"C'mon!" Hedley screamed, grabbing a stumbling young black man drenched in blood by the elbow and helping him on. He recognized the man instantly as the one who had helped people board the truck before getting in himself.
A young woman ran with them, who Hedley pegged as the man's girlfriend. Her toe hit a chunk of debris, and she went flying forward, hands outstretched to break her fall. There was a nasty crunch as she landed, turning immediately onto her back and holding her broken wrist out before her, too shocked to scream.
The man shouted, "Melissa," and broke away from Hedley to go after her. He was at her side in a flash.
Hedley fired over the young couple's heads, yelling at them both even though he knew his words were lost under the gunfire. They had to get clear, and fast. Even with support from the Black Hawk, there was no way to halt the onslaught of the infected storming toward them. But he was damn sure going to try.
Clemson was beside him, firing into the plaza. Melissa got to her feet, holding a limp wrist in the clutches of her good hand. The young man had a hold of her upper arm and was running with her, past the soldiers and to the riverboat, ahead. And then he was jerked back and flung onto his ass. A writhing creature of pure muscle was latched onto his torso, slashing away at him. The woman was screaming, "Arvin! No, no, Arvin!"
"Get her on the boat," Hedley said to Clemson, "and get it started. We need to move fast!"
She wasted no time on words, simply ran full-tilt and grabbed onto Melissa on her way past. A young woman and her baby were waving them toward the riverboat, shouting at them, although her words were lost in the din of noisy violence.
Hedley raised his gun and fired at the creature, sending it backwards and off of Arvin. He approached the young man, firing into the muscular creature and making sure the fucking thing was dead. At his feet, Arvin was a pulped mass, his flesh cut to ribbons right down to the bone. One eye gone, his nose cut away, Arvin kept both hands pressed to his belly in a failing effort to keep his innards inside. The man opened his mouth to speak, a pink bubble popping between his lips, but he was dead before a single word escaped.
Hedley turned, a line of pain opening across his chest as swollen lips descended upon the clear mask of his CBRN face shield. His instincts were honed by a decade-plus of training and experience, the rifle coming up smoothly to knock the creature away from him, and then to his shoulder as he fired two rounds into the beast's center mass, and one into the head. As he began running to the riverboat, the pain of his cut-open chest lit up all the nerve receptors in his brain, but he forced himself to push past the agony.
Behind him, infected fell under the spinning barrels of Chief Willis's minigun. The Black Hawk cut through the air, working to ensure the Ranger and their charges made it to the Princess.
Grateful, but not yet ready to breathe a sigh of relief, Hedley jumped, his foot clearing the metal railing separating the boat from the Riverwalk, and landed hard on the other side of the riverboat's white wooden railing. Neither Clemson, nor any of the other survivors, were in sight as he took a knee and opened up fire on the creatures rushing toward him. Between his SCAR and the two Black Hawks on overwatch, he prayed to God there would be enough covering fire to give Clemson time to get this boat moving.
As if in answer, he heard the riverboat's engine rumble to life. Firing into the crowd of monsters, they slowly began to grow more distant as the boat moved and arced away from the city.
He heart fell into his stomach as he saw the creatures dive into the river, swimming after them.
"Son of a bitch," he moaned, hauling himself to his feet. The Black Hawks followed the Princess on its path into the deeper waters of the Detroit River, Willis keeping up his assault on the infected as he fired into the river's depths. Hedley fired as well, his chest burning. After he realized the boat had drawn far enough away, and that the Black Hawks had gone silent as well, he lowered his rifle and slumped back against the wall beside the service entrance. He didn't have the energy to climb up the stairs to the riverboat's cabin several decks above. Not yet, anyway. He needed a moment to rest.
Sitting there, he watched as the sky took on a deeper shade of gray, the moment's quiet cut by the piercing of jets overhead. An F-22 Raptor flew past, the telltale shapes of missiles launching from the jet's belly. Flames bloomed dead ahead, enshrouding Cobo Center in fire as explosions ripped the massive complex apart. Two more Raptors shot past, launching more missiles, as the previous jet came around for a second pass. Thick black columns rose from the ashes of Detroit, obscuring the shattered skyline in fresh smoke, the riverfront blanketed in fire, the sky booming as secondary explosions ripped apart all that was left.
Hedley reached up and tore away the layer of tape sealing his headpiece to the body of his CBRN suit, and pulled the helmet loose. Instantly, he felt better as cold air licked at his sweaty head. For a time, he watched a dead city burn, and then he stood, exhausted and aching.
After climbing the steps — Why did there have to be so many stairs? he complained to himself — he saw the door to the cabin open, Clemson sitting in the pilot's seat behind a hotwired console. Across from her was a woman. It took him a moment to remember her name. Melissa, that was it. She sat holding her ruined wrist in one hand, tears pouring down her face as she sobbed openly, although he suspected the tears were not for herself.
Clemson, too, had removed her CBRN helmet. The suit as well. Her hair was cropped shorter than Hedley's, and when he sat near her she offered him a wan smile. Outside, on the deck surrounding the pilothouse, a young mother pointed toward the city, her words indistinct as she spoke to her baby.
"Did any of the other refugees make it?" he asked.
Clemson's weak smile died, and she shook her head slowly. She didn't need to say anything else.
"God damn it," he said, closing his eyes as he let his head fall back into the seat cushion. Exhaustion claimed him and he sank into the darkness.
A harsh cry from Melissa snapped his eyes open. The sky beyond the cabin windows had grown dark from the smoke from the burning city. Clemson had turned the lights on at some point, and the pilothouse was surprisingly bright. Melissa sniffled loudly, wetly, and, as he turned to look at her, she raised the back of her hand to her nose to wipe away the liquid leaking out of her. Her hand came away red.
Melissa's nose was bleeding.
A Note To Readers
Thank you for choosing to read my work – it's greatly appreciated, and I hope you enjoyed the journey! I would be grateful if you would take a few minutes to leave a review of this work on Amazon and/or Goodreads and let other readers know your thoughts. Reviews are the lifeblood of indie authors like myself, and they can help readers decide if they want to spend their time and money on my work.
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Acknowledgements
First and foremost, a huge, huge, huge thank you to Nicholas Sansbury Smith, not just for creating the Extinction Cycle series, but also for inviting me into his world. Nick was one of my first supporters when my debut novel, Convergence, launched two years ago, and he's proven himself to be a good friend in addition to an excellent storyteller. He's a cool dude, and the fact that he trusted me to tread in his shadows through this world of infected Variants means an awful lot. I was a reader and fan of his work well before he brought me into the fold, and writing in this world has given me a deeper and truer appreciation for what Nick's done with this series. Thank you, bud.
From The Ashes would not be in nearly half as good a shape as it is without the keen eye of my editor and proofreader, Shay VanZwoll, of EV Proofreading. She made me look good here, and left plenty of snarky editor comments for me to sift through and laugh at. That, right there, is the sign of a damn good editor, let me tell you.
Thanks, also, to Christian Bentulan, from Covers by
Christian, for the excellent piece of art fronting this story. I wanted something suitably apocalyptic, but also something that was iconic and purely Detroit. His vision of a devastated Renaissance Center is exactly that.
None of this would have been possible without the love, encouragement, and support of my wife, or the smiles, laughter, and hugs from our baby boy. You both got me through far more than you'll ever know, and more than I can adequately express.
About the Author
Michael Patrick Hicks is the author of the science fiction novels Convergence, an Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award 2013 Quarter-Finalist, and Emergence. His work has appeared in several anthologies, and he has written for the websites Graphic Novel Reporter and Audiobook Reviewer. In between compulsively buying books and adding titles that he does not have time for to his Netflix queue, he is hard at work on his next story.
To stay up to date on his latest releases, join his newsletter, memFeed: http://bit.ly/1H8slIg
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Books by Michael Patrick Hicks
DRMR Novels
Convergence (Book One)
Emergence (Book Two)
Short Stories and Novellas
Consumption
Revolver
Let Go
Extinction Cycle: From The Ashes (Kindle Worlds)
Anthology Appearances
No Way Home (Stories From Which There Is No Escape)
Crime & Punishment
The Cyborg Chronicles
CLONES: The Anthology
To learn more about these titles,
visit the Michael Patrick Hicks Author Page at Amazon
Enjoyed this story? Don't forget to check out the rest of the bestselling Extinction Cycle books. Download the entire series here.
Table of Contents
Contents
Copyright
Stay Connected
About From the Ashes
Title Page
Dedication
Quote
The Fall
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
A Note To Readers
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Other Works
Extinction Cycle (Kindle Worlds Novella): From The Ashes Page 10