He thought to himself that a day spent drinking at the park might prove more enjoyable. They had bathrooms there, too, and if the stink that lingered about him was any indication, he was in need of a little scrub.
He first saw it as he went to stand, knocking a bit of damp sand from his behind.
The shore before him was dressed in a line of foam. Strands of seaweed flowed and ebbed in time with the waters, and tangled up in their lengths were numerous fish of different sizes and species. He didn't think it too strange at first, only stopping to watch and wonder when he'd taken in the sheer volume of such specimens. There were all kinds of fish washing up on their sides. Perch, Bluegill, Trout, even a few Pike and Muskies.
Hundreds of them.
“Now that's damn strange,” he said, spitting onto the beach and taking a few steps forward. He'd seen a lot of fish wash up on the shore in the past, but this was a damned spectacle. It was like something in those waters was tossing them up onto the surface from the deep. Maybe the waters had been poisoned, or some algae bloom was on the rise. Those things had both happened in the past, but even then he couldn't remember ever seeing death on this scale.
He paced back and forth along the shore, looking out at the dead and dying fish and wondering what was the matter. He hiccoughed, stretched his wobbly legs and loosed a long-held fart, chuckling to himself.
Then, just far enough away to make him doubt himself, he saw something dark sticking out of the water. “Now ain't that the damnedest thing?” he muttered. “An island?”
He'd lived here his whole life and he knew that these waters didn't house no damn islands. Some nosy researchers from out-of-State had been there not too long ago, clamoring about some deep trench at the center of the lake, supposedly deeper than any other they'd found. Deeper, even, than anything in the Great Lakes. But this, this was something he'd never seen or heard about, a bonafide island if he'd ever seen one, sticking out like a wide, black lump in the water. This thing he was looking at, circulating with enough mist to keep it partially-obscured, bobbed slightly, agitating the waters.
Sure, there'd been stories in the past. Every lake in the region had 'em. Sea monsters, shit like that. He knew himself too drunk to trust his eyes that much. He was seein' something common, something explainable. Damned if he knew what it was, though. Islands don't just pop up outta nowhere like that. They don't just drop into the water outta the sky without some kinda splash.
He turned around, stretching and pacing away from the shore. He'd seen enough of the smelly old lake for a day. It was time for a change of scene. Briefly, he undid his fly and unloaded a pint's worth of amber piss in the grass. As he did so, whistling to himself, he felt a droplet of wetness on his forehead.
Then another.
Another.
He shook his head, cursing. The booze was playing tricks on him, making the world sway and spin a little faster. Shit, did I fall onto my back again and start pissing on myself? He stepped with each of his feet onto the grass, making sure he was on equal footing. Nope, he was standing up all right. This wetness he was feeling on his arms and chest and back was something else.
Rain?
That was when he put it all together.
It wasn't rain that struck him just then, but a torrent of mist dredged up by the emergence of some enormous thing to his rear from the water. That black eminence he'd seen only moments before and mistaken for an island was now rapidly rising and shedding the veil of mist that'd clung to it so closely as to keep it obscured. But this did not mean that he could make any sense of what he was seeing now.
It was rising with a damnably strange back and forth motion, as though it were trying to shake off water. Of course, it couldn't be a living thing. Nothing in all of creation could be so terrifically large as this. Could it? The water about it began to whip in a frenzy, sending large waves rushing to the shore and causing the fishy debris to fan out further. The ground was shaking a bit, too.
It wasn't no earthquake. He felt mighty sure of that. It was just some isolated incident, some bit of turbulence due to a coming storm. This black rock was getting worked up out of the lakebed by some force or another. Things would settle.
But still the thing rose.
That was when he realized he was looking at something he could put a name to, something he could begin to describe.
It was a head.
He crept closer to the shore, his thin shoes getting soaked by the encroaching lake. More and more the body of water was bursting free from its natural confines, urged on by this momentous thing, which now rose one story after another towards the treetops. Jet black, black as coal, a massive head rose from the water. And then a long neck, thicker than a hundred trees. Two long arms fixed to an obsidian monolith of a body. It was craggy, with long protrusions like spikes jutting out of the most peculiar spaces. A sharp, black mountain. It looked unlike anything he'd ever seen, unlike anything he'd ever thought capable of existing in the world. The claws on those hands, each of 'em the length of an SUV, reaching out into the open air for the very first time, drinking it in patiently, tentatively, as its greater bulk still emerged from God knew where in the deep.
The drink was upon him before he knew what was going on, his white face fixed to the monstrosity before him, ever rising, ever climbing into the sky and now blocking out the light of day. Trees were pushed out of its way with unbelievable ease, their trunks splintering as its broad shoulders took to spreading and its arms explored the wilderness after untold eons dwelling in the murk.
What was this thing? What name did it go by and what hideous process was responsible for ushering it into this world of men? He fell to his knees, the lake threatening to overtake him and suck him headlong, gurgling, into an eddy that now swirled about the creature's half-submerged lower limbs. And he prayed. If these were the End Times, then perhaps this was the messenger sent from above, the one come to lead the world to ruin and initiate the trials written of in Revelations.
The mountain of a thing lumbered forward, its column of a leg pushing through the water and sending it in a tidal wave towards shore. The ground shook, trees for miles around came to groan for the strain on the earth to which their roots were anchored. He felt the water hit his face first. Then, without a moment's notice, he was swept up, carried to someplace where only dark, cold water existed. He felt his body meet something hard, unmovable, but knew it was no rock. In those last moments of consciousness he knew himself to be in the presence of something godly.
All of creation shook as it took its first step from the lake, a mere puddle, and began for the whole of Nanterre.
What happened next none would believe. The lake overcame its borders, eating up the surrounding land with abandon. Tree after tree was felled, and then the first buildings were laid waste to. Those that did not fall as the thing approached were knocked to pieces as though they were houses of cards, casualties of claw and tail.
The townsfolk had neither the time to react nor to recognize their destroyer. To the juggernaut that stomped in their midst, they could only attach the most superficial labels. “Dinosaur”, some called it in the moments before they were caught up in the rampage and crushed. Still others dubbed it “reptile”, “monster”.
To label the beast was useless.
It would answer to no name, would yield to no title.
It was a force of nature, hatred itself distilled into two arms, two legs and a mile-high column of rocky carapace.
And when it was done, it disappeared once more into the swollen lake that had been its nursery, lowered its hefty form deep into the chasm from whence it'd emerged, and slept.
The swath of land once termed Nanterre was wrapped up in a pestilential quiet.
The gulls, once so partial to the region, were found to permanently modify their migration patterns, never returning to that accursed stretch. Stark, primordial fear had stirred in them the sense to flee their destroyer.
From somewhere in the midnight depths
of Lake Liliana, the drowned corpse of the drunkard sent up a smile. A final thought flickered across that mind, now peaceful.
Now if only those goddamned humans had the sense to follow suit.
8
“It's a goddamned lake. You know it wasn't any tropical storm that did this, and it's only a matter of time before the rest of the world understands that. I've already deployed the National Guard. We've scrambled some jets to survey the area around the lake, but the DOJ still wants to know what the fuck is going on, and I'm not sure what to tell them.” The governor shook his head, tugging on his necktie till the knot came undone and it slid out of his collar. “We've had the goddamned White House on the phone for Christ's sake. What am I supposed to say? That we've got fucking Godzilla stomping around the lake?” He planted two pudgy palms against his eyes and began to knead. From somewhere in the office, a phone rang. “Who the hell is it now?”
An aide answered. “S-sir,” she started, “Director of the CIA is on.”
The governor threw his hands in the air. “What do these people want from me? What can I tell them? Even the local guys don't know what the hell happened out there, except that something flattened their town.”
The entirety of the US government, to its very highest levels, was concerned about what had happened in Nanterre. For the bulk of the day, there were no concrete answers to be had. Unbelievable stories circulated amongst the scant survivors, meteorological experts from across the country were consulted, poking hole after hole in the 'freak storm' hypothesis and military personnel were dispatched to aid in cleaning up the incredible damage.
During what was intended to be a routine fly-by of the area by a squadron of National Guardsmen, the world got its answers.
A team of six had been dispatched over Nanterre and surrounding areas following reports on the ground of a slight earthquake tremor. There was a disturbance issuing from the lake that no experts could account for, and a fly-by was ordered. Nothing was spotted during the first pass, however as the jets returned to the area directly over the lake in a snug formation, they found the source of the disturbance in the form of a massive claw outstretched into the sky before them.
Four of the six planes were routed in an instant, torn into fiery ribbons before the survivors had even the chance to see the black thing rising out before them. Sent into a frenzy, the remaining two began evasive maneuvers, but it became clear that they were unable to evade something so wholly enormous and capable of blotting out entire sections of sky with a mere shifting of its mass. Zeroing in on a head of preposterous size and vaguely reptilian shape, they launched a number of missiles and showered it in artillery fire before both were sent streaming towards the ground in brilliant fireballs.
Tanks in the vicinity were rolled out to investigate, only to find themselves in the midst of something so enormous that the operators could not conceive of it. And though they erupted in cannonade, their rounds were impotent noise. If the black column of a leg before them was marred in any way, even from repeated point-blank shots, they could not see it.
Tanks were savaged underfoot, flattened. A second squadron of jets, this one comprised of a dozen members and firing from the get-go, was whipped from the sky by a single swipe. Fuselages were torn free, wings were crumpled like sheets of tin foil and missiles fizzled out against the craggy monstrosity like cigarette burns on a cliff face.
By night's end, more than a hundred guardsmen had been killed, along with numerous police and emergency personnel. A strict no-fly zone was enforced over the area, in the hopes of keeping the media away, however one small news helicopter managed to capture footage of military planes firing upon a creature of incredible height. This chopper, too, was knocked to the ground by a massive gale generated by the passage of the creature's arm through the sky, but not before it managed to transmit its unbelievable footage to an audience of several millions.
The cat was out of the bag.
And it was a very, very large cat.
Within minutes of broadcast, the footage went viral. The internet exploded with still-frames of the video, showing the creature in all its gruesome glory. Initially incredulous, the federal government ordered an immediate military strike, launching an attack of unprecedented magnitude on US soil. More tanks, a dozen airstrikes, millions of dollars worth of bombs and ammunition.
And all of it for naught.
Those that did survive told tales of the creature's apparent invulnerability. Its jet black hide could not be pierced even by bunker busters, and the slightest stirring of its limbs was sufficient to bat a bomber out of the air as though it were a balsa wood glider. Those that did not survive, of which there were many more, took visions of the dread beast to their grave, their final sights populated by obsidian claws and needle-like spires protruding from the thing's carapace.
Nanterre was turned once more into a graveyard, this time with the refuse of numerous failed military operations festooning the earlier damages.
The world cried out for answers. Social media and television news were concerned with little else. Answers were precious few, however.
Having reared its head only twice, the creature had proven itself the most formidable of foes, capable of wreaking untold havoc and impervious to even a heated military response. The upper levels of government began considering their options, wondering if scorched earth measures such as nuclear weapons might do the trick. On the other side of the fence was a developing faction who thought the use of such weapons to be ill-advised or premature.
Chaos reigned.
***
He stared at it through the canopy, felt bile rising up his esophagus. It was like staring a god in the face. That his humanity, even within the massive plane, should be so dwarfed by this thing, strained the borders of reason. To his left, one of his wingmen barreled into the thing's upper arm, reduced at once to a tumbling pile of fiery garbage and a scorch mark. The mountain of a beast did not so much as flinch. It was a thing unconcerned by human loss, or perhaps an alter in commemoration of it.
Yes, that was it. It was tall as the many-stepped pyramid of Mesoamerica, upon which bellies were slit open and entrails offered to the gods of the underworld, and every bit as unwavering.
His own plane turned to powder as it came crashing against its jagged breast. First the nose, then the cockpit, then the wings. He felt a white heat wash over him, then oblivion.
***
The tank went again and again, the repeated salvos coming in from all around and leaving the operators deafened. Each blast hit its target; couldn't have missed even had they tried, so all-encompassing it was.
And then the thing made a rush.
It moved with such speed that the planet must have shuddered as a whole. That the Earth's axis could shoulder the strain of a thing so massive as this moving at so tremendous a clip seemed impossible.
Deep ruts in the earth filled with molten metal were all that remained in its wake.
***
Initial estimates of the creature's size strained credulity. Had a Blue Whale been given arms and legs it should have been terribly dwarfed by this thing. From the very start there were questions about how such a creature could have sustained itself, where it could have hidden without its being noticed, to what species, if any, it belonged.
Everything was conjecture.
The creature was estimated to fall somewhere in the range of six to eight-hundred feet, or roughly seventy stories. Possessed of four limbs, it also had a tail of tremendous length. This tail did not appear to behave in the fashion of other reptilian tails, but was more like the tail of a small, agile mammal. It was segmented, extremely mobile, almost as though it had a mind of its own. Like thirty semi-truck trailers joined together by knotty joints, it was tipped in an obsidian needle-point.
It became abundantly clear that zoological experts would be of no help in developing countermeasures. They fumbled through their textbooks, pointing out vague analogues from the annals of prehistory. None
of them were anything like a conclusive match. Not one thing in the fossil record had ever even begun to approach the size of this creature. This was new territory.
And so the upper echelon of government convened. Heads of the federal government, top military advisers and others spent countless hours debating their options. So long as the creature remained confined to Michigan, they felt they had the time for discussions, for indulging less extreme measures.
But what if it headed for a larger city, a place where the loss of life and damage to infrastructure would be far greater? Boston? New York?
A line in the sand was a hard thing to draw.
More than that, there was no telling whether their most potent weapons would prove effective.
Where this thing had come from or whether mankind could exist in a world populated by such a monumental terror remained to be seen. For once, the pundits were silent, the partisans unwilling to make grand proclamations.
Mankind was faced with the possibility of extinction, and everyone seemed to know it. It was in the air, the very spirit of the times.
The species grew eerily calm as a whole like a prisoner awaiting execution.
And despite days of deliberation, there were no signs of a commutation.
9
As the plane came in low and he got his first proper look at the Research and Development building, Silvio couldn't help but grimace. “I guess they never promised to send me somewhere pretty,” he mumbled.
Iceland looked to be about the most depressing place he could imagine. The massive, snow-capped volcano through the window set the mood, with only miles upon miles of dead, low grass to be seen otherwise. It looked cold, barren, profoundly unwelcoming. The sun peeked out from behind a grey veil, burning like a silver disk from high up in the sky. There wasn't a single tree to be seen, and though it may have been premature of him to write off the possibility of flowers as he looked upon the landscape from so far up, the lack of them seemed a certainty.
Bonecrusher: A Kaiju Thriller (The Armageddon Tetralogy Book 1) Page 5