Nicholas Smith - Extinction Horizon

Beckham closed his eyes. He had blamed himself, and he still did, but hearing his friend absolve him lifted some of the guilt.

“I promise you, Big Horn, if they are still out there, we will find them when this is all over—” Before Beckham could finish, Horn pulled away and angled the muzzle of his M27 toward the end of the street.

Whatever he saw, Riley saw it too.

“Contact,” the kid said. He scrambled to his feet and leveled his rifle over the hood of the car.

The rain was picking up, the slap of drops hitting the concrete all around them. Beckham wiped his visor clear and focused on the road.

Three drenched figures came into view. A man and a woman holding the hands of a child that walked between them. There was more motion behind them. A man with a shotgun watched their backs. Beckham narrowed in on the lead man. He held a nasty-looking long-barreled pistol.

Beckham contemplated the team’s options. This was a recon mission, but he wasn’t going to leave behind survivors. Especially with a kid. He twisted and whispered his orders. “Horn, Riley, stay put and cover me. I’m going to check this out.”

Standing, Beckham lowered his weapon and approached the group cautiously. They stopped at the end of the block.

“Stay where you are,” Beckham yelled. He watched the man with the pistol raise the barrel, ever so slightly. That wasn’t good , he thought. Beckham froze. He didn’t want to scare the group.

“We’re here to help,” Beckham said in his calmest voice.

“Can you get us out of here?” the woman shouted. “Please! We need to get out of here.”

Beckham hesitated for a beat. “Stay calm. You will have to come with us.”

The woman grew frantic. She dropped the child’s hand and turned to the man. “Let’s go, please let’s go.”

“How do we know we can trust you?” the man shouted.

“He’s military,” the woman said. “He can protect us from them.”

Beckham raised a brow. He would ask what she meant later when they were off the streets.

“Come on,” he yelled. He twisted to run back to the squad car when he heard it.

It started off as a croak that slowly grew into a high-pitched screech. A second voice answered the call, releasing its own ravenous shriek.

No, Beckham thought. It wasn’t possible, was it? The primal noise could only mean one thing—that Kate’s bug hadn’t killed all of the monsters. He jerked as his earpiece flickered.

“One o’clock. On the east side of the FEMA truck,” Riley said in a cool voice.

Beckham shouldered his weapon and spun back to the group of survivors. The truck was easy to spot, it was right behind them. Standing next to the hood was a single figure. A woman. He reached for the small set of binos in his vest pocket and zoomed in.

A curtain of black hair covered her face. Deep gouges covered her skin, bite marks surrounding the open wounds. Between a gap in her drenched hair he could make out a single yellow slit staring back at him.

This was no survivor. This was an infected.

“Run!” Beckham shouted.

The man and woman were already fleeing, pulling the child away. They disappeared into a building across the street, but the man with the shotgun held his ground. He fired off a blast at the creature behind him. In a swift motion she jumped on the front of the FEMA truck, landing on the hood in a crouch.

The man pumped the gun, aimed and screamed, “Die, you bitch.” Before he could fire off a shot a second creature burst from the glass shop window behind him. They rolled onto the ground, a cluster of limbs.

Beckham lowered his binos and raised his weapon. He lined up his iron sights but couldn’t get a target. “Move,” he muttered, shifting to his right, then his left.

Three seconds later, the man was dead, his face caved in from the barbaric blows of the monster straddling his body. Swallowing, Beckham pulled the trigger.

Blood splattered the concrete and the creature’s limp body slumped to the ground.

The woman on the truck screeched, tilted her head and extended a long pale arm, pointing toward the squad car with a twisted hand—toward him. Seconds later a chorus of shrieks joined her cries.

Below, another figure emerged from inside the shattered front door of a small shoe store. Down the street, a man came crashing out of a flower shop. More piled out of other buildings.

“Get out of there, boss,” Riley yelled, his voice deep and tense.

The woman on the hood of the FEMA truck leapt onto the concrete. She broke into a sprint, zigzagging between the cars before hitting the sidewalk across the street where she dropped to all fours and bolted into the building where the survivors had fled.

Beckham hesitated. He had to save the kid. He had to save…

He blinked rapidly, watching dozens of the creatures streaming around the FEMA truck. Others scurried across the horizontal surface of the buildings to the left and right like spiders. Joints clicked and creaked. Their high-pitched squawks were indescribably terrible, a mixture of rage and pain. The street was alive with the monsters.

“Boss!” Horn yelled. “Get out of there.”

Fueled by fear, Beckham backpedaled as he fired off the rest of his magazine. Horn and Riley picked off the creatures on the walls but there were too many. They were everywhere. Team Ghost had to retreat.

Beckham let out his own war cry as he changed magazines. He felt hopeless, knowing he couldn’t save the child or the other survivors. For the third time in two weeks he ran, away from the enemy, away from the death, away from the monsters.

Kate reached Building 4 out of breath. Her thoughts were clouded and confused. VariantX9H9 was not designed as a partial cure. It was designed to kill everyone infected with the virus. She’d never thought of the small rate of survival, or that any of the victims would live.

Damn Gibson , she thought as she ran, he’d boxed her and the entire scientific community into a corner. They hadn’t had the time to design a response. She hadn’t had the time. At least he would pay for his crimes. He was locked away now in complete isolation, waiting for the hammer to drop. When this was all over he would answer to the entire world for his sins. The thought was satisfying. She had no empathy for the man and his motivations. He deserved to burn.

When she got to Building 4, she skidded to a stop. The facility seemed eerily quiet. She stood under the radiant glow of an industrial light pole and scanned the entrance.

There were no guards or sign of scientists coming and going. There was only the darkness and the sporadic zap of a bug as it got too close to the lights.

As she looked back the way she came she saw a distant patrol of soldiers, their flashlight beams cutting through the night. The sight was a small relief, but still she felt a nagging doubt.

Where the hell was everyone at Building 4?

Ignoring her trepidation, she moved briskly across the hundred yards or so of darkness, where the light from the massive rods did not fall.

Climbing the steps to the entrance she again paused. The remains of several cigarette butts littered the ground. Was it possible that the guards had taken a break without having another team replace them? Or perhaps Patient 12 had died and there was no longer a reason for the guards to remain.

She shook the questions away. There was only one way to find out. Removing her keycard from her pocket, she waved it over the security panel. The door chirped, unlocked, and cracked open. She pulled the massive metal door open with a huff, surprised how heavy it really was. Gasping for breath she stepped inside the white atrium. Darkness greeted her.