Nicholas Smith - Extinction Age

The high-pitched roar of the M240 machine gun sounded as soon as their Humvee was clear. The door gunner unloaded a barrage of 7.62 mm rounds that whizzed overhead. Beckham twisted and watched the projectiles pound the concrete and slam into flesh. A geyser of limbs, rock, and bone exploded into the air.

Beckham felt a moment of relief that quickly turned into panic as he looked back to the windshield. They were heading full-speed toward a concrete barrier. Valdez slammed the brakes, and the truck ground to a halt just inches from the blocks. Beckham jolted forward, Jinx’s body nearly rolling off of his lap.

“Everybody out!” Valdez shouted.

“Chow, Timbo. You carry Jinx. I’ll get Meg,” Beckham said as he opened the door. “Valdez, Ryan, Jensen, you lay down covering fire.”

He staggered out onto the dock. The Variant horde streamed down Twelfth in both directions. They were changing their tactics again. With thousands joining the chase, the individual Variants seemed to know that the chances of getting hit by a bullet were slim.

The army surged forward.

Beckham forced himself to look away. He bolted around the side of the vehicle to help Meg out, nearly crashing into Valdez and Ryan. The two men took knees and laid down covering fire. Jensen was already shooting from the other side of the truck.

“Get out of here,” Valdez grumbled.

“Help me,” Chow said. He struggled to drag Jinx’s body to the edge of the seat, and Timbo helped pull him from the vehicle.

“Beckham, you and Chow get Meg,” Timbo said, jerking his head toward the woman. “I’ll carry Jinx.”

Beckham leaned down, and with Chow’s help they hoisted Meg to her feet. She glanced up at Beckham, still clutching the blade he’d given her.

“We’re really leaving?” Meg said like she didn’t believe it.

“Yeah,” Chow said. “Come on, we have to move.”

They squeezed through the gap in the barriers and hustled toward Echo 3. Meg muttered a response Beckham couldn’t make out. He tightened his grip on her and focused on the bulky outline of the soldier behind the M240. The man raked the weapon back and forth, battling for every inch of the pier.

Whipping wind from the rotors hit them then, and Beckham squinted to see Rodriguez and Peters jump from the chopper.

“Get inside!” Rodriguez yelled as he raced past.

The ground trembled from the hammering of thousands of feet. The ethereal screeches from all those gaping mouths reverberated through the city. Reality seemed distant, the fog of war setting in around Beckham’s consciousness.

Meg went limp in his arms when they were one hundred feet from the Blackhawk. The knife slipped from her hand, hitting the concrete with a faint clank. Beckham put everything he had left into hoisting her up, his injured shoulder blazing. Working with Chow, they carried her toward the bird. Timbo beat them there. He placed Jinx inside and then grabbed Meg with his massive hands.

Beckham’s eyes flicked to the door gunner. He saw then it was Horn, his features raw with pain in the flash of gunfire. It was the look that only seeing a fallen brother could produce.

The whine of high caliber rounds intensified as Horn channeled his rage into the assault. Beckham turned back to the battle and cupped his hands over his mouth.

“Fall back!” he shouted. Despite Horn’s efforts, the pier was already being overrun. Hundreds of Variants flowed onto the dock. Some spilled over the side to avoid the gunfire, splashing into the Hudson River. Others climbed onto the vehicles and lunged over the spray of bullets.

Waves ten thousand strong crashed down Twelfth Avenue, fighting, clawing, and biting their way to the pier, hungry mouths starving for human flesh. The army stretched across Beckham’s entire field of vision.

“Beckham, gun!” Chow shouted. He grabbed an M-16 from the chopper and tossed it. Valdez and Ryan were already retreating by the time Beckham loaded and shouldered the rifle. Peters and Rodriguez had taken up position halfway between the bird and the concrete barriers. Jensen, unyielding, was still firing from the side of the truck.

“Fall back!” Beckham shouted. “FALL THE FUCK BACK!” His voice cracked, the countless screams finally taking their toll.

Chow and Beckham joined Peters and Rodriguez. There was no need to aim when they got there. Everywhere Beckham lined up the iron sights, he found a target.

Jensen backpedaled with his rifle shouldered, squeezing off burst after burst. Tracer rounds from the M240 whistled overhead, thumping into the wall of Variants that had reached the abandoned Humvee. The rounds cut through the creatures and peppered the vehicle with holes, punching through metal. Air hissed out of the shredded tires.

“Move your asses!” Beckham screamed.

“Let’s move!” Chow shouted. He pulled Beckham away. “Come on!”

A flash of motion behind the chopper stopped Beckham’s heart mid-beat. The Variants that had jumped into the water had flanked the team.

“Behind you!” Beckham shouted.

A half dozen of the creatures pulled themselves onto the dock, water dripping off their veiny, muscular flesh. The pilot lifted off just as two of the Variants launched into the air. One of them crashed back to the ground, but the other grabbed the landing skids. The chopper jerked to the right, the creature swinging with it.

Jensen finally caught up and crouched next to Chow while Beckham aimed for the Variant’s long arms. He held in a breath and squeezed off four shots that cut through its wrists, leaving its hands still attached to the skid while the rest of its body fell into the water.

The chopper rotated in a circle, giving Horn a clear shot at the remaining Variants. He opened up again, his gunfire marked out a perimeter around Beckham and the other men, the large-caliber bullets kicking concrete into the air. The rounds punched through flesh and shattered bones, splattering the dock with pink chunks of gore.

“Let’s go!” Horn yelled, waving them forward with one hand.

The chopper lowered again, and the three men piled inside next to Timbo, who had been firing from the doorway next to Horn. Rodriguez and Peters jumped in a moment later, but Ryan and Valdez were still retreating.

“Out of the way!” Beckham shouted. He pointed his rifle out the door as soon as the men were clear and squeezed off covering fire for Ryan and Valdez.

They were only fifty feet away from the chopper. So close it seemed like Beckham could reach out and touch them. Five seconds. Maybe ten. That’s all they needed. To most people, the fraction of time would go unnoticed, but for Valdez and Ryan, this was a matter of life and death. Both of them had abandoned firing and ran like madmen, their arms pumping and their helmets bobbing up and down.

Beckham pulled a dry magazine from his M16 and reached to Chow for another when he saw the Variants jumping from the water along the side of the pier. They climbed onto the dock, lean muscles glistening from the Hudson. The pilot saw them too, and he pulled up before Beckham could react, knocking him against a wall.

“NO!” Beckham shouted. He watched helplessly as Ryan crashed to the dock in a blur of motion, the monsters tackling him from two directions. Beckham glimpsed the terror in his eyes and the bloody mist exploding from arteries as they tore him apart. And then he was gone.

Beckham sucked in a long, stunned breath. He scrambled back to the edge of the open chopper door. Horn was firing madly in an effort to save Valdez, but it was too late. The rounds shredded the first wave, but another pack that had emerged from the river circled the Marine. He spun with his rifle blazing, dropping several of the monsters. The others reached out with talons as long as knives. They cut into him, tearing gashing wounds across his body. He spun as they slashed him, his eyes falling on the chopper, a defiant look still on his face. The man was as tough as a bag of bricks. It took five of them to finally bring him down.