Extinction Cycle (Kindle Worlds Novella): From The Ashes Read online

  "You gotta be fucking kidding me," Fulton said over the comm. A group of five more gang members were rushing down the alley, in pursuit of the soldiers. He wasted no time opening fire, shooting over the crouched, scurrying forms of Hedley and Clemson.

  Hedley turned to provide additional support, taking cover behind a pummeled vehicle a few rows back. Clemson darted behind him, further down the row to provide Barlow with covering fire to escape the approaching gang on his six at the mouth of the lot.

  "Shit," Hedley swore. "Barlow, fall back. Just turn around and run, god damn it."

  Barlow was pinned beside a vehicle with gang members approaching his location from both the alley and the entrance of the parking lot. Fulton and Hedley firing toward the alley was enough to make that group of men more cautious, but not enough to deter them. The gang members that had poured out of the SUV, though, had a clear bead on Barlow. The only saving grace for the Ranger was that their aim sucked, and was made all the worse by their stupid desire to fire the gun sideways.

  Fucking amateurs, Hedley thought. That thought, though, stung all the worse for the realization that they had still managed to kill a Ranger. These fucking punks had killed Hanscomb with nothing more than sheer, stupid luck.

  Hedley fired tight, controlled three-round bursts into the alley, satisfied when he saw the lead gang member's chest pop open from the strikes to his center mass. The man dropped, but his companions were still approaching, still firing.

  He squatted down to eject his spent magazine and reload. He took a quick glance at Clemson and saw her methodically pulling the trigger at her targets. He couldn't tell if she was hitting anything from his position.

  "Barlow, what's your status?"

  "Clemson thinned out the herd a bit."

  "Fall the fuck back. That's an order."

  Hedley stood, again sighting toward where he had last seen the threats. During his time in cover, Fulton had taken out another gangbanger. As he locked onto a fresh target, he noticed a shape moving quickly up the fire escape of the People Mover Station.

  "We got one going for the roof," he said. He fired on his target, saw the man's head explode, then aimed toward the stairs of the fire escape. His rounds met steel, sparks flying into the air, but the enemy combatant kept moving.

  "Barlow, fall back right now."

  "Shit," Barlow said, but offered no argument. He opened fire at the men near the SUV, with Clemson providing additional fire from the opposite side, then turned and ran like hell down the center lane between parking rows. He blind fired, not caring if he hit anything as long as it kept his opponents distracted.

  Fulton kept up a continuous fire until he ran dry, then dipped down below the vehicle's windows to reload. Hedley fired, taking out another gang member. Even as he did that, though, one of the men used his dying comrade as a distraction, darting behind the flailing body and firing into the parking lot. As the man fired and reached cover behind a vehicle parked at the corner of the People Mover Station, where Barlow had been only moments before, he arced his gun laterally across the lot, strafing everything before him.

  Blood burst from Barlow's leg as the Ranger ran into a painful stumble, then crashed to the ground. He fell atop his rifle, screaming into the mic.

  "Son of a bitch," Hedley said. He sought out the punk that had shot Barlow, sending a volley of shots his way, but succeeded only in hitting the vehicle the man dove behind.

  Shots landed too close to Hedley, striking the roof and hood the vehicle he was sheltering behind. One of the gang members had made it to the roof of the station and was firing down at him. The six men from the SUV had been halved thanks to Clemson's efforts, and with Barlow injured the Rangers were outnumbered five to three. Hedley suspected those odds were about to get worse, noticing one of the gunmen speaking urgently into the small, glowing Bluetooth stuck in his ear.

  "Fulton, Clemson, I need you to keep me covered. I'm going for Barlow."

  "Roger that," Fulton said.

  He turned and saw Clemson looking at him as she reloaded. Her face was stoic, but she nodded inside her helmet.

  The rooftop shooter opened fire again, this time going for an easier target. Perhaps sensing the Ranger's intent, he opened fire at Barlow. The ground exploded all around the injured soldier, dirt and gravel kicking up into the air. The shooter sprayed at Barlow, relying more on luck than skill, and bullets stitched their way across the Ranger's back.

  Hedley found the shooter through his sights and lined up a head-shot. Barlow's screams howled in his ears as he pulled the trigger, saw the trail of blood snap into the cold air, and then the body collapsed out of sight.

  Over the gunfire, the roar of motorcycle engines screamed their way down the alley, the riders shooting assault rifles as they peeled into the lot on bright green Kawasaki Ninjas. Fulton dropped behind the car, firing through the windows, but the Kawasakis were fast and maneuverable as they zipped around his position and cut through the parking lot, forcing Hedley and Clemson into cover.

  Through the rear window, Hedley watched as the three men from the SUV approached Barlow's writhing form. The Kawasakis had him pinned down, and all he could do was watch. His heart thudded in his chest, worried over what was about to happen, knowing what they would do before they did it. He wanted to scream and rebel against the inevitability of it all, but gunfire rang around him, the sparks from bullets striking steel flashing against his visor.

  A large man in dark sunglasses and layers of long gold chains around his neck, whose bearing clearly marked him as their leader, strode up to Barlow and kicked the Ranger onto his back. Barlow tried to raise his rifle, but was too weak and too slow to do more than scream. The man stepped on the gun, trapping it beneath a wide, heavy looking Timberland, then raised his own assault rifle. He squared the sights against Barlow's face shield, and offered the man a grim smile.

  Loud enough for the other Rangers to hear, the gang leader said, "This is our motherfucking city!"

  The gunshot cracked the sky apart, and the moment of silence that followed was empty and desolate. Barlow's screams had ended abruptly, twisted into a wet gurgle, and then, finally, nothing at all.

  Sound crept back as the world resumed its turn, and Hedley heard the crazed fury of motorcycle engines revving around him, the bikes twisting through the lot.

  In the distance, he heard, too, the dull roar of automatic weapons fire and horrendous, all too-familiar, shrieking. Overhead, a Black Hawk soared past, and then he knew for sure.

  The infected were near.

  CHAPTER TEN

  D'Andre's dog was barking furiously, joined by three other, much smaller, canines. The dog was named Dottie, a curiously gentle name for an animal now frothing at the mouth and being forcibly restrained by her owner. She pulled at her collar, choking herself, spittle flying from her lips. Then she turned and took a quick nip at D'Andre, not enough to break his skin, but enough to startle him into letting go. As soon as she felt his hand release, she darted into the fray like a bat out of hell, hackles raised and making enough noise to drown out the cries of the infected woman.

  Edna was barely recognizable. Her lips were deformed and swollen, her hair mostly gone, and what little was left was limp and stringy as it hung around her scalp. Her skin had gone from a smooth brown shade to sickly translucent, her cords of muscles and veins straining to push through the sheath of flesh.

  Like Melissa, Arvin had met her the previous night. She had told him stories about the riots of 1967, the last time she had seen a National Guard presence patrolling the streets. Things had been bad then — more than forty dead, over a thousand injured, more than two thousand buildings destroyed, all over the course of less than a week. But, she had admitted, even that could not come close to what they were going through currently.

  As for Edna, there was simply no comparison between the woman that had arrived at the shelter on a National Guard transport truck, and the creature that now inhabited
her form. A frail, hunched-over woman less than a day ago, she was now standing straight, and was sickeningly quick. As she stood erect, Arvin could hear the snapping and clicking of her bones shifting to straighten her spine. Her limbs and torso moved in unnatural ways, popping and cracking, and moving with ruthless efficiency.

  The American Red Cross nurse lay dead at her clawed feet, blood oozing from her wounds. A dark red crust encircled Edna's leech-like mouth, her clothes wet and freshly stained.

  Arvin couldn't help but appreciate the fluid beauty of the woman's movements, despite her grace leading to a terrible end for those people unfortunate enough to be in her immediate vicinity.

  Edna leaped over the corpse, her legs and arms coming up in a perverted, primal sort of display that reminded him of a flying Kung Fu move, her limbs pistoling out to ensnare a much larger man. It was like watching a spider pounce and trap its prey. Her claws were buried in her victim's skin, her mouth twisting and sucking savagely at his neck.

  Dottie rushed forward, leading a trio of other dogs into the carnage. She leapt onto Edna's back, taking both the creature and her victim to the ground, biting at the once-frail woman and tearing loose strips of fabric. The other dogs encircled them, darting in to snap at the creature. A poodle's mouth latched onto Edna's thin arm, but she was unfazed. She pulled her arm, and the dog, in closer, her claws gouging into puffy white hair, a spurt of blood staining its coat crimson. Her hand twisted inside the animal, widening the gap, and then tore free. The animal dropped off her arm and hit the floor with a wet smack.

  Her victim had his hand around his neck, gore seeping between his fingers as he tried to kick his way free.

  Dottie's front paws raked down Edna's back, tearing at her clothes and the skin beneath. Edna twisted, her bones clicking as she brutally grasped the dog's face in both hands, one digging into the lab's snout while the other grabbed ahold of the dog's lower jaw. She pried Dottie's jaws apart, and a blood-curdling yelp rose from the animal. For as long as he lived, Arvin didn't think he would ever forget the bone-crunching snap and wet-sounding tear of flesh as she tore the dog's mouth apart, and then used a jagged edge of broken jawbone to stab her through the skull.

  The other dogs turned to retreat, but she lashed out at both, crashing their heads together with inhuman viciousness. Before their whimpers had trailed off into nothingness, she was springing off the man, claws slashing away at another man's face, her new victim's nose coming apart in gooey ribbons.

  D'Andre rushed forward, his grief inchoate but fueled by shock and anger over losing his dog in such a brutal fashion. Arvin didn't know what else to do, so he darted to his feet and gave chase. Melissa tried to grab his arm, but he shook himself free, never breaking stride. He pushed through the retreating crush of bodies seeking to put distance between themselves and the monster they were trapped with. Once through the wall of bodies, he grabbed a folding chair, the only potential weapon his panicked mind could find.

  D'Andre was screaming loud enough to distract Edna from her feasting. As she looked up, murderous lust clear in her yellow eyes, Arvin slammed the folded chair into her face, swinging it by the legs and aiming for the back of the room, as if he were back on the baseball diamond of his youth and batting for the fences.

  Edna's head snapped back, blood streaming down her broken lips. A pointed tongue darted out to taste the gore, and then those reptilian eyes narrowed directly on Arvin. He took an instinctive step back, surprised by the primal force inhabiting those eyes, the dilation of the vertical pupils sending a shiver down his spine. He knew then what it was like to be a field mouse under the scrutiny of a snake, frozen in fear, awaiting the killing strike and the snapping of jaws around his throat.

  D'Andre threw a solid right hook into the side of her face and she roared. He lunged toward her, wrapping a beefy arm around her throat.

  "Do it!" he shouted. Arvin's grip on the chair's metal legs tightened as he stepped back up to plate.

  The hideous splintering noise of D'Andre's forearm being crushed gave Arvin pause. Rather than trying to struggle free of the chokehold, Edna had merely grabbed at the larger man's arm and squeezed. Shards of bone popped through pulped flesh as she twisted the limb, prying it away from her neck.

  She turned in a single fluid motion, claws out. D'Andre screamed. The smell of blood, wet innards, and a strong fecal stench assaulted Arvin's nose immediately. He choked on it, stumbling away from the offensive odors, even as a nasty, moist splattering noise struck his ears. Bile rose in his throat as he saw the coils of intestine plopping to the floor in the space between D'Andre and Edna's feet.

  He choked his vomit back down, acid boiling his throat, and swung the chair again. He clocked the creature upside the head, and she reeled away. Unfortunately, she was fast to gather her wits and sprung directly at him, tossing him off his feet. He landed hard on his back, sharp streaks of pain lighting up along his ass, then up his spine and lower back. She gripped his skull in one, too-large open handed grip — and squeezed.

  Arvin's scream tore something loose in his throat, a cry that came more from instinctual, primal fear than pain. Truth be told, the pain hadn't even registered yet, although he could feel the tightening pressure of her hand clamping down against the bones of his head, a throbbing ache beginning to bloom along his temple and the orbit of his eye.

  And then the pain was gone, its release as sudden as its rapid acceleration.

  Melissa stood over him, a folding chair in her hands. She swung again, pressing her advantage and refusing to let go.

  Dazed, Arvin stood, slightly surprised that he still held his own folding chair. He rushed to Melissa's side, and they hammered at the creature in alternating blows. Edna was still on her feet, but being pushed back under the assault. Over her shoulder, he saw another man and woman, the older Arab couple that had been bunking across the aisle from where he and Melissa had stayed the night before, approach with their own makeshift weapons. The man held an empty buffet tray from breakfast, while the woman had retrieved a mop from the storage closet. Soon, they were in the fray as well, and Edna was trapped between the two couples.

  As the Arab woman raised the mop, Edna's arm lashed out and grabbed the wooden handle, snapping it in half. Edna tossed aside her piece of wood, but the Arab woman was quick to realize the creature had done her a favor. She now had a jagged pointed end, and as Arvin and Melissa swung their chairs, demanding Edna's attention, she stepped with an oddly balletic grace and drove the wooden point deep into Edna's throat. Blood spurted, splattering across her face and ruining her beautiful, floral-patterned headscarf.

  Edna stumbled back, tripping over her own feet. Arvin continued to pound away at her face with the chair, refusing to stop until he knew for certain the monster was dead. Bones snapped, and an awful scream filling the room with each swing.

  Melissa's hand squeezed at his arm, and he turned to see she was careful to stay at arm's reach.

  "It's done," she said.

  Melissa was right. His throat burned from the screaming, and he was shocked to realize that he had been the one making those harsh, harried noises. His breathing was ragged, his lungs practically on fire. At his feet, his shoes and the bottom half of his pants caked in gore, was Edna. Her head had been smashed into a thick, pulpy paste, with part of her face slagged into a ruinous crater, a sickly, yellow eye suspended in the wreck. The chair was coated in a red, nearly black, vicious sheen of goo, clumps of her thin hair sticking out at odd angles, bits of flesh dotting the surface. He let the weapon fall, and it struck the floor with a metallic rattle.

  Melissa stepped closer, her hand making small, tight circles on his back. She let her chair fall to the floor as well. Arvin realized it was strangely quiet, and then he felt the weight of nearly two dozen pairs of eyes heavy against his skin. Everybody was looking at him, and he averted his eyes, feeling shamed and frightened as a nauseating wave of guilt and stage fright churned within him. He had never been com
fortable being the center of attention and now everyone had witnessed him in what could arguably be considered a moment that was not exactly his finest. He felt dirty.

  More than that, though, was the quiet — the absolute stillness that had, at some point, taken over the refuge. Nobody spoke, but more importantly, the near-constant pounding at the shelter's entrance had ceased.

  "Are they still out there, do you think?" a soft voice asked.

  "Should we look?" another asked.

  For whatever reason, the eyes stayed on Arvin. After a moment, he realized these people had turned to him for guidance. They weren't looking at him with gazes of accusation, but with questioning stares that asked for answers.

  "Don't open that door," he said. "We wait."

  Melissa nodded, then added, "It could be a trap. These monsters aren't stupid, regardless of how savage they are."

  "They could be trying to lure us out," Arvin said. "They couldn't get in, so now they just have to wait for us to come out."

  A few of the survivors turned to one another, seeking agreement. Nobody argued the points Melissa and Arvin made, and there were mumbles of conciliation.

  "What do we do now?" somebody said.

  "We wait. Help will be here soon," Melissa said. "In the meantime, we need to keep our energy up. There's water, food. We should eat. Sleep, if that's at all possible."

  Arvin noticed that nobody spoke of the most immediate topic that was plaguing his thoughts. He and the Arab woman were covered in blood, and the floor was slick with gore. He wondered if, in killing Edna, they had exposed everyone to the virus. He wondered if they were all infected now.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Bullets pinged against the steel carcass Hedley was tucked against as the Kawasakis whined past.

  Clemson tracked the noisy crotch rocket, hoping to predict the rider's path and leading slightly ahead of the bike. She fired a single round, but had aimed too far ahead. The gang member kept his circuit around the lot unpredictable, and just as her finger tightened and pulled the trigger, he juked right, in between a pair of parked cars. As the rider shot between the vehicles, the second biker shot into view and laid down covering fire.