Extinction Point: The End ep-1

by Paul Antony Jones

  Extinction Point: The End

  ( Extinction Point - 1 )

  Paul Antony Jones

  Reporter Emily Baxter has a great job, an apartment in Manhattan, and a boyfriend she loves. All that changes the day the red rain falls from a cloudless sky. Just hours after the first reports from Europe, humanity is on the brink of extinction, wiped from the face of the earth in a few bloody moments, leaving Emily alone in an empty city. As she struggles to grasp the reality of her situation, Emily becomes the final witness to the end of our world… and the birth of a terrifying new one.

  The world she knew and loved is dead and gone. Now Emily must try to find a way out of New York as the truth behind the red rain is revealed: the earth no longer belongs to humanity.

  Paul Antony Jones

  EXTINCTION POINT

  Book one: The End

  This one is for my Mum and Dad.

  I miss you both more than I could ever tell you.

  “Wild dark times are rumbling towards us.”

  ~ Heinrich Hein ~

  “Who died and made you king of anything?”

  ~ Sara Bareilles ~

  Acknowledgments

  I’d like to say a very quick thank you to a couple of people who helped make this book a reality. First, I’d like to say an extra big thank you to the members of the Goodreads’ Apocalypse Whenever group (especially Gertie, the group moderator) who were kind enough to tell me what they really wanted in a post-apocalyptic novel. Hopefully, I’ve delivered.

  I know she’s heard it a thousand times before, but I really could not have written this book without the help and support of my wife, Karen. You are my inspiration, sweetheart. Thank you for all that you have done.

  And, of course, I would also like to thank you, the reader, for taking a chance on an unknown self-published author and buying my book. It is truly appreciated.

  Okay, on with the show.

  TOMORROW

  CHAPTER ONE

  The waiting room was small and cramped.

  Emily hated it. The drab off-white colored walls, lined with cheap folding chairs, only added to her sense of claustrophobia. At the opposite end of the room, a bored-looking receptionist tapped at a keyboard with a single, neatly manicured finger. Her jaw worked a piece of gum; it appeared occasionally between the young woman’s lips as a pink bubble before popping nosily and disappearing again.

  A gray haired man and a teenage boy sat waiting for their turn to see the doctor. The kid was absorbed in a cellphone, his thumbs flying over the tiny keyboard, while the man flipped through the pages of a tattered magazine, pausing now and then to raise a hand to his mouth to cover a dry, rasping cough.

  Emily glanced at the magazine in the man’s hands: DOG GROOMING MONTHLY the title read.

  Why do these offices always have such weird tastes in magazines? Emily wondered, as she made her way over to the receptionist’s desk. Was there some obscure magazine subscription plan especially designed for doctors, dentists and accountants waiting rooms?

  The receptionist was too engrossed in whatever was going on with her computer to notice Emily as she patiently waited in front of her desk. After a half minute of standing there with not even a glance from the woman, Emily cleared her throat loudly. “Hi! I’m Emily Baxter from the Tribune. I have an eleven o’clock appointment with Doctor Evans,” she announced.

  The receptionist, her constant chewing paused momentarily so she could push the gum to one brightly rouged cheek, glanced up from her computer (which Emily could now see had some kind of game running).

  “I’m sorry,” said the woman, “what did you say your name was?” The chewing gum put in another brief appearance, flashing a glimpse of pink against the girl’s white teeth.

  “Emily… Baxter,” the young reporter repeated slowly, just to make sure the receptionist got it right. “I’m from the New York Tribune and I’m here to interview your boss about the clinical trial he’s working on.”

  The receptionist made an obvious pretense of checking her computer then picked up the cheap phone sitting on her desk and punched in a pair of numbers.

  “Doctor Evans, I have an Amelia Bexter here for you. Yes, she says she’s a reporter… okay.” Emily matched the woman’s disingenuous smile at the obvious mangling of her name. “His office is just down there,” the receptionist continued, gesturing towards a corridor behind her desk. “Third door on the left.”

  “Thank you,” said Emily as she moved in the direction the woman had indicated, but the receptionist’s attention had already returned to the pressing issues of her computer game.

  “Bitch!” Emily muttered under her breath and knocked.

  * * *

  Forty-five minutes later, Emily allowed the door to the doctor’s office to swing shut behind her. She let out a small sigh of contentment as the sounds and smells of New York City washed over her. Emily loved this city. She’d grown up in Denison, Iowa. A small backwater farm-town that was as unremarkable as the hundreds of other towns surrounding it. Looking back, it seemed like she had spent most of her youth just waiting for the moment when she could get out of town and move somewhere, anywhere, as long as there were people… lots of people.

  She had never meant to be a reporter; in fact, she had fallen into it by luck rather than design. Like many small towns, hers had an even smaller local paper. It published an issue once a week covering everything from the county Sheriff’s arrest record to the usual small-town politics. They had been looking for an entry-level reporter to cover the local town-board meetings and Emily had, on a whim, decided to apply for the position. Hal, the editor, interviewed her. He was a grizzled old man who looked eighty but could well have been one-hundred, for all she could tell. He had been in the newspaper business since the Second World War where he had served with the U.S. Marine’s Combat Correspondent Corp. He’d told her he would try her out and pay her as a stringer for a couple of weeks. “If you fit in, we’ll see about something permanent, young lady,” he had told her.

  Emily had taken to the job in a way she never imagined possible. Comfortable as a tick on a dog’s ass, Hal had eloquently described her success, and within a month, Emily had secured her place as a staff writer for the little local paper. Two years later, Emily found herself promoted to lead-writer. She stayed with the paper for another five years before she felt she had enough experience to take on the extra challenge of working for a bigger publication. She’d been pleasantly surprised by the number of requests for interviews she received, but had finally decided to accept an offer from the New York Tribune that was just too good to pass up. It was her ticket out of the small town she had longed to leave for so long.

  She’d been working the Metro Desk at the Tribune for six years now and loved every single minute of it. The job would never make her rich but it paid enough that she got by without having to worry about when the next paycheck was due. She lived alone, so she didn’t have a lot of the overheads other reporters had, like a family to take care of.

  Emily never learned to drive, there never seemed to be a need for it. Back in Denison, she could hop on a bike and be anywhere she needed to be in less than ten minutes. In New York City, she would have spent more time stuck in traffic jams than she could afford, so she stuck with her trusty bike. For longer jaunts, she would usually just take the subway.

  Of course, no matter how much she loved the job and the city, there would always be days like today. It was sweltering hot, 92 degrees with 65% humidity. When you coupled the coma inducing humidity and heat with the idiot receptionist and her equally annoying boss, you had the makings of a less than perfect day. But Emily didn’t mind too much, it was almost noon and she had her fi
rst story for the day in the bag, which meant she was already ahead of the game.

  She had a choice now; head back to the newsroom or grab a bite to eat at a local café and then write-up her article. Emily pulled her smart-phone from its holder on her belt and checked her itinerary for the day. She had another three hours before her next appointment, so the choice was hers.

  There was a small Internet café a couple of blocks away that she knew also did an astoundingly good BLT sandwich. At the thought of it her stomach gave a little grumble. Well, that decided it then. Emily unlocked the chain securing her bike to a NO PARKING sign, slung her backpack over her shoulder and set off in the direction of lunch.

  * * *

  Emily brought her bike to a stop in front of the café. Glancing through the large storefront window into the interior, she could see the place was deserted. She had her pick of tables to set up her computer and spread out her notes, leaving enough room to eat her sandwich. She chained her bike to the security rack the store had courteously installed just outside and walked into the café.

  Emily felt the sweat under her armpits chill uncomfortably enough for her to give a little shiver as she entered the air-conditioned interior of the café. The mellow sound of smooth-jazz, smell of roasted coffee and fresh baked bread immediately grabbed the attention of her senses. Her stomach gave an anticipatory grumble.

  In complete contradiction to her reception at the doctor’s office, a warm and honest smile from the café’s owner greeted Emily as she walked to the counter. “Good afternoon, young lady. What can I get for you today?” he asked, a slight accent betraying his Italian origins.

  “I’ll take a Cappuccino,” Emily said after looking over the chalkboard list of coffees, “and a Bacon, Lettuce and Tomato sandwich to eat in, please.”

  The café was deserted, the lunchtime rush still an hour away, so she had her pick of tables. She chose a four-seater near the window where she could keep an eye on her bike while she ate. Emily pulled her laptop computer from the backpack and hit the on button. It only took a minute for the computer to boot-up and locate the café’s wireless Internet signal. Emily clicked on her email-client and waited for it to load any emails she’d received since going incommunicado over the past couple of hours. There was a message from her editor at the paper reminding her to get her stories in before deadline along with the usual collection of spam promising to increase her penis size and offering cheap prescription medication imported directly from China. Nothing important.

  She pulled up her web browser and checked CNN. There was the usual potpourri of stories on the news website’s front page: conflicts still raged across some Godforsaken third-world country; a politician had been caught with his pants down again; reports of some weird weather throughout Europe, and some thoroughly uninspiring stock-market numbers that meant her 401k was going to be worth even less than it was yesterday.

  Emily clicked on the weather article and began reading.

  The Associated Press was reporting strange phenomena throughout most parts of Europe, the article said. Local government agencies were reporting an “unknown red precipitation” with no apparent meteorological cause. The first case had been reported in Smolensk, Russia over twelve-hours ago with similar reports of what the news agencies had conveniently, if somewhat unoriginally, labeled ‘red rain’, coming in from Finland, Sweden, Poland, Germany, the UK, and Spain as the day had progressed.

  “Anything interesting going on in the world?” the café owner asked, as he placed the plate with her sandwich next to her steaming cup of coffee.

  Emily looked up and smiled, “Not unless you want to talk about the weather,” she said. Apparently, that didn’t appeal to the café owner as he fired another smile her way before walking back to his counter. Emily took a large bite from her sandwich, careful not to let any crumbs fall on her keyboard—it was absolutely delicious—and continued reading the news report.

  CNN had decided to eschew the European press’ red-rain nomenclature and labeled the phenomenon Blood Rain, instead. Right, her reporter’s brain thought. Good move; give an arbitrary weather phenomenon a scary sounding name and it makes the whole non-event sound that much more frightening and threatening. It virtually guaranteed a front-page article and would probably give the writer a chance at a couple of follow-up stories, too. Lucky bastard!

  The news piece also had a selection of quotes from eyewitnesses to the ‘Blood Rain’ epidemic sweeping across Europe. The witnesses reported the rain had begun falling at around 12:30 pm, seemingly from nowhere. “It smelled funny and when I licked it, it tasted like sour milk,” one witness in Smolensk had said.

  Why the hell would you stick that stuff in your mouth? Emily wondered. The level of some people’s intelligence never failed to amaze her. Who knew where it came from?

  There was no denying it was an interesting story, she had to admit, but the probability was that some unknown chemical plant in an equally unknown part of Russia had gone all Chernobyl and was spilling this toxic red shit into the atmosphere. And, knowing the former Soviet Union’s track-record for reporting these kinds of accidents, well, it would probably be months or even years before the offending chemical plant was located. Even then the Russians would maintain their lie, lie until you die policy of non-admission. Some things just never changed.

  Emily took another large bite from her sandwich and glanced at the clock on the wall behind the counter: 12:28 the digital display showed. Time to get my ass into gear. She began the process of shutting her computer down and packing it away for the bike ride back to the paper.

  Outside the café, she could see the daily bustle of life in New York City continuing as it had for countless years. The people changed, the buildings got dirtier and taller, but it all really just boiled down to folk getting on with their lives, doing the best they could to stay in the rat race.

  Emily loved it.

  “That’ll be eight-seventy-five,” the Italian man behind the counter said. Emily swiped her debit card and typed in her PIN, pocketing the receipt in a small pouch she carried with her. Come tax season every little bit would help.

  “Have a great…” He stopped mid-sentence, his eyes looking over her left shoulder, out into the street behind her. “What’daya thinks’ going on out there?” he asked almost to himself, and Emily noticed a slightly confused look cross the man’s face as she twisted around to see what he was talking about.

  Through the store window, she could see heat-shimmer playing off the sidewalk and the asphalt covered road. Instead of the usual hustle and bustle she had noticed just a few minutes earlier, she saw many of the pedestrians were now simply standing still. Most were shading their eyes against the bright sun as they looked skyward.

  “What the…?” exclaimed Emily, taking a step closer to the window.

  From the cloudless New York sky, a crimson rain had begun to fall with the force of a light summer shower. The drops pattered onto the scorching sidewalk, and began collecting into small bloody red puddles.

  A thick glob of the red liquid splashed against the store window. Emily watched it slide slowly down the glass; it seemed far more viscous than normal rain and she suddenly had an inkling of how appropriate the label ‘blood rain’ was. In the space of a few seconds, the light drizzle increased to a heavy shower. Rain pummeled the sidewalks, roads and buildings beyond the sanctuary of the café. It clung to the glass of the window like mud, or, more appropriately, like blood splatter at a murder scene. Gravity slowly pushed it down the windowpane, leaving a bloody trail of the viscous liquid behind. More drops hit the window, these ones were larger and hit with enough force she could hear the thump of the impact against the glass. It was almost as loud as hail.

  Pedestrians, who had until moments before stood staring in confused fascination at the bizarre spectacle, scattered and ran for shelter, some holding briefcases or clutch bags over their heads as they sprinted under awnings or into doorways and stores. Within seconds, anyone caught
outside looked like a victim from a slasher movie, their thin summer shirts stained carmine and any exposed area dripping with the blood rain, which seemed capable of adhering to anything it came into contact with.

  This was unbelievable!

  Emily strained her neck to try to get a better view. It was hard to see clearly because the buildings were so tall, but she could just make out a patch of clear blue high above the rooftops. There were no clouds that she could see and no sign of any aircraft that could have been dumping this stuff. Just a pincushion of red dots dropping from an empty sky. So much was falling now that large pools of the gunk had formed on the pavements, fed by the overflowing gutters of the buildings that spewed bloody waterfalls onto the streets below like severed arteries. Streams of the rain ran into the gutters and along the sidewalks.

  A sudden THUD! caused Emily to give a yell of surprise and leap back from the window. Something large had hit it and fallen flapping to the pavement just outside. It was a pigeon, covered in the red rain; the half-blinded bird had flown straight into the store-front of the café. The bird, its one wing obviously broken, flapped and convulsed in a circle for a few seconds, twitched twice and then lay motionless on the sidewalk.

  As Emily stood mesmerized by the final moments of the pigeon, she heard the storeowner exhale a single heavily accented expletive. “Merrrrrda,” he hissed under his breath, reverting to his native Italian in disbelief.

  Emily looked up from the dead pigeon in time to see more birds dropping from the sky. They spiraled down like autumn leaves, bouncing off car roofs or hitting the sides of buildings, then falling into the road where some were promptly crushed beyond recognition under the wheels of the few cars still moving. Emily wasn’t sure, but she thought she saw crows mixed in with the dying pigeons. Something even larger—was that a seagull?—crashed into the windshield of a parked car across the street, setting off the anti-theft alarm, which whooped and wailed in protest.