Read The Sixth Extinction (Book 4): The Ark for Free Online Page B

turning, checking every direction, as if frenzied; biting bodies would fly out of hidden corners at any minute.
    “Grab the edge,” the Captain instructed.
    Together, after a few tugs, the paint chipped away around the edge of the case that was resting up against the stonewall. The Manikin tipped over and hit the glass, sending out a spider web of fractures.
    As they tugged, the case swivelled on hinges unused in decades. Stale air escaped from the dark tunnel.
    The soldiers reached for their torches. Four beams stabbed through the darkness.
    They filed in, one at a time. Then, with the large rusty handle, Bull tugged the case back into place. The dull sound of shattering glass announced that the manikin of the prisoner had managed to break through the glass.
    “ Let’s keep moving. We need to get into the hub building before the walls are breached.”
    As they raced down the tunnel, which was just a little too low to stand up straight, they could hear the banging commence on the front door. The eerie sound of metal sliding, and then hitting the concrete floor, was followed by the sound of the creatures pouring into the museum.
     

 
    15
     
    Doctor Lazaro, Doctor Hall, and General Philips
    Dartmoor National Park
    Princetown
    Dartmoor Prison in the Hub Control Room
    3:29 PM GMT
     
     
    M elanie was dumfounded. There was so much life being wiped out by the spores, and now they were dropping nuclear warheads all around the planet.
    “Good work everyone,” the General said. “The next target will be Tibet.”
    Melanie still had her hands before her face. Disbelief radiated off her.
    Tibet! her mind screamed. Wasn’t it Buddha who said something like, ‘the body is simply a means of transport for the soul, but it corrupts the spirit?’
    She was not religious in anyway. She wanted to believe there was an all-powerful being out there that set everything in motion. However, as a scientist, she believed in what she could see and touch. Nevertheless, she did believe the physical erodes the metaphysical, similar to Buddha’s saying.
    If God does exist, how could he stand by and allow us to nuke sections of our planet, even with everything that is going on?
    “General,” one of the soldiers said, who was talking into a walkie-talkie. “We have activity in one of the tunnels running under the prison walls.”
    “Really?” the General asked, sound ing curious. “Patch us through.”
    Melanie turned, along with Doctor Hall, happy to have a distraction from the destruction going on across the globe.
    The soldier pointed to a screen against the wall, while talking into the walkie-talkie. The screen flickered, then, after the static faded, and the horizontal lines stopped running up the screen; a group of fuzzy people could be seen, via night-vision cameras mounted on the tunnel walls, making their way through the darkness, with thin beams of light to aid their progress.
    “Ah, ladies and gentlemen, I believe my daughter has arrived .”

 
    16
     
    Noah, Red, and the Squad
    Dartmoor National Park
    Princetown
    In a Tunnel Under Dartmoor Prison
    3:33 PM GMT
     
     
    “ C rap,” Echo muttered, as she hit her head for the third time. “How much further? I’m gonna brain myself before we get there.”
    “We have moved under the road, the warehouse, and I think we are under the main prison wall as we speak.” The Captain kept his torch pointed down.
    “All this for a Chaplin, in case he got spooked?” Bull muttered.
    They all ignored his question. They were thinking about Betty and Lennie, and how they had abandoned them. They all knew there was nothing they could have done.
    Red was once again holding Noah’s hand. She squeezed it so tight he was afraid no blood was reaching his fingers.
    Coco gave them his torch, and Noah pointed it at Red’s feet, guiding the way. Noah was not claustrophobic, but the tunnel was making his blood run cold. It felt even more depressing than the museum.
    “Hello daughter!” a voice