by Jake Bible
“I need direct readings,” Dr. Probst says. “I need to observe the Substance’s behavior while I’m getting the readings. If my theory is correct then we might be able to stop the monster, maybe all the monsters, by stopping the source of their power.”
“The Substance?” Lu asks. “You think if we destroy the Substance then we destroy the monsters above?”
“That is my hope,” Dr. Probst says.
She looks from her screen to the panel and presses her hand against the panel. With a little effort, the panel slides it to the right, revealing an old and dusty keypad that is screwed next to a series of levers and gears.
“That doesn’t look rigged at all,” Lowell mumbles as he grips the steering wheel of his cart, his hands wringing the plastic. “I’m sure it’s perfectly safe. What could go wrong when you hotwire a keypad to some weird looking gears and shit?”
“Just be ready to drive,” Dr. Probst says. She taps at her laptop and then her eyes go wide. “Oh, here we go! A new surge is about to happen!”
She reaches out and keys in the code then stands back, her eyes going from the readings on her screen to the open panel to the massive doors.
They all feel the doors opening before they hear them. A deep rumbling that travels right to their guts, making each of them feel like they have indigestion. Then the doors turn out to be a door. Singular. Instead of splitting down the middle, the door begins to withdraw from one side of the wall and into the other. Pulling away from the side with the keypad and panel, the door slowly, slowly cracks and bright orange light seeps out, blinding them all after the dim light of the tunnel.
“The surge is happening now!” Dr. Probst announces. “We’ll be able to watch it- AAAAAHHHH!!!”
The laptop clatters to the ground, its screen snapping off from the impact as Dr. Probst brings her hands up to her head. She falls to her knees and screams, blood dripping from her nostrils and starting to seep from her ears.
Lu and Kyle both collapse over their steering wheels, screaming and thrashing, their hands to their heads as well. Blood begins to drip from their nostrils and ears as Lowell stares, stunned by it all.
“Ah, fuck me,” he grumbles as he jumps up, grabs Dr. Probst under the armpits, despite the fact she tries to fight him. But she’s too weak to put up much of a struggle, the blood flow increasing from her nostrils. “Just hang on. Everyone hang on.”
He gets her into his cart and then hurries over to Kyle, grabbing the teenager around the chest and dragging him over. Lowell manages to slump the kid in the small cargo area of the cart and then turns and goes to Lu.
The marshal is staring at him, her eyes wide and bloodshot. She’s screaming at the top of her lungs, but she doesn’t fight Lowell as he tucks his shoulder into her belly and lifts, carrying her like a sack over his shoulder. He unceremoniously dumps her into the cart so she is draped over Dr. Probst’s lap as well as his as he scoots back behind the wheel.
The door continues to pull open and Lowell stares at the light coming from inside. He is almost lost in the power of it when the screaming around him reaches a pitch that becomes too painful to ignore.
“Hold on,” he says more to himself than his passengers.
Lowell whips the cart around and speeds away from the opening door, the glow from behind lighting his way as he retreats down the tunnel, back towards the other doors and the elevator. Lowell takes a quick second to flip off the door and the Substance behind him as he presses the accelerator all the way to the floor. Readings or no readings, source of power or no source of power, Lowell is getting the hell away from the insanity that is killing everyone around him.
***
China struggles, its tail swiping back and forth, trying to grab ahold of the monster that has its head pressed down into the muck and mud churned up by gigantic feet and bodies engaging in mortal combat. The monster that grips China, a roaring Hood, leans in with all of its weight, pushing China’s head even further down into the muck, watching as the smaller monster sucks up some of the mud into its simian nose.
Two roars from behind it make Hood turn its attention away for a split-second. China fights with a sudden burst of energy, but Hood is just too big and it leans its weight down harder, shoving China deeper.
A mile away, circling each other, Japan and St. Helens face off. Neither of them are distracted by what is happening between Hood and China. They both only have malevolent eyes for each other.
St. Helens screeches out a sonic pulse, but Japan moves out of the way easily, responding with a stream of electric blue fire. St. Helens jumps to the side, rolls for half a mile then pushes up on its four arms and springing onto its legs. It moves like it’s going to jump at Japan, but another stream of blue fire sends it diving and rolling once more.
Japan follows the monster, barking fire every couple of seconds, like short blasts from a cannon. St. Helens keeps rolling and springing, going from hands to feet, arms to legs, tucking its shoulders and coming up fast. The giant monster is a gymnastic display of gargantuan proportions.
Hood roars and howls as Japan keeps its comrade on the constant defensive. It shoves harder on China, bouncing up and down, pushing the beast deeper and deeper into the ground until the smaller monster stops moving all together. Hood waits a few seconds, then eases off, jumping back, a sonic pulse belching forth from its maw, impacting with the back of China’s skull as the smaller monster stays right where it was left.
China’s body shudders all over, its limbs shooting straight out, taut and rigid. Then the limbs slowly relax with one final shudder. Hood blasts it again with a sonic pulse and the smaller monster’s back rips open, exposing a bloody spine and rib cage. Another blast and another and China’s corpse is pulverized, crushed by the sound waves into a messy pulp of bone, and organs, and black blood.
Hood turns from the dead beast and focuses its attention on Japan. The large monster is still keeping St. Helens from regrouping for an attack. Hood moves in and Japan instantly swings in its direction, electric blue flames rocketing towards it.
St. Helens takes the momentary distraction to get its legs under it and leaps. Japan is almost turned back when the two collide, sending them both sliding backwards, gouging a quarter mile wide and deep trough through the frozen ground. Not that the ground is very frozen anymore. The heat coming off the violence has pretty much turned it all into a shallow swamp of melted snow over dead winter grass and mud.
Rolling backwards, head over tail, St. Helens and Japan finally come to a stop, their bodies pressed up against a large hill of exposed rock. Limbs tangled together, both monsters try to get free and upright, but as each moves it sends the other shifting back down to the ground.
Until Hood comes over and grabs onto Japans legs, lifting the monster away from its ally, and sending it flying back for a couple miles. Japan skips across the ground, adding more divots to the destruction of the landscape. When it finally comes to a stop, Japan pushes up to its knees, its body weaving back and forth like a boxer trying to get up after already suffering a seven count.
Hood rushes at Japan, with St. Helens close behind. Japan gets onto a knee and then pushes itself upright just as Hood reaches out with all four hands, twelve taloned claws total ready to slash and slice. Black blood splatters the landscape as Japan’s chest is torn open, exposing silvery muscles and cartilage that cover its massive ribcage.
Japan grabs at its chest and stumbles back, ducking to the side as St. Helens comes in for the attack. A swipe across its haunch sends Japan down to the ground hard, a howl of pain shaking the earth around it as blood begins to pour from the new wound.
Hood and St. Helens regroup, standing close together as they watch Japan struggle to get back to its feet. Neither monster moves, their black eyes studying their foe, looking for the easy weakness they can exploit and end the fight right there and then.
But Japan doesn’t give them the easy weakness. It refuses to do their jobs for them and when it does get to its feet,
it belches out more fire, stream after stream aimed not just at the two monsters, but the areas on either side of them. Hood falls flat, catching a stream of fire across its back, bubbling and blistering its skin into a mess of future scar tissue.
St. Helens dives to the side and catches a stream directly to its right shoulders, sending the two connected arms flying off in a tumbling arc of blood and spasming muscle. St. Helens screeches and screeches as it clamps its remaining hands over the smoking wound. It lies there, blood and mud coating its body as it writhes in pain and agony. Then a well-placed stream of fire ends the writhing, ends the screeching, ends the pain.
Like a grotesque fan, what is left of St. Helens’ head spreads out across the ground, the last sparks of the electric blue fire dying down, letting the cold ground cool the corpse while the bloody heat warms the earth. The cycle of death.
Hood gets up and sprints towards Japan, no roar of anguish or mourning in its throat, only violent rage in its eyes and its twitching, bunched muscles. Japan tucks its shoulder and rolls, moving out of Hood’s trajectory, turning its body so it has a perfect shot, then fires more flame. Hood leaps at the last moment, letting the flames shoot past, doing no more damage than a light singeing of its toenails.
Japan rolls a few more times then gets to its feet, its squat and powerful legs slightly wobbly from the beatings it has endured. Defiantly, Japan sets its feet, standing its ground as Hood regroups and spins about to face it. Hood hisses. Japan’s lips curl back to show its gigantic, razor sharp teeth. The monsters square off, neither making the next move.
They stand that way for several minutes, a stalemate of epic proportions.
Without a signal from either, the two beasts rush each other, arms out, jaws wide open. Hood lets loose with a sonic pulse while Japan sends a geyser of fire before it. The two collide with such force that the concussive power of their collision scrapes the earth bare for a mile around them, creating a barren circle of combat for them to destroy each other in.
Japan hammers a fist into Hood’s face while Hood jabs four fists into Japan’s midsection. Hood’s head rocks to the side and Japan doubles over. Without slowing, Japan rams its head into Hood’s chest while Hood lifts two fists up and slams them into Japan’s spine, its other two fists punching forward, numbing Japan’s upper thighs.
Hood’s mouth opens wide and it goes for a chomp to the back of Japan’s neck, but Japan’s tail comes up over its back and slashes Hood across the neck, sending black blood spurting out everywhere. Hood’s open mouth widens and a gurgling roar issues out as it disengages from Japan, taking several steps backwards, each one weaker than the previous.
Japan collapses onto the ground, its arms barely keeping it from slipping into the loose earth of the combat circle. It lifts its head to watch as Hood stumbles about, all four hands clamped to its neck, keeping its lifeblood inside. Blood seeps from between its taloned claws, streaming down its torso, its legs, to pool at its feet. Hood tries to roar, tries to open up for a last sonic pulse, but all it can do is screech lamely, a pitiful sound coming from such a massive creature.
Getting slowly to its feet, Japan takes a tentative step forward. Hood answers with a weak step back. After repeating the motions for several steps, Hood finally falls to its knees, unable to keep Japan from encroaching on it. Its head held up, face split by a snarl, Hood watches as Japan comes to a stop and towers above.
Then Japan’s fists slam together, coming from each side of Hood’s head, pulverizing the monster’s skull. Gore shoots up into the air then falls back down like a thick, lazy rain. Japan flicks brain and bone from its hands and stumbles back a few feet.
Wobbling for several minutes, close to collapse, Japan takes several deep, deep breaths. Then it lifts its head to the sky and roars so loud that the ash clouds above part and scatter. Once the sound dies down, Japan lowers its head and looks at the corpses around it. It limps over to Hood’s body and falls on it, its jaws ripping into the flesh, devouring as much as it can, as fast as it can, shoving great hunks of beast into its mouth.
An hour passes, two hours pass, before Japan’s hunger is slaked. It gets to its feet, sending a quick glance at the cold corpse of China, then turns to the south and starts to jog, moving its legs faster and faster until it is a full out run. Then it jumps high into the air, covering dozens of miles in a single leap. It comes down and repeats the process. Jog, run, jump, soar, come down. Over and over until it is almost to the border of Canada and the United States.
Far off ahead of it, its final foe stands, haloed by the glowing power of the Substance under its feet.
Yellowstone turns at the sound of Japan and lifts its arms into the air, banging its fists together again and again in anticipation of the battle to come.
***
“Stay there,” Terrie whispers as she holds out her hand, making sure Krissy and Roy stay put.
Roy staying put is not a hard thing since the man is hurt pretty bad with broken ribs and a shattered arm. Krissy on the other hand, in typical teenage fashion, rebels against any order given, regardless of the order’s merit.
It has taken the three of them several hours to get from where they found Linda’s corpse, and a wounded Roy, to the hole leading down into the bunker. Krissy’s natural rebellion wouldn’t be a problem, except that Terrie can easily see the outline of something large standing down by the waterline, its giant body quivering in the strong wind coming off the Puget Sound.
“Stay there!” Terrie hisses as Krissy starts to move away from Roy. “Keep your eyes on him while I make sure the bunker hatch is open and we can get inside as fast as possible.”
Krissy begins to argue, but stops at the sight of Terrie’s lips pulling back in an angry snarl. The teenager shakes her head and huffs then settles back next to Roy as they sit in the shadows.
Limping hard, Terrie takes careful step after careful step towards the hole that slides down to the bunker hatch. She pauses every couple of steps, her eyes studying the monstrous silhouette to see if her movement has piqued its interest. But the creature remains far off on the beach, facing away from Terrie and the bunker.
Once at the hole, Terrie slips over the muddy edge. She braces her hands against the sides to keep from falling too fast, but even with that help, she still lands on her ankle too quickly and gasps as pain radiates up her leg. Taking several deep breaths to get herself under control, she limps the last feet over to the wheel in the hatch and gives it a spin.
A loud barking from the other side makes her wince as she gets the hatch open.
“Biscuit! Quiet!” Terrie snaps. “No!”
Biscuit lets out a whine, hackles up and teeth bared. It relaxes slightly at the sight and smell of Terrie, but its hackles remain raised and its snout rises, smelling the outside air. Terrie can see he is about to bark again and she gives his nose a quick swat.
“No barking at the monsters,” she growls. She points down the tunnel to the open hatch at the other end and the sight of the spiral staircase. “Get back inside now. Why in heaven’s name are you up here?”
Then she smells it and can see the outline of a couple of small mounds in the tunnel.
“Oh,” she says. “Well, I’m glad the boy let you up here to do your business instead of you doing it down there.” She waves her hand in front of her face. “Too bad you couldn’t go all the way outside though.”
There’s a scraping noise behind her and Terrie whips about, her shotgun up and ready. Krissy frowns down at her as she stands there with Roy’s arm around her shoulder and the older man slumped against her side.
“He passed out again,” Krissy says. “I wasn’t going to just sit there. Help me get him down.”
Terrie swallows the angry response that almost passes her lips and nods. She limps over and helps as Krissy gets Roy into a sitting position on the edge of the hole. Trying to keep her weight off her ankle, she leans against the wet mud wall of the hole and eases Roy down against her shoulders then her chest. Th
e older man grumbles in his sleep, but he does not wake up, not even when Terrie almost drops him and ends up shoving him hard against the wall in order to keep from collapsing onto her ankle.
There’s a low rumbling that shakes the whole area as Krissy slides down and drops next to Terrie, taking Roy’s weight back on herself.
“What’s—?” Krissy starts to ask, but quiets as a far off roar answers the rumbling.
The roar sounds plaintive, almost sad, and is quickly answered by dozens more from farther out in the Sound. Terrie motions for Krissy to hurry as the roars crescendo into a high-keening, collective wail. Biscuit immediately starts up barking again and Terrie tries to hush him while Krissy stumbles Roy into the bunker’s entrance tunnel.
“Jesus,” Krissy gasps, trying to breathe through her mouth. “What is that?”
“Careful where you step,” Terrie says. “Tony let Biscuit up here to do his business.”
“Great,” Krissy says. “Just great.”
Terrie listens at the hatch for a minute to the wailing then shakes her head and closes the door tight, spinning the wheel until it locks in place. With the outside air gone, the stink in the tunnel quickly becomes almost unbearable.
“Let’s get below,” Terrie says, limping around Biscuit’s leavings and down the tunnel to the far hatch. “Maybe Tony has made some progress with his radio.”
It takes them a while to get Roy down the spiral staircase and into the main room. They let him fall into one of the soft chairs then both collapse onto the floor, sweaty and exhausted.
“I need a shower,” Krissy says. “But I don’t want to deal with taking my bandages off and putting new ones on.”
“You probably do need to change your bandages,” Terrie says. “But no shower. We’re going to stink for a while until Roy wakes up and can tell us the status of our water reserves. I’d rather smell like I do than risk running out of water and dying of thirst.”
