BooksBarbecue
Back Extinction Game Save as PDF
Chapters (33)
  1. Title page
  2. CONTENTS
  3. ONE
  4. TWO
  5. THREE
  6. FOUR
  7. FIVE
  8. SIX
  9. SEVEN
  10. EIGHT
  11. NINE
  12. TEN
  13. ELEVEN
  14. TWELVE
  15. THIRTEEN
  16. FOURTEEN
  17. FIFTEEN
  18. SIXTEEN
  19. SEVENTEEN
  20. EIGHTEEN
  21. NINETEEN
  22. TWENTY
  23. TWENTY-ONE
  24. TWENTY-TWO
  25. TWENTY-THREE
  26. TWENTY-FOUR
  27. TWENTY-FIVE
  28. TWENTY-SIX
  29. TWENTY-SEVEN
  30. TWENTY-EIGHT
  31. Acknowledgements
  32. By Gary Gibson
  33. Copyright page

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 building, a rifle held in its hands. More people appeared at the top of the steps behind the figure as I gawped.

The sound of the pursuing jeep drawing nearer galvanized me into action. I sprinted diagonally across the road, towards a shadowy alley opposite the hotel, but not fast enough. I felt something hit me in the back of the neck and I yelled from shock and pain. I reached up and plucked a dart out from my skin. I dropped it, fingers already growing numb at their tips.

I took a step forwards, and collapsed. I managed to turn to look over at the man who had shot me. He had slung his rifle back over his shoulder: it was the Asian man with the handlebar moustache, the one who had captured me. Instead of a hazmat suit, he wore a garish Hawaiian shirt and had a pink cocktail glass held delicately in one hand.

‘Still a crazy son of a bitch,’ he said, looking down at me. ‘You’ve been giving us all conniptions ever since you got here, you know that?’

THREE

They moved me to a different room in the hospital. To my surprise, it had a window, through which I could clearly see the moon’s fractured face. I stared out at it deep into the night, until I realized that I wasn’t crazy, and it was real; and that wherever I was, I was a long, long way from home.

I might easily have accepted the notion I had been transported to some alien planet, but for the fact that aside from the monstrous gash in its face, the moon was recognizably the same one I had seen all my life.