THE SIXTH EXTINCTION AMERICA
OMNIBUS BOOKS 1 TO 12
THE BLACK SPORES
FALSE HOPE
THE PODS
THE LONG ROAD
NO TURNING BACK
A FRIEND IN NEED
ALL ABOARD
NEW HOPE
KEEP RUNNING
DON’T LOOK BACK
RESURRECTION
ALLIANCE
By Glen Johnson
Published by Sinuous Mind Books
Sinuous Mind Books
Copyright © Glen Johnson 2018
Cover design by Sinuous Mind Books
Glen Johnson has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
This book is a work of fiction. Names and characters are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living, dead or undead is entirely coincidental.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not be, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form without Sinuous Mind Books or Glen Johnson’s prior consent. Except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles.
Typeset: Caecilia LT Std/Italic
For –
All of my readers for supporting my work via my Facebook authors page and Sinuous Mind Books Facebook page.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank my older brother, Gary Johnson who went over the raw manuscript with many read-throughs, editorial help, and suggestions, and for not getting us lost as we make our way around Asia.
And to Jeab, for showing me the wonders of Thailand.
Please note that I am an English author, so I use English spelling throughout. You will see doubled letters (cancelled), ou’s (colour), ‘re’ (centre) ce’s (licence), ise’s (realise), yse’s (paralyse) as well as a few other slight variations from American spelling.
Also the locations in this book are a fusion of real and imagined, but the events and characters are merely a fabrication of my overactive imagination.
Any mistakes are of my own making.
Furthermore, please be aware that I am not a biomedical expert, or have had any training whatsoever in any of the fields described throughout this book. I have researched and studied the topics to the best of my ability, and have tried to make it sound as genuine as possible, while trying to keep the story within the realms of scientific probability.
Any mistakes are of my own making.
Glen Johnson
“There are plenty of problems in the world, many of them interconnected. But there is no problem which compares with this central, universal problem of saving the human race from extinction.”
John Foster Dulles
“Extinction is the rule. Survival is the exception.”
Carl Sagan
“Extraordinary people survive under the most terrible circumstances.”
Robertson Davies
“The world began without man, and it will end without him.”
Claude Lévi-Strauss
Authors Note
When I first started the four-part Sixth Extinction Series (set in England), I never imagined it would become a bestseller on Amazon UK Horror Short Stories (and a regular in the American top twenty).
The four books are based over a twenty-four-hour period.
From the feedback I received on my Facebook page, I realised the readers wanted more.
The original four book series is set three weeks after the virus outbreak started, and it picks up after the five main characters have already survived three weeks of upheaval and chaos.
So I decided to write a short book on each character(s), describing the tribulations they went through over the first three weeks. Some of their actions are already described in the first four books, and some information is repeated. However, the four new books go much deeper into the first three weeks, building on the characters.
So, I decided to put these eight books together in the same sequence that I wrote them, and they can be found as an eight part series on Amazon.
Then I took the story across the ocean and set a new series of books in America. The same problems, different continent.
The series has reached part tweleve, with the thirtenth book also available (Part Thirteen – Abandon).
This is the twelve part series you are about to read…
Glen Johnson
Table of Contents
THE SIXTH EXTINCTION
AMERICA
PART ONE
The Black Spores
PART TWO
False Hope
PART THREE
The Pods
PART FOUR
The Long Road
PART FIVE
No Turning Back
PART SIX
A Friend in Need
PART SEVEN
All Aboard
PART EIGHT
New Hope
PART NINE
Keep Running
PART TEN
Don’t Look Back
PART ELEVEN
Resurrection
PART TWELVE
Alliance
Prologue
The Sixth Extinction is also referred to as the Holocene Extinction – the Holocene epoch is a period of time from present to around 10,000 BCE – where a large number of extinctions span numerous plants and animals, including birds, amphibians, arthropods, and mammals.
Four hundred biologists were interviewed in 1998 by New York’s American Museum of Natural History. Seventy percent believe that the world is in the grip of a human-caused mass extinction. They believe that if left unchecked twenty percent of all living things could become extinct by 2028. One famous biologist, E. O Wilson believes that if humans continue to destroy the biosphere, then half of all species on the planet will be extinct within one hundred years.
Almost nine hundred extinctions have been recorded by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources since the 1500s. However, that is just a drop in the ocean, according to the scientific species-area theory; it estimates that one hundred and forty thousand species are becoming extinct every year.
The main reason for the hundreds of thousands of extinctions, which is speeding the sixth extinction along, is due to one mammal – the homosapien. Without intervention, the human race will cause the next mass extinction.
However, it would seem that Mother Nature has a way of making sure that one species does not overpopulate and dominate her planet at the expense of everything else. Viruses and plagues are her way of culling and controlling.
THE SIXTH EXTINCTION
AMERICA
Map of the Wonderland Bunker
Wonderland Map Zones
1. Main city
2. Artificial crop fields
3. Food storage area
4. Live animal section
5. Seed storage area
6. Military barracks
7. Military vehicle storage area
8. Artillery and uranium/plutonium storage
9. Natural underground freshwater reservoir
10. Water purification and waste sewage plant
11. DNA storage vault
12. Data storage and supercomputer
13. Separate military research laboratories
14. Air shaft
15. The Furnace inside the mountain facility
Stars represent artificial islands built in the underground reservoir.
The nuclear reactor power plant and power storage is six hundred feet below Zone 1.
Big
Bertha – Cargo Ship Layout
1. Bridge castle front
2. Deck containers
3. Foremast and mast top
4. Forecastle
5. Main cargo holds
6. Inner passageway
7. Double hull
8. Outer passageway
PART ONE
The Black Spores
1
Week Three of the Infection
Alexander Frazier
Inside a shipping container, on a truck
Interstate 95 Express
New York City Metropolitan Area
Friday 5th January
Alexander Frazier was tired, cold and hungry. He checked his watch; it was just after four o’clock. He sat in the corner covered with a musty smelling blanket, with his aching back leaning up against the galvanized metal wall of the twenty-foot shipping container. His body slowly rocked from side to side with the movement of the truck. Every now and then, he would jolt as the truck pushed an abandoned vehicle or debris out of the way.
It was made even more tense due to the fact there are no windows in the container to see what is happening outside – it was just too impractical to cut the strong metal and replace it with glass, no matter how thick.
Do we really want to see what is out there, what was charging at the vehicle as it passed?
With each shunt of another vehicle, and the sound of metal on metal, the mind always thinks the worst.
Alex was lean but not skinny; he had more of a jogger’s body. Not that he ever exercised, he never used to have the time. However, he was doing a lot of running now. If you couldn’t find a secure hiding place, it was run or die. And of course, due to the lack of food and sleep and the constant stress of trying to survive from one day to the next.
At twenty-four years of age, he used to spend his days trying to be recognized in the law firm he worked in. He didn’t want to be just a drone; he wanted to climb the ladder, even though he was only in the Mail Department. He was saving up for night school, to learn to be a secretary. It wasn’t unheard of, nowadays, to have male assistants. Then, when his foot was on the ladder, and making more money, he was going to cut back his hours and get into law school. That was the dream. He wanted to prove to himself that he could be whatever he wanted. That was until the world came crashing down. Now it didn’t matter if you were a doctor, a lawyer, or a homeless bum – death is the great equalizer.
Not that any of that matters now. Most of the people he used to work with are either dead or hiding – or have turned into something, something that would have been inconceivable just three weeks ago, before the clouds of black spores started sweeping the globe. Even hearing the word aloud still sounded surreal – zombie.
After he first ran out of food, he left his flat and cautiously made his way through the city streets. He knew there had to be food somewhere; it was a large city; the rioters couldn’t have taken it all, although they did a great job of trashing everything, leaving streets looking like a war zone. He tried a few apartments around his block, but they were all controlled by gangs with weapons, hoarding their supplies, and due to there being no police; they would shoot to kill without a moment’s hesitation. In fact, he witnessed a group of teenager’s gun down a family just for sport. They allowed them time to run before pulling the triggers.
He had to be careful; places that looked abandoned normally had people hiding in them, keeping a low profile, trying not to draw attention to themselves. That is, until you disturb them. Then you found out if they had a handgun or crude, handmade weapon, which was just as deadly in close quarters.
Alex scavenged food anywhere he could find it – a few tins that had been kicked under the shelving. A handful of cereal dropped from a ripped packet. Or dried food he had found hidden in abandon homes. He was amazed at how fast all the food disappeared. The only problem with looking through buildings was the Poppers, they could be anywhere, and if you stumble near one that was it, game over, even if you survived the blast you were infected by the spores. No one could outrun the spores – black death on the wind.
Once he realized the government was doing nothing, his plan was to get out of the city. The problem was, so was everyone else’s. Vehicles were abandoned everywhere. Possessions that people considered important at one point were scattered around the streets among the dead bodies that were left to rot, or to be consumed by the hordes of creatures that were everywhere. Creatures born of horror movies and the darkest part of the imagination.
Alex wasn’t cut out for surviving on the streets. He has no useful skills. He had never needed any. Everything he wanted, if he could afford it, he paid for. Just like most people, he was completely unprepared for the end of the world. A life of everything at his fingertips had made him weak when it came to a real survival situation. Why would he need bushcraft skills; he lived in a sprawling metropolis?
He used to watch programs on the television about bushcraft, with people surviving in impossible terrains and life-threatening situations. However, it was just entertainment, something to pass the time; he never thought that he would actually need to use that information; or else he would have paid closer attention. He must have seen people on the TV make a fire a thousand times, yet he had no idea how to do it himself. He saw them make traps, gut animals, make shelters, navigate by the sun, make fishing hooks out of twigs and nets out of clothing, stalk animals and skin them, and yet all of that was alien to him. If he was dropped out in the wild, he would die of thirst in three days, or if he managed to find drinkable water, that wasn’t full of parasites, then he would most probably die of starvation, or poisonous berries or mushrooms. He knew he had been made soft by the comforts of civilization.
He once heard a saying, going something along the lines of: Once mankind learned culinary skills, they started eating twice as much as the body needs to survive.
It is true; we have grown soft with our comforts.
After each day of struggling to look for food and water in the concrete jungle, he returned to his apartment.
He would probably be dead, or worse, if it wasn’t for Troy.
The truck slowed down, then jerked as it shunted yet another object with its powerful engine. The sound of rendering metal grated through the enclosed space.
Alex could hear the two brother’s heavy boots echoing on the metal roof. Suddenly, there was a short burst of gunfire. The truck swerved to the right. Then, there was another barrage of bullets. The truck accelerated. Alex could feel the gears crunch and change one after another. His body rocked against the wall with each gearshift. His muscles ached from the hard surface.
There was muffled shouting from above. An object hit the sidewall of the container. Another – sounding like a body hitting the metal with a resounding ring quickly followed it. A muffled volley of bullets echoed throughout the confined space. Guttural, throaty growling sounds could be heard, like an angry pack of large rabid dogs.
Alex could imagine the Eaters slamming into the container, no longer human; they were deformed by the virus, changed into perfect killing machines that only had one purpose, to feed – to gorge themselves with fresh meat.
Then, there was silence, with just the ever-present rocking of the truck as it picked up speed. The boots moved about on the roof with less urgency.
Alex couldn’t believe how quickly the world turned to utter chaos. A mere three weeks and everything had completely changed. The world was unrecognizable, and it would never be the same again.
It all started with a simple, seemingly average spot at the end of the night’s news report. Not big news, just a short filler from Madagascar, about a logging company airlifting nine sick workers out for medical treatment, after they became severely ill while logging in an uncharted section of the jungle.
Alex didn’t catch the first announcement – the news didn’t interest him much; he was too busy trying to get to work on time, and keep up with his rent and bills. He had three envelopes resting on the side that
were filled with warnings and possible consequences if he didn’t pay within the next seven days. Why would a report from a country thousands of miles away make any difference in his life? He had enough problems of his own.
The virus reached the shores of America five days later. Then it became his problem, along with everyone else’s. Then the only good those warning letters were, were for lighting a fire to cook a can of beans.
Within a week, more cases were registered in Cape Town, South Africa. Mexico City, Mexico. Perth, Australia. Moscow, in Russia. Then after two weeks, there were reported cases in almost every major city on every continent.
After fourteen days, the World Health Organization reclassed it as a pandemic. It didn’t make anyone feel safer just by slapping a label on it; they already knew it was deadly.
Alex remembered the original CNN report word-for-word, as the news feed played repeatedly across the channels and radio, due to no more news coming from Madagascar. It was as if someone flicked a switch and made an entire country disappear.
However, it was obvious it started with the group of nine loggers when they were airlifted out of a work site next to the Nosivolo River in Marolambo, Madagascar, and taken to Cape Town, South Africa, after apparently suffering from some unknown malady.
The original report was sketchy, but it announced that within eight hours of the helicopter leaving for the Mananjary Airport, eighty-one miles away, the Madagascan government declared Marolambo, in the Atsinanana Region, in the Province of Tamatave, a quarantined zone, and suspended all air traffic. All twenty-six thousand residents were put under house arrest, with the military roaming the streets in breathing equipment.
The Sixth Extinction America Omnibus [Books 1-12] Page 1