I’ve been attacked! he thought. But then his whole body ground against something rough. His journey down the river had come to a halt. Chris lifted his head to find himself lying on the smooth stoned surface of a barren riverbed. A fish flopped nearby, slapping itself to death on the stones.
He sat up, trying to make sense of this new world. The mountain, he thought. It blocked the river.
The ground shook again. Without the water buffering the blow, it felt like he’d been punched. The stones in the riverbed rattled. And then, screams. Three high pitched voices he recognized. Yosakon, Gan and Tanipat. The three men, eyes wide, clothing dripping wet, scurried over the river-bed rocks. They stumbled and fell, covered in blood, but they never stopped.
And then Chris saw why. The monster that looked like Nemesis had arrived. It towered over the jungle, eyes forward. Its massive tail swept back and forth as it walked, leveling the jungle, sending trees flying. But it never looked down. Never acknowledged their existence. It was simply passing through.
We just need to get out of the way!
Chris shouted to his friends to follow him as he ran for the shore. They could never outrun the monster, but if they could just get out of the way, they might—
BOOM!
The riverbed beneath Chris’s feet lifted up and then fell away. He toppled forward, striking his head on a stone. A flash of white filled his vision for a moment and sent a wave of nausea through his body. He rolled over—and screamed.
A giant clawed foot with black and twisted skin descended toward him. He shrieked with primal fear, wondering what the end would feel like, wondering if he had a soul and wondering if he’d condemned himself to some kind of torturous afterlife. And then the giant foot struck.
Twenty feet away.
Chris bounced into the air, landing hard, but this time avoiding hitting his head. Rolling over onto his hands and knees, he managed to stay upright with each shift of the earth, which came more rapidly and more powerfully, now that he was in the gap between the two giants.
As the immense foot lifted up and away, he saw the three villagers’ bodies crushed into the folds of the foot, bloody and very dead. Before he could react to this sight with relief or horror, a loud rushing sound like thunder locked him in place, his breath held.
The massive tail whipped past, sliding from one side of the barren river to the other, passing just a few feet over head. Flattened trees landed all around Chris, lashing him with thin branches, but he remained mostly unscathed.
I’m safe here, he told himself. As long as I don’t move, I’m safe.
Part of him knew this wasn’t necessarily true, but he was a believer in luck, and this spot, for whatever reason, was lucky. So when the second set of gargantuan footfalls approached, he remained riveted to the stone beneath him.
When the giant emerged, its head turned down, like it was looking straight at him, Chris lost control of his bladder. But still, he didn’t move. The colossal monster made no move for him, and Chris could see by the thing’s wide gait, that he wouldn’t be stepped on.
Just stay still. Don’t draw attention. Don’t fucking move.
The sound of a new roar turned his head skyward. It sounded different from the two Kaiju, whose roars sounded like a mix of tubas and high pitched violins gargling water through a loud-speaker. This new sound was crisp. Modern. The white streak across the sky confirmed it.
A missile.
Just one.
The military didn’t have a strong presence in this part of the world. This missile must have come from far away—the ocean on the other side of the peninsula that was southern Thailand.
Chris tracked its path and then looked ahead. It was going to strike the man-monster. An easy target. Then he realized where it was going to hit.
“No,” he whispered. “God, no!”
Back to his feet, Chris ran for the shore. He tripped and fell into the muddy bank, getting tangled in the roots and slippery grime. He spun around as he fought to free himself, just in time to see it happen.
The missile struck the manly Kaiju’s chest. It disappeared with a whump and a small burst of flame. For a moment, he thought that was the end of it, that the missile had failed to inflict any damage at all. But then he saw the spray of orange liquid jet out of the monster’s chest. Before he could scream, or pray or fully comprehend what he was seeing, the world turned white and disappeared.
31
The worst part about staying in a hospital for two weeks isn’t the food. I’ve probably gained five pounds in chocolate pudding. And this time, it’s not the company. My roommate is Endo, and we’ve been pretty content to not speak to each other much. No, what really irks me is that I’m helpless to stop the global rampage being carried out by three of Gordon’s Kaiju. With nothing else to do but lay in bed, I’ve named them all.