Extinction Read Free Page B

nature was rebelling. It seemed utterly impossible for there to be another group of these birds; but there they were, as before, coalescing into a huge, living, pulsating mass.
    ‘They’re coming again,’ Flight Navigator Huan said, his voice urgent, panic creeping in. Their flight training was rigorous – what to do in case of mechanical malfunction, terrorist attack, even how to keep control in the face of a hurricane – but nothing had prepared him for this.
    ‘A different flock,’ Man said, his tone uneven, disbelieving.
    Huan nodded his head; he could see the two separate groups on his radar system, the first group left far behind. Two separate groups of birds, both acting in a way which seemed to contradict the very laws of nature. What did it mean?
    But then this group of birds was on them also, and he heard Man grunting with the effort of keeping the plane stable as it was rocked up and down, side to side, by the army – for that was surely the word for it – of winged creatures, no longer the benign little angels that Huan had once believed them to be, but savage beasts, cruel and vindictive.
    The plane was rocked harder this time, for longer, but the army finally passed again, flying away to swarm and regroup. Huan breathed a sigh of relief.
    ‘Damage report?’ Man demanded, doing his best to retain his professionalism, although the sweat that dripped down his face revealed the pressure he was under.
    Huan’s keen eyes swept the instruments, trying to identify any irregularities – altitude, oil pressure, fuel, engine temperature, bearing, rudder adjustment – but miraculously everything was still fine, all as it should be.
    ‘Nothing,’ he reported, regaining some of his own composure.
    Glauber wasn’t sure which was more frightening – the third group of birds, massing again in their millions underneath the dark, ominous clouds, creating a huge, even more menacing cloud of their own – or the scene inside the aircraft, where fear and panic were starting to take hold.
    Some people merely stared out of the tiny windows in open-mouthed disbelief, whilst others screamed, screams of a sort that Glauber had never before heard in his life – screams of pure terror. Children sobbed gently or cried hysterically; actually, not just the children, Glauber realized, but men and women too. Most people who weren’t screaming were crying.
    Others, however, were more active. Some were hammering on the cockpit door, demanding answers from the flight crew, and Glauber was disgusted as he saw a big, bearded man grab a stewardess by the front of her dress and slam her into the toilet door, yelling in her face. He was tackled to the floor by other passengers.
    Another man had begun to talk loudly, preaching to the passengers –
this is it, it’s finally time, better repent now, Judgement Day has come, it’s the time of the Apocalypse
.
    Further along, one family was taking down their luggage from the overhead racks, almost as if they expected to be getting off the plane at any moment, forgetting they were still thirty-eight thousand feet in the air. Shock, Glauber thought.
    Glauber glanced to his side, saw the woman bent with her head between her knees, muttering prayers to herself – actually, Glauber realized, it was the same prayer, repeated over and over and over again. He himself wasn’t in shock. He felt something different. Disbelief perhaps? Disbelief that something like this was happening?
    No. As the third group of birds began to converge on the aircraft, starting their final approach in one huge amorphous mass, moving with seemingly demonic intent, Glauber realized what he felt was acceptance.
    He knew he was going to die.
    In the cockpit, Man was the first to scream, just half a second before Huan.
    The third attack had started the same way as the first two. Anticipating the move, Man had violently turned the aircraft, cutting across the line of attacking birds, avoiding them entirely.
    Man had