Kaiju Winter: An End Of The World Thriller

by Jake Bible

  Then the tongue comes at him and he barely has time to think before it slams down an inch from his body. The smell coming off the tongue is like nothing Bolton has ever experienced. He’s seen death pits, warehouses filled with corpses, entire villages set afire, their inhabitants left like charcoal briquettes. He can recall each and every smell from those experiences and they pale in comparison to the rotted, sulfuric carrion stench of the monster’s tongue.

  The blue thing whips back and Bolton notices the pavement bubbling slightly where it came in contact with the tongue. The smell, the bubbling pavement, and then Lowell screaming at him to run are what pull him back from the brink of madness.

  No time to worry about the impossibility of the monster that towers over him; time only to fight.

  Bolton opens fire, aiming up at the creature’s head, aiming for the mouth of many teeth. Bullets ping and whine as they bounce off of the teeth, and the surrounding lips, seeming to do absolutely no damage.

  “Shit,” Bolton says as he dives, rolls and comes up on one knee, barely dodging another tongue strike.

  He continues to fire, but the bullets don’t penetrate the monster’s tough hide, they just ricochet everywhere, causing Bolton to quickly rethink his strategy. The tongue comes at him once more and he leaps out of the way, his back slamming into one of the diesel pumps. He ducks down as the tongue whips past, ripping the pump in half. Fuel spills everywhere as the hose is torn free and the diesel left in it from the last use leaks out onto the pavement.

  Bolton barely has time to get up and run as the tongue whips back at him. Part of it catches him in the shoulder, sending him spinning to the ground in a painful lump. He cries out in pain as his coat starts to smolder and he barely gets it off before the material at that spot is nothing but a smoking mess, smelling of sulfur and bile.

  “Fuck me,” Bolton says as he scrambles backwards on his hands and feet, his eyes locked onto the monster that towers over him. He waits for the next strike, but the creature stops, its head turning back to the pumps.

  The tongue flies down and cracks open another pump, this time staying there, the tip flicking back and forth like an angry cat’s tail. Bolton can see the diesel glistening on the blue end and he wonders what the hell the monster could want with that fuel.

  Then the tongue is sucked back into the creature’s mouth and it seems to stand stock still for a few seconds before rushing forward so fast that Bolton is almost unsure if the thing actually moved or teleported to the pumps. It digs at the pavement, ripping the pumps from their moorings, as it tries to claw its way to the fuel lines below.

  “Come on,” Lowell hisses, having moved back to the building. He looks out at Bolton from the corner and waves. “Get your ass up.”

  Bolton doesn’t have to be told twice as he scrambles to his feet and crouch runs to Lowell.

  “I don’t think this is the exit we want to stop at,” Lowell says. “Do you?”

  “Let’s get the kids and go,” Bolton says, his eyes drawn to the monster as it cracks open more and more pavement, quickly working its way over to the spot where the massive diesel tanks are buried.

  “The kids? Fuck them,” Lowell says. “They made their choice, they can stay. We need to go.”

  “I’m not leaving,” Bolton says. “They’re only kids!”

  There’s an ululating roar as the monster’s tongue breaks through the steel tanks and into the diesel reserves. It lowers the front half of its body to the ground and begins to drink up the fuel, its tongue changing shape so it is broader and able to scoop the diesel into its mouth like a dog.

  “Not something you see everyday,” Lowell says.

  “Hold on,” Bolton says and rushes back into the building.

  He looks over at the kids that haven’t moved, but doesn’t bother with them. Instead, he jumps and slides across the front counter and begins searching next to the racks and racks of cigarettes.

  “Here we go,” he smiles as he grabs a bottle of lighter fluid.

  He yanks a pack of lighters from next to the register then slides back over the counter and starts searching the aisles. It takes him a couple of seconds that he knows he can’t afford, but he finally finds the small housewares section. He grabs up a dishtowel, rips it into strips, and starts to soak a strip with lighter fluid. Then he snags an unbroken bottle of soda, pops the top, dumps the contents, and fills it with the remainder of the lighter fluid.

  “Want to see something cool?’ Bolton smiles as he stuffs the fluid soaked strip into the bottle and rips open the pack of lighters. Most of them fall to the ground, but Bolton is able to catch one and he shakes it at the kids. “Come on. After this, you won’t be able to stay here anyway.”

  The kids slowly get up and follow Bolton out of the store. Lowell is standing outside, his mouth open as he watches the monster continue to drink up the diesel. Then he sees Bolton, and what the man is holding, and a huge smile spreads across his face.

  “Now we’re talking,” Lowell says.

  “That fucker is full of diesel,” Bolton says. “I think it’s about to give him an upset tummy.”

  “Lame,” the boy behind them says.

  “Not a fan of the one liners? Oh, well,” Lowell shrugs and looks at Bolton. “You just gonna chuck it at the thing?”

  “I figure that’s the best thing to do,” Bolton says. “Once I throw this, we’ll want to start running. Fast.”

  “Yeah, I guessed that,” Lowell says. He looks at the kids. “Hope you guys aren’t going to start playing possum again, because anything even close to this place is about to become extra crispy.”

  Lowell reaches out and grabs the first girl’s arm and pulls at her as he backs away from Bolton.

  “Nice knowing ya, dude,” Lowell says, then yanks hard on the girl’s arm, tugging the kids along with him.

  Bolton takes a deep breath, gagging a little on the fumes of the lighter fluid and diesel that fill the air, and then sprints forward as he places the lighter against the rag. Once he’s about twenty yards from the monster, he flicks the lighter and the flame ignites the rag.

  Without hesitation, Bolton cocks his arm back and tosses the impromptu Molotov cocktail right at the thing’s head. The bottle shatters and flaming lighter fluid joins the diesel, instantly setting the monster, the ground, and the tanks below on fire. Bolton turns and runs as fast as he possibly can, knowing that the boom is about to be big.

  He isn’t disappointed when the there’s a huge WHUMP and suddenly his breath is sucked from his lungs and it feels like he’s being picked up by a giant hand made of air and thrown across the road. He hits the side of a wrecked minivan and crashes to the ground, his ears ringing and eyes filling with spots.

  “Hey!” Lowell shouts, his face suddenly pressed close to Bolton’s “You okay?”

  Bolton shakes his head and looks about. The world is full of fire as fuel tank after fuel tank erupts, ripping the truck stop apart from below. He reaches up and Lowell helps him to his feet as they watch fifty foot flames lick the sky. Thick, black smoke is everywhere, making it impossible to see anything other than fire.

  Then the explosions stop and Bolton looks over and smiles at the three kids as they once more huddle close to each other.

  “Not bad, eh?” Bolton nods. “Come on, let’s get you guys back with our-”

  His voice is cut off as an angry screech nearly shatters everyone’s eardrums. Bolton looks back towards the truck stop and gulps as he watches the smoke part, revealing a fire covered monster.

  “No fucking way,” Lowell says. “That didn’t kill it?”

  The monster screeches once more, then belches, sending flames shooting right towards them all. Lowell dives one way while Bolton dives on top of the kids, covering them from the heat. He can feel his hair burn and he pats at himself as he rolls off the kids and yanks them to their feet.

  “Go! Gogogo!” Bolton screams at them as he shoves them towards the woods that stand back behind a windowless Burge
r King. “RUN!”

  The kids don’t hesitate and sprint towards the trees as Bolton unslings his carbine, grateful it hadn’t fallen off when he was thrown across the street. He takes a knee and fires at the monster, aiming for the pitch black eyes, hoping to blind the thing. But it does nothing except let the beast zero in on his location.

  The tongue whips out and Bolton instinctively throws his carbine out in front of him to block the attack. The M-4 is pulled from his grasp and Bolton falls back on his ass, stunned as he watches the monster suck the carbine inside its mouth and swallow.

  “Bolton!” Lowell yells from the woods, the kids nowhere to be seen. “Dude!”

  Bolton scrambles to his feet and hurries over to the cover of the trees, not even close to kidding himself that the overgrown sticks can stop the creature if it decides to pursue.

  “I think there’s another one,” Lowell exclaims as he points off down the road towards a far off shape.

  “We have to get back and warn the others,” Bolton says.

  “Fuck that!” Lowell snaps. “We need to hide! There’s no way we can stay out in the open with those things!”

  “What the fuck are they?” Bolton asks, not expecting an answer.

  “Who fucking cares?” Lowell says. “They’re big and they don’t fucking die!”

  Just as the words leave his mouth the monster rushes towards them then stumbles and stops. Its mouth opens all the way and it leans forward as it hacks and spews glowing green bile from its throat.

  “Jesus fuck,” Lowell says.

  The monster stumbles again and this time, its front legs go out from under it as it pukes up more bile. The liquid splatters to the ground, but doesn’t stay liquid for long. Right before Bolton and Lowell’s eyes, the bile turns from green to grey and hardens on the pavement, looking like a weird mix of foam and plastic.

  Then the monster collapses to the ground and lets out a high keening wail, forcing Bolton and Lowell to cover their ears. But even with the creature only a few yards away, the two men don’t run; they are transfixed by what’s happening in front of them.

  “Holy shit,” Bolton says as the monster’s sides burst open and more of the grey gunk comes spilling out, slowly spreading across the ground until it thickens completely and stops.

  “What the hell did that?” Bolton asks.

  “I don’t know,” Lowell says.

  The ground shakes and several howls and screeches cause the men to look down the road as more than one shape starts to appear from the thick smoke, headed right towards them.

  “I think its friends know it’s down,” Bolton says. “We better go.”

  “No shit,” Lowell says as he turns and runs deeper into the woods, not hesitating at all to see if Bolton is behind him or not.

  ***

  “Approaching the drop site,” the pilot states, his eyes watching the readings on the screens and gauges in front of him due to the complete lack of visibility in the ash cloud. “Deploy on my mark.”

  He flips up two red toggles, and then pulls down a lever. A siren sounds in the cockpit, but he ignores it as the rear hatch of the specialized plane opens far behind him. His hand hovers over a second set of toggles.

  “In three, two, one,” the pilot says and then flips six toggles, hesitating a second between each.

  Behind him in the cargo bay, six massive crates fall from the plane, one after the other. They tumble through the air, followed quickly by eighteen more crates as three other planes deploy their payload. The planes, their jobs completed, pull up and accelerate out of the ash cloud, leaving the crates to fall towards the ground.

  The planes are nearly free of the ash when the first creature attacks. It comes at a plane from above and wraps its massive wings about the machine, sending them both plummeting to the ground. The monster waits until they are out of the ash before it lets go, but not before its claws rip the engines right off the wings, sending the plane spinning out of control and down to the earth.

  Pilots start shouting as they are set upon, but it makes no difference. In seconds, there isn’t an aircraft left flying and the monsters return to hide in the ash far above the Earth.

  Tumbling end over end, but ignored by the creatures, the crates fall thousands of feet before huge parachutes are released, set to deploy by automatic timers and altitude sensors. A third of the crates get tangled in their parachute lines and continue to rocket towards the surface of the earth, while the rest level out and float their way to their intended coordinates.

  Or try to. The air currents are brutal as the crates leave the ash cloud and are sent this way and that. Some of the parachutes become so coated with the thick, volcanic ash that they start to lose their effectiveness, sending the crates falling much faster than intended, while others are buffeted about by the thermals and then sent flying across the sky.

  The result is a random descent of crates across nearly a thousand square mile area.

  One crate, its parachute intact and in working order, drifts along at a steady rate until it slams into the tops of several fir trees. The parachute lines are torn from their clips and the crate falls quickly, slamming into the ground of a mostly uprooted forest. As soon as it settles on the ground, small hatches on every side snap open and spring loaded antennas pop up, each transmitting a signal that only specific receivers can pick up.

  ***

  “Twelve of the eighteen crates are transmitting,” a tech announces as a map fills the main monitor in the situation room.

  “They have a good spread,” General Azoul says, studying the red dots on the maps indicating the location of each crate. “If we have any men in the area, and their CLDs are in working order, then they should be able to zero in on the coordinates.”

  “Those are a lot of assumptions there,” President Nance says. “The timer starts now. If we hear nothing in twelve hours, I’m sending in the bombers. Are we understood?”

  “Twelve hours is not much time,” General Azoul says. “You have to give our men a chance to get to the crates.”

  “That twelve hours gives those beasts time to spread out across our country!” President Nance shouts. “You saw the video feeds from the jet fighters! How much ground can things that size cover? They’ll move faster than your men will, that’s for sure. Twelve hours and we say goodbye to that region of the United States. This isn’t up for debate, people. Twelve hours.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Of course, Mr. President.”

  “It’s your call to make, Mr. President,” General Azoul says. “But I have faith in our men on the ground. If they are alive, they’ll find a crate.”

  “You had better pray that is true, General,” President Nance frowns as he studies the map and the many red dots that flash the locations of the crates.

  Seven

  Linder awakes to the light of a flickering candle on an upturned bucket a few feet from him. The candle is only a couple of inches tall, but even that small amount of illumination sends daggers of pain through his head.

  “Looky here,” a man says. “The Fed has decided to open his beady little eyes.”

  “Are you the one that assaulted me?” Linder asks as he braves the light of the candle and looks about the space he’s in; all he sees is darkness.

  “That would be me,” the man says, seated a few feet in front of the chair Linder is tied to. “Gil Courtney is my name, Agent Linder. You can call me Gil.”

  “You know who I am?” Linder asks. He can tell by the way their voices echo that they are inside a very large space.

  “Found your badge, Mr. F-B-I,” Gil drawls. “It looks real enough, which brings me to the question of why you were about to brain a teenage boy? The kid is good sized, so self-defense I can understand, but that’s not what we walked up on, was it?”

  “Where is he?” Linder asks. The taste of blood is heavy on his tongue and he turns and spits, sending the bloody phlegm splatting to the ground, which he recognizes as concrete. But not any conc
rete- concrete that isn’t cracked and broken.

  “The boy? He’s safe,” Gil says. “A real all around tough guy, that one. We save his ass from you and he still puts up a fight. Kid won’t even give us his name.”

  “It’s Kyle,” Linder says. “You can call him Kyle.”

  Gil smiles at Linder and nods. “This isn’t no hostage situation, Agent Linder.”

  “Just Linder,” Linder says.

  “Well, Linder, I know my protocols too,” Gil says. “Make sure your captors know your name. It humanizes you and makes it harder for them to kill you. Am I right?”

  “Something like that,” Linder says. “Where is he? Where’s my son?”

  “Ah, now it’s interesting you bring that up,” Gil says as he stands and walks closer to Linder, dragging his chair with him.

  The scraping noise digs into Linder’s head and he involuntarily winces, which causes Gil to smile wider. The man stops almost exactly three feet from Linder, flips the chair about, then takes a seat, his arms folded over the back.

  “The one question that kid will answer is whether or not you’re his daddy,” Gil says. “And he’s pretty damn insistent that you are not.”

  “He’s mistaken,” Linder says. “That boy is of my flesh and blood.”

  Gil watches Linder for a couple seconds before he shakes his head. “You are all kinds of contradictions, Agent Linder. You sound worried about the kid, but were ready to kill him only a couple hours ago.”

  “A couple of hours?” Linder asks. “How long have I been down here?”

  “A couple of hours,” Gil smirks. “It’s implied. Where was I? Right, your contradictions. So, worried about the kid, want to kill the kid. You’re a Fed, but act more like a criminal. You sound all official, but then that tone changes and you start to sound like a preacher man I knew back outside Missoula, God rest his soul.”