Wally held onto Leigh as she told her story, his heart breaking for her. No kid should ever have to live through something like what the world was becoming. It just wasn’t fair.
“Howard wouldn’t stop demanding that we leave. Mom caved in. They sent me upstairs to get a few of my things while Howard went out to make sure it was safe and get the car ready to go. Howard never came back. Instead this thing came into the house. It was like a person but not. There were gray scales covering it and its eyes were yellow. I nearly peed myself when it burst through the front door. Wait. Dad, why do you smell like pee?”
Wally couldn’t help but laugh. “I did pee myself on the road here honey, when I ran into one the monsters. I guess, in that sense, you were braver than I was.”
Leigh giggled and Wally lit up inside. It was good to see that she was holding up well enough to still laugh.
“You were saying,” Wally reminded her.
“Oh yeah,” Leigh said and continued on with her tale. “The monster was covered in some sort of slime stuff too. Mom got between me and it. She fought it with a knife from the kitchen. Mom stuck the knife in the thing’s throat and killed it. She told me to keep away from it and managed to drag its body out into the backyard. When she came back inside, she was sick. She just didn’t look right ya know?”
“I understand,” Wally nodded.
“Anyway, she told me not to touch her and told me to go on into the basement and lock the door and not to open it for anyone no matter what. I could hear Mom up here moving about. I wanted her to come down with me. After a while, it got quiet. I mean really quiet. I couldn’t hear Mom anymore or anything else so I came up to check on her, only she wasn’t in the kitchen.”
Leigh’s voice began to tremble and Wally knew what was coming next.
“Then I found her, only she wasn’t Mom anymore. She had changed into one of those things. Her eyes were yellow just like the one she had killed. She. . .She came after me.”
“And you ran,” Wally stated.
Leigh nodded. “I ran back to the basement and got the door closed before she could get in. I’ve been there ever since. We had already stocked the basement with food, drinks, and a bunch of stuff. It wasn’t so bad except for. . .”
“You did great Leigh,” Wally beamed, trying to take her mind away from her memories. He knew that she had to have heard Claudia attacking the door. “You really did.”
“Dad?” Leigh asked, staring up at him. “What do we do now? Are we leaving?”
Wally had no answer. He hadn’t thought that far ahead. All his energy and focus had been on just finding Leigh. Now that he had, he had no idea what they were going to do.
They could go into the basement together and wait for help or they could try to make a run for it through the packs of Kaiju Spawn that stalked the streets of the town. Neither option was without risk.
“Do you want to leave?” Wally asked.
Leigh nodded.
“Okay then,” Wally said, releasing her. “To do that, we are going to need a plan.”
****
Howard’s car was still parked in the driveway in front of the house. Wally knew he wouldn’t have time to hotwire it if they used it. The Kaiju Spawn would be on them fast as soon as they left the house. Thankfully, Leigh knew where Claudia and Howard kept a spare set of keys for it. Wally set Leigh to gathering up some supplies for them, to keep her busy and out of trouble, while he tried to figure out the best means by which to get to the car. If they could make it to the parked vehicle, they would still be far from out of the woods but at least they would have a chance.
Wally couldn’t come up with anything better than just rushing the car though and hoping the Kaiju Spawn were a good distance away when they did.
When Leigh returned from the kitchen to join him in the corner of the living room, he sat her down.
“This is going to be dangerous Leigh,” he warned her. “We’re going to have to move fast and you’re going to have to do exactly what I say out there without any backtalk. Do you understand?”
Leigh nodded. “I got it Dad.”
And Wally believed that she did.
“Let’s give it a few more minutes just to make sure there are none of those things out there waiting for us in the bushes and then we’ll go when I say.”
There was really no reason to wait in terms of what they were about to try. If the Kaiju Spawn were waiting on them, the things were doing a bang up job of keeping quiet which wasn’t something Wally imagined was well inside their wheelhouse. In truth, Wally just wanted to spend a few more peaceful, well, as peaceful as a Kaiju filled world allowed, moments with his little girl.
“It’s all going to be okay Leigh,” he lied.
Leigh reached out and took his hand in hers. “I know it will be Dad . . .because you’re here.”
Wally squeezed her hand tight then let go.
“You ready?” he asked.
Leigh nodded.
“Stay with me now,” he cautioned, moving to the front door and opening it. He took a last look at his little girl over his shoulder then shouted, “Go!”
Wally dived through the doorway, Leigh hot on his heels. He sprinted down the drive towards Howard’s car. Up the street, Wally saw one of the Kaiju Spawn. It saw him too, its yellow eyes locking onto him, filled with vile depths of hatred and hunger. The Kaiju Spawn laid back its head and unleashed a roar that tore the night.
Wally paused, knowing he shouldn’t, and lifted the P-90 to his shoulder. He took aim and put a round through the Kaiju Spawn’s head. It dropped where it stood, its body twitching on the ground as its brains leaked from its ruptured skull.
Leigh darted by Wally and got into the car, slamming and locking the passenger side door after her. Wally allowed himself a smile, proud she had done as he had told her to do instead of stopping at his side.
Between the Kaiju Spawn’s roar and the gunshot, any chance of getting out of the drive before they were spotted was gone. More of the Kaiju Spawn came. They appeared at both ends of the block and bounded towards the house’s drive as Wally slid into the driver seat of the car. Others were pouring out of the houses that lined the street as Wally shoved the keys into the car’s ignition and cranked the engine.
“Dad!” Leigh screamed, gesturing at the house behind them. There were Kaiju Spawn there too. They came running around the sides of the house, howling and raging as they closed in on the car.
Wally jerked the car into reverse and put his foot down on the gas. The car shot out of the drive backwards. He whipped the wheel around, turning the car northward towards the smaller of the two large packs of Kaiju and floored the gas this time.
The Kaiju Spawn made no attempt to get out of the car’s path. It was like a sick game of chicken that Wally knew he couldn’t afford to lose.
The car plowed into the ranks of the Kaiju Spawn, flinging some aside while others were knocked from their feet and dragged under the wheels of the car. Wally fought with all his might to keep the car under control. It wasn’t built for the Hell it was enduring and he could only pray it kept running long enough to get them through.
The impacts of the Kaiju slowed the car but it did keep going. Kaiju Spawn came at it from the sides before it began to pick up speed again. Their claws scraped at its sides, raking away paint and causing sparks to fly in the semi-darkness of the moonlit night. The window next to Leigh caved inward, showering her with broken glass. Leigh was screaming at the top of her lungs as Wally barked, “Get down!”
Leigh ducked in her seat as Wally fired the P-90 over her. He let the Kaiju Spawn trying to hold onto the side of the car and claw its way inside have it. A stream of automatic rounds ripped the creature’s face to shreds before its limp body released the side of the car and it went rolling along the road in the car’s wake.
“Stay down!” Wally ordered as he refocused his attention on the road in front of the car. They had made it through the primary pack of Kaiju Spawn though more of th
e creatures were pouring into the road from its sides and trying to get into the vehicle’s path to intercept it.
Wally took the bend at the end of the block hard. The car bounced over the curb but kept moving.
Then Leigh sat up in her seat, took a quick glance around, and yelled, “We made it Dad!”
And she was right. They were on the main road out of town now and the only Kaiju Spawn to be seen were shrinking dots in the rearview mirror.
“We did, didn’t we?” Wally laughed, long and loud.
“Dang right we did!” Leigh shouted.
They drove on without saying another word for several minutes after they hit the interstate proper. Wally knew what had just happened was nothing short of an honest to goodness miracle.
“Try the radio,” Wally said breaking the silence.
Leigh clicked it on and ran the gamut of stations. There was nothing on the air.
Wally noticed Leigh frowning.
“Don’t worry kiddo,” he told her. “We got this.”
She didn’t look as if she believed him.
“We made it out of there didn’t we?” He asked with a smile. “Trust me kiddo, we’re gonna be just fine.”
Wally thumped a palm against the steering wheel as he drove, acting excited. “The whole world is out there waiting on us, so tell me Leigh, where do you want to go?”
“You pick Dad,” She said, her frown vanishing as quickly as it had appeared. “As long as I’m with you, I know it’s going to be okay too.”
Wally’s smile stretched his lips to their limits. “Okay,” he gestured towards the rising sun, “Straight on to the horizon kiddo. Straight on together.”
Somewhere behind them the giant Kaiju gave a roar that shook the ground underneath the moving car but they both ignored it, keeping their eyes on the road ahead.
END
Read on for a free sample of Atomic Rex
Author Bios
David Robbins is the author of over three hundred published novels including the internationally famous ENDWORLD series and the new ANGEL U series. Some of his other works include The WILDERNESS series and the novelizations of the films PROOF OF LIFE (Staring Russell Crowe) and MEN OF HONOR (Staring Robert De Niro). His books have been translated into nine languages and sold millions of copies worldwide. He is a member of the Horror Writers Association, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, and the Western Writers of America.
Eric S Brown is the author of numerous series including the Bigfoot War series, The Kaiju Apocalypse series (with Jason Cordova), and the Crypto-Squad series with Jason Brannon. Some of his stand alone works include Megalodon, Night of the Kaiju, Dawn of the Kaiju, World War of the Dead, Sasquatch Lake, and War of the Worlds Plus Blood Guts and Zombies. His short fiction has been published hundreds of times in the small press and beyond including in markets such the Onward Drake anthology from Baen Books, the Grantville Gazette, and Walmart World Magazine. Two of his books have been made into feature films- Bigfoot War (2014) from Origin Releasing and Werewolf Massacre at Hell’s Gate (2015) from Ingy Films. He lives in North Carolina with his wife and two children where he continues to write tales of giant monsters, blazing guns, hungry corpses, and the things that lurk in the woods.
Prologue
The morning sky was a dim orange as Chris Myers shifted the controls forward to move the fifty meter tall robot known as Steel Samurai onto the beach of Coney Island. The robot was an imposing figure that literally had the appearance of a giant samurai, including a helmet, and a twenty meter long sword. In addition to the sword, the robot was armed to the teeth with a giant crossbow, rockets, and high powered machine guns. Behind Steel Samurai were two more giant robots, known as Iron Avenger, and Bronze Warrior. Both of the robots were equally as well armed as Steel Samurai. The robots were piloted by Chris’s best friend, Jeremy Draven, and Jeremy’s girlfriend, Laura Swan. Together the three giant robots, or mechs as the media had dubbed them, represented humanity’s best hope of preserving this last section of what was once the United States of America.
Chris was all too aware of the fact that the last hope which the mechs represented was a slim one. He seemed to recall an old song about living on a prayer, and as he stared at the Atlantic Ocean and the large swell of water approaching the beach, he wasn’t even sure that humanity had a prayer.
Chris closed his eyes, and he thought about the events that had brought him to this point. He couldn’t believe that in less than two years most of North America, and the rest of the world, had fallen under the control of the kaiju. It had all started with atomic tests taking place on a remote island in the Pacific Ocean. The world thought that the area tested on was only inhabited by sea birds and a few small mammals. The truth was that the governments of the world were all too eager to test their new weapons to check exactly what was on those islands. If someone had so much as flown over the island they would have noticed it was inhabited by a tribe of islanders and numerous prehistoric creatures.
Two months after the atomic bomb was detonated on the island, the first kaiju created by the blast attacked New Orleans. The monster was a huge turtle, nearly sixty meters long, whose saliva had been turned into a corrosive acid. The creature was given the name Tortiraus. There were reports that the monster was somehow able to fly and that it was seen splashing down in the Gulf of Mexico. Regardless of how Tortiraus arrived there, the kaiju quickly destroyed New Orleans. During his attack on the city, Tortiraus had proved nearly invulnerable to conventional weapons. The armed forces were simply unable to defeat the creature, and the entire Gulf of Mexico, as well as anything that was fifty kilometers inland from the Gulf, was declared Tortiraus’s territory. The government decided that more lives would be saved by simply leaving the creature alone and moving away from it rather than attacking it again.
A week later a second creature had attacked San Francisco. This time the kaiju appeared to be one of the natives from the island that had been mutated into a monster. The islander was now a fifty-five meter tall giant with a huge bloated gut. When the giant entered the city he began devouring everything thing that he encountered. The kaiju devoured any meat that he could find. Fish, horses, cows, dogs, even people were grabbed up by the giant and tossed into his mouth. Some idiot blogger had named the giant Yokozuna. Apparently the name means something like grand sumo champion in Japanese. Whatever the name meant it quickly stuck to the giant, and he was officially designated as Yokozuna. When it became clear that the armed forces were unable to defeat the creature, everything from Northern California to Canada was declared Yokozuna’s territory, and everyone who was still alive in the area was evacuated.
After Yokozuna, more reports started to come in from all over the world. Sightings of monsters in the oceans, and then reports of attacks on other countries began appearing up all over the internet. To further complicate matters, the radiation given off by Tortiraus and Yokozuna spread like a plague and created other giant mutations. For the most part, these mutations were lesser kaiju, like giant bugs or rodents. While the Army was able to destroy these creatures individually, the sheer number of giant mutants quickly became a problem.
A group of giant ants dubbed the Colony had been mutated by Yokozuna. The Colony moved into Los Angeles where they also began devouring people. Once again humans were forced to evacuate and give L.A. to the monsters.
In response to the growing crisis, The U.S. government quickly approved a plan to create their own atomic monsters in the form of giant nuclear powered robots. A dozen robots were created to retake The Northern West Coast and the Gulf of Mexico. For the first time since Tortiraus had gained control of the South Eastern United States, the people of the world had hope. That hope lasted until the first robot, Steel Sentry, challenged Tortiraus and the kaiju tore through Steel Sentry as if it were made of aluminum foil. The same thing happened when another of the mechs challenged Yokozuna. After only two battles, the number of mechs had been reduced to ten while the number of kaiju
continued to increase.
Giladon, a quadrupedal monster that resembled a colossal Gila monster, came ashore next in the Sea of Cortez. The monster made its way up into Utah, Wyoming, and Colorado where it killed millions of people. This time two mechs went to challenge the beast, but Giladon destroyed them both.
Giladon had no sooner claimed his territory than a twenty foot tall creature, that looked a like a heavily muscled man with pitch black skin and long fangs, suddenly showed up in New Mexico and Arizona. No one seemed to know where the monster had come from. It literally just fell out of the sky one day right into the middle of Santa Fe. The creature was dubbed Ogre by those that survived the beast’s attack on Santa Fe. Ogre was small by the standards of the other monsters that had appeared as he was only about six meters tall. Several theories began to spring up about what exactly Ogre had formerly been. One theory was that Ogre was a primate who had lived on the island and was turned into a monster from the atomic tests conducted there. Other people speculated that the he was at one time a human who had been mutated by Giladon when the kaiju had made his way through the Southwest.
Whatever Ogre was, despite his smaller size, he was perhaps the most physically powerful and destructive atomic monster that had yet to appear. The creature was able to smash a skyscraper to the ground with a single blow. His legs were powerful enough that when he jumped into the air that a single leap carried him several miles at a time. Once more, two mechs were sent into battle Ogre, and the mutant turned them both into scrap metal. There were a few vague reports that Ogre had grabbed a couple of young women and jumped off with them. With the carnage that had occurred in Santa Fe, there was no way to confirm these reports. If anyone was taken by the monster they were officially presumed dead.
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