Kaiju Rift

by Ian Woodhead

  He felt like coughing to announce his presence, or how about smashing the bat on the counter, or his head? His next victim continued to make that God-awful noise while he bent down to grab another pile. What was wrong with the guy? Did the man not realise how badly out of tune he was? Breaking the fucker’s teeth would be a blessing, at least for future individuals who could inadvertently have to listen to such racket.

  Patrick grabbed a cheap toy from the shelf next to him and took it out of the box. He had to stifle a snigger when he found himself gazing at another elephant. Patrick dropped that on the floor. The whistling ceased and the man looked up from his work, and judging from the startled rabbit eyes, Custer obviously saw his immediate future involved getting twatted by Patrick’s cricket bat.

  The man let out a mouse-like squeak then jumped up and ran up to a white-panelled door, just behind him. In his panic and rush to get away, Custer pushed instead of pulling which brought the latch down.

  As amusing as this was, Patrick didn’t have the time to laugh at the man’s terror. He needed to get home have something to eat before putting his plan for Sky into motion. There was also the issue with his car. He’d have to get that sorted out today as well, figuring he had mourned long enough for his old love of his life.

  Patrick approached the counter, still grinning at the silly man’s attempt to get away. This fool really was having a bloody seizure. Was Patrick really so frightening?

  Raymond Custer spun around. Patrick honestly expected him to start begging for his life there and then; his words probably packed with a truck-full of apologies too. When the man did open his gob, Custer’s words shocked him rigid.

  “Don’t just stand and stare, you gormless idiot!” he yelled. “Kill the bloody thing.”

  “What?”

  Custer moaned. He picked up his knife, looked at it then dropped it back on the spilled pile of newspapers then grabbed a handful of chocolate bars and threw them in Patrick’s general direction.

  It’s only when he jumped to the side to avoid the chocolate when he discovered that he and Custer weren’t the only things moving inside the shop.

  Three pieces of what looked like badly cut steaks had flopped into the shop. They moved erratically, shifting from a caterpillar crawl to a fish out of water flop. Whichever motion they chose, it didn’t stop them from getting closer to his feet. He grabbed a tin of beans from the shelf next to him and threw it. Unlike Custer, his throw rang true and as soon as it hit, Patrick realised just how much danger the pair of them were in.

  Dozens of thin, grey spines burst out from both sides. Patrick took a step back, trying not to panic while this thing slowly curled around the tin. Somewhere at the back of his mind, he heard that old guy’s voice from all those BBC nature documentaries start to give Patrick a running narrative of what it was about to do. Oh Christ, another three more of the things had just flopped into the shop!

  Patrick silently told the old guy to fuck off, as well as that mental image of an insect caught in a Venus fly trap when the thing’s spines punched through that metal can. A moment later, the spines slid back out and shrunk back into the thing’s grey flesh. The can rolled towards him, stopping about an inch from his foot. Cold bean juice, mixed with a pale cream fluid, ran out of the holes and where the cream liquid touched the tiles, it left a tiny smoking crater behind.

  “You have got to be fucking kidding me,” Patrick whispered.

  “Come on, man, help me get this door open!”

  He took his eyes away from the punctured bean can, glancing at the moving pieces of meat which now seemed to be all moving towards the counter before he took out the dishcloth from his back pocket. Once again, events had transpired which had made his life so much more complicated. Patrick screwed up the dishcloth and shoved it back into his back pocket. He closed his eyes, counted to three, and silently told whoever was pulling his strings to sort this shit out and put everything back to how it should be.

  Predictably, when he opened his eyes, nothing had changed, except for Custer was now climbing on the counter, while threatening all those disembodied bits of meat with his stupid knife.

  Patrick growled softly. This was so much bollocks. He raised the bat high, considered swinging the business end into Custer’s side then, at the last moment, changed his mind. He slammed it into the slap of meat that had previously murdered the bean tin. “Yeah, thought you wouldn’t like that, you freaky son of a bitch,” he snarled when he heard a wet-like pop as soon as his trusty bat made contact with the thing on the floor.

  He grinned at Custer, hoping that his bestial expression would frighten him enough to jump into that writhing mass of meat now directly under the counter. It would save Patrick the trouble of punishing the goon.

  “Kill another one!” Custer yelled triumphantly. The man’s noise quickly turned to panicked yelling when they all began to climb up the front of the counter.

  The way for Patrick to leave through the front door had just become his best option. These things showed no interest in sticking their spines into his flesh. He could simply leave Custer to his fate, go have his bacon sandwich, and carry on with the rest of the day, secure in the knowledge that this clown would never bother his wife ever again.

  He swung the bat into the only thing which hadn’t started to climb up the counter. It flew across the air and crashed into a box of cheese- and onion-flavoured crispy snax at the back of the shop. His sudden intervention made the remaining five pieces pause. They all extended their spines.

  “Okay, which one of you dirty bastards is next?”

  “Patrick, get back around here!” shouted Custer. “I’ve seen movies. What’s betting they can shoot those grey needles like sodding crossbow bolts?”

  Taking advice from the very man he had intended to hospitalise felt like the biggest joke on the planet, but considering the bizarre circumstances, it had now become an option, especially since another one had just flopped into the shop. The new arrival, just like its companions, had already pushed out its thin spines. Patrick roared out like a wounded bear, furious at his inability to control this situation. He swung the bat into another one and cried out in disbelief when its spines punched through the wood like a hot spoon going through ice cream. He cracked the bat against the shelves. Bits of creature, combs, paperclips, and hair bobbles sprayed the shop’s revolving paperback stand, but his violent action did nothing to stop the thing from slivering down the bat, closer to Patrick’s hands.

  “Fuck you, Custer!” he yelled. He refused to take advice from anybody who used to piss his pants in secondary school just to get out of doing games. He also refused to be beaten by anything which looked like a hedgehog that had been run over by a bus.

  Patrick heard a whistling noise and gasped when he felt his bat become a fraction heavier. Jesus on a stick! These things could jump! One of the things on the front of the counter had just landed on the end of his bat which, by now, had begun to liquefy, turning into something which resembled paper maché.

  He had no other choice but to drop the bat and run around the back of the counter. Patrick snatched the knife out of Custer’s hand, resisting the urge to push the blade into the side of the man’s neck before hurling his body on top of the floppy invaders, and ran up to the other door.

  Unlike the shaking popsicle who panicked at the sight of a single wasp, he was not fazed by a little latch on the top of the door. Patrick popped it off, pushed the door inwards, and grabbed Custer’s shirt who had taken up his cowering position beside Patrick’s legs. He pushed him inside and followed the man, managing to shut the door before four of them climbed over the counter’s edge and leapt towards them.

  “Oh God, oh God!” Custer collapsed on the stair, a few feet from where Patrick stood. He looked up from staring at the thin buff carpet and the terrified man’s gaze found him. “What the hell are those things? I’ve never seen anything like that?”

  “Apart from in movies?” The door started to bow out and take on a
spongy look. It now looked like chipboard left out in the pissing-down rain. Patrick had the urge to touch the door just to see if his observations were valid, until he remembered what that pork chop with an attitude had done to his beloved cricket bat.

  He could press Custer against the wood, just as an experiment, mind. It did sound like a good idea. For a start, it would stop the clown’s continuous whining. Honestly, Custer now sounded like his kids when they were younger pulling a paddy because he wouldn’t give them ice cream.

  “What are we going to do now, Patrick? Oh please, tell me you have an idea?”

  Yeah, he’d go for that idea. Push the whinging cockwomble into the door, wait for the meat bits to turn him into Custer custard then fuck off back home, and he was buggered if he was going to ring for the busies. Not a chance was he going to be pulled any further into this quagmire.

  Patrick moved away from the door and tuned out Custer’s continuous annoying whine while peering down the hallway, looking for the other door. Would it be locked? The chances would be high. This guy wouldn’t leave his private gaffe unsecured. Patrick spotted a top of the range Sony TV attached to the wall. No, the door would be locked and bolted. Patrick also had a top of the range TV attached to his living room wall but unlike this clown, he didn’t pay top dollar for the second love of Tracy’s life.

  He stopped directly in front of Custer and grinned again. He wanted his demonic smile to be the last thing this sad excuse for a man was before turning into slop. Amazingly, Raymond Custer, the man who once stole Patrick’s bike back when they were both ten years old, smiled back up at him. Patrick balled up his huge fists then paused.

  Standing at the top of the steps and gazing down at the pair of them was a medium-sized black dog. He attempted to relax when the bloody thing began to growl. Fuck, he hated dogs almost as much as he hated cats.

  “Diesel!” shouted Custer. “Hush that noise, Patrick is a friend.”

  Oh Christ, did this knobhead really think that? He glanced back at the door. Shit, his moment to end all this had just passed. A mouse hole now showed through the bottom of the door and the surrounding wood bent out like hot toffee. He tapped Custer on the shoulder. “We go now. Get your arse into your grotty living room and open your other door, you know, before we both get eaten by the fucking tenderloin!”

  Custer glanced up the stairs then back at Patrick. “What about the dog? I can’t leave him up there.”

  “Fuck Diesel,” he snarled. “Move it!”

  At the sound of his name, the dog padded down the stairs and growled at Patrick before giving Custer’s hand a crafty lick. Diesel’s hackles then lifted. He raced forward and snapped at the thing trying to squeeze through the small hole, the dog’s jaws bit it into two pieces.

  “Come back here, Diesel!” shouted Custer. “Get away from that stuff.”

  Patrick savagely pushed the man through the door and into the living room. “What part of leave your dog do you not understand?” Custer actually looked like he was about to strike him! Patrick put paid to any of that nonsense by giving him a backhand across his cheeks. He so wanted to punch him, but he knew that if he started, Patrick wouldn’t be able to stop, meaning he’d die too.

  Custer flinched when Patrick grabbed his shoulders. That was a good sign. It meant balance had been restored and from the amount of noise that dog was making, Custer’s dog had covered their backs, which made him feel a little more at ease. The owner’s dog was a million times braver than the owner almost and it brought a smile to his face.

  By some miracle, Custer got the door unlocked. The man turned around. He pushed past Patrick and started to pat his knees.

  “Come on, Diesel, there’s a good boy. Come to Daddy!”

  Once again, Patrick grabbed the man and threw Custer in front of him. He pushed the man forward when he tried to get past Patrick. “Leave him, you idiot. Your dog is saving your miserable life.” He clamped his hand around Custer’s wrist and dragged the protesting man out of the yard and into the alleyway behind the shop, hoping that those things wouldn’t do in this fool’s dog before he got to safety.

  “Where are you taking me, Patrick?”

  He ignored Custer’s noise, pulled him out of the alley, around the side of the shop and across the road. Patrick couldn’t believe this; where was everybody? Brandale should be waking up by now, yet he saw no vehicles or any people, not even a dog walker. He could still hear one though. That dog of Custer’s was making a fair old racket. That dog had respect, unlike this little turd. He pulled the man over to his gate.

  “Where are you taking me, for crying out loud? Get your hand off my wrist, Patrick. I haven’t done anything to you!” Just for that second, a red mist fell like a blood curtain over his eyes. Custer must have finally realised the threat to his continued existence no longer lay in the spines of a bunch of disembodied lumps of muscle but in the hands of the gorilla holding his wrist in a vice-like grip. At least, that’s what Patrick believed until Custer pushed his body into Patrick’s chest and pointed towards the big man’s house.

  Several meat things were crawling up the side of the house, all heading for his open bedroom window. “Oh fuck, no, not this!” Patrick released Custer and ran into the house, through the kitchen, and up the stairs.

  His daughter’s bedroom door opened. Emily peered out. “What the hell are you doing?” she asked while rubbing sleep out of her eyes.

  “Stay there!” he commanded. “Just don’t fucking move an inch.” Patrick ran past her and burst through his bedroom door only to find several of them had already found their way through the window. Two pieces of meat had attacked his wife while she slept. Hot tears ran down his cheeks and his guts rolled over. Patrick spun around. He slammed the door and ran over to Emily.

  “What is it, Dad? What the fuck is going on? Where’s mum?” She tried to pull away from his embrace. “Mum!” she yelled. “Are you okay?”

  As she fought, Patrick spotted more movement below him. “No, this cannot be happening!”

  Patrick grabbed the girl’s head and forced her to lean over the edge of the bannister. “Look, Emily. They’re all coming up here to murder us. Now, are you going to stop with the struggling?” He didn’t wait for an answer; instead, he pushed her back into her bedroom and over to the door.

  Diesel and his cowardly owner were both in the middle of their lawn. Patrick heard them reaching the bedroom door at the same time as opening the window as wide as he could. “Emily, go on, out you go.”

  “Fuck off, Dad,” she screamed. “I’m not jumping out of my bedroom window. Have you lost your mind?” She ran back over to the door. “I want my mum!”

  He pulled her away but not before she had opened the door a crack. Before Patrick could close it, one of those pieces of flesh slid inside and rolled under the bed. He slammed it shut, grabbed his daughter, and forced her back over to the window.

  “Listen to me, you silly little girl.” He pushed his face right up to hers. “Your mum is dead. Those things stuck needles into her face which dissolved her head. Unless you want to end up like that, you need to jump. Come on, the ground is soft, you won’t hurt yourself as long as you bend your legs before you land.”

  Patrick noticed the meat thing had emerged from under the bed. He grabbed the closest object which turned out to be Jessica, Emily’s favourite Barbie doll, and chucked it towards the thing. He sighed with relief when Emily climbed out, hung from her hands then dropped. He ran over and started to do the same just as the piece of meat leapt from the side of the bed and landed on Patrick’s chest. He screamed out and tried to pull it off, only for those spines to burst out of the thing and into his body.

  Seconds before the agony crashed into him and he lost consciousness, the man noticed something weird on the creature’s back. It had a tattoo of a green eagle consuming a snake. The same tattoo which he paid for his son to have when the lad reached his eighteenth birthday.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Captain Thomas
Copperfield shook with fury, unable to wrap the sections of the mind he controlled over his latest discovery. Even the two constructs had stopped their bickering, both acutely aware that any untoward noise or movement could result in their immediate termination. He walked along the perimeter of the trans-portal gateway into which his God would cross, still holding the offensive object which one of the constructs brought to him just three minutes ago.

  Such was his fury, he could not even remember which one had brought it to him. All the captain could remember was the construct running up to him on all fours with something red in its mouth. It stopped in front of his feet, sat on the grass, opened its mouth, and dropped the object onto his clean shoes. It obviously expected him to throw it, like a rubber ball or a fucking stick. The construct received a sharp kick while he bent down to examine exactly what he’d been gifted.

  Had he howled when its identity revealed itself? The captain could not remember that either. Not that it mattered. His obstructive memory strand then joyfully told him that he pissed his pants and cried like a big blubbering baby. The captain soon stilled those gloats by casually informing it that his now transformed wife once had an affair with his brother.

  The captain finally reached the last corner of the now complete trans-portal, gave the two constructs another withering glare then hurried over to a dry stone wall. He placed the object on the top while wondering exactly how to proceed. He jabbed it in the middle with his index finger and jumped back, startled when both ends produced a grouping of grey needles. The captain had not expected that to happen.

  This had to be the work of one of the new Gods. Only they possessed the arrogance to assume that plans which had worked perfectly for millennia could be flawed. Only they believed that uncontrolled accelerated evolution could improve the outcome of the invasion. His memory strand would no doubt call them fuckheads who had gotten too big for their boots and so needed their arse kicking. For once, he agreed with this assessment and sooner rather than later.