by Ian Woodhead
Harry dodged through the pieces of flesh and ran over to them. “The boy, he…” Harry looked at his damaged hand then sighed heavily. “It does not matter. Paul, we had better hurry.”
“I was almost there until I noticed you’d taken a diversion.” He smiled at the boy. “Are you okay, son?”
To Harry’s surprise, the boy smiled back.
“S’ok, it’s just past that last row of houses.” Paul took out his baton and gave it to the boy. “Here. Can you take care of this for me?” He held out his hand. The boy ran from Malc and took the constable’s hand.
“I take it you don’t have kids?” asked Dosser, smiling.
He shook his head. “Our children are kept deep underground. They are the future of humanity so they are more precious than anything else.” Harry walked past Dosser while wondering what happened to the ones he left behind. Were they safe now that the Goliaths and their vile familiars had crossed into this world?
“Harry, down here.”
He stopped beside a wooden fence. While being so preoccupied with his own thoughts, Harry hadn’t noticed that the others had gone. How could he be so negligent during a mission? There was no greater crime.
“Hey, don’t look so down in the mouth,” said Dosser. “They’re just down here. Come on. I’ll show you how to get down.” Dosser pushed his way through the wire fence then held it up so Harry could squeeze through. “We used to come down here all the time until one of the locals rang the police. Do you see the end house, number twelve. The black door?”
Harry nodded. He also saw numerous signs that the collectors had already been through here. He just hoped that these locals had taken precautions and hid. He remembered the old ones telling him that the familiars took just as many humans as they did when they first arrived. The familiars knew exactly where to look. Those vile creatures tore up floorboards, broke through wardrobe doors, and broke into cellars. He didn’t think this time would be much different.
“Mrs. Dyson used to live there. Lovely old bird she was too. Now, Mrs. Dyson didn’t mind some of us kipping down in the tunnels. We did nobody any harm. Hell, thanks to our presence, none of Brandale’s resident burglars ever came round here.” He began to climb down some old stone steps. “She had a daughter did Mrs. Dyson and that where the problem stemmed. See, this young thing had this habit of undressing right in front of her bedroom window.” Dosser coughed. “Some of the other guys hadn’t seen a young body, at least in the flesh for years and, well, I reckon you can slot in the rest of the jigsaw pieces for yourself.”
Harry nodded, astonished that the man could spout out such irrelevant rubbish at such inconvenient times. He did not comment, guessing that perhaps everyone else in this situation would have done the same. The old ones were similar in that aspect. To look back to a time when their lives were not so fraught with the fear of imminent death must give them an enormous amount of comfort.
“Tell me something, Dosser. Why did you send Callum and Gavin away?”
The man did not look so comfortable anymore. He obviously had not expected Harry to ask that question.
“Honestly?”
“That is usually the best way.”
“Don’t get me wrong, he’s a great kid and we love him, it’s just that… Well, he can be a little erratic and…”
“And you felt that if you had to look after him, you would not be able to commit to looking after yourself as well as your friend, Malc?”
“Yeah. Something like that,” replied Dosser. “Don’t you worry about your pal, Callum. Believe me, he’ll do alright.” He patted Harry on the shoulder. “Come on, we’d better catch up with the others.”
Before he could reply, Harry was thrown to the floor as the ground beneath him shook violently. He jumped back onto his feet and launched himself at Dosser, catching the old man before he fell down the rest of the steps.
“What the hell was that?” cried Dosser. “We don’t have earthquakes in England!”
Harry stayed silent. He had his suspicions; instead, he scanned the horizon. Harry stopped looking when he reached an area directly opposite where the apartment blocks once stood. Dosser had not seen it yet so Harry helpfully turned him around.
“Oh my God!” Dosser looked at Harry then down at the others who had climbed out of the sewer outlet. “We are so dead. One was bad enough but two? Harry, what chance do we have against two of the monsters?”
Harry tuned out the man’s understandable panicked cries; instead, he focused on the new creature. So far, he saw one huge limb reaching towards the sky it was easily as tall as any building still standing. It waved like a single stalk of grass in the gentle wind. A collective gasp broke the silence as another limp joined it followed by two more and finally another two. The body then slowly rose above the buildings.
“Look at the size of the thing. It’s even bigger than the other one,” murmured Paul. “It’s like a cross between a spider and an octopus.”
“No Goliath is alike. They are as different as snowflakes. It sickens me to know I was correct. No good can come of this.”
“Don’t speak too soon, Harry. Look!”
He followed the direction of Malc’s finger and saw four specks of light rushing towards them at high speed, just above the clouds.
Paul pulled Harry down the steps. “Come on, we need to get under cover!”
Harry followed the others into the sewer outlet while trying to keep an eye on those approaching blips. He remembered the old ones explaining aircraft to him back when he was young, and he found it so hard to believe that humans had built machines which flew through the air higher and faster than any familiar. Callum had tried to tell him exactly what these jet fighters could do, but it was just too much for him to take in.
In some aspects, Harry could understand why most of the humans in this world were so obsessed with such trivial rubbish. If they actually stopped and attempted to conceive how much their species had accomplished in the past century, their brains would probably overload.
“You’re going to see something spectacular now, Harry. Those buggers won’t just have your bog standard machine gun strapped to the cockpit.” Malc chuckled. “What do you reckon they are, Dosser?”
“Tornadoes, I guess. They have more of them than the F-35. They’ll be using those buggers in London and the other large cities.”
“I bet they’ll use a couple of Brimstone missiles. Believe me, Harry, pretty soon those two big bastards are about to be turned into burger meat. Once they are out of the way, the Army will either fry or shred all of their nasty little pets.”
Harry wished he could share their confidence, he really did, but bitter experience taught him long ago that only fools expected miracles. He slammed his hand over his mouth to stop himself when screaming when a large portion of the sky flashed a violent red. Harry blinked away the after-images and stared at where the flash had been. Seconds later, another flash of red lit up the sky. Two more red flashes lit up the sky coming from the opposite direction.
“What the hell is going on?” cried Paul. He ran over to the edge and stared straight forward just as what sounded like continuous thunder blasted out. “Oh no. Oh fuck. Please, this can’t be happening!” He spun around, his face as white as milk. “They’re still there. Your bloody Goliaths, Harry. They’re still in Brandale, carrying on as if nothing as if happened.”
“What?” Dosser joined him. “But we all saw the explosions!”
“Yeah, we did,” replied Paul. “Only all of our missiles smashed into some kind of invisible wall, an energy shield.”
Harry stood behind them and watched as the first Goliath slowly turned around. It was making its way back towards the centre of the town. The blips, those fighter jets, had already veered away. “They have adapted,” he murmured. “Improved upon their design.”
“How the hell can they have a bloody energy shield?” demanded Paul. “You said they were nothing but cows.”
“I do not know,” he re
plied truthfully. “I also do not know how they can travel from world to world and yet they still do this.”
Malc leaned against the tunnel and slowly slid to the floor. “What do we do now?”
“Nothing has changed,” said Harry. “We save as many people as we can and we fight.” He glared at every adult. “We fight until either they are dead or we are.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
The Right Hand of God had absolutely no desire to relive his nightmarish experience inside that enemy stronghold. Just the fact that he and the remaining constructs were able to journey back to the place where he once considered home to retell a condensed version of what he had undergone should be enough.
Judging from his recent despicable treatment, the evidence showed otherwise. The new arrivals, the deviants now holding him against his will, had demanded his total and complete surrender of mind and body. After his previous distress, the temptation to show these interlopers exactly who they were dealing with almost got the better of him. Only his base instinct to serve and protect his God stopped him from turning these eight pathetic creatures into flesh confetti.
He allowed them to shackle his now completely transformed body to the side of the house. Their thoughts were closed to his mind. All he could sense was the mind of his remaining construct. His last act before the hidden wire-vines snagged him just before he reached his home was to order her to run and hide in the woods. Copperfield could also sense his memory strand and it was as confused as him. It felt strange to have that remaining piece of the previous occupant as his only ally.
The only creature to vocally communicate with Copperfield, a slinking piece of pale pseudo-flesh which clung to its crystal bone body, had already told him that it intended to dump the contents of Copperfield’s Earth experiences onto a memory spool for later examination. It had also refused to answer any of his questions.
In retrospect, Copperfield really should have slowed his frantic journey back to the house. His God’s early arrival should have told him that something serious had happened in the time between transferring his conscious into that memory probe and discovering one of the new Gods had infiltrated their territory.
Their territory. How bitter those words sounded now. This lump of excrement acting like the lord of the manor was the lowest of the low. Back on the old world, its only job had been to clean the bottom of the empty flesh tanks in their meat factories. To think that something that he had made, put together from discarded pieces of foot-soldier and bone-dissolver, had the power of life and death over him made his teeth itch.
Could this have something to do with what he had found back in that warehouse? As unrealistic as it sounded, perhaps while he was gone, the new God really had found some way to convert his God’s creations to work for him. No, that was just too fanciful to take seriously. Even if that was the case, then surely Copperfield’s God would not be here at all!
He needed more information. Copperfield knew that would not happen while he was still attached to this wall. The excrement left the company of the foot-soldiers, walked up to him, checked the shackles were secure then ordered two of its companions into the house to collect several large containers.
The creature moved back a metre then lowered its body to the ground and wrapped its four flexible legs around its midriff.
No matter which direction he approached the enigma, he could not understand how such a low-status beast, an animal not even worthy of the term sentience, could be doing the task specifically designed for Copperfield. It sat there in front of him, looking like some anorexic toad, acting like the whole planet owed him a life, thinking it was the emperor of the castle. If he was capable of being sick, Copperfield would be on his third bucket by now. He then had to calm his nerves when he remembered exactly what those foot-soldiers in his house were looking for.
Its slimy mouth, solely designed for scraping away the build-up of dried organic stains from the bottom of those stinking vats, altered its shape. Copperfield would have laughed if this whole situation hadn’t been so tragic as well as fatal. This abomination was actually trying to smile, an expression it had obviously never tried to emulate until now.
“They talked in fear of you. The foot-soldiers, the ones which came to fill the tanks did. I am not sure of the others. I only heard about four or five of the same voices over and over. That was thanks to you. Yes, thanks to you, I saw nothing but the foul shit which I was forced to eat, day in day out.”
It adjusted its position.
“I heard them talk often. Oh, they knew I was in there and did not care. Why should they? Who was I to tell if their dialogue strayed close to blasphemy?” It lifted its head, that awkward smile still there. “Strange how when our glorious God gently lifted me out of my prison and deposited me on dry ground, I believed those foot-soldiers had decided to have me killed. Do you think that aspect of paranoid thought was a product of your conditioning? Not once did I wonder why the greatest being in the universe had demeaned itself to associate with something so worthless as me. I did not even ask that question when our glorious God dropped a living human child in front of me.”
The creature unwrapped its legs, stood up, and shouted something intelligible to the remaining foot-soldiers. They all left the front of the house and ran towards the main gate. “Do you see how they jump to my every command?”
It walked a little closer. As it approached, Copperfield attempted not to frown. This clearly was not the same creature that he designed.
Something, or perhaps himself, had lined its outer legs with cartilage. This had to be a recent addition as the stuff had time to harden. Surely, it could not have performed the improvements alone?
Copperfield could not scrape away the image of how those foot-soldiers shivered and bowed around this piece of excrement. They lacked the knowledge, skill, and steadiness to do it, that’s for sure. The closer it got, the more Copperfield saw how it had changed. Everything from the subtle additions of armour plate down its chest, to the enlarged spine growth down the middle of its back. The sight of those things released quite a few millilitres of chemicals into Copperfield’s system. This was no self-improvement treatment. Nor had any of the gibbering idiots serving as its muscle had anything to do with it either.
What are the buckets for?
He ordered the memory strand to shut its imaginary gob. The last thing Copperfield needed at this juncture was that annoying fly distracting him. The excrement was almost nose to nose and at this perspective, he now saw the larger brain-casing at the rear. Oh fuck. It really was telling the truth! The bastard thing really had been touched by their glorious God.
“I see you’re admiring my new look.”
Its proboscis attempted another smile and failed. Not that it mattered to Copperfield. He just wasn’t capable of becoming more terrified. It wasn’t because this walking collection of discarded body parts was trying to act like the cock of the manor. Copperfield’s reign truly had come to an end. He now was the secondary option, the walking collection of discarded body parts. His God had decided for whatever reason, Copperfield was superfluous to requirements.
Tell me what the buckets are for!
Copperfield should not feel the way he did. It was not his place to question the will of his God. If his glorious God wished to throw him onto the rubbish heap, then that would be the outcome. They were nothing but insignificant fleas in the eyes of their glorious God.
“We are going to take this new world, just as we have taken the countless worlds before it.”
It then had the audacity to actually touch Copperfield. The excrement started to stroke his nose while continuing to practice the smile. It was beginning to get the hang of it.
“Of course, you’re not going to see it happen.” It paused. “Perhaps you will, in a sense. You really do possess a remarkable set of eyes. I think I might have those after we have retrieved the required information.” The bastard then flicked the tip of my nose. “So, it is not all bad news, my friend.”<
br />
Copperfield sensed that the memory strand was going to try one more attempt to reach him. He gave this vile creature the dirtiest glare he could muster, a look that once would have sent any other minion scuttling into a dark corner.
The containers are to hold my liquefied flesh. It’s how this thing will extract the information it needs. It is going to take each container and slurp the contents through that mouth and literally taste my memories. It will know everything that I know and, I ought the mention, everything you know as well.
My God! Don’t you think you should do something about it?
Oh, you think?
Now that the excrement had finished playing with him, it retreated to its prior position. Copperfield’s existence was about to close. He heard distant explosions and saw the shape of one of the Gods close to the horizon. It was a sad state of affairs to finally understand that his sense of importance had been a big sham. The Gods will go on without him. Copperfield wouldn’t even be a footnote in the history of their species. The specks of dust floating in the air had more importance than him. That piece of excrement looking like the maid who’d just stolen a cream cake had more importance than him. Right now, it had. At least it did understand what it meant to be the lowest of the low.
Look, are you going to continue feeling sorry for yourself or are you going to get us out of here? I don’t know about you, but I’m not too partial to becoming blood soup for anybody. Come on, soldier. Do something!
Copperfield heard the house doors opening. It appeared that the foot-soldiers were returning with whatever they could find. It didn’t shock him to find they had raided the kitchen. The lead foot-soldier carried the washing-up bowl and the largest pan in the house. Another foot-soldier joined him. That one carried a colander. During his reign as the Right Hand of God, no foot-soldier would ever make such a stupid mistake. Perhaps the excrement’s grip on the muscle was not as firm as he previously believed.
