Kaiju Rising: Age of Monsters (37 page)

“The children didn’t seem crazy. They seemed…scared.”

He finished his meal quickly, shoved his plate back, and patted her hand. “I’m sure it’s just a little fancy that will pass. Some popular TV show or something.”

“Something…I suppose.”

“Double shift time. Don’t wait up.” He got up as quickly as he’d eaten, eager to get back to work.

In the early days of their marriage, Mr. George had worked double shifts so he could move up and they could have a better life more quickly. Once he’d reached a better pay grade he’d stopped, so they could spend more time together, especially since they’d never had children and only had each other.

But for the past couple of years he’d started taking more and more double shifts. Mrs. George had given up asking why. She had her suspicions, and they didn’t center around Mr. George trying to make a better life for the two of them. They centered around the fact that Mr. George had a beat that covered most of the strip clubs near the seedier casinos.

Mr. George gave her a quick kiss and headed out the door. Saving her from dwelling on what had happened to their relationship or having to ask herself why she hadn’t mentioned the drawing Sukie had given her, at the end of the day, just before the final bell rang. She hadn’t wanted to mention it, in part because she couldn’t explain to her husband why she had it in her pocket, and why she didn’t want to let it out of her reach.

Her drawing was of a dragon, meaning Sukie was branching out into mythology. Crude, like all the others and, as with the other drawings, not quite like a dragon should be. Six legs, three sets of wings, with the middle set being the largest and, as also with Sukie’s other drawings, lots and lots of claws and teeth.

Mrs. George also didn’t mention that if she looked at this drawing just right, out of the corner of her eye, it looked much more real. And very much alive.

~

The next day Mrs. George noticed a change in the class. Whereas the day before they had seemed nervous, frightened, and belligerent, today they seemed expectant.

The moment everyone was seated and the tardy bell had rung, Sukie raised her hand. “Missus Gee, may we sing a song, please?”

This was an odd request, but there was nothing wrong with a little singing. “Certainly. What song?”

Sukie cleared her throat and began to sing. “Good morning to you, good morning to you…”

The other children joined in. “We’re all in our places, with bright shining faces, good morning to you.”

“Well, isn’t that nice? Did you know that schoolchildren used to sing that song for their teachers about a hundred years ago? Where did you learn it, a television show?” If this was now a song from a new, popular show, then perhaps all the rest would be, as Mr. George said, easily explained.

“No,” Sukie said. “Missus Gee, you need to sing, too.”

“I do?”

“Yes,” the little girl said emphatically, “you do. Do you still have what I gave you?”

Mrs. George looked at the class. They all looked expectant and, she realized, they all had their drawings on their desks. “Yes, I do, Sukie. I see we all do.” She pulled the drawing from her purse and put it onto her desk.

“Put your hands on your picture,” Sukie said. “And then we all sing.”

Mrs. George had learned how to prevent a first grader from taking over her class in her first year of teaching. However, there was something in Sukie’s tone and expression that made Mrs. George do as requested.

“Now do we sing?” Cody asked Sukie.

The girl cocked her head, as if listening to something. Then she nodded. “Now.”

They sang. The song ended and Mrs. George waited. Nothing. She cleared her throat. Time to take back control of the class and put them onto their regular schedule. “Well, that was a nice way to begin the day. Let’s all pull out our math books and—”

Lightning flashed and, moments later, thunder rolled. The ground rumbled and shook and the windows rattled. She’d heard the sound and felt the movement before, many times. A sudden storm had arisen. Perhaps the children had picked up that it was coming, just as animals were supposed to be able to do. Perhaps that was why they’d been so strange.

Mrs. George stood up. “Class, orderly lines, please, like we’ve practiced.” In case of hurricane, all the children were to go to the auditorium, which had the least windows and where the school could ensure everyone was accounted for.

The children all looked at Sukie. Who nodded. They got up and headed for the door. As she counted heads and ensured everyone was out of the classroom, Mrs. George happened to look down at Cody’s desk. While the paper Sukie had given him the day before was there, there was no drawing on it.

It was foolish and foolhardy, but she looked at the other desks. All the children had left their papers, but all the pages were blank. She hurried back to her desk, telling herself it was to grab her purse. But as she did so, she verified that the page Sukie had given her was now blank as well.

Lightning and thunder hit again, this time with almost no break in between. The sound was louder than before and the ground shook again. Mrs. George trotted outside. There would be time to figure out what was going on later, once the hurricane was over.

But, as things turned out, what was causing the ground to shake wasn’t thunder, lightning, or a hurricane. It was Mr. Crandall.

~

Well, it
might
be Mr. Crandall. Or, rather, it might possibly be Mr. Crandall, on a very strange and frightening day.

There was a creature—a giant creature—standing in the middle of the playground. It resembled a giant lizard, but more sinuous, and it had flippers. She realized it was much more like a pliosaur, only with many teeth and claws on the flippers which the original pliosaurs hadn’t had.

It also had Mr. Crandall’s face, or what was left of his face. As she watched, his face melted into the giant monster, forming a shining face shape around his eyes. The only thing that seemed to remain of Mr. Crandall were his eyes—she was very sure they were Mr. Crandall’s eyes still.

There was bedlam, of course. Only not from everyone. The children in Mr. Crandall’s class and hers weren’t running, screaming, or crying. They were all looking at Mr. Crandall, but without fear. Just as she was.

Cody took her hand. “Ready, Missus Gee?”

“Ready for what, Cody?”

“To make things right,” Sukie said, as she took Mrs. George’s other hand. “We’ve been chosen.”

A woman stepped out and stood in front of whatever Mr. Crandall had become. It was Mrs. Selwyn. She smiled, a very feral smile, and Mrs. George felt afraid for the first time.

Mrs. Selwyn raised her arms and all of a sudden, she grew. And then she changed. First there was a giant woman and then, as lightning struck and thunder rolled, there was a giant tree, with arms and legs, covered in bark that looked like sharp scales, vicious branches replacing limbs and digits, and there, in the center, Mrs. Selwyn’s face.

Her face melted into the tree leaving, as with Mr. Crandall, only a shining shape of her former face around the eyes. The eyes looked human, only old; ancient really. And they looked around with clear malevolence.

The Selwyn-Tree roared something to the Pliosaur-Crandall, which in turn roared at the children who were in Mr. Crandall’s class. Starting with Spradlin, the children all changed. They were lizard-like, or dinosaur-like, some aquatic, even a few tree and plant-like creatures. None were as big as either the Selwyn-Tree or the Pliosaur-Crandall, though they were still quite huge. But all ended up with bright, flat, shining faces around human eyes—human eyes that flashed with hatred when they actually looked at humans.

The tree looked straight at Mrs. George now, and her mouth went dry. The hatred from the Selwyn-Tree was intense, almost physical it was so strong.

Sukie squeezed her hand. “It’s okay, Missus Gee. Grandma doesn’t hate you at all. Changing doesn’t hurt. And you’ll be happy once it’s through.”

“Can I go next?” Cody asked. He sounded breathlessly excited.

The tree looked at him and nodded. “All of you…now.” It was a horrible voice, loud, screeching, jarring, and definitely malevolent. “Sukie, lead the way.”

One by one her class turned into giant monsters, just a little smaller than the monsters who’d been Mr. Crandall’s class only minutes ago. Each one was a replica of what Sukie had drawn. Each one kept the shining, flat outline of their original faces along with their own eyes, but Mrs. George was sure they weren’t interpreting what they saw with their childish, human minds. Whatever their minds had become, human wasn’t it.

Sukie was a giant T-Rex, only more so. Cody was now a nightmare version of a pterodactyl, Lori some kind of giant squid, and the other children were the same, or worse, depending on where you stood on the tentacles versus limbs debate.

The Selwyn-Tree came to her, its leg-like roots tearing up the ground as it moved. “You fear. You think you should stay. Let me show you what you want to save.” A tree limb swung towards her and Mrs. George flinched, but it landed gently on her head.

She saw an image of Mr. George at work the night before, but he wasn’t alone. He also wasn’t fully dressed. He was making love to one of the female officers she’d met once or twice, making love in a very animalistic way he hadn’t done with Mrs. George for years.

“You’re making that up.” But she knew it was true, had known it was true for those same years.

“You know I’m not. He has betrayed you as they all have betrayed
us
.”

“But the others…” Mrs. George found herself using the favored line of reasoning she’d heard from her students for years. “It’s not fair.”

“No. It’s not fair. Join us or die. That’s not fair, either,” the Selwyn Tree said. “Those are your only choices.”

Sukie-Rex and Pterodactyl-Cody both turned to her.

“Come with us,” Pterodactyl-Cody said, voice a terrifying shriek. “We’ll miss you if you don’t.”

“You know stuff even Grandma doesn’t,” Sukie-Rex somehow roared intelligibly. The Selwyn-Tree nodded.

Mrs. George considered her options as her class looked at her with their bright shining faces.

~

“You were right,” she said to the Selwyn-Tree, as she flapped her wings and landed on the auditorium roof, crushing it and everyone stupid enough to still be inside. “The change didn’t hurt at all.”

She was a dragon now. Well, not really. She was a combination of all she’d been and all her ancestors had been, as well as all her avatar had been in the ancient times, before the cosmos had sent a meteor into their world and left only their consciousnesses to wait millennia for the right channel to open up.

Sukie’s family had been that channel. Sukie herself would, one day, lead them all to claim not only this world, but the others out there they’d seen while waiting to come back to full life. Until then, Sukie-Rex needed a teacher, and Selywn-Tree, the one who gave All Life, needed a general she could rely on.

“Do they need us in the water?” Selwyn-Tree asked, her voice strong, bold, and beautiful.

“No. I flew over and flamed the rigs, our relations in the water will do the rest.” George-Dragon laughed and enjoyed the way it sounded now—not friendly, but loud and dangerous and powerful. She enjoyed the memory of oil rigs being pulled up and dropped onto parts of the coastline, as much as the memory of those rigs pulled under the ocean. She knew Selwyn-Tree could see these images within her own mind as well. It was part of her power as the All Life. She could see all their thoughts if they wanted her to. And George-Dragon wanted her to.

“You enjoyed. That is good. But the pleasure is not yours alone.”

“Oh, I know. I put some of the little ones on the islands. They’re having fun with those trying to escape the mainland.”

Selwyn-Tree looked quite pleased with her initiative. “Good. They should learn to enjoy this. We will be doing it for some time.”

Pliosaur-Crandall joined them. “I can keep my group on the coast and in the water. I know you’re moving on. Where shall we meet you when we’re done?”

“We will go inland,” the Selwyn-Tree said. “I expect we will leave a clear trail, though it may be quite…wide.”

Pliosaur-Crandall honked a laugh. “We’ll find you. Have fun.” He turned back and flopped onto what was left of James Conason Elementary, heading back to the water, as his students trampled what was left of Gulfport and, as George-Dragon looked a little farther and from side to side, Mobile and New Orleans and everything in between.

The Gulf of Mexico was on fire from the thousands of oil rigs now blown up and burning. The oil rigs that had stolen their life’s blood for the weak, pathetic, and horrible humans. Seeing the thousands of those on fire or blowing up was especially rewarding.

“Lead us on the best path to destroy these humans who took our world and ruined it,” Selwyn-Tree said to her.

George-Dragon nodded her head, enjoying how she could see for miles, watching her children stomping on casinos and tossing police cars like they were Hot Wheels toys. Sukie-Rex threw a squad car towards her and George-Dragon batted it with her tail. Mr. George and his lover went flying right to Pterodactyl-Cody, screaming in terror, though the sound was, like them, pathetic and weak. Cody caught their car in his mouth and chomped right through it. The human screams stopped. She really did have the best students.