Cooper and Mia sat a little farther from the others; on opposite sides of the bar, they poured and drank and felt the warmth between them slipping away.
They were just strangers who happened to go through so much together, and yet Mia lost everything, while Cooper really had nothing here to lose.
“So why is this place called the Suicide Forest?” Cooper asked.
“It’s been in my family for generations,” she replied. “Each time it gets passed down, it gets renamed, reinvented. Only its heart remains.”
“You inherited this place from—”
“From my mother, yes.” She took a deep breath. “My mum had called this place The Black Dog. She suffered from depression. She acted like it was her own personal burden to bear, and I guess this was her way of projecting her illness onto a physical thing. Like, by making the black dog a real thing, she could shrink its impact. She could make it a place which brought other people happiness, which would reduce its control over her even more. But … my father was never the understanding type. I don’t remember much about my mother, but I remember she fought with Dad a lot. He didn’t really know how to deal with her illness. He didn’t know how to help, and that just drove him to be frustrated and angry and bitter. It stressed them both out, until one day she disappeared into the bush and never came back.”
Cooper sat there staring into the background of the bar. He sipped his spiced rum and listened.
“The Suicide Forest is my way of remembering her. It feels to me like I brought a piece of her back. To me … this is a space where people can find comfort among friends and family. It’s not meant to be the happiest place on earth, but no matter who walks through that door, they’re not alone. You’ve got friends here, so long as we’re open. So long as the drinks are cold and the taps flow beer, I’ve got an ear to lend. I feel like that’s what my mum would have wanted.”
“That’s so kind of you,” Cooper said. “I wish I could stay around, but I don’t think I could cope, after all that’s happened.”
“I don’t blame you,” she said.
“Yeah, I think I’m done playing detective. It’s not my game anymore. I’m probably going to go back to Melbourne, connect with old friends, and see where things go from there.”
“Well, I’m handing over the pub. Lewis and Steph said they’d be interested in taking it over. It’ll help take their minds off of everything, but I think it would just make things worse for me.”
Cooper nodded. “Yeah, do what’s right for you. Are you planning on sticking around Alice Springs?”
“I don’t know what I’ll do now,” she said, “but I know I can’t stay here. There’s nothing left here for me now. I’m done with this chapter of my life. I mean, I’ll still be back to visit family from time to time, but I need to get out and live a little.”
The case file had been passed on to higher authorities. The canyon and surrounding area was a closed site now, a military operation. It was in safe hands, but still, neither Cooper nor Mia felt comfortable staying in Alice Springs, knowing what was lurking in the outback just beyond.
Each of the group had signed a nondisclosure agreement, keeping the beasts a secret. The rest of Australia and the rest of the world would never know what had happened out there in the mystery canyon with the mystery beasts; the entire town with no name had been completely erased, too.
The families of the survivors and the survivors themselves had been greatly damaged, but life continued.
Cooper leaned across the bar and gave Mia a kiss on the cheek and slid a napkin across the bar with his number written in black Sharpie.
“Call me any time, day or night, whenever you want. You’re not alone. I’ll be there for you.”
He patted her back and left. As she watched him walk towards the door, already she felt so alone.
The End
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Kaiju Rampage
Captain Daichi watched his crew hard at work on the deck of the Hiroaka. The day had just begun, but already the ship’s hold was filling up with fish from her nets. Daichi had never seen the kind of loads his men were hauling now before in his life. It was almost as if something out there in the water was driving the fish his way. He whispered a prayer of thanks and smiled. This was Daichi’s first run as captain. He had feared he would not live up to the expectations of his father and let the old man down. Even at the age of thirty-one, Daichi was somewhat afraid of the old man. Though his father was pushing eighty, he could still make his words cut deeper than the sharpest of swords.
The two of them had never seen eye to eye. Daichi had never wanted to be a part of his father’s fishing company, much less the captain of the old man’s best remaining boat. Daichi had dreamed of being a writer, going to America, and becoming a star. At first, he had some success. He had sold his first ever story to a paying magazine and almost immediately got an offer to write one for another. That sort of thing was rare in the writing world, and Daichi allowed himself to believe that he could make it. He spent the next few years doing his best. His work sold, he made money, but it was never quite enough or dependable enough to be all he did in terms of a job.
Daichi’s father had been there for him, if at a price. His father had given him just enough work to keep him afloat and chasing his dream for a time. After five years had passed, his father became more and more demanding of him, pushing more and more work onto him. His father’s health had begun to fail with age. The old man needed someone who could take over and continue to bring honor to the family name. Daichi was the only son. He had three sisters, but his father wanted him, not them. His father held with the old ways and wanted Daichi to surrender his failed dream to step up and do what he had been born to do.
When this fishing season had started, the old man had given Daichi a choice. Take over as captain of the Hiroaka or leave the family business behind for good. Daichi had known it was no idle threat. Either he stepped up or he was out. His self-published sales were down, and short stories weren’t paying what they used to, not that it had ever been enough. With his rent already close to being late and a stack of bills on his desk, Daichi was left with no choice. Now, here he was on the deck of the Hiroaka, doing the job he had sworn as a child he would never do.
The Hiroaka was an old ship, only weighing in at a displacement of around one hundred and fifty tons. Her entire crew, counting Daichi himself, was composed of two dozen sailors. She ran nearly one hundred feet from bow to stern. What she lacked in size and crew, though, she more than made up for in the tech aboard her. Her sonar and comm. gear was top of the line. That fact was one of the few things Daichi liked about her.
Natsuo approached him wearing a concerned expression that gave Daichi cause for worry.
“Good morning, Natsuo,” Daichi offered.
“Captain Daichi, sir,” Natsuo responded with a quick nod of his head. “I would be most grateful if you would accompany me inside.”
“Is my father calling again?” Daichi asked. His old man, though wheelchair bound, had followed him to sea in a sense, thanks to the very state of the art gear that Daichi liked that the Hiroaka had onboard. Even in the worst of storms, the ship’s communications worked flawlessly.
“No, Captain Daichi,” Natsuo told him. “There is something you must see.”
Daichi grunted his consent and moved to follow Natsuo to the heart of the small ship where her helm controls and sonar station were. Tomo, the ship’s comm. and sonar specialist, was there waiting for them. Tomo got up from his station as Daichi entered. He gave Daichi a quick bow of respect.
“What is it, Tomo?” Daichi asked. “Natsuo has been rather vague about why you needed me here.”
“With good cause, Captain,” Tomo said. “We did not want to cause a panic.”
Daichi’s eyebrows rose at the bizarre disclosure. “Panic? What are you talking about, Tomo?”
“Look for yourself, sir,” Tomo told him, gesturing at the sonar s
creen.
Daichi studied the screen. At first, he didn’t have a clue what Tomo was trying to show him, but then he saw it. The blip was so large Daichi had thought it was just part of the screen.
“What is that?” he asked.
“We don’t know, Captain,” Natsuo told him. “Whatever it is, though, it’s coming straight for us.”
“And fast, too,” Tomo added. “It’s moving at twenty knots.”
Daichi glanced back at the sonar screen, quickly doing the math in his head. “So we have about ten minutes until whatever that is reaches us?”
Tomo and Natsuo nodded in unison.
“Could it be a ship?” Daichi asked. “Have you tried hailing it?”
“I don’t think it’s a ship, sir,” Tomo said. “Something about the way it moves. . .”
“We have tried making contact with it, Captain,” Natsuo informed him. “On every channel available to us. There has been no reply.”
Daichi rubbed at his cheeks with the fingers and thumb of his right hand. “I am man enough to admit I don’t have an answer to this one. Both of you are more experienced with all this. What do you suggest we do?”
“Run, Captain,” Tomo said almost instantly. “We certainly can’t fight something that size and that fast if it’s hostile. The Hiroaka is a fishing boat. Yes, we have some small arms aboard in case of pirates but nothing that could give us a chance against something like that.”
“I have to agree, sir,” Natsuo nodded.
“The men are in the middle of pulling up the nets,” Daichi protested. “All the fish in them here will be lost if we run. And what we will tell the rest of the crew? Won’t running cause exactly the sort of panic you were hoping to avoid?”
Neither Natsuo nor Tomo had an answer.
“You said this thing is moving at twenty knots correct?” Daichi asked, still weighing his course of action.
“Yes, Captain,” Tomo replied.
“The Hiroaka’s max speed with her engines at full is only eighteen knots,” Daichi reminded them. “If we run and whatever that thing is decides to come after us, we won’t be able to outrun it.”
Natsuo and Tomo stared at him, waiting for his orders.
“The call is yours, sir,” Natsuo said. “Whatever you decide to do, though, Captain, I suggest we do it quickly.”
“Fine,” Daichi grunted. “Tell the crew what’s going on and pass out what weapons we do have aboard. There’s no point in keeping them in the dark at this point. They’ll know something is badly wrong as soon as we give the order to abandon the nets.”
Daichi paused, taking a breath before continuing. It hurt him to give up the fish, but he could see no other option. “Tell them to drop the nets. Tomo, get down to the engines and make sure we get all the speed out of them that we can. Natsuo, set a course away from whatever that thing, maximum speed.”
Tomo and Natsuo hurried to carry out his orders while Daichi moved to watch the chaos that began on the ship’s deck as soon as Natsuo started barking orders through the loudspeakers.
The crew outside looked absolutely terrified as they cut loose the nets they had been reeling up. He could see in their faces, even from where he was looking out the window of the small control room of the ship. The fear in those expressions only grew as Natsuo ordered the men to pass out the weapons from the ship’s weapon lockers.
Daichi’s attention became focused on the horizon beyond the Hiroaka’s forward deck. He picked up a nearby pair of binoculars and raised them to his eyes. Out there in the distance, he could see the something massive cutting through the waves towards the ship. Daichi felt sick as the full scale of its size sunk in. The thing was many, many times the size of the Hiroaka.
Natsuo was spinning the wheel around madly, turning the Hiroaka away from the approaching contact. Daichi could already see that even with the engines straining at full power, it wasn’t going to be enough.
Some of the sailors on the deck who had already been given small arms opened fire at the massive creature streaking towards the ship. Shotguns thundered and pistols cracked rapid succession. Daichi had to bite his lip to keep from laughing at how futile their shots seemed given the size of the thing coming at them.
In the last instant before the creature plowed into the Hiroaka, it rose partially up out of the waves. Its head was horned. A great horn protruded from each side of its skull, and a third larger one rose from the middle of its forehead. Its body was covered in thick scales that reminded Daichi of the scales of python, all yellow and black. It gave a roar that left everyone aboard the Hiroaka screaming in pain and clutching their ears before the creature dropped its head back into the water. The window in front of Daichi blew out. Shards of glass exploded, burying them in his flesh. Blood spurted in splashes of bright red from one piece ripped open the side of his neck. Daichi stumbled backwards to collapse onto the floor.
The monster struck the Hiroaka at a speed well over twenty knots. The hull of the fishing vessel folded inward with the squeals of rending metal. The impact was so great that the Hiroaka was lifted from the surface of the ocean and sent toppling over onto its side before it completely broke apart as the monster plowed through it, tearing it to pieces.
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Kaiju Canyon Page 7