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

I swing my legs around and sit up. “Actually, yeah. This case is now officially my jurisdiction, which means the full resources of the DHS are at my disposal.”


“Assuming anyone believes you,” she says.

“There is plenty of evidence here.”

“Yeah,” she says. “But you saw it. Who’s going to believe us?”

The answer that comes to mind makes me frown. “Sooner or later, that thing is going to find civilization. When that happens—”

“We can’t let that happen,” Collins says, her sunset eyes burning with determination.

I’m not sure exactly how we can stop it—my personal armament doesn’t include Hellfire missiles—but I agree. I pull out my cell phone. No signal. “Let’s get to higher ground.”

As we head for the exit, I glance right and see the large open fridge. There’s a body in there. I saw it when we ran into the morgue. I slow and alter course. It’s a woman. She has brown hair pulled back in a way that makes me think she’s mid-thirties, but there’s no way to be sure. Her face is missing. She’s wearing professional clothes and a lab coat stained dark brown by her own blood. One of her legs looks gnawed on, and there’s a hole through her chest.

I stop at the door, looking at the poor woman. Then my cop side kicks in. Who are you? It doesn’t take me long to find a pair of vinyl gloves. I pull them on and carefully inspect the body while doing my best not to breathe through my nose.

Collins steps past me, deeper into the freezer, while I pick the woman’s pockets. No money. No wallet. No I.D. “I’ve got nothing.”

“Hudson,” she says like I’ve just uttered the most ridiculous words a human being has ever conjured. “Have you seen this?”

I look up. My legs flex and I spring up like a stunned jack-in-the-box. I want to curse. Or run. Or scream. But all I can do is look.

The chrome side-wall across from the dead woman is covered in text. I can’t read a word of it, but I recognize the ink as blood. Most likely the woman’s blood. “You don’t think she—”

“No,” Collins says. “There’s too much. She’d have died while writing it.”

While most of the text is smeared and illegible, there is one word, at the top, that is larger than the rest.



Ν?μεσι?



“Any ideas?” Collins asks.

I shake my head, no, but say, “Greek maybe. Get a picture. We need to go.”

Collins uses her iPhone to snap several photos of the bloody text. After quickly reviewing the photos she says, “Good.”

There’s no sign of the creature other than the destruction it left in its wake. We’re two stories underground, yet I see sunlight at the end of the hall. Must be how it got out, I think. It takes us a minute to find a second staircase that hasn’t been destroyed, but once we do, our ascent to the building’s third floor (five stories up) is slowed only by our own exhaustion. We’re both walking by the time we reach the top of the stairs.

Leaning against the wall, propped up by my left forearm, I fish into my pocket and find my phone. No bars.

Shit.

When I put the phone away, Collins holds hers out to me. “Time to join the modern world.” I take the phone and look at the bright display. Three bars.

Without another word, I dial. The call is answered on the second ring.

“Ashley, hey!” says Ted Watson. I can’t see him, but I know he’s sitting behind his computer-laden desk, Mountain Dew in hand or nearby, surrounded by monitor screens that can hold his attention far easier than the ocean view just beyond them. Before I can get a word in, he keeps talking. “How’d it go with Jon this morning? He’s a little rough around the edges, but I thought you two might hit it off. I mean, I’m no match-maker. Bad luck with those kinds of things, actually. My parents got divorced. Twice each. And—oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—I know that’s a touchy subject.”

I hear him making breathy noises at himself. It’s not uncommon for him to get flustered by his inability to stop talking. Takes work to stop himself sometimes. He frequently has to stick his foot in his mouth after he’s insulted someone. Luckily for him, and this is probably why we’re pals, my feathers are hard to ruffle.

“Sorry, Ash,” he says, sounding like a normal person. “What did you call for?”

“You need to lay off the caffeine, Watson,” I say.

“H—Hudson?” He sounds confused for just a moment, then starts to get excited again. “No way! You didn’t—”

“Ted, listen,” I say loudly. I hardly ever interrupt his rants. That I did tells him this isn’t a social call.

“Did you find something?” He asks. “Is Sasquatch—”

“If this were Sasquatch, I’d be thrilled. We’ve got twenty to thirty dead.”

“People?”

“Yes, Ted. People.”

“Who killed them?”

“Not who. What.”