Lance Corporal Dupont


    Grainy footage appeared where Jon Caspar had been, and Dunn leaned in closer as the poor quality was hard to see. The view was bouncing about, thick jungle passing by in a blur as muted sounds came through. The audio clicked and voices came through clearly.


    “What the fuck are we doing out here, Shane?” a disembodied voice called out. The camera turned to look at a sandy haired man who was driving with two hands on the wheel. He was lean and was scowling his face locked in a state of distaste as his uniform had a damp spots across it from sweat.


    “Our jobs. So, can that shit and focus on the road Andrei.” The driver grunted and they kept moving as the indecipherable murmurs continued behind them. Shane was looking straight ahead, the narrow road a blur as the sun was beginning to sink down behind the horizon.


    The vehicle slowed and then plowed off the paved road to a pair of ruts worn into the jungle. The claustrophobic feel of the encroaching jungle made it feel like a tunnel as the vehicle raced forward, leaping and jumping as they hit potholes.


    “Wheeled vehicles with combustion engines,” Daisy whispered off to the side.


    “Shush,” Bron chided her, nudging her with a shoulder as everyone moved in closer to the video.


    The vehicle turned on its headlights, white blazes lit the dimming jungle as the vehicle plowed further and further into the inhospitable area. The jeep turned hard again and then branches were slapping the windows and a great racket went up, loud thuds filling the cabin. Then the jungle ended suddenly, a clearing opening up as the jeep came to a vicious halt, brakes squealing as voices filled the vehicle with virulent curses.


    Doors were flung open, and the view of the jungle suddenly disappeared as the camera panned to a clearing. The ground was bare and charred, blackened from flame or heat. The black muzzle of a rifle swung up into view as soldiers streamed around the vehicle to look at the vertical red slit in the sky.


    Dunn felt his heart pound. A rift. The first rift humanity had ever encountered, in the jungle in the distant past, intruded on by a handful of soldiers. He could feel the welling of his heart, the emotions as he looked upon the first step in the Exodus.


    A figure lurched out from behind the portal, its dimensions twisted and wrong. It was bipedal, but each limb was a different length and size. Fuzzy black hair offered a matt of fuzz across its body, face plain as red eyes glared at them. Flat nostrils flared out and it lifted a primitive spear.


    “What the fuck?” a voice whispered.


    “Oh, hell no! Light it up!” Lance Corporal Dupont yelled, voice charged with excitement and fear. Cracks of gunfire and the figure jerked this way and that, blooms of red sprouting around it as it staggered and fell to the ground. Silence reigned over the group for a moment as the camera showed the rest of the detachment.


    Five other men, all of them young and in good shape. All looking thunderstruck and holding smoking weapons as they walked up closer to the beast they had just killed. They stood over the corpse, rifles pointed down at the still corpse.


    “Shane, what the hell is it?” one of the soldiers asked, turning sideways and having his back to the slash in the air. The camera looked up in time to see a corded rope come flying out of the rift, falling around the shoulders of the soldier who had just asked Shane a question.


    “Dane!” a voice barked, but then the rope went taunt and the man was plucked from his feet and pulled through the rift. Silence reigned, nobody moved as the rift filled the camera view.


    “Radio! Radio base, now Andrei!” Shane barked out. Muted sounds were heard and then Andrei was calling back to him.


    “Radio’s not working! Only getting static!”


    “Fuck. Andrei, get back in the jeep and haul ass back to base. Get to Gunny Halverson and report what’s going on,” Shane said.


    “What the fuck is going on?” Andrei asked.


    “Just get your ass to base!” Shane barked. Andrei was racing into the jeep and the vehicles engine was roaring even as the words finished tumbling from Shane’s mouth. Headlights flared up and then the jeep was flying away, dirt spinning from the tires as the jeep shot back toward the road.


    “Dumas, Springer, I want you two to set up a crossfire on this…this fucking thing,” Shane said pointing at the rift.


    “Valdez, on me,” Shane said. He turned his rifle to the side and Dunn saw a cylinder attached to the bottom rail of the rifle. A pale hand showed into screen and then a sphere was being shoved into it and the cylinder was slid back.


    Valdez was a darker man with black hair who had a sheen of sweat of his nervous face as he stood next to Shane. The man double checked his own rifle, it didn’t have the slung on cylinder attachment, and then nodded toward Shane.


    “Stay on my hip. We find Dane and then we exfil. Springer! Don’t fucking shoot me when I come back!” Shane spun and then the camera went red and then snapped back into view a moment later.If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.


    “It’s the first rift,” Bron said. His voice reverent as everyone in the space station nodded along with him. Even through the camera view Dunn could feel the sense of change, of the power of the beyond weighing in.


    The video paused and Jon Caspar came into view again. The hologram looked up and around the room, his face apathetic as he looked aimlessly toward the group.


    “I have to interject here as some of the file is corrupted. Later on we will figure out that the rifts have some type of energy inside of them that negatively affects our digital technology. I’ve recovered enough of the file to form something that resembles a video.” Caspar disappeared again and the video became grainy and choppy.


    Flickers of an alien jungle. Blues and yellows and purples with twisted trees that spiraled upward. Valdez appeared then disappeared, jumping forward and then back, his rifle swinging one way or then the other. Voices cut in and out, individual words here or there and then the camera continued onward, smoothing out into something resembling a video.


    “Where are we?” Valdez asked.


    “Doesn’t matter, we find Dane and pull back and get out again.” A crack sounded, gunfire that rose up and above the general background noise of the jungle. Both men froze, looking to their right before breaking off into dead sprints. The jungle became a blur, whipping branches and trees that disappeared in a blink.


    Dane suddenly stumbled in front of them, shirtless and pale with streaks of blood across his bare chest. He was holding a pistol in one hand, his eyes wild and rolling about as he looked about himself, gun held at shoulder length.


    “Dane!” Shane yelled, and the crazed man spun towards them, a tense moment filling the air as the bore of the gun stared at the camera for a moment. Then Dane lowered his pistol and came staggering toward them. Valdez reached him first, the shorter man propping up Dane in a moment.


    Behind Dane the sound of splintering wood erupted, and a shape came rumbling free. A quadruped with thick, rocky carapace and antlers that jutted up into the sky. It swung its wide head around, antlers crushing trees with ease, toppling the twisted giants with ease.


    “Oh, what the fuck,” Shane whispered.


    “Run!” Dane screamed, his voice cracked and shrill. Valdez legs were pumping, half carrying the limp man back the way they had come. Shane stood still, aiming the rifle at the monstrous creature. A deep thump resounded, and an explosion of flame and fire billowed off of the creature. Rock shattered and exploded in a spray of razor-sharp shrapnel.


    The creature staggered, legs went limping as it crashed into the earth, the video shaking as the ground shook. It swung its head about, slashing apart trees as it got back to its feet.


    “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” Shane was muttering as his hands trembled as he ejected a spent casing free and then sliding a new grenade in. He slammed the tube shut and aimed back at the creature as it started to run toward him. Shane fired again, the rifle spitting fire again, rock disintegrating by the creature’s head. An antler sheered off and fell to the ground as the beast shook with wrath.


    Rifle fire cracked out as Shane continued to fire without pause, spears of fire and the thunder of the rifle consuming the camera feed. Pieces of rock chipped free and spouts of blood came pumping out of the creature. The rifle clicked empty and then the camera was spinning and Shane was running.


    He was trying to reload the rifle as he ran, fingers clumsy as vines and branches caught on him. Up ahead Dane and Valdez were trying to run faster, but Dane was nearly limp as Valdez carried him.


    Shane got a third grenade loaded and spun about to fire, the monster having halved the distance in the few minutes. He managed to hit its face, antlers exploding in a spray as the creature was flung through a tree. Shane managed to turn again and started to run again, the entire sequence taking a few seconds.


    The rift appeared again and then the camera cut out again. The entire group hissed in displeasure as the tension in the room collapsed on itself as they all stared at the frozen screen. Then the video image started to play again and they were back on earth again. The small clearing empty.


    “Dumas! Springer! Get out here!” Shane yelled as Valdez continued to drag their comrade across the field and toward the rutted road. The two soldiers came out of the edge of the jungle, slightly apart from each other, their rifles still trained on the rift.


    “Behind you!” Springer yelled and the camera spun about to see the rocky creature come out of the rift. The entire rift bulged, the red split in the air expanding rapidly into an oval as the creature hit Earth with a heavy thump.


    “SHOOT!” Shane screamed, even as his own rifle came up and he was firing. Each flash of light was marked with another piece of rock flying off of the creature. More rifles were firing, pieces of rock flying off of it as the creature looked about stupefied for a moment.


    Then it leapt at Springer, clearing the air in a single blur of speed as it crushed the soldier into the earth. Its heavy claws breaking the soldier’s body in a single moment, the man not having time to scream before he was dead.


    Dumas was next as it spun about and leapt at him, Dumas ducked and rolled back into the forest as the heavy monster drove through the trees in a blur of motion. Dumas came sprinting around a wide tree, reloading his rifle as he ran into the clearing. Shane’s rifle was tracking the impenetrable forest and seeing nothing.


    Dumas was halfway across the clearing when the beast came racing out of the trees, catching Dumas before he could get close to Shane. It swung its wide head, broken antlers spearing through Dumas’s body and picking the man up and shaking him violently in the air as Shane continued to fire.


    An engine was heard faintly, but the noise was growing in volume as lights speared into the dimming clearing. A heavy blast crushed the air and then again and again and again, the monster breaking apart in a spray of rock.


    Shane looked toward the heavily armored vehicle that raced into the clearing, a mounted machine gun firing constantly at it. Casings raining down across the armored vehicle as the monster was forced to hunker down as it broke apart. Shane continued to fire, each bark of his rifle lost in the thunder of the mounted machine gun.


    The creature collapsed to the ground and Shane moved forward, rifle still firing as the monster broke apart at the joints, rocks crumbling to dust. Shane stopped firing as a mound of dust stood where the monster had been. A glow was emanating from the pile and Shane kept walking towards it.


    The entire room held a collective breath as Shane stood above the blue glowing pile of rock dust. A flash of light filled the view and then the camera cut out and Jaspar was standing there again.


    “This was the last image we had of the encounter. Afterwards Lance Corporal Dupont, Private Ignacio Valdez, and Private Andrei Hoult were isolated after the incident. Private Dane Jennings…well, that’s the next video we have.”