Kaiju Rift

by Ian Woodhead

  Callum hurried over to the stack of pallets and began to climb while wondering how long it would be before Gavin told her to shut her pie hole. He carefully navigated around the protruding screws and wood splinters as he climbed. Callum reached the last pallet and rolled on the top. He then stood up and leapt onto the flat roof.

  He hoped that the elevation would help Callum locate evidence of Harry, Malc, and Dosser’s passing. Callum knew that none of them would still be under the flyover, not with all this happening.

  Callum wasn’t totally sure what Dosser and Malc would have done. If he was them, he’d have probably found somewhere to bed down, to stay out of the way of the walking nightmares which Harry so gleefully described. The fellow from the other world wouldn’t have done any such thing though. Not him, not a chance.

  Nothing moved down there, not even signs of the enemy. Callum sat on the edge of the building. He had spent the past several years trying to void the memories of the war from his head. Since his wife kicked him out of the house, Callum had tried every narcotic and pharmaceutical product he could get his hands on. Nothing had numbed him enough or wiped away the horrors that he’d witnessed and participated. Some of the shit he’d taken had even exacerbated those painful memories, made him relive them, over and over. In the end, Callum had gone cold turkey, believing time alone would eventually sort him out. Callum’s heels banged against the top of a window. If he whacked the glass hard enough, he might even be able to break the glass. There was bound to be something worth swiping in there.

  That idle thought brought a smile to his face. Here he was, in the middle of another worldly invasion, and still believing that nothing had changed. The truth of the matter was they were all like him, on the edge of buildings. Unlike Callum, every person clung to the edge by the tips of their fingers.

  “We’re all going to die,” he whispered.

  To think that he had done his best to run away from the hurt only for it to crash back into his life. Callum believed that there could be a joke in there somewhere, if he looked hard enough.

  He really did want to smash the window by his feet.

  “Do you mind if I sit up here with you?”

  Callum bit his bottom lip to stop himself from shouting out. He shuffled away from the edge, turned around and glowered at Gavin. “What the hell are you doing up here? I thought you were supposed to be keeping an eye on the woman.”

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you, man. To be honest, I kinda thought you had heard me. It’s not like I sneaked up on you or anything.” He moved closer to the edge and looked over. “Jesus. It’s a long way down there.” Gavin jumped back. “So, have you seen anything?”

  The boy stood directly in front of Callum’s face looking like some annoying brat, asking his dad if the steam trains were ever going to show up. Right at that moment, he so wanted to punch him hard enough to turn his face into a question mark. At the back of his mind, Callum kinda knew that the fury he now felt wasn’t strictly all Gavin’s fault. The anger stemmed from his frustration of not having the balls to face up to the simple fact that he should have at least attempted to piece his existence together, just after leaving the forces, if not just for his sanity but for the sake of the woman who once loved him. It was difficult to accept that he’d ruined his fucking life.

  “Go on, man. Go back to her. Just give me another few minutes, Gavin.”

  “Do I have to? Come on, can’t I stay up here with you? She’s proper doing my head in. The old bag won’t stop banging on about how everyone she works with can’t do their job right. I’m telling you, she has some serious problems.”

  Callum grabbed the boy’s shoulders and squeezed hard enough for Gavin to let out a sharp yelp. “Listen to me,” he growled. “The poor dear is in deep shock. She’s doing everything she can to hold onto the familiar and comfortable. The woman’s gone through what is possibly the most traumatic event of her life. Right now, she needs a sounding board and until I say otherwise, that is you. Now do as you’re told and get back down there.”

  “Fair enough, I guess you’re the boss. There is this girl who works with her, she’s called Shelly Crabtree. I’m sure I know that name. The old bag doesn’t exactly paint her in bright colours but still, she does sound nice. Maybe she knows where the girl lives? She seems to know everything else about her.”

  “Are you done yet?”

  “Yeah, sorry.”

  He sat back down in his old spot and continued to scan the deserted streets, looking for any sign of movement. Callum vaguely wondered if Mrs. Howden recognised him. It’s not like she hadn’t seen him before. Jessica Howden lived a few doors from the off-licence over on Alpine Street. The woman had already told the two of them in no uncertain terms that their task right now was to escort her home, to make sure that her burly son and handsome but strong husband were there.

  The woman had no husband or son; she lived alone in a tiny two bedroom terrace house. Callum knew because she’d passed him numerous times on her way to buy her lotto scratch cards. She did this every Tuesday morning at nine in the morning without fail. Callum wasn’t joking when he told Gavin that the woman lived for her strict daily routine. She had even dropped a pound coin into his hands the one time she won more than a tenner.

  The normal people, the ones who lived in little houses and spent most of their time obsessing over their fellow workers, usually went out of their way to avoid people like him. Thanks to the dust plumes and the recent lack of care about their appearance, the normals all now looked pretty much identical to Callum and his fellow walking companions. Perhaps this was the reason why she hadn’t put two and two together.

  His pondering came to a sudden halt when he spotted movement below. Callum rolled away from the edge and got on his front, without taking his eyes from the spectacle now moving out of a side street on into the main road leading into the town.

  “What is this?”

  Callum had to blink a couple of times just to make sure he wasn’t seeing things. It didn’t matter that he’d already witnessed the ease in which these monstrous invaders would warp, squeeze, bend, and distort living tissue and transform it into anything they desired. Watching another completely different batch of melted freaks turn into the middle of the road still made Callum want to cross himself. They progressed along the road, keeping in three lines.

  Were the ones on the outer edge protecting the ones in the middle? Judging by the layers of corrugated bone plates running down their flanks and the five curved horns jutting out of their faces, it seemed like a reasonable assumption. Were they some weird biological equivalent to heavy tanks? If that was the case, just what exactly were they protecting?

  He squinted his eyes. Unlike the other things, the ones in the middle were harder to work out. From this distance, they looked like little old men, carrying half-full paddling pools on their backs. “You bloody idiot,” he whispered when he remembered a little more of the account that Harry told them all last night.

  The soldier told them the Goliaths relied upon the creatures they had designed to help protect them and to bring them food. That’s exactly what this was. A food convoy. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that those sickly yellow flesh sacs were not full of tomato soup. God, he’d give his right arm for his old rifle around about now. Okay, perhaps his right leg. He would be able to fire his rifle with only one bloody arm.

  The two leading living tanks jumped forward then bunched up. The other tanks all stopped too. They all turned outwards and their bodies stretched up and bent over the creatures they were protecting. Had something spooked them? Callum risked lifting his head to gain a better view. He couldn’t see anyone around, but he did hear a brief shout coming from behind Brandale’s old newspaper print building.

  Two shots rang out.

  “Shit,” he gasped, flinging himself back against the flat roof. Those two gunshots signalled the start of what sounded like a full-scale riot. It annoyed the hell out of him that he couldn’t se
e what was going on, but he dared not risk it. If it were tooled-up civilians down there, then there’s no telling where all their bullets were flying.

  Callum stayed close to the roof surface and crawled back to the pallets. He peered over the edge and saw his two companions flattened against the wall. As expected, Mrs. Howden wasn’t saying a word. He decided he liked her best like this.

  They were alone down there, but Callum didn’t think their apparent solitude would stay like that for much longer. This unexpected onrush of people, filling the streets with small arms fire, would doubtless end in misery. He hoped the invaders would be the losing side, his wish no doubt shared by the other humans, but Callum had been in many a battle and knew a lost cause when he saw one.

  He hadn’t heard the invaders respond with weapons fire of their own, but he knew it wouldn’t be long in coming. Harry’s mysterious rifle had already proven to Callum that these invaders could fight back. What hope did any of the good people of Brandale have against anything like a fleshmelta?

  If he didn’t find some way of pulling them back, every single one of them would be dead. Callum climbed down, his stomach seizing up when beneath the noise of the gunfire, he picked out his first human scream. His prediction was coming true. There’d be no sound of enemy gunfire. Harry had already told them all that every weapon used by the Goliaths and their ilk made no noise. The only evidence he’d know that they were fighting back would be the screaming voices becoming fewer and fewer.

  “You two, get up on the roof and stay there until I get back and make sure you keep your heads down.”

  Mrs. Howden looked at the pallets, glanced at Gavin then returned to glare at Callum. “No. I am not going up there. I’ll end up with splinters in my fingers. Not to mention that it doesn’t look very safe.”

  She planted her hands on her hips. The pose suited her. Callum guessed she did that a lot when the woman decided to get her own way.

  “What’s going on, Callum? Who’s shooting who, man?”

  He grabbed the woman’s shoulders and pushed his face up against hers. “You would be dead right now if my associate and I hadn’t saved you. Those creatures were about to tear off your skin, Jessica Howden.” She flinched when he casually dropped her first name into his dialogue. “Well, guess what! They’re back, loads of them, and they’re heading this way.” He released the woman then pushed her towards the stack of pallets. “Your choice, Mrs. Howden. Stay here and die or climb and live.” He spun around and stalked off.

  “Where are you going?” shouted Gavin.

  “To save more people,” he shouted back, if there were any of them left alive. Callum ran alongside the building, aware that for each scream he heard possibly meant that the invaders had claimed yet another victim.

  It didn’t escape his attention that he was heading straight into a fire zone without a weapon. Callum might as well paint a big bullseye on his face. He skidded to a halt when he reached the corner of the building and dropped into a crouch. The screams were now getting few and far between.

  He looked around the bricks. Several men and woman were still alive. Most of them were cowering behind a red Ford Mondeo. Two young men were still out in the middle of the street, crying and swearing while dragging a young blonde-haired woman along the floor and back to where their friends were hiding.

  Callum saw nobody else left alive, just evidence of their passing. A dozen pools of steaming scarlet slop were all that was left of the people who’d gone up against these nightmarish creatures. The first line, consisting of twelve armoured living tanks, all moved in unison, pivoting their bodies a couple of degrees to the left. Now that he was at ground level and a good deal closer to these things, he now understood better why anyone not armed with anything smaller than a Browning M2 50 cal. would stand any chance of harming these monsters. There were a few pistols scattered around the road. He saw a couple of hunting rifles and even, what looked like an air pistol. Christ. What the fuck were these idiots playing at?

  Thick bone-like plates covered their stubby legs, chest area, arms, and head. Only the gun mount, situated in the middle, appeared to lack any serious protection. Appearances could be deceptive. Harry had told him that these things had been on their world for a hundred years, so they would have had plenty of time and experience to work out any kinks.

  From the mess they had made with eliminating any threat to their charges, Callum assumed that those organic cannons must belch out a corrosive fluid, something which ate through almost anything it touched. His theory received added weight when he noticed two melted side windows on a green van parked on the opposite side of the road. The closer he looked, the more he discovered that somebody must have hidden behind that van. A single boot with the limb still inside leaned against the front tyre. The fluid must have gone straight through the glass before landing on the unfortunate bugger who’d decided to take shelter behind it.

  The monsters shifted a couple more degrees to the right. Oh shit, they were tracking the people still left out in the open! He raced out from behind the building, picked up one of the dropped weapons, and threw it straight at the armoured line. “Move it!” he shouted. “Get her out of the way.” He paled when only five of them swivelled towards his position. All the others guns were still trained on the group to his left. Callum ran straight at them, just as a terrible high-pitched whine filled the air. Before he reached the group, several monsters jerked backwards a couple of inches before a narrow jet of pale orange fluid spurted out of their cannons. The acid-like substance washed over all three individuals, reducing them into puddles of lumpy goo in less than a second.

  Another terrible high-pitched whine followed. Callum screamed himself. He raced towards the other survivors, jumping over the remains of the people he was trying to save, and dived into the group huddled behind that car. Callum landed hard. He gritted his teeth in pain when he felt something in his hand crack.

  “Who the hell are you?” growled a deep male voice.

  Callum looked at the speaker, a gorilla wearing a ripped sports top, black jeans, and scruffy beard, caked in dried blood. He ignored the gentleman’s polite request to introduce himself and got onto his knees and gazed through the car windows. The monsters were pivoting again; this time, he just knew that they would fire in this direction.

  He stood up, keeping his head below the car roof. “Come with me if you want to live.”

  “Fuck off, tramp!” replied the gorilla. “Yeah, that’s right, I’ve figured out who you are now. I’ve seen you in town, searching through the bins and…”

  Callum didn’t even bother to stick around to listen to any more of his crap. He picked up the smallest member of the group, a young boy aged around eight, and raced back towards where his left Gavin and the woman.

  A dog was the next one to follow him, then two more people. After a couple more seconds, another man ran after them. Callum reached the safety of the brick wall and put the boy down, hoping he wouldn’t try to run back to the car. He sighed in relief when he saw the boy was more concerned with fussing over the dog than running over to that car.

  None of the others had followed them over. Why could they not see that they weren’t safe behind that car? Or was it more to do with the gorilla ordering them to stay put? “Come on!” he yelled. “Hurry up while there’s still time.” Only their time had just come to an end.

  That horrible whine filled the air yet again. “Cover the boy’s eyes. I don’t want him to see this!”

  Unlike the last time, there was screaming. Lots of screaming. The monsters fired off their volleys of corrosive liquid which, as he expected, turned those car windows into thick, clear glutinous slime. Some of the glass fell inside the vehicle but most of it liberally coated the people crouched behind the car. He watched the gorilla throw himself backwards and roll across the ground, both hands frantically beating against his skin. Two more stumbled out from behind the car and attempted to run towards Callum only for the monsters to fire again. Thankful
ly, their screaming ended the moment that orange fluid engulfed their bodies.

  He slammed his palm over his mouth and nose in a vain attempt to stop the acrid stench coming from their dissolving bodies. Callum blinked away tears and wanted to turn away or at least close his eyes, but the shock of witnessing this slaughter wouldn’t allow him to do either.

  Three were left alive. Two teenage girls had escaped the worst damage. They must have moved back, away, towards the rear of the car just before those windows melted and showered their companions with the corrosive mixture. They were huddled together, their eyes fixed on the remaining man. His rolling had moved his body away from the car and out in the open. That whining assaulted his ears one more time, and moments later, two of those armoured tanks put the gorilla out of his misery.

  Callum stood up and tried to leave the safety of the building only for the two men to drag him back. “Let go of me!” he growled. “I can still save them.”

  The younger man slammed his body into Callum’s chest. “Don’t be an idiot,” he replied. “They’re both dead already. You can’t save them.”

  He stopped struggling when he noticed movement behind the girls. Two more living tanks had moved away from the column they were protecting and were now just a couple of metres away from them. The girls finally took their eyes off the remains of that last man and slowly turned around. The men pulled Callum further back, just as the whining filled the air again. He didn’t hear either of them scream out.

  “Thanks for saving us,” said the girl. She pulled him out of the hands of the men and brought him closer. “Here, let me have a look at that hand. Looks like you’ve badly bruised it, but I don’t think you’ve broken anything.” She smiled up at him. “I’m Emily, by the way.”

  He nodded back. “Callum,” he replied.

  “I’m Raymond,” said the younger man. “The old fella is called Ben and the dog’s called Diesel. We don’t have a clue what the kid’s called. He hasn’t said anything since we found him.”