Extinction Game Read Online Free PDF Page A

corridor, seeing and hearing nothing. There was a window at one end, through which I saw the night sky. I tiptoed along the corridor to a corner where I found an empty
nurse’s station, a stairwell visible beyond a set of fire doors.
    ‘Hey!’
    I twisted around to see a uniformed soldier back the way I had come, his eyes wide in shock. His hand reached for the holster at his hip.
    I ran through the fire doors and into the stairwell, throwing myself down the steps as fast as I could. Almost before I realized it I was on the ground level, and I battered through another set
of doors until I was outside. The air was summer warm, and I tasted jasmine in the night air. Crickets chirped somewhere off in the distance; wherever we were, it was a hell of a long way from
snowy old England – indeed, a lot farther, I would soon learn, than I could ever have imagined.
    To one side, I saw a tall wire fence surrounding both the hospital building, its blocky exterior decorated in white stucco, and what looked to my eyes like a military barracks. I twisted around,
unsure where to go next, until I saw a wide unmanned gate perhaps ten metres away, not far from the barracks. I also saw a huge hangar, light pouring from its interior.
    Then I looked up, and saw something that will remain forever seared into my memory. The moon hung overhead, fat and pale – but not the moon I had known all my life. There was a jagged
chunk missing from one side, as if it had been smashed with some monumental hammer that had nearly, but not quite, cracked it apart. I stared up at it, frozen, until a siren began to wail through
the night air.
    Suddenly I was in motion again, making my way towards a row of jeeps parked next to the barracks. I threw myself in the driver’s seat of the first one I came to and found the keys in the
ignition. I got it started and reversed hard, catching sight of numerous figures who had come spilling out of the hospital. One of them – the same guard or soldier I had encountered within
– raised his pistol towards me in a two-handed grip.
    ‘For Christ’s sake,’ I heard someone shout at him, ‘don’t shoot him! He’s one of ours, you moron!’
    I didn’t hang around to ask what they meant by
one of ours
. I gunned the engine and aimed directly at the open gates. I bounced straight through and onto a road that led into the
distance. I could see the sea on one side, and the dark mound of a steep-sided hill of black rock.
    The road took me towards a town. At first it looked just as deserted as anywhere else I had seen in the last ten years, but as I drew closer I saw lights, and even heard music drifting on the
warm, scented air. It sounded like Springsteen. I again caught sight of the moon’s cracked face. An after-effect of whatever drugs I increasingly felt sure they’d been feeding me, no
doubt. Who knew what they might have been putting in the food they gave me?
    I heard an engine roaring behind me, and glanced in the rear-view mirror to see headlights come bouncing after me from the direction of the barracks. Something pinged off the dashboard before me
and fell clattering into the shadowy recesses of the passenger-side foot-well. I hunkered down low, guessing someone was taking potshots at me. I reached the outskirts of the town, swinging past
buildings that looked dark and deserted. The music and lights came from somewhere up ahead.
    I took a corner at full speed, and the jeep fishtailed, its rear slamming into the trunk of a palm tree leaning drunkenly over the road. The impact sent me spinning around, and the engine cut
out. When I tried to start it again, it turned over without catching.
    I got out and started running. I turned another corner and found myself confronted by the source of all the light and noise: a hotel bar, like a vision from a dead world. I caught the murmur of
voices and saw a figure that looked strangely familiar, standing near the steps leading into the interior of the