Project 731, page 21
part #3 of Kaiju Thriller Series
He’d seen the other Kaiju spider on TV, just an hour ago, as it rampaged through Los Angeles, wreaking destruction on a massive scale. If not for the arrival of Nemesis, the monster might have continued up and down the coast. Looking at the Kaiju spider on the outskirts of the base, he could clearly see it shared some of Nemesis’s physical traits, just like the monsters that had attacked D.C. the year before. And if that was true, this thing would likely be just as resistant to modern weaponry as Nemesis, who took a MOAB in Boston and shrugged it off. While no one had tried to nuke the monsters yet, he really hoped they didn’t try it now. Although there wouldn’t be civilians to worry about, he was pretty sure that the higher-ups and eggheads who worked below ground were important enough to not obliterate.
“Baxter!” It was his friend, Scott Smith, who was smiling like an asshole. He was an action junkie to the core. Complained daily about being assigned to the most boring security detail in the world. The only action they ever saw was when, once or twice a year, a UFO enthusiast would cross the fence, set off alarms and be stopped before making it fifty feet. But this...this must have been like a wet dream come true for Smith. He looked almost giddy as he ran toward the Kaiju, which had reached the first in a series of hangars.
“Let’s do this, man!” Smith said.
The man’s excitement was infectious. Baxter picked up his pace, running toward the Kaiju. His instincts screamed to head the other way, but the danger was minimized by two things. First, all he had to do was fire the missile and run. By then, once everyone figured out they were just wasting ammo, the situation and the tactical response to it would probably change to more of a ‘lock down and wait it out’ strategy. Second, there were now hundreds of men, Humvees, helicopters and jets all vying for the monster’s attention. The odds of being attacked were as small as the Kaiju was large.
But then, the Kaiju got larger.
Even Smith stopped running.
The spider pushed off the ground with its four front limbs, rising a good two-hundred-fifty feet in the air. Its long tail doubled its length. It wasn’t quite as tall as Nemesis, he knew, but it was big enough. The monster rose up quickly, its body cracking and snapping into a new position, held aloft by its four, rear, wider legs. Its eight-eyed, snapping mandible face craned downward, making it look much less like a spider, and more like Nemesis, with four thin arms ending at wicked looking blades.
An F-18 Hornet swooped in from behind the creature, and unprepared for its sudden rising, tried to pull up, but was clearly not going to make it. The pilot must have seen it, too, because he ejected just a second before the plane collided with the Kaiju’s armored back. While the jet went up in flames, the pilot, still strapped into his ejection seat, rocketed away, his chute quickly deploying.
“Oh my god,” Smith shouted, laughing. “Did you see that?”
As Smith continued laughing, Baxter made a mental note to reconsider their friendship. This was not the kind of man with whom you wanted to share the battlefield. He was what many of the younger, video-game playing, troops referred to as a ‘Leeroy Jenkins,’ the first to charge, the first to die and the demise of the men with whom he served.
Smith’s laughter was cut short when the Kaiju turned, reached out and skewered the pilot on the tip of its taloned limb. It then shoved the man into its mouth. If the man screamed, no one heard it over the continuing thunder of exploding missiles. But then all noise was drowned out by the Kaiju’s high pitched roar. The battalion of Marines, three hundred strong, all stopped as one, placing hands over their ears and falling to their knees.
When the wailing cry finished, the Kaiju dropped back down to all eight legs, decimating the hangar beneath it, which must have contained a fuel truck or a fueled jet, because the whole thing went up in a ball of flame.
The Kaiju slid out of the rising black smoke, its frenetic energy gone. Its smooth movement and lowered head reminded Baxter of a lion slowly emerging from tall grass, stalking prey.
About to charge.
We’re its prey!
Someone else must have realized the same thing, shouting, “No, no, no!” and firing off his Javelin before sprinting in the opposite direction: duty done, commence ass saving.
A high-pitched warbling growl slid through the air, rippling from the Kaiju as its eight orange eyes locked on the battalion of men. The lone Javelin missile struck its face and exploded harmlessly between two eyes. But the detonation triggered the monster’s charge.
It roared again, paralyzing the men with its volume. Baxter wanted nothing more than to fire his single missile and run, but the sound kept him on his knees, hands over his ears. When it ended, the Kaiju was through the hangar and charging toward them, closing the distance.
A barrage of Javelin missiles ripped through the air at once, meeting the Kaiju head on. But it just plowed straight through the bright orange balls of light, lowering its head and snatching up men. Stunned, Baxter stood still for a moment, watching the monster’s long tail swing across the base, leveling three more hangars, the last of which exploded.
Apache helicopters rained down Hydra rockets, Hellfire missiles and chain-gun fire.
F-22 fighter jets roared past, adding Sidewinder missiles to the mix.
The cacophony of explosions, sent shockwaves in every direction, knocking the wind from Baxter’s lungs every time he tried to take a breath. The wave of impacts kept him on the ground, which was now shaking from the monster’s approach.
Men screamed all around as they ran. Those who ran the fastest seemed to attract the most attention, and they were impaled or simply sucked up into the grinding mouth. The mammoth creature darted back and forth with surprising speed, plucking men from the ground with ease.
Baxter looked at Smith, who was just getting back to his feet. He looked shell-shocked for a moment, but when the two men made eye contact again, Smith cracked a big smile and shouted, “Aww, yeah, mother bitches! Time to fuck some shit up!”
He might as well have added a shout of “Leeroy Jenkins!” but instead, he fired off his lone and completely useless Javelin missile. Instead of running, Smith watched the missile streak toward the monster and connect with its side, the explosion just a small orange circle, causing no visible harm. What it did though, was get the Kaiju’s attention.
When it turned toward them, Smith bolted, all of his fervor sucked away, a scream tearing from his mouth.
Baxter wanted to run, too. God, he wanted to run. But he stayed on his knees, as though in supplication, bowing to this god on earth, begging for mercy. But he wasn’t really doing any of that. He was simply trying to not be noticed.
The spider-thing skittered across the tarmac, tearing it to shreds, until the creature stood directly over Baxter. Smith screamed again as he was skewered, lifted up and silenced inside the monster’s mouth. It then spun in a circle, plucking up other nearby men. From beneath the colossal creature, Baxter looked all around him. The tail swept out, flattening buildings and smearing men. Explosions rocked the monster on all sides. Eight legs, moving with surprising speed, spun the thing one way and then the other, faster than he imagined possible.
He was in the eye of the storm. Safe, for a moment. Protected by the swirling mass around and above him. But it wouldn’t stay here for long. More distant men were getting away. He thought about running, but discounted it. The first to be captured were the runners. But it gathered the motionless with equal efficiency. And, he noted, without even looking at them.
It already knows I’m here, he thought. It will take me along with the rest as soon as it steps away.
So what can I do about it?
Nothing.
I’m going to die.
The only real question left is: how am I going to die?
The answer came from the voice of a Drill Sergeant, “If you die in combat, I expect the bullet to hit you head on. Anything else means you were running away, and I don’t train cowards, do I?”
“Sir, no sir,” Baxter said to himself. But what could one man with a single Javelin missile do to a Kaiju spider built like Nemesis?
Baxter found the answer when he realized the ground around him was still brightly lit, despite the Kaiju above him blocking out the sun. He turned his eyes upward. Like Nemesis, the Kaiju had large, bright orange membranes on its underside. He could see the luminous liquid above him, swirling with catastrophic potential. Then he recalled the footage from this morning. The Kaiju in Los Angeles had been destroyed when Nemesis ruptured the membranes on the creature’s underside. The explosion destroyed buildings, and would likely now do the same, killing men on the tarmac, and maybe those below ground, too, but the Kaiju could be destroyed. By one man, with the power of Nemesis.
It was a hell of a way to die. He smiled, feeling oddly like Smith for a moment, then he aimed his Javelin straight up toward the orange membrane, just fifty feet above his head. Once he pulled the trigger, the missile would cover the distance in a second. The resulting explosion would be faster.
It’s not going to hurt, he told himself. He’d be there one moment and gone the next. But if it worked...if it worked, he would be remembered forever.
Good enough, he decided, and pulled the trigger.
35
Mark Hawkins stood by the machine in which Lilly lay. The base was like an operating table, but with eight robotic arms emerging from the flat surface. Lilly laid on the table, beneath a clear plastic shell. A series of sensors swept over her body. At first, he felt apprehensive, but then medical reports, x-rays and other information were displayed on a wall-sized screen behind the strange machine.
It showed multiple fractures in one arm, three broken ribs and a fractured skull. Lilly had taken a beating saving that man from the falling building. It was a foolish and risky thing to have done, but he’d never felt more proud of her. She might have inherited some of Joliet’s brashness, but she’d also inherited her strident sense of right and wrong. A willingness to risk her life to save others was a quality that parents feared, but also hoped their children would develop. Part of him said that if Lilly had better training, she might have made it out unscathed, but he knew that no one else on the planet could have escaped that falling building alive, let alone with a startled janitor in tow.
The machine then went to work, administering general anesthesia and quickly cutting away her clothing. Next, it set bones and cleaned wounds, the robot arms, all bearing a logo reading Mohr, moved in a perfectly choreographed dance. Wounds were glued shut and bandaged. Her set arm was sprayed with a foam that expanded and hardened from her wrist to her shoulder.
Hawkins wondered if the machine would have made the same call if it knew Lilly was covered in hair. That foam was going to be hard to remove.
Lilly was then lifted up, and her torso was wrapped in a wide, white, rib belt that would protect her from jolts and keep everything in place. Her head was wrapped next. Lilly was placed back on the table, and then the robotic arms slid silently back into holes that sealed behind them. A message blinked on the screen.
Bed rest – 2 weeks.
Rib belt – 3 weeks.
Cast disintegration – 6 weeks.
At least the cast will take care of itself, Hawkins thought.
A small tray extended from the side of the machine. It contained a single orange pill bottle labeled:
Percocet - 5mg/325.
Take orally as needed.
Max 12 tablets in 24 hrs.
The clear cover lifted away with a hiss, and the machine fell quiet. While Endo was right, that Lilly’s injuries would be tended to quickly, he still had an unconscious girl, who outweighed him, to get back outside.
The facility shook from some kind of impact, the lights flickering. Hawkins turned his eyes to the ceiling. He didn’t know how far below the surface they were, but that they could feel the impacts of the Kaiju above told him they weren’t quite deep enough to not worry. To make matters worse, they were behind enemy lines with three of their party injured.
Hawkins searched the large medical room for a gurney or wheelchair to roll her out in, but found nothing. Looks like we’ll have to use the field stretcher, Hawkins thought, heading toward the door to get Alessi. He was stopped by a weak voice behind him. “Why do the cheeseburgers taste like pancakes?”
Hawkins did an about-face and dashed to Lilly’s side. “Hey kiddo. You feeling okay?”
“I wanted a cheeseburger, but all they have are pancakes...and tweetie birds.” Her face fell flat for a moment, and then she laughed. “Tweetie birds aren’t real food, are they? But, they are for Sylvester.” The laughter just as quickly transformed to pouty crying. “But I wanted a cheeseburger.”
Hawkins wasn’t sure which was worse, an unconscious and still Lilly, or a mobile tripping Lilly. He put his hand on her good shoulder. “Hey Lilly, look at me.”
Her head lolled, but she made eye contact. Her pupils were dilated, causing her to squint when she saw the lights on the ceiling. “So bright in here.” Then she gasped. “Are we on a spaceship? Oh. My. God. We were abducted!”
The smile that came to Hawkins’s face was unbidden, but he couldn’t hold it back. Their situation was precarious, but he still wished he had a video recorder of some kind to capture this.
A sudden commotion from the hallway caught his attention. Shouting voices. But no gunfire.
“Lilly,” Hawkins said, making eye contact again. “Do you know who I am?”
“Daddy,” she said with a smile, and she leaned her head on his chest.
You’re breaking my heart, kid, he thought, wanting to just hug her until her head cleared. Instead, he pushed her back. “Lilly, I need you to wait right here. No matter what you hear, just wait for me to come back.”
She seemed to sober a little. “And if you don’t come back?”
“I will.”
Her eyes glazed over again. “Get me a cheeseburger.”
“Tomorrow,” he said, heading for the door. “Tomorrow, you can have all the cheeseburgers you want.”
Lilly tried to clap her hands, but was befuddled by the cast that kept her arm bent at an unmoving forty-five degree angle. “Awww.”
Hawkins pushed his way through the doors into the hallway, and then he stopped. Woodstock and Alessi had taken cover behind medical equipment and were aiming their weapons down the hallway, where Silhouette, once again dressed, but without his telltale reflective mask, stood with four non-BlackGuard soldiers. While the soldiers had M4 rifles, Silhouette appeared unarmed.
“Ahh, Ranger,” Silhouette said. “Was wondering where you were. Is your kitty all patched up now?”
“Go to hell,” Hawkins said. He had a sidearm, but hadn’t thought to bring anything bigger, as he had been preoccupied with carrying Lilly.
Silhouette smiled. “How about this? You and your pals can walk. We’ll hang on to Lilly.”
“What happened to your word?” Hawkins said. “You said you wouldn’t take her.”
“It’s called psy ops,” Silhouette said. “Hearts and minds, Hawkins. Hearts and minds.”
Hawkins was in motion before he gave it any thought. Even if they managed to escape, Silhouette would hunt them down, would eventually find Lilly. Silhouette—and GOD—had to be stopped here and now, or Lilly would spend the rest of her life looking over her shoulder. And that wasn’t going to happen with a gun fight. That would just get them all dead. But if he was right, Silhouette, like most tough guys, wouldn’t back down from a fight.
When Silhouette stepped forward, rolling his neck, Hawkins knew he had pegged the man’s personality right. But now came the hard part. Hawkins had been in a few fights, had survived an island of monsters and gone toe-to-toe with a grizzly bear and walked away from it, but he wasn’t the world’s most skilled fighter, like Endo, or Collins. Still, he was tough. And he swung first.
His fist struck the side of Silhouette’s face with all the force he could muster. The blow sent the BlackGuard leader sprawling into the wall. But when the man rebounded and spun around, it was with a smile on his face and a blur of motion.
Hawkins was struck three times, and he only caught a glimpse of the first strike, an open palm to his forehead that snapped his head back. The second punch struck his gut, bringing him forward and into the third strike, a solid blow to his sternum that slammed him into the wall behind him and stole his breath.
The pain just fueled Hawkins. Before he was ready, he flung himself off the wall, big hands reaching out for Silhouette’s throat. But he never made it. Silhouette was as fast as he was strong. He dove to the floor, wrapped his legs around Hawkins’s feet and twisted, flinging him to the floor.
Hawkins landed hard, but rolled over and got back to his feet where he was immediately greeted by a trio of punches to his face. He stumbled back, toward the wall. He could feel his face swelling and the wet warmth of blood flowing over his face.
“How did a man like you ever survive the island?” Silhouette said, sounding disappointed. “How did you ever kill a bear?”
Hawkins pushed off the wall. “Because I don’t stop getting back up.” He rushed forward, diving for Silhouette with his arms spread wide. The tackle couldn’t be avoided, and both men dropped. Hawkins gave Silhouette a strong headbutt, stunning him momentarily. “And because I don’t fight fair.” Hawkins then reached behind his back. He drew his eight inch knife from its sheath just as smoothly as he slipped it into Silhouette’s side, between the man’s ribs and into his heart.
Silhouette’s body seized, and an expression of surprise froze on his face, his legs twitching and kicking. Hawkins glanced up at the four soldiers, their guard lowered, shock on their faces. But it wouldn’t last long.
