The Sixth Extinction

By Philippe Jolicoeur

First the skies turned black. Then the ground shook - cracking open cities and swallowing us whole, followed by floods and a deep freeze. Finally, they came, and waged war upon us. Experience the sixth extinction - the fall of the human race - from accounts all across the globe. The whaler witnessing the birth of the tsunami, the flight attendant trapped in a frozen airport control tower, the soldier’s harrowing battle against the monsters that emerged from the ground - these stories and more encompass the most pivotal event in the history of our civilization. The extinction event of our race is upon us, and who survives will shape the new world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Philippe Jolicoeur
• Release date: Jul 23, 2015
• ISBN: 9780994873507

Philippe Jolicoeur

Phil Jolicoeur lives in Québec City, Canada, and is a happy camper. He enjoys the power of movies, the escapism of video games, the solace and honesty of the great outdoors, and believes that the truth is out there.

Book preview

THE SIXTH EXTINCTION

Published by Philippe Jolicoeur at Smashwords

Copyright 2015 Philippe Jolicoeur

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this short story with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this short story and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1: Us and Them

Chapter 2: The Inner City

Chapter 3: One Soul to Another

Chapter 4: Status Update

Chapter 5: AWOL

Chapter 6: Monsters

Chapter 7: Requiem

Chapter 8: Untitled

Chapter 9: Rebirth

About Philippe Jolicoeur

Connect with Philippe Jolicoeur

Acknowledgements

I always believed that writing was a solo effort, a solitary endeavour where the rewards and failures were earned by the author alone.

I was wrong.

In many ways, writing is just as much a collaborative effort as filmmaking or producing a play. This isn’t the Oscars, but The Sixth Extinction wasn’t made alone, and consequently, I have a few people I would like to thank.

Lynda Hayes is first and foremost a friend. She first started off as my drama teacher and improv coach in high school, but we kept in touch as the years went by. She is a very talented artist. The feedback she lent to this book, as well as her exceptional editing, brought it to the level it needed to be.

I can type really fast, but my knowledge of functions so well hidden by word processing programs is somewhat limited. Melanie Simard is a whiz however, and formatted the entire book so that it would be presentable to you the reader.

My good friend Christian Laprise created the wonderful cover of The Sixth Extinction. He’s the biggest goofball I know, but the quality of his work (hidden behind layers upon layers of crude jokes and contagious laughing) is unequalled.

Much of the tuning of this book and reworking occurred before it even reached my editor. Special thanks must be made to Cathleen Scott for all her hard work.

Finally, as clichéd as it sounds, I would like to thank my wife Lisa. She gets me and doesn’t get exasperated when I don’t come to bed right away so that I may continue living in these made up worlds of mine.

US AND THEM

The pinewood forest that Scott Jenkins knew so well felt lonely today, distant, and somewhat menacing. Over the last fourteen years of his life, Scotty had walked these forests so religiously with his father and friends that unnatural paths had now been permanently stamped into the ground where he preferred to venture. But today, even on one such path, the young hunter felt something he had never felt before - the uneasy twinge of fear.

Pushing his rifle over his shoulder, the young man sighed in boredom nonetheless. His father had always told him the proper way to hold a rifle when hunting, but Scotty was tired and not in the mood to follow rules. Three hours had passed on this Saturday afternoon without so much as a trace of a deer or a bear, and he was considering turning back. The sky was grey with the promise of rain and unusually dark over the horizon.

His chubby body was beginning to slow him down, and he had to remind himself that the farther he went, the longer it would take to walk back home. And there was also this feeling he had...this disquietude in the air, in the trees.

But he desperately wanted to impress his father. A big six-point buck or a bear pelt. That would do it. His father would be so proud of him. The boy had always been too heavy for sports and was never the smartest in school. Hunting however, he was good at; his father had taught him well throughout his childhood.

Their home, a quaint house beside a chicken farm ten miles from the nearest metropolis, was protected from the hectic motion and busy bustle of civilization's controlled chaos. And it was there the young man learned the fundamentals of life from his father. Hunting was life - that is what his father taught had him. Man was God, and animals were there for the taking.

His mother had told him to not come back too late despite his father's protests that he was no longer a baby. But still his mother worried. News reports about devastating earthquakes and hurricanes in major cities to the south had rattled her, and her maternal instinct was on high alert.

Irregular weather phenomena and natural disasters had become more and more frequent in this day and age, and more commonplace, but what was happening now was entirely different. Reports were suggesting some cities were being torn apart by storm, actually destroyed, and some being sunk by earthquakes. All of this was thought to have originated near the equator, then spreading out like seismic waves. At least that was what the TV was saying.

The cities are far away from here, his father argued, nowhere near us. The young man tended to agree with his mentor, but still could not help being somewhat concerned by what was happening. It all seemed to be spreading so quickly...

A raindrop gently splashed on the young hunter's nose and a second on his hand, almost convincing him to turn back. It was late, and his mother was probably worried. And of course there was the feeling in the pit of his stomach. The forest was silent and the air still. Something wasn't right, or at least it didn't feel right. Perhaps the news reports were getting the best of him too.

He stopped and was about to turn back when he noticed something not three feet away in the mud. Scotty approached it and saw that it was a bear track, fresh and recent. A solitary black bear, he was sure of it. Perhaps a juvenile that had lost its way. A rush of adrenaline burst through his muscles and he immediately drew his weapon. The tracks seemed to lead much further into the forest, into the vast expanse where the young man's feet had never explored. He knelt down to the cool ground and took a swab of mud, squishing it between his fingers.

The endless forest that both his parents had strictly forbidden him to venture into stood like some haunted wilderness found only in scary stories. The black sky hung over the forest, reducing visibility and enticing nightmares…visions of cities crumbling and humanity dying. A storm was coming, but the boy was too excited to turn back. Even though he was not supposed to set foot into those woods, the thought of letting this animal go was unimaginable now.

The young hunter rose to his feet and ventured forth.

He walked for what felt like hours, following the bear’s tracks deeper and deeper into the forest, away from his home, the farm, civilization - everything. How far he actually went or any realization that he might have strayed off course never crossed his mind. His passion and mission were singular: find the bear.

The young man entered a small circular clearing and lost the bear’s trail, losing all sight of the tracks. All around him were trails entering the woods, all so similar, and panic suddenly gripped him as he wildly surveyed the forest, looking for any sign of familiarity. His parent's warnings flashed in his head, Don’t go further than the roads, they said, and he wished to God he had listened.

He felt the trees drowning him, submerging him deeper into an abyss of fear and anxiety. Scotty was lost. His compass was on his night table where he had left it. He usually had it with