Project Nemesis (A Kaiju Thriller) (15 page)

20

“I don’t know if this is the best place, Nick,” Jenny Hester said, as she stood on the side of a nameless dirt road.

“Its fine,” Nick replied. “I come up here to go hunting with the guys all the time.
Never seen anyone else.
It’s an old logging road. No one knows about it.”

“The guys know about it.”

“They’re all working.”

Jenny put her hands on her curvy hips that her father used to say would get her in trouble. Truth was
,
they got her spoiled rotten by every guy she dated. Her hips had power. While Nick rummaged through the flatbed of his truck, Jenny bent over and pretended to look at a rock. “I just don’t know.”

In addition to being young and attractive, Jenny was also smart. She knew she was messing with Nick, giving him mixed signals. But she enjoyed reducing men to a state of blubbering desperation.

When she looked back and found Nick’s eyes locked on target, she grinned. Then she saw the blanket in his hands and decided to go light on him. Unlike most of her conquests, Nick was a good guy. He was still a horny bastard, like all the rest, but she felt safe with him. She found this less arousing, but at the same time she had begun to wonder if she could settle down with Nick. He had a good job with the electric company.
A small, but nice, house.
At twenty-five, he was five years older than she was, but probably the youngest she had dated.

She found herself staring back at him when their eyes connected. Her stomach swirled. Yeah, there’s something else there, she thought.

He lifted up the blanket with a sheepish grin. “So you don’t get sap on your ass.”

She laughed.
Considerate and funny.
If she were still living, her mother would have said that Nick was a keeper. She’d heard her say that once, about a boy. But Jenny was just fourteen at the time and wasn’t yet thinking about keeping anything or anyone.

Nick walked past, toward the side of the road. “We’ll just go back a ways. Anyone comes down the road, we’ll hear them.” He held a stand of ferns aside and motioned to the pine woods with his free hand.
“After you?”

Jenny just smiled and walked into the forest. While this was a first for her, like most people in the area, she grew up around and in the woods. She was as comfortable in the outdoors as she was in her living room, or in this case, her bedroom.

The woods rose up a casual hill, which she walked with long strides, knowing it would pull her already tight jeans a little bit tighter. She looked back and found Nick staring at her butt, a permanent smile locked on his face. His eyes shot up to meet hers when he finally noticed her looking at him.

“Sorry,” he said. “I’m just the luckiest son-of-a-bitch in Maine.”

And he’s romantic, she thought.

She paused in a section of forest between a
group
of tall pine trees. The ground was covered in a thick carpet of brown pine needles. With a blanket on top, it might actually be comfortable. “This will work,” she said, keeping her back to him while unbuttoning her shirt.

She glanced back and saw Nick unfolding the blanket and unfurling it over the ground like a waiter at a fancy restaurant. “It’s a little warm,” he said.
“Took it out of the dryer before I left the house.”

She paused unbuttoning, “You washed the blanket?”

“Course,” he said.
“Used two dryer sheets, too.”

Definitely a keeper.

She could hear him undoing his belt.
“Slow down, cowboy.
Let me do that.” She turned to face him, smiling wide. Her breasts weren’t quite as impressive as her backside, but her too-tight bra did a good job accentuating what she had. Problem was
,
Nick didn’t seem to notice.

In fact, he wasn’t looking at her at all. His hands were frozen on his belt buckle, but his eyes quickly scanned the forest above them. His smile slowly faded away.

Sensing something wasn’t right, Jenny pulled her shirt closed and moved closer to Nick. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“Can you smell it?” he asked.

She took a sniff.
Pine needles.
She sniffed again, deeper.
“Vinegar?”

He gave a nod. “And something else. Like steak.”

She smelled it then, and put her hand over her nose. “Ugh, it’s awful.” She noticed that he was only looking uphill. “How do you know it’s coming from up there?”

“Air moves downhill,” he said. “So whatever it is, we’re downwind of it.”

“What do you mean, it?”

“Probably a bear that got into someone’s
lunch,
or kitchen even.”

It made sense. Black bears had no qualms going where the smell of food led them, and Jenny had heard more than a few stories of ransacked kitchens, cars and trash barrels. “Are we safe?”

“I won’t be dropping
trou
if that’s what you mean,” he said with a grin. “Not until I know it’s gone, at least.”

She laughed and said, “Okay, so how do we know if it’s gone?”

“Bears are afraid of people,” he said. “If it knows we’re here, it will bolt. So we just need to let it know we’re here.” A mischievous look filled his eyes and he ran up the hill, hooting loudly and shouting. “Lookout bear, here I come!”

A bit more apprehensive, Jenny followed Nick up the hill, buttoning her shirt as she scanned the area for any sign of a bear—fleeing or otherwise.

But she saw nothing.

Nick’s voice suddenly changed from a hoot to a higher pitched scream of surprise. Despite having no idea what had happened, Jenny joined in, screaming loudly and stopping in her tracks. She screamed again when Nick dove to the side and a large black bear charged over the crest of the hill and bolted past them.

She watched it sprint down the hill,
it’s
fur bouncing wildly. She could hear it breathing heavily, huffing with each step. And then it was gone, across the dirt road and out of sight.

“Holy shit,” Nick said, picking
himself
up and brushing pine needles from his clothes.

“Have you ever seen a bear run like that?” Jenny asked.

“During bear hunting season, yeah,” he said. “But it’s not hunting season, and that’s when they’re running away from people. I was making a lot of noise. It should have steered clear.”

A tingling ran up the skin of Jenny’s exposed arms. “We should leave.”

The tingle spread over her body when Nick nodded quickly, his eyes starting to show uncommon fear. She turned down the hill and hurried toward the truck. Nick was a hunter. He knew the woods—these woods—maybe better than anyone in town. If he was spooked, then something was—

Nick shouted again, but this time it was like he’d been muffled by a pillow half way through. As Jenny spun around, the now high pitched wail was cut short. Her eyes went wide as she saw the impossible. Nick stood ten feet back, but half of him was missing.

His entire torso, head and arms were gone.

Nick’s knees collapsed and the lower part of his body toppled over, spilling out severed intestines and blood.

Jenny shook uncontrollably as her mind struggled to make sense of what she was seeing.

A wet smack drew her eyes up. There was the rest of Nick, clutched in the jaws of something massive. It was as black as the bear, but bigger. It tossed Nick’s body up and caught it again, the way a lizard or a bird repositions a meal before swallowing it whole. Then it repeated the move, each time biting down hard, stabbing its long curved teeth into the body, shredding bits of meat and clothing with each bite. Blood rained down on the forest floor, staining the still laid-out blanket red.

Jenny was too scared to scream. She simply turned around slowly, and then quickly walked down the hill on shaking legs. She mumbled incoherently to herself, and she viewed the world through blurred vision as tears streamed over her face. When a sickening slurp behind her was followed by an audible swallow, she lost control of her bladder. And when the ground shook beneath her, she began to weep.

When it shook again, she ran.

The third impact tore a scream from her lungs.

And just as she was sure she would be cut in half, she reached the dirt road and Nick’s pickup truck. She whipped open the door and was bathed in Nick’s scent. She missed him already, and the memory of his body filled her with something new—rage.

She reached into the truck, grabbed the shotgun from the rack in the back window and turned around to face the creature.

It slid out of the forest. The small trees lining the road bent and broke. Its massive, strangely feminine
head,
loomed forty feet above her. Brown, almost human-like eyes gazed down at her, focused like a predator. A forearm came out of the forest and pressed into the dirt road just a few feet away. The limb was as thick as a tree. The five black claw-tipped digits were the size of her arm. The creature’s chest emerged next, broad and powerful, while at the same time, beautiful. A large portion of each breast glowed with swirling orange light, like it contained phosphorescent liquid. The same light flickered all across the creature’s torso and the sides of its neck. The sight nearly mesmerized her.

A deep resonating growl drew her watering eyes back up to the monster’s head. Its jaws opened, revealing railroad-spike sized teeth and bits of Nick’s body stuck between them.

Jenny matched the growl with a battle cry of her own, gave the shotgun a firm pump and aimed it at the creature’s glowing chest. “Fuck you,” she grumbled, and pulled the trigger.

The last thing Jenny heard was the creature’s impossibly loud howl of pain. She would have clutched her hands to her ears if not for the sudden explosion of heat and light that washed over her just a second after she pulled the trigger.

When the light faded, all that remained was a charred husk, standing like a statue, holding a melted shotgun.

21

The view from the helicopter is split into two colors—blue and green. The sky is thick with haze rising from the damp forest, but last night’s storm has fled and the smoke from the burning lab is far behind us. The forest below stretches to the horizon, the hilly ground rising and falling into the distance like an ocean of pine, frozen in place. The stillness of it all infuriates me.

I look back to Collins. “See anything?”

“Would have told you if I had,” she says, and I can tell she’s equally frustrated.

“Want me to start flying a pattern?” Woodstock asks. He turns his head away from me, looking to the left, and I notice for the first time that he’s got a ponytail. Maybe the nickname has nothing to do with his last name? When I don’t answer, he adds, “The trees are thick in these parts and stand upwards of a hundred feet. We could have flown over King Kong and not seen him.”

“Actually, that’s not a bad description,” I say.

He cocks his head toward me. “No shit?”

“Imagine a hairless, armor-plated Kong with a tail and more feline, yeah.” It’s actually a very crude description of the creature I saw, but the size and color match close enough.

My phone rings. I put it to my ear. “Please have something for me.”

“General Lance Gordon,” Watson says. “Retired—”

“Let me guess, five years ago.”

“Yep,” he says. “And First Sergeant Steve Thompson retired about a month later.”

“Hold on, Ted,” I say, and lower the phone. “Hey Woodstock, when did you retire?”

He scrunches his forehead. “Going on seven years, why?”

“Nothing.”
I put the phone back to my ear. “Keep going, Ted.”

“Gordon went private sector. Tax records show him as a consultant to
Zoomb
.”

“The search engine?”

“Yeah, but they’re a lot more than a search engine company. Five years ago, they were valued at ten million, today they’re competitors with Google, snatching up high-tech companies in all fields, not just Web tech. They’ve got their fingers in space research, deep-sea exploration, weapons development, robotics and loads of bio-tech.”

“Tell me about the bio-tech,” I say.

“Not much to tell. It’s all pretty hush-hush. They own five bio-tech companies. Nearest to your location is—” Paper rustles in my ear. “—
BioLance
. Their main office is in Boston.
The Prudential building.”

“But if they were pushing ethical boundaries, it’s possible they had some unlisted locations, right?”

“Exactly what I thought,” Watson says. “I looked up the land records for the phony Nike site. Looks like it was bought from the town four years ago by a company named Pruitt Resources, which turned out to be a shell company of a shell company owned by—”

“—
Zoomb
,” I say. “So somehow Gordon is involved with
BioLance
.”

“Or running the show,” Watson says. “Guys like him know well enough not to have their name directly associated with anything questionable.”

“Right,” I say.
“Anything on Endo?”

“Nothing yet and I’ve checked the Army and
Zoomb
personnel records, but it would be a simple thing to hide someone. The only reason Gordon is listed is because hiding someone so high profile would be nearly impossible. Oh,
Maigo
. It’s a name for sure.
Japanese.
Means, lost child.”

“Okay,” I say. “Do a search for the name.
Army.
Zoomb
.
Current news and archived news.
Keep it to a U.S. search for now, but if that doesn’t get any pings, check Japan and then everywhere else.”

“Will do,” Watson says and then reads my mind.
“Still fifteen minutes on real-time sat coverage.
They’re repositioning one just for us, which Coop says is burning Stephens’s ass.”

“Anything else?”
I ask, feeling just as confused as before, but also annoyed that none of it helps us locate the creature.

“Umm.”
More rustling papers.
Watson is a techie, but organizes his thoughts on paper. He’s got three large flat screens side by side, but his desk is stacked high with pages, and that’s when we’re looking into phony basilisk sightings or swamp gas specters, never mind an honest-to-goodness threat to U.S. citizens. “Oh!
Yeah, one more thing.
Most of the text on the fridge wall is impossible to make out, but the larger word at the top,
Némesis
—” He pronounces it
Nemesees
, “—translates to exactly what it sounds like: Nemesis.”

“Which tells me...what exactly?”

“No idea,” he says, “but I’m about to run a search on the word,
see
if there is any connection to bio-research.”

“Let me know what you find. And have someone from the FBI keep a watch on the
BioLance
offices in Boston.”

“Might step on a few toes,” he says.

“I don’t give a damn if we stomp the shit out of some toes, Ted,” I say, probably a little angrier than necessary. “This is a paranormal event, Ted. It’s our jurisdiction. Don’t pussyfoot.”

“Sorry,” he says, and I can tell I’ve hurt his feelings.

Watson is a gentle soul. Easy to take advantage of and makes an easy target. But that’s not me, and that’s not our relationship.

“Ted, sorry, I’m not upset with you,” I say. It’s a shitty apology, but I don’t have time for more.
“We good?”

“Nothing a little Ben and Jerry’s can’t fix,” he says with a little of his normal jovial self coming through.

“Chunky Monkey heals all wounds,” I say, and I get a laugh out of him. “Later, Ted.”

When I hang up, Woodstock looks like he’s tasted something sour. He turns to me and says, “So, you two supposed to be like
Mulder
and Scully or something? Heard what you said.
Paranormal.”

I just stare back, unsure whether I feel like explaining or if I want to lay some sarcasm on him. He doesn’t deserve it, but my monster-fueled vitriol needs a release. Collins interrupts before I can decide.

“Over there,” she says, pointing through the open side door. I look past her and see a road, barely visible through the pine canopy, snaking through the forest.

Woodstock circles the chopper around so I can get a look out of my window.

“Some of the trees are knocked over,” Collins says.
“Thought I saw a pick-up.”

“I see it,” I say. A portion of the forest on one side of the road is wider. As we pass over, I see several smaller trees lying across the road and a pick-up. And then, just before the trees block my view again, I see a person. “I saw someone! We need to get down there!”

“
Ain’t
no way I can put her down there,” Woodstock says. He brings the chopper into a hover and we head up.

I see a break in the trees and point to it.
“How ’bout over there?”

We cruise over the forest and find a marsh beside the road, free of trees. It’s about a half mile from the truck.

“I don’t know,” Woodstock says.

“That person could be in trouble,” I say.

“All right, listen,” he says. “I’m
gonna
bring us down, but I’m not going to land. I’ll keep her a few feet off the ground.”

“You can do that?” I ask.

“You pick up a trick or two when you’ve been flying long as I have.” He starts the descent. “Just haul ass to that truck, find that person and haul ass back. If you’re in decent shape, we can be back in the air inside what, ten minutes?”

I nod, but then remember how crappy my body feels. “Make it fifteen. If we’re not back in twenty head back up and come check on us.”

He gives a nod and slowly adjusts the controls so that we stop just three feet above the ground.
“Last stop.”

Collins and I leap from the chopper and duck-run away from it as the rotor wash kicks up dirt and sprays marsh water. We run for a quarter mile and then slow to a jog. Fifteen minutes might not have been long enough, I think. Then I spot the truck up ahead.

I reach for my gun and find it missing. Crap. Collins is unarmed, too.

Collins sees me reach for my non-existent gun and says, “Probably should have stayed in the chopper and covered you from above.”

Damn. She’s right. If we don’t switch from reactionary thinking to strategic thinking soon, it could cause problems.

“If it makes you feel better,” she says, unclipping something from her belt and tossing it to me.

I catch the small bottle in my hands and look down at it. Pepper spray. For a moment, I smile. Then I see the truck, or rather, what’s left of it.

The right side of the black pick-up is shiny and new. The left is scarred with mottled gray streaks and is tilted down, its tires missing. No, not missing.
Melted.

I see the person standing beside the truck, partially concealed by a fallen tree and shadow. “Hey!” I shout. “We’re here to help.”

When the figure doesn’t turn or even acknowledge the sound of my voice, I know something is wrong, but I’m not prepared for how wrong. Collins beats me by a few steps, but backs away just as quickly, hands going to her mouth.
“Oh my God!”

I stop, see the body for what it really is—a well done, charred human being—and I do my own back-step. Whoever this was, he or she—it’s impossible to tell—has been cooked through and frozen in place. “How is it still standing?”

“Look at the shotgun,” Collins says.

I hadn’t even realized the elephant trunk-like object clutched in the black hands was a gun. But now that I’m looking, I see it for what it
is,
a 12 gauge semi-automatic shotgun.

“Whatever burned the victim was hot enough to melt the gun, the tires and parts of the truck,” Collins said. “I think the body was burned fast enough that the victim was dead and charred in place.”

I look at the bent and broken trees. “So our creature comes out of the woods, finds the truck, cooks the owner and then—” I turn to the opposite side of the road and find more broken trees leading into the forest on the other side. “—and keeps on going.”

An idea strikes me and I pull out my phone. No signal. I hold my hand out to Collins.
“Phone.”

She hands her phone to me. It has just a single bar. But I’m not about to watch ten hours of
Nayan
Cat, so it will do. I call Watson. When he picks up, I start speaking before he can greet me. “Ted, get my GPS location. Draw a straight line between the
BioLance
lab and where I am now, then extend that out in a straight line and tell me what’s there.”

He doesn’t reply, but I can hear him working. He comes back on the line a moment later and says, “Looks like Ashton, a small town fifteen miles out, and then
its
nothing but trees all the way to Portland and the ocean.”

Portland. Shit. It’s the largest and most densely populated city in the state. It has something like 63,000 residents, but on a nice summer day like this, that number might be double.

I hang up. “We need to—”