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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

‘Well, it looks like this is the time,’ she said.

Rozalia, it turned out, was something of a sailing enthusiast, having grown up on the Florida coast. We kept our eyes open for trouble, but we reached the lifeboat station without incident.

It proved to be a dilapidated wooden structure, with a sloping concrete slipway leading straight into the sea. We followed her inside, where I saw a twelve-foot orange and grey dinghy with an outboard motor and a pennant reading ARMADE DE CHILE. Rozalia regarded it with undisguised pride.

‘I hate boats,’ Oskar grumbled. ‘Unless you’re fishing or actually going somewhere, what’s the fucking point?’

I watched Rozalia check the outboard motor. ‘Aren’t we going to attract the wrong kind of attention with all the noise from the engine?’

‘I figure the best thing is not to use it at first,’ she said, looking back at me. ‘We’ll start out with the oars, then turn the engine on once we’re far enough from the shore that we won’t be heard.’ She chuckled. ‘I’ll bet you anything it’s never occurred to those assholes to even look out to sea.’

Oskar looked horrified. ‘Did you say we were going to row there?’

‘Part of the way.’ Rozalia nodded at two pairs of long wooden oars mounted on racks. ‘The water today doesn’t look too choppy, so we’ll have a relatively easy time of it.’ She looked at us. ‘So who’s going to help me get them down?’

Oskar and Yuichi stepped forward and helped get the oars down. I leaned my rifle against a wall, then made my way down towards the prow, near where the slipway led down to the water’s edge. The dinghy looked to have been kept in good condition.

We all followed Rozalia’s directions, gathering around either side of the dinghy, before pushing and dragging it down towards the waves. I was panting slightly from the effort by the time it hit the water. Rozalia raced after it down the slipway, then threw herself forward and inside the dinghy, letting out a whoop as she pulled herself the rest of the way in.

The rest of us followed suit, splashing and cursing as we grabbed hold of the lip of the dinghy before it got away from us. I managed to throw myself forward and inside before clambering onto one of its hard wooden benches. Rozalia lifted one of the oars up, expertly sliding it into a rowlock before dipping its blade into the water.