Megadrak: Beast Of The Apocalypse

by Christofer Nigro

  CHAPTER 9: The Island of Doomed Souls

  Goro Takiguchi prayed intensely to his ancestors as the high-powered motorboat he rented for over half his savings of 300 yen raced toward Odaiba.

  Even though the small atoll was located on a direct trajectory from Tokyo Bay, he knew it may take too long for the small dinghy to reach its destination before the ETA of the rapidly approaching Megadrak. The young catcher of tuna considered himself lucky to have been previously transported at military expense to a hospital located in the Tokyo Metropolis, as it would have taken him far too long to reach Odaiba if he began the journey from his home in the Yokohama Prefecture.

  The resolute young fisherman supplicated a silent prayer to Susano-o, the Shinto god of the sea, that no inclement meteorological factors would disrupt his arrival time to the island; thankfully, those psychic entreaties to the divine appeared to have been answered. Goro felt a strong feeling of relief when the outline of Odaiba came into view. He made sure to dock at a section of the shore located close to the Metropolitan Daiba Park.

  After Goro concluded a hasty docking procedure, he ran as fast as his legs would take him to the park building where the employees dined during their intermittent breaks. He knew if he didn’t see his mother or sister serving the workers seated in the rec room, they would most likely be present in the kitchen preparing various dishes. As the fisherman entered the park, he was horrified to see so many attending visitors from the Honshu mainland strolling about; the sight struck him with the stark realization that he couldn’t possibly save all of them.

  All Goro could do from this point was to find his two family members, persuade them to immediately travel back to Tokyo with him, and pass on a warning to their boss so he could facilitate a mass evacuation from the park. He understood a communique from the government was in the process of being sent, but the young man was unwilling to take the slightest chance that Major Matsumoto might be insufficiently prompt in getting the Self-Defense Force to issue such a warning.

  The lives of the two most precious people to him in the world depended on his facilitating their departure from the atoll as quickly as possible. Moreover, Goro had to count on their trusting his word enough to heed his directive even without corroboration from the government.

  Goro raced through the grounds to locate the correct building, as he had been there only twice before and hadn’t memorized the layout of the Daiba Park. Hence, the young fisherman was forced to lose precious minutes by inquiring at an information booth to resolve his lack of directional cogency.

  “It would be that small gray building over there,” the annoyed booth administrator said, pointing in the proper direction.

  “The one with the Somei blossom painted in front?” Goro nervously asked for further clarification.

  “Hai, that one. But you cannot go in there, as it is for employees only, and you are certainly not…”

  “My family are employees of this park, and they work in there, damn you!” the anxious young man shouted as he rushed from the booth toward the worker commissary.

  Minutes later, the few personnel who were presently enjoying an early afternoon repast found themselves swerving their heads in the direction of the door when Goro burst into their midst like a madman. He instantly recognized another of the employees, a youth named Taisho, and grabbed his arm in a painfully tight grip to get his attention.

  “Taisho, are my mother and Keiko here?” he inquired with frantic desperation.

  “You are Keiko-san’s brother, right?” Taisho asked in recognition from their one previous meeting.

  “Hai, that is me! Are they here? Please, this is an emergency, you need to tell me where they are!”

  “All right, please settle down. They are in the kitchen. I will get them for you if it is really that important.”

  Goro abruptly ended the conversation and rushed for the doors that led to the kitchen on his own, not willing to wait for Taisho to do it for him.

  The fisherman’s mother, the widowed Gei Takiguchi, nearly dropped the dish she was washing upon her son’s dramatic and wholly unannounced entrance, soo startled was she to unexpectedly see Goro so far from his home in Yokohama.

  Keiko Takiguchi, his sister, was stirring a pot of miso soup on one of the stove burners at the time. The young woman likewise turned in surprise of her sibling’s arrival. Beside her tending to a steaming crock of nigirizushi was Izo, a middle-aged culinary employee.

  “Goro?” Gei called out in surprise.

  “Mother!” he cried in response. “You and Keiko-chan need to leave Odaiba now! And so does everyone else, but I cannot be responsible for all the people here; my priority is the two of you!”

  Keiko left the crackling stove and ran up to her panicked brother. “Goro, what is wrong? Is there a typhoon or tsunami headed here? We would have been informed by the Nippon weather bureau…”

  “No! It is something far worse! It is a monster, one of gigantic size! I swear on all our ancestors’ graves that I am telling the truth!”

  “Um, maybe I had better leave here and get somebody…?” suggested Izo as he headed for the door leading into the main commissary.

  “No, Izo-san, please let us hear my son out,” Gei pleaded. “He is not mentally disturbed, if that is what you are concerned about. He has always been truthful to me, and it seems something has upset him severely.”

  “Mother, Tatsuo is dead,” Goro blurted as tears began forming in his dark eyes.

  “Brother, you have obviously been through much,” Keiko said while forcing herself to take as calm a tone as she could manage. “Tatsuo is that odd friend of yours whom you often fished with, correct?”

  “Hai, and now he is dead,” Goro reiterated. “He was killed by a big worm of some unknown type; one which a few scientists I have spoken to claim they had never seen before.”

  “Where did you hear of this from?” Gei asked.

  “It… happened right in front of me,” her son replied as the tears began flowing. “I tried to help him, but I failed…”

  “Oh, my dear boy,” the always caring Takiguchi matriarch said as she embraced her weeping son.

  “Takiguchi-san, I like you and trust you,” Izo said to Gei, “but are you certain your son is all right?”

  “He clearly is not all right,” the matronly woman answered, “but I am certain he is sane, if that is what you were truly asking.”

  “I meant no disrespect,” Izo said. “But that story about a giant monster headed here? And did he something about a giant worm that killed someone?”

  “There are giant worms out there!” Goro suddenly screeched as he broke from his mother’s tender embrace. “And the ‘someone’ killed by one of those worms was my best friend, mind you! But that is not all that is out there. The kaiju I spoke of is truly a daikaiju, said to be over fifty meters high. And the kaiju is headed for Odaiba as we speak!”

  Keiko placed a comforting hand on her brother’s shoulder before speaking to him with a concerned and. “Goro…”

  “But you did not see this daikaiju in addition to one of those worms?” Izo asked with a hint of obvious incredulity. “Or were you just told about it from someone else?”

  “It was told to me by a reliable source, which was three scientists who had experienced an even worse ordeal than I did!” Goro angrily rejoined. “Stop trying to make my family doubt me! Stop it or I will pound you into a mass of bleeding flesh, you stupid little prick!”

  “Son, please…” Gei said.

  “Do not let this imbecile cause you to doubt me, Mother!” the histrionic young man exclaimed. “I am telling the truth! We need to get the hell out of here now!”

  It was then that Naoya, the portly boss of the culinary staff, entered the kitchen after hearing the commotion disrupting the work of his cooks and dish washers.

  “What is all this?” he asked. “Gei, is that your son?”

  “Hai, Naoya-sama,” the middle-aged woman replied. “And he says we must all lea
ve this island at once.”

  “Are you serious?” the short balding manager inquired as his eyes crinkled in annoyance through a pair of large circular bifocals. “For what reason?”

  Gei motioned with a waving of her hand for her son to remain quiet and let her do the speaking. “He says there is danger headed here, and we need to leave Odaiba for Tokyo without hesitation. He has been through something truly awful, there can be no doubt of that. And I find it very unlikely he would travel all the way here in such a state of mind if he did not truly believe what he said.”

  “But we have a full park today,” Naoya griped. “You, your daughter, and Izo-san are in the middle of preparing lunch for the other workers. I simply cannot authorize you to leave unless I hear something from…”

  “You fat little son of a bitch!” the now completely unhinged Goro shrieked as he lunged at the smaller man and pushed him up against the refrigerator. “My family does not need your authorization to leave this pathetic little island when they are in danger! This foolish job is not worth their lives!”

  “Hey now!” Izo yelled.

  “We will handle this, Izo-san!” Keiko said as she and her mother ran up to Goro and grabbed his arms.

  “Goro, let him go!” Gei shouted with atypical firmness. “We will leave with you, all right? Stop this now!”

  “Unhand me, kisama!” Naoya berated while he struggled to wrest the smaller and younger man’s hands from his collar lapels.

  “To hell with this, I am going to get someone!” Izo decreed as he headed for the door.

  “Please, Izo-san, let my daughter and I deal with this ourselves…” Gei implored.

  Before the cook was given a chance to respond, the door burst open again, and this time an employee named Len from the administrative office hurried in.

  “Um, Naoya-sama…?” the smartly dressed youth said as he saw his boss grappling with an unfamiliar man. “The park office has just received an urgent message from the Diet! We are to evacuate the island immediately! A group of transport copters are now en route to the northern part of the island to get us out.”

  Naoya finally pulled Goro’s hands off his neck. “What is the reason given for this?”

  “Something about a… very large sea creature,” Len answered with a dumbfounded expression. “I believe that is what was said, but I cannot be certain, as the officer on the other end of the line told me that time was of the essence and never explained in detail.”

  “I told you!” Goro uttered loudly. “Mother, Keiko-chan, we must leave now!”

  “Everyone out!” Naoya said without wasting time to make an apology. “Len, get the others from the office to sound the tsunami alarm and tell all visitors to head for the north side of the island.”

  Those were the last words heard by Goro, Keiko, Gei, and Izo from anywhere in the commissary as they left their partly prepared meals and headed out the door.

  “I do not want to chance taking the boat,” Goro explained as they ran through groups of park visitors, “for it would take too long to reach the mainland, and the dinghy is a bit small to accommodate all of us. It would be far safer to let the government fly us out of here than to travel by sea. Mother, do you have access to a car to take us to the northern side of the island quickly?

  “On this island?” she said. “Ha! We need to proceed on foot, I am sorry to say.”

  “Then we must hurry!” Goro insisted.

  Moments later, Izo grabbed his left leg and stumbled with a cry of pain.

  The Takiguchi family stopped momentarily to see what happened.

  “Izo-san, is your leg acting up?” Keiko asked with concern.

  “Hai, it hurts like hell,” the cook in the oil-stained apron confirmed.

  “What?” Goro reacted.

  “He had surgery on that leg not too long ago,” Keiko explained. “It was to repair a torn tendon. I think he may have damaged it again.”

  “Oh, son of a bitch!” Goro cried. “We have no time for this! We must hurry!”

  “Brother, we cannot just leave him here!” Keiko retorted. “He is our friend, and he would not have left us if our situation were reversed!”

  “You do not know how dire this situation is!” Goro yelled. “I already lost Tatsuo, I will not lose you and Mother too!”

  “So, you would leave Izo-san behind because he is not a relation?” Keiko spat back. “Shame on you, Goro-ani! I thought Mother had raised you better!”

  “How dare you!” Goro screamed. “I came all this way to save both of you, and now you imply I am less than a man for caring more about the family than some silly stranger! I am the man of this family now that Papa is gone, and I will honor that responsibility!”

  “Enough of that, Goro!” Gei intervened. “Your sister is correct. We will not leave a friend, no matter what form of danger is approaching. Now either help us, or go on to the north end without us.”

  The tortured fisherman covered his face. “I am no coward, nor am I a bad man, Mother! I just do not want to lose you and Keiko-chan.”

  “Losing our respect will be the same as having us leave this world,” Gei said as she and Keiko struggled to help Izo back on his feet.

  “I am sorry, Mother,” Goro replied. “I… will help. Izo-san. Please forgive me for my behavior, I am just very on edge.” The fisherman ran over and took his mother’s place under Izo’s left arm, and the young man was successfully lifted.

  Izo’s eyelids clamped shut and his teeth gritted from the pain that racked him when he stood up again. “All… is forgiven, Goro-san. But I cannot stand on this leg. It hurts.”

  “Then only put your weight on your other leg,” Keiko instructed. “Goro and I will support you. Just try to move with us as quickly as you can with only your good leg.”

  “I will… try,” Izo muttered with obvious great pain as he began doing what the young woman suggested.

  “I will lead the way to the north part of the island,” Gei said. “Just follow me.”

  The quartet then began their slow trek to what they hoped would be safety. But as the world was soon to discover, hopes are often quite literally crushed whenever a kaiju is on the rampage.

  ***

  Ren Honda hurried towards the southern shoreline of the 3rd Battery with his prize camera in tow; as usual, his trademark too-large fedora nearly slipped off his head a few times as he moved. Accompanying him was Atsushi, the pilot of the copter hired by the Rising Times paper to bring him to Odaiba at record speed.

  “Can you not run any faster so we can get this over with?” Atsushi complained. “That animal, or whatever you said it was, may appear at any moment.”

  “I am not going to risk dropping my camera,” Ren rejoined. “Do you have any idea how much they charge for these things over in Electric City?”

  “Most certainly do, because you never stop boasting about it. I am sure it is easy to afford such things when you can tap into the paper’s expense budget.”

  “No, I bought this beauty on my own savings. As for company expenses, I somehow doubt that helicopter, as cheap and rickety as it looks, was purchased out of your own pocket.”

  “Just take the picture of the animal when it appears so we can be off this silly island and I can get back to my life! You said the thing is supposed to be some type of big animal, right?”

  “A really big one, based on the info I acquired today. It should be impossible to miss once it appears.”

  After another few minutes of bickering, the two employees of the small but respected metropolitan newspaper paused their heated exchange when they noticed several gulls suddenly take off in formation while cawing in a frenzied manner.

  The men turned towards the ocean about a hundred meters from their vantage point on the shore to see a violent churning of the water. It was obvious to both men that some huge object was moving towards them. As the unidentified thing approached, its azure hue came to visual prominence, and its reptilian nature soon became evident. The immense size
of this living creature struck fear into the very marrow of the two men observing it.

  That powerful surge of fear quickly wore off for Ren, to be replaced by excitement as he prepared his camera.

  “Dear gods, will you look at that!” he said.

  Atsushi’s mouth was agape in shock. “Is that… some type of whale?”

  “Not unless there is a whale with blue skin that is scaly like a crocodile and happens to have big finny ears! By the gods above us, the kaiju is real!”

  “What… what type of animal is it?”

  “Let’s just call it a monster, okay? Or, better yet, let us call it what that scientist did: Megadrak!”

  Ren calibrated his camera’s sophisticated photo lens and snapped three quick pictures before the fast-moving kaiju completely emerged from the water to reveal its full terrifying appearance.

  “Dear gods, look at the size of it!” Aksushi screamed. “Such a creature cannot be real!”

  “Then it would appear the non-real has arisen to claim this island!” Ren quipped as he quickly snapped another picture. “Come on, I got my pictures, we had best get back to the copter and fly back to Tokyo!”

  For once, Aksushi had no disagreement with the irksome journalist. The pair of newspaper employees began racing towards the copter parked on the sand several yards away. Ren was the thinner of the two, so he began outpacing his compatriot as they were spotted by Megadrak, whose towering size gave it a wide view of the island. The kaiju then opened its cavernous jaws and sprayed a stream of its lethal corrosive mist at the tiny fleeing humans.

  Ren managed to outdistance the range of the mist, but his slower pilot companion was caught in it. Aksushi screamed in anguish as the foggy cloud that surrounded his body began forming oozing blisters on his exposed skin and leaving deep beige discolorations on his clothing. He collapsed onto the sand, flailing about and shrieking as his skin began falling away from his bones and holes began rapidly materializing on his garments.

  “Aksushi-san!” Ren called as he turned to behold the grisly fate of his fellow employee. What the hell is that smoke from its mouth? Is it radioactive or something? Shit! Who is going to fly the copter now? Oh, dear ancestors, how could this be happening?