Trapped Within

by Bradshaw, Duncan P.

  “So when you said giant…”

  “I meant it. Yes. We need… I don’t know… missiles or something here.”

  “Missiles? Please hold.”

  As heated conversations were held and emergency vehicles dispatched, the two giants clashed once more. They wrestled each other down the road exchanging punches, the sound of crushing metal and breaking glass following them as they squashed cars and smashed shop windows. On the corner they found themselves outside a church, its gothic design and cumbersome size at odds with the thoughtlessly designed buildings it co-existed with. From within came the sound of Christmas hymns, a rehearsal for the festive season. He and she both paused.

  He turned towards her and cocked his head, a ridiculous parody of a normal sized canine. For a moment their eyes met and then he was off, leaping over the ironwork fence and up to a stain glass window depicting the ascension. He leant down and thrust his head through it, sending shards of colored glass flying. Singing turned into screaming as he reached in and plucked out a member of the choir. Standing to face her, he bit the head from the hapless vocalist and then threw the corpse at her. Before she could react he reached back in and took another and again, decapitated them and swallowed the head. A geyser of blood bloomed from the now bereft neck of his victim.

  There was no sorrow or pain apparent in her expression. Instead there was just a darkening of her eyes and a chilling of the air that hung around her. Again she began to grow, stretching and contorting into something twice the size. He grew too, discarding the spent life in his grip, and howling as his body extended to over a hundred feet tall.

  With a single swipe he sent the bricks of the clock tower showering over her. The bell within fell onto the roof with a terrible clanging, before rolling onto the ground. Batting away the cascade she ripped a huge section of the wrought iron fence from the ground and swung it at him. He roared as the sharpened tips penetrated his skin. It was little more than a minor annoyance though.

  Several helicopters had arrived and were circling the battling pair. Two were from local television stations and the other belonged to the city police department. One of the news crews was flying dangerously close, determined to get better footage than their rivals. A producer on board encouraged the pilot in his foolishness. His exhortations crackled through the chopper’s communications system and out into the ether, washing over he and she along with the chatter from the rest of the city. The maelstrom of panic passed over them and they listened without interest.

  “Get in closer, this is going to be the making of us. Come on, they’re only interested in each other.”

  The craft swooped in, a cameraman framed in the open side door. It was the act of a moment to reach out and grab it by the tail. The engine screeched in protest. Seconds later it was spinning towards her. She hopped to one side and it missed her by inches. It ploughed through the building behind her before exploding into a fireball. Aviation fuel and burning metal was strewn in all directions. Cars detonated one after the other, igniting a chain reaction both up and down the street. Howls of pain filled the night.

  With a sprightly leap that belied her enormous size she leapt up and pushed herself off the church roof. It evaporated beneath her. With a thrust from her wings she reached the Police helicopter’s dangling skids and grabbed them with both hands. She and it crashed to the ground with a thud. Ignoring the human sardines rattling around within, she held the whirring blades out towards him and ran. Metal bent and twisted as it struck the leathery torso, gouging out small chunks of flesh before grinding to a halt. He pushed back in fury and she did the same. Between them metal and meat screeched in protest as they were forced together. A shower of sparks met gasoline fumes and a fire erupted between them.

  As the tattered remains of the craft and its crew fell to the ground he shoved her back through the walls of the church, sending her sprawling. She lay there for a moment, catching her breath. When she turned her head to survey her landing place her gaze met that of a priest. The cleric was covered in grime from head to toe. She wondered if he saw anything holy in her. From the way he turned tail and left, it seemed unlikely.

  Her rival ran off down the road, flames licking at his fur as he went. Cars and citizens were crushed alike underfoot. Now that he was so large he simply trampled everything before him, rather than consider where he was going.

  The city was now awash with the sound of sirens. The conflagration caused by the initial exploding helicopter was spreading. A gas main exploded spreading the flames still further. Ambulances and fire engines rushed back and forth in confusion, battling against the growing tide of panicked citizens flooding out from their homes and heading for their cars. Police vehicles circled nervously, absolutely out of their depth and unable to think of anything constructive to do. Few slept now. High overhead a pair of fighter jets circled.

  “Control, this is Gator. We have eyes on target, requesting permission to engage.”

  “Negative, Gator, negative. We need to move them away from the city.”

  “I don’t think anyone is going to move them anywhere they don’t want to go, Control.”

  “Hang tight, Gator. Your time may come.”

  “Roger that, Control.”

  She pulled herself up from the rubble and looked out over the blazing chaos. She felt no pity or qualms about the destruction or empathy for those killed by their quarrel. Such thoughts were not for one such as her now. Now was a time for killing and ensuring her victory. Base instincts ruled the day. As she scanned the horizon, she wondered where her foe was heading or if he even knew that himself. With a sigh she set off in pursuit.

  He had no particular destination in mind. He just wanted to find a little breathing space, regroup for another round. Although he too was primarily focused on the demise of his rival, he wanted to be sure that whoever triumphed there would be an abundance of collateral damage. Although his masters had tendrils snaking through much of this world, he considered it to belong to her people. The onus had always been on him to darken and bring down all that was around him.

  She moved considerably faster than him, half jumping, half flying. She left no less destruction in her wake. As he realized that she was gaining ground on him he turned and gathered up his energy. The wounds from the helicopter were no more than scratches to him, but they had angered him and he wanted to see her bleed. As she landed, destroying a cross-town bus and a beleaguered ambulance as she did so, he took the advantage and charged her. He clasped both of her arms before attempting to sink his teeth into her neck. She writhed and fought to free herself, her wings fluttering behind her. His fangs struggled to penetrate her scales with only the tips actually piercing them. Her blood was sour and foul, not what he had expected at all. Worse, it only trickled from the wound and not gushed, as he had hoped. He stepped back to look for a softer spot.

  Her forked tongue flicked out and scraped over an exposed eyeball before gouging itself deep into its centre. Instinctively he pulled back, putting both hands over the ruined eye. She had no lips to smile but her nostrils twitched in pleasure at his pain. Without looking up he charged her. His horns were more effective than his teeth at piercing her defences, and this time gore spurted from the holes he had made. Snuffling and snorting he shook his great head from side to side, tearing her open.

  The scream that echoed out across the city shattered windows and burst eardrums. He pulled back and admired his work with his one remaining eye. His face dripped with her juices and viscera.

  “You are finished” he hissed.

  “Not yet.”

  Once more she began to glow and disembodied tentacles swirled and danced around her. They wrapped themselves around her body and her outstretched arms, crackling with electricity.

  “No…”

  Red embers glowed in her eyes as the field of energy around her grew. With one stamp of her foot a tsunami of devastation rolled out in all directions. Skyscrapers turned to dust and fell in its path, everything else
it touched simply lost cohesion and ceased to be. When it struck him he proved that he, too, was capable of expressing extreme pain. His howl cracked the earth. A mile above them the fighter pilots decided to take matters into their own hands.

  “Control, Control… engaging targets.”

  Eight missiles roared towards Earth, falling in a semi-circle around he and she. A bilious mushroom of combustion engulfed them both, scorching the earth and ruins that lay around them. Gradually the flames that obscured them faded away, leaving two blackened figures of normal size. He lay on the floor, thrashing and moaning, while she stood over him, blackened but still alive. She wiped the soot from her face with the back of her hands and blinked. Her eyes had returned to their former stunning blue.

  “I think I might pass on that help, if that’s alright with you.”

  She put her foot on his neck and slowly put all her weight behind it until she heard the crunch of bone and he stopped moving. She looked at him sadly and shook her head.

  “I fell you know. You could have just helped.”

  She turned and walked away, alone once more.

  Andrew Freudenberg is a writer of dark and speculative fiction. Although he has always loved to write, he is also easily distracted. In the late 20th and early 21st centuries he was distracted by music, both making it and running clubs and a record label.

  In about 2010 he remembered his love of writing. Since then his short stories have appeared in multiple anthologies. He currently lives in the English West Country, where he and his Ninja wife are raising an army of sons.

  Sighing and putting on her hot and itchy court wig, Justice Judge Judy James steeled herself for yet another day sitting in the stifling courtroom, listening to the dregs of society attempt to defend the heinous actions they perpetrated upon one another. A ten year veteran of The Old Bailey in London, she often nowadays found herself despairing more and more of her fellow human beings.

  Forty seven years old, Judy had been a high court judge for twenty of those years, working her way up the career ladder having spent six long years at Cambridge university, and then a further six high flying years as one of the finest prosecutors the country had ever seen. Working for the crown prosecution service, plus one year as an assistant district attorney, had seen her become one of the most respected women practicing law in the country, and perhaps even the world at that time.

  Many high profile and disturbing cases had been laid out for dissection in her courtroom. Many great young upcoming law practitioners had made impressions upon her, and one of those was a man she would once more see today.

  Jonathan Jester, nicknamed The Court Jester, was an amazingly accomplished defence lawyer. His clients were always high profile, and always very rich. Jester charged handsomely for his time and expertise, but in Judy’s experience of him it paid off. Only twice had she ever seen him lose a case, and both times as a result of his clients in-court stupidity rather than any ineptitude on his part. She respected him totally, but she certainly didn’t like him.

  Smug and partial to flaunting just how successful he was, he wound her up. From the fact he drove a beautiful, but rather loud penis extension in his Maclaren Mercedes—limited to only ten in the country—sports car, to other smaller irritations she had found in him, one of which was insistence out of the court room of referring to her as Judge Judy. Certainly over time she had become accustomed to being teased for sharing a name with the American TV judge Judith Shiendlin, her name being Judy and all, but most knew to stop when she turned her withering glare upon them. Jester had never stopped, and indeed seemed to revel in her ire.

  The case she was presiding over today was a heart breaking one and a little close to Judy’s own heart. An eight year old girl that had been a high profile misper (missing person) for three torturously long days, had been found carved up and her body pieces scattered around an old Victoria cemetery in North London. The case had been covered extensively by all the newspapers, tabloid and broadsheet alike, and the choosing of the jury had been a difficult matter, firstly finding somebody that hadn’t heard much about the case, or finding people that when questioned about their thoughts on such perpetrators did not give answers that showed they could not be classed as impartial. No, jury selection had been difficult, and Judy knew this particular case was going to be very hard for her.

  There was one reason, and one only, that prompted the young Judy to seek desperately to succeed in the field of criminal law, and to give it everything she had: she was doing it for Jamie. As a child Judy had a sister. Two years younger than herself and named Jamie-Ann, Judy had doted on the cherubic child that was her baby sister. The moment her mother brought Jamie home from the hospital Judy had adored her. Always wishing to help her mother do anything for the baby, the girls had become very close as they grew, with Judy fiercely protective of her sibling. However that changed one fateful day.

  The girls had been playing out in the back garden as usual, when they decided they wanted to build a fort. Having done so many times before, the girls’ mother kept some old blankets, sheets and pillows for exactly this purpose, and kept them stored in a box in the shed. But on this day, the fort-making items were not in their box as they had been taken in for washing after yesterday’s fort had fallen to enemy fire, and collapsed into the mud. Telling her sister to wait there, Judy pulled back with great effort the ever-stiffening bolt of the heavy garden gate, stepped up upon the gate itself to take a ride with it to its open position, and ducked indoors and upstairs to the laundry room.

  Down in the back garden, the young Jamie had thought what her sister had done on the big wooden gate looked like great fun, and as a slight breeze brought it back to its closed position, but not locked, the child ran along and jumped upon the gate, emulating the big sister she adored.

  What happened next nobody was ever certain of, but Jamie-Ann vanished.

  Judy struggled back down the stairs, trailing the fort sheets behind her, and the pile of linen in her arms obscuring her vision to begin with delayed her discovery of her sister’s disappearance. Calling for her sister to come start building, Judy had dropped her burden upon the concrete driveway and turned, expecting Jamie to be running towards her, but she wasn’t. Jamie would never run anywhere again. They found her body four days later in an old disused churchyard; she had been beaten and abused repeatedly, and they never located her missing head, and still had not until this day.

  Nobody had ever been prosecuted for Jamie-Ann’s rape, torture, murder and mutilation, but Judy still lived in hope every single day that one day, somehow justice would be served for the sister she always felt she let down. Having glanced over the charge sheet of the man accused today of another despicable child murder and defilement, her heart had skipped when she saw that, like Jaimie’s, Jessie Jones’s head had not been recovered, despite searches in every graveyard for miles around.

  For a few moments when the case landed in her inbox she had wondered if she should speak up and perhaps not preside over a case that could be classed as a little too close to home, but she had faith in her own ability to maintain an impartial mind set, and so had allowed it on the rota for her court room. Always as she prepared to turn the large ornate door handle that opened the door between her chambers and the courtroom proper, Judy would take several very deep breaths to prepare herself for what was coming. On this day she took several more, and then she stepped over the threshold into her raised Judge’s box, and the entire courtroom rose in respect to her.

  As Judy settled down into the familiar and worn leather covered seat, she glanced over at the box where the defendant sat between two rather beefy guards, and found herself staring briefly into a pair of eyes that emanated evil so strongly that a shiver ran down her spine. She hadn’t felt so unnerved from looking at a defendant in years. As if reading her thoughts, the defendant Joseph Jedidiah Judge, who she though rather aptly named, given the circumstances, curled his cruel mouth into a devilish smirk, raised his eyebrows, further
showing his piercing green eyes, and ran his tongue across his lips in a seductive manner. Looking quickly away she called the court to order and settled to hear the case.

  The details as laid out by the crown prosecution service were awful to hear. The service had given the case to one of their most accomplished and long standing prosecutors, a kindly man known as Jazz. His real name was Jazwygicit Jozygert, of Polish descent but English born. He was well respected but none attempted to call him by his real name for fear of pronunciation difficulties. Judy found it hard enough calling him Mr Jozygert, (sounds a little like yoghurt) in court, let alone attempting the even more difficult Christian name.

  Judy found herself calling recessions a little more often than usual, as the details of the child’s suffering were hard to hear for both public gallery and court to hear. Even Harvey, the elderly court clerk, was raising his bushy grey eyebrows and he had certainly heard many vile things over his years as clerk.

  The Crown was laying out the facts of its case. Jessie had vanished from a McDonald’s toilet in town. Her mother had allowed Jessie to just run in to use the toilet while she stayed outside with the pushchair containing her young twin sons. She had watched Jessie skip up the stairs to the toilets, but both boys had begun fussing, so she turned her attention to them. Having rearranged their sitting positions, and stopped their whinging, she had waited and waited and waited for her daughter to return. Her anger beginning to grow after ten minutes or so, she had struggled her way into the packed out McDonald’s to seek her errant daughter.

  She made her way to the stand where the sauces were kept, knowing how well Jessie loved to play with the plungers on the sauce bottles, but Jessie wasn’t there. Nor was she in the toilets, or indeed the building. Jessie had gone, vanished without a trace.

  The police had been swift to arrive in large numbers, bringing with them a trained family liaison officer. While of course they hoped the child had simply wandered off and was safe somewhere, they knew by experience that children of this age disappeared usually as a result of foul play, and the outcome was often bleak.