The space was crowded, even with only Sean and a few other lab techs. It couldn’t have been more than 900 square feet, perhaps the smallest laboratory Kate had ever worked in.
Sean carted in another dolly full of supplies.
“Where should we put these?” he asked.
“What’s in them?” Kate replied.
Sean examined one set of boxes. “Looks like some biopsy samples.”
“They’ll need to go in the freezer then,” Kate said.
“It’s already stuffed.”
“Then figure out how to make more room. Consolidate samples. Whatever we’ve got to do.”
Carr looked around at the space. “This is smaller than my first studio apartment in Boston during my post-doctoral study days. I don’t know how we’re going to get much work done within these confines.”
“We don’t really have a choice,” Kate said.
The lab was beginning to look like a lab finally, but Kate didn’t feel any more prepared to start their research.
She kept thinking about Beckham, Horn, Donna, Bo and Timothy and all the other thousands of people trapped on the mainland while she had the luxury of being far away from the most immediate danger drifting on a stealth US warship.
“Maybe you should get some rest,” Carr suddenly said.
Kate glanced over.
“I don’t mean to tell you what to do, but a good bit of honesty between lab mates makes the work easier. I can tell your mind and heart are back at Outpost Portland.”
He was right about the latter.
“I won’t be able to sleep,” she said. “Trust me, I’ll get my head in the game. I just need time. The way I get past my worries is busying myself with work.”
“Well, yes but…”
Kate turned her back to him and flipped on their computers. She missed Doctor Pat Ellis more than ever. Carr wasn’t just odd; he didn’t seem to have normal human emotions.
Maybe that was a good thing, Kate said. He could work without worrying.
It took her a while, but with Carr and the other lab techs working beside her, she finally managed to lose herself in her work at one of the computers.
The goal of deciphering the language of the masterminds motivated her to forget the other worries outside of these secured bulkheads. Any advantage the Variants had would be nullified if they could win the battle inside the lab.
But, as always, time was not on their side. For the second time in a decade she was fighting against the doomsday clock, only this time the human race was much closer to eradication than before, and there were far fewer people to stop it.
***
Taloned footprints crossed front lawns of the Shiloh Housing neighborhood area on Scott AFB. They led away from cratered asphalt holes where Alphas had broken through the middle of the street.
Dohi crouched behind a Humvee with Rico, scanning the rows of nearly identical houses for any sign of survivors. Another dozen soldiers were spread out behind them. Brave men and women that volunteered to sneak behind enemy lines.
“That looks like it might be it,” Rico said, pointing to a house down the block. It had blue shutters and beige siding, just like they’d been told by command. Bushes lined the front yard and stretched into the back.
They’d been forced to come out here on foot, so what normally would have been a five-minute drive had taken the better part of the morning. Vehicles would have attracted every Variant straggler that hadn’t gone back underground.
There were still a good number prowling in the sunlight. The team of volunteers had engaged multiple packs through the blocks from command to the northwestern corner of the base, losing one soldier along the way to a Variant hiding under a car.
Dohi spotted a pair of beasts perched on rooftops ahead. He pointed them out to their snipers.
Two suppressed shots punched through the monsters’ wart-covered skulls. Both corpses slid down the roofs and crashed to the grass.
Rico gave the advance signal, and the team snaked down the road between the houses.
Some had broken windows, and others had doors torn down. Smeared bloody handprints covered the driveway of the house to Dohi’s left. Those streaks of blood led straight to a tunnel.
He took point again and the volunteer team set off for the target house, weapons roving for beasts. When he got to the front door, he slammed into it, knocking it inward.
Checking his near corner, he then ran down a hallway that led to a large carpeted living room. Glass shards sparkled on the carpet alongside muddy footprints. Two large windows in the living room were broken. Wind tugged at the curtains.
Rico signaled half the team to clear the first floor, then gestured for Dohi to lead the second team upstairs. He picked up the scent of rotting fruit on the first step.
Shit, we’re too late…
Dohi quietly ascended the carpeted stairs. At the top, a gruesome sight awaited. Gore splattered the walls, ceiling, and carpet. He followed the bloody mess to a bedroom where the remains of two men and a woman lay spread behind a broken-down door.
Two Variants sat hunched over the corpses, peeling away muscle and flesh, and stuffing them into their mouths. They chewed noisily, lips smacking together as bloody ligaments hung around their necks and chests.
Dohi let his slung rifle sag, then pulled out his knife and hatchet. The starving creatures continued to feed, unaware of his presence.
He lunged forward and brought the hatchet down on the head of the larger creature, burying it deep in the beast’s skull. Then he jammed the tip of his knife into the eye of the other.
Both monsters slumped to the ground with a dull thud. He wiped the blood off his weapons on the carpet and walked back into the hallway.
Several of the soldiers stared at him as he and Rico led the way to another room where they found more corpses, nearly picked to the bone.
“Down here,” came a voice.
A soldier stood at the top of the stairwell waving at them. The team followed the man down the stairs.
“We found six kids in the basement,” said one of the men who had cleared the first floor.
Dohi’s heart flipped at the sight of the children being led out of a doorway.
“Thank God,” Rico whispered.
“How’d they survive?” Dohi asked.
“The adults must have hidden them,” the soldier said.
Most of the kids appeared catatonic, but one girl around the age of eight broke into hysteric screams when she saw the blood covering the walls.
“Where are my parents?” she cried. “I want to see my parents!”
Rico tried to quiet her, but it was already too late.
An inhuman shriek sounded outside.
A soldier pulled back the drapes to look out over the lawn.
“We got company,” he said.
Dohi’s heart pounded as he surveyed the kids. There were two that weren’t older than four. This wasn’t going to be easy.
“You all have to be super quiet, okay?” Rico said to the children.
A couple nodded, eyes wide and faces pale, but most of the kids still seemed completely in shock.
“Hurry,” Dohi said. He signaled a team of soldiers to guide the children, then led the way out the back door into a yard lined with bushes. Over the spindly branches he saw neighboring backyards.
The sounds of clicking joints and growls came from the street.
“Watch our six,” someone called.
The soldiers holding rearguard aimed at the back door of the house they had just left. The armored flesh of a juvenile exploded out a moment later.
Gunfire rang out, punching into the armored coat around the Variant. The creature stumbled a few feet before collapsing like a turtle with a broken shell, blood oozing out of its wounds.
Two more juveniles bolted out, sheering off the frame and barreling into the gunfire from the four soldiers at the rear of the group. Their rounds fractured the monsters’ armor, and both beasts crumpled
into a pile of tangled, bleeding limbs before they could reach the children.
The distant cries of other hunting monsters rang out. Several more shrieks answered their call.
A soldier with a crooked nose shook his helmet. “We ain’t going to make it back with these kids. Not without a ride.”
Another soldier slung his rifle over his back and picked up a sobbing young girl. She clung to him with her arms wrapped around his neck.
“Jim’s right,” the man said. “No way we walk all the way back to command like this.”
The group hunched down as another Variant cried from the street in front of the houses. The beasts were definitely searching for them.
“Rico, see if we can get air support,” Dohi whispered.
A nod, and she bent down.
“Command, Ghost 2,” she said. “We need exfil, ASAP. We have six kids at the target. Over.”
“Copy, Ghost 2,” a voice replied over the channel. “Hold tight. I’ll try and get you a Black Hawk.”
Dohi’s gut twisted while they waited.
The chorus of Variants swirled around the neighborhood, each voice representing a beast calling its brethren to join the hunt for fresh prey. These were the stragglers, the ones that hadn’t yet retreated into the tunnels and back into the darkness.
From what Dohi had seen, they were desperate and hungry enough to risk everything in the intense sunlight for a meal.
The operator came online a few moments later.
“Got two birds in the air for you, Ghost 2. On their way to your location, over.”
“Hell yeah, thanks,” Rico said.
She smirked and nodded at Dohi.
“We’re in business,” he said. “Everyone, keep the kids quiet and we might just make it back to command in one piece.”
The beat of chopper blades thrummed somewhere to their east, rising above the din of the monsters. It wouldn’t be long before the Black Hawks arrived. But their loud engines would also alert other Variants to their position.
“We can’t wait here,” Dohi said.
“No cover,” another soldier carrying a boy said.
Dohi was also worried about a tunnel opening up.
“There,” said the soldier with the crooked nose said. He pointed to another house directly across from them through the backyard. “That deck. It’s not much, but it gives us some shelter and gets us off the ground.”
Another Variant wail punctured the steady thrum of the choppers.
Dohi walked at a hunch, scanning their surroundings. Two other soldiers followed him on his flanks. The rest carried or helped the children. The frightened kids weren’t old enough or aware enough to stay in line on their own.
Past a line of bushes that separated the two backyards, Dohi followed a set of wooden stairs that led to a deck standing almost four feet off the sloping ground of the backyard.
The team brought up the children and set them down in the middle of the deck. He and two soldiers leading the group carefully moved the metal deck furniture against the wooden slats along the deck’s perimeter.
The location wasn’t ideal, offering little protection, but the raised position provided firing zones through neighboring backyards and houses—most importantly, a direct line of sight to the house they had come from only fifty yards away.
“Keep them away from the sides, but be ready to run as soon as the choppers touch down,” Rico said.
Another howl exploded from the home where they had found the children.
A juvenile stuck its face out one of the windows, blood dripping from its putrid lips. Brown nostrils flared as it sniffed the stink of its dead brethren lying nearby in the grass.
Dohi lined up his sights and pulled the trigger. Crimson splashed from a fresh hole in the monster’s forehead, and it slumped out of view.
For a moment there was complete silence, but Dohi kept his rifle steady, waiting. Something was coming.
He was right.
The quiet was shattered all at once with full-grown Variants bursting through the bushes lining the backyard. The sinewy beasts galloped over the grass. Several juveniles joined the mix.
Armor piercing rounds speared through the plates bulwarking their organs. Monster after monster fell, sliding over the lawn now wet with their own blood.
The beasts became more incensed, swarming toward the deck. One lunged from a bush and made it through the fire on Dohi’s right. It got all the way to the handrail and slashed at a soldier trying to change his magazine.
Dohi turned to help, unleashing rounds that chiseled into the monster’s side. It squawked in pain and tumbled backward, but the damage was already done.
The soldier dropped his rifle and magazine to hold his neck, arterial blood gushing between his fingers. Red bubbles popped out of his mouth as he tried to say something.
Screaming children snapped Dohi away from the horrific sight. Two of the soldiers had to retreat from their firing positions just to keep the kids from scattering.
“Son of a bitch,” Dohi said.
He tried to reassure himself with those words Fitz so often repeated to them.
All it takes is all you got.
But this time it wasn’t just his life or Team Ghost’s he was trying to save. They had six children with them.
Another minute passed with straggling Variants hurtling through the wide-open yards and filtering out of houses. They came in spurts, drawn from every direction. Not like the relentless waves they had fought upon arriving at Scott AFB, but still with a ferocity that chilled Dohi to his core.
That minute dragged on into a small eternity until one of the soldiers, covered in blood, pointed to the sky. Two black silhouettes contrasted sharply against the sea of blue.
The thump of helicopter rotors and the bark of M240s rose over the Variants’ cries. Rounds tore up the yards around the deck cutting down stray monsters.
“Gather up the kids, and get ready to move!” Rico yelled.
The first of the Black Hawks touched down, and the second circled to provide covering fire.
“Now!” Rico shouted.
She and a squad of surviving soldiers scooped up the children and ran for the bird.
A few remaining juveniles charged for their position, but a crew chief quickly picked them off with the mounted M240.
Dohi was the last one inside. As soon as his boots hit the deck, the chopper lifted off.
The Black Hawks climbed into the air, leaving the carnage-filled neighborhood behind. A handful of Variant latecomers gathered in the grass, staring up for a few seconds. They soon disappeared into the holes that scarred the neighborhood like pustules from hell.
The ride back to command provided a chilling view.
Towers of smoke rose across the base. Streaks of red and brown painted the sidewalks and driveways of houses with broken windows and busted-down doors.
Rico plucked the piece of gum she’d stowed in her helmet and began chewing nervously.
“Hey, look at that!” the soldier with the crooked nose. “There, on that rooftop!” He pointed at a square office building below. Blocky white letters had been haphazardly painted across its flat roof, reading HELP.
Dohi considered asking the pilots to set down, but as they flew closer, it was clear that whoever had painted that SOS was long gone. Variants in the street chewed on bodies they had pulled from the buildings. Others dragged corpses into a tunnel.
“Oh, shit!” yelled another soldier. “That guy’s still alive!”
Dohi raised his rifle and zoomed in his Elcan SpecterDR optic on a man who was being pulled into one of the tunnels. He gripped his abdomen, but his hand fell away, revealing glistening exposed organs. This man wasn’t long for the world, and he was suffering.
You can’t save him, but you can end the torture.
Dohi lined up the sight, thinking back to the tunnel he had been a prisoner in, and what awaited this man.
Then he pulled the trigger.
The priso
ner went limp in the grips of the Variants. Those monsters glanced up at the bird as it flew over, then went back to feeding. He lowered his rifle and turned away from their feast.
Several of the soldiers in the troop hold stared at Dohi.
Rico patted him on the shoulder, and then went back to helping the shell-shocked kids. Dohi was proud they had managed to save these children, but today sure as shit didn’t feel anything close to a victory.
— 4 —
“I think we’re getting close,” Beckham said.
Next to him, Horn twisted to look out the window of the helicopter.
The bright light of the afternoon sun filled the cabin with a yellow glow as the chopper curved through the air. Marines sleeping in the leather seats stirred awake. Others were already alert, checking their weapons and gear.
Nearly sixteen hours had passed since the collaborators hit the White House, and in that time over half of the ninety-eight outposts had suffered devastating attacks. Outposts near the target cities were on the brink of falling.
Beckham had spent most of that time in the air. First traveling from the White House to Outpost Portland, then to the USS George Johnson, and now back to Outpost Portland.
He was anxious to get on the ground and join the battle, but feared he’d already lost his chance to make a difference.
The Marines looked ready to jump back into the fray as well. Their leader was an eager sergeant named Buck with big eyes and a thin mustache.
“What’s the latest, Sergeant?” Beckham asked.
“There’s still fighting on the ground according to aerial surveillance, sir,” Buck replied. “I haven’t heard from Lieutenant Niven’s team for over an hour, so there’s no telling how bad it really is.”
Beckham stood and walked to the cockpit.
“How much longer?” he asked, hoping for more information.
“About ten minutes,” said a pilot. “We’re working on identifying a secure LZ. Sounds like command wants us to put down at the University of Southern Maine.”
Beckham brought a hand to shield his eyes from the glare of the sun. He leaned forward for a better view as they closed in on the shoreline. Thick columns of black smoke billowed away from the center of the outpost. Most of that smoke rose from two specific locations within the city.
Extinction Cycle: Dark Age Box Set | Books 1-4 Page 35