Kingdom of Monsters

by John Lee Schneider

  When he'd left them that last day, Rosa had kissed him goodbye. Then he had gone on to save them all, one last time – and she had never seen him again.

  He had told Rosa it was for his wife – that was why he fought – every time.

  Rosa wondered if at least some of it, that last time, was for her.

  Allison had named her child Lucas.

  From Rosa's end, Lieutenant 'Skywalker's' ultimate fate remained inconclusive. She had waited for any of the pilots to return, but none did. The base that had been their sanctuary had been destroyed. And the original group of eight Lucas had trafficked across the apocalyptic tundra had been pared down to just the three of them.

  Bud had approached her on the third day after. They couldn't just sit camped out forever.

  It was a special cruelty that she would never know.

  Rosa realized she should simply be grateful and accept the gift of the life he had saved for her, and not to look the gift-horse in the mouth for not providing her closure.

  Still, once they set on the road, she had taken to hailing military lines, ostensibly because that seemed the most likely route to some semblance of civilization – but, truthfully, she had been looking for some word of Lucas.

  Now, for her troubles, it seemed they had essentially voluntarily consented to what felt more and more like capture.

  She found herself not liking the questions they were being asked – skills, age, fertility.

  They were to be taken to a refugee camp but had been informed resources were strained.

  Allison and baby Lucas were in. Bud, on the other hand, Rosa found herself worrying about. He was not a young man, and the skills of a former journalist were not in great demand.

  He was on-board for now, but as one of the soldiers – one of the sharp-shooters – had remarked, he might get 'phased-out' later.

  This had been after they had picked up Shanna's entourage.

  The soldier, whose badge identified as Wilkes, had expressed surprise that the new group was three-to-one men.

  “That's actually the opposite,” he remarked, “of our marching orders.”

  “Pardon?” Rosa had asked.

  “When pulling in civilians,” Wilkes replied, “first rule – three-to-one, women to men.” He shrugged. “The way I understand it, productive females are greater assets than males.”

  “Assets,” Rosa repeated.

  “It's tougher for us fellas,” Wilkes said, nodding sympathetically to Bud. “On the other hand, we're always at breeding age, so less age-restriction. Fair's fair, right?” He chuckled a little. “Besides, three girls for every guy sounds like a good party to me.”

  Rosa nodded mildly. “And this is where you're taking us?”

  Wilkes nodded back. “They're calling it the Arc Project,” he said. “Repopulate the Earth. Except they're trying to slant the odds over Noah's two-by-two.”

  Breeding stock, Rosa thought. The sort of thing scientists once theorized about – most often in pipe-smoke, spit-ball fashion.

  Hypothetical supposition of dystopian extremes were now apparently guiding policy.

  Wilkes smiled at Rosa reassuringly. “Don't worry. A doctor? Besides being female and all, you're doubly valuable.”

  Rosa absorbed this silently. Had the species really been brought so low that such measures were actually in place?

  Never mind the other implications...

  For the immediate moment, Rosa pushed the incoming thoughts away – that was just too wide-open to speculate on, based on the hearsay of a field-combat soldier.

  It did not, however, on any level, sound good.

  That was when Shanna had spoken up.

  “The Arc Project is Dr. Shriver's plan,” she said. “I know him. He's basing it all on breeding rates with comparable animals, and minimum genetic diversity necessary, and simply assigning the numbers to humans.”

  She shook her head. “The problem is, humans need a society. Reproduction is only part of the issue. What he's setting up at the Mount is an ant-farm.” She considered. “Well, more like a chicken-coop.” She sighed. “That's the problem with myopic experts.”

  Shanna leaned forward across the aisle, offering her hand to introduce herself.

  Rosa felt the odd glow, the almost bewitching air about her. While she shook Rosa's hand, Shanna smiled back at her, as if the touch told her more than her eyes.

  Clearly, Allison had felt it too. When Shanna knelt beside her, it was like a hissing stray cat cozened right up and purring. And Bud, the guard-dog, allowed her within Allison's inner-space. Rosa had barely been granted that privilege during Lucas' birth.

  Shanna's entourage was also an odd cast.

  The most obvious was a braggadocios lout, with the nerve to call himself 'Maverick' – a nickname, she hoped – along with an older gentleman, who appeared to be his father, and simply referred to as 'Mr. Wilson' by their third, somewhat milder companion, who introduced himself as Cameron.

  All three of them hovered around Shanna like a troop of protective malamutes. And while it was clear they were all with her, Cameron seemed to be the one at her side.

  “We were traveling west,” he told Rosa, “but we got recaptured refueling at a depot in Idaho.”

  Not 'captured', Rosa noted, 'recaptured'.

  Who exactly were these people?

  “That was where you picked us up,” Cameron said. “We'd been there three days when we got word all civilians were being moved.”

  The second soldier, a stern fellow, whose badge labeled as Garner, had tapped his rifle butt on the floor like a stomping hoof.

  “That's not something you need to be talking about.”

  Cameron smiled obligingly, sitting back.

  Maverick had leaned forward.

  “You know,” he said to Garner good-naturedly, “I've only known you an hour and I'd already like to kick your ass.”

  Unimpressed, Garner lay his rifle across his lap.

  “You know,” he said, “I'd like to shoot you.” His marksman's eyes leveled back at Maverick's. “Best we don't act on our impulses, don't you think?”

  Maverick nodded to Rosa, smiling winningly.

  “Hey, honey,” he said confidentially, “if you haven't noticed, this guy's a douche-bag.”

  Rosa nodded back, acknowledging freely that there was no shortage of douche-bags handy.

  As if to put a stamp on it, Mr. Wilson reached out and swatted Maverick across the back of the head. “Keep a lid on it, boy.”

  Maverick cussed, rubbing his head, but subsided.

  Rosa found herself wondering what this idiot could have done to make him important enough to be a prisoner. So far, he seemed to be a solid selling point for three-to-one women – an impression that was helped not at all, as he nodded at her with a wink.

  Something about his swagger reminded her of Lieutenant Walker, both seemingly overdosed in testosterone.

  Of course, the difference was just as obvious – Lucas Walker had been an elite cut of military discipline.

  It was a similar discipline that she saw in both Wilkes and Garner.

  Still, she wondered what Lieutenant Lucas might have made of the two of them.

  There had never been a feeling of being expendable under Lucas' watch. At the same time, he also made you willing to follow him through Hell.

  But priorities had changed since Lucas had been alive.

  Rosa wondered what the mission statement would be now.

  Despite being an 'asset'', as Wilkes had phrased it, Rosa felt very expendable.

  She blinked, realizing Shanna was looking at her, and when she spoke, she seemed to answer Rosa's own thought.

  “We're all assets,” Shanna said. “That's why we're going to the mountain.”

  Rosa eyed her warily. She felt an inexplicable impulse towards liking this woman, and her analytical mind didn't trust it. Rosa had known charming people before and knew that personality did not presuppose character. There was, after all, the ch
arm of the Devil.

  “Why are you an asset?” Rosa asked.

  Shanna smiled. “Oh dear. As far as General Rhodes is concerned, I am THE asset.”

  “Who's General Rhodes?”

  Sergeant Garner again started to object, but this time Shanna held up a shushing hand.

  “You just sit still,” she said. “Knowing General Rhodes... and I do,” Shanna paused, allowing the emphasis to sink in, “I'm sure he wouldn't want to hear that you upset me. You're under strict orders, I'm sure.”

  Garner frowned.

  “Ma'am. With all due respect, you're sharing sensitive information.”

  Shanna smiled. “I am,” she agreed. “My whole life is sensitive information. Now hush.”

  “Yeah, douche-bag,” Maverick volunteered. “Hush.”

  Garner eyed Maverick darkly, and Rosa saw his fingers tap, just for a second, on the rifle in his lap.

  Rosa wondered if Maverick wasn't pushing his luck. In this era of expendable civilians and gender-quotas, might not redundant components be dealt with callously?

  Maverick seemed pretty confident in the importance of his own asset, so to speak, but Rosa found herself doubtful if he might not be earning himself a bullet.

  For the moment, Garner's patience held.

  Then the first of the pterosaurs attacked.

  With the same sort of lethally professional movements Rosa associated with Lieutenant Walker, both Wilkes and Garner were at their stations on either side of the chopper in moments. They also took out the leathery flying devils with the same sort of accuracy Rosa had seen Lucas target sickle-claws – elite training.

  The problem was that pterosaurs had a tendency to swarm. An entire group might mob a chopper, letting themselves get chopped up, as if the whirling blades activated some basic instinct, like a bug into an electric zapper.

  Unfortunately, that most often meant the rotor blades were broken away, clogged with the sheer weight of that much chopped meat.

  The pilots seemed to know this – at this point, any chopper pilots who hadn't learned to evade pterosaurs, were probably already dead.

  There was a lurch as the chopper arched upward – altitude and speed, established protocol – first evade the mob, and then outrun them.

  It would have worked if not for a particularly large individual, with easily a fifty-foot wingspan, that caught them sideways.

  Even large pterosaurs were light-boned, but this was still an animal in excess of a thousand pounds, impacting against a flying object the size of a city bus.

  It was enough to smash the windshield, and the six-foot beak that came in through the window impaled the pilot like a spear.

  The creature itself was killed on impact, neck broken, its beak planted through the pilot's chest into his seat, leaving its own dangling body draped over the windshield.

  Rosa felt the chopper lurch into a sudden nosedive as both creature and pilot slumped over the controls. The co-pilot wrestled for the joystick, but it was pinned beneath their combined dead weight.

  Maverick was already up and moving, and was met immediately by Garner, his rifle business-end up.

  This was the moment, Rosa thought, where Maverick pushed it too far – and he clearly intended to, because as he stepped casually past Garner to the cockpit, he extended a stiff straight punch that knocked the soldier out cold.

  Wilkes moved immediately to intercept, but Maverick was already helping the co-pilot pull the impaling beak free of the dead pilot's chest.

  Maverick shouted back angrily at Wilkes, “Don't just stand there, ya damned fool. Help us out!”

  The plummeting chopper seemed to lean into its dive, leaving the passengers clinging to their seats. Wilkes did not so much comply as was thrown forward, and his added strength allowed them to wrench the prehistoric bird-thing loose.

  Rosa didn't see precisely what happened next. As the big pterosaur's corpse started to tumble away, it looked like the head – part air-rudder, part fishing-scythe – caught wind and jerked in the tight compartment, catching the co-pilot in the throat.

  Blood splattered like a hose. Wilkes sputtered as gore splashed his face.

  Maverick shoved him aside, as he yanked the dead pilot out of the seat, grabbing the joystick.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Wilkes shouted. “Are you a pilot?”

  “Grew up flying my daddy's crop-duster,” Maverick replied, straining to pull them level. “How hard could it be?”

  Behind them, Mr. Wilson's eyes were shut.

  “Ah Jeez,” he muttered, “he's gonna kill us all.”

  Centrifugal force was against them, like going into a tight turn too fast – the moment of vertigo as you began to tilt.

  Rosa felt the sickening shift in momentum – the drop in the stomach – the grab of gravity after you step out over a height you know is enough to kill you.

  The mountain below peaked and dropped off rapidly beyond its south face. At the angle they were coming in, their trajectory either put them broadside into the peak itself, or over the top into the canyon beyond.

  The crash-part seemed inevitable.

  Allison clutched baby Lucas, with Bud's arms wrapped tight around them both. Wilkes clung from the doorway to the cockpit, still standing over Garner, who remained out cold. Cameron and Shanna both buckled in. Glancing out the window at the fast-approaching ground, Rosa did likewise.

  Maverick grunted as he strained the joystick and tipped their momentum just slightly over the top of the peak.

  The heavy-duty aircraft hit the descending slope, and began to slide down the opposite side of the mountain.

  Rosa was just thinking how lucky there were no large trees ahead, until she realized that was because there was a drop-off, and open-canyon beyond.

  The impact had crumpled their landing gear, and they were in a free slide.

  “Do something!” Wilkes stammered.

  “What do you want me to do?” Maverick barked back. “Jump out and drag my feet?”

  The spinning rotors sputtered and quit as the big chopper skidded up to the edge of the cliff. The front of the craft slid over the side, dangling into open air.

  But just before the weight begin to tip, the chopper slid to a stop.

  Maverick let out a slow whistle.

  There was a communal escalation of relief from the cabin.

  Mr. Wilson shook his head in open disbelief. “I'll say this for him, the son of a bitch is hard to kill.”

  Allison looked down at stoic little Lucas, who hadn't uttered a sound through the whole thing.

  Rosa was a little speechless herself. She actually couldn't believe they were alive.

  At that moment, Garner sat up groggily, putting a hand to his swelling jaw.

  And Rosa felt the momentum of the chopper shift.

  Then it tipped and fell over the edge.

  Chapter 5

  'Monster Island' was always one of the wilder urban legends.

  Kate certainly never expected to be going there one day. Yet, there she was, out over open ocean in a little rented Cessna, flying low, so as not to be detected by radar.

  It was exactly three weeks before what surviving homo sapiens would start calling 'KT-day' and no one on board had any idea they were ushering in the end of the world.

  Kate had been skeptical when she had first started receiving mysterious e-mails a few weeks before – broken pieces of messages, attached to snippets of video.

  Her first reaction was to assume a put-on. Modern CGI could be convincing, and pranks kept pace with special effects. In 1923, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had previewed cuts from the silent film, The Lost World – subtly implying that the footage was real – and the then-breakthrough stop-motion technology was enough to fool the New York Times.

  Kate's reputation as a journalist was already considered a bit sensational – an accusation she maintained was because she commanded a public following independent of any parent network.

  She actually laughed at the
thought of bringing the networks the brief clip of video, like one of those 'lost-footage' dramas that had become so cliched.

  Although, this clip was well done. Kate looked closely for pixel lines but could find no tells.

  Still, you had what was possible, and what was not – what she saw on this video was obviously impossible, and so that sufficed as its own tell.

  It wasn't until her long-time tech-nerd assistant had analyzed it that Kate had taken a second look.

  Recruited right out of college, Betty had hired-on as a data-analyst and because she was highly adept with computers, although both were really periphery-skills of her primary field of study, which had been genetics – with her particular area of interest being medicinal applications of drugs and chemicals.

  “The resolution on this footage,” Betty pointed out, “is extremely high. Higher than most studios use. It's hard to fake at this level.”

  She had sat back, absorbing the implications for herself.

  “It looks real,” she said.

  For Kate, that was enough to get her going. Unfortunately, she had made the initial mistake of contacting official sources for confirmation – a pesky hold-over of old-style journalistic ethic, that was more of an encumbrance – and the next thing she knew, there were government officials confiscating her computer and her devices.

  Then she had made the greater mistake of calling her father.

  Four-star brigadier General Nathan Rhodes, semi-estranged from a daughter he'd raised alone, and a man of duty before all else. Kate's appeal had the effect of skipping past the rank-and-file, to a directly-ordered cover-up, right from the top.

  She did, however, have the foresight to make a copy of the file, stashed in Betty's purse with her never even knowing, and just as easily retrieved.

  Among other cryptic bits of information – broken-broadcast chop, as if someone had attempted to scrub the entire message before it had even been sent – there also contained latitude/longitude coordinates and a map.

  The destination lay deep in restricted waters.

  No sense going through official sources for permission on this one, Kate had decided It would likely get her in trouble just asking. She would certainly be questioned, and probably detained, General's daughter or not.