Extinction Survival Series (Book 3): Cost of Survival

by Browning, Walt

  “You’re frightened,” Carver quietly said.

  “Yeah. I’m afraid.”

  “It’s normal. First time in combat is always that way.”

  Dixon didn’t reply. Carver stole a glance and could see the tears welling up. He turned away before she noticed him looking at her.

  “I remember my first time,” Carver began. “I thought I was going to lose it. We trained for that mission for over two weeks.”

  Dixon looked up, and Carver met her gaze.

  “The hard part about a mission is the lead up. Every day I trained for my first mission was a chance for me to find another reason for failure.”

  Dixon turned back to look out at the land. “I’m afraid I’m going to do something stupid and get us all killed.”

  Carver let her words hang in the air. If he replied right away, his answer would seem scripted—or worse, a lie to make her feel better.

  When Dixon finally looked back at him, he smiled. “I felt the same way back then. By the time we jumped off on that first mission, I just knew the entire squad was going to die because of something I’d do.”

  He turned back to the island and continued.

  “The funny part is I barely remember the op. It slid by like a dream. All I can remember now is just bits and pieces. In the end, we all came back alive and we’d accomplished our objective.”

  He looked back down at her.

  “You’ll do great,” he continued. “When it all goes down, your body will remember your training, and you’ll do your job. If you let me guide you, and you do what you’ve been taught, we’ll overcome whatever we run across. I promise you.”

  Dixon’s eyes relaxed and she sniffed back her fears.

  Carver grabbed the railing in front of him, then turned back to the sailor.

  “This is about the future. It’s a job that needs to be done, and you and I are the ones to do it. I’m confident in your abilities.”

  Dixon stood stiffly for a few moments, then relaxed. “Thanks, Chief.”

  “Call me Carver.”

  “Call me Dixon,” she said back, extending her arm to shake.

  Carver clasped her hand. Her grip was petite, but firm.

  “We begin in the morning,” Carver said. “Do you have anyone special on the boat?”

  “Yeah,” she said with a grin.

  “Then go back in there and make a few memories. I’ll see you at 0400. Make sure you get some rest.”

  “Aye, aye,” she said before returning to the warmth inside.

  Carver watched her go then turned back to the island and watched the fading, dusky light slowly extinguish. The ship began to slow as the dark harbor of Howland’s Landing slid in front of him.

  During the winter months, night always seemed to come early. This day was no exception. The evening’s gloom masked the details of the small harbor. The buildings and vehicles that Carver knew lay less than a thousand yards away were hidden by the evening’s blanket. Details blended into a dark fog, making the island appear as a featureless, murky silhouette framed by grey-blue clouds. It compounded Carver’s depression.

  The USS Freedom settled to a stop, and sailors appeared on deck to help anchor the large ship. The last light of the day disappeared. There was nothing left for Carver to see. He turned and slowly made his way back inside, where an empty room and cold cot awaited. Hope was back at Lost Valley, pregnant with his first child, and he was here on yet another mission.

  Carver closed the door to his berth and lay back on his bunk. He needed to get some rest because tomorrow would quickly arrive, no matter how much he wished it wouldn’t.

  — 20 —

  Santa Catalina Island

  Sometimes the system goes on the blink

  And the whole thing turns out wrong

  You might not make it back and you know

  That you could be well, oh, that strong

  “Bad Day”

  — Daniel Powter

  “Jesus!” Carver barked. “What’s taking so long?”

  The seaman welding the metal bars was frustrated. One of the three pickup trucks was a new Ford. Its aluminum bed was posing a problem when they tried to weld the steel bars. The molten seam tended to break easily. The metals didn’t play well at the high temperatures created by the arc welder.

  “Sorry, Chief. This aluminum won’t hold a weld. We need a bimetallic insert between the bed and the steel, and we don’t have any of those.”

  “You’ve got a couple of bars already welded,” Carver said, pointing to two frames that had been pre-bent and attached to the body of the truck.

  The welder walked over to the skeletal frame and yanked on it. The seam snapped easily. “One Variant gets hold of this and the whole frame comes off.”

  Carver cursed.

  They were already behind schedule, and two trucks weren’t going to hold all twenty of them. They needed this third vehicle. Carver took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

  “Come on, Carver. When has anything ever gone according to plan? Besides, it’s not like we have a strict timetable,” Shader said.

  It’ll be all right, Carver thought, cleansing the stress from his mind.

  “I’d say we go find another truck and drive it back here, but the drone hasn’t seen anything we could use near this location,” Shader added.

  “Any suggestions?” Carver asked the seaman.

  “We can bolt the steel cage to the truck,” the sailor said. “We have some brackets back on the ship. If we use enough of them, you’ll be safe.”

  “How long will that take?”

  The sailor looked at the truck, scratched his chin a few times and sighed. “Three hours.”

  “You have two,” Carver replied.

  The sailor started to say something, but stopped when he saw Carver’s face. “Two it is,” he said before giving orders to the other seamen who were helping him.

  Carver and Shader walked away and joined the warriors they’d been training. They were all at a picnic site that sat just above the tide line. The nearby structures had already been cleared; their only discovery was a few skeletal remains. Gonzalez’s men had set up a perimeter around the camp while the other three teams relaxed at the cluster of campsite tables.

  Carver scanned the area until he found Kyle standing next to the administration building. He was staring out, his head moving back and forth as he looked into the countryside. Gonzalez had trained him well.

  Carver had made the decision, early on, to have Kyle join Gonzalez’s group. He didn’t want the young man under his direct command. It would have been too hard to send his adopted son into a dangerous situation.

  He had thought about having Shader take Kyle. He was a better tactician and operator than Gonzalez and Lazzaro, but he was also more likely to put his men in harm’s way to get the job done. Gonzalez was the opposite. The Marine lived to protect and would be the first one into the fire. He’d do his best to keep his team safe, even at the expense of his own life.

  Carver sat down next to Dixon. She had stripped off her assault pack, leaving her magazine-laden chest rig in place. Her rifle was leaning against the table, safety on and magazine out. Just as he’d trained them to do.

  “Two more hours,” Carver said loudly enough for all to hear.

  That earned him a combination of groans and smiles. It was hard to get jacked up for an op, then have the air let out. Some were disappointed they’d gotten hyped up for nothing, while others were happy to have a few more peaceful hours. Dixon fell into the first group as her stoic face drooped into a mask of disappointment.

  “Don’t let yourself get too high or too low,” Carver said. “You’ll be disappointed every time.”

  Daphne Dixon looked over at the techs as several of them scrambled back into the RIB. The inflatable boat was shoved into the tide. The engine fired up, then the craft turned and shot out to the ship.

  The hum of the overhead drone was drowned out by the inflatable’s engine. The unmanne
d aircraft was running a circular pattern over the camp. The specialists back on board were scanning the immediate area with the drone’s infrared cameras. Any approaching Variant would stand out brightly against the cool soil.

  “Is it always like this?” Dixon asked. “Hurry up and wait?”

  “Yeah. You need to stop thinking so much. Don’t have any preconceptions about how things will play out. If you just focus on accomplishing the next step, you’ll be fine. Time is irrelevant on this op. It will take what it takes. Two days. Two weeks. Two months. We won’t know until we do it.”

  “That’s reassuring,” she deadpanned.

  “You have anything else to do, Seaman?”

  Dixon smiled. She leaned back against the picnic table’s platform and took off her helmet. Her elbows were tucked back onto the table as she looked up at the first sun they’d seen in days. That’s when Carver noticed that her hair had been cut back and was lying flat on her head.

  “Last night your hair was longer. Did you cut it?” Carver asked.

  Dixon looked at the SEAL, then snickered. “Extensions,” she said with a grin. “You’ve never heard of them?”

  “No. But I can imagine what they are.”

  “You really are too much of a man,” Dixon chuckled.

  Carver blushed and turned away.

  “Chief Carver. You’re embarrassed,” she said, poking his rib with her elbow.

  Carver brushed it away and shrugged. “I just don’t deal with women too often. You ladies are tough to get a read on.”

  Dixon continued to smile as she leaned back. “We’re a different bunch,” she replied. “Men always say that they don’t understand women. I have a news flash. Sometimes, we don’t understand each other.”

  Carver gave her a sideways look.

  “Well, I understand why another woman would do something,” Dixon added. “Just that I’d have done it differently or not at all.”

  They both sat quietly.

  “I read a book once,” Carver said. “Women are like spaghetti and men are like waffles. Or something like that.”

  Dixon snorted. “What the hell does that mean?”

  “Men compartmentalize,” Carver said. “We put things in boxes and only work in one box at a time. Like waffles have sections.”

  “And the spaghetti?” she asked.

  “When you pull on one piece of spaghetti, it affects all the others. Nothing is compartmentalized. Everything affects everything else on the plate. That’s why women agonize and stress.”

  “And that’s bad? That’s how we juggle family, work, and friends.”

  “No. In a normal world, it’s fantastic. It’s one of the things I love about Hope. She’s got a handle on the big picture,” Carver said. “But out here, we have one goal. You don’t need to worry about anyone or anything, other than me and the mission. I’m your commander. Nothing else matters.”

  “But what about…” Dixon started.

  “Let it go, Dixon. You need to focus. Learn to compartmentalize. Learn to wall-off the whispers you might be thinking. You need to focus. Any other thoughts that creep into your head will just slow you down. A split-second may cost you your life, or worse, someone else’s.”

  Dixon sat quietly, absorbing Carver’s advice.

  “But what about now? What do you do with your downtime? How do you not worry?”

  Carver checked his watch then dropped down onto the hardpacked soil next to his war dog. Shrek flopped against Carver’s leg and sighed before closing his eyes. Carver leaned his head back on the table’s bench seat and adjusted his assault pack so it cushioned him.

  He looked up at Dixon and smiled. “Learn to sleep. You may not have a chance to get any rack time for a while.”

  Dixon began to understand why the snake eaters she’d met acted the way they did. It was a form of mental survival. She nodded after a minute and turned to speak. She stopped and grinned instead. Carver was already out cold.

  “Really?” she muttered.

  Even with the commotion of nineteen other soldiers nearby and the hammering and drilling from Freedom’s mechanics, he’d found a way to shut them off and find some sleep.

  Dixon decided to try it herself. She imitated Carver’s position next to him. She lay her head back and closed her eyes. Her mind drifted as the rhythmic sounds of drills and the hiss of the welders filled the air, then her fears began to creep into her mind. She forced them back down by promising herself that she’d address them later. Otherwise, there was no way she’d be able to drift off.

  It must be a man thing, she thought as sleep seemed to elude her. Either that, or he just has more experience at it.

  She was convinced that sleep was going to be impossible.

  Two hours later, she awoke from the best nap she could ever recall.

  Two Harbors

  Two Harbors came into view as they rounded a bend on the hardpacked, red-dirt road. They were flanked on their right by an ochre-tinted hillside and the left by a drop-off toward the ocean.

  Two Harbors was a tiny collection of homes and commercial buildings. It was primarily a day destination for the tourists coming up from the island’s main city of Avalon, although there were a few overnight accommodations. Most of the structures were designed to handle boaters and hikers who would stop on their way to another location or were berthed in their private luxury crafts.

  “Contact right!” someone yelled from the truck’s bed.

  Several rifles barked as the Variant ran down the hill toward the small caravan. All three pickup trucks slowed to a stop as one of the soldiers finally found the creature’s spine. It tumbled onto the road in front of them, its cord severed.

  The single-lane dirt road wasn’t wide enough to go around the downed creature, so they slowly drove over it. Unlike the last three Variants they’d killed, this one didn’t hiss or spit at them as they rolled over the body. The puddle of black-speckled blood pooling next to it confirmed that the creature had already bled out.

  The first body they’d run over had turned Dixon’s stomach. She’d seen enough death on the Freedom at the beginning of the infection, but this was different. She hadn’t had to dispose of the bodies back then, being too small to help lift the corpses and drop them over the side. She did, however, have to clean up the bloody mess left behind.

  She’d never forget the feeling of the thick blood, peppered with hard, black specks. Cleaning that biohazardous material was both dangerous and disgusting. It felt like dog vomit as she wiped it into larger puddles. Then she had to scrape the goo into a plastic five-gallon bucket for eventual disposal. If snot, diarrhea, and vomit could be combined, it would approximate the texture she felt through her rubber gloves. Twice, she’d vomited in her mask, forcing her to go through a decontamination process before suiting up again to continue the cleanup.

  By the third body today, she’d adjusted.

  This time, it was her shot that had disabled the creature. As it flopped down the hill, it struck her that it was the first time she’d ever killed anything. She started to feel lightheaded and pale. As they rolled over the corpse, she felt the bile rising in her stomach.

  “Nice shot, sailor,” Shader said through the rear, slide window.

  She turned and looked into the pickup truck’s cab. Carver was driving, and Shader had taken one of the back seats. His head filled the opening, a smile on his face.

  “Stay frosty back there,” he said. “We’ll be running into a lot more of those things as we get closer to town.”

  Dixon swallowed hard and nodded as Shader slide the window shut.

  She felt a tap on her arm. It was her battle buddy, Gavin. He held out an unopened can of cola for her.

  “Found this in one of the buildings,” he said.

  “Thanks.”

  She drank the warm, sweet drink. The bubbles effervesced, calming her stomach. Gavin smiled after she let out a tiny burp. The sound could barely be heard over the three engines.

  “Sor
ry,” she muttered.

  Several men nearby chuckled slightly, embarrassing the young woman.

  “No problem,” Gavin said, taking the can of cola and downing a couple of large gulps. He wiped his lips and let out a tremendous belch.

  The rest of the people in the truck’s bed began to laugh. Even Shader opened the window and gave Gavin his approval.

  “Nice tone,” Shader said, before sliding the window closed.

  Dixon sat back and looked at Gavin. The rest of the group began to chide the young man, but her battle buddy took it all in stride. After a minute, they went back to scanning the hillside for more Variants.

  Gavin took his position, facing out to the left of the truck. Dixon tapped him on the shoulder. He sat back on his haunches and leaned toward her.

  “Thanks,” she said.

  “I’ll always have your back,” he whispered before returning to his post.

  Dixon took her spot on the other side of the truck. Facing uphill, she searched for more Variants. As she scanned the hillside, she thought briefly of Gavin. He was a couple years younger than her, and like most men at that age, he was definitely below her level of maturity.

  In training, they’d clicked as a pair and now, he’d just deflected any embarrassment from her onto him. It was one more hint that she’d be able to trust that he’d be there at her side when it mattered the most. It wasn’t a big deal in the scheme of things, but it revealed that he was paying attention. It showed that he was looking out for her.

  The trucks rumbled along the single-lane road, eventually passing between two metal fence posts. A placard warning of the need for fire prevention was attached to the right pole. Smokey Bear stared back at them as they passed through the opening. Then the trail widened into a two-lane track.

  “About time,” Carver said. “It’ll make maneuvering a lot easier now that I have some room.”

  Shader remained quiet. The tamped-down dirt road widened for a reason. There were far more structures that fed onto it. The closer they got to the small town, the more Variants they’d have to contend with.