The Extinction Cycle (Book 6): Extinction Aftermath Read online

  Extinction Cycle, Book VI

  Nicholas Sansbury Smith

  Copyright October 2016 by Nicholas Sansbury Smith

  All Rights Reserved

  Edited by Aaron Sikes and Erin Elizabeth Long

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events locales or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from the author.

  A percentage of all sales from the Extinction Cycle books are donated to the Wounded Warrior Project.

  www.woundedwarriorproject.org

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  Books by Nicholas Sansbury Smith

  The Orbs Series (Offered by Simon451/Simon and Schuster)

  Solar Storms (An Orbs Prequel)

  White Sands (An Orbs Prequel)

  Red Sands (An Orbs Prequel)

  Orbs

  Orbs II: Stranded

  Orbs III: Redemption

  The Extinction Cycle Series

  Extinction Horizon

  Extinction Edge

  Extinction Age

  Extinction Evolution

  Extinction End

  Extinction Aftermath

  Extinction War (Coming 2017)

  The Hell Divers Trilogy (Offered by Blackstone Publishing)

  Hell Divers 1

  Hell Divers 2: Ghosts (Coming July 17th, 2017)

  Hell Divers 3: Deliverance (Coming 2018)

  Trackers: A Post-Apocalyptic EMP Series

  Trackers 1 (Coming January, 2017/Pre-order here)

  Trackers 2 (Coming March, 2017)

  For Jeni Rico

  You left this world way too early, but your smile and memory will always live on. Team Ghost salutes you, “Sergeant.”

  We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.

  —Winston Churchill

  -Prologue-

  A tidal wave of darkness washed over the cobblestone streets of Rome. Sergeant Piero Angaran and Lieutenant Antonio LoMaglio watched the wall of black swallow up steeples and rooftops, rising over the skyline, inching closer to the bridge where they stood.

  Piero lowered his Beretta ARX160 assault rifle as the crimson yolk of the sun retreated below the horizon. Piero and Antonio were retreating, too. And they were running out of time to get back to their shelter.

  Tossing back his head, Piero swallowed his last two stimulants and chased them down with a swig of wine from his hydration pack. For the first time in his life, he longed for water instead of wine. But clean water, like everything else in Rome, was in short supply.

  “Come on,” Antonio insisted. There was panic in his voice, unusual for a man who was usually laughing and cracking jokes.

  Antonio flipped his night vision goggles (NVGs) over his eyes and waved Piero forward. They ran side by side across the historic bridge spanning the Tiber.

  Rome had been sacked before over the centuries, but she had always risen from the ashes of conquest. The Gauls, Visigoths, Normans, and even the troops of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V had tried to bring her down. But now demons had accomplished what humans couldn’t. The unholy beasts controlled Rome, and there were only two men left to defend the ancient city.

  Piero and Antonio were the last remaining members of their unit, part of the 4th Alpini Parachutist Regiment. They had fought together in Afghanistan against the Taliban and in Iraq against Al Qaeda, surviving in wilderness and desert against overwhelming forces. But it had only taken a single night for the juvenile Varianti to slaughter their brothers.

  Their mission to take back the city had failed. Everyone was dead. Now, two weeks later, Piero and Antonio were running on fumes. They were exhausted, starving, and injured. Today they had made a rookie mistake by not returning to their shelter before the sun went down. The juveniles were most active at night.

  Despite having his friend and team leader by his side, Piero had never felt more lonely or helpless in his life. They had discovered only a handful of survivors trapped in the city. The last of those had been killed three days prior, ripped to shreds by a juvenile Varianti that had tracked them to their bunker.

  Piero blinked away the memory and dragged a tattered sleeve across his forehead. He would need to reapply more repellent later when they got back. The German-made liquid worked like bug spray, but it was composed of chemicals that smelled much worse. The smell was the least of his worries. Neither of the men had showered for weeks, not since they had parachuted into the city. They still wore the same green fatigues, though they looked more like rags pulled from a garbage bin now.

  Antonio held up a hand and took a knee in a single motion. He centered his ARX160 on a statue of three muscular men dressed in robes. Piero mimicked the lieutenant’s action, pressing the scope of his rifle to his NVGs. Nothing moved in the green-hued view. He raked his weapon from left to right, dividing his line of sight into thirds and checking each one for motion. The crosshairs fell on a body lying face down. Bones protruded out of the corpse’s shirt where a Varianti had pulled out the lungs like the Viking blood eagle ritual. The sight sent a chill through Piero’s fatigued body.

  Satisfied the area was free of contacts, Antonio waved them forward.

  The two continued across the bridge, the Tiber flowing strongly beneath them. Water churned across the red hull of an overturned speedboat. Piero examined a park on their right that overflowed with vegetation left unchecked. Vines crawled up the stone facade of an adjacent building. It hadn’t taken long for the grass and weeds to reclaim parts of Rome. Nature had gone on without humanity.

  The next street took them through an open market with dozens of restaurants and stores. Bodies stripped clean of flesh littered the ground amongst upturned tables and tattered umbrellas. Glass had piled under shattered windows. In every storefront Piero passed he saw faces—the faces of people that had once dined and shopped inside. When he was a child, his parents had taken him and his sister to Rome every summer. He would stuff himself with Carbonara while his parents ate seafood risotto and shared a bottle of Pinot Noir. Afterward, they would gorge themselves on gelato from a little shop near Trevi Fountain.

  When in Rome, do as the Romans do.

  He had always liked that quote. Before the Hemorrhage Virus had changed everything seven months ago, going with the flow had been an easy thing to do in Italy. Now it meant dying.

  Rome was the hardest hit of the Italian cities. And Italy was one of the hardest hit countries in Europe. They had deployed both bioweapons the Americans had designed to kill the Varianti, but by then it had been much too late. Over ninety-nine percent of the population was dead.

  Passing the shattered ruins of a bakery, Piero cringed at the sound of his growling belly. The rumble was loud enough for Antonio—and any nearby Varianti—to hear. Neither of them had eaten a solid meal in days, and raiding the abandoned buildings for food was increasingly dangerous. They never knew where the juveniles dwelled.

  For several seconds they stood there in silence, listening. A jeweled sky and half moon cast enough light over the city that Piero flipped his NVGs up. Antonio did the same thing.

  In the glow of the natural light, Piero stud
ied his friend’s face. They were both thirty-five and could have passed for twins with their matching filthy beards and dark brown hair. Despite the tension, Antonio still managed to smile. If there had been a comedian in their unit, it was the lieutenant. He’d always known how to lighten the mood with a joke.

  “What you lookin’ at? I got something on my face?”

  “A mamaluke,” Piero fired back. It was the term his grandpa had used on him as a kid when he did something foolish or stupid, and Piero had used it on his friends ever since.

  Their smiles quickly faded at the sound of a distant howl, a reminder that monsters were out there, hunting.

  The men exchanged a nod. Antonio shouldered his rifle and moved into the shadows cast by a nearby church. Piero followed close behind into a courtyard that had been home to a daily farmers market. The stands were still there, but the fresh produce had long since rotted away.

  In the center of the space was a fountain with a statue of a Roman soldier pointing east. His armor was stained white with bird droppings. Piero and Antonio swept their rifles over the courtyard. They were almost back to their shelter, and in Piero’s pocket he carried more than just the melted chocolate bars he had scavenged. He had the radio parts that would allow them to communicate with Command. He wasn’t sure which he was looking forward to more.

  The thought of the chocolate made his stomach rumble again. But it was another sound that quickened his heart rate.

  Antonio froze, hearing it in the exact same moment.

  At first it reminded Piero of the river rapids, but it quickly transformed into what sounded like a waterfall.

  What the hell is that?

  Piero moved his finger from the outside of the trigger guard to the trigger itself. He scanned the streets for any sign of juveniles, but the sound wasn’t coming from the roads or buildings. It was coming from the sky.

  All at once, hundreds—no, thousands—of birds took flight. Their black wings were so thick they blocked out the moon, like a blanket of darkness rippling overhead.

  Piero’s pounding heart slammed against his chest. He had witnessed something like this the first night they had parachuted into the city. The night they had awoken a nest of juveniles from their lair.

  Antonio glanced back at Piero.

  “Run,” he whispered.

  Piero tucked his helmet down and took off after his only friend left in the world. Their shelter was two blocks away, in a maintenance tunnel built into the ancient wall running along the Tiber. Instead of taking the route along the river, Antonio had opted for a shortcut. That shortcut had taken them back into the city. They must have ventured too near one of the underground lairs.

  The cobblestone streets began to rattle under their boots, but this was no earthquake. The trembling ground reminded Piero of the bull runs in Spain. The exhilaration of running from a herd of bulls amongst hundreds of other people was almost unrivaled—until he experienced being chased by a herd of juveniles the size of baby rhinos.

  He hugged his rifle against his chest. Sweat dripped into his eyes, but he ignored the burn and the urge to wipe them clear. Motion along the rooftops to the east flashed in his blurred vision.

  Antonio pointed to a trio of row houses. Several small juveniles had climbed the exterior of the center building. They perched on the rooftop terrace and sniffed the night with bulbous noses covered in warts. It took them only seconds to locate him with reptilian eyes the size of espresso saucers. The clank of their armored plates echoed as they scattered to report the news of fresh meat.

  Those monsters were just the recon unit—runts of the litter, about half the size of their older brothers and sisters. But they were just as fast, if not faster, and their armor just as thick.

  Piero struggled to get air as he ran. Antonio was a hundred feet ahead. He had always been faster, but usually he waited for Piero.

  Not tonight—not when they were about to be torn apart by hundreds of very hungry Varianti.

  Antonio took a left at the next corner, but he halted a few strides in.

  It was a dead end.

  The cloud of birds flapped over the streets, casting a shadow on the two men. Piero turned and ran the way they had come, slipping on a puddle. He crashed to the ground but instantly felt Antonio’s hands helping him up.

  “Come on!” Antonio yelled.

  With his legs under him again, Piero ran with his friend back into the open market. They made for a side street to the west that led to the French Embassy. Side by side now, the two soldiers ran down a narrow alleyway that opened onto a wide street outside the embassy. The French flag still hung from a pole overhead.

  Piero had never really liked fighting alongside the French, but he would have been happy to accept their help now. Hell, he would have got down on one knee to welcome them.

  The shaking of the ground intensified, and a flowerpot fell from the sill of a nearby building, shattering on the cobblestones.

  “Hurry!” Antonio yelled. He bolted down a narrow street to the right of the embassy. The shops here were smaller, mostly owned by local artists. Piero had salvaged some wine from one of them a few days earlier, the same wine now in his hydration pack.

  They were almost back to their shelter. The alley emptied onto a road, and after that only a bridge lay between them and safety. Antonio halted next to a tree, shouldered his rifle, and scoped the bridge ahead. Then he waved his hand at Piero. As they moved into the road, birds filled the sky above them. Wet droppings rained down, hitting Piero’s hand and his face, but he didn’t care. Shit he could wipe off.

  He made the mistake of looking over his shoulder when he reached the bridge, nearly stumbling at the sight of a herd of juveniles galloping to the south. For a moment, their armored bodies moved as one, like a tank barreling down the road.

  All at once, dozens of yellow eyes seemed to lock onto him.

  His heart nearly burst from his chest.

  Antonio yanked his final repellent grenade from his vest. He bit off the pin, tossed it into the street, and then took off running.

  The hiss of the canister was hard to hear over the stampeding monsters and the piercing howls that sounded as they hit the wall of smoke. The gas was supposed to disorient the creatures, but they didn’t cease their pursuit. The high-pitched noises rose into a cacophony that hurt Piero’s ears so badly he had to cup his hands over them.

  Ahead, Antonio was doing the same thing. He dropped to his knees, screaming in pain. Piero clenched his jaw and pulled his friend back to his feet. They dragged each other across the final stretch of bridge. The ladder to their hideout was less than a hundred feet away—but the monsters had already reached the other side.

  This was it. They either fought and died on this bridge, or they died running like cowards. Piero shouldered his rifle and aimed it at the wall of monsters, but Antonio slapped it to the side.

  “Come on!” he ordered. Climbing onto the right ledge of the bridge, he pulled himself onto the railing and looked down. It was a twenty-foot drop, and the current was fast here. The juveniles could swim much better than their Varianti parents.

  Piero climbed up next to him, and for a single second they both stared at the advancing beasts. Fifty curved heads speared the air, and two hundred hands and feet shattered bricks that had endured centuries of abuse from wagons and vehicles.

  Grabbing Piero’s arm, Antonio pulled him over the side. They dropped into the water with their knees bent, like they had been trained to do. The impact rattled Piero’s senses and a rock grazed his leg, pain racing up his bones. As soon as he surfaced, Piero heard the splash of monsters jumping off the bridge at the other end.

  Antonio swam with the current toward the shore. It had taken Piero a moment, but now he understood what his squad leader was doing. He had decided to jump instead of make a run for the ladder because it would take them out of view for a few seconds. It was their only chance to get to their hideout without being spotted.

  Coughing, Piero spa
t out water and swam after his friend. Antonio may have been faster on land, but Piero was quicker in the water. He quickly swam ahead. Stroke, breath. Stroke. Stroke, breath. He reached the ledge a few moments later, grabbed it, and pulled himself up. There was a bike trail between the wall and the shore. The door leading to the maintenance tunnel was just under the bridge.

  When Piero turned to offer his hand to Antonio, he faltered at the sight of curved heads and ridged backs of the monsters cutting through the water. Dozens of them were swimming across the Tiber, quickly gaining on Antonio, who made the mistake of pausing to look at the beasts, treading water for a few precious seconds before kicking away. By the time he started swimming again, the current had already swept him ten feet farther down shore. Piero ran down the path, eyes flitting from his friend to the beasts, and then to the birds still choking the sky. The whoosh of wings caught his ear. But the noise wasn’t a culmination of the thousands of flapping wings. This was from a single pair…

  Piero stumbled backward as the curtain of wings parted, making way for a massive creature that swooped through the sky like a demon from hell. A spiked tail whipped back and forth behind the abomination.

  “My God in heaven,” Piero muttered.

  The beast cut through the air with wings that had a span of at least twelve feet. A misshapen face with a long horn for a nose and roving eyes gazed down at its brethren in the water. It opened bulging sucker lips and let out a piercing hiss.

  The sound seized the air from Piero’s lungs. He had heard it in the night, waking him from his fitful sleep.

  He could see the door leading to the hideout. If he ran, maybe he could escape down the tunnel and make it out the other side.

  “Piero!” Antonio screamed between strokes. “Piero, help me!”

  He considered abandoning his friend for a second before running to the water’s edge. Just as Piero gripped his friend’s hand, something jerked Antonio back into the water. His helmet vanished under the surface in a rush of bubbles.