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

Trees crack and swoosh through the forest, impacting the ground with a rattle. A plume of pine scent washes over the road, pushed by the force of the falling trees.

A loud snap draws my eyes to the forest on my left. Through the maze of conifers, I see another tree fall, as a massive black shape moves past. The tree drops parallel to the road, not toward it.

“It’s not coming after us,” I say between quick breaths. “It’s heading for the helicopter!”

As we round a bend in the road, I see the chopper just a hundred yards ahead, hovering ten feet off the ground. When Woodstock sees us coming, he begins to descend. But that’s not what I want. There’s no way we can beat the creature to the chopper.

Knowing Woodstock is watching us, and probably wondering why we’re running, I stop in the road. I shake my head no and wave my arms. The helicopter pauses, five feet from the ground, the chop of its blades drowning out the booming steps of the oncoming behemoth.

Fighting the urge to pitch forward and catch my breath, I put my arms out to my sides, palm up, and then flap them like a bird. The helicopter hand signal translates to pull up. The frantic way I am performing the signal should translate to something like, “Pull the frig up, right now!”

The helicopter rises, but not as fast as I would like.

But then, it’s too late.

Trees at the end of the road explode into the watery clearing. A smaller pine shoots across the clearing like an ICBM, just missing the helicopter’s skids. Seeing all this, Woodstock pulls up fast. It saves his life.

The creature explodes from the forest, savagery incarnate. It roars up at the rising chopper, drowning out the chopping blades. It looks just about the same as I remember—sleek and black, long tail, protective carapace on its back, thick armored skin, orange glowing membranes on its neck and body and scythe-like teeth—with one exception: it’s doubled in size. The creature now stands an easy forty feet tall and its boney trident-tipped tail adds another twenty to thirty feet. Despite it now being large enough to actually give Kong a run for his money, it’s still fast and agile, like a cat.

I’m pretty sure Kong wouldn’t stand a chance.

The monster leaps into the clearing, landing on all fours. I see its hind legs tense, and then it leaps up, reaching for the rising chopper. A quick maneuver to the side, while rising, saves Woodstock’s life again, though I suspect the wet, squishy earth below the beast also kept it from leaping higher.

The swampy ground all but explodes when the giant crashes back down, water spraying everywhere. But the creature is unfazed. It just watches the helicopter, now out of reach, as it turns toward us and hovers.

Woodstock is probably freaking out, but he hasn’t fled, and that he’s turned toward us is a good sign. He’s not going to leave us behind. Good man, I think. He’s looking for a signal from me, so I come up with a plan that’s borderline stupid and do my best to hand signal it to him. I point in the distance, make a circle and then point to the ground at my feet. I’m trying to say, “Lead it away, circle around and come back for us,” but there’s no way to know if he understands.

When the helicopter peels away and takes off low over the trees, I suspect the message might have been received. And then, as I’d hoped, the creature obeys, too. It watches the helicopter until it disappears over the trees, then the creature climbs out of the marsh and storms into the forest, giving chase. Its tail whips back and forth as it picks up speed. The tail-tip, which looks like a black, three-pronged spear tip, strikes a tree—probably unintentionally—and splits it in two.

Collins and I watch the top half of the tree fall into the swamp, and then turn to each other. I’m still out of breath when I say, “I don’t...have any good...one liners, do you?”

“How about...we’re screwed,” she says, equally winded.

“Good enough.”

“What’s the plan?” she asks.

I point to the trees. “We climb.”

“I’m not sure I want to look that thing in the eyes,” she says.

“He’s not going to be able to land that chopper again.” I look to the top of the trees. “We need to meet him half way.”

She looks up. “All the way to the top, then?”

“All the way.”

“Let’s go,” she says and enters the woods.

It takes us just thirty seconds to find a tree that is both tall enough, but also has enough branches to climb to the top.

Collins stops at the tree’s base. “Those branches don’t look strong enough to hold us.”

She’s right. As pine trees grow taller, the lower branches die and jut out from the trunk like old bones. They’re dry and brittle, but they’re still wood. Unless they’re rotting, we should be okay. “Keep your hands and feet close to the trunk, where the branch meets the tree. That’s where the branch will be strongest. And always keep three contact points, so if a branch breaks, your weight is still distributed over three branches.”