Extinction Cycle Dark Age (Book 2): Extinction Inferno

by Smith, Nicholas Sansbury

  “Stop!” Beckham shouted as the guard went to throw a punch.

  Presley hesitated, then jerked his chin back.

  “Tell us where you got the acid,” said the colonel.

  The kid spat out a tooth onto the concrete floor. Blood drooled from his mouth. He grunted and mumbled something that sounded like a curse.

  Presley shrugged. “Okay then.”

  The soldier walked around the boy and then swung low, hitting him in the ear so hard it split the top.

  The boy wailed and then shouted, “You bastard!”

  “You will talk,” Presley said.

  Beckham stepped forward and crouched down to meet the kid’s gaze.

  “Hey,” he said. “Look at me.”

  The boy glanced up.

  “Look, whatever the collaborators did to you, whatever they told you they would do, we can help you,” Beckham said. “You just have to tell us where they are, and we’ll make sure they never hurt you again.”

  “That’s what you don’t understand,” he grunted. “They didn’t hurt me. He did.”

  Beckham glanced back at Presley.

  “I wanted to help them,” the boy said, staring at Presley. “To kill people like this piece of shit.”

  “See, Captain, he’s one of them and there’s only one way to deal with the enemy,” Presley said.

  Beckham stood.

  The boy spat more blood. “The brotherhood is right… The Variants are the future. Places like this are meant to burn.”

  “See what we’re up against?” Presley asked.

  He nodded at the guard again. This time Beckham closed his eyes as the guard went to work on the kid. Several smacks, wails, and cracks sounded.

  Over the noise came a distant wailing sound, but the impact of knuckles on flesh and the kid’s yells made it difficult to hear.

  “Let me out,” Beckham said. He looked at the boy one last time before leaving, his heart breaking at the sight of his bloody features. Collaborator or not, he was just a damn kid.

  Beckham walked into the wing to the sound of footsteps. Over the click of boots came the same wail again.

  A siren, he realized.

  Two guards ran toward the open cell door.

  “What the hell is going on?” Beckham demanded.

  Neither answered.

  “Colonel Presley,” said a guard. “You better get to command. We have a problem.”

  “You want to know where I got the acid?” mumbled the boy.

  The guards, colonel, and Beckham all looked in the cell.

  The kid glanced up with a twisted, bloody smile.

  “You’re about to find out…” he said.

  — 23 —

  The sun had set around six o’clock, forming a golden glow across the horizon. Team Ghost prepared their night vision goggles as they approached their target.

  Dohi had spent the better part of the afternoon and early evening leading them into position behind the trees overlooking the easternmost side of the National Accelerator Laboratory Campus. The long circuitous route ensured there were no Variant-eating hostiles lying in wait.

  He had already stepped into one ambush. He wasn’t about to walk into another.

  But what if he was losing his touch?

  Back at the freeway the Wolfhounds had been entrenching themselves to the west of the campus, setting up both a covering position and distraction. It was working.

  Dohi had spotted dozens of enemy forces moving that way. If all went well, the cannibals would divert most of their forces to defend against the perceived assault.

  From what Dohi had seen through, their enemy didn’t have near enough to cover the wide swathe of campus, and Team Ghost was using that to their advantage.

  Fitz crawled up to Dohi’s side to peer over a fallen log.

  “Anything?” Fitz whispered.

  Dohi shook his head.

  Another agonized scream wailed into the night. It drifted over the buildings like an angered spirit. Dohi tried not to imagine what horrors Hopkins and the other Wolfhounds were enduring at the hands of these cannibals.

  The breeze suddenly shifted and cold air swept over Dohi. With it came something else. The distinct smell of a bonfire.

  “Anybody else smell that?” he whispered.

  “Sure do, bro,” Mendez said.

  The others nodded.

  Strangely, Dohi didn’t see the flicker of a fire. The low hanging clouds and dark sky masked most of his ability to see any rising smoke. Maybe these people were using a wood-burning oven or something else to conceal the light of the flames.

  But either way, if they had a fire going, then that meant they were cooking. Dohi had no illusions about what was on the menu tonight.

  He rose to his feet, keeping low, and signaled for the others to follow. They drew further south, slinking through the trees, closer to the buildings. Dohi halted at a clearing near the parking lot filled with shipping containers.

  “This is where my team was before,” Fitz whispered to Dohi as he signaled the rest of the team to find cover.

  Dohi spotted a flicker of light flaring across his NVGs from the shipping containers. He flipped his goggles and lifted a pair of binoculars to his eyes.

  Sure enough, in one container with its doors opened, a fire burned with a spit roast above it. Pipes had been fitted to the top of the container to disperse the smoke, making it less likely to raise in one huge column.

  A foot was slowly being rotated above the fire by a child. Nearby, women and children gnawed on pieces of meat, ripping at the barbecued meal.

  Dohi swept the binos over the containers until he saw a man chained against the wall inside one of them. A woman prodded at him with a knife as his face contorted in pain.

  A face Dohi recognized.

  “Hopkins,” Dohi whispered.

  Two other Wolfhounds were prisoners in the container. One was either passed out or dead. Probably the latter, Dohi thought when he saw his lower legs were gone. The stumps were blackened and cauterized.

  The other prisoner writhed in his chains.

  Dohi glassed the rest of the compound until he spotted two men marching between the containers. He used a hand to signal the contacts.

  They waited a few more minutes in silence, scoping out the area. Dohi counted another four more men patrolling with rifles. Nothing that Team Ghost couldn’t handle, especially if they were the ones doing the ambushing this time.

  He continued to survey the cannibals, searching for signs of another trap. But no one appeared in the windows of the adjacent office buildings or in any of the other patches of trees surrounding the complex.

  Then something caught Dohi’s attention. Two of the patrolling soldiers met each other between the containers. They appeared to be talking in frantic voices, gesturing wildly.

  The two men jogged to a squat, square building with antennae protruding out of its roof next to the shipping containers. More guards met them there, opened the door, and were swallowed by white light, leaving the shipping containers patrolled by only a pair of soldiers.

  Another scream shot from the shipping container.

  “Dohi, I want you and Mendez to take care of the remaining guards, then save Hopkins and the others,” Fitz whispered. “The rest of you, follow me. We’re going to take that communications post and see if we can destroy their jamming equipment.”

  Dohi and Mendez split off from the group. They descended from the grass-covered hill maintaining eyes on the two oblivious patrolling guards.

  Once they reached the edge of the parking lot, the odor of burning flesh grew sickeningly strong. Dohi could hear laughing in the distance.

  Time was running out for Hopkins and the others.

  As soon as they were out from cover, Dohi and Mendez rushed toward the shipping containers. The two guards marched their way between the containers, still unaware of Team Ghost.

  This time, the cannibal assholes would be the ones walking into an ambush.

>   Dohi let his rifle fall on its strap and pulled out his knife and hatchet. Mendez unsheathed his knife. They pressed themselves flat against the side of the shipping container.

  The two guards passed in front of them. At Dohi’s nod, the two operators lunged like wolves, pulling the men into their grasp. Dohi’s knife bit into the first man’s throat. He felt a bit of resistance as the blade cut through the cartilage and muscle. Then with a swing of his hatchet, he finished the job.

  Hot blood poured from the slit in the dying soldier’s throat and bubbled between his filed-down teeth. The man crumpled, clutching at his throat.

  Mendez dropped his target.

  As the two men bled out into growing pools, Dohi and Mendez dragged the bodies into one of the shipping containers that had been turned into a living space. Using a blanket, they covered the two dead soldiers.

  Another scream echoed from the container holding the three Wolfhounds.

  With the guards dispatched, Dohi hurried to the container with the hostages. The women and children cooking their meals started to stand, a few screeching at the sight of Dohi and Mendez. One dropped a plate of meat, and another backed into the rotating spit, knocking it over into the flames.

  “Don’t say a word or we’ll blow off your fucking heads,” Mendez said.

  The people grew quiet, shrinking into each other and trembling with fear.

  Dohi strode over to the other shipping container and aimed his rifle at a man and woman inside. One held a cleaver and the other a bone saw.

  “Drop the tools,” he said.

  The man hesitated.

  Dohi didn’t. He dropped him with a suppressed shot to the head. The woman went to her knees, raising her hands, and Dohi knocked her out with a butt to the temple.

  He entered the container and held up a hand to signal for Hopkins to be quiet. Tears rolled down his blood-soaked face as he hung suspended by cables. A dirty, blood-soiled cloth covered his ankle stump.

  Hopkins groaned in pain.

  “Quiet,” Dohi said. “We’re getting you out of here, brother.”

  Hopkins grunted something incomprehensible as Dohi undid the restraints.

  When Dohi lowered the wounded man gently to the floor, he heard charging footsteps behind him. He swung his rifle up and prepared to fire.

  But it was just Fitz.

  “We cleared the comms post,” he reported. “No luck on the radio jammers, but we did hear they’re preparing to attack across the freeway.”

  “Good, the plan is working,” Dohi said. “Now’s our chance to find that equipment.”

  Rico moved in with Ace to help Dohi release the other two Wolfhounds. They had both passed out from the pain. When they were done, Dohi handed the cables that had been restraining the Wolfhounds to Ace.

  “Use these to secure the people Mendez is guarding,” he said. “Lock ’em in another container but keep the door open. I don’t want them to suffocate.”

  Ace nodded and left with the chains.

  Fitz bent down with Dohi to help bandage up the Wolfhounds. The man who had lost his legs was in bad shape, but the bleeding had stopped. Fitz whispered to him and took special care when dressing the cauterized wounds.

  Dohi imagined doing so brought back some horrid memories of his own injuries from Iraq.

  “No way we can move them,” Fitz said. “We’ll have to leave them here while we continue the search.”

  “No, please,” Hopkins pleaded, his voice weak. “You can’t leave us.”

  Dohi propped Hopkins into a sitting position against the wall of the shipping container. “Take it easy, man. We’re not going to leave you for long.”

  Ace returned to the front of their shipping container.

  “All the women and children are tied up and locked away,” he said. “You guys, ready?”

  “Don’t fucking leave me,” Hopkins begged. He grabbed Dohi’s sleeve as he went to stand.

  “We’re not going far,” Fitz said. “And your comrades are drawing out the rest of the enemy.”

  Rico suddenly looked to the sky.

  “Do you hear that?” she said.

  Dohi strained his ears to what sounded like the thump of helicopter blades in the distance. He pulled free from Hopkins and joined Fitz outside.

  Ace stood with his rifle cradled.

  “Did someone call in reinforcements?” he asked.

  Dohi searched the sky with his binos. Seeing nothing, he pushed his NVGs up to scan the black.

  “There,” Mendez said. He pointed to the east where helicopters flew low on the skyline.

  “They’re heading toward the freeway,” Dohi said.

  “I didn’t think reinforcements were coming,” Rico said.

  “They aren’t,” Fitz said. “Those aren’t ours.”

  He raised his rifle and took off.

  “Where you going?!” Dohi called out.

  “To help the Wolfhounds,” he said. “They’re going to be slaughtered.”

  Dohi hesitated for a moment as realization sank in. The enemy must have called in reinforcements, and they were headed right for the Wolfhounds.

  “Don’t leave me,” Hopkins whimpered.

  Dohi helped him up, and the team followed Fitz away from the containers. They didn’t get far before the choppers came in low over the campus, rotor wash blasting the trees as they hovered above the freeway.

  Barking machine guns rang out. Gunfire flashed like miniature lightning strikes as tracer rounds lit up the night.

  The choppers flew back and forth, pounding the ground with fire, but they weren’t just firing at where Dohi judged the Wolfhounds’ positions were in the forest. The tracer rounds were cutting into buildings inside the campus, presumably where the cannibals were posted.

  What the hell… Dohi thought.

  One of the Black Hawks launched a blistering volley of rockets into an office building, tossing huge balls of fire into the sky.

  For those few seconds, the campus was illuminated like it was the middle of the day. Dohi had never felt so helpless. He crouched with Hopkins, setting him against the side of a container.

  If they tried running now and attracted the choppers’ attention, they would be shredded. All Team Ghost could do was shelter in the shipping containers and wait for the attack to finish.

  The group took cover in the container with Hopkins and the Wolfhounds as the ground thumped from explosions. Dohi remained at the open door, peering out. He raised his rifle at a figure fleeing the battle. The man ran at a tilt, favoring his left leg, long skinny arms pumping.

  Dohi moved his finger to the trigger, ready to fire.

  But as the man drew closer, he recognized the frightened eyes and lanky body along with the AK-47 necklace dangling from his neck.

  “Martin!” Dohi hissed.

  The soldier didn’t respond and kept running. Dohi let his rifle drop on his sling and jumped out of the container, tackling Martin. He glanced up to make sure the choppers hadn’t seen the man sprinting.

  Then he dragged Martin into the shipping container. Writhing, Martin tried to escape, clearly in shock.

  “Calm the fuck down,” Dohi said.

  Martin suddenly froze, staring at Dohi with frightened eyes.

  “Where are the rest of the Wolfhounds?” Fitz asked.

  Martin’s gaze flitted to Fitz.

  “Martin,” Rico said. “Where’s the rest of your team?”

  “Where the hell were you?” Martin said, his voice shaking. “You guys left us there. The lieutenant… my brothers… all of them are dead.”

  ***

  The convoy had driven for what felt like hours and stopped a few times. Timothy couldn’t see what they were doing with the black bag over his head, but he could listen. So far what he had heard allowed him to figure out two things about the collaborators.

  The first was they definitely had multiple encampments in Variant territory that they used to refuel and get updates from guards posted there. Timothy ha
d no idea how they still had access to fuel, but he guessed they were stealing it from outposts. It was as if they had developed their own network of resources just like the Allied States.

  Another thing he had figured out was that Outpost Portland wasn’t very close to the missile silo that the collaborators had turned into a base. Judging by the time that had passed, they were hundreds of miles away.

  Rustling sounded in front of him, and his blindfold was suddenly ripped away. Timothy blinked, trying to get his eyes to adjust. Outside, the world was bathed in darkness except for where the moonlight illuminated the convoy.

  He sat in the backseat of a dual cab pickup with Alfred on his left, and another prisoner scrunched against the passenger side door.

  Timothy looked out the windows, trying to get a sense of where he was, but Nick snapped his fingers from the front seat of the truck to command his attention.

  “Here,” Nick said. He handed Timothy a water bottle. “Drink.”

  Holding up his handcuffed hands, Timothy took it and downed a quarter of the bottle.

  “Easy,” Nick said.

  Timothy caught his breath, then drank more before handing the bottle back. Nick fished into a bag and pulled out a couple of sealed energy bars.

  “Eat. You’ll need your energy,” Nick said.

  Timothy took a bar, but ate slowly, trying to bide his time to see where they were headed. He couldn’t see much in the darkness, especially without the lights on.

  The driver wore night vision goggles to see the road.

  Smart, he thought.

  The convoy turned again, and Timothy got a better view of the truck ahead. Cages were secured to the back of the pickups. Inside each stood the silhouette of a muzzled mutated dog.

  He took a bite of the energy bar and chewed for a while, but his appetite was gone. It wasn’t hard to figure out what the collaborators had done to these poor beasts. Just like the bats that had been infected with VX-99, these mutant dogs had also been infected with a hybrid variant of the bioweapon.

  Timothy forced himself to finish the energy bar, taking the nutrition not because his appetite had returned, but because Nick was right—he needed the energy.