Extinction Evolution (The Extinction Cycle Book 4)

by Nicholas Sansbury Smith

  Extinction Cycle, Book IV

  Nicholas Sansbury Smith

  Copyright October 2015 by Nicholas Sansbury Smith

  All Rights Reserved

  Cover Design by Creative Paramita

  www.creativeparamita.com

  Edited by Aaron Sikes and Erin Elizabeth Long

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events locales or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from the author.

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  A percentage of all sales from the Extinction Cycle books are donated to the Wounded Warrior Project.

  http://www.woundedwarriorproject.org

  Books by Nicholas Sansbury Smith

  (The Orbs Series Offered by Simon451/Simon and Schuster)

  Solar Storms (An Orbs Prequel)

  White Sands (An Orbs Prequel)

  Red Sands (An Orbs Prequel)

  Orbs

  Orbs II: Stranded

  Orbs III: Redemption

  The Extinction Cycle Series

  Extinction Horizon

  Extinction Edge

  Extinction Age

  Extinction Evolution

  Extinction End (pre-order here)

  The Tisaian Chronicles

  The Biomass Revolution

  Squad 19: A Short Story

  A Royal Knight: A Short Story

  For our wounded warriors.

  Strong, brave and heroic—thank you for your service.

  Intelligence is based on how efficient a species became at doing the things they need to survive.

  —Charles Darwin

  Table of Contents

  -Prologue-

  -1-

  -2-

  -3-

  -4-

  -5-

  -6-

  -7-

  -8-

  -9-

  -10-

  -11-

  -12-

  -13-

  -14-

  -15-

  -16-

  -17-

  -18-

  -19-

  -20-

  -21-

  -22-

  -23-

  -24-

  -Epilogue-

  About the Author

  -Prologue-

  Marine Staff Sergeant Jose Garcia flipped his night vision goggles into position and watched as the half dozen outlines of the George Washington Carrier Strike Group grew distant. That was home now. Had been since the Hemorrhage Virus outbreak started over a month ago. The GW was the last intact strike group in the world, with two Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruisers, two Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers, a submarine tender, a Clark-class dry cargo ship, and a Pathfinder-class oceanographic survey ship. The strike group was the best and last chance the American military had of stopping the Variants.

  Garcia’s six-man Force Recon team cruised over the choppy waters of the Florida Keys in a nimble Zodiac. Somewhere to the east, the USS Emory S. Land submarine lurked beneath the waves. He couldn’t see her, but he knew she was out there.

  Thin clouds rolled across a jeweled sky of brilliant stars. Out here he could almost forget the world was gone, but then the memories would surface and remind him of the truth.

  As the green-hued shapes of the GW Strike Group disappeared on the horizon, thoughts of Garcia’s family worked their way into his mind. His wife Ashley, his daughter, Leslie: they were gone now, like most of the world, nothing but flakes of ash in the cloud of death that had swept across the landscape.

  Shit wasn’t supposed to go down this way. He was supposed to be rocking his six-month-old baby girl to sleep on the porch of his country home in North Carolina, listening to the peaceful chirp of crickets at dusk. It was the home he and his wife had always dreamed of. The type of place you could only get to by back roads. Where no one bothered you. He had been going to retire there—raise his family, maybe keep some horses.

  Garcia gripped his suppressed M4 and ground his teeth together. All he had left of his wife and daughter was the picture taped to the inside of his helmet, leaving him nothing but a shattered dream of what could have been.

  Modern warfare had taught him there were lines most men wouldn’t cross. There were international laws against torture, rules that governed war. Courtesies that allowed the enemy to clear the injured off a field after a battle. But when was the last time the enemy passed up a chance to kill America’s soldiers? War against the Variants was no different. Garcia had served in the Corps for twenty years and seen some awful things—real-life nightmares. He had faced Al Qaeda and the Taliban in The War on Terror, enemies that lacked all aspects of humanity. He thought he knew what monsters were, until he came face to face with the Variants.

  This new enemy followed no rules and shared no courtesies. The human race was fighting tooth and nail for its very existence. He knew the value of life and how easily it could be taken away. The only respite in the dread that owned him now was his faith in God. He knew he would see his family again. Until then his plan was simple: fight and die well.

  Garcia wasn’t the only one suffering. Every man on the Zodiac had lost someone. He flipped up his NVGs to conserve battery and took a moment to scan his team. Their faces were all covered by camouflage and shadow, but Garcia didn’t need to see their features to know they were ready for whatever came next.

  Sergeant Rick Thomas and Corporal Jimmy Daniels sat on the portside with their suppressed M4s angled toward the water. Like Garcia, they both had olive skin, short cropped hair, and dark mustaches. Garcia privately thought they looked like a couple of old-school porn stars with those mustaches. Knowing Thomas and Daniels, they’d probably take it as a compliment.

  On the starboard side sat Corporal Steve “Stevo” Holmes. He was a quiet man with an honest face, Dumbo ears, and an M249 SAW with an AAC silencer cradled across his chest. In the stern, Lance Corporal Jeff Morgan and Corporal Ryan “Tank” Talon manned the motor. Morgan carried a suppressed MK11. He was thin, fast, and agile—the reasons Garcia had assigned him as point man. Tank, on the other hand, was a hulking African-American with lumberjack arms and a barrel chest. The team’s radio operator, he carried a suppressed M4.

  These were the Marines of the team codenamed The Variant Hunters, or VH for short. Some scientist ten times smarter than Garcia had jokingly called them the Monster Squad, but Garcia didn’t like that. Sounded too much like a B-movie.

  Tonight, their mission wasn’t to exterminate Variants. It was simply to locate and observe the monsters in Key West. Recent intel indicated they were changing, maybe even evolving, at alarming rates. Garcia’s role was to confirm this and document how, scientifically, the beasts were adapting.

  Fuck science.

  He didn’t give a shit about what mutations the Variants were undergoing or what the lab jockeys were doing to stop it. He had his own cure—an M4 with a magazine full of 5.56 mm rounds. Each engraved with the initials of his daughter and wife.

  Waves slapped against the sides of the Zodiac as they shot toward Key West. Garcia’s senses were on full alert, taking in all his surroundings: the salty scent of the warm water on the breeze, the hum of the Zodiac’s motor. The dull buzz of excitement pumped through his veins and made the spray of water on his skin sting.


  On the horizon, the islands came into focus. He held up a hand to motion for Tank to ease up on the engine. They coasted until they were five hundred feet out.

  Their final gear preps made little sound over the choppy waves. Garcia dismantled his NVGs and put the optics in a cascade bag. He stuffed it into his main pack and sat on the starboard side of the boat to put on his fins. Before he put on his scuba mask, he said, “Radio discipline when we get shore side. Keep an eye out for anything on the way in. You all know those freaks can swim.”

  There were five nods, then Morgan dropped backward into the water with a plop. The others followed, one by one, with Garcia diving last.

  As soon as he was submerged, he pulled his blade and finned after the others. The Marines broke off into pairs and fell into a modified sidestroke, their heads just above the water.

  Garcia couldn’t see shit. There was always a small stab of fear that came with the underwater darkness. As a kid, he’d hated swimming in murky lakes. When he enlisted in the Marines, that fear mostly subsided but never totally went away. Knowing the Variants could swim didn’t help.

  All it takes is all you got, Marine.

  The motto always helped remind him what he was made of. How much he could take. Mental and physical pain were just temporary distractions. He took in a breath every other stroke, and glided through the choppy water with ease. Every hundred feet he took a second to sight, scanning the water and island beyond for contacts. They were halfway to Smathers Beach, where the branches of palm trees shifted in a slight breeze.

  When they reached the surf, Garcia stood and unstrapped his backpack. He retrieved his NVGs, changed into his gear, clipped his fins to his bag, and jammed a magazine into his M4 while Daniels held security. Then they switched. The other men were all doing the same. Garcia used the stolen minutes to scope the terrain.

  The pink Sheraton Hotel towered over Nathan Lester Highway beyond the beach. Derelict cars were scattered across the road. Umbrellas and plastic chairs jutted out of the sand in every direction like unexploded missiles. A gust of wind sent trash shifting across the ground. The entire beach looked like a war zone.

  “Sarge,” Daniels said over the comm. “You see that?”

  Garcia followed the muzzle of Daniels’s M4 to a pair of corpses caught in the surf about one hundred feet to the right. Tendrils of ropy seaweed surrounded the bodies.

  “Yeah,” Garcia said. He mounted his NVGs and flipped them into position. The small corpses came into focus, his heart sinking when he realized they were children.

  He flashed a hand signal, and the six-man team waded through the surf. A draft of something rotten hit Garcia as soon as he reached the loose sand. The stench was a cross between a slaughterhouse and a backwater swamp in the steaming heat of summer. Garcia ignored it and hustled across the beach, his team spreading out in combat intervals.

  He stepped over a broken bottle of Bud Light and motioned for three of his men to set up position near a concrete wall running along the entrance to the beach. Then he followed Daniels and Morgan to a tiki bar for cover.

  It was quiet, but Garcia could imagine the phantom sounds of what it had been like just over a month ago—the shouts of drunken vacationers, the growl of expensive cars prowling the strip. He never did understand why people wanted to live in places like this. Maybe he was old fashioned, but he liked his peace and quiet. And now he had it. Only the faint whistle of the breeze and the slurp of the surf sounded in the distance.

  The calm wasn’t reassuring. The longer Garcia stood there, the more he felt like they were being watched. Like someone or something had the drop on him. He scanned the beach, the road, and the Sheraton for a third time. The slimy feeling passed, and Garcia glanced back at the corpses in the surf.

  Something didn’t add up. The Variants rarely left meat behind. There wasn’t a single rotting body anywhere else on the beach, so why here? Variants typically took their prey to their lairs or tore them apart where they killed, leaving nothing but bones. These bodies, while mangled, showed no sign of the bite marks or deep lacerations Garcia was used to seeing.

  He pointed at his eyes, then to Morgan and Daniels, then to the kids in the surf. Garcia swallowed as he followed the Marines to the corpses. Both were boys no older than eight or nine, wearing shorts and what looked like torn-up swim shirts. Their legs were tangled in seaweed, and they lay face down in the wet sand as the waves beat against their bodies. He flipped up his NVGs and used the toe of his boot to push the first boy on his side. In the glow of the moonlight, he examined the body.

  “Holy shit,” Garcia whispered.

  The boy wasn’t a boy. He was a Variant with swollen lips and wide yellow slits where his innocent eyes should have been. Bulging blue veins crisscrossed his stomach and chest.

  Discovering the corpses were monsters made him feel better about what he was about to do.

  Garcia reached for his medical pack and pulled out a vial. The lab jockeys loved flesh samples. Fresh or rotten, they didn’t care. He grabbed his knife and prepared to cut a piece from the boy’s chest when he saw something that made him pause.

  Leaning in, he pushed at the kid’s neck with the blade to expose what looked like gills under his left ear.

  “Morgan, get over here. Check this shit out,” Garcia whispered.

  The Marine hurried over and crouched. Garcia used his gloves to spread the pink, meaty gills apart. Water squished out of them, making a complicated sound that caused Garcia’s stomach to churn.

  “Do we tag and bag?” Morgan asked.

  “No. Can’t bring ‘em with. Take pictures and a sample.” Garcia stood and handed him the vial. He jogged over to Daniels while Morgan worked. The other three Marines held their position at the retaining wall three hundred feet away.

  A few minutes later, Morgan returned with the sample. Garcia put it in his medical pack and motioned for the team to advance to the highway. This was exactly what they were here for, but they needed more than a sample or two to please the higher-ups. They needed more documentation of how the monsters were changing, and why.

  Somewhere overhead, he heard the chop chop of a drone. The reassuring sound of American military muscle reminded him there was a team of soldiers monitoring and watching his team advance. Help was just seconds away if they needed it.

  Of course, out here seconds lay between life and death.

  Garcia shouldered his M4 and worked his way across the beach. The other Marines fanned out, keeping their heads as low as possible. There wasn’t much cover, and Garcia wanted to get out of the open as quickly as possible. He followed Morgan onto the highway toward an F150 on a lift. Daniels took up position behind an abandoned cargo van with Stevo and Thomas. Tank crouched behind a Mini Cooper; the car was hardly big enough to hide the solid man. His helmet crested the top like a turret. They all paused to listen and scan for hostiles.

  Morgan glanced back at Garcia for orders, but Garcia held steady for a few extra seconds. His gut still told him something was off, but his eyes and ears showed nothing out of the ordinary. There was no sign of the Variants.

  Garcia finally nodded at Morgan and shot an advance signal. The team pushed forward at a slow jog, hunched and close to vehicles for cover. Sweat dripped down Garcia’s brow, but he didn’t bother wiping it away. He swept his M4 over the terrain.

  Mid-stride, Garcia caught a whiff of sour, rotting fruit. A sudden wave of anxiety rose in his stomach. He froze, then took a knee. The other men did the same.

  Something was watching them. He could feel it.

  His instincts had saved the lives of his men before, and he wasn’t going to ignore them. They were compromised. He couldn’t see the Variants, but they were watching. Additional intel wasn’t worth the lives of his men.

  Garcia flashed a retreat signal. Morgan narrowed his eyes as if he was going to protest. The moment of hesitation passed, and he was moving a second later. The team had made it only a few feet when a frantic female voice pierced the
quiet night.

  “Help!”

  Morgan’s hand went up into a fist before Garcia had a chance to search the streets. The entire six-man team crouched and took cover behind the nearest vehicle. Garcia looked over the hood of a blue BMW before moving to the driver side door of a minivan for a better look.

  “Somebody... Please... “ The woman’s voice was hoarse, like she had chain-smoked her entire life.

  Garcia cringed. If they weren’t compromised before, they sure as hell were now. He flipped his mini-mic to his lips and broke radio discipline. Stealth didn’t matter now. The woman had blown their cover. Every Variant in Key West would have heard her. They had two options: help the woman and retreat to the Zodiac—or retreat without her.

  Cursing silently, Garcia ordered his team into action. “Daniels, grab her. Morgan, Stevo, you’re with Daniels. Tank, Thomas, you hold security, then we fall back.”

  The three Marines fell into a crouched trot and vanished behind a donut delivery truck. Garcia moved to the front of the minivan and saw her. The woman was dragging her body across the pavement, blood streaking behind her mangled feet.

  “Help me...”

  Morgan approached the woman and squatted by her side, his weapon still angled into the darkness. He put a finger to his lips with his other hand while Stevo slung his SAW over his back and crouched on her other side. Daniels reached down to grab her with his left arm, but the woman swatted at him, groaning and screeching in a voice so loud it made Garcia cringe again.

  Shit. Shit. Shit.

  “Let’s move,” Garcia said. He didn’t like this one damn bit. How in the hell had someone survived out here in enemy territory? Especially with feet that looked like hamburger meat?

  The sensation of being watched hit him again. He could almost feel eyes burning through his back. The acid in his stomach churned. He twisted away from the road, raised his rifle, and arced the muzzle across the white balconies on the ocean side of the Sheraton. There, standing in the doorway of a unit on the third floor, was a lean figure draped in shadow. It vanished inside the open door a second later.