“Chicago, if you’re wondering,” Wood said. He leaned closer to Beckham, so close Beckham could smell a trace of cigar smoke on his breath. “It’s become something like a private game preserve. It’s crawling with infected.”
“You sick bastard,” Beckham said.
Wood shrugged. “Maybe, but not as sick as they are. I’m going to drop you in the middle of the hot zone. Once I find your friends, and Jan, they’re coming here, too.” He glanced up as if in deep thought, then looked back down at Beckham. “I’ve read your file. I’ve read all the files. I know all about the people you love. Still haven’t decided what I’m going to do with that dog yet. I’ve always wanted one myself. There’s also that lady scientist of yours…”
“I’ll fucking kill you!” Beckham spat in Wood’s face and squirmed under the pressure of the boots holding him down.
“Yes, you keep saying that.” Wood wiped the spit away, looked at his hand, then punched Beckham in the nose. Stars broke across his vision as pain spread into his skull. His left hand moved to his vest pocket, fumbling for Kate’s ring. He wanted to hold it one last time.
I’m sorry, Sweetheart, he thought. I let you down. I let you all down.
Ellis was dead. They’d never gotten their message to Europe. Operation Reach would turn the continent into a wasteland of radioactive monsters.
Beckham had never felt lower in his life.
Wood nodded at two of his men. The soldiers leaned down and grabbed Beckham under his arms. They walked him toward the open Black Hawk door. He squinted at the moving shapes below.
Infected.
Hundreds of them.
He brought the ring to his lips and kissed it.
“What’s that you’ve got, Captain?” Wood yanked the ring away and held it to the light to examine it. He chuckled and shook his head. The diamond glittered as Wood tossed the ring out of the chopper.
“No!” Beckham yelled. He headbutted the soldier on his left, and used his shoulder to push the one on the right, nearly breaking free only to have another soldier pull back on the leash around his neck. The chopper descended over a green park, the skids nearly brushing the tops of the trees.
Wood looked at his watch. “Looks like we’re about out of time. Wish I could stick around, but I have more work to do. Then it’ll be a quick trip down Inauguration Alley. President Andrew Wood has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?”
Beckham’s eyes bulged as he pulled against the men holding him back. Veins popped out of his neck, and he could hear his heartbeat thundering in his ears.
“Good luck, Captain!” Wood said cheerfully. “If you see Jan’s cousin Emilia down there, say hi for me!”
A swift kick to his back sent Beckham flying out the open door. He tumbled head over feet. The drop felt like it lasted an eternity, but in reality he hit the grass only a few seconds later.
There wasn’t much pain. Just numbness.
He rolled onto his back as the Black Hawk traversed the skyline. Wood was standing in the door, waving.
Beckham tried to get up, but that earned him a jolt of paralyzing pain.
Motion flashed by his right, and then his left. He was in the middle of a park surrounded by benches, statutes, and mature trees. There was movement in the branches. His body might not be working, but his mind was. There was no way out of his situation. His fight was over. There was only so much an old soldier could go through before he fell apart.
His body had given up on him.
But at least Wood hadn’t found his friends yet. Horn would protect them. He would take care of Kate and little Javier Riley when Beckham was gone.
All around, he heard the sounds of monsters closing in. Creaking joints, popping lips, and high-pitched shrieks no longer scared him.
He didn’t want to die, but he was ready to face his fate.
A creature moving on all fours skidded forward, the snap of joints like breaking tree branches. This beast had been a woman, maybe forty years of age with pale skin and wispy brown hair. Her shredded shirt hung loosely from her body, and slashes marked her exposed flesh. She opened her sucker mouth, revealing broken teeth and bloody gums.
The strangled sound that came from her voice box was a wordless cackle, but Beckham wondered if she was trying to talk. She tilted her head to examine him, blinking yellow slotted eyes.
He wondered what her name had been, whether she’d had a family. If this was to be the final enemy that took him down, he wanted to meet her on his feet. He struggled upright, his bent blade groaning as it took his weight.
The guttural cackle rose into a high-pitched shriek.
He watched the creature break into a gallop toward him.
Goodbye, Kate.
A gunshot snapped the beast’s head back. Three more shots sounded to his left. He turned to see three more of the monsters twitching on the ground, each one dropped by calculated shots to their heads and vital organs.
“Don’t get any blood on you!” someone shouted. “They’re contagious!”
Beckham followed the voice to a man running across the field wearing a blue baseball cap.
Ellis?
No. He shook his head. He had watched Ellis die at Plum Island.
Another screech rose above the gunshots. The infected jumped back into the trees, swinging away to safety. For some reason, most of the monsters were afraid of the man in the blue hat.
He stopped to fire at two of the infected that weren’t retreating. A half-naked male was making a run for Beckham. A bullet clipped it in the neck, arterial blood spraying toward the sky.
The man fired off the rest of his magazine, paused to change, and then jogged over to Beckham.
“You just going to stand there or what?”
Beckham limped a few steps, nearly stumbling.
The soldier gave him the elevator eyes treatment. “Damn, brother. You look like shit. Can you fight?”
Beckham nodded. “Give me a gun.”
The man handed him an M9.
“Name’s Lieutenant Jim Flathman,” he said, tipping the brim of his cap.
Beckham remembered hearing stories about Flathman. The guy was a drunk and a nutcase, according to Commander Davis, but he’d also managed to hold his post with nothing but a skeleton crew.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“What am I doing? I’m saving your ass.”
Flathman roved his rifle over the trees and the buildings. Faces peeked out of the shadows. The creatures continued to circle them, but they were cagey, staying back as Flathman and Beckham angled their weapons toward the beasts.
“Why aren’t they attacking?” Beckham asked.
“I don’t know, why don’t you ask them?”
Together, the two men crept out of the park toward an empty storefront across the street. The beasts watched them, but none attacked. He followed Flathman into an apartment building and down to the basement. They shut the steel door behind them.
“Don’t worry, they won’t follow us down here, and they can’t get through that door,” Flathman said. He jerked his chin toward a table loaded with supplies, and Beckham gratefully grabbed a bottle of water and energy bar from the stash.
Flathman skipped the water and cracked open a bottle of whiskey. He took a long swig, sighed, and then wiped his mouth the back of his hand. “What’s your name, soldier?”
“Captain Reed Beckham.”
Flathman raised a brow. “The Captain Reed Beckham of Delta Force Team Ghost?”
Beckham nodded.
“Damn! I’ve heard of you. So, who’d you piss off enough to get thrown out of a chopper into a wildlife preserve of monsters?”
“That was Lieutenant Andrew Wood. He’s the bastard behind the attack on this safe zone.”
Flathman took another swig. “The same prick that killed my men. I have a special bullet saved for that son of a bitch.”
Beckham took a seat on a wood chair. He hurt all over, especially his heart. Kate was out there some
where with Horn, Ringgold, and the kids. None of them would be safe until Wood was dead.
“Thanks for your help out there, but I have to get moving.”
“Slow down, Captain. Don’t take this the wrong way, but you look like a Variant ate you and then crapped you out again.”
Beckham massaged his forehead with his left hand. “I have to get back to Plum Island. I have to get back to Kate and the president…”
“Pretty long walk, Captain,” Flathman said.
“Look, I don’t know how long you’ve been hunkered down here, but the situation out there…it’s bad. Really fucking bad. Our forces in Europe are about to face an army of mutated monsters, and Wood is going to drop the Hemorrhage Virus on more SZTs. He’ll kill everyone.”
For a long moment, it seemed like Flathman wouldn’t answer. Tipping back the bottle, he drained the last of the whiskey, tossed the bottle in the corner with half a dozen other empties, and then stood up. “Okay, then.” He looked at his supplies. “I’m about out of whiskey anyways. So what’s your plan?”
Beckham paused to think. He had to find a way to get to Plum Island, but first they needed a ride and some firepower.
“Do you have a way out of the city?” he asked.
“We got a Black Hawk at my post, but it’s a ways from here. There’s a shit ton of infected between here and there.”
Beckham nodded. It was a start. He would figure out the rest if they made it out of Chicago. “What about weapons?”
“Follow me.”
Beckham limped after Flathman into another room. The crazy lieutenant had managed to amass an impressive arsenal in addition to the supplies he had scavenged from the city above. Beckham grabbed an M4 and a knife.
They each loaded up as much as they could carry into rucksacks. Beckham still hurt all over, but he shouldered his pack and heaved another bag onto his right shoulder. His blade groaned under the extra weight, but it held. He would have to figure out something for his missing right prosthetic, but for now, he would get along without it.
Captain Reed Beckham was broken and battered—but he wasn’t done yet.
Hang on, Kate, he thought as he followed Flathman up the stairs. I’m coming.
End of Book 6.
Coming soon, Book 7 of the Extinction Cycle, Extinction War
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An act of terror…
Estes Park Police Chief Marcus Colton and tracker Sam ‘Raven’ Spears have never liked one another, but when a young girl goes missing in Rocky Mountain National Park, Colton hires Spears to help find her. Their search ends after a night of devastating horror. When word reaches Estes that the nation has been hit by a coordinated electromagnetic pulse attack, Colton and Spears are forced to work together again. But they quickly realize they aren’t just tracking a killer—they are tracking a madman. As the United States descends into chaos, the hunters become the hunted.
America wasn’t ready…
Halfway across the country, Senator Charlize Montgomery pulls back her drapes to see the nation’s capital has gone dark. Forced to set off on foot, she treks across a city that has woken to a new world, and as the night progresses, she learns the EMP attack was just the beginning…
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Table of Contents
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The Extinction Cycle (Book 6): Extinction Aftermath Page 33