by North, Geoff
AS CIVILIZATION
DIES
Extinction of Us
BOOK 2
Geoff North
Copyright © 2019 by Geoff North
www.geoffnorth.com
How the World Ends (Extinction of Us Book 1)
Live Again (Out of Time Book 1)
Last Contact (Out of Time Book 2)
Lost Playground (Out of Time Book 3)
All Inclusive (Out of Time Book 4)
Ambition (The Long Haul Book 1)
Retribution (The Long Haul Book 2)
Annihilation (The Long Haul Book 3)
Thaw (CRYERS Book 1)
Burn (CRYERS Book 2)
Twisted Tales
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
places, and incidents are the product of the author’s
imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance
to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead,
is purely coincidental.
Chapter 1
Black. Everything, everywhere. Complete and utter darkness.
The bitch had said the blackness would drive him mad when she’d abandoned him deep down in the mine, but Roy Rodger had survived eleven long months in the total absence of light.
Blind people don’t go insane,
he had told himself in the first few hours of his subterranean ordeal. Blind people, whether from birth or later on in life, adjusted to their dark world, and in most cases—so Roy had always heard—thrived in their sightless environment. Other senses became heightened, allowing them to cope at an even higher level with hearing, smelling, and touching. Roy would become a blind person, even though his eyes worked perfectly fine. And that was exactly what he did.
But there were other obstacles he had to overcome if he was going to survive. Roy was a mile underground, sucking in dry, salty air. The air was being forced through a series of monstrous fans set every half kilometre or so throughout the endless maze of horizontal rock tunnels. It stunk constantly like some foreign world where life had no right to exist.
People walk on two legs—another observation he’d told himself months before. They move on the earth’s surface with their dumb heads craned up to the clouds. I live inside the earth. I burrow and crawl in the dark like a mouse... like a big fucking rat.
So Roy became a rat after the first week. He gave up walking on his two legs and settled down to his hands and knees. His hands and knees cut and bruised on the hard rock floor, but Roy the Rat persevered. He kept crawling until the scabs became callouses, and eventually the callouses became as hard as the ground he crawled upon.
Rats don’t live this far underground, he realized after two or three more weeks. If he had come across any, he would’ve eaten them. I’m more like a worm, slithering on its belly along cracks in the dirt. Roy flopped down onto his shrinking gut after that revelation and carried on like a slug, tearing his clothes to shreds and rubbing more skin off of his chest, belly, arms, and legs. It hurt like hell, but he was no longer stumbling and tripping over his feet, or smacking his forehead into rock walls while crawling. Roy the Worm moved slowly, but he moved surely.
The teasing rations Fiona had deposited along the way kept him alive, barely. Some of the plastic water bottles had broken and seeped into the dry ground on impact. Roy had found one once and placed the still damp dirt into his mouth to suck whatever moisture he could from it. A few hundred yards further on he had found a dented tin of food. The contents were always terrible. Cold beans in oily sauce, oysters obviously past their best before date, mussels that tasted like what Roy imagined was ass, and anything else equally vile and vacuum-squeezed into a can. The worst was artichokes. Horrible, flavorless, and with a texture inside his mouth that could only be described as torturous.
Roy ate it all down, and Roy stayed alive. He moved along mile after mile of tunnel searching for a way out—a way up. He dreamed of revenge when he slept. Or perhaps he fantasized about it as he crawled. It was difficult to tell when he was awake and when he was sleeping. It all felt and seemed exactly the same. How he planned to murder Louie, Grace, and that fucking bitch, Fiona, never changed. Roy would brutalize them with his rock-hard fingers. He would drive his thumbs into Louie’s eyes and bite off his pimply nose. He would wrap his hands around Grace’s throat and fuck her until she was dead. And Fiona… oh that bitch. He pictured something made of metal, long and pitted with rust being shoved up her ass. Roy would pull it out of her screaming, bloody mouth, and he would take his time.
He could hear the roar of one of the circulation fans ahead. He hated the damn things. They kept the stale air moving, and they helped keep him alive, but the sound terrified him. It was as if a jumbo jet were attempting to land in the twelve-foot wide, six-foot high tunnels with him. But perhaps more disturbing was what Roy was tempted to do when he got close to one. He wanted to remove the thick metal grating in front and place his head into the whirling blades. The fans were voices from hell, screaming for him to end his miserable life.
Roy moved along the vibrating ground, sucking up salted dust and hacking out balls of hard phlegm. The fans are keeping me alive. The bitch Fiona is still feeding power down here to keep me going. I’m going to thank her for that some day.
He plugged his ears with bits of cloth torn from his shirt and crawled past the machine. It didn’t block much of the sound, but it was enough to keep him surrendering to the roar and committing suicide. Too many things left to do. Too many people to see. The tunnel he was in in began to curve to the left. The noise of the circulation fan became an echoing whine. Roy stopped a hundred more yards on and removed the cloth from his ears. He breathed in deeply through his nostrils and smelled that alien subterranean stench he would never get accustomed to.
He exhaled the air slowly through his cracked lips, feeling it rumble along in his chest. His ears picked something up farther down the tunnel. Roy recognized the sound instantly. Plastic crumpling. A water bottle being handled between shaking, desperate fingers.
“Who’s there?” He called out in a rasp. Roy hadn’t used his voice in days. He cleared his throat, spat more balls of dusty snot onto the ground and tried again. “Who the fuck’s down there?” The crumpling sound stopped. Roy yelled. “That’s my fucking water. Put it down!”
He pushed up onto his hands and knees and became Roy the Rat. He crawled quickly. Not fast enough. Cocksucker’s gonna drink all my water. He stood and stumbled forward. Roy the Rat transformed back into Roy the Homicidal-Maniac-Human once again.
A voice—muffled and dryer-sounding than Roy’s—called back in the dark. “Thought I was the only one… thought the water was mine.”
Roy stopped several feet, perhaps mere inches, from the sound. “Well it isn’t. The water was left by a goddamn bitch. It was left for me.”
There was a long pause. “You too, hey? Fiona did the same thing to me. Brought me down here after the bombs dropped and all the other workers left.”
“You’re lying.”
Another long silence. “Why would I lie about something like that? Did you think you were the only one she hated? Fiona had it in for a bunch of us. I don’t recognize your voice… did you used to work here?”
“No. I did security work in the city.” Roy inched forward.
“How the hell did you end up at Odessa?”
Roy thought back on how Fiona and Grace had rescued them from the mangled tool shed. A diseased cow had smashed its head through the window. Roy was found in the arms of another man with his pants around his ankles. “I don’t wanna talk about that. Give me my water.”
“It’s m
y water, too. Fiona left a whole bunch of them for me in the western tunnels.”
A thought occurred to Roy. Hope rose in his chest. “You know where she dropped you off? Of course he knows, the asshole used to work down here. “You know the way back to the main shaft?”
“Yeah, I know the way back. Been there a few times already. The main lighting’s been cut… elevator’s locked off.”
There was something about the stranger’s voice that troubled Roy. It sounded distant even though he knew the man was sitting somewhere right in front of him. “We’re down in a fucking mine. There’s got to be tools down here to take care of that. Crow bars, sledgehammers, something.”
“Yeah, I’ve rounded some stuff up from a few of the safe rooms.”
“Safe rooms. What the fuck are safe rooms?”
“Emergency evacuation stations in case of fire or collapses. Don’t get too excited. Fiona cleared them out of the useful things. The big tools are all gone. All that’s left are a few wrenches, some smaller hammers and screw drivers.”
Roy wasn’t about to give up that easily. “There’s got to be other machinery we can use down here… welders, generators and fuel. Shit like that.”
“Nope. She took all of it. No power sources at all. The circulation fans are running from the main control room above ground. She even cleared out all the emergency ration stations… Water, food, medical supplies. All gone.”
“There’s still water and food,” Roy growled. “She left it for me.”
“It was meant for both of us to find. We can share it.”
“Fuck sharing, it’s all mine.” Roy took another step. He heard the man shuffle back along the rock. Four feet away, maybe three. Close enough to reach and strangle.
“Don’t be stupid, man. We’re the only ones down here… we need to work together.”
“I worked with someone after the attack. Found him crawling out from a collapsed building. Like a goddamn rat. Fucker backstabbed me. I don’t work with anyone no more.” Roy listened as the man backed away a few more feet. He could hear his heavy breathing. Muffled. Mechanical. Sounds like Darth Vader having a panic attack. “The water’s mine, asshole. All of it. Give it here or you’re a dead man.”
“You’d kill me for this bottle of water? I’m your only way out of this place. I told you I know the way to the main shaft.”
“Whole lot of good that did you. You’re still crawling out here in the tunnels after eleven months.” The longest pause of them all. Roy waited and listened to the breathing.
“Eleven months… You sure of that? Doesn’t seem that long.”
“Eleven months, thirteen days, and a handful of hours. I been keeping track inside my head, and it feels a lot fucking longer to me.”
“What did you do to Fiona to piss her off enough to send you down here?”
“The water. Give me the water.”
“We were just about to head below for the noon shift when we saw the news. Missiles flying through the air… mushroom clouds rising up all over the States and Russia. Needless to say, work wasn’t high on the old priority list.” The man chuckled. It sounded like something was trying to dig its way out of his chest. “I figured that was it for all of us—you know what I mean… end of times and all that shit. Me and some other guys were heading out for the parking lot, to be with our loved ones, you know. Fiona chased after us from the main building and said our shift wasn’t done.”
The miner chuckled again. Roy could hear the clumps of snot rattling inside him. The air was dry and salty. It had been collecting in their lungs for almost a year. “Give me the water. I won’t ask again.”
“The other guys kept going to their vehicles. I turned back towards Fiona and called her a clueless fucking bitch. I really didn’t a shit at that point, so I reached out and squeezed both of her tits. Next thing I remember is waking up in the back of a moving transport underground with my hands and feet tied. We all knew she was a crazy, but to do something like this? Christ… I had no idea she was that fucked in the head.”
“What’s your name?”
“Carl.”
Roy crept forward. “I’m sick of your voice, Carl. I’m going to kill you now and shut that mouth of yours for good. Then I’m gonna take my water.”
“Back off. I’m six foot four, two-hundred and fifty pounds.”
“I’m bigger.”
Roy jumped and landed on one of the man’s legs. A knee cracked into the side of his head but Roy clutched to the pinned limb and climbed on top of him. He found an arm, gripped it at the bicep and forearm in his powerful hands. “Skinny little shit is all you are.”
“Please, please, please don’t hurt me. You can have the water.”
“I don’t need your permission.” He forced the arm back at the elbow. The miner screamed as ligaments tore and bone snapped. Roy went for his throat next and the scream ended moments later. He continued throttling for another full minute, shaking the lifeless body back and forth like a dog with a throw toy. Roy finally released him back to the ground. His fingers rubbed against something cold and hard near the man’s chin. Plastic. He felt some more. Plastic and metal. Roy explored with the tips of his fingers and found smooth glass. He clicked on it with a fingernail. An eye cover. A gas mask. The fucker’s wearing a gas mask.
He yanked up on the head covering, pulling the entire body with it. The mask remained firmly attached to its dead owner. Roy felt underneath, against the flesh of the man’s pulverized Adam’s apple. There was a strap. He unclicked it at the join and felt the body begin to slip away. He heard the man’s skull crack against rock as it hit the ground.
“I’ve murdered a lot of people, Carl.” He put the mask on. “I get hard when I kill people.” The sound of his own voice close within the confines of the mask excited him. “The more I kill, the harder I get. It’s fucking awesome.” It were as though he could suddenly confess his terrible sins out loud, but still keep the thoughts to himself. “Your biggest crime after the bombs fell was telling a bitch off and touching her boobies. That was nothing, buddy. First thing I did was seal off the doors of the shopping mall I worked in. Then I went to my locker and pulled out all them guns I’d been collecting for years. Most of the losers shopping that day made it out, but I managed to mow down a hundred and thirty of the really dumb ones.”
Roy went on and described to the corpse every horrible thing he’d done since the world had begun to end—from the mall shootings to the murders at the care home. “They all deserved it, Carl. They deserved it because they were stupid and helpless. A world like this can’t function with stupid and helpless people.” He remembered the grey-haired woman and the two children that had gotten away from the mall. One of the little fuckers had whacked him in the back with a golf club. “And it sure as hell can’t function with thieves and sneaks.” Roy kicked at Carl’s leg. “You were a thief, weren’t you? You stole my fucking water. And you were a sneak, crawling in these dark tunnels, following me around for months.” He stomped down on his chest and kicked his head. He continued stomping and kicking until he was exhausted. He dropped to his knees, panting heavily into the mask. Roy’s stomach rumbled. He hadn’t eaten in days. He could smell fresh blood in the salty air. Carl’s blood. Roy removed the mask and the smell became stronger. His guts flopped around again. He reached forward to where he thought Carl’s face was and felt warm goo. Brains. This shit’s Carl’s brains. He scooped some up into his hand and considered what he was about to do.
“I can’t climb out of this place and find that fucking bitch on artichokes and rotten oysters. I need to build my strength back up. I gotta be strong.” He could feel the erection growing in his pants. “A man’s gotta eat.”
Chapter 2
Amanda was in the North Kilpatrick shopping mall. She knew she wasn’t physically there—the mall, along with all the thousands of other stores, restaurants, schools, and homes in the city of Winnipeg had been blasted into oblivion—but her mind was there. Amanda was dreaming
of how things used to be. She was with her twin brother, Michael, and their mother, wandering from shop to shop. They were in a clothing store filled with colorful tops and fashionable blue jeans. Amanda was tugging on her mother’s hand, asking for things she didn’t need but desperately wanted. Michael was whining too—he hated the clothing stores. He wanted to go where the gaming consoles were sold. It was a normal, boring Saturday afternoon. It was wonderful.
Amanda pulled a little too hard on her mother’s fingers and they snapped off. She looked up, about to apologize, and saw her mother’s head was gone. She could feel something sticking to her chest. Amanda looked back down. Her tee-shirt was drenched in blood. Chunks of bone and clumps of hair were stuck to it.
“That’s what she gets for dilly-dallying,” Michael whispered.
“What?”
“Wasting time… She should’ve got us out of the mall while there was still time.”
Amanda dropped her mother’s fingers to the floor. “Time for what? What could she have done any different to stop the bombs falling?”
“Not the bombs, silly. I’m talking about Roy… She dilly-dallied too long and Roy blew her brains out.”
Amanda heard the gunshots a few seconds later. Pop! Pop! Pop!
Michael leaned into her face. “He’s coming for us now. He’s gonna get us this time.”
The shooting stopped and Amanda heard the distant wail of a baby crying. It was joined by another a few seconds later, and a third moments after that. She gripped her brother by his skeletal shoulders and shook him. “We have to find them. We have to find the babies and take them away from here.”
“Too late for that, sis. Too late for the babies. Too late for us.” The skin on his face had turned grey. Puss was leaking out from the corners of his eyes and leaking down his sunken cheeks. “All we can do is hide in our secret place.”
The popping of gunfire resumed. The babies cried louder. Amanda turned away from her brother’s dying face and saw they were in the toy store. It was dark, and the aisles loomed around them stuffed with terrible play things, casting hellish shadows upon the blood-streaked floor tiles.