Paul Jones - Extinction Point - The End

“That’s excellent,” Jacob said when she told him. He gave her the number for their sat-phone. “Just in case things start shutting down faster than we anticipated.”

“I’ll head over to the paper once we’re done. Keep your fingers crossed nobody was using them when the shit hit the fan.”

The difficult part wasn’t going to be getting out of New York, Jacob explained. There was close to 4,500 miles between Emily and Fairbanks; that meant months of hard travelling just to reach the university. Then, once she arrived in Fairbanks, there was another four or five-hundred miles of travel over some of the coldest and roughest terrain in North America, with no major roads, to reach the Stocktons. She’d either have to complete that last leg on foot, or hope the snow-mobiles Jacob told her she would find at the University were still where they should be and in working order.

“Don’t worry about that right now,” Jacob told her. “Worst case scenario, we can come and get you once you make it to the University. What’s important is that we get you out of New York while this event is still in its early stages. We can narrow down a better plan once we know you’re safe.”

They talked for another hour, exploring plans and ideas for the best course of action to get her on her way. Eventually the conversation turned to personal protection and the need to defend herself. “Who knows what’s out there Emily. You need a weapon of some sort. Do you know where you can lay your hands on a gun?”

Emily’s mind instantly flashed back to Nathan. His service revolver had still been in its holster when she dragged his body into the apartment down the hall. She mentally kicked herself for not grabbing the pistol when she had a chance to, but, she reminded herself, she had other things on her mind at the time. And how was she supposed to have known she would even need it? She had been so sure help was going to be on its way. No one in their right mind would have guessed she would need to defend herself against some freak of nature made up of a dead baby and its parents. And what if what she’d witnessed upstairs was also happening to her dead boyfriend too? Did she really think she could handle that? So, no; no way was she going to try to get into that room and put what was left of her sanity at risk. She’d worry about a weapon when she had to.

“I’m going to have to get off this phone if I want to get to the paper and back again before it gets dark,” Emily told Jacob, finally.

“Okay, well, you have the email and the sat-phone if you need us. Just remember you’re not alone, Emily. You can call us anytime; someone will always be up, okay?”

“Okay,” she replied. The idea of hanging up, of severing the only connection she had had with anyone for the last few days was excruciatingly hard to do. Jacob must have sensed that; “Emily, don’t worry, everything is going to be just fine, I promise you. We’ll speak again soon, okay? Good luck and be careful.” Jacob hung up, leaving nothing but dead air between them.

Everything was going to be just fine he had promised her.

Emily doubted that very much.

Emily closed her phone and glanced over at the clock on the stove. It was three-thirty in the afternoon. That gave her about four hours of sunlight still, which should be more than enough time for her to make the ride to the Tribune’s offices and get back before sunset.

Emily went to the closet in her bedroom, raised herself on tiptoe and started feeling around on the top shelf. Eventually her fingers found what she was looking for and she pulled out a large military style bergen. It was basically an oversized backpack with several extra-large storage pockets, a relic from the one time she and Nathan had taken a weekend camping trip up at Bowman Lake State Park. They’d bought the bergen from a military surplus store in Chinatown.

It had rained the entire time at the lake, but that hadn’t mattered, it had been great, and she smiled at the memory. It all seemed so very distant now.

Emily shook her head to dispel the melancholia she sensed creeping up on her. The bergen would be useful; if she was going to make the trip out to the paper, she may as well make a stop at one of the big stores nearby and grab some supplies while she was out.

She took the bergen and left it near the front door while she grabbed her jacket. She was reaching for the door handle when a thought stayed her hand. Emily walked back to the kitchen and pulled a twelve-inch long butcher’s knife from the block she kept on the counter next to the cooker. She wasn’t sure how much use the knife would be against the thing upstairs—or any of its relatives, for that matter—but as she hefted the blade in her hand it at least gave her some reassurance.

She slid the knife into the inside pocket of her jacket, it wasn’t a perfect fit but she didn’t think it could fall out and the jacket was loose enough she wouldn’t end up accidentally stabbing herself. Better to be prepared , she thought, as she grabbed the backpack, swung it over her shoulder then opened the door and stepped out into the hallway.

The hallway was empty, but as she made her way to the stairs she paused as the sound of something shuffling on the floor above her echoed down the corridor. It was a low rumbling sound, like something was being dragged across the floor. Emily paused for a second, her heart beating loudly in her ears. She waited to see if the sound came again, but there was nothing. Taking a deep breath Emily commanded her legs to walk, they objected for a second but then she was on the move again.

There was no denying it, she was spooked.

Emily knew she was no longer alone, but the closest human being she was aware of was several thousand miles away. If the thing upstairs was moving around, how long would it be before it decided to leave that stinking apartment and explore the rest of the building? What if it was already wandering the hallways? She gave a little shudder as she reached the door to the stairwell, pausing only to peek through the glass security window and make sure the passageway beyond it was empty. Seeing nothing, she pulled the door open and headed down to the ground floor.

Emily’s bike was exactly where she had left it; chained to the security stand out front of the building. She unlocked it and swung herself into the saddle, glad to be free of the confines of the apartment block. Once she was comfortable she used her feet to get some momentum going and freewheeled down the steps in front of the building bump by bump.

There was no sign of the red dust storm from the day before, other than a few drifts of the same glass-like residue piled up against walls and collected in the entranceways to the shops and offices she passed as she pedaled north towards the Tribune offices.

She passed a few abandoned vehicles, all of them empty. In fact, during the entire trip she did not see a single corpse. Even the dead birds that had littered the roads and sidewalks seemed to have mysteriously disappeared. Maybe they’d be blown away in the red dust storm, she thought. As much as she would like the explanation to be true, it didn’t make much in the way of sense, because, from what she had experienced during her trip back through the storm, there had been no wind propelling the dust.

So that left what? They’d somehow magically walked away? Or was there a more sinister explanation to the lack of dead on the streets? She sure as hell didn’t want to think about it right now and shifted her focus back to concentrating on her riding. As she rode through the deserted streets, she started running back over some of the plans she and Jacob had talked about during their phone call. She’d need supplies: fresh water and non-perishable food would be the most important items. And of course, the further north she travelled the colder it was going to get, so she’d also need to pull together a suitable wardrobe too; warm clothes, boots, maybe even skis or snowshoes.