Project Nemesis (A Kaiju Thriller) (17 page)

24

Trevor Reed didn’t much like parades. The average pomp of the town’s 4
^th
of July parade was bad enough, but this farmer’s nonsense, which had begun long before he became mayor, also smelled like warm shit. And that wasn’t an insult to the farmers, because many of them actually carted warm shit through the center of town to sell at the farmer’s market as manure.

Reed catered to the town’s farmers. They were a part of the economy for now and were well-liked. So he put on a smile, joined the motorcade along with the town’s three police officers and waved to his constituents like he cared. But he didn’t. Not really. What he cared about was zoning, land laws and minimum lot sizes for new development.

By the time he retired, he planned to have turned the town into the place in Northern Maine to buy a modern, affordable home. Times were tough for the farmers, and as they went out of business, he bought up the land and leased it back to “ease the burden.” By the time his current term was up, he would own half the land in town, and most of it was already clear-cut, level farmland. He would save a bundle on deforestation, and the fertile soil would grow grass so green that commuters to Portland or Lewiston wouldn’t be able to resist.

Reed cringed in the back seat of the convertible he rode in as the marching band leading the way reached a crescendo that made his spine compress. He never stopped smiling, though. He could hold the practiced expression for hours.

Between beats of the bass drum, he heard a shrill chirp. What kind of an instrument is that, he wondered. Then it repeated, and he saw the police chief, an overweight man named Mitchell Schwartz, pick up his phone and answer it.

The man’s face contorted with confusion for a moment as he blocked his other ear with his finger. “What’s that, Josie? I can’t make out a word!” He listened again, shaking his head in frustration.

The police chief made it just one step away from the car when Reed leaned out and grabbed his arm. “Whatever it is,” the mayor said, “it can wait.”

“It might be important,” Schwartz replied, speaking loudly over the band.

“If I have to endure this hell, so do you,” Reed said. “No one is going to like the new zoning laws, which you’ll be supporting. We both need to make a good impression or things are going to get difficult.”

Reed had made sure that every person in town who held a position of actual power would benefit from the changes he was making. He called it “oiling the gears,” but he knew it was closer to bribery. And once someone was complicit, they were his. The police chief would get a new house out of the deal and a good sized chunk of change.
All technically legal, but shady enough to scare him.
Reed sometimes thought he could probably murder someone and get away with it.

He winced as the crowds lining the sidewalks cheered. Kids screamed as clowns tossed candy. Horses brayed. Some moron was honking an air horn. And far ahead, at the front of the parade, the fire department let their single engine’s siren wail. It was sensory chaos.

His smile wavered.

Schwartz saw it and knew what it meant. He shouted into the phone, “I’ll call you back, Josie!” Then he hung up.

Reed sat back down on the slippery white leather seat and twisted his lips back up. Schwartz, who was walking next to the car, tried to smile, too, but it wasn’t nearly as convincing.

All of a sudden, the marching band’s horns stopped. Tension flowed from Reed’s shoulders. The drums continued to beat out a rhythm, but he didn’t mind that nearly as much as the rest. But then, the drums faded, too, except for a single bass drum that kept time with a boom—boom, boom-boom-boom.

The repetitive beat helped Reed center his thoughts even more. If only the whole parade could be like this. It made all the shouting people and distant chaos bearable. He closed his eyes for a moment, focusing on the drum.

Boom—boom, boom-boom-boom.

Boom—boom, boom-boom-BOOM!

He jumped in his seat with a shout of surprise. He sat up, looking ahead at the bass drum player, but even he was looking around in confusion.

“Sounded like an explosion,” Schwartz said,
then
he looked angry. “Might have been what Josie was calling about.” He took out his phone and started dialing.

BOOM!

The sound came from behind the parade. Reed twisted around. The neighborhood just outside of town was a
craphole
full of old houses he would have liked to tear down. Beyond it, at the crest of the hill was a neighborhood he had built through a development company no one in town knew was owned by him. At least most of the neighborhood at the bottom of the hill was blocked by trees. He looked for an explosion, thinking someone’s propane tank must have exploded, but saw nothing.
Just trees.

BOOM!

The trees shook.

Then one broke and fell away.

Screams rose in the distance.

Cars were stopped at the edge of the neighborhood as they waited for the parade to pass, but the owners were getting out and running.

What the hell was happening?

BOOM! A foot, or a hand, or...something…dropped down from within the trees and crushed the car at the edge of town.

Reed was only partially aware that the parade and gathered crowd were slowly starting to move away while he remained transfixed. As a result, he saw every detail.

The trees parted and a massive black face, full of malice, pushed through. A pair of eyes that looked almost
human,
locked onto him. A squeak rose in his throat as the monster pushed through the trees, revealing long, powerful arms and an armored back. The squeak rose in volume, becoming an ear splitting scream.

The shrill cry acted as a catalyst. The monster exploded out of the trees and charged down Main Street.

“Go!” Reed shouted to the driver.

The creature leaned over, biting some people in half as they fled, devouring others whole and crushing many more under its limbs, as it ran on all fours. A long tail whipped back and forth, destroying buildings like they were made from Lego blocks.

“What are you waiting for?” Reed screamed. As he spun around, the first thing he noticed was that the sidewalk had emptied. The second was that Schwartz was gone. And the third was that his driver had taken off on foot. The road was littered with fleeing people, discarded instruments, cars and mobile farm stands.

He stood to leap out of the convertible and flee on foot, but his feet never reached the ground. A sudden numbness spread through his legs, then a pain so intense that he knew the limbs were no longer attached. He screamed, but the sound was muffled, like that time his brothers locked him in the front closet. He couldn’t see, either. He felt humid air on his face and smelled something horrible, but the details were lost on his shocked mind.

Then he moved.

He was pushed.

An undulating motion flipped him over.

Then, he fell.

He was only half conscious when he landed. Blood loss and fear had claimed much of his mind. But the jolt of landing mixed with the sharp scent of bile snapped him back to consciousness.

A voice cried out, “Hello? Is someone there?”

It was a woman. He didn’t recognize the voice. But it grew sharp a moment later. “It’s burning!”

He opened his mouth to reply, but then he felt it too, a sharp, hot sting covering the lower portion of his body. He put his hands down and felt
a sludgy
goo between his fingers. A moment later, his hands began to burn too.

The woman sloshed and whimpered and then—light.

A small beam of light cut through the dark. The woman had a flashlight. She scanned back and forth, aiming up, revealing moving walls of white and pink. Then she brought it down and Reed wished she hadn’t. Bodies—human and animal in various stages of decomposition—were everywhere, heaped up in a pool of white, viscous fluid.

He shouted in fear and the flashlight cut toward him.

“Mayor Reed?” the woman said. “Where—where are we?”

He wasn’t entirely sure, but he was beginning to suspect. A sound above them drew the woman’s attention and the flashlight beam up. The light arrived just in time to reveal the ceiling of their wet cage opening up. Then, a headless horse fell through.

The large animal slammed on top of Reed, crushing him beneath the murky liquid, which found its way into his lungs and gut, mercifully drowning him before slowly digesting him.

The woman survived for another three hours.

25

In my mind, I know that Woodstock’s helicopter moved faster in the air than Collins’s Mustang can on the ground, but holy Hell, I feel like I’ve been strapped to a bullet. Trees whip past in a blur. Street signs with town names come and go before I can fully read them. I have no idea if we’re going the right way, but I trust that
Evel
Knievel
Collins know where’s she’s going.

“Jim, this is Ashley, do you read?” For the past five minutes, Collins has been trying to raise Ashton’s small, but efficient police force. So far, they’re not answering. She puts the radio down and pushes the gas pedal a little closer to the floor.

When I catch enough letters of a “Welcome to Ashton” sign to piece together the message, I say, “Any other reason they might not be replying?”

She mumbles her answer through grinding teeth.

“What?” I say.

Her teeth are still clenched, but she enunciates the word, “Parade.”

Shit.

“Seriously?
For what?”

“Summer-Fest Farmer Parade,” she says. “Lots of tractors, horses, things like that. Ends in a field where the parade becomes a farmers’ market. And there’s a corn maze for the kids.”

Kids.

The tires squeal as we take a ninety degree turn like it’s a broad curve. The front end bursts through the brush on the left hand side of the turn. If there had been anyone coming the opposite way, I don’t think anyone would have survived.

Despite what she’s just told me about the parade, I say, “Ease up. We’re almost there and it would be good if we didn’t kill anyone on the way.”

We take a sudden right turn, but she slows down enough to stay on the right side of the road, which is good because we’ve entered a residential neighborhood of identical, megalithic homes. The
McMansions
have invaded the far north, I think, and then I note all the people standing outside their homes.

“Does the parade come through here?” I ask.

“Uh-uh.”

What the hell are they all doing outside?

“Okay, listen,” I say, intending to come up with some kind of action plan—defensive perimeter working with whatever local police are in town, evacuation plans, things like that—but then the people outside their homes hear the siren and turn around to face us. They’re panic stricken. As though rehearsed, each and every one of them then points down the road, which crests ahead before leading downhill.

I squint in the sunlight streaming through the windshield, but see smoke rising into the air, thick and black. “What’s ahead?”

“Downtown,” she says and punches the steering wheel three times.

We’re too late.

Collins slams the gas pedal to the floor and we launch a few feet in the air as we crest the hill. The car slams back down on the downhill slope. The tires squeal as they catch, and I’m pinned against my seat as we accelerate rapidly. Whoever built the new neighborhood clear-cut the old trees and planted new ones, so our view of what’s below is clear, though part of me wishes it wasn’t.

Downtown looks to be mostly brick buildings—the kind scattered throughout all of New England—but it’s mired in smoke. The sun shines off lines of parked cars, but I can’t see any movement. The road is littered with debris. Still, it’s clear we won’t be speeding through town. As we close the distance, passing through older neighborhoods with tall trees and smaller homes, I lose sight of the town, but it’s not long before we see the first signs of damage.

Collins brakes hard and swerves, barely avoiding a collision with an old station wagon that’s been crushed in the middle. I look for bodies when we pass, but see none. They either got out and away, or—

Another car.
A small one.
It’s so flat that I can’t make out what it used to be, but the red-smeared window tells me that the owner was still inside when it was compressed.

Collins slows.

“Keep going,” I say. “No
way they
survived.”

She shakes her head in anger and continues past the car.
Then fifteen more.
Then thirty.
And they’re all like the first two—empty or bloodied. But not all of them are crushed. Some are on their roofs. Some have been peeled open, and judging by the blood splatter, their occupants plucked out.

“Why are there so many?” I wonder aloud.

“They were waiting for the parade to pass,” Collins explains.

For the creature, it must have been like finding a buffet.

The last few cars are unharmed. The doors are open.
The occupants gone.
The monster didn’t waste time with them. Why not?

I roll down my window, hoping to hear signs of life, battle or the creature’s whereabouts. But I don’t hear anything. Instead, I get a pungent waft of farm—hay, manure and horse shit—mixed with blood, smoke and vinegar. My stomach turns and I quickly roll up the window.

Collins drives with one hand on the wheel, the other covering her nose and mouth. But the smell isn’t the worst of it; the sight we find upon reaching downtown Ashton is something I will never be able to forget.

The first
thing
I notice are the bodies. Not one of them is whole. There are legs, arms, torsos, heads and unrecognizable heaps of guts. I realize I’m trying to count the dead, but there are too many of them and they’re...all mixed up. But there must be hundreds. And it’s not just people. Bits and pieces of horses, cows, goats and assorted other farm animals are scattered around, mixed with human remains and strewn fruit and vegetable crops.

When I feel my stomach tensing and taste bile in my mouth, I divert my attention away from the dead and look at the structural damage. A few of the buildings have been destroyed, blown out into the street. That’s where it entered town, I think. Almost all of the rest are in a partial state of destruction. They’ll have to be demolished before the town can be rebuilt, but it’s possible they could contain survivors. At the center of town, just a block ahead where a small traffic circle wraps around a park and
gazebo,
is a stark white church engulfed in flames. If anyone sought refuge in God’s house, they were dying horribly now if they weren’t dead already.

And there isn’t a thing we can do about it. I would like nothing more than to rush out of the car and save some lives, but there isn’t a single sign of life anywhere, and there’s no way for Collins or me to put out a fire, stabilize the buildings or—if it’s still nearby—combat the creature. Besides, I don’t think I’d make it five steps before collapsing and puking my guts out.

When my eyes come back to the carnage, details leap out at me. An array of shiny metal is mixed in with the dead.
A tuba.
A trumpet.
Red and white uniforms.
A marching band.
I turn to the side and find a ruined food stand. Its still-standing sign reads “Fried Dough!
Yum!”
The corpses on the sidewalks are mixed with balloons, popcorn boxes and blood-soaked cotton candy.

In a flash, I picture this classic scene of small town Americana—the smiles, the laughs, the families. Then the horrible slaughter that followed—the screams and the horror of seeing parents, or children, killed.
Eaten.
Tears fill my eyes.

My vision is blurred when I see movement in the distance.

“What is that?” I ask, wiping my eyes.

Collins is wiping her own eyes when she says, “I’m not sure.”

Blinking away the last of my tears, I see a girl, no older than ten, limping down the center of Main Street. She’s injured, but neither the wound, nor the destruction, nor even the layers of dead covering the street are slowing her down.

“It’s still here,” I say.

Collins sucks in a quick breath, adrenaline sharpening her eyes.

“Turn the car around,” I say.

“What are you going to do?”

“I’ll be right back.” I throw open the door and sprint toward the girl. My first step lands in a slick of blood that nearly topples me to the ground, so I look down and pick my steps, trying to see the bodies as obstacles. It doesn’t really work, but watching my feet helps me avoid some missteps that would have destroyed my psyche and left me in a fetal position for a few months.

I find the girl by colliding with her. We both spill to the ground—she to the bare pavement, me against the back of a half eaten horse. She screams as we fall, but stops when I say, “
It’s
okay. I’m here to help you.”

Her head snaps up toward me. Her big blue eyes glimmer with tears and her soot-coated cheeks are covered with clean streaks from crying. She’s out of breath, but already getting to her feet. The blue and white checkered dress she’s wearing is covered in blood, which from what I can see, is not hers. With her two braids, she looks a little like Laura Ingalls from Little House on the Prairie.

“You can’t help,” she says. “You can’t—you’ll just—you can’t.”

She’s hysterical, and really, who can blame her? I’m almost there, too.

Then her face screws up with fear and her eyes drift high above my head.

Fuck. My.
Ass.

I turn around and face the big white church on the opposite side of the traffic circle.
A shape, as black as the smoke, cuts through the rising cloud.
A massive hand reaches forward and claws at the building’s roof, which peels apart like it’s made of gingerbread and frosting. Orange light glows through the smoke, getting brighter until the head slips through and bites down on the tall steeple, shattering it.

The beast is bigger now. It’s impossible to tell just how much, but the church isn’t small, and the creature is making short work of the building. But it hasn’t seen us, yet, so that’s—

The shrill scream tenses all of my muscles. I freeze in place, half standing and watching as the giant stops its assault on the church and
cranes
its head toward the girl.

And me.

Stand still, I tell myself. Stand still and you’ll just blend in with the dead and it won’t be able to see you.

But this girl is not Collins, and we are decidedly not on the same page.

She turns and runs.

The church explodes outwards as the creature roars and fights its way through the building.

The roar is so loud that I’m momentarily stunned, but then I’m sprinting and bunny-hopping over the dead. I reach the girl quickly. She screams as I scoop her up. And even though she must realize that I’m trying to save her, she continues to scream as I run through town like a wide receiver being pursued by an opposing team armed with assault rifles. Of course, the truth is much worse than that.

A loud crack and rumble behind me signifies the destruction of the church. The girl’s scream
rises
another octave. The ground shakes. A roar weakens my limbs. As I approach the far side of town, I look up for the car and feel all hope drain away.

The car is missing.

Collins is gone.