In a dark dimension, the titan Cronus watched through a mystical portal as a surge of life force energy came out of the vortex and enveloped him. Just as Atomic Rex had replenished his energy by draining the power from the silo’s nuclear core, so was Cronus draining the life energy on Earth. Cronus smiled as he realized that the link he created with Atomic Rex was working at optimal efficiency. He was also coming to the realization that Atomic Rex was even more deadly and destructive than he had dared dream. Cronus began to muse that with Atomic Rex under his command, not just the life force of this Earth but countless Earths and infinite planes of existence would soon be his to consume.
Cronus gazed through the portal at the kaiju he had transported to this Earth and he said, “Yes, beast, make your way across the Atlantic Ocean to North America. Reclaim the territory that you held on your Earth. Draw out Chimera and crush him. Then the entire world will fall before your power and I shall reap the benefits of the death and decay that you leave in your wake.”
Chapter 3
Dallas, Texas
Carlos Ramirez was driving to work along the Lyndon B. Johnson Memorial Highway. He could see the Dallas skyline looming in the distance ahead of him, foreshadowing another day at work. He was listening to Travis Tritt’s Help Me Hold On and the song seemed to fit his mood as he made his way on a Friday morning toward the bank that he had worked at for nearly sixteen years. As he sang along with the song, he kept thinking to himself that all he had to do was to hang on for one more day and then he and his family would be spending the weekend in Dinosaur Valley State Park.
Carlos had taken his family there last year and his three sons had the time of their lives running around the park, looking at all of the dinosaur tracks that the park was famous for. His youngest son was always thrilled by the tracks. He marveled at the size of the footprints and wondered at how large the dinosaurs were. This year would be the state park again, but next year, Carlos really hoped to show his family something amazing. Next year, he would show them something that dwarfed even the biggest sauropod. With the money he had saved up on the side, Carlos was going to take his family to see Chimera! The two-hundred-foot-plus-tall kaiju that had defeated gods and monsters to save the human race from extinction.
Every three months, the government would run tours which gave people access to seeing Chimera either in his forest home or in the area of open ocean off the coast of Virginia that was set aside for the beast. The tours helped the government to cover the tremendous cost involved in sustaining something the size of Chimera. Carlos could imagine his children’s faces when they saw the massive creature in person. He laughed as he thought about the look that would be on his wife’s face and likely his face as well as they stared at something so large.
This thought had no sooner crossed Carlos’ mind when he saw a colossal dark form suddenly appear behind the Dallas skyline. The banker quickly scanned his car for his umbrella to help keep him dry from what looked like a huge storm heading for the city. He didn’t see his umbrella in the car and he cursed. “Damn weather man said that we would have nothing but sunny skies today.” Carlos shook his head. “Looks like I am getting wet on my way from the parking lot to the bank today.”
Carlos continued to watch the storm and he suddenly became aware of the strange shape that the storm clouds had. Most of the time when a storm rolled in over the city, the clouds stretched straight across the horizon. These clouds were completely the opposite as they seemed to go in a straight column that started from the ground and reached high into the sky.
Carlos was still staring at the odd clouds when he heard a loud crashing sound followed by the ground shaking so violently that his car was lifted off the road. The car landed back on its tires but the impact was so great that it caused Carlos’ face to smash into his steering wheel. Carlos’ car swerved from side to side, as did the rest of the cars on the highway both in front of and in back of him. As soon as he was able to regain control of his car, Carlos pulled to the side of the road. Most of the other cars around him also pulled to the side of the road. Carlos opened his door and stepped out of the car as another loud crash and shockwave rocked the highway, causing him to lose his footing and fall to the ground.
He stood as the woman whose car was parked behind his walked up to him and said, “What the heck kind of storm is that?”
Carlos simply shook his head in confusion in response to the woman’s question as he continued to stare at the odd cloud. It was then that Carlos’ eyes beheld something that his mind could not comprehend. He rubbed his eyes, thinking that the storm, or the mini earthquakes, or whatever it was that was shaking the ground had sent him into a state of panic that was causing him to see things that couldn’t exist.
His fears were confirmed by the woman who was standing next to him when she screamed, “My God, that’s not a storm cloud! It’s some kind of a giant!”
As soon as the woman voiced what the innermost corners of Carlos’ mind already knew, his brain started to allow itself to bring into focus what he was looking at. He could see a head the size of a baseball stadium. A torso as long and as broad as an aircraft carrier. Arms and legs that were longer than any building in the state of Texas. Carlos had known fear in his life. Like any human, he experienced things that terrified him to his very core. The feeling that he was now experiencing was different from simple fear. What he felt now was the sensation of being so small as to be insignificant and that feeling was both frightening and humbling at the same time.
The giant took another step and this time, the shockwaves that it gave off were so powerful they caused the tops of several of the buildings in Dallas to break off and fall onto the streets below. Carlos gasped when he realized that, even at this early hour, there had to be several hundred people in each of those buildings. The security guards, custodians, IT people, cafeteria staff, and anyone else who was unlucky enough to arrive at work prior to rush hour had just died right before Carlos’ eyes.
The buildings that were still standing had nearly every one of their windows shattered. Even at a distance of several miles outside of the city, all of the cars that were parked along the highway bounced into the air and came back down while the people standing on the side of the road were all thrown to the ground.
Carlos looked into the sky to see that the immense giant had almost reached the city itself. The giant had the appearance of a well-built man with a shaggy beard and wild hair. Carlos had been a wrestling fan since he was a young boy and all that he could think of was that the giant resembled the legendary wrestler Bruiser Brody. Carlos’ mind was quickly directed off his childhood hobby and back to the horror at hand when he noticed that as the giant was standing before the city, the tallest buildings in Dallas barely reached his knees. Whatever this giant was, he would have dwarfed Chimera to the same extent that Chimera dwarfed the dinosaurs.
Carlos was crawling back into his car as he heard a voice boom across the sky that was so loud it caused his ears to bleed.
The booming voice was that of the giant as he proclaimed, “Tremble in fear, humans, as your tallest structures are crushed beneath the very feet of Atlas!” Carlos had managed to sit up in his car as he saw Atlas kick through an entire block of buildings as a child would crush sandcastles on the beach.
Carlos’ car bounced again as he was trying to turn it around and drive on the shoulder in the opposite direction of the traffic that had been making its way into the city. Carlos was crying as he said to himself, “There is nothing that they can do. Even Chimera would be nothing compared to that giant.” The ground shook once more, and Carlos looked in his rearview mirror to see the lower half of the gargantuan Atlas laying waste to the city. A cloud of dust that had been downtown Dallas had enveloped that titan’s legs and knees, but everything above his waist was still high above the debris that was floating through the air.
Carlos looked away from the city to see the cars that he was passing turning around and driving on the shoulder or jumping th
e median to access the highway in the direction away from Dallas. He started talking to himself again, “That thing will have leveled Dallas within half an hour.” He started driving faster as he thought about his family. “Who knows where he will go next? He could head out to the suburbs.”
He switched on the radio to hear the Emergency Broadcast System. “This is the Emergency Broadcast System. This is not a drill. The greater Dallas area is under attack by an unidentified kaiju. The kaiju is larger than any other monster reported thus far. People living in or near Dallas are advised to evacuate the area. The military is working as quickly as possible to prepare a response to this attack.”
Carlos shook his head. “They said a response, not a defense. My God, they are considering nuking that thing!” Carlos began driving as fast as he could away from what had once been the city of Dallas, Texas. He began to sob for all of the people that had died at the hands of the monster because as he looked back at the dust that now swarmed around the giant’s feet, he could see that in mere minutes, the giant had destroyed the entire city.
Carlos was wiping his eyes clear when his car was thrown into the air and bounced down on the highway. The impact from the bounce shattered the rims of his wheels and left his car immobile. Carlos climbed out of his car to see that all of the other cars on the highway had also been severely damaged by the last impact.
The banker turned to see the giant coming toward him and everyone else who was stranded on the highway. Carlos shook his head in disbelief as the creature’s neck and head literally disappeared into some low-hanging clouds. The shockwave of another of the giant’s footfalls caused Carlos to lose his balance and fall to the ground. He looked up to see the sun blocked out above him as the giant’s foot loomed over him. He stood up to run but when he looked at the size of the shadow around him, he quickly realized that the giant’s foot was so large that even if he were driving his car at top speed, he would not be able to escape his fate.
Carlos fell to his knees and he began to pray that his family would be spared from the attack of this monster. As Carlos was praying, he heard a voice so loud that the sound of it shattered what was left of his eardrums. The voice proclaimed, “You cannot hope to flee humans! The titans have returned to end your existence!”
As blood gushed out of his ears, Carlos’ mind shifted to wife and children and all of the joy they had brought him in his life. His last thoughts were of his boys and taking them to see the huge footprints that they so loved. An instant later, Carlos and countless others along with him became part of a footprint that was now the largest footprint on the face of the earth.
Chapter 4
Baltimore
Latoya Wilkerson was strolling the inner harbor and enjoying the fresh air, diverse shops, and multiple eating establishments that ranged from small vendors to large-scale restaurants. Latoya was working her way through med school at the world-renowned but extremely demanding doctoral program at Johns Hopkins University. She was doing well in her classes and working hard on studying and fulfilling her other obligations six days a week, but Friday was her day off. She had heard from several practicing doctors that her mental health was just as important to her being a successful surgeon as were her credentials. Dr. Price had specifically said to her, “A doctor’s job is to save lives and improve the quality of life for people. That includes your own life. While it is important to have a serious commitment to your profession, you also need to remember that your quality of life needs to be something that you keep in mind as well. A happy and well-rested doctor is an effective and successful doctor.”
Latoya took Dr. Price’s suggestions to heart and she committed Friday to being the day that she took a break from work and made sure that her life was worth living and enjoyable. Latoya walked onto one of the many docks that extended out into the harbor. The sun was shining and there was a cool breeze blowing the salty air from the water onto the docks. Latoya walked past several people who were spending their day fishing off the pier. The fishermen included several old men sitting together, several sets of fathers and sons, and even one group that was clearly three generations of grandfather, father, and son, as all three had a strong family resemblance.
She saw a trio of men in their seventies who she had become acquainted with during her Friday visits to the inner harbor. She had learned that their first names were John, Kyle, and Randy. She walked up to the men who she playfully referred to as the “Stooges” and started up her usual line of questions. “Hey, guys, how is the fishing going today?”
The fishermen kept looking out over the bay as John pointed to a bucket full of fish at their feet. “It’s been good. Really good. It’s almost like something is driving the fish toward the shore.”
Kyle pointed toward the horizon. “We think we might finally have realized what it is. Look out over the water. Can you see it? Sort of looks like a fuzzy distortion over the water.”
Latoya put her hand over her eyes to shield them from the sun and she stared out at the horizon. In the distance, she could see something that looked like it was spinning above the waterline. She turned toward John. “Is that one of those, what do they call them, the tornadoes that form over water?”
John shook his head. “A waterspout. Sailors call them waterspouts. I have seen a few in my time, but I can’t recollect ever seeing one on a sunny day like this.”
Randy cleared his throat and chimed into the conversation. “I have seen many a waterspout as well, and one thing I can tell you is that they don’t stay in place like that one seems to be doing. They kind of whip all around the place.”
As in response to Randy’s claim, the distortion started moving toward the shore. The water around the dock that Latoya and the fishermen were standing on began to ripple. They looked down to see countless fish, crabs, and other forms of sea life trying to force their way to the surface of the water. On the beach that surrounded the dock, people started to scream as thousands of fish threw themselves out of the water and onto land.
Latoya looked back to shore to see the fish flopping around helplessly as they were suffocating to death. She looked at Randy. “What on earth would make fish beach themselves like that?”
Randy shook his head. “Nothing. Nothing would make them do that. Whatever is going on out there, the fish are more scared of it than they are of dying.”
Latoya shifted her gaze back to the waterspout to see that it was now moving to shore at a faster pace. Many of the people on the dock started to turn and run, but with the current training that she was engaged in, her mind was conditioned to stay calm and observe situations she found herself in.
John grabbed Latoya by the arm and started pulling her back. The med student pulled free from the fisherman and had the presence of mind to not only keep her eyes focused on the phenomenon but also to take out her cell phone, open her Facebook app, and start a Facebook Live session on what she was looking at. Within an instant, all of her followers on Facebook were seeing what Latoya was seeing. She was all too aware of the war that had raged only a few years ago between the gods and humanity. Latoya was fairly sure that what she was looking at was another attack from a parallel dimension. She also knew that the army and the people who controlled Chimera would need as much information on whatever was coming to shore as possible in order to counteract it. She kept herself from a near state of panic by focusing on her deeply ingrained desire to save lives. She laughed a little at the irony that on the day she was supposed to be focusing on the importance of her life, she could very well die trying to save the lives of countless others.
John grabbed Latoya again and managed to pull her off the dock and onto the writhing mass of fish that was littering the shoreline. When she first stepped on the dying fish, she slipped and was only held up by John’s grip. Latoya took a quick look down to find a fish-free spot of sand and secure her footing. She then refocused her phone on the aberration coming toward her and she started shouting, “What looks like a waterspout has started out ov
er the Atlantic Ocean has made its way into Chesapeake Bay! This phenomenon is occurring despite the fact that today, there isn’t a cloud in the sky! Thousands of fish have swum to shore and beached themselves ahead of this disturbance, seemingly in an attempt to get away from it!”
She stopped talking for a moment and swallowed the saliva that was building up in her mouth from the tension she was experiencing. In that brief second, the disturbance had moved closer to shore and she could see that it was no waterspout. The fishermen who had been trying to pull Latoya to safety turned and ran away from her when they saw what the disturbance truly was.
Even though every impulse in Latoya’s head told her to run, she forced herself to stay in place and continue to document what was happening. She aimed her phone directly at the disturbance above her and shouted, “Even in light of what has occurred over the past few years, I can’t believe what I am seeing! What looked like a spinning action from a distance is not actually spinning at all but rather what has to be dozens if not hundreds of heads and arms connected to a single torso all moving at the same time! The creature has to be related to the gods and monsters that attacked our planet several years ago!”
She tried to move along the shoreline and out of the creature’s direct path as she continued her Facebook Live video. “The monster appears to be in the range of three hundred feet tall!” She continued her recording as the bizarre creature came ashore and attacked the first building it came across. “The monster is tearing through a ten-story building by using its hands live a living buzzsaw!”
Atomic Rex_The Conquest of Chimera Page 3
