Extinction Horizon

-Prologue-

July 10th, 1968

Operation Burn Bright

South Vietnam

Operation Burn Bright started off with a smooth insertion. Lieutenant Brett and thirty-one other Marines jumped into the fray, fast-roping from the crew compartment of multiple UH-1 Huey choppers hovering fifty feet above the drop point.

The stink of the jungle filled Brett’s lungs as soon as his boots hit the ground. They’d been dropped on the outskirts of a swamp, and the rot lingered in the sultry air.

Brett gagged at the smell and promptly clenched his jaw shut. He moved with his lips sealed and was careful not to swallow any bugs when he was forced to open his mouth and bark orders. Vietnam was the worst place for someone that suffered from a borderline case of obsessive-compulsive disorder. There was simply no way to keep good hygiene in the jungle.

Breathing through his nostrils, he led his men slowly into the knee-deep water in a wedge formation. Every few steps he would pause, scan the area, and then flash hand signals to advance. The men were experienced enough to know they should maintain combat intervals. Enough of them had seen buddies die from clustering together and forming double targets for the enemy.

If he didn’t have his lips closed he might have even smiled at the sight of his well-organized platoon. But smiling was reserved for peacetime, not war. In Brett’s eyes, Vietnam was just a place for Marines to go and die.

The further they moved into the muck, the deeper the swamp became. Stagnant water crawled up his legs, sending a cold chill through his body.

Goddamn, he hated the fucking jungle and everything inside of it—the snakes, the bugs, and worst of all, the leeches. He stifled a curse when he saw a foot-long leech swimming in his direction. The last thing he wanted to do was notify Charlie they were coming. The slurping water was already loud enough to tell every Viet Cong in the area that a platoon full of fresh meat was on its way.

As he slopped through the water, he wondered how he got so unlucky. The war had ruined everything. After graduating college, he had looked forward to a career in banking with a nice little cookie-cutter house, a gorgeous wife, and a warm dinner waiting at home for him every night. Instead, his girlfriend had left him and he was wading through water toward one of the most ruthless enemies the American military had ever faced. To make things worse, they carried an experimental drug that they were supposed to take right before reaching their target. Command said it would negate the effects of any chemicals lingering in the area, such as Agent Orange, but Brett had his doubts. It sounded more like they were being used as guinea pigs.

“Shit,” he muttered as a fly the size of a peanut buzzed by his helmet. After batting it away, he swept the muzzle of his M16 over a clearing at the far end of the swamp. They weren’t far from their target—a remote village that Brass claimed was harboring support to the local VCs.

Brett wasn’t so sure. He’d been down this road many times before. Most of the time they didn’t find shit.

When they reached the edge of the swamp, Brett balled his hand into a fist. He jerked his chin toward the platoon sergeant, a stocky Texan named Fern. The man was built like a football player, with wide shoulders and tree trunks for legs. He approached with a toothy grin, revealing a wad of chew that bled a brown trail of juice down his chin strap.

The two men were the exact opposites. Fern cared nothing for hygiene and seemed to thrive in the disgusting jungle. The thicker the muck, the more he enjoyed himself.

“Lieutenant,” Fern said, squinting with a hand shielding his eyes.

“The village should be just beyond that ridgeline,” Brett said, pointing toward an embankment across the field. “Tell everyone not holding security to pair up and take their dose of VX-99, and make sure they actually do it.”

“Roger that, sir,” Fern replied. He spat a chunk of tobacco into the stale water, and Brett watched it vanish into the mouth of some small fish. His stomach churned at the sight.

Brett followed Fern out of the water and onto solid ground. They stepped over rotting vegetation and slapped away sharp branches. When they got to the edge of the clearing, Brett dropped to his right knee and reached for his bag. He removed the small syringe of VX-99 and eyed it suspiciously. There was nothing he hated more than needles except the jungle and everything inside of it. If sticking the needle in his arm meant he would get out of here quicker, well then, fuck it.

He bit off the plastic tip and spat it out, found a bulging vein in his wrist, and jammed the point into his arm. Slowly, he pushed the mysterious cocktail into his bloodstream. A sharp pain instantly raced down his arm. Brett tossed the syringe into the brush and placed a finger over the spot. The other men were taking turns; one man on guard with weapon at the ready, the other with his weapon cradled while jabbing the chemicals into a vein.

Brett waited there, listening to the hum of oversized insects and the chirp of exotic birds for several seconds, wondering if the platoon would notice any side effects.

After a minute, the tingling sensation in his veins passed. He stood, shouldering his rifle and leveling the muzzle over the field. So far there was no sign of the enemy, but that didn’t mean they weren’t out there. Charlie was always out there, waiting to strike like the drugs in his veins.

“Move out,” Brett said. Fern nodded and flashed a blur of hand movements to the men on their right. The Marines fanned out over the field at a brisk pace, their boots slurping through the mud.

Before they’d made it halfway, Brett felt a burning. At first he wondered if the wind had carried Agent Orange into the area, but this burning wasn’t the type associated with the chemical. It wasn’t coming from the outside of his skin—it was coming from the inside of his chest, like he’d swallowed an entire bottle of Vietnamese hot sauce.

Small jolts of pain raced through his body with every heartbeat. The agonizing burn spread to his head and lingered there. He blinked, tears welling in his eyes. He felt like he was being burned alive, only from within.

Out of the corner of his eye, he watched a PFC named Junko collapse to both knees, clawing madly at his skull. Then came the screaming. Wails of pain broke out as other Marines fell.

What the fuck is happening to us?

The pain was so intense Brett could hardly think. Shimmering arcs of bright light broke across his vision. The oranges, reds, and yellows swam before his eyes. The jungle faded behind the colors.

Dropping his rifle on the ground, he cupped his hands over his ears to drown out the crazed, pained shrieks.

Whatever was happening to the platoon wasn’t from some chemical lingering over the field. Brett could hardly form a cohesive thought, but he knew the pain was a result of the VX-99.

A sudden surge of fire blasted through Brett’s body. It was followed by a sharp tingling sensation, like hundreds of bees were stinging him all at once.

He fell to his back, itching the bare parts of his skin violently. There was no relief, only more pain.

His mind responded by taking him away from the jungle to a place where there were no massive bugs, rotting vegetation, or men trying to kill him.

A brick house with a stone path leading up to it emerged. At the front door, an attractive woman held a glass of ice water. She smiled. “Come in, honey. Dinner is almost ready.”

Brett felt the distant pain diminish as he slipped deeper into this fantasy. He knew that the house and the woman weren’t real, but he didn’t care. He wanted to escape the godforsaken jungle. He needed to escape.

When he got to the door, the woman was gone. The door was closed. He tried the knob. It was locked. Then the house was gone too. The bright colors returned. He could feel his body again. Fear replaced the pain.

When his eyes popped open, he saw the cloudless sky and the brilliant white sun above.

Where was he?

He heard muffled voices, the rustling of gear, and the shriek of some exotic animal. There were other noises—distant noises.

The world became exceptionally vivid. He could hear the bugs crawling through the underbrush; he could smell the stink of sweat on his uniform. He could taste coffee he didn’t remember drinking. His senses were heightened to a level he’d never experienced before.

It was terrifying, but at the same time it was also oddly liberating. He clenched his fists, feeling his muscles contract and then tighten.

He stared at his hands with grim fascination. He felt stronger than ever before, like he could take on an entire army. He felt…

Invincible.

Dazed but alert, Brett leapt to his feet. Tilting the front of his helmet up with a finger, he ran his sleeve across his face to clear the sweat dripping into his eyes.

When his vision cleared, he instantly stumbled backward, nearly tripping over his own feet as he sloshed through the mud. Brett spun to see two dozen soldiers staggering across the moist dirt. They wore the same fatigues and carried the same gear he did. These weren’t soldiers. They were Marines. Several of the men walked off aimlessly in different directions, cupping their heads with their hands.

He flinched at the sound of a woman’s voice. “Kill them,” she croaked. “Kill them all.”

Brett spun again, his boots sinking in the mud as he searched for the woman. It was then he realized the voice was coming from inside his head.

“You must kill them,” came the voice again. She snarled, “Do it before they kill you!”

Brett smacked the side of his helmet.

Who was this woman, and why did she want him to kill these men?

Focusing, Brett narrowed his vision on the man in front of him. He was a short, stocky fella with a wad of chew jammed inside his lip. Brett could smell the tobacco juices dripping off the man’s chin.

When the man saw Brett he held up his hands, balling them into fists. The Marine growled, “Get away from me. Y-you…” he stuttered, swallowing a chunk of the tobacco, “You fuck!”

Brett experienced an abrupt wave of adrenaline. He reached for something to protect himself. His fingers found the warm metal handle of a blade on his belt. He pulled the knife from its sheath in one swift motion as if he’d done this many times before.

The woman’s voice returned, booming inside his mind. “Stab him. Stab him right in his fat little gut.”

“Get away from me!” the man yelled, a vein bulging in his neck as spit flew from his mouth. Brett narrowed in on the vein. He could see it pulsating. He imagined the blood flowing through the thin passage.

The image sent a thrill through Brett’s body. His own blood tingled inside of him. In one rapid move, he jumped to the side with impressive speed. The stocky man moved quickly too, throwing a jab that whooshed through the air.

Brett ducked and plunged forward, sinking the blade deep in the man’s stomach, just like the woman had told him to. The Marine let out a scream of agony, blood gurgling from his mouth. Brett wasted no time. He withdrew the knife, took a step back, and then jammed the blade in the man’s neck.

The stout man clutched both wounds and dropped to his knees before collapsing face first into the mud.

Taking a short, satisfying breath, Brett picked up a new scent. He could almost taste it.

It was the taste of death.

The sudden crack of automatic gunfire pulled Brett back to the rice field like a switch had been flicked. His gaze roved across the embankment beyond the field, noting each flash.

An explosion went off a few hundred yards away. The deafening blast sent a red geyser of dirt and body parts into the sky. When the mist cleared, a bloody crater was all that remained of the Marine that had been standing there seconds before.

“Run!” came the woman’s voice.

Shocked into motion, Brett gripped the knife tightly in his slimy hand and took off in a dead sprint. The sound of his boots slurping through the muck faded against the sounds of war.

More explosions rocked the dirt around him. Mud, water, and vegetation rained down. He ignored the burning sediment that landed on his bare skin and ran faster.

The other Marines ran too. Some of them dropped as bullets tore into them. He saw a man to his right disappear as a grenade detonated under his feet.

Brett felt nothing for the man. Nothing fazed him. There was only one goal, only one thing that mattered…

Kill.

Something nicked him as he ran. He looked down expecting to see a fly on his skin but instead saw a quarter-sized hole where a bullet had torn into his bicep. A second round tore into his side. The impact jerked his torso, slowing him momentarily. The coppery taste of blood filled his mouth. Licking his lips, he continued running.

He could see the faces of the men trying to kill him as he approached the embankment. They hid under straw hats and helmets, screaming in a language that he did not understand. He could smell the sharp scent of gunpowder and the salty sweat on their saturated uniforms.

When he was ten yards away from the bottom of the hill, he dropped to all fours and galloped, using his back legs to spring forward. He leapt up the small dune of dirt in three rapid movements and landed on the chest of one of the Asian soldiers. Pulling his knife from his teeth, he speared the unsuspecting man through the chest, penetrating his heart. The man’s eyes rolled up in his head, and Brett moved on to the next soldier.

Every thrust sent a thrill through his body. A wide grin formed on his face. He felt insanely powerful.

Minutes later, the ridgeline was filled with the mangled corpses of the Asian soldiers. Their limp bodies hung over the hill. A growing river of red seeped over the side.

Brett pulled his gaze away to scan his own body. Blood oozed from his wounds, but there was little pain. He ignored the injuries and stepped over one of the bodies.

The woman’s voice boomed inside his mind, “You’re not done!”

Glancing up from a nearby corpse, he saw a slender African-American Marine glaring at him with crazed eyes from the bottom of the embankment. The man licked his lips and tossed a knife from his left hand to his right. His green uniform was soaked with blood from a bullet that had clipped his neck. Behind him, Brett could see the field. Pockmarks littered the ground where grenades had exploded. Dozens of bodies lay in the shallow water around the craters.

Brett looked back and met the man’s dark gaze. Gripping his own knife tightly, he swung the blade toward the skinny Marine. The tip whooshed through the air, but it didn’t deter the man. He dropped to all fours and climbed the hill quickly, leaping with his hands curled into claws. His joints clicked with every motion.

Before Brett could move, the Marine lunged toward him. They collided, tumbling across the blood-stained dirt. The air in Brett’s lungs burst from his mouth as he finally landed with a thud on the hard earth.

Brett sucked in a deep breath and then pushed himself to his feet. In one rapid thrust, he caught the other man in the side of the face with his knife, lodging the blade inside his skull.

Dropping to the ground, the Marine choked on his own blood and twitched violently. He clawed at Brett one last time before finally going limp.

Gasping for air, Brett stumbled away. He dropped to both knees and squinted as a gust of wind swirled dust around him. Stars broke before his eyes. Dizziness set in. He was finally starting to feel the effect of blood loss, but there was still no pain.

Looking over the field, a distant memory of a brick house and woman entered his thoughts. He quickly pushed them away. There was only one thing that he wanted now. Only one thing he desired…

To kill.

March 3rd, 2015

WHO Field Hospital

Guinea, Africa

Doctor Chad Roberts popped a stimulant into his mouth and swallowed without the aid of any water. He was exhausted from traveling. In less than twenty-four hours, he’d left his office at the Centers for Disease Control headquarters in Atlanta, crossed the Atlantic Ocean, and landed in Conakry, Guinea. From there a chopper had taken him to a World Health Organization field hospital on the outskirts of a remote village twenty miles west of the city of Dabola. The region, while isolated, had a population of approximately 114,000.

During his flights he’d slogged through the reports of the new and deadly Ebola strain. Preliminary notes revealed the microbreak was severe. The virus was killing faster than ever before, and he suspected it had mutated. The mere thought had prevented him from sleeping as he traveled. Chad had arrived with deep bags under his eyes and a headache that made it difficult to think.

Sucking in a long, deep breath, he slipped on his biohazard space suit. The white walls of the portable biohazard facility closed in around him as he pulled on his helmet. The narrow view from his visor always made everything seem smaller, but he also felt safe—secure, even. Many scientists described feeling claustrophobic in the suits, but not Chad. The suit gave him the reassurance he needed to face the world’s most lethal biological agents.

After hastily moving through the laundry list of protocols, Chad pulled back a plastic screen and moved into the next room where Doctor Debra Jones from the WHO waited. She tapped her boot against the floor and glanced up with a scowl when she saw him.

“We’re late,” she said. “The rest of the team is already at the village.”

“Sorry,” Chad replied. “I have a hell of an awful headache.”

“I presume it will get much worse when you arrive in the hot zone,” Debra said coldly.

Chad’s gut sank at the statement. This wasn’t his first time in the field, but he’d never seen the effects of Ebola in person. He swallowed hard as they stepped into the blinding sunlight. The humidity instantly fogged Chad’s visor as they left the cool interior of the biohazard facility. The door sealed behind them with a metallic click.

They moved briskly across a dirt path the color of clay. A Toyota pickup truck waited a hundred yards away, the aged muffler coughing smoke into the sky. Chad set his equipment on the tan bed of the truck and hoisted himself up. He spun and offered a hand to Debra. She took it reluctantly and without uttering a single word. They settled onto the metal bed with their backs against the cab as a slender African man closed the lift gate behind them.

Squinting, Chad looked up at the ruthless midday sun. He’d been outside for only two minutes, but he was already suffocating within his suit. Salty drops of perspiration cascaded down his forehead.

It was going to be a brutally long day.

Typically they would have traveled in the morning to beat the midday heat, but a problem with his equipment back at the airport had caused a delay. Now they were heading out in the hottest period of the day.

The African man smacked the side of the truck, and the driver hit the gas. The Toyota lurched forward and pulled onto a brown frontage road leading away from the cluster of dome-shaped biohazard facilities. Chad stared in awe, realizing how foreign they looked against the lush green landscape. The locals probably thought the white buildings were some sort of alien spaceships.

“How long until we get there?” Chad shouted.

Debra held up three fingers as she watched a herd of gazelle dash across the plains. A cloud of dust followed them over a ridgeline.

The Faranah Region of Guinea was a beautiful place. Thick forests claimed the landscape. The mixture of browns and greens formed a warm collage of colors. But somewhere inside the dense trees, there was an ancient evil.

Chad focused on the plentiful tree line and wondered where the Ebola virus was hiding. They still didn’t know what the reservoir was. Mother Nature had harbored versions of the virus for millions of years, but it wasn’t until the twentieth century that scientists had actually identified the Ebola strain.

Ebola wasn’t the only virus Africa was hiding. The continent was a cesspool for some of the nastiest Level 4 contagions that Mother Nature had cooked up. Chad thought of Africa kind of like a modern day Jurassic Park without the dinosaurs. The world here was prehistoric.

The truck suddenly swerved to the right; dirt exploded from under the back tires and sent a cloud of dust into the sky. Chad flailed his arms and grabbed the side of the pickup. His head bounced up and down as the driver pulled the Toyota to the side of the road. Branches and twigs snapped under the weight of the truck’s oversized tires. When the dust cleared, Chad saw the tree barriers crossing the frontage road they had just come from.

“The locals did that!” Debra yelled. “They’ve done it for decades to stop the spread of infection.”

Chad nodded and tightened his grip on the side of the truck. He’d heard of villages isolating themselves in the past to prevent the spread of deadly viruses. It was probably one reason Ebola rarely showed up in major population centers. People tended to die at home with their loved ones.

Several minutes later, the truck pulled back onto the main road. Glancing through the glass of the cab window, Chad saw they were approaching their location—a small village where the outbreak had started.

Debra had been deployed here a week ago with the first team from WHO. Chad had read her most recent report. The population of the village was ninety-four. Over half of those residents had already been infected, with half of the infected already dead. Preliminary statistics pointed at a new strain, but Chad wasn’t so sure. Not yet.

He bit the inside of his lip as the driver eased the brakes and pulled the truck to a stop about a hundred yards from two WHO doctors wearing biohazard suits.

The local driver jumped onto the dirt and walked around the truck to let Debra and Chad out of the back.

“Thanks,” Chad muttered. He followed Debra to the other doctors, a short man named Howard Lacey and his taller colleague, Bill Fischer. After brief introductions the two men led them toward the village at a brisk and urgent pace.

The buildings were mostly simple mud huts with straw roofs built from the clay-rich dirt. A few of the nicer houses were made of scrap metal with tin roofs.

Chad listened to the annoying buzz echoing through the afternoon. The sound was not from an air-conditioner; it was from the flies and other bugs that dominated the area. A heat shimmer flickered in the distance, a reminder of the hell they had entered.

Howard paused outside one of the huts. Behind his visor Chad could see an intelligent set of eyes. This was a man used to working in extreme places. For him, this was just another day in the office—but for Chad, it was much more than that. He was getting his Ebola cherry popped, losing his v-card to yet another Level 4 virus.

“We have two infected patients inside. Both are in the late stages of the virus. They may or may not respond to your presence. Please make your observations, take your sample, and leave them as quickly as possible,” Howard said grimly.

Chad nodded. His job was simple. Get a sample for the CDC, take his field notes, and observe. He wasn’t there to provide medical support to any of the victims. He was there to see if this was a new strain and bring back a sample so the CDC could get started on a cure.

Ducking inside the building, he blinked rapidly. The single room hut was dimly lit by a few rays of sunlight bleeding through the wooden shades covering the only window. It took a few minutes for his eyes to focus, but when they did, he instantly saw a man and his wife curled up on straw beds in the center of the room. Blood and sweat-soaked blankets lay on the dusty floor next to them. Their skin was covered with blotches, bruises, and a thin layer of bloody sweat.

Flies buzzed over their skin, but both the man and his wife were too weak to shoo them away. Their glazed, detached eyes stared blankly at the ceiling.

The sound of muffled breathing reminded Chad that Debra was with him. He moved to the right and then inched closer to the man’s bedside. Placing a small box of supplies on the ground, he paused to scan the patient. Blood oozed from every visible orifice on the man’s body. It trickled from his bloodshot eyes, nose, ears, and even his nipples. There was no mistaking it. This man had Ebola. What strain of Ebola was the real question.

Blinking, Chad tried his best to remain calm. The sight was worse than he’d ever imagined. There was just so much blood. He looked to the man’s wife. She too was hemorrhaging. Both victims were bleeding out as they lay helplessly in the scorching hot hell. The bugs hummed inside the dark room like little engines, waiting to feed.

Chad remembered Howard’s orders and felt Debra looming over him. Reaching inside his case, he pulled out a syringe and cautiously took hold of the man’s limp right arm. He looked for a vein and found one hidden under a rash covering most of his forearm. Clenching his teeth, Chad inserted the needle and quickly removed a sample of blood.

The man suddenly twisted his head and narrowed in on Chad’s visor. Gasping for air, he choked out one word in broken English.

“Ha-llllp.”

Chad froze, his stomach climbing into his throat. His heart kicked violently as he gripped the syringe.

A strong hand on his shoulder snapped Chad’s gaze away from the dying man.

“Let’s go,” Debra said.

Chad nodded and placed the sample inside his secure box, closing the lid with a click. Rising to his feet, he glanced down one more time at the man. His infected, bloodshot eyes followed Chad for a second and then rolled back up into his head.

“I’m sorry,” Chad whispered as he rushed out into the blinding sunlight.