by Jake Bible
***
The world is bright despite the constant whirlwinds of ash that swirl everywhere. Lowell blinks for several minutes, his brain adjusting to the view before him. It is an impossible view. A view that stretches for miles. He doesn’t remember ever seeing a view so spectacular.
“Holy shit,” he says, but what he hears is a thundering roar that shakes the ground around him.
Lowell freezes. After a couple minutes, he slowly raises his hands to his face. This is not an easy task because his brain is split between two sets of hands on each side of his body. He lifts the massive, three-clawed, taloned hands up and stares at the alien appendages.
“Oh, no fucking way,” he says. Again the ground shakes from a thunderous roar. He clamps all four hands over his mouth.
Taking a deep breath, he looks down at the rest of him. At the slick body and the thick legs. At the ground that is broken and cracked and a couple miles below him. He instantly realizes that the view is so good because he’s several thousand feet tall.
Several thousand feet tall…
“Oh, fuck me running,” he thinks, learning his lesson about what happens when he opens his mouth.
Lowell really, really wants to just sit down and cry. What the hell else can a person do when they suddenly find themselves inside the body of an impossibly large monster?
He’d love to sit down and just close his eyes. Then he wonders how many eyes he has? Before he can answer that question, a loud hiss comes from behind him. He spins quickly, nearly toppling over as his brain tries to catch up with the height and power of his body.
Running at full speed, its mouth wide open and hissing, is a lizard straight out of the Discovery Channel, but much, much bigger than it would appear on TV.
“Is that a motherfucking Komodo dragon?” he shouts, not giving two shits about the huge roar that comes from his monster mouth. “God dammit! WHAT IS GOING ON?”
The End
Read on for a free sample of Kaiju Fall
Jake Bible, Bram Stoker Award nominated-novelist, short story writer, independent screenwriter, podcaster, and inventor of the Drabble Novel, has entertained thousands with his horror and sci/fi tales. He reaches audiences of all ages with his uncanny ability to write a wide range of characters and genres.
Jake is the author of the bestselling Z-Burbia series set in Asheville, NC, the Apex Trilogy (DEAD MECH, The Americans, Metal and Ash) and the Mega series for Severed Press, as well as the YA zombie novel, Little Dead Man, the Bram Stoker Award nominated Teen horror novel, Intentional Haunting, the ScareScapes series, and the Reign of Four series for Permuted Press.
Find Jake at jakebible.com. Join him on Twitter @jakebible and find him on Facebook.
-2 days
5:36 pm
“John Clayton Scott, get in the car,” Tamara ordered her son, John Clayton. She used her Auntie voice, the one that made children stop their foolishness and come to attention like soldiers in an army. John Clayton stopped running in circles with his Lego spaceship and climbed into his seat in the mini-van. His brother, James, was already in the van, strapped into his toddler chair. James was looking at the pictures in a book that he could not read yet. Herbert the Timid Dragon. Herbert was coughing flames all over a Mercer Mayer army because Herbert was afraid. And when Herbert got afraid, he coughed.
John Clayton wished he was as easily absorbed by things as his brother. John Clayton was like his dad. He liked to build things. Legos, pinewood derby race cars, Legos, Minecraft castles, Legos. He liked to build. One day he hoped to build things like his dad. For now, though, he was content with his Nintendo DS.
On the other side of the driveway, Rylan checked the straps on the Silverado. All the straps were tight. Nothing would fall out.
He leaned over and kissed his wife through the window as she started the engine.
“I’ll be right behind you,” Rylan said.
“You got the checkbook?”
“Yes. I also got the drive and the sim cards.”
“Everything is on the Cloud. You got the lockbox?”
“Yep.”
“And we double-checked to make sure all our house information and insurance records are in the lockbox?”
“Yes.”
“I think that’s everything we have to have.”
“Yes.”
“Don’t be far behind.”
“I’m getting into the truck and pulling out. I’ll be right behind you. I just want to check the workshop first.”
“You mean the garage.”
He smiled. “I mean workshop.”
She kissed him again, full on the lips.
“Mom!” John Clayton groaned.
Rylan ducked out of the window, then into John Clayton’s and growled at him like a bear.
“Dad, stop!” John Clayton giggled, but he liked it anyways. His dad bear-hugged him. Then he ran around the back of the minivan and jumped across James’ window. James was waiting for this like a Jack in the box. When his dad finally popped out, he jumped in his seat and laughed. He got a big bear hug from his papa bear, too.
“When is Kaiju Goliad coming, Dad?” John Clayton asked.
“Not for two more days, at least.”
“Is a kaiju going to smash our house?”
“Kaiju like lights, and all our lights will be out. Don’t worry about it.”
“I want a kaiju,” James said.
“We get to visit Uncle Dre and vacation in Austin now?”
“Something like that.”
Both boys erupted in cheers.
“Be good for your mom,” Rylan said. “I don’t want to strap any of you to the hood of the truck.”
As Tamara pulled out of the driveway, she made her boys wave good-bye to their house.
7:54 pm
All evening as they drove, the relentless Texas heat came at them. The heat wavered off the highway above the long line of cars like a giant vaporous snake, a sidewinder of heat sliding up and down the highway. It made Tamara glad for air conditioning. It wasn’t just the physical, almost tangible effect of the heat that bothered Tamara but the stench of it, too. Her nostrils burned with the smell of melted tar and exhaust fumes. She would need a bath when they got to her brother, Andre’s, house. He had a nice new limestone off of MOPAC. Had one of those bathrooms that were as big as a small bedroom. It had a shower with two showerheads. She could get a lot of the road off of her with two showerheads.
The diaspora of cars moved at little more than a snail’s pace, which was something Tamara had hoped she would never live to see. She wanted to look it up on Google, a snail’s pace, wondering where the phrase came from. But she and Rylan had agreed to turn off their cell phones so they wouldn’t sap the battery. Her husband said he would try to talk to her when the cars stopped, but the line never fully stopped. It moved just fast enough, maybe a turn of the wheel every minute, to prevent him from getting out of the truck and walking over to the van for a discussion on whatever. Something. Anything as long as it wasn’t about kaijus. She was sick to death of kaijus. For the past week, everything was kaiju, kaiju, kaiju. Where will it land? Why was it going to Texas instead of out into the Atlantic like so many others?
Thank God for satellite radio, she thought, and turned it to her favorite station, a channel called The Groove. She liked the classics. Marvin, Stevie, and Michael. They were always good to her. They made her feel, which was important. Rylan could be an artist, but he was not fond of music. Never had been. He was fine for it for background noise, but he was just as likely to play talk radio as he was to play rock music when he was working in the garage. His phone had less than twenty songs on it when they married.
Two hours, and they had barely left the Clear Lake area. They weren’t twenty minutes from their house under normal traffic conditions. That was an order of magnitude. At this rate, it would take thirty hours to get to Austin, and by then Kaiju Goliad would be bearing down on Houston.
“Mama, I want a kaiju,” Ja
mes said. He hadn’t given up hope that one day he would have his own pet monster that stood as tall as a skyscraper.
“Well, kaiju aren’t adoptable, so we can’t have one.”
“Why are we going to Uncle Dre’s?” John Clayton asked. “Mike’s family is going to a shelter in Huntsville.”
“Well, we could go to a shelter in Huntsville, but we had to leave Solemnity Bay. Houston and Galveston are under mandatory evacuations.”
“Mama, I gotta pee,” James continued without missing a beat. John Clayton had the urge, too, but wanted Mama to know that he was holding it because he was a big boy.
“Okay.”
She turned on her signal light and pulled over. Rylan followed in the Silverado. He watched John Clayton hop over James and burst into the tall roadside grass like a sprinter, then run back to the mini-van, unbuckled his brother, and then they both charged head-first into the grass, reaching for their zippers. Within seconds, the boys were trying to spell their names in urine. He chuckled, and caught his wife smiling at him in her rearview mirror.
9:02 pm
“Mama, James looks like a dead dinosaur again.” James had a way of contorting his body in the car seat so that his head was arched up and back and his legs were stuck out at odd positions. When he did this, he looked like a fossilized dinosaur skeleton where the neck has craned back far enough that the dead dinosaur looks like it is trying to eat its tail.
“Get his pillow, John Clayton.”
John Clayton searched the floor of the minivan for the neck pillow. He shoved it clumsily under his brother’s head. He did it in such a way that it was amazing James remained asleep. But little boys can be heavy sleepers.
The sunflower yellow in the sky had gone to the great Crayola box behind the horizon, and now the lid was shut and all the world was dark except for the long train of brake lights and the faraway lights of oil factories. This was Baytown, after all, and those refineries would keep pushing until the very last moment when they were forced to shut down and stop producing money.
His dad worked at one of the plants. Tonka Oil. That wasn’t it. Tanonka Oil? John Clayton wished he could remember how to pronounce the name of his dad’s company. He was the oldest, so he was supposed to remember things. James wouldn’t be expected to because he was too little. But John Clayton was a big boy. He was supposed to remember things like how to add multiple numbers, the water cycle, and the name of his father’s company. It wasn’t Tonka. Tonka was little kid’s toys.
A shadow appeared off the side of the road. (Or maybe it was better to say a black form appeared because it was night, but it felt cold like a shadow.) John Clayton couldn’t figure out what she shadow looked like because it stood behind tall, Southern pines. But the top of its head seemed to hover like the silhouette of a water tower in the night. This was no water tower, though. Water towers didn’t move. This one moved with purpose. While the minivan crept down the highway, the shadow followed them.
He didn’t want to say anything to his mama. Only little boys are afraid of the dark, and only little boys say every little doubt they have. John Clayton was expected to be more reserved. He would study the problem first, then tell his parents about it. If it really was a problem and not just his imagination running away with him.
As they snaked along the highway and out towards the Fred Hartman Bridge, John Clayton noticed little lights winking out as they passed behind the shadow. It was only then he started to get an idea of its shape. He didn’t know how many arms and legs it had because they got mixed up with the trees, but he was sure it was as wide as two cars based on how long it took the lights to pass behind the shadow.
John Clayton climbed out of his seat and leaned over James so that he could get a better view.
“Son, get back in your seat,” his mama yawned. She took another sip of her coffee.
“There’s something out there.”
“It’s late and past your bedtime. You’re seeing things, baby. Sit back down and try to go to sleep. Whatever it is, I’m sure it will go away.”
John Clayton yawned. He was sleepy. The day had been exciting. He had been a big boy, helping his mom and dad pack for the evacuation. Sometimes he just watched his little brother. But that was a big deal, too, because James liked to wander.
John Clayton leaned back in his chair, pulled the belt buckle over his shoulder, and watched the night sky through sleep-slitted eyes. Soon he was drifting off to sleep.
He closed his eyes and listened to the gentle hum of the road. He opened his eyes one last time, just to be sure.
A red eye opened in the shadow. It was looking directly at him. Looking down at him from up above the tree line. Then a second eye, this one orange, opened and looked at John Clayton. The boy inhaled sharply and caught his breath as a stark fear wrapped around him. Two more eyes, one green and one yellow, opened on opposite sides of the head.
“Kaiju!” John Clayton yelled. When his mom didn’t react, he said it over and over, pleading for his mother to solve the problem he was powerless to do anything about. “Kaiju! Kaiju! Kaiju!”
9:04 pm
The giant shape emerged from the tree line and stepped towards the line of cars. As it came towards them, Rylan did the math in his head and realized the “little” kaiju would be coming up behind the Silverado. He honked his horn at Tamara to urge her to get around other cars, even if it meant driving off the road.
He was too late, though. The cars behind him had seen the shape, too, and they were speeding down the shoulder.
Remembering that Kaiju were attracted to light, Rylan cut the engine and turned off his lights. The cars behind him did not. The monster entered the highway. Light from car headlights showed the creature to be a sinewy, toothy creature with strangely colored eyes. These were not true kaiju, though it was easily the largest animal Rylan had ever seen in his life. They were called lampreys because they followed kaiju. It was theorized that, like lampreys, they fed on the scraps that the kaiju did not eat. However, they also were known to precede kaiju falls, like they were scouting out food sources for a kaiju to make landfall. The lamprey behind his Silverado, however, seemed more intent on wanton destruction.
The lamprey grabbed the car behind Rylan and flipped it with the ease a person would flip a chair. The car crashed against another car and landed on its side. The lamprey hissed and bit another car. Its tail flung over the Silverado, and then the creature turned south towards the refinery lights and more traffic.
The long line of cars broke like a million ants suddenly breaking from their pheromone-laced line. They slammed into each other and forced their way away from the lamprey. The moving lights seemed to excite the creature more. Rylan got an idea.
He got out of the cab and climbed up to the bed, standing on the tire of his pickup. What he needed was close by and easily accessible. In that way, he was lucky. He opened a duffel bag full of his kids’ favorite toys and found exactly what he was after. He set the quad copter on the ground and turned it on.
Gently, the glow-in-the-dark quad copter rose into the air. He had painted it this way because John Clayton wanted to fly it at night like an alien UFO, and Rylan, who had over-purchased for his son, did not want to lose an expensive toy that easily. So he painted it in glow-in-the-dark and tied a long glow-in-the-dark kite string to it.
The quadcopter zoomed across the lanes of traffic and over the lamprey. This was engineering on the run, literally, but if it worked, the pay-off would be tremendous.
The lamprey ignored the quad copter hovering above its four colored eyes. It was enjoying the car’s shaking lights. The driver, however, had crawled to the back seat of his car to pray.
But then the lamprey did a funny thing. It glanced up, and it stared at the tiny quad copter like a kid staring at a firefly. And then it snapped its loathsome jaws at the quad copter. A little glow-in-the-dark kitestring dangled from the lamprey’s mouth.
Then military copters appeared in the sky. Rylan had not he
ard them coming, and it was too dark to see what kind they were. They just suddenly existed, like drops of thought conjured into the sky. Missiles deployed, and machine guns chainsawed, and suddenly the quad copter-chewing lamprey was retreating back into the woods. Rylan looked down at the remote control unit in his hand. He could throw it away, but then again, that would be denying his pack rat sensibilities. He stuffed it back into the duffel bag and mentally noted the data point for future reference: kaiju follow lights.
In the dark, the lamprey fell, and the ground shook.
The little ones were easier to take down than the big ones.
The convoy continued.
Zero Day
Goliad was the sixth kaiju of the summer, and the first to veer towards Texas. Unlike most kaiju that ended up returning to the trench or dying in the middle of the Atlantic, Goliad curved back into the Gulf of Mexico. For five days, Rylan and Tamara watched the reports, studied the charts, and did everything they could to make sure they were ready if Goliad committed to making landfall on Houston.
On September 5, the mayor of Houston ordered the city’s evacuation. Surrounding towns quickly followed. One week later, the fourth largest city in the United States was a ghost town.
On September 13, Goliad came ashore…
Kaiju Fall is available from Amazon here
