The Sixth Extinction: America (Omnibus Edition | Books 1 – 8) Page 4

  “This is a boy and girl. Self-explanatory really,” he stated while tapping a knuckle on the glass.

  The Director and General stayed back.

  “They will continue to eat everything meat based that we put in the chamber with them. They don’t stop eating until their stomach ruptures, and they collapse to the ground.”

  Doctor Bachman turned to look at the two visitors. He always enjoyed the look of shock on their faces. These important people wanted to be shown around, but when they saw the reality of the situation, it always made them blanch.

  It’s different seeing figures and columns on a report and actually being face to face with them, isn’t it? He always wanted to say, but didn’t.

  “If we didn’t supply food,” he said, turning back to the chamber, “then these two would attack each other. All human emotions and memories have gone; they are now simply machines, carriers for the spores that made them.”

  “But why would they eat until their stomachs rupture? Surely, that’s counter productive? They have created a perfect killing machine, why ruin it?” the General asked.

  Of course, a soldier would ask that.

  “The reason becomes apparent in the next room,” Doctor Bachman stated as he moved to the separating door. “And just to warn you. From our calculations, from the moment the virus reached our shores and started spreading, along with the timelines we’ve studied, within the next week there will be millions of these stage three subjects becoming reanimated, and they will be eating machines, just like these.” Bachman pointed at the feasting subjects tearing into the goat carcass. The boy was now using his hands to scoop blood and entrails into his wide mouth that splashed over his deformed face.

  The two men followed; glad to get out of the room. The way the creatures fed; tearing into the meat with misshapen mouths was unnerving. It was as if a primordial sense was screaming at them to get out, to run away. It was similar to seeing a shark on the TV. Something deep down inside us instinctively knows we are not at the top of the food chain.

  5

  Alex and group

  Inside a shipping container, on a truck

  Interstate 80 Express

  New York City – Saddle Brook

  A walkie-talkie buzzed by Alex’s side. He quickly scooped it up.

  “We will be stopping for the night in five minutes. We are pulling into a Marriot Hotel car park. Over,” Troy announced.

  The sun was dropping fast, and it was too dangerous to try to maneuver the truck through the abandoned cars in the dark. Also, the two brothers on the roof would be easy pickings when night fell.

  “Roger that,” Alex replied.

  He cleared his throat. “Listen up people,” he said in a loud modulated voice so everyone could hear over Phyllis’s snoring and Dante’s crying. “Troy is parking up for the night, so get your stuff together.”

  This was there first day traveling. It was hell getting out of Manhattan. Their apartment block was on Ryer Avenue in Fordham Heights. It took just over eight hours to travel eleven miles as a crow flies. However, they didn’t have the luxury of traveling in a straight-line. So far, due to detours, having to keep turning back, and going at a snail’s pace, they had racked up a staggering eighty-nine miles, mainly due to the George Washington Bridge being impassable because of a jackknifed eighteen wheeler, and the Lincoln Tunnel was full of abandoned vehicles, which made it a deathtrap. They had to detour across Manhattan to use the Williamsburg Bridge, then head down and across the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, and then onto the I278. All the while maneuvering around obstacles and avoiding armed gangs.

  Every now and then, the truck would slow, and another vehicle could be heard approaching. They would pass slowly, checking each other out before continuing on their separate ways. Sometimes the truck stopped next to another vehicle, and Alex could hear muffled conversation, as if they were exchanging information about routes. Polite humanity hanging on by a thread.

  Going to the toilet was the passenger’s worst problem.

  Troy devised a plan. At the back of the container, one of the large double doors had been welded shut, with a hatch cut out that could be opened and closed, with a slanted seat built inside a small cubicle size chamber. When someone needed the toilet, they locked themselves in, and used the broom handle inside to slam on the ceiling. One of the two brothers on the roof would make their way to the back, and keep an eye out, so when the person’s backside was hanging out the back, they didn’t have to worry about an Eater taking a chunk out of it.

  “Troy said we are stopping at a Marriott Hotel.”

  Jessica nudged Naomi, and repeated what Alex had just said after the woman removed the iPod earbuds.

  “Marriott, ooh la la,” Naomi said as she shifted her heavy body to one side, while stubbing her cigarette out on the wooden floor.

  “We have to sit on this floor you know? Be a little more considerate,” Jessica stated as she knelt up, while collecting her things together, while not looking in Naomi’s direction. She was irritated that she had to breathe in her second-hand smoke all day. She decided to sit as far away from her as possible tomorrow.

  “What did you just say, Princess?” Naomi barked.

  “I said stop leaving your cigarette butts everywhere.”

  Naomi picked up a filter and held it up. “Take it, if you want it so bad.” She flicked it at Jessica’s face.

  “You goddamn bitch!” Jessica rubbed her cheek where it hit. Her eyes flared. It was the first sign of anger Alex had ever seen from her.

  “What did you call me?” Naomi was on her knees as she spun all her bulk around to square up to the woman a third her size.

  “Now, now ladies, there’s no need for open hostility, let’s try to keep everything civil,” Reverend Clark said as he slowly rocked the elderly Mrs. Washington, to wake her up, as he slipped the bottle of Jack inside his jacket.

  “Tell that to her,” Jessica stated through clenched teeth, like a spoilt child. She was flushed red.

  Juan chuckled to himself.

  “That’s right, lap it up, wetback,” Naomi muttered.

  “What the fuck did you just call me?”

  “Juan, don’t,” Bonnie muttered, as she put a hand on her brother’s arm that held the gun.

  “What you gonna do, put a cap in my ass?” she chuckled.

  “Well it would be easy enough to hit; you could project a fucking movie onto that thing, or float you in the ocean and use it as an aircraft carrier.”

  “Look, we’ve all been caged up in here for too long; we need some fresh air and to stretch our legs,” Alex stated, trying to calm everyone down.

  This is just the first day, what will we all be like after being stuck in here for a week, or however long it will take?

  “And to get away from that irritating baby,” Naomi added.

  “What did you say?” Tierra shouted down the container. “If you wanna dance bitch, bring it on! I’ll put my foot up your fat ass!” Tierra stood rocking Dante on her hip, trying to stop his crying, while staring daggers at Naomi.

  “We are stuck with each other, so let’s try not to fight. We have enough problems as it is, without adding to them,” Cody announced.

  His wife Abigail gave his arm an encouraging rub, as if to congratulate him for speaking his mind and putting everyone in their place. Someone had to act like an adult, her expression stated.

  The truck slowed down and came to a halt. Then after a loud gear change, the truck started reversing for a mere few meters. They reached their destination for the night. Now all they had to do was survive it.

  6

  Doctor Bachman, Director Grant, and General Gordon

  Government Biosciences facility

  Groom Lake, Nevada

  The fourth chamber was filled with six prone naked figures. That was as much as you could tell. It was hard to see if they were male or female because of the bloating. Their skin was stretched to the absolute physical limit, and beyond. They had b
ecome discolored, now they were a yellowish brown, moldy color. There were large mottled splotches over the stretched skin, along with greenish-white growths that oozed frothy brown pus. If a person looked very closely they could see millions of black spores swirling around inside, mixed with a mucousy pus, waiting to be released.

  “As you can see, this is what happens after the stomach ruptures. Within an hour, the body can bloat up to eight times its normal size, the skin, having been changed at a molecular level, has become extremely elastic.” The doctor pointed to the closest body.

  “Due to the glass they don’t sense us being so close; or else they would have exploded already.

  “The average strength of a detonation is equivalent to a M67 grenade, with a killing blast ratio of about fifteen meters, which spreads their spores over two hundred meters.” He turned to see the General nodding his head, as if acknowledging the explosive strength.

  “Of course, if that’s inside an enclosed space that changes things drastically.”

  Doctor Bachman turned to stare at the Director.

  “Would you like a demonstration? We have studied these six to the best of our abilities, and we have to make way for some of the subjects from the previous chamber.”

  “Are we safe?” Director Grant asked, as his eyes widened a little.

  “Very.” He stepped forward and rapped a knuckle on the thick glass. “This is top of the range, and can withstand pressures far exceeding what we are using it for.”

  He didn’t tell them that the first chamber they built ruptured, infecting four scientist, because they had misjudged the pressure build up of all the spores. Three of them were actually lying in the chamber now, bloated beyond recognition.

  “Then yes, please continue.”

  Doctor Bachman walked to the wall near the door they had entered. He picked up a red phone. There were no buttons. After a few seconds, he simply said, “Sanitize the chamber.” He then replaced the receiver.

  After a minute’s wait, a figure dressed in a hazmat suit, possibly the same one they had seen in the second chamber, entered through a door from the other side. He was leading an infected old woman on a pole that was connected around her neck with a thick collar. She was docile and shuffled along in her yellow jumpsuit, unaware of her surroundings, as she blinked rapidly and her body twitched and her arthritic fingers moved as if she was playing a piano. She bumped into the thick glass door and stood with her deformed face pushed up against the glass – her large bloodshot eyes rolled in their sockets. The glass steamed up from her breath and started to run with saliva mixed with blood. The scientist in the containment suit unclipped the pole from the collar and stepped out, shutting the door behind him. He then pressed a button, opening the adjoining door.

  The Director and General took a step back.

  “We have found that if an infected person stands too close to them. They don’t react, as if sensing the individual is already infected, and they don’t want to waste their spores. However, regardless as to whether they are infected or not, if a bloated body is touched, they automatically explode, regardless.”

  As the doctor was talking, the old woman started to amble into the room, oblivious to the bloated bodies at her feet. The material of her jumpsuit brushed up against a Popper. Instantly, the prone figure started to vibrate, juddering the whole body. Pus started squirting from the sores. Then, in a soundless flash, the engorged body exploded covering the whole twenty-foot length of the window with blood and gore. Bone fragments and chunks of hair started to slide down the thick glass along with shredded bits of blood-soaked yellow jumpsuit. Then the other bodies started to detonate one after another, washing the glass anew with each explosion.

  “My god,” the Director whispered.

  The floor of the chamber was covered in chunks of flesh and organs. Blood was everywhere – pooled on the decking, running down the windows, and dripping in long globules from the ceiling. A long strip of intestines slithered down the thick glass.

  Then as the mass of gore settled, you could see a cloud of black spores dancing in the air.

  “Does the spore’s potency diminish after the two hundred meter radius of the main blast?” the Director asked.

  “I’m afraid not. That’s just how far the blast carries them, but they can then disburse on the slightest breeze.”

  “Do we know how far they can travel and stay potent?” the General questioned.

  “I’m afraid we just don’t have that kind of information. The virus has only been on our radar, in this form, for three weeks.”

  “This form?” the Director questioned.

  “Ah, a sharp mind,” the doctor noted. “I think it’s time I showed you the pod.”

  7

  Alex and group

  Inside a shipping container, on a truck

  New York City

  The Marriott Hotel – Saddle Brook

  The truck stopped, and everybody waited. There was no gunfire. It started to rain – it drummed loudly on the metal roof – an echoing tattoo of sound. After five minutes, they could hear the two brothers climb down off the roof, using the metal rungs that were welded to the side. There was a resonating thud, to announce Troy had exited the cab.

  There were three sharp knocks on the back metal door. Alex was already waiting. He used the key from around his neck to unlock the large padlock and let the weight of the chain slide free. The side that wasn’t welded shut slowly swung open.

  Troy helped the door swing wide.

  Alex looked past Troy and noticed they had backed into the hotels loading bay. The area was ransacked. People had obviously presumed the hotel would have food. If it did, it was most probably gone.

  Alex pushed the steps over the side. He used the rope connected to them to stop them from swinging and slamming into the concrete. He then stood to one side helping everyone get out.

  Alex swung his pack over a shoulder and quickly scanned the inside of the container. He then descended the wooden steps.

  The rain should be refreshing, a cleansing of a ruined world, wiping away the impurities. Instead, it just makes everything wet and cold, and adds more rot to an already decaying landscape; he mused.

  The smell of ozone and death filled his nostrils.

  Alex noticed a large puddle. A milky film has formed over its surface, like a waxy skin on cold coffee, which splits and separates when stepped on.

  The group had been hustled into a storeroom.

  The oldest brother, Lindell was at the front of the group, while his brother Terrance guarded the rear, with Troy.

  The rain poured down. However, the creatures paid no attention to the weather, so nor could they.

  Alex lifted the steps back inside and heaved the heavy door shut. He used the heavy padlock to secure the back door, which had become slippery in his wet hands. He let the cord with the key on drop back down between his brown hoody and gray tee shirt. Troy also had a key.

  They decided before heading out that morning that they wouldn’t use the container for overnight sleeping. They needed a more defensible location. It was okay for the people inside, but it was too risky for the people on watch. Moreover, if everyone stayed in the container, what would happen if Eaters surround them? How long would the eaters stay outside trying to find a way in?

  Alex quickly scanned the car park. Abandoned cars were scattered randomly across the small stretch of asphalt. They were obviously around the back, and this was the employee’s parking area. The truck parked right up next to huge industrial bins. On the other side was a long cream wall that was covered in an assortment of metal piping that disappeared under an overhanging cover. A set of nine concrete steps led to a door next to a rolling shutter that was dented but intact.

  Graffiti covered one wall. It was some kind of artist’s tag. It looked almost organic in nature as the tall letters arched over the wall. He couldn’t read it.

  In the distance, over the city and population areas, towering palls of dense smoke re
ached up to heaven. Sirens and alarms wailed. Every now and then, there would be the dull concussion sound of an explosion as something else ignited in the raging fires.

  To Alex it sounded like the background noise of a violent video game.

  He noticed four military helicopters in tight formation vanish behind a wall of smoke.

  Across the lot was a huge towering office building and multistory car park. The whole bottom two levels of the office were glass; it would be a nightmare to defend. Troy chose well. They were far enough away from the populated areas to have people just milling around. A wide eight-lane highway like a vast concrete triangular island surrounded the hotel and office. Every now and then, a vehicle could be heard driving past. They never slowed.

  Alex jogged after the others. Troy and Terrance followed closely behind with weapons raised.

  When they all got inside, Troy shut the door and made sure it was closed tight.

  The group gathered in the storeroom. Dusty, waning light filtered down through windows that were a good fifteen feet off the ground. They were also covered with metal grids.

  Abigail, the Reverend, and Jessica got out the wind-up electric lanterns. Part of their responsibility was to keep them running by winding them up. They spent hours that day with them on their laps winding them. They were set out in a triangle on the concrete floor.

  Troy stood guard while the two King brothers made a quick sweep of the kitchen area just beyond to check for Eaters and Poppers or anyone else deciding to hide or live in the building.

  Alex watched the group. Everyone was obviously nervous. Even the child Dante was silent for once, just sniffing.

  After ten agonizing minutes, the two brothers returned. Lindell stood inside the doorframe. He wore heavy black work boots with jeans and a thick black leather jacket. He rested his shotgun against the wall while he pulled off his woolen hat and scarf, and unzipped his jacket and removed it to reveal a black jumper. He shook the rain from his coat. It was cold riding on top of the container.