Gordon shot up and let loose a violent, wailing scream. The suddenness and force of this movement knocked Endo loose. The pain and anguish expressed by Gordon’s scream sent goose-bumps up Collins’s arms. She almost felt bad for him. But not quite bad enough. She took aim, tightened her grip and—
Gordon leapt to his feet, barked at Collins, and part ran, part stumbled away.
Whatever sent him running, Collins didn’t think he’d be coming back. Which left just one problem remaining. She hobbled over to Katsu Endo, who was still lying on the pavement. She reached out a hand. When he took it, she hefted him up, and then cracked him in the side of his head with the butt of her gun. Public enemy number two had gotten away, but number three wasn’t going anywhere.
14
Jaws wide, head turned to the sky above, Nemesis jumps up and catches Scrion in her mouth like a dog playing Frisbee. The smaller Kaiju kicks and flails, wiggling its helpless head back and forth. I can’t hear it, but I envision a kind of mewling cry coming from its wide-open mouth. I watch, unable to think or care about anything else, as Scrion’s body compresses. I half expect the thing to just burst in half, but Nemesis goes full-on dog again, shaking her head back and forth.
Seawater sprays with each shake. Scrion’s extended limbs are now jutting straight out, locked in panic. Then the water turns tan, then brown, and I realize it’s no longer water at all.
It’s blood.
Scrion’s blood.
Unlike Nemesis, who bleeds red, this thing bleeds brown, which is both gross and fitting.
“Whoa,” Woodstock says, pulling us further back as Scrion is suddenly spinning through the air, spraying circles of blood. Nemesis has flung the smaller creature.
Scrion lands on the blackened shore, tumbling through a ruined neighborhood. When it comes to a stop and regains its footing, I expect it to do what any other creature in its situation would do: run like hell. And yeah, it runs, but in the wrong direction. After a long arcing sprint to build up speed, Scrion turns straight for Nemesis, charging the monster that’s nearly four times its size, the crazed look back in its eyes. When it reaches the shoreline, it leaps, soaring up and over the water.
Nemesis doesn’t react. She simply stands her ground, waiting.
The giants collide, but for Scrion, it’s like hitting a wall. The smaller Kaiju would have bounced off if it hadn’t bitten down hard on Nemesis’s chest, just missing one of those deadly orange membranes. The creature is fearless and savage, but clearly not very intelligent. It reminds me of a bully from second grade. Ricky Denali. Rick the dick. He was a runt, but made up for his stature through savagery. He terrorized kids twice his size, because of his in-your-face violent nature, his sharp tongue and the quickness with which he shifted between the two. That all changed when he decided to try the same tactic on Larry Studebaker, the new kid. Although Larry was a kind guy, he was also three times Ricky’s size, and he could take only so much abuse before he struck back. And when he did...man, one punch. A glancing blow. Didn’t take much.
One punch. C’mon...
When it happens, it’s not so much a punch as a bitch-slap. Reaching up one of her mammoth, clawed hands, Nemesis swipes down hard and knocks Scrion away. Scrion falls ungracefully, twitching madly, trying to turn itself over before landing. It fails miserably, landing on its side in fifty feet of water.
After thrashing about pitifully, Scrion rights itself. Still moving quickly, the monster breaks for the shore again, but makes it only two leaps. Nemesis takes a lunging step forward and thrusts out her clawed hand. Her index and middle fingers are the longest—the ring being small and the pinkie not much more than a spiked nub—and the claws extending from them are unnecessarily huge.
They’re also sharp.
Scrion falls flat as Nemesis’s middle claw pierces its hind leg, pinning it in place. But the monster isn’t done. Its madness compels it forward. Nemesis’s claw tears through the leg as the smaller monster pulls away. Brown blood gushes into the blackened earth.
And then Scrion’s free. For nearly two seconds. Then Nemesis is upon it again.
I almost feel bad for the pug-nosed Kaiju. Nemesis is clearly toying with it. Or perhaps testing it. Either way, it’s an unfair fight that could have ended the moment it began, which starts me thinking: Is this what she’ll do to me?
While pinning Scrion to the ground with her giant left hand, Nemesis catches hold of the wounded leg with her right, grips down tightly and yanks. Scrion’s head turns upward, eyes dazed, as the leg comes free, dangling tendrils of flesh and pouring muddy blood.
Then Nemesis lets go.