Extinction Age

-16-

Rain pelted the side of the Blackhawk as it passed over the Truxtun. Beckham fought to keep his emotions under control at the sight of the ship. Seeing it plunged him back into the horrors of that night. At least this was no rescue op or salvage mission. Pure recon.

“Take us over Niantic,” Beckham said into his comm.

“Roger that,” one of the pilots replied.

The chopper banked hard to the right and pulled them over the highway still littered with the remains of Variants Horn had turned to mulch two nights ago when he’d rescued them all from the grounded destroyer. Despite the carrion field of flesh, there was no movement, or activity of any kind.

Beckham flipped on his four-eyes and scanned the desolate landscape. The green-hued darkness revealed the same sight of abandoned vehicles and rotting corpses.

“Anyone got eyes on?” Beckham asked.

“Nothin’ at nine o’clock,” Chow said.

The M260 clicked as Horn searched the road for contacts. “Negative, Boss. I don’t see shit.”

The rooftops of Niantic came into view a moment later. Beckham raised his scoped M4 and glassed the streets. Valentine leaned over his shoulder for a better vantage, his breath hitting Beckham’s neck. It reeked of stale coffee.

“Where the fuck are they?” the sergeant asked.

“Just wait,” Chow said. “It’s still early. They hunt mostly at night.”

The pilots circled the city again, this time taking the bird over the boatyard where Beckham’s team had been ambushed in an attempt to catch their first live specimen. A flashback of the Variant boy with the shredded legs made Beckham shudder.

He shook the thought away and scooted away from Valentine. As soon as he got to the open door, the comm came to life.

“We got movement,” Horn said. “Three o’clock. What the hell is that?”

When Beckham glanced to the shoreline, he saw why Horn sounded so confused. An F150 pickup was hauling ass down main-street, zigzagging between gridlocked vehicles.

Beckham followed the truck in his scope, noting a male driver and a female passenger. Tucked between them was a smaller figure—a child.

“Found your Variants, too, Valentine!” Horn shouted.

Beckham swept his scope to the horde of Variants thirty deep behind the pickup. The creatures leapt from car to car. From above it looked like an army of ants swarming after an injured beetle.

“Get us into position,” Beckham said into the comm. “Horn, you take out the pack.”

“Roger that,” one of the pilots replied.

“NO!” Valentine yelled. He scrambled to the cockpit. “Ignore that order. We are not to engage.”

Beckham twisted and flipped up his NVG. He locked eyes with Jensen, who nodded.

“Stand down, Sergeant,” Jensen said.

“But, sir. Our orders are only to observe,” Valentine argued.

“You got a family, Sergeant?”

“Yes, sir, I do.”

“If that was them down there, would you still refuse to engage?”

“Sir, our orders are—”

Jensen shouldered his rifle and worked his way to the side of the chopper next to Beckham. “Those orders have changed!”

The Variants were gaining on the truck, flowing through the streets and lunging from vehicle to vehicle. The driver must have seen that the creatures were closing the gap. He clipped a mini-van in an attempt to maneuver into the other lane.

The truck fishtailed and the bed crashed into a sedan. The passenger window shattered. The driver slammed the gas pedal, and smoke boiled off the burning tires as the vehicle lurched forward. A Variant with long limbs laced with muscle flung its body onto the roof of the mini-van and then jumped into the bed of the truck. Beckham steadied his breathing, waiting for a clear shot as the creature clambered to the back window of the truck and slammed its head into the glass.

“Take that one down, Beckham!” Jensen shouted, pointing. “The rest of you, open fire on the pack!”

The M260 coughed to life, the whine of the chain-gun filling the troop hold with the mechanical roar of violence. The rounds smashed into the vehicles and Variants behind the pickup, penetrating metal and flesh.

Beckham centered his crosshairs on the Variant in the back of the truck. He waited for the perfect window and squeezed the trigger. The first shot pinged off the side of the bed, but the second hit the creature in the shoulder. It spun and almost tumbled over the back gate. Before Beckham could fire, the Variant jumped on top of the cab.

“Fuck,” Beckham muttered. The shot was nearly impossible now. If he fired, he risked hitting the driver or passengers. He zoomed in just as three bullets tore through the roof of the truck. Someone was firing from inside.

The bullets found their target. A spray of blood burst from the Variant’s exit wounds, and the force of the blasts launched it into the air. The creature landed on the roof a second later. It clawed frantically for something to hold onto. The driver jerked the truck to the right, and the monster flew over the side and smashed against a car door. It slumped down the side, leaving a streak of blood across the metal.

Horn cut through the meat of the pack still pursuing the truck. The high-pitched howls of the monsters reverberated through the night as the rounds shredded their bodies and sent torn limbs rolling across the scarlet asphalt. The driver of the truck didn’t waste the opportunity to escape. He pounded the gas and sped away from the massacre.

The Variants also fled and fanned out in all directions. Only two remained behind, staggering through the smoke. Beckham focused on the one holding a bloody stump where its arm had been. In the past, he would have saved his ammunition, but the Variant was still dangerous, even with a single arm. He took it down with a single shot to its head.

Less than a minute was all it had taken to paint the street with a fresh coat of blood. The sole survivor dashed into the night, evading the gunshots and leaping into the bay. The pickup continued down the main street until it was clear of the carnage and then slowed to a stop.

“Take us down over the beach,” Jensen shouted.

Beckham changed his magazine as he scanned the LZ for contacts. It was close to the extraction point during Team Ghost’s first mission to Niantic. The bullet-riddled, rotting bodies of the Variants would still lie there.

“Chow, on me!” Beckham shouted as soon as the chopper was hovering over the site. After a quick sweep for hostiles, Beckham jumped out and landed in the mushy sand with a plop. Raindrops smacked his face as he worked his way to the road. His headset crackled when he was halfway there, and a message that stopped him mid-stride sounded in his ear.

“Echo 2, Command. We are under attack. I repeat, we are under attack. All birds return home, ASAP,” a female voice said.

Beckham whirled back to the chopper. Jensen was standing at the door, his hand cupping an ear.

“What do you mean, attack?” Jensen said over the comm.

“Variants are storming the shore,” the radio operator said. “There are hundreds of them. We need support!”

Beckham’s heart fluttered as he turned back to the truck. It was stopped at the road and a man wearing green camo and a baseball cap was pulling a boy no older than six out. A woman darted from around the other side of the vehicle.

“Get back here!” Valentine shouted from the chopper. “We have to go!”

Chow had halted a few feet in front of Beckham. They exchanged a glance. Would the few extra minutes it took to extract the family cost lives on Plum Island?

Beckham had to take that chance. He couldn’t leave these people behind. Especially when they were so close.

“Come on!” Beckham shouted. “Hurry!” He sprinted to the street and met the family at the guardrail at the edge of the road. Holding out his hand, he helped the woman over the top.

“God bless you,” she said, her voice shaky.

The man didn’t utter a word as he pulled the boy over the railing. He simply nodded at Beckham. The boy’s mile-long stare seemed like a symptom of shock, and his parents both looked like they had been through the wringer. Their faces were covered in grime, and their clothes were soiled with blood and dirt.

“Let’s go,” Beckham said.

The family didn’t need to be told twice. They started down the beach and ran for the chopper. Chow and Beckham hung back to cover their escape and then darted after them.

There was something about the way the man carried himself that seemed military. It made sense—if they had survived out here this long, the man likely had training. At the Blackhawk, Jensen helped the woman and the boy inside. The man climbed aboard and Chow and Beckham jumped in after him.

“Get us out of here!” Beckham said. As soon as they were in the air, he half-crouched over to the family.

“What’s your name?” Beckham shouted over the chop of the blades.

“Red,” the man said. He scratched at his beard and glanced up. “This is my wife, Donna, and our son, Bo.”

“Where are you taking us?” Donna asked.

Jensen hovered over Beckham’s shoulder. “Somewhere safe…” Jensen said, his words trailing off like he didn’t believe it.

Bo glanced up. “Where?”

“Place called Plum Island,” Beckham said, looking at Red. “Where were you coming from?”

Red’s eyes hardened and he hugged Bo closer to his chest. “Hell,” he said.

Beckham moved back to the door just as the crack of gunfire broke out in the distance. He raised his rifle and scoped the island. Tracers lanced across the southern shoreline.

“Thought you said this place was safe!” Red shouted over the rotors.

Meg yelled for the third time, “What the hell is going on?” And for the third time there was no response, her voice lost in the whine of the emergency sirens.

Red light swirled in the hallway outside her room. She grabbed the handrail of her bed frame and then leaned over to reach for the crutches propped against a nearby chair. Her fingers found one of the grips, but when she wrapped them around it, the tip spun away. The crutch clanked on the floor, half under the bed.

“Dammit!” Meg shouted. With no small amount of effort, she scooted her back against the headboard until she was sitting up. The limited movement sparked a streak of pain that took her breath away. She hadn’t taken any pain pills for a couple hours, and without them the wounds hurt like they’d been cooking over an open flame.

She sucked in a deep breath, released it, and screamed at the top of her lungs, “Somebody help!”

After waiting several beats, she came to terms with the fact she was alone. No one was coming to help her. She collapsed the guardrail, gritted her teeth, and swung her bandaged legs over the side of the bed.

You can do this, Meg. You’re a damn Ironman.

She held in a breath and prepared to move as the door swung open and Riley rolled inside.

“Post is under attack, let’s go!” he said. He scooped up her crutches and handed them to her.

“We’re under attack?”

“No time to explain. We’ve got to get to the shelter.”

Meg nodded and put her left foot down first. It hurt like hell, but at least it would hold her weight. She hopped over to Riley. The burn wasn’t as bad as she thought it would be, or perhaps she just wasn’t thinking about the pain. A slew of questions rushed across her mind but she stayed silent, determined to get somewhere safe before interrogating her rescuer.

“Follow me,” Riley said.

“Wait.”

Riley glanced up, his blue eyes searching hers.

“You carrying? I feel naked without my axe.”

“Here, you can have this,” he said, plucking the sheathed knife from where he’d tucked it beside his hip. “Be careful with it.”

Meg balanced herself on the crutches and carefully reached out to take the sheath. She tucked it into her pants and nodded.

“Now let’s move!” Riley said. He maneuvered his chair through the door and took a right down the hallway. The glow from emergency lights bathed the two in a malicious red as they struggled down the empty corridor.

“Where are we going?” Meg shouted over the wail of the sirens.

“Building 5!”

“Which one is that?”

Riley pulled around another corner, the wheels on his chair squeaking. “It’s just next door. Don’t worry, there are two guards waiting for us outside. They escorted me here to find you.”

“You came here for me?”

Riley glanced over his shoulder and cracked a half grin. “Wasn’t gonna leave a lady in distress.”

Meg would have smiled back, but her lips twisted into a scowl from the pain. She hoped Riley didn’t see it.

“Where’s Dr. Hill and the rest of the medical staff?” Meg asked. If they had left her here, so help her, she was going to…

“Already evacuated!”

“Without me?”

Riley turned again and said, “Shut up and move!’

He pushed open the final set of doors to the lobby and worked his way across with several powerful rotations of his wheels. She still couldn’t get over the fact Beckham and his men had done so much for her. Jed’s cowardice in New York had ruined her faith in the military until she met Team Ghost.

The crack of gunfire sounded over the sirens as soon as they moved into the atrium. The shots seemed to be coming from all directions. She resisted the urge to pull the knife from its sheath—mostly because she’d have to limp along with the blade between her teeth.

Riley stopped at the doors and pulled a pistol from a holster tucked down by his waist. He pulled back the slide to chamber a round and said, “Can you see anything out there?”

Meg moved cautiously to the glass doors and peered through. Two soldiers waited on the steps, their rifles aimed into the darkness.

“Looks clear,” she said.

Riley pushed the doors open and wheeled onto the landing just as a helicopter roared overhead. Meg hopped out after him and spied several men inside the troop bay above. The one crouched to the side of an oversized machine gun looked familiar. Meg felt the hint of a second smile coming on when she realized it was Beckham. He always seemed to be showing up just in the nick of time to save the day. He glanced down and waved with two fingers.

Riley laid his pistol in his lap and cupped his hands over his mouth as the chopper flew over the building. “Get ‘em, Boss!” he shouted.

“Was that Riley?” Horn yelled.

“Looks like he was with Meg and a couple soldiers,” Beckham said. He prayed Kate and the other inhabitants of the island were safe. This time, at least, they would have been able to follow evacuation protocols. Everyone should be on their way to Building 5 to hunker down.

“Get ready on that gun, Horn,” Jensen said.

Beckham checked on Red and his family huddled in the back of the chopper. They looked like they had been to hell and back. Then again, according to Red they had been. Beckham hated to drag them back into a warzone, but he had no choice.

The bird rushed over a canopy of trees. Beckham spotted the towers and saw the tracers spitting from the boxes and flashes at the fences. All of the rounds were aimed toward the beach, where a horde of Variants was advancing.

Not a horde, but an army!

“Holy fucking shit!” Horn yelled. “There’s got to be a couple hundred of them.” His tattooed forearms tightened as he gripped the M260.

“Those fences should hold them, right?” Valentine said.

Beckham gripped his rifle so tightly his knuckles popped. Variants struggled in the razor wire, their flesh tearing and ripping with every move. Others crashed into the fence, earning themselves shocks that sent them cascading backward. Even from the sky, Beckham could see many of the creatures were starving.

Starving meant desperate.

They flung their bony bodies against the defenses again and again. The more intelligent Variants leapt onto the pile of dead for a shot to clear the top of the razor wire. Beckham wasn’t sure if they were coordinating the effort to topple the fences or if they were simply crazed with hunger. Either way, they were succeeding. The first fence leaned at an angle under the weight of the dead creatures. More were already scrambling up the incline.

He flinched as the first Variant made it over the top and charged the second fence. Beckham snapped into motion. He raised his rifle and waited for the order that came a second later.

“Chow, Valentine, concentrate your fire on the fences. Beckham and I will swap when you reload. Horn, focus your fire on the Variants coming from the water,” Jensen said.

The chopper shot over Tower 9 and the pilots maneuvered in a slow circle above the water. This gave Horn an opportunity to unleash everything he had on the mass of diseased flesh. He raked the gun back and forth, spraying a line of projectiles at the creatures emerging from the water. The crack from M4s joined in as Chow and Valentine entered the fight.

Beckham anxiously waited for his turn to shoot, using the time to monitor the battle. He spied Fitz shooting madly over the side of Tower 9. Below the box, he saw movement. It was Apollo, howling and pacing at the base of the tower.

If the Variants got over those fences, the dog wouldn’t stand a chance. That wasn’t going to happen. He wasn’t going to let them get their claws into Fitz or Apollo. He thought of Kate, of Horn’s girls, of Riley and Meg—even nerdy Ellis and cool-eyed Smith. Nobody he cared about would be at the mercy of those things, not if Beckham could do anything to stop it.

“Changing!” Chow yelled. He moved to the side and Beckham flattened his body to squeeze through. Finding a target wasn’t a problem. The entire beach was crawling with them. It didn’t make sense. The monsters had shown intelligence before, but now most of them just seemed suicidal. He didn’t see any one creature leading the battle, but then again, he couldn’t see much of anything.

Beckham fired without restraint, emptying his magazine into a dozen of the monsters that had leapt over the first fence. Another dozen were attacking the second barrier. They used the fresh corpses Beckham had just taken down as springboards to leap into the razor wire. That was the last line of defense before they had free rein over the island.

“Don’t let them bring down the first fence!” Beckham shouted. If they did, the second would quickly follow, and then there was no way they could stop the horde from reaching the buildings.

He stepped back to change his magazine, letting Chow back up front. Echo 1 and 3 were circling farther up the northwestern shoreline near Tower 8. The gunners were unloading on the creatures with double the firepower—and from the looks of it, they were actually winning.

Beckham’s team, on the other hand, was fighting for every inch of sand. The first fence was leaning at a steep angle now, and whatever electricity it was producing seemed to do little to deter the tidal wave of creatures sweeping over it.

“Horn, redirect your fire on the first fence!” Jensen shouted.

Fitz had killed so many Variants that the corpses were three deep at the foot of the fence. The mountain of dead was the perfect ladder for them to reach the second line of defense.

It grew with every crack from Fitz’s MK11.

Horn swept the M260 back and forth, grunting as he doubled his efforts to stop the relentless charge of starving monsters. Beckham switched places with Chow and squeezed off automatic bursts into the mass. The team had thinned the army down to a hundred, but still they came, talons ready and crazed eyes focused, determined to feed.

The monsters were freely climbing the chains now. The electricity had been severed to the first fence. Beckham took out three of the climbers with carefully aimed shots. They slumped onto the leaning metal as the fence finally came crashing down.

Beckham’s heart skipped as the front of the herd raced across, jumping over the razor wire and vanishing in a cloud of sand and dirt. They emerged a second later and crashed into the second fence twenty strong. A tall and lean Variant with ropy back muscles made it clean over the top in a leap that would have won a gold medal in the Olympics. Beckham killed it with a shot to the head before it had a chance to land.

Apollo charged the barrier from the other side, barking ferociously at the intruders. The dog stood its ground, snarling at the monsters as they crashed into the last barrier.

“Get back, boy,” Beckham whispered. He centered his rifle on the ground ten feet away from Apollo and squeezed off a shot. Dirt exploded into the air, and the dog took off in a mad dash for the Humvees where the other fire-teams had already retreated.

“Do NOT let them take down the second fence!” Beckham roared over the comm. He stepped back to change his magazine, one eye on the final barrier as it, too, began to lean.

Dread filled him as he watched helplessly—this time he wasn’t sure if they could stop the Variants. The sheer power of their numbers was too much to repel. They simply couldn’t kill the monsters fast enough.

“Keep firing!” he shouted. “Don’t let them take down that fence!”

Everyone on the island was counting on them now, in this moment. They either held the Variants here or Beckham lost everyone he loved. He wedged his way between Chow and Horn, flattening his body and firing with his Beretta M9. Bullet casings pinged off the floor of the chopper.

Everything was happening in slow motion. Beckham’s senses amped to a degree he’d only experienced a few times in the most extreme situations. He could see the rain drizzling from the sky, he could see body parts rolling across the sand, and he could see the fence as it leaned another inch. He heard Horn’s labored breathing and Bo’s whimpers as Red tried to calm the boy. There was something else, too. Another noise growing in the distance. A faint, mechanical whine.

He looked to the northwest as Echo 1 and Echo 3 swept across the sky, their M260s already dumping on the beach.

“Yeah!” Chow shouted.

Horn continued unloading his own heavy machine gun. The combined fire of 7.62 mm rounds sent a fountain of sand and flesh into the air. The beach was washed with crimson as the trio of Blackhawks circled and rained fire from the sky.

Beckham finished off his magazine, pulled it out, and then slammed a fresh one home. There was so much adrenaline swirling through his veins it seemed like he could feel his blood vessels enlarging.

The beach had transformed into a warzone. Injured Variants crawled over the dead, dragging stumps where their legs had been. While others staggered through the smoke, holding gushing wounds.

Fitz continued picking them off from the tower, one at a time, his fire unwavering. Beckham thought he heard the man screaming. The Marine wouldn’t stop until every single Variant had taken its last breath.

A few minutes later, the chaos ended. The cry of the M260s faded as the gunners let up. The beach calmed, the only movement the twitch of dying monsters. Fitz fired off a final shot, taking out a female Variant still dragging her ruined body across the sand.

And then there was silence.

Beckham took in a long breath tinged with smoke and the smell of burned flesh. He felt the adrenaline empty out of him, the energy rinsing away as the realization set in—they had won the day, but they had lost a line of defense. The first fence was down, and it was going to be a bitch to clear the beach and put it back up.

Collapsing on the floor, Beckham turned to Red and his family and said, “Welcome to Plum Island.”