The Sixth Extinction 1: An Apocalyptic Tale of Survival. (Part One: Outbreak.) Read online

  THE SIXTH EXTINCTION

  AN APOCALYPTIC TALE OF SURVIVAL

  Part One: Outbreak

  By Glen Johnson

  www.sinuousmindbooks.com

  Published by Sinuous Mind Books

  www.sinuousmindbooks.com

  Also available as a pap

  erback from Amazon

  Copyright © Glen Johnson 2013

  Cover image: Shutterstock

  Cover design by www.sinuousminddesigns.com

  Glen Johnson has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names and characters are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living, dead or undead is entirely coincidental.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not be, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form without Sinuous Mind Books or Glen Johnson’s prior consent. Except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles.

  Typeset: Caecilia LT Std/Italic

  ISBN–10: 1481279297

  ISBN–13: 978–1481279291

  ASIN: B00BE55OVK

  Also by Glen Johnson from Sinuous Mind Books(Available in ebook or paperback from Amazon)

  Horror

  Lamb Chops and Chainsaws: Nine Disturbing Short Stories About the Darker Side of Human Nature.

  Lobsters and Landmines: Another Nine Disturbing Short Stories About the Darker Side of Human Nature.

  The Devils Harvest: The End of All Flesh.

  Apocalyptic/Zombie

  The Sixth Extinction: An Apocalyptic Tale of Survival. Part Two: Ruin.

  Fantasy

  The Gateway: Close the World Enter the Next. World One of the Seven Worlds.

  The Spell of Binding: Part One.

  Occult/Supernatural

  War of the Gods: Part One – The Devils Tarots.

  Children/Young Adult

  Parkingdom: You Can

  Be Small and Still Make a Big Difference.

  For my friends –Anthony Pike

  &

  Vicky Tamkin

  Acknowledgments

  Being a writer is a lonely occupation, but there are some people I would like to thank, who helped along the way. My older brother, Gary Johnson who went over the raw manuscript with many read-throughs, editorial help, and suggestions. Also to Sean and Nicola Barnes, the zombie experts. In addition, Pauline Milner, Steven Mcleod, and Nigel Johnson. And Anthony and Barbara Stokes, Matthew Chilcott, Kate Pike, Anthony Pike, Victoria Tamkin, Sarah and Rachel Shapter, Sarah Kelly, Jamie Kerr, Stacy Folan, Pete and Jo Butchers, Kimberley and Stacey Driver and Danni Simmons.

  The locations in this book are a fusion of real and imagined, but the events and characters are merely a fabrication of my overactive imagination.

  Any mistakes are of my own making.

  Glen Johnson

  “There are plenty of problems in the world, many of them interconnected. But there is no problem which compares with this central, universal problem of saving the human race from extinction.”

  John Foster Dulles

  Prologue

  The Sixth Extinction is also referred to as the Holocene Extinction – the Holocene epoch is a period of time from present to around 10,000 BCE – where a large number of extinctions span numerous plants and animals, including birds, amphibians, arthropods, and mammals.

  Four hundred biologists were interviewed in 1998 by New York’s American Museum of Natural History. Seventy percent believe that the world is in the grip of a human-caused mass extinction. They believe that if left unchecked twenty percent of all living things could become extinct by 2028. One famous biologist, E. O Wilson believes that if humans continue to destroy the biosphere, then half of all species on the planet will be extinct within one hundred years.

  Almost nine hundred extinctions have been recorded by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources since the 1500s. However, that is just a drop in the ocean, according to the scientific species-area theory; it estimates that one hundred and forty thousand species are becoming extinct every year.

  Without intervention, the human race will cause the next mass extinction.

  1

  Week Three of the Infection

  Noah Edward Morgan

  Newton Abbot, South Devon, England

  Flat 17b, Union Street

  Friday 5th January 2013

  7:08 AM GMT

  Noah Edward Morgan’s sleep was fitful. He awoke several times covered in sweat.

  “The same dream again,” he mumbled. Even though he knew it was the same he had no recollection of its content, only of the colour red, for some reason.

  Blood maybe?

  However, the dream did not leave him with the feeling it was violent, rather; it seemed to put him in a peaceful state. He couldn’t explain it, he felt like something was missing. All he needed was one piece of a puzzle, and the dream would become obvious.

  “Pissing TV,” he whispered into his hot pillow, diverting his mind from the strange feeling he gets just after waking up from the dream.

  The television could be heard in the background, a monotonous monologue of one man’s voice. The whole country was watching the TV. He had no idea about what was transpiring in other countries.

  What he did know, before the news channels had stopped broadcasting live feeds, was it started three weeks ago near Marolambo, Madagascar, when a logging company had to airlift nine sick workers out for medical treatment, after they became severely ill while logging in an uncharted section of the jungle. Within a week, more cases were registered in Cape Town, South Africa. Mexico City, Mexico. Wien, Austria. Perth, Australia. Moscow, Russia, and Virginia, America. Then after two weeks, there were reported cases in almost every major city on every continent.

  After nine days cases appeared in the English cities of London and Manchester. Within eight hours, the British government grounded all flights and docked all boats. Great Britain was declared quarantined, and locked its borders. The government then started to control the news feeds. The outside world was cut off.

  After fourteen days, the World Health Organization had reclassed it as a pandemic.

  Noah rolled over onto his side. He looked up at his dull white ceiling. His small maisonette was located in Newton Abbot’s town center, on Union Street, above a fish and chip shop.

  The smell from the chips cooking in the evening made him feel either hungry, or nauseous, depending on his mood. However, the business was closed for the last week, just like every other business in the town and whole country. Everyone locked away at home, hiding, trying to stay safe. Praying.

  Noah had no job to go to, because Asda’s where he worked closed a week ago. Lorries had stopped transporting goods, and what with all the frenzied buying, there was nothing left to stay open for; there was no food on the shelves. Gangs of yobs, who broke shop windows and set light to what they could not eat or carry, had taken the meager supplies that were left.

  There was nothing to get up for. No family to sit with and wait for the end of the world. No girlfriend to comfort and protect. There wasn’t even a single plant in the flat that depended on him. He was completely alone. Just the way he liked it.

  Noah kicked back the duvet and stretched his tired muscles. His five foot six skinny body twitched as he stretched and yawned. He rubbed his hands down his stubbled face. Even at twenty-one, his stubble was
patchy.

  I cannot even grow a beard properly, he thought. Story of my life.

  Noah rolled over to look across his small maisonette to the television, which rested on a wobbly cabinet this side of the small kitchen. The word kitchenette probably described it better, just one short piece of work surface, with a small round sink, and a microwave-oven combo with two rings on top, with a few cupboards above and below.

  Normally, the sink would be full of unwashed dishes, but today it was spotless. He could not open the windows to let out the smell of the rancid plates, and congealed coffee cups, and he had to keep busy, to take his mind of the world-changing situation. He didn’t realize a metal sink could shine so brightly.

  The television channel showed old news, from a week ago, a riot in some city, possibly London or Manchester. People were hungry, desperate, and scared. They could only hide indoors for so long. People need food and water, and even though the power and water were on for now, the utilities would not last forever.

  The government kept running short calming reports every thirty minutes, trying to calm the population. News and reports were now controlled. There was no more freedom of information; everything was restricted, for the populations benefit, trying to keep mass hysteria at bay, everything had to be passed by the government before it was aired.

  Even though a new virus was ravishing the world, few videos had yet to be leaked. Even You Tube was locked down under the new governmental laws. The internet – when it worked – was being regulated.

  Great Britain was slowly becoming less great.

  The power flickered and went off. It had been doing that more often of late. It normally came back on within the hour, but Noah knew that at some point it would not.

  The power flicked straight back on. He could hear his old fridge-freezer gurgle and rattle as it kicked in.

  He swung his legs off the bed, while reaching for the remote to switch the television on from standby. He sat in his boxer shorts, just staring at another calming government report.

  He had tried to sleep in his clothes, in case he had to get out quick, but it was just so uncomfortable. His clothes were in a rumpled pile next to the bed, where he had taken them off piece-by-piece during his fitful sleep.

  A thin man in his fifties, with grey patches at his temples, and decked in a military uniform, stood in front of an important-looking podium – with some government logo on – was droning on about how the situation was under control.

  “Do not leave your home. Do not try to leave the cities and towns. Stay put. Keep calm. The government is doing all it can to sort the situation out. Keep your families together and seal all windows and doors. Do not go outside! Do not approach anyone who looks infected!”

  Noah grunted a laugh. “Yeah right, as you all sit in your reinforced bunkers deep underground, waiting for us to all die off.

  “And how are we supposed to know what the infected look like?” No news channel had released any image or video of an infected person.

  “Wankers!”

  The Mayans did say the end of the world was in December 2012, on the 21st. It was now January 5th 2013. Maybe it started then, and the repercussions are hitting us now. A gradual death.

  Noah pulled on some camouflage trousers and a green tee shirt, then his socks and steel toe capped brown hiking boots, from the pile next to his bed; in case today was the day he had to make a run for it.

  Always be prepared.

  Noah stood slowly and cracked his back like a stack of dominos. Too many years wasted sat at an uncomfy chair in front of the computer; he thought.

  He navigated around the supplies piled up against the walls, and on every surface. Food he stole from shops, looting along with everyone else. All bank accounts were frozen. Not that it mattered; every shop was shut, with the shop owners hiding along with their families.

  The looting had started at the end of the second week, after all the panicked buying had taken everything of use. However, while the gangs of yobs and chavs ran off with plasma TVs and Blue-ray players, x-boxes and playstations, Noah had concentrated on collecting as much food as he could find. He had even looted the chip shop below, after a gang of wandering adolescents had kicked in the front door.

  He had struggled upstairs with the large tote bins that they kept their cut chips in. After washing the bins out, he stored water in them, preparing for when the water was cut off.

  For the first week, he had lived almost exclusively on fish, sausages, and chips that he had stolen from the freezers downstairs. He could not open the windows, and even now – two weeks later – the smell of greasy, dirty oil saturated the whole flat.

  Resting against the two-seater couch was his bug-out bag. It had everything in it that he needed to survive for thirty-six hours, if he had to bail out of his flat – food, water, clothing, sleeping bag, and cooking utensils, as well as fire starting equipment, until he could find more supplies.

  Hopefully not for a while yet.

  The doorway to his flat was in a back alley. The shop rented him the dingy flat, and they shared a back door.

  When all the looting and fighting had started, Noah climbed down the fire escape and nailed his door shut, and then pulled a large cabinet in front of his entrance. To make sure no one checked behind, he had emptied the contents of the wheelie bins over the cabinet, and then tossed some raw fish in as well, from what was left in their freezers – that had spoilt – so after a few days the stench was gut wrenching. No one had tried to move the cabinet yet, even though a couple of times he had heard people rooting around downstairs in the shop, possibly looking for food. His home was safe for now.

  He had even ransacked the chip shop, throwing anything combustible out into the street, so no pyromaniac, with twitchy fingers, would try to set light to the place. There had been a lot of arsonist coming out of the woodwork. Every morning, when he looked out his windows, over the flats opposite, he could see another thin line of dense smoke rising to heaven. Cleansing by fire.

  In addition, when he returned upstairs – using the fire escape – he had pulled the metal ladder up, out of reach. His flat was cutoff from the floor below.

  Noah changed the water in his water bottle, attached to his bug-out bag. He changed it every morning, just to make sure if today was the day he had to leave, that he had fresh water on him.

  He boiled the kettle for a cup of coffee. For breakfast, he had toast and jam. He was trying to use up all the fresh bread he had scavenged before it went too stale. Before he dropped the two slices into the toaster, he picked mold off one edge.

  While he listened to a new sanctioned news report about an outbreak in the city of Bristol, Noah moved over to the drawn curtains.

  His flat was classed as a maisonette in his contract, because it was on two floors. The top floor was an open planned, twenty-seven foot by thirteen-foot kitchen, front room, and bedroom all in one. The freezing cold bathroom was downstairs next to his front door.

  Noah slowly moved the curtain aside with two fingers, while munching on his toast; crumbs cascaded down his green tee shirt. Silver duck-tape plastered the rickety window frame, covering all the gaps.

  One of the only details the government had released was the infection was airborne, like the bird and swine flu. However, unlike them, where only a handful had perished, this strain was deadly – if you caught it, there was no chest infection or runny nose, this one carried only death.

  Noah stared down into the road two stories below. The street looked like a war zone. Smashed out shop windows, with useless objects either dropped or thrown around. Burnt-out car shells were dotted along the street. No one was about. It was like a ghost town. Across the way, a building had grey smoke rising from its ruins. Dogs barked off in the distance. Paper and garbage danced down the street as the January winds picked up. He could also hear a bass drum, and feel a slight vibration through the soles of his boots. Someone close was enjoying the end of the world, their dance music cranked right up.
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br />   Seagulls screeched and cawed as they ripped into the trash, looking for anything edible. His hometown was only twenty minutes drive from the coast, right next to the English Riviera. Seagulls – the rats of the sky.

  If it ever came down to it, there would always be seagulls and pigeons to hunt.

  Noah noticed a curtain twitching opposite – obviously someone else who opted to sit tight rather than run.

  In the first week of the outbreak, most people seemed to fill their cars with everything they loathed to leave behind, and then jam their family into the space that was left, and simply drive away. Noah had no idea where they were heading; possibly, somewhere they thought they would be safe.

  How quickly it all changes, how fast it all turns to shit! he mused as he watched a Tesco carrier bag float up past his window, before it whisked away. He pushed the last bite of toast into his mouth. He made sure the curtain was back in place.

  Noah had a small handful of work-related friends, but none had tried to get in contact with him. He knew they were simply friendly because they worked together. They never met outside of work for drinks or socializing, he was too much of an introvert for that, he had always preferred his own company. He found it awkward and difficult to try to mingle in with a crowd, unless it was faceless, disembodied voices on Call of Duty MW3, which he used to play online with ‘friends’ from around the world on his x-box, before the world turned crazy.

  Noah crossed to the small kitchenette; on the work surface, charging, was his Samsung Note. The 02 mobile network worked spasmodically.