Extinction Cycle Dark Age (Book 2): Extinction Inferno Read online

  Extinction Cycle: Dark Age

  Book 2: Extinction Inferno

  By Nicholas Sansbury Smith and Anthony J. Melchiorri

  Cover Design by Deranged Doctor Design

  Edited by AJ Sikes

  Copyright © January 1st, 2019

  All Rights Reserved

  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 authors.

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  For all that serve or have served in the United States Military, thank you for the sacrifices you have made to protect our freedoms. We are forever grateful.

  “The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender, or submission.”

  John F. Kennedy

  Contents

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  About the Authors

  — 1 —

  The Black Hawk circled low over Scott Air Force Base (AFB) ten miles east of the apocalyptic ruins of St. Louis. A crew chief opened the side door, revealing the sight of Variants darting down the streets toward the walls of the forward operating base (FOB).

  “Jesus, they’re everywhere!” the crew chief yelled.

  Master Sergeant Joe “Fitz” Fitzpatrick leaned out, one hand on a rail, his prosthetic carbon-fiber blades creaking. The rest of Team Ghost sat impatiently behind him.

  Sunlight pierced the sporadic clouds, illuminating the horrifying tableau spreading toward the Air Force base. The armored flesh of juveniles glowed in the light. The monsters galloped on all fours like a pride of starving lions.

  Some of the beasts had already made it to the base’s perimeter where they slammed into the chain-link fences tracing the border. HESCO bastions and guard towers provided another layer of defense. But the first line had already fallen.

  Columns of smoke rose from fresh craters in the ground left by mines and other explosives. Hunks of shredded meat and bone smoldered in the dirt. Injured beasts crawled through the fields, some missing legs, others missing arms. None giving up on their pursuit.

  Machine gun nests blasted sweeping waves of fire, and explosions bloomed across Fitz’s view.

  Specialist Justin Mendez crossed his chest in prayer. Sergeant Yas Dohi stared like a statue, his rifle cradled over his armor.

  “How the hell are we supposed to stop that many?” Sergeant First Class Jenny Rico yelled.

  Corporal Bobby Ace pulled at the bottom of his gray beard, looking over at Fitz for an answer.

  “Doctor Lovato is gonna have to come up with another bioweapon,” Ace said. “Might be the only cure for this outbreak of freaks.”

  “I got the cure right here!” Mendez shouted, patting his rifle.

  Fitz had served with the Hispanic man long enough to know his brave words and Ace’s dark humor masked the pain they carried and the fear seeping into their bones.

  As much as Fitz didn’t want to admit it, they couldn’t wait on another miracle from Kate and her science team. The only way to stop these things was to kill them the old-fashioned way with bullets and blades.

  Or at least slow them down… he thought.

  The fresh ammunition and grenades the crew chief had distributed to Team Ghost would help.

  “This mission is for Lincoln!” Fitz yelled.

  Mendez crossed his chest again. The rest of the team simply uttered quiet acknowledgments as they looked out the open door at what they were about to face. They all had bags under their eyes and blood smeared on their clothing and flesh.

  Only a few hours had passed since their extraction from Minneapolis, and they hadn’t had a chance to recover mentally or physically.

  On the deck behind them was the covered body of their deceased brother-in-arms, Specialist Will Lincoln. The chopper had changed course after he had bled out. Instead of heading home, they had flown straight to Scott AFB to help save it from the Variant attack.

  There was no time to grieve, no time to put Lincoln to rest, and no time for the team to rest.

  It was straight back into the fray.

  “Ghost,” the primary pilot of the Black Hawk said over the comm channel. “I’m going to get you over the parking lot outside HQ.”

  Fitz identified the command building in the center of the base. The square structure stood out among the others around it with a white roof and a huge parking lot filled with Humvees and troop transports.

  Speaking to his team, Fitz said, “We’re assisting with the defense of Scott’s command building. We got VIPs galore down there, civilian and military. They’re organizing the evac.”

  Fitz gestured further out. Buses and transport vehicles rushed toward the runways where aircraft waited to take off.

  “Our mission is two-fold. First, we ensure as many people get out of here as possible. We’ll drop in between the evac lines and the Variants, buddy up and provide covering fire,” Fitz said. “Second, we keep this base from falling under Variant control. Questions?”

  Mendez lifted his hand. “If the whole point is preventing Scott from falling, why are we evacuating people like it’s already lost?”

  “Because the brass already thinks Scott is lost,” Fitz said. “We’re going to prove them wrong.”

  “All it takes is all we got!” Rico shouted.

  The motto from their fallen brother Sergeant Jose Garcia continued to motivate the team through tough missions, and those words never felt so true.

  The chopper lowered toward the parking lot, and the crew chief gave the signal for Ghost to jump out the open door.

  Fitz looked one last time at Lincoln’s body and the jacket over his face.

  I’m sorry I couldn’t save you, brother.

  “Go, go, go!” yelled the crew chief, waving the team out.

  Dohi went first, followed by Rico. They hopped out and took off in a crouch, heading for a row of Humvees and personnel vehicles. Just as Fitz went to jump out, the chopper jerked and pulled up. He lost his balance and crashed to the deck.

  “What the hell!” he shouted.

  Ace helped him up and Mendez shouted, “Tunnel!”

  The chopper pulled up from a bulge in the parking lot. Asphalt broke away from an opening. From a clo
ud of dust and debris, emerged a huge beast with sinewy arms and bat-like ears. Long ropey tendrils jutted out of its back. It surveyed the surroundings with milky white eyes as it let out a high-pitched, clicking shriek that pierced the whoosh of the chopper rotors.

  “Alpha!” Ace yelled.

  Dohi and Rico took shelter behind a car, firing into the Alpha’s flank. More Variants churned up from the fresh hole in the ground, spilling from one of the many tunnels the monsters must have used to invade the base.

  “Get us back down there!” Fitz shouted.

  “Hold on!” yelled one of the pilots.

  The chopper lowered over a cluster of abandoned cars. Fitz jumped out, his blades hitting the roof of a van. Mendez and Ace leapt out after.

  Fitz opened fire on the Variants climbing out of the tunnel, but had lost sight of the Alpha.

  Tendrils of the red webbing stuck up from the tunnel like shredded blood vessels in a wound. Those bloody-looking vines were transmitting signals to the beasts now attacking Scott. Team Ghost had killed one of the masterminds in Minneapolis, but there were more.

  Another Variant climbed those red ropes and stuck its ugly, wart-covered head out of the hole, tongue whipping against wormy lips.

  Fitz squeezed the trigger and blasted its face off.

  A horrifying shriek ripped through the air next to him. The Alpha suddenly slammed into the side of the van, knocking Fitz off. He crashed onto a car and hit the pavement hard.

  Fitz rolled to his back and fired as the Alpha leapt to the van above him. The heavy beast crunched the roof of the van inward. Rounds lanced into its chest, punching through gray flesh.

  It let out a series of clicks and jumped to the ground. Fitz emptied his magazine into the Alpha. Blood sprayed from the monster’s wounds as it stumbled forward and reached toward him.

  A shotgun blast boomed.

  Part of the Alpha’s shoulder blew off, painting Fitz with gore.

  “Move it!” Ace yelled.

  Fitz didn’t waste time. He turned and scurried between the vehicles for cover. Another blast thundered behind him. When he finally got his legs under him and spun to face the Alpha, it had collapsed.

  “Thanks!” Fitz yelled.

  Ace pulled hunks of gore off his beard. Then they both ran back to find the others. The Variants continued to pop out of the tunnel. Another beast’s reptilian eyes caught Fitz’s, and its lips curled back into a snarl, revealing a maw full of jagged teeth.

  “Fire in the hole!” Mendez yelled.

  He lobbed a grenade into the hole as the creature dragged itself out. It didn’t make it far. The ground lifted up behind it, dirt and rock exploding. The blast blew the abomination in half.

  Another rumble shook through the ground, and the asphalt around the tunnel cracked, dropping into the hole.

  Dust billowed up as part of the tunnel collapsed in on itself.

  “Hell yeah, boyyyyyy!” Mendez yelled.

  The remaining Variants dropped from concerted fire as Team Ghost formed up.

  More choppers descended toward the command building. Soldiers and Marines hopped out, quickly running for the front entrance.

  Fitz gave the signal for his team to fall back to command as well. Setting off in combat intervals, they moved cautiously around the holes between them.

  Closer to the building, another razor wire-topped fence surrounded command. Machine gun nests had been set up to cover zones of fire around the entrance.

  On the roof, snipers perched, their barrels flashing with calculated shots. Beside them crouched men with AT-4s, concentrating their shots on the strongest of the monsters.

  A .50 caliber machine gun blazed to life from a third-floor window.

  Over the gunfire came a message on the comms.

  Fitz strained to listen.

  “All units in command vicinity respond,” came the voice. “Variant tunnel identified directly on the west-side of command. Requesting immediate response. Over.”

  Fitz waved the rest of the team toward the road crossing and closed gate in front of the command building. The third-floor gunner fired on a stream of Variants coming from a hole in the street just beyond the fencing.

  Already there was a pile of corpses—human and Variant—around a hole that had exploded inside the border.

  Another hole swallowed the asphalt in the middle of a group of soldiers defending the southern side of the building. An Alpha lunged out right into a stream of gunfire. Rounds punched into its flesh until it collapsed in a heap of bloody limbs.

  The ground rumbled again a moment later.

  It didn’t take long to see that the fences and thirty some soldiers holding back the hordes would be overrun. Fitz knew they had to do something drastic to keep command from falling, but the only thing he could think of was a long shot.

  “Command, Ghost 1,” he said over the public channel. “We need access to an R2TD system now!”

  From past experience, they knew the rapid reaction tunnel detection system was perfect for hampering the Alpha’s echolocation abilities and driving them mad. Sowing chaos among the Alphas would put the Variant attack in disarray.

  The response was impossible to hear over the gunfire.

  Fitz led the team to the gate on the eastern side of the building. Two Marines held sentry behind a secondary fence. They opened both gates to let the team inside the secure area.

  “Go, go, go!” one of them yelled.

  Fitz grabbed the guy’s arm. “We need an R2TD unit!”

  “The hell is that?” the man said.

  Letting go of the man, Fitz marched toward the sealed off doors of the command building. Team Ghost followed him through a maze of sandbags. They ran toward the west side of the building where most of the soldiers and Marines were holding back the attacking beasts.

  Fitz repeated his request for an R2TD system over the channel, and this time he heard the response.

  “Copy that, Ghost 1. What’s your location?”

  “We’re outside the west entrance of the command building!” he shouted.

  “Copy, Ghost 1. Hold your position!”

  Fitz and the rest of the team took up position behind a mound of sandbags. He spent two magazines on the incoming Variants before the sliding metal door opened behind them.

  A soldier carrying an R2TD system hurried outside Ace slung his shotgun to take the unit.

  “Plant that in one of the tunnels!” Fitz yelled.

  “Let me take it,” Rico said. “I’m faster.”

  “You sayin’ what I think you’re sayin?” Ace said as he started to turn on the device.

  “Yes, you’re too damn slow,” Rico said.

  Fitz didn’t intend to see either Rico or Ace play martyr.

  “We’re all going out there,” Fitz said.

  He brought up his rifle as Ace primed the device. Hundreds of Variants had already reached the fences on the west side, climbing the leaning sides and reaching the top to tear off coils of razor wire.

  Sending anyone out there sure looked like a death sentence.

  But the beasts had ignored the area that Fitz and his team had entered. Instead of asking for covering fire from other soldiers, Fitz gave the advance signal to Team Ghost, hoping to go unnoticed.

  They set off for the gate they had entered through.

  One of the two Marines still standing sentry held up a hand.

  “Where the hell you think you’re going?” he asked.

  “We have to get this device in one of those holes,” Fitz said, pointing.

  The Marines both followed his finger.

  “You fucking crazy?” the other man said.

  “Crazy will keep us alive, so move it,” Ace said.

  The Marines opened the gates without more protest, and Ace charged toward one of the holes with Team Ghost covering him along the way.

  Variants had already emerged from another hole and rushed toward the gates, scaling the fences. Several made it over the top, dropping into t
he secure area, only to be cut down by gunfire.

  A Black Hawk circled, raining fire from the sky at the devilish army.

  Another hole burst open, unleashing more of the monsters and one of the larger blind Alphas. The beast let out its staccato shriek and twisted toward Team Ghost just as Ace lobbed the activated R2TD into a hole.

  While the sound waves it emitted were too high for the human ear, they were perfectly suited for hammering the sensitive ears of the Alphas.

  The creature let out a shriek, attracting the attention of the hordes attacking the western gate. Many of them turned away from the fences.

  “Oh shit,” Mendez stuttered.

  An entire group peeled off, falling to all fours, some of them tripping and falling over each other as they changed directions.

  At least forty beasts charged Team Ghost.

  “RUN!” Fitz yelled.

  The team bolted away from the hole back toward the gate where the Marines were shouting and waving. A hail of bullets chewed into the Variants pursuing Team Ghost, cutting some of them down, but the meat of the pack ran faster.

  Fitz was the last one in the gate. The Marines sealed it behind them and everyone backed away. The wave of Variants slammed into it seconds after.

  “Back!” Ace shouted.

  Fitz retreated from the barrier, scanning for the Alphas. He finally spotted one lumbering toward the R2TD system.

  Another Alpha climbed out of the newest hole and ran toward the abandoned R2TD equipment. Fitz waved at the soldiers with AT-4s on the rooftop.

  “Hit those Alphas!” he shouted.

  Fitz brought up his rifle and fired bursts at the Variants still slamming into the fences. A grenade sailed overhead and exploded behind one of the Alphas, smearing the beast across the asphalt. Another explosive round slammed into the parking lot between two vehicles. The fuel tanks ruptured, and the resulting inferno consumed the beasts.

  But another Alpha pushed its way through the charred corpses of its brethren, bullet holes weeping blood across its body. It reached the R2TD system, smashing the cylindrical machine with its clawed fists. The equipment broke into pieces, but not more than a second later, a rocket tore the Alpha into just as many chunks of bloody flesh.