Extinction Shadow

by Nicholas Sansbury Smith

  As the Osprey curved with the vehicles, Beckham caught a better view of where they were headed. They sped toward a parking lot outside the various buildings once used for cave tours. Beckham figured the collaborators were using them as housing now.

  Horn fired another burst from the M240. Sparks and smoke exploded from the front of the pickup truck. The vehicle jerked, grinding to a stop from blown tires. The van swerved around, slamming into the ditch.

  “Take us down,” Festa said over the comm. “Get ready, everyone.”

  The aircraft’s wings tilted up as it slowed, and the Osprey began a vertical descent toward the road. The wheels thumped against the asphalt.

  “Go, go, go!” Winters yelled.

  The SEALs stormed down the ramp and fanned out with their weapons shouldered. Beckham joined Horn who was aiming the M240 at the van.

  As soon as the SEALs were out, the Osprey lifted back into the sky, circling overhead. The SEALs spread into a wide semi-circle around the vehicles, and gunfire quickly rang out.

  Several rounds slammed into the bulkhead and Beckham ducked down.

  “Eat this, assholes!” Horn yelled as he fired at the vehicles. Beckham straightened to see multiple hostiles had jumped out of the truck and van. The men were clumped around the damaged vehicles, shooting at the SEALs.

  Gunfire lanced across the road, and Horn rained more rounds down at two men kneeling in the ditch. They both collapsed, blood painting the grass.

  “Nice shooting, Big Horn,” Beckham said.

  The collaborators outnumbered the SEALs, but they were no match for the warriors and Horn on the M240.

  One by one the bastards hit the dirt.

  “Fox 1, this is Eagle Eye 1, all hostiles down,” Winters reported over the comm channel. “Requesting permission to proceed to target.”

  “Permission granted, Eagle Eye 1,” Festa replied. He ordered the pilots to put them back down a safe distance from the vehicles. The wheels touched the pavement again, and this time most of the Marines piled out to help secure the area.

  The SEALs advanced toward the caverns and the buildings, veering off into two smaller elements to explore both locations. Horn gave up the M240, and the crew chief took over.

  “On me,” Festa said.

  Beckham, Horn, and two Marines walked down the street with the Lieutenant after a perimeter had been set up. Within five minutes, the entire scene had been locked down.

  One of the Marines jogged over to Festa.

  “Nine hostiles dead and one alive, sir.”

  Festa gestured toward the Osprey with a thumb. “Get the bastard into the troop hold.”

  Two Marines dragged a man out of the ditch. His pants were stained red from a wound. A cobweb of a beard clung to his grime-covered face and dreads hung over his shoulders.

  The collaborator snarled like a Variant as the Marines hauled him off. Even from a distance, Beckham could smell the man’s fetid odor.

  Festa motioned for Beckham and Horn to join him and their Marine escort. They set off for the parking lot the SEALs had crossed, toward the entrance of the caves and the buildings surrounding it.

  The Osprey took off again, pulling away to avoid any potential enemy fire. Beckham kept his rifle cradled, scanning the forest, buildings, and surrounding areas for any hostiles.

  The crisp autumn air rustled the hair sticking out under his helmet. He filled his lungs as suppressed gunshots sounded in the distance.

  “Eagle Eye 1 engaging two hostiles,” Winters reported.

  Festa balled his fist. Beckham took cover behind an abandoned car with Horn and waited while the SEALs raided the buildings across the parking lot.

  Cleaning house, he thought.

  And clean house they did.

  Winters came back online a moment later. “Fox 1, Eagle Eye 1. All hostiles eliminated. We’re checking for booby traps.”

  “Fox 1, Eagle Eye 2, we’ve cleared the building,” said the SEAL in charge of the second team. “It’s a freaking gold mine. Better have a look, Fox 1.”

  Festa stood and nodded. The Marines took point, weapons at the ready. They moved into the building and found the room where the SEAL fire team waited.

  Computers, radio equipment, and crates of supplies were stacked against the walls across from bunk beds.

  “Get it all on the Osprey,” Festa ordered.

  “Guess that prisoner wasn’t lying,” Horn mumbled.

  “Yeah but how did he know my name?” Beckham moved to a table with maps to start the search for any connection they had with him or Kate.

  “Pack these up,” Horn said to one of the Marines.

  “Fox 1, Eagle Eye 1, we found some of that red webbing in the caverns,” Winters said.

  “Copy that, Eagle Eye 1. I’m on my way,” Festa said.

  Beckham scanned through the maps and papers as quickly as he could.

  “Captain, I’d like you to join me,” Festa said.

  “Big Horn, you keep going through these,” Beckham said.

  “What, and let you have all the fun?” Horn snorted. “Y’all got this under control, right?”

  The Marines nodded.

  “Come on then,” Beckham said.

  A SEAL led them out of the building to the entrance of the caverns. They hiked down a stairwell into the underground lair. A brick path led them into a damp open area with huge stalactites.

  It took them another ten minutes to get to the other SEALs.

  “Should be right up here,” said their escort.

  Beckham examined the red vines stretching across the walls and hanging from the jagged ceiling. He continued around a corner and spotted Winters and another SEAL with their weapons raised upward.

  “Look at this shit,” Winters called out.

  Festa halted in front of Beckham, both of them looking up.

  Strapped inside the webbing were four Variants, their flesh shriveled and eye sockets sunken. Even their sucker lips looked deflated, but their chests slowly expanded and deflated.

  They were still alive.

  “What the hell are they doing up there?” Horn asked.

  “I’ve never seen anything like this,” Winters said in a low voice.

  Beckham didn’t quite understand it, but maybe this was how the collaborators were communicating with the other locations. Through the monsters.

  “I think I have an idea…” he was cut off by a distant boom.

  The men all turned back the way they had come.

  “What the hell was that?” Horn asked.

  “Eagle Eye 2, this is Eagle Eye 1, what’s happening up there?” Winters said into his headset.

  “The van!” came the reply. “It blew!”

  “Winters, take care of these Variants and meet us topside,” Festa said.

  Winters aimed his suppressed rifle and fired off bursts into the heads of each beast while Beckham, Horn, and Festa took off with the SEAL that had led them into the cavern.

  It took them ten minutes to get back to the road. When they did, they were greeted with billowing smoke and the scent of caustic acid.

  The scene of chaos seized the breath Beckham held in his lungs.

  A Marine limped away from the road, his flesh melting off his bones. SEALs ran over to help drag the injured men away from the destroyed vehicle. It hadn’t just been packed with explosives; it had contained a major supply of Variant acid.

  The sizzling fluid had hit four Marines. Their skin bubbled and sloughed off their muscles as they writhed on the ground. A SEAL helped pull an unconscious Marine into the grass. When he got there, he suddenly let go of the body and held up his hands, screaming in horror as his gloves melted.

  Beckham and Horn ran over to help.

  “We need evac, Lieutenant!” Horn yelled.

  He bent down with Beckham next to a Marine that had lost his legs in the blast. Beckham immediately tied tourniquets around the shredded stumps of the man’s thighs while the injured man mumbled about his mother.

/>   “It’s okay, we’re going to get you out of here,” Beckham reassured the unfortunate man. He looked up for Festa. The lieutenant appeared paralyzed a few feet behind them.

  Beckham gave the order for evac into his headset, but the pilots wouldn’t authorize the landing without Festa.

  “Snap out of it, Lieutenant! We need your authorization!” Beckham shouted.

  Horn grabbed Festa by the arm and squeezed. That got his attention. He spoke into the comm, and the Osprey came swooping back down to the ground.

  SEALs, Marines, and the two crew chiefs helped haul the injured into the troop hold. Others carried equipment and boxes of documents from the building.

  Beckham and Horn carried the man that had lost his legs. They set him down gently on the deck.

  The screams of the injured echoed as the door clicked shut. A medic hurried over and set down a pack.

  “Hold on, brother,” Beckham said. He looked over his shoulder as the medic worked to dress the wounds and improve Beckham’s hastily applied measures.

  At the back of the aircraft, the collaborator rocked back and forth, chained to the bulkhead. The filthy man watched the chaotic scene with a satisfied smile behind his crusty beard.

  Winters stormed back there and wiped the grin off his face with a punch to the jaw. Then he pulled out his MK3 knife. Horn joined him, rolling up his sleeves on the way.

  “The son of a bitch had a detonator on him,” said the medic. “Blew up the van when we went to search it.”

  Beckham gripped the injured Marine’s hand, squeezing and trying to help him stay conscious while the medic worked to stop the bleeding.

  “Where are the Variant leaders hiding?” Winters yelled. “Tell me their fucking location.”

  The collaborator spat blood into the SEAL’s face and smiled again.

  “I will tear your fucking eyes from your face,” Winters yelled, angling his knife at one of the man’s eyeballs. The collaborator twisted away and Horn grabbed his chin to push it back toward the blade.

  “Tell us where the Variant leaders are!” Horn shouted.

  Winters pushed the blade against the man’s cheek, drawing blood. His eyes flitted from Horn to Winters.

  “Captain, can you help me with this?” said the medic.

  Beckham helped him wrap a dressing around one of the bloody stumps, but a thud drew his eyes up for a moment.

  Horn grabbed the guy by the neck, squeezing, and slammed the collaborator’s head against the bulkhead again.

  The man’s eyes bulged and his lips spread to reveal his black teeth. He said something and Horn loosened his grip.

  The man coughed, and then looked in Beckham’s direction with blood shot eyes.

  “They’re everywhere!” he yelled. “You can’t stop their reckoning!”

  — 21 —

  Dohi took a sip of water and brought up his binos to focus on the condo where Mendez was holed up.

  “You see him?” Rico whispered.

  “Negative,” Dohi said quietly.

  Two scraggly Variants prowled around the abandoned cars in the parking lot separating them from the building. He saw more moving inside.

  Dohi was worried they were never going to find Mendez. Not alive anyway. It had taken them an entire day and night just to get here. They had spent the previous evening inside a bathroom after the juvenile hordes had funneled out of the stadium to feed on the humans that the older Variants had brought home for dinner.

  He had never seen Rico pray before, and he had a feeling Mendez was doing the same thing.

  The Variant activity was worse than a cockroach infestation in the slums, and the presence of juveniles changed the entire game. But at least they had all returned to the stadium for now, leaving only the diseased and starving older monsters out here.

  Rico signaled for Dohi to advance across the street. He snuck between the cars and behind a bus resting on deflated, rotted-out tires. The entrance to the condo building lay only a few yards away. Beyond the broken doors was a lobby filled with ornate columns and a dried-out fountain.

  Dohi peered through his optics, glassing the lobby. Two starving Variants meandered around a stairwell, but otherwise the coast was clear. Those dying beasts would be no obstacle. He motioned to Rico, and then began creeping toward the condo’s entrance, passing several vehicles.

  A hiss broke the silence. He swiveled to his left, but was already too late. The Variant leapt out of a vehicle with a tongue slithering around its sucker lips. Dohi barely dodged the attack and brought his rifle up to parry a set of claws.

  A pop sounded from above. Blood painted Dohi’s face and helmet. He blinked and used a sleeve to wipe the gore off his face as the creature crumpled at his feet. He spotted a rifle barrel sticking out of a condo window on the fifth floor.

  Guess that answers whether Mendez is alive.

  Dohi didn’t waste a beat. He charged into the condo lobby, taking out the two lethargic Variants with single shots. Rico followed him up the stairs, but a pack of emaciated Variants came leaping down toward the landing.

  “Move,” Rico said.

  Dohi jumped to the side as she fired two bursts, splattering the wall with gore.

  Four more Variants staggered in the hallway on the fifth floor, moaning like the undead. They could have been mistaken for zombies. Their bodies appeared to be more skeleton than flesh.

  Dohi took them all down with single shots to the head before they got close enough to swipe with a claw.

  A door swung open down the hall, and Mendez stepped out, looking at the corpses and then smiling his handsome grin.

  “Took you long enough,” he said. “I was starting to think you guys left me for dead.”

  “Been hell getting here,” Rico said, picking up her step as she headed toward him.

  Dohi sounded relieved when he said, “Good to see you, brother.”

  “I don’t think you know how good it really is,” Mendez said. “Thought I’d never make it out of this shit hole.”

  “Frankly, it’s still going to be tough with us three,” Dohi said.

  “I think I should break radio silence now,” Rico said as she grabbed her radio. “See where Alpha Team is.”

  Dohi nodded. “I agree.”

  “Don’t let me hold you back.” Mendez and Dohi stood guard while she bent down to transmit a message.

  “Ghost 1, this is Ghost 2,” Rico said. “Ghost 3 is safe and sound. Over.”

  The reply came a few beats later.

  “Good to hear your voice Ghost 2,” Fitz replied over the channel.

  Rico smiled at his reply.

  “Rally point is the Northrop building at the university campus. Meet us…” Fitz paused. A moment later he added, “Meet us in classroom B2 on the basement level.”

  Rico glanced at her watch. “Copy, Ghost 1. On our way. ETA two to three hours if all goes as planned.”

  She let out a sigh of relief and patted Dohi on the shoulder.

  In that moment, he envied what Rico and Fitz had. A relationship they could cling to and find comfort in. Love in a world filled with horror and loss.

  But then again, Dohi didn’t want the worry of a relationship. He saw how Fitz and Rico loved each other, but he also saw how they worried about one another.

  The only woman he had ever loved had died during the war eight years ago, and he had never allowed himself to get close to anyone again. Fearing he would lose them, too.

  Another sip of water, a hand signal from Rico, and Dohi went back to business, taking point out of the rear entrance of the building. They crept down the stairs and out into an alley that would take them straight toward the riverside.

  As soon as he opened the door, Dohi picked up the rotting fruit scent.

  A platoon-size group of Variants digging through the scattered trash looked up from their search. Each snarled, revealing a mouthful of teeth evolved to shred flesh.

  Dohi and Rico strode out, unleashing suppressed fire into the ranks
of the beasts. Mendez joined the fight on their left flank.

  Most of the creatures went down easy, but the healthier beasts moved fast.

  One flung itself up onto the alley wall, then lunged, throwing itself through the air. Dohi caught it in the chest with a burst, killing it before it even landed.

  The remaining Variants scattered, making single shots difficult. Dohi switched to automatic to keep them back. By the time they were dead, he had burned through two precious magazines.

  “How much ammo you got?” Dohi asked Mendez.

  “I only fired the shot that saved your ass.”

  “Good, we’re going to need it,” Rico said.

  The trio set off between rusting vehicles and piles of debris from battle-damaged buildings. They didn’t stop until they got to the steel fences of the St. Anthony’s Falls Visitor Center.

  The center overlooked the rumbling falls in the middle of the Mississippi. Mendez and Rico took seats, both covered in sweat. She lifted her binos and scoped the dormant black smokestacks of the University of Minnesota steam plant across the river.

  After a brief rest, Dohi again moved in front of the group. He traversed a stone arch bridge leading Mendez and Rico toward the opposite shore. Dark bloodstains covered the bridge halfway across.

  Crossing here was already dangerous with no cover, and seeing others had died trying made him jumpy. The group ran all the way across and bolted for the shelter of trees in the park on the other side. From there, they cut through the area and used the cover on the side of a rough asphalt road to advance.

  Distant howls cut through the morning.

  Dohi balled his hand into a fist, and all three of the soldiers crouched down in the swaying grass. He waited there for several minutes listening to the wind, sensing something out there.

  But nothing moved.

  Traipsing around in Variant territory had him on edge every second, and his frayed nerves were paying the price.

  Rising to his feet, Dohi motioned for the team to continue. They jogged to train tracks covered by mud and foliage until the University of Minnesota campus buildings sprouted into view. Blackened husks of vehicles clotted the streets between the brick-faced buildings. Variants climbed over fallen trees leaning over the roads. Normally the limbs might have cracked under the weight of a beast, but not these famished creatures. Their wart-covered faces were sunken around their skulls, and their eyes bulged, scanning frantically across the ruins for food.