Kaiju Inferno (Kaiju Winter Book 3)

by Jake Bible

  “Probably,” Terrie says. “But I was probably dead and you found me.”

  “Biscuit found you,” Krissy replies and looks back over her shoulder at the far end of the tunnel. “And we don’t have him with us.”

  “Getting him up and out of here would be a problem since neither of us are in the greatest shape,” Terrie says. “And he needs his rest. The tangle he had with that monster hurt him more than he’s letting on. I know my Biscuit and he’s probably got a couple broken ribs, some torn ligaments and a sprained something, for sure.”

  “A sprained something?” Krissy snorts.

  “Not a vet, girl,” Terrie replies, spinning the wheel on the hatch. She yanks it open and hobbles back out of the way. Once open, she slowly peers outside. “Dark again. We’ve been down here a lot longer than it feels.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Krissy says. “Because it feels like forever.”

  Terrie doesn’t reply, just walks out into the hole that is now several feet shallower than before.

  “Looks like the monster tried to dig down at us,” Terrie says, nodding to the edge of the hole that is only a foot above her chin instead of several feet. “Cleared things out for us. I’ll give you a boost up and then you can help me.”

  “I’ll give you a boost up,” Krissy counters. “You have the bad ankle. You won’t hold my weight.”

  Terrie starts to argue, but realizes Krissy is right. A step towards the edge on her ankle proves that quickly.

  “Fine,” Terrie says, taking the coiled rope from around Krissy’s shoulder and tucking her head and arm into it. “I’ll get up there and secure this then you can climb out.”

  “I can reach the edge,” Krissy says. “I can climb out fine on my own. It’s my face that’s fucked, not my legs and arms.”

  After a few grunting attempts, Krissy manages to boost Terrie up out of the hole. The older woman rests for a minute, keeping all the weight off her bad ankle. She looks down and Krissy is sizing up the side of the hole, looking for the best purchase.

  “Here,” Terrie says as she limps over to a thick, fallen tree and ties one end of the rope around it. She limps back and tosses the other in at Krissy. “It’ll just be easier.”

  Terrie can see the defiance on the girl’s face and waits for the refusal. But Krissy surprises her by grabbing the rope and walking herself up out of the hole. Without being asked to, she begins coiling the rope until she’s at the fallen tree. She unties the end, coils that, and slings the rope over her shoulder and chest, snug against her shotgun.

  “Ready?” Krissy asks, finding a nice-sized walking stick and handing it to Terrie.

  “Ready,” Terrie says, taking the stick gratefully. “I would say we go further into the island. The wave will have pushed them that way like it did to us.”

  “Sounds good,” Krissy says. She looks around with wide eyes, her head twitching this way and that at every noise.

  Terrie grins and pats Krissy on the shoulder. “Relax,” she says. “If anything comes for us, we’ll have plenty of time to hear it.”

  “The big ones, yeah,” Krissy says. “But what about those ooze things? Haven’t seen those in a while.”

  “We’ll be fine,” Terrie says, but glances up into the darkening sky, remembering the monsters that had dropped the ooze eggs, melting and turning things into more terrible creations.

  ***

  “Fuck, man,” Bolton hisses at Holt. “They are everywhere.”

  Hours of riding and the two men are exhausted, forced to climb onto what is left of a supermarket roof. It is a defensible position from the ooze creatures that swarm out in the broken streets outside the town of Glenns Ferry, Idaho. The two men made good time, keeping to smaller highways and back roads that seemed to survive the planetary upheaval that has destroyed most of the area.

  Holt tracks a large group of ooze creatures with his night vision goggles, many of the things looking like they were once cows or elk in their previous incarnations. He flips his goggles up onto his helmet and nods at Bolton, no words of agreement needed.

  The two men slowly, quietly scoot away from the crumbling edge of the building to a small hide they made out of sheet metal and broken wooden pallets. They slide inside and Bolton pulls out a plastic-coated map. He turns on a small flashlight, shielding the light with his fingers, only allowing enough out so they can see their route and destination.

  “Here,” Bolton says. “We’ve come a long way in a couple of days.”

  “My legs are very aware of that,” Holt sighs. “We need to find water soon or we’re going to be a pile of cramps.”

  “True,” Bolton says. “It looks like there is a nice string of small towns from here to the Utah border. We’ll keep checking for supplies along the way. You have salt tablets?”

  Holt pats a pocket in his gear vest.

  “Good,” Bolton says. “We conserve the water we have and make sure we take our salt.”

  “Thoughts on getting past the mutant Disney Light Parade down there?” Holt asks.

  “You sound like Lowell sometimes,” Bolton smirks. “But that was a good one.”

  “Anything to keep from screaming,” Holt replies.

  “There are a couple of roads that lead away from this town,” Bolton says, tapping at the map. “The ooze things seem to like whatever road that is out there. We’ll take this one, cut around here, and then get back on course. We’ll lose about an hour, but it’s better than dealing with those things.”

  A far off roar and shudder make them both freeze. They look up from the map and out of their hide, Bolton twisting the flashlight off immediately. There’s another roar, but this time from a different direction. The building shakes for a second then settles after several ominous creaks and groans.

  “First was a diesel,” Bolton whispers. “Second was bigger.”

  “You sure?” Holt asks. “Maybe it’s just closer.”

  “Nope,” Bolton says. “They have different roars. That second was one of the big ones.”

  Holt chuckles quietly and shakes his head. “The big ones. Like the diesels are the size of a poodle.”

  “The diesels feed on the ooze things, we know that,” Bolton says. “And I’m pretty sure the big ones feed on the diesels. We stay out of their way and they’ll take care of each other.”

  “Who takes care of the big ones?” Holt asks.

  “We do,” Bolton replies. “Once we get down to Colorado and complete our mission. With any luck, the bases will still have personnel and all we’ll have to do is relay orders.”

  “Bummer,” Holt says. “I was hoping to fly some laser drones and slice and dice the bastards myself.”

  “Could still happen,” Bolton says. He folds the map and tucks it away then looks out of the hide at the thickening darkness. “Sleep or ride?”

  “We may not have a better place to sleep,” Holt says. “I say we catch some shut eye, just an hour or two, then we ride. We’re getting good at reading the road with the NVGs.”

  “True,” Bolton says, stretching out with his head propped against his pack. “Two hours tops and we hit the road.”

  Holt gives him a thumbs up and is already closing his eyes. Bolton closes his eyes as well, making a mental note to wake up in two hours. Most people would fall asleep and keep sleeping, but years and years of training will make sure that Bolton wakes up at the right time. Odds are he’ll wake up in an hour then fall back asleep for another hour until time to go.

  Unfortunately, he doesn’t get that chance.

  The building shudders violently and several roars fill the air.

  Bolton and Holt sit up and grab their packs, moving out of the hide and towards the side of the building where they left their bikes and had climbed up. Both pause at the edge to survey the area, their NVGs turning the dark night into a glowing green landscape.

  “There,” Bolton whispers, pointing to the northeast. “Diesels.”

  “They have something on their asses,” Holt
says.

  Obscured by distance and ashy fog, one of the big monsters stomps its way after the herd of diesels, closing quickly on the smaller monsters that only stand 75 feet tall instead of a few hundred feet.

  Bolton takes one last look then quickly climbs down, uncovering the bikes they’d hidden under a pile of trash. He waits for Holt then hands the other man his bike once he’s down on ground. They both stare out at the line of ooze monsters trudging along in the street, turn their bikes the opposite direction, and quickly pedal off through the remnants of the demolished strip mall the supermarket anchored.

  Past a burned out Starbucks, past a Subway, a discount cell phone store, an e-cigarette emporium, Bolton and Holt ride as fast as they can, hoping to put some space between them and the oncoming herd of diesels. There’s nothing they can do about the bigger monsters, so neither of them even consider that thing a factor.

  They cross a dried-up creek bed then come out into a small residential neighborhood. A few ooze creatures wander about, either mutated residents or stragglers that got split off from the main group. Bolton hears them hiss and swears under his breath. He has no idea how the things communicate, so he prays they can’t alert the others to his and Holt’s position.

  “Left,” Holt grunts. “Next street.”

  They turn left, heading for the back highway that will skirt the rest of the town and keep them from running into the ooze creatures. More roars, closer, tell them they don’t have much time before the diesels are close enough to spot them. Bolton has no doubt that if the diesels catch up they’ll come for them fast and it’ll be all over in a chomp. Despite their earlier successes fighting the things, Bolton knows that fatigue has severely cut their survival odds.

  Down a side street, over to another, and then around a crater that was once an intersection and the two men are biking onto a two lane highway. The asphalt is buckled, like all the roads, but not nearly as bad as the main road. They hop chunks of pavement, swerve around deep potholes, and keep pedaling, their legs pumping and pumping without relief or rest in sight for a long time.

  A thundering roar nearly knocks them from their bikes as they pass the vestiges of an elementary school. Bolton looks over his shoulder to see the bigger monster closing on the town, its body towering high into the air, its arms reaching down, down, down until it snatches up a diesel and twists it in half, jamming one half in its massive, snaggle-toothed mouth, chomping for a second then jamming the other half in.

  The herd of diesels’ roars turns to screeches of fear and terror, a strange thing to hear from beasts that stand taller than three stories.

  Holt cries out and Bolton looks forward again in time to dodge a pickup truck that lies on its side, half of its bed crushed as if stomped. Bolton doesn’t doubt that it was stomped. Once around the pickup, Bolton squeezes the brakes, sliding his bike to the side before he topples into the chasm before them.

  Holt reaches him and they look one direction then the next.

  “Some weird fault line,” Holt says. “It runs forever in both directions.”

  “Can we jump it?” Bolton asks.

  “On the bikes?” Holt chuckles. “Maybe when I was seventeen, full of stupid and light beer. Not happening now.”

  “Then which way?” Bolton asks.

  The diesels screech and screech as a roar shakes the earth. The chomping of a second diesel is easy to hear and Bolton and Holt don’t even turn around to look. They focus on their problem at hand.

  “It’s only twenty feet across,” Holt says. “We can crawl that.”

  “There,” Bolton says, spying a fallen telephone pole. “Stand that up and then let it fall. If we’re lucky it’ll stay put.”

  “Yay,” Holt says.

  They hurry to the telephone pole and slowly lift up one end, walking it upright until they have it precariously balanced. It is a shifting dance of shuffle and move, shuffle and move, to get the pole over to the edge of the chasm. They line it up with what they think is the most stable part of the opposite side then let go, both hurrying out of the way in case the pole kicks out.

  It doesn’t. The pole lands with a thunk in the muck on the other side of the chasm, wedging itself in tightly between two hunks of pavement. Bolton checks the stability of their end and nods at Holt. Both men pull ropes from their packs and each tie an end to their bikes. They set the bikes close to the edge then tie the other ends to their belts.

  “Probably going to fuck these up when we pull them over,” Bolton says.

  “We’ll try not to,” Holt says.

  Packs and equipment secured, the men waste no time shimmying across the chasm, one at a time. On the opposite side, Bolton reels in his rope, walking along the edge of the chasm so the rope loops and hangs over the pole. Once he has the right angle, he pulls until his bike falls off the far edge, swinging out into the open air. Carefully he pulls on the rope, spooling it around his hand and triceps. The bike moves along easily until the rope gets caught on a large splinter sticking up from the pole.

  “Shit,” Bolton says.

  “I got it,” Holt says, taking his pack off and setting it down before crawling back out onto the pole.

  He gets to the rope, unsnags it, then starts crawling back.

  Just as the huge monster roars and begins to stomp on the diesel herd. The monsters are only half a mile away and the force of the giant beast’s feet sends the pole bouncing up and down. Holt starts to grab onto the pole, but the far end bounces loose and he is suddenly in a free fall.

  “The rope!” Bolton yells.

  Holt reaches out, grabs the rope falling away from him and then loops his arm around it a few times before he is lost from Bolton’s sight. Bolton digs his heels into the ash and muck, ready for the impact. When Holt’s weight snaps the rope taught, Bolton is nearly yanked off his feet, but he manages to stay upright. His boots slide a meter until he can jam the heels into a crack in the road.

  “Holt!” he shouts.

  “Yeah!” Holt yells back from below. “You got me?”

  “Barely!” Bolton shouts. “Let me tie this off! Don’t move!”

  “Fuck you!” Holt calls back.

  Bolton slowly walks backwards, mindful of each step on the uneven, slick ground. He makes it to a downed oak tree and wraps the rope around and under, around and under, until it snaps tight. He rushes back to the edge of the chasm and looks down. Holt is several feet below, the bike dangling under him.

  “Climb on up,” Bolton says. “It’s secure.”

  “Can’t,” Holt replies. He nods at his right arm where he looped the rope. “Shoulder is dislocated. Popped right out. I’d pop it back in, but the walls of this hole are too soft.”

  “Fine,” Bolton says. “Cut the bike free and I’ll pull you up.”

  “We’ll have to find you a new one,” Holt says.

  Bolton points at Holt’s bike that still lies on the far side of the chasm.

  “We’ll be shopping for both of us,” Bolton says. “Got a blade?”

  Holt snorts and pulls a knife from a pocket in his fatigues then flicks out the blade. He reaches down, wincing in pain as his dislocated shoulder shifts. It takes him a minute to slice through the rope, but he gets it and Bolton’s bike falls loose, lost in the darkness below. It’s about thirty seconds before they hear it hit bottom.

  “Shit,” Holt says. “Deep.”

  “Come on,” Bolton says and starts pulling Holt up.

  When Holt is finally at the edge, Bolton grabs onto him and hauls him out in one enormous yank. Holt’s face is white, almost glowing in the dark night, from the pain in his shoulder.

  “Gonna hurt,” Bolton says, standing and grabbing Holt’s wrist. “One, two, three.”

  He pulls and twists and the shoulder pops back into place. Holt gasps and lies there for a few seconds before offering his other hand. Bolton yanks him to his feet and they stand there looking at each other.

  “Nice trick going on three,” Holt says. “No one ever g
oes on three.”

  “Exactly,” Bolton says.

  The ground shakes again and they watch as the huge monster stuffs its mouth full of diesel bodies, chomping hard enough to send hunks and chunks of the smaller monsters flying this way and that. One chunk lands only a few meters from them.

  Bolton grabs up Holt’s pack and hands it to him. The man straps it on, his eyes narrowed as his shoulder protests. They take off at a jog.

  They make it only a couple blocks before they realize they aren’t even close to out of the shit. Heading right at them, scurrying from a side street, is the parade of ooze monsters, all fleeing the stomping, chomping huge monster that has devoured the herd of diesels and is now looking for dessert.

  “Fuck me,” Holt sighs.

  The ooze creatures aren’t fast, but they have enough of a lead that they will obviously cut off the two men in seconds. Bolton makes a split second decision and pulls two grenades from his vest. He yanks out the pins with his teeth and tosses the grenades right in front of the ooze creatures, grabbing Holt by the pack and pulling him out of the street towards a leaning convenience store.

  The grenades go off as they reach the glassless front doors and dive inside. Bits of asphalt and globs of mud spray the convenience store, but neither of the men get hit by the shrapnel. Bolton instantly gets to his feet, helping Holt up, and starts to rush outside, but slides to a stop as he sees the massive legs obscuring the night’s sky.

  “Oh, fuck,” he says as the ground and everything around them shakes so violently they are knocked off their feet.

  All the two men can do is scurry back on their asses, trying to get farther into the convenience store as the massive legs get closer and closer. Everything collapses around them and the last thing Bolton sees is a giant claw reaching down and grabbing up a stray ooze monster like it’s a bug being snatched by a toddler.

  Then the roof comes tumbling down and Bolton’s world goes dark.

  ***

  VanderVoort holds her forehead with one hand while she rubs her belly with the other. Her eyes are locked on the monitor that shows the torn apart corpse of the French monster. The Yellowstone beast is busy scooping out guts and cramming them into its mouth, swallowing without even chewing.