Webbing that splinters as it vibrates, filling the air with crimson needles. The needles settle on the man in the suit and he screams louder still. Then stops altogether. I watch in horror as he goes slack, then falls abruptly to the ground in pieces, the webbing having eaten through his flesh where it was holding him.
“Let’s not go that way,” I say and turn to find Dad retching.
I grab his arm and pull him away, trying to find another exit. “Be sick later. Move now.”
A part of me feels bad for yelling at Dad, which is its own kind of weirdness, but if it will keep him alive I’ll do worse. For all that he’s done to Mom, I don’t actually want the old bastard to die. And as much as I’ll deny it if anyone brings it up, he is still my father.
“That man…he just fell to pieces,” he pants.
Another man runs past us, screaming and clutching at himself. He’s covered in those red needles, blood trickling from the countless points of penetration. He collides with a wall and falls over, thrashing, bloody foam spraying from between his lips.
“Don’t touch the webs,” I snap at Dad. “And don’t let any of those needles get on you!”
Another wall comes down and I can see outside. There’re no webs blocking that way out. I grab Dad’s arm and run for it. He stumbles after me and then we’re outside.
It’s a nightmare.
Thick strands of red, semi-transparent webbing cling to the buildings, wrapping some of them up like cocoons, spanning between others like a gory spiderweb. Thinner strands branch out from these thicker ones, and still thinner ones from those, becoming harder to see. Damn, this kaiju has turned the city into the world’s largest tripwire trap. One wrong step and we’ll either be caught up in those corrosive webs or send up a cloud of toxic needles.
Some distant part of my mind wonders how the webbing’s not corroding the buildings. That part is quickly shut up as I take in the death around me. This kaiju hasn’t been here long and it really hasn’t done that much damage to the city compared to what Titanocobra did, barring the webs themselves. But it’s also clearly killed a metric shit-ton more people.
Bodies litter the sidewalks, especially nearest the buildings where the webbing is thickest. Those lie in pieces, a few detached limbs still suspended by clothing in the webs, or skewered by needles. The people who are still living are crowding into the streets, trampling each other as they race to find shelter and put distance between themselves and the threat.
Movement overhead and to the left catches my eye and for the first time I get a proper look at the kaiju. It’s huge.
I’d known that. I don’t think I’d fully appreciated just how big until this moment, though. Taisaur is maybe the size of its head. Titanocobra was stupid long, but it didn’t have this thing’s mass.
It’s not the size that makes it so terrifying, though. It’s the shape. Looking at this monster puts the sensation of scrabbling insect legs in my gut and makes me remember why we’re afraid of things that creep and crawl.
It looks like nothing so much as a stupidly tall spider with the head of a mosquito and a scorpion’s tail arching underneath its high, bloated abdomen. It’s covered in little spikes and is the color of a cockroach. Beside me, Dad retches again. This time I don’t yell at him. I want to throw up too.
The instectile kaiju crawls over and atop buildings like a daddy longlegs. It’s disconcerting to see something that big skitter and bob like that. Some of the structure’s crumble under its weight, which in turn creates more destruction as they collide with other buildings. It doesn’t look like the kaiju is actually trying to bring them down though, just spin more of its red webbing.
The viscous substance shoots out in bursts from its under-swung tail from a point just above the stinger. Sometimes it catches pieces of buildings as they fall, suspending the debris in midair about the wreckage and sending up great clouds of needles.
“We have to move,” Dad says, snapping me out of my assessment. “Aaron! Come on!”
Maybe it’s because I’m naturally contrary or because arguing with Dad has always been my knee-jerk reaction, but it suddenly occurs to me that I didn’t come to this facility alone.
“Isabella,” I say. “Max.”
Dad gives me a confused look. “Who?”
That’s right. He doesn’t know anything about Isabella. And there’s no way he could have known anything about Max. Hell, I don’t really know anything about Max. There’s no time to try an explain now. Max seems to actually have a clue about what’s going on and Isabella…I can’t let anything happen to Isabella.
I turn and start to head back to the crumbling building we just escaped from when Dad grabs my arm. “Aaron, stop! You can’t go back in there.”
“The hell I can’t,” I say, and pull my arm free. Or try to. Dad proves surprisingly strong and he clamps down on my arm with both hands.
“It’s suicide,” he says. “We have to get out of here.”
With an effort, I pull my arm free. “I’m not leaving them.”
I take off back for the building, pushing past a man in a black uniform carrying a big ass gun. He takes off down the road. I barely pay him any mind. It’s hard to see inside the building. Hard to breathe, too. There’s so much dust in the air. Everywhere there is screaming, moaning, or the sound of running away. I don’t think any more of the building is set to come down. I don’t want to test that belief any more than I have to.
I make for a hole in the wall leading to a room that would have been blocked off earlier and check inside. No luck. I make my way down the hall, doubling back the way I came. There’s a noise, a slight banging. A woman’s voice cursing in Spanish accompanies it.
It might not be her but I have to chance it. I rush to the door and try to open it. It’s locked. The swearing and pounding from inside grow more insistent and vehement.
“Isabella,” I call out.
“Aaron!”
I know that voice.
I slam my shoulder into the door. It’s too strong. I try kicking it. Nothing.
Dad’s suddenly next to me. “On three,” he says.
I nod. We count down and slam into the door with everything we’ve got. It buckles, and with another shove we break our way in. My shoulder’s going to be feeling that later. I don’t care though because Isabella’s here and she’s alive.
Half the ceiling is gone but all of the walls remain intact. Isabella sits in the middle, handcuffed to a stainless-steel table just like the one I was.
“Do you still have the key?” I ask Dad.
He fishes it out and we hurry to undo her restraints.
Movement overhead catches my eye. I look up and notice the cloud of red needles that was let loose by the kaiju’s webbing floating through the air. A breeze sends them wafting through the hole in the ceiling.
“Go,” I shout at them. “Go!”
I shove them toward the door. Isabella stumbles but hurries on. Dad’s more reticent. He grabs me and shoves me toward the door. He’s right behind me and then he isn’t.
I look back. He’s tripped. There’s no way he’s going to make it to the door and the safety of the hall in time.
“Isabella, get around the corner, go!” I shout and double back.
Without thinking about it I throw myself over Dad. The needles fall upon us and burn.
Chapter Seventeen
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Hours later Isabella and I stumble into the Paris casino, hauling Dad between us. He’s not good. None of us are. Most of the needles blew into me and they fucking hurt, but I’m not getting sick like Dad or Isabella. Several needles made it past me to land on Dad. Isabella was luckier. Only one made it through the door to lodge in her arm.
The entire trek through the city Dad faded in and out of consciousness, sporadically coughing up bloody foam. Isabella does better, but she’s exhausted and her eyes are g
lazing over like she’s fighting a fever. I don’t know why I’m handling the needle’s sickness so much better but for once this is a gift horse I’m not going to look in the mouth. We’re alive. We made it to Paris, which for reasons I don’t fully understand, has become refugee central.
I don’t know how long the alien’s bug kaiju stayed with us in Vegas. It felt like it was here forever. It also feels like forever since it vanished. One moment it was scurrying over the buildings and city blocks. The next it was gone, leaving webbing, needles, and demolished buildings in its wake. Oh, and sickness.
Everywhere we went we passed people falling over coughing. I don’t think it’s just the needles either. Several people were looking terrible who didn’t have needles sticking out of them. The alien kaiju’s left something more behind than what we can see with the naked eye and it is seriously fucking everyone up.
Me and the other players may have caused all kinds of havoc on the alien’s world, but we never went out of our way to specifically target them as a people. We went after buildings and structures. Not the people.
Almost as soon as I complete that thought I’m sickened by the memory of eating someone. I was new to the game and trying to figure out if eating the city’s inhabitants gave back any health. Thank God I couldn’t feel or taste things then the way I can now when I’m Taisaur. I don’t think I could handle that.
Hell, I don’t know how I’m handling any of this now.
Inside Paris, which is decorated in over the top Parisian themes, volunteers are banding together to help the sick and injured survivors. We’re directed to a massive line circling slot machines and ending near the base of the casino’s fake Eiffel Tower. We settle in for a long wait.
Over the next couple of hours, we learn that Vegas is under quarantine. Nobody in or out. Apart from that, there’s a thousand different rumors flying around, most of which don’t make sense. I tune them out and fight not to let myself get mad. This is taking too long. Dad and Isabella are both getting worse. And I can’t do a thing for them. I couldn’t even stop this thing when it showed up. As big as it was, I don’t even know if summoning Taisaur here would have made a difference.
My fists clench and unclench. More time passes. My nerves fray. Dad can’t stop coughing up bloody foam, Isabella can barely stand, and I’m a walking pincushion. It makes me want to scream. I’ve never wanted my phone so badly. If I had it, I could log into Kaiju Wars and I would give back to the aliens everything they delivered to us here ten times over.
But I can’t do that. All I can do is sit here. How the fuck did I even get here?
“Damn Lusitania,” I snarl, and slam a fist down onto a dead slot machine. I’m sure the silence of those machines would be horrifying to anyone actually from around here.
My words catch Isabella’s attention. “What’s that?”
“Lusitania and her bright fucking idea,” I snapped. “Never said a word about what her plan was. Me and Dad wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for her. And where is she now? Safe with Daddy.”
“You don’t know what she’s dealing with right now,” Isabella says.
“You’re right, and I don’t fucking care. Because of her I’m trapped at ground zero of a kaiju attack. I’m stuck full of needles with no way to get my own kaiju here, you’re sick, and Dad’s probably dying. Oh, and her senator father wants to pin this whole fucking mess on me and that stunt she roped me into earlier where we ditched her bodyguards sure as hell didn’t help.”
Isabella shakes her head. “You are the most selfish, self-absorbed asshole I have ever met, Aaron.”
“I’m the selfish one?” I snap. “Explain that to me.”
“We don’t have the time. But you might start by asking why she needed to get away from those people.”
“Or why the hell she needed me to do it?”
“She didn’t.” It’s Isabella’s turn to snap. “I wanted you here because I thought you’re a better person than you are. It was my plan to use my fight as a distraction and get her out of there. I wanted you with us. I had to talk Lusitania into agreeing. And you, you want to talk about how we messed things up for you? That first kaiju, the red one, he was here for you, don’t forget. I don’t want to hear how either of us fucked things up for you.”
Her words are a slap in the face. I open my mouth. I don’t know what I’m going to say but it’s angry and vitriolic and probably would have ruined everything between us if I’d been allowed to speak. But as the words begin to come, a trio of figures bustle over to us.
I recognize one of them, though I’d only briefly glimpsed her. She’s one of the doctors helping everyone out. I quickly realize that all three of them are doctors. There’s the woman, a small brunette with a kitten-like face, a heavy black man in bloody golfing clothes, and another man with blonde hair and dark eyes.
It’s the woman who speaks first, interrupting me before I can say something truly stupid. “How are you not dead?”
That definitely catches my attention. “Excuse me?”
“How many of those things did you get stuck with?” Dr. Golfer says. “I lost count at around twenty-eight.”
“Yeah, there’s a lot,” I say. “Look, my dad got stuck by some too and he’s not doing so well.”
The woman gives him a quick look over, wincing as she sees the needles, then giving me a truly confused look. “This is pretty much what’s happening to everyone who’s getting stuck,” she says. “It’s hard to say just how bad the effects are from only getting stuck by one or two…more than five like this and he’s got maybe a few hours left to live.”
“The real question is why aren’t you dead?” Dr. Blonde asks. “We need to collect blood samples. I don’t know if they’ll do us any good now but….” He trails off, taking in my frustrated glare.
They’re talking like I’m not really here or even a real person. “Sorry,” he says. “But you’re the first person to be stuck by any of these needles and not show terrible symptoms.”
“They hurt like hell,” I say.
“But you’re not sick,” Dr. Kitten-face says.
I think Isabella might debate that point but I don’t think now is the time to be a smartass so instead I say. “Can you do anything for my dad?”
Dr. Golf shakes his head. “I honestly have no idea. Maybe if we could get blood samples, had equipment from the hospital, medicine….”
“You can take as much of my blood as you need,” I say. “When is that stuff getting here?”
“It’s not,” Dr. Kitten-face says. “The hospitals all got webbed up by that thing. There’s no way to get inside without getting killed.”
“Unless the needles don’t get you sick, right?” I say.
“Aaron,” Isabella says behind me while the doctor’s stare at me.
“You need my blood and your equipment to make these people better. I can get into that hospital without getting sick and grab everything you need. Just get these needles out and give me a list of everything you need.”
God, I hope I’m not full of shit. I might have just condemned myself to death. But I have the chance to do something, to help, and dammit, I am not the selfish, self-absorbed person Isabella thinks I am. Who am I kidding? Of course, I am. But I can do something good here. Maybe it’s a first step toward being someone better.
“Aaron,” Isabella says.
I turn to her. “Can you look after Dad for me?”
“Aaron.”
“Please.”
She grimaces. “I can do that. And just so you know, I’m not sorry for what I said.”
“I didn’t think you were,” I say.
She grabs the back of my head and pulls me into a kiss. It’s quick and fierce and I wish that so many things were different right now. She pulls back and glares into my eyes like she’s planning to burn into them with eye lasers. Mixed messages much?
“Come back.”
“You’ve got it,” I say.
Here’s hoping I’m not lying.
Chapter Eighteen
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I never really got it when people said hospitals are creepy. A hospital is just a place, like a workshop. You don’t think a repair shop is creepy because there are cars that are breaking down or dying there. A hospital is just a repair shop for the human body. A cold, funny smelling repair shop, full of smart people trying to fix things and others who are grieving. I’ve always felt that it’s not the hospitals that are creepy, it’s all the grief and worry that people bring with them when they visit hospitals that make up all that supposed creepy vibe.
Alone in the Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center I stand corrected.
Deserted, coming apart, and covered in corrosive red webbing and clouds of floating needles, this place is beyond creepy. Especially since alone is such a relative term with all the bodies everywhere. Patients, visitors, doctors, and nurses. There’re dead people in every room. None of their deaths were clean.
I thought prison was depressing. It has nothing on this place. I swear there’s an aura of suffering lingering in the air here, preventing me from becoming truly inured to the presence of so much death. After a period of some mental adjustment, I’m able to function and hurry about my business, but it doesn’t get easier. There’s probably no need for it, but I take a red fire-ax out of one of those emergency stations in the stairwell and keep it with me. Just in case, I don’t know, these dead people suddenly pop up as zombies or something. All things considered, it’s sadly not out of the realm of possibility.
For a very short while I was needle free. Getting inside unfortunately got me all stuck again as I was forced to break several strands of webbing to get inside, releasing several new clouds of crimson splinters into the air. Thankfully none of them get my face. My arms and back are on fire again though. I’m probably going to have a lot of new scars after this.
This hospital is less than five miles from the Paris. It’s not far, really. Not awful to walk or drive, barring the strip’s traffic. Only those doctors gave me a freaking huge list of things to bring back. Fortunately, I found a gold-plated stretch-Hummer that I was able to hotwire. The thing is unwieldy as fuck all and devours gas. It also doesn’t have far to go, has plenty of interior room for all of the medicine and equipment I’m gathering, and it actually handles all of the debris strewn over the streets fairly well despite its length. Who’d have thought something legitimately good might come out of that particular skill.
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