As they were completing the long journey down the corridor, they suddenly felt the entire hallway shake. Melissa gave her husband a worried look. Luke smiled, “I have been conducting a preference assessment with Chimera. Basically, it means introducing new things to him to find out what he enjoys interacting with. Given that he is composed of part of gorilla and lion, a ball seemed like a good place to start. I had the largest rubber ball in existence constructed for him. It allows him to get some exercise and adds more to his life than simply fighting and earning food.”
Melissa smiled and hugged Luke, “Only you would think about assuring that a giant government-made monster got the most that he could out of life.”
Luke shrugged, “Chimera is more than a monster or a weapon; he is my student. I see working with him in the same light that I saw myself working with students with autism. In both cases, I have two goals. To teach them functional skills and to improve their quality of life. Chimera has already mastered the functional skill of protecting humanity from threats. Now I have to add the improving quality of life aspect to his curriculum.” He paused for a moment and his voiced softened, “The ball is at least something. I wish I could do more for him to help him enjoy his life.”
Melissa placed her hand on his shoulder, “Don’t worry. I have faith that you will find something else he will enjoy.”
The ground shook again and Luke and his family bounced up and down a little. They took a few steps forward to where they could see Chimera running back and forth across the massive area that held him. Stacy screamed, “Daddy, I see him!” she jumped down from his arms and went sprinting to the observation deck. Melissa looked a little scared but Luke reassured her, “She can only make it to the observation deck. She will be perfectly safe there, and even if she were to run into the pen, Chimera is perfectly safe around humans. I have even been working with him on putting his ball down when humans are around.”
Stacy ran up to the observation deck and simply said, “Wow!” The toddler Sally asked to be put down. She hit the ground and immediately ran after her sister to the observation deck where she gave a “Wow!”
Melissa and Luke quickly followed them and Melissa fought the urge to say, “Wow” when she saw Chimera for the first time in person. Chimera pushed the ball away from him and then did a summersault as he pursued it. The monster was making the excited sounds that a gorilla would make if he were playing with a favorite toy. Toombs was quietly sitting at his desk in the observation room reviewing some of Chimera’s vital signs. This was the first time that he had seen Luke with his family. Toombs shook his head as he thought, wasn’t it enough that Luke was tall and athletic? That he had the admiration and respect of Diana? That he was the one seen on the news leading Chimera into battle and the new hero of millions? All he did was train the monster? Didn’t the man who created the creature deserve at least some of the credit? Toombs stood up and stormed out of the room. Luke turned around to introduce his family to Toombs when he saw the doctor walking out of the room. Luke called out to him but Toombs either didn’t hear him or he chose to ignore him.
Melissa kept her eyes on Chimera even though she was talking to Luke, “I saw him on TV but to see him in person gives you a different perspective.” She shook her head as Chimera picked up the massive ball and studied it for a moment before throwing it across the compound and then bounding after it. She whispered, “Look at the way that he examines the ball. You can see that he is studying it.” She looked to Luke, “I know that you said it but from the pictures I saw on TV I could only think of him as a monster, but you are right, he is more than that, isn’t he?”
Luke nodded, “He is roughly about as intelligent as a two-year-old human.”
Melissa gestured to her youngest daughter, “Are you telling me that Chimera is as smart as Sally?”
Luke nodded, ‘Well, in an overall sense, yes. Obviously, he does not have the communication skills that Sally has, but if we were to test the two of them on various types of intelligence, their overall scores would come out to be roughly the same.”
Stacy grabbed her dad’s leg, “Daddy, I don’t want to see this stinky monster anymore. Can we go and see that pony I saw you riding on TV?”
Luke laughed, “I don’t think Jason would like being referred to as a pony! Yes, we can go see him. You know that if you give him a carrot he will be your friend for life!”
Stacy jumped for joy. “Daddy please, please, please. Let me give him a carrot!”
Luke picked up Stacy, “I might know where we can find a carrot or two.” The floor shook again as Chimera went tumbling after his ball once more. Luke pointed to the kaiju, “Say goodbye to Chimera, girls.”
Stacy said a quick goodbye and Sally followed with “Bye, monster. Bye,” and then she blew him a kiss. Luke then led his family down to the stables where they met Jason. The girls and Melissa were all enthralled with the majestic warhorse. Stacy once more referred to him as a pony to which Luke suggested that he was a noble steed. Luke and his family enjoyed their day together. The time with his family not only refreshed Luke, but it helped remind him what he was fighting for. They were preparing to leave the stable and head home when Luke’s phone rang.
The caller ID flashed the name of Parsons across the screen. He looked to Melissa, “Duty calls.” He answered the phone, listened to what Parsons had to say, then he ended with the military style, “Yes, sir.” He turned to Melissa, “There is something going in the Middle East that looks like it will require Chimera’s attention.”
Melissa’s face lost its color, “The Middle East! What happened to the no active combat zone part of this job?”
Luke hugged his wife, “Believe me, the world as a whole is starting to see that fighting each other is something we can longer afford to do. If the gods are attacking the Middle East, the various groups of people there will soon find themselves faced with a common enemy. The only threat will come from the gods and their monsters and I have Chimera to deal with them. I will be fine.” He looked into his wife’s eyes, “I will miss you and the kids though. Hopefully with the rubber covering added to the Argos we won’t lose contact with you again for so long.” He gave his wife a hug and kiss then reached down and hugged his kids before running off to join Parsons and the rest of the team onboard the Argos.
Through a portal beyond the abilities of human senses to perceive, a single eye watched the interactions with Luke and his family. A massive hand reached up to scratch a chin buried under long white beard as the wisest of all of the gods studied his enemy.
Chapter 25
Baghdad, Iraq
Aiden stood in the shadows of one of many alleyways of the streets of Baghdad. He was watching as a platoon of tanks and soldiers composed of collation forces as well as the Iraqi army marched down one of the main streets of the city. The soldiers thought that they were marching to meet the Colossus and stop him from spreading his plague across the country. Aiden was keenly aware, however, that the soldiers were marching to their deaths. Even if the military believed that they stood a chance against the Colossus in direct combat, they had no idea what was circling in the air above them at an altitude far too high for any human to see it.
Aiden watched as the Colossus turned the corner and began marching toward the military. With each step, the Colossus of Death covered an entire city block and as he passed each block any human within one hundred feet of him immediately develop lesions and boils on their skin. As if the Colossus itself was not disturbing enough, there was also the parade of newly deceased corpses that followed him and were constantly being absorbed into his body to replace the corpses that fell apart as a result of being part of the gargantuan horror.
Even for Aiden, it was difficult to look at the Colossus. The grotesque creature’s body was constantly in motion as some corpses fell off of it and others either jumped onto its foot or scaled the creature to be interwoven into the mass of the dead.
The sun was high in the air and the temperature
was sweltering, causing the smell of the rotting giant to permeate throughout the city. Aiden watched as several of the hardened soldiers vomited at the combined sight and smell of the Colossus. Still Aiden had to admit that the men and women of the military were brave. They continued to march toward the Colossus even though they must have known by now that doing so would expose them to the plague that the giant carried with it. In a way, Aiden knew that most of the soldiers would be rewarded for their bravery as they would not suffer from the sickness of the Colossus and that their deaths would be quick.
There were at least twenty tanks lined in rows of two with the soldiers intermixed within them and behind them. The tanks rolled to a stop roughly ten blocks from the Colossus and took aim. The tanks were about to fire when a huge shadow fell over the city. Aiden found the shack that he was looking for and stepped inside the doorway. He saw the family that was cowering in the corner looking at him in disbelief. Aiden typically dealt with humans with an arrogant demeanor but in the shadow of the Colossus he actually pitied them. He spoke to the family in their native language, “Don’t worry, I am here to offer my assistance.” The father of the family simply shook his head at Aiden. Aiden could see that the man was clearly terrified beyond belief at what was happening around him.
Aiden looked back out of the door to see the shadow over the city growing larger by the second. The soldiers looked skyward to see the massive Anzu swooping down at them. The creature opened its eagle-like wings as its lion’s head emitted an ear-shattering roar. The roar was followed by multiple crashes of thunder and flashes of lightening. The tanks and all of their electronics were rendered inert. The soldiers began to fire their useless rifles at Anzu as he continued to flap his wings unleashing hurricane force winds in conjunction with continued bursts of lighting. In under a minute, the entire defense force had been slain by Anzu. The lion-headed eagle roared then took back to the sky. When the Colossus walked over the fallen soldiers their corpses rose off of the ground and they began to follow the walking horror. Aiden turned around to face the family huddled in the corner awaiting their deaths as the Colossus approached their home. The family consisted of a father, mother, two sons and two daughters. Aiden kept his eyes fixed on the oldest daughter. She was a beautiful girl of nineteen years old. He approached the family and addressed the father and the daughter, “That creature will be here in a minute and you will all die from the plague it is spreading.” Aiden paused for a moment to let the words sink in. He knew full well that he could have simply taken the girl and there would have been nothing the rest of the family could do about it. While he truly did not care if any human lived or died, he did understand that to die as a result of being exposed to the Colossus was an experience that he would not wish on any creature. With that in mind, he used the family’s beliefs to give them some small measure of comfort in their final moments. He spoke in a very sincere tone, “Your oldest daughter has been chosen by Allah to be saved from the horror that is coming. I will take her and spare her the suffering which accompanies the giant.”
The mother burst into tears and wrapped her arms around her remaining children as the father praised Allah, kissed his daughter, then handed her over to Aiden. Aiden took the girl in his arms as she looked at her family and whispered that she loved them. The ground shook as the Colossus took another step closer to the family’s house. Aiden placed his hand on the girls chin and turned her head to face him, “Time to go.” Aiden then kissed the girl and in a flash they disappeared. Aiden and the girl had no sooner vanished than lesions began to appear on the skin of the huddled family. Several minutes later, the corpses of the family were part of the ever growing walking dead that followed the Colossus waiting until they were called to become part of the nightmare.
Chapter 26
Two hours after alerting General Parsons to the horror that was currently taking place in Iraq, Diana found herself aboard the Argos and once more in the briefing room. She was sitting with her laptop and putting together the final aspects of her presentation on the threat that they were going to intercept. Given the location of the activity, she was pretty much certain that the Mesopotamian gods were making their play. From the reports that she was receiving, she was able to identify at least one of the kaiju that was currently attacking the Middle East. The lion-headed eagle was almost assuredly Anzu. She laughed to herself that only a few short weeks ago she was telling her college class that myths about giant birds were actually reports of Teratorns. She could just hear some of the students jumping at the chance to tell her how wrong she was now that Anzu himself was flying around Iraq.
While she knew who Anzu was, the other creature was more of a mystery. There was nothing in Mesopotamian mythology or any other mythology about a plague-spreading giant composed of hundreds of corpses. Her best guess was that the creature was an avatar of one of the Mesopotamian’ goddess.
Diana was also starting to gather numerous reports from all over the world about abductions that were taking place involving a blond haired man and woman who seemingly abducted people in a flash of light. She suspected that the abductions may be related to the god’s declaration that they were going to take numerous attractive people as breeders for a new race of hybrids. She did not yet have enough information to present the situation to Parsons. She was unable to identify who or what these two blonde people were and without identifying them she would not be able to start researching various mythologies on how to stop them.
She had just typed the last few lines of her report when Parsons, Toombs, and Luke walked into the room. When she saw that the men remained standing, so she too stood up, knowing that Parsons was about to turn on the monitor that was linked to the President’s situation room.
The monitor came on showing the face of the president. Parsons saluted and immediately began to fill the president in on the situation in Iraq, “Good morning, Mr. President. Yesterday we received information that a giant composed of corpses appeared outside of Kurdistan. We suspect that it may have originally been formed from the corpses buried in the mass gravesite outside of the city. It seems that giant carried a plague into Kurdistan that wiped out the entire population of the city. The giant is currently making its way across Iraq and spreading the plague, killing thousands of people per day. We also have unconfirmed reports that bodies of the plague victims are following the giant. When armed forces attempted to confront the giant, they were attacked and wiped out by a massive winged creature. The good news is that this plague burns itself out quickly in that is only being spread by the giant. So far everything that we know indicates that if we are able to stop the giant, then we will be able to stop the plague without having a pandemic on our hands.” Parsons motioned to Diana, “I will now allow Ms. Cain to review with us what we are up against.”
Diana stood up and brought her report onto the screen showing an artist’s rendition of Anzu, “This creature is Anzu. He is a giant bird with the head of a lion and he is the Mesopotamian god of storms. He had wiped out the platoon that encountered him, but given our experience with Zeus, it is likely that he also possess the power to generate EMPs and therefore shut down much of our technology.”
She clicked to another slide showing a decrepit corpse of a woman, “There is really nothing in Mesopotamian mythology that describes a giant composed of corpses. We have heard that some people in the area are referring to the giant as the Colossus of Death.” She then highlighted the woman on the screen, “Given that we know the giant is spreading a plague, I suspect that he may be an avatar or representative of the Mesopotamian goddess of death and plague known as Akhkhazu. It seems that the Colossus and Anzu are operating in the same fashion that the Charybdis and the Scylla served for the Olympians. With the Colossus spreading the means of mankind’s demise, and Anzu acting as his guardian.”
The President addressed the entire team with his next line of questioning, “Okay then. How are we going to deal with the current threat and how do we put an end to this sect of gods per
manently?”
Parsons handled the first part of the question, “In regards to the Colossus and Anzu, the Argos should arrive in the Middle East in the next twenty four hours. The current path of the Colossus has him headed directly for Saudi Arabia. At the speed he is moving, we should be able to have Chimera intercept the Colossus and presumably Anzu shortly after they cross the border into Saudi Arabia. The good news is that much like the Charybdis, this plague seems to only be affecting humans so Chimera should be able to engage the Colossus directly. Mr. Davis and the strike team that will support him will be placed in hazmat suits as protection against the plague. I will defer to Ms. Cain for the final solution to this sect of gods.”
Diana sighed as she offered her explanation on how to end the threat of the Mesopotamian gods, “These gods did not have definitive base of operations in the way that the Olympians used Mount Olympus. In Mesopotamian mythology, their supreme god Marduk lived on the banks of the Euphrates River in Babylon or what is current day Hillah. Mythology also suggests the Marduk is in possession of the Tablets of Destiny. These tablets are said to be the source of all knowledge and understanding. If we are able to find and defeat Marduk, these tablets should contain the information on how to force the Mesopotamian gods to leave Earth for good.” Diana took a deep breath, “I cannot guarantee that these tablets exists or even if they do that we will be able to use them, but given what he have seen the past few weeks, the possibility that they are real seems plausible.” She could see from the look on the President’s face that he was not overly pleased with all of the unknowns in this course of action. She shrugged her shoulders, “At the very least if we march Chimera directly into Babylon it should be enough to get Marduk’s attention.”
Chimera: Scourge of the Gods: A Kaiju Thriller Page 11
