He pulled off his helmet and touched the Cubs hat he wore underneath it. Maybe he was becoming a bit superstitious after all.
The pilots flew over the remains of a high school and a residential area that was pancaked from what looked like a tornado. Trees, cars, and buildings were flattened in a wide arc around the dirty bomb a team of Army Rangers had detonated three months earlier to wipe out the main pocket of juveniles. Fences and signs surrounded the zone with radiation warnings.
“Two minutes to target,” said one of the pilots.
Flathman put his helmet back on and looked to his men. “Alright, you know the drill. We drop in, collect intel, then bug out. This is not a rescue op. Our mission is to figure out what the fuck happened down there.”
He was too hung over to give a pep talk. Stone and Bosse nodded, but he saw them exchange a look. His men knew he was an alcoholic, but he was a functional one, and he had held his post against the Variants for over seven months. That had to count for something. That post however, was shit out of whiskey. He had asked for a lifetime supply—although how long a lifetime might last now was debatable. When Ringgold had agreed, he had smiled for the first time in months. A lifetime supply of the sauce? Now that was something he would risk leaving his small sliver of paradise for.
“This area really took it in the ass,” Stone said.
The bird passed over another street choked with abandoned vehicles and framed on each side by crumbling buildings.
“There,” Bosse said. He pointed to the rusted metal walls at the edge of Millennium Park. The chopper passed over Cloud Gate, the mirror-like metal sculpture everyone called “The Bean.”
Flathman caught the chopper’s reflection on the stainless steel exterior as they flew overhead. He scoped the walls of SZT 15. Where there should have been soldiers manning flamethrowers, M134 Gatling guns, and M240s, there was nobody.
“Doesn’t look like anyone’s home,” Stone said.
“Hold us here,” Flathman ordered the pilots. He scanned the zone for motion. His crosshairs fell on the main entrance—the twenty-foot-tall steel doors were sealed shut. The two checkpoints outside the gate were vacant. He zoomed in on M240s mounted on the sandbags, both muzzles angled at the ground like someone had left them and never came back.
“What the hell,” Flathman whispered to himself. “Where did you sons of bitches go?”
There was no evidence of a battle. No spent shell casings, no bodies, and no blood. It was like the soldiers had straight-up vanished. He had heard about the same thing happening at the Earthfall facility three months prior. Turned out there were Variants and human collaborators there. But Flathman saw no evidence to suggest the juveniles were here. No matter how smart the monsters were, they always left behind signs.
“You getting this, Command?” he said into his comms. “I’m not seeing anything at all from up here.”
“Copy that, Lieutenant. Proceed inside the SZT.” The southern drawl of General Allen answered him, but he knew President Ringgold and VP Johnson were watching his every move.
Just my fucking luck. Government forgets about me for seven months, and now they need me to do their damn dirty work. There better be some good single malt on the rocks when I get back to the post.
Flathman wasn’t a stranger to disobeying orders; it was how he had managed to survive. But these orders had come from the very top. You couldn’t just say no to the commander-in-chief.
That didn’t mean you couldn’t negotiate and make a few requests of your own. He grinned at that thought and held up a hand toward the cockpit.
“Take us in,” he said.
The bird rose back into the sky and flew over the steel gates. Rows of FEMA housing trailers were set up on the park lawn across the street from the embassy. Rusted barrels used for fires were positioned on sidewalks and alleys where those who weren’t fortunate enough to have a trailer had set up tents and makeshift shelters. It reminded him a bit of the block he had grown up in—the block he had escaped.
Funny how life could bring you back to where you started.
He scanned the area to the west, checking the rooftops. Satellite dishes and communication antennas were rigged on top of the structures. Flags whipped in the wind from poles over the side of the embassy building. In the center of the rooftop, a large red radio tower rose into the sky.
“Do you see that?” Bosse said. He directed his muzzle at what looked like a scarecrow about two thirds of the way up the tower.
“Raptor 1, what’s that on the radio tower?” Allen asked a moment later.
Flathman pushed his mic to his lips. “Checking, standby.” He didn’t even have time to zoom in before Stone shouted.
“Jesus, is that a fucking body?”
Flathman centered his crosshairs on a crucified human corpse stretched across the west side of the tower. Sunlight fell on the exposed muscles. A crow landed on the corpse and began picking at it.
“Shit,” Flathman grumbled. It was likely the handiwork of the juveniles in the area. He’d been hunting a pack for weeks and seen grisly totems like this before. But where were the other bodies? There had been hundreds of soldiers here, and they couldn’t have all been killed by a handful of juveniles, not unless they had been tricked…
“Take us down,” Flathman said.
The pilots looked back from the cockpit.
“Sir?” one of them said.
“I said take us the fuck down.”
A second of hesitation passed, the pilots exchanging a glance before they lowered the bird toward the street. Three feet off the ground, Flathman jumped out onto the concrete. The two Rangers followed him out of the chopper.
“Bosse, you and Stone take the left. I’ll take the right. High and low, clear the windows and watch the rooftops. We rally at the embassy.”
Flathman ducked low, crouched behind a Humvee, and used a stolen moment to scan his surroundings. The embassy was four buildings down, near the front gate. FEMA trailers were set up in the park across the street. There were half a dozen vehicles between him and the building, plus eight rooftops and over a hundred windows. Plenty of places for a sniper or a juvenile to be hiding.
Raising his rifle, he took off at a run, scanning the windows on the right side for motion. Above, the crow continued to pick at the dead man on the radio tower.
Gotta be those fucking juveniles.
He wasn’t just here to claim his reward of whiskey, he realized—he was here to kill the bastards that had been tormenting his post for months. Just the other day he had lost PFC Collins. The shy kid from Iowa had been taking a piss during a patrol when he was dragged into the sewers by the beasts.
Collins had been a lousy soldier, but he was just a kid and Flathman had tried to protect him. Bosse and Stone, on the other hand, were men he could trust with his life. That’s why they were here. Like any coach, Flathman had his favorite players, and he’d brought his MVPs on this mission.
The sun continued to rise over the city. Flathman pulled his sunglasses from his vest pocket and put them on. He made a dash for an old Nissan Pathfinder, his tennis shoes slapping the pavement.
Despite his bad habits, Flathman was a dedicated runner. He had traded his boots for a pair of Nikes and jogged around the inside of the fences countless times, earning him another nickname at the post.
Flathman, The Running Man. Ten Lives. Evel Knievel.
He didn’t mind the nicknames. There was a place in the apocalypse for adrenaline junkies and drunks. In fact, he was faring just fine in the End Times. Some would say he fit right in.
Bosse flashed a hand signal to indicate the area near him was clear.
Flathman bolted toward the rally point. With every step, his guts sank a bit lower. The nausea wasn’t from the hangover, either. He was getting a bad feeling about this mission. And no matter how many shiny bottles of hooch
he imagined, he was starting to wonder if it was worth it.
Of course it’s fucking worth it.
He stopped at another vehicle to catch his breath, scanned the area, and then took off across the final stretch of asphalt. The embassy building towered above him. It had once been a bank. Prison-like bars covered the windows on each floor, and two fenced-in checkpoints separated visitors from the front doors. The cages were all empty, and there still wasn’t a bullet casing in sight.
The front gate creaked in the wind, the locking mechanism clicking as it hit the metal fence. He stopped in front and flashed signals to his men. Their weapons arched across their zones of fire with a precision that calmed Flathman’s rolling stomach. He could trust his boys in the field. Whatever was waiting for them, they could take it.
“On me,” he said.
Bosse and Stone fell into line behind him, their weapons trained on the building. Flathman stopped to check his six. A piece of trash whirled in the empty street. Nothing else moved.
He pulled the gate open and stepped into the checkpoint. With his weapon ready, he kept low and moved toward the second gate, then onto the steps that led up to the building.
The first gate creaked again, and this time a scratching sound answered the creak. Flathman pivoted toward the street with his rifle.
“You hear that?” he whispered.
Stone and Bosse glanced around, their muzzles moving horizontally across the street, scanning for contacts.
“Negative, sir,” Bosse said.
“I didn’t hear—” Stone began to say.
A metallic thud sounded from the direction of the FEMA trailers. Flathman silently directed Bosse and Stone to follow him. Together, they slowly retreated from the gated checkpoints and made their way into the road.
The sun cast a brilliant glow on the carmine metal walls surrounding the SZT. Flathman used the dawn light to search for more clues. He checked the pavement again for signs of gunfire, but saw nothing. No bullet casings or chunks of concrete chipped away from rounds.
Nothing.
He cursed and spat on the ground. Then he flashed another round of hand signals. Bosse and Stone fanned out toward the dozen white FEMA shipping containers. Flathman used the cover of vehicles as he approached, stopping to listen and scan before continuing.
His tennis shoes crushed the recently trimmed lawn. As he moved, he took in a breath. Hell, the park even smelled like fresh cut grass! Whatever had happened to these people, it had been sudden.
Caw! Caw! Caw!
Flathman flinched at the screeching bird. He shouldered his rifle and aimed it at the tower, where the crow was now flapping away from the corpse.
Heart pounding, Flathman slowly lowered his rifle to turn back to the trailers. As he moved, an echoing whistle came from the sky. The sound rose on the wind, and Flathman recognized it. Helicopters, moving in fast. He directed his team down into a crouch near a pickup truck for cover.
“Ten Lives, this is Raptor 1, do you copy?”
“Roger, go ahead.”
“We got three bogies bearing 090.”
Flathman prepared to respond when a trio of AH-6 Little Birds emerged over the buildings to the east. They buzzed overhead with soldiers clipped to the sides, their weapons angled down on the street.
“Hide,” Flathman ordered his men. He crawled under the nearest truck, his guts tightening. Over the past seven months, the Variants had never gotten the drop on him. Not once. He’d been lucky—Ten Lives Flathman, the man who was too stubborn to die. But he’d forgotten that the monsters weren’t the only threat out there, and he had the feeling his last life had just run out.
It wasn’t the first time in her life that Dr. Kate Lovato didn’t want to go to work, but she would have given anything now to be curled up at home in bed with Reed. She hesitated at the end of the corridor leading to her lab, one hand resting gently on top of her belly.
She drew in a breath through her nostrils, exhaled, and looked at Ellis. He was standing at the entrance to the clean room in the new lab facility, using the new fingerprint scanner by the door.
“Come on,” he mumbled. The pad flashed green, and he bent down to put his eye up to the second recognition slot.
The door chirped, then opened, revealing the clean room partitioned off by glass walls from the labs beyond. An air filtration unit clicked on above, humming quietly. They were the only two scientists in the BSL4 lab this morning. Durand and Case were working later that afternoon. Kate wanted to be out of here before they arrived.
“You coming, Kate?” Ellis said. He stood in the doorway and glanced back at her.
“Yes, sorry. I was just…thinking.”
She had been thinking about the children who died on the dock. It had been because of her protocols that the soldiers had opened fire. No matter what Reed said, it was her fault. Just like it was her fault the bioweapon she’d designed had killed her brother—and likely her parents, too. Javier had been infected with the Hemorrhage Virus during the early stages of the outbreak. She’d known, when she created the weapon, that it was a death sentence for him and all the other innocent people transformed into monsters by the plague.
Kate had become a doctor to help people. But now every time she did her job, people died.
She reluctantly followed Ellis through the doors. CBRN suits and sealed boxes waited inside. In the past, entering a Level 4 Bio facility wouldn’t have bothered her. But it wasn’t just her anymore. She had her son to think about. The slightest mistake could put her child at risk. Normally a pregnant woman wouldn’t be allowed even close to a BSL4 lab, but this was the end of the world. She was here because there was no one else to do her job. Her country—no, the world—needed her.
But Reed and their baby needed her too.
“I got here at the crack of dawn and went through the overnight reports,” Ellis said. He sat on a bench and began putting on his protective suit.
Kate grabbed hers from the wall and took a seat.
“And?”
Ellis rolled the suit up his legs to his waist. “And it’s not good. Operation Beachhead was a spectacular failure and the EUF is retreating from dozens of major cities. The list is massive, Kate. Istanbul, Manchester, Madrid.” He paused and then added, “And Rome. I’m so sorry, Kate. They’re pulling out of Italy for now.”
Kate had already prepared herself for this. She had accepted her parents were dead. It didn’t hurt anymore. Not much, anyway. If she kept telling herself that, she might start to believe it.
“The Variants set a trap in Normandy, and the 24th MEU fell right into it,” Ellis continued. The words pulled her back to the bright, clean room that reeked of chemicals. She put her hand on her chest, feeling her beating heart through the CBRN layers.
“Did Fitz and Apollo make it?”
Ellis shook his head.
“What!” Kate exclaimed, pain breaking through her wall of calm.
“I meant I don’t know. Sounds like they had to leave a lot of bodies on the beaches due to toxin saturation.”
She loosened her grip on her chest, her hand falling to her stomach. “Does Reed know yet?”
“I don’t think so. I may be the first to have read the report this morning. It came in with the specimen.”
“Specimen?”
“We got video feeds, field reports, and a tissue sample from one of the winged creatures they found over there. Something they’ve dubbed a Reaver.” He finished suiting up and walked over to her. “You sure you don’t want to go home today, Kate? You don’t look so good. I already started the process for DNA sequencing. You don’t have to be here. I can complete it on my own.”
Kate zipped her suit up and picked up her helmet. Of course she wanted to go home. But she wouldn’t, not while there was even a chance she could do some good.
“Let’s go,” she sa
id. For what seemed like the millionth time, she secured her CBRN helmet with a click. The first breath of cold, filtered air filled her lungs. She took in another slow and steady breath. She could do this. Everyone had a job to do, and this was hers.
The six-station lab was still empty when Kate and Ellis entered. He walked straight to the sequencing machine. There was a bag on a tray next to the station marked “LEVEL 4—HANDLE WITH EXTREME PREJUDICE.”
“The report came from the top. We are to determine what type of genetic modifications we will see next. They also want to know what the hell this thing is. I’m honestly surprised we aren’t being asked to find a way to kill it.”
“We’re out of time to develop anything,” Kate said. “It’s too late for bioweapons in Europe. They’ll have to kill these monsters the old-fashioned way.”
“You’re starting to sound like General Kennor.”
Kate ignored his comment and examined the specimen bag from a distance. A brownish liquid filled the inside. Ellis discarded it in the infirmary slot. Then he returned to the sequencer.
“I’ve already incubated the tissue in the centrifuge tubes. I could use some help with the detergents to separate the DNA from the cellular components, though.”
Kate took in another long breath. As long as she was safe and cautious, everything would be fine. The Variant blood wasn’t infectious, but that’s not what worried her. It was everything else stored in liquid nitrogen-cooled cryogenic freezers. The Medical Corps kept a sample of every Level 4 virus known to man, including Ebola and now the Hemorrhage Virus.
“Have you checked the biometrics?” she asked.
“Still filtering through the raw data I entered last night.”
Kate nodded. The biometrics tools aided them in comparing genetic and genomic data, which in turn allowed them to understand the evolutionary aspects of the Variants. Every time a new creature was discovered, it was analyzed, catalogued, and integrated into the pool of data.
Extinction Aftermath (Extinction Cycle Book 6) Page 13