Emergence (Book 4): Eradication

by Sawyer, JT

  Nash came up to his right, pointing at a slew of muddy tracks in the meadow. “Looks like a bulldozer came through here. My guess is there were more than a hundred creatures heading through here during the past few days.”

  “Yeah, but heading where?” said Porter, pointing to the northeast. “This direction leads into the mangrove swamps near the ocean. Did they all hop on a ferry?”

  They heard Pacelle’s distant voice from the Lachesis come into their headsets. “The area is still clear—no signs on SAT or thermal imagery whatsoever of any creatures within fifty miles of your location.”

  Reisner glanced around the field, the pungent odor of trampled earth piercing his nostrils as a cold breeze floated across the silent grounds. Not even an owl or any bird sounds in the area—there’s nothing left alive in this region. He motioned for them to move forward, with Reisner leading half of his team along the treeline towards the three-story estate while Nash took the rest and arced around to the front of the building.

  Passing a decorative wooden gazebo thirty yards from the back porch, Reisner saw piles of discarded wooden crates and white cardboard boxes. He let his rifle-mounted flashlight shine over the inscriptions, which revealed it was pharmaceutical packaging. He moved his head slowly so the helmet cam could relay the findings back to Selene aboard the Lachesis, then he moved up the steps of the wraparound porch. The rear door was ajar, and he slipped inside, followed by three of his team while two remained outside.

  If it weren’t for the ghastly streaks of blood and viscera adorning the marbled floors, Reisner would have thought they had entered a palace somewhere in Europe, given the ornate furnishings and architecture. The only thing that had shown up on a records search for the property was that it had belonged to Roland Whitmore, a billionaire who had formed his empire from the defense industry. After clearing the rooms on all three levels, Reisner walked around the den upstairs, examining a large wall-sized map near the veranda. It had hundreds of red marks peppering the surface, with small, hand-written notes jotted down beneath some of the larger spots.

  “These points correspond with a similar map Dorr has, showing all of the current military bases and civilian outposts of significance left around the world,” he said as Connelly and Porter came up alongside him.

  Porter pressed his face closer, squinting at the fine handwriting. “And who penned the fucking comments here? I mean, this is some detailed shit on troop numbers, structural weaknesses of the perimeter, and air capabilities.” He looked back at Connelly then over at Reisner. “Do the paras have their own military advisor now or is one of our own being forced to work with them?”

  Connelly had been flipping through a notebook beside him when she suddenly stopped and thrust it into the beam of Reisner’s flashlight. “This writing is identical but look at the date.” She slid her finger to the bottom of the page. September 16, 2014. Reisner raised an eyebrow then squeezed the book shut to examine the leatherbound spine, which just showed the initials RW stamped in the side.

  Reisner motioned with his hand at the desk then up at the map. “It appears that Whitmore is the author of all of these notes then. The real question is: is he being coerced by the paras or,” he paused to glance around the room, “is he this mystery creature Selene believes to be the supreme alpha?”

  Porter scrutinized the notes and journal, shaking his head. “Shit, if this thing can write then that means it never suffered any brain damage after it was infected.” He let out a deep sigh, his forehead wrinkling. “So, what else can it do—fire a weapon, drive, fly a plane? I mean, what the fuck are we dealing with here? Are the other alphas going to be capable of that too, eventually?”

  Reisner’s eyes darted around the room as he tried to sort through the terrifying implications. “If that were the case, I think we would have seen some signs of that from the other alphas around the world by now. If this creature possessed those abilities, wouldn’t it have relayed it to the rest of its kind to be used against us?”

  “This creature must be the only one that can pull that off,” said Connelly.

  Reisner looked over to the right at a large portrait on the wall, whose plaque indicated it was a painting of Roland Whitmore. The lanky man was dressed in a blue three-piece suit and appeared gaunt and frail rather than a powerful business magnate in the defense industry. Reisner moved slowly around the room, examining the papers on the oaken desk. “These are all chemical formulas similar to the ones Selene showed me for manufacturing synthetic hormones.” He picked up a piece of paper that contained handwriting identical to the type found on the wall map. It showed mathematical calculations coupled with chemistry equations for synthesizing pharmaceutical compounds. Is this really from this super-alpha? God, I hope not. He shook his head, reflecting back on Selene’s past briefings about the alphas’ intelligence along with the uptick in recent activity around Savannah. Despite the muggy conditions, he felt a chill run down his spine as he glanced back at the portrait of Whitmore.

  “We’ve come across other sites with alphas before and never seen anything with this level of sophistication. This has to be from something more advanced like we’ve all suspected,” said Reisner. He looked at the handwritten notes, the complex equations, and then up at the intricate plotting of points on the map. “So calculated and precise—this is beyond mere animalistic intelligence. This one has an IQ that is off the charts.” He looked around at the others, his eyes widening. “If this is their general then we are up against a much greater adversary than anyone could’ve anticipated.”

  “All the more reason to hunt this fucker down and remove his head,” said Porter.

  Reisner licked his dry lips, his throat parched as if he had just crossed a barren stretch of desert. “Agreed. For now, gather up all these papers, journals, and anything else of significance and let’s get the hell out of here.”

  Heading towards the hallway, Reisner heard Nash’s voice coming into his earpiece. “Boss, you’re gonna want to see this—we discovered a series of sub-levels beneath the main house. This is where all the drones must have been located and their...their…” He heard Nash clear his throat, his voice lowering. “And where all their victims were kept.”

  Reisner trotted down the steps and followed one of the Rangers through the kitchen into a small foyer that revealed a hidden door leading down some hewn stone steps. The pathway ahead was already illuminated by glow-sticks and the intermittent headlamps of the rest of Nash’s group, who were scouring the rooms he walked past. As Reisner descended to the third level, he felt like he dropped into another century as the architecture changed from modern post-and-beam construction to hand-hewn wooden rafters and primitive stone masonry. Swaths of blood and crusted entrails lined the steps in some locations, and Reisner felt like he could hear shrieks of agony pouring forth from the fissures in the walls as his mind tried to piece together the horrors that had unfolded down here.

  “Over this way,” said Nash, his voice echoing off the narrow passage as Reisner stepped onto the bottom level. He heard the sudden roar of a generator that Nash fired up as he entered an old wine cellar and saw his friend standing near a table filled with glass beakers and polycarbonate containers amidst a jumble of pharmaceutical compounds.

  The faint trickle of diesel fumes in the room did little to cloak the stench of rotting flesh. Nash pointed with the muzzle of his AR towards three dismembered figures partially adorned in white lab coats, slumped in the corner. “Looks like they were part of some kind of production team,” Nash said, pointing to the table.

  “We found research notes upstairs that tie in with this,” said Reisner, peering at the medical equipment spread around the floor then at the mangled figures crumpled together on the ground. “I’m starting to think that the paras are forcibly recruiting people into doing their bidding then when the task is completed…” He thrust his chin at the grisly remains before him.

  Nash motioned with his thumb over his shoulder. “There’s something else.�
�� Nash led him back past rows of floor-to-ceiling wine barrels and veered to the right, stopping before a steel gurney. He saw a folded floral-print shirt and jeans on a small table beside a pair of gold hoop earrings and a peach-colored hair barrette. Resting on the floor below was a pair of tan boots, their laces tucked inside.

  “It’s like whoever was here just lay down for a medical procedure—almost like they weren’t worried about anything,” he said, pointing at the tidy arrangement of items on the table.

  “Or were drugged,” he said, nodding back towards all the pharmacy equipment near the entrance.

  “Here’s what really gets me though,” said Nash, stepping aside to reveal an IV stand with a half-dozen depleted bags. He took one, holding it up while massaging this thumb over the gray droplets in the corner. The lifeless remains of a threadlike parasite were suspended in the fluid. Nash set it down next to a portable ultrasound device.

  Reisner felt his throat constrict as a grimace formed on his face. “This is looking like that scene we came across in Phoenix with those women in the tunnels—only way beyond what was going on there.”

  “A hundred paras disappear from our thermal imagery overnight and now this—what the hell is going on, boss?”

  He clutched the grip on his rifle. “Evolution. They’re changing—evolving again, is my guess—and at this rate, who knows what we’ll be dealing with next.” As he said it, his stomach tightened further and he wondered what new development their already strained military would be facing in the weeks ahead. And whether the human race could still outpace the rapid developments of this new predator that was bent on their extermination.

  Thank you for reading this book! I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Volume 5, Emergence: Extinction will be available during the summer of 2018.

  If you would like to receive information on future book releases in the Emergence Series or wish to be a part of my reading team, please visit http://www.jtsawyer.com or join the JT Sawyer Facebook page.

  Lastly, as an Indie writer, your feedback is critical to refining my craft. If you wouldn’t mind posting a review on Amazon, I’d be grateful! Reviews make a world of difference in the life of a writer and help direct other readers to our works.

  About the Author: JT Sawyer is the pen name for Tony Nester, who makes his living teaching survival courses for the military special operations community, Department of Homeland Security, US Marshals, FAA, and other federal agencies throughout the U.S. He has over 27 years of experience testing long-term survival skills in the desert, mountains, and forest. He also served as a technical consultant for the film Into the Wild and has been featured on NBC News, Maxim, Discovery, Fox News, NY Times, and the Travel Channel.

  Additional Titles by JT Sawyer

  First Wave Boxed Set

  Special Forces veteran Travis Combs just wanted to forget his weary years of leading combat missions while taking an extended rafting trip through the Grand Canyon. As he and his group complete a 22-day trip on the Colorado River, they find the world has unraveled from a deadly pandemic. Now, he has to show his small band how to live off the land and cross the rugged Arizona desert, while evading blood-drinking zombies, gangs of cartel bikers, and a rogue government agency. The bestselling First Wave Series is now available as a boxed set with all three action-packed volumes.

  Until Morning Comes, Volumes 1–5

  Secret Service Agent Carlie Simmons began her day surrounded by trusted colleagues in an inter-agency shooting competition in Tucson. It ended with a staggering body count as the world around her unraveled from a deadly virus. With her mission to extract the President’s daughter from the University of Arizona gone awry, she must choose between her sworn duties and her moral obligations to others as the city is overtaken by roving packs of flesh-eating mutants. If she and her small group are to survive the night and find a way out of the ravaged city, she will have to summon all of her training, mental prowess, and tactical abilities.

  Dead In Their Tracks: The Mitch Kearns Combat Tracker Series, Volumes 1–7

  Meet Mitch Kearns, a former Special Forces Combat Tracker who works for the FBI hunting down notorious criminals. Crossing paths with Israeli agent Dev Leitner, the two seasoned operators join forces to bring down terrorist cells, rogue assassins, and black-ops mercenaries in these adrenaline-soaked novels that span the globe.

  Non-Fiction Survival Books by Tony Nester (aka JT Sawyer):

  Survival Gear You Can Live With

  Bug-Out Gear for Travelers

  A Vehicle Survival Kit You Can Live With

  When the Grid Goes Down: Disaster Gear and Survival Preparations for Making Your Home Self-Reliant

  The Modern Hunter-Gatherer: A Practical Guide to Living Off the Land

  Bushcraft Tips & Tools

  Life Under Open Skies: Adventures in Bushcraft