Project Nemesis (A Kaiju Thriller) (10 page)

14

The razor wire chain-link fence is no longer an issue. A twenty foot section has been bent over and flattened into the ground. The chunks of flesh led us right to it. Whatever left the trail also took out the fence.
But how?

“What could have done this?” Collins asks.

“Aside from a
Humvee
?”
I ask.

“There aren’t any tracks,” she says, missing my sarcasm. There’s no room for a
Humvee
, and the terrain is far too rough for anything smaller.

I walk next to the rolls of razor wire, searching for some sign of what happened, but it’s hard to focus on the details while my eyes keep shifting up, wary of danger. I’ve been holding my weapon at the ready so long that it feels slick in my perspiring hands. Better to put it away, I decide, than have it flung from my sweaty hands when I need it most. I tuck the gun into my waist and focus on a portion of the razor wire that has been pulled away from the fence.

“You smell that?” Collins asks.

Smoke still permeates the air, but there’s something fleshy mixed in with it. Like raw hamburger mixed with vinegar, which is very different from the scent of the human flesh scattered about. It’s
more musky
.
More animal.
“Yeah,” I say. “I smell it,” but I’m not really giving it much thought.

There’s something caught in the razor wire. I reach into my cargo shorts pocket and take out one of three Ziploc bags I carry, just in case something like this happens. I invert the bag over my hand and carefully reach down. Avoiding the razor wire is like playing a game of operation, except here, if I hit the metal, I might need stitches.

The swatch of black dangling from the wire looks like fabric, but as soon as my bagged fingers close around it, I know its skin. It’s squishy, but firm, and the bottom side feels slick. I pull the three inch long specimen slowly out of the razor wire and turn it over, finding bright pink flesh crisscrossed with lines of blood.

Definitely skin.

But of what?
The bear?
I look at the destroyed fence. Could a bear do this?

Maybe a stampede of bears?
Was this some kind of illegal breeding program for exotic pets?

I hold the sample up to my nose and take a quick sniff. “Ugh,” I moan.
Hamburger and vinegar.
Delightful.
Whatever this skin came from is also the source of the smell. But why is it so strong here?

“Over here,” Collins says.

“I found something, too,” I say, as I stand. I pull the sample inside the bag and zip it shut. My eyes are on the sample as I walk. The skin side is dark.
Nearly black.
And it’s covered in small lumps that reflect the sun. I rub my hand over the surface. Feels like a novel written in Braille.

I see Collins through the bag. “Check this out, it’s—” The distorted view through the Ziploc bag resolves, and I see what she’s standing next to. I lower the bag and see it for myself.
“Holy shit.”

It’s a pine tree with a wound that would have been fatal to a human being. Five deep gouges stretch across the trunk, reaching all the way down to the pale wood beneath the armor-like bark. Bears can sometimes scratch up trees, but this... I place my hand against the tree and spread my fingers wide. Whatever made this mark had a hand, or paw, twice the width of my hand.

“It’s at least a foot from top to bottom,” she says. “Before you ask, no, I don’t know what could have done this, and neither do you.”

She’s right about that. “But I have this,” I say, holding up the bag.

She leans in and squints at my disgusting find. “And that’s?”

“I have no idea. But a lab can tell us exactly what it—”

There’s a snap in the forest. It’s gentle, like a dry twig, but it’s followed by a loud crack that’s more like an explosion. I jump back as the top of a pine tree slams to the ground between us. Pine needles scratch across my face, stinging my skin, but I barely notice. The tree could have pulverized us, so I’m pretty psyched to still be breathing.

Collins and I stare at each other in shock, and then slowly crane our heads along the path of the fallen tree. The hundred foot pine isn’t broken, as I expected. It’s uprooted. A circular patch of earth rises from the ground like a crashed UFO, held in place by a network of roots. Ten feet from the base, the bark is scratched up.

A guttural grunt sends a chill through my body.

That tree didn’t just fall over.

It was pushed.

Whatever flattened the fence, left a trail of human bits and gouged the tree is still here. Or rather, returned. I’m fairly certain it’s what we passed in the woods. It must have caught our scent, or found our trail, and followed us. That’s why the scent is so strong, we’re downwind of it.

I silently flag down Collins, which takes a few seconds, because she’s watching the base of the tree like a deer that’s spotted a lion. When she finally looks in my direction, I point to myself, then her and then past the fallen fence, indicating that I want to go inside. She looks unsure, but we have no other options. If this giant bear, or whatever, is hunting us, our only chance at finding someplace to hide, or making some kind of sheltered last stand, is on the other side of this fence. Out here, it’s just trees for miles in every direction, and I don’t think Collins’s hand-to-hand combat skills are going to help much against something that can shove a tree over.

I repeat my silent message, this time pointing to the fallen fence a bit more forcefully. When she nods her agreement, I put my fingers to my lips. She nods again, and we both tiptoe back toward the fence.

I can hear the thing moving, shifting through the leaf litter a hundred feet behind me. But I don’t look back. I’m careful to keep a tree between me and the base of the fallen tree so that I won’t be seen as I make my snail’s pace retreat, but then I think this is a waste of time. If the tree really was meant for Collins and me, then it already knows we’re here. Stealth might be the wrong approach.

A roar rips through the air. It’s like nothing I’ve heard, and as I cup my hands to my ears, motion above draws my eyes upward.

The trees are bending away from the sound.

The fucking trees.

Collins meets my eyes again, and this time I mouth the word, “Run,” and neither of us wastes time debating it. Like Olympic runners off the starting line, we sprint forward, hurtling the fallen razor wire and passing the downed fence. We’re officially in enemy territory now, but I’ll take a hundred shotgun-wielding Special Ops guys over King Kong back there any day.

As we leave the fence behind, I take a quick look back.

On the one hand, I wish I hadn’t; the image of something dark and monstrous rearing up behind and above the ten foot tall circle of roots is going to be impossible to forget. On the other hand, I’m glad I did, because when orange light starts glowing out of the sides of its head, I run faster than I ever have in my life.

The forest gives way to tall grass and then a winding, uphill, paved road that’s cracked and in disrepair. I head up it. If this place was actually built like a Nike site, the access hatches will be on top. If not, at least we’ll have a better view of our surroundings, and the high ground—not that I believe that’s going to help us much. 9mm bullets work wonders on people, but they aren’t the ammo of choice against elephant-sized animals.

The ground shakes.

Another tree cracks.

If we don’t find someplace to hide, we’re screwed. As we reach the crest of the hill and get a look at what’s on top, I say it out loud. “Yup, we’re screwed.”

There are bodies—half eaten bodies—everywhere. A helicopter, burning, lies on its side. What remains of the pilot is smeared against the windshield. Beyond the dead is a large building—easy to see by satellite—but it’s ruined. Smoke billows from the second and third floors. And a wall on the bottom floor has been blown out, I suspect from where our large friend made its exit.

The pavement beneath my feet shudders.

What choice do we have? I grab Collins’s wrist and yank her toward the building. A second roar pursues us, sending my hands to my ears and blowing out the burning building’s remaining windows.

So screwed.

15

Ceaseless hunger gnawed at her gut. It was all she knew. All she could think about.

Hunt.

Kill.

Feast.

Repeat.

But there was something beneath it all.
An emotion, more than a thought.
Hate. A seething caldron of loathing that fueled her hunger. She didn’t know why.
Couldn’t remember—anything.
There was only hate and hunger. So she embraced both, consuming and destroying in equal parts.

When she could no longer find prey, she moved into the woods where she caught a fleeing man, but she hadn’t seen more than small animals since. Then
came
the man and woman. She caught their scent and the hunt began again. Tracking them was made difficult because of the smoke, but the air soon cleared and she closed the distance.

Nearly upon them, a fit of rage tore through her body. Pain raced through her nervous system. She could feel her insides growing, her bones shifting, her skin stretching and tearing in an effort to keep up. All that pain and hate was vented on a tree that nearly crushed her prey.

But it missed.

And they fled.

After the growth spurt, the hunger returned with its own brand of stomach-gnawing pain. With a roar, she gave chase.

The power of her own body intoxicated her. The ground flattened beneath her clawed hands and feet. Trees fell away from her and compressed beneath her grasp. Pavement crumbled to dust beneath her heavy, black feet. Despite being able to stand upright, she ran on all fours with cat-like hind legs and long, powerful forelimbs to match. Her long tail, tipped with three trident-like spines, spun as she ran, providing balance, though the razor-pronged tips worked just as well for skewering prey.

As she charged up the paved hill, she stomped her feet down harder than she needed to, pleased with how the hard surface crumbled beneath her. But when she reached the top and saw the man and woman running toward the building she had only just escaped from, she let out a roar of anger.

She remembered little about the building.
Just pain and helplessness.

And food.

A lot of food.

When she left, it was because she couldn’t find anything else to hunt, kill and consume. But now there were two more meals waiting inside. From experience, she knew they would be simple to catch inside the straight hallways and nearly empty rooms.

But her hunger commanded her to attack now. End the hunt. Eat!

She charged across the clearing in front of the three-story tall, dull gray building. She paid little attention to the burning husk of the helicopter—it wasn’t food—and even less attention to the corpses oozing up between her digits as she stomped forward. She was locked on target, aiming to take the man and woman together. One in each hand, two quick bites to remove the heads and their fight, and then she would eat until the blood cooled. Then she would discard the husks with the rest and start the hunt anew.

But the man and woman were fast. They entered the building through the front double doors and slammed them shut just before she reached her prey. She lunged, claws extended, but she found only the metal door. Her momentum carried her forward and she instinctively flipped over so that her shielded back would take the brunt of the impact. The segmented carapace covering her back stretched down to where her tail began, each section hosting two curved, boney plates jutting out at angles on either side.

The doors and front wall of the building exploded inward, leaving a ten foot hole. She rolled away from the building, snapped back to her feet and looked through the opening. Swirling dust filled the hall, but her sharp eyesight pierced through, and she saw the man and woman running down the hall.

Nowhere to go now, she felt more than thought.

She pushed into the hall and found her back scraping against the ceiling. When she’d left the building she could maneuver the hallways with ease. Now she had to push her way through, leaving a trail of rectangular ceiling panels in her wake.

She roared again, frustrated that the constricting hallway slowed her pursuit. The sound shook the walls, burst lights and knocked ceiling panels down. It also knocked the man and woman to the ground.

The ceiling shattered as she lunged forward, sensing the kill. But her prey got back up and ran, this time to the side, leaving the hallway through an open door. She remembered the building’s rooms. They would be stuck. They would be… She slammed her head through the open door—gone.

A stairwell leading down.
A door two flights down opened and closed.

After rearing back, she thrust herself forward, smashing into the doorframe and the wall, both of which gave way to her strength and caved in. She thrashed and tore, ripping through wood, steel and drywall. Then she was in the stairwell, leaping over the edge. Her feet found the next flight down before she’d fully dropped away from the floor above.

The tight, claustrophobic space enraged her. She flexed her body, pushing out with her arms, legs and spiked back. When the building resisted, she roared with primal rage and flexed again. The walls crumbled around her. Sunlight flooded the stairwell and a warm breeze tickled her skin.

Twisting around the stairs, she squeezed her body down one more flight, pushing the weakened walls away from her back. When she reached the bottom, she simply flung herself at the door, taking it and most of the wall into the adjoining, subterranean hallway.

She remembered this space. The long white hall, smeared with blood. But it looked different when she was here last.
Bigger.
Now it seemed barely large enough contain her. She shoved her way through, ruining walls, ceiling and floor with each step.

The air was a mix of blood and chemicals, but she had no trouble picking out the man and woman’s scent. They were close by.

Two doors to her left looked familiar. One of them swung back and forth.
A sign of passage.

She pushed through the double swinging doors slowly, searching for her prey. The room was cool and the walls were lined with square metal hatches. A large, open door at the back of the room drew her forward. The doorframe resisted, but eventually it cracked and came free, as the walls crumbled. Debris fell away from her back as she stopped in front of the open door and looked inside.

Her prey was gone.

But there was someone else inside.

Someone familiar.

A woman.
Dead.
And only partially consumed.
But her blood had long since run cold and the corpse held no further interest.

But there was a memory. It tickled her mind. She had spoken to the woman in a language she no longer remembered. Her thoughts, once clear, had clouded with rage and hunger. She looked at the blood smearing the walls. Did the shapes mean something?

Pain lanced through her gut.

Her muscles quaked and expanded.

The ceiling pushed down on her.

With a roar, she twisted around, ruining the ceiling, and charging out of the room. The man and woman were gone.

She nearly tore the building down as she worked her way back out of the basement, through the building and back into the clearing. By the time the sun warmed her back again, long strands of saliva hung from her open jaws. She breathed deep, hoping for a scent.

But she found something else.

Direction.

She didn’t know how.
Or why.
Or even what it meant. But the rage she felt usurped her hunger and told her where to go.

South.

And she obeyed.