At the suggestion of the local villagers he’d become friendly with, he set out on a bamboo rafting trip. The lazy trip down the scenic river relaxed him. Helped him forget the stress that ruled his life. As he lay on the bamboo, he listened to the wind rustle through the leaves while the water bubbled by below. He watched the clouds glide by, heavy with rain to be unleashed later in the day.
I’m going to stay, he decided. Learn the language. Find a wife. This was the life he’d been born to live, and with the money he already had in the bank, he could live it until the day he died without ever having to work. A permanent vacation.
Not that I’ll live idly, he thought. He’d already begun helping in the village, remembering the carpentry skills taught to him by his father. Working to help people, he’d discovered, was far more gratifying than working for stacks of green paper.
The raft shook beneath him. He leaned his head up, asking, “What was that?” The three men in the raft with him, Yosakon, Gan and Tanipat, looked bewildered. They spoke rapidly among themselves. Chris reached for his smart phone, but paused. The three were talking over each other. He’d never get a translation.
Chris sat up to find the placid river transformed. Waves bounced them in every direction. He’d researched the river before leaving. There shouldn’t have been rapids here. Judging by his friends’ reactions, the rough water was a surprise to them too.
The next quake—he felt positive this was an earthquake—forced Chris to cling to the boat’s side. The three men with him fell down, shouting.
The next booming quake shook the trees on the shore so violently that the small creatures—frogs, snakes, lizards—clinging to the branches fell into the water. A flock of bird soared past, moving away from the sound’s source.
He’d never experienced an earthquake before, but he didn’t think you could discern the direction from which it originated. But that last boom had definitely come from upriver. The three men with him must have realized this too, because they all turned around, speaking in worried tones. Their homes were back upriver. Their families.
Chris looked upriver, waiting for the next shake. The view behind them was mostly river and the jungle closing in on either side. But the open area above the river allowed for a spectacular view of a distant mountain. The village these men were from, where he’d been staying, was at the base of that mountain. Tiny specks appeared over the mountain, moving quickly. More birds.
But then the scene changed. It took him a moment to fully understand what he was seeing. The trees atop the mountain blurred. Then rose up. That immense unmoving mass of earth was rising! The jungle split apart, falling away. Dark earth and stone exploded into the air.
Boom!
The world shook around them, the sound drowning out his compatriots’ screams. The mountain transformed, crumbling over on itself as something rose up above it from behind. A demon, Chris thought. Some ancient Thai god was rising from the mountain. It was Gan, one of his guides, who first understood, shouting, “Nemesis!”
The monster was known even in this backwater part of the world. While communication with the outside world wasn’t common, some of the shops had televisions and phones, and a few had satellite Wi-Fi. Chris would stop at a street vendor every morning for a breakfast of two potongos, the Thai version of a donut, and some sweet custard-like sauce for dipping. The shop next door, also a post office, offered free Wi-Fi, which he used to read the news on his phone, though he’d skipped that routine this morning. So while his Thai friends knew what Nemesis was, they didn’t know about the other Kaiju rampaging through the world he’d escaped. He’d never considered the possibility that the vengeful creatures would have any reason to come to this peaceful part of the world, but here it was, a monster that looked similar to Nemesis, but was not Nemesis.
It was built similarly—thick neck, horrible face, armor-plated and spike-covered arms. Thick ropey skin twisted and bundled around a pattern of orange flesh that glowed in the dim, overcast light. But it wasn’t the same. Its face was actually far uglier than Nemesis’s, its brow low and furrowed over a pair of radiant yellow eyes. The pictures he’d seen of Nemesis showed almost human, brown eyes. The biggest difference were the hands. Where Nemesis had five fingers, this thing had three—a thumb and two claws that looks like pincers.