Project Nemesis (A Kaiju Thriller) (16 page)

The ground shakes. It’s subtle, but I can feel it in my legs, and I can see by the look on Collins’s face that she can too.

A roar follows, and it’s nowhere near subtle.

I don’t know if it has our scent or if it hears the nearby chop of the helicopter, but the creature is nearby.

The ground shakes again, more violently.

Correction, it’s not just nearby, it’s coming back.

22

I’d like to say that Collins and I are having some kind of simpatico moment that reveals we’re like-minded and destined to be soul mates, but I’m pretty sure that sprinting away from the man-eating monster like a pair of terrified ostriches is what most everyone on the planet would do. We’re neck and neck down the dirt road, neither of us speaking, all wounds and weariness forgotten.

The booming footfalls of the charging creature grow louder.
Closer.

Trees crack and swoosh through the forest, impacting the ground with a rattle. A plume of pine scent washes over the road, pushed by the force of the falling trees.

A loud snap draws my eyes to the forest on my left. Through the maze of conifers, I see another tree fall, as a massive black shape moves past. The tree drops parallel to the road, not toward it.

“It’s not coming after us,” I say between quick breaths. “It’s heading for the helicopter!”

As we round a bend in the road, I see the chopper just a hundred yards ahead, hovering ten feet off the ground. When Woodstock sees us coming, he begins to descend. But that’s not what I want. There’s no way we can beat the creature to the chopper.

Knowing Woodstock is watching us, and probably wondering why we’re running, I stop in the road. I shake my head no and wave my arms. The helicopter pauses, five feet from the ground, the chop of its blades drowning out the booming steps of the oncoming behemoth.

Fighting the urge to pitch forward and catch my breath, I put my arms out to my sides, palm up, and then flap them like a bird. The helicopter hand signal translates to pull up. The frantic way I am performing the signal should translate to something like, “Pull
the frig
up, right now!”

The helicopter rises, but not as fast as I would like.

But then, it’s too late.

Trees at the end of the road explode into the watery clearing. A smaller pine shoots across the clearing like an ICBM, just missing the helicopter’s skids. Seeing all this, Woodstock pulls up fast. It saves his life.

The creature explodes from the forest, savagery incarnate. It roars up at the rising chopper, drowning out the chopping blades. It looks just about the same as I remember—sleek and black, long tail, protective carapace on its back, thick armored skin, orange glowing membranes on its neck and body and scythe-like teeth—with one exception: it’s doubled in size. The creature now stands an easy forty feet tall and its boney trident-tipped tail adds another twenty to thirty feet. Despite it now being large enough to actually give Kong a run for his money, it’s still fast and agile, like a cat.

I’m pretty sure Kong wouldn’t stand a chance.

The monster leaps into the clearing, landing on all fours. I see its hind legs tense, and then it leaps up, reaching for the rising chopper. A quick maneuver to the side, while rising, saves Woodstock’s life again, though I suspect the wet, squishy earth below the beast also kept it from leaping higher.

The swampy ground all but explodes when the giant crashes back down, water spraying everywhere. But the creature is unfazed. It just watches the helicopter, now out of reach, as it turns toward us and hovers.

Woodstock is probably freaking out, but he hasn’t fled, and that he’s turned toward us is a good sign. He’s not going to leave us behind. Good man, I think. He’s looking for a signal from me, so I come up with a plan that’s borderline stupid and do my best to hand signal it to him. I point in the distance, make a circle and then point to the ground at my feet. I’m trying to say, “Lead it away, circle around and come back for us,” but there’s no way to know if he understands.

When the helicopter peels away and takes off low over the trees, I suspect the message might have been received. And then, as I’d hoped, the creature obeys, too. It watches the helicopter until it disappears over the trees, then the creature climbs out of the marsh and storms into the forest, giving chase. Its tail whips back and forth as it picks up speed. The tail-tip, which looks like a black, three-pronged spear tip, strikes a tree—probably unintentionally—and splits it in two.

Collins and I watch the top half of the tree fall into the swamp, and then turn to each other. I’m still out of breath when I say, “I don’t...have any good...one liners, do you?”

“How about...we’re screwed,” she says, equally winded.

“Good enough.”

“What’s the plan?” she asks.

I point to the trees. “We climb.”

“I’m not sure I want to look that thing in the eyes,” she says.

“He’s not going to be able to land that chopper again.” I look to the top of the trees. “We need to meet him half way.”

She looks up.
“All the way to the top, then?”

“All the way.”

“Let’s go,” she says and enters the woods.

It takes us just thirty seconds to find a tree that is both tall enough, but also has enough branches to climb to the top.

Collins stops at the tree’s base. “Those branches don’t look strong enough to hold us.”

She’s right. As pine trees grow taller, the lower branches die and jut out from the trunk like old bones. They’re dry and brittle, but they’re still wood. Unless they’re rotting, we should be okay. “Keep your hands and feet close to the trunk, where the branch meets the tree. That’s where the branch will be strongest. And always keep three contact points, so if a branch
breaks, your weight is
still distributed over three branches.”

“That a fat joke?” she says

I’m absolutely terrified, but Collins manages to get a smile out me. “Seriously,” I say, “If we don’t get eaten today, I might just ask you to marry me.”

Now it’s her turn to smile, but the laugh that goes with it is a little too loud. She clamps her hand over her mouth.

I shake my head and say, “You first,” I give her a boost onto the lowest branch. Once she’s twenty feet above me, I leap up, catch a branch and pull myself up. It’s not pretty, and I’m glad Collins is too busy climbing to watch me dangling like a
drunk
monkey, but I manage to get the branch beneath me. The rest of the climb goes swiftly. Sticking to the branch-bases and the three-contact-points rule, we head high fairly swiftly.

As we near the top, we slow down. The branches are fresh, stronger and less likely to break, but also smaller and more flexible. Nearer the top, we give up on holding the branches in our hands and opt for holding onto the trunk itself, which is only the thickness of a telephone pole.

Ten feet from the top, just five feet from clearing the canopy, Collins stops. “The tree is bending,” she says.

I look up and see the tree top listing to the side. “Don’t move. I’m coming.”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” she says.

“Nothing a little physics can’t fix.” I work my way up and around the tree so that I’m on the opposite side of the trunk from her. It’s slow going because the top of the tree is thick with smaller branches, but when I get closer to Collins, the bend starts to straighten out. I stop a few feet short of her. If I get any closer, the tree will bend too far in my direction, and then our combined weight will pull it down.

The chop of the helicopter grows louder. I search the sky, but I’m still about a foot below most of the trees, so I can’t see to the horizon. “Can you see him?”

Collins searches the area and points into the distance.
“Coming from the East.
He’s never going to see us.”

“Get your
iPhone
,” I tell her.

“I don’t think he can answer his phone while he’s flying.”

“The back of the phone is reflective,” I say.

Understanding, she digs into her pocket, takes out the phone, tears off the plastic case and holds it up in the sun, wiggling it back and forth. The
strobing
reflection won’t be big, but in a sea of pine green, it should be the only thing different.

“He’s coming this way,” she says. “But...I think he’s still being chased.”

“What do you see?” I ask her.

“The trees behind the helicopter—they’re moving.” She looks down at me. “This is going to be close.”

I inch a little higher in the tree. “Can you get any closer to the top?”

She climbs up another foot, but then stops. “It’s not much thicker than a broom handle up here.”

The sound of the helicopter grows louder. Woodstock is just seconds away, which means the creature is, too.

“Here he comes!” Collins says, pocketing the phone and inching higher still.

The tree tops fill with thunder as the helicopter makes a rapid stop just above us. The top of our tree hits the bottom of the chopper and bends. Collins is close enough to the skids that she’s able to pull herself up and into the side of the chopper, but when her weight leaves the tree, the top of it bends in my direction.

The strong treetop isn’t going to break from my weight, but in a moment, I’m going to be dangling out over the forest like a cat-toy. Before this can happen, I slide down the trunk, stopping once I reach the more rigid old growth. The tree straightens out above me, but our distinguished guest has arrived below.

The roar, which sounds like a thousand cellos and violins mixed by a
dubstep
DJ, shakes a flurry of pine needles from the trees. I feel the thing’s warm breath wash over me, and I get a nose full of its fishy breath. God damn, I do not want to be eaten by this thing!

The tree shakes and I’m propelled into action. I climb the tree fast, lunging up and around the thinning trunk, never giving any one side long enough to bend. Then, with a crack, the tree falls away beneath me. With one last thrust, I reach up and catch the helicopter’s skid.

Collins’s hand instantly clutches my wrist, locking me in place as the helicopter ascends slowly, hovering when it’s far from the creature’s reach. Once we’re level and stable, Collins helps me climb into the helicopter. Exhausted, I slump into one of two back seats and put on a headset.

Woodstock looks back from the cockpit.
“Where to?”
That he seems to be unruffled by everything that’s just happened is amazing.

“Lead it back to the road,” I say.

He looks dubious.

“We have a chance to stop it, here and now,” I say. “And
G.I.
Jane over here is just itching to fire your gun.”

He looks at Collins. She’s already behind the big machine gun, finger on the trigger. “Hot damn, you’re my kind a lady.”

We bank hard and head toward the road. I look down and see the dark shape of the giant still giving chase. Trees sway as it passes through. Then we’re above the open dirt road. Woodstock keeps us about two hundred feet from the ground, swivels the chopper so the machine gun is facing the forest and shouts, “
Give’m
hell!”

And then, when the trees bow down as though in reverence to a primal force, and the monster steps into the road, Collins pulls the trigger.

23

Brilliant orange tracer-fire streaks down toward the creature, revealing the path of the stream of bullets unleashed by Collins. Her arms shake as she holds the machine gun, but not much, since most of the kick is absorbed by the gun’s mount.

Following the tracer rounds, I see that Collins is aiming for the thing’s snout. And by the way it’s twitching and snapping
,
it’s clear that her aim is true. But, I’m not so certain that she’s actually hurting the monster. Its skin must be inches thick, and the rough surface could be dense hide, impervious to even the high caliber machine-gun rounds. A lack of blood on the snout confirms it.

Although the creature isn’t being seriously injured, it is getting annoyed. The thing lets out a roar that rattles the chopper enough to knock Collins’s finger off the trigger. The gun falls silent and Woodstock reacts to the turbulence by bringing us around the creature.

I stand behind Collins, looking over her shoulder, gripping two of the many handle bars on the roof and walls of the chopper. I lose sight of the creature for a moment as we cut over the forest, but when we arrive back over the road, it spins and leaps.

Open jaws reach up for the helicopter. I lean away from the sword-filled maw with a shout, but Collins remains calm and crushes her finger down on the trigger. Hot metal spews from the gun.

Mammoth teeth shatter.

Rounds strike the thing’s softer throat.

The jaws snap shut and the monster makes a pathetic sounding yelp, like a dog...or a person. It falls back, landing clumsily on its side. A cloud of dirt billows from the dirt road, and several trees fall as the whipping tail shreds the wood. The ruined pines topple over, landing on the creature, obscuring it from view.

Can’t be that easy, I think. But maybe a few of the machine gun rounds made it through the roof of its mouth and into its brain? The bullets could have performed like Endo’s .22 rounds, bouncing around the inside of the skull and shredding brain matter.

The tail stops twitching.

Collins takes her hand off the trigger and looks over the gun. “Is it dead?”

No one replies, but Woodstock brings us a little bit lower.

“Too many trees in the way,” I say. When I notice we’re still descending, I add, “Woodstock, don’t get any—”

The fallen trees burst upward.

The creature rolls to its feet.

“Up, up, up!” I scream, and I immediately feel the G-force of rapid ascent pushing me toward the helicopter’s floor.

The monster rises from the ground and leaps again, this time reaching up with its hands.
Sonuvabitch
, we might be too close!

As the creature rises, the glowing patches on its neck flare bright orange. I point to the light, where the skin is translucent and maybe not as tough, and shout.
“Fire!”

Machine gun fire tears through the air as the giant’s two hands, each with five black-clawed digits, close in on the chopper.

The tracer rounds stitch a path across the thing’s face, throwing up bits of dark skin, but nothing more. Then, as Collins adjusts her aim downward, and the creature continues up, a single round strikes the bright orange membrane.

A bright explosion fills the air between the chopper and the monster. A ball of fire roils toward us, but the shockwave hits first, and it hits hard. The helicopter tips to a forty-five degree angle that carries us away from the burning flames, but knocks Collins away from the machine gun.

With one hand gripping a handle bar, I get my other arm around Collins’s back and hold her while Woodstock levels us out and heads for high ground.

“The hell was that?” Woodstock shouts.
“A missile strike?”

While I would be thrilled to have some heavy hitting support right now, I didn’t hear the sound of an incoming missile or the boom an exploding missile would make. I search the sky for signs of a jet or attack helicopter, but find nothing. “I don’t know what it was!”

Once we’re level, I put Collins in one of the seats, and I discover that she’s actually unconscious. Blood covers her face. The machine gun must have smacked her forehead. I quickly buckle her in place and look for the monster again.

It’s
three hundred feet below now and shrinking as we rise higher. It stands in the dirt road, unharmed, and just stares up at us.
At me.
Then, with a single whip of its tail, it turns to the forest, slips into the trees and disappears.

I note its direction.

South.

Why is it heading south? I’m under the impression that this thing was created in a
BioLance
laboratory, so why would it head in any direction? Why wouldn’t it just stay put? Or wander aimlessly? Or mark its territory like any other predator? Of course, it doesn’t really resemble anything on Earth, predator or otherwise.
But why south?
Is it some kind of instinctual migration? Maybe it’s part bird? I could ask these questions endlessly and go mad from never having the answer, so I’m glad when Woodstock interrupts my thoughts—until I hear what he has to say.

“That explosion did a number on my bird. Everything’s gone screwy.
Probably something electrical.
Melted wires, maybe.
I’m flying manually right now, but I got no altimeter, compass, fuel gauge—nothing.”

None of this sounds good, but we have a mission to complete. “What are you trying to say?”

“I
gotta
put her down someplace where I can fix what’s wrong,” he explains.

“We need to get to Ashton,” I say. “The helicopter can wait.”

“Not sure
you’re understanding
the situation,” he says. “Either I put her down, someplace nearby, or we’re eventually going to crash, probably sooner than later.”

“The police station isn’t far,” Collins says. “You can land in the parking lot.”

I’m about to object, but Collins puts her hand on my arm. “My car is there.”

“Helicopter will be faster.”

“Not if we crash,” Woodstock says.

“And you haven’t seen my car,” Collins adds.

My first real investigation is falling to crap all around me and FC-Boston is on their way, hoping to take it away. If they beat me to the punch and manage to stop this creature, I’ll be out of a job along with Watson and Coop.
Then again, the odds of them handling this situation without having any idea of what they’re up against is as unlikely as Michael Jackson making another comeback.
And that means people’s lives are at stake—the morons from FC-B and thousands of locals.

I turn to Collins. “How fast is your car?”

Fifteen minutes later, I have my answer as Collins pegs the gas pedal to the floor and all 440 horses propel us down the main street of town, which is lined by the police station, post office and general store. Not a soul in sight. The cop-blue Mustang belongs to Collins, but she’s installed some upgrades—a siren and LED police flashers on the dash—in case she needs to respond to an emergency from home. Despite moving down the road like a rocket, people will see and hear us coming more than a mile away.

We made it to the station in one piece, though the landing was a little rougher than usual. Woodstock borrowed the station’s second, currently unused cruiser and was headed home for parts. He promised to meet us in Ashton just as soon as he finished with repairs, which I think is good of the man considering he’s not in law enforcement and he knows there’s a chance he might die horribly as a result. I respect that kind of bravery and sense of duty. I just hope I don’t get him killed.

After raiding the police station’s armory for body armor, a couple of high caliber magnums, two shotguns and plenty of ammo, we leapt in the car like a couple of Duke boys on the run and left a cloud of dust behind us.

And now, once again, I’m terrified.

Collins drives like a maniac and Maine’s back roads aren’t exactly straight. One wrong move and we’re going to pancake into a tree at seventy miles per hour. So I keep my mouth shut and let her focus on driving.

She glances over at me.

“Road please,” I say.

She turns back to the road, but just long enough to see that the next turn is still a few hundred feet off. She looks back. “You’re missing something.”

“What? I—”

She puts her hand to her head. I duplicate the move, realizing what she’s telling me. When I feel my short prickly hair, it’s confirmed. My beanie cap is gone. The thing is so much a part of my head that I can still feel it there, like an amputee’s ghost limb.

“You shouldn’t worry about it,” she says. “Look better without it.”

Was that a compliment? Before I can blush, I catch a glimpse of fast approaching trees. My head snaps forward. “Turn!”

Collins downshifts and drifts around the curve like a pro before straightening out and accelerating.

After I catch my breath, I loosen my grip on the “oh shit” handle and say, “Can I ask you a serious question?”

She glances at me, but doesn’t speak. I take it as permission. “What the hell are you doing out here in Podunk country?”

“What do you mean?” she asks.

“Well, for starters you drive like you were raised in a Fast and the Furious movie. You can shoot as well as anyone I’ve ever seen, including big-ass machine guns. You’ve got solid investigative skills, killer instincts and you can fight like a son-of-a-bitch. I would normally say that you’re just a Daddy’s girl that didn’t want to venture too far from town, but you’re not from Maine. Or even New England. You are from Georgia right?”

No reply.

“So the real question is
,
who are you hiding from?”

We take another corner, a little faster than the last. When we straighten out, my head clunks against the door window. Looks like I struck a nerve, though that was not my intention.

“I have a question for you,” she says, a little snippy.

Thinking that she’s going to ask something tough, maybe about FC-P or my relaxed nature, or maybe make fun of my receding hairline, in exchange for her reply, I say, “Shoot.”

“It’s twenty minutes to Ashton.” She glances at me, eyes dead serious. “Can you try not to talk to me until we get there?”

Really struck a nerve.
As I fall silent, we pick up speed, and I think I’ve just doubled my chances of not surviving the next hour.