by Maxey, Phil
Contents
Title page
Copyright
Disclaimer
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Thank you
EXTINCTION
Cascade Prequel Book 2
by
Phil Maxey
Copyright © 2019 by Philip Maxey
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
First Printing, 2019.
www.philmaxeyauthor.com
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales, is purely coincidental.
CHAPTER ONE
Location: San Diego Camp, USA. Zone F.
Date: June 22nd.
Grant Collins stood on the door seal of his pickup, scanning the suburban backyards in the valley below him with his night vision goggles. Static came from his radio followed by a voice.
“You see it, yet? Over.” Carrie Doyle continued without a reply. “It’s literally ten feet away from me. Should I fire? Over.”
Grant held the radio to his mouth. “Don’t do a thing until I…” He stopped the lateral movement of his goggles. The four-legged creature, drenched in shadow was bent over the pool of a single story home, some hundred yards below him. Moonlight reflected off the ripples caused by the beast as it drank. He then raised his view a few degrees to see the movement of the drapes in the second story window, which looked down upon the yard. “I see it. Don’t fire. Over.” Grant turned his head slightly to the man with the sniper’s rifle, who was leant across the hood. “You got a fix on it?” he said to Ethan Jones.
Ethan’s back ached, but he cracked his neck to try and ease some of the tension in his muscles, then looked through the scope on his rifle. After a small amount of adjusting, the creature which looked like a black lion, but larger and with a covering of short spikes rather than fur, slid between his crosshair. “Yeah, I got it.”
A hiss of white noise came from the radio again. “We’re three minutes out. Don’t engage until we’re there Grant. That’s an order! Over,” said a new female voice.
Grant let his hand with the radio fall to his side. “Sure thing Captain.” He looked at Ethan. “Take the—”
“Fuck, it’s running!” said Carrie from the radio.
The clatter of fences being broken was followed by a thumping noise as the beast leaped up onto the roof of another home near the pool.
“Can you still take it?” said Grant to Ethan.
Just as former the Marine Scout Sniper went to squeeze his finger, the beast ran forward, leaping from one roof to another, then another. “Damn thing is moving too quick!”
“We’re going to lose it!—” Carrie’s words were between breaths. “— I’m back in the car!”
Ethan plucked his rifle and stand from the hood and jumped back in the passenger’s seat, just as Grant had fired the engine back up.
The pickup roared off along the street on the side of the hill, which was peppered with homes.
As he steered around the subtle bends, he watched as the beast, a dark mass against the night sky, jumped from one building’s roof to another, hardly taking a pause between efforts.
“It’s getting away!” said Carrie.
“That thing is sure in a hurry,” said Ethan.
The pickup bumped along the street as Grant pressed down on the gas. Points of light green sparked in his vision in the distance. For a moment he wondered what it was, then he remembered they were heading towards one of the shelters in Zone E.
“Why the hell is that place still open?” he said to Ethan. “They know they have to have lights out by curfew!”
“At least we know where it’s heading.”
Grant held his radio to his mouth. “Captain Taylor? You there? The creature is heading towards the Westside Shelter in Zone E! Why are they not closed down for the night? Over.”
Almost a mile away Carrie listened to the conversation on the radio, while navigating the winding roads and trying to keep track of the creature bounding across rooftops. She had driven similar streets in LA illegally earning a good living racing, so this was no sweat for her. Still, she had never hunted an animal before while doing so. Up ahead lights glared from the checkpoint between zones.
She skidded to a halt in front of a steel pole which hovered across the road. Two soldiers stood either side of her sedan. “Let me through! I’m a tracking an E.L.F that’s moving into your zone!”
“We need to see your ID ma’am…” said the closest soldier.
She fumbled in her denim pants pocket for the slim piece of plastic and was about to retrieve it, when the soldier’s face turned to one of horror and he immediately started firing his M4 into the darkness off the side of the road.
The other soldier shouted into his radio.
“Raise this damn barrier, I have to warn the shelter!” shouted Carrie.
Three streets over, further up the hill, Grant was approaching his own checkpoint, but this time the barrier was raised having been pre-warned. His pickup flashed by the guards.
“Grant, we’re having trouble contacting the shelter, no one’s picking up on their landline. Zone E’s defense forces are converging on the location. But you are closer. Over,” said Captain Taylor through Grant’s radio.
“Carrie, you see where it is? We’ve lost track of it. Over,” said Grant, while steering left and right down narrow streets lined with compact homes with terracotta tiles across their roofs. He flicked the NVG’s up to the top of his head as the lights from the shelter were now bright enough for him to see his route.
He skidded around a final corner, into the street which led to the three-story block like building. A line of people stretched to its entrance. He slowed the pickup and he and Ethan scoured the shadow encrusted alleys and lots around them for any movement.
A car screeched into the street behind them, Carrie’s green sedan.
The elderly people, families and children that were queuing were now huddling closer, aware of a possible danger and panic flashed across their eyes.
Grant drove up the curb slightly, stopped, then got out, taking his shotgun with him. Ethan did the same.
“Is one of those things around here?” shouted a weathered man, wearing a long coat and clutching several plastic bags.
Grant looked at the rooftops of the nearby buildings, all of which were below that of the shelter. “Yup, you folks better get inside.”
A woman screamed, her gaze fixed on the parking lot opposite the shelter. Grant and Ethan swung around as the beast which seemed to dissolve as it passed through the shadows, thundered across the lot towards them.
Those queueing scrambled towards the building as Grant and Ethan started firing in unison, but the neon strea
ks from their weapons appeared to constantly miss the creature which was approaching too quickly.
They stepped backwards, repeatedly shooting at the thing, when just ten yards away an explosion sent both of them through the air until they landed painfully on their backs.
A plume of smoke drifted across their field of view.
“Is it dead? I got more of these grenades…” Carrie appeared to their left, in her hand a satchel.
Grant frowned. “Yeah, I think you did. Almost taking us with it.” He sat up feeling his shoulder.
Two Humvees, one with a mounted .50 cal gun screeched into the street at the opposite end, while another did the same from where Grant initially came from. All vehicles skidded to a stop, and troops sprang from them, running towards the parking lot.
A woman wearing a cap with a rifle slung over her shoulder, slowly approached Grant, Ethan and Carrie.
“What part of ‘Do not engage’ did you not understand?” said the Captain looking down at Grant still sitting on the sidewalk.
“Don’t look at me, she’s the one with the grenades.”
Ethan smiled, which was just about visible through his graying light brown beard.
Taylor looked at Carrie. “I’m going to pretend you don’t have a bag full of explosives.”
Carrie gave an awkward smile in reply.
A soldier ran from the parking lot towards them. “The E.L.F has been neutralized, ma’am,” he said to the Captain.
She nodded, pulling her cap from her dark swept back hair, then placing it back on her head in a slightly comfier position. “They’re getting bigger…”
The other three knew she was referring to the E.L.F’s.
She looked out at the smoke that was still hanging in the air, and the remains of the creature in the lot beyond. “It’s one thing to deal with a swarm of crazy insects, or something the size of a bobcat, but these past days, we keep running into things that are the size of a polar bear or bigger… makes you wonder just how big they’re going to get.”
Grant looked at her with a pretend smile. “I’m sure the US Marines can handle it.”
She gave him the same smile back. “Damn, skippy.”
CHAPTER TWO
Sofia waited for Bass to leave her room. She could feel him watching her, before she heard the door to her single room open and close. She hated it when he left, but was glad when he did. She could only put the ‘girlfriend’ mask on for so long before she started to get irritated with him. It wasn’t his fault that her parents died in front of her, but her guilt clawed at her the longer she was with him. So she appreciated the time she spent with him, thankful for any joy in this new insane world, but needed the downtime. Time to acknowledge what had happened to her… and time to do something about it.
She reached over, fumbled for her small flashlight, switched it on, then used the light from that to find her matches and lit one of the few candles she had.
The walls of her eight foot square space lit up with an orange light and flickering shadows. Hers was one of six other rooms that had been created by dividing up the apartment she was in. The same method of creating more living space was being repeated across all the camp’s zones to accommodate the refugees that had flooded in from the north. A similar perimeter to what was protecting San Diego had been attempted around LA, but the attacks from E.L.F’s were too frequent, and gaps in the security fence allowed creatures to seep in.
She took a breath, then flipped back the few sheets that were covering her and jumped up from the mattress which laid in one corner of the confined space. She didn’t need to look at the clock for she was now used to getting up at 4 am, just after Bass left. This was when her workday started.
She threw on her pants, top, flack jacket which Bass had managed to get for her, then another two layers of upper clothing, including a dark green hunting jacket which she was given by those that handed out such things at the University army base.
Everything so far Bass knew about, but what she wanted next he did not. She walked to a wooden box in the far corner, cleared off the sheet which allowed the old chest to double as a small table, then flipped the lid revealing some books and more clothes. Pulling those out revealed its true purpose, a place to hide her rifle, two ammo boxes and a hunting knife.
She slung the rifle over her shoulder then picked up one of the boxes, rattling it.
Need more.
Although she wasn’t sure where to get the ammo from. Those she had, she got from a guy she bumped into on one of her nighttime excursions. He gave her his spare rifle and two boxes of bullets, telling her she’s ‘crazy to be outside with no gun.’ He had lost his brother to the Cascade and had the same motivations she did.
She also picked up her leather knife holder, pulled the hunting knife from it and dug a small hole into the side of the box, alongside the five that were already there. She then closed her eyes and said a prayer. It was the same one her mother had taught her as a kid, but had forgotten when she became a teen when such things seemed pointless.
After strapping the holder around her ankle, she placed the ammo in her jacket’s pocket, closed up the box without putting the books and clothes back in and pulled on her leather gloves. Finally she blew out the candle.
The cool night air felt good on her skin, an instant reminder that the world was harsh. She stood on the roof of the apartment block and looked out over the eastern stretches of San Diego. Lights flickered, ten miles off on the wall that was constantly growing in height. To the north and west a few pools of light sparkled, indicating where military bases were. But, mostly due to the need to conserve power and not to attract E.L.F’s from outside and the ocean, only darkness resided. Over a million people, hiding in their homes with only the barest of light to hold back the night, and what it contained.
She looked down to the main street in front of the apartment. Small tents peppered the sidewalk, as well as the alleyways between stores. A parking lot opposite contained at least twenty of the small fabric homes, and a number of people were huddled around flames which burned from metal barrels. The scene was mirrored across the hundred square miles which resided within the walls, which made up the San Diego camp.
None of that was her concern. She walked across the roof and looked to the southeast. To where the suburbs met the hills, which then ran into the mountains. For the people down there the nights were especially treacherous as the creatures would creep down from the easterly wilderness, looking for food. That’s where she had spent the last five nights, and tonight would be no different.
She climbed over the small wall, down the ladder which clung to the wall, then onto the fire-escape. A few moments later she was jogging through a darkened alley. This particular narrow avenue was full of refuse from the others, meaning no tents had set up within it. It also meant it gave her good cover to move out of the area without being spotted by any patrolling vehicles.
She jogged and walked past boarded up homes. At street level the night was full of the musky aroma of candles burning, and a haze now covered many blocks.
After twenty minutes she was approaching the location she regarded as the entrance to the ‘other’ world. The area of the city where creatures could always be found. She stared up at the highway that passed overhead, and the almost complete blackness that resided in the concrete cave below it. A few nights before she had almost walked into an E.L.F hiding in the crevices. A beast that slithered like a snake despite its small wings and fur covered body. Its lair was encrusted with bones, although she knew not of what type, and as she passed under the eight-lane road above, it tried to bite at her cobra-like. Its fangs tore into her backpack, pulling it away from her body, but one explosive shell from her rifle rendered the creature lifeless.
Now when she approached the overpass she did so pushing her flashlight’s beam into the dark corners. Luckily tonight there were only shadows and dark stains from where she shot the creature two nights before. The carcass no doubt removed by anoth
er E.L.F.
She walked down the old Quarry road, in almost complete darkness, her senses alert to the slightest of disturbances around her. Her boots clacked on the concrete, which she wanted. The more noise the better the chance her presence would be picked up by a creature. She had never seen the area in the day, but she had heard the tales from the residents that used to live to the south, near the large reservoir. Large homes which once had a pristine view of the cobalt blue waters and the mountains beyond, were now forgotten shells, given to the creatures that chased their owners further north.
She reached a junction and turned right, heading south. She kept her flashlight pointing down. She didn’t want to make it too easy for the things that took those she loved. ‘Things’ was all she would call them. The fancy name that came from the scientists betrayed the damage the things had done.
She passed a large two story home on her right that like most had been abandoned. She briefly thought about breaking a rear window and going inside to scavenge what she could, but that would mean the world she grew up in was truly over, and she wasn’t quite ready to accept that yet.
Other homes, just as impressive passed by on her left, each full of the darkest of shadows. In their driveways speedboats sat on the back of trailers waiting to be pulled back to the shore.
A few hundred yards off the splintered moon reflected off the ripples of the large body of water which attracted so many of the new animals. Apex predators all of them.
She moved onto the sidewalk, closer to the forgotten homes. Every now and again she flicked her flashlight’s beam to the lawns that were starting to become overgrown. Squares of unruly grass threatening to become something else.
She broke into a jog, only stopping when she reached what looked like a dead-end. A ring of homes looked down at her. She moved across the driveway of one, pulling open a wooden gate then walked down the side of the two-story house to the garden which stretched down to the shingle, pebbles and eventually lapping waves.
