Lendle

Meltdown the first short story in the Extinction Series.A Story of Apocalypse and Survival John is on a survival skills trip on an uninhabited island near Bail. Since they arrived a few days ago, he and five other would be survivalists are struggling to scrape an existence on the island. It's mangrove jungle almost end to end. The only water comes from a stagnant pond, there's barely any food – at least that they've been able to catch. Mostly they're living off coconuts. Most of the group are new to this. Terry is an IT specialist, who likes to watch Lost. He kind of wanted to recreate his favourite show in real life, but the reality of surviving without Pizza Hut on the end of the line is much harder than he thought. Still he might lose some of his 20 stones at the end of the trip.Robbie is 19. He's the youngest member of the group. He's missing home big-time. This is his first time out of the country - actually his first time away from Surbiton, where he lives with his mother. He had a picture of a beautiful tropical island on the wall next to his desk, at the call centre where he worked. That's where he expected to be. That's where he wanted to be. But then you rarely get what you want.Karly thought this trip would suit her perfectly. She'd always wondered if she could survive if civilization fell apart. She's 29 now, no babies, no husband. No boyfriend even. - no reason not to push herself to the limit. At 51 Bill is the oldest of the group. He's also the most experienced when it comes to surviving in the wild. He's served in Korea, and spends a lot of his free time hunting. Unfortunately what he has in survival skills he lacks in people skills. Boil it all down: Bill thinks there's his way to do things or no way. Jane is a lawyer. She recently divorced her husband of 25 years, had a big alimony payment, and decided she wanted a change. She wanted a challenge, something to blow the cobwebs of that long painful marriage away. John used to be a doctor. Now he's a writer, kind of. He's never really wanted to lead, but always ends up doing just that. When the shit hits the fan the group are going to look to him hold them together – trouble is he's not sure he wants to. It all starts to go wrong when Jane gets bitten by a poisonous spider, and gets very sick. John has to resurrect his medical skills – which he'd rather not do – to save her. But when they try to contact the tour company on the mainland to airlift her out – there’s no answer. In fact there's no radio traffic at all. Something is very wrong on the mainland, and the each member of the group is about to discover if they really can survive, when the shit hits the fan for real.