Extinction Survival Series (Book 3): Cost of Survival

by Browning, Walt

  Carver looked around the abandoned nursery. The equipment, along with the fuel and other supplies they’d found, needed to be salvaged. Carver decided to forego the trip to Avalon. Whatever was waiting for them would still be there when they decided to visit.

  “Sure. He’d love to go with you.”

  He commanded Shrek to stay with Chloe. The sound of Shader’s pickup grinding across the dirt and gravel driveway announced their departure.

  “Let’s do this,” Carver said.

  A few minutes later, the door to the storage shed had been picked. They found the young girl’s parents, their skeletal remains indicating that they’d been gone for many months.

  “Over here, Chief,” Gavin said. The young man pulled a piece of paper off the wall and handed it to Carver.

  TO WHOM EVER FINDS THIS:

  Our boss returned from Avalon, sick with the virus. He bit us both before we knew he was infected. We killed him. He’s buried under the Mexican Heather. Our daughter was not injured. We locked ourselves in this building to protect her and anyone else. I just pray we don’t hurt whomever finds us. May God have mercy on us all.

  Carver folded the paper and put it in his pocket. One day, Jenny would appreciate having this last testament. He looked down on the desiccated corpses with appreciation and respect. The team left the building, and Carver relocked the door, leaving Jenny’s parents in their makeshift tomb.

  — 25 —

  El Ranchito Escondido

  Six Days Later

  “Adapt or perish, now as ever, is nature’s inexorable imperative.”

  — H. G. Wells

  “Still nothing!” Shader complained.

  Carver decided to hole up at the ranch and let Everly scout the island at night. Even with several vehicles lighting up the field, the ranch had lost two more bison and one of their mules. Everly had failed to find anything on his infrared camera.

  “We need to do something different,” Carver said.

  “You think?” Shader sarcastically replied. “We’ve been holed up here doing nothing but picking our butts while we continue to lose livestock.”

  “We could set up an OP,” Gonzalez said. “Maybe pick them up through our night vision.”

  “I can’t risk that. I’d rather lose the animals. They’re replaceable, you guys are not,” Carver said.

  Even though Everly had been near the area when the animals disappeared, he failed to spot the creatures. Unfortunately, the flying Variants seemed to be able to avoid the deadly helicopter.

  “Let’s go to plan B,” Shader said.

  “There’s a plan B?” Lazzaro asked.

  Shader nodded. “There’s always a plan B. There’s a plan C, too.”

  “Really. What is that?” Carver asked.

  “Well. You know. What we talked about,” Shader stammered.

  “I knew it,” Lazzaro said, smirking. “You don’t even know.”

  Chloe stifled a giggle. She and Shader had become rather close the last week and the SEAL’s ego was always a source of humor. He constantly needed to boss people and had an endless desire to do everyone else’s job because “These idiots don’t know what they’re doing”.

  He was both loving and infuriating. Patient and spontaneous. Available, but sometimes stifling. Mostly, she loved having him around, while occasionally, she wanted to smash his face with an iron skillet.

  He was all man. He was tough and confident, yet weak in areas where she was strong. He made her feel safe when the world looked hopeless. The tradeoffs seemed to be worth it. So far.

  “As the Chief and I discussed,” Carver said, rescuing his friend from his self-inflicted predicament. “Our next option is to locate and search buildings or natural formations that could house these creatures. I’ve marked several large structures on the map that are candidates.”

  The team leaders huddled around the kitchen table, each giving input and challenging the existing strategy. After several hours of refinement, they had a plan.

  “Okay. Tomorrow morning at dawn, we leave for Avalon.”

  Carver gave Everly the night off. Maintenance and rest were needed for the next phase of the mission. He would be providing overwatch for their incursion into the island’s largest town. That night, with the SuperCobra back at Lost Valley, they’d lost two more bison.

  Avalon sat on an incline that drained down to the ocean. Sitting near the southeast tip of the island, the town grew out from the semi-circular, naturally-formed harbor. They’d approached the municipality from the west, climbing over the island’s mountainous spine as they moved from the ranch.

  They cleared any and all structures along the way. There were few to worry about and no Variants so far.

  The Divide Road split and turned into a pair of glorified horse trails. Where the map showed roads, hiking would have been a better use of the path. Progress was slow, but blissfully free of the infected.

  They finally returned to a wider trail that almost resembled an actual street.

  “Up ahead is the Botanical Garden,” Gavin said.

  The trucks slowed as they approached a stucco-covered concrete wall. Then the entrance to the attraction appeared. Its eight-foot-high, wrought-iron gates were closed, flanked by two arched porticos that allowed pedestrian access. The street and sidewalks were covered with concrete and were the first normally paved roads since Two Harbors.

  Gavin hopped out of the truck and ran over to a box that contained weather-worn brochures. He grabbed one and brought it back to the vehicle. They scanned the advertisement and saw several large buildings that could house the flying monsters.

  “We need to clear this place,” Carver said.

  “Cobra One. This is Red One actual. We’re going to clear the Botanical Garden to our south. Do you copy? Over.”

  “That’s a hard copy, Red One actual. I’m in position. Call me if you need me. Over.”

  “Thanks Cobra One. Hope we don’t. Red One actual, out.”

  They pulled up to the gates, where Gavin jumped back out and swung them open. The three vehicles slowly drove up the side of the shallow incline. A tower rose from the hillside with open archways that gave it a gothic feel.

  “Bats in the belfry,” Gavin said, pointing at the large structure. The young man was eerily spot-on with the vibe the place was giving off.

  Carver let the engine idle, which had them crawling slowly toward the tall building. He instinctively stopped and turned the vehicle off.

  “We walk from here,” he said.

  “Yes, sir,” Gavin replied.

  All three trucks emptied.

  “Why are we stopping here?” Shader asked. They were still a few hundred yards from the building.

  “My Spidey sense is tingling,” Carver replied. “Something’s not right.”

  Carver brought his binoculars up to his eyes and glassed the building. The tower was dotted with painted tiles, forming a Moroccan-style pattern in several spots. The arches rose from the surrounding pavement on all four sides and peaked over a hundred feet above. The smooth walls rose into a recessed ceiling. It all looked normal, at least from a distance.

  “Split up,” Carver said. “Red and Black Teams on the right. Green and Blue on the left.”

  The men formed up on the sidewalk to either side of the paved road. Carver glassed the building and tower again, but found nothing to confirm his unsettled feeling.

  “Advance. Don’t get ahead of me,” Carver said over the squad radio.

  Carver began to move forward, stopping every twenty yards to reassess their surroundings. He brought the binoculars back up and looked up into the tower. Nothing was moving, but something still looked wrong.

  “Cobra One. This is Red One actual. Over.”

  “Copy, Red One actual. Over.”

  “I need you to do a flyby of the tower. Can you rattle the cage a little bit? Over.”

  “You got it. Beginning my run. Cobra One, out.”

  The helicopter’s distant
thumping increased in pitch as it accelerated toward the tower. Everly spun to the west and dropped down. He put the structure at his twelve and accelerated. The tower loomed in front of him as his land speed quickly pushed one-hundred-twenty knots.

  The SuperCobra rushed past the top of the building just a few dozen meters above its peak. The thumping and downdraft of the blades rattled the tower. The result was horrifically spectacular.

  Flying Variants fell from under the open structure’s roof. Seven of the giant creatures dropped down and took flight. They were large and fast. Two of the monsters took flight at the SuperCobra. Carver called Everly to warn him, but he’d already turned and was facing the oncoming attack.

  His cannon began to speak, sending its inch-wide penetrators at the monsters. A wall of death tore through the Variants, evaporating them into a black-and-red mist.

  Everly began to follow a third monster, leaving the other four to make their escape. One of them was flying directly at Carver’s squad.

  “Take cover!”

  The enormous creature’s wings created a down draft that rivaled the SuperCobra’s own rotor wash. Carver lay prone on the pavement, huddled against the trunk of one of the trees that lined the street. He glanced up and got his first good look at the monster.

  It had leathery wings, like pterodactyls imagined in the horror movies. They were slightly translucent with talon-like hands at their end. The head and body were from human stock. Its back and shoulders were oversized, giving it the ability to generate enough power to fly. Its legs were almost atrophied in size and had fused into a single, large, flattened claw at the end.

  It turned briefly to find the attack helicopter, giving Carver a profile view.

  It had a large bony plate for a forehead and an oversized mouth with Variant teeth. Its nose was gone, replaced by a clump of fleshy tissue. Carver’s first thought was that it looked like a pig’s snout that had been smashed and flattened into its face.

  It was its eyes that caught his attention next. They were gone, or at least covered by an opaque film. He realized they were likely blind, which meant they were using sound to “see” where they were going. They were giant, killing bats with prehistoric weapons for hands and a rabid attitude toward the uninfected.

  The creature turned back to the hillside, just to Carver’s right, and dove into the ground. Its flattened leg claw tore into the sandy soil as it twisted itself down. Within a few seconds, it had buried itself, lying still just a few yards from where Carver and the rest of the teams were hiding. The only trace left was a mound of overturned sand.

  They all remained motionless as Everly hunted down his target. A minute later, they heard the explosion of a Hellfire missile erupting nearby.

  “Target down. Over,” Everly said over the radio.

  “Copy that. Hold your position. Over,” Carver whispered back.

  Carver contacted Shader on the other side of the street. A Variant had augured into the hill on his side, but at a distance that prevented Shader from seeing what it had done once on the ground.

  Carver described what had happened on his side over the squad radio.

  “Form up on me,” Carver said, bringing the entire team to his spot.

  The buried creature was about thirty yards away. The mound of sand was rising up and down. It had to breathe, which meant it wasn’t that far under the soil. It also explained why Everly had failed to pick them up on his IR scope. They had heard the helicopter at a distance and dug a hiding hole, then escaped when the threat disappeared. Carver told his men what he’d seen and how the creature functioned.

  “Ideas, gentlemen? How do we flush that thing out of there?”

  “Mark it and let Everly strafe the spot,” one of his men said.

  “I’d like to have something to examine after we kill it,” Carver said. “I stitched several rounds on the chest of one back at the airport tower, and it still managed to fly away. I want to know how to kill it and for that, I need it in one piece.”

  “Will our rifles penetrate that far under the sand?” Gavin asked.

  “I doubt it,” Carver said. “We might just drive it further underground.”

  “What about a grenade?” Gavin asked.

  “That won’t get deep enough.”

  “Maybe. But if it’s blind, that means it must use sound like a bat. That would be a heck of a blast to its ears.”

  “It might just send it deeper, as well,” Carver said.

  “It’ll eventually come out if it thinks we’re gone,” Gavin said. “If there are no threats, it will feel safe to come out.”

  “Not a bad thought for being the new guy.”

  “What about Avalon? We still need to recon the town,” one of the men said.

  “It’ll be there tomorrow, or the next day,” Carver said. “We need to figure these things out before we encounter them again. They’re the number one threat to the island.”

  “It’s been almost two hours,” Gonzalez whispered into his mic.

  Red Team and Black Team remained. They’d moved away from the creature about a hundred meters and laid down, remaining motionless and silent, their rifles trained on the mound. Green and Blue Teams took position a quarter mile away, providing overwatch in case any other Variants decided to move into the area.

  Carver didn’t like splitting them up, but the more bodies around, the more likely noise would keep the creature pinned in its sandy hole.

  “Quiet,” Carver hissed back. They’d spent too much time already for someone to alert the creature of their proximity.

  Shrek’s head spun and locked onto the mound. He’d been on alert the entire time, knowing that the Variant was nearby.

  The sand began to lift, and the creature stuck its elongated head out of the soil. Carver watched in fascination as the it turned side to side, giving him a first-time, close-up view through his 4x ACOG scope.

  The thing’s head looked like a stretched human skull, with an elongated jaw and widened forehead that gave it a triangular shape when seen from the front. The side showed enlarged, cupped ears while its nose was a flattened piece of flesh with multiple slits instead of two nostrils.

  Its mouth flexed, but no sound came out.

  Shrek suddenly flinched when the tissue around the creature’s nasal slits began to pulsate. The poor dog cringed three, then four times, each vibration of the nasal tissue from the Variant eliciting a painful response from the Mal.

  After that, it tucked its head back into the sand and became still.

  “Everyone, stay quiet,” Carver commanded.

  Their wait wasn’t long. Shrek was the first to feel them coming.

  Shrek

  We lie quietly. We hunt the flying asp. With it buried in the dirt, the smell becomes less strong. But I know it’s there and so does Carver.

  We wait, because it has gone to ground. We wait, because it will have to come out sometime. We wait, because that is what killers do. Carver and I are killers. The asp will find that out very soon.

  Its head pops out of the ground. The asp sends out a shriek that comes from the center of its face. It hurts me to hear it. I stiffen and cringe. It is a cry for help.

  Four times it calls, then lies back down to wait.

  I look at Carver. He does not move. He knows the asp is afraid. As it should be. Because I am Shrek. He is Carver. We are killers, and we always win. It is who we are.

  Then I hear them. Five more fly above. I turn my head and find them soaring in the air. They circle, then glide down and come for the one in the dirt.

  I look at Carver and he looks at me. I turn and find the infected ones. They are flying straight for us. I hear a click from his rifle. He is ready.

  Carver

  Shrek stiffened and Carver looked at the dog. Shrek craned his neck upward and Carver followed his gaze. It took a moment, but five more of the creatures soared above. Then they turned as a group and dove toward the ground.

  “This is Red One actual. Five Tangos abov
e. Black Team takes the last three. Red Team will take the first two and the one in the dirt. Hold your fire until I shoot. Red One actual. Out.”

  Carver rolled to his side and watched as the five creatures bore down on them. They came in a twisting motion, their lateral movement bleeding off some of the speed that gravity was demanding. They were remarkably graceful.

  Carver stared in wonder at the descending Variants. Their leathery wings, each having a claw-like appendage at the end, billowed stiffly as they glided to the ground. As they neared, their tight formation began to spread. Then he suddenly realized that the buried Variant wasn’t their target. It was him and his teams.

  Carver began to open fire. The rest quickly followed.

  In the bright sunlight, the tracer rounds left little trail. But their effect on the flying creatures was quickly evident.

  Carver watched as his own high-velocity bullets hit the chest of the infected monster. It had little effect. There was some type of armor that prevented his shots from penetrating, or he wasn’t hitting any vital parts. The only thing that seemed to have any effect were the tracer rounds. They sparked when hitting the Variants, sending a shiver through the creatures and, in several instances, turning them back into the sky.

  “Aim for the base of the skull!” Carver yelled.

  The fusillade of lead began to move up their bodies as the teams aimed higher. Two of the flying creatures suddenly turned away, then dropped to the ground as rounds struck them in the spine. They hit the sand with tremendous force and began flopping and lurching before death finally shut them down.

  “Their necks. Aim for their necks,” Gonzalez barked over the squad radio.

  It wasn’t that easy. The remaining three spun in the air as they descended, their movement becoming erratic, making shots unpredictable.

  One of them swooped over Carver, its claws missing him and Shrek by inches. Carver spun and tracked it through his rifle-mounted scope. He pressed the trigger just as it dropped to the ground. His bullets flew harmlessly over the top of its head. Carver then heard a scream.