The kaiju next proceeded to release a quick spray of its corrosive oral mist into the streets, which engulfed the immediate vicinity just enough to leave a toxic trap for the other two soldiers when they emerged from their refuge to resume fire. Both men screamed in agony as they ran right into the cloud, not knowing precisely what it was. They fell to the ground in convulsive shudders while their skin erupted in oozing sores and their pores shed every strand of body hair.
With that done, Megadrak tore the next train car off the line with its right hand, while continuing to hold the other few connected carriages in its left. It broke one of the windows open with a swift flick of its tongue, and again quickly determined by scent that its quarry was not present in this carriage either. The kaiju vented its ire by placing the box car partly in its mouth and biting down on it. The incredible force of the monster’s jaw strength and ultra-hard teeth ripped clear through the metal to tear the carriage in half.
The reptilian titan spat that portion of the car out of its mouth and glared into the other half in its left hand. There Megadrak saw all of the horrified passengers lying in a pile on the far end of the carriage. They looked up and shrieked in collective horror as each experienced the worst—and final—nightmare of their lives when they saw the sneering, gigantic face of the monumental beast peering at them from a scant few meters away.
Megadrak was quick to end it all by turning that broken portion of the carriage over and shaking it violently, thus causing six of the hapless passengers to be thrown out of the metal encasements to the ground far below. The air was filled with the sound of multiple shrieks that were abruptly cut off as the force of gravity became an impartial but brutal accomplice to the draconic monster’s carnage.
Three passengers managed to hold onto the handle bars and avoid being thrown out, and Megadrak saw the opportunity for a quick meal with them. It put the opening of the ripped car near its mouth and released a brief spurt of its oral mist into the box cart. The two remaining victims released their grips on the handle bars when the burning mist seared their skin like gaseous acid, and they fell screaming into the kaiju’s cavernous open maw. Their cries quickly ended as the beast crunched them under its two-meter-long, razor-like choppers.
In the meantime, Donaldson took advantage of the kaiju’s attention being focused on the other carriages to take action of his own.
“Koji-san!” he hollered. “Keep those people from thrashing about! I’m going to shatter the window and get out us out of here!”
“But we will fall!” the young island naturalist yelled back.
“I estimate we’re a maximum of five meters off the ground right now! We can make it, and we have no choice but to try!”
The lieutenant brandished his upgraded Colt model 1903 handgun and aimed for the glass panes of the sliding doors directly across from him.
“Everyone, shield your face and prepare for flying glass!”
“Risa-san, we’re going to die!” Haruto cried as he and his mother held onto the woman tightly.
“No, we are not!” Risa replied. “The lieutenant knows what he is doing! Now keep your head down!” She put her own arms around the boy’s face to protect him from the shards of glass that would soon be flying about the carriage.
Donaldson depressed the trigger of his firearm, and the well-aimed volley shattered the glass of the sliding side doors as intended. This constituted an extreme mixed blessing, however, as with the glass barrier compromised, Megadrak’s powerful sense of smell would detect which carriage housed its targeted quarry in short order. Again, the soldier felt he had no choice in the matter if he wanted to give the group under his watch a chance to survive.
The military officer watched as the few able-bodied passengers in his car rushed and leaped from the opening in disorderly fashion. This left Ichika, Haruto, and two elderly gentlemen with his own party.
“Do not scream when you run!” he shouted at the people as they leapt out. “You’ll attract the monster’s attention to you!”
Thankfully, they listened. The lieutenant watched carefully as Koji leaped out the opening, his athletic body weathering the landing with minimal pain. He realized that the two elderly gents on the car, along with little Haruto, would have to be caught by him. The little boy and his mother were directed over to the makeshift portal by Risa and told to jump into Koji’s waiting arms in that order.
“Do it, Haruto-chan,” Risa instructed gently. “Koji-san is my friend, and you can trust him to catch you.”
“Listen to Risa-san, my sweet boy,” Ichika added.
With that encouragement, Haruto jumped out and was caught by Koji as promised. It was while Ichika next approached the opening to do the same that the targeted trio’s spoor finally reached Megadrak’s olfactory senses. The kaiju tossed the portion of the carriage in its right hand away, causing the rectangular object to crash into the side of a building several blocks away.
The sudden jerking motion made by the kaiju as it turned to hurl the carriage away came just as Ichika was about to jump into Koji’s arms. This caused the woman to be tossed out several meters to the left of where she intended to jump. She landed hard on the pavement, and her neck was instantly broken.
“Mama!” Haruto wailed in horror as he rushed from Koji’s side to his mother.
Koji ran to retrieve the boy from where he was holding onto the splayed body of his mom. The young man could see by Ichika’s wide unblinking eyes, the hideously twisted position of her head, and the stream of blood dripping from her open mouth that she was dead. He had no time to waste offering the boy succor, however, so he snatched up the crying Haruto and ran back to the railway tracks.
Donaldson, Risa, Goro, and the other people remaining in the car looked up to see Megadrak’s scaly right hand tear off the next carriage in the train’s segmented compartments.
“Risa-san, I’ll cover for you!” the officer shouted. “Get Goro and the rest of them out! No questions! It’s distracted now, but it will catch your scents any minute with the glass shot out!”
Risa and Goro jumped free in swift succession, before the distracted kaiju finished its ghastly business with the newest carriage in its left hand. Koji ran to join them. Haruto lay on the ground crying hysterically while shouting for his mother.
“Risa-san, tend to the boy!” Koji said. “Goro-san, you must stay here with me and catch one of those elderly people while I catch the other. Hurry, before it catches our scent!””
Donaldson brandished his Browning model 1903 handgun and checked to make sure it was fully loaded. He then yelled back to the two elderly gentleman in the car box. “Both of you, jump out now! I’ll try holding its attention, but I can’t do it for long!”
The military officer smashed a window on his side of the car with the butt of his gun and stuck both his head and his firing arm out the opening. He pointed the piece upwards at the kaiju, waiting for it to show signs of catching the scent of his party. At the same time, the two older men extricated themselves by concurrently jumping out of the carriage.
One of the elderly gents was successfully caught by Koji, but the second knocked the less physically fit Goro down upon landing in his arms. The older man also overshot a bit, and the crown of his head struck the concrete. The elderly gentleman lay unmoving in a puddle of blood as Goro pushed himself out from under his body.
“Damn it! I tried to catch him!” the fisherman yelled.
“You did your best, Goro-san!” Koji hollered back. “Now leave him, he is gone!”
Koji realized that Donaldson was likewise not going to make it, and he refused to let the soldier’s sacrifice be in vain. He and Goro helped the older gentleman they managed to save over to where Risa was holding the still hysterical Haruto in her arms, her tears of sorrow mixing with his own.
“Risa-san, we need to go now!” Koji exclaimed.
“Where can we go?” Goro queried. “That beast will be on us in just a minute!”
It was then that Donald
son began opening fire on Megadrak. He started by taking two quick shots in an uphill direction, aiming at the kaiju’s face. The piece had good range and the lieutenant was an expert shot, so both bullets bounced off the sensitive membranes just within the monster’s open gullet.
“You son of a bitch!” the man in uniform bellowed repeatedly as he succeeded in getting Megadrak’s attention and keeping the beast from noticing his party on the ground.
Koji looked around to see Megadrak lifting the line of train cars to deal with Donaldson. The spirited military man was firing the last of his ammo at the creature while simultaneously hurling a stream of obscenities in tandem with the bullets, the former including a few colorful invectives about a “mother” the monster likely never had.
The native of Imotojima Island knew he had but seconds to think of something, and he didn’t want to watch the lieutenant’s exit from the world at any rate.
“Risa-san, I want you and Goro to get the boy and this gentleman into that building over there,” he said as he pointed to a structure just across from the station. “Hurry before the kaiju sees you enter! It will mask your scent!”
“What of you?” Risa asked.
“I am going to lead that bastard to the sea and out of Japan,” he replied. “Now go!”
Risa lifted Haruto and put her hand tightly over his mouth so that his crying would be muffled. She knew it was an arguably cruel thing to do, but she could not risk Megadrak being attracted by the sound of the boy’s wailing. She ran towards the building as directed, with Goro following closely behind, the fisherman serving as a crutch for the older gentlemen now in their company.
Donaldson continued shouting invective at Megadrak as it finally lifted his car level with its dragon-like visage. The military officer was determined to hold its attention as long as he possibly could, so he hurled his now empty firearm at the monster’s face while continuing to shout choice expletives at it. The beast responded to Donaldson’s wave of effrontery by slamming its free right fist onto the carriage, snuffing out the lieutenant’s life in a small spatter of crimson.
Koji took advantage of the time bought for him by running towards the truck they had left there. He prayed it hadn’t been trampled by Megadrak, and he thanked his ancestors upon finding the vehicle intact. Since it was short on fuel, he knew that he would barely manage to make it to the coast of the Tokyo Bay shoreline, assuming the kaiju didn’t catch up to him first.
He was further thankful to find that the bravely departed Donaldson had left the keys in the ignition, and the police had successfully kept the crowd back so no one had absconded with the truck.
Megadrak tossed the crushed remnant of the carriage containing Donaldson’s pounded remains away and sniffed the air. It was mere seconds before it caught Koji’s scent, and the kaiju looked in the general direction where the truck was parked just down the street. When the engine of the vehicle started, the sound alerted it to exactly where its prey had gone. It was completely clear to the giant beast that its target was about to take flight in one of those small fast-moving constructs.
Megadrak took the remaining four train cars in its right hand and tossed the segment at the truck. Koji shouted in terror as he hit the accelerator and swerved the vehicle to the side of the road. The tires screeched with ear-splitting volume as one end of the train’s line of box cars smashed into the portion of the ground where the truck had been situated barely a second earlier.
The segment of carriages then fell over on its side and skidded in a circular motion from the centripetal force, moving directly towards the new position of the truck.
Koji cried out again and turned the steering wheel as far to his right as he could, causing the vehicle to spin around so that the cab of the train only brushed against the front of the truck. This smashed one of its headlights and broke its fender and bumper grille in half. Thankfully, though, it failed to damage the vehicle to the point of inoperability, and its gas tank remained unbreached.
“Damn, that thing has good aim!” the well-educated island native shouted aloud. “Its visual acuity and manual dexterity must be amazing!”
Megadrak released a resounding roar-hiss in anger for the failure of its attempt to terminate Koji with the makeshift projectile.
“Catch me if you can, you big ugly bastard!” Koji bellowed as he stuck his head out the driver’s side window and pulled down his eyelid with his little finger while projecting his tongue.
The young man accelerated the truck and took off towards a route he had memorized that morning, one which he knew would take him to the shoreline of Tokyo Bay—where he had also previously spotted some privately-owned motorboats he prayed would still be there.
Megadrak was unable to detect the scent of its other quarry and was not about to let the single one it could see and smell escape intact. The enraged reptilian giant hurried in pursuit of the fast-moving truck.
Koji was thankful his ploy to lead the kaiju away had worked, yet simultaneously terrified that the beast was on his tail. He said another silent prayer to his ancestors that he could make it to the shore of Tokyo Bay before the pittance of fuel in the vehicle was depleted. And before the mighty Megadrak caught up with him.
CHAPTER 23: Back to the Beach
“Do you think it is safe to come outside of the building now?” Goro asked Risa, as he cautiously peeked out of a small window. “I do not see or hear the kaiju anywhere, or the sounds of a battle for that matter. And no falling jets or hurled train carriages came smashing through these walls, so…”
Risa sat tucked in a corner of the building, holding the still weeping Haruto tightly in her arms. “You are right, Goro-san. We have been in here well over a half hour now. I still hesitate to exit this building, only to find that Megadrak is somewhere nearby and catches our scent.”
“I share your concern, but I see police officers and what look like a few uniformed men of some government agency walking about casually. There is debris and crushed train cars everywhere, and what looks like… well, human bodies lying all around. The uniformed men are recovering them.”
“I would rather not have this little boy see all of that. Especially not so soon after… what happened.”
“We all lost much, and I fully empathize with that boy. I dealt with the same in recent days, though I am not quick to stay in here forever because of the fear of seeing dead bodies.”
“But your loss did not occur at so young an age.”
“Maybe not, but my mother and Keiko-chan were still all I had in this world, along with my best friend Tatsuo. And now they are all gone, between those worms and that damned kaiju. And it is not as if you are going to take their place in my life as a person who cares for me.”
“Goro-san, I am truly sorry for your losses, but we have been through this already. You cannot blame me for having a husband when you met me.”
“Of course not. I never blame anyone for everything that is either taken from me, or I am denied having from the very start. The boy will find another caregiver who will offer him comfort and support, and that person may even be you. But who will I receive to replace my mother and my imouto?”
“Once again, I am truly sorry for all that has happened to you over the past few days, Goro-san. But this is not the time to feel sorry for yourself over the way you believe the universe has treated you. And if I may be so bold, mewling in self-pity like that is not exactly attractive to any woman.”
“Nothing about me is attractive to women! So what difference does a little mewling make now?”
Goro turned towards the woman of his dreams—whose love he would have only in his dreams, as it turned out—and clenched his fists in an angry gesticulation. He quickly seemed to realize that he allowed himself to lose his temper and make a fool out of himself yet again in front of Risa. The young fisherman wrung out his tension-filled hands and forced himself to calm down.
Risa simply glared at him out of her large brown eyes as she continued to hold the sobbing H
aruto. “Are you back to a sense of stability now that you have had your opportunity to vent, Goro-san?”
The fisherman turned away in shame. “I am sorry. I did not mean to take this out on you, or upset the boy any further.”
“You are in a terrible state of mind due to your recent losses. I can understand your needing to let some of that emotion out. There is no shame in that. I am sorry as well for seeming to judge you as less than a man for expressing these feelings. You have survived and weathered this ordeal just as well as Koji or I have. And I did not endure your losses.”
Goro was unable to conceal the smile that beamed on his face, which was apt to manifest at the slightest compliment or display of gentle attention from Risa. He was thus quite irritated when two police officers chose exactly that moment to charge through the door.
“Is there anyone in here?” the lead officer asked.
“Hai,” Risa replied, standing up with Haruto in her arms. “There are three of us. We all need medical attention.”
“Wait,” Goro addressed the officers. “Are you certain it is safe to leave this building? We need to prevent our scents from reaching Megadrak’s nose, or that monster will tear whatever is left of the city apart to get us.”
“The kaiju departed the area well over an hour ago,” the officer explained. “It was in pursuit of a civilian driving a military-issue truck towards Tokyo Bay. The Self-Defense Force believe it to be part of a plan by the driver to lead the monster away from the main island.”
“That is exactly why he did it,” Risa said. “That would be our friend, Koji. Is… is he all right?”
“No information on that yet,” the second officer responded. “Now please step outside the building with us, as we must get this area cleared and secured.”
Risa handed the whimpering boy in her arms to Goro, and then approached the officers, gesturing for them to gather around her so she could ask them something outside the traumatized boy’s range of hearing.
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