Extinction Age

-1-

May 7th, 2015

New York City

The tunnels below Manhattan reeked of death, but Master Sergeant Reed Beckham blocked out the stench of decay in the sultry air. Injured, rattled, and down to only his sidearm, his focus was on keeping his men alive.

He pulled his shemagh scarf up to cover his nose and burst around another corner, following the sound of clanking gear and labored breathing through the underground sewer system. Light danced across the green-hued view of his night vision goggles and bent eerily in the darkness. The graffiti-covered walls seemed to narrow as he ran, the artwork distorting like he was in some sort of carnival fun house.

Breathe, Beckham ordered himself. Breathe.

He ignored the burn in his lungs and concentrated on the six helmets that bobbed up and down ahead. The loyal soldiers had followed him into the tunnels to escape the firebombs and the Variants, but Beckham feared he had only delayed the inevitable for these brave men.

“Keep moving!” Staff Sergeant Chow shouted. The Delta Force Operator turned and waved Beckham forward.

An inhuman shriek answered, amplified by the enclosed space. The rapid clicking of joints followed as the Variants homed in on Team Ghost’s location.

Beckham brushed against the side of a wall and threw a glance over his shoulder. The creatures clung to the shadows, their diseased flesh glowing in the moonlight streaming through partially open manhole covers. They skittered horizontally across the walls just close enough to keep his team in view.

The monsters had transformed into perfect predators that could see in dim lighting, heal remarkably fast, and move like insects. Dr. Kate Lovato called it evolution. Beckham called it natural selection. And with every passing second, the Variants grew stronger while the human population dwindled.

Beckham had been there from day one, back in Building 8 when the virus that turned men into monsters first escaped. But even now, the sight of the Variants flooded him with raw fear. Adrenaline emptied into his system like a fast release pill as he ran.

The creatures were testing him. Seeing how far they could approach before Team Ghost opened fire. He responded with a shot from his 10mm. Rock and dust exploded from a wall. The warning would only buy them a precious minute or two.

A sudden tremor rumbled through the tunnel. Fragments of concrete poured from the ceiling, showering the team with debris. The jets were making a second pass on Manhattan, firebombing Midtown.

Beckham thought of his brothers-in-arms and of Timothy and Jake, hoping to God they were all out of the kill zone. He shook the thought away as he bolted through a cloud of dust and ash, one hand shielding his face. He slopped through ankle-deep sewage and turned every hundred feet to fire off another shot.

A frantic voice broke through the chaos.

“Which way?”

“Left!” came a second voice.

“Right!” shouted another a second later.

Beckham could barely see the junction ahead. None of them had any idea where they were or where they were going. Entering the tunnels had been a last resort. Now, deep beneath the streets, Beckham’s only plan was to keep moving.

“Left! Go left!” he yelled just as a second torrent of dull thuds hit the streets above. These explosions were closer, and the aftershock sent Beckham crashing into a wall. He braced himself with an elbow and whirled to fire at a trio of Variants darting across the ceiling. Two of them melted into the darkness, squawking in anger, but the third and largest creature dropped to all fours, its muscular limbs pounding the water.

Beckham fired another shot and took off running. By the time he passed the next corner, his team was fifty feet ahead. Timbo’s bulky frame loomed in the darkness.

“Come on!” the Ranger huffed.

“I’m with you!” Beckham replied between raspy breaths. His earpiece crackled with static as he made up lost ground.

“You got a plan?” Lieutenant Colonel Jensen asked, putting deliberate emphasis on the final word.

Beckham couldn’t lie. He was still trying to come up with a plan B. So far, running around in the maze of tunnels wasn’t working.

“We’re going to need to make a stand! Get these Variants off our ass!” Beckham finally shouted. “Ammo count!”

The replies trickled over the comm channel. Between the seven of them, they had a handful of mags for their primary weapons and only a couple of frag grenades. Several of his men were also down to sidearms.

Beckham probed the green oblivion of the tunnel as he considered their options. This wasn’t the first time he’d had his back to a wall. At Fort Bragg, Beckham and Horn had been down to their knives before Chow had showed up with the cavalry. But this time no one was going to ride in and save him. Team Ghost was on their own.

A guttural croak echoed through the passage. Two more answered the call. The evil cries rattled his senses. He examined his vest for something useful, anything that might buy them some more time to escape. Two smoke bombs hung next to his remaining M67 grenade.

Out of desperation, he plucked one off and tossed it as far as he could. It landed in the water about a hundred feet away with a faint plop. Smoke hissed out of it a moment later.

“I’m right behind you,” Beckham said into his mini-mike. The ceiling rumbled as jets swooped overhead for a third pass, drowning out his voice.

Command was hitting the Variants hard. After 1st Platoon had drawn them out of their lairs, General Kennor had likely ordered every available pilot in range to mount up. The flyboys were showering New York with hellfire and death. Beckham clenched his jaw—Kennor had used him, his men, and thousands of other soldiers as bait.

A shard of concrete slashed Beckham’s arm, tearing him from his thoughts. A second piece clanked off his helmet so hard it threw him off balance. He dropped to a knee and raised his pistol toward the smoke. Moonlight from an open manhole bathed him in light. He flipped up his NVGs and squinted at the smoke.

“Move!” Timbo shouted.

“I’ll catch up!” Beckham yelled back. He held his position and continued searching for the monsters. The swirling cloud quickly spread over the corridor. His heart thumped as he waited. Seconds ticked by. Five. Ten. The footsteps of his team splashed through the water, gradually fading.

A flash of motion broke inside the curtain of smoke. The single shape of the colossal Variant lingered at the edge of the barrier. It tilted its head, yellow eyes blinking rapidly as it searched for Beckham.

He fired on reflex, his trigger finger responding to the stab of fear with three shots. The rounds punched into the thick Variant’s sweaty chest, jerking it from side to side. It let out a roar and leapt to the wall.

Beckham fired off two more shots. One clipped the Variant’s cranium, blowing off an ear and a piece of skull. That only enraged the monster. It clambered across the bricks, closing the gap between it and Beckham. He could smell it now. The sour stench of rotting fruit carried over the putrid sewage.

“What the hell are you—” Chow started to say over the comm when Beckham’s gunfire silenced him. He fired again and again, but the monster’s thick muscles seemed to absorb the bullets. The high-pitched screeches and the popping joints of other Variants echoed through the tunnel in the break of his gunshots.

Beckham knew what came next.

Fatigue had screwed with his senses. He should have known the smoke wouldn’t cover their escape—should have known his bullets wouldn’t stop them. Without thinking, he reached for his last grenade, bit off the pin, and tossed it at the beast of a Variant that was now only fifty feet away.

“Frag out!” Beckham shouted.

He turned to run when a meaty body knocked him onto his back in the water. There was no time to react, no time to call for help or curse the fact he hadn’t seen the other Variant stalking him through the manhole above. There was only a fraction of a second to whip his head away from the Variant’s maw.

The beast pushed against Beckham’s chest, forcing him below the rancid water. Stars broke across his vision as he battled his way to the surface. A realization hit him then. He had four, maybe five seconds before the grenade exploded. The timer counted down in his mind as he fought.

Five seconds.

Beckham clamped a hand around the creature’s thick neck while flailing for his pistol with the other. He came up empty, the weapon lost in the muck.

Another second passed. He panicked, knowing he was well within the kill radius of the grenade. In a final desperate attempt to escape the monster, he reached for his knife. He jammed the blade into the open mouth of the Variant. Teeth shattered as he plunged the tip into its brain with a wet thunk.

A gurgling croak escaped the monster’s swollen lips before it went limp. The dead weight pushed down, forcing Beckham beneath the water again. He heard a muddled voice as he struggled back to the surface.

“Beckham! Hold on! I’m com—”

The words vanished in an explosion. Shrapnel whistled through the tunnel, tearing into the flesh of the corpse on top of him. A piece bit into Beckham’s exposed right shoulder. He winced from the raw heat that instantly turned his right arm numb. Pinned down, he was forced to watch helplessly as fissures broke across the ceiling. Chunks fell from the network of cracks into the foul water.

He squirmed under the dead Variant, but his right arm was out of commission. The corpse had saved him from the blast only to suffocate him beneath the water.

Red flooded his vision and a memory of the night he spent with Kate floated into his mind. It disappeared into a flashback of Building 8 and the members of Team Ghost who had never made it out.

The memories gnawed at his mind as his lungs groped for oxygen. Darkness slowly replaced the red. His body was numb now. So numb he could hardly feel the weight of the Variant roll off him. His eyes snapped open as someone grabbed his flak jacket and hauled him from the water.

A voice, distorted by the dull ringing in Beckham’s ears, called out for him.

“Beckham! You with me, man?”

“Yeah,” Beckham managed to say. He was still alive, but he knew he was in bad shape. His shoulder burned like someone had dumped battery acid on it, and his lungs felt like they’d been crushed. He squinted to focus on the face hovering over him.

Fingers snapped in front of Beckham’s eyes. His vision slowly cleared to the sight of Chow looking him up and down for injuries.

Beckham took in deep breaths filled with the scent of seared flesh and the rotten water. The burn of stomach acid ate at his throat. He ran his tongue over slimy teeth and spat into the muck.

“You okay?” someone else asked.

Beckham could hardly hear anything over the rush of blood in his ears. He sat there for a few minutes as the world slowly returned to normal.

“We need to get moving,” another voice said.

Beckham flipped his NVGs back into position. Smoke and dust whirled through the tunnel behind Chow, Jensen, and Timbo. He twisted to see Jinx, Ryan, and Valdez holding security on their rear guard.

“You good, man?” Chow asked.

“Everything but my right shoulder,” Beckham said. “Got nicked by some shrapnel.”

“Help him up,” Chow ordered. “And be careful.”

Beckham grimaced as Timbo bent down, grabbed him under the armpits, and hoisted him to his feet. The other men formed a perimeter around him, like a legion of knights protecting a fallen warrior.

“You’re one crazy son of a bitch,” Jensen said as he stared at the destruction.

“Had to hold them,” Beckham said.

“Yeah,” Jensen said. “Looks like you did.”

“For now,” Beckham added. He applied pressure to his wound and scanned the dissipating smoke one more time for movement. Nothing stirred. The Variants had been reduced to scattered chunks of gore.

“Let’s move out,” Beckham said. He was lightheaded, but they had to keep moving.

“Hold up, man. Let me look at your shoulder,” Chow said.

“It can wait,” Beckham said. “Someone give me a gun. I lost mine in the blast.”

Jensen handed him a revolver. Beckham flipped open the cylinder of the Colt .45 and counted the six hollow-tipped cartridges.

“That’s my girl,” Jensen said. “I want her back.”

Although the NVGs were covering his eyes, Beckham knew the lieutenant colonel was sizing him up. If he were in Jensen’s shoes, he would be doing the same thing.

“On me,” Beckham said. He didn’t give his men a chance to protest. He strode through the group and led them away from the carnage, blood still dripping from his shoulder.

Ringing followed him through the tunnels, singing in his ears. He lost track of time in the rancid, damp network of storm drains and sewers.

The next corridor widened and curved into a larger passage with brick platforms on both sides. Beckham jumped onto the right ledge and hugged the wall, happy to be out of the shit. Jensen and Jinx hurried across the platform on the left, Timbo close on their six.

Beckham pressed down on his wound. If he made it out of this, he was going to need stitches and some powerful antibiotics to combat sepsis. The injury blazed from the bacteria that had already entered his system.

“You got eyes?” Chow asked.

“Looks clear,” Beckham replied.

There was no sign of Variants or other threats in the tunnel. For the first time in hours, Beckham could make out the trickle of water. The ringing from the grenade was still fading, but the Air Force had finally finished their bombardment.

As the team worked forward, the trickle intensified into a steady stream. Falls cascaded in the distance. The shades of green folded into darkness, the end of the tunnel transforming into a black portal of a cavern. Beckham slowed as he approached a waterfall of sewage spilling over the edge into the massive room.

He formed a fist with his hand and then pointed to his eyes and then at the drop off. Jensen and Timbo acknowledged with nods and eased into a stealthy formation on the left platform.

“Let me bandage you up,” Chow whispered. He squeezed by Beckham and crouched in front of him. “How you feeling, man?”

“Dizzy,” Beckham replied. A random star floated across his vision.

“You’ve lost some blood,” Chow said. He reached into his pack and pulled out a small medical box. Then he leaned in and flipped his NVGs, using what little light the tunnel behind them provided for a better view.

“Looks deep,” Chow said.

“Feels…” Beckham shook his head. He caught a glimpse of Timbo walking closer to the ledge.

Chow cut away a piece of Beckham’s shirt and dressed the wound with antiseptic. The cold gel burned its way into his shoulder, and Beckham gritted his teeth. He closed his eyes and waited for the agony to pass. Chow applied a bandage over the injury.

“Should stop the bleeding,” Chow said. “But we need—”

Timbo’s voice flickered over the comm, cutting Chow off.

“Holy… Holy FUCK!”

Beckham’s eyes flipped open. The Ranger was crouched at the end of the left platform, peering over the side. In a blink of an eye, he stumbled away and fell on his ass, scrambling backward with his beefy arms.

“Contacts?” Beckham said, his heart kicking. He pulled away from Chow and walked slowly to the edge of the tunnel.

Timbo didn’t immediately reply. His gasping breaths crackled across the comm channel as he scrambled away.

“What the fuck did you see?” Beckham asked.

“I… I…” The shock in Timbo’s voice gave Beckham pause. He’d never heard the man so terrified.

Beckham inched closer to the ledge with Chow as a shadow. Together they crouched and looked over the side. A moment passed, a second frozen in time. The image his eyes relayed to his brain went unprocessed. It had to be a trick of the light, a mirage. An illusion fired off by his over-tired brain. Or at least, that’s what he wanted it to be.

But this was no illusion.

This was real.

A half dozen other tunnels dumped into a central chamber, feeding a pool of sewage below. The walls and ceiling of the massive room were covered with hundreds of human prisoners, their bodies plastered to the walls with thick vines of webbing that crisscrossed their flesh like bloated veins. Some were mutilated beyond recognition. Others were missing limbs.

Variants crawled across the walls, their backs hunched, clinging to the bricks with talons and the hair-like fibers Kate’s team had discovered. One of them clawed its way through the sticky film covering an unconscious man. His eyes shot open when the creature clamped down on his stomach and ripped into his flesh. He screamed, but his voice was quickly lost in the roar of the waterfall.

“Let’s go,” Chow whispered.

Beckham swallowed, unable to formulate a response. He backed away from the ledge only to see a woman attached to the wall on his right. Her eyes met his and she reached out with a trembling hand.

“Please. Please help me,” she whispered, her lips trembling.

Beckham brought a finger to his mouth, but it was already too late. Their whispers had attracted the nearest creature. It let out a high-pitched roar that made Beckham’s heart kick. The clicking of joints and the scratching of claws followed as the sleeping Variants stirred and searched the darkness.

“We need to move,” Chow said. “Now, man.”

Footsteps pounded the platforms as the team retreated, but Beckham hesitated. His eyes shifted from the prisoner to the Variants racing across the ceiling.

“Please,” the woman cried. “Please don’t leave me.”

Beckham threw a glance over his shoulder. The other men were halfway down the hall. Only Chow remained.

“Come on,” he said, waving frantically.

“No,” Beckham said. “Help me.” He wasn’t going to leave someone behind. Not when she was in arm’s reach.

Chow hustled over without further hesitation. “You’re fucking crazy.”

“Hold my belt,” Beckham said. He drew his knife and crouched, using the blade to cut away the sticky vines across the woman’s feet and legs. When those were free, he slit through the webbing across her stomach and chest. Her body sagged forward, but Chow grabbed her before she plummeted into the water below. He pulled her to safety and she collapsed to the ground in a CBR suit. Beckham bent down to help her when he saw the deep gashes on her legs beneath the torn suit.

“You’re going to be okay,” Beckham assured her, hoping it wasn’t a lie. He caught a glimpse of the pack charging across the ceiling and walls. They were close now. Seconds away.

“Beckham, Chow, where the hell are you?” Jensen said over the comm.

“On our way,” Beckham replied. He grabbed the two grenades off Chow’s vest and considered what he was about to do. The decision only took a split second. If he couldn’t save the mutilated captives, he was going to make sure they didn’t suffer any longer.

“Get her out of here,” Beckham said. “I’m right behind you.”

Chow looked at him and nodded. The woman moaned in agony as he bent down and scooped her up.

Beckham cradled the grenades in one arm and fired off a flurry of well-aimed shots with the .45 to buy him a few seconds. When the Variants scattered, he jammed the pistol into his belt and plucked the pin off one of the grenades with his teeth. He launched it into the air with his good arm and watched it stick to the webbing of a prisoner. Then he pulled the pin off the second grenade and tossed it over his shoulder as he ran, like so many times before, away from the monsters.

Steam surrounded Dr. Kate Lovato in the shower stall.

“It’s hot,” Jenny whimpered in the adjacent stall.

“Do you girls need help?” Kate asked.

“No,” Tasha, Jenny’s protective older sister, said. “We’re okay.”

Kate took in a breath and stepped under the showerhead. Bringing a hand to her face, she wiped away the sticky blood caked on her skin. For a moment the water turned scarlet at her feet as it swirled around the shower drain.

The horror of the past three weeks surfaced under the warm flow of water. Everything she’d lost. Everyone she’d lost. It all came crashing down. Guilt ate at her as she stood there, numb—yet deep down, also relieved. She was still breathing, still alive. And a part of her believed Beckham was still alive, too.

Kate had to believe it. Hope was the only thing that would keep her working. The survivors of Plum Island thought she was a miracle worker, but Kate knew better, especially now. After an hour of listening to radio transmissions trickling in from around the world, she knew nothing short of a real miracle would save the human race.

Her first bioweapon had eradicated all but a small percentage of those infected with the Hemorrhage virus. Convinced that the surviving Variants couldn’t be treated, her focus was now on designing another weapon that would exterminate them all before it was too late. Millions more would surely die before it was all over. In the end, she could only hope that humans came out on top.

Kate twisted the faucet off, grabbed a towel and stepped out of the shower. Tasha and Jenny were already sitting on a bench, wrapped in towels. She reached for the duffel bag she’d retrieved from her quarters. Kate pulled out a clean set of clothes for each of them and turned away to slip on her own clothes.

“We need to hurry,” she said once she was dressed. “Your dad is on his way back.”

Both girls’ eyes lit up at that. Even after all the horrors they’d seen, there was still light there. Like Kate, they still had hope.

She grabbed the girls by the hand and led them into the hallway. The stink of fresh death hung in the air. Crimson stains covered the carpet where so many of her colleagues had died. Kate froze, remembering her fellow researcher Cindy’s final moments. They had never liked each other much, and in the end Cindy had chosen to hide instead of coming with Kate and the others. The decision had cost the woman her life.

Kate swallowed and continued on, navigating around a pair of bloody shoes and a small pile of bullet casings.

“Just keep walking,” she said to the girls. “Don’t look down, okay?”

“Doctor,” said a Medical Corps guard waiting for her at the end of the hallway. For a moment his youthful features reminded her of Jackson, the Marine who had saved their lives just a few hours ago—and lost his in the process.

“Wait up!” said another voice from behind them.

Ellis hurried down the corridor, his jet-black hair slicked back and glistening under the LEDs. “You weren’t going to leave without me, were you?”

Kate shook her head. “No, but we need to hurry.”

“Let’s go,” the soldier said. He opened the door with one hand and raised his rifle with the other, sliding the muzzle into moonlight. “Stay close,” he ordered.

“I thought the island was cleared,” Kate said, gripping the girls’ hands a bit tighter.

“It was, ma’am, but Major Smith isn’t taking any chances.”

Silhouetted guards manned a heavy caliber machine gun, and an industrial spotlight was set up behind a wall of sandbags in the center of the hexagon-shaped base. The beam swept across the path and then arched over the horizon, illuminating plumes of smoke rising from the smoldering wreckage of the Chinook helicopter on the tarmac. Kate stared at the flayed metal carcass as they walked, wondering exactly how the Variants it had been carrying had escaped. She’d been against bringing live test subjects to the island, but she took no pleasure in being proved right.

For weeks Plum Island had been spared from the horrors surging across the globe. Now the base looked like a warzone. Overhead, two blinking red dots worked across the darkness, and Kate heard the distant thump of helicopter blades.

Static broke from the radio on the vest of their soldier escort. “Echo 2 and 3 incoming. All medical crews report to tarmac,” said a female operator.

The guard continued on as if he hadn’t heard the transmission at all, but Kate paused. She crouched in front of the girls and pointed at the sky.

“You ready to see your dad?” she asked.

“Is Daddy in one of those?” Jenny said, her voice hardly a whisper.

“Yup, he’s coming home.”

“Is Reed coming home, too?” Tasha asked.

Kate fought the growing dread rising inside of her and said, “Not yet, honey. Not yet.”