The Sixth Extinction: Omnibus Edition 1-4

Contents

Contents 6

PART ONE: OUTBREAK 12

1 13

2 21

3 27

4 31

5 33

6 36

7 39

8 43

9 47

10 52

11 55

12 58

13 60

14 64

15 66

16 68

PART TWO: RUIN 70

1 71

2 73

3 76

4 77

5 79

6 81

7 83

8 86

9 90

10 92

11 95

12 98

13 102

14 105

15 109

16 113

17 116

18 117

19 119

20 121

PART THREE: INFESTED 122

1 123

2 125

3 129

4 135

5 137

6 141

7 144

8 145

9 148

10 150

11 152

12 154

13 156

14 159

15 162

16 164

17 167

18 170

19 173

PART FOUR: THE ARK 177

1 178

2 180

3 182

4 184

5 186

6 188

7 191

8 194

9 196

10 198

11 200

12 202

13 204

14 207

15 209

16 210

17 212

18 214

19 216

20 218

21 219

22 222

23 223

24 225

25 227

26 229

27 230

28 234

About the Author 243

Prologue

The Sixth Extinction is also referred to as the Holocene Extinction – the Holocene epoch is a period of time from present to around 10,000 BCE – where a large number of extinctions span numerous plants and animals, including birds, amphibians, arthropods, and mammals.

Four hundred biologists were interviewed in 1998 by New York’s American Museum of Natural History. Seventy per cent believe that the world is in the grip of a human-caused mass extinction. They believe that if left unchecked twenty percent of all living things could become extinct by 2028. One famous biologist, E. O Wilson believes that if humans continue to destroy the biosphere, then half of all species on the planet will be extinct within one hundred years.

Almost nine hundred extinctions have been recorded by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources since the 1500s. However, that is just a drop in the ocean, according to the scientific species-area theory; it estimates that one hundred and forty thousand species are becoming extinct every year.

The main reason for the hundreds of thousands of extinctions, which is speeding the sixth extinction along, is due to one mammal – the homosapien. Without intervention, the human race will cause the next mass extinction.

However, it would seem that Mother Nature has a way of making sure that one species does not overpopulate and dominate her planet at the expense of everything else. Viruses and plagues are her way of culling and controlling.

PART ONE: OUTBREAK

1

Week Three of the Infection

Noah Edward Morgan

Newton Abbot, South Devon, England

Flat 17b, Union Street

Friday 5th January 2013

7:08 AM GMT

Noah Edward Morgan’s sleep was fitful. He awoke several times covered in sweat.

The same dream again, he mumbled. Even though he knew it was the same he had no recollection of its content, only of the colour red, for some reason.

Blood maybe?

However, the dream did not leave him with the feeling it was violent, rather; it seemed to put him in a peaceful state. He couldn’t explain it, he felt like something was missing. All he needed was one piece of a puzzle, and the dream would become obvious.

Pissing TV, he whispered into his hot pillow, diverting his mind from the strange feeling he gets just after waking up from the dream.

The television could be heard in the background, a monotonous monologue of one man’s voice. The whole country was watching the TV. He had no idea about what was transpiring in other countries.

What he did know, before the news channels had stopped broadcasting live feeds, was it started three weeks ago near Marolambo, Madagascar, when a logging company had to airlift nine sick workers out for medical treatment, after they became severely ill while logging in an uncharted section of the jungle. Within a week, more cases were registered in Cape Town, South Africa. Mexico City, Mexico. Wien, Austria. Perth, Australia. Moscow, Russia, and Virginia, America. Then after two weeks, there were reported cases in almost every major city on every continent.

After nine days cases appeared in the English cities of London and Manchester. Within eight hours, the British government grounded all flights and docked all boats. Great Britain was declared quarantined, and locked its borders. The government then started to control the news feeds. The outside world was cut off.

After fourteen days, the World Health Organization had reclassified it as a pandemic.

Noah rolled over onto his side. He looked up at his dull white ceiling. His small maisonette was located in Newton Abbot’s town center, on Union Street, above a fish and chip shop.

The smell from the chips cooking in the evening made him feel either hungry, or nauseous, depending on his mood. However, the business was closed for the last week, just like every other business in the town and whole country. Everyone locked away at home, hiding, trying to stay safe. Praying.

Noah had no job to go to, because Asda’s where he worked closed a week ago. Lorries had stopped transporting goods, and what with all the frenzied buying, there was nothing left to stay open for; there was no food on the shelves. Gangs of yobs, who broke shop windows and set light to what they could not eat or carry, had taken the meager supplies that were left.

There was nothing to get up for. No family to sit with and wait for the end of the world. No girlfriend to comfort and protect. There wasn’t even a single plant in the flat that depended on him. He was completely alone. Just the way he liked it.

Noah kicked back the duvet and stretched his tired muscles. His five-foot six skinny body twitched as he stretched and yawned. He rubbed his hands down his stubbled face. Even at twenty-one, his stubble was patchy.

I cannot even grow a beard properly, he thought. Story of my life.

Noah rolled over to look across his small maisonette to the television, which rested on a wobbly cabinet this side of the small kitchen. The word kitchenette probably described it better, just one short piece of work surface, with a small round sink, and a microwave-oven combo with two rings on top, with a few cupboards above and below.

Normally, the sink would be full of unwashed dishes, but today it was spotless. He could not open the windows to let out the smell of the rancid plates, and congealed coffee cups, and he had to keep busy, to take his mind off the world-changing situation. He didn’t realize a metal sink could shine so brightly.

The television channel showed old news, from a week ago, a riot in some city, possibly London or Manchester. People were hungry, desperate, and scared. They could only hide indoors for so long. People need food and water, and even though the power and water were on for now, the utilities would not last forever.

The government kept running short calming reports every thirty minutes, trying to calm the population. News and reports were now controlled. There was no more freedom of information; everything was restricted, for the population's benefit, trying to keep mass hysteria at bay, everything had to be passed by the government before it was aired.

Even though a new virus was ravishing the world, few videos had yet to be leaked. Even You Tube was locked down under the new governmental laws. The internet – when it worked – was being regulated.

Great Britain was slowly becoming less great.

The power flickered and went off. It had been doing that more often of late. It normally came back on within the hour, but Noah knew that at some point it would not.

The power flicked straight back on. He could hear his old fridge-freezer gurgle and rattle as it kicked in.

He swung his legs off the bed, while reaching for the remote to switch the television on from standby. He sat in his boxer shorts, just staring at another calming government report.

He had tried to sleep in his clothes, in case he had to get out quick, but it was just so uncomfortable. His clothes were in a rumpled pile next to the bed, where he had taken them off piece-by-piece during his fitful sleep.

A thin man in his fifties, with grey patches at his temples, and decked in a military uniform, stood in front of an important-looking podium – with some government logo on – was droning on about how the situation was under control.

"Do not leave your home. Do not try to leave the cities and towns. Stay put. Keep calm. The government is doing all it can to sort the situation out. Keep your families together and seal all windows and doors. Do not go outside! Do not approach anyone who looks infected!"

Noah grunted a laugh. "Yeah right, as you all sit in your reinforced bunkers deep underground, waiting for us to all die off.

And how are we supposed to know what the infected look like? No news channel had released any image or video of an infected person.

Wankers!

The Mayans did say the end of the world was in December 2012, on the 21st. It was now January 5th 2013. Maybe it started then, and the repercussions are hitting us now. A gradual death.

Noah pulled on some camouflage trousers and a green tee shirt, then his socks and steel toe capped brown hiking boots, from the pile next to his bed; in case today was the day he had to make a run for it.

Always be prepared.

Noah stood slowly and cracked his back like a stack of dominos. Too many years wasted sat at an uncomfy chair in front of the computer; he thought.

He navigated around the supplies piled up against the walls, and on every surface. Food he stole from shops, looting along with everyone else. All bank accounts were frozen. Not that it mattered; every shop was shut, with the shop owners hiding along with their families.

The looting had started at the end of the second week, after all the panicked buying had taken everything of use. However, while the gangs of yobs and chavs ran off with plasma TVs and Blu-ray players, x-boxes and PlayStations, Noah had concentrated on collecting as much food as he could find. He had even looted the chip shop below, after a gang of wandering adolescents had kicked in the front door.

He had struggled upstairs with the large tote bins that they kept their cut chips in. After washing the bins out, he stored water in them, preparing for when the water was cut off.

For the first week, he had lived almost exclusively on fish, sausages, and chips that he had stolen from the freezer’s downstairs. He could not open the windows, and even now – two weeks later – the smell of greasy, dirty oil saturated the whole flat.

Resting against the two-seater couch was his bug-out bag. It had everything in it that he needed to survive for thirty-six hours, if he had to bail out of his flat – food, water, clothing, sleeping bag, and cooking utensils, as well as fire-starting equipment, until he could find more supplies.

Hopefully not for a while yet.

The doorway to his flat was in a back alley. The shop rented him the dingy flat, and they shared a back door.

When all the looting and fighting had started, Noah climbed down the fire escape and nailed his door shut, and then pulled a large cabinet in front of his entrance. To make sure no one checked behind, he had emptied the contents of the wheelie bins over the cabinet, and then tossed some raw fish in as well, from what was left in their freezers – that had spoilt – so after a few days the stench was gut-wrenching. No one had tried to move the cabinet yet, even though a couple of times he had heard people rooting around downstairs in the shop, possibly looking for food. His home was safe for now.

He had even ransacked the chip shop, throwing anything combustible out into the street, so no pyromaniac, with twitchy fingers, would try to set light to the place. There had been a lot of arsonists coming out of the woodwork. Every morning, when he looked out his windows, over the flats opposite, he could see another thin line of dense smoke rising to heaven. Cleansing by fire.

In addition, when he returned upstairs – using the fire escape – he had pulled the metal ladder up, out of reach. His flat was cut off from the floor below.

Noah changed the water in his water bottle, attached to his bug-out bag. He changed it every morning, just to make sure if today was the day he had to leave, that he had fresh water on him.

He boiled the kettle for a cup of coffee. For breakfast, he had toast and jam. He was trying to use up all the fresh bread he had scavenged before it went too stale. Before he dropped the two slices into the toaster, he picked mold off one edge.

While he listened to a newly sanctioned news report about an outbreak in the city of Bristol, Noah moved over to the drawn curtains.

His flat was classed as a maisonette in his contract, because it was on two floors. The top floor was an open-planned, twenty-seven-foot by thirteen-foot kitchen, front room, and bedroom all in one. The freezing cold bathroom was downstairs next to his front door.

Noah slowly moved the curtain aside with two fingers, while munching on his toast; crumbs cascaded down his green tee shirt. Silver duck tape plastered the rickety window frame, covering all the gaps.

One of the only details the government had released was the infection was airborne, like the bird and swine flu. However, unlike them, where only a handful had perished, this strain was deadly – if you caught it, there was no chest infection or runny nose, this one carried only death.

Noah stared down into the road two stories below. The street looked like a war zone. Smashed out shop windows, with useless objects either dropped or thrown around. Burnt-out car shells were dotted along the street. No one was about. It was like a ghost town. Across the way, a building had grey smoke rising from its ruins. Dogs barked off in the distance. Paper and garbage danced down the street as the January winds picked up. He could also hear a bass drum, and feel a slight vibration through the soles of his boots. Someone close was enjoying the end of the world, their dance music cranked right up.

Seagulls screeched and cawed as they ripped into the trash, looking for anything edible. His hometown was only twenty minutes drive from the coast, right next to the English Riviera. Seagulls – the rats of the sky.

If it ever came down to it, there would always be seagulls and pigeons to hunt.

Noah noticed a curtain twitching opposite – obviously someone else who opted to sit tight rather than run.

In the first week of the outbreak, most people seemed to fill their cars with everything they loathed to leave behind, and then jam their family into the space that was left, and simply drive away. Noah had no idea where they were heading; possibly, somewhere they thought they would be safe.

How quickly it all changes, how fast it all turns to shit! he mused as he watched a Tesco carrier bag float up past his window, before it whisked away. He pushed the last bite of toast into his mouth. He made sure the curtain was back in place.

Noah had a small handful of work-related friends, but none had tried to get in contact with him. He knew they were simply friendly because they worked together. They never met outside of work for drinks or socializing, he was too much of an introvert for that, he had always preferred his own company. He found it awkward and difficult to try to mingle in with a crowd, unless it was faceless, disembodied voices on Call of Duty MW3, which he used to play online with ‘friends’ from around the world on his X-box, before the world turned crazy.

Noah crossed to the small kitchenette; on the work surface, charging, was his Samsung Note. The 02 mobile network worked spasmodically.

It probably will not be long before it fails altogether.

He had no messages.

There was no family to check he was all right, because he had none. A drunk driver had mounted the pavement and slammed into his mother while she pushed his pram. On his birth certificate, it stated father unknown. He was eight months old when he became an orphan and entered the system.

Noah had spent the first six years being passed from family to family, before they got bored with his antics and sent him back – he was not blood, no kinship pulled on their heartstrings. Six was the magic number, once you were over six the likelihood of adoption plummeted, due to becoming institutionalized. From the age of seven, he was transferred from one children’s home to another. He knew how a dog felt in the pound, with people walking past, deciding whether to give him a chance, and then realizing it was too much responsibility.

Noah walked across the room to the other window; he slowly pulled the curtains apart. He could see up the long main street from his location. There were smashed windows, with bent and twisted metal shutters lying deformed from mod riots. Objects littered the streets. Burnt-out bins scattered like melted bodies. Benches torn from the ground and used as battering rams. An information kiosk smashed and ransacked, then set alight. One part of a building had even collapsed into the Vodafone shop below, from a fire. It was a mirror image of the view from his other window; it was just this one was on a grander scale.

He noticed a group of yobs rummaging through Iceland. Noah knew there was nothing of use in the shop, because he had ransacked through it himself a week ago.

He could hear their muffled shouts as they smashed up shelving and freezer units. A cashier’s chair sailed through a broken window, bouncing off a twisted metal shutter, just missing a teenager wearing a bright red hoody. The adolescent screamed abuse while the others laughed at his expense.

Propped up next to the window was Noah’s prized possession, a XS78 CO2 .22 air rifle, with a 3-9x50 mildot telescopic sight. He used Umarex AirForce 5.5 mm pointed lead Pellets. The 12-gram double-charge C02 cartridge, along with the telescopic sight, could propel a pointed lead pellet accurately for about three hundred meters. He knew this because he had been practicing on a series of objects that ran off down the street into the distance.

Noah had found the rifle, along with four tins of pointed pellets, and a pack of ten unopened C02 cartridges, when he had looted Millets. While everyone else was interested in stealing electrical goods, he had made a beeline direct to the camping store.

The place was ransacked, but most of the equipment was still there, he just had to sort through it on the floor. Noah had collected a seventy-litre, dark green backpack, along with a three-season sleeping bag and self-inflating mat, and filled the bag with a windup torch and radio, a compass, hiking boots and socks, and cooking equipment, and everything else he would need to survive.

The rifle had been in an office upstairs, in a cupboard, along with two knives that looked illegal, both being over three inches in length, not that it mattered anymore. He took both knives as well.

Noah could see the youths heading down the main street; they all had weapons; a baseball bat, a curtain pole, a cricket bat, and one even had what looked like a samurai sword. There wasn’t open fighting in the streets yet, but it wasn’t far off. The food and water would only last so long, and when people realized no one was coming to help them, they would take matters into their own hands.

The yobs disappeared up a side street.

Good riddance, Noah thought. He pulled the curtain back into place.

The worst part of the situation was waiting. Things were only going to get worse, and he had to hold up for as long as possible. His supplies of food and water were here. If he moved, he would only be able to carry so much on his back.

Luckily, just before the shit hit the fan, and the world turned upside-down, he had been watching a TV show from America, called Doomsday Preppers. It showcased American families, or individuals, who believed the end of the world was coming, by either war, disease, solar flares, social or economic collapse, or a long list of other global catastrophes. There had been eleven episodes, and while the internet was still working, he had downloaded them all, and had watched them repeatedly. He was by no means an expert, but he certainly had a better idea about surviving in the wild if he needed to.

Noah moved over to his laptop. The internet was intermittent, his service provider, Virgin, was still working, but he did not know how long it would last.