Stevo tapped Garcia’s arm.
“Sarge,” he whispered. “I think we need to move.”
Garcia swept his crosshairs back to the muscular Variant and saw what the corporal meant. The beast was no longer watching the feeding. It was watching them.
It was just before midnight, but Riley couldn’t sleep. His legs and his back ached. He was so fucking sick of sitting in his damn chair. Lying in a bed didn’t help—especially the beds in the barracks—but this was where he wanted to be, with his fellow soldiers.
“Chow, you awake, brother?” Riley asked, craning his neck.
The Asian-American man lay in the bunk to his right, jet-black hair covering the left side of his face. If it weren’t for Chow’s instant response, Riley would have thought he was sleeping.
“Yeah, kid. You hurtin’ tonight?”
Riley gripped the sides of his bed and sat up. “Yeah, my back is killing me.”
“You’ve been sitting in that chair for almost, what, a whole month?”
“Something like that,” Riley said. “You can’t sleep either?”
“Haven’t slept much since Jinx died,” Chow said. He brushed the hair from his face and sat up. “I need a smoke.”
“Since when do you smoke?”
Chow didn’t reply. He swung his legs over his bed and looked at Riley’s wheelchair.
“I’ll come,” Riley said. “Help me up.”
Chow hoisted him into the chair and pushed him through the aisle between bunks. They passed a few snoring Marines on the way out, but the rest of the room was empty. Everyone else was on duty. It reminded Riley how much things had changed.
A few good things had happened since the apocalypse. Riley focused on them as Chow maneuvered him through the room. Even though Riley felt isolated from Team Ghost, he was happy Beckham had finally found someone, and Horn reuniting with his daughters was a miracle worth celebrating. Then there was Meg, the superhero of a woman Beckham had rescued from New York. Riley found a smile on his face every time he thought of the firefighter.
Chow pushed the doors open to a brilliant moon. The glow covered the entire island. Riley sat there, listening to the chirp of crickets and feeling the breeze on his face. For a moment it reminded him a lot of a summer night in Iowa, but he knew the quiet wouldn’t last. The silence never seemed to last. It was always shattered by the crack of gunfire or the high-pitched shriek of a monster. If science couldn’t stop the Variants, then no one would be left to enjoy moments like these.
Riley reached down for the knife tucked in his belt and stared at his casts. He bit his bottom lip, clenched his jaw, and gripped the handle of the knife tightly. The casts seemed to tighten around his legs. He suddenly felt more trapped than ever before. He needed to walk again. Needed to run again. If Kate failed and the Variants won, he wanted to go out on his terms.
Chow glanced over. “What the hell are you doing, kid?” He flicked the cig away and rushed to the chair.
Riley slipped the tip of the blade under the cast on his right leg. “I’m not going to sit here any longer.” He was breathing harder now, his chest heaving.
“Kid, you can’t remove those yet. You still have—”
“Three weeks,” Riley quickly replied. “Plus rehab.”
“That’s not long man. Three weeks is—”
Riley looked up and caught Chow’s gaze. “The world may not last that long.” He dug the tip of the blade inside of the cast and said, “You going to help me, brother, or what?”
The stink of wet dog hair hung in the air of Kate’s small bedroom. Beckham sat on the bed holding Lieutenant Colonel Jensen’s .45 in his hands. Apollo was camped out at his feet, sleeping peacefully with his muzzle resting on the cold floor. The sight made Beckham jealous. He was exhausted, but every time he closed his eyes, he saw Lieutenant Colonel Jensen choking on his own blood. Even if he could sleep, he wouldn’t be able to for long. The base looked nearly deserted through the window, and without other soldiers to count on, Beckham couldn’t afford to rest, especially not after the boat they’d seen earlier.
He thought of Wood’s men still locked up in Building 4. He simply didn’t trust them, no matter how many times they claimed they would follow Major Smith’s orders.
Beckham placed the .45 on the bedside table and looked at the clock. It was after midnight and Kate still wasn’t back from the lab. He was half tempted to grab his M4 and take Apollo out for a quick patrol, but he didn’t want to miss her when she did return. They hadn’t talked much since Jensen’s death, and he needed to know she was okay.
Reaching down, Beckham ran a hand across Apollo’s thick coat. After a few minutes of feeling the dog’s fur against his palm, Beckham’s racing heart began to calm. He unlaced his boots and sat on the floor next to Apollo. As much as he wanted to lie down in the bed, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Guilt ate at him—guilt that he was alive when so many others had died. Men and women he couldn’t save.
Apollo glanced up, then rested his muzzle on Beckham’s lap. He patted the dog’s head and looked back at the window. Time seemed to warp as Beckham sat there, staring into the glow of the full moon. He was lost in his thoughts when the door creaked open.
“Reed?” Kate whispered. “Are you sleeping?”
He rubbed at his eyes and shook his head. “No, I was waiting for you to come back from the lab. Wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“That’s sweet, but you shouldn’t have. You need rest.”
“So do you.”
Kate placed a small backpack on the floor and walked over to the window. She pulled her hair tie away and let her brown hair fall over her shoulders. In the moonlight, he could see her shivering.
Pushing himself to his feet, he stood next to her. “Kate...”
She continued looking out the window, her gaze locked on the tree branches shifting in the breeze. Raising her hand to her mouth, she cupped it over her lips and sobbed.
“Kate,” Beckham said again. He wrapped his arm around her and pulled her to his chest. “It’s okay. Everything’s okay.”
“No,” she said, pulling away and shaking her head. “It’s not okay, Reed. The Variants are adapting around the world. They’re evolving. They’re...faster...and...”
Beckham gently turned her toward him and searched her eyes. He could tell she was hiding something that went beyond the evolution of the monsters. For several days he’d sensed it, but he hadn’t wanted to pry it out of her. He wanted it to come naturally. She was supposed to trust him.
“I’m just a soldier, Kate, but haven’t they been evolving all along?”
“Something’s changed.”
“What?”
Beckham imagined the creature’s talons growing and their meaty bodies morphing into something even worse. After a deep breath and a pause, Kate whispered as if she wanted to keep her words a secret.
“They’re breeding.”
Beckham wasn’t sure what to say at first. The thought had crossed his mind. It was disgusting, but so what? If her weapon worked, it wouldn’t matter. The idea of killing kids made his heart ache, but he reminded himself these weren’t human kids. The Variants were monsters. He had gunned down children Variants in Niantic and New York. He would do it again if he had to. It struck him, then, that maybe Kate did care. Maybe she couldn’t bear the thought of being the one tasked with killing millions again, even if those millions were monsters.
“This new world we live in, it’s not a place for kids. Variant or human,” Beckham reminded her. “Don’t let this affect your judgment or your work. You have to stay strong. We have to kill the Variants, young and old alike.”
Kate nodded and sat on the bed. He slid next to her and put his arm around her shoulder. A single tear streaked down her face in the moonlight. After a few minutes of silence, she turned to him with a meaningful look in her eyes, like she wanted to tell him something important, but all she ended up saying was, “You’re right, Reed. No place for kids.”<
br />
-5-
“Lieutenant, those things were communicating!” President Mitchell’s lungs burned like he’d swallowed a breath of frozen air. The early morning runs on Capitol Hill seemed like ages ago, and it showed. He could hardly keep up with the well-trained Marines leading him and his staff down the narrow corridor.
Lieutenant Stanton either hadn’t heard Mitchell or was ignoring him. He waved the group, twenty strong, into a tunnel that emptied into a massive chamber deep inside Cheyenne Mountain. There were multiple buildings here, some of them three stories high, all of them built on springs that would allow them to shift if a nuke hit the mountain.
Each structure had its own purpose, from living quarters to a movie theatre. The underground mini-city was buried under two thousand feet of rock and designed to protect approximately three hundred people for several months. Over one hundred thousand bolts had been drilled into the mountain to ensure structural strength and security. Eight diesel engines powered the facility, and air filtration systems protected them from chemical, biological, and radiological agents. The engineering was incredible, but the springs, bolts, and advanced filtering system couldn’t protect them from the Variants if they got inside.
“Evacuating POTUS and VPOTUS through Portal A!” Stanton shouted into his radio. He glanced over his shoulder and jerked his chin for the others to follow.
Mitchell kept his eyes on the open blast door at the north end of the chamber. Part of him wondered if they were making the right decision. Especially after what he’d seen on those monitors.
Lieutenant Stanton had assured him they couldn’t get past the twenty-five-ton blast doors. But they had managed to get into other secure locations. What would stop them now?
In his mind’s eye, Mitchell saw his wife as the Hemorrhage Virus tore through her. It had started as a trickle of blood dripping from her eyes and nose. Then her body had contorted. The snapping joints sounded in his head. He winced, remembering his narrow escape from the PEOC. It was supposed to have been as secure as Cheyenne Mountain.
I will not die at the hands of those monsters in this hellhole, he vowed.
Stanton balled his hand into a fist and stopped at the blast door. “Everyone, quiet.” He brought his radio to his lips and said, “Charlie 1, Cheyenne 1. Is access point 14 secure? Over.”
The squad of Marines formed a perimeter around the President and his staff as they waited. Only a handful of Mitchell’s original team remained now. Most had perished in the early days of the outbreak. Those still with him had hardened into shells of their former selves. They weren’t the same men and women he remembered working with on Capitol Hill.
Over the alarms, a faint reply came from Stanton’s radio.
“Cheyenne 1, Charlie 1. Access Point 14 is secure. I repeat. Access Point 14 is secure. The Variants have retreated.”
“Are they sure?” Mitchell said. “Those things were camouflaged before. Maybe they’re blending in with the terrain and waiting for us to come outside.”
Stanton pulled a sleeve across his shiny forehead. His eyes flitted to the President as he brought his radio back to his lips. “Command, Cheyenne 1. Can you confirm Charlie’s last?”
With the alarms still ringing in the background, Mitchell had a hard time hearing the reply. But he caught most of it. “ ...Cheyenne 1...drone...any heat signatures...vicinity.”
“Copy that, Command. Cheyenne 1 proceeding to inner roadway with POTUS and VPOTUS.” Stanton glanced back at the group. “We’re all clear. Three squads of Marines are waiting in the inner roadway to evacuate us to the tarmac in an armored convoy.”
Mitchell wanted to say something presidential, something that made him seem strong, but the only thing that came out was, “Okay.”
He followed Stanton through the open blast door into a narrow tunnel. Framed on both sides by the red glare of emergency lights, it was like entering a portal to hell. Here in the tunnel, the sirens screamed from wall-mounted public address speakers as if they were warning the group to stay back. More soldiers moved up ahead at the end of the passage, their boots pounding the concrete. They disappeared into another tunnel. Mitchell hesitated, squinting to see ahead. The alarms were like a dinner bell for the Variants. He still didn’t quite trust Stanton when he said there was no way they could hear them through the millions of ton of rock.
“Come on,” Stanton said.
The lieutenant led them through the final maze of passages for ten minutes at a pace Mitchell could hardly keep up with. His hammering heart kept him moving, but the stone walls were closing in. Each breath was a struggle, and carried the scent of cold moisture. God, he hated this place.
The footsteps from the Marines pounded the damp concrete as they made their way through the splash of red light. Olson worked his way up next to Mitchell’s side with the atomic football clutched against his suit. A large backpack bobbed up and down on his shoulders.
“Hold,” Stanton said. He balled his hand into a fist outside the tunnel intersecting with the inner roadway. The door was closed ahead and two Marines stood guard.
“Sir, the convoy is ready to move,” one of the men said.
Stanton nodded and plucked the radio from his vest. “Command, Cheyenne 1. Proceeding to inner roadway.” He faced the group clustering in the passage and gave Mitchell a critical look like he was sizing him up.
The President had given up caring what others thought of him. He avoided Stanton’s gaze and waited; the promise of fresh air made the glares of those around him tolerable.
“Cheyenne 1, Command. You have a green light to proceed to the tarmac. Good luck. Over.”
Stanton’s scowl twisted into what could have been a smile. He nodded at the two Marines holding sentry duty, and one of them unlocked the door. Artificial light washed into the passage, and the hum of diesel engines sounded in the distance.
“Let’s move,” Stanton said.
Mitchell squinted and ran after the lieutenant. Five Humvees waited in the tunnel. The turrets were each manned by Marines. Some bore the viscerally terrifying M240 machine guns. Others had what looked like mounted M260 rocket launchers.
Stanton opened the door to the third truck and motioned for Mitchell to get inside. The President did as ordered and slid into one of the seats. Olson got in on the other side and rested the case on the center console. Black continued to the second Humvee while the rest of the staff piled into the vehicles behind them.
“Got a green light to move out!” Stanton shouted. He let out a low whistle, patted the top of the truck and climbed into the driver seat. Craning his neck, he said, “Buckle up, Mr. President. We’re going to be moving pretty fast once we get outside.”
Mitchell nodded and clicked his belt. The lead vehicle lurched forward, the tires squealing as the overzealous driver stomped the pedal. One by one, the other trucks followed, leaving the remaining survivors behind to defend Cheyenne Mountain.
Meg sat on the couch of her new room in Building 1, reading the April edition of People magazine. It was after midnight, and she was wide-awake. She eyed the knife Riley had given her. The sheathed blade rested on the table within arm’s reach. She still would have preferred her axe, but the nimble knife would do for now. At some point, she was going to have Riley teach her to shoot. If she was going to have any hope of surviving, she had to learn how to fire a gun, no matter how much she hated them.
After flipping through the magazine a third time, Meg plopped it back onto the table and secured her long brown hair into a ponytail. Then she grabbed her knife and tucked the sheath into her belt. She had always been an independent girl, but she was lonely now. She missed her husband, her friends, and her fellow firefighters. If it weren’t for her friendship with Riley, she would have gone stir crazy. He was a good man, and so were the other men of Team Ghost.
Time had blended together since she arrived at Plum Island. She wasn’t even sure how many days she’d been here, but her legs were healing and her energy came back more
each day. Doctor Hill had said she might even be able to walk on her own again in a week or two.
She took in a breath. She needed some fresh air. Using her crutches to stand, she hopped from the couch to the door. The hallway outside was quiet. Everyone else in the building seemed to be sleeping except her. She walked by Kate’s room, then Horn’s, and finally Riley’s old room. He had given it to Red and his family after Beckham rescued them from Niantic. Meg heard a panicked voice as she passed the door. It was Bo, she realized, and she stopped to listen.
“Mama, I’m scared.”
“It’s okay, Bo. Go back to sleep. Nothing can get you here.”
“Promise?”
“Yes, baby. We won’t let anything happen to you.”
Listening to the hushed conversation broke Meg’s heart. Red, Donna, and their son had been through hell out there. Now they were protected by some of the best soldiers left in the world, but the boy was still terrified.
Meg didn’t blame him. Team Ghost may have restored her faith in a military that had all but failed the country, but no matter how impressive they were on the battlefield, they couldn’t stop an army of Variants. If the wolves came, there was only so much Ghost could do.
The door to the building opened as she continued down the hallway. Horn squeezed through and quietly shut it behind him. He nodded at Meg and whispered, “How you doing?” His breath reeked of cigarette smoke.
“Fine. How’s your arm?”
He regarded his right bicep and shrugged limply. “Nothing to fuss over. I’ve been hit worse.”
Meg smiled. “Your girls doing okay?”
Extinction Evolution (The Extinction Cycle Book 4) Page 7