by Ian Woodhead
It annoyed him to find that only his own base instinct screamed loud enough, ordering the captain to get the hell out of here, that he was about to walk into a spider’s lair. The captain’s hand reached for a gun that was not there. Once again, his arrogance had betrayed him, but then why should he need a human weapon when no other creature on this new world had the capability to hurt him?
He did not feel like an apex predator. The captain felt like a prey item. He felt like some huge beast was watching him, hidden inside this dark labyrinth, waiting for him to get a little too close to its lair so it could reach out and tear the flesh from his bones.
The two constructs vanished around a corner, leaving him alone. Ironically, the solitude allowed his frayed nerves to knit back together. It gave him the opportunity to understand that there was only one monster inside this building…him!
Obviously, his memory strand had found some way to access some forgotten area of the human psyche. The part which stemmed back to when this species was not the animal at the top of the food chain, back when it really was just another prey item for the roaming predators.
He followed his constructs further inside, feeling (a little) better as the light began to improve. “Your reign as the dominant species is over, my friend,” he muttered. “You had better get used to it.”
The corridor opened out into a single large area, surrounded by a dozen other smaller rooms. The captain assumed they would have been for offices, storage rooms, and areas for the workers, back when this industrial unit wasn’t a hangout for the local homeless and the town’s resident junkies. Not that the unfortunate wasters who had used this place we’re in any position to complain on account that he believed they were dead. The captain allowed his gaze to roam across the three structures which graced the otherwise abandoned floor of this derelict building. From this angle, they looked like containers. What they contained required further investigation. At least now, he did know that his two constructs hadn’t been following phantoms. Lackeys belonging to one of the new Gods had been here all right.
He left his constructs to continue with their investigation of the containers while he proceeded to check every other room to ensure they truly were alone. Moments before he reached the last closed door, the constructs resume their odd behaviour, growling and snapping while jumping from foot to foot.
“Stop that right now!” he admonished. “There is nothing here.” The captain opened the last door and examined the last room, just to be sure. “What is wrong with you two?” Their irrational behaviour had calmed down, but the two creatures were still spooked. They jumped up and rested their hands on the side of the containers. They licked the container sides then and tried to dip their heads into the contents.
“Get down, the pair of you.” He tapped their noses then kicked their legs when they refused to move. He understood why the constructs gave the containers a large amount of attention. The containers were made from leftovers. The lackeys had used the bodies of the original squatters to build those containers. They had fashioned the bones into a scaffolding before layering sheets of skin around the bones and sealing it all with a resin. Secreted from what, he did not know.
The captain booted one of the constructs who had found an ear attached to the bottom of the container.
“Stupid lackeys.” Trust the servants of the new Gods to waste perfectly good material in making something, which, if they had looked around, would have found some perfectly acceptable barrels in those offices.
Every servant of the Gods understood the value of the flesh. To conserve the organic material meant for a more prosperous stay. Food in the new worlds always provided bountiful harvests and it was true that certainly compared to the exhausted worlds they left, the flesh seemed endless, but it was a false horizon.
Once the Gods arrived with their seemingly unquenchable hunger, the meat soon became harder to catch. There was enough material here to build three-quarters of a foot-soldier. They really did not understand anything. The captain leaned over the lip, curious as to why they spent so much valuable material in creating this container. What could it possibly contain?
The constructs whined at the barrels then turned their heads to whine at him. He sensed that they already knew what these containers held. The captain leaned closer and sniffed. He frowned. This is where that sweet smell had come from! Already, he was drooling and he just couldn’t stop his hand from dropping into the cool liquid. He lifted a cupful, opened his mouth as wide as he could, and slipped the liquid inside.
Shards of unfiltered, pure ecstasy danced on every nerve ending, running from his mouth, along his tongue, and down his throat. The heavenly sensation continued for another few seconds before his taste buds settled back to some resemblance of normality.
He staggered away from the stuff, already feeling the change which he had kept dormant begin to grip his body. The stuff in those containers had the power of life; it was nectar, concentrated energy, the fluid which literally powered the Gods, and now the stuff flowed through his body. The captain dropped to his knees. He shivered violently, vaguely aware that his constructs had resumed their noise-making, only this time, it wasn’t for want but for panic!
A huge shadow dropped from above and landed just metres from his changing body. Caught in the process of transition, his eyes failed to focus in on whatever had landed, only he knew with certainty that it meant harm. A chemical-like stench of ammonia and rotting fruit drifted over him and beneath the warning growls from his constructs, the captain heard another sound, a deep rumble which brought back terrible memories from thousands of years before, back to the last great civil war between the Gods. Back to when the Right Hand of God produced not only prime foot-soldiers but guardians too; gigantic beasts, towering over everything but the Gods, each one armoured with thick bone plates and possessing terrible weapons, designed to slice, cut, tear and dismember their enemies.
He crawled away from the rumble, already cursing himself for listening to that fucking memory strand. Thanks to his pride, he and his two prime foot-soldiers would not live to witness their God arriving on this planet.
The rumble changed into a shriek. What was happening? Hands, or paws, took hold of his shoulders, and he felt himself being dragged across the floor but back the way he came! That shrieking continued without respite, his notion that perhaps that huge shadow, obviously some kind of guardian for one of the new Gods, could be in trouble, soon vanished when the shrieking turned into a dying snarl after which that rumbling reasserted itself.
His body, still coping with the sudden and unwelcome transformation, was put under even more pressure when his helper lifted him up and leaned him against what could only be the side of one of those containers. More of that cool, life-giving liquid splashed against his face and body and, this time, his system knew what to expect and it opened its pores wide to accept more of this nectar.
The Right Hand of God’s new eyes, designed by beings of ages past and now improved by the new God’s life-fluid, returned moments after his now fully transformed body absorbed the last of the nectar. He took one look at the shredded corpse lying by the guardian’s thick feet, allowed his memory strand a second of grief to mourn on the abrupt passing of the woman he once married, then launched his new, armoured form at the beast. His leap took it totally by surprise. Although more thickly muscled, resembling a bipedal rhinoceros, covered in spines to his more athletic, lightly armoured shape, the new God’s guardian did not have the dexterity, speed, or experience to defeat the improved form of Copperfield, as long as he stayed out of the way of those huge arms, each one ending in a bony club, and avoided the spines.
He jumped onto its back and was able to land enough blows in one spot before the behemoth realised it was being attacked. It spun around and roared while trying to reach for him. The captain deftly leaped backwards and landed on the wall.
The prime foot-soldiers were not the only designed being with that ability.
Once the guardian
of the new God turned back around, Copperfield whistled and his remaining construct lunged forward and sunk its teeth into one of the behemoths thick legs. It roared out in either surprise or pain. It probably did not expect the other one to do that, not after it had slaughtered its companion.
It raised both its club-like arms at the same time Copperfield attacked again. His last assault had cracked one of the creature’s bony plates. He leapt from the wall onto its back, his claws finding purchase in the soft tissues under the edges of each plate. Copperfield slammed his own armoured forehead against the damaged plate, finding satisfaction at the sound of it breaking into several smaller pieces.
He pulled his left arm free then plunged it through the tender membrane under the plate and up towards the shrieking creature’s neck. Copperfield roared himself as he sliced through the beast’s insides. His searching digits found resistance within all that wet, stinking, red and black filth, and Copperfield grasped its spine and gave it a savage twist before jumping away. He ran over to the construct and pulled the creature off the behemoth’s leg, seconds before it toppled forward and slammed onto the broken floor tiles.
The remaining prime foot-soldier lifted her head, those beautiful big green eyes finding his. It let out a quiet whine then lifted its head up towards the ceiling. He followed her gaze and whined too at the sight of the ceiling moving. One by one, more guardians dropped around them. He stood up and slowly turned in a circle. Copperfield now faced eight behemoths, each one as hideous as the next.
They moved as one, closing the circle and trapping him beside their fallen comrade. Their time had come, and although once they attacked, his remaining existence would be measured in seconds, Copperfield still intended to do as much damage as he could. The Right Hand of God prepared to leap and then stopped as every behemoth froze. They pulled back their huge heads and let out a soft sigh.
The construct looked straight at Copperfield and tilted her head in confusion until she did the same. He began to laugh, then cry, before finally he sighed as well.
All of their Gods had just arrived into the new world.
CHAPTER TEN
The walking stick sure came in handy. He’d snagged it from outside the back of the bus station about ten minutes ago. At first, Callum did feel a bit guilty for taking something that obviously didn’t belong to him. Some old geezer had probably just forgotten about it after he’d got on his bus. He reconciled the theft by telling himself that, if Harry’s words really were true, then the old guy, the bus, and most of Brandale’s population would be dead when that Goliath appeared. Granted, they weren’t exactly sterling words of comfort, but they had made him feel a little better.
His new prize had also just served as an alternative purpose than stopping some bandy-legged pensioner from falling on his arse. The stick had just saving Gavin from getting the beating of his short and pointless life.
Callum sat back down on the only seat in Brandale’s ancient shopping centre, placed his stick next to him, and glared at his companion, just daring the thoughtless idiot to comment. Several shoppers and two assistants coming back from a sneaky smoke break had already stopped and watched with vague interest. Probably wondering how Gavin would react to some older homeless tramp pulling the kid backwards along the promenade with the walking stick handle around his throat.
“I can’t believe you just did that!”
Callum just sighed. There seemed to be no other reasonable reply. Not for the first time since leaving the flyover with this cockwomble, he really wished the others hadn’t saddled him with Gavin.
“Sit down, man,” he hissed, very aware that the crowd had just grown. Callum’s little mad voice, the one that usually stayed well out of sight, decided to come to the fore and excitedly announced that if he stood on the seat, waved his arms about and shouted that building-sized spiders were on their way, ready to eat them with mayo, he might receive enough money to buy a couple of Big Macs.
Ironic, considering that Gavin’s obsession with food had gotten them into this situation in the first place. Surprisingly, the young lad did slouch over to the bench and park his arse next to Callum. The very action caused the first of the shoppers to resume their journey. Callum guessed that they were probably waiting for him and Gavin to start knocking the crap out of each other. He watched a young couple turn around and walk away, hand in hand. The boy whispered something into girl’s ear which resulted in the girl punching him on the shoulder. Two more people drifted off, leaving the two employees and a new arrival, the shopping mall’s security guard, still giving them an interested gaze.
“You can’t believe I did that?” Callum did, in fact, want to knock the crap out of this idiot. “They bought you breakfast, man!” The kid shrugged. “And you repay them by begging on their patch?”
“Oh, come on, stop being so melodramatic, Callum. Does it really matter? If Harry is telling the truth, then we’re about to enter Armageddon. You know, the five dudes wearing blankets and carrying farm implements. Earthquakes, volcanoes, and other cool shit. So I tried to snag a few quid. Big deal. If we’re all going to die anyway, what difference does it make?” Gavin looked behind his shoulder before grabbing the back of the seat. “And for your information, I still think that your new mate had just spun the biggest line of bullshit that I have ever heard! The bloke’s a raving nutter. Giant monsters, alternate worlds, aggressive lumps of burger meat? Come on, it’s a wind-up.”
He couldn’t believe his ears. The king of bullshit was calling his new best friend a big fat liar.
In his mind, Callum saw himself picking up his stick and hitting this self-absorbed, annoying dickhead repeatedly around the back of his head. He did note that Gavin conveniently neglected to mention that Callum had experienced more than his fair share of aggressive lumps of burger meat last night.
The stick stayed beside him. As tempting as it was, turning Gavin into a big bag of bruised hurt was more than likely to bring plod crashing down on their heads like a ton of bricks. When the monsters did invade, he’d welcome the police and the army with open arms. Until then, they were supposed to keep a low profile. A task made almost impossible thanks to Gavin’s irrational behaviour.
If Gavin’s claim turned out to be just a wild goose chase, then Callum would take the stick to the gobby little bastard’s lying mouth. He nodded to himself. Yeah, that sounded like a good deal. Until this unexpected diversion, Gavin and Callum were making their way through town and up to the Harmony Estate where, according to Gavin, there was this lad he knew who collected swords. To make it even better, Gavin knew for a fact that this guy was sunning himself in the south of France for the next two weeks.
Poor Harry, who obviously had no clue about the shit that Gavin came out with, said that bladed weapons would be their best option to tackle the beasts already here, as well as the familiars who would accompany the Goliath.
Moments before Gavin had conveniently remembered he had a mate who collected swords, the lad had suggested that they all just waited for the monsters to turn up then just hide and let the army sort them out with their machine guns and grenades. Both Malc and Dosser ordered him to shut his hole, which he did for at least ten seconds before coming out with the sword collector story.
“Gavin, if you drag me all the way up to the top of the estate only to find you’ve been talking shite, I swear by Almighty God that I will drop you.”
“It’s true, you have to believe me, dude.”
Believing anything that came out of his gob took faith and patience. None of which he had but considering the circumstances, he had no other choice. “For crying out loud,” he said, sighing. “Come on then, we’d best start making tracks. Some of the normals are getting a bit jumpy.”
“That’s a good thing. The more excitable they are, the more cash they’re likely to throw to get rid of you. That’s always been my motto.”
Callum stood up and collected his walking stick. Just to make sure that the boy didn’t get any more ideas abo
ut fleecing the normals for cash, he accidentally whacked his shin and glared at him until the lad finally moved off the bench. “You listen to me, Gavin. You and I are going to leave the shopping mall and haul our arse all the way up to the estate. We do not pass go and we do not collect any money. Especially the last part.”
He escorted the lad past two mobile phone shops, a charity shop, and stopped in front of the betting shop window. He stopped because the normals had not calmed down. If anything, more normals were acting odd, like their behaviour was contagious. It reminded him of a Mexican wave. Several more around them now had their ever-present mobile phones clamped to their ears. Callum no longer believed that it was their presence causing the panic.
“Okay, so this is a bit freaky,” muttered Gavin, his gaze roaming from person to person. “Callum. Do you think we should get out of here?” Without waiting for a reply, the lad made a beeline for the fire exit.
Callum raced after Gavin and escorted him back. “No, not that way,” he said. The rising sound of panicked crying had now begun to filter in from the outside, further unsettling the few shoppers still remaining, although from the frantic looks upon their faces, they had already received enough bad news to sink a ship. From their phones, he guessed.
“I think we’d best take a shortcut through here, Gavin.” Callum dragged him into the shopping mall’s largest shop. The Celador store sold everything from shampoo to cutlery. He dragged the protesting lad through the open doors and down the middle of the shop, past the makeup counters
Even with the knowledge that a couple of shoppers had just run past them and through the entrance, this store already had that deserted feel to it. He pulled Gavin over a dropped shopping basket full of items previously thought to be essential to that shopper. Callum stopped and turned towards the main entrance. Three more people just raced past. Two of them were shrieking.