The view ahead cleared and he locked his legs around the branch to stay upright and took aim again. With the drawstring pulled taut, he whistled a bird call.
He could hear Gordon chasing Lilly below, and the giant monsters in the distance, but amid all that, the sound of a bird call reply came loud and clear. Lilly was on her way. She passed by below. A blur in the night. Superhuman.
Gordon moved quickly too, but despite his dark coloration, he stood out. It took just a half second for Hawkins to adjust his aim and let go of the bowstring. The arrow whistled through the air, heading downward, puncturing leaves and then finding its target. The projectile slipped through the thick flesh of Gordon’s right shoulder, burying itself six inches deep.
With a roar of frustration, Gordon stopped. He looked at the arrow, snarled and snapped it off with a flick of his hand, leaving six inches inside his body. Then he looked up, straight through the leaves, following the arrow’s trajectory in reverse, straight to Hawkins.
“You’re going to need more than a children’s toy,” Gordon said.
The giant man took one step toward the tree while Hawkins nocked another arrow, but then he stopped and turned toward the east. Hawkins, never one to waste an easy shot, let the arrow fly. It struck Gordon behind his neck, but the man didn’t even flinch. Instead, he crouched down on the ground and rolled his body into a ball.
What the...?
Hawkins looked east in time to see a bright orange glob gliding through the air. The giant known as Karkinos roared and swung one of its massive, dual clawed hands at the thing. Then, there was light as bright as the universe’s creation.
Hawkins shouted in surprise, shielding his eyes, but he lost his grip on the tree in the process. He began to fall, but he clenched his legs tighter and stopped himself at an angle. He remained there, stuck at a sixty degree angle for all of a half second. Then the sound hit. And the pressure wave. And the heat.
Hawkins was torn from the branch and flung. His mind whirled as the explosion set his ears ringing. He spun through the air, growing dizzy as he fell toward his doom. But as his arc through the air turned downward, he felt cradled, held tightly.
Opening his eyes, he saw Lilly staring down at him. Her yellow eyes were alive and determined. “I have you.”
When they reached the ground, Lilly absorbed the impact with her legs as though they’d fallen just a few feet. She then put Hawkins on his feet.
He worried about her safety so much, but here she was, saving him. Lilly, in just a few short years, had grown up. She was a mother. A skilled hunter. A warrior. And now his rescuer, returning the favor he’d granted her by taking her off that island.
Before he had a chance to thank Lilly, he looked over her shoulder. The far side of the South Lawn was on fire, but that only mildly concerned him. A mushroom cloud billowed into the air in the distance. For a moment, he worried about radiation, but then he remembered the glowing orange glob he’d seen. He, like everyone else in the world, knew what happened when those orange membranes on Nemesis’s body ruptured. And Nemesis’s new trick had been to launch smaller globs of the stuff from her mouth.
If she wasn’t careful, Nemesis was going to kill the very people trying to help her. Or was it the other way around? Hudson’s plan had been vague on that area. In the end, Hawkins took it as an ‘enemy of my enemy’ situation. But how could a creature like Nemesis understand who was on her side and who wasn’t? He doubted the giant would even notice their presence, let alone act to keep them alive.
“Is this how people will see me?” Lilly asked, looking at the fresh destruction. “Am I a monster? A Kaiju?”
That question, from Lilly, was loaded. The word Kaiju to her was more personal. Her mother’s name. But she understood it now, knowing that monsters, in general, were ‘Kaiju’ to the world. And her mother was a monster.
“Not even close,” Hawkins said with a grin.
“I don’t want to hide anymore,” she said.
“It might not be that simple.”
“Only monsters have to hide,” Lilly said.
Hawkins understood the point, but wasn’t convinced. Then he thought about the number of cameras likely recording the White House and the surrounding area. Her battle against Gordon would be...
Gordon!
A black shadow tore through the night.
“Look out!” Hawkins shouted.
Before he could react to his own warning, Hawkins was lifted and thrown straight up. He reached out with his arms and caught a low branch. Looking back, he saw Lilly duck just in time to avoid Gordon’s swing. He followed up the roundhouse with a crushing blow. Lilly leapt to the side while Gordon’s fist punched a crater into the ground.
Rather than running, Lilly sprang back at Gordon, catching him by surprise. She raked her claws against his chest twice, narrowly missing the orange membranes she’d been warned about, leaned away from his hugging arms and kicking him in the gut. When Gordon pitched forward, she kneed him in the chin, snapping his head back.
She moved with grace and speed, but Hawkins could see she was losing herself. Some primal part of her was taking over, urging her to attack. Against anyone else, the tactic would have been lethal and bloody, but Gordon’s body absorbed the damage. Black flesh and brown blood flew away from his torso as she continued the barrage, but each strike seemed to have less effect.
Soon, Gordon was standing up straight, showing no signs of pain, despite the cat-woman burrowing a hole in his chest. Oblivious to her opponent’s change, Lilly didn’t notice him reach out for her. He caught her around the waist and lifted her away.
Lilly shrieked angrily, swiping at his wrist with her clawed fingers while kicking and scratching with her feet. She was caught and helpless.
Hawkins reached for where his bow normally hung. It was missing. As was the shotgun. He looked up to his previous perch and found the bow dangling from a branch. Moving with the practiced swiftness of someone who spent a lot of time in trees, he climbed upwards, leaping between branches, hoisting himself higher.
The climb took just five seconds, but in that time, Lilly’s savagery had faded and been replaced by cries of pain. Hawkins snagged the bow, turned around and balanced himself. He nocked an arrow, drew the string back and let it fly. The poorly aimed shot struck the back of Gordon’s leg, bouncing harmlessly away. But it got Gordon’s attention.
The big man turned around. Lilly still struggled, but wasn’t making any sound now. Gordon was crushing her body, making it impossible for her to draw a breath.
Hawkins took careful aim this time, but did so quickly, and let another arrow loose. This one found its target, striking Gordon’s chest, just above his own explosive membrane. The shot should have hit the man’s heart, but he seemed indifferent. With his free hand, he swiped at the arrow and broke it away.
The next two arrows had the same effect, and Lilly’s body had gone limp. Feeling desperate, Hawkins began moving down the tree. “Let her go!”
He stopped, just out of reach from Gordon and nocked another arrow. He had just five left. But before he could fire it, Gordon shouted in surprise, grabbing his head. “No! No, no, no!”
Gordon fell to his knees and pounded the earth, just missing Lilly. While the general’s back was turned, Hawkins buried two more arrows in him, both unnoticed.
With a roar of anger, Gordon stopped pounding the ground and snapped his head toward the White House. “Hudson... I’m going to kill you, you son-of-a-bitch!” He leapt to his feet and pounded in the direction of the ruined White House. Hawkins knew it was their job to keep Gordon busy while Hudson did his thing, but there wasn’t much left he could do.
Or was there?
After glancing at Lilly and seeing her chest rising and falling, he fired his last three arrows into Gordon’s back, positioning each around where he thought that glowing membrane was located. Gordon showed no sign of pain or discomfort. He just charged forward, heading for the White House and Hudson.
&nbs
p; Hawkins reached into his pocket, hoping to end it right there and then, but the pocket was empty. He’d lost the transmitter Endo had given him.
Unable to do more, Hawkins fell to his knees beside Lilly. He lifted her head in his hands and petted her furry cheek. “Wake up, baby. C’mon, wake up.”
47
Nemesis reacts to Karkinos’s charge by rolling her head and torso downward, angling those huge spikes on her back at the approaching Kaiju. Karkinos, perhaps lost in emotion or too stupid to care, continues forward, reaching out for Nemesis and roaring the whole way. Karkinos hits hard, partially impaling itself on Nemesis’s back. For a moment it appears the Kaiju’s weight will be too much, but I see the muscles in Nemesis’s legs flex. Her arms push off the scorched earth. And Karkinos, whose forward momentum never really stopped, is suddenly upside down.
The whole world shakes when the massive Kaiju lands. Ash plumes into the air, obscuring the battle, but not enough that I miss what comes next.
Typhon.
While Nemesis flipped Karkinos, he closed the distance from the side. Moving with human quickness and agility, he snuck in behind Nemesis while her back was still arched. Before she can react to his presence, the giant man-thing has his clawed hands under the sides of her chin, yanking her head back. She tries to push back, thrusting her spikes toward his abdomen, but he plants a foot against the her back, pushing forward on her body while pulling hard on her chin.
It’s a killer move, likely to break Maigo’s neck.
Maigo...
A nearly uncontrollable anger grips me as I no longer see a Kaiju being attacked, but a little girl who already suffered a similar fate at the hands of a very human monster.
In the distance, beyond the sounds of battle, I hear the monotone roar of approaching jets. For a moment, I fear the worst, that a nuclear bomb is about to drop down on the city, but the chop of rotor blades joins the mix. The military hasn’t fled, they got organized. Not that they’ll do much damage, but maybe they’ll—
“Argh!” I fall to my knees, hands clutching my head. It’s going to explode, I think. My head is going to explode!
The pressure is unbearable, like a black hole just formed at the center of my cranium and is sucking me in, spaghettifying my brain. Ironically, a black spot appears in my vision. It grows larger, blocking my view. Is it real? Is this a physical thing I’m seeing? I fall back, cringing away from it, terrified by the darkness. I see Endo around the black spot’s periphery, standing over me, shouting something, but I can’t hear him. Then I can’t see him.
Darkness is all that remains. It’s cold and silent. Empty.
While I can’t see, I sense something in the black. A force. An evil presence. Full of hate.
It knows I’m here.
It wants to kill me. Destroy me.
I try to run, but where can I go? I’m nowhere.
I’m... I hear music.
Not music. A TV. A laugh track. Someone is watching a sitcom.
I feel the rug beneath my fingers before I can see it, but the image soon resolves. It’s a beige and gold design. Ugly as shit. But I know it.
I turn my head up. I’m in my childhood living room.
The scent of pine fills my nose. It’s Christmas again. Not again...
I’m crouching by the tree, the familiar ornaments hanging on it create an ache in my chest. I know this moment. I know what I’ll find. And despite a nearly overwhelming urge to run and hide, I step forward.
Standing on the far side of the room is my father. His work shirt is open, revealing his white T-shirt, freshly stained with duck sauce from supper. He’s holding a gun. I’m not sure where he got it. I’ve never seen a real gun before.
I’m paralyzed with fear. Too afraid to say anything. And it gets so much worse when I see her. My mother lies on the linoleum floor—the rug is gone. She’s dead. Shot.
“It was an accident,” my father says, then raises the gun and shoots my mother again. “She did it to herself.”
This isn’t right.
This isn’t what happened.
This is...Maigo.
“Open your present, Jon.”
I turn toward the voice. Maigo, the beautiful little girl with the Hello Kitty backpack and a bloody hole in her chest, stares up at me from the floor, lying beside my mother. Or is it her mother?
“Your mother killed herself, Jon,” my father says. But he’s not my father anymore. His face is stretched out. Distorted. Like a hammerhead shark.
The broken puzzle of my psyche starts to reassemble.
I’m in Scylla’s mind, but the monster is fighting back; pushing me out with the strength of its raw emotion.
“Your mother killed herself, but she killed you first!” The gun rises toward my chest and fires.
Pain flares like an explosion.
I fall to the floor, gasping for each breath.
Maigo watches me with large, black, dead eyes. “Open your present, Jon.”
With the last of my strength, I roll to the Christmas tree. A small, ribbon-wrapped gift box sits under the tree. I reach for it.
Scylla-father screams in anger, no longer intelligible, and storms over to me. Somehow I know that if he reaches me and kills me, I’m screwed—and not just in this mental world, but in the real world.
With the last of my strength, I tug on the bow. It slips apart easily. The box tips toward me and opens, spilling its contents onto the floor. Dark red blood oozes out, rolling down the lines of grout like Maigo’s mother’s blood.
What kind of gift is blood? I think.
Then I remember who it’s from and what it’s for.
The blood isn’t Maigo’s or her mothers.
It’s Nemesis’s.
As my vision fades and Scylla-dad closes in, I slap my hand down in the viscous fluid. It’s warm and tacky. A small measure of strength returns on contact with the blood, but it’s not much. I need to ingest it, to allow Nemesis in. I lift my hand, bring it to my face and lick.
It tastes horrible. I want nothing more than to spit it out. But I don’t. I hold it in my mouth, even as it begins to scorch my tongue. Then I swallow.
The burn moves through my body, tearing a scream from my mouth. But the burn isn’t physical. I’m not on fire.
What I’m feeling is anger.
Rage.
White hot, burning fury. I’ve never felt any emotion as strongly. As clearly. The hate and the pain it brings is...
I would destroy the world if I could.
I would end the universe.
This was Maigo’s gift—the raw, manic indignation that fuels Nemesis, unhindered by the girl’s calming presence.
Scylla’s psyche doesn’t stand a chance. While the monster is a descendant of Nemesis-Prime, it didn’t endure the tortures of the beings who left Prime on Earth to exact judgment on mankind. Scylla has never really experienced pain. Or loss. Or desperation. And it lacks any kind of self-direction, having been led by Gordon since its birth.
No longer a frightened child, I open my eyes and face the monster, which is now equal parts my father, Alexander Tilly and Scylla. The thing roars and charges, but it never reaches me. It lurches to a stop, surprise filling its wide-set eyes.
The two of us look down together. My arms...they’re not human. Gray skin covers my biceps, growing thicker and darker near the ends of my arms, where my immense hands, and the claws at the ends of my fingers, are buried in my enemy’s gut. I stare at the wound, which would normally horrify me, and smile. Then I pull my arms in toward each other, severing the monster’s torso in two. As the two halves fall to the floor, the room disappears.
I’m outside again.
In the real world, lying on my back, staring at the sky.
But everything looks different. My vision is screwy, like I can see more of the world than ever before. I’m still in pain, but it’s numb somehow. I open my mouth, which feels sore and loose, and try to speak Endo’s name. All that comes out is a strange soundin
g, far too loud and deep grunt.
What is wrong with me?
My whole body feels strange. I lift my hand, wondering if I’ve been injured. But instead of my black-clad arm and human hand, I see a long mass of thick black skin covered in plates of armor. My hand is huge, like in the dream, ending at massive claws.
This is Scylla’s body. I’m controlling the monster.
Holy fucking shit! I’m a Kaiju!
48
This is, hands down, the strangest experience of my life. Even stranger than the time in college when Ricky Mazoli snuck ’shrooms onto my pizza, and I hallucinated that I was being eaten by a giant pepperoni with udders that sprayed rainbow milk.
It’s not my weird vision. I’m getting used to that, probably because it’s still being processed by Scylla’s brain. And it’s not my new body. It feels different, but I’ve still got two arms, two legs and a head. It makes sense, especially because I understand that this isn’t really me. I’m still on top of the White House, a mile and a half away.
It’s the scale.
When I sit up, I’m overcome by a feeling of being too high, like I’m leaning over the side of a building and am going to fall. The sense of vertigo becomes so strong that my stomach—Scylla’s stomach—heaves. I pitch to the side, open my massive mouth and Kaiju-vomit into the Reflecting Pool. Large chunks of whale meat, fish and—oh god—people spill out. I can taste the vile stew as it streams out a second time, this time propelled by disgust.
When there’s nothing left inside the monster, I fight to control my revulsion and get moving. I lean to the side, groaning like a foghorn with laryngitis. Standing is easier than I thought, but once I’m at my full 300-foot-tall height, looking at the world through these crazy eyes, I have to stop and focus.
Scylla must look hysterical to anyone watching. The Kaiju generally look and act like you’d expect giant monsters to. But now, Scylla is acting like Jon Hudson after spinning around in circles. I’ve got my big, nasty hands on my spiky knees. I’m pitched forward, catching my breath.
Project Maigo Page 25