Akira carefully grasped the severed remains of the worm’s anterior region, its fangs still connecting it to the woman’s flesh, and pulled it free. Her skin was severely swollen in a nearly two-inch diameter area around the oval-shaped perforation wounds. The scientist didn’t believe the injury looked life-threatening, however.
That is, until the woman’s screams gave way to an incoherent burbling sound and she began undergoing a severe seizure. Akira he took the wrist of her good arm and attempted to help the injured lady to her feet. A yellowish foamy sputum flowed from her mouth and her eyes rolled into her head, both indicating she may have been suffering from something akin to anaphylactic shock.
“My gods, their bite may be venomous…” the scientist muttered to himself grimly. “Just like the normal genus employs venom.”
The zoologist attempted to clear the woman’s mouth to begin administering the resuscitation techniques he had learned years earlier. He kept that up for a few minutes until the sounds of screams and gunfire from just within the village limits him. That is when he saw Koji running towards him, obviously in great distress.
“The child is in the hands of the constables,” Koji stammered, “one of which took her to the village shelter. But the worms have invaded the village!” It was then that the young naturalist noticed the paroxysmal female body on the ground. “Wait, this woman…”
Akira quickly turned back to the victim of the worm bite, cursing himself for allowing the interruption of his ministrations. However, he saw her undergoing continual spasms which he recognized as the final stage of a fatal seizure. She released a short series of tortured gasping sounds which were immediately followed by a swift oral eruption of vomit. After that, her quivering body fell to the ground and her movements ceased completely.
“No!” Koji shouted. “No, I left Eko and Sera behind, and now this woman, the girl’s mother, she is…”
Akira forced himself to hold back reproachful tears of his own as he jumped to his feet and began shaking his younger comrade.
“Koji, get ahold of yourself! We need to contact the mainland, and warn them about the worms! If any of these things find their way to the other islands, let alone the Honshu archipelago itself, the loss of life could be catastrophic!”
If Akira’s firm spiel failed to break the younger man from his histrionic state of mind, the sudden sound of a shattering window a short distance behind them fully succeeded.
The two men turned to see the giant Glyceracon that had invaded Eko’s home smash its way out of the window pane, apparently now fully sated on the man’s blood. Its mottled tubular form rose into a “standing” position, and the four tendrils surrounding its anterior head region began wriggling about as if to assess the culinary potential of the two life forms (i.e., men) standing before it.
“That is the one that slaughtered Eko!” Koji screamed. “I will kill that damnable thing!”
Before Akira could respond, Koji lifted the large rock that his companion had used to smash the worm’s immature brethren and hurled it with all his might at the adult creature. The stone struck it in the side of the “head,” a blow that knocked its anterior section back nearly a foot. However, this only appeared to anger the durable beast, and it suddenly began slithering over the soil towards the men with surprising speed.
Both turned to run, but before they could move more than a few feet the worm darted forth with almost blinding swiftness to encircle Koji’s body like a malformed anaconda. The powerful four-meter annelid pulled its newest human prey to the ground, and moved its hideous head until it was a mere few feet from the terrified Koji’s face. The creature extended its meaty proboscis, the foursome of stiletto-like fangs immediately baring themselves in all their razor-sharp horror.
“No! Please!” the young naturalist pleaded in a futile manner.
“Koji-san” was all the stunned Akira could say, his mind having but a second to come up with a solution to a situation that he had no means of resolving.
Just then a loud “bang” was heard as a skillfully aimed bullet bypassed Koji’s head and tore through the open jaws of the worm. The lead projectile exited out the back of its angular head section, and it was trailed by a large spatter of hemoglobin-saturated coelomic fluid. The giant annelid reeled from the hole blown through its ruddy tissue, and the wound forced it to relax its constricting grip on Koji.
The head constable Itaru revealed himself as the source of the shot, and he immediately joined Akira to help pull the young naturalist from its deadly coils.
With that accomplished, Itaru turned back to the spasmodically writhing creature and shot it two more times. More fluid spurted from the two additional cavities introduced to its cylindrical mass, and the creature finally stopped moving.
Akira ran over and bowed in gratitude. “Thank the sun goddess you arrived when you did, Officer…?”
“You may call me Itaru,” the lawman replied. “You are that scientist who came here to study some new species of worm that Koji found, correct?”
“Hai,” the scientist confirmed. “I am Professor Akira Watanabe. And I am at your service.”
“I would presume these monstrous creatures attacking the village are of this mystery species?”
“I believe so,” Akira said while helping the rattled Koji to his feet.
“Arigato, Itaru,” Koji said with a respectful bow of his own.
“Koji, what are these worms, and how did they get into the village?” Itaru queried.
“We are still attempting to figure that out,” the amateur naturalist replied, “but we believe they are a mutated bloodworm of some sort.”
“Bloodworms are not naturally found in this part of the world, being mostly indigenous to the North American continent,” Akira added, “so they may be an invasive species that found their way here from an American vessel, as this wouldn’t be the first time something like that…”
“Your point is taken,” Itaru interjected sternly, “but we will worry about all that later. For now, we need to evacuate this village. I already sent word to the Diet, so a vessel should arrive in roughly two hours.”
“Two hours!” Koji exclaimed incredulously, followed by a few coughs from his still raw esophagus. “We will not last that long! There are people dying here, and…”
The young man’s blathering was cut off by a cacophonous flurry of multiple screams which emanated from within the village, to be followed by more gunshots.
“I need to get back there!” Itaru said. “You two follow me and help however you can. Should I fall, recover my gun and my ammo storage belt and continue killing these things until either they are wiped out, or you are!”
The three men ran into the village and had to avoid being trampled by over a dozen of the hamlet’s residents running for cover. Their screams nearly drowned out the echo of further gunshots just a few meters to the east of their direction.
“This way!” Itaru yelled as he directed the men to follow him towards the sound of the gun shots.
The trio quickly arrived in the garden of another shack to find constables Yuki and Gillam firing upon two more of the larger giant worms. One of them was coiled around a dog and another had sunk its jaws into the stomach of a young village boy, with the monstrous annelid gluttonously feeding on his internal fluids. Two other adult Glyceracon lay dead in other areas of the garden, oozing reddish fluid from multiple bullet wounds.
Gillam opened fire on the worm that coiled about the dog, making no attempt to save the canine’s life. He had to consider all non-human life to be acceptable collateral damage under these circumstances. The officers knew, however, that they also had to exercise considerably more care in dealing with the worm that was boring into the guts of the hapless boy.
“Yuki, be careful,” Itaru ordered his subordinate constable before pointing his gun at the other worm.
“The boy is dead, Itaru,” Yuki said while preparing to depress the trigger of his revolver.
“He is not d
ead, you imbecile!” Akira interceded.
“He will be soon!” Yuki retorted. “There is no point in…”
“His limbs are still moving!” Akira insisted. “We need to help him!”
“Do not tell me how to do my job, outsider!” was Yuki’s angry rejoinder. “I know a fading life when I see one.”
“I am trained in the biological sciences, you fool!” Akira proclaimed. “I can discern such a thing more professionally than you, and the more we waste time arguing…” The scientist cut off his admonishment to address the head constable. “Itaru, please order him not to shoot at it haphazardly!”
Yuki turned his head towards the men behind him. “Itaru, we must concentrate on saving the lives that can actually be saved! Killing those worms must be our main priority. You know that!”
The forceful expression of this opinion would prove to be a fatal distraction on the officer’s part, as the worm—evidently reacting to the threat in front of it—ceased feeding from the boy’s entrails, lifted its head region, and thrust forward to latch its fanged proboscis onto Yuki’s groin. A sickening sound akin to an orange being crushed under a mallet could be heard, to be followed by the constable’s piercing shriek of agony.
“Oh God!” Gillam hollered as he and Itaru simultaneously aimed their firearms and shot the giant worm several times in the side of its ropey anatomy.
The monstrous annelid immediately pulled forward due to its muscles contracting from the fatal impact of the bullets, and as a result Yuki’s entire pubic area was torn off in the creature’s powerful jaws. The horribly injured lawman fell to the ground with his hands over his castrated mid-section. His screams were quickly replaced by a wretched gagging sound as a quart of blood seeped through the cracks of his fingers. In just a few seconds, the officer lay on his back with one of his legs undergoing a violent horizontal spasm. Then he was completely still.
“Yuki!” Gillam screamed as he ran to the side of his longtime friend and colleague.
“Son of a bitch…” Itaru said in a barely audible tone.
Koji angrily picked up a small gardening shovel he noticed near one of the bushes, and with a great howl of rage he began thrusting the semi-sharpened end of the implement into the neck area of the severely injured but still wriggling giant annelid. His cream white fishing shirt was stained increasingly red with each thrust of the shovel, while the dying worm emitted loud squeaks of agonized protest as its already assured expiration was hastened.
“Die, you motherless son of a bitch! Die!”
Akira ran to check on the boy, first inspecting the youth’s serious lower abdominal wound. After Koji completed his mad venting assault against the predatory mega-annelid, his anguished face turned to meet the scientist’s sorrowful gaze. The older man ruefully shook his head, indicating that the boy’s wound and blood loss was too severe to save him.
A moment later, Itaru and Gillam approached the two men of science. The mournful look on both their faces told them all that needed to be said of Yuki’s condition.
Koji released an anguished bellow and hurled the crimson-stained garden shovel through the still intact window of the nearest shack.
“You filthy bastards!”
The young man’s head and arms then fell to the ground as he began crying intensely. Akira walked up to his lamenting compatriot and put a consoling hand on his shoulder, while Itaru and Gillam removed their hats in reverential respect.
The deep terror and loss these men experienced had taken a tremendous toll on their psyches, but now a melancholy calm settled over the entirety of the normally placid atoll. Unfortunately, that calm was to prove short-lived.
CHAPTER 5: The Conqueror Worms
Professor Akira Watanabe sat in the hut that served as headquarters for Imotojima Island’s tiny police force doing his best to settle into a semblance of calm. Koji sat beside him in complete silence, doing nothing more than staring blankly into one of the room’s corners. Until just an hour in the past, the small atoll’s police force was merely three men strong; due to the events that transpired in that short span of time, however, the division now consisted of only two.
Sitting at the simple desk across from them was Eda, a proper-looking island woman with a severe bun for a hairdo. As secretary for the miniscule Imotojima police unit, she was its sole non-constabulary employee. The pleasantly smiling lady served cups of steaming green tea to everyone present as they discussed the horrendous events that had just unfolded.
“I contacted the mainland,” Itaru said as he somberly sipped his mug of tea. “An American military envoy will be sent to look into the situation and to evacuate the island if necessary. Temporary camps will be set up in the Tokyo Metropolis for any refugees.”
“I would suppose even such an unfortunate situation would be better than remaining on the island before it was cleared of those worms,” Akira said as he took the steaming mug that Eda handed him. “Of course, I suspect there is a complex problem to deal with, and the worms may only represent a part of it.”
“What exactly do you mean?” Itaru queried.
“My preliminary observations of these worms suggest there may be something big they are feeding on to maintain their mutated metabolism’s need for radiation,” Akira explained. “These annelids may exhibit more than one form of predation to meet all of their organic fuel requirements, which may include parasitism in addition to hunting.”
Itaru squinted at his interlocutor with a look of extreme unease. “Again, what do you mean, Professor?”
“They can feed on humans and various small animals to acquire the organic nutritional sustenance their still carbon-based forms require,” Akira replied. “But if they have a parasitic side to their nature in addition to predatory hunting, then they may also be feeding off something else. That is, a far larger organism than anything on this island.”
That statement spurred Koji to speak. “Are you talking about whales, Akira?”
“No, not necessarily,” Akira said, “not unless said whales were radiation-spawned mutations themselves. If no cetacean organism has undergone a morphological mutation rather than simply becoming fatally ill upon being irradiated—an attribute few organisms with just the right genetic propensity would be capable of, to be sure—then it must be something else.”
“This sounds like truly bad science,” Gillam interjected. “Like what you would hear from one of those awful American science fiction B movies that I saw when I visited the mainland.”
“Science often sounds quite inexplicable to the layman, my friend,” Akira responded following another quick sip of his tea.
At just that moment a forty-two-year-old villager named Rand burst into the hut, nearly taking the poorly constructed door off its hinges in his great haste.
“Constable!” he shouted. “It is horrible! More of those horrible worm creatures have appeared, this time near Fujimainā! Hudji was camping there, and one of the worms is killing him! Please come quick!”
Itaru and Gillam jumped to their feet with their revolvers in hand, ready to run and meet the threat. Akira and Koji likewise stood up in an “at the ready” position, that gesture expressing their eagerness to help. The sight of that caused Itaru to put the situation in full perspective, and this incited him to grudgingly make a difficult decision on the spot.
“Rand, I want you to go back into the village and gather everyone together at the fort. Tell them to stay inside and await the arrival of the evacuation ships from the mainland.”
“Of course, constable!”
He turned towards Professor Watanabe. “Akira, do you know how to use a gun?”
“I do,” the scientist answered. “I served for a time in the war.”
Itaru next addressed the youngest among them. “Koji, I am already aware you can use a gun, since I’ve always known you have carried one around with you. I allowed it out of respect for who your uncle was.”
“Really?” the young man responded with a feeling of pleasant sur
prise before quickly recovering his deportment. “But yes, you can count on me for help! This village is my home, and I owe it to those who have been killed, including Greene!”
“Good,” Itaru said. “Gillam, open up the armory closet and hand these men guns and ammo belts. Eda, call the mainland and inform the government of the full severity of our situation. Tell them to make haste in sending a rescue force!”
“Consider that done,” the always reliable secretary replied with calm assurance.
***
Itaru cautiously approached the slumbering volcanic mountain the islanders nicknamed Fujimainā (“Fuji Minor”) with Gillam and his two appointed deputies. The peak of the mountain, which opened into the chasm resulting from the last eruption nearly a century previous, was roughly forty meters high. It was surrounded by patches of flora that had gradually reclaimed the granite of the hillside after the original botanical life was obliterated by the lava flow.
No sooner did the four men begin scaling the rocky slope than the sight for which Rand notified them came into view: the farmer named Hudji lay caught in the crushing constriction of one of the adult Glyceracon. Its four hook-like fangs were embedded in the man’s chest, rapidly draining him of his hemoglobin. At the same time, two of the twelve-inch juvenile worms were likewise feeding off the captured victim; one was attached to his left eyeball, and the other to the right side of his neck.
“There!” Akira shouted while pointing his index finger in the proper direction.
Without a moment’s hesitation, Itaru pointed his revolver and shot the giant adult annelid through the equivalent of its neck. Its body quivered in a grotesque fashion upon receiving the painful wound, but it retained its grip on Hudji’s chest. As per usual, these worms would put up a powerful resistance against being separated from their prey. This proved to be the large ropey creature’s undoing, however, as it left itself an easy target for the constable’s next shot. That next bullet tore clear through its extended gastro-intestinal trunk.
Megadrak: Beast Of The Apocalypse Page 4