The Extinction Series | Book 3 | Brink of Extinction Read online

  BRINK OF

  EXTINCTION

  The Extinction Series

  Book 3

  By

  Tara Ellis

  Mike Kraus

  © 2021 Muonic Press Inc

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  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, without the permission in writing from the author.

  Table of Contents

  Preface

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

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  Special Thanks

  Special thanks to my awesome beta team, without whom this book wouldn’t be nearly as great.

  Thank you!

  EXTINCTION Book 4

  Available Here

  Preface

  A primordial malevolence has been unleashed from the Mohorovicic Discontinuity (MOHO), a mysterious realm encircling the globe, nestled between the Earth’s mantle and crust. While the ensuing volcanic eruptions and earthquakes are obvious catastrophes, it’s the unseen assailant that poses the greatest threat.

  Peta Kelly is a leading marine geophysicist, tasked with deciphering the course of the spreading disasters. After discovering the corporation she was working for had a direct hand in the initial MOHO explosion, Peta and her colleagues went rogue. And it came at a cost. On the run and hunted, they must find a way to reveal the truth while battling to stay alive.

  Tyler Edmonds and his parents made the decision to team up with Peta, though it’s an alliance born from desperation. At sixteen, Tyler has lost a lot, and the coming days will threaten to destroy everything he loves.

  He’s thrust across the plains of Nevada after a risky escape from a military facility in the midst of a Yellowstone eruption. Though he’s already overcome so many obstacles, he must now face the most challenging: himself. He will fight back for either love or hate, and accept the consequences.

  It would seem that fourteen-year-old Jessica Davies was fortunate. Tucked away on the Libi Nati Preserve, in Suriname, South America, she was one of the few to escape the original events relatively unscathed.

  After the local hot spring her father studied erupted into a geyser, people began to fall ill, including her dad. But Jess remained healthy, and right when she teetered on the brink of devastation, her dad woke up. Except, something wasn’t right…with either her dad or the Amazon. There was an undeniable darkness spreading, and Jess turned to the indigenous Lokono for help. An ancient people who have been there for Jess her whole life, and have an ancestral knowledge about the terrifying Kra Puru disease, known to the rest of the world as The Kuru.

  Jason Hunter was on his own, with nothing more than the bag on his back and his German Shepherd, Marty.

  He walked away from a hospital full of death in Seattle, Washington, not understanding why he was still alive. It was a feeling he’d had before while standing in the shattered remains of a town in Iraq.

  Armed with a folder full of critical information and a mission to find his estranged daughter, Jason will head south to do what he does best: survive.

  Madeline “Mads” Schaefer’s primary mistake had been her overwhelming desire to live. It blinded her to the real threats as she worked with the International Coalition Of Natural Sciences (ICONS), to cover-up their sins. A multi-national corporation primarily responsible for the extent of the MOHO eruption, the leaders behind it didn’t care how the whitewash was achieved.

  Though one of the top geology and marine scientists in the world, she failed both the corporation that hired her, as well as the human race. After becoming infected with the novel prion disease, The Kuru, Mads is stricken down and will be forced to choose if her final act will be for redemption…or salvation.

  The MOHO was a mystery that should have been left buried under the miles of earth and ocean where it was hidden. While the pursuit of scientific advancement was the excuse for the endeavor, the true motivation lay at the core of modern society: greed. As with everything in nature, a balance must be maintained and mankind has always been a small, rather insignificant equation in the biosphere. Through the unfathomable power set in motion, only those with the ability to either endure or capitalize will find a way to persist in the reckoning.

  Chapter 1

  MICHELLE

  Queensland, Australia

  The wind carried the sweet smell of warmed summer grass and a hint of the sea, and it felt like an act of defiance against the true vista laid out before Michelle. Rolling acreage tumbled down to a white-sand beach, dotted with grazing horses and the occasional stray kangaroo. Except the sky had turned a surreal orange under the blanket of ash that moved into the area a couple of days before, and the insolent breeze could do nothing to hide the oppressing thickness in the air as ash rained down, blanketing the landscape in an unnatural winter.

  The horse farm on the ocean in Queensland, Australia had been in Michelle’s family for three generations. After the death of her husband, she had scaled back, though she refused to sell any of the land. As she lay there on the open porch, watching it disappear into an unimaginable disaster, Michelle quietly wept. She wanted to scream…to tear her clothes from her body and run into the tumultuous ocean, cursing the heavens, but even the ability to revolt against the death of her land had been stolen from her.

  Michelle was dying, and her world had been reduced to nothing more than the bargain lounge chair she found earlier that summer, and her two dogs with their faces pressed into her useless hands.

  “I’m sorry I can’t pet you,” she whispered, doing her best not to fret over the two. They were Australian Cattle Dogs, and were raised on the farm. With over two-hundred acres of grassland, streams, and patches of foliage, they should be able to scavenge and survive on their own. “You’ll be fine in the bush, won’t ya Trigger? You blokes don’t need anyone to pash on you.” Because no one would be coming to help Michelle, or take care of the horses and dogs in the wake of her death. Too many were already gone. Taken by the spreading Kuru in a matter of days.

  When the ash started moving in on Tuesday, there’d been a run on the stores and Michelle had
gotten caught up in the panic. She went to the local merchant and considered herself fortunate to come away with a box of dust masks, some canned goods, and even a jar of peanut butter. It wasn’t until the next day when the alert for the disease was broadcast, warning people to stay home and away from any public places. It was already too late for Michelle by then. She didn’t know if it was the checker, the woman behind her as they waited in line with their booty, or perhaps the older bloke in the parking lot who stopped to chat with her about the end of the world. She supposed it didn’t matter.

  When the initial symptoms began, she’d attempted to go to the hospital, and hadn’t made it past the parking lot. It was a terrifying experience wrought with images burned into her mind. It wasn’t that the facility was overrun yet with patients. It was the panic, and the palpable horror set against a backdrop of darkening skies and unknown assailants.

  It was apparent to all by Wednesday that the chain of catastrophic eruptions and earthquakes were all connected to whatever had happened at the MOHO. It was enough to challenge the fortitude of the strongest-willed, and so when the savage Kuru disease was thrown into the mix, the blanketing darkness felt like a death-shroud. And it was.

  The modest line of people trailing out the emergency room doors wasn’t what pushed Michelle to skip the open parking spaces. It was a particular family she stopped to let pass. In the pale glow of her headlights, she watched who she presumed was the father carrying a small child. A woman holding a baby trailed behind and paused just long enough to look up and make eye-contact with Michelle. She saw the cold, glassy-eyed numbness of a person who’d already accepted their fate. From all accounts, the disease was almost a certain death sentence. That was when Michelle understood. People weren’t going to the hospital for help. Not really. They were going there to die.

  Moaning, she shifted on the padded lounge and managed a small scratch behind one of Trigger’s ears, and the dog whimpered in response. “I would rather leave this world surrounded by what I love,” she murmured. She glanced over at the picture she had set out on a small table next to her, along with a cup of tea long gone cold. It was her favorite picture of her and her husband Mark, taken during their twentieth anniversary celebration right there on the farm. Their daughter had organized a surprise party with a handful of their closest friends. It was a magical night.

  Michelle pressed another framed photo to her chest, wedged under her left arm. She was thankful she’d had enough forethought to gather her most treasured items properly before becoming too weak, although it would have been better if she’d placed both pictures side-by-side. She wanted to look at her daughter’s beautiful face one last time.

  She was already gone, taken in the initial event. Michelle admitted she’d already checked out to a certain degree, after receiving that news earlier in the week. It made sense, in some odd way, for the rest of her world to be chipped and eroded away ever since.

  First, the ocean changed, it’s azure color shifting to a muddy green and churning and frothing as the tides pulled and twisted in unusual ways. Then the sky fell victim to the massive ash plumes rising around the globe, casting shadows where there shouldn’t be any. The phone failed, then the internet. Stores and banks collapsed and gas ran dry. It was just in time for any working engines to suck up the sharp, tiny shards raining down so they could die, too. Michelle was cut-off from lifelong friends, though she couldn’t bear to witness their slow deaths, along with her own.

  Wincing at a fresh blossom of pain in her forehead, Michelle did her best not to consider its source. While she wouldn’t even pretend to fully understand what a prion was, she knew enough to comprehend how they were meticulously worming their way through her brain, destroying her motor skills and eventually the ability to breathe. She had found some leftover narcotics from a broken bone she’d suffered years before and taken a couple before she went about arranging her deathbed. They were wearing off.

  But with the pain came some renewed strength as her muscles fired in one last valiant effort, and Michelle was able to move her left arm enough to cause the photo to flip over.

  Sighing, she gazed longingly at the image and contemplated how very different the ending was going to be than she’d imagined. Plans. Always so many plans as to how the farm would continue to be passed down, and hopefully one day managed again to see its full glory. There were to be grandkids and birthday parties, and—

  A coughing fit wracked Michelle’s body and she lay gasping in distress as the motion caused explosions of agony inside her head. It was unlike anything she’d ever experienced and made her long for a blessed nothingness to claim her. Trigger and Stock sat back on their haunches, ears pricked and heads cocked in expressions of extreme anxiety.

  Michelle concentrated on the living creatures, thankful to have a reason to suppress her cries and die with some dignity. She was a proud woman, much like her daughter, and was determined to leave the world with poise.

  Her daughter’s photo swam back into focus, juxtaposing in front of the watchful dogs. Michelle’s eyes flicked over it, taking in her blonde hair, blue eyes, and a jawline any aussie would be proud of. Only those native to the region would think to guess she had any aboriginal blood in her veins.

  While her daughter would balk at her choice of photos because it was “after” the traumatic event that both emotionally and physically scarred her, Michelle saw it as a testament to her tenacity. Focusing on the scar that traced her high cheekbone, she had an overwhelming feeling she wouldn’t be seeing her daughter as soon as she’d thought.

  “I don’t care what that woman said,” Michelle whispered, not realizing she was talking aloud. Her thoughts were becoming muddy, but she clung to the upwelling of certainty that her daughter was still alive. When the head scientist had called her on Saturday to notify her of the demise of the whole research team on Mauritius island, Michelle hadn’t questioned it. But… now she had an overwhelming sense that she was wrong.

  Michelle could feel her. Her life and energy that was out in the world. Smiling, she was at peace in the knowledge that her daughter was still in pursuit of a belief she’d lost all those years ago, while trapped in a vice of death.

  “Peta,” Michelle called out, struggling to draw in another breath. “Peta, you deserve to live.”

  Chapter 2

  PETA

  West of Battle Mountain, Nevada

  The old Jeep rattled along interstate eighty at an infuriatingly slow pace. Peta sat with her arms wedged in between her legs, trying to allow for more room in the cramped back seat she was sharing with Tyler and Bill. The normally three-hour drive across Nevada from Battle Mountain to Reno was pushing five, due to having to keep their speed under thirty-five to prevent damage from the ash.

  “Don’t you think they’re going to be looking for us?” Bill asked, twisting to stare out the back window, and elbowing Peta in the process. He’d expressed the same concerns several times throughout the past twenty-four hours since the crash. The already nervous man was having a hard time coping with losing Theresa, so Peta was making a great effort to give him some latitude.

  “Really?” Hernandez growled from the driver’s seat, clearly not as concerned about the man’s emotional state. “This again?”

  Devon looked over at the ensign and then back at Bill. “Relax, okay? Even if they wanted to come after us, the base would’ve been under a heavy cloud of ash in hours. With all of the excitement from the quake, I doubt an alert for our escape went up in time for them to report it, let alone send anyone after us.”

  Peta frowned at the plume of ash being kicked up from the road in their wake. There wasn’t much coming down in their location, but even a light dusting could wreak havoc on several levels, including communication and electrical systems. While she knew Devon was right, she didn’t blame Bill for worrying. Some powerful people had gone to extreme measures to get control of them, and she doubted they’d give them up quite so easily.

  The landscape was a
combination of relatively flat, rolling hills covered with brown grass and sage brush. If it weren’t for the false twilight and cover offered by the ash, Peta would have felt much more exposed. Though there weren’t many other vehicles attempting to travel, she still felt vulnerable. It was hard not to second-guess the decision that morning to leave the tiny town of Battle Mountain for Reno.

  They had finally reached Battle Mountain after hours of walking from the crash site, and it was a huge letdown to discover the phones and WiFi were already out. They’d decided to stay the night to give themselves time to recover physically, but being cut off from the rest of the world made their next move a hotly debated decision. In the end, the likelihood of there being an internet connection in Reno, and the reality that they needed to keep moving, was what compelled them to “find” the jeep and head out early under the cover of darkness.

  “You didn’t have to come with us,” Hernandez reminded Bill.

  “Seriously?” Tyler retorted.

  Peta grimaced and shot an irritated look at the back of the ensign’s head. She appreciated everything he’d done for them with his bravery, but the guy’s social skills were worse than hers.

  “We’re gonna make ICONS pay for this,” Tyler said evenly. He stared straight ahead, his jaw set in a firm line of determination. The fresh injuries on his face underscored his justification. “And we don’t have anywhere else to go.”

  “We could—”

  “Of course, you’re staying with us,” Peta interrupted Bill before he could say something more antagonizing. “Has anyone ever been to Reno?” she asked, doing her best to shift the focus of conversation. “I’ve been to Vegas a few times for conferences, but never Reno. All I know is it’s a big city in the middle of nowhere.”