Adrian Smith - The Rule of Three - An Extinction Cycle Novella

“Don’t look, George. Look down.” Jack said, as he searched the people for blonde hair.

He felt George’s grip tighten on the belt.

Tears pricked his eyes, a long-buried pain bubbling to the forefront of his mind. Jack had thought he had buried that particular memory deep, away, forgotten. He had avoided having his own children, limited his time with other people’s kids. All to avoid the pain.

Jack loved his little brother, even though there was a ten-year gap. He was so full of life and curiosity. Jack read to him every night, played games, built forts.

As his brother grew, he introduced him to films, comics, and the wonders of creativity and the imagination.

Before the fateful trip to the snow.

Jack took his brother sledding. With each run, he squealed louder and louder.

“Higher Jik Jik, higher!” he pleaded.

Caught up in his brother’s delight, Jack relented. Took him to the very top of the steep hill.

Down they flew, getting faster and faster, the cold wind stinging their faces.

A fallen tree branch poking from the snow caught Jack’s trailing foot, throwing him off.

The sled turned sharply. His brother slammed into the trees lining the hill.

Racing up, he found his loving little brother crumpled to one side, blood streaming down over his face, his little head crushed.

Jack cradled him and screamed until he was hoarse. That was how the paramedics found him.

They took his little brother away.

He never saw him again. The funeral directors advised Jack’s mum to have a closed coffin.

Once an outgoing sixteen-year-old, Jack retreated within himself. Shutting away the world, he found solace and comfort in his books, his comics, his movies.

His mum sent him to see a psychiatrist. He went, but begrudgingly. How could a stranger know his pain? Know his shame? Know his failing? His little brother was dead because of his error of judgement. His little brother was ashes in the wind because Jack’d been trying to impress his brother with his bravery.

But time heals all to a point, eventually. The psychiatrist helped Jack realise that it wasn’t his fault. He hadn’t put the branch there. To think more on the times he shared with his brother, the love, the laughter, the joy they’d brought to each other.

So Jack buried the guilt and pain deep down. Never forgetting the memory of his little brother, he learnt to live with it.

I’m sorry, Georgey. I’ll save this one…

Wiping away the tears that had formed, Jack stopped at the first door and listened. Not hearing a sound, he tried the handle. Locked. Cursing silently, he quickly moved on to the next one. After several locked doors, he found an unlocked one. Opening it, Jack saw it was a maintenance room. A workbench lined one wall, with a peg board above filled with tools.

He couldn’t hold back the exclamation that escape his lips. Finally, a little luck. Grabbing some screwdrivers and a hammer, he jammed them into his belt. If those things attack, at least I can go down fighting, give the kid a chance to run.

“What’s this, Mister Jack?”

Jack looked down at George, who had crawled under the bench. He was holding out a rusty old machete, its wooden handle so cracked and pitted that someone had wrapped red electrical tape around it.

“That is a very dangerous weapon,” Jack said, gently taking the machete out of the child’s hands.

“But I want something to fight the monsters,” George moaned.

Jack crouched down. “Okay, George, but let’s find you something more suitable.”

Jack searched the work area and found a tool belt. He placed it around George’s waist, adjusting the strap as small as it could go. Then he populated it with chisels, screwdrivers, and a small ball pein hammer.

“If they come, you stab and hit them as hard as you can, all right?” Jack demonstrated the motions.

George beamed up at him as he nodded his head.

He knew the tools wouldn’t do much good against those creatures; they were so damn fast, so ferocious. For that matter, he didn’t know how long either of them would last. But a little hope and something to live for goes a long way.

“C’mon kid, I don’t know about you, but I want to get out of here.”

“Mummy?”

“Yeah, we’ll keep looking. Remember, super silent. If they come, run back to the red door and hide, okay?”

George pulled out his little hammer and, holding it up to him, said, “But I am Thor.”

In spite of all the the horror, the fear scratching at him, Jack smiled at George. The kid’s resilience was incredible. He just wanted to find his mum.

As they approached the green door at the end of the corridor, the stench of rotting fruit became overpowering. Jack’s hand was shaking with fear as he reached out and opened the door. Peering through the gap, he saw a sight that even the best horror writer’s minds would struggle to imagine. Not wanting George to see, he spun the kid around. Standing in front of him, he blocked the child’s view.

Beyond the door, steel stairs descended into a cavernous area. Piles of bones, some with bits of tissue and sinews still attached, lay stacked in corners. Bits of people were strewn about, some half eaten. He could see torsos, arms, and legs. Bones sticking out. One of the monsters was lying on top of a pile of intestines covered in blood and plasma. Lining the walls of the room, severed heads in varying states of decay had been placed on spikes made of bones.

In the deepest shadows of the room, Jack could see sleeping creatures. Some smaller creatures were nestled against some of the larger ones for warmth.

Jack paused, shocked. Were they breeding? Already?

He could see a particularly large stack of bones in the centre of the room. A throne of bones, reminiscent of one Jack had once seen in a catacomb in Europe.

The large mass moved. It was a massive creature, and plated bones protruded from its shoulders, forming spikes. A severed child’s head had been placed atop each spike, much like some sort of grisly trophies. Fighting the bile rising up his throat, Jack turned away, his mind reeling. He had seen this creature before. When they were captured. It hadn’t had the heads then. The creature led, gave out orders.

Jack stumbled back, pushing George farther into the corridor. His eyes wandered lower. At the big creature’s feet, blonde hair flowed over a woman’s half-eaten body.

No! Sarah…!

Jack remembered that, in a moment of clarity when he was drifting in and out of consciousness while trapped on the wall, he had seen Sarah being taken. Taken for slaughter. All her past, present, and possible futures snuffed out in an instant. In the end, she had become these monsters’ sustenance.

George started screaming. Jack spun. The boy was standing in the doorway, looking directly at his mother’s remains.

As one, the creatures’ heads swivelled around to face the door. Terrifying screeches echoed around the cavernous room. With stunning speed and agility, they leapt from the floor.

Jack pulled George away and slammed the door. Jamming one of his hammers through the handle, he hoped it would stop them for a moment, enough time to get away.

Grabbing the still-screaming George by his hand, he sprinted up the corridor, back toward the room they had sheltered in.

Behind them, wood and concrete splintered with a crash. Turning, Jack saw the monsters piling into the corridor, screeching and howling, saliva dripping from their sucker mouths. Muscles rippled beneath semi-translucent skin. They spotted Jack and George, and howled as they bounded toward them.