Former small-town sheriff turned FC-P special agent, Ashley Collins struggled against her fight-or-flight instinct, which was cheering wholeheartedly for her to make like a freshly baked gingerbread man and run. But she couldn’t. Not while Cooper and Watson were still in harm’s way.
“Get out of here,” she told them, but the pair stood their ground.
“We’re not leaving you, Ash,” Watson said, his voice quivering. The man was fighting his fear, just like Collins. She appreciated his loyalty, but if they all stayed, they all died. If they ran, she might be able to slow him down long enough for them to get away. This was a fight they couldn’t win, so a strategic retreat was not only their best option, it was also their only option.
Gordon, still smoldering, grinned, his sharp teeth gleaming white. A low, rumbling chuckle rolled from deep inside him. He was enjoying this little drama, taking pleasure in it. He knew the eventual outcome as well as Collins did.
“Leave, dammit!” she shouted, trying to reload her revolver. She used speed-loaders, which allowed her to reload all six rounds at once, but it was still hard to do with shaking hands. “Now!”
When they still didn’t budge, she tried logic. “You’re not field agents. This isn’t your job.”
Before they could respond, Gordon started toward them, hands open, ready to grab and crush.
As the trio backed away, Collins said, “How about we at least don’t make it easy on him then. Scatter!” As she shouted, Collins twisted the back of the speed-loader off, snapped the cylinder back in place, took aim and squeezed off a single shot.
Gordon’s head jolted back, halting his approach, only for a moment, but long enough for Watson and Cooper to head in opposite directions. Watson disappeared around the side of the large brick house. Cooper ran back inside.
Now facing Gordon on her own, Collins didn’t like her plan.
“And here I thought they were going to stay with you until the end.” He started toward her again. “Cowards.”
She pulled the trigger again, the noise of the gunshot rolling over the hillside. Gordon flinched as the round struck his cheek and bounced away. “Aiming for my eyes,” he said. He stopped, opened one eye widely, propping it open further with his thick finger. “There. Go ahead. See if it helps.”
Shit, she thought, Gordon would never expose himself to injury so willingly, unless it really didn’t matter. She fired anyway, hoping it would at least cause him some pain.
It did.
He howled as his head rocketed back. One of his armored hands clutched the wounded eye. When his head came back down, his remaining horrible eye glared at Collins. But he was still smiling. He took his hand away from his face. White, fluid gore oozed from his punctured eye. It was followed by something black and viscous. When it hit the ground, it made a ticking sound—metal on pavement. The bullet. When she looked back up, Gordon’s ruined eye was whole once again. And he was charging straight for her.
Collins fired her remaining bullets, none of them effective. She lunged to the side, hoping Gordon’s momentum would carry him into the brick wall at her back, but his reach was too wide. He caught her around the waist, clutching her with one hand. Her feet scraped against the pavement as she was pushed back. The scraping stopped when she was lifted up and slammed against the brick wall.
The air in her lungs coughed out. Her head struck the red brick, leaving a darker red stain. Her vision blacked for a moment before returning with spinning points of light. He could kill me, she thought, so easily. Why is he holding back?
Gordon leaned in close, his jaw dropping open. Impossibly wide. Sharp teeth just inches from her skin. The smell of rotting fish, carried by his warm breath, flowed over her.
Before his mouth reached her, a brick slammed into the side of Gordon’s head. The only effect it had was to gain his attention.
Watson stood twenty feet away, a brick clutched in each hand. “Leave her alone!”
Gordon released his grip on Collins. She slid down to the pavement, leaning against the wall. Somewhere deep in her mind, she shouted at her body to move, but there was a disconnect. Watson was on his own, armed only with bricks.
His patience gone, Gordon stomped toward Watson with deadly intent. Watson lobbed the bricks. One bounced off Gordon’s armor-plated shoulder. The next missed entirely.
Watson put his hands up in a defensive posture. Gordon raised his fists. He wasn’t holding back this time. As the fists came down, a loud boom filled the air. Gordon stumbled to the side as Cooper, holding a shotgun, ran to Watson’s side.
As Gordon recovered, Cooper pumped the shotgun and fired again. Gordon absorbed the shot, but took a step back. Cooper fired again, and again.
Collins tried to stand. Cooper would be out of ammunition in two more pulls of the trigger.
Boom.
One more.
Collins fought her shaking legs. She lifted herself a foot off the ground, but began sliding back down.
A hand caught her, holding her weight.
She looked up into the eyes of Katsu Endo.
The thunderous roar of Cooper’s shotgun filled the air once more. Not knowing the weapon held only six shells, the woman gave it another pump, raised the weapon and pulled the trigger.
The explosion that followed was unlike anything Collins had heard before. Light blossomed all around them. Trees cracked, as a mighty wind blew past. They were protected by the brick house, but she could feel the heat. The sound that followed shook her insides and sent her head spinning anew. She knew the explosion had come from the distant battle with the Kaiju, but she watched as Gordon reacted as though he’d been shot.
He fell to the side, stumbling until his head collided with the burning car. He dropped to the driveway, clutching his chest. But the effect was short lived. His eyes snapped open and turned skyward. She couldn’t see what he was looking at, but he wasn’t pleased.
As Gordon got back to his feet, Collins looked for Endo, but the man was gone. “What the...?” Had she hallucinated him? Was he a side-effect of a concussion?
Doesn’t matter, she decided. He was gone. And Gordon wasn’t. She dug into her pocket, searching for her last speed loader. As her fingers slid over the bullets, her mind cleared, and she realized she no longer held her gun. With blurred vision, she searched until movement caught her eye.
Gordon stood, one hand resting on the smoldering car. Whatever that explosion was, it had hurt him somehow. A series of nine more explosions reached her ears, though none compared to the first. But with each distant concussion, Gordon twitched.
It’s the Kaiju. He’s feeling what it feels.
The information, while interesting and pertinent, did nothing to help her current situation, and it would likely die with her.
A grinding sound turned her eyes to the driveway. Her revolver slid across the pavement and stopped against her boot. The hell? She bent, snatched up the weapon and nearly passed out. Fighting the wave of darkness that filled her vision, she leaned against the wall, fumbling with the speed loader.
When her vision cleared, Gordon was lumbering for Cooper, all of the anger still in his face, but some of the energy missing from his movements. Watson joined Cooper, standing guard, the pair now inseparable.
Run, Collins thought. Run, you idiots.
A blur of motion kept her from expressing her thoughts. A black-clad man leapt from the hood of the burning car, landing on Gordon’s back. Endo. In the flesh. The man drove both hands to the sides of Gordon’s head. The snap, snap, snap, of an electric taser joined the sound of Gordon’s pain-filled scream. The whir of a drill came next. Collins squinted, trying to see better. Was Endo drilling a hole in the side of Gordon’s head?
If he was, he never got to finish. Gordon reached up, caught hold of Endo’s clothing and hauled him off, throwing him twenty feet through the air. Endo landed on the estate’s green grass, rolling back to his feet like the whole move had been choreographed.
Gordon’s hand wen
t to the side of his head, feeling the freshly drilled hole. He seemed as confused by it as Collins was. Fearlessly, Endo charged Gordon, shouting at Collins. “Keep him busy!”
She was about to ask how, when she noticed she had finished loading her revolver. The idea of working with Endo, a killer they couldn’t convict, irked her. The man had an ulterior motive for being there. Collins had no doubt about that. But Watson’s and Cooper’s lives were at risk. She would take any help she could get.
Walking unsteadily, Collins raised her gun and fired. The shot missed, and she nearly dropped the high caliber weapon, but each step forward increased the blood flow to her head, clearing her thoughts and her vision. Gripping the weapon with two hands, she adjusted her aim and fired again, striking Gordon in the side of the head, which whipped toward her in response.
Distraction achieved.
Endo leapt into the air, moving fast. He extended a leg and delivered a brutal kick with his heel, just as Gordon faced him again. The big man’s already squashed nose bent further inward with a crunch, but nothing more happened. Endo simply bounced off and fell to the ground. Gordon roared—really roared—and swept downward with both arms.
Endo was too quick. He dove forward and rolled between Gordon’s legs. Then he was up and leaping onto Gordon’s back again. There was no zap of a taser this time, but he thrust a small drill against the side of Gordon’s head again.
Gordon thrashed about, but Endo held on, grunting as he shoved the drill deeper.
Then things changed.
Gordon grew weak. He yelped in pain. Shrunk in on himself. Fell to his knees and pitched forward, gritting his teeth against some unseen pain. Endo never let up. He kept pushing that strange drill into the side of Gordon’s head. And then it happened.
Gordon shot up and let loose a violent, wailing scream. The suddenness and force of this movement knocked Endo loose. The pain and anguish expressed by Gordon’s scream sent goose-bumps up Collins’s arms. She almost felt bad for him. But not quite bad enough. She took aim, tightened her grip and—
Gordon leapt to his feet, barked at Collins, and part ran, part stumbled away.
Whatever sent him running, Collins didn’t think he’d be coming back. Which left just one problem remaining. She hobbled over to Katsu Endo, who was still lying on the pavement. She reached out a hand. When he took it, she hefted him up, and then cracked him in the side of his head with the butt of her gun. Public enemy number two had gotten away, but number three wasn’t going anywhere.
14
Jaws wide, head turned to the sky above, Nemesis jumps up and catches Scrion in her mouth like a dog playing Frisbee. The smaller Kaiju kicks and flails, wiggling its helpless head back and forth. I can’t hear it, but I envision a kind of mewling cry coming from its wide-open mouth. I watch, unable to think or care about anything else, as Scrion’s body compresses. I half expect the thing to just burst in half, but Nemesis goes full-on dog again, shaking her head back and forth.
Seawater sprays with each shake. Scrion’s extended limbs are now jutting straight out, locked in panic. Then the water turns tan, then brown, and I realize it’s no longer water at all.
It’s blood.
Scrion’s blood.
Unlike Nemesis, who bleeds red, this thing bleeds brown, which is both gross and fitting.
“Whoa,” Woodstock says, pulling us further back as Scrion is suddenly spinning through the air, spraying circles of blood. Nemesis has flung the smaller creature.
Scrion lands on the blackened shore, tumbling through a ruined neighborhood. When it comes to a stop and regains its footing, I expect it to do what any other creature in its situation would do: run like hell. And yeah, it runs, but in the wrong direction. After a long arcing sprint to build up speed, Scrion turns straight for Nemesis, charging the monster that’s nearly four times its size, the crazed look back in its eyes. When it reaches the shoreline, it leaps, soaring up and over the water.
Nemesis doesn’t react. She simply stands her ground, waiting.
The giants collide, but for Scrion, it’s like hitting a wall. The smaller Kaiju would have bounced off if it hadn’t bitten down hard on Nemesis’s chest, just missing one of those deadly orange membranes. The creature is fearless and savage, but clearly not very intelligent. It reminds me of a bully from second grade. Ricky Denali. Rick the dick. He was a runt, but made up for his stature through savagery. He terrorized kids twice his size, because of his in-your-face violent nature, his sharp tongue and the quickness with which he shifted between the two. That all changed when he decided to try the same tactic on Larry Studebaker, the new kid. Although Larry was a kind guy, he was also three times Ricky’s size, and he could take only so much abuse before he struck back. And when he did...man, one punch. A glancing blow. Didn’t take much.
One punch. C’mon...
When it happens, it’s not so much a punch as a bitch-slap. Reaching up one of her mammoth, clawed hands, Nemesis swipes down hard and knocks Scrion away. Scrion falls ungracefully, twitching madly, trying to turn itself over before landing. It fails miserably, landing on its side in fifty feet of water.
After thrashing about pitifully, Scrion rights itself. Still moving quickly, the monster breaks for the shore again, but makes it only two leaps. Nemesis takes a lunging step forward and thrusts out her clawed hand. Her index and middle fingers are the longest—the ring being small and the pinkie not much more than a spiked nub—and the claws extending from them are unnecessarily huge.
They’re also sharp.
Scrion falls flat as Nemesis’s middle claw pierces its hind leg, pinning it in place. But the monster isn’t done. Its madness compels it forward. Nemesis’s claw tears through the leg as the smaller monster pulls away. Brown blood gushes into the blackened earth.
And then Scrion’s free. For nearly two seconds. Then Nemesis is upon it again.
I almost feel bad for the pug-nosed Kaiju. Nemesis is clearly toying with it. Or perhaps testing it. Either way, it’s an unfair fight that could have ended the moment it began, which starts me thinking: Is this what she’ll do to me?
While pinning Scrion to the ground with her giant left hand, Nemesis catches hold of the wounded leg with her right, grips down tightly and yanks. Scrion’s head turns upward, eyes dazed, as the leg comes free, dangling tendrils of flesh and pouring muddy blood.
Then Nemesis lets go.
And damn, Scrion takes off running. It’s not quite as fast as before with its less coordinated, three-legged hop, but it’s still hauling ass. Not only that, it’s coming around again for another strike. For a moment, I’m impressed with the thing. It’s going to fight to the end. Then its arc becomes a circle. The dazed and wounded creature is playing ‘duck, duck, goose’ all by itself, sprinting around an imaginary ring.
Even Nemesis seems confused by this behavior. She stands still, watching. And then, as though she’s seen enough, she reaches down, catches Scrion by the protective plates of its back and lifts the pitiful thing into the air. Holding the smaller Kaiju aloft, she wraps her big hand around Scrion’s head and neck, and then squeezes. For a moment, there’s some resistance. Scrion is built similarly to Nemesis, and is no doubt powerful. But it’s no match for the original. Nemesis’s hand twitches and collapses inward, crushing Scrion’s head. A smear of brown and white fluid oozes out from between her fingers.
She relinquishes her grip, dropping Scrion’s body into the ocean. A wall of water rushes up and over the beaches, flooding the husks of empty homes.
And then—shit—she turns toward me.
And stares.
“Umm,” Woodstock says. He has us hovering a half mile away, which suddenly feels not nearly far enough. “So I’m officially starting to get freaked out by all the giant monsters looking at us the way Michael Jackson looked at kids.”
He’s right. Nemesis’s glare is decidedly unsettling. Unlike Scrion, who’s eyes—despite their focus on us—had beamed with mindless chaos, Nemesis’s eyes, which a
re brown and quite human looking, reveal something deeper.
Thought? Meaning? I have no idea, though part of me really wants to know.
Her furrowed eyebrows come up. The rage and tension gripping her body melts away. And suddenly, in my mind, she’s no longer Nemesis.
Woodstock sees it, too. “There she is,” he says, his voice something between awe and surprise. “Maigo.”
Knowing Woodstock has seen what I have felt all along sets my resolve, and when I hear the words, “Target locked! Clear to engage?” in my ears, I react quickly, toggling Devine to transmit openly. “Negative! Do not engage! I repeat, do not engage! Scrion is down. Maigo is not the target!”
As those few words replay in my mind, I inwardly cringe, knowing that just one of them is going to land me in hot water. I called her ‘Maigo.’ And while Woodstock might agree with me now, the opinion of a sixty-two year old retired Marine Corp pilot re-hired for the FC-P against the advisement of my superiors, is probably not going to help my case.
“I repeat, Nemesis is not the target.” My order lacks its previous conviction, and I hope using her true designation will help people miss my foible, but I know it won’t. I’ve just put the express shit-train on full speed and sent it toward my doorstep.
The jets fly past overhead. There are nine of them now, converging from the airbases to the north and south. In another ten minutes, there would have been thirty. A line of ten Apache helicopters takes up position along the shore, three hundred feet up, boldly hovering close enough to unleash their payloads.
Nemesis pays them no attention.
“Take us closer,” I say.
Woodstock lowers his head at me to peer over his aviator glasses. “You’re shittin’ me, right?”
“I need to test a theory.”
“I can save you the trouble and just say you have the biggest balls in the world, how ’bout that?”
“Any sign of trouble, we can bug out, and I’ll give the order to fire.”
Woodstock twitches his mustache back and forth for a moment and then throttles us forward.
Project Maigo Page 8