Project Hyperion (A Kaiju Thriller) (Kaiju #4)

After rearing back, she thrust herself forward, smashing into the doorframe and the wall, both of which gave way to her strength and caved in. She thrashed and tore, ripping through wood, steel and drywall. Then she was in the stairwell, leaping over the edge. Her feet found the next flight down before she’d fully dropped away from the floor above.

The tight, claustrophobic space enraged her. She flexed her body, pushing out with her arms, legs and spiked back. When the building resisted, she roared with primal rage and flexed again. The walls crumbled around her. Sunlight flooded the stairwell and a warm breeze tickled her skin.

Twisting around the stairs, she squeezed her body down one more flight, pushing the weakened walls away from her back. When she reached the bottom, she simply flung herself at the door, taking it and most of the wall into the adjoining, subterranean hallway.

She remembered this space. The long white hall, smeared with blood. But it looked different when she was here last. Bigger. Now it seemed barely large enough contain her. She shoved her way through, ruining walls, ceiling and floor with each step.

The air was a mix of blood and chemicals, but she had no trouble picking out the man and woman’s scent. They were close by.

Two doors to her left looked familiar. One of them swung back and forth. A sign of passage.

She pushed through the double swinging doors slowly, searching for her prey. The room was cool and the walls were lined with square metal hatches. A large, open door at the back of the room drew her forward. The doorframe resisted, but eventually it cracked and came free, as the walls crumbled. Debris fell away from her back as she stopped in front of the open door and looked inside.

Her prey was gone.

But there was someone else inside.

Someone familiar.

A woman. Dead. And only partially consumed. But her blood had long since run cold and the corpse held no further interest.

But there was a memory. It tickled her mind. She had spoken to the woman in a language she no longer remembered. Her thoughts, once clear, had clouded with rage and hunger. She looked at the blood smearing the walls. Did the shapes mean something?

Pain lanced through her gut.

Her muscles quaked and expanded.

The ceiling pushed down on her.

With a roar, she twisted around, ruining the ceiling, and charging out of the room. The man and woman were gone.

She nearly tore the building down as she worked her way back out of the basement, through the building and back into the clearing. By the time the sun warmed her back again, long strands of saliva hung from her open jaws. She breathed deep, hoping for a scent.

But she found something else.

Direction.

She didn’t know how. Or why. Or even what it meant. But the rage she felt usurped her hunger and told her where to go.

South.

And she obeyed.





16



It’s ten minutes before I work up the courage to move, and even then it’s just to scratch an itch on the tip of my nose that has been growing in intensity since I climbed into the morgue’s body cooler. The power is out, so I’m not being chilled, but the smell grows worse by the minute, despite me being the only body inside. Of course, the odor could be coming from one of the neighboring units. My next door neighbor is Collins, but what do the other twenty-odd drawers hold?

I decide I don’t need to know. Between the bits of human flesh scattered in the forest, the field of gnawed bodies and that...thing, I’ve seen enough nightmare material for a lifetime.

But as hard as I try, I can’t get the image of the creature out of my mind. I got a clear view of it when it chased us inside the building. At least fifteen feet tall, while on all fours. Maybe twice that if it stood on its hind legs. Its rough skin, which would probably be better described as armor, was a mix of black and dark gray, perfect nighttime camouflage, if you ignore the twenty-something glowing orange membranes lining the sides of its neck and ribs, and stretching down the center of its torso. And the face—all angles and full of rage, but somehow feminine. And the eyes... The eyes looked human. Deep brown. The kind of eyes romantics write songs about.

Despite its size, the thing was fast. It moved with speed and grace, like a cat. A long tail that looked more like a weapon than a biological requirement snapped around the creature like an angry snake. I didn’t get a good look at its back, but I think there were overlapping shells, like an armadillo’s carapace, but thicker and covered with what looked like hardened shark fins.

I would love to be able to say it was like something I’ve seen before—a bear, a tiger, a fucking dragon even, but it was like nothing I’ve seen before. It wasn’t human. Wasn’t animal.

What then?

Alien?

What else could it be?

A chuckle escapes from my mouth as I’m struck by a realization. I clamp my hand over my mouth and wait to be devoured. Nothing happens.

I hear Collins’s drawer slide open.

A moment later, my square metal door opens and Collins is looking down at me. “You just figure out a joke or something?” She pulls out the long metal drawer.