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

He looks at Collins. She’s already behind the big machine gun, finger on the trigger. “Hot damn, you’re my kind a lady.”


We bank hard and head toward the road. I look down and see the dark shape of the giant still giving chase. Trees sway as it passes through. Then we’re above the open dirt road. Woodstock keeps us about two hundred feet from the ground, swivels the chopper so the machine gun is facing the forest and shouts, “Give’m hell!”

And then, when the trees bow down as though in reverence to a primal force, and the monster steps into the road, Collins pulls the trigger.





23



Brilliant orange tracer-fire streaks down toward the creature, revealing the path of the stream of bullets unleashed by Collins. Her arms shake as she holds the machine gun, but not much, since most of the kick is absorbed by the gun’s mount.

Following the tracer rounds, I see that Collins is aiming for the thing’s snout. And by the way it’s twitching and snapping, it’s clear that her aim is true. But, I’m not so certain that she’s actually hurting the monster. Its skin must be inches thick, and the rough surface could be dense hide, impervious to even the high caliber machine-gun rounds. A lack of blood on the snout confirms it.

Although the creature isn’t being seriously injured, it is getting annoyed. The thing lets out a roar that rattles the chopper enough to knock Collins’s finger off the trigger. The gun falls silent and Woodstock reacts to the turbulence by bringing us around the creature.

I stand behind Collins, looking over her shoulder, gripping two of the many handle bars on the roof and walls of the chopper. I lose sight of the creature for a moment as we cut over the forest, but when we arrive back over the road, it spins and leaps.

Open jaws reach up for the helicopter. I lean away from the sword-filled maw with a shout, but Collins remains calm and crushes her finger down on the trigger. Hot metal spews from the gun.

Mammoth teeth shatter.

Rounds strike the thing’s softer throat.

The jaws snap shut and the monster makes a pathetic sounding yelp, like a dog...or a person. It falls back, landing clumsily on its side. A cloud of dirt billows from the dirt road, and several trees fall as the whipping tail shreds the wood. The ruined pines topple over, landing on the creature, obscuring it from view.

Can’t be that easy, I think. But maybe a few of the machine gun rounds made it through the roof of its mouth and into its brain? The bullets could have performed like Endo’s .22 rounds, bouncing around the inside of the skull and shredding brain matter.

The tail stops twitching.

Collins takes her hand off the trigger and looks over the gun. “Is it dead?”

No one replies, but Woodstock brings us a little bit lower.

“Too many trees in the way,” I say. When I notice we’re still descending, I add, “Woodstock, don’t get any—”

The fallen trees burst upward.

The creature rolls to its feet.

“Up, up, up!” I scream, and I immediately feel the G-force of rapid ascent pushing me toward the helicopter’s floor.

The monster rises from the ground and leaps again, this time reaching up with its hands. Sonuvabitch, we might be too close!

As the creature rises, the glowing patches on its neck flare bright orange. I point to the light, where the skin is translucent and maybe not as tough, and shout. “Fire!”

Machine gun fire tears through the air as the giant’s two hands, each with five black-clawed digits, close in on the chopper.

The tracer rounds stitch a path across the thing’s face, throwing up bits of dark skin, but nothing more. Then, as Collins adjusts her aim downward, and the creature continues up, a single round strikes the bright orange membrane.

A bright explosion fills the air between the chopper and the monster. A ball of fire roils toward us, but the shockwave hits first, and it hits hard. The helicopter tips to a forty-five degree angle that carries us away from the burning flames, but knocks Collins away from the machine gun.

With one hand gripping a handle bar, I get my other arm around Collins’s back and hold her while Woodstock levels us out and heads for high ground.

“The hell was that?” Woodstock shouts. “A missile strike?”

While I would be thrilled to have some heavy hitting support right now, I didn’t hear the sound of an incoming missile or the boom an exploding missile would make. I search the sky for signs of a jet or attack helicopter, but find nothing. “I don’t know what it was!”

Once we’re level, I put Collins in one of the seats, and I discover that she’s actually unconscious. Blood covers her face. The machine gun must have smacked her forehead. I quickly buckle her in place and look for the monster again.

It’s three hundred feet below now and shrinking as we rise higher. It stands in the dirt road, unharmed, and just stares up at us. At me. Then, with a single whip of its tail, it turns to the forest, slips into the trees and disappears.

I note its direction.