The two hapless people felt their eardrums almost burst at the sound of Mason’s jet crashing to the ground at what turned out to be about thirty meters directly to their left.
The fiery explosion of the fuel sent numerous pieces of the downed vessel’s hull all over the lawn of the Diet grounds. Goro and Risa screamed in horror as a piece of the fighter craft’s wing bounced off the ground less than one yard from their hiding hole and embedded itself in the soil just a few meters left of their location. They both knew this meant they had just narrowly avoided being bifurcated by the steel-plated object.
A moment after that, the heat wave from the oxidized fuel poured over the opening of the furrow in which they hid, and the duo screeched anew as the back of their clothing was set afire in several places.
The panic-stricken Goro jumped up again. “I am burning!”
“Start rolling on the ground!” Risa hollered as she leapt out of the trench herself. “Now!”
Both began doing exactly that in a manic effort to smother the flames all over their back, buttocks, and lower legs. Within less than thirty seconds the flames were successfully snuffed, though both were still afflicted with a few painful first degree burns on the affected areas. Goro additionally received a painful, fist-sized second degree burn on the back of his neck and lower scalp.
The gods appeared to be maintaining their generosity to these two. But each knew better than to push their luck when it came to the whims of the deities.
“We have to get out of here!” Goro shouted as piercing pain from his various cuts and burns erupted all over his body.
When Risa finally stood again, she was covered in dirt and little bits of grass, with many small burns and abrasions visible on her cheeks, arms, and neck. Her slightly longer than shoulder length hair was singed in numerous places, and by now quite unkempt. Goro hated seeing her like that, but he was amazed at how beautiful she still appeared to him regardless.
“We should go that way, through that clearing over there,” she said while pointing her index finger in the appropriate direction. “There may be some military vehicles…”
“We will not have the keys!”
“Maybe some will have keys left in the ignition or something, damn you! Stop looking for things to complain about and just move, Goro-san!”
The duo turned as they heard the by now readily recognizable rumble of Megadrak moving toward them. This ominous sound gave them the will to begin running toward the road Risa pointed to, despite knowing full well that between the kaiju and the artillery fired on it by the F-51s, a ghastly death of some sort was likely imminent for them. The generosity of the gods was notorious for its limits.
Numerous thoughts flashed through the two’s respective psyches as they ran with every expectation of meeting their maker within moments.
Keiko, I am sorry I never found you; Mother, I love you and I will join you now…
Aoki, I am sorry I never got to hold you one final time…
***
“Did you see what that thing did, Captain?” Lemke yelled rhetorically into his mic.
“How many times I gotta tell you that you’re not the only one in this unit with eyes, Lemke!” the commanding officer replied with obvious frustration in his voice.
“It actually threw stuff at us!” one of the other pilots, a man named Egan, said. “It knocked Dackett and Manson right out of the sky! What kind of lizard can possibly do that?”
“This is no ordinary animal,” Sterns said in response, “in case that hasn’t become obvious yet.”
“Jared and Kenta were hit by that building material it tossed at them too,” a squad pilot named Hill reported. “Both are trying to regain control of their craft, but Jared’s fighter is smoking and it’s veering about out of control. He needs to eject!”
“But you saw what it did to Dackett after he ejected!” Lemke inquired nervously.
“Yeah, we saw,” Captain Sterns clarified, “so we have to give those men the cover they need. I want the next unit of four to let loose with their guns on its torso and face, while Lemke, Nevins, and Lance hit it from behind.”
The combined machine gun fire from six jets assailed Megadrak from the front and directly behind, which caused the kaiju to swing its arms at the craft in a series of manic attempts to grasp one of the troublesome aerial constructs in its crushing grip, or to at least knock them out of the sky with a swipe of its bludgeoning arms. This gave Jared the opportunity to eject with the kaiju being too occupied to do the same to him as it did to the unfortunate Dackett. The jets strove to move in as close as they could to deliver maximum piercing power for their bullets while giving them enough “elbow room” to swerve away from the kaiju’s attempts to grab or swat them.
Most of the planes succeeded, but one of them, piloted by a name named Gleason, found his craft being abruptly snatched in mid-air, with the monster’s grip being strong enough to completely halt the aircraft’s inertial thrust. Megadrak immediately moved the metallic object between its enormous jaws and crushed the fusillade flat in its ultra-dense teeth. In mere seconds Gleason was crushed to the width of paper inside the flattened canopy.
“Gleason! Jesus!” Nevins bellowed into his mic.
“Keep firing!” Sterns commanded briskly. “Don’t let Gleason’s sacrifice be in vain! Cover for Jared!”
***
Back on the ground, Goro and Risa stood looking confused about where to run next, as Kenta’s jet was flying haphazardly, and they couldn’t tell if it would plunge to the ground, or where the likely point of impact would be if it did.
“Which way should we run?” Goro inquired.
“I am not certain!” Risa replied. “That jet is wobbling all over the sky. It can come down anywhere! If it should hit the ground close to us…”
“But we cannot just stand here! Megadrak may notice us at any moment, and more planes will probably be coming down too!”
“Shut up and allow me room to think, alright?”
Despite the relentless salvo of the powerful machine guns mounted on the F-51s, Megadrak stood firm to resist the gunfire battering its nigh-impregnable hide, as if to show its airborne opponents that it could take anything they unleashed against it.
The mighty kaiju would then once more display an apparent sense of primal vindictive sadism towards its territorial rivals. It did this along with another display of its ability to think and plan in a similar manner to how one of the more intelligent primates might do so, by tossing the crumpled metallic husk of Gleason’s craft at the rapidly descending body of the parachuting Jared.
The pilot saw the crushed metal craft hurtling towards him as if flung from a gigantic slingshot, and he did his best to try and use what his mates at the pinball arcades used to call ‘body English’ to maneuver himself out of its path in mid-air. He ultimately failed, as the remnant of the plane’s wing struck his head and smashed it right off his shoulders in a shower of crimson mixed with brain and skull fragments.
“You son of a bitch!” Sterns hollered into his mic.
Both Goro and Risa shrieked as blood, brain matter, and other tiny remnants of Jared’s skull sprinkled down on them from above as the afternoon breeze dispersed these organic bits over a wide swath.
The duo screamed anew at the sight of Jared’s headless body—whose parachute line was severed by the same metal wing fragment that decapitated him—hitting the ground just a few feet away from them. The view of the pilot’s body, twisted and broken by the impact of the fall as blood spurted from the stump of his neck, caused Goro to immediately vomit a stream of bile and gastric acid. Risa simply covered her eyes and gasped.
The situation soon became even more grave when they realized their twin set of screams had alerted the keen hearing of Megadrak, who discerned the sound over even the racket caused by the jet fighters whining about the sky. The kaiju’s equally acute olfactory senses also promptly picked up their distinctive scents.
All seemed lost for Goro and Ris
a as the titanic predator began heading directly for them, being only several hundred meters away to begin with. The great beast continued to shrug off the aircraft’s incessant gunfire as if they were raindrops as it approached its quarry.
The duo’s grave situation took another unexpected turn when they heard a military grade truck driving towards them and then honking its horn to get their attention. The pair turned to see the recognized face of Koji pull the vehicle right up beside them.
“Hurry and get in!” he shouted as loud as his larynx could muster.
Goro and Risa wasted not even a micro-second before jumping onto the back of the truck. Koji then hit the accelerator and turned the vehicle towards the road leading out of the Diet area at top speed. They missed being crushed under Megadrak’s enormous clawed foot by mere seconds. They were still hardly safe, however, as the draconic monster began moving in close pursuit, its huge stride enabling it to keep pace even with the truck’s top speed.
“Sir!” Lemke barked into his mic. “There are people down there! They have a vehicle and the kaiju is in pursuit of them!”
“Just wonderful!” Sterns lamented. “All right, let’s pursue the pursuant and await our next orders. That stupid bastard is going to run right into the ground support heading our way!”
CHAPTER 20: The Road Warriors
Koji cursed loudly as he first noticed the several large dull green objects approaching their location on the opposite end of the road leading back to the Akihabara district of Tokyo.
“Tanks,” he whispered with frustrated indignation. “And there is no way we can get around them.”
“Oh shit,” Risa said, “and please do pardon my language. But my cuts and burns are really stinging, and Goro-san and I need to get our injuries medically treated before they get infected.”
“I agree,” Goro added. “The burn on the back of my neck is really hurting, and it feels as if it is oozing or something.”
Koji was certainly not unsympathetic to his passengers’ suffering, as the very purpose for his taking such a big risk to return for them was to see to their safety. But he knew he could not get past the row of six Sherman tanks blocking the road just a few meters in front of them (these tanks being “loaned” to the Self-Defense Ground Force by the US military, and partially operated by American soldiers still stationed there from the post-war occupation).
Moreover, as he stopped a short distance from the large armored fighting vehicles, he saw the command officer of the ground unit step out of the lead tank and walk towards their truck with an angry scowl on his visage. The imposing military officer, a Japanese man of notable height with a close-cropped haircut, motioned with his hand for Koji and his two passengers to exit the vehicle.
“I am Colonel Okabe,” the unusually tall Japanese man said in a gruff voice. “Who are you people? And what are you doing in a military-issue truck?”
“Please let me do the talking,” Koji said to his two compatriots standing behind him before responding to the colonel’s query. “My name is Koji Sagawa, and these are my… friends, Risa and Goro. I am helping them escape from the Diet building, where we were being debriefed. The whole area was laid waste by the kaiju, and now…”
“I know about the kaiju!” the colonel hollered directly into the younger man’s face. “Do you think my men and I travel in tanks and full military regalia when we’re going on a social outing to a movie theater together?”
“I am aware you knew that, General!” Koji replied with a forced veneer of respect. “I was in the process of telling you that the kaiju is headed this way, and I need to get these friends of mine to safety and the medical attention they require.”
“So, you absconded with a military vehicle?” the colonel asked indignantly.
“The Diet had been evacuated!” Koji responded while growing noticeably frustrated. “That is, all but those civilians being interrogated about the kaiju, and the officer doing the interrogating! General Nakamura gave his life so that I and these others could escape with our own! So yes, I absconded this vehicle to get them the hell out of there! Now, will you please let us get the hell out of here, General?”
Okabe stepped forward and crouched over slightly so that his surly countenance was less than two inches from Koji’s face. “Mind… your… tone, mister.”
Koji was then thoroughly startled as Okabe threw his arms out sideways and emitted an ear-splitting wail right in his face.
The younger man jumped back, only to see a horrifically familiar reddish, tubular creature slither completely out of the tall grass on the right side of the road where it was concealed to coil about the colonel’s body like a python. The Glyceracon’s grotesque anterior region wasn’t visible, as its fangs were apparently sunk into the back of Okabe’s right leg just beneath his buttocks.
Goro and Risa jumped in unison with Koji when the military officer screeched in agony as the giant worm’s hook-like teeth tore into his flesh and attached themselves to the sinews underneath.
“No!” Risa hollered. “Koji-san, it is one of the worms!”
“Please hold on, Colonel!” the youthful naturalist exclaimed as he attempted to maneuver around the worm’s writhing coils to grab a firearm from one of the military officer’s holsters.
The task was made difficult when Okabe was pulled to the ground, pinning one of his holsters under his body. Part of the monster coelomate entwined around his hip region, thus covering the colonel’s other holstered revolver. Koji desperately attempted to pull that part of the creature’s body off the holster, but its strength resisted his own.
“Goro-san!” the young naturalist yelled behind him. “Get over here and help me!”
Goro Takiguchi stood with his arms flailing and his mouth gaping wide, confused and beginning to panic. “I… I do not want to go near it! What if it bites me next! You saw what it did to that other woman, the little girl’s mother…!”
“You useless imbecile!” Koji rejoined as he continued his thus far futile efforts to pull the mid-region of the worm’s coils away from the gun holstered to the colonel’s right hip. “Then go to one of the tanks and bang on it to get the attention of the men inside!”
“I will help you with that, Koji-san!” Risa proclaimed in Goro’s stead, and she ran over to the Imotojima native to add her strength to his.
“Okay, okay… I will go to the tank!” Goro said, inspired and shamed by Risa’s selfless act compared to his own timidity.
As Goro pounded on the side of the thickly armored tank parked a short distance from the horrible tableau ensuing before him, both Koji and Risa pulled as hard as they could on the portion of the worm’s body that covered the colonel’s right hip.
The military man proved as tough as nails with the way he fought and punched on the giant annelid’s tubular body entangling him, even as the worm drank deep from his bodily fluids. Those blows, however damaging they would have been to a fellow human, were all but fruitless against such a strong non-human adversary.
Koji and Risa grunted loudly as their combined strength finally wrenched a small part of the worm’s coils from Okabe’s visible hip. It was just enough for Koji to wrest the gun out of its holster.
“Risa-san, I need you to push the colonel over!” he said as he stepped back several feet. “I need to get a clear shot at the worm’s head!”
Risa pushed her fingers underneath Okabe’s still-struggling body, ignoring the searing pain from both the burns on her arms and backside, as well as the hefty combined weight of the man and worm crushing down on her phalanx bones. With one mighty heave accompanied by a loud grunt of strained effort, she succeeded in rolling over the military officer, thus exposing the anterior region of the worm. The woman winced at the sight of the annelid’s bowel extended from its mouth, at the end of which were the quartet of hook-shaped fangs that held fast to the hamstrings in the colonel’s upper thigh.
“Risa-san, stand back!” Koji shouted as he took aim with Okabe’s borrowed firearm.
<
br /> After the young woman did as requested, Koji let off two shots into the worm’s head. Though its blood-like ichor spewed out of the two large puncture wounds and its body writhed about in pain-induced spasms, it remained alive and held fast to the colonel’s flesh.
Koji therefore aimed again, taking a few seconds to judge the distance, and pulled the trigger. The bullets fired from the piece were sufficiently high caliber that the third shot blew the annelid’s anterior section to gory smithereens. Two of its four fangs detached from the colonel’s leg and fell to the road.
Koji pocked the firearm and ran to check the military man’s condition. Okabe was still conscious but trembling with agony.
“Colonel, brace yourself,” the naturalist told him, “as I must pull the remaining two fangs from your leg. They are hook-shaped, so it will hurt.”
“Just… do it,” Okabe said while gnashing his teeth. “I am a soldier… not a temple servant.”
“All right, here comes the first.”
Koji tore out the first fang with as much care as possible, so a minimum of flesh was ripped off with it. It was still enough to make the colonel cry out in pain. The officer gritted his teeth harder and determined he would not scream again when the second was pulled.
At that moment the hatch atop another tank opened, and Lieutenant Kelley O’Reilly, the colonel’s second-in-command of the ground unit, stuck the top half of his body out. Upon seeing what was taking place on the road without fully understanding it, the Irish-American infantryman drew his firearm and called out in passable Japanese.
“Colonel?” He aimed his revolver specifically at Koji. “Hold it right there, mister!”
“He is helping Colonel Okabe!” Risa said loudly. “He saved his life as well! Please do not shoot him!”
O’Reilly looked at his obviously pain-ridden and seriously injured commander, his revolver still drawn as he assessed the situation. “Colonel…?”
“She speaks… truth!” Okabe said after suppressing his pain just enough to utter that terse statement.
Megadrak: Beast Of The Apocalypse Page 21
