The Mammoth Book of Kaiju

by Sean Wallace

“Do you have anything else?” asked Mat.

  “Yes, there seems to be some sort of radio communication emanating from Erebus into space. I can’t make any sense out of it, but it’s incredibly powerful, and increasing in strength.”

  Mat rubbed his tired eyes.

  “Didn’t the lab boys in Hari’s team say something about that?”

  Jereece nodded. “Yeah, that’s right. It seems that it communicates with itself using various wavelengths of electro-magnetic radiation. That’s how it coordinates its own structure and nervous system through all those disconnected elements.”

  “Well, no point getting too concerned about the damn thing’s biorhythms,” said Mat.

  Jereece smiled, but did not laugh.

  The usually cheerful astronomer was subdued, his eyes haunted.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Mat.

  Jereece tried to smile but failed. He took a deep breath, then turned back to his monitor, his eyes glued to the image of Erebus, swarming and rippling over Earth.

  “I’ve been thinking,” said Jereece. “The Missing Mass. I think it’s biological.”

  “Missing Mass?”

  “You know—the missing mass of the universe. Some cosmological models say it should be much more massive than the observed visible mass.”

  “Ahh,” said Mat. The last few weeks, getting all their materials safely away from Earth orbit to their new base in the asteroids, had been hectic. It had been a long time since he could amuse himself with cosmological speculation.

  Jereece turned to Mat.

  “I think the Missing Mass is life. Enormous life. And if that’s true—it makes us look like microbes . . . molecules. Who knows what is out there? I mean, what eats Erebus? Where does the food chain end?”

  Mat’s tired brain chewed over Jereece’s theory then he pushed it out of his mind. It did not matter what was out there, for now they simply needed to survive.

  “Call coming in,” yelled Yath from the other side of the small cabin.

  Mat floated back to his station.

  “Afternoon, Mr. Keterson.”

  Mat smiled as Athy’s face filled the screen. She was dressed in a gray, workman-like uniform crumpled with weeks of neglect. Her hair was greasy and unkempt, with long strands fanning out around her head in the zero-g. A knot of desire tightened low in his stomach. For a second he just looked at her, marveling that they had found each other and survived through it all—the arrival of Erebus—the slow destruction of Earth.

  “You’re a sight for sore eyes,” said Mat.

  “How long till you reach the construction zone?” she asked.

  “Only ten hours now. Time to let someone else have a turn watching Erebus.”

  Athy leaned forward toward the video camera. “Come home, Mat. I need you,” she whispered. His breathing accelerated, blood pounding in his temples. “I’m on my way,” he whispered hoarsely. He smiled as he cut the link.

  My need grows apace. This lover, however sweet, will shrivel beneath my embrace, leaving only its hot core to power my heart.

  My voice is growing stronger, the call insistent, yet I must wait. Again I must sleep, and dream.

  Soon another must answer the call, and at last I will have a true lover. This time, a Vendeth.

  Our brood will be strong, of that I have no doubt—and will awaken hungry, tearing their way free of our bodies with savage determination.

  But for now I am alone, and the heartbreak is still hard to bear. I had so hoped this lover would be the one. Those strange snatches of song I first heard, I now recall like a broken promise.

  Is love truly so hard to find?

  Running

  Martin Livings

  The three of us sit on the beach, keeping a keen watch over the Indian Ocean; the waters are gray, of course, reflecting the gray skies above. I’ve seen photos of Mauritius before, with clear azure skies and crystalline oceans, the sand a brilliant white beneath a blazing sun, but I’m assured that those days aren’t as common as the advertising would lead you to believe, even when there isn’t a major storm brewing off the coast. The gusting winds and occasional smatterings of rain are deceptively subtle reminders that Tropical Cyclone Katrina is on its way, sweeping in low across the ocean, a wall of foul weather rising from the sea to the clouds. But it isn’t the cyclone we’re waiting for, watching for, rather something which is traveling with it, behind it, inside it. Something far more destructive, and far more attractive.

  I glance over to my left, where Belinda sits with her long legs stretched out on the pale sand. She’s a statuesque woman in her mid-thirties or so, judging by her background at least. We must look a little like reflections in a funhouse mirror; her hair is cropped short the same as mine, and we’re dressed in similar clothes—black motorcycle leathers with boots and gauntlets. Mine are brand new though, virgin-smooth, untested, while hers show signs of previous use, previous runs: patches repairing tears, edges frayed, the leather as rough as sun-aged skin. I know what to wear from reading about it, seeing videos; she’s simply wearing what she’s always worn. That thought alone makes me feel very humble.

  I look away from Belinda, to my right. Ryuichi is there, sitting cross-legged, eyes closed, wearing only a tank top and shorts, his feet dirty and bare. He looks very old to my eyes, though I know he’s only in his sixties; his bare limbs are wrinkled and sunken, but wiry and muscled beneath the sagging skin. His worn face is placid; he barely seems to be breathing, as if meditating. I wonder if he’s asleep. Sitting here next to Ryuichi makes me feel like a baby in the presence of a god; he’s a genuine legend in the field, arguably the first runner, and easily the oldest still participating. When I’d heard he was heading here, I knew I had to come as well. It was probably the only chance I’d have to meet the great man. If the next run didn’t kill him, old age eventually would.

  As if he feels my gaze, he opens an eye and looks at me. A smile flitters across his lips like a blown leaf. I blush and look away, further to my right, behind us. There’s a grassy area back there, set up with umbrellas and chairs for those who simply want to enjoy the views of the ocean without getting their feet sandy, lined with palm trees that are swaying quite violently in the growing wind. A Japanese film crew is there, frantically setting up cameras and barking incomprehensible orders to one another. They are understandably excited, of course. In their own way, they’re as eager as we are, perhaps even more so. Beyond them, framed against the dramatic green-coated mountains that jut out at random points throughout the island, the seaside town of Flic en Flac is hunkered down, low and spread out, almost as if it knows what’s coming. Its inhabitants certainly do; most have fled into the ocean in rough fishing vessels, or traveled by any means available into the center of the island, hoping to avoid the worst of the damage. And not from the cyclone; they’d withstood hundreds of those over the years. No, they’re running from something else entirely.

  Running from, running to, running with. One way or another, we all run, sooner or later.

  I’d been incredibly lucky to get a flight here earlier in the day, an eight-hour stint from Melbourne, arriving at Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam International Airport just shy of noon. The plane had been virtually empty, only the flight staff and myself. It was the first time I’d ever flown, and in other circumstances I might have enjoyed the experience. But I never even looked out of my window, instead using the hours of bumpy flight to re-read everything I’d brought with me in my carry-on luggage, the books that covered sixty-odd years of history, theory and practice. I didn’t even notice that we’d landed; the stewardess had to call me three times before I looked up from my studies. We’d disembarked pretty quickly, heading into the airport, whisked through customs, then I’d walked calmly through the doors that open into the main airport proper, into chaos. Hundreds of people trying desperately to get seats on flights out of the country, screaming children, natives shouting in French and Creole, angry and frightened. I’d never seen anything like it. Luckily Bel
inda had been there to meet me, holding a sign high over her head with my name on it. She’d freed me from the jostling crowd, and taken me to the deserted town, the quiet beach. To the man who would lead us in our run.

  “How long?” Belinda asks, her voice barely louder than the wind around us. I turn to her reflexively, ready to answer that I don’t know, but realize a moment later that she isn’t addressing me, of course she isn’t. Why would she? How could I possibly know?

  “Soon,” Ryuichi replies calmly.

  “Can you see it?” I ask, nerves making my voice crack a little. “Where?”

  The old man smiles slightly. “Right there,” he says, pointing to the shore, not twenty meters from our feet.

  I look, but don’t see anything, just water licking the sand like a cat drinking. I hear Belinda take a surprised breath, so I know she’s figured it out. I feel stupid and young. Again.

  “The tide,” she whispers, and I see it. The waters are receding visibly, pulling away from the beach, leaving seaweed and tiny panicked sand crabs exposed to the open air. I see this happening, and in my mind I picture the implications, extending into the ocean, towards the horizon. A dip here means that there’s a bulge out there somewhere, a bulge that’s headed our way at a rate of knots. The thought both thrills and terrifies me.

  Soon, Ryuichi had said, and he knows about these things. Soon, then. The waiting is nearly over. It’s almost time to run.

  I get to my feet and stretch, my leathers cracking along with my joints, both stiff from disuse. Belinda does the same, almost a foot taller than me. She catches my eye and winks, grinning.

  “Ready, kid?”

  I nod, trying to smile back, though my guts are telling me fairly forcefully that I’m not ready, not by a long shot. I need more time. Minutes, hours, days. Years. I won’t admit it though, not in this company. This is the opportunity of a lifetime, and I’m not going to let it escape me, no matter how scared I might be. I’ve prepared as well as I possibly can, given the circumstances; I’ve worked out religiously for years to increase my fitness to its optimum, studied hundreds of videos and written accounts of previous runs, even learnt to surf to get a feel for the general dynamics, though nothing can really simulate the real thing with any degree of accuracy. If I’m not ready now, I never will be. I nod again, more forcefully this time, mainly to myself.

  Belinda speaks again to Ryuichi, who’s limberly getting to his feet, showing no sign of discomfort or difficulty. I hope I’ll be as fit as he is when I’m his age. Hell, I wish I was that fit now. “Where should we start?” she asks, almost reverentially.

  The old man thinks for a moment, rubbing his stubbled chin with his fingers. Then he turns and points behind us, past the picnic area where the film crew are still frenetically preparing their equipment, active and noisy as a bag of popcorn in a microwave. “On the street, back there. By the shops.” He seems to be visualizing it in his head, seeing the patterns of possibility, imagining the unimaginable. “Yes, right there should be fine. Yes.” His Japanese accent is faint, eroded by decades of globetrotting, but still there. I guess you never really lose your heritage, even if you lose pretty much everything else.

  Belinda nods. “Okay, let’s do it.”

  We walk up the beach, Belinda and I leaving deep imprints of our boots in the sands, Ryuichi barely leaving a trace of his passing. As we reach the grass, Ryuichi veers away from us for a moment, crossing to the film crew. They all fall silent as he approaches them, looking at him with a peculiar mixture of pity and awe. Mainly awe, I like to think. He says a few words softly in Japanese, and the crew members look out towards the ocean suddenly. Ryuichi turns away from them, and the film crew’s chaotic bustle returns and redoubles, as they grab their equipment and begin to retreat with an air of relaxed panic. I look out to the ocean as well; it’s a reflex, I can’t stop myself, any more than I could stop myself from flinching if someone faked a punch at my nose.

  Is part of the horizon raised now? I can’t tell, not really, but I suspect it is. The other half of the wave is approaching, the peak that matches the dip that’s pulling the ocean back behind us. I turn away, concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other. Focus on the moment, that’s the advice Ryuichi himself had written in his book, Life on the Run, a combination autobiography and instruction manual. I’ve read it at least a dozen times. I’m always amazed by how he could talk about his life with such candor, especially about his childhood, about the loss of his family and his first run. The first run.

  “There,” Belinda says, pointing back, excitement making her voice tremble a little. “Here it comes.”

  I look back over my shoulder again and look at the ocean. Yes, it’s definitely there, cresting the waves. My stomach lurches at the sight of it, even though I’d already seen it in news reports as helicopters followed its path through the shallower waters a few days earlier. It’s faint and blurred, seen through a curtain of distant rain, but it’s there all right. Somehow the sight of it makes it abruptly real, makes everything real. My heart pounds so hard it hurts, and the breath is sucked out of me like I’ve been sucker-punched in the stomach.

  They say that everything looks smaller on television, somehow, even with other objects to offer some helpful perspective. I’ve never really paid much attention to that until now. The thing is huge, rising from the waters, still only visible from its massive shoulders up. Even through the distant rains offshore, I can see the long, curved spines that run along the length of its head, from its snout up its face and beyond, looking incongruously like a mohawk haircut. Its eyes are shaded by a heavy brow, but I can make out a faint red glow there, like a campfire deep in a cave. Its mouth is closed for the moment, a fact for which I’m profoundly grateful. Its neck is almost nonexistent, its head joining straight up to a barrel chest, only a little of which is visible yet. Its skin is rough, covered with oddly shaped scales that fit together like a three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle. Each one must be the size of a car, and I can already see dozens, hundreds of them. At the point where it emerges from the sea, the water is bubbling and roiling like an overexcited jacuzzi. It must be doing forty, fifty nautical miles an hour, pushing up massive amounts of water as it goes. Pushing it towards us.

  I’m frozen in my tracks, a pillar of salt in the shape of a man who foolishly looked back.

  Belinda’s gloved hand touches my shoulder. “C’mon!” she hisses, and I’m restored to life in a heartbeat, my limbs suddenly obeying my commands again. I turn away from the ocean once more, concentrate on moving. Belinda and Ryuichi are still walking calmly, and I attempt to do the same. Dead man walking, I find myself thinking, imagining myself on death row in prison, heading for my own execution. But it’s not that at all. Not dead man walking. Live man running.

  I watch Ryuichi’s back, remembering the story in his book about his experience in Nagasaki. It was a matter of days after America had dropped the second atomic bomb on the city, setting a tiny sun ablaze over its streets, leveling it in a matter of moments. Some of his family had lived there, an uncle and aunt, and his parents had gone looking for them amongst the rubble, blissfully ignorant of the dangers of radiation. They’d brought their child with them, only three years old, holding his hand tightly and trying not to let him see the twisted figures amongst the debris, arms curled by the intense heat, fists raised. The pugilist stance, it was called, a classic indicator of death by burning. Ryuichi had broken free of his parents and went to play, the ruined landscape a gigantic playground in his three-year-old eyes.

  Then it had appeared, the first one seen in modern history. Until that day, we’d believed them to be legends; dragons and wyrms of myth. Figments of superstitious imaginations, primitive fears manifesting in exaggerated tales of giant beasts. We’d been comfortable in our modern, clinical, rational world. Safe from monsters.

  Until that day, when the first daikaiju appeared, a hundred meters tall, crashing through what was left of Nagasaki, flattening what remained. It re
sembled a gigantic lizard raised on its hind legs, though its face was more ape-like in shape, and it had jagged plates lining its back like a stegosaurus. Later on, they would give it a name that became legend, a combination of the Japanese words for “gorilla” and “whale,” in an effort to describe something that was, in essence, indescribable. But on that day, in Nagasaki, nobody thought about what it was, or what to call it. They were too busy. Busy running. Busy dying.

  Ryuichi saw his parents crushed beneath one enormous foot, mercifully vanishing into its shadow an instant before the impact. It was headed towards him, as unmindful of the child as we are of the insects we crush as we walk here and there. Moving with deceptive slowness, each step like walking through water, but crossing twenty or thirty meters each time. It approached like an avalanche, like a tidal wave.

  The boy turned and ran.

  We step off the grassed area, the hard leather soles of my boots clumping on the rough black bitumen. The road here is uneven and crude, but better than many of the roads we’d driven on earlier in the day to get here. One had been barely more than gravel, a long stretch of straight but hilly road, blocked off at one end with a gate that probably would have been manned any other day. Today it had been deserted, and we’d opened the gate ourselves, granted ourselves access.

  On this day, the island of Mauritius virtually belongs to us. At least for the moment. But in a few minutes, I suspect that ownership will be transferred to the gargantuan creature plowing towards us through the Pacific. Another glimpse over my shoulder reveals more details, as it grows nearer; its shoulders are clear of the waters now, and instead of arms there are maybe half a dozen enormous tentacles on each side, whipping around in slow motion. They must be as long as the creature is high, at least a hundred meters, possibly more. And it continues to rise from the sea, as it pushes a wall of water in our direction. I hope Ryuichi has calculated this correctly, otherwise our run could be over before it’s even begun.