Extinction Theory

by Lee Emerick

  The General walked over to Sydney and followed his gaze over to the corpse.

  "What you are seeing Professor Trent are bodies that were recovered from a deep sea drilling rig by the name of Lazarus," said the General.

  "4:05am this morning we received a message from persons on the rig advising us of a suspected chemical spill. They advised it may have had a neurological affect as they were attacked by an Engineer."

  The corpse placed it cold dead feet on the ground and then stood up. Its bones cracked loudly under its weight as it wobbled to maintain balance. The eyelids flicked open revealing milky white eyes. The skin looked grey with the colour of death. White patches of growth covered large areas of its naked skin. Large boils and sores oozed blood and a milky coloured puss.

  "When we sent in a research team to investigate the situation we found a number of the rig crew walking aimlessly around the corridors," the General said.

  "When approached they showed extreme aggression and tried to attack my men! Left with little option the most aggressive had to be shot. The rest were taken into custody."

  The corpse lumbered to the Plexiglas screen and began to bang on it. The skin on its hands peeled away and congealed blood oozed from the wounds onto the Plexiglas.

  "We removed all the crew and brought them back for examination. On arrival there were no vital signs, they were all dead." The General paused.

  "To our surprise though, as they were processed for examination they did not appear to be as dead as we initially thought. Again, they set on my men. This time it was a lot more serious and I lost several of my men." The General looked genuinely upset.

  "We had no option but to destroy the majority of the rig’s crew and unfortunately, several of my men."

  With his hand, he gestured towards the cubicles. "What we have here is a small selection of the rig’s crew in various stages of a condition. By all medical accounts they are dead."

  As the creature lumbered towards the Plexiglas, it let out a loud shriek. Blood oozed from a gunshot wound it had previously suffered to the head followed by a milky white discharge.

  The creature leaned backwards. With a howl, its bones cracked as something pushed out from its lower abdomen. With a loud crack, its spine snapped in two. The torso fell back behind its legs. As its torso fell, the arms stretched out towards the floor. Now steady something began to protrude from the abdominal cavity and grew to several feet above the animated corpse.

  Covered in blood the growth began to flower. No typical flower but something Sydney recognised quite well. The corpse began to twitch showering off spores from the fruiting fungus tree.

  "Oh my god!" gasped Sydney, hardly able to believe what he was seeing. He took a step back from the window in shock.

  "This is impossible!"

  "Unfortunately Professor Trent, it appears to be quite possible," said the General.

  "I have seen similar things in insects, but in higher mammals? It cannot happen. It can not be real!" exclaimed Sydney.

  "We asked for your advice as your current theories quite openly discuss the prospect," said the General.

  "A fossil you have been researching remarkably resembles this growth".

  "There just theories, this…this is not real." Sydney turned his back to the sight and shook his head.

  "How is it possible, it can't be possible?" Sydney was in denial. Although he had researched this happening in the past, how could it happen now? It could not possibly be real. He forced himself to calm down. Being in denial was not going to help at all.

  He recomposed himself and turned to the General.

  "This is a real problem you have here General Virgil. I am not exactly sure what you expect I will be able to do for you."

  "You're an expert in Fungus Professor Trent. Your papers quite openly discuss situations similar to this during mass extinctions, albeit not to this extreme." The General put his hand on Sydney's shoulder.

  "I need to know how we can combat this. If this broke out among the general population we could have a new extinction on our hands." The General looked Sydney directly in the eyes.

  "We are talking about the extinction of mankind Professor Trent!"

  Chapter 5

  Erik dropped his bag to the floor as he searched his pocket for the house keys. He knew they were in there somewhere. After a few moments searching, he caught his little finger on the key ring and hooked it around. Finally, he managed to pull the keys out.

  As he withdrew his hand, he felt a stinging sensation, his hand felt irritated. He held his hand up to the outside light to check what was up with it. As he looked closely in the dim light he could see his hand looked red and inflamed. Erik was not too concerned. He was probably having a reaction to the soap he had used at the Coast Guard station. Erik suffered from sensitive skin and usually broke out in a rash from perfumed products.

  Erik fumbled the key into the door lock and opened the door.

  "Honey I’m home" he said aloud to himself.

  As he entered, he threw his bag onto the armchair whilst closing the door behind him. After kicking his boots off, he yawned loudly and stretched. It had been a long night, he thought to himself.

  Erik pulled his clothes off and dropped them to the floor as he walked towards the bathroom. Once there he turned the light on and started to run the bath. His muscles ached, he felt so tired. Yawning loudly he looked down into the bath water at his reflection. His face looked grey and he had large black bags under his eyes. His eyes themselves looked bloodshot.

  "I need a new job. These late shifts are killing me", he said to himself.

  As the bath slowly filled up, he reflected on what had happened that morning. What had happened over there? Had the authorities managed to do anything for them? As their shift had run over Carlyle had suggested leaving their report until tomorrow.

  Although it should be filled in directly after a rescue, none of them had the energy to put it together. As the situation had been referred, there was no rush as it would be investigated and reported by someone else anyway.

  When the bath had finished pouring he slowly climbed in. The water was quite hot so he slowly entered it. As he sank down beneath the hot water, he lay back and let out a long sigh. It felt good to be warm again, he thought. He yawned again loudly and closed his eyes to relax. With that, everything went dark and quiet.

  Erik awoke to the loud noise of the phone ringing. He was too tired to get up and answer it though. The bath water felt cold, how long had he been in there? His right hand felt very irritated so he lifted it out of the water and examined it. The skin had gone an angry red colour. Blisters were breaking out all over it. He reached for the soap and washed the skin. Tears came to his eyes as his hand stung as he rubbed soap over it, so he quickly washed it off. Could he be having an allergic reaction to something?

  "Ah well. I'll get some antihistamine ointment on it which should calm it down" he thought to himself.

  As he sat himself up in the bath, he felt a burning sensation under his arm and along his back. He reached under with his free arm and felt a large lump. Bringing his hand back into view he saw that it was covered in blood and ooze. With alarm he jumped out of the bath, his legs made a loud cracking noise as he placed weight on them. Pain shot up from his feet to his hips. Stumbling he fell across to the bathroom sink where he supported himself. The room felt like it was spinning around, he felt so light headed. Looking into the mirror, he examined his armpit. A large open sore had opened up which was bleeding. Erik noticed that it appeared to go around to his shoulder blade. He turned to examine how far it spread and to his horror found that his whole back was covered in large boils and sores. A milky white discharge oozed from the open sores and boils. It was all too familiar of what he had seen earlier that morning.

  Erik let out an almighty scream. The sight was unbearable. Whatever the Engineer on the Lazarus was suffering from, he had unfortunately spread it onto him.

  He needed to get help and fa
st. Erik began to turn to run over to the phone but slipped on the floor, which was now largely covered in bathwater and blood. As he fell towards the sink basin Erik tried to reach out to stop him self but his arm bent backwards under the awkward impact. Everything went black as his head loudly hit the washbasin spraying the mirror with blood.

  Erik landed in a heap on the floor unconscious. His arm remained bent backwards under him. His head began to bleed from the new wound.

  ‘Ring, Ring…’ Erik's phone began to ring once more. Unfortunately again, he would be unable to answer it.

  Chapter 6

  Sydney scrubbed his hands thoroughly and then began to climb into a Nuclear Biological Chemical suit, which he had been advised was referred to as an ‘N.B.C. Suit’. He pulled on thick rubber gloves to provide extra protection.

  He was flanked by an MP who was also protected by a N.B.C. suit. They were not taking any chances he thought.

  Entering one of the assessment cubicles, he examined one of the fruiting fungi and began to take samples for analysis.

  "This really looks quite remarkable, although highly disturbing" he said over the radio.

  The large stem of the fungus twitched as he dug a device into it that resembled an apple corer. He twisted it and removed a sample from the stem, which he placed into a specimen jar.

  "A couple more samples and I will be done in here", Sydney said as he place the jar in his sample bag. He walked round to the other side of the tree to take spore samples. He pulled out a knife from his pack and began to cut into the top or the fungus removing a specimen resembling a wedge of cheese in shape.

  The corpse the fungus had grown out of began to twitch. It’s twisted and its broken arm began to reach for Sydney's leg.

  "Professor!" shouted the guard as he brought his weapon down to bear on the animated corpse.

  The mouth of the corpse opened wide and let out a blood-curdling howl. Blood bubbled in its throat and spilt down its cheek. It began to amble towards Sydney who stepped backwards.

  "Professor, I can't take a shot with you behind the creature!" shouted the guard but Sydney was immobile with terror.

  He stepped back into the adjoining wall and became frozen in position. Again, the creature howled. Its milky white eyes transfixed on Sydney. It crawled along awkwardly on its back, the corpses face appearing upside down.

  The howl this time was met by a scream from the adjoining room that Sydney had his back too.

  "Professor, move now! I can't take the shot without hitting you!"

  Sydney looked to the side of the creature. If he was quick enough he could jump past it. He pushed down on his legs but did not move far. Instead, he went crashing back towards the wall. He felt pressure around his neck and began to choke. Something had him.

  The guard kept aim on the creature but now a second creature had bashed through the wall and held the Professor. He shouted over the radio.

  "Is the creatures head to the left or right of the professor?"

  "Directly to the right!" someone shouted back.

  He carefully aimed to the right of the Professor’s head and squeezed the trigger, emptying the entire clip. The arms that held Sydney went limp, he had got it!

  Sydney wrestled the limp arm from around his neck and kicked off from the wall smashing into the creature, which was now inches away from him. The creature toppled to the floor and Sydney rolled past it onto his feet. The guard ejected the spent clip from his pistol and reloaded. He slammed a fresh clip into the pistol and emptied it again, this time into the creature they shared a room with. The bullets ripped into the creature that lay toppled on the floor. It twitched but showed no signs of stopping. It tried to get up but the legs of the corpse were now useless so it began to drag its self across the floor toward them.

  Sydney and the guard left the room in a panic, securing the door behind them.

  The General turned away from the viewing window, he had seen enough.

  "I want these creatures destroyed, NOW!" he was not pleased at all.

  He walked over to the entrance to the decontamination room to observe Sydney and the guard. Behind him, a team was quickly being assembled armed with flamethrowers. These things were simply too dangerous to keep around.

  Sydney scrubbed as thoroughly as he could. He was not taking any chances. He carefully removed his N.B.C. suit making sure not a single inch went untreated. His sample bag had been placed though a port in the decontamination room for specialised cleaning and extraction of the samples. Once the suit was off, he intensely showered to point of paranoia making sure everything had been washed and washed again. His skin felt raw from scrubbing, he had to be sure he was clean.

  Once dressed, he left the decontamination room and was greeted by the General.

  "Professor, I hope you have the samples you require as we have to destroy the specimens. It is becoming too dangerous to keep them around," said the General.

  "You need to destroy the rig where they came from too" panted Sydney still distressed over his near death experience.

  "We can't risk any further contamination."

  "I have already placed an order to scramble fighter aircraft to destroy the facility. Unfortunately something has come to my attention which is more concerning…"

  Sydney felt some bad news coming. He looked over to the viewing window in the observation gallery. Men walked through the individual rooms in N.B.C. suits. Streaks of fire torched everything in there. The creatures thrashed around whilst they were burnt to a crisp.

  "It's not contained is it General, it's got out?"

  The General looked very concerned. He reached into his jacket pocket and withdrew a sheet of paper.

  "We have received a communication from the company that operates the rig. It was not the rig’s crew that notified us about the situation as we assumed. They had been boarded by the Coast Guard who called it in."

  "The Coast Guard!" exclaimed Sydney.

  "Where are they now?" alarm was clearly breaking in his voice

  The General looked to the sheet of paper held in his hand.

  "We don't know, most likely they have gone home…"

  Chapter 7

  Chloe Della arrived at her boyfriend’s house. She and Erik had been going steady for 3 years now and they usually met up first thing in the morning to share breakfast together when Erik had been working late shifts. She had tried to call him but there had been no answer so she assumed he was a little late back. She had popped down anyway to see if he was about before she headed off to work. She was in her mid twenties and was very fond of Erik. They had a holiday planned soon, on which she hoped he would pop the question. She could not be sure if he would but she had a feeling from his behaviour recently.

  She knocked on the door but there was no answer. If he was back, he had probably collapsed on the sofa as he usually did when he had been working late shifts she thought.

  Chloe reached for her key and placed it in the lock but it would not turn. She turned the handle and the door opened. He must be home, she thought.

  She was met by a strange smell of wet socks that had been left in the washing machine to long. She spoke aloud for Erik to hear her.

  "I take it you have not bothered to dry your washing dear" she said, but was met by silence.

  She smiled to herself and thought he must be fast asleep. Quietly she closed the door behind her and crept through to the bedroom. She opened the door but the bed was made up and no one was in there.