Two Chimera guards walked over to the top of the stairs wielding their cutlasses while the third Chimera drew up its rifle and fired.
“Down!” Beckham screamed. He slammed into Horn, knocking him down the stairs as bullets slammed into their former position. By the time they got up, the two Chimeras had rushed down the steps to the landing.
One of the creatures pounced on Horn, knocking him down the stairs while the second beast swung the cutlass at Beckham. He countered the blow with his rifle, deflecting the blade.
The Chimera pushed hard and pinned him to the landing. Beckham swiveled enough to get the monster off his chest, leaving a slight opening for the creature to chomp down at his neck. The Chimera took the bait, and Beckham whipped up his arm to block the attack. The creature bit into it, tearing at his limb.
But Beckham felt no pain.
The monster had attacked his prosthetic and did not yet seem to realize his fatal mistake.
With his good hand, Beckham reached for his Ka-Bar and stabbed it into the side of the beast’s exposed neck, unleashing a torrent of crimson.
The creature clawed at his own neck to try and staunch the bleeding, his mouth opening and closing in desperation, as if begging for his life.
Beckham shoved it off, then scrambled to grab the Chimera’s cutlass.
“Boss, look out!” Horn said, still wrestling with the other soldier on the stairs below. Gunfire lanced into the landing, and Beckham grabbed the dying Chimera to use him as a shield from the Chimera with the rifle that had nearly killed him and Horn before.
The beast was at the top of the stairs now, firing down. As soon as it stopped to reload, Beckham pulled out a pistol from the holster of the dead Chimera he was using as a shield and aimed, firing into the face of the sniper. The monster toppled down the stairs and landed on top of Beckham and the other creature.
Beckham fell back under the weight of the dead Chimeras, his head hitting the landing hard. As he squirmed to get free, a figure emerged on the platform above.
“I’ve waited too long for this,” Azrael said. “Get up and face me!”
“Boss, no!” Horn called out.
His voice sounded distant, but Beckham could see him on the landing below.
Horn had managed to get out from under the Chimera. He smashed the beast’s skull against the brick wall of the stairwell. Over and over, he bashed the head, the monster spasming with each blow.
Azrael walked down the stairs, a blood-soaked cutlass in hand. “I was going to give you one last chance to join the New Gods, but now I’m just going to gut you and your ugly friend and drape your intestines over the walls.”
Howls and shrieks of approaching Variants sounded over the grisly voice of their master.
Beckham tried to free himself, but the weight of the two creatures was too much to lift at the awkward angle he had fallen. He still held the pistol, but he couldn’t raise it enough to shoot Azrael where he stood.
The Prophet moved slowly down the stairs, gripping his stomach with one hand and limping. Blood drooled out of multiple gunshot wounds.
If the brute kept coming closer, then soon he would be within Beckham’s aim. He prepared to fire the pistol, hoping Azrael hadn’t seen it.
Azrael reached down and heaved the smaller Chimeras off Beckham, then stomped on his wrist before he could pull the trigger. His fingers splayed from the impact and the pistol clattered down the steps.
Beckham cried out in agony, unable to hold in the scream.
“BOSS!” Horn shouted.
Variants pounded up the stairs toward him as he got up, weaponless except for his fists.
“Horn,” Beckham choked.
“Look at me!” Azrael shouted.
Beckham met the soulless gaze of the monster and prepared to meet his fate. He had held onto hope that he could save Galveston and his family, but how could they win against such evil?
Azrael suddenly looked down the stairs as the Variants bounded up the stairs.
“I want you to watch,” Azrael growled.
Four Thrall Variants jumped to the landing where Horn waited with his fists raised. The creatures shrieked, sucker lips smacking, ready to feed.
“Fuck you!” Horn yelled. He punched one of them in the face, breaking the jaw with a crack. Then he picked up a second and tossed it down the stairs. The other two beasts jumped onto him, sinking claws into his flesh.
“HORN!” Beckham yelled.
The Variants slammed Horn into the railing along the wall, before they all tumbled backward down the stairs out of Beckham’s sight. He heard the bodies tumbling and smacking against the wall and stairs with sickening thumps.
Images of Horn’s girls and then his own family flashed through his eyes.
All the people he loved. Those who still lived. Those he had lost.
Thousands of lives depended on the outcome of this battle.
He could not let them down. He could not let his country down.
Beckham felt the cold blade of a cutlass tracing up his vest to his chin.
“I’m going to eat your heart first,” Azrael said. “And I will make your wife and son watch.”
Beckham swung his prosthetic hand at the blade, but Azrael countered it with a blow that cleaved off the prosthetic and the straps holding it to the remnants of his flesh-and-blood arm.
Then he brought the cutlass above his head and let out a deafening howl.
Three loud gunshots rang out from above.
For a moment, Azrael looked at Beckham, confusion and shock in his gaze. Beckham detected something else there. Something primal. A human emotion beneath the face of the monster.
Fear.
Azrael’s mouth gaped open, and he dropped the cutlass.
When he fell to the side, Beckham saw Ringgold looking down at him with a pistol in her remaining hand. She dropped the weapon and grabbed the stump where her other hand had been.
Heavy footsteps pounded behind Beckham, and he turned, ready to face yet another attacker.
Instead, he saw a familiar face.
“Boss,” Horn gasped. He towered over Beckham, bruised, bloody, and bulging muscles throbbing. A true mountain of a man.
He reached down to help Beckham to his feet. Holding on to each other, the Delta Operators and best friends made their way up the stairs to their president.
She had sat next to Cornelius again, resting her back against a wall.
The grizzled general had his eyes closed. At first, Beckham feared the man was dead, but when he felt the general’s neck, he detected a weak pulse pressing up against his finger.
He turned to Ringgold next. “Thank you. You saved my life.”
“Just paying you back for all the times you saved mine,” she said with a weak smile.
Beckham used his knife to cut strips off the shredded sleeve over his missing prosthetic, wincing in the pain from his injured wrist. He used the strips as a tourniquet to stop her bleeding, but she had already lost so much. It covered her shirt and pants.
“You’re going to be okay,” he said.
She could hardly nod. “Is it over?”
Beckham wanted to tell her yes, but gunfire still rang out between the screams of people and the howls of beasts.
Horn picked up an M4 and checked the magazine, then slammed it home.
“Boss, we’ve got more incoming,” he said. “We better get the president and general out of here.”
“No,” Ringgold said. “You go. Save your families.”
“I’m not leaving you,” Beckham said.
A sudden clash of footsteps sounded from the stairwell at the center of the platform leading up from the hotel. Three collaborators emerged, covered in blood and ash. Before they could so much as aim their rifles, Horn mowed them down with an M4.
“We have to move,” Beckham said. “Come on, we’re getting you—”
Ringgold wrapped her fingers around his injured wrist. Then he saw the blood coming out from under her jacket a
nd realized why there was so much.
She had a second wound, a bullet to the abdomen.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“No, Madam…”
“Reed, I’m not going to make it,” she said, her voice sounding weaker than before. “And if we do win this fight, I need you to promise me you’ll keep fighting.”
“I’ll never stop.”
He reached out to press his hand against her stomach to staunch the bleeding.
“It’s too late for me.” She shook her head. “Let me die with dignity.”
Slowly, he pulled his hand away.
“Reed, I need you to promise me,” she said.
“Anything. Just tell me what.”
“Run for president. Preserve our… democracy. Protect this country.” She coughed. “The country and the world are going to need you.”
Beckham hesitated, but he couldn’t deny his president her dying wish.
“I will,” he said. “You have my word.”
A slight smile passed across her face, and a final sigh rushed out of her nose.
“Godspeed, Madam President,” he whispered. He blinked away the tears and bent down to kiss her on the forehead.
Scattered gunshots rang out, drawing closer.
Horn looked away from the wall toward Ringgold. “Is she…?”
“She’s gone,” Beckham said.
For a moment, Horn was quiet and bowed his head. “I’m sorry, but there’s not time to mourn. We have to get to the shelters.”
Beckham nodded. “Help me with the general.”
Horn bent down and slowly lifted Cornelius, preparing to hoist him into a fireman’s carry despite his injuries. The general’s eyes opened slowly, roving across the platform, and Horn helped him lean against the wall instead of picking him up.
“No,” Cornelius muttered, Horn offering him his shoulder. “Is she…”
“She’s gone, sir,” Horn said. “Let me help you. We have to move.”
Horn and Beckham bent down, but Cornelius pushed himself up on his own.
“What about Command?” Cornelius asked. “Is Festa still alive?”
“I’m not sure,” Horn said.
Cornelius picked up a rifle, wincing in pain from the wound in his shoulder.
“You good?” Beckham asked.
“I’ll make it,” he said.
They both looked at Ringgold one last time before proceeding to the stairs and heading down.
As they made it to the lobby of the hotel, Variants looked up from their meals between the scattered desks and snarled. Horn took one out with his rifle, and then fired bursts at the others, sending the thin beasts sprawling in pools of their own blood.
Beckham held an M9, but his wrist hurt so bad, he wasn’t sure he could pull the trigger. Feeling helpless, he stumbled along toward the street. Cornelius limped along slowly, struggling to keep his own weapon up.
Despite the beating Horn had taken, the injuries didn’t seem to slow the big man down.
He took point, firing calculated shots in the Thrall Variants they encountered on the street. Gunfire exploded in waves across Galveston, and Beckham feared, even if they made it to shelter, it wouldn’t be long before the beasts found them again, finishing the job the Prophet had started.
After eliminating another pack of monsters, Beckham finally saw the concrete bunker with its thick steel doors where their kids were hiding. Corpses of humans and monsters lay all around it, but the doors still appeared secured, locked from the inside. They approached cautiously, walking through smoke drifting away from a burning truck.
A distant rumble sounded, forcing them to stop and crouch behind the truck. As the noise grew louder, they turned to the east. Black dots flew across the sky, getting larger as they approached.
“Are they ours?” Cornelius asked.
Horn scoped the sky, and then lowered the weapon with a smile. “Must be the reinforcements our allies promised. Just in time to clean this place up.”
Beckham kept moving to the shelter as the aircraft closed in on Galveston.
The noise of their engines enveloped the island, and parachutes bloomed in long lines behind them, troops descending toward this now sacred patch of Texas.
Beckham tapped on the steel door with the pistol in his injured hand. “Captain Reed Beckham, open up!”
The door clicked, unlocked, and opened a hair. Connor, the Secret Service agent, assigned to protect his family, looked out.
“Oh, thank God,” Connor said, opening the door. “Kate just radioed in asking where you were.”
“She’s okay?” Beckham asked.
Connor nodded, locking the door to the shelter behind them. “Safe as of ten minutes ago.”
He let Cornelius wrap an arm around his shoulder, then guided him to a seat near the entry. Muffled gunfire and shrieks exploded above them, and the lights to the shelter sizzled on and off over the frightened faces.
“Dad!” shouted a young voice.
Beckham and Horn both rushed over to greet their kids. Javier hugged Beckham, and Tasha and Jenny both embraced their father. A few booms rumbled through the shelter full of civilians, and Beckham tightened his arms around his son.
“Dad, you’re hurt,” Jenny said.
“I’ll be okay. Are you girls fine?”
Tasha loosened her grip. “Timothy is okay, right?”
“I think so,” Horn said. “He’s with Kate.”
A radio positioned near the shelter’s door came to life. “Lieutenant Festa calling all shelters. General Vance and Hernandez of the Canadian and Mexican militaries have confirmed the arrival of their reinforcements. They are helping our troops retake the streets. I repeat, we are retaking Galveston! The enemy is falling back!”
“I guess this might not be the Alamo after all,” Horn said. “We’re actually going to win this thing.”
Beckham wanted to smile, but not everyone had gotten the ending they deserved.
“Where’s the president?” Connor asked.
“She died protecting the country she loved,” Beckham said. “And in the end, she saved us all.”
— Epilogue —
Fitz wandered down the beach with Rico by his side. His blades sank into the yellow sand with each step, forcing him to walk slowly. That worked better for Rico anyway.
Bruises covered her skin, and she walked with a limp from the vines that had nearly torn her apart.
They strolled along the parts of the beach that met Galveston. The debris had mostly been cleared, allowing them to get close to the sun-glinted waves rolling in from the Gulf.
“Warm sunlight, seagulls, sand,” Rico said. “I could get used to this, Fitzie.”
“Yeah… me too.”
They sat and stared for a while, taking in the view before wandering back toward the city to meet their friends. Horn and Ruckley were already at a picnic table with Beckham and Kate. Sammy was there too, standing next to Dohi who sat in a wheelchair. A brace surrounded his bandaged leg. He had been at the brink of death when a few Chimeras and freed prisoners helped Fitz administer first aid to him in Los Alamos, stabilizing him enough to get him back to Galveston.
Everyone looked in rough shape.
Timothy had a swollen and scratched face, but Fitz wouldn’t have been able to tell that he had a bruised rib if he hadn’t already known. The young soldier was sitting by Tasha at the adjacent table, both smiling like kids in a candy shop.
Javier and Jenny tossed sticks toward the waves for Ginger and Spark. The dogs raced after the sticks, kicking up rooster tails of sand.
“Five days of cleanup,” Rico said. “And five days of…”
She let the words trail off. Fitz knew what she wanted to say.
Funerals and memorials.
The troops from Canada and Mexico had assisted with cleaning up Galveston and helping take care of both the injured and the dead after clearing the city of the final beasts. But there was still too much work and mourning to be done b
efore the Allied States could even begin to discuss the next stages of restoration.
Fitz squeezed Rico’s hand.
They had a long road ahead of them, but he was eternally grateful to be alive with his friends.
“Damn, I was just about to eat your food,” Horn said, as they approached the table. “Just kidding. Kind of. But seriously, this shit is delicious.”
He took a bite of a burrito, chewing with his mouth open.
Ruckley shook her head. “You smell, you have no manners, and you curse a lot. Did anybody every tell you that you’re kind of an ogre?”
“Exactly your type,” Timothy said.
Ruckley gave him a glare.
“Hey, it’s obvious you two are perfect for each other,” Timothy said.
Tasha and Jenny both chuckled, which told Fitz they must be warming up to the idea of their dad getting back out there.
Fitz clapped the big guy on the shoulder and then helped Rico lower herself to the table.
“You going to offer me some?” Fitz asked.
Horn reached out and started piling pieces of roast chicken onto a plate. Then he passed it to Fitz and Rico.
“Don’t judge,” Horn said. “I’m just preparing for the winter.”
“Funny, because I thought Texas winters weren’t that harsh,” Tasha said.
Horn stopped eating a half-picked-off wing and looked toward Beckham. “I really can’t catch a break with them.” Then he glanced at Javier. “Kid, are you like this with your parents?”
“No way,” Javier said.
“Because you’re a young, respecting gentleman,” Horn said.
“They aren’t as big as you either,” Javier replied.
Horn dropped the half-eaten wing on his plate and wagged his head.
Beckham laughed.
“Javier, apologize,” Kate said.
“I’m sorry you’re big around the middle,” Javier said with a shrug.
“Not quite what I had in mind,” Kate said.
Horn let out a contagious laugh that got everyone to join in. Everyone, except for Dohi. Fitz noticed the man’s smile lasted for only a brief second.
“I’ll be right back,” Fitz said to Rico. He stood and went over to Dohi.
Extinction Cycle: Dark Age Box Set | Books 1-4 Page 130
