Juniper’s Daughter: Frontier Town by Nick Armbrister
“When that thing comes upstairs make an effort to stop it coming through
the door. Bainbridge go out of the back door, Smith out of the front, James
into what’s left of the front room and Sykes stay here in the kitchen. Myself
I’ll be in the back yard monitoring the situation. I already hit it in the legs
and it maybe wounded from my grenade. That cunt has the strength of ten men and
can take bullet hits. We still want it alive; if it means using some of you as
bate, so be it! Get ready! Here it comes!” ordered the officer to his scared
men.
A scraping dragging sound came up the stairs followed by little thumps,
the wounded thing slowly advanced up the stairs from its subterranean home. It
was almost there! Bang, bang! It thumped against the door to open it jolting
the four soldiers who rejoined their efforts to hold the door, another time and
the door gave popping off its old worn hinges and landed on one of the soldiers
who fell to the ground with the door landing on top of him. The other three ran
to their position: Bainbridge out of back, Smith out front, Sykes remained in
the kitchen and James… James was under the door! He tried to roll sideways from
underneath the door but the monster ignored the other men and leapt onto the
flimsy dirty door with all its might. Blood from its leg and a dozen other
wounds caused by the grenade explosion, mixed with blood from the slain
soldiers and sprayed everywhere. Thud, thud, thud, thud, on the door till it
broke and followed the shape of the trapped soldier, his plywood death shroud. Thud,
thud, thud the monster bounced up and down, crushing the man who screamed loud
and hard; this made the monster scream too! Even louder and longer as he jumped
up and down like a crazed automation, killing the man till he was squashed flat
dead a red pulped bloody mass of gore and flesh that was no longer Private
James, a functioning soldier in the English army. When it had killed James the
monster turned its attention to Sykes who was following orders remaining in the
kitchen as bate. The plan was falling apart, James was meant to have run to the
front room giving a possible route for the monster to follow. James had served
his purpose.
What was Sykes now meant to do now? He yelled, “Captain, Captain! The
monster is here! It just killed James; he never made it to the front room. What
do I do Sir?”
“Why son, you die!” came the reply, not from the officer but the
monster! Hellfire this thing could talk! It advanced towards Sykes, who raised
his gun ready to fire and kill this abomination but that wasn’t the plan; it
was to catch the thing alive if possible. Shit! I’ll pop it in the legs, thought
Sykes lowering his gun. He saw the bullet holes and seeping blood from where
the monster had earlier been shot, still it could walk! Here goes…
“No don’t shoot, don’t shoot!” screamed the Captain rushing into the
kitchen. He threw a grenade in front of the monster and Private Sykes, whose
eyes widened in disbelief before the bomb went off, blowing the monster back
down the stairs in a tremendous roar of sound and animal like screams and cutting
Sykes into four large bits. Both of his legs were separate, twitching a
nerve-ending dance of death on the blood covered the dirty floor; one arm was
useless on the floor and the trunk of his body, the largest bit, slowly died.
His eyes had been blown out by the blast, his eardrums perforated and his lungs
shredded, giving the soldier mere seconds to live even as he bled to death. The
monster was unconscious at the bottom of the stairs. The officer stood up from
the side of the room where the blast had blown him. Rushing out he went to the
transport to fetch some equipment. On his remote control he ordered the Devil
Snail attack unit to enter the house and guard the comatose monster, which must
surely wake up soon in an even worse mood.
Returning with some heavy knock out gas more potent than the one used before,
this would knock the fucker out for a week. Uncoiling the hose and throwing it
down the dark stairs, the officer turned the small pump on while ordering the
remainder of his men well out of range, for their respirators were no use
against the noxious gas. Blue vapour filled the house, flowing down the stairs
to the cellar and the monster that was just waking up from the grenade
concussion.
It roared but fell immediately asleep while the gas entered its lungs. Deep
in its pea sized brain it knew what was happening. Its parents had told it of
what happened to its mother when she had been gassed and taken prisoner by the
same English army that now gassed her offspring. If the monster ever woke up it
would be really pissed!
Soldiers assembled extra large handcuffs, leg restraints and a dozen
straps, along with a gimp mask with a pool ball in it to restrain the thing. A
glass butt plug made for Americans and a spanking paddle were a last resort.
They waited till the gas levels subsided so they could safely enter the ruin and
finally capture the beast and return to their base. The Devil Snail stood
guard, it was impervious to gas. It would cut the legs from under the creature
if it gained sanctuary of the kitchen with its eye mounted laser cannons.
With
eight soldiers dead, the Captain knew his options were limited and so was his
time because he didn’t know how long it would take to move the creature. It
looked like it weighed close to four hundred pounds. Including himself and his
three private soldiers they numbered four men; the pilot of the transport would
remain where he was in his craft for only he was able to fly it back. Maybe
officers should be trained on basic piloting of the transporters if anything
happened to the pilot? The Captain would raise the issue at a later staff
meeting when he got back; so confident was he of his mission success.
The gas should have dissipated now enough for their respirators to work;
he sent one man down to check on the monster’s condition. Cautiously advancing
down the splintered unsafe stairs the soldier never took his eyes off the
monster; its shoulders heaved slowly under laboured efforts to breathe.
Reaching the hairy thing, the man studied it for a full minute watching in case
it was play-acting and tricking him so it could kill him. Sure that the thing
really was asleep the soldier signalled okay with his free hand, his other
aimed his loaded machine pistol. One had to be sure. His infrared goggles gave
an eerie image down the dark stairs; slowly turning and climbing the stairs, he
trusted the gas to subdue the monster so it wouldn’t strike from behind and
joined his comrades.
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