In the Shadow of Extinction: A Kaiju Epic -- Part II: The New World

By Kelly Warner

The end of the world began with sudden volcanic eruptions along the Ring of Fire, killing thousands and displacing millions. These natural disasters soon gave rise to the kaiju; hulking leviathans seemingly immune to modern weaponry. Mankind's final wars last only weeks. Governments are quickly disbanded, entire countries are left decimated, and our once great cities are now dangerous ruins ruled by giant predators.

In the Shadow of Extinction is a science fiction epic spanning 15 years as humanity shifts gears from fighting the kaiju apocalypse to merely surviving it.

Part II: The New World picks up years after the end of Part I as our characters must come to terms with living in the shadows of giants...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kelly Warner
• Release date: Jun 29, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463932889

Kelly Warner

Kelly Warner is the author of In the Shadow of Extinction: A Kaiju Epic, Rakasa, and other forthcoming works of dark genre fiction. Kelly is the editor at Scriptophobic, where she also co-hosts the Japanese horror film podcast One Missed Pod with writer Zack Long. Kelly imagines that she'd survive a kaiju attack because she'd be the first to recognize the signs that we're all doomed and that our giant reptilian overlords have come to reclaim the planet. She lives in Illinois. You can connect with her on Twitter at @OhHellKell

Book preview

PART II

THE NEW WORLD

Breeder art by Danielle Fey

Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.

Friedrich Nietzsche

15

YEARS

LATER

SCAVENGERS

Michigan

The grocery store promised unbeatable prices and happy customer service. Blue and yellow smiley faces had been painted on the inside of the glass, but they were chipping away, fading with the passage of time.

Big Johnny Lofton picked up a grocery cart and hurled it at the glass doors. The glass shattered to the sidewalk, granting them access to the store beyond.

Lofton clapped his hands, but Joel Tanner wasn’t pleased.

What? Lofton said.

Joel said, It’s a little loud, don’t you think?

Lofton laughed and shook his head. We’re the only ones around, doc.

We don’t know that, Joel said. Remember what happened in St. Louis.

Shit, that was St. Louis, Lofton said. They got a reputation to live up to.

Lofton smiled and ducked down beneath the shards of glass to enter the store.

Joel sighed and followed after him. He liked Lofton, the man had saved his life on more than one occasion, but he didn’t necessarily trust anyone who could feel so at ease in a world such as this.

Johnny Lofton had joined Joel and McFarland back in their first year in Detroit. Lofton claimed that he’d been hiding out in his grandfather’s bomb shelter for a week before venturing out into the city.

Lofton was something of a minor celebrity in Detroit. In his youth, Lofton was a star running back for the Michigan Wolverines college football team, with a promising future in the NFL. But that was a long time ago, when people still went to football games and cheered with pride for their home team. Now there were no more games. No more home team.

Everyone had grown old with the world, Lofton included. Sure, he still flashed a bright smile, but he’d lost weight and had no ambition beyond getting through the day. He worked for McFarland now, searching abandoned towns for food and supplies. Just another grunt in the Grunt Kingdom.

Lofton didn’t like to talk about sports anymore. When kids threw a ball around he would pretend not to notice.

Joel noticed.

With the end of the old world came a difficult period of loss for everyone. For some, it was the loss of family, for others it was the loss of a way of life, for Lofton it was the loss of his dreams.

Joel figured there was no way to accurately compare the loss of one’s future versus the loss of one’s past. He felt sorry for Lofton, though he never said it. But Joel felt sorry for basically everyone these days, himself included.

Lofton disappeared down the next aisle, whistling with delight about whatever he’d just found.

Joel hid in a dark corner, fished out his wallet, and looked at the picture of his wife which he kept there.

Fifteen years was a long time to be apart. Anything could have happened in that time. Kate could have found someone new and maybe even remarried. They might have kids. He debated whether or not this thought bothered him and each day he came to a different conclusion.

She deserved some measure of happiness, Joel thought, and if another man could grant her that then so be it. Lord knows there had been opportunities for him to fall in love again. A part of his heart told him it was the only thing that made sense.

He waited for Kate, knowing that if he ever saw her again she could not possibly be the same woman he remembered. She would be older now, like him. He wondered if he’d recognize her. Or if she would recognize him. The touch of time on Joel’s face was not as bad as the scars that he wore on his soul. He felt like an old man now, one who had seen too much and lived too long.

Joel’s last fifteen years had been spent in Detroit, rebuilding the city into a stronghold where people could feel safe in these strange times. And though the monsters rarely came so far inland to threaten their community, certain human dangers still remained.

People were desperate and angry. They killed each other for food and water. They fought over land and privilege. They were like madmen, without hope or humanity.

And looming over them all, both satisfying their demands and creating all new ones for them to obsess over, was Wesley McFarland. He created a government and ran it with unquestioned authority. He ruled over the people from his luxury suite at the top of the tallest building in all of Detroit.

Word got around about Detroit. People wanted in. They came from everywhere, wanting to believe that the stories were true. Some even called it the last safe city in the whole wide world.

Soon the rules changed and not all were welcome. They had to come with goods to trade or skills to be exploited, otherwise they were turned away and sent back into the wilds.

Some people refused to go. They protested, labeled McFarland an oppressor.

So McFarland built a wall.

In the early days, the City Walls were a makeshift construction built directly into the decrepit buildings of Detroit. It surrounded downtown in an ugly circle, weaving in and out amongst the ruins of the old world. It was made from brick and fence and whatever else could be found, but it was an unsightly thing and easy to circumvent.

The City Walls became far grander as the years passed. The warehouses meant for supplying America with its automobiles were put to work molding steel and iron into a formidable fence. It grew thick, it grew high, and it grew monstrous.

Civilians living in the city did not like to look upon the walls or hear the cries coming from the other side, so the decision was made to keep all living quarters further in from the perimeter. The city’s elite lived at the centermost parts of the city, far from the concerns of the outside world.

Out of sight. Out of mind.

The pilgrims who had come from across the country looking for safe haven found themselves locked out on the other side of the wall until they could prove their worth. It was a cold practice. It took a special kind of person to work the City Walls, deal with human suffering every day, and decide who could enter and who would be forced to stay out in the cold. Essentially the men on the wall were put in the position of deciding who lived and who died.

But the City Walls, the security forces, and the supply caches were not what earned Detroit its status as a safe haven.

Detroit was the city that everyone flocked to because of the giant railgun they had built there.

When aimed at the heavens, the railgun stood almost 500 feet tall, rivaling some of Detroit’s highest skyscrapers. It was built into the rubble of a fallen hotel, with steel struts that went deep underground to hold it steady.

The gun sat on a swivel, allowing it to turn slowly in all directions. It required a team of fifty men to assist the gear mechanism in turning, making it a slow and dangerous affair, but a stationary gun was useless when the enemy could attack from any side.

Some skeptics questioned how this new weapon could succeed where nuclear bombs had failed.

McFarland explained, The failing of the nuclear bombs is troubling, but if we look at how the monsters kill one another—they cut deep with tooth and claw—we can then ascertain that our weapon should work in much the same way. The cannon fires kinetically charged spikes at seven times the speed of sound. The damage caused by such a weapon is… absolute.

The railgun’s critics noted that nuclear weapons once promised absolute destruction but had still failed to kill the giants. McFarland argued that if you didn’t trust his word, perhaps you didn’t belong in his city. After that, criticisms were only whispered in secret, so fearful were people about losing their spot in America’s safest city.

The railgun was an impressive creation, especially in days like these. It fired a forty foot long titanium spike, sharp as a razor at its tip, at a speed of Mach 5. The thinking was that the spikes would act like the monster’s claws and penetrate their thick skin in a way that other weapons could not.

The gun’s creator was a short African American woman named Dr. Constance Sharp. She came to Detroit for sanctuary in Joel’s second year there and brought with her a convoy of scientists, soldiers, politicians, and enough money to buy a small country.

Money didn’t matter so much anymore, but their expertise was something that McFarland could not turn away.

Half the city’s population now worked for Dr. Sharp in some way, which suited McFarland just fine because he knew that Dr. Sharp worked for him.

There had been a brief power struggle when the politicians and their money rolled into town. The old fat cats tried to make it clear that this was still America, and that though the government had fallen, the elected officials were the only ones suited for rebuilding the country.

McFarland’s people disagreed. They tossed the money into the mud, escorted the politicians to the City Walls, and sent them on their way.

There was still a great deal of animosity towards the politicians because of the people’s shared hatred for President Green, who had gone MIA. In Green’s absence, any American politician could be blamed for what had happened, whether it was the failure to alert people to the Yellowstone eruption in time or the wonton destruction caused by multiple nuclear bombs.

Senators, governors, presidents, and kings were not welcome in McFarland’s New Detroit. Let them go back to their caves and bomb shelters. McFarland had no use for them.

Joel made himself useful. McFarland seemed to think of him as a friend, or at least a rival that kept him honest, but he had no doubt that McFarland would kick him out of the city if Joel failed his duties as a medical doctor.

McFarland wanted to name him Chief of Medicine but Joel had declined. The position would have meant more respect and far fewer expeditions beyond the wall, but Joel didn’t want to be tied down by responsibility. The urge to flee the city came to him every day, often spurred on by the injustices that he could not look away from. Mostly though, his desire to leave Detroit was more about his dream of finding Kate somewhere in the world.

He could sail to South Korea where Kate had been stationed, but the country was likely overrun with the Breeders, and he doubted Kate would have stayed there.

His other idea was to head back home to California. However, even if the Breeders had moved on, the nuclear fallout from the bombs may still be toxic. He wanted to wait at least one more year before considering that option.

For better or worse, Detroit and McFarland had developed a reputation, one that stretched far and wide. If Kate was somewhere out there in the world, perhaps she might come to Detroit looking for safety.

This singular hope was what kept Joel checking the sad, desperate faces on the other side of the City Walls each and every day. And though sometimes he thought he recognized someone from his past, he never saw Kate.

But that didn’t mean she would never come, he convinced himself as he put the picture back into his wallet and returned to checking the shelves in the store.

Everything in the world had an expiration date, but they had to ignore that now. They had to eat fifteen-year-old peanut butter. They had to learn to like fifteen-year-old flavored drinks…

They had to believe that fifteen years was not too long and that there was still hope in the world; hope for love, family, and belonging.

It was the only way to keep living.

Joel rechecked the list for foods that would not expire, then searched the shelves for the rice, sugar, salt, and honey. Once those were taken care of, he went in search of the foods that were in high demand, regardless of whether they were totally safe to eat anymore.

He was loading peanut butter, cereal, and chocolates into his bag when he noticed Lofton surveying the liquor aisle.

Lofton noticed him and said, The rest of the store is all right, but the liquor section is a travesty, man. Somebody had themselves a spree.

Liquor’s not one of the items on the list, Joel said.

Uh-huh.

So…

It’s not on the list because the list is for everybody. Liquor’s not going to be for everybody. Lofton shook his head and pushed aside bottles of peach vodka. Can’t be for everybody. I know the rules. But who’s it gonna hurt if the right people get to have a drink now and then?

The right people?

You know what I mean. Creed and the boys.

Creed, one of the Detroit locals, was now in charge of the black market.

The black market was responsible for all the extras that weren’t normally provided to citizens, whether that meant simple things like doubled rations, or illegal things like drugs, drink, and prostitutes. You had to pay for the black market’s goods with unbalanced trades.

The fact that McFarland sat atop the legal trading market and the black market surprised absolutely no one. It was his way of making a profit at every table.

Lofton tipped a bottle of rum at Joel. You could sell some if you wanted, Lofton said. Or you could take some for yourself. I think it could help you clear your head a bit.

Alcohol interferes with my medication, Joel said. And I can’t be seen around Creed and the others or the hospital may kick me out.

They’re real sticklers down there, huh? Lofton asked as he put three bottles of rum into his pack. I guess I can understand. They don’t want doctors stealing meds and selling ’em to Creed and such. Makes sense. Still, it sucks for you, huh?

Joel asked, Will you be much longer?

Just gotta find vodka.

I’ll be outside.

Joel left the store and threw his bag into the back of the bus. It was the same bus they’d taken out of Arizona, now weathered and ugly just like its passengers. It had endured more transplants than he could count, but it was a sturdy warrior, always willing to take a beating.

The other teams left their stores, carrying with them gardening supplies and seeds for the crops. They loaded up the bus and got in, waiting for the last teams to finish their searches.

Joel hated moments like these. It was in calm moments that the world had a tendency to go terribly wrong.

Bandit raids were a very real threat beyond the wall. Desperation made people wild and cruel. Joel never understood how a man could allow himself to abandon all sense of right and wrong, just because food and water were getting scarce.

Stories were told of groups of men who burnt villages, raped women, and stole children. Some exaggerated tales spoke of bandits who wore helmets and armor made from bone. These, the storytellers said, were cannibals and would sooner eat a man than speak a kind word.

Joel and the others knew that bandits existed, but roving bands of cannibals? There was a severe lack of entertainment in the world anymore and people loved their horror stories.

All the same, Joel kept a watchful eye whenever he met a stranger on the roads. Most of them were an all right sort, depressed and sickly but not unkind. However, if he ever met a man with armor made from human bones, he’d certainly know to keep his distance.

Joel checked his watch. Lofton knew they needed to leave soon. It was a long drive back to the city and it’d be dark before the end of it. He didn’t want to spend the night on the road and tempt bandits with an easy target.

Movement caught his eye and Joel spun around. He lifted his shirt and pulled out the pistol he had tucked away.

Two brown eyes stared back at him.

Joel lowered the gun.

A dirty dog stood at the end of the street wagging its tail. It was difficult to tell underneath all the mud, but he thought it was a golden retriever.

The dog whined and tentatively took one step forward before taking two steps back.

Lofton stepped into Joel’s field of vision, aiming his sawed-off shotgun at the dog.

Put that away, Joel said. He pushed Lofton and stepped towards the dog, bending over and patting his leg to look more approachable. Most dogs were feral now, but this one looked friendly enough.

Lofton snickered and loaded the bus. We’re waiting on you now, doc.

Give me something to feed it, Joel said. It’s starving.

This food is for people, Lofton said.

Give me something.

Lofton let out an exaggerated sigh and tossed him a box of cereal.

Joel opened the cereal box, poured some of it into his hand, and offered it up to the dog.

Lofton said, You’re gonna break the pup’s heart when we leave it here.

I’m not leaving it, Joel said.

That so?

It won’t cause problems for anybody else.

That’s not my worry, doc, Lofton said. I worry about how you’ll feel when one of your neighbors abducts Scruffy and grills him with a BBQ glaze.

That won’t happen, Joel said, though he knew it to be a distinct possibility.

Uh-huh. Well, if the dog’s coming, get ’em on board. We’re leaving.

Lofton boarded the bus and the driver honked the horn. The sound caused the dog to cower, which got a laugh from the men in the bus.

Joel got down on one knee and started tossing bits of cereal towards the dog, leading him on a trail to his hand.

The dog took one bite at a time, following the trail of food to the bounty that Joel presented.

He scratched the dog’s head as it ate from his other hand. It was covered with fleas and looked more dead than alive, but he couldn’t just leave it here.

Can you sit? Joel asked.

The dog promptly sat its butt down and offered up a paw to shake.

How about that? Joel said. You’re not some wild dog, are you? You were somebody’s pup. Wonder what happened to your owner, huh?

The dog started panting, its face presenting a pleasant smile.

Wanna go for a ride?

The dog ran past him and jumped onto the bus. The men inside hollered as the dog ran from one to the next, giving them kisses and fleas.

Joel boarded the bus and shook the cereal box, summoning the dog to his seat.

It’s about time you made a friend, Lofton said.

The dog sat down beside Joel, accepting food as bribes for its company.

The bus came to life and they left the town behind, hitting the road that led home. Joel shut his eyes for the ride back to the City Walls. The dog slept at his side, its head on his lap.

He felt like he’d only just fallen asleep when the familiar pounding started outside the windows.

They’d reached the wall.

Travelers who’d been denied or were waiting on approval to enter the city surrounded the gates in a mass of humanity. They slammed angry fists on the sides of the bus and threw rocks at the windows.

This was normal. This was routine. And just the same, Joel hated it every time.

They were so hateful, all of them, and he was one of the targets for their hate.

He understood it, though, and he sympathized. These people had traveled great distances seeking the promise of a better life but upon arrival they’d been turned away, their perilous journey ending with rejection and despair.

It wasn’t fair, but it was the way of things, and Joel was in no position to change it.

The dog whimpered at his side as the bus moved through the crowd towards the gate.

Armed soldiers demanded that the people keep their distance from the bus, but of course no one ever listened.

Joel swallowed a pill that he’d been saving, hoping that it would dull his nerves.

When one of the travelers produced a gun and fired it at the bus, the soldiers returned fire, cutting down the shooter and three people who stood near him.

The mood of the crowd changed to something more tragic. Painful screams filled the air.

A mother clutching her baby hit Joel’s window with bleeding hands, crying, Take my baby! Take her!

The dog barked and Joel held him back. The mother was soon lost in the throng of people.

The soldiers fired their guns into the air, forcing the crowd to disperse.

The gates rattled and slowly parted, allowing the bus entrance. Once the bus was through, the gates quickly closed before another soul could follow.

The mother’s bloody handprint remained on Joel’s window, a ghostly image of something he was not allowed to ignore.

He sighed.

The volume of cries softened as they drove on through the ruins of old Detroit.

And then he saw it.

Joel never really got used to the sight of the cannon, especially not from so far away. It was a death machine but it was constructed with such skill that it would be wrong not to marvel at the achievement.

The technical spectacle that Dr. Sharp and McFarland had created was one of the few remaining manmade wonders of the world. It shined in the moonlight like a great, silver knife.

The gun was a living, breathing machine, for it required the human touch to run. Workers banged away on it even in the dwindling light, looking more like ants on an anthill than men. The gun’s heart was both mechanical and organic—the gears were the arteries but it was the might of the workers that kept the blood flowing.

If a monster ever showed up and challenged the City Walls, the railgun would be put to the test. McFarland and the genius Dr. Sharp were confident that it would do the job. Joel was considerably less certain, but he had to admit the machine was impressive.

It was just too bad that it didn’t work anymore.

GUN CITY

Detroit

Wesley McFarland’s hair had turned gray and his skin was sickly. He grew a beard, let his hair grow long, and wore sunglasses to better obscure his bloodshot eyes. The weight of the crown was heavy and no amount of drinking could alleviate its burden. This did not mean that he ever meant to give up his power—oh no—it simply meant that the power took more from him than he would’ve expected.

He didn’t sleep much anymore. When he closed his eyes he saw reports on food shortages and cries for better medical care in the hospitals. He mixed whiskey with his coffee, satisfying two needs with a single drink. Everyone knew of his problems, and some even dared to suggest that he might feel better if he shared some of his power with other people. McFarland knew he had no problems that coffee and drink couldn’t fix.

He stood with a steaming cup of coffee in hand, looking down on the masses from his luxury suite atop the world.

Americans, he thought with ugly disdain, they’re a spoiled lot. They think that it’s all going to be the same as it ever was. And while it was true that he did mean to take care of his people, he did not mean to spoil them. People would starve in his city. It was inevitable. They would get sick and die. There would be crime and corruption. Things weren’t perfect before and they never would be. I am an imperfect man, but at least I try, he thought.

The first pilgrims from overseas started to arrive over the last couple years. McFarland wasn’t sure how the stories were spreading, but each foreigner told the same story, said they’d heard Detroit was a safe haven for all.

Except they didn’t all call it Detroit. Some called it Gun City, naming it after the cannon that watched over them.

The foreign refugees were a different sort than their American counterparts. Whereas most the Americans in Detroit might have seen riots and distant bomb strikes, they didn’t know the true horrors that awaited man in the ruins of the old world.

One such pilgrim, a South African pilot who simply went by Jones, arrived just last week. He possessed no special skills, nothing worth trading, but he demanded to speak with McFarland.

McFarland turned him away and denied him entrance to the city.

But Jones never left. He remained outside the gates, making daily requests to meet with the man in charge. The men who worked the gates listened in on the stories that Jones told the others beyond the City Walls. It was upon their recommendation that McFarland finally agreed to grant Jones a meeting.

Jones was clearly unwell and but he did not seem to care. His clothes were rags that barely clung to his skeletal form. His teeth had many gaps in