Kaiju Apocalypse (18 page)

Curri's mother had managed to get her out only to die three years later of an infection caused after she had cut her foot on a rock. She had ignored the cut, even though Curri had insisted that she treat it. Something, though, had taken the fight out of her mother, who seemed lackluster in her efforts at keeping the clan alive. Despite their best healer’s treatment, the fever took her mother from the clan.

Her mother had been a strong woman and taken over leadership of their tribe when her father perished. Losing her mother was simply too much for some of the less militaristic members of the clan. The clan split apart to go their separate paths in smaller groups.  Thankfully, her mother’s legacy was powerful enough, and over two dozen of the surviving military members of the clan had stayed with Curri, looking to her for hope and leadership. According to her makeshift calendar, that had been well over a decade before, though she had no idea just how accurate it was. Nobody could know for certain, though the general consensus among them was that her count was close enough.

The harshness of her life was evident. Her hands were callused, skin bruised and pale from lack of sunshine. She was rail-thin from lack of a proper diet and the difficulties of finding food safely. A lingering cough tickled her lungs and throat, remnants of the nasty bug, which had nearly killed her seven months before. Even so, she possessed an iron will and was both agile and strong. One had to be if one were going to keep breathing, keep surviving. 

Curri remembered well her father's tales of the great cities like Pacifica, Altantica, and Lemura, though she had never seen them herself. They were gone now, like so much else from the world of the past. Ruined piles of rubble were all that remained of them all, mostly reclaimed by the seas when the Day of the Burning Sky had occurred. Her father
had
seen them while they were in their prime, filled with thousands of survivors and people. He had been a soldier during the last days of Lemura and fought in one of the last great battles upon its shores. He had been the steady rock when the city had fallen, when the Dog Kaiju had come to finish off the last remnants of humanity. It had been he who had led them under the city and out of it through secret tunnels known only to the military and the ruling elite. The majority of those who had left the tribe after her mother’s death considered him a traitor, and said that he should have stayed and fought to the bitter end. The former military who had stayed behind, who were now what was left of her clan, knew better and told her so. They stayed away from the breakaway clan these days, content with their own ability to survive. She did find herself wondering if there were others like her out there, survivors. She desperately wanted to meet someone new.

Something splashed in the waters below her, tearing her away from her thoughts and back into the real world. Her keen eyes honed in on the fish struggling to free itself from the tiny pool of water in which it had become trapped. She smiled as she raised her spear. Her stomach gurgled hungrily as well-honed muscles pulled the spear in her hand back. She aimed one final time before she hurled it with all her strength.

She knew that her aim was true even before the spear struck the fish. It broke the surface of the water, impaling the fish perfectly. Dark red blood spilled out of the large fish and tainted the small pool. She hurried over to where the impaled fish lay. She knew she had to hurry and that time was short. The smell of blood, more often than not, drew a pack of Dog Kaiju into the area. She needed to be long gone before the creatures arrived. Curri couldn't risk them following her up the rocks and to her home in the caves in the jagged cliffs high above.

Curri knelt and picked up the dead fish and identified the predator almost instantly. She was pleased that it was a barracuda, though she had not seen one in a long time. The previous week’s storm must have pushed them further in towards the land, she decided. She ran the spear completely through the barracuda to avoid damaging the meat of the large fish, her nimble hands working quickly. She pulled her large satchel off from her shoulder and carefully placed the fish inside. After a quick check to ensure that, the teeth of the dead fish could not damage the satchel, she shouldered the bag and grabbed her spear. She checked the barbed head and was satisfied that she had not damaged the precious instrument.

The sound of something sharp scraping against rock drew her undivided attention. The spear twirled in her hands as she pivoted on the balls of her feet, the point of the hunting tool pointing towards the sound. She dropped into a crouch as a small, dark shape emerged from behind a large rock. Her eyes narrowed as she recognized the juvenile Dog Kaiju as it began sniffing the air. Eyes locked onto her, and she snarled softly as the juvenile Kaiju hissed at her.

She recognized the tensing of the Kaiju’s muscles just before he leapt at her. She pirouetted out of the way, the hunting spear twirling in her hands as the juvenile landed clumsily upon the jagged, uneven rock where she had been standing seconds before. The tip of the spear lashed out four times in rapid succession, each thrust cutting deeply into the Dog Kaiju’s vulnerable front tendons. Off balance and lacking the strength to keep the weight on its legs, the juvenile fell onto the rocks, its mouth clacking shut violently as it crashed.

Curri was already moving again, skipping from one boulder to the next, as she moved into position behind the Dog Kaiju. Her balance was perfect. Her senses were honed from years of hardscrabble and the specter of death looming over her people on a daily basis. Another twist and she was behind the Dog Kaiju, balanced carefully atop a large flat rock. She found the vulnerable spot at the base of the young Kaiju’s skull, and with a surety born of practice, drove the point home.

Her strike was perfect. The hindbrain of the Kaiju was located just above the end of the beast’s spinal column in an area unprotected by the primary skull, where there were no arteries. Her spear tip, made from the same material which had once been used to create the armor of the Dogkiller suits of a people she could not identify with, severed the hindbrain from the primary. Every muscle in the juvenile’s body spasmed and locked into place as paralysis spread throughout the creature. She managed to yank the spear back just before it would pierce the pulmonary artery of the Kaiju. Therefore, little blood splashed onto the rocks as the juvenile fell under her spear.

She looked around for any sign of another Dog Kaiju. She knew that the juveniles often acted as lone scouts to seek out and find any food source, and then passed along the news through a complicated tri-chambered olfactory gland in their throat. Every once in a while, however, a few juveniles would gather together and form their own pack. These packs were a danger to a lone hunter such as herself, because they often moved quieter and swifter than a pack filled with older, heavier Kaiju.

Curri was fortunate, this time. No other Dog Kaiju could be seen or heard. She waited for the Kaiju’s last, shuddering breath to pass before she turned and hurried back to the cave she and the last remnants of her clan called home. It would be unwise to linger in this place of death.

*****

Curri slung the fish over her shoulder after pulling it from her gathering pouch. She had already cut off the head and tossed it away, leaving it for the seagulls which they sometimes hunted. She supposed such a gesture futile, since nobody had actually gotten close enough to kill one of the birds in months. Still, she knew that they had to be nesting somewhere nearby. The island was big, but it wasn’t that big. She nearly drooled at the thought of finding a clutch of seagull eggs.

Higgins met her as she strolled into the mouth of the cave. Once, he had been a giant of a man, nearly seven feet tall and pure muscle. Years of malnourishment had left him skinnier than he had ever been before. He was still bigger than everyone else in the clan was, however. He stood, towering over her, frowning at her with a look of disapproval. “I thought you were going to wait before you went out again.”

He might have been attractive, if not for the scars covering his body, but she could never think of him in
that
way. In the years since her parents' deaths, he had watched over her, helping her grow into her role as leader of the clan. He was her rock, dependable and sturdy, even if he was a judgmental jerk and full of himself at times. 

More than a few of his scars came keeping her alive and not, as one would presume, from the Kaiju Wars. A jagged gash ran across his left cheek, a reminder of the time where he stood in for her during a duel for power within the clan and his opponent got in a lucky swing of a knife before Higgins broke the man's spine. The charred flesh of his own back served as another memento of just how devoted to her he was. When fire fell from the sky during the dark times, as the blue above turned to gray, he had sheltered her with his own body until they could crawl the last few feet into the cave they were racing for when all Hell broke loose. His right hand was missing its little finger, his left ear was mauled from a clash with a Dog Kaiju, and long scars ran the lengths of his legs from yet another clash with the lesser Kaiju. To say that Higgins was tough would be a gross understatement.  Curri, however, was not intimidated by him in the least, though some in the clan were deathly afraid of him.

“We have to eat, Higgins,” she reminded him yet again. “Hunger can kill us just as well as the Dogs can, just that would be slower and more agonizing. Take a look outside, why don’t you? There's one hell of a storm rolling in. Should be here in an hour or two at the most. It'll wipe away any scent I might have left before the Dogs have a chance to try to track me here. If they even find the body.”

With a grunt, Higgins reached for the fish she held out to him. Curri jerked the fish away from him suddenly, holding it beyond his reach. She scowled at him. “If you're going to complain about me getting food for us all, you get to eat last.”

“The Dog Kaiju comes closer to finding our little haven here every time you venture out.  There is more at stake here than just your piddling little pride,” he told her as he retreated a step.

“My pride?” Curri snapped. “You think I'd risk all our lives just to show how great a leader I am?”

“Yes, your pride. And you do seem to want to prove yourself to the others, but you have no need of doing so. Everyone is well aware of your prowess with a spear, and nobody questions your bravery. The tribe would have starved long ago without you.”

Curri huffed at Higgins, giving him a wide berth as she walked past him into the cave. Deep within, the others waited for her.

Higgins followed her to the doorway. It was an old door, built during the opening days of the Kaiju Wars. It was heavy and was, once upon a time, protected by a massive locking mechanism, though its servomotors no longer functioned. The tribe relied upon brute strength to open and close it these days, since the combination of salty air and a constant moisture had turned it to near-solid rust. Higgins alone could perform the task on his own. Otherwise, it took three grown men to lock the door in place. Curri waited as he took hold of the door and heaved, moving it mere inches to one side. It took Higgins several more such displays of his strength to open it enough for them to enter. He then stayed behind to close it once more as she continued on.

There were more than a few entrances and exits within the network of caves in the mountain, but this one was the one closest to the ocean, and therefore, it was kept sealed at all times. Had Higgins not been waiting on her upon her arrival, Curri would have needed to wait until whoever was on watch further down the tunnel heard the echoes of her metal-tipped spear clanging on it. Folks felt better with the door closed, though if the Dog Kaiju found their home, its presence would likely only buy them an hour at most. Thankfully, the cave didn't solely depend upon the armored door to keep it safe. The cave was remote and hidden, and the laziness and lack of single-mindedness of the Kaiju upon the death of their mother added greatly to their safety.

The tribe called this place “The Cave,” but in truth, it was a bunker left over from the world before. Or rather, part of a breached one. Oil lamps lined the walls of its passages instead of powered lights, filling the air with a sooty smell that reminded them all everyday of the horrid world they now lived in. There was very little which remained of the former bunker which they had not scavenged for parts or tried to repair. The people of the tribe had not lost so much as to forget such things, but neither did they have the parts, or some cases the skills, to make them all functional again.

One of the relative few people who had the skills to fix just about everything greeted her as she emerged from the shadows of the corridor. Matan, a small, diminutive man who looked as if his last meal had occurred sometime in the previous decade, greeted her with a smile from behind the table. His warm welcome eased the tension between Curri’s shoulders some. His intelligent eyes drifted from her face to the fish which she had clutched in her hand. His smile grew slightly bigger.