The Mammoth Book of Kaiju

by Sean Wallace

  “Okay, sounds like a good plan,” I said. “Let’s move.”

  “We still going to do this on foot?” Scooter said, eyes wide. He sighed. “I had better take a power-up then.” He retrieved an empty-seeming vial and dermal injector from his belt pouch and socketed it to his neck. It made a soft hissing sound as it injected its contents.

  “Little Fast-Twitch to get me going,” he said. Already, I could see his arms rippling with the quickly replicating nanites. He was going to be one sore bastard in the morning.

  “Got any more?” Toni asked hopefully. He shook his head. “Right then.” She turned to me. “Lead away, stud.”

  A predicted side effect of the BFM economic stimulus project was the financial failure of several entertainment sports leagues. Frankly, there was no way two greasy men pretending to wrestle could compete for viewership with twenty-story tall behemoths doing it for real in lower Manhattan.

  Monster Economics, G.D. Levinson, Richard Tenn, et al.

  The BFMs hadn’t done much damage yet, just what we called locomotive damage. Once the fighting started, Overland Park would basically cease to exist. Not that many would miss it.

  We hopped a fence and jogged double-time on a path toward Carnage. My specs were set to auto-track the Independence team. Their team waited half a mile off, and still the Jayhawk was nowhere to be seen. Allison’s plan had to be the reverse of ours. One way or another, someone was going to lose a record tonight.

  “How far do you want to push it on Carnage?” Scooter asked between wheezes.

  “Minus fifty,” I said.

  “Minus hundred?” Toni gave me puppy-dog eyes.

  “Let’s not get greedy,” I said. “We don’t keep the records if we turn chow.”

  “Fine then,” she growled. “Race you there!” And she was off. Just then, the Independence team headed for the Tiger. Odd.

  Scooter was too out of breath to talk, even with the boosters, so he sent me a spec-to-spec instant message.

  Scooter: What are they doing?

  Kilroy: No idea. Try to keep up. Toni’s going wild again.

  Scooter: Screw that. Carnage isn’t going anywhere.

  He was right. The BFMs were in position and they’d started checking one another out. Tiger was sniffing the air and growling a sound like twin 747s taking off. The Noog was shivering all over, twitching and sending off pseudopods to taste the air. Carnage’s tentacles were digging in for the fight, kicking up a fog of dirt that rolled out into the streets. I was starting to lose sight of Toni, so I sped up.

  Toni: You don’t think ’Hawk turned and ran, do you?

  Kilroy: Nah. He’s around here somewhere. I can feel it.

  Just then, I felt a familiar boom and shake from the direction of the Tiger. In the dust, it was hard to make out, but a flash of lightning illuminated the sky . . . just as a certain blue and red bird landed right on top of the Tiger.

  “Holy shit!” shouted Scooter.

  “Woot!” Toni was doing a dance in the debris just ahead of me. “He was using the storm for cover. Cheeky bugger!”

  A burst of pride welled up inside me, and the tears I had to rub away weren’t just because of the mess in the air. The Independence team had veered off from Tiger and Jayhawk well outside their record ranges and had turned toward Noog.

  The ground rolled and I nearly lost balance. Behind me, Scooter bit it, and Toni just barely managed to stay upright.

  “What the hell was that?” I asked. The dust had kicked up and I couldn’t see anything more than ten meters in front of me.

  “Tiger’s down!” Scooter shouted. “The ’Hawk walloped him good.”

  “Shit! Where’s he going now?” The air overhead filled with explosions. Popcorn, magnified five hundred times. “Never mind, I can guess! Turn back, now!”

  We stumbled and staggered through the falling debris. Rain began to fall hard then, and thunder mixed with the sound of Carnage’s missiles going off. None of them sounded like a hit, however. Go boy, go, was my only thought as we high-tailed it back south.

  Kilroy: Regroup on the bleachers. Copy?

  Scooter pinged back a second later. I waited for Toni’s. Nothing. I kept running.

  Kilroy: Scooter, have you seen Toni?

  Scooter: No. Y?

  “Shit.”

  I scanned for her tag, but the dust was so thick that the satellites had lost all tag signals. The explosions suddenly grew quiet. The only sound was that of debris and rain drops falling down all around, and klaxons, far off toward K.C. I nearly choked on all the smoke hanging in the air.

  Kilroy: I’m going to go back and look for her.

  Scooter: It’s your cloning. Good luck!!

  I stumbled through the rubble field, calling out Toni’s name, and listening for movement overhead. For whatever reason, the BFM battle had stalled out, thank Toho. “Toni!”

  “Over here,” a faint voice answered. I ran as fast as I could on the uneven terrain. I nearly knocked Allison over.

  “Shit,” I started to say, just before she clocked me. I don’t think I got the word out before I hit the ground.

  “Genetic engineering will save the world by creating super-productive crops and eliminating diseases.” We’ve all heard these promises before, but I ask that you open your minds to other possibilities of this wonderful science. My opponent would claim that we shouldn’t play God, that we should “play it safe.” Nonsense. The great Sid Meier taught us that playing God is totally sweet.

  Presidential hopeful Alfred Poindexter, Presidential Debates, 2028

  Funny thing was, Toni found me. She’d taken cover from heavy fallout in a Denny’s and her signal had been muted out by all the bounce. I came to while she was pulling me out of the dust-fog.

  “You need to stop trying to match Scooter’s eating habits,” she said, huffing.

  “What the hell happened?” Then it came back to me. “She knocked me out!”

  “And took three of the records too. But you still have the ’Hawk,” she said, anticipating my question before it reached my lips.

  “Who won?”

  “Shouldn’t you be saying things like, ‘How much blood have I lost?’ and ‘Thanks for saving my superstitious ass instead of leaving me to be cloned?’ ”

  “Well—”

  She laughed. “That was hypothetical.”

  “Stop torturing me,” I groaned. I felt light-headed, like maybe I had lost some blood. “Who won?”

  “Your boy, of course. You sure know how to pick them, love.”

  The Jayhawk’s absence from the northern part of the state clearly created the equivalent of a low pressure system, drawing monster aggression from neighboring territories. The resulting clash of BFMs resulted in an exponential increase in damage, similar to the effect caused by a super-storm. Naguchi’s hurricane damage predictive modeling deserves serious consideration as a tool for estimated future BFM damages. In conclusion, I would like to add that the Jayhawk totally kicked ass and the smackdown was the most awesome thing I have ever seen.

  A New Method for BFM Behavior Modeling, Senior Thesis by Kilroy Ackors

  I got an email from Allison while I recovered. She flaunted her new records, each one-hundred meters under the previous, and generously informed me that we were “even now.” I had something to say about that, but it would have to wait until later.

  I managed to get my paper in on time, and Highfill grudgingly gave me a B+. Come graduation, I actually had to make plans. I hadn’t really been figuring on making it out of school that year.

  Toni convinced Scooter and I that we needed to look for work in Europe. The EU has been adopting the BFM economic stimulus plan too, and they were going to need experienced monster chasers. I’ve got some applications out over the net. I’m looking forward to seeing Transylvanian MegaBat’s drain attack. They say it’s unstoppable! Yeah, well, we’ll see about that when they send the Jayhawk on tour like the Governor is talking!

  But enough about us
. You want to know what happened to the Jayhawk.

  The running theory is that he wasn’t sulking all that time. He’d planned the whole thing as an ambush. The gene jockeys are scanning his make-up looking for an explanation for his unusual cunning. Whatever the case, he’s got the run of four states for about six months while the others recoup on Monster Island. He made a mess of St Louis and the MTC forecasts “some stormy weather” for Des Moines next week. I always knew he had it in him!

  While I’ve been convalescing, I’ve watched every video I could find of the now-famous battle. There was just no contest. Jayhawk used wing-beats to deflect Carnage’s missiles back at him. Too bad Iowa’s gene jockeys never thought to proof the Carnage against his own attack. That took him out, and Jayhawk went straight for Noog, didn’t even stop to gloat over the slaughter.

  For a few minutes, it looked like the Noog was going to get the best of our boy. The Noog had him engulfed from beak to toe, and then there was a flash of light inside, and the Noog disintegrated.

  The problem with the Jayhawk’s Sunflower Burst wasn’t the power.

  It was range. I can’t tell you much about what happened after that. Every time I watch the replays, I get a little misty-eyed. I’m man enough to admit it.

  As I filed this report with you folks at Club HQ, he’s on the main feeds right now. He’s developed a strut, and it’s a real crowd pleaser. Merchandising rights are through the roof. And I know giant mutated chickens don’t have lips . . .

  But I swear that big chicken is smiling.

  The Black Orophant

  Daniel Braum

  From the bones and loam in a remote elephant graveyard the Black Orophant rose as prophesied.

  Young Edu, just five years old and one thousand pounds, his new white tusks gleaming in the light of the half moon, watched as another star fell from the sky. A shiver ran from the tip of his trunk to the soft padded bottom of his round foot. As his mother had told him, and as her mother had told her before, the Black Orophant would come to lead the herds when the stars forming the little gazelle in the sky cried fire.

  It was the hour of need, Kula, the herd’s matriarch, had said. Strange creatures, demons she called them, fell from the sky and crawled from the caldera lakes. She had dispatched Edu and the other young ones to the graveyards to await a sign from the Black Orophant.

  Standing in the circular clearing in the trees among the curved rib cages and bleached bones half buried in the ground, Edu heard a sound—a powerful trumpet both dark and hopeful, the battle call of no elephant, yet the cry of every elephant at once. Then a rustling in the darkness. Slow, sure steps. Above, another silent shooting star crossed the sky. A hulking form, more massive than the largest male Edu had ever seen, stepped out of the dark into moonlight. Tall as a giraffe’s shoulder; skin, tusks, toes, and eyes black as a starless sky; the Black Orophant, paying no mind to Edu, nudged the bones at the edge of the clearing.

  Where dark tusk touched bone, a faint shimmer lingered. Flesh sprang from dust, forming muscle and skin around the ancient skeletons. In the shadows where the great black one first emerged, rough elephantine forms now lumbered.

  The Black Orophant turned to Edu. A line of bumpy ridges like a croc’s ran up his back and covered his head. Edu felt a tingle of fear in his spine. The Black Orophant smelt heavily of mulch and kind of like an elephant, but the elephants behind him smelled like nothing at all and this made Edu afraid.

  “Do not fear us, though the time to be afraid has come,” the Black Orophant said in a combination of gesture, breath, and grunts.

  “Who are they?” Edu asked, stepping away. Locusts crawled all over the Orophant’s back.

  “They are the elders of herds long gone.”

  “That doesn’t make sense,” Edu said.

  “You are going to see much that doesn’t make sense, young one, but I need you to go now. Tell the herds the Black Orophant has come. Azilba, Lord of Lions, must know I am here and our plan is ready. Tell her that Phoenix is coming. I must stay to wake the rest of our warriors from slumber.”

  Edu doubted Azilba of the Lions could be real, but here he stood in the presence of the Black Orophant and his herd. Things didn’t make sense, but still he felt inspired.

  The Black Orophant touched a bleached bone with his long curved tusks and another elephant rose as Edu ran from the graveyard.

  Edu did not stop running as the morning sun burned away the night and the long shadows of the banyan trees that peppered the dry plains. A group of impala trotted towards a nearby watering hole. Small songbirds flitted by, filling the air with color and music.

  It would be nice to stop by the water, he thought, but he was almost to where the herd waited—the edge of their world, near the south barrier wall. It towered over the tallest of trees, an endless monolith of gray and white stretching out to the horizon.

  Kula had taught him that men built the barrier wall long ago to keep the herds and the animals isolated and safe.

  Edu stopped in his tracks. The breeze brought the smell of men and something oily to him. The impala bounded away, white undersides of their flicking tails revealed in warning. The songbirds went silent and landed in the trees. A tall white stork in the upper branches of a big banyan turned its slender neck, looking for danger. Edu walked up a grassy hill to look.

  A creature like none he had seen before scuttled across the brush towards the stork resting in the big tree. Its diamond-shaped, crystalline body, perched atop four spidery legs, turned and rotated while it crawled. Gracefully balanced on the tapered tips of its legs, it moved over the dry brush and low grass noiselessly.

  This must be a demon, Edu thought. This is what Kula warned me of.

  The stork took flight with a disturbed squawk. Edu noticed three men hiding behind the big tree. In Edu’s language there were no words for the body armor, big weapons, and power cells the men wore, but as he gazed upon them burdened with these things, he knew they looked bigger and bulkier than other men.

  The demon neared the tree. Dozens of thin, fleshy, almost transparent tendrils snaked out of its crystalline body, and waved in the air. Red flashes of light arced from their sparking tips, and sped to the banyan tree. The red light passed through the thick trunks as if they weren’t there and engulfed the crouching men behind in flame. They slumped forward against the tree and the wind carried the stink of burnt flesh to Edu.

  From behind him, another group of men appeared and fired on the demon. Crackling blue beams, like focused lightning, arced over Edu and bounced off the demon’s crystal body. Electricity crackled down its long legs, dissipating into the ground.

  Legs planted, it rotated the top of its body. Red light raced at Edu from its tendril tips. He braced for pain but felt nothing as the beams passed through him. The firing from the men stopped and he turned to look. Gray and red smoke wafted from their slumped-over, lifeless forms.

  The red fire only hurts men. It passes right through trees and elephants, Edu thought.

  The spidery demon scuttled halfway up the hill, then stopped a few yards from Edu. It had no eyes he could see, but he felt it watched him. The Black Orophant’s voice echoed in Edu’s head along with Kula’s. “The time of need has come.” Seeing this creature for himself gave meaning to the warning.

  More writhing tendrils slithered from the crystalline body. Edu’s heart raced and his bowels emptied. He looked around, but there was nowhere to run. Too young to vie for a bride, Edu had never fought before, only jousts and sparring with his brothers and cousins. Red beams filled the air again, passing through him harmlessly. The demon rotated its top, tendrils waving frantically. Edu decided he would fight. He would not fight for the fallen men, but for his herd and the message he carried for the Black Orophant.

  The demon lifted its front leg menacingly. Not waiting for an attack, not thinking, Edu rushed down the hill. His tusk hit the crystal body with a scraping sound. I’m too young to have a broken tusk, he thought.

 
The raised arm’s sharp tip sliced his side. Pain spread across his skin like dried cracking mud worn too long.

  Edu backed up and charged again. His forehead hit solid crystal and his vision blurred. Sliding his head down the demon’s angled side, his tusk found the opening where its leg protruded from its body. Edu pushed and his tusk pierced something soft.

  The demon scuttled back and raised another leg. Knowing the sharp leg tips would find him, Edu charged but stopped just before impact. As the demon raked him, Edu snaked his trunk around its back leg and pulled. The thing toppled. Tendrils flayed madly, and red fire sprayed in a frightening but harmless display. Edu’s tusk found the soft spot again. He jerked his head harder, this time ripping something. As Edu stomped on the fallen thing, the last tendril sputtered red sparks and slumped to the ground. Heart racing, Edu shuffled away.

  An hour later, Edu moved into the outskirts of the circle of big males guarding the herd. Comforted by the closeness of so many elephants, many his uncles and cousins, he allowed himself to trumpet a wailing cry.

  His young cousins followed in a line as he passed the young, the old, and his many aunts on his way to see Kula, the herd’s matriarch. Kula stood tall and regal, surrounded by old wise females. She watched him approach, her eyes bright and alert.

  Edu grunted and traced patterns in the air with his tusks which meant, “The Black Orophant has appeared. I bring his message to the herd.”

  More elephants gathered round. Edu’s aunt Zheve touched her trunk to the scrapes in his side.

  “Edu, is this true? There is no time for foolishness,” the old matriarch said.

  “I saw him myself,” Edu responded. “I promised I would tell the herds and Azilba of the Lions that he is here and that Phoenix is coming.”

  “This is the Black Orophant’s message? Azilba is just a tale to scare young elephants so they will not stray when lions are about.”