other countries, feeling responsible for the virus that the military had unleashed on the world. But she wasn’t exactly surprised the leaders of other countries were reluctant to help the Allied States now.
“What else do you all have for me?” Ringgold asked.
“By sunset, we hope to have most fortifications complete,” Souza said. “We’ve also got a fleet of private planes and helicopters that have been serviced and put back into commission. But even with those, it won’t be enough to complete the evacuations from the worst hit outposts by then, and if the Variants do attack again…”
Another shiver coursed through Ringgold’s body.
“What about evacuations by land?” she asked. “We could try to pull people back in convoys.”
“That’s already happening in some places, but anyone that leaves in a convoy risks being attacked on the road,” Festa said. “People are too afraid of driving in Variant country.”
“We really need more help to win this fight and get everyone to safety,” Lemke said. He raised his chin slightly. “If our international allies can’t offer that support, I suggest turning inward.”
He paused, and then said, “Madam President, I think we should consider reaching out to General Cornelius. He’s got two thousand men and a load of aircraft and vehicles at his disposal. Plus, he’s already arrived at Fischer Fields to secure the petroleum supply.”
Ringgold looked at the man who she had hoped would succeed her as president. He was suggesting she ask his political opponent for help, which wasn’t all that shocking considering their situation, but it still took her slightly off guard.
“The election doesn’t matter now,” Lemke continued. “Saving our country and our people is all that I care about. If Cornelius can help us, I say it’s worth setting aside differences.”
“You’re talking about negotiating with your opponent,” Ringgold reminded her vice president. “If we ask him for help, he will in turn ask for favors, some that we’re not going to like, and some that I can’t accept, like nuking the cities and conscripting our young people.”
Lemke nodded. “I know, but we might have to negotiate if we want to save what’s left of the Allied States.”
She used a moment to think. Lemke was right about needing Cornelius. She just hoped the general was more reasonable than he had been in
the past.
“Okay, Dan, talk to General Cornelius and inform him that we’re officially putting the election on hold,” Ringgold said. “It’s time to try and work together.”
***
Fischer would have preferred his private jet and the luxuries that came with it, including a cold brew and fresh steak from his ranch. Rare, of course.
But those days were over.
He sat in the belly of a V-22 Osprey. It was certainly a fine piece of machinery, though “luxurious” was definitely not the word he would use to describe it or the flight from his ranch to Galveston.
The thrum of the engines reverberated straight into his bones. He was strapped into a seat along the bulkhead of the tiltrotor aircraft beside his most loyal men, Tran and Chase. Sergeant Sharp sat close by. He had insisted on coming even though he wasn’t assigned to Cornelius’s private army.
The six soldiers that wore Orca badges didn’t seem to trust Sergeant Sharp or appreciate his presence. But Fisher sure trusted him, especially after Sharp had risked his life to protect Fischer Fields.
Their priority had changed overnight from saving the fields to saving what remained of the Allied States. From the reports still coming in, salvaging what was left of the country was going to take more than oil from his fields.
They needed a bigger army.
Fischer’s stomach twisted as the Osprey began to bank slightly northeast. He tried to focus on the purpose of this meeting, and although he had his suspicions, he wasn’t sure why they needed to meet face-to-face.
Being in the oil business and defending his fields against the Variants, he had come to expect all kinds of nasty surprises in life. He wouldn’t be shocked if this upcoming meeting with the general was one of them.
“Got about twenty minutes before we touch down,” Sharp said.
“Any hostiles we should worry about?” Tran asked.
“Nope, and once you see this place you’ll understand why.”
It didn’t take long before Fischer saw for himself.
Galveston Island stretched below them, basking in sunlight. Murky brown waters lapped against yellow sandy shores on the eastern side and piers to the west. The long land mass trailed south, but most of the activity was contained within the northern city limits of Galveston.
Extinction Cycle: Dark Age Box Set | Books 1-4 Page 37
