by Ian Woodhead
KAIJU RIFT
Ian Woodhead
Copyright 2018 by Ian Woodhead
Chapter One
The sudden dull thump shocked him awake and the man’s instincts took control, forcing him out of the makeshift cot and into the corner next to him. Another dull thump shook the rotting door off the frame. Sliding slowly down the crumbling stone wall, it splashed into a shallow pool of grey mud.
Sergeant Harry Scrimshaw kept his gaze fixed on the only opening in this building, not daring to blink in case he missed the tell-tale signs of enemy activity beyond the remains of this ancient ruined church. Would the enemy investigate anything as tedious as a piece of falling timber? It seemed unlikely. However, he needed to be sure.
This whole mission depended on him not taking any risks, to stay alive and to follow out his orders no matter the cost. Their area commander had made it perfectly clear what the consequences of failure would mean.
He recalled that feeling of anticipation which settled in his guts when he caught sight of their platoon commander escorting some big cheese down into their cosy burrow. It took Harry a couple of moments to recognise the old man. His last meal, a delightful concoction of meat paste and warm beer, threatened to come back up as General Flanders, the man solely responsible for the defence of the Northern Front, headed straight for him.
Harry listened as General Flanders explained the details of what they expected him to achieve. He had nodded at the appropriate moments and did his best to maintain a sombre expression while so needing to shout out in triumph as the old man explained what their boffins had discovered. General Flanders, the only man ever to stop a Goliath, then wished him and his squad good luck and shook his hand.
The shelling was for his benefit. They assured him that it would provide the much-needed distraction to allow his squad to penetrate the enemy’s inner sanctum. Harry swallowed down a hard bubble of frustration and grief. As a result of the bastards initiating the bombing several hours ago as agreed, Harry might still have a squad.
Harry had followed his instructions to the letter. They all had. His fingers tightened around his adopted gun. Like most of the surviving soldiers, they used weapons stolen from the enemy; they called them fleshmeltas, as that’s basically what they did.
He got ready to move out. The fury which threatened to burn him up so needed boxing. Harry had to purge himself of all extreme emotion before setting out on the last leg of this mission. If he failed, then his entire species would not last another six months.
He left the illusive safety of his corner, scuttled across the debris-covered stone floor, and crouched next to the door opening. Judging from the distant booms, the bombs were landing a good few miles from his position. Harry guessed that the Royal Ordnance Corps were trying to destroy the meat factories on the other side of the city. He wished them good luck with that one. Aside from the Goliath stockade, those endless lows of brick sheds had to be the city’s most heavily protected section. Harry hoped the idiots at HQ hadn’t targeted that hellish place. The familiars were likely to respond with deadly force if anything happened to any of their precious buildings.
Two more bombs detonated, but they sounded a lot closer now. Harry peered around the edge of the doorframe and prepared himself. He wouldn’t have much time to do this; bombs of that magnitude were incredibly valuable, which, he guessed served to illustrate just how important this mission was.
A defiler patrol floated close to his position, a moment before he readied himself to dart across the next stretch of open wasteland. Harry scrunched his body into a ball and hurriedly rolled into the nearest mud puddle, hoping it would help to disguise his heat signature.
On this occasion, it appeared that those pair of familiars had other tasks on their mind than searching for more flesh to add to the meat factories. He dared to lift his head a couple of inches to watch them continue their journey.
It was a defiler that took Private Johnson, the first fatality of this fateful mission; David Johnson, a young recruit from the distant shores of the Southern African States. So eager to prove that he was just as good as the others in the squad despite having no real battlefield experience.
Well-trained men were almost as rare as human-made ordinance these days.
Harry watched the two defilers float past the remains of another ruined building before he emerged from where he spent the night. He ran over to a crater and dropped into it. The defilers hadn’t paused; they hadn’t detected him. As soon as they moved out of sight, Harry would move again.
Of all the familiars belonging to the local Goliath, the defilers were the easiest to kill. Not really much of a shock, as the creatures were basically a big bag of helium with a dozen pencil-thin tendrils trailing out from under them.
A well-placed shot from a standard Lee-Enfield into that bag and the blasted creature simply exploded. Harry couldn’t remember the last time he saw any ammunition for their rifles. The powers that be decided a long time ago that diverting valuable resources to manufacture more bullets was a total waste when the scavenged weapons of their enemy were good, if not better, than their own ailing rifles.
The top brass, safe in their bunkers on another bloody continent, would soon change their tune if they were the ones who had to use these bloody abominations during a fight. For a start, the fleshmeltas were useless against the defilers. The energy streams just bounced off their reflective surface. You could shoot off their tendrils until the cows came home, but what was the point of that when the dirty things could regrow another set in a matter of seconds?
The two defilers disappeared behind a collection of blackened tree trunks. He waited for another few more seconds before he left the crater and ran over to the next building, all the time watching where he put his feet. Harry did not intend to allow any burrowers to catch him.
Another four defilers floated over the ruined city, a few hundred yards to his left. He was too far from them for their sensors to detect his movements. At least, that’s what Harry hoped. The unexpected barrage must be attracting them. With luck, this would mean he would be able to enter their inner sanctum without any familiars noticing him.
Harry silently made his way through the building and out the other side. There it was! Just beyond a row of houses which displayed remarkably little battle damage was his final destination. The domed-shaped structure rose out of the ground like some giant toadstool. It was the first time he had been this close to the enemy’s centre of operations. It took effort not to shiver in a combination of fear and disgust. The surface resembled the hide of their Goliath, similar to a grey lizard’s skin, only covered with a thin covering of the wet-looking slime that coated every familiar.
This was it; he had done it. The way looked clear too, thanks to the bombings. By the looks of it, all the familiars will have rushed over to the meat factories to try to defend the position. Even with the apparent lack of enemies, Harry was too experienced to go charging down the middle of that cobbled road. They wouldn’t leave their main base undefended.
He settled down to watch both the road and the black, windowless holes in the row of houses. Harry shivered again, as he knew time really was running out. The time between the bombs exploding was getting longer, meaning they were quickly running out. He needed to get inside that complex before they returned.
Patience rewarded him when three of the cobbles close to the first house began to move. The stones bubbled upwards. An opening appeared in the tops and three jets of dark green gas erupted from the openings. The stones then reverted to their original shape.
“Astonishing,” he whispered. Harry had never seen traps so complex. The ones they usually found were all pretty crude affairs, hiding under pools of mud or in long grass. It didn’t stop them from being deadly.
Harry thought back to a few hours after they lost Johnson to those defilers. They were now three; himself, Corporal Benson, and Corporal Harris. Harry had fought with both men in countless campaigns going back over a decade. Neither of them was reckless, and they understood how their enemy worked. They were perfect for this mission.
Watching that trap expel its waste before reverting into its camouflaged state made him understand how his two experienced men both fell victim to those horrible devices. Now that he knew what to look for, Harry spotted another two more traps disguised as stones. The shade was just a little too dark and their sizes were more uniform than they should be. Harry turned his attention to the houses and their overgrown gardens. It would have been easier to approach the dome by going through those gardens, as the tall plants offered plenty of cover. Now that Harry knew of the existence of those more complex traps, he dared not go anywhere near that undergrowth. Harry wouldn’t have a hope of spotting any traps.
If Harry had known about the bloody things beforehand, perhaps his squad mates wouldn’t have died such a pointless death. Harry let out a quiet moan of anger. He would avenge them. Harry swore that their deaths wouldn’t be for nothing.
Something moved in one of those windows! He threw himself to the ground, brought the weapon up, and looked through the gun sight. Harry held back that usual feeling of panic and revulsion as the fleshmelta’s wet flesh grew around his eye socket. The few hundred yards of space between him and that window vanished. The magnified view showed Harry the interior of that room in great detail. He could even make out the grain on the back of the peeling wallpaper. Yet again, it upset and angered him at just how many his diminished species had to rely on their enemy’s technology to survive. Harry remembered listening to the old ones, the survivors of the Great War and the coming of the Goliaths, when he was a young boy. They used to tell stories of the fantastic achievements their race had made in the last two thousand years. Harry listened, enthralled at stories of their huge cities full of people, of buildings as tall as mountains, and of trams, and cars, and carts fighting for space on the crowded roads. It all sounded so magical to Harry. They also dreamt of a possible future where those hateful Goliaths never arrived and stomped their wonderful cities into dust, at what the human species could have achieved.
Harry panned the weapon a couple of degrees to the right. A table came into view, along with a transparent cup containing glowing green fluid. He spotted a weapon next to the cup. It looked similar to his stolen weapon but much smaller. A side-arm perhaps? Why not? Harry had always assumed that the Goliath’s foot-soldiers would use more than just their fleshmeltas.
The old ones used to talk about weaponry a lot too. That wasn’t much of a surprise considering they all fought in the last war. They used to ask themselves if we, the human species, could have invented anything as sophisticated as the weapons used by the familiars if we hadn’t been invaded. Most agreed that, given time, anything was possible. Harry distinctly remembered one old chap announcing that it wasn’t beyond the realm of science fiction to imagine that one day, humans could go into space, even visit the moon.
He moved the gun a little more to the right then stopped when a single foot-soldier came into view. Was that where these dirty things originated from? Was he looking at something from the moon? Harry had no idea, nor did he really care. All he wished for, right now, was to kill that vile-looking beast and get away with it.
Harry relaxed his finger, took a deep breath in order to still his murderous thoughts, and moved the gun past the foot-soldier so he could see the inner doorway. There was more movement coming from beyond that room, but it was beyond even this weapon’s ability to make out more than a few vague shadows. It was enough though to convince Harry that it wasn’t alone up there.
The gun sight made an audible pop when he removed it from his face. Harry knew that he would never get used to the feeling of nausea he felt every time the thing touched his skin. He stood up while rubbing the area over his left eye. The side-arm on that table showed him exactly which direction to go and it wasn’t the road, not if he intended to keep breathing. Every window equated to a gun port. Harry wouldn’t get ten yards before a dozen fleshmeltas turned his body into a puddle of steaming meat.
His only remaining option suited Harry just fine. It was fitting that the only way left for him would make the last leg of his mission up close and personal. He clipped the weapon onto his back and caressed the eight-inch serrated knife strapped to his leg.
“Lads, it’s time for payback,” he snarled.
Harry skidded down the embankment, ran across the narrow strip of weeds, and pressed his back against the side of the house. He looked around the corner. The closest point of entry was just a short distance from his position. Thankfully, none of the houses on this row possessed doors or glass in their windows, meaning gaining entry wouldn’t pose much of a challenge.
He did not believe the familiars would expect a frontal assault either. The dirty bastards revelled in their arrogance and feeling of superiority over the lesser creatures they preyed upon. Harry took out the knife then ran along the side of the house and slipped into the cool dark interior.
It took him a couple of moments for his eyes to adjust to the difference in light. He used those few seconds to press his body into one of the corners and drop closer to the floor. The bare wooden boards were spongy due to rot. He would have to watch for that. Harry blinked a couple of times while waiting for the indistinct shapes to solidify.
One of those shapes slid across the floor. Without hesitation, he leapt up and swung the knife in a low arc, catching the creature in the mid-section. Harry pulled the blade out and slammed it into the top of its head, grinning in delight at the sound of the crystal inner-housing, which held what served as a brain, shattering.
Breathing heavily, Harry wiped the gunk off his precious knife and got back on his feet. He looked down in disgust at his first kill and let loose a thick ball of saliva. “Vile, dirty, murderous fiend,” he growled.
It did feel good to kill a foot-soldier. Harry hoped to kill a lot more before his mission ended. Each one despatched helped the war effort far more than bombing those meat factories. Foot-soldiers were a finite resource. Unlike the other familiars, these things actually came from the Goliath, meaning that he had just killed some tiny piece of the monster that watched over their city.
He stepped over the dead thing and hurried across the room, eager to find and kill another one. His blade had tasted their flesh, and he knew it was eager to taste more.
The doorway was almost within reach when a skeletal, slimy arm slid out from behind a wardrobe and grabbed Harry’s wrist. He slammed his jaw shut to stop his shocked cry from giving him away. He pulled his arm back, transferred the knife to his other hand then stuck the blade into the side of its neck.
Harry jumped back as the foot-soldier collapsed onto the floor. He froze and slowed down his breathing while straining his ears, desperate to pick up any giveaway sound which might indicate the presence of any more of those things close by.
There was something, a noise which hadn’t been there before. Harry tightened his grip on the knife handle and darted his head from side to side, growing more uneasy at his failure to locate the source of the sound. It was nothing he had ever heard before. The noise reminded him a little of somebody trying to breathe with blood-filled lungs. Finally, Harry looked down at the corpse. It wasn’t coming from that; the foot-soldier was as dead as a rock.
The foot-soldier’s fleshmelta then caught his attention. “I do not believe this,” he said while watching, perplexed as the semi-organic weapon spat out black fluid from the ventral ports under the forestock. It was trying to call out to the others and give his position away. “No you don’t.” Harry lifted his boot and stomped down on the front of the stock where its nervous system was located. The noise stopped immediately and the soft green glow running down the length of the weapon went black.
It surprised him
a little to feel a soft vibration down the length of his spine. Harry unclipped his own fleshmelta, lifted the leathery flap which covered the weapon’s own health indicator, and discovered the green light oscillating. It took him a moment for the realisation to sink in. As weird as it sounded, his weapon must be mourning the death of one of its comrades. Right at that moment, he so wanted to give this traitorous piece of stolen weaponry the same treatment. Harry didn’t care if the thing was broken-in and neutered. What use had the bastard thing been to him during this mission?
“Calm down, Harry,” he muttered. Taking out his frustrations on some stupid gun would not bring his friends back to life, nor would losing his temper help him in any way complete this mission. More than likely, losing his focus would kill him and if that happened, his species would die with him. At least, it would according to what General Flanders disclosed. Harry clipped the weapon back where it belonged, pulled the knife out of the creature’s neck then hurried over to the next doorway.
He crouched down, making himself into a smaller target. There were another four foot-soldiers in the next room, and by watching their twitches and listening to the sound of the grunts and squeaks, emitting from the flattened wet pipe they used as a mouth, something had seriously spooked them. The foot-soldiers must be reacting to his presence, what else could it be? Perhaps one of the creatures that he had just put down had signalled in, or maybe Harry had not been as furtive as he believed? The reason no longer mattered. The things were alerted to his presence, meaning stealth was no longer an issue. Still, although secretly pleased, Harry still needed to find out exactly what they were doing in that dome before officially announcing his presence.
Harry rushed into the next room. He slashed the nearest foot-soldier across its secondary abdomen, and snatched its fleshmelta out of the beast’s limb fingers. He so wanted to turn them all into wet stains. The overpowering desire to follow his orders stopped him from doing something he might regret. He turned the weapon around and smashed the stock into the other creature’s multifaceted, insectile head.