Escaping Extinction - The Extinction Series Book 5: A Thrilling Post-Apocalyptic Survival Series
Page 19
He would demand that they leave him behind if that happened.
“Here,” Akuba was saying as she knelt in front of him. She had a cup in her hands. “Drink it all.”
Jason blinked. How much time had passed? The fever had to be worse than he thought, and the realization compelled him to take the tea without any further complaints. As he brought it to his lips and took the first sip, he grimaced. Jess had been right, it tasted awful.
“We saw an improvement in Maya in less than twelve hours,” Peta said, hovering nearby. She was ringing her hands nervously and kept glancing sideways at him, like she was very much afraid of what she was seeing.
“Right,” Jason said, gulping down the rest while plugging his nose. Gagging, he managed to keep it down and then did his best to smile at her. “I feel better already.”
He was trying not to remember the hundreds of patients he watched die slow deaths in the hospital. Or the number of hours he’d spent in fear over experiencing the first tell-tale signs of infection. The ones he now had.
Peta’s expression turned to alarm at about the same time Jason heard the approaching sound of pounding feet. Jumping up, he grabbed for the AR as Devon and Slaider rushed forward with their weapons drawn.
“It’s us!” Tyler called out long before they could see them.
Jess was holding a flashlight, and its beam cut through the heavy darkness once they scampered around the closest of the trees. It wasn’t until she was a few feet away that Jason could see her face, and he knew immediately they had a new kind of trouble.
“They’re here,” Jess gasped. Her eyes were wild and she was bent over, sucking in ragged gulps of air. “My dad.”
Slaider ran to smother the fire, and Devon started grabbing their gear. Akuba moved up next to Peta and reached out to take Jess by the arms. “How close are they?” she asked.
“Less than a mile,” Tyler said, shouldering his automatic rifle. “Jess went up a tree to look down into the valley we went through earlier today. She saw smoke, so we went closer, and…”
“How many?” Jason demanded, already able to hear the weakness in his own voice.
“A couple dozen.” Tyler wiped the sweat from his forehead and then shook his head. “There could be more, but we didn’t want to get too close. And, you guys—”
Jason put a hand up. He didn’t need to hear it. He already knew Eddy was with them. Reaching out, he put an arm around Jess and led her back to where Slaider was shoving their supplies back into the bags. Grabbing one of the remaining bottles of water and a protein bar, he handed them to her, and then stared into her eyes with as much energy as he could muster. “I need you to be strong,”
“It wasn’t just Eddy,” Tyler blurted, before Jess could respond.
When Jason looked warily at him, Tyler surprised him by turning to Peta and Devon. “It’s Dr. Schaefer.”
Peta gasped and Devon threw his bag down. “Of course, it is!” he shouted. “Who else would we expect to have chasing after us, than the zombie version of our handler. The one that we left rotting back in California!”
“Are you sure?” Peta demanded. She moved close enough to take Tyler by the shoulders, so she could see his face in the thick shadows.
He nodded, the whites of his eyes visible. “I saw her a bunch of times on the video chats, plus at the, uh…house. It was her.”
Peta released him and stepped back. “If Madeline Schaefer is here, we have even bigger problems than we realized.”
From what Jason knew of their involvement with the woman, Peta wasn’t exaggerating. More than ever, they’d have to rely on each other. He picked up Devon’s pack and tossed it to him. “It’s going to take all of us to get there.”
It had turned into a race. A race with monumental consequences in more ways than Jason cared to acknowledge.
As Marty leaned into his leg, he reached down and set a hand on his friend’s head. It hadn’t been that long ago that Jason wouldn’t have understood how much he needed anyone else in his life. Or how he could be stronger in that moment, in spite of being infected with the deadliest contagion mankind had ever faced.
Jason hefted his backpack and gripped the AR before turning to walk into the black pit of the Amazon jungle. Ignoring the flash of pain behind his left eye and an odd tingling sensation in his arm, he took his daughter’s hand and they moved forward to face it together.
EXTINCTION Book 6
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