Extinction Evolution (The Extinction Cycle Book 4) (2 page)

Garcia followed the muzzle of Daniels’s M4 to a pair of corpses caught in the surf about one hundred feet to the right. Tendrils of ropy seaweed surrounded the bodies.

“Yeah,” Garcia said. He mounted his NVGs and flipped them into position. The small corpses came into focus, his heart sinking when he realized they were children.

He flashed a hand signal, and the six-man team waded through the surf. A draft of something rotten hit Garcia as soon as he reached the loose sand. The stench was a cross between a slaughterhouse and a backwater swamp in the steaming heat of summer. Garcia ignored it and hustled across the beach, his team spreading out in combat intervals.

He stepped over a broken bottle of Bud Light and motioned for three of his men to set up position near a concrete wall running along the entrance to the beach. Then he followed Daniels and Morgan to a tiki bar for cover.

It was quiet, but Garcia could imagine the phantom sounds of what it had been like just over a month ago—the shouts of drunken vacationers, the growl of expensive cars prowling the strip. He never did understand why people wanted to live in places like this. Maybe he was old fashioned, but he liked his peace and quiet. And now he had it. Only the faint whistle of the breeze and the slurp of the surf sounded in the distance.

The calm wasn’t reassuring. The longer Garcia stood there, the more he felt like they were being watched. Like someone or something had the drop on him. He scanned the beach, the road, and the Sheraton for a third time. The slimy feeling passed, and Garcia glanced back at the corpses in the surf.

Something didn’t add up. The Variants rarely left meat behind. There wasn’t a single rotting body anywhere else on the beach, so why here? Variants typically took their prey to their lairs or tore them apart where they killed, leaving nothing but bones. These bodies, while mangled, showed no sign of the bite marks or deep lacerations Garcia was used to seeing. 

He pointed at his eyes, then to Morgan and Daniels, then to the kids in the surf. Garcia swallowed as he followed the Marines to the corpses. Both were boys no older than eight or nine, wearing shorts and what looked like torn-up swim shirts. Their legs were tangled in seaweed, and they lay face down in the wet sand as the waves beat against their bodies. He flipped up his NVGs and used the toe of his boot to push the first boy on his side. In the glow of the moonlight, he examined the body.

“Holy shit,” Garcia whispered.

The boy wasn’t a boy. He was a Variant with swollen lips and wide yellow slits where his innocent eyes should have been. Bulging blue veins crisscrossed his stomach and chest.

Discovering the corpses were monsters made him feel better about what he was about to do.

Garcia reached for his medical pack and pulled out a vial. The lab jockeys loved flesh samples. Fresh or rotten, they didn’t care. He grabbed his knife and prepared to cut a piece from the boy’s chest when he saw something that made him pause.

Leaning in, he pushed at the kid’s neck with the blade to expose what looked like gills under his left ear.

“Morgan, get over here. Check this shit out,” Garcia whispered.

The Marine hurried over and crouched. Garcia used his gloves to spread the pink, meaty gills apart. Water squished out of them, making a complicated sound that caused Garcia’s stomach to churn.

“Do we tag and bag?” Morgan asked.

“No. Can’t bring ‘em with. Take pictures and a sample.” Garcia stood and handed him the vial. He jogged over to Daniels while Morgan worked. The other three Marines held their position at the retaining wall three hundred feet away.

A few minutes later, Morgan returned with the sample. Garcia put it in his medical pack and motioned for the team to advance to the highway. This was exactly what they were here for, but they needed more than a sample or two to please the higher-ups. They needed more documentation of how the monsters were changing, and why.

Somewhere overhead, he heard the
chop chop
of a drone. The reassuring sound of American military muscle reminded him there was a team of soldiers monitoring and watching his team advance. Help was just seconds away if they needed it.

Of course, out here seconds lay between life and death.

Garcia shouldered his M4 and worked his way across the beach. The other Marines fanned out, keeping their heads as low as possible. There wasn’t much cover, and Garcia wanted to get out of the open as quickly as possible. He followed Morgan onto the highway toward an F150 on a lift. Daniels took up position behind an abandoned cargo van with Stevo and Thomas. Tank crouched behind a Mini Cooper; the car was hardly big enough to hide the solid man. His helmet crested the top like a turret. They all paused to listen and scan for hostiles.

Morgan glanced back at Garcia for orders, but Garcia held steady for a few extra seconds. His gut still told him something was off, but his eyes and ears showed nothing out of the ordinary. There was no sign of the Variants.

Garcia finally nodded at Morgan and shot an advance signal. The team pushed forward at a slow jog, hunched and close to vehicles for cover. Sweat dripped down Garcia’s brow, but he didn’t bother wiping it away. He swept his M4 over the terrain.

Mid-stride, Garcia caught a whiff of sour, rotting fruit. A sudden wave of anxiety rose in his stomach. He froze, then took a knee. The other men did the same.

Something was watching them. He could feel it.

His instincts had saved the lives of his men before, and he wasn’t going to ignore them. They were compromised. He couldn’t see the Variants, but they were watching. Additional intel wasn’t worth the lives of his men.

Garcia flashed a retreat signal. Morgan narrowed his eyes as if he was going to protest. The moment of hesitation passed, and he was moving a second later. The team had made it only a few feet when a frantic female voice pierced the quiet night.

“Help!”

Morgan’s hand went up into a fist before Garcia had a chance to search the streets. The entire six-man team crouched and took cover behind the nearest vehicle. Garcia looked over the hood of a blue BMW before moving to the driver side door of a minivan for a better look.

“Somebody... Please... “ The woman’s voice was hoarse, like she had chain-smoked her entire life.

Garcia cringed. If they weren’t compromised before, they sure as hell were now. He flipped his mini-mic to his lips and broke radio discipline. Stealth didn’t matter now. The woman had blown their cover. Every Variant in Key West would have heard her. They had two options: help the woman and retreat to the Zodiac—or retreat without her.

Cursing silently, Garcia ordered his team into action. “Daniels, grab her. Morgan, Stevo, you’re with Daniels. Tank, Thomas, you hold security, then we fall back.”

The three Marines fell into a crouched trot and vanished behind a donut delivery truck. Garcia moved to the front of the minivan and saw her. The woman was dragging her body across the pavement, blood streaking behind her mangled feet.

“Help me...”

Morgan approached the woman and squatted by her side, his weapon still angled into the darkness. He put a finger to his lips with his other hand while Stevo slung his SAW over his back and crouched on her other side. Daniels reached down to grab her with his left arm, but the woman swatted at him, groaning and screeching in a voice so loud it made Garcia cringe again.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

“Let’s move,” Garcia said. He didn’t like this one damn bit. How in the hell had someone survived out here in enemy territory? Especially with feet that looked like hamburger meat?

The sensation of being watched hit him again. He could almost feel eyes burning through his back. The acid in his stomach churned. He twisted away from the road, raised his rifle, and arced the muzzle across the white balconies on the ocean side of the Sheraton. There, standing in the doorway of a unit on the third floor, was a lean figure draped in shadow. It vanished inside the open door a second later.

“Move your asses!” Garcia shouted. “It’s a fucking trap!” The words sounded strange, and he almost couldn’t believe them. Variants didn’t set traps.

Rising to his feet, Garcia watched anxiously as Morgan and Stevo hoisted the woman up and helped Daniels sling her over his back. Tank and Thomas were already running toward the beach. Garcia checked the Sheraton one last time before he took off running.

The high-pitched roar of a single Variant rose over the screams of the desperate woman and Daniels’ futile attempts to calm her. The shriek ebbed and flowed into a whine that made Garcia’s heart kick. He bolted through the maze of cars, flinging glances over his shoulder every few steps. A flash of motion from the parking lot of the Sheraton stopped him mid-stride. The clatter of clicking joints confirmed the screeching monster wasn’t alone.

The distorted shadows of long limbs and withered bodies shifted across the concrete. Three Variants galloped into the green-hued darkness a beat later. The monsters used their back legs to spring forward like rabbits.

There was no way in hell the Variant Hunters could outrun them. Garcia switched the selector on his M4 to single shot, aimed, and opened fire as the creatures dashed onto the highway. He clipped one in the shoulder as the trio darted behind a vehicle. Pivoting to the right, he fired a short burst that punched through metal and shattered glass, killing the injured Variant as it leapt onto the hood.

Daniels lumbered away from the beasts as Morgan and Stevo stopped to provide covering fire. The crack of Stevo’s SAW broke out, and 5.56 rounds cut through the two beasts. Even with the AAC silencer, the gunfire was loud, but their dying shrieks were louder. He cut the creatures down in seconds. Scarlet blossomed across the street as the bodies crashed to the pavement.

But those were just the advance guard. The main horde swarmed from the open windows of the Sheraton like an army of enraged ants spilling from an anthill. They leapt off balconies and skittered down the sides of the hotel. Others squeezed from sewer openings and poured into the street faster than Garcia could flip magazines.

“Run!” he shouted. “Fall the fuck back! Tank, radio Command!” Garcia rushed toward the entrance to Smathers Beach, his lungs burning for air.

“Command, Victor Hotel. We have a survivor and are being pursued by Variants. Need extraction, ASAP!” Tank said over the comm.

Garcia’s earpiece crackled, and a voice hissed into his ear. “Roger Hotel Actual, eye in the sky has confirmed your location. Delta 4, 5, and 6 are en route to your insertion point.”

Garcia halted in the sand and waved frantically at his men. Tank and Thomas joined him near the tiki bar, but Daniels, Morgan, and Stevo were still running down the highway. Three dozen Variants darted after them, leaping on top of cars, dashing down the sidewalk. They were everywhere, and Garcia watched the hungry maws chomping behind swollen sucker mouths in a state of horror. He was used to seeing Variants with long, muscular limbs, but now their stalk-like arms seemed withered, almost frail, and their horned nails were even longer. They charged, scrambling over vehicles and darting on all fours across the street, claws scratching over metal and concrete.

“Covering fire!” Garcia yelled. He switched the selector to automatic, shouldered his rifle, squared his boots the best he could in the loose sand, and sent a burst of fire at the onrushing horde. Rounds lanced across the beach at the tidal wave of pallid, veiny flesh. His foot slid in the sand as he fired, bullets ripping though car doors and breaking windows before he found a target. One of the rounds took off the top of a female Variant’s skull. She skidded across the road, brain matter spilling onto the asphalt. He dropped four more of the creatures before his mag was dry. The monsters continued to bleed onto the street, relentless and undeterred. By the time Daniels reached the entrance to the beach, the Variants numbered in the hundreds.

“Changing!” Tank shouted.

“Fire in the hole!” Thomas shouted back. He lobbed an M67 grenade across the beach. It landed in the street and rolled under the F150 on a lift. Two agonizing beats later, a mushroom of fire blasted into the air, sending shrapnel whizzing into the heart of the monstrous horde. The explosion gave Daniels, Stevo, and Morgan a chance to escape.

“On me!” Garcia shouted. He ran toward the surf, but stopped when his boots were submerged. They were out of room, and there was no way in hell they could make it back to the Zodiac. Even with their fins and training, the Variants could swim faster.

Not to mention they had gills now.

Daniels set the woman onto the sand and raised his rifle. She was mumbling between her pained moans.

“We can’t,” she hissed. “
Please
, we can’t.”

“We’re getting you out of here, ma’am,” Daniels said.

“No,” she groaned. “You don’t understand. They won’t let us leave. They
won’t
!” She collapsed on her back, the words slurring with her heavy breathing.

Garcia caught a glimpse of her in the moonlight. She was young, maybe college age, with her blonde hair in ragged braids. Both feet were cut to pieces, flesh hanging loosely from the bones. Her youthful blue eyes were vacant, staring at the moon above. The Marines formed a perimeter around her, guarding her life with theirs. They hadn’t found a survivor for a week. Every remaining human soul was precious.

Injured Variants staggered onto the beach, shrapnel wounds gushing blood. They skittered across the sand and fanned out, their emaciated bodies stretching in the moonlight and yellow eyes homing in on the Variant Hunters. Garcia had to remind himself that he and his team were the hunters, not the prey.

Thomas tossed a second grenade. A geyser of sand and body parts gushed into the sky, but the monsters still came. Charging straight into the Marines’ gunfire.

Garcia’s earpiece crackled. He only caught a piece of the transmission before the chaos drowned it out.

“Victor Hotel, watch your...”

In the distance, Garcia could hear the faint mechanical roar of choppers. The reassuring sound of salvation prompted another shot of adrenaline through his veins. He didn’t take his eyes off the horde, mowing down creature after creature. If he had turned, maybe he would have seen the Variants swimming under the waves, and their pale naked bodies leaping across the surf as they emerged from the ocean.