Tether

by Jeremy Robinson

  It knows it’s not supposed to be here.

  It knows it’s a monster.

  But it’s stuck in a loop of sociopathic rage toward…

  “Who are you angry at?” I shout.

  I don’t hear anything, but I feel its anger reaching out, spreading toward the SpecTek lab, and then beyond…out into the world, to every single person.

  The living. It wants to kill…everyone.

  There is a desire among humans, to not suffer alone. Misery really does love company, and apparently, Dragonfish’s fellow Riesegeists aren’t enough.

  The moment SpecTek is gone…

  …they’re going to attack the whole damn world.

  If Reggie, Garcia, and Bjorn succeed before we’ve made some kind of progress, and these things head out into a defenseless world, humanity’s days will be numbered. With no way to contact the others, I need to just try harder.

  “Answer me!” I scream into the rushing, cold wind that is Dragonfish’s soul. “Tell me what you want! Why are you angry?!”

  The wail of pain that replies isn’t in any language, human or supernatural. It is pure emotion, lacking any kind of logic. The Riesegeists are beyond thought. Beyond hope.

  “We can’t stop them,” I say, Dragonfish’s despair sneaking into me.

  Ankle-deep water from the Colorado rushes past my feet.

  “Don’t give up!” Rain shouts from inside her cocoon of heatless light. I can’t see her at all, but I know she’s there because she’s still holding my hand, still connecting me to the supernatural.

  “You can be free!” I shout.

  A wail high above draws my eyes upward, just as Dragonfish’s body slips past us and back into the sky. Somehow, Dalí heard my shout and understood what I was offering enough to be offended by it.

  Several hundred feet of praying mantis limb reaches out and snaps down.

  Even if it slips past us, the ground is going to take a beating.

  I step into Rain’s light, eyes clenched shut, and hold her against me.

  The impact’s shockwave nearly knocks me unconscious. For a moment, I feel weightless, and then gravity tugs me down.

  We fall together, landing five feet lower than we’d been. The impact is jarring, but not enough to pry us apart.

  With the attack over, I roll out of Rain’s light—never releasing her hand—and I look up as Dalí’s spiked limb rises back up into the flashing sky.

  Water rushes into the impact crater. I pull Rain up while diverting my gaze from her blinding brightness. We scramble up the muddy embankment, hands linked.

  I’m dazed, partially blinded, and my ears are ringing from the explosive volume of angry kaiju roars. While they seem to be incapable of tangibly interacting with Rain and me while we’re in contact, I’m not sure how much more I can take.

  A wave of water rises over the river’s banks, surging out into the field, threatening to knock us off our feet and sweep us back into the crater. Brute charges up the Colorado with the primal ferocity of a silverback gorilla, its many eyes locked on me, long luminous hair flailing about.

  Round three…

  Here we go.

  I don’t think I’ll be able to get through to Brute, any more than I did the other two, but I’m going to try.

  I brace myself for the kaiju’s attack, but I get distracted by the rhythmic thump of helicopter blades. The already rushing wind picks up, whipping water into my face, just as the river surges past my knees, nearly knocking me off my feet.

  Fifty feet above us, the helicopter hovers, lit in the fiery sunset’s light, and silhouetted by the dark clouds above.

  Brute swings, aiming for the loud, new arrival.

  The two-fingered hand swipes through the helicopter, tearing two bright souls out of the cockpit.

  What kind of idiots would—

  The helicopter rotates, out of control, revealing a logo: SpecTek.

  As the helicopter careens toward the river, a sole figure leaps out.

  For a moment, he appears frozen in the air, arms outstretched, face seething anger, blue eyes cutting into me. It’s Mr. Frank. Then he falls toward the ground, no trace of fear in his eyes. He lands with a white splash of water and just…disappears beneath the surface.

  I’m about to proclaim his demise a victory of pure luck. Then he stands back up, dripping water from his suit. He cracks his neck one way, and then the other, indifferent to the monsters around us. He locks his eyes on mine, lets a one-sided grin slip onto his face, and sloshes through the water, headed straight toward me.

  42

  Brute’s massive stride ensures that he gets dibs on who gets first crack at pummeling us into the earth. While its many eyes don’t have eyebrows or a furrowed forehead to express emotion, the creature’s body language is pure rage. And its gaze is unrelenting.

  I squeeze Rain’s hand a little tighter, knowing what’s coming. Despite having survived both Dragonfish’s and Dalí’s attacks, my history with Brute in Boston makes him feel even more dangerous.

  Or perhaps it’s my own anger seeping through.

  This asshole destroyed my hometown.

  As his giant two-fingered fists swing down toward us, I feel no fear.

  Glowing, flaky skin slides through us, unable to make contact with our bodies, even while it pummels the world.

  “Stop!” I shout, as my body braces for the booming sound and shaking ground that will follow.

  But the world goes quiet.

  When I open my eyes, we’re encased in Brute’s shimmering closed fist. Rain is impossible to see, swallowed up in light.

  “This is not okay!” I shout. For some reason, I’m talking to the dead man-monster like I would a toddler or the elderly—loud and simple. “You can’t just kill people. You can’t destroy entire cities!”

  A wave of confusion and rage flows from Brute to me. A non-verbal rebuttal.

  “I don’t give a damn how you feel. Your emotions are not an excuse to hurt people. We don’t need to share your pain to understand it. Just…tell me what you need, and I will make sure it happens.”

  I roll my eyes at everything I’ve just said. Geez, I sound like Brené Brown. I’ve never been a self-help kind of person, but her book, Rising Strong, carried me through some tough times. I suppose rising strong is what I’m doing now—the gladiator face down in the dirt, picking himself up, ready to rumble with what needs to be done.

  Doubt sneaks into my psyche. How is scolding a kaiju-ghost going to make a difference?

  Pain lances through me, a gift from Brute.

  But it feels wrong.

  I mean, all pain feels wrong. It’s literally the body’s way of saying, ‘Something is wrong!’ But this emotional turmoil…burning my skin and churning my insides… It doesn’t feel like Brute.

  While he’s a beast of rage, the emotion I’m feeling is desperation—like I’m reaching for someone hanging over a cliff, but can’t quite reach them without falling over the edge myself.

  I reach a hand up into the wavering light that is Brute’s fist, imagining myself as a kind of lifeline to the dead.

  “Just let go,” I say. “You don’t need to take any more people with you.”

  My hand starts to glow. It’s painless, but it fills me with trepidation.

  How did that happen?

  What does it mean?

  And then I see them, swirling and shrieking through Brute’s body, trapped by his ethereal form—souls of the dead.

  Men, women, and children from Boston and Chicago, pulled up into Brute’s body, trapped in a prison of rage.

  I reach for them with my luminous hand, fingers outstretched.

  “C’mon! Hurry!”

  The swirling mass of spirits churns with frantic energy, racing toward me and the promise of an outstretched hand they can now see.

  It’s horrifying in every sense of the word. I can feel their confusion and their sadness. Their desperate hope at the sight of my hand brings tears to my eyes.
>
  Brute’s fists lift from the ground.

  “No!” I shout. “Wait!”

  A child-sized soul springs ahead of the writhing mass. Its face is stretched out, agonized. Its brittle arms, reaching as though to a parent, are nearly impossible to make out.

  Its fingers brush mine.

  The connection knocks a sob from my lips and me nearly to my knees.

  As Brute’s fists continue to rise, I close my fingers around the small hand, and feel the connection slide through me and into Rain, anchoring both of us.

  There is a familiar tug, not on my body, but on my soul, as Brute’s rising form attempts to carry off the tender spirit. It feels similar to the blue light rising from SpecTek, threatening to pull me away, but Rain and I resist it.

  The child-spirit slips through flaky skin, emerging like a wriggling larvae.

  “You can do it,” I shout, as desperate to free this single soul as I am to put a stop to the Reisegeists. “Almost there!”

  Nearly freed from its prison, the spirit’s supernatural weight increases. What felt like pulling a car with one hand becomes a 747. The impossible mass stretches me, and for a moment, my spirit-arm slips out of my physical arm. I’m losing my grip on myself.

  “Rain!” I shout, understanding that Brute is about to add me to its collection.

  “I know!” she says from somewhere in the light, and I feel her ferocity counter-balancing the pull. She screams in pain or exertion. I can’t tell which. My soul slips back in place like a popped joint.

  “You can’t have them!” I shout. “They’re not yours!”

  I’m cut loose, sprawling back as Brute’s hands rise back up into the sky. I hit the ground hard, eyes clenched shut. For a moment, I’m lost. Confusion grips every cell of my body. I don’t know what I’m feeling. It’s like I’m standing in a crowded hall, surrounded by tightly packed people, all of them talking. My thoughts get lost in the noise, until I open my eyes again—

  —and see them.

  Hundreds of spirits, all grasping onto each other, flow out of Brute’s arms, tapering down to the small child still grasping my arm. As the last of them flow free from the beast, a great pressure is lifted away. The chorus of supernatural voices rises in volume. What they’re saying—individually—is impossible to make out, but I feel the message resonating from each of them, transmitted to me by the child whose haunting eyes now look at peace.

  “You’re welcome,” I say, and then the mass of souls disperses into the sky like a flock of birds, several hundred strong, bursting from the leaf-cover of a wide-limbed tree. I turn my head up, watching them flit toward the clouds, avoiding the massive monsters around us.

  Dragonfish pursues the spirits into the sky, but gives up when they enter the storm and disappear into the flashing blue light.

  Eyes turned up, I take in the apocalyptic scene around us. The surrounding city is in ruins, some of it burning. Drawing the kaiju to the river helped contain the damage, but the monsters’ sheer size ensures the damage done will be vast. What I’m not seeing are souls being pried from buildings. The people who chose to remain in the city are getting clear, and fast.

  Dalí has circled to the left, its long legs cutting through the tent-like performing arts building. The Riesegeist seems apprehensive, like it’s afraid to lose its grasp on the souls contained within its supernatural shell. But it remains solely focused on Rain and me, moving steadily to block any possibility of retreat.

  Brute reels back, wounded by the expulsion of souls. It slips back into the river, thrashing in anguish and sending cascades of water up over the shoreline.

  And above it all, Storm. The colossal being of tendrils and gnashing mouths glides toward us on its many limbs. It seems indifferent to the plight of Brute, the actions of the other kaiju, and the freed souls. It simply moves steadily forward, destroying everything in its immense path. The brightness of its cloaked underside is like a white star, hidden behind a curtain.

  What’s under there? I wonder, and I quickly decide I don’t need to know.

  All that’s important is that this…monster, used to be a little girl—Rain’s little girl—and we will do whatever is necessary to set her, and Morgan, free.

  “That was interesting,” a cold voice says.

  My upturned head snaps back to level ground. Mr. Frank stands over me, a smirk on his face. He’s as indifferent to the Riesegeists as the monsters are to the plight of the living.

  They have no power over him, I think, because he’s already dead.

  Or something.

  I have no idea how Bjorn’s vampiric hypothesis works, but the look in Mr. Frank’s eyes says he’s got no soul left to lose.

  He glances left and right. “Where are the rest of your friends?”

  On the upside, he doesn’t know where Reggie, Bjorn, and Garcia are. That means they’ve got a chance at succeeding. On the downside, he’s talking to just me. I glance back and find Rain, her light extinguished, lying on her back. She’s submerged in water deep enough to cover her ears, arms, and legs. If Brute sends another deep-water surge our way, she’ll drown if I can’t move her.

  My gaze flits to her hand resting on her stomach, no longer linked with mine. Mr. Frank isn’t the only danger for me.

  As the kaiju destroy the city around us, I turn back to Mr. Frank. He’s stronger, faster, and deader than me. I’m not sure I could win in a fight against a tweenage school girl, so I decide to strike first and fight dirty.

  I kick out hard, foot snapping out of the water and striking Mr. Frank’s kneecap. I cringe when the blow connects, because I’m sure it’s going to invert his leg and cause great pain. Despite Mr. Frank being as close to pure evil as I’ve ever seen, I can’t keep myself from feeling empathy for the anguish he’s about to feel at my hands.

  But that’s not what happens.

  Pain radiates from my foot and up my leg. I feel like I’ve just kicked a Redwood.

  Before I can recover or even shout, Mr. Frank reaches down, clutches my leg, yanks me from the water, and tosses me away. I flail and twist through the air, looking for some sign of hope, but only seeing a confusing kaleidoscope of kaiju, city, water-covered ground, and then nothing.

  Water rushes up over me, cushioning my impact. I sit up, back inside the pool shaped like Dalí’s limb, coughing and sputtering. Unsure of what I can do against Mr. Frank, or the kaiju, now that I’ve been separated from Rain. I scramble up the slippery mud wall and drag myself, like a migrating salmon, through the water still rushing down into the pit.

  When I reach the top, exhausted, I find Mr. Frank standing over Rain’s body.

  He wasn’t trying to kill me. Not really. Because he still wants me alive.

  But Rain… Will he kill her or use her to control the kaiju?

  I climb to my feet, feeling smaller than ever, yet somehow bolder than ever, and shout, “Hey!” It’s not very intimidating. Lacks any kind of real threat. Like a Chihuahua’s yip. But it gets Mr. Frank’s attention. For a moment, anyway.

  He looks back at me, the same confident grin on his face. “What are you going to do?”

  I clench my fists, swelling with anger.

  The moment his furrowed brow digs in a little deeper, I know something has changed. But I don’t know what until I raise my fists for a fight.

  They’re glowing.

  Like Rain.

  But without Rain.

  And that’s when I feel her—my wife—standing behind me, whispering into my ear. “I’m with you.”

  43

  Mr. Frank’s confident strides cut through the water. Fists clenched. Smile on his face. He is absolutely unnerving. But he doesn’t know what I do—that I am not alone.

  Go get him, I think, assuming Wisp can hear my thoughts like I did hers.

  But nothing happens.

  Mr. Frank closes in. I step away, but am forced to stop, teetering on the edge of the water-filled pit.

  “Where did all your confidence go?” Mr.
Frank asks.

  I have nothing to say…because it’ll probably just sound like a whimper.

  “You’re in over your head,” he says. “Have been since Boston. You know, I was angry at your wife. For what she did. Now I understand it was a gift. An accidental ramification of her betrayal, but a gift, nonetheless. Turning Stephanie into a Riesegeist was always a risk. Even with her daughter, controlling her was a gamble. But now…” He turns to look up at Storm’s colossal form. “Using mother to control daughter…” He smiles. “The idea is so inconceivable that it never even occurred to me, but as long as there have been mothers and daughters, the elder has guided the younger. It’s a more natural fit.”

  “Rain will never—”

  “She will for you,” he says. “Just as your wife will—”

  “My wife is dead,” I declare, fists growing brighter. I feel a kind of strength flow through my arms, like they’re not mine at all.

  Mr. Frank stops, just a few feet away. He eyes my fists, more curious than afraid. “And what will you do with those?”

  I take a swing. I know it’s what he wants, but I’ve never felt the urge to punch someone like I do right now. I miss by a good foot.

  Mr. Frank’s grin never slips.

  He doesn’t even duck back.

  He simply lets me come up short and stumble past him.

  In doing so, he doesn’t see what I see.

  Doesn’t realize what I do.

  When he turns to face me, and finds me smiling back, his confidence falters.

  I take a step back.

  And then another.

  “There is nowhere for you to run,” he says, glancing left and right. To my back, Storm’s approach continues. To my left, the river and Brute—the beast recovering from its loss of souls. To my right, Dalí continues plowing through the arts building, heading past us. With Rain unconscious, her light diminished, the kaiju will head for SpecTek. I glance up, looking for Dragonfish, and I find the flying giant already half way across Austin.

  Hurry up, guys, I think. If Dragonfish reaches the lab before it’s destroyed, their lives and souls will be in danger.

  “I’m not running,” I say, stepping farther back without taking my eyes off Mr. Frank. “I’m making room.”