The Sixth Extinction (Book 4): The Ark Read online

  “I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Echo said over the microphone on her mask.

  No one answered, but they all knew what she meant.

  Bull wedged the gear in place and pulled away from the grass embankment. He circled out wide to run over the crawling creature; there was no need for her to suffer, she had been someone’s daughter, wife, and sister once. He showed a little mercy as he drove the truck over her disfigured head.

  Noah grimaced in the back, as the head audibly popped like a watermelon.

  Betty gave a groan from under the blanket.

  Noah presumed it was because she was sickened by the sound of the head popping. He did not realize it was because she was slowly changing into something they were all running from.

  2

  Doctor Lazaro and Doctor Hall

  Dartmoor National Park

  Princetown

  Below Dartmoor Prison in The Ark

  2:46 PM GMT

  Melanie stood her ground, unmoving. Her hands were clenched at her sides.

  “We have to get back to the surface, so they can start to prepare the Adam and Eve finalists, and get them safely below ground,” Doctor Hall stated. He could not understand why Doctor Lazaro was not running for the exit.

  “You’re going to kill everyone you don’t deem fit to live down here?” Disbelief poured from her voice as it raised a few octaves. Her head slowly shook from side to side.

  “There is only so much room.” He flapped his arms, as if in an exasperated manner. “You would have us take up precious room, on, on,” he stumbled on his words, trying to describe his disdain for such a thought, “on, those unworthy?”

  The technicians were no longer around; they had run to the lifts as fast as they could.

  “Unworthy!” She took a few steps closer to the skinny doctor. “You will fill The Ark with perfection; with only those genetically, emotionally, and highly educated?” She took another step closer.

  “Of course! Why would we make space for those who never applied themselves to a specific field of research – to the uneducated?”

  “Because everything needs balance. You are filling this bunker up with mindless drones; people who will jump at your every order. There is no individuality. You have bred and beaten their humanity out of them.” Her arms flew up into the air.

  “I sat with a helicopter full of these people – our so-called salvation. I felt no emotions emanating from them, nothing. They are simply produced for breeding – just mindless cattle. We cannot rebuild a world with people like that!” Her arms dropped back to her sides.

  “Why aren’t you in the lift, Doctor Hall?” a voice boomed.

  Melanie swung around. There was a large wall of monitors against the far side of the room. A man’s face filled them all.

  “General Philips, we were just leaving, sir.” Doctor Hall seemed to shrink in size, as if the stare of the general sucked the life from him.

  “Doctor Lazaro.” The head nodded in her direction, as if giving a courteous bow.

  “Once you are topside bring Doctor Lazaro to the main control room.” The head turned, as if the connection was about to fadeout. However, as an afterthought, the head turned back and said, “Better hurry Doctor Hall, you don’t want to be trapped down there when the door seals shut.” The image started to fade, leaving a glimpse of a smile on the Generals lips. It then flicked off, leaving a bank of monitors showing only static for a second before turning off.

  “What does he mean; you don’t want to be trapped?”

  Doctor Hall held up his hand, displaying his nicotine covered fingers.

  “Because of my thirty-year habit; which I just can’t seem to quit.” His face showed regret for a few seconds. “As well as a few other things.” His hand rubbed down his face, in a show of quiet defeat. “I have been deemed unworthy of a place in The Ark.”

  3

  Noah, Red, Betty, Lennie, and the Squad

  Dartmoor National Park

  Princetown

  Main Street

  2:47 PM GMT

  The town looked like a disaster site.

  They drove through the town along Two Bridges Road; a road hedged in by rows of housing, with small front gardens. There were smashed windows, with curtains blowing in the January breeze. Wet paper littered the streets and gardens, along with rubbish, abandoned vehicles, and dropped luggage.

  The road gave way to a few cafes, a handful of pubs, and a souvenir shop. Clapboard signs lay blown across into the road.

  Bull slowly drove along passed the Railway Inn on the left, and then took a right at the Jubilee Memorial, and a huge cream building that looked like a stately mansion, with its towering columns and balcony with two large wings, which is, in fact, the Princetown Visitors Centre, right next to the famous Plume of Feathers pub.

  The left wing of the visitors centre had collapsed due to fire, and the once cream coloured walls were cracked and covered in soot.

  Bodies littered the wide pavement, in different states of decomposition.

  Bull navigated around a body of a child and his mother.

  Naked creatures were running down the main street, heading towards the prison.

  The truck was ignored.

  Then it hit Echo; none of them are screaming. They are so quiet. Why? There was only the sound of their laboured breathing and the slapping of bare, bleeding feet on the wet tarmac.

  Bull drove slowly down the main street, passed the shops with their smashed out windows. There was a large green to the right, with another memorial.

  The creatures ran straight past them, unconcerned with their presence, as if they were driving along with a crowd of naked marathon runners.

  There was a primary school on the right, with a large, brightly coloured hopscotch snake painted on the ground, surrounded by congealed puddles of blood. There was the Prince of Wales’s pub on the left.

  Bull gave it a quick glance. It was his local pub. He, along with a few others from his old unit, used to drink there. They told the locals that they were stationed at the Merrivale Range, one of the three military training areas located on this side of the moorland. However, none of the locals cared where they came from, so long as they cause no trouble, and poured money into the area.

  Princetown was a small community, with a gossip network that would impress the CIA. Rumours of army personnel staying at the prison have been circulating for decades. However, no one cared what they did up there; it was full of prisoners after all.

  The road started to run up hill slightly, and pass a long row of identical houses on the right. Through the gaps in the houses, the prison started to rise up like a medieval fortress.

  Naked creatures climbed over hedgerows and through gardens, and ran along the road. They were clumping together now there were so many of them close to the prison.

  The houses were becoming spaced out, with more trees and grassland scattered around, as they approached the main entrance to the prison. Then after a short stretch of just trees and long, low stonewalls, the area opened up as the front gate loomed into view.

  There was a dark stonewall about fifteen feet high, with a towering arch leading to the main gate. There was another wall, over twenty feet tall, with the principal gateway under a thirty-foot tower. The gap between the two walls is about thirty feet of flat concrete, kept clear of vehicles and people with concrete bollards and the latest surveillance CCTV cameras.

  However, today it was not clear; it was chockfull of naked creatures, all clawing at the walls and wooden gates; it was a mass of undulating, blood and grime covered, bodies.

  4

  Doctor Lazaro and Doctor Hall

  Dartmoor National Park

  Princetown

  Below Dartmoor Prison in The Ark

  2:51 PM GMT

  Melanie was shocked. “You have been here, working for over thirty years, and you don’t even get a space in The Ark?”

  Doctor Hall seemed more embarrassed than upset. “I mad
e my peace with that decision many years ago.” He looked down at his hands. “It’s not just the smoking habit; I also have seronegative polyarthritis, an autoimmune disease where my own body’s immune system is attacking my own tissues.” He rolled his skinny shoulders, as if to say, what can a man do; it is what it is?

  “Anyway,” he said, squaring up his shoulders, as if recovering from a moment of weakness, “we best get topside.” He turned to head for the exit, seemingly uncaring if Melanie decided to follow or not.

  The shock of finding out that a man, who had given the best part of his life for the project that would save his corner of the world’s species, was wearing off. Melanie’s loathing for the people responsible for the project was growing with every passing minute.

  With one last look around the large data input room, she started to follow the thin doctor outside.

  The view of the underground city still filled her with awe the second time she gazed upon it, from the entrance into the bio building. She noticed for the first time where the light originated. Above, covering the arch of the dome, were millions of triphospor lights, beaming down with the intensity of the sun, enabling the vegetation to grow.

  “How is The Ark powered?”

  Doctor Hall was just a few steps ahead of her. He turned.

  “Nuclear, or course. The reactor is four hundred feet below us. It has been upgraded numerous times, as technology perfects the process of gaining power via the use of sustained exothermic nuclear processes to generate heat and electricity.”

  Melanie noticed that he was not looking at her while he talked; rather, he stared at a thirty-foot tall weeping willow that was on the edge of the nearest park.

  “I planted that tree thirty years ago. I ate my lunch next to it, then under it, everyday since.”

  He turned without saying another word, and headed for the lift.

  As Melanie got closer to a different lift from the one they descended by, she noticed two soldiers stood by the open doors.

  “We were taking too long, and General Philips is not a patient man,” Doctor Hall mumbled from the corner of his mouth.

  The soldiers said nothing as they all climbed into the lift.

  Melanie looked out the glass walls as they soared above the manufactured terrain. Buildings perched surrounded by manicured gardens and parks. Lakes glistened from the artificial light. Trees swayed in the air-conditioned wind.

  Doctor Hall said she would be vetted for a chance to live the next twenty years down here. She wondered if the feeling that it was all fake would fade with time.

  She looked across to the doctor. He seemed to have shrunk in size within the last few minutes, as if the knowledge that he would not get to live in the underground city was eventually sinking in.

  He may realize that after thirty years of working down here, creating it, making it a possibility, that this could very well be the last time he ever sees it.

  Then it dawned on her that just like Doctor Hall; this might be the last time she looks out across the city – a city that could cocoon her from the madness and death above.

  5

  Noah, Red, Betty, Lennie, and the Squad

  Dartmoor National Park

  Princetown

  Main Street

  3:04 PM GMT

  Bull drove past the mass of undulating bodies, all seemingly clawing at the stonewalls with bloody hands. The creatures were oblivious to the truck roaring past so close.

  “I don’t see how they are going to make a difference,” Echo stated over the mask’s microphone, as she looked down at the naked bodies from her advantage point in the truck.

  The Captain agreed with her.

  It does not make sense. It seemed like a hive mind is in control. How else could they all suddenly decide to head for the prison at the same time, while ignoring everything else? However, if that were the case, he decided, then how would making all the creatures scratch at the walls accomplish anything?

  The truck had to slow down, due to a petrol tanker having jackknifed, blocking off most of the road.

  “Jesus!” Coco shouted.

  The tanker took up the Captains attention, while they shunted a small Smart Car out of the way, so they could squeeze the truck through the gap. He swung his head around; trying to see what alarmed Coco.

  “What are they doing?” Echo said.

  The Captain could see a large number of creatures, that was close to the prison walls to the right across the road, had all turned on each other. Or, it would be correct to state, had turned on a few. A handful of creatures did not defend themselves as those around them ripped them apart.

  “It doesn’t make sense,” Coco announced. “They have been ignoring us, and everything else, and then suddenly they start to attack each other?”

  “Shit!” the Captain announced. “We haven’t got long. Get us to that museum Bull, we need to get inside.”

  “I don’t understand,” Echo said.

  With a final shove, the truck pushed the small car out of the way.

  Behind, the creatures continued gorging themselves on their own kind.

  “You know what happens once they are full, and their stomachs rupture?” The Captain let the statement hang in the air.

  “They become powerful, exploding bombs!” Echo stated.

  “Something is controlling them. How else is this possible?” Coco said. “They are actively planning on breaching the prison walls!”

  6

  Doctor Lazaro and Doctor Hall

  Dartmoor National Park

  Princetown

  Dartmoor Prison in the Hub Control Room

  3:05 PM GMT

  The lift did not go to the helipad; rather, it led directly to the main control room of the military part of the prison – the hub building.

  The two soldiers stepped out of the lift and stood with their backs against the wall on either side, allowing the two doctors to walk past into the large room.

  The room is the size of a tennis court, designed in a semicircle, filled with tables in semicircle rows, on tiered steps, all facing a huge wall sized bank of monitors. Each table has its own collection of monitors and phone. Soldiers sat monitoring the television news feeds, the internet, mobile, and landline phones, as well as CCTV camera feeds. The whole of the country is being monitored. The hum of machines, the ringing of phones, and the buzz of conversations fill the room.

  Melanie stared at the large main screen. The wall is sectioned into almost a hundred different feeds; the monitors around the edge of the display are from street surveillance cameras, mounted up high, looking down across the carnage of dead bodies, littered about among smashed up cars and trashed shop fronts. A dozen different cities scattered all across England, now all looking the same – abandoned and dead.

  There is what looks like a riot in Trafalgar Square. However, there is no police to quell what seems like an angry mob, which is, in fact, people, running for their lives as naked creatures swarm from side streets, almost looking like the people have been herded together for the slaughter.

  The main section of the large wall sized screen though is taken up by camera images from around the perimeter of the prison. Melanie could see what looks like thousands of the infected swarming towards, and around the towering stonewalls. The creatures were climbing over themselves to reach the impenetrable, thick walls. It seemed like a hopeless endeavor.

  “Look!” Doctor Hall said, while nodding toward an image in the top left of the main display. “They are eating each other!”

  Melanie watched in morbid fascination as groups knelt around in circles, consuming their own kind. However, unlike the previous attacks she had witnessed, this spectacle seemed organized. It did not make sense.

  “They are planning on breaching the walls,” a voice stated, a matter of fact.

  The two doctors turned to see a tall man in his fifties, decked in a military uniform, marching towards them from a sliding door to the right of the large room. Through the ope
n door, Melanie caught a glimpse of an oval table.

  “We all know what happens once they gorge themselves senseless.”

  A small group of people scurried along behind the General. A couple were in military uniforms, showing rank. Others wore doctor’s lab coats. A few looked like office staff, donning blouses and tight fitting skirts. Some carried paperwork, other’s computer tablets, or walkie-talkies. None of the nine people were talking.

  “At the rate they are devouring the meat; they could be ready to explode within...” he stopped talking, waiting for one of his aids to fill the silence.

  A tubby, balding man in his mid-forties, who was sweating as if just having finished a marathon stated, “Um, we have witnessed – that is, test results coming from our labs all over the country, state, that the process can be reached, that is, in the perfect conditions, within twenty minutes. Um, sir.” He gulped loudly, and then wiped some sweat from his top lip.

  The General turned to stare at the feasting horde. “And I would say that is the perfect conditions, wouldn’t you?”

  The General swung around. “Doctor Simi, what is your estimate for having all the finalists injected, screened, and ready to send down into The Ark?”

  The doctor was slim and short, with Asian characteristics. Her hair was so black and straight it looked like an oil slick down her back.

  “Doctor Banks stated she would be ready to start sending them down within the next three hours.” She stood ramrod straight, holding a clipboard to her flat chest.

  “Unacceptable!” the General stated. “I want them all underground, and sealed off within the hour.” He stared at the doctor. “Well, why are you still here?”

  The doctor turned slowly, ignoring the General’s mood swing. She strolled off towards a sliding door, without saying a word, and apparently without much haste.