Project Nemesis (A Kaiju Thriller) (9 page)

Elliot’s muscles locked with fear and a scream built in her throat, but it never got the chance to escape. The last thing Dr. Kendra Elliot saw was
Maigo’s
now six-foot-long tail rising up from beneath the sheets.

13

I sit up with a gasp, clutching my chest and rolling my eyes around in confusion. The strange scent of earth and a glowing ceiling make the transition from dream to wakefulness a surreal experience, because the dream seemed more real than what I’m seeing. When my eyes finally land on Collins’s worried face, I remember where I am.

“You okay, chief?” Collins asks.

I groan and push myself up against the earthen wall behind me.
“Nothing like waking up from a dream about being eaten by a bear and finding yourself inside a giant glowing stomach.”
I look up at my hastily built shelter. It survived the night, and the storm, keeping us concealed and dry. With the morning sun on it, the wool blanket shimmers.

I smack my lips and clear my throat. I hate mornings. So little about them is good, but this morning is worse than usual. My morning breath is usually enough to sour my mood, but today’s aches and pains make waking exquisitely revolting in a way that only the Devil could appreciate.

“Here,” Collins says, before tossing a water bottle to me.

The bottle strikes my chest and falls to the ground beside me. I turn my head down and look at it, barely registering what has just happened.

“Nice catch,” Collins says, shaking her head.

I slowly reach for the bottle, pop the top and take a swig.
Then another.
And another.
By the time the water is half drained, I’m feeling a little more awake. I flinch as something strikes my chest and falls in my lap.

An oatmeal cream pie from my backpack.

Collins laughs lightly.
“Cat-like reflexes.”

I have no witty retort, so I
unwrap
the hydrogenated corn syrup foodstuff and shove it into my mouth. I mumble a “thanks” between chews, and then chase my breakfast with the remaining water.

“So much for rationing,” Collins says.

“I don’t plan on staying out here much longer.” When I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand, I see that Collins isn’t planning on sitting still either.
Just the opposite.
She’s made herself at home and rummaged through my pack. My clothes are stacked in a neat pile next to
her,
along with a half empty bottle of water and a
Chocodile
wrapper.

My map is spread open across the poncho that I’d given her last night. She has two areas circled in red pen. With a fresh groan, I push away from the wall and kneel beside her.

She taps the bigger of the two circles with her pen. “This is where they are. You can see the road here, ending just after the Johnsons’ house. The land is just empty. It doesn’t show a Nike site or any other roads into the area.”

I look over the map, nodding.

Collins taps on the second red circle. “This is where I think we are,
give
or take a half mile in any direction.” She measures out the distance with her pen and compares it to the scale on the map’s legend.
“About two miles.
If you’re up for it, we can be there in
under
thirty minutes.”

I flex my spine side to side a little, testing my body. I’m sore, head to toe, but not seriously injured. After a good stretch, I should be okay to go. “No problem. What time is it?”

“Bout five thirty in the morning,” she says.

I shake my head. “Two days in a row. You’re going to be the death of me.”

“Please, you slept like a baby,” she says. “Snored like a monster, though.”

“Shut up,” I say, as I stand and start stretching.

“Louder than the thunder,” she says and begins packing my clothes.

“You don’t need to do that,” I tell her. “We’ll take the map and the weapons. Move fast and quiet. If we need to, we can come back, but I needed new clothes anyway.”

“I noticed.” She holds up one of my favorite T-shirts and turns it so I can see the big holes in the arm pits.

“Ventilation,” I say. I’m tempted to throw the shirt on and take it with me, but
it’s
bright orange. Done stretching, I tuck my handgun into the back of my pants and step toward the exit.

“You look sad,” she says. “Did you name your shirt, too?”

I stop in my tracks and tilt my head up. The air smells funny. I lean closer to the wool blanket and sniff.

“What is it?” she asks.

The smell registers.
“Smoke.”
I take hold of the blanket roof and yank it down. A dark gray cloud begins to settle into the pit. “C’mon,” I say and charge out of the small gorge, drawing my weapon just in case we’re being smoked out. I scan the area and find nothing. The forest is covered in a waist-high layer of floating soot.

Collins joins me, eyes wide. “Where’s it coming from? Is it a forest fire?”

I take a sniff and cough. There are a lot of chemicals in the air.
Probably toxic.
A mix of burning plastic, rubber, wood and various other modern building materials.
Not a forest fire. “They must be cutting their losses.
Burning evidence.”

“
Damnit
!”
Collins bites her lips, looking pissed. The bad guys are getting away on her watch.

And on my watch.
Remembering that this could have been my ticket out of paranormal investigations, I charge back into the pit, whip out my pocket knife and cut two long swaths of the still-wet wool blanket. I toss one to Collins while wrapping the other around my nose and mouth, tying it tight. The damp wool should help filter the air, but running the two miles is still going to be rough.

When Collins cinches her wool face mask tight, I say, “Let’s go,” and start jogging in the general direction of the fake Nike site.

Twenty minutes later, I’m out of breath and wheezing like a ninety-year-old asthmatic. I stop and lean against a tree, rubbing my burning eyes. The smoke now reaches high into the trees. We’re getting close, but if the wind doesn’t push this shit away soon, Collins and I could be in real trouble.

She stops next to me. “We should keep moving.”

Woman puts me to shame.

I nod wearily and prepare to continue my charge through the woods when a loud crack fills the air. I stop mid-step and throw myself against the tree, pulling Collins with me.

We stand in silence.
Listening.

Leaves shuffle to our left. But the sound is distant.
Maybe fifty feet.

We both turn toward the sound and watch. Smoke billows past in silent wisps of gray.

Crack! The sound makes us jump, not because it’s closer, but because it’s so damn loud. The tell tale “
shh
” of a falling tree follows.
Then a dull thud.
The tree couldn’t have been too large, but smoke billows away from the impact, clearing the air briefly. That’s when I see it.

It’s just a shape.
Dark and large.
Far too big to be a human being.
It passes through the haze, oblivious to our presence.

“Do you see it?” I whisper into Collins’s ear.

She nods, and leans her head back to whisper in my ear.
“The bear?”

I turn to her and find our faces just inches apart. If it weren’t for the double thick wool blankets covering our faces, kissing her would be as easy as puckering my lips. With a jolt, I forget all about the bear and realize that I’ve got my arms around her waist. The back of her body is pressed against the front of mine.

“Bear?”
I say dumbly.

“This is why I don’t think women should serve on the front lines,” she says.

My brain slowly registers the joke, but I forget all about it when the creature plows through some brush. The sound is distant. The bear is moving away. It’s a good thing, too. Having a run-in with momma bear would likely give our position away. Not that I expect to find anyone left when we reach the Nike site. Setting fire to the evil lair is usually the last step of a bad guy evacuation.

I casually slip my hands away from Collins’s waist and she steps away. I can see a joke forming in her eyes, and I decide my ego is assaulting itself just fine already. I step past her. “Let’s pick up the pace. We need to get out of this smoke.”

Five minutes later, the wind finally shifts and the heavy smoke is lifted up and away. My body still feels coated in the stuff, and I’m sure I’ll
be smelling
it for a week, but at least we can breathe freely. I
unwrap
the wool from my face and throw it to the ground. As I scratch my stubbly cheeks, I take a deep breath through my nose. The scent of smoke is still there, but mixed with the scent of pine and earth and...
“
Damnit
.”

It’s just a whisper, but combined with my suddenly raised pistol and sweeping aim, my fear is obvious. Collins raises her weapon too and follows my lead, searching for danger.

After a minute and no immediate danger detected, I motion to her and then point to my nose. I watch her take a deep breath through her nose.
Once.
Twice.
 
And then she’s got the scent.

She mouths the word, “Blood?”

I nod and then point in the direction we were already headed. Moving more slowly, and with our weapons raised, we proceed forward like a couple of TV cops patrolling an apartment building.

The trees thin ahead as the terrain becomes
more rocky
.

Then I see it.
The trail.
The disguised path winds its way through the rocks. I scan the trail from left to right, looking for any signs of passage.

I find a boot.

Most of it is hidden behind a half buried boulder. I approach slowly, wary of a trap. The boot is a black, military style, steel-toed affair. The top looks wet. As I round the boot, I get a look inside.

“My God.”

There’s a foot inside the boot.

Collins lets out a gasp when she sees it. We lean in closer, and I use a stick to lift it up. Leaves cling to the boot, saturated with drying blood. I drop the boot back down and step back when I see a flash of bone.

“A bear wouldn’t have done this,” Collins said.

I correct her, saying, “A black bear wouldn’t have done this.” I lift my hand and point ahead.
“Or that.”

Bits and pieces of clothing and flesh litter the forest floor.

“Not sure if this needs to be said, but you have my permission to shoot anything that moves.”

She nods.
“Likewise.”

“Ready to follow the breadcrumbs?”
I ask.

Part of me hopes she’ll say we should go while the getting is good. A man has been torn to shreds and discarded through the forest like he was nothing more than the petals of a “love me, love me not” flower. But my revolt and fear are matched by my curiosity and ambition. And it seems the lovely Sheriff Collins has equal parts of both as well.

She frowns.
“After you, Hansel.”