On Distant Shores (Exiles Triology Book 1) Read online

  On Distant Shores

  Mark Harritt

  Copyright 2014

  Prolog

  The monster’s rage was boundless. It slouched forward, an eldritch, chthonic horror, fetid breath fogging the floor of the cave. Thick fangs flexed in broad snout, poisoned saliva dripping in the dirt. Gigantic talons dug long channels in the floor, punctuating the madness of the monster. Thick, muscular tail lashed the air. Tentacles around the neck surged in whipping frenzy, a nest of serpents, feverish medusa nightmare. Color pulsated pink to red, cascading along the tentacles from tip to root, betraying murderous intent. The violence of the species, the competition from other females had driven it to this cave, protection against the destruction of its eggs. Its efforts had been useless, its children gone, smashed and broken, and it didn’t understand why. It became fury incarnate, thirsting for violence, vengeance. Its nest was gone, in its place a large hole.

  The tongue tested the air over the shaft, filled with the scent of its children, the scent of blood and death, fueling its rage. The scent of plastic and metal from the elevator shaft was unfamiliar, unrecognizable to it. There was something else, subtle, intangible. It smelled fear and anxiety. It smelled prey, increasing the monster’s madness. A coughing growl ripped from its chest, echoing through the cave. Now, the great beast would hunt, and whatever was at the bottom of this shaft, would die. Ropes of saliva dripped from fangs in anticipation of gore, shattered bone, and the taste of blood.

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  Everett turned to Mickey, “What the hell was that?” Mickey shrugged, stunned by the unexpected scream. It sounded again, coming from the service elevator. Eyes were drawn to the elevator doors. Scientists and techs, between Everett’s position and the service elevator, looked toward the source in startled apprehension. They stood or lounged on the floor, staring pointedly at the elevator, not understanding the danger. They were locked in their old reality, the one where they could go out and climb into their cars, and go to their homes, safe in bed at night. There was fear on the faces of a few of the techs, but for most, the situation hadn’t penetrated the scientists’ amygdalae, their lizard brains. They were scientists, formulating hypothesis and theories, trying to understand the phenomena. Everett yelled to get their attention. “I don’t know what the hell that is, but you all need to get your asses over here.” A few turned and looked at him. Some ignored him completely.

  Lieutenant Pang took charge. She didn’t know what was happening, but she trusted Everett’s instincts. She ran to the engineering team members around the service elevator and started pushing them towards the other side of the room. She punched the arms of some of the more recalcitrant individuals to get them moving. “Get your fat asses moving, NOW.” She ran forward and grabbed one of the younger members of the engineering team and shoved him towards the other side of the room, away from the service elevator. Her intensity woke them up. Another scream sounded, increasing their interest in getting away from the elevator, speed of their movement increasing. The screams continued, getting louder, sounding closer. The sound sent chills down Lieutenant Pang’s spine, provoking deep, primitive fear responses. She was sweating, hair standing up on her arms. The fear was very specific. She didn’t know what was in the service elevator, but she knew it was hunting her. Fear punched through her chest, shifting through her stomach, making her feet feel as if they weighed a hundred pounds. She felt like throwing up, running, or hiding. These were deep emotions with an intensity that she had never felt before.

  She didn’t know what the hell was going on, but she wasn’t going to take any chances. That scream didn’t sound like anything that she had ever heard. Even a bear’s roar didn’t sound like that. Living in Montana, she heard a few when she went out deer hunting. She was a small girl, but she carried a .500 Smith and Wesson whenever she went hiking or camping. She really missed the weight of the Smith and Wesson on her hip. Her hand moved down to her belt unbidden. She realized what she was doing when her hand closed on the non-existent handle of the pistol. She was running now, passing techs. Her haste put movement into the others. Fear drove them now. They were moving as fast as possible. The younger and more mobile were helping the older ones. They were all moving at top speed now.

  Everett heard something behind him. He turned. It was Rob and Tom. “What do you want us to do?” Rob asked. Everett thought for just a moment. “Guns, we need guns, break out some big damn guns. And lots of ammunition. I don’t know what the hell it is, but I want it to be in lots of pain if it decides to come our way.”

  Tom nodded agreement with Everett. Tom was the hunter of the party, spending some of his Army staff sergeant pay to do a big game hunt in Africa. He spoke, in a very serious voice. “Y’all may want to consider hand grenades and the M203 40mm’s. I heard a lot of things out hunting, and I ain’t never heard anything like that.”

  Everett was still for just a moment, and then slowly nodded his head. “Grab some grenades, frags, concussion, and flash bang. We may need them.”

  The team didn’t hesitate. Tom started throwing boxes around until he pulled out his SRS .338 Lapua. Rob grabbed his M4/M203. Only after he found the bandoleers of 40 millimeter for the M203, did he start rummaging for the 5.56mm bullets. Everett and Mickey pulled out the Barrett .50 caliber and Mickey started to load it. Everett pulled his SIG 716 and popped in a magazine to get ready for whatever the hell was making that noise. The engineers and scientists were streaming past now, hastily trying to get as far away from the service elevator as possible. The sight of the team loading the weapons only hastened them towards the other side of the room.

  Lieutenant Pang stopped when she got to the team, “Give me a gun.”

  Rob didn’t flinch. He pulled a Benelli tactical shotgun and tossed it to her, followed by a box of slugs. A few others, John Smith, Luis Garcia, and Hank Bethel, with prior military experience ran over. Rob pulled a more weapons, and handed them over. Once the techs had the guns, they rummaged to find ammunition before the screaming creature came through the door.

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  The beast moved into the hole. It could hear movement at the bottom of the shaft. The monster moved with sinuous grace, belying its bulk, tail slowly moving back and forth, the tip whipping faster. The rage settled as it went into hunting mode, and now, it stalked. It was huge, seven tons, but that didn’t keep its bulk from moving down into the square hole before it. Its body stretched and thinned, elongating to move into the hole.

  The hole it dropped into was tricky, canting back below the cave from which it came. It bent its body around to fit into the hole, almost gracefully. As the thick hide brushed against the side of the metal walls, dense keratinous scales scraped the metal into a burnished shine. The stench from the gore of its children was overpowering as it climbed down the shaft, their bodies shattered from the drop, shells and blood surrounding them. The talons shredded the metal of the elevator shaft as it slowed its descent. The monster found her children dead, dying. They were too young to live outside the shell, and their shattered bodies only increased the anger. It sniffed the dead bodies of her young, lifted its head, giving a long howl, mourning the dead.

  Claws slid on the unfamiliar metal of the elevator, her bulk deforming it. The lines of the elevator car lay cut, bunched, tangled. Tongue flicked out gathering unfamiliar scent, oil, plastics and metal. Its body bunched in muscled intensity as it shifted its weight. The elevator was not designed for the stresses, screeching in slow collapse. The gigantic triangular head moved towards the doors of the elevator, inhaling the delicious scent of the prey’s sweat, urine, feces. It gave a shr
ill scream, anticipating the kill. Everything in this strange cave would die, ripped, shattered, broken.

  It didn’t know what this door was, but the monster could feel and hear the movement of prey behind it. A small opening was present, and it could see light emanating from the opening. The tongue flicked and assessed the opening. The opening was wide enough that the tip of the tongue could slip through. On the other side, the scent was much stronger. A moaning purr shuddered from the beast’s throat, ecstasy at the thought of bloody flesh.

  The opening was not large, but the monster could slide the tips of its talons into it. It delicately extended the points of talons through the doors. Talons slid in, curved around the metal, and pulled. The monster leveraged the elevator door open further, metal screeching as the doors moved. As the doors opened wider, gigantic paws flexed and replaced the talons, applying more force. They slid open and the monster moved its head into the opening. As the prey saw the beast, they started screaming, anticipating their death.All delicacy, all subtlety was gone. Roaring its murderous rage, it used its bulk to slam the doors back. The impact rang through the open room and echoed up the shaft. The beast slammed its body against the doors, warping metal screeching as loud as the monsters howls. The doors broke and gave way. The monster pushed shoulders into the room beyond. The doors gave further, falling away completely, and the great monster pushed its body through.

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  None of Everett’s special operations training prepared him for what came next. Everett watched the tongue flick through the crack of the door, libidinously caressing the smooth metal on either side of the opening. He watched gigantic talons extend through the door, the tips appearing, and then the entire claw sliding through. The doors of the elevator shuddered open, shrieking as metal ground across metal. Something huge slammed against the elevators, bending, twisting metal.

  Everett looked at the monstrosity coming through the door. It was a nightmare, a chimera of hideous proportions. It was every fear, every monster, every hideous dream that had haunted man through the ages combined into one. It was a beast dragged from the deepest pit of hell. The triangular head, the whipping tentacles, the gigantic talons made Everett feel the need to run. He felt his sanity slipping. His lizard brain was screaming at him to drop his rifle and run, to hide, to pray to God for deliverance. The same hideous coughing scream echoed through the gigantic room. Despite its bulk, the beast moved sinuously, languidly. The head was huge, broad across the top, great spiked teeth in the mouth. Long, wide scars ran across the hide, evidence of past battles. Everett couldn’t even imagine what else there might be out there to fight this great fiend. Tentacles whipped wildly around, rippling through shades of red to pink.

  The beast looked reptilian, hide studded with thick scale, mottled green, brown and gray, camouflage of an ambush predator. It looked like some antediluvian, ancient dragon, but its chest and shoulders was more like a giant bulldog, or lion, arms that were used to drag down prey. The body of the damn thing was twenty feet long, the tail another fifteen feet beyond that. Saliva dripped in ropes out of the mouth of the beast. Nothing ever read, or anything ever seen from Hollywood could ever come close to the horror he was witnessing. Hell, the chaotic delirium of a madman couldn’t even match what Everett was looking at.

  The techs and scientists watched as the doors buckled, the talons and head of the beast appearing through the door. As the screaming monster emerged into the room, scientists and techs fought each other to get through the door into the stairwell. The group turned from an orderly, though hasty migration into a scrum of flailing bodies. Complete chaos ensued. They were no longer rational human beings. Fear ran through the crowd like a tidal wave. They were a mass of herd animals trying to outrun the wolf. The screaming started as the engineering team realized that they were on the front row to a horror movie. One of them kept yelling, “Jesus, Jesus,” over and over again. The stench of voided bowels and urine choked the air in the play room. The frenzied exodus wasn’t going well for anyone, and there would be injuries.

  There was nothing the team could do to keep anybody acting like rational humans, so they didn’t try. How could they, with this horror. The sound of weapons racking the first bullet into the chamber sounded, eight times, each sound as different as the weapon system being used. There was only the team, plus Lieutenant Pang and three techs to stop the slaughter that was about to happen. Everett thought about this, and then stated, “Mike is really going to be pissed that he missed this.”

  Everett looked at Mickey, muscled, as big as a house, the huge .50 caliber rifle looking small against his frame. Mickey had a huge grin. He thought about Mike missing the impending slaughter. Mickey looked back at him, “Yeah, I think he’s going to be a little upset.”

  They both looked at the beast in front of them. Everett watched as its huge fangs flexed in and out if its mouth. Then he noticed its body massing, muscle contracting, the back legs tensing under the body.

  “Get ready, here it comes!” he yelled.

  Then

  The smell of coffee woke him. Sunlight rippled around the edges of the drapes. He stretched, rubbed his eyes, and reached out a hand to the other side of the bed. The bed was empty except for him. He grabbed her pillow, rolled over to her side of the bed and buried his face into her pillow, breathing in her scent. He stretched some more. It was Sunday, and he really didn’t want to get up just yet. He felt lazy, and wished Jo would be lazy with him. He hoped to talk Jo into staying in bed with him. He heard the door to the bedroom open up. He listened to the quiet footsteps as she came towards the bed.

  “Babe, the coffee’s on.” Jo was relentless when she wanted to do something. She stood there in a small red tank top and pajama pants, neither of which hid her curves. He watched her body move as she leaned against the dresser. The curve of her breasts against the thin fabric of the tank top, and the curve of her hips increased his desire. Her hair was still mussed from the night’s sleep. He looked at her shoulder length hair, and he could almost feel the softness against his face. His heartbeat increased as he looked at her.

  “Can I talk to you about coming back to bed?” he asked.

  “Michael, you promised me,” Jo replied. “If you don’t get up, I’ll release the hounds.”

  He was in trouble. She called him Michael instead of Mike. That meant she was serious.

  “You wouldn’t really release the hounds?” The question trailed off in the air between them, the “would you” a silent ending on the question.

  “All right, since you don’t think I’m serious.”

  He heard the door open, and Jo whistled. Two six month old Labrador retrievers shot through the door.

  “Get daddy up.”

  The two dogs, both female, were all over the bed, trying to get to any skin that they could lick.He rolled over and looked at Jo. She had that look on her face, tempered by the antics of the dogs, who were so excited to get at Mike. There was a coffee mug in her hand. It wouldn’t be long before she would be dressed and ready to go. Her belly was still tight, not showing the second trimester yet. Jo was as active as Mike, spending a lot of time running and doing yoga. He didn’t think she would show much even when she was about to deliver their first child.

  “Okay, okay you win, but I still believe that releasing the hounds is a Geneva Convention violation.” This last part was said as he pulled the covers up to keep the dogs off of him. The pups, Moira and Fiona, black and chocolate labs, were still trying to burrow through the covers to get to him.

  “Whoa, girl that nose doesn’t go there.” One of the dogs found a very sensitive spot of bare skin, and the tongue followed the nose. The covers erupted as Mike tried to get away. “Damn it, woman, it is unfair and unkind to do this to a sleeping man.”

  Jo blew on the coffee and took a sip as she watched two very happy dogs wrestle around the covers. She knew that, though Mike was complaining, he loved his dogs. The dogs were getting back as much
as they were giving. She took pity on Mike, mainly because she didn’t want them to ruin the bed sheets.

  “Alright girls, let Mike alone. He needs to get up so we can go to Denver.”

  Jo put the coffee down on the dresser, and started grabbing dogs. Moira and Fiona thought that this was a new and interesting phase of the game that they were playing. Skin showed through Jo’s pajamas as she tried to corral the two dogs, increasing Mike’s interest in the events as well. Eventually Jo got the dogs off the bed and out the door. She closed the door behind them. She heard one of the girls whimper, but then the scrabbling of claws on the floor indicated a loss of interest.

  Jo picked up her coffee, and moved closer to the bed. “Are you getting up today?”

  Mike threw the covers off, put his hands behind his head, and turned so that he had a better view of his lovely wife. “Are the hounds gone?”

  Jo looked at his lean body, the muscle standing out with his arms back behind his head. She knew what he was doing, and refused to be drawn in. “Yep, unless you don’t get out of bed,” Jo took another sip of coffee.

  Chief Warrant Officer Three or CW3 Mike Duggins was a lucky man, and he knew it. There weren’t too many good women out there in the United States today who would put up with a man in his career, especially with his particular specialty.He swung his legs over and sat up at the edge of the bed. He reached over, put his hands around her legs and pulled her towards him.

  “Careful, you’ll spill my coffee,” she cautioned.

  He kissed her stomach and put his head against it. He knew that it would be months before he could hear the sounds of his baby’s heart, or feel the baby pushing against his mom’s belly. But Mike knew the baby was there. A warmness grew through his chest as he thought about the baby. “I hope the baby looks like Jo,” he thought. Whether boy or girl, if they looked like Jo, they would be a beautiful child. He thought about it more, and hoped that he would be able to see his wife’s green eyes and beautiful smile on the faces of his children.