New Hope — Glen Johnson

Mankind is no longer at the top of the food chain.

The Sixth Extinction is an apocalyptic tale about a pandemic that sweeps the globe, decimating the human race, leaving humanity struggling to survive. Within three weeks, everything has changed. Social structure has collapsed as the government locks itself away with a select portion of its vast army in deep bunkers, leaving the civilians to their own fate and the infected that stalk the streets.

Alex, Troy, Frank, Naomi, and the two King brothers find themselves once again running for their lives. They have joined forces with a group led by a woman called Smokie â€" it's a collection of women and a few men who have survived on a river in an old fishing boat, and living on an island. However, the island they presumed to be safe was overrun and they have to race along a two-mile stretch of a road full of infected to a cargo ship. They find themselves fighting for their lives on a beach, with the crashing, ice cold waves at their backs, and creatures charging from the woods ahead. Their only hope is a rigid-sided boat that will ferry them a small group at a time to the large vessel. That's if they have the strength to fight the endless wave of infected until the small boat returns for the second group.

Meanwhile, Doctor Bachman and Emma are also running for their lives from a large deformed animal that is tossing other creatures aside as if they weigh nothing. They frantically stumble into a barn full of infected cattle. Have they just raced headlong into a situation even deadlier than the one they were trying to escape from? They also discover they are not the only humans left alive in the bunker, and does this stranger hold the answers to some of their questions? Does he offer hope?

Meanwhile, the creatures are amassed in the warehouse behind the largest pod, with the black spores undulating across the ceiling, all eager to head out into the world of man and let loose new strains of the infection. Will they be stopped in time, or is this truly the end of mankind â€" will the sixth extinction run its deadly course and wipe mankind and every other species off the face of the planet?