Chapter 1

Detroit, Michigan
 
The recoil feels differently when an AR15 bolt locks to the rear. “Reloading!” Victor yelled out of habit, while tilting his rifle sideways just a few degrees confirming an empty chamber. The threats to his front where well outside of pistol range, so he reloaded his weapon with a full magazine giving a sturdy push and a satisfactory tug.

Even though his rifle was directly in front of his face while reloading, he looked past it to the rapidly advancing stampede of Grays sprinting across the Detroit airport tarmac. Victor gave a quick glance left and right as his thumb found the bolt release button. The bolt sprung forward with a semi-reassuring CHUNK sound of a round being forced from the magazine, up the feed ramp and into the chamber.

In his quick glance, Victor seen his family had remained spread out in a crescent moon shape around the two refueling helicopters. To his immediate right, his son young Zavier laid prone on the cold damp tarmac working the bolt of his scoped rifle as fast as he could shoot. To his immediate left Erica knelt, taking well aimed shots into the horde with a managed tempo causing the ponytail sticking out of her ball cap to sway with each shot. Damn she is sexy right now, he thought to himself with a grin curling up the corner of his mouth.

Pulling the buttstock firmly back into his shoulder, Victor placed the holographic red dot sight on the closest thick scab covered infected face and squeezed the trigger. The bullet struck the unfazed Gray in the neck. A stream of black infected blood sprayed out with each determined step. The wounded Gray made it twenty more gory yards before it crumpled into a heap. He adjusted his aiming point to the top of the head of his next target, rewarding him an instant kill.

Grays were falling by the dozen, but dozens more infected ran past their dead packmates. The horde was quickly shortening the gap. Victor made a quick estimate of the time it would take to unhook the fuel hose, spin up the rotors, get everyone on board and lifted off. It was going to be close.

“We need to leave now!” Victor yelled over his shoulder while loading another mag into his empty rifle.

“Five more minutes, we’re almost full!” shouted back the helicopter crew chief.

“We don’t have one damn minute! Get those birds spun up now!” Victor yelled.

Even though his ears were ringing from gunfire, Victor could hear the whine of the engines coming to life. A moment later the rotor wash blasted cold autumn air against his back.

“Get in! Get in! Get in!” the crew chief shouted, while Victor continued shooting into the horde.

The Cobra attack helicopter lifted off the ground first, just high enough to hover out of arm’s length of leaping Grays that were seconds away from swarming them all. Victor began having doubts about their decision to leave the sanctuary comforts of the small northern Michigan town of Lake City. They were only an hour into their new journey and were already about to die.

The front line of Grays was so close now, he simply rapid shot at head level into the crowd rushing him. Hundreds of crazed pinpoint pupils zeroed in on him. Sharp boney talons clawed longingly at the air. Even with the rotor wind at his back, the horrid rancid smell of filthy feral diseased Grays stung his nostrils. He could almost feel their jagged broken teeth tearing into his flesh.

A hard slap on his back and the comforting words of “last man,” yelled from his oldest son Curtis, gave him hope. He dumped the rest of his mag into the wave of disease and spun on his heals, sprinting towards the Huey.

When the Cobra attack helicopter’s nose mounted triple barrel gatling-cannon came to life, the sound knocked Victor off his feet causing him to stumble. Smoking hot 20-millimeter shell casings showered the tarmac below, as the Cobra pilot quickly swept destruction into the horde.

The door gunner in the Huey opened up with a side mounted M240 7.62mm belt fed machine gun at the same time. Victor pushed himself off the ground, gave a quick glance behind him, satisfied with the carnage being dealt, he lunged painfully onto the floorboard as the skids lifted off the concrete.
 
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Erica helped Victor off the metal floorboard and into an unpadded canvas seat. She gave him a nod and slid her cold hand into his, then looked across the passenger area to ensure Zavier, Michael and Curtis were buckled in as the helo banked sharply to the east.

The crew chief handed them a couple communication headphones to put on. The pilot turned in his seat to look at them, “Can you hear me?” he said in a static distorted voice. Erica and Victor both gave him a thumbs up.

The pilot spoke into his mic, “Thanks for providing security back there. We almost got a full fuel tank. That should get us to Pittsburg area before we need to refill again. Sit back and enjoy the ride. Crew chief can provide you some ammo to top off your mags in route.”

Victor took off his muffs, and then grabbed an ammo can from under his seat. Taking out a bandoleer for himself, he passed the rest to his children and Raymond.

Erica kept her muffs on for warmth and to ease the engine squeal. Looking out the door, she noticed that they were flying over downtown Detroit where she had escaped just a few months prior when the world went dark.

They were flying low enough that she could view the gloomy city streets. Nothing was moving, human or otherwise, on the congested roadways filled with rotting automobiles. Birds flew out broken windows of the tall skeletal office buildings. Evidence of fires stained blacken streaks up the sides of downtown skyscrapers. The city was cold, grey and dead.

All that remained, of the GENUTEK state of the art Level 4 bio research facility that had secretly been hidden in the old decrepit Michigan Grand Central Station’s basement, was now a large concrete rubble pile that seemed quite metaphoric for not only her life’s work, but the entire world around her.

She leaned back against the stiff vibrating hull, closed her eyes and shed a tear. They had lost so much since the day B.R.I.C.S. launched EMP attacks on western nations. World economies, governments and societies had all collapsed due to a global game of politics. With the Dark Day, came a new vicious hybrid pathogen that transformed humans into predator monsters, and with no way of coordinating a proper quarantine, the sophisticated virus had fiercely spread around the globe.

She recalled her hike from hell across Michigan that took months, watching the new world take shape. Her colleagues, only a few days after exposure, began to show symptoms of headaches, fever, paranoia insomnia and restricted pupils, all from swelling of the brain caused by a FFI prion (fatal familial insomnia). Volcano shaped lesions that left thick crusty scale like scabs formed shortly after as Leichmania parasite transformed victims’ bodies. The flesh-eating disease mutilated the infected fingers, leaving sharp bony talons. Hair fell out in clumps and muscle mass increased with dietary and exercise changes. What brain matter and nervous system FFI did not destroy, Ophiocordyceps Unilateralis (zombie spore) took control of turning once loving family and friends, into nightmarish ghoul like creatures with armored skin so tight, that the ink-like contaminated blood gave them a gray tone pigment.

The longer a victim was infected, the more the creatures continued to morph and the more Erica and the team at Lake City were able to study them. The Grays had decreased eye site due to the brain swelling and pupil restriction, but their hearing ability was greatly improved. Pain receptors were nonexistent, allowing the Grays to run themselves to death or absorb bullets unnoticeably until they bled out with only one purpose driving them forward, to infect another host.

Just a day ago, as apocalyptic life was starting to become understandable and with enough work and luck, possibly manageable, a gut-wrenching twist had come to be known. That the Grays where breeding and now a second generation of completely new creatures where among them that cared not about spreading infection, but to dominate the food chain.

As Erica sank deeper into depression, the helicopter turned slightly guiding a ray of warm sunlight onto her cheek. The apocalypse was problematic, but not permanent. She had successfully fought her way across Michigan to reunite with Victor and children. Their small town had come together to not only survive, but also set up trading networks with other villages. And now, she was on her way to USAMRIID laboratory outside Washington D.C. to continue her research with a team of the smartest virologist in the world.

There was still hope.
 
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It seemed almost blasphemous to Raymond that CCR’s “Fortunate Son” wasn’t blaring from loudspeakers on this bird as he thumbed green tips into his empty magazines. As he jammed mags, he watched Victor’s sons Michael and Curtis do the same. They had all known prior to leaving Lake City that at least two sketchy refueling stops were needed in route to their destination of Kent Island’s refuge.

Raymond wondered why Victor had not put his family on the General’s Osprey aircraft, along with General Lyons’s civilian entourage and Lake City’s mayor. After reading newspaper articles about Marines dying in crashes every other week while the Marine Corps field tested the new Osprey helicopter/airplane, Raymond had chosen the more dependable Huey ride instead. Maybe Victor had the same Osprey phobia, or he didn’t want to be separated from his family for a few hours.

Transportation logistics did not really matter at the moment, they were on their way to bigger and better things. A couple months ago he was sniping Grays in his back yard until teaming up with Lake City seemed like a logical choice to increase his survivability. Running local civilian relocation missions with Victor had its good Samaritan moments, but he missed real combat. The moment Raymond had heard that Russian and Chinese humanitarian aid workers landed in California, he about lost his shit. Aid workers, his ass. A month later, a witness on the shortwave radio reported that the foreign humanitarians were firebombing Seattle.

When the commander of JSOC and the Atlantic Naval Fleet landed in Lake City yesterday and told them that the Pacific Naval Fleet was actively engaged in a covert guerilla war with B.R.I.C.S. on America’s west coast, Raymond volunteered for duty before being asked. He had an ounce of guilt about leaving the good people of Lake City to fend for themselves, but the town’s defense force was under good command as Kevin insisted that he would keep the community safe. When General Lyons offered Kevin the combat air support radio frequency and told to call when in extreme emergency, that sealed the deal.
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Sure, Raymond was intrigued to tour Kent Island’s colony which was being powered and supported by the General’s nuclear-powered aircraft carrier battle group. He was willing to support General Lyons with his elaborate regional stabilization and reconstruction mission to help ensure what’s left of humanity’s survival and all that crap but fighting foreign invaders on America soil was Raymond’s personal mission.