Free Extinction Evolution (The Extinction Cycle Book 4) by Nicholas Sansbury Smith Page B

flesh away with their jagged teeth. One of the beasts, the smallest, was knocked away from the feeding. It hissed and slashed its way back to the man. Again, it was swatted away.
    In the bleachers behind home plate, the other hundred Variants watched like it was some sort of sick fucking game. Garcia said a mental prayer, asking God to end the man’s suffering. But it was not to be. The screams continued, the children ripping through muscle and tendons. As the moonlight spilled over them, Garcia finally got a good look at their misshapen bodies through his scope.
    Jesus H. Christ.
    Scaly plating covered their appendages and wrapped around their chests and backs like vests. The armor continued up their necks and curved skulls, where it crested into a bony Mohawk. The smallest beast shot a glance in his direction, chewing on a hunk of meat it had managed to scavenge. Wide and oval, the child’s eyes were different to the reptilian eyes he was accustomed to seeing. It threw back its cone shaped head and swallowed the chunk of flesh whole.
    They look like alien armadillos.
    Garcia shifted his muzzle back to the female Variants standing in front of home plate. He wasn’t a doctor or a scientist, but even he could figure out they were the mothers of these Variant children. But how was that possible? The outbreak had started only five weeks ago, yet these children looked at least two years old. Garcia roved his scope back to the smallest of the beasts, the runt of the litter. It scampered back to the feeding, swiping and hissing at its larger siblings.
    Stevo tapped Garcia’s arm.
    “Sarge,” he whispered. “I think we need to move.”
    Garcia swept his crosshairs back to the muscular Variant and saw what the corporal meant. The beast was no longer watching the feeding. It was watching them.

    I t was just before midnight, but Riley couldn’t sleep. His legs and his back ached. He was so fucking sick of sitting in his damn chair. Lying in a bed didn’t help—especially the beds in the barracks—but this was where he wanted to be, with his fellow soldiers.
    “Chow, you awake, brother?” Riley asked, craning his neck.
    The Asian-American man lay in the bunk to his right, jet-black hair covering the left side of his face. If it weren’t for Chow’s instant response, Riley would have thought he was sleeping.
    “Yeah, kid. You hurtin’ tonight?”
    Riley gripped the sides of his bed and sat up. “Yeah, my back is killing me.”
    “You’ve been sitting in that chair for almost, what, a whole month?”
    “Something like that,” Riley said. “You can’t sleep either?”
    “Haven’t slept much since Jinx died,” Chow said. He brushed the hair from his face and sat up. “I need a smoke.”
    “Since when do you smoke?”
    Chow didn’t reply. He swung his legs over his bed and looked at Riley’s wheelchair.
    “I’ll come,” Riley said. “Help me up.”
    Chow hoisted him into the chair and pushed him through the aisle between bunks. They passed a few snoring Marines on the way out, but the rest of the room was empty. Everyone else was on duty. It reminded Riley how much things had changed.
    A few good things had happened since the apocalypse. Riley focused on them as Chow maneuvered him through the room. Even though Riley felt isolated from Team Ghost, he was happy Beckham had finally found someone, and Horn reuniting with his daughters was a miracle worth celebrating. Then there was Meg, the superhero of a woman Beckham had rescued from New York. Riley found a smile on his face every time he thought of the firefighter. 
    Chow pushed the doors open to a brilliant moon. The glow covered the entire island. Riley sat there, listening to the chirp of crickets and feeling the breeze on his face. For a moment it reminded him a lot of a summer night in Iowa, but he knew the quiet wouldn’t last. The silence never seemed to last. It was always shattered by the crack of gunfire or the high-pitched shriek of a monster.