Extinction Age Read Free Page A

need help?” Kate asked.
    “No,” Tasha, Jenny’s protective older sister, said. “We’re
okay.”
    Kate took in a breath and stepped under the showerhead.
Bringing a hand to her face, she wiped away the sticky blood caked on her skin.
For a moment the water turned scarlet at her feet as it swirled around the
shower drain.
    The horror of the past three weeks surfaced under the warm
flow of water. Everything she’d lost. Every one she’d lost. It all came
crashing down. Guilt ate at her as she stood there, numb—yet deep down, also
relieved. She was still breathing, still alive. And a part of her believed
Beckham was still alive, too.
    Kate had to believe it. Hope was the only thing that would
keep her working. The survivors of Plum Island thought she was a miracle
worker, but Kate knew better, especially now. After an hour of listening to
radio transmissions trickling in from around the world, she knew nothing short
of a real miracle would save the human race.
    Her first bioweapon had eradicated all but a small percentage
of those infected with the Hemorrhage virus. Convinced that the surviving
Variants couldn’t be treated, her focus was now on designing another weapon
that would exterminate them all before it was too late. Millions more would
surely die before it was all over. In the end, she could only hope that humans
came out on top.
    Kate twisted the faucet off, grabbed a towel and stepped out
of the shower. Tasha and Jenny were already sitting on a bench, wrapped in
towels. She reached for the duffel bag she’d retrieved from her quarters. Kate
pulled out a clean set of clothes for each of them and turned away to slip on
her own clothes.
    “We need to hurry,” she said once she was dressed. “Your dad
is on his way back.”
    Both girls’ eyes lit up at that. Even after all the horrors
they’d seen, there was still light there. Like Kate, they still had hope.
    She grabbed the girls by the hand and led them into the
hallway. The stink of fresh death hung in the air. Crimson stains covered the
carpet where so many of her colleagues had died. Kate froze, remembering her
fellow researcher Cindy’s final moments. They had never liked each other much,
and in the end Cindy had chosen to hide instead of coming with Kate and the
others. The decision had cost the woman her life.
    Kate swallowed and continued on, navigating around a pair of
bloody shoes and a small pile of bullet casings.
    “Just keep walking,” she said to the girls. “Don’t look down,
okay?”
    “Doctor,” said a Medical Corps guard waiting for her at the
end of the hallway. For a moment his youthful features reminded her of Jackson,
the Marine who had saved their lives just a few hours ago—and lost his in the
process.
    “Wait up!” said another voice from behind them.
    Ellis hurried down the corridor, his jet-black hair slicked
back and glistening under the LEDs. “You weren’t going to leave without me,
were you?”
    Kate shook her head. “No, but we need to hurry.”
    “Let’s go,” the soldier said. He opened the door with one
hand and raised his rifle with the other, sliding the muzzle into moonlight.
“Stay close,” he ordered.
    “I thought the island was cleared,” Kate said, gripping the
girls’ hands a bit tighter.
    “It was, ma’am, but Major Smith isn’t taking any chances.”
    Silhouetted guards manned a heavy caliber machine gun, and an
industrial spotlight was set up behind a wall of sandbags in the center of the
hexagon-shaped base. The beam swept across the path and then arched over the
horizon, illuminating plumes of smoke rising from the smoldering wreckage of
the Chinook helicopter on the tarmac. Kate stared at the flayed metal carcass
as they walked, wondering exactly how the Variants it had been carrying had
escaped. She’d been against bringing live test subjects to the island, but she
took no pleasure in being proved right.
    For weeks Plum Island had been spared from the horrors
surging across the