“Bull, get that door open. Now!”
“A hive mind is at work,” Echo muttered.
Bull used the butt of his rifle to smash away the lock.
“Nana?” Lennie muttered softly. He took a large step forward.
“Take him. Save my grandson.” Betty grimaced as pain filled her body.
“Nana?” Lennie’s voice raised a few octaves.
“Everyone into the museum. We haven’t much time!” the Captain shouted, while searching around.
“We can’t just leave her,” Red stated.
“It’s too late for her now,” the Captain said softly. He placed a hand on Betty’s arm.
“If you want, I can end the pain?” the Captain whispered.
Noah started pulling Red towards the museum’s entrance.
“It’s not fair,” Red screamed.
This affected Lennie, who started shouting Nana repeatedly.
Charlie’s barking echoed around the car park.
“No Captain... Lennie will never leave with you if you hurt me.” She tried to focus in on Lennie’s face.
“Go with them, you big lump,” Betty muttered.
However, Lennie had a different idea.
“No Lennie. Stop!” Betty tried to shout, but her voice was cracking from the pain.
“Leave her Lennie, we need to get inside,” the Captain stated.
He was knocked backwards by a powerful push to the chest by Lennie’s large hand, and before anyone could stop him, Lennie scooped his grandmother up into his arms.
“Please, Able,” Betty muttered, using his real name for the first time in years. “Go with them. Leave me... Please.” Bloodstained tears streaked her face.
Then they attacked. A horde, called by the hive mind started pouring over the walls and bushes, heading for the truck.
“Everybody in the museum, now!” the Captain hollered.
Coco and Echo stood either side of the entrance, shooting at the crowd bearing down around them.
Bull was pulling Red into the museum, while shooting his rifle with his free hand.
Noah had hold of Red’s hand and was pulled along with her.
Lennie just stood next to the truck, while hugging his grandmother close to his chest. Sobs racked his large body.
“No Nana. No Nana,” he screamed over and over.
The creatures ignored the giant for the moment, and concentrated on those trying to get inside the building.
67
Doctor Lazaro, Doctor Hall, and General Philips
Dartmoor National Park
Princetown
Dartmoor Prison in the Hub Control Room
3:22 PM GMT
“Look, the first plane has reached its destination,” the General said as he pointed to a large screen against the wall.
An aerial image showed a black and white scene from the underbelly of the plane. In the distance stood the imposing triangular silhouettes of the three pyramids. The B2 stealth bomber was approaching from the East, and the sprawling city of Cairo stretched out below. Apart from a few columns of smoke rising from burning buildings, the city looked unaffected from a distance.
“The pod is located in the Pyramid of Khufu, in a secret subterranean chamber thirty-three meters below the Queens Chamber,” the General said. “Out of the one hundred and thirty-eight pyramids located in Egypt, of course it would be under the largest.”
The sound from the cockpit echoed through hidden speakers.
“Roger that control. The order has been confirmed. The package is away.”
Melanie was now standing, with her hands in front of her face.
There may be thousands of survivors hiding in Cairo, waiting to be rescued. They have no idea they are about to be incinerated. A tear rolled down her face.
On the screen, silently, a bay door opened and a missile lowered on hydraulics. Without fanfare, the missile ignited and accelerated away from the belly of the craft, in the direction of the pyramids. The B2 then banked and headed in the other direction, accelerating to its maximum speed to outrun the blast radius.
The image then changed to a view from an EP-E3 reconnaissance plane, circling thirty thousand feet over the target. The view was straight down, with the three pyramids looking like square blotches on the sand.
The boardroom was eerily silent.
The image stayed fixed on the area around the pyramids, looking like a satellite photo, not a live feed. Suddenly, the image changed. In a split second, it went from buildings, pyramids, and sand, to a white circular, oscillating, expanding light. Then the image went blank – overloaded by the glaring light.
“Bingo!” the General shouted, making Melanie jump. “One down, six to go.”
68
Lennie and Betty
Dartmoor National Park
Princetown
Dartmoor Prison Museum’s Car Park
3:24 PM GMT
The creatures churned around Lennie, ignoring him holding his grandmother in his arms, the prey they were after were much faster, and more likely to get away.
Charlie was dancing around Lennie’s large feet, barking and growling at the passing creatures.
Slowly, without rush, the heartbroken, giant of a man, with the mind like a child, walked off towards the road. He paid no attention to the direction; or the screaming of the squad, and the blasting of gunshots behind him, he simply stared down at the bleeding face of the only person in the world that cared about him.
Lennie had no concept of death, of being nothing. He did not know about heaven or hell, good or bad, right or wrong; his life was simple. All he cared about was the fragile body he carried in his muscular arms.
“No Lennie... Put me down and run...” Betty said in a weak voice, while coughing up a glob of blood. She blinked so fast it looked like she was having a seizure.
“Get away from here...”
“Nana is gonna be okay,” Lennie muttered while hugging her close to his chest. He did know when someone was poorly.
Lennie started singing slowly, concentrating on the words; it was a nursery rhythm Betty sung to him as a child, whenever he was sick. “I woke before the morning, I was happy all the day, I never said an ugly word, but smiled and stuck to play,”
The banging of the creatures behind stopped. Their focus was changing. They could not reach those behind the sealed door, but they could get to the man walking along the road. The sound of gravel crunching under stamping feet echoed around the car park.
“Run Lennie... run...!” Betty whispered.
“Nana is okay. Lennie is here. Lennie carry you home Nana.” He rubbed his cheek against her face, as she used to do to him when he was ill as a child while she sung A Good Boy nursery rhythm.
Lennie continued to sing softly in a relaxed tone. “And now at last the sun is going down behind the wood, and I am very happy, for I know that I’ve been good.”
The feet pounded closer.
“Grandma loves you... and always will...”
“Nana loves Lennie. Lennie loves Nana.” A big smile spread across his face, as he hugged her close. He could feel her eyelashes brushing blood against his cheek.
Lennie rocked her gently in his arms as he continued to sing. “My bed is waiting cool and fresh, with linen smooth and fair, and I must be off to sleepsin-by, and not forget my prayer.”
Betty cried tears of blood, as she used her last ounce of strength to kiss her grandson on the cheek.
Lennie seemed oblivious to the creatures charging at them. He cradled his grandmother like a newborn baby. He continued singing. “I know that, till to-morrow I shall see the sun arise, no ugly dream shall fright my mind, no ugly sight my eyes.”
The first group of creatures hit him in the back, making him trip forward, releasing his grip on his grandmother – Betty flew forward. As he was crawling towards her, a crowd of savage eaters sunk their teeth in, ripping and shredding his overalls, trying to reach his flesh.
Lennie did not understa
nd what was happening. He tried to roll, to get them off. He grabbed one creature and crushed its head in his hands. Another he swatted away. But there was just too many.
Betty rolled on her back. She could not close her eyes; her blinking would not allow it. She watched as her grandson vanished under a pile of frenzied, naked, biting, creatures.
Charlie jumped and snapped, biting and scurrying around, trying to get the creatures to leave. They ignored the small pest; they had a bigger meal to contend with.
Betty cried tears of blood, as her grandson tried to crawl towards her, even from under the pile of furious, chewing creatures.
Charlie gave up barking and lay down next to Betty, his small head resting against her arm. He whimpered constantly, while shifting his back legs as if deciding to run or stay.
“Nana...” This time is was faint. Lennie was confused and in pain, and losing a lot of blood.
Betty was grateful for the dog; where he lay was right in her line of sight – she could no longer see her grandson dying.
She also hoped he died quickly, and they left nothing of him, because she knew when she changed, and became an eater, he would be the first thing she would head towards – that is, right after the small dog.
The sound of ripping flesh and cracking bones drowned out the dogs whining.
Betty muttered the last lines of the nursery rhythm, “But slumber hold me tightly till I waken in the dawn, and hear the thrushes singing in the lilacs round the lawn...
“Nana loves you... I will see you again soon...”
69
Noah, Red, and the Squad
Dartmoor National Park
Princetown
Inside Dartmoor Prison’s Museum
3:25 PM GMT
Noah stumbled as he ran backwards through the museum’s door. Red tripped, but kept her footing, as she released her grip on Noah’s hand, and shook Bull’s hand off her arm.
Gunshots continued to echo around the confines of the room.
“Get the door secure,” the Captain shouted, as he walked backwards, firing at the charging mass.
Echo sprang back, closely followed by Coco.
With a final blast of his rifle, that removed the top of a naked, young male teenager’s head, Coco swung the heavy door shut.
“The lock has been smashed off, get me something I can wedge the door closed with,” he said to Echo through laboured breaths.
Echo scanned the area around the front door.
The museum was a large, long room, with a high ceiling with thick wooden beams. The floor was skimmed, painted grey concrete. There was a main aisle through the middle of the room, with displays to either side.
“Here,” Echo said, as she grabbed a long piece of wrought iron, which was hanging on some pegs, it was two inches thick and was part of some original section of prison bars on display.
Coco wedge the bar through the two handles.
The creatures smashed themselves against the thick glass panes. The glass held – for now.
“This way,” the Captain announced as he headed down the wide aisle.
Noah stared through the mass of thrashing creatures. He could not see Lennie or Betty in the car park. He turned and followed the others.
There was a section of keyring’s and hand painted objects to the left. To the right a visitor could get their photo taken, like an old mug shot. The Captain did not check to either side, but headed towards the display cabinets at the back of the room.
Even given the situation, the room seemed depressing, as if the objects contained within held the despair of the inmates, as if their emotions had saturated the very concrete and metal.
The Captain led them to a section containing glass cabinets, chockfull of weapons created by the inmates – axes forged from metal, knuckledusters, knives, shivs, shanks, spikes, and nails, an array of items created to kill or maim. The section was called the ‘Black Section,’ a nickname given to the illegal weapons made by the prisoners.
“Here, help me Bull.” The Captain stood next to a tall case. Inside, a dirt-smeared manikin – with a terrible fake, lopsided beard – was dressed in a prisoner’s uniform dating back to 1916 that looked like the material from a badly sown, coarse, itchy sack. A sign hung around the manikin’s neck, stating he was a Conscientious Objector, one of the eleven hundred confined in the prison for refusing to fight in the First World War.
Noah realised the banging on the front door had stopped. The silence was even scarier than the creatures tossing their bodies against it. He tried not to think about Betty and Lennie.
Red was twisting and turning, checking every direction, as if frenzied; biting bodies would fly out of hidden corners at any minute.
“Grab the edge,” the Captain instructed.
Together, after a few tugs, the paint chipped away around the edge of the case that was resting up against the stonewall. The Manikin tipped over and hit the glass, sending out a spider web of fractures.
As they tugged, the case swivelled on hinges unused in decades. Stale air escaped from the dark tunnel.
The soldiers reached for their torches. Four beams stabbed through the darkness.
They filed in, one at a time. Then, with the large rusty handle, Bull tugged the case back into place. The dull sound of shattering glass announced that the manikin of the prisoner had managed to break through the glass.
“Let’s keep moving. We need to get into the hub building before the walls are breached.”
As they raced down the tunnel, which was just a little too low to stand up straight, they could hear the banging commence on the front door. The eerie sound of metal sliding, and then hitting the concrete floor, was followed by the sound of the creatures pouring into the museum.
70
Doctor Lazaro, Doctor Hall, and General Philips
Dartmoor National Park
Princetown
Dartmoor Prison in the Hub Control Room
3:29 PM GMT
Melanie was dumfounded. There was so much life being wiped out by the spores, and now they were dropping nuclear warheads all around the planet.
“Good work everyone,” the General said. “The next target will be Tibet.”
Melanie still had her hands before her face. Disbelief radiated off her.
Tibet! her mind screamed. Wasn’t it Buddha who said something like, ‘the body is simply a means of transport for the soul, but it corrupts the spirit?’
She was not religious in anyway. She wanted to believe there was an all-powerful being out there that set everything in motion. However, as a scientist, she believed in what she could see and touch. Nevertheless, she did believe the physical erodes the metaphysical, similar to Buddha’s saying.
If God does exist, how could he stand by and allow us to nuke sections of our planet, even with everything that is going on?
“General,” one of the soldiers said, who was talking into a walkie-talkie. “We have activity in one of the tunnels running under the prison walls.”
“Really?” the General asked, sounding curious. “Patch us through.”
Melanie turned, along with Doctor Hall, happy to have a distraction from the destruction going on across the globe.
The soldier pointed to a screen against the wall, while talking into the walkie-talkie. The screen flickered, then, after the static faded, and the horizontal lines stopped running up the screen; a group of fuzzy people could be seen, via night-vision cameras mounted on the tunnel walls, making their way through the darkness, with thin beams of light to aid their progress.
“Ah, ladies and gentlemen, I believe my daughter has arrived.”
71
Noah, Red, and the Squad
Dartmoor National Park
Princetown
In a Tunnel Under Dartmoor Prison
3:33 PM GMT
“Crap,” Echo muttered, as she hit her head for the third time. “How much further? I’m gonna brain myself before we get there.”
“We hav
e moved under the road, the warehouse, and I think we are under the main prison wall as we speak.” The Captain kept his torch pointed down.
“All this for a Chaplin, in case he got spooked?” Bull muttered.
They all ignored his question. They were thinking about Betty and Lennie, and how they had abandoned them. They all knew there was nothing they could have done.
Red was once again holding Noah’s hand. She squeezed it so tight he was afraid no blood was reaching his fingers.
Coco gave them his torch, and Noah pointed it at Red’s feet, guiding the way. Noah was not claustrophobic, but the tunnel was making his blood run cold. It felt even more depressing than the museum.
“Hello daughter!” a voice said over the soldier’s headsets. “I will roll the welcoming mat out for your arrival.”
“Hello sir,” Echo replied. Her voice changed from her cocky attitude to respectful tones.
“Ah, Captain, I see the twenty soldiers I sent on a simple mission have reduced to four, along with two hitchhikers.”
“I’m afraid you’re breaking up, General Philips,” the Captain said, a hint that he did not want to speak to the General. He switched the radio off. So did the other three.
They walked through puddles and over chunks of rock, which had fallen away from the wall. The beams of light crisscrossed the tunnel.
The Captain almost warned the General that the walls were about to be breached, but he knew the General would already know what was happening.
A concussion boom echoed down the dark tunnel, quickly followed by a series of others. It sounded like a firework display rattling off in the distance.
“The main attack has started,” the Captain shouted, to be heard through his mask now he had turned the microphone off.
The Captain shined his light against the closest wall. Cracks had appeared, running down the wall, with dusts and small stones raining down from the roof of the tunnel.
The Sixth Extinction & The First Three Weeks & The Squads First Three Weeks Omnibus [Books 1-10] Page 21