Death Smith - Chapter 9

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Blissful Retirement

Six and a half months ago.

August, 13 AR.

United Kingdom, London, outside Ealing Hospital.

The grey-haired man shivered as he walked back into the trailer, shaking off the rain from his raincoat before taking it off. Even when he had worn it, he still felt miserable. It was hard not to when walking through a typical British downpour. From what he had heard, the weather would stay like this for the next few days.

“Ten more years until I can retire,” Jeffrey Oakfield mumbled as he walked towards the kitchen and poured himself a cup of coffee. After that, he took a seat behind his computer. He entered his credentials as site overseer and recorded his daily report as well as upload the footage he had recorded of the Rift.

“As of 21:47, August 23rd, Rift 97-B is giving of the same readings as before. Conditions are within acceptable parameters, and I can find no signs of any growth or expansion of the Rift itself,” he said, recording the measurements before pausing it and double checking his findings.

He stopped midway when he heard the trailer door open as two vocal young men dashed inside. They were talking with one another as they took off their GRRO issued raincoat. Like him, they were all employees of the Global Rift Response Organisation, temporary or not. Calling it global might be a bit off a stretch, seeing as each county had its own interpretations of the initiative and some outright refused it. Some nations, like China, Russia, or the US, opted for something of their own creation, tailoring it to their nation without having to deal with the red tape of other countries.

Jeffrey eyed the younger men as he took another sip of his coffee before he interrogated them. “Did you check the lines?”

“Yeah… yeah. We did,” the man on the left said as he ran a hand through his soaked hairs.

“Good. What about the safety nets?” Jeffrey asked, switching his gaze to the other man.

The man on the right was more curious, since he was a recent addition to the roster. “Yes.”

“And you did your rounds?” Jeffrey continued with his barrage of questions. Eventually, they only rewarded Jeffrey with nods. The two younger men were recent additions to the GRRO. On the left, there was Dillan, a former firefighter. The GRRO had scouted him a few months ago and had offered him a permanent position. On the right was Ali, a medical student that was doing his internship within the organisation. Because of the nature of Rifts and the scarcity of Rifters, there was to always be a trained medical professional on site or nearby. With Rifts like these, that meant sitting for hours on end until your shift ended.

Dillan finally had enough of the line of questioning. “Relax, we checked it, twice. We did like you asked. Besides, it isn’t like something will happen soon, right?” Dillan said as he poured himself a cup of coffee, adding a few lumps of sugar to keep himself awake.

Ali was standing in front of the window and was looking outside, seeing the massive Rift in front of them instead of a hospital. Ali had never worked in Ealing Hospital, but he had heard of it before the Rift had spawned there and destroyed a substantial portion of it. The Rift was producing unnatural black energy that made it impossible to look inside the Rift or even pass it. The closer you got to it, the more you could feel the energy in the air itself.

The GRRO had installed large nets around the Rift with several flexible cables. There were layers upon layers of these. They were designed to be able to catch anything that would exit the Rift with momentum. Behind that were concrete and steel walls, acting as a last line of defence before something reached the city itself.

All of this formed a ring all around the Rift and the partially collapsed Ealing Hospital. The walls had security posts as well. The military, rather than the GRRO, staffed these, serving as an additional line of security. This was protocol until the Rift was at least cleared a few times and the GRRO would handle security on its own. When a Rift threatened to turn into an outbreak, the military would take control over the exterior site again.

Ali then broke the silence in the room, asking Jeffrey a question as he continued to stare at the large pulsating Rift, mesmerized. “Sir, is it true what they say?”

Sighing, Jeffrey shifted his gaze to the young man. “About what?” he asked, sipping his coffee while wishing they assigned him fewer vocal underlings this evening.

Ali simply kept his gaze fixed on the Rift. “About the time thing?”

“Time thing?” Jeffrey asked, his earlier wish now strengthened even further. He just wanted a quiet shift and possibly catch up on sports.

“You know. The way time inside these Rifts flows differently?” Ali asked, watching the Rift outside fluctuate now and again, but otherwise remain quite stable. It appeared Ali had read up on these Rifts and how they operated. The Rift here at Ealing Hospital was a newly formed Rift, and it was still stable. It meant that a Rift team could still enter it, afterwards it would turn unstable and more violent.

Jeffrey nodded to Ali before confirming it. “Time flows differently. It isn’t uncommon for some Rifters to report being in for several weeks, while only one or two had passed back on Earth. In most cases, time passes faster in the Rift.” Jeffrey answered, eyes glancing at the Rift outside as he watched the spikes of black energy. “But the time difference isn’t the hard part.”

“Hard part? As in the monsters, right?” Dillan asked, putting down his mug and propping his feet on the desk as he leaned back.

Jeffrey simply eyed the youngster’s feet and shook his head before he continued. “As in provisions. Rifters are people with incredible training, skill, and the equipment to kill monsters, but sometimes it takes a long time to find them. Some monsters prefer to hide and stalk while Rifters burn through their food and water supplies. A basic Rift team enters a Rift with enough provisions for at least last a month or more unless they can forage on their own somehow. Even if it took a month or two, they would be able to ma-”

“But… sir, what about the one in Paris?” Ali interrupted Jeffrey’s explanation. The young man was referring to the ‘disaster of Paris’ where a Rift had occurred that was so abnormal that a full year had passed inside while only a week had passed on Earth. Many of the Rifters who had entered did not return and the two that had survived refused to explain how those Rifters had endured for so long. One of them even had taken his own life a few months later. Others could not successfully clear the Rift after that attempt, with the Rift growing until it resulted in the outbreak that destroyed most of Paris. Jeffrey had no answer for the Paris incident. No one had an answer.

Sensing that Jeffrey would not answer, Dillan asked another question. “Well, how about this Rift? Do you reckon anyone survived?”

Dillan had read through the missing person list and noted just how many had ended up in the Rift. Jeffrey, however, wasn’t one for speculating. He had seen a few absurdities in his time as a site overseer. “Perhaps. Initial Rifts can happen in the weirdest of places. Although horrible, you’d have a better chance of making it out if there were a lot of other healthy people in there with you. So, a Rift in an army base or a crowded stadium would have more chance of having survivors than a day-care centre, or a hospital,” Jeffrey said before pausing, thinking about the very nature of a hospital and the people that occupied it.

“The wounded and the infirm would make up most of their numbers. The staff would have medical training, but probably little in terms of survival or combat-related skills,” Jeffrey said solemnly, trying not to think about all those patients that surely would have died at the start.

Dillan was silent at that, imagining the horrors that must have happened inside. Still, Ali was curious about this Rift, perhaps because of his medical background. “Why haven’t they cleared this Rift already, or at least attempted it?”

Jeffrey placed his empty mug down and shrugged his shoulders before commenting. “Who knows? Could be that there was another Rift that was about to have an outbreak, or simply no Rifters in the area at the moment. Initial Rifts like these are horrible in the beginning but ignored afterwards. In all fairness, they pose little danger after the initial incident for at least a few months. A Rift needs to grow and expand before it reaches a stage where an outbreak can happen,” He replied as he glanced at his watch, seeing the clock nearly hit the ten-hour mark, meaning that the late shift would arrive soon.

“All right, how about you youngsters finish your end of the report whi-” He stopped talking when the Rift suddenly erupted in a flash of black energy. The eruption peppered the entire area in projectiles of stone, dirt, and bodies.

Some objects were hitting the nets, absorbing the violent force that had sped them outward. The force launched other objects outwards at a higher angle, straight through the protective netting and hitting the already damaged hospital or the surrounding area.

Seconds later, the air was thick with the sounds of people screaming and the scent of blood. Jeffrey sprung to life at once, throwing his communication device at Dillan.

“Call it in! Tell them we have a code red!” Jeffrey barked as he rushed out, dragging Ali with him as he grabbed his medical kit while holding onto the pistol at his hip.

* * * * *

An hour later, the site of Rift 97-B had transformed from a small monitoring outpost into a quickly constructed base of operations with state-of-the-art facilities. The GRRO had already brought in dozens of shipping containers that could interlock with one another to form a larger construct. The GRRO had done all of this with haste and precision. They had essentially established a large base of operation near the Rift. Within an hour, the site now had a room for each survivor, surgery stations, a barracks, storage sections, offices, and several other rooms.

Military presence had increased alongside GRRO personal. Already the perimeter around the Rift was being expanded and several teams were now combing the streets to look for expelled debris from the Rift, since it could be valuable or dangerous. Possibly both.

They had taken dozens of readings of the Rift itself and the press was press was already lining up outside of the walls, some even daring to sneak closer to them walls to get a scoop.

“An unprecedented development has occurred just outside of Ealing Hospital,” A woman said, looking directly in the camera as she gestured towards the walled scene behind her, with just the broken hospital still visible over the protective walls.

“Reports have come in of several survivors of this Rift, unaided by external Rifter intervention. This is surely-” The woman went on, with other reporters next to her saying similar things. On the scene were people from major UK news stations, as well as journalists from foreign channels, each one trying to get a scoop.

Three cars passed by the crowd with their windows tinted black. They reached the security checkpoint and could quickly drive further into the compound and out of sight from the reporters. Samuel Jones was sitting in the middle car as he glanced outside, seeing the Rift still pulsating its black energy.

“Even after having feasted, you continue to mock us?” Samuel said, clenching his fists as he forced himself to stare at the Rift for a few seconds longer, his older frame suddenly filled with unbridled rage. As the head of the GRRO London branch, Samuel would be the one with the highest rank. They had called him out of his bed some forty minutes ago with a car already waiting outside. No doubt he wasn’t the only one that would have his sleep disturbed by an aide or a supervisor.

Lack of sleep mattered little compared to the hell these survivors had gone through. The initial reports were vague beyond a staggering few survivors, many wounded, including two Rifters. It had taken a while to figure out that the Rifters had been inside the hospital when the Rift had happened instead of them having tried to clear it on their own. Later, they had updated Samuel on the fact that the wounded Rifters were Dieter Kühn and Daniel Wells. Samuel had worked with them before, even before he had become the head of the GRRO London branch.

Stepping out of his car, he met with the Site overseer, Jeffrey Oakfield. The overseer looked tired and stressed. No doubt he had spent the last hour franticly directing both the civilian and the military matters. Samuel interrupted him before the man could even utter a word. “Keep it short and compact. We both have too much grey in our hairs already.”

“Several survivors, including two Rifters and a Rift-hound. Many critical and already in surgery. Potential prospects would be less than half. The Rift appears to have dwindled in strength. All markers and measurements are showing an actual cleared Rift-event,” Jeffrey simply said, leading Samuel inside the building.

As the men heading further into the compound, Jeffrey handed him several documents and informed Samuel that a personal office was ready for him at the end of the hall. On his desk would be stacks of documents that would contain more field reports and the progress thus far. Samuel nodded before he spoke once more. “Abnormalities?”

Jeffrey paused for a second, formulating his thoughts before he answered. “None Rift related, sir.”

“Explain.” Samuel demanded as he rubbed his eyes to wake himself up. As soon as they concluded the briefing, he would find someone to fetch him some coffee. Jeffrey simply explained, understanding Samuel’s fatigue.

“One of the Rifters is in surgery now. The other, Daniel, is monitoring and supervising and has been… difficult in terms of cooperation. There have already been a few threats from him, and he has refused treatment,” Jeffrey explained, careful to choose to correct words.

“I understand. I’ll head over to them as soon as I am done. Jeffrey, keep me posted,” Samuel said, walking past the man as he grabbed his mobile phone. Already it had a dozen messages that he would need to take care of. He glanced over at the latest texts and noticed the names in the messages. Several representatives of the prime minister, a spokesperson of a local Rifter guild, and two offers from mercenary companies to help with security.

‘When there is blood in the water,’ He thought, knowing full well where this was going. An initial Rift was horrible, and the media would cover it as always. But a Rift that was cleared by mostly survivors would draw much more media attention. The entire country would read or hear about it tomorrow morning, either focusing on the two Rifters, or the brave survivors.

Public opinion would matter especially. Even though the Rift was dormant for now, the government would wish for it to be cleared several more times in the following weeks until it finally ran out of energy and collapsed. It wouldn’t bring back the dead, simply serve as a gesture of strength and leadership from the government, the GRRO and the Rifters involved.

‘No doubt people will want to make a bloody movie about this atrocity in the coming months,’ He thought, as he reached his office and placed several folders and other items down on the desk. His phone was already ringing and beeping again, but he switched it too silent. No doubt they would try to contact him through other channels. He figured it would at least buy him a few minutes to think and plan.

Many countries, including the United Kingdom, treated Rifters with a significant amount of respect. Even lower-ranked Rifters would get treated as favourable employees or soldiers that you wanted to keep. Rifters ranked even higher would enjoy a status akin to that of a celebrity. It was hard not to hero-worship them when some individuals could single-handedly do things a small army couldn’t manage.

‘First things first, calming a Rifter before I have another public incident on my hands,’ He thought as he signalled for a GRRO officer to guide him to where Daniel was last seen.

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Author: Osirium

Copyright: 2021 OsiriumWrites

Released: 2021