Age of Monsters

by John Lee Schneider

  Really, that was its own kind of super-power.

  Damn, he thought. He loved her after all.

  Damn. Damn, damn, damn.

  Worse, he loved her like Dopey loved Snow White – because that was his role – he was the seven dwarfs and it was up to him to get her safely home to Prince Charming – the happily-ever-after part was that guy's job.

  Jonah had to stand-in just a while longer.

  The current was pushing them north. They were in range of the Tower and Jonah was tempted to try for it, but that would only leave them stranded. One way or another, they had to make shore.

  Behind them, the turmoil in the water seemed to have finally subsided.

  Jonah still couldn't see over the rough chop, but whatever had gone on down below had apparently now been decided.

  With the shore finally in sight, Naomi was beginning to fade.

  But Jonah wouldn't let her quit either.

  “Almost there,” he said. “We can make it.”

  She didn't answer, didn't look at him, but she bent forwards and kicked harder.

  Jonah had never met anyone who had made him want to be brave.

  His own ex-wife basically made him want to run and hide.

  Right about now, Jonah felt like fighting.

  And then suddenly, amazingly, they were in standing water, not thirty yards from the beach.

  Tantalizingly close. The ocean seemed to grasp at them and pull them back.

  Struggling against the waves, they staggered the rest of the way to the shore, collapsing in the surf onto the sand.

  They sat there for a moment, utterly exhausted.

  Then they looked at each other.

  Saying nothing, they simply hugged.

  It was the first time she had voluntarily touched him since he'd known her.

  He decided it was okay to be a dog at her feet. Just call me, 'Dopey'.

  Jonah took her hand, helping her to her feet, and they stood together, turning to look back over the sea.

  The water had calmed. The ocean was empty. The wreck of the destroyer had vanished beneath the waves.

  But then, not two-hundred yards out, the surface broke once again.

  Rising up out of the bay, rearing its full twenty-stories high, was the rex.

  Its hide was savaged, with ugly, gaping wounds.

  It also sported what looked like a mouthful of shark-meat – attached to a piece of tail.

  As it pulled its massive weight out of the water, the rex seemed to falter for just a second – perhaps from exhaustion – perhaps from its injuries.

  Then, slowly, obviously in pain, it began to move, striding through the surf, towards shore.

  Jonah didn't know if it was after them, or just lumbering forward.

  One more time, it didn't matter.

  And despite the ugly bite-wounds, the green glow in its eyes actually seemed brighter – the energy burn of an accelerated heartbeat.

  Jonah and Naomi turned and started running down the beach.

  The coastline north of Eureka was shadowed by a ridge that led into the mountains – heavily forested, with redwoods that were sometimes over three-hundred feet tall.

  Over the top crest of the south ridge, the tree line parted. There was a slow creak as a two-hundred-foot tree was broken and came tumbling down.

  Jonah and Naomi stumbled to a stop.

  Another giant was perched on the ridge – its eyes glowing green.

  Not a rex this time.

  Bigger. A Carcharodont.

  At the sight of a rival, the rex paused as well.

  Up on the hillside, more trees were pushed aside and toppled over, as the giant carnosaur was now joined by others.

  Jonah couldn't tell how many – but it was a lot. The living mountains stared down into the basin.

  And what might yet be lurking beyond the ridge?

  Jonah looked around at the land-locked beach. The Apocalypse had finally found them, and they had nowhere left to go.

  Chapter 37

  The rex stepped up onto shore, facing the big Carcharodont as it reared up on the hillside.

  It recognized the challenge of a rival predator, activating its own territorial instinct. But more than that, it understood on some more basic level, the conflict was larger than that.

  The rex also recognized the skittering little rats crawling all over the big Carcharodont's back. He recognized them as a foulness – like sulfur – something just beyond scent – a psychic stench.

  Although the rex had no words for it, he also understood the role of the little creatures in this conflict – despite appearances, they were not fleas or lice, or even Savannah birds cleaning up parasites off a giant's back.

  They were steering.

  The big carcharodont advanced down the hill. The moment it moved, the rest moved with it, and the Earth rumbled.

  It was not just carnosaurs – the enemy had arrived in legion. The rex could see towering sauropods, as well as an entourage of all the most dangerous herd-beasts, adorned in spikes, horns, and armor.

  The rex had no idea by how much it was out-numbered, although he knew it was a significant measure. Nor did it take into account its own already-ghastly, bleeding wounds.

  Instead, it did the only thing it knew how – what evolution had bred into it. The rex stamped its feet, ready to meet the assault head-on.

  It was only peripherally aware of the tiny apes on the beach, who were now running towards the north ridge.

  But the tiny apes stopped again when the treeline of the northern hillside began toppling over as well.

  Now it was the Carcharodonts who paused.

  If the rex could have smiled, it would have at that moment.

  The pack of tyrannosaurs lined up along the opposite horizon – eyes glowing green.

  His own gang had arrived.

  The rex-pack almost seemed to pose on the hill, as if letting the moment sink in.

  Then they began to move.

  Standing on the beach, the rex turned its eyes back to the lead Carcharodont, even as the big carnosaur now hung deliberately back, letting its foot-soldiers move forward to engage instead.

  The two factions faced each other – all attracted by the same psychic stench.

  For one faction – perhaps just a touch more primitive – that stench was just base stimuli – the impetus to move forward – to bite, to stomp. They couldn't even fairly be said to obey – they simply followed where they were led.

  The other faction, however, was there to stamp that stench out like fire or stinging ants.

  T. rex was the last of the dinosaurs to evolve – and could therefore be said to be somewhat more advanced – known to pair-bond – perhaps the bare-beginnings of the concepts of companionship and empathy.

  Perhaps it even understood on some level, that this anomaly had made him and his kind a threat – that the enemy wanted them wiped-out. He was a 'resistance' that could not be tolerated.

  Or maybe it was just stubborn – a by-product of its own long-evolved T. rex socio-biology – nothing more than that.

  Either way, it was enough.

  The rex didn't know what was happening in other regions, or other continents – or all over the planet. It didn't matter – he had his own fight right in front of him.

  And on the hillside, as if in answer, the lead Carcharodont threw its head back and ROARED.

  Its troops followed suit – and the bellowing thunder echoed through the mountains.

  From the beach, the rex returned the challenge.

  On the hill to the north, the rex-gang answered.

  From the south ridge, the opposing army marched forward to meet them.

  The big rex eyed the lead Carcharodont, which still stood back, allowing its fellows to charge past it down the hill.

  The swarming little lizards crested on the big carnosaur's head and shoulders as if to watch – generals sending out their troops.

  The first of the Carcharodonts hit the beach
.

  The rex attacked, with wide, gaping jaws.

  Chapter 38

  Circling in orbit, it was nearly thirty-minutes before the EITS station's screens clicked back on.

  At this point, Major Tom had no clue why his systems were clicking in and out – it was like a cat was dancing on some unseen keyboard. He didn't know why the systems had gone down, he didn't know why they were up again. Before, it had been just the military frequencies that had been blocked – this was everything.

  But during that thirty minutes in the dark, he could still see the planet's surface out the window.

  He could see the nukes hit – he could see them popping like bulbs on a Christmas tree.

  Asia and Africa seemed to get it the worst. Even from a distance, there was a strobing effect.

  When the lights clicked back on, most of his screens had gone blank.

  How many nukes had landed? At least a dozen. Probably some had not fired – it was impossible to tell.

  Once his power kicked back on, Tom began linking back up with the surviving satellites, to see if he could get a telescope back up – maybe track some of the blasts through ambient radioactivity.

  At least one missile had hit the North American continent – he had pinpointed the impact.

  Southern California, fifty-miles east of Los Angeles.

  Dead center of the San Andreas Fault.

  Chapter 39

  Lucas had been with the first wave in San Francisco. Besides himself, his entire squadron had been wiped out.

  This was worse.

  In most wars, even the losers had survivors.

  Clearly, that was not the intended outcome here today. Once the 'warfare' was settled, priorities would shift to extermination.

  In the smoking ocean beneath, the carriers were gone – down to the last ship – the floating wreckage leaked fuel that burned the water's surface like a forest fire.

  A number of the smaller destroyers had survived the initial assault and had buzzed briefly about – accomplishing little besides prolonging the crewmen's lives a few minutes more.

  Lucas saw several hit from below as the carriers had been. And that was before the ocean itself began to burn. It was difficult to tell if any had yet survived.

  At least one of the nine-thousand-ton boats had also been taken by something that looked like a giant pair of crocodile jaws, grafted onto the body of a sea-lion – the jaws alone were over a hundred feet, and they had snapped the destroyer in half like kindling.

  Lucas had taken note that the follow-up strikes on the destroyers had been in succession – not like the simultaneous first-strike.

  It was as if, once activated, whatever guiding force that motivated these beasts, simply allowed their charges to act out as their instincts dictated – their simple nature and the Food of the Gods was enough.

  And Lucas no longer doubted there was a guiding force.

  The aerial assault alone was evidence enough. During that first-wave assault on San Fran, the sky dragons had been there – one of them had taken him out – but it hadn't been like this.

  This was overwhelming force – intended to stamp them out once and for all.

  The flying dreadnoughts filled the sky as far as Lucas could see.

  And every damned one of them was a green-eyed, infected giant.

  This against a few surviving F-16s.

  When the carriers had been taken, most of the fighters had still been on the pad. Lucas estimated less than a dozen had survived the first strike.

  He knew none of the pilots by name – only brief call-signs – 'Ballsy', O'Reilly, 'Gentle Ben', Wilson. He likewise had no idea how many had already been taken out.

  Lucas had seen one pilot eject the moment before his fighter was hit, bare seconds before the craft exploded. Unfortunately, that still left him dangling in a parachute – a floating morsel with the chute itself practically advertising his position. He was snapped up within seconds.

  The flying dragons also barely noticed their retaliatory machine-gun fire. Missiles were a little better – pterosaurs were, by design, lightweight – but these sky-beasts stretched wingspans over four-hundred feet, and your clip ran dry of missiles fast.

  Then of course, Lucas thought, there was his payload.

  It was really no different than any other flight – he just had a nuke on his wing. He'd done it all the time.

  Theoretically, they wouldn't explode on impact – but Lucas wasn't quite prepared to trust that little bit of scientific folklore.

  There was one particularly nasty pterosaur – one of the ones with teeth, hard-pressed on his tail – that seemed determined to put it to the test.

  It was a fast one too. It also banked on a dime, cutting angles with its sheer size.

  The critter that had taken him down in San Fran had clipped him with its wing when he'd tried to bank. But Lucas was wise to that trick this time, and instead, he shot straight up, aiming for the stratosphere.

  The flying beast followed doggedly after him – literally until it passed out from oxygen starvation. The giant pterosaur fell slowly limp, cresting into a slow, probably fatal, tumble back to Earth.

  As he arced in a plummeting dive back into the fight, Lucas wondered for the first time what was happening on shore.

  As he re-entered the air-space, he veered off towards the beach.

  That was when he saw that the base itself was gone – completely washed away.

  The import took a moment to sink in.

  Did that mean everybody was dead – all those people he'd promised to save?

  That pretty young nurse, that poor little coffee girl? That stupid kid who wanted to be a hero?

  Doctor Holland – Rosa – who he thought he'd won over right there near the end, and who turned out to be a pretty good kisser.

  He'd led them all here to be killed.

  But then he shook his head.

  He'd spent several days in close contact with Doctor Rosa Holland, and he had come to know her enough to be impressed. She reminded him of his wife – and not just because she was a good kisser.

  She would have found a way – she would have gotten them out of there. She would have done it just to show that she could. She had that stubborn streak.

  So Lucas did a fly-by over the flooded base, right in the direction he would have taken – to the high-ground back up on the highway.

  And sure enough, he spotted two vehicles – right on the road where the cliff broke away – the very bastion that had stopped the wave. And when he sailed over low, he saw the familiar faces, as they looked up to watch his jet pass.

  Lucas smiled despite himself. You had to hand it to her.

  But as he passed the ridge, he also saw what was coming for them out of the forests just beyond.

  He flew low over the trees, taking it all in.

  He had been right. This was the extermination part – the search-and-destroy mission, sent in to clean out the stragglers.

  'Normals' this time – not the giants.

  And assuming strategic consideration, a moment's thought suggested why – the giants would have shown up on the EITS station's scanners.

  Now it only remained for the first of them to become infected.

  The beasts were already moving down the ridge towards the shattered base.

  Well, he thought, machine-gun fire may not bother the flying giants, but he could personally testify that the ‘normals’ didn't like the caliber of bullet that came out of an F-16.

  Lucas began to circle back around where the small group of escapees was trapped on the highway.

  But at that moment, his headphones burst alive with static, and General Rhodes' barking voice blared in his ear.

  “All surviving aircraft, report in! Is anyone out there still alive?”

  Lucas counted the replies of six call-signs – six survivors out of the entire fleet – before he called in his own.

  “Skywalker here, sir,” Lucas responded. “We have met the enemy
and they are kicking our asses, sir.”

  “Lieutenant,” Rhodes said, “I need you all to break away from this battle and deliver your payloads. Nothing has changed. Your targets are all the continental United States – THAT is our priority. THAT is what's at stake here, gentlemen.”

  “Sir,” Lucas interjected, “we've got survivors on the hill.”

  Rhodes' voice was flat.

  “Deliver your payload, son.”

  Lucas noticed the General made no effort to persuade him by telling him his survivors would be taken care of. Rhodes wasn't the type to lie.

  He gave orders. He had higher priorities.

  So that's how it was, Lucas thought. Destroy the town where he'd sent his wife, and abandon the woman who had saved his life.

  Duty and honor.

  Death from above.

  Lucas realized at that moment, how much of the immediate future really was up to him.

  “Lieutenant?” Rhodes said again.

  “Yes, sir,” Lucas responded.

  He had a job to do. His job was to be the hero.

  Somebody had to, right?

  That meant he had to pull it ALL off.

  Perform miracles. Move Heaven and Earth.

  He turned off his radio. Rhodes had given his orders. Lucas would follow them.

  But first he had a little something to do.

  Chapter 40

  Rosa thought again of the war-dogs. It was a more literal analogy than she thought.

  It wasn't like that – it was that.

  Rosa didn't know if the beasts had seen them yet, or were just charging mindlessly down the hill – the highway south was already cut-off, but they still had 101 North.

  Although, she thought, as she watched the trees above them tumble, perhaps not for long.

  The wolf-sized sickle-claws had outpaced their ten-ton carnosaur cousins and several darted out onto the road. And now, the first of them turned in their direction.

  Daryl and Bob both opened fire, joined a moment later by Jeremy, and even barista-turned-gunslinger Jamie, who set her feet, firing her bolt-action rifle with strict, freshly-taught form.

  Rosa grabbed Julie in one hand and Private Jones in the other and began running for the jeeps. Private Barnes followed, already fumbling with his keys, with Bud and Allison right behind him.