EXTINCTION
HELL ON EARTH BOOK 3
IAIN ROB WRIGHT
SALGAD PUBLISHING GROUP
THE STORY SO FAR…
Continue the epic story of mankind’s struggle against extinction in Book 3 of the “Hell on Earth” Series: EXTINCTION.
VAMPS: After dealing with his rival, Pusher, and escaping the clutches of the treacherous Prime Minister, John Windsor, Vamps and last remaining friend, Mass, set out with the mysterious Aymun. A man who came from a gate that imploded on Oxford Street. The demons have destroyed civilisation, but Vamps isn’t going to take it lying down.
GUY GRANGER: Guy is finally about to reach the shores of England with the faithful crew of the Hatchet. Will he finally find his children, Alice and Kyle? Or will he find a land of death? And can he trust his second in command, ambitious Lieutenant Tosco? Crossing the Atlantic was though, but what lies ahead will be worse.
RICHARD HONEYWELL: After failing to save his wife, Richard now must keep his son, Dillon, safe at all costs. His new companion’s at the Slough Echo seem trustworthy, but how long until the demon that took his wife, Skullface, attacks again?
RICK BASTION: After reuniting with his brother and friends, what has become of fading pop star, Rick Bastion?
CONTENTS
FREE BOOKS
Quotes
1. Marcy
2. Guy Granger
3. Vamps
4. Richard Honeywell
5. Guy Granger
6. Vamps
7. Richard Honeywell
8. Guy Granger
9. Vamps
10. John Windsor
11. Guy Granger
12. Vamps
13. Richard Honeywell
14. Hernandez
15. Lord Amon
16. Guy granger
17. Vamps
18. General Wickstaff
19. Richard Honeywell
20. Guy Granger
21. Richard Honeywell
22. Hernandez
23. Skullface
24. Richard Honeywell
25. Guy Granger
26. General Wickstaff
27. Guy Granger
28. Richard Honeywell
29. General Wickstaff
30. Vamps
31. Guy Granger
32. Vamps
33. Vamps
34. General Wickstaff
35. Vamps
36. Mass
37. General Wickstaff
38. Lucas
39. Tony Cross
40. Damien Banks 2
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For Molly,
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“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”
Albert Einstein
“Death is not extinction. Neither the soul nor the body is extinguished or put out of existence.”
Oliver Joseph Lodge
“I ain’t heard no fat lady!”
Captain Hiller, Independence Day (1996),
20th Century Fox
1
MARCY
“Max, come back here! It’s not safe.”
“There’s food, mummy.”
Marcy crouched beside the flat-tyred Volkswagen and waved at her son. At four years old, Max hadn't yet developed an adequate danger-radar, which meant he ran off wildly at every opportunity, and trying to control him during the apocalypse was no easier than it had been before. The key difference was the severe shortage of alcohol to help recover mummy's senses once evening came.
Christ, I'd kill for a G & T.
Marcy’s bond with her enthusiastic son had only galvanised since a demon invasion had driven them from their home. There were no more rushed shopping trips or stress-filled play dates with bitchy mum-friends. Now, she and Max gave each other their absolute attention and had become inseparable—an apocalyptic team, scrounging through bins and hiding out in burnt buildings. It was a simpler life, having only to worry about food and shelter, instead of mortgage payments and cheating husbands, yet being terrified constantly did eventually take its toll. Marcy's hands shook endlessly, and she started most mornings by anxiously vomiting. Damn her husband for not being here with them.
“Max, be careful,” she snapped. “We don’t know if we’re alone out here.”
Max peered at her from behind the wheelie bin he leant against and frowned in the way only inquisitive four-year-olds can. “I don’t like the monsters.”
Marcy looked left and right, and then scurried from her hiding spot. She crossed the road and made it over to the bins. “We haven’t seen any today, but we still have to be careful.”
“Okay, mummy.” He gave her a hug, and she winced as she felt his ribs poking her. “Look though.”
She eased her son away. “What have you got there?”
Max yanked a crumpled pizza box from the bin and held it out like a prize. He lifted the lid with an excited smile, but his expression turned to a frown when all that greeted him was an unravelled condom—Max had taken to calling them 'wet worms'. Now he groaned.
“I want pizza.”
“I know, honey, but I think all the pizza is gone. I still have a couple of chocolate bars in the backpack. You want one?”
He shook his head and pouted. “I want pizza.”
“One day, there’ll be pizza again, sweetheart, I promise.”
It wasn’t easy lying to her son. Food was becom
ing an issue. The supermarkets were full of stray dogs and other scavengers. Anything not in a can was either spoiled or devoured. Searching through bins was becoming a waste of time. They survived the last couple of weeks by rummaging through cupboards in empty houses. Sometimes they found bodies. Max knew to close his eyes and call to her whenever that happened.
Six weeks now since the gates had opened.
Six weeks since those first horrifying reports on the news.
Six weeks since Max had last seen his father.
Marcy’s sweet little boy didn’t deserve this. No child did.
But at least hers was still alive. I’m the luckiest mother in the world. Maybe the only mother…
“Come on, Max. It’s getting dark. We should find somewhere to sleep tonight.”
“Can we find somewhere with a boy’s bedroom? I want toys.”
She smiled, buoyed that colourful trinkets could still distract her child. Max’s innocence protected him in ways she envied—he looked neither forward nor back, only at the reality of the moment. For Marcy, their inescapable fate created an endless maelstrom in her tummy. Humanity's future had become ticking seconds on a rusty clock. She couldn’t protect Max forever. Not in this world.
A noise.
Marcy pulled Max closer to keep him quiet, and then tilted her head, sure she had heard something.
No, not heard—she had felt something. Vibrations beneath the worn soles of her shoes.
Thwump.
There it was again. Something distant. Something big. Big enough that the ground shook.
“Oh no…” Marcy felt the ligature around her guts tighten. “Max, we need to get inside.”
Max had learned his mother’s body language well enough that he didn’t argue. Sticking close together, the two of them took off across the road heading for a row of shops further along the pavement. Marcy had made a mental note of a ransacked charity shop with a broken door they had passed by earlier. That was where she headed now.
Max’s short legs had to hop to keep up with his mother's frantic strides. “The monsters are coming, aren’t they?”
“Yes, sweetheart. We need to get indoors.”
The charity shop lay just ahead—a dead cat fouling the gutter marked its location. Funny, the methods she used to navigate this new, horrifying world. No more sat navs. No more directions. Just dead cats and burnt out cars.
Marcy yanked Max into the broken doorway. The shop's interior smelt damp—rank and rotten. A pile of moulding paperbacks littered the entryway rug. Muddy footprints marked their pages. The broken door was irreparable, but the plate glass window still stood intact. Looters had put through the windows of most shops, but charity shops were not prize pickings.
Max released his mother’s hand and went running deeper into the shop, picking through the detritus of abandoned knickknacks. The first thing he grabbed was a grungy bunny rabbit. He clutched it by his side. “I like it here.”
She shushed him. “Just keep moving towards the back.”
The demons acted more as roaming gangs than fastidious searchers, and if you kept off the streets, they usually passed right by. The early days of the apocalypse had seen mass slaughters, but human beings were now so rare that the demons seemed uninterested in picking off stragglers. Marcy assumed they were focused on something greater—perhaps murdering a last bastion of humanity somewhere. Maybe people were fighting back.
She hoped.
If there was someplace safe—truly safe—then Marcy had to get her son there. She couldn't protect him on her own. Not forever.
“Mum, can I have this?”
Marcy looked over and saw that her son had obtained a hobbyhorse. Its brown and black fur was still plush and upright, and both beady eyes were in place. Such a rudimentary toy would have held no interest to her son two months ago, but now, in the absence of electronic entertainment, it was what leapt out at him.
“Sure, you can have it, but no more talking.”
“No, you cannot have that!” someone shouted from the back. “How dare you come in here and take things that don’t belong to you? This is a charity. You are stealing from a charity!”
Marcy stumbled in fright and collided with the cash register, which slid across the desk on rubber feet and made a screeching sound. “I-I-I was… we were... we are just looking for somewhere safe to hide. I’m sorry, sir.”
“Don’t you sir me, you thief. Get out of here before I call the police!”
“The police? Are you crazy?”
“Mummy says the police have all gone away,” said Max gravely to the shadow at the back.
An old man stepped out of the gloom and entered the dim shaft of sunlight filtering in from outside. His eyes were red and swollen, cheeks blotchy. A feral look about him—a crazed look.
Marcy threw out her hand. “Come here, Max! We should leave this gentleman in peace.”
“But the monsters, mummy. You said the monsters were coming.”
She sighed. Max was right. Something was coming. But this old man made her feel more threatened than being exposed outside. “We’ll hide somewhere else," she said. “Let’s go.”
Max moved towards her, but the old man struck like a snake and caught the boy by the wrist. “Hold it right there, sonny.”
“Mum!”
Marcy’s hands curled into fists. “Don’t touch him, you crazy old fuck!”
The old man shot her a bug-eyed glance, while still clutching her son. Max struggled, the grungy bunny in his free hand flopping like it was having a seizure. “What did you call me, miss?”
“Let my son go, right now. We’re leaving.”
“He’s trying to steal this horse. This horse was donated to charity. Your boy is trying to steal from charity.”
Marcy strode towards the old imbecile. “No, he just forgot he was holding it. Let him go.”
“You people disgust me.”
Strangely, the comment offended Marcy. Perhaps because it sounded as though he meant it so vehemently—that she truly disgusted him. “What do you mean, you people?”
“I mean, mothers letting their kids run amok. Whoring about and smoking drugs while their kids get up to who knows what. I see it on that Jez Karl show every morning. Scum, the lot of you.”
The Jez Karl show? This guy had lost the plot. There had been no television for weeks. “I’m sorry, sir, but you’re mistaken. I’m a married woman, and Max is a well brought-up boy. We made a mistake coming in here, that’s all. Let him go, and we’ll leave.”
“No. I’m calling the police.”
“You’re mad.”
Max struggled and the old man yanked his arm, making him cry out. “Mum, he’s hurting me.”
Marcy reacted. She closed the short distance between the two of them and lashed out, shoving the old man under the chin and knocking his head back. He cried out in surprise and released Max. The boy scurried over to Marcy’s side and she gathered him close. Pointing a finger in the old man’s face, she spat with anger. “Maybe you’ve got Alzheimer’s or something, I don’t know, but my son and I are leaving, and you will back the Hell away.”
The old man did the opposite. He lunged at her.
A jolt of pain shot through the back of Marcy’s hand, and when she looked, she saw blood.
“Mummy, the man has a knife.”
“Stay back. Just…”
The old man lunged again, his delusion evolving to full-blown mania—feral expression twisting and distorting like his face was made of maggots. His snarling mouth lacked teeth. His grey tongue darted in and out of crusted lips. “Bloody whores and thieves. Ruining the country.” He slashed a small penknife and missed Marcy’s face by an inch. If it had been a longer blade, she would have had a hole through her nose. “I’ll kill you, bitch!”
“Mummy!”
“Run, Max. Run!”
Marcy shoved her son towards the broken doorway. The old man’s aged joints popped as he pursued her, and he turned the air blue with his fu
rious heckle.
Max made it outside onto the pavement ahead of Marcy who was a step behind him. He was crying out loud—the chase summoning panic. “It’s okay,” she told him, pulling him along the pavement. “It’s okay, sweetheart.”
“Mummy, he’s behind us.”
Marcy shielded her son and faced the old lunatic. He slithered towards her with that pathetic yet deadly little blade out in front of him. “I’m going to do the world a favour, you dirty whore.”
Marcy covered her son’s ears. “Fuck you, you crazy old fuck!”
“How dare you?” In the grey glow of the waning sun, the old man unveiled his true madness: shit and piss caked his trousers; bruises blotted the tissue-paper skin of his forearms.
Extinction: An Apocalyptic Horror Novel (Hell on Earth Book 3) Page 1