Z-Volution (21 page)

34.

Nearly an hour after leaving Washington, D.C. airspace, Major Remington’s F/A-18 streaked into the darkened, smoke-filled skies above Atlanta. Cutting his acceleration, he banked hard, then came in low over the suburbs and into the city, over the Superdome where he could barely make out fires and what looked like a packed stadium…only full of the dead and those feasting upon the soon-to-be-dead.

He tore ahead, then zeroed in on his objective. CDC Headquarters, target of all the other fighters scrambled from nearby locations. Another few seconds and he’d be within range, and hopefully there first, hopefully…

“Target destroyed,”
came the hollow voice on his comm. “Direct hit to the lower foundation with bunker-buster AT-201.”

“No…” Remington rose above the plane coming toward him, the one having just finished the mission he had desperately intended to thwart, one way or another. He had imagined verbally trying to call rank on whoever was in the air, and barring that, would have reverted to shooting the other pilots out of the sky if he had to, anything to stop this mission and buy Agent Winters the time she needed to see that bio-solution through.

He banked around a taller building, came in low and saw for himself.

The target was collapsing, tumbling in on itself in a massive scene of destruction. Just…annihilated.

“Son of a bitch,
no
…” He flew low, into the rising smoke, then up and accelerating, turned and came back around, searching the area, checking the radar, trying to see through the debris and the smoke.

Was there any chance they survived? Could anybody survive that?

He clenched his jaw so tight he tasted blood.
Did they make it out first?

The skies flashed red with an explosion somewhere a few miles to the east, where he had seen a contingent of tanks and armored vehicles, some sort of perimeter.

He turned and headed thoughtlessly in that direction, ignoring the next directive that came over his frequency: “All units return to Savannah AFB for refuel and next assignment.”

“Copy, Savannah AFB,” came three replies from the other birds in the air, and Remington saw their units on his radar, breaking off their trajectories and veering out together.

Let them go,
he thought.
They don’t know any better.
Following orders, he thought, and he shivered wondering what their next orders would be. Or would they land, only to be savaged by waiting hordes of undead? Would the faux-president continue to use the human forces at his disposal to knock out key resistance installations and soften the remaining population—all while keeping his brave colleagues in the dark?

Remington couldn’t fathom the depths of the cruel, callous planning, the true scope of the evil that had triumphed today.

He could only do what he knew he had to do.

Disobey orders first and foremost, and second, provide aid to that contingent of humans making their last stand down there, against…

Remington squinted as he flew low over the buildings and avenues, over the apartments and parks and train station, the college campus and the libraries and the burning airport. He saw the mob of faster-than-life figures, dinosaurs loping in and among their ranks, all converging on the makeshift perimeter and the guards holding fast against the legions of Hell bearing down upon them as they protected several hundred civilians, huddled behind cars and barricades.

Remington got on his shortwave and tried to reach anyone down there in charge, promising what support he could give as he buzzed overhead, then prepared for another pass, right over their heads and into the oncoming army of undead.

He armed his missiles, readied the twin machine guns and came in low, sighting for the larger masses—and the goddamned dinosaur things.

He wouldn’t let them advance without shredding their ranks a bit first and providing those warriors down there every chance at survival.

As he prepared to fire, something else caught his attention: something huge showing up on radar. A click ahead, previously lost in the darkness and behind other large buildings and blocks of skyscrapers.

Its enormous head rounded a corner, and Remington got a glimpse of a draconic visage: fiery crimson eyes, a long snout and slavering jaws, crustaceous horns and jagged carapace.

The other side had backup too.

New plan,
Remington thought, firing automatic rounds and spitting terror down upon the undead, hopefully shattering enough skulls or at least incapacitating enough of them to give the National Guard an easier time of things.

Got to save the missiles for this other sonofabitch.

He angled up, plotted a new course and armed the heat-seekers, even as the dreadnought reared up and howled out a challenge, sensing its brothers in danger.

Come on, just another second 'til the Sidewinders are armed, and then you’re history again—

A red blip streaked at a 90 degree angle on his radar and Remington had no time to even curse his stupidity—or rue the unfairness of being denied just one touch of good luck.

Another second was all he needed, but it wasn’t to be.

A pterodactyl—something he had almost forgotten all about—soared across and intercepted his fighter like a rival, colliding with its beak and slamming hard and instantaneously ripping the wings and fuselage free. The missile launched but went straight down, impossible to correct, and exploded into the street, obliterating half a block of cars and stores.

Remington spun and spun, unable to scream, grunt or even cry out in agony. The auto-system kicked in and with the next 360, as he wildly cartwheeled and had no idea if he was on an upward trajectory or down, unable to read his gyro, the eject seat blasted out and shot him flying into the night, free from his plane and from the winged monstrosity howling at the escape of its prey.

Remington had a fleeting moment of serenity as he sailed over the tortured cityscape, looking back at his jet—bursting into an orange fireball and killing the ptero. He saw the hulking dreadnought thudding in the opposite direction,
slouching toward Bethlehem?
The thought crashed through his mind giddily, just as he realized his chute wasn’t opening, maybe because he had just crunched through the glass wall of a fifty-story bank building.

His helmet cushioned the impact somewhat, but then he barreled through the drop ceiling, which served to slow him down until connecting with a girder, twisting and dropping back onto the office floor and tumbling another thirty feet, knocking over office chairs and desks until coming to a stop in a darkened cubicle with a picture of smiling family members overlooking a pile of work folders, tomorrows to-do list which would never get done.

Remington tried to move, but couldn’t feel a thing, couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe.

Everything turned black, the curtain closing on his life, and his daughter’s face appeared for a brief moment as she pulled away from him, eyes downcast and a tear slipping free.

The world was burning, and the dead held sway across all.

As he descended into the darkness, he held onto one thought, desperately clinging to it for all he was worth…that the cure, if there was one…was buried here in this city along with him.

Because like all buried things lately, nothing stayed down for long.

END

To be continued in JURASSIC DEAD 3

Read on for a free sample of The Valley

In a dystopian future, a self-contained valley in Argentina serves as the ‘far arena’ for those convicted of a crime. Inside the Valley: carnivorous dinosaurs generated from preserved DNA. The goal: cross the Valley to get to the Gates of Freedom. The chance of survival: no one has ever completed the journey. Convicted of crimes with little or no merit, Ben Peyton and others must battle their way across fields filled with the world’s deadliest apex predators in order to reach salvation. All the while the journey is caught on cameras and broadcast to the world as a reality show, the deaths and killings real, the macabre appetite of the audience needing to be satiated as Ben Peyton leads his team to escape not only from a legal system that’s more interested in entertainment than in justice, but also from the predators of the Valley.

PROLOGUE

The Valley

Argentina

The Year 2079

With the exception of a few renegade clouds floating above the canopy of trees, the sky was a perfect blue. The air was muggy with a syrupy thickness, the humidity steaming. In tropical brush so dense and with leaves as large as elephant ears, Jon Jacoby hacked his way through the thickets with the blade of a machete, swinging errantly knowing that the distance between two points was a straight line. And to get to the Gates of Freedom, Jon had to cut a swath through the jungle’s core if he was to survive.

Emily Anderson was behind him holding a Glock with a bullet in the chamber and three in the magazine. Their beige jumpsuits, declared to be the property of the Argentina Department of Corrections, with ADOC stenciled on the backs, were torn and badly soiled. Rorschach blots of sweat circled beneath their armpits and backs. The bangs of their hair stuck wetly to their brow. Razor-thin cuts and slashes marred their faces and their hands, the blood having crusted and caked into scabs. And their jumpsuits were beginning to hang on them like drapery, the two having lost so much weight.

It had taken them five days to cross the valley, which was surrounded by 80-foot sheer walls, straight up with no foot- or handholds, and no promise or means of escape.

When they were less than 100 yards away from the Gates of Freedom, Jon and Emily hunkered low in the jungle brush, listening.

The shape of the Gates was an arch, and the top bullet-shaped, with chiseled lettering above the entranceway: YOUR FREEDOM IS BUT A FEW STEPS AWAY.

“The gate’s closed,” Emily whispered. When she started to rise and head forward, Jon lashed out and grabbed her by the forearm, stopping her. “What?” she asked.

He set a forefinger against his lips, shushing her. Listen!

In the brush to their left something moved, causing the elephant-sized leaves to shake and betray its position.

They were not alone.

The thicket and brambles to their right began to sound off, a rustling.

Then Emily’s eyes started to the size of communion wafers and her face began to crack, her eyes welling with tears. They were so close, she thought. So . . . close.

And now they were being flanked.

As she raised her firearm, Jon gripped the machete until he was white-knuckled.

“We have to make a run for it,” he told her. “A hundred yards.”

“We’ll never make it.”

“We can’t just sit here, Em, and let them close in.”

And then a tear slipped from the corner of her eye and tracked slowly along her cheek, then to her chin where it dangled precariously for a moment before dropping. “We were so close, Jon” she whispered. “All this way . . . Forty miles. The last two.”

Jon looked deep into her eyes, and leaned forward until their foreheads were touching. She was right, he considered. They started out as a team of twelve, all able-bodied, all convicts of the ADOC having a singular goal: to live. Some died the moment they stepped inside the valley. Others perished during the night as nocturnal creatures dragged them into the darkness with their screams growing distant, and then gone, the cries dying abruptly. Others simply disappeared.

He sighed. “So close,” he said softly. “So . . . close.”

Whatever was in the brush to their left and to their right, was steadily closing in.

Suddenly Emily barked a cry as white-hot pain pierced her side, the point of the machete driving deep. When Jon pulled the blade free, the look on her face nearly crushed him. The look was one of questioning sadness, one that asked why he betrayed her.

“Because when they come,” he said remorsefully, “they’ll come after you. They’ll take the weak and wounded first.” Then: “I’m so sorry, Em. But you’re giving me a chance to live.” He then reached down and grabbed her gun away, which was loosely gripped in her hand, leaned forward, and kissed her gingerly on the forehead. “Thank you.”

After shoving her back, he began his final leg of the 100-yard journey.

#

Emily lay there watching the blood spill from the wound. Then from her position she cried out after Jon. “You son of a bitch!” Then she winced, the effort of crying out causing an electric charge of pain to shoot through her body. 

The brush to her immediate right began to move, the distance just beyond an arm’s reach. It was that close. The same on her left, the predators within striking range.

Then the moving stopped.

And there was a silence that was terrifying.

Emily rocked her head from side to side, looking for the faces of her predators, wanting to see the ugliness behind the mask of Death.

Silence.

Then a face poked out from between the large fans of leaves. A head that was canine-sized but crocodilian in shape, with a long snout and reptilian teeth.  Its eyes were golden-yellow with black vertical slits for pupils. And a waddle of loose flesh hung at the base of its neck.

When it came out of the brush and into the small clearing, it began to circle Emily in study by cocking its head from one side to the next, the other joined its side. They were short and blunt with strong-looking limbs, the reptiles standing no taller than three feet in height. When they communicated, it sounded like the soft cooing of a bird.

Emily began to crawl backward and deeper into the bush; the reptiles matched her actions and kept pace, their heads turning as if to figure out this life force, to determine if it was predator or prey.

When Emily could go no further, when her back was up against a felled log, she waited.

The lizards looked at her, then at each other, the sound coming from the backs of their throats, a series of soft clicks and cooing, and ended when the larger of the two opened its jaws wide and issued a high-piercing scream. The loose flesh around its throat rose into a frill around its head, the fan of its skin then shaking and rattling in rage, the head looking as if it was haloed by an Elizabethan collar.

The other followed, the flesh around its throat expanding outward in a collar, shaking, then rattling. And then it spat a viscous, tarry substance from its mouth, the mud-like matter striking her eyes, blinding her, the saliva of the matter highly toxic. Her eyes began to burn, then the corneas, the irises and pupils burned with an indescribable intensity, which ultimately drove a scream deep from her.

Birds suddenly took flight as if her cry was like a gunshot.

And then it suddenly stopped.

Leaving only a deep . . . and horrible . . . silence.

#

Jon felt his scrotum crawl the moment he heard Emily cry out in pain that was surely absolute.

He kept the gun in one hand, the machete in the other.

He was fifty yards away and closing.

He read the script above the door.

YOUR FREEDOM IS BUT A FEW STEPS AWAY.

When he was thirty yards away, the massive metal doors began to swing wide. He was so close that he could see the rivets that held the thick panels in place.

If freedom could be detected by one of the five senses, Jon was sure that he could taste it.

Then the doors began to close, quickly.

“No!” he shouted. “You can’t do this! I earned this!”

He began to pick up his pace, running like the wind.

And that was when he felt the earth tremor beneath his feet.

When the doors slammed shut with a horrible shudder, he knew it was to keep something from getting out, something awful and deadly.

Another tremor—from a footfall of something large.

Jon stood his ground ten feet from the Gates of Freedom.

. . . Boom . . . Boom . . . Boom . . . Boom . . .

It was getting close.

Then the earth fell stable

Nothing moved.

Jon stood as still as a Grecian statue listening to nothing but his own heartbeat.

And then all Hell broke loose.

Thirty-foot tall trees divided and pared back, creating an avenue of approach for a Spinosaurus, a massive creature 55-feet in length from head to tail, nearly 25-feet tall, with the enlarged neural spines of the dorsal vertebrae supporting a skin sail quite similar to the dorsal fin of a sailfish.‭ Its head was long and massive with spike-like teeth. Its arms, unlike the T-Rex, whose limbs are blunted and puny in comparison, were rather large and muscular, and sported claws that were as long and sharp as industrial meat hooks. ‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬

When it craned its head and roared, the air shook, the reverberations of its cry causing the surroundings to vibrate. Then it stepped forward, tail swinging to maintain balance, its head and bowling-ball sized eyes focusing on Jon, its nostrils flaring, taking in the man’s scent so that its olfactory senses could determine if Jon was something of a threat.

Another roar.

And Jon fell to his knees, lifted his firearm, and pulled the trigger in quick succession, the bullets pelting its thick hide but doing little to slow it down. Sobbing, he released the gun, the weapon now useless. The Spinosaurus leaned forward so that its head drew a shadow over Jon, and stretched its jaws wide, showing gossamer strands of saliva that connected the upper line of teeth to the lower.

Jon, feeling absolutely defeated, read the inscription over the door one last time.

YOUR FREEDOM IS BUT A FEW STEPS AWAY.

“It’s not fair,” he whispered. “It’s not.”

Hot, fetid breath pressed down on him, the stench of rancid and decayed meat.

Its teeth now loomed large, its jaw widening.

And then it closed in, the snap of its action so quick that Jon didn’t have time to register that he was already dead.

The Valley had won again.

The Valley is available from Amazon
here