Kaiju Rising: Age of Monsters (18 page)

Step 1:
Borrow
a vehicle.

Step 2: Make my way to the monster’s location.

Step 3: … I have no fucking clue.

Unfortunately, the only available vehicle is an abandoned scooter sitting outside the nail salon next to Murphy’s. Quite a sight I make—two hundred twenty pounds of U.S. Marine, buzzing up Vallarta’s rain-soaked hills on a friggin’ pink Honda Metropolitan. But I still gain mucho macho points in the eyes of my adopted Latino brothers. While they race away from the carnage, I charge towards it. Families gawk at me as they flee the scene in pickups and VW busses. I can read their minds.
Gringo loco
.

Explosions rock the street. Smoke swamps the air, filling my lungs with hot ash. To my right, flames hiss under the dribbling rain as they consume buildings and cars. To my left, a downed power line slithers on the cobblestones like a snake in its death throes—the electricity in its veins doing the
snap
,
crackle
,
pop
. I hear the Mega shriek again. Goddamn that hurts. It takes every ounce of my training not to turn tail and run.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

Thunderous footfalls drown out my scooter’s engine. I still don’t have a visual, but I can smell the monster from here. Fill a plastic bag with fish, leave in the sun for a week, then pour the slop on a rotting corpse. That’ll give you an idea of the stench. No doubt about it, I’m closing in.

A Mexican Army Humvee rumbles by, splashing me. It’s the open-air version, a couple of scared soldiers up front, carrying G-3 battle rifles. A third guy in the back mans a .50 caliber Browning machinegun. I know from experience, a few hundred rounds from the Browning might agitate the Mega—like poking a bear with a thumb tack. The rifles won’t even tickle. I need a little more bang-o for my buck.

The scooter slip-n-slides as I bank down a wet side street, then steer back onto the main drag. I get twenty yards when eight tons of vehicular manslaughter fills my vision.
Holy shit
doesn’t cover it.

It’s an armored personnel carrier, flung through the air like a GI Joe toy. I lean into a controlled skid, laying the scooter on its side, trying hard to avoid decapitation. The APC sails over me and crashes into a storefront. Once upon a time the building was a bank. Now it’s a pile of rubble.

I get up, feeling hot road rash burning down my leg. The broken remnants of Humvees and helicopters litter the cracked street. They’re joined by a horde of bloody bodies, some torn to shreds, others crushed. And looming above it all is the Mega—200 feet of nightmare come to life. Gray snake scales cover a hide stretched over sharp bones. Jagged spines trail down a massive tail, pulsing with serpentine veins. Its skull head rolls unnaturally on giant shoulders. Its eyes burn white in deep-set sockets.

The thing lets out a bowel-shaking growl and shows its rotten fangs. Then it stomps towards a squad of Mexican soldiers and SWAT guys hunkered down at the end of the street. The Mega’s ridged tail whips back and forth, smashing
taquerias
and souvenir shops in its wake. Muzzle flashes light up the night and bullets ping off the beast’s armored hide like Tic Tacs.

The monster stops its march long enough to deal with a sniper nest. It shovels a pair of screaming soldiers into its mouth and chomps down. Bloody chunks of human meat rain on the street below.

I’ve seen stabbings and gunshot wounds and limbs blown off by IEDs. All of it pales in comparison to the horror of a Mega rampage. In a few short bounds, the creature reaches the barricades and squishes soldiers under its gargantuan feet, mushing them into a gory pudding of blood, bone, and organs. The rest of the soldiers scurry away. The Mega cranes down and chomps on a fleeing SWAT sergeant. Poor bastard doesn’t even have time to scream. Razor teeth sheer his torso off, leaving only his legs. Momentum carry them a few jerky steps before they wind down and crumple to the ground.

I chase the Mega up the street, side-stepping what’s left of its victims. A few cling to life, but they’re far beyond my help. One soldier crushed by a block wall holds a rocket launcher in his death grip, an old 100mm Blindicide. Aka the “Tank Killer.” Other than African warlords, I had no idea anyone still used these things. It’s basically a Cold War bazooka. No way will it stop the Mega, but if I get a lucky shot—maybe nail it in the eye—I might slow the monster down long enough for backup to arrive. A shit plan, but it’s the best I have.

I sling the launcher and grab the dead man’s pack, loaded with an extra HEAT round. Even half-drunk I can outrun most men. But the Tank Killer slows me down and the Mega’s stride is longer than Usain Bolt could handle.

The Mega cuts left towards Playa de Oro and Vallarta’s marina. Across the waterway, a line of major resorts faces the ocean. These are the city’s biggest buildings, and even during the offseason hundreds of tourists flock to them. Not to mention a platoon of hotel workers. The guests will be huddled in their rooms about now or in exquisite hotel lobbies, eyes glued to TV news. Waiting to be corpses in multi-million dollar tombs.

My lungs heave and my heart does an impression of a thrash metal drummer. I reach the shore and spot the Mega wading across the harbor, swamping nearby yachts. The water barely slows its march. Catching my breath, I shoulder the Tank Killer and take aim. Why did I even bother? The monster carries most of its armor in its back. At this range, my 100 mm bottle rocket would barely break its skin.

Then I see it—a small tanker moored to the docks, no doubt used to refuel cruise ships. I shift my aim. Slow my breath.
Not yet. Wait for it. Wait.

The Mega sloshes right next to the tanker, starting its climb up the shore. I fire.

The HEAT round punches into the tanker’s hull, and the ship goes up in a sun-hot flash. I reel back, shading my eyes against the explosion. The Mega thrashes and screeches. Flames engulf the giant, hopefully boiling its alien blood.

I reload my last rocket and hit the monster again. The boom is a firecracker compared to the tanker’s blazing eruption, but the Mega flinches and lets out a death howl. It’s an alien cry, but I can hear the desperation in it. Still burning, the monster hunches over and sinks out of my sight, flames dancing above it on the water’s surface.

I give the Tank Killer a thank you kiss and let it thud on the ground. Somewhere in a hospital, a little boy is waking from his nightmare. He’ll live to see another day, never knowing how close he was to getting his throat slit. Would’ve been for the greater good, and all that shit. Small fucking comfort.

A muffled shriek kills my good mood. The Mega explodes from the watery depths, steam rising off its burnt scales. For one heart-stopping moment, it turns my way and glares at me with those unholy, white eyes. Then it lumbers to shore, the marina crumbling under its mass. The monster is only three hundred yards from the biggest resort in Puerto Vallarta, and there isn’t a damn thing I can do to stop it.

I turn my back on the destruction and limp off to find my fallen scooter. San Javier Hospital is a fifteen minute ride away.

~

San Javier is a scene out of a Romero flick. Walking wounded stream through the lobby, dazed, bloody, and moaning. Doctors rush from patient to patient, shouting orders to stressed-out nurses and EMTs. Orderlies and security guards sprint to-and-fro, fetching bandages and medicine. So much chaos, no one notices a guy with a road-rash leg slip into the hospital’s
Farmacia
.

It takes thirty seconds to find what I’m looking for, another five minutes to locate the kid’s room on the third floor. I wonder how many lives the Mega has cut down in that time.

A local woman sleeps curled up in a big chair. Little señora with one of those faces that looks permanently tired. The kid’s mom, I’m guessing. But where’s the kid? His IV tube hangs dripping and forgotten.

I sit on his bed, the syringes feeling heavy in my pocket. The plan was to get in, do the deed, and slip away. I didn’t want to hang out with his sleeping mother, looking at the kid’s get well cards. I didn’t want time to think about what had to be done.

Mom stirs. I slow my breathing and go to the window. That’s when I see it, a rinky-dink playground built in the hospital courtyard. A little boy in a hospital gown on the swing set.

I leave mom to her dreams and head for the elevators.

~

The kid on the swing is Carlito Diaz. I know from the Colonel’s file. Scrawnier in person than in the photo. Gauze and medical tape obscures half his face, making me think of a pint-sized Invisible Man. Under the bandage, a bubble of flesh covers the infection site, hot with fever and pulsing with alien veins. I know, because I’ve seen it before on the other hosts.

I keep my head down, avoiding eye contact, but the kid calls out to me anyway.

“Hey, señor, your leg is bleeding.”

Jesus
, I didn’t want to face him. “I know,” I say. “But all the doctors inside are too busy for me.”

“
Si
, because of
el monstruo
.”

The kid’s a slow moving pendulum, his swing gliding back and forth. His heart really isn’t in it. A riot of sound echoes in the distance—explosions and gunfire, and horrible alien roars of victory. The noises drift further and further as the creature stomps its way inland.

The swing post creeks as I sit next to him. I should grab him, jab his neck with the needle, and be done with it. “What happened to your eye?”

His hospital slippers scrape the mud. He tells me his story, speaking Spanish, but with a dash of English creeping in. I catch most of it—the crab thing stinging him, his mom scared shitless, the clueless doctors. He even tells me about his nightmares, like he was seeing the world through the monster’s eyes. As he’s talking, I reach into my pocket, touch one of the syringes.

“
Tengo miedo,
” he says. A rain-cool breeze drifts in from the sea, but fever sweat still streams down his brow. “Now, I got these sounds in my head, like a million dogs all growling in my ear.”

“What if there was a way to make them quiet?” I pull out one of the syringes and show it to him. The blood quickens in my veins. “Just a little pain, then the voices will go away Carlito.”

Fear creeps into him. He slips off his swing and backs away from me. Moving slow, but I can tell he’s ready to bolt. My brain screams.
Now! Do it now!

The kid takes another step back. “But you are not a doctor. How you know my name, señor?”

“
Lo siento,
” I tell him. Grabbing a fistful of his gown, I pull him close. He thrashes in my grasp, trying to wiggle free. I have to shove him against the swing post to keep him from escaping. “I’m sorry.”

My heart pounds. I press the syringe against the flesh of his neck. All I have to do is press the plunger down and he’ll stop squirming.

But I hesitate.

Looking at the cold, hard numbers, it makes no sense. If I let the kid live, tens of thousands of innocent people will die horrible deaths. Yet, I still can’t bring myself to do it. If he had been a grown man or even a teenager, that would be different, but I’ve seen too many dead children—in Iraq, in Afghanistan, then later in Jakarta. I don’t want to add to that pile of discarded innocents.

Maybe the parasite has taken control of him. Or maybe Carlito is just scared and desperate. Whatever the case, he takes advantage of my hesitation and grabs my wrist. His fingers are like steel, impossibly strong for a stick-thin nine-year-old. He shoves me away, so hard I stumble backwards and crash into the mud. A sharp pain flares. The needle sticks out of the flesh of my forearm.

Carlito races to a gate leading out of the hospital’s courtyard. I rip the syringe from my arm and shout to him. He vanishes into a back alley. I scramble to my feet, ignoring my bloody leg, and dash after him. Pumping hard, I begin to close in.

Mexico City,
I tell myself.
Twenty million. How many are children?

As strong as he is, his little legs simply can’t match my stride. I reach into my pocket, finding the other needle. Maybe one will be enough. Maybe…

The syringe must have hit a vein in my arm because the world does a hazy tilt and my feet turn to lead. I tumble to the rough blacktop, my whole body going numb. Damn stuff works fast.

“Carlito, wait.” The words come out a slur, but Carlito doesn’t listen. Instead, the boy hangs a hard right turn and disappears into the night.

~

For hours, Carlito sat in the little tool shed, listening to the helicopters overhead, their blades going
thump
…
thump
…
thump
. Once in a while, their searchlights would sweep over his hideout and harsh white light would pour in through the windows and door cracks. They were hunting for him, just like that big man with the needle had been. Carlito wished they would go away. He was tired and hungry and he wanted to see his
madre
more than anything. But something in his brain willed him to keep hidden.

So Carlito stayed put and drifted in and out of sleep. Each time, the nightmares came. He heard the growls and the weird, gurgled whispers. Then he was seeing through the monster’s eyes again. Visions of fire and destruction, of crumpled towers and dead bodies. He watched army helicopters swarm the creature like flies. But their guns and missiles barely slowed it down. And when the monster shrieked, some of the helicopters dropped from the sky like broken toys.