Extinction End (Extinction Cycle Book 5) Read online

  “East 42nd Street, near the NYC library,” Beckham said. “Need extraction ASAP! We have civilians in tow. Where the fuck are you guys?”

  The reply was lost in a hail of gunfire. Beckham grunted and focused on his firing. Once the smoke cleared, he saw there was no time for extraction. The monsters were regrouping. Dozens more emerged on the rooftops on both sides of the street. All they were doing was drawing more Variants to their location.

  He met Horn’s gaze, and they shared a moment that reminded Beckham of the time at Fort Bragg when they had been surrounded and down to their knives. There was dread in Horn’s eyes, but there was courage there, too. If they were going to die, at least they were all going to die together.

  Beckham glanced over his shoulder to look for Kate as he continued firing blindly at the beasts. She had her face pressed against the car window, Tasha and Jenny on either side. He was turning back to the battle when a flash of motion behind them caught his eye. To the east, a pack of Variants trailed a beast wearing plates of human bones. He didn’t question how the Alpha was still alive. He simply screamed, “Our six!”

  The grenades had drawn another wave of beasts.

  “Fitz, Meg, on me,” Beckham said. “Tank, Horn, Garcia, you keep firing to the west.”

  Beckham slammed his shoulder into the car behind him, angling his M4 at the Alpha. Its face was covered in deep lacerations, and its yellow eyes were trained on Beckham. Opening shredded lips, it let out a roar.

  The beast looked back to the Variants galloping behind its bony armor. It shrieked at the creatures and pounded on its chest plate with its remaining hand, as if taunting them. The monsters screeched back and continued barreling toward the Alpha. It was then Beckham realized they weren’t drawn to the gunfire at all.

  Team Ghost and the Variant Hunters weren’t just trapped in the heart of New York City. They were caught in the middle of a civil war between rival Variant gangs.

  -4-

  Lieutenant Rachel Davis had been in deep shit when Captain Humphrey found out about her authorizing a Blackhawk to fly Team Ghost and the Variant Hunters to New York. She had broken protocol, deceived her superiors, and risked one of the most important remaining assets left in the world—the lives of Ghost and VH. Not to mention a Blackhawk.

  “They trained the strike groups for a goddamn reason!” Humphrey had shouted when he had first found out. “We can’t afford to lose them!”

  Vice President Johnson’s response had caught Davis off guard.

  “You’re a brave woman, Lieutenant, and after talking to President Ringgold, I believe you did the right thing. Same thing I should have done from the beginning. Now let’s just make sure we bring our boys home.”

  Humphrey had glared, but Johnson had offered a grin, exposing the gap in his front teeth. She hadn’t known the Vice President long, but now she understood why he was so well respected. He was a risk taker, but not reckless—a leader, but not a dictator.

  Davis focused her sharp green eyes on the monitor showing the juvenile Variant that Beckham and Garcia had brought back from New York. The freak was fighting against its restraints more violently than before, shaking them so rapidly it made the image look like the live feed was being fast forwarded. The blur of armored flesh made her sick to her stomach, but she had been prepared to walk the plank and jump into the Atlantic Ocean just to capture the little fucker.

  When the men had returned with the beast, she had thought it would change the tide of the war. But with every step forward, the Variants had thrown a wrench into the wheel and caused more setbacks—more losses. Plum Island was destroyed, and the leader of the science behind Operation Extinction was a hostage, or worse.

  “Captain on deck,” came a voice.

  She whirled to see Captain Humphrey and Vice President Johnson entering through the open hatch, a squad of Marine sentries right behind them.

  Coming to attention, Davis stiffened and threw up a crisp salute as she scrutinized Humphrey’s sunburned face. He regarded her with a cold nod that told her he was still pissed off. Not that she blamed him. She had gone against his orders.

  “Follow us, Lieutenant,” Humphrey said.

  She hurried after them to the front of the CIC, from where she could see out the porthole windows. A carpet of clouds drifted across the moon, bathing the aircraft carrier in darkness. The GW Strike Group was splitting through the waves toward Plum Island to recover the bioreactors and casualties. With the fences destroyed and several of the buildings ruined, there was no use wasting resources to rebuild. The bioreactors would be brought to the Cowpens, and the remaining scientists would finish the work Dr. Lovato started—with or without her.

  Davis waited, arms folded across her chest. Patience was something she had struggled with for the past six weeks. Watching her beloved country dying and not being able to do much to stop it was devastating. But they were nearing the end. In a week or less Kryptonite would be deployed, and they would make one final push to take back the world from the monsters.

  Humphrey finished talking to Johnson and turned to Davis. “What’s the status of the juvenile?”

  “Still alive, sir,” Davis replied, dropping her arms to her sides and standing upright again. “It was injected with Kryptonite a little over an hour ago. So far it seems to be having no effect.”

  “Christ,” Johnson said, massaging his forehead. After a pause, he looked out over the waves and clasped his hands behind his back. “Any word on Team Ghost and VH?”

  “Air support and teams are still on their way to Manhattan, sir.”

  “What’s their ETA?” Johnson asked.

  Davis glanced at her wristwatch. “Should be there in fifteen minutes, Mr. Vice President.”

  “Lieutenant,” said a voice from the radio equipment. Corporal Bruce Anderson was looking in her direction. Davis remembered him because of the distinctive birthmark above his right eyebrow. Both of his brows were scrunched together now.

  She knew that look. He had intel.

  Davis rushed over to him, Humphrey and Johnson in close pursuit. When she got there, she put her hands on the back of his chair and leaned down.

  Anderson cupped his hand over his earpiece and then glanced up, his youthful brown eyes hard to read.

  “What is it, Corporal?” Davis asked.

  “Wolf 4 just reported in, Lieutenant.”

  “And?”

  “The Blackhawk Ghost and VH took to New York has been shot down. There are survivors, but Wolf 4 reports they’re being pursued by Variants.”

  “What the hell do you mean ‘shot down’?” Humphrey asked.

  Holding up a finger with one hand and cupping his earpiece a second time with his other, Anderson listened to another transmission. Davis tensed as they waited. She wanted to look out over the ocean, to search for the coastline she couldn’t see.

  The wait wasn’t long.

  Anderson glanced up again, and this time there was no mistaking the look of trepidation in his eyes.

  “Wolf 4 just performed another flyover. Ghost and Garcia's team are protecting a group of civilians on 42nd Street, but they're completely surrounded.”

  “How many?” Davis asked, afraid to hear the answer.

  Anderson hesitated again, his gaze flitting from Davis to Humphrey, and finally to Johnson.

  “Hundreds. Wolf 4 said the streets are full of the bastards.”

  Rain rinsed away the ash on the car window. Outside, every single Variant in New York seemed to descend on Team Ghost’s position. The pavement trembled from thousands of pounding hands and feet.

  Kate pressed her face against the inside of the muddy, cracked passenger window in the backseat. Heart thumping, eyes on Beckham, her mind told her this was it. There was no way out. Escaping this army was as impossible as running through the rain and not getting hit by a single drop.

  But she also knew the men protecting her would never give up. Beckham and the others fired at the approaching hordes relentlessly. Apol
lo, soaked and injured, barked at the monsters streaming down the sides of buildings. The pale creatures slithered into the streets from open manholes. They broke down doors and tumbled out of windows. The body of Sergeant Thomas, a Marine Kate hardly knew, was sprawled out on the ground behind Garcia. All around them, the streets filled with the starving creatures, their frail bodies transformed into sacks of shriveled skin and bones.

  They seemed so fragile, as if they were wasting away. But the Variants moved just as quickly as before, charging at a speed that made Apollo look slow. It was the epigenetic changes from VX-99 that kept them moving like wild animals.

  From somewhere overhead came the roar of jets. The rumble was lost in the onslaught of gunfire and heavy rainfall. Kate saw Beckham and Fitz throw what looked like baseballs at the swarming Variants.

  “Get down!” someone shouted.

  Kate ducked and shielded Tasha and Jenny from the deafening detonations. Explosions bloomed into the air. The car shook from the blasts. Both girls buried their faces against her chest. She wrapped her arms around them, doing her best to protect the children. To Kate’s right, Donna held onto Bo, but the boy struggled to look out the window.

  “Where’s Daddy?” he sobbed. Tugging on her arm, he continued, “Mommy. Where’s Daddy?” Donna stared out the window blankly, her gaze vacant. Kate recognized the signs of shock; she was pretty sure her face had looked the same way earlier. She didn’t have the strength or energy to help reassure the woman. She was doing everything she could to hold it together herself.

  Another grenade exploded down the street. The fiery burst sent a geyser of flesh and gore into the sky. Shrapnel broke through the shattered windshield, punching through the top of the front seats.

  “Keep your heads down!” Horn shouted over his shoulder. Kate saw his face, strained with shock and terror.

  Kate scooted lower with the girls. It took Donna a few seconds to respond, but she got on the floor with Bo as four more small explosions rocked the concrete. The windshield finally gave way, the glass breaking into hundreds of tiny pieces that rained down on the back seat.

  “Stay put,” Kate ordered. She recognized her voice again. It was authoritative, and made Tasha wail even louder. Saliva stretched across the child’s wide lips as she lost all control. Jenny tucked her head between her knees and rocked back and forth. The sight shattered Kate’s already throbbing heart. She twisted to look out the back window. In the faint moonlight, she saw something that took away her breath.

  The Alpha that had led the attack on Plum Island lumbered down the street, plates of human bones clanking against its muscular body. A dozen Variants skittered across the street and raced past the beast. They leapt onto burned vehicles, smashed into garbage cans, and knocked into one another. Another wave cascaded over the side of the buildings at the other end of the street, joining a group that had emerged from an open manhole.

  Beckham, Meg, and Fitz fought desperately. They killed the climbers with calculated shots and lobbed grenades that tore the creatures on the ground apart, but Kate could see there was no way they could stop them all.

  Despite the overwhelming numbers, the trio appeared calm. Beckham handed Meg another magazine and then grabbed a grenade from his vest. He tossed it at a scaffold down the street. The explosion knocked the structure loose from the building. It came crashing down, trapping four monsters.

  Kate’s eyes flitted to the skyline. In her mind’s eye, she imagined what their position would look like from above. They were behind a blockade of four wrecked cars. Tank, Horn, and Garcia held one side while Beckham, Meg and Fitz fired from the other. The Variants were closing from both directions, crawling over every surface like albino ants.

  Beckham was yelling now, but she couldn’t make out the words. Fitz and Meg were still calm, their eyes centered through their gun sights as they fired.

  Was Reed losing it? Had he gone over the edge?

  The thought terrified her.

  He stopped to change a magazine, still apparently talking, his head bowed. His lips were moving as he brought his weapon up and fired off three short bursts. Lowering his rifle, he suddenly backed away from the truck and rushed to the car. Opening the door, he yelled, “We have to move!”

  Kate saw something in his brown eyes she hadn’t seen before—something raw and deep. When he turned away, Kate finally understood. He didn’t think he could save them this time.

  She jumped out onto the pavement, heart assaulting her ribs. Then she turned and reached for Tasha and Jenny. The girls wouldn’t budge. Both were curled up in the backseat.

  “Come on!” Kate said. She grabbed their small hands and pulled them out of the car with deliberate care. Both girls stood on the street shaking and sobbing, red hair matted to their heads, pants wet from piss. They reached out for their father.

  “Stay back!” Horn yelled.

  Kate grabbed them by the hands and pulled them toward Beckham. She waited behind him, eyes roving across the battlefield while he centered his rifle at the roof of the building above them. Blurred shapes of Variants raced across the edge. Two of the shadows tumbled over the side.

  Muzzle flashes lit up the streets with fiery flashes. In the glimmer, the withered, soaked flesh of the Variants spread like a shadow. Their long, skeletal limbs seemed to distort as they reached out with talons.

  The creatures were growing more desperate.

  “Use the rest of your grenades!” Beckham shouted. “Tank and Horn, train your fire on the buildings. We have to get inside. Fitz, you and Garcia help me clear a path. Meg, Kate, Donna—you guard the kids.”

  It was almost impossible to hear Beckham over the noise. He motioned for her to get down as soon as the final grenades were lobbed into the attacking hordes.

  The explosions ripped through the streets, tossing an arm that landed on the concrete in front of Kate with a meaty thud. Ears ringing, she bent down for Tasha to jump on her back. Meg grabbed Jenny’s hand, and together they all ran after Beckham and Fitz. In a single file line, they squeezed through a gap between the cars. Tank and Horn went next. The bulky Marines had trouble wedging through the narrow space, their massive frames scraping on the bumpers.

  Kate turned back to watch as the last of their group fled the barricade. She had to know they all made it. Garcia stopped to drag Thomas under the armpits. He got him to the gap, but couldn’t pull the dead Marine through the space. Garcia hesitated with one hand on Thomas's chest, and then he grabbed the man’s dog tags and ripped them away. Kate choked up at the sight. She had come to understand the way these soldiers thought, to understand their fierce brotherhood and loyalty. She knew what it cost him to leave a man behind.

  Tank and Horn continued fighting their way into the street, picking off the beasts darting across the buildings. Beckham, Garcia, and Fitz formed a ring to fire on the Variants closing in from the sides.

  “Don’t stop!” Beckham shouted, gesturing with his free hand.

  Kate ran after Meg and Donna for the shattered windows of a clothing store. Inside, charcoaled bodies reached up with burned hands. As she got closer, she saw they were just mannequins.

  “Hurry! They’re coming!” Beckham shouted.

  Kate narrowed her eyes on him, wondering if he had finally lost it. She had never questioned him before. He was a Delta Force Operator and should have been able to come up with a plan on the fly, but why hadn’t he ordered them into the building in the first place? The desperation in his eyes scared her almost as much as the monsters did.

  “We got thirty seconds!” Horn yelled.

  The beasts rushed for their position. A cloud of smoke from the grenades shifted across the street. Several Variants lost their grip in the wet ash and were trampled by the pack. The wall of muscular limbs and open maws surged forward, rounds cutting some of the creatures down, but only slowing their advance. It wouldn’t even be thirty seconds before their sucker lips were clamped onto Tasha, Jenny, and Bo.

  What the hell was Be
ckham thinking?

  When they reached the sidewalk, Beckham, Garcia, and Fitz turned to fire. Horn went into the building first. He fired off a long burst and yelled, “Clear!”

  Tank stayed on the curb to fire at any target that dared show its naked flesh above their position.

  “Get inside!” Horn shouted.

  A distant chopping sound emerged over the gunfire. Kate lost track of the noise as she followed Meg toward the building. Tasha bounced on Kate’s shoulders, her warm, wet pants soaking into Kate’s drenched shirt. Donna carried Bo into the debris-ridden room.

  “Move it!” Horn ordered. He gestured a massive hand toward overturned racks halfway blocking a door at the other end of the room.

  “Where are we going?” Kate yelled.

  “Keep moving!” Beckham shouted back.

  Flashes of green suddenly ripped down the street, turning the Variants closing in on the building into chunky pulp like they had been thrown into a meat grinder. Kate ducked under a long piece of glass hanging from the top of the store window, catching the reflection of something on the skyline.

  She blinked the water from her eyes to the sight of dozens of dots on the horizon. Under the moon, in the sheets of falling rain, the sky filled with aircraft of all shapes and sizes. Blackhawks, Apaches, and smaller choppers she didn’t even know the name of.

  “Hurry!” Beckham shouted.

  Everyone but Fitz ran for the back room. He took one knee at the doorway, his muzzle focused on the herd of beasts coming from the west.

  “Move it, Marine!” Beckham yelled.

  Fitz roved his rifle to the right. Kate corralled the kids into a filthy stockroom that reeked of smoke, but waited to watch Fitz. She followed his muzzle to the center of the approaching army. At the front of the pack, surrounded by bony Variants half its size, the Alpha lumbered forward.

  Crack!

  In the blink of an eye, the beast slumped to its knees, the front of its face caved in and the back of its skull exploding in a spray of gore.